From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed May 14 00:13:11 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4E4DBH03712; Wed, 14 May 2003 00:13:11 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 00:13:11 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305140413.h4E4DBH03712@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #451 TELECOM Digest Wed, 14 May 2003 00:13:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 451 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Verizon Jolts High-Speed Service (Eric Friedebach) Exchange / Carrier Map (Ryan M. Scherzinger) Re: Memorandum of Understanding Internet Admin (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: Legal Definition of Broadband (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: A Vonage Hack; Is This the Party to Whom I am Connected (Breuckman) Re: Elusive Spammer Sends EarthLink on Long Chase (David Wolff) ACD Error (Iris) Microsoft: ILoo No Hoax After All (Monty Solomon) U.S. Moviegoers Don't Mind Theater Ads - Study (Monty Solomon) IBM Debuts World's Most Sophisticated Server (Monty Solomon) Verizon Unveils Wireless Internet Service (Monty Solomon) Policy Posts 9.09: CDT Report Analyzes Public Policy Concerns (Solomon) CDT Headline: CDT Releases Report Analyzing Public Policy (M Solomon) Dallas Honored as One of Six Cyber Safe Cities in Nationwide (M Solomon) Policy Post 9.10: Authentication Privacy Principles Released (M Solomon) TidBITS Editors Warn Readers That Antispam C-R Will be Ignored (Solomon) Last Laugh! Confessions of a Former Spammer ... (Al Gillis) 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: Eric Friedebach Subject: Verizon Jolts High-Speed Service Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 18:55:50 -0500 Organization: Purity Of Essence/Plant Operational Error Reply-To: Eric Friedebach Scott Woolley, 05.13.03, Forbes.com NEW YORK - It may be the best news the high-tech industry has seen all year: This morning Verizon Communications laid out the details of its plan to slash prices, increase speeds and reach more customers with high-speed Internet access--moves which could invigorate the relatively torpid U.S. broadband market. High prices and lagging speeds have been the two primary reasons that America's use of broadband lags well behind global leaders such as Canada and South Korea. Silicon Valley groups such as Technet say the slow U.S. rollout has crippled many bandwith-hungry technologies and left the U.S. telecom industry drowning in excess capacity. Verizon will cut the price of DSL, its high-speed Internet service, to as little as $30 a month for customers who get the service as part of a package. Non-bundle customers will see prices fall to $35 from between $40 and $50. The cuts put DSL within spitting distance of the $20 to $24 many people pay for dial-up service, and will likely trigger a rash of upgrades. Factoring in the cost of a second phone line that many customers use for dial-up service -- but which DSL does not require -- and upgrading to Verizon DSL will now actually save many people money. http://www.forbes.com/2003/05/13/cz_sw_0513verizon.html Eric Friedebach ------------------------------ From: Ryan M. Scherzinger Subject: Exchange / Carrier map Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 20:15:44 -0500 Please advise me how I can get my hands on a ILEC and/or CLEC map, possibly with zip, county, etc. overlays. Thank you, Ryan M. Scherzinger ------------------------------ From: Judith Oppenheimer Subject: Re: Memorandum of Understanding Internet Administration Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 21:34:43 -0400 > Memorandum of Understanding Internet Administration [Domain Name Issue] > From: The-Butterfly-Guy@surfmeister.net (The Butterfly Guy) > Subject: Memorandum of Understanding Internet Administration [Domain Name] > Date: 13 May 2003 13:14:23 -0700 > Organization: http://groups.google.com/ > ICANN is seeking public comment on additional gTLD domain name > allocations. > see http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-03may03.htm > This is a subject that every person involved in the telecom industry > should be aware of and comment on. To get the skinny on this latest ICANN chicanery see http://icann.blog.us/2003/05/10.html (Do not be confused if perusing this blog, it appears to support ICANN when expedient, yet suddenly acts surprised that ICANN acts like ICANN. For the record, ICANN always acts like ICANN -- always. Nonetheless, the link above provides accurate background into this latest fiasco.) Judith http://WhoSells800.com _ http://PhoneBillFundRaising.com http://ICBTollFreeNews.com _ http://800Consulting.com 212 684-7210, 1 800 The Expert ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Legal Definition of Broadband Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 02:01:12 GMT On Mon, 12 May 2003 21:25:52 -0400, unspammable-3107@workbench.net posted the following to comp.dcom.telecom: > 1) Is there any Federal or other standard in the United States that > would set a minimum speed (upload and download) as a legal > definition of "broadband" or "high speed Internet"? Where I am > going with this is this: If I set up an ISP, advertised "broadband > Internet service" or "high speed Internet service", and then > provided service from a bank of old 2400 bps modems, I'm sure that > I could probably be successfully sued and/or made to answer to my > state's attorney general, or some consumer protection agency. But > is there a legal definition of what constitutes "high speed > Internet", or is that simply an arbitrary concept? The FCC defines "advanced services" to include services that provide internet access at speeds of at least 200 kbps up- and downstream. This would not include typical ADSL service, which usually has upload speeds that are below this level. To my knowledge, there is no accepted definition of "broadband" or "high speed" service, other than noticeably faster than a dialup modem. To be meaningful, any such service should be described more specifically in terms of its down- and upstream speed targets. Otherwise, such terms are merely generic. In its Echostar-DirecTV decision, 17 FCC Rcd 20559, para. 221 (2002), the FCC used the term "broadband Internet access services" to refer to the "services today ... predominantly provided by cable operators using cable modem technology, and secondarily by telecommunications carriers utilizing DSL." Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD, USA (delete NOSPAM from address to mail me) ------------------------------ From: Gary Breuckman Subject: Re: A Vonage Hack or, Is This the Party to Whom I am Connected? Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 21:31:54 -0500 Organization: Puma's Lair - catbox.com In article , "John R Levine" wrote: > Vonage has a nice call transfer feature. If you're on the phone with > party A, you can flash, dial #90, party B's number, # and hang up. It > then calls party B and the call continues between A and B. I use it to > transfer to my ILEC phone when my net connection is crummy, to my cell > phone when I have to leave, etc. You can use it regardless of whether > you or party A originated the first call. That is similar to the situation I found with ISDN. If I had a three-way call going, I could disconnect and the other two parties could continue talking. The 'normal analog' line would tear everything down if I disconnected on a three-way call. It didn't seem to tie up any of the 'ACO's (additional call offerings) - after I had disconnected I could make or receive additional calls. I wasn't billed by time so that wasn't a factor, I always wondered if it would work the same with a toll call. -- Gary Breuckman ------------------------------ From: dwolffxx@panix.com (David Wolff) Subject: Re: Elusive Spammer Sends EarthLink on Long Chase Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 02:51:36 +0000 (UTC) Organization: Public Access Networks Corp. In article , Steven Lichter wrote: >> Mr. Wellqborn, 39, a beefy, blond former Georgia Tech football >> player, makes a living chasing spammers for EarthLink and others. He >> is so virulently antispam that he is personally suing one person who >> agreed to an injunction not to send spam, and then sent him one >> anyway. At a recent antispam conference Mr. Wellborn drew applause >> when he suggested the best way to deter a spammer would be to "draw >> him and quarter him and put his head on a pike. > I have been advocating for years the only way to get rid of a spammer > is to kill them. I don't think this is at all sufficient. I would recommend confiscation of all their assets, sterilization of all their relatives and offspring in case spamming has a genetic basis, and decapitation of the spammer, with head and body to be submerged in separate containers of water for at least 24 hours. Just in case. Thanks -- David (Remove "xx" to reply.) ------------------------------ From: a13365@yahoo.com (Iris) Subject: ACD Error Date: 13 May 2003 20:27:42 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hello, We have ACD software in the office. But everyday the computer (PC) will be rebooted by iteself. I run the diagnosis report, there is a message like: All calling lines are idle in 3 hours, the computer will be reset. Our ACD is setup as all agents log off in 17:00 pm. Can I do something to let the computer not reboot? I am waiting for your help. Thanks, Iris ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 19:31:22 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Microsoft: ILoo No Hoax After All By HELEN JUNG AP Business Writer SEATTLE (AP) -- What's true with the iLoo? Microsoft Corp. and its public relations firm changed their story _ again _ Tuesday about whether the United Kingdom division had been developing an Internet-enabled portable toilet. On Monday, three representatives for the software giant told news agencies, including The Associated Press, that an April 30 news release trumpeting the "iLoo" was a hoax and apologized for "any confusion or offense." But on Tuesday, the company reversed itself, saying the iLoo was real but now has been killed. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34182377 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 19:34:46 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: U.S. Moviegoers Don't Mind Theater Ads - Study By Bob Tourtellotte LOS ANGELES, May 13 (Reuters) - A study released on Tuesday showed two-thirds of moviegoers do not mind watching advertisements before a film begins, a statistic that should buttress efforts to put more ads in theaters. Among younger movie fans aged 12 to 24, the percentage who do not mind seeing the ads rose to 70 percent, according to the study conducted by Arbitron Inc. Arbitron also found that audiences find theater ads more interesting than TV ads and more acceptable than pop-up or other ads on the Internet. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34182468 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 19:38:06 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: IBM Debuts World's Most Sophisticated Server SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 13, 2003-- Customers of All Sizes Can Tap Mainframe Power via New on Demand Services IBM today introduced the world's most sophisticated server and announced that customers of all sizes will now be able to access the unprecedented capabilities of the IBM mainframe through new on demand services from IBM Global Services. The IBM eServer zSeries 990, the new flagship of the eServer family, builds on the breakthrough technology of the eServer z900, which rewrote the rules for enterprise-class computing with fortress-like security, rock-solid reliability, and extreme performance in Linux virtualization and automation. The new z990 is the result of a four-year, more than $1 billion investment in the zSeries platform involving 1,200 IBM developers. The z990 sets a new standard for enterprise-class computing and will feature industry leadership in: -- Virtualization -- the z990 architecture can support hundreds or even thousands of virtual Linux servers in a single box. That roughly equates to an entire data center on one server the size of a refrigerator. -- Automation -- the z990 features IBM's exclusive Intelligent Resource Director (IRD) technology, which dynamically moves system resources to the workloads that need them, according to priorities and objectives set by the customer. -- Scalability -- a single z990 offers massive capacity and the ability to scale up and out. It can scale up to process 450 million e-business transactions/day or scale out to manage hundreds of virtual Linux servers. A clustered z990 can handle up to 13 billion transactions/day, exceeding the average weekly volume on the New York Stock Exchange. The z990 also offers the ability to turn capacity on and off, allowing customers to temporarily add server engines during peak periods. -- Security -- designed from the ground up to help thwart intrusion into the system, the IBM mainframe is one of the most secure servers on the market. A 16-way z990 can securely process up to 11,000 transactions/second. -- Reliability -- mainframe reliability is measured in decades, not weeks or days, and the hardware availability rate for a clustered zSeries is up to 99.999%, or less than five minutes of downtime per year. The z990 is the most powerful and scalable IBM mainframe in the 40-year history of the product, with twice the virtualization capabilities and the ability to do nearly three times the work of the z900, a new "building block" design that allows customers to plug in new capacity without taking the system down, and a dramatically simplified product structure that reduces the number of mainframe models from 42 to 4. IBM also announced that IBM Global Services has begun deployment of the z990 in its On Demand Data Centers -- beginning in Boulder, Colorado -- providing new services for customers seeking mainframe computing power on demand. The new mainframe will serve as a cornerstone of the multi-platform centers, enabling customers of all sizes to acquire computing power and capacity on demand in new ways. IBM Global Services will offer mainframe capabilities, featuring technology from its Utility Management Infrastructure (UMI) service, which provides customers with fully-integrated infrastructure including mainframe processors, storage, networking and middleware. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34177793 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 19:41:32 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon Unveils Wireless Internet Service CHICAGO, May 13 (Reuters) - Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ), the largest U.S. local phone company, on Tuesday launched a service that will allow customers to access the Internet wirelessly on high-speed networks throughout New York City. Verizon, which is based in New York, said it activated 150 WiFi access points or "hot spots" in the city and plans to activate 850 more by the end of the year. It said its deployment would mark the largest such initiative by an Internet service provider in a single U.S. city. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34173107 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 19:43:57 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Policy Posts 9.09: CDT Report Analyzes Public Policy Concerns CDT POLICY POST Volume 9, Number 9, April 28, 2003 A Briefing On Public Policy Issues Affecting Civil Liberties Online from The Center For Democracy and Technology (1) CDT Report Analyzes Public Policy Concerns About ENUM Technology (2) What is ENUM, and Has It Been Deployed Yet? (3) Policy Issues Raised by ENUM (4) Recommendations for ENUM Implementations http://www.cdt.org/publications/pp_9.09.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 19:44:46 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CDT Headline: CDT Releases Report Analyzing Public Policy From: CDT Info Subject: CDT Headline: CDT Releases Report Analyzing Public Policy Concerns about ENUM Technology Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 12:11:44 -0400 CDT Releases Report Analyzing Public Policy Concerns about ENUM Technology ENUM, a technology protocol that may provide a critical tool in the more widespread adoption of "voice over the Internet" services, also poses risks to privacy. CDT's Standards, Technology & Policy Project has issued a report analyzing a range of privacy and other public policy concerns raised by the ENUM protocol. The report sets out detailed policy recommendations that should be followed by national governments and service providers in any implementation of ENUM. April 28, 2003 "ENUM: Mapping Telephone Numbers onto the Internet -- Potential Benefits With Public Policy Risks" http://www.cdt.org/standards/enum/ More on Internet Standards: http://www.cdt.org/standards/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 19:42:10 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Dallas Honored as One of Six Cyber Safe Cities in Nationwide MSN and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children Visit Dallas To Recognize Law Enforcement and Provide Resources for Online Safety Education; Mayor Laura Miller Issues Online Safety Proclamation DALLAS, May 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- MSN(R) and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), one of the nation's leading child advocacy groups, today named Dallas a Cyber Safe City -- one of only six U.S. cities to be honored -- and recognized local police officers Lt. Bill Walsh, Sgt. Byron Fassett and Detective Steven Nelson as Cyber Safe City Heroes for championing online safety in their community. Mayor Laura Miller kicked off the Cyber Safe City activities by issuing an official online safety proclamation at an event held at Dallas City Hall. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34172509 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 19:46:31 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Policy Post 9.10: Authentication Privacy Principles Released CDT POLICY POST Volume 9, Number 10, May 13, 2003 A Briefing on Public Policy Issues Affecting Civil Liberties Online from The Center for Democracy and Technology Contents: (1) Authentication Privacy Principles Working Group Releases Interim Report (2) Key Elements of the Authentication Privacy Principles (3) Background on Authentication and Privacy (4) Future Work of the Authentication Privacy Principles Working Group http://www.cdt.org/publications/pp_9.10.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 19:54:24 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: TidBITS Editors Warn Readers That Antispam C-Rs Will be Ignored Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 13:36:36 -0400 From: Declan McCullagh Subject: FC: TidBITS editors warn readers that antispam C-Rs ignored This is what TidBITS will do (it makes sense): Closer to home, be warned that we will not answer any challenges generated in response to our mailing list postings. Thus, if you're using a challenge-response system and not receiving TidBITS, you'll need to figure that out on your own. Also, if you send us a personal note and we receive a challenge to our reply, we may or may not respond to it, depending on our workload at the time. http://www.politechbot.com/p-04749.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wonder why it is so many people are opposed to this obviously good spam-fighting technique. I wonder also why the readers would not just 'whitelist' the publications they wish to read. It seems to me everyone could benefit from cooperation where spam-fighting techniques are concerned. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Al Gillis Subject: Last Laugh! Confessions of a Former Spammer Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 20:33:38 -0700 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Sunday morning's Portland Oregonian (5/11/03) carried the headline "Confessions of a Former Spammer"/ Following was an interesting article about a "former" spammer with probably the usual percentage of truth and accuracy we've come to enjoy when we read technical information in media designed for the unwashed masses. This article resides at www.oregonlive.com . Check it out by doing a search on that page for "Confessions" Al ------------------------------ 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: 620-330-6774 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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Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #451 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed May 14 15:06:30 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4EJ6UA07656; Wed, 14 May 2003 15:06:30 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 15:06:30 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305141906.h4EJ6UA07656@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #452 TELECOM Digest Wed, 14 May 2003 15:06:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 452 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson From the Archives: 19th Century Telegraphers (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: 911 Operators Getting Addresses and More Qs About Service (M Brader) Re: Microsoft: ILoo No Hoax After All (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: TidBITS Editors Warn That Antispam C-Rs Will be Ignored (Sullivan) Re: TidBITS Editors Warn That Antispam C-Rs Will be Ignored (B Margolin) Re: Elusive Spammer Sends EarthLink on Long Chase (Steven Lichter) Re: Audio Quality Wall Cord Wired Telephone (Don Saklad) Tell Me Service (Michael Andrews, Sr.) Connecting 2 Wireless Routers in One Network (Ronen Amity) Re: U.S. Moviegoers Don't Mind Theater Ads - Study (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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 11:10:00 -0500 From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: From the Archives: 19th Century Telegraphers Eleven years ago in the Digest, I printed a book review by Jim Haynes which generated a lot of interest at the time, and I thought you might like to see it again. So much has happened, so much has changed, on the net in the past decade. Surely, those were happier times for all of us who had been around for several years back then, and things have not improved much now that several plus a decade have gotten past us. Anyway, here is Jim Haynes's report from 1992 in the Digest: Date: Thu, 15 Oct 00:10:00 GMT Reply-To: TELECOM Moderator Organization: TELECOM Digest I received this interesting book review in my mail today and thought it worthwhile sharing with TELECOM Digest readers. PAT From: haynes@cats.UCSC.EDU (Jim Haynes) Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 18:20:09 -0700 Subject: 19th Century Telegraphers (Book Review) Book Review The American Telegrapher: a social history 1860-1900 Edwin Gabler Rutgers University Press, 1988 ISBN 0-8135-1284-0 (hardbound), 0-8135-1285-9 (paperback) I seem to read a lot of books which are at the same time both interesting and tedious. This is one such book. Written by an academic historian for reading by other academic historians, it is long on footnotes, theories, and statistics and short on flesh-and-blood storytelling; yet there is enough of the latter to entertain the casual reader. Part I of this review is an attempt to convey the general message of the book. Part II is for fun: a selection of stories about the lives and times telegraphers a century ago. Part I There are five chapters: a history of the Great Strike of 1883 as an introduction to the world of the operators; a description of the telegraph industry and especially Western Union; a social portrait of the telegraphers; a study of women telegraphers; and a summary of the labor movement and politics of telegraphers. An epilogue compares the situation of telegraphers in the 1880s with that of the air traffic controllers a hundred years later. Telegraph and railroad companies following the Civil War represented an entirely new kind of business, one in which the company's assets are strung out for hundreds or thousands of miles with offices and employees sprinkled along the lines. There were other affinities between the two kinds of companies. Railroads used telegraphy to support their own operations. Railroad rights-of-way were ideal places to run telegraph lines, affording easy access for construction and maintenance at a time when there were few roads. Telegraph business was likely to be found in the same places the railroads served. In many small towns the railroad station served as the public telegraph office, as there was not enough telegraph business to support an office for telegraph alone. Some railroads such as B & O operated their own public telegraph businesses. (cf. Southern Pacific a century later getting into the communications business.) Other railroads had contract arrangements with the telegraph companies, principally Western Union, for use of rights of way, interconnection of circuits, and providing public telegraph service at the railroad stations. These new kinds of businesses needed a new kind of management. The military became their model. Many of the top managers were alumni of the Civil War military telegraph system. The companies had divisions, rule books, general orders and special orders, and chains of command. Management style was authoritarian. As is the case with some companies today, the telegraph and railroad companies then were headed by a mixture of people who knew the business and those who were primarily financial wizards. Telegraph operators represented the beginning of a new social class, the lower-middle-class white-collar employees of large corporations. Many were the children of farmers or of city blue-collar workers. A great many were of Irish lineage. For all of these telegraphy offered a step up the social ladder as well as an escape from hard physical labor and city slums or rural isolation. Telegraphy was an occupation open to women, although the majority of operators were male (and, like the women, young and unmarried). The national economy was fairly flat or even deflationary during the period 1860-1890. Western Union profits rose handsomely throughout the period. The operators did not share in this prosperity. For one thing, there was an oversupply of them. First-class operators, who could send and receive thirty to forty words per minute for hours on end, were assigned to press and market reporting circuits. They could command pay two to three times as great as that of the second-class operators who made up the bulk of the force. Many operators learned the craft by hanging around small railroad and telegraph offices; others worked their way up from messenger and clerk jobs in larger offices; still others were trained at a number of schools that sprang up around the country. Most of the latter seem to have been disreputable if not completely fraudulent, operating for profit and promising high pay and mobility to rural youth. They were the century-ago counterparts of the for-profit data processing schools of our own times, the kind that advertised on matchbook covers and turned out an oversupply of under-qualified graduates for high tuition fees. Another financial problem for the telegraphers resulted from their new social class. Telegraphers' pay was on a par with that of skilled blue-collar workers; but their living expenses were greater. With the move to suits and ties and shined shoes they felt a need to live in middle-class housing, eat middle-class meals, and partake of middle-class entertainments. A few of the operators' perceptions of mistreatment by the companies were more apparent than real. The 1840s through 1860s had been a period when telegraphy was just getting started. Job opportunities were abundant and promotions were rapid. As the industry matured there were fewer spectacular success stories; telegraphy even seemed to be a dead-end job. Other complaints had a more solid foundation. Mergers of telegraph companies eliminated jobs. An economic downturn in the 1870s caused Western Union to institute across-the-board salary reductions, which were partially offset by monetary deflation. Operators tended to move around a lot, which allowed the company to hire cheaper replacements for those who left. The first attempt of telegraph workers to organize was the National Telegraphic Union of 1863. This was more of a mutual benefit society than a labor union. It provided members with sickness and funeral benefits and aimed to elevate the character of the members and promote just and harmonious relations with employers. With conditions for telegraphers growing worse after the Civil War the Telegraphers' Protective League was formed in 1868 as a very different kind of organization. It was a secret organization, because there was nothing at the time to protect its members from the unbridled power of their employers. Rather than relieving the sick and burying the dead it proposed to raise the members to a financial position in which they could take care of themselves. The TPL felt strong enough by January, 1870 to risk a strike against Western Union. It failed after about a week. There were just too many operators seeking work, especially in the winter season; the company was too strong; and the union was too poorly organized. The operators' situation continued to deteriorate through the 1870s as Western Union reduced wages, the number of would-be operators increased, and the company absorbed its competitors. An attempt to form another union in 1872 fizzled. In 1881 Jay Gould took over Western Union, moving the company closer to being a true national monopoly. By the summer of 1882 a number of regional labor organizations put aside their differences to form the Brotherhood of Telegraphers of the United States and Canada under the aegis of the Knights of Labor. The Brotherhood, unlike its predecessors, accepted the female operators as members. In July, 1883 the Brotherhood presented a list of grievances to Western Union and some other firms, hoping for at least a compromise settlement and at worst a short strike. When the company made no meaningful concessions the telegraphers walked out on July 19. At first things looked good for the Brotherhood. About three fourths of Western Union operators honored the strike. Public opinion was much on the side of the telegraphers, at least to the extent that it was against the side of Jay Gould and the W.U. monopoly. One competing telegraph company settled quickly with the union; and another (B & O) came close to, but never close enough. Union leaders worked hard to keep the public on their side, urging the strikers to be models of dignity and sobriety. The women were as valiant as the men, if not more so, in upholding the strike. Still, public sympathy did not feed the hungry; and the strike dwindled until it was officially called off August 17. Operators wishing to return to work had to sign a pledge of loyalty; those considered militant unionists were blacklisted by the company. Still, it appears the company was somewhat humbled by the power of the union and made a few concessions to the operators. Failure of the strike led to some ill feeling in the larger labor movement. The telegraphers accused the Knights of insufficient support; the Knights leadership felt the telegraphers had acted impulsively and without sufficient preparation. The Brotherhood soon withdrew from the Knights; and union activity reverted to local groups. Yet by 1885 there was a new organization, the Telegraphers' Union of America, which rejoined the Knights in 1886. This seems to have faded away by the early 1890s along with the Knights. Railroad telegraphers formed the Order of Railway Telegraphers in 1886. An Order of Commercial Telegraphers was formed in 1890 but never amounted to much, and allied itself with the railway telegraphers in 1897-98. The next attempt to form a union didn't happen until 1907, with the Commercial Telegraphers' Union of America, which also suffered disaster in a strike against Western Union. Gabler concludes with a discussion of a number of labor and political issues affecting telegraphers. One of the Brotherhood's demands had been equal pay for equal work, male and female. This seems to have been widely hailed as the Right Thing to do. I wonder whether the male telegraphers supported the demand because it was right; or if they supported it because they knew if the companies had to pay men and women the same they would hire only men. Some wanted a craft union, with membership limited to telegraphers, with an apprenticeship program that would raise the quality of operators while reducing their numbers. There was some interest in government licensing of operators. Others favored an industrial union, open to all Western Union employees. Some objected to the secret fraternal rites that were a feature of the Knights of Labor; Catholic workers were forbidden to become members of secret organizations of any kind. The operators wanted to protect their new middle-class image by being models of respectability and sobriety; some of the linemen on the other hand had no scruples about cutting wires to increase pressure on the companies during a strike. Some felt that telegraphy should be a government monopoly, as was and still is the norm in Europe. Some saw salvation in a worker-owned cooperative, if they could only convince the banks or the government to put up the money necessary to establish the system. Others sought to improve the status of the working classes through political action; quite a number were attracted to the United Labor Party of Henry George. A hundred years later issues like these are still with us. Part II Dr. Gabler had access to a vast amount of material: census records, archives of the telegraph companies, contemporary newspaper accounts, magazines published for the edification and amusement of operators, and even novels in which telegraphers were used as characters. The footnotes and bibliography take up 48 pages. One page in the book is an illustration of advertisements in a telegraphers' magazine of 1883. They include a book on shorthand, a book of money-making secrets, a book on the mysteries of love-making, a book on fortune telling, watch charms with microscopic pictures, a book of advice to the unmarried, a package of stationery, a book on politeness, a book of letters for all occasions, playing cards with marked backs, a book of magic tricks, a book on business, and a book on ballroom dancing. The theme is that these appealed to working-class young adults who felt a need to learn how to behave properly as members of the middle-class. A number of telegraph operators rose to prominence. Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie are the best known; Theodore N. Vail was a founder of AT&T; others found success in business or politics; and almost all the upper management of Western Union was drawn from the ranks of operators. In 1885 there were five doctors and one dentist moonlighting as telegraph operators -- maybe medicine and dentistry didn't pay all that well in those days. Thomas Edison, as a young telegrapher in the 1860s, would work a full day and then stay in the office at night, listening to a press circuit to get high speed code practice. Later he worked the Boston end of a New York circuit with an operator named Jerry Borst. Operators formed friendships with their counterparts at the other end of the wires. The telegraph companies insisted that operators should work at whatever circuits they were assigned. Edison and Borst conspired to change three characters of the code, so that nobody else could copy their transmissions and they could always work together. Cockroaches were such a problem in the office that Edison devised a bug zapper to protect his lunch from the little beasties. Friendships over the wires were nourished during lulls in traffic by exchanges of jokes and local news, and by checker games. Sometimes love and courtship blossomed too. At other times operators were rude to one another. On one occasion two operators got so angry at each other that they arranged to meet at a town halfway between their posts and settle the matter with fists at 1:00 AM. "Salting" (sending too fast for the receiving operator) was a frequent source of irritation. Salting was also part of the common practice of hazing new operators. Operators frequently got privileges, such as free passes to theaters and on trains. With the chronic oversupply it was common for operators to travel back and forth across the country looking for work, or for better conditions. Operators didn't get vacations, paid or otherwise; but in the summer months telegraph offices would open in the resort towns where the rich took their vacations, and operators could find work there. In 1883 Western Union employed 444 telegraphers in New York City, 96 in Boston, 88 in St. Louis, and 83 in Chicago. This seems to support a conjecture of mine that W.U. was weakened all its life by overattention to serving New York City and insufficient effort to develop the business in other parts of the country. There was friction between the city operators and the rural operators. The city operators were proud of their skills, and wanted to move the traffic. They resented they way country operators would frequently interrupt transmissions. The country operators, usually working in railroad depots, countered that telegraphy was but a small part of their duties. They had to answer questions from the public, sell tickets, meet trains, tend switches and signals, handle freight, and keep the lamps burning. They commonly worked shifts as long as twelve or even sixteen hours. Development of duplex and then quadruplex operation greatly increased the pressure on operators, as the receiving operators could not interrupt the senders. Gender stereotyping held that only male operators had the stamina to handle these heavily-loaded circuits; yet the book cites a number of examples of women who worked these circuits. Women were consistently paid less than men. The companies were well aware that women were a bargain compared with men, and continually tried to replace men with women. Nellie Welch had full charge of the telegraph office in Point Arena, California in 1886. She was eleven years old. Western Union and the Cooper Union Institute in 1869 jointly started a free eight-month telegraphy course for women. It lasted through the early 1890s, turning out about 80 graduates a year. They would first take non-paying jobs assisting regular operators, and then be hired as operators on lightly loaded city circuits. This school was much despised by men for its contribution to the oversupply problem, thought it probably hurt the opportunities for women more than those for men. Beginner and less-skilled operators were called "plugs" or "hams." (Note the endless controversy over the origin of the term "ham" for amateur radio operators.) The schools that turned out these operators were called "plug factories." Craft magazines sought to shame operators who taught telegraphy. They were urged to pass on the secrets of Morse only to brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters. At least one railroad operator quit his job rather than cooperate with a student placed with him by the company. ---------------- [Moderator's Note: My thanks for this very interesting article. Digest readers are encouraged to send book reviews and other special articles like this to Telecom for distribution on the net. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: 911 Operators Getting Addresses and More Qs About the Service Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 00:30:04 EDT From: msb@vex.net (Mark Brader) Gail Hall writes: > I was surprised a couple nights ago when they played some of the > 911 call tapes on a TV news broadcast. > Callers stated very clearly the name of the building they were in and > that the building was on the campus of the university, which they also > named. Callers said there was shooting going on there. But the > operator wants to know the exact address. ... It would be particularly disconcerting for a caller who was used to a place where the building name *is* the complete address. That's how it was when I was in university: "Physics Building, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1" was the complete address of that building. Later the university was assigned a street address, but it was still a *single* address -- 200 University Av. W. -- for the whole main campus, maybe 30 buildings, and that's still the way it is today. > But shouldn't they have a database about most of the well known > buildings in the city? Sounds good to me! Mark Brader, Toronto "It's the almost correct solutions that msb@vex.net are the most dangerous..." -- Dave Eisen My text in this article is in the public domain. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I know the public safety database in Chicago is built like that. Such irregular or 'vanity' addresses as 'One Illinois Center' and 'Two Illinois Center' have cross-references in the database to the actual location in the complex. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Microsoft: ILoo No Hoax After All Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 05:02:38 GMT On Tue, 13 May 2003 19:31:22 -0400, Monty Solomon posted the following to comp.dcom.telecom: > By HELEN JUNG AP Business Writer > SEATTLE (AP) -- What's true with the iLoo? Microsoft Corp. and its > public relations firm changed their story _ again _ Tuesday about > whether the United Kingdom division had been developing an > Internet-enabled portable toilet. > On Monday, three representatives for the software giant told news > agencies, including The Associated Press, that an April 30 news > release trumpeting the "iLoo" was a hoax and apologized for "any > confusion or offense." > But on Tuesday, the company reversed itself, saying the iLoo was real > but now has been killed. > - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34182377 From the foregoing link: But MSN's executive team, which had heard of the iLoo through news reports, took the unusual step of killing the project on Monday, she said, believing that the portable toilet "wasn't the best extension of our brand." So is Microsoft sh*tting us, or what? All I can say is that the iLoo would have provided a uniquely feature-rich user experience, which is typical of MS brand extensions. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD, USA (delete NOSPAM from address to mail me) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: 'A uniquely feature-rich user experience'; gee-whiz ... I mean, would anyone stay in the outhouse privvy long enough to be able to login and read news or mail or spam or whatever? When I used to live in Chicago (and the ones in Independence, Kansas during Neewollah Festival each October are no better!) those porta-potties set up for the summer festivals always had such a distinct odor to them that people went in them and exited as quickly as possible under the circumstances. Quite often as you sat there, mid the fumes and the vapor, too late you would discover that some damn fool before you had used all the paper. To me it would NOT be a conducive atmosphere to read news, email *or* send spam. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: TidBITS Editors Warn Readers That Antispam C-Rs Will be Ignored Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 05:15:30 GMT On Tue, 13 May 2003 19:54:24 -0400, Monty Solomon posted the following to comp.dcom.telecom: > This is what TidBITS will do (it makes sense): > Closer to home, be warned that we will not answer any challenges > generated in response to our mailing list postings. Thus, if you're > using a challenge-response system and not receiving TidBITS, you'll > need to figure that out on your own. Also, if you send us a personal > note and we receive a challenge to our reply, we may or may not > respond to it, depending on our workload at the time. > http://www.politechbot.com/p-04749.html > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wonder why it is so many people are > opposed to this obviously good spam-fighting technique. I wonder also > why the readers would not just 'whitelist' the publications they wish > to read. It seems to me everyone could benefit from cooperation where > spam-fighting techniques are concerned. PAT] Perhaps because many automated emails can't accept replies or process them as required. I get legitimate emails from a variety of sources (vendors, ebay.com, amazon.com, etc.) providing important information from email addresses that will not receive and cannot process replies, much less generate responses. I can't whitelist these addresses because I don't know them in advance. Furthermore, will the challenge-response ISPS even provide a whitelist capability and will users be able to use it, realistically? If I buy an airline ticket online, an automatic confirmation will be sent from an unknown address. I won't get it under a challenge-response scheme, because a reply to it demanding a response won't be answered. How will the TELECOM Digest handle challenges? It will be difficult to automate responses if the purpose is to make life difficult for spammers, I would imagine. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD, USA (delete NOSPAM from address to mail me) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Interesting you mention it. I have just a little script here which answers to the email address 'tel-archives@ telecom-digest.org' and it sends out a help file of how to use the Telecom Archives Email/FTP Service by writing email to it using a simple command set: a command word followed by an argument. For example, 'REPLY username@email' gives its attention to that user. 'SEND filename' returns the desired file from the archives. 'GET' is the equivilent of 'SEND' for the purpose of guys who are more familiar with FTP. 'INFO' gets information and help files on using the email server. 'INFO filename' gets that particular part of the help document on using the service. It responds in email to the person from the address 'Telecom Archives Email Information Service' with the requested file. The VERBOSE command sends them back a copy of what the Info Server thought they were asking for. And it saves a copy of everything in a mailbox here at massis.lcs.mit.edu. If the mail server cannot find a 'REPLY username@address' in the inbound email somewhere, then it forces the REPLY name by using the "From " or "From:" or "from" it finds elsewhere in the email, and it sends the person a copy of my help file on how to use the system. It is easily adaptable for almost any kind of challenge response system. Maybe I should put the entire script for using it here for guys who want to copy it and use it for themselves. I have had this on line for many, many years. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: TidBITS Editors Warn Readers That Antispam C-Rs Will be Ignored Organization: Genuity Managed Services, Woburn, MA Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 14:40:59 GMT In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to an article by Monty Solomon : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wonder why it is so many people are > opposed to this obviously good spam-fighting technique. I wonder also As a mailing-list administrator, I'm surprised you don't appreciate it. What do you plan to do if you start getting hundreds of challenges a day? > why the readers would not just 'whitelist' the publications they wish > to read. It seems to me everyone could benefit from cooperation where > spam-fighting techniques are concerned. PAT] I don't know about you, but I don't know offhand all the mailing lists I'm on (my employer has lots of internal mailing lists, many of which include other lists), so composing that whitelist would be problematic. Also, as has been mentioned in other messages about C-R systems, the spammers will start masquerading their messages as if they're from/to addresses on popular lists, so that they'll make it through the whitelists. Barry Margolin, barry.margolin@level3.com Genuity Managed Services, a Level(3) Company, 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: See my response elsewhere in this issue. White lists can use wild cards can't they? So couldn't you say something like 'accept all mail from *@telecom-digest.org' or 'accept mail from *@massis.lcs.mit.edu'? The white list should only have what is needed in the acceptable address lines to uniquely qualify what you want to receive. Maybe I will supply all users here with an address of the form 'yourname@telecom-digest.org' **only for use when writing to me**. Why is it so many of the most vocal opponents of spam are also the most pessimistic? Any suggestions made, any plans laid out, none of them will ever work for whatever reasons. Listen up: no *one single plan or idea* will ever fit all occassions. Most plans and ideas on the other hand will each take a nip out of the spam traffic. You have to do what you can, little by little. That's why C-R is one of the better plans I have heard of. You just keep nibbling away at the spam problem. I mean, look at how spammers have changed their tactics in the past couple years, with 'legitimate' subject lines, etc. You know they are getting hurt a little from the effort to get rid of them. Just keep up the various lines of attack. Keep them always wondering, 'what technique does **this** recipient use to get rid of me?' You have all heard of how cockroaches have mutated over the eons to be protected from their deadly enemies. Well, spammers are the same way; always mutating, responding to change. You have to do the same. Never assume some day there will be a golden 'bug spray' that will rid of of all of them. There won't be. PAT] ------------------------------ From: stevenl11@aol.com (Steven Lichter) Date: 14 May 2003 04:28:48 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Elusive Spammer Sends EarthLink on Long Chase > I don't think this is at all sufficient. > I would recommend confiscation of all their assets, sterilization of > all their relatives and offspring in case spamming has a genetic > basis, and decapitation of the spammer, with head and body to be > submerged in separate containers of water for at least 24 hours. > Just in case. > Thanks -- > David That might work. I recommended taking action against a spammer and his or her family, but the IP did not think it was in good taste, but the IP was a well known Canadian company that seems to like doing business with spammers and even though they have an abuse line on their postings they have yet to take any action. I just block anything that comes from their servers. My AOL account gets only mail from listed friends and I have another screen name that I have never used and it got 20 or so spams a day until I turned it off. My Cable account with Earthlink has never gotten spam. 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) I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot In Hell Company. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh, maybe you are talking about SBC Global. They only give lip service (and very little of that) to getting rid of spammers. Two or three days after my DSL service from SBC Global was turned off, the spam is still piling up in the box there. On the other hand, not a bit of it from Cable One thus far. They seem to care about their customers. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Audio Quality Wall Cord Wired Telephone From: Don Saklad Date: 14 May 2003 01:27:53 -0400 What web link has details about the 300 ?... [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I dunno about any web sites; maybe a few musuems have them on display. It is such an *old* technology. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Michael Andrews, Sr. Subject: Tell Me Service Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 05:51:58 -0400 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises What is the number please? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, 800-555-1212 will get you first hand experience with them. I am sure they probably have an administra- tive number as well, I just do not know the number. Maybe someone else knows. PAT] ------------------------------ From: amity@mainsoft.com (Ronen Amity) Subject: Connecting Two Wireless Routers in One Network Date: 14 May 2003 04:42:43 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Is there a way to connect two wireless routers together (so you can move from one to the other without a glich)? If so, how can I do it? 10x. ------------------------------ From: Paul Wallich Subject: Re: U.S. Moviegoers Don't Mind Theater Ads - Study Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 09:43:56 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > By Bob Tourtellotte [apparently regurgitating a press release] > LOS ANGELES, May 13 (Reuters) - A study released on Tuesday showed > two-thirds of moviegoers do not mind watching advertisements before a > film begins, a statistic that should buttress efforts to put more ads > in theaters. [snip] > Arbitron also found that audiences find theater ads more interesting > than TV ads and more acceptable than pop-up or other ads on the > Internet. No doubt they find them more enjoyable than having a root canal and more acceptable than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick too. One of the tidbits I found interesting later in the article was the report that people who went to the movies more often found ads more acceptable. What with declining movie attendance as a longterm trend, this would be easy to read as "people who found the ads unacceptable went to the movies less often, possibly as a result of the ads." This kind of "survey" demonstrates a conceptual error common among many entertainment/communications/telecom enterprises: asking questons geared to current customers rather than to potential customers who have decided against the current offerings because they're useless,annoying or inconvenient. 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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V22 #452 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed May 14 17:46:21 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4ELkKD08770; Wed, 14 May 2003 17:46:21 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 17:46:21 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305142146.h4ELkKD08770@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #453 TELECOM Digest Wed, 14 May 2003 17:46:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 453 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson More From the Archives: Stock Tickers (TELECOM Digest Editor) AT&T Worldnet(R) Service Offers Members Free Pop-Up Block (M Solomon) AOL to Demonstrate Messaging Service For PS2 (Monty Solomon) TiVo Q1 '04 Conference Call and Webcast (Monty Solomon) 20,000 KB Per Second Guaranteed Wireless Internet Access (Monty Solomon) EarthLink's Pursuit of New York Spammer Leads to Arrest (Monty Solomon) Re: Elusive Spammer Sends EarthLink on Long Chase (John Meissen) Re: TidBITS Editors Warn That Antispam C-Rs Will be Ignored (Greenberg) Re: TidBITS Editors Warn That Antispam C-Rs Will be Ignored (Margolin) Re: U.S. Moviegoers Don't Mind Theater Ads - Study (John Meissen) 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, 14 May 2003 15:18:12 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: More From the Archives: Stock Tickers Since I have reprinted history things of interest recently from the Telecom Archives, I decided you might also like looking at this piece relating to stock tickers from many years ago. This is another history item from a series that Jim Haynes supplied to the Digest for the archives back in 1992-93. PAT Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa10852; 5 Jan 92 16:26 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA03147 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 5 Jan 1992 14:41:41 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA30068 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 5 Jan 1992 14:41:27 -0600 Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1992 14:41:27 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199201052041.AA30068@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu Subject: Western Union History of the Stock Ticker This piece was sent to the Digest over the weekend by Jim Haynes and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. PAT From: Jim Haynes Subject: Stock Ticker History Date: 4 Jan 92 06:59:46 GMT Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz The following article was originally printed in {The Western Union Technical Review}, April, 1961, Vol 15, No. 2. Copyright 1961 by The Western Union Telegraph Company, formerly a leading manufacturer of chads. Telegraph History Some Early Days of Western Union's Stock Ticker Service 1871-1910 by Charles R. Tilghman [noted as deceased as of the time of publication] The Western Union Telegraph Company had been established only 15 years when Charlie Tilghman was a "stock" messenger in Cincinnati, Ohio. The story, as he tells it briefly, of early developments in Western Union's ticker service is a story also of his own resourceful rise to the position of General Superintendent of Ticker Services. -------------- About 1871 or '72 when I was a stock messenger in the Cincinnati office, the Gold and Stock quotations were received by Morse from New York and copied on manifold sheets and each boy had ten or twelve subscribers to deliver reports to every fifteen minutes. Gold was at a premium and was bought and sold like stocks, so we had the name of Gold and Stock Telegraph Company. [Photo of etching titled "E. A. Calahan's 1867 stock ticker introduced by the Gold and Stock Telegraph Co. required three line wires."] One day, our 'boss' told us boys that they would not need us any more as they were going to send out the reports on electric printing machines. In a few days the equipment for a small ticker plant was received, including a dial transmitter with letters and numerals in a circle, an arrow or pointer pivoting in the center. The turning of a small crank operated a make-and-break contact point and also revolved the arrow, stopping it directly over the character desired. The operator pressed a telegraph key with his left hand to close the press circuit and print the character. Six tickers were received. They were Edison's invention with type and press magnets of six ohms and required a large amount of current to work them. There was a ratchet wheel on the type wheel shaft. An arm, extending from the type magnet and working perpendicularly into this ratchet wheel revolved the type shaft and the two type wheels at the end of it. I took a great interest in the machine, helped to set one up on a short circuit in our office and commenced to practice working the transmitter. In a short time, one machine was put in the First National Bank and two wires were run from our office to connect it. The bankers, brokers, and business men were invited to see the new wonder of printing by electricity. A crowd came and I operated the transmitter, sending out stock quotations. It created quite a lot of excitement and talk. Soon the Company had several subscribers signed up and a ticker plant started -- I was the operator. This Edison ticker became known as the Universal ticker. We operated these tickers ten years before we ever had a voltmeter or an ammeter or anything to tell us how much current was on our lines. When we added tickers, we added a few more cells and took them off when we cut out tickers. We had to judge the adjustments of relays and ticker by feeling the pull with our fingers. Bunsen and Callaud Batteries This was the start of ticker service in Ohio, and Cincinnati was the only town that had them. We used bichromate of potash and sulphuric acid solution in a porous cup set inside a circular zinc and a stick of carbon immersed in the solution. The zinc and porous cup were put in a glass of water diluted with a small amount of acid. This made a strong battery of very low internal resistance but expensive to maintain. The company was using Callaud or blue vitriol batteries on the Morse wire and had twelve thousand cells in Cincinnati. The officials at Chicago were urging me to use the Callaud for ticker service, but I objected, saying it was too slow and had too much internal resistance for ticker work. The fight went on for some time. We did not have any dynamos or motors of any kind in the Cincinnati office at that time and had no more room for Callaud batteries. Finally, I got the idea I could use Edison light current to operate the tickers. I went to the Edison company, explained what I wanted to do, and asked them to run a special wire into our office and let me see what I could do with it. They ran in a single wire from their positive side of a three-wire system. We had no resistance lamps so I used Edison light bulbs and the small resistance boxes we had. The Edison current worked the tickers fine and, to make a long story short, I worked the entire ticker plant, local and main circuits, with this current. This was in 1880. When I started the first long distance ticker circuit, Cincinnati to Columbus, Ohio, 125 miles away, I required both polarities to operate the polar relay in Columbus; therefore the Edison company ran in a negative lead with no additional charge. I also used Edison current to work self-winding clock circuits. Later I put it on the main switchboard in the Cincinnati operating room and worked about fifty single lines and several duplex. To do this it was necessary to buy Edison lamps and make a lamp board above the switchboard. As I could spend five dollars without additional authority, my city foreman made the boards and I bought five dollars worth of lamps and receptacles at a time. It was necessary to take off two copper battery strips that ran across back of the board and then run wires from the lamp receptacles to the small disks. After this was completed and a reserve lead from Edison company secured, we eliminated three thousand cells of Callaud batteries and the acid ticker batteries, making a saving of over $3000 per annum. The Edison company had taken out their meter and given us a flat rate of twenty-five dollars per month. I wrote to Mr. G. B. Scott, Superintendent at New York, and asked him to have a piano key transmitter made with a motor to work on 110-volt D.C. After a lot of correspondence, they sent me a transmitter and motor for 110 D.C. and told me to be very careful not to let it burn up and be sure to let him know how it worked as it was the first one ever made to use Edison current. Self-Winding Tickers The self-winding ticker was invented by Mr. George B. Scott, Superintendent of the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company in New York, and Mr. W. P. Phelps of the Philadelphia Local Telegraph Company. Mr. Phelps invented the automatic shift from letters to figures and vice versa by changing the polarity on the second or winding wire. This was a great improvement over all other styles of printer at that time. They were first called the Scott-Phelps ticker. In 1903, Mr. J. C. Barclay, then Assistant General Manager, wanted to change the ticker and make it smaller. He called Mr. Jay R. Page from Chicago to New York for suggestions on the change; and, with Mr. Scott, they decided to put the escapement magnet and adjustment screws inside the ticker frame. After this change the ticker was called the Scott-Phelps- Barclay-Page ticker. My first experience with these tickers came when Mr. Barclay transferred me from Cincinnati, where I was Assistant Superintendent of the seventh district of the Central Division by appointment of Col. Clowry, to New York, May 1, 1904, [Photo titled "Later model of Calahan ticker now in Western Union Museum, New York."] and made me general inspector of ticker service in all divisions. Up to this time, I had never even seen these tickers working for they had not been put into service in the west, and I knew not a thing about them. Yet the very first thing Mr. Barclay asked me to do was to make these two-wire tickers with four pairs of magnets in them work a long distance on one wire. A single underground wire from the ticker plant under the stock exchange to the repair shop in the Supply Department on Franklin Street was assigned for the test. I started to connect up the relays and tickers and then go down and make the connections on the ticker panel at Broad Street. At the end of the third day, when I went down to our office and told Mr. Barclay that I had the tickers working on one wire but not completed, he said in a very cross voice, "Oh, what takes you so long; hurry up." I later learned that electricians and ticker men had worked for two months and spent two thousand dollars trying to work the tickers from New York to Boston and had given up, saying it was impossible. Long Distance Service I understood the quadruplex and that night I thought of using the quad neutral relay to work the repeat and next morning I connected one up before market opened and received the full market all day O.K. on my fourth day of testing. I took the day's tape down to Mr. Barclay, who looked it over and said, "Let's go in and show President Clowry." Mr. Barclay told the president, "Now we have a one-wire long distance ticker and we can put tickers all over the country." That was the start. The next week, Mr. Barclay said, "Now, Tilghman, put up a long distance stock ticker in Philadelphia." When I went over to Philadelphia, the other inventor of the ticker, Mr. Phelps, said, "Mr. Tilghman, I will do everything I can to help you and would like to see it work, but it cannot be done. The ticker that will work from New York to Philadelphia does not exist; there is no such machine." It was much harder to work over the ninety miles to Philadelphia because of the induction from other wires. I found that when the operator in New York would strike the repeat key thus taking the current off the line for a fraction of a second, the induction from other lines would cause the polar relay in Philadelphia to jump ahead two or three characters. I went back to New York and bridged the break of the repeat relay with adjustable rheostat, leaving just enough current on the line to hold the polar and type wheel on the character the operator was holding; then adjusted my neutral relay in Philadelphia so that it would break away over the light current and repeat the character. Finally, we got it to work so that the keyboard operator in Philadelphia sent from tape of the New York ticker. [Photo titled "Thomas A. Edison's two-wire "Universal" ticker, much improved, was used for many years."] [This appears identical, as well as I remember, to a ticker I saw in operation in a Western Union office, circa 1950.] Then Barclay said, "Now go on to Baltimore and Washington." This was some task and required repeaters in the line. The installation took time and Mr. Barclay sent Mr. William Finn over to help me in order to hurry up the job. Mr. Finn certainly was a very fine man to work with and gave me some good advice about the use of condensers. It was finally accomplished and we worked to Washington, later extending the circuit to Richmond, Virginia. And so the long distance service spread. In 1905, I went all over New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana securing subscribers for stocks and baseball. One year, I secured $29,000 worth of service before baseball opened. In February 1910, Mr. Barclay left the company and Mr. Atherton, a splendid man with a very kind disposition and big heart, took his place. I was transferred from General Inspector to Mr. Atherton's staff. That summer, Mr. Kitton and I had our first vacation. I had been in the service forty one years. Mr. Atherton died the next year and I went into the office of Mr. Yorke, a perfectly splendid man to work for; fair, and just to all. I was with him all during the war; and, while in his office, was given charge of the ticker repair shop. One day, Mr. Yorke spoke of the "alphabet ticker", meaning the Scott-Phelps-Barclay-Page ticker, and wanted to know if I couldn't give it a shorter name. He didn't like all those names. I replied, "Yes, we can call it the self-winding ticker". He said to do it and drop all those names. So it has been the self-winding ticker ever since. Mr. Yorke changed my title to General Supervisor of Ticker Service. I remained with him until Mr. Titley came and was made Vice President of the Plant Department, when I was transferred to his office. He was another grand man and it was a great pleasure and honor to be associated with him. The Western Union Co. had thousands of Burry tickers for which they were paying the Stock Quotation Tel. Co. $3.00 per month rental which totalled approximately $35,000 per annum. These tickers cost $32.00 each to manufacture. At the same time Western Union had a large stock of their own tickers in the Supply Department and the Superintendent of Supplies asked for authority to sell or destroy them. He said they would never be used and took up too much room. Later he asked if he could get rid of 100 a month until they were all gone. I said, no, we would use them to replace the Burry tickers and save the rental. The Burrys were not so fast as the self-winding tickers and would get way behind on active markets. The first town I changed was Washington, then Baltimore, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, and many more. Boston was using 350 Burry tickers and Chicago 750. They also used the Worisching ticker that was owned by the Stock Quotation Co. It was years before we got all these rental tickers out of our service. Superintendent Scott used two polar relays to work each self-winding ticker circuit. He said we could not possibly work with one on account of the spark on the points. These relays were 135 ohms each. This made a great load on the transmitter and great retardation in the local circuit; also created lots of sparking on the break wheel of transmitter which was revolved in oil to keep from sparking and burning. I told Mr. Scott I had put in new self-winding plant in Washington using only one polar relay on each circuit and it was working all right. There was no sparking on relay points. [Photo titled "Messrs. Scott, Phelps, Barclay and Page all contributed to "Self-Winding" ticker design." shows a ticker under a glass bell jar, and printing on the base "Quotation furnished by Western Union Telegraph apply to local manager"] The Big Blow Out The old stock ticker plant in the basement of the stock exchange was operated from a storage battery plant of 150 ampere hours cells and 350 volts, positive and negative. From these batteries there were two large size copper wires run around three sides of the ticker room. Smaller wires were connected with the larger wires and run direct to the points of the polar relays on the ticker circuit panels. The only fuse was one connected in each battery wire in the battery room. One day in September 1910 there was a short circuit on one of the stock circuits that blew out the fuse, splitting the fuse block in pieces. This cut off the entire stock ticker service in New York and all over the country for the Morse operators in the Western Union operating room were sending in all directions from the ticker tape. This blow out made some blow up! General Manager Brooks came hurrying into Mr. Athern's office and asked him to send me down to Broad Street to see what was the matter. Up to this time I had nothing to do with this New York plant as Supt. George B. Scott was in direct charge of it. I went down, investigated, came right back and made my report. Mr. Athern and Mr. Brooks both said for me to go back and take charge; do anything, order anything you need, only fix it so it will never happen again. I ordered material and started the work with six or ten men immediately after market closed each day, and worked till 9:00 or 10:00 P.M. I had a fuse put in each battery wire and through a resistance lamp to every ticker circuit panel. I found every circuit in the plant had positive pole connected to unison so the entire load of about 75 or 80 amperes was on one battery lead. When I asked why they did not put half the load on negative, they said "Why you must be crazy, the tickers would not work." Well, I had it done nevertheless -- and the tickers operated just as before. -------------- haynes@cats.ucsc.edu haynes@cats.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 12:15:38 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AT&T Worldnet(R) Service Offers Members Free Pop-Up Blocking New software helps eliminate annoying pop-up advertising - May 14, 2003 11:31 AM (PR Newswire) MORRISTOWN, N.J., May 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- AT&T today announced the availability of new software that will enable AT&T Worldnet Service subscribers to eliminate annoying pop-up advertising. The new pop-up blocking service developed by Panicware, Inc., called Pop-Up Stopper(R), will be provided free to all subscribers and will block pop-up and pop-under ads from appearing while users surf the Internet. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34191899 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 12:49:28 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AOL to Demonstrate Messaging Service For PS2 - May 14, 2003 09:57 AM (Reuters) LOS ANGELES, May 14 (Reuters) - America Online, the largest Internet service provider in the United States, on Wednesday said it will demonstrate a new service that includes voice instant messaging for Sony Corp.'s (TOKYO:6758) market-leading PlayStation 2 video game console. AOL, a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:AOL), said the demonstration at E3, the video game industry trade show here this week, would include music programming, movie trailers, TV show clips, and footage from a new feature of AOL Games called "AOL Players Club," showing members executing special moves in Sony games. AOL said the showcase would feature "AIM Talk," a service that would allow PS2 owners with voice headsets to communicate with other instant messaging users on other PS2s or PCs. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34189799 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 12:53:16 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: TiVo Q1 '04 Conference Call and Webcast TiVo Inc. Invites You to Join Its First Quarter Fiscal Year 2004 Conference Call and Webcast - May 14, 2003 08:00 AM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34186768 SAN JOSE, Calif., May 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- TiVo's First Quarter Fiscal Year 2004 Financial Results conference call and webcast is scheduled for Thursday, May 22, 2003, at 2:00 PM Pacific Time. Details below. Host: Mike Ramsay, Chairman and CEO of TiVo What: TiVo 1st Quarter Fiscal Year 2004 Results When: Thursday, May 22, 2003; 2:00 PM PDT Where: Dial-in: (913) 981-5581 Password: 728394 Replay dial-in: (719) 457-0820 Password: 728394 Webcast: http://www.tivo.com/ir ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 12:56:19 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: 20,000 KB Per Second Guaranteed Wireless Internet Access Now 20,000 KB Per Second Guaranteed Wireless Internet Access Now Possible with Calypso Wireless' New Wi-Fi Access Points - May 14, 2003 06:45 AM (BusinessWire) MIAMI LAKES, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 14, 2003-- New Technology Enables Real-Time Videoconferencing via Cell Phone Calypso Wireless Inc. (OTC:CLYW), the premier broadband wireless device and technology manufacturer that is making the cellular real-time video phones of the future today, announced today that it will launch its 2nd generation Wi-Fi access points in the fourth quarter of 2003. New access points come with a revolutionary and patented technology that enables wireless Internet access at guaranteed speeds of 20,000 KB per second (20 MBPS) over the universally deployed twisted pair copper wiring, making current wire-based DSL and Cable modem Internet connections antiquated and almost obsolete. Calypso Wireless C1250i video cell phone is the first and only mobile phone capable of using Wi-Fi to connect users to the Internet at blazing broadband speeds of 11,000KB per second, enabling movie-quality, real-time video conferencing. The company recently signed a $500 million deal with China Telecom (NYSE:CHA) and is in negotiations with several U.S. based wireless communications companies. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34185884 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 12:17:45 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EarthLink's Pursuit of New York Spammer Leads to Arrest ATLANTA, May 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Howard Carmack, aka the "Buffalo Spammer," has been arrested and arraigned in New York on four felony and two misdemeanor counts, stemming from charges that Carmack used fraudulently obtained Internet access accounts to send more than 825 million forged spam emails since March 2002. Last week EarthLink (Nasdaq: ELNK), one of the nation's leading Internet service providers, won a $16.4 million judgment and injunctive relief against Carmack in U.S. District Court in Atlanta. This followed the ISP's year-long investigation into Carmack's spamming activities. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34190268 ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@shell1.aracnet.com (John Meissen) Subject: Re: Elusive Spammer Sends EarthLink on Long Chase Date: 14 May 2003 16:53:20 GMT Organization: Aracnet Internet Reply-To: jmeissen@aracnet.com Buffalo Spammer Arrested http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/30708.html Howard Carmack - the Buffalo Spammer - has been arrested and charged in New York for four felony (i.e. criminal) and two misdemeanour counts relating to his alleged fraudulence in obtaining Internet access accounts to send more than 825 million spam emails. ------------------------------ From: richgr@panix.com (Rich Greenberg) Subject: Re: TidBITS Editors Warn Readers That Antispam C-Rs Will be Ignored Date: 14 May 2003 12:22:55 -0400 Organization: Organized? Me? In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > This is what TidBITS will do (it makes sense): > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wonder why it is so many people are > opposed to this obviously good spam-fighting technique. I wonder also > why the readers would not just 'whitelist' the publications they wish > to read. It seems to me everyone could benefit from cooperation where > spam-fighting techniques are concerned. PAT] The problem is with non-digest mailing lists, most of which show the originator in the "From:" line. If one whitelist entry for the entire list would work, fine, but I run 2 mailing lists and would have to whitelist all 2000+ subscribers. And keep the whitelist abrest of new subs and unsubs. 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 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Back in the years when I was manually maintaining the telecom mailing list I had two very small scripts (one was called 'add' and the other was called 'delete'. They were both done in c++. The one examined the list for the existence of a name and email address, and if same was found it would zap it from the list and move every other entry below it up one line. You did not want to leave any blank lines in the mailing list; that got the sendmail script which mailed out the Digest to each name in the bcc confused. Since my list was sorted from the right of the @ sign, which was back then considered to be good practice and made the mail get out faster, the 'add' script would examine the list for a duplicate entry, and if none was found, append the latest arrival to the bottom of the list. As the final act, the 'add' script would then call sort and sort would go through the list sorting from @ to the right putting it all in order again. I am sure you could copy (or cut and paste if you use Windows) all your mailing list names into your whitelist names. Big deal, huh? You do not have to literally do it 2000 times. And if you have some sort of script to add and delete mailing list members, tell it to stop by the white list on the way and add or delete it there also. My 'add' script did a few other things as well. It would invoke sendmail several times to send the new user a copy of the FAQ, a brief questionairre about his interests, and in later years (when it became impossible for me to do anything but work on the Digest more or less full time) a 'pitch' letter asking for a pseudo-subscription donation, also a template he could use to order materials from the archives. Now I have just a little peanut-size Digest; I am sure many guys have much larger mailing lists and publish more frequently than myself, and probably more messages in each issue, but I really feel that those of us who are Usenet moderators or mailing list managers have to take on the extra duties needed to make our lists work. So if you have to spend an hour or so copying all your names onto a whitelist, what is the big deal? You cannot expect your users to have to carry this extra burden. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: TidBITS Editors Warn Readers That Antispam C-Rs Will be Ignored Organization: Genuity Managed Services, Woburn, MA Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 19:14:40 GMT In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Barry Margolin : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: See my response elsewhere in this issue. > White lists can use wild cards can't they? So couldn't you say > something like 'accept all mail from *@telecom-digest.org' or 'accept > mail from *@massis.lcs.mit.edu'? The white list should only have > what is needed in the acceptable address lines to uniquely qualify > what you want to receive. Maybe I will supply all users here with an > address of the form 'yourname@telecom-digest.org' **only for use when > writing to me**. What's to stop spammers from sending their mail from spammer@telecom-digest.org? Barry Margolin, barry.margolin@level3.com Genuity Managed Services, a Level(3) Company, 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: In what context are you using this? Do you mean spammer@etc on mail that is sent to *me* or are you referring to mail between third-parties who use my address? If you are talking about unknown persons (to me) who take my name in vain when sending out junk everywhere, heck, they do that now. There isn't a day goes by I do not see at least one piece of spam sent by some discredited old fool named 'ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu' which fell through the cracks somehow and got returned to 'the sender' (?). Fortunatly, Spamassassin catches most of it, so it is not a major problem (yet). I still maintain that everyone who has some stake in this net -- the sysadmins, the Digest and mailing list and Usenet moderators -- and the 'regular users' if they care to be involved -- have to go 'that extra step' to eliminate this problem. Spam is not going to away because you or anyone else sits there wringing their hands and whining about it. It will *partly*, but never totally go away -- just like the cockroaches, if all the interested parties take actions against it to the best of their ability. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@shell1.aracnet.com (John Meissen) Subject: Re: U.S. Moviegoers Don't Mind Theater Ads - Study Date: 14 May 2003 16:59:54 GMT Organization: Aracnet Internet Reply-To: jmeissen@aracnet.com In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > By Bob Tourtellotte > LOS ANGELES, May 13 (Reuters) - A study released on Tuesday showed > two-thirds of moviegoers do not mind watching advertisements before a > film begins, a statistic that should buttress efforts to put more ads > in theaters. > Among younger movie fans aged 12 to 24, the percentage who do not mind > seeing the ads rose to 70 percent, according to the study conducted by > Arbitron Inc. Well, if you abuse people often enough, eventually all you're left with are people who enjoy being abused. I'm not surprised that the percentage has increased. Aren't statistics wonderful? They've already lost me. Because of this abuse I now wait for the movies to be released on DVD and enjoy them in the confort and privacy of my home for a fraction of the cost and none of the hassle. There are probably one or two movies a year that I figure warrant actually watching on the big screen. john- ------------------------------ 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: 620-330-6774 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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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 #453 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed May 14 19:59:58 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4ENxwZ09740; Wed, 14 May 2003 19:59:58 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 19:59:58 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305142359.h4ENxwZ09740@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #454 TELECOM Digest Wed, 14 May 2003 20:00:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 454 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson TELL-me; 800-555 Numbers (Mark J Cuccia) Re: TidBITS Editors Warn That Antispam C-Rs Will be Ignored (J Meissen) Re: 911 Operators Getting Addresses and More Q About Service (Lindstrom) Re: 911 Operators Getting Addresses and More Q About Service (invert) Spit or Spamola (Joey Lindstrom) Re: Connecting Two Wireless Routers in One Network (Clarene Dold) Re: U.S. Moviegoers Don't Mind Theater Ads - Study (Please invert) How the Digest is Published (TELECOM Digest Editor) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 14:42:25 CDT From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: TELL-me; 800-555 Numbers 800-555-1212 is the Directory Assistance number for toll-free numbers. In the US, it is handled by AT&T subcontracted to "Tell-Me". In Canada, it is handled by Bell Canada (and maybe Telus in the west?) The "Tell-Me" service *itself* is 800-555-8355. That's 800-555-TELL. DO NOT MISTAKE this with 800-555-8255 (TALK). The latter (8255-TALK) is some kind of "sex/sleaze/porno" hijacking toll-free 800, quite possibly something from Pilgrim Telephone (the latter also referring one to a 900 PAY-per-call number and an area code 767 number in the British Caribbean island of Dominica). I don't offhand know the administrative number of "Tell-Me", neither a toll-free 800/888/877/866 type number nor a California NPA based "POTS" number. A few other interesting 800-555-xxxx numbers past and present: 800-555-5000 "The Bell Answer Line", now discontinued; this number itself is presently "resp-org'd" to US-Sprint, but I don't what it is actually used for, as it can't be reached from my service area. When AT&T and the BOCs used 800-555-5000 in the 1980s, it was to answer questions about divestiture and other related matters. 800-555-8111 is for AT&T Consumer Products Leased Services, i.e., the business office for phones/etc. leased from Lucent, but still branded to the general public as AT&T. This number is still in use as such and has been since 1983/84, just in preparation for divestiture. 800-555-5321 SNET Long Distance Calling Card/Operator Services access. 800-555-1111 Bell Canada (and related BCE owned telcos) Calling Card/ Operator Services access. I checked http://www.tellme.com more specifically the "Contact Us" page at http://www.tellme.com/about/contactus.pl and the "Inside Sales" number for "Tell Me" is +1-650-930-9100, NPA 650 is the area immediately south of the city limits of San Francisco CA. Their website does mention 1-800-555-TELL (8355) as well as 1-800-555-1212 (indicated as AT&T Directory Assistance), but it also mentions a "demo" number of 1-866-TELLME-1 (1-866-835-5631) mjc ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@shell1.aracnet.com (John Meissen) Subject: Re: TidBITS Editors Warn That Antispam C-Rs Will be Ignored Date: 14 May 2003 20:10:48 GMT Organization: Aracnet Internet Reply-To: jmeissen@aracnet.com In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > This is what TidBITS will do (it makes sense): > Closer to home, be warned that we will not answer any challenges > generated in response to our mailing list postings. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wonder why it is so many people are > opposed to this obviously good spam-fighting technique. I wonder also > why the readers would not just 'whitelist' the publications they wish > to read. It seems to me everyone could benefit from cooperation where > spam-fighting techniques are concerned. PAT] These particular people are opposed because mailing list providers simply don't have the resources to deal with the potentially thousands of incidents. Why don't readers whitelist? Because 90% of todays Internet population wouldn't even understand what you are referring to. For instance, aunt has finally started using email, but she cannot comprehend the computer as anything other than an extremely complicated typewriter. My neighbors are not much better. ;-) john- ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 14:11:01 -0600 Subject: Re: 911 Operators Getting Addresses and More Qs About the Service Reply-To: joey@telussucks.info On Wed, 14 May 2003 15:06:30 -0400 (EDT), Mark Brader wrote: > Gail Hall writes: >> I was surprised a couple nights ago when they played some of the >> 911 call tapes on a TV news broadcast. >> Callers stated very clearly the name of the building they were in and >> that the building was on the campus of the university, which they also >> named. Callers said there was shooting going on there. But the >> operator wants to know the exact address. ... > It would be particularly disconcerting for a caller who was used to a > place where the building name *is* the complete address. That's how > it was when I was in university: "Physics Building, University of > Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1" was the complete address of that > building. Later the university was assigned a street address, but it > was still a *single* address -- 200 University Av. W. -- for the whole > main campus, maybe 30 buildings, and that's still the way it is today. >> But shouldn't they have a database about most of the well known >> buildings in the city? > Sounds good to me! The whole thing does sound kinda ridiculous, especially with well-known landmarks. If I fell down and couldn't get up while attending an NHL game, I'd tell the 911 operator (who I called on my cellphone) I was at "the Saddledome". I would not tell her I was at "555 Saddledome Rise S.E." because until I just now looked it up, I had no idea that was the building's address. (and I can't figure out how they got "555" since it's the only building on Saddledome Rise S.E., which is basically a small piece of asphalt extending at right angles off Olympic Way S.E.) When I dispatched cabs TEN YEARS AGO, we were using computer systems advanced enough so that when somebody called in from "Petro Canada Tower" or "Chinook Centre" or any other named building, they just had to say the name of the building (and which entrance they were at, if applicable). We just had to type in the name of the building (or one of several abbreviations for that place). The computer would figure out where it was, what the address was, what zone it was in, etc., and dispatch the closest car. Why a modern-day 911 system wouldn't be as good as this is completely beyond me. (Today, that same cab company has more-advanced systems, including the ability to automatically call up the address based on caller-ID, providing that that customer had called previously from the same phone number, as well as GPS-based dispatching of "the closest" taxi.) What are you folks paying "E-911" fees for, if the system still isn't any better than what you had in the 1970's? -- Joey Lindstrom -- Telus Sucks http://www.telussucks.info ------------------------------ From: 6212hgk@newsguy.com (Please invert everything left of the @ to reply) Subject: Re: 911 Operators Getting Addresses and More Qs About the Service Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 20:18:13 GMT On Tue, 13 May 2003 17:56:57 -0400, Gail M. Hall wrote: > But shouldn't they have a database about most of the well known > buildings in the city? If the caller says he is in the > such-and-such building on such-and-such college campus, shouldn't > they have that in their database? What database? Who makes such a database? > I have also wondered about the environment the operators have to work > in. Are they provided with good earphones that help stop noise from > other operators and the sounds of fans and equipment around them? Of the three 911 centers I've visited in Oregon, all had very low ambient noise and very good sound control. > Many of the callers on Friday had to speak very softly to prevent the > "perp" from knowing where they were. If the 911 operators have to > work in a noisy room, they will have too much difficulty hearing a > caller who must speak softly in order to protect himself/herself. See above. > I used to do medical transcription, and I was never able to find > really good earphones that could filter out the sounds around me. > After a number of years working in a noisy environment and having to > turn up the volume on my machine to hear the dictation, my hearing > became impaired as much as rock music fans' ears are. Not fun! Sony and others now have very good noise cancelling earphones and headphones. Time marches on. > I was impressed that apparently some 911 operators were able to keep > some callers on the line over several hours so that people on the > outside could get information about what was going on. I suspect that > they must have had some way of patching in to others such as the > police and still have some lines available for "normal" emergency > calls. 911 operators often work in pairs; once collecting information from the caller, the other dispatching and relaying the information. > But it did make me wonder how many extra lines they can have > available for such emergencies All the lines which are needed, courtesy the 911 taxes. > or whether cities can borrow each others' services as needed. 911 centers are typically regional or countywide, rarely for one city only. Nobody but a fool goes into a federal counterrorism operation without duct tape - Richard Preston, THE COBRA EVENT. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That thinking, of having 911 centers as 'regional' or 'countywide' is part of the problem. I know the politicians want to save money (so they can personally get more steak dinners for themselves and their crony friends) but at some point you have to draw a line on consolidation. Every small, semi-rural community here in southeast Kansas that I am familiar with has its own 911 center *if it has its own police/fire department*. Independence has its own 911 center in the police station which is in the basement of the City Hall. So does Coffeyville, Cherryvale, and Neodesha. Because Independence is the 'county seat' the Montgomery County Sheriff also has a 911 center. Between all of them (county total population is about 31,000) they do not get as many calls in a month's time as a big city gets in a few hours. Yet the big cities want to consolidate all those folks into one office. It seems rather senseless to me. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 14:18:14 -0600 Subject: Spit or Spamola Reply-To: joey@telussucks.info On Wed, 14 May 2003 15:06:30 -0400 (EDT), editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: > Why is it so many of the most vocal opponents of spam are also the > most pessimistic? Any suggestions made, any plans laid out, none of > them will ever work for whatever reasons. Listen up: no *one single > plan or idea* will ever fit all occassions. Most plans and ideas on > the other hand will each take a nip out of the spam traffic. You have > to do what you can, little by little. That's why C-R is one of the > better plans I have heard of. You just keep nibbling away at the spam > problem. I mean, look at how spammers have changed their tactics in > the past couple years, with 'legitimate' subject lines, etc. You know > they are getting hurt a little from the effort to get rid of them. > Just keep up the various lines of attack. Keep them always wondering, > 'what technique does **this** recipient use to get rid of me?' You > have all heard of how cockroaches have mutated over the eons to be > protected from their deadly enemies. Well, spammers are the same way; > always mutating, responding to change. You have to do the same. Never > assume some day there will be a golden 'bug spray' that will rid of > of all of them. There won't be. PAT] Wouldn't it be nice if we could find some way to confine all spammers solely to those Microsoft iLoo thingies? Y'know, I think I could actually come to enjoy reading spam. As I read it, I could bask in the knowledge that the person who sent it was literally inhaling the material that spam is so often compared to. In such an environment, the more spam the better. :-) -- Joey Lindstrom -- Telus Sucks http://www.telussucks.info [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah, but you have to be humane to all, even to a spammer. You cannot lock them up in one of those porta-potty things. The ACLU (and other similar organizations) would be all over you in a minute. That is cruel and unusual punishment, being forced to sit mid the fumes and vapor as you type out your spam email, only to discover later when you need it that the damn fool in there before you had used all the paper. By the time you sit there until the mayor or other politician or city worker in charge of bringing more paper around gets there, you would have had your first million dollars in orders for your spam service or product. I have never known anyone who would willingly use one of those porta-potty-chair stalls voluntarily. They are all horrible. Why would Microsoft or any reputable company consider installing computers in them? PAT] ------------------------------ From: dold@Connecting.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: Connecting Two Wireless Routers in One Network Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 20:34:38 UTC Organization: a2i network Ronen Amity wrote: > Is there a way to connect two wireless routers together (so you can > move from one to the other without a glich)? This should be a standard feature (roaming). The multiple Wireless Access Points operate on different channels, but with the same SSID. Your laptop should wander from one to the next with no problem at all. That being said, I've never done it. You might search alt.internet.wireless < http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=group%3Aalt.internet.wireless&btnG=Google+Search > Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA ------------------------------ From: 6212hgk@newsguy.com (Please invert everything left of the @ to reply) Subject: Re: U.S. Moviegoers Don't Mind Theater Ads - Study Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 20:13:50 GMT I suspect their methodology is extremely flawed. Also, selecting for 12-24 is not the whole audience. On Tue, 13 May 2003 19:34:46 -0400, Monty Solomon wrote: > By Bob Tourtellotte > LOS ANGELES, May 13 (Reuters) - A study released on Tuesday showed > two-thirds of moviegoers do not mind watching advertisements before a > film begins, a statistic that should buttress efforts to put more ads > in theaters. > Among younger movie fans aged 12 to 24, the percentage who do not mind > seeing the ads rose to 70 percent, according to the study conducted by > Arbitron Inc. > Arbitron also found that audiences find theater ads more interesting > than TV ads and more acceptable than pop-up or other ads on the > Internet. > - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34182468 Nobody but a fool goes into a federal counterrorism operation without duct tape - Richard Preston, THE COBRA EVENT. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 18:05:34 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: How the Digest is Published We started discussing here recently how a lot of the guys who publish Digests or moderate Usenet newsgroups feel that C-R would be too much of a burden for them. I suggested that anyone could use scripts such as mine to automate a lot of the work. I have always made my scripts available for anyone who wanted to copy them and use them with the neccessary adjustments as needed for their own cases. In fact on the telecom-digest.org web site, I encourage people to look at the source (right click your mouse then left click it on 'source' and take whatever you need or want. But for the Digest itself and the Usenet side of things, that is not always possible (to cut and paste as needed, etc). So I have put a few of my publishing scripts here and invite you to at least examine them and use what you want. All of these were written long before the onset of my deseased brain, and I am not quite sure I could do this again, but here they are: --------- this is to post messages on Usenet in comp.dcom.telecom ------ #!/bin/sh #you want to use '(sh)ell to do your work. # #for debugging output uncomment the next line debug=-d # #and debug or not as needed. #for no debugging output uncomment the next line #debug= # # list all the sites to get the news on the next line as part of the # remotes string, # seperate them by blanks as in the sample line: # remotes="dsinc.dsi.com casbah.acns.nwu.edu bu.edu agate.berkeley.edu" # remotes="newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu news.iecc.com news.bungi.com newsin.alt.net chilli.nntp.netline.net.uk" awk -f bin/burst.awk output | sh #(see next script for using 'awk') status="$?" if [ ! "$status" = 0 ] #in case my header count gets messed up then echo "You screwed up with your headers and dashes again!" exit "$status" fi if [ -s togo ] then cat `cat togo` > converting #Assuming header/dashes count bin/approver/iqueue/* #was handled correctly then my for host in ${remotes} #secret crytic 'approved' is added do #to each message. cp togo running nntpxmit ${debug} ${host}:running #I use NNTP to post done #each message on net. cat converting | formail -ds >> online.box rm -f `cat togo` togo place=/home/common/telecom-archives/TELECOM_Digest_Online update=$place/updating.html cp $update $place/index.html cp $update $place/author.html cp $update $place/subject.html cp $update $place/thread.html bin/hypermail -xp touch /home/common/telecom-archives/index.html exit else echo no articles bursted fi exit After each Digest has been broken into individual messages and the headers for each message made up, then I post them one by one using 'hypermail' to the TELECOM_Digest_Online web site. During the several seconds it takes to post the new messages and reorganize all the messages and make up the categories, I have to 'close down' the web site. That is so users do not wander in trying to go to a certain message pointed to by the html link and find themselves on a different message or no message at all while all the files are being renamed and renumbered. Thus, the 'updating.html' message ('sorry closed right now, try again in one or two minutes') is swapped in for users to see on their screen for those several seconds. -------above I mentioned burst.awk, this is what mine does------ BEGIN { state = 0 fnum = 1 fbase = "iqueue/art:" print "curdir=`pwd`" print ">togo" isid = 0 trivia = \ "X-URL: http://telecom-digest.org/\n"\ "X-Submissions-To: editor@telecom-digest.org\n"\ "X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@telecom-digest.org\n" } state == 0 && /^TELECOM Digest/ { volnum = $10 issue = $13 msgtotal = 0 dstring = \ "X-Telecom-Digest: Volume " volnum ", Issue " issue vn = "v" volnum "n" issue next } state == 0 && /^ / { msgtotal++ next } state == 0 && /^--------------------------------------------*$/ { state = 1 next } /^ *$/ && state == 1 { state = 2; file = fbase vn "." fnum ".h"; next } /^Date: / && state == 2 { date = $0; next } /^From: / && state == 2 { from = $0; next } /^Subject: / && state == 2 { subj = $0; next } /^Reply-[Tt]o: / && state == 2 { replyto = $0; isreplyto = 1; next } /^Organization: / && state == 2 { org = $0; isorg = 1; next } /^References: / && state == 2 { refs = $0; isrefs = 1; next } /^Message-[Ii][Dd]: / && state == 2 { id = $0; isid = 1; next } /^End of TELECOM / && state == 2 { if (msgtotal != fnum - 1) { printf "echo 'Error: msgtotal (%d) != fnum (%d) at end'\n", msgtotal, fnum - 1 print "exit 1\n" } exit } /^ *$/ && state == 2 { printf "cat <<'mAgIc_CoOkIe' >%s\n", file if (substr(date, 7, 3) == " ") { date = "Date: " substr(date, 10) } if (substr(from, 7, 3) == " ") { from = "From: " substr(from, 10) } i = split(subj, parts, " ") if (substr(parts[i], 1, 1) == "(") { j = length(subj) subj = substr(subj, 1, j-4) } print "Path: telecom-digest.org!ptownson" print date print from print "Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom" print subj if (isreplyto) { print replyto } if (isid) { print id } else { printf("Message-ID: \n", \ volnum, issue, fnum);} if (isrefs) { print refs } if (isorg) { print org } else { print "Organization: TELECOM Digest" } print "Sender: editor@telecom-digest.org" printf trivia printf "%s, Message %d of %d\n", \ dstring, fnum, msgtotal print "mAgIc_CoOkIe" file = fbase vn "." fnum ".b" printf "cat <<'mAgIc_CoOkIe' >%s\n", file state = 3 next } /^------------------------------$/ { state = 1 file = fbase vn "." fnum fileh = file ".h" fileb = file ".b" print "mAgIc_CoOkIe" printf "lines=`wc -l < %s`\n", fileb printf "(cat %s\necho Lines: $lines\ncat %s) > %s\n", fileh, fileb, file printf "echo $curdir/%s >> togo\n", file printf "rm -f %s %s\n", fileh, fileb fnum += 1 isid = 0 isrefs = 0 isorg = 0 isreplyto = 0 } state == 3 { print $0 } -------- The information shown above is used to make up the headers for each Usenet message. Every message in each Digest is configured with the From: Subject: Date: lines and the Approved by which is required in moderated newsgroups. Then after two blank lines, the text is presented, whatever it is. Then there are thirty dashes at the top and bottom of the message, which is what we look for when deciding where one message ends and the next one begins. You note in the script just before this one, we expected to find the number of subject lines at the start of the Digest (in the table of contents) to equal the number of thirty dashes at the very end. In the script above this one if that 'failsafe' thing is not met, then the production halts until I go back and correct the subject line = thirty dashes problem. Each issue of the Digest goes out looking EXACTLY like every other issue.--- Now next is the 'add' script I mentioned earlier. This little thing was to insure I got someone added in the list correctly. This is now obsolete since John Levine really feels I should use majordomo, although I do not personally feel majordomo is as personally oriented toward users as I would like. Majordomo insists on receiving letters just a certain way from readers; when I was doing it I was able to get entire letters from people which somewhere in the bottom of it said 'oh by the way, add me to the mailing list'. Majordomo cannot deal with that, I do not think. I prefer a more personal approach but it was getting to be unrealistic. Anyway .... set -x ADDR=$1 NAME=$2 echo $1" ($2)" >> z echo `cat z | wc -l` "names now on list" cat new.users/new-users | /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -f subscribe@telecom-digest.org $1 sleep 2 echo "sent new.users" cat latest.issue | /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -f subscribe@telecom-digest.org $1 sleep 2 echo "sent latest.issue" cat new.users/donations | /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -f subscribe@telecom-digest.org $1 sleep 2 echo "sent donations.letter" cat new.users/archives.help.file | /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -f subscribe@telecom-digest.org $1 echo "sent archives.help.file" Here, I use the command ADD username and it not only puts the person on the list, it also sends them the latest issue of the Digest, a copy of the help file and a request for contributions. Now when someone asked to be removed from the mailing list (in the event they thought my brain desease had gotten too bad, that I was no longer 'credible' [and their friends agreed with them] or whatever) then I executed this next script. To change to a different address I had to ADD them under the new address then DELETE them from the old address. Both of these last two scripts are no longer used since John Levine really felt I would do better with Majordomo, and I was in the hospital and nursing home for a long time so I really had no choice. #!/bin/sh set -x echo "Removing '$1' from mailing list" echo "`wc -l < z` names on list to start with" grep $1 z >> tmphold grep -v $1 z > x echo "`wc -l < x` names on revised list" echo "Now removed" `cat tmphold` cat tmphold >> removals mv x z cat new.users/delete-letter | /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -f subscribe@telecom-digest.org "`cat tmphold`" rm tmphold exit As I said earlier in this issue to someone, for something as small and insignificant as this Telecom Digest, the above served me quite well for many years. I would not expect them to work intact for a lot of the bigger, more elaborate Digests, with more readers, more issues being published all the time, etc but they did work for me, and the first two shown above 'poster daemon' and 'burst.awk' are still in regular use. I have many more scripts not included above, such as the one to read/evaluate/act on file requests recieved in email for the archives files. If anyone wants a copy of that script (it is like using email as a substitute for FTP) I will publish it here also. Really, I do believe that persons who wish to be moderators for Usenet newsgroups or publish Digests on the net need to give as much personal attention as they can to their work. 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #454 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed May 14 22:33:42 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4F2Xgu11136; Wed, 14 May 2003 22:33:42 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 22:33:42 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305150233.h4F2Xgu11136@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #455 TELECOM Digest Wed, 14 May 2003 22:34:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 455 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: From the Archives: 19th Century Telegraphers (Jim Haynes) Book _Cheaper By The Dozen_, Learning Morse (Mark Atwood) Re: Connecting Two Wireless Routers in One Network (John R. Levine) Re: Connecting Two Wireless Routers in One Network (Mark Atwood) Re: Connecting Two Wireless Routers in One Network (Gary Breuckman) Re: 911 Operators Getting Addresses and More Q About the Service (Stein) Re: AT&T Worldnet Service Offers Members Free Pop-Up Blocking (Higdon) Re: All Eyes on Google (David) Re: TidBITS Editors Warn That Antispam C-Rs Will be Ignored (B Margolin) Re: TidBITS Editors Warn That Antispam C-Rs Will be Ignored (N Tenny) Re: TidBITS Editors Warn That Antispam C-Rs Will be Ignored (J. Levine) Re: Elusive Spammer Sends EarthLink on Long Chase (Howard S. Wharton) My Filter Rules, etc (TELECOM Digest Editor) Last Laugh! Re: Microsoft: ILoo No Hoax After All (Thomas A. Horsley) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: From the Archives: 19th Century Telegraphers Organization: Alumni of University of Arkansas From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 22:06:52 GMT Since Gabler's book was published several others of interest have appeared. I have not done full-length reviews of them, but will mention them. My Sisters Telegraphic: Women in the Telegraph Office, 1846-1950 Thomas C. Jepsen The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers Tom Standage This book attracted a lot of attention when it first appeared. It's good; but I thought the analogy between telegraphy and the Internet is not all that strong. The society of telegraphy was limited to the professional operators, employees of the telegraph companies and railroads and a few other businesses. The Internet is open to the general public. The Story of Telecommunications George Oslin Oslin was the former P.R. man for Western Union, and wrote this book near the end of his long life. I believe it is still available from his publisher, Mercer University Press. Although the book suffers from lack of editing, especially in the beginning and end, the middle section is a must-have for telecom history enthusiasts. The Telegraph: A History (or something like that - I'm away from my library right now) Lewis Coe This is smaller than Oslin's book and is a great complement to it, as it seems to be written more from the point of view of Western Union's one-time competitor, Postal Telegraph. Coe has also published on the telephone and its many inventors, and on wireless radio. jhaynes at alumni dot uark dot edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wonder how many of the younger guys on this list (who never would have seen or used on) would appreciate some details on the typical Western Union 'public telegraph office'? They were quite common -- every city and town had one more than a half century ago. They were quite ornate places, usually. At least the one in downtown Chicago was. These were places where the general public could go to compose and send telegrams and wait to recieve them. If anyone is interested, I could tell about the one that was in downtown Chicago, on LaSalle Street in the lobby of the main Western Union HQ building. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Mark Atwood Subject: Book _Cheaper By The Dozen_, Learning Morse Date: 14 May 2003 15:15:38 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com In the nonfiction book _Cheaper By The Dozen_, there is a scene where industrial engineer Frank Gilbreth teaches his 12 children Morse code by giving them a list of mnemonic words that have the cadence for the morse of a given letter, that begins with that letter. However, the book itself only gives the first few such mnemonics. This seems like such a better memorization aid than any other I've seen. Does anyone know what the full set is? Mark Atwood | When you do things right, mra@pobox.com | people won't be sure you've done anything at all. http://www.pobox.com/~mra [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Tell us the ones you remember or saw in the book, please. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 15 May 2003 00:42:49 -0000 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Connecting Two Wireless Routers in One Network Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Is there a way to connect two wireless routers together (so you can > move from one to the other without a glich)? Probably not, since both will try to assign conflicting IP addresses when you come in range. On the other hand, if you get a wireless router and a wireless access point, and connect the access point downstream of the router with the same SSID and password, that should work since the router will assign your IP address regardless of whether you're coming directly into the router or through the access point. If you already have two routers, you may be able to disable DHCP and NAT on the downstream one to make it act more like a plain access point. Bonus advantage: access points do less than routers so they tend to be less expensive. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711 johnl@iecc.com Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner http://iecc.com/johnl Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: Mark Atwood Subject: Re: Connecting Two Wireless Routers in One Network Date: 14 May 2003 17:45:56 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Ronen Amity wrote: > Is there a way to connect two wireless routers together (so you can > move from one to the other without a glich)? Doing so Just Works at my worksite. We have multiple APs, all on the same network segment, spread all over the buildings, all with the same ESSID/WEPkey, and people roam all over the grounds without a problem. You don't even lose your TCP sessions or have to reDHCP, wireless ethernet roaming happens below the Network Layer from the POV of the network stack. Ocasioanally I will wander around with my laptop, constantly running iwconfig, just to see the point at which the MAC of the AP I'm registered to changes. Mark Atwood | When you do things right, mra@pobox.com | people won't be sure you've done anything at all. http://www.pobox.com/~mra ------------------------------ From: Gary Breuckman Subject: Re: Connecting Two Wireless Routers in One Network Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 19:16:43 -0500 Organization: Puma's Lair - catbox.com In article , "dold" wrote: > Ronen Amity wrote: >> Is there a way to connect two wireless routers together (so you can >> move from one to the other without a glich)? > This should be a standard feature (roaming). The multiple Wireless > Access Points operate on different channels, but with the same SSID. > Your laptop should wander from one to the next with no problem at all. > That being said, I've never done it. You might search > alt.internet.wireless You don't really want to use two ROUTERS. You want ONE router and the rest ACCESS POINTS. The access points should be tied to the hardwired ethernet ports of the router. This way, all the wireless traffic is on the same subnet, and you can move from one to another without losing your connection. If you use two routers, when you move from one to the other you will be a different address, and you will lose what you were doing, any open connections, etc. Gary Breuckman ------------------------------ From: Herb Stein Subject: Re: 911 Operators Getting Addresses and More Qs About the Service Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 19:58:28 -0500 Joey Lindstrom wrote in message news:telecom22.454.3@telecom-digest.org: > On Wed, 14 May 2003 15:06:30 -0400 (EDT), Mark Brader wrote: >> Sounds good to me! > When I dispatched cabs TEN YEARS AGO, we were using computer systems > advanced enough so that when somebody called in from "Petro Canada > Tower" or "Chinook Centre" or any other named building, they just had > to say the name of the building (and which entrance they were at, if > applicable). We just had to type in the name of the building (or one > of several abbreviations for that place). The computer would figure > out where it was, what the address was, what zone it was in, etc., and > dispatch the closest car. Why a modern-day 911 system wouldn't be as > good as this is completely beyond me. (Today, that same cab company > has more-advanced systems, including the ability to automatically call > up the address based on caller-ID, providing that that customer had > called previously from the same phone number, as well as GPS-based > dispatching of "the closest" taxi.) What are you folks paying "E-911" > fees for, if the system still isn't any better than what you had in > the 1970's? > -- Joey Lindstrom > -- Telus Sucks http://www.telussucks.info Apparently, we are stupid. Don't EVEN get me started on E-911/911. Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 952-4601 ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: AT&T Worldnet(R) Service Offers Members Free Pop-Up Blocking Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 18:09:07 -0700 In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > MORRISTOWN, N.J., May 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- AT&T today > announced the availability of new software that will enable AT&T > Worldnet Service subscribers to eliminate annoying pop-up advertising. > The new pop-up blocking service developed by Panicware, Inc., called > Pop-Up Stopper(R), will be provided free to all subscribers and will > block pop-up and pop-under ads from appearing while users surf the > Internet. What about the pop-up ads that appear when one is not surfing the Internet? John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: David Subject: Re: All Eyes on Google Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 23:29:22 GMT My setting only shows 10 results per page. Go to preferences and change to 10. Default is supposed to be 10. David On Sun, 11 May 2003 08:16:42 -0500, John Schmerold wrote: > I don't know if Google is the best search engine available. > I do know that it allows me to see 100 results at a time. I get so > sick of hitting next page when searching for something. ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: TidBITS Editors Warn Readers That Antispam C-Rs Will be Ignored Organization: Genuity Managed Services, Woburn, MA Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 22:22:31 GMT In article , Barry Margolin wrote: > What's to stop spammers from sending their mail from > spammer@telecom-digest.org? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In what context are you using this? > Do you mean spammer@etc on mail that is sent to *me* or are you > referring to mail between third-parties who use my address? If you > are talking The context was subscribers to the TELECOM Digest putting *@telecom-digest.org in their whitelists, which is what I thought you were suggesting. Spammers would start sending mail from that address, and thus bypass the C-R system, making it less effective. A few issues ago someone posted the message that started all this recent discussion about C-R systems. It had about a half-dozen links to messages on a web-based forum discussing the pros and cons (mostly cons) of C-R systems. I only read a couple of them, but it sounds like you didn't read any. Like almost any automated anti-spam technique, C-R and whitelists will only be effective for a short time. The spammers quickly learn how to counter it, and the information spreads through the spammer community (did you read the "Confessions of a Former Spammer" article -- they have spammer clubs). A few messages ago I think you accused us of "giving up". Yes, I pretty much have. Any countermeasures I might employ would only cause a short burp in the spam I receive. I'm not going to spend time trying to figure out how to install something if I don't foresee it being a long-term fix. Barry Margolin, barry.margolin@level3.com Genuity Managed Services, a Level(3) Company, 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: What I was really suggesting (and may actually suggest it to the readers sometime soon) is that everyone writing *to me here in the Digest* give their email address as whoever@telecom-digest.org but then continue to give their actual email address in their .signature or elsewhere in the text as they do now. That would force the spammers (or their robots) to at least read the *entire message* to find names to harvest. If you read the Digest version of this newsletter you will notice the table of contents at the top has gotten more and more ridiculous with the fake names and additional punctuation, etc the guys put in their public email addresses to avoid detection and getting spammed. At least if you could be your real name@townsons.spam.dump I would be assured of having more real names in the table of contents. PAT] ------------------------------ From: n_t_e_nn_y_@q_ual_c_o_m_m_.c_o_m (Nathan Tenny) Subject: Re: TidBITS Editors Warn Readers That Antispam C-Rs Will be Ignored Date: 14 May 2003 16:40:13 -0700 Organization: QUALCOMM Incorporated Reply-To: ntenny+r@qualcomm.com In article , Barry Margolin wrote: [on whitelists] > What's to stop spammers from sending their mail from > spammer@telecom-digest.org? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In what context are you using this? I believe he means that if I whitelist the whole domain, a spammer who forges that address will get through my filters. I tried this general approach for years, trying to maintain an accurate whitelist (in combination with other filters, though never a call-response one) while carrying on tolerably normal online activities. I was forever finding failure modes --- vendor X sends its receipts from site Y and you can't tell that until you receive them, for instance. I found the results to be untenable in both directions (false positives and false negatives). And if I can't do it, I think it's fair to say that most people can't. I have access to procmail and the knowledge to use it, I dream in regexps, I've written documentation on SMTP and email headers that as far as I know is still in use in both antispam and law-enforcement circles. I know what I'm doing here, and I couldn't get a whitelist to work to my satisfaction -- how could I expect that the millions of people who *don't* know SMTP and regexps would be able to do it better? Nathan Tenny | When the world ends, there'll be no more Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA | air. That's why it's important to pollute | the air now. Before it's too late. | -- Kathy Acker ------------------------------ Date: 15 May 2003 00:28:20 -0000 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: TidBITS Editors Warn Readers That Antispam C-Rs Will be Ignored Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wonder why it is so many people are >> opposed to this obviously good spam-fighting technique. I wonder also > As a mailing-list administrator, I'm surprised you don't appreciate it. > What do you plan to do if you start getting hundreds of challenges a day? Actually, the mailing list is run by majordomo2 on my network. And I do the same thing with challenges that every other list manager does. I ignore them. > [Pat:] White lists can use wild cards can't they? So couldn't you say > something like 'accept all mail from *@telecom-digest.org' or 'accept > mail from *@massis.lcs.mit.edu'? The competent ones probably do, but that rules out about 98% of the C/R software I've seen, and that even assumes the person using the program has any idea that he needs to do so. > Why is it so many of the most vocal opponents of spam are also the > most pessimistic? Probably because we have the most experience with poorly thought out badly implemented anti-spam gimmicks that don't work and have unfortunate side effects. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator: "The Internet for Dummies", Information Superhighwayman wannabe http://iecc.com/johnl Sewer Commissioner "A book is a sneeze." - E.B. White, on the writing of Charlotte's Web [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe that explains things a little better. People send email asking you to validate and you ignore their request. Then the same person writes me a personal note saying 'why am I not getting the Digest?' and they do have my personal name on the white list so they get an answer from me personally but still do not get any issues of the Digest. :( I tell them in essence 'try again with majordomo' and they tell me they are trying but not getting any results. Would you **please** at least edit any acknowledgement file sent out by majordomo to include a statement saying 'you must white list 'ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu' and *@telecom-digest.org to receive this publication. And do we have any files being sent out to new readers that you know of? I sure hope there is something now-days. I really feel majordomo is too impersonal to use on smaller mailing lists like mine where it is important to try and educate users. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Howard S. Wharton Subject: Re: Elusive Spammer Sends EarthLink on Long Chase Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 19:53:31 -0400 Organization: The University at Buffalo Mr. Carmack was arrested by the FBI in a raid of his house. Few of the charges according to the local news stories are forgery, possession of forgery equipment and ID theft besides stolen credit cards. GEEZ ... I live in a famous city. First the Al-Quaida cells found in the City of Lackawanna which borders Buffalo to the south and now the famous Spammer. Now, if we can only win the Super Bowl or the Stanley Cup. Howard S. Wharton Fire Safety Technician Occupational and Environmental Safety Services State University of New York at Buffalo ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 20:28:26 EST From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: My Filter Rules, etc Here are the rules I was using to sort incoming mail, prior to the very difficult procmail thing getting installed on massis. I will annotate these rules as we go along. Your suggestions for improvements will be welcome. # Basic rules to follow in sorting mail: # # 1: Daily logs of this filter's activity: if subject filterlog then save /u/ptownson/.elm/logs/log.%m.%d.%t My daily logs are mailed to me, this prevents them from going through the lcs system and my mail filter a second time. # 2-3. Email to/from Archives; to/from users: if from archives then save /u/ptownson/tel-archives.mail if to archives@ then execute /u/ptownson/infoserver/bin/process These rules pertain to the old archives<>email system I still run for people seeking to obtain archives files by email. Some people still prefer it over using the web pages. # 4-5: Prevent loops if possible. If we sent a receipt, "Receipt" is in the # subject so if we see it coming past again, dump it in the mailbox as is. if subject receipt then leave if to autoreply@ then save "/dev/null" Mail loops used to be a big problem. You write and my daemon answered you then your daemon answered me, and my daemon answered back, etc. That's why if your ORIGINAL message contained the word 'receipt' in the subject line you did not get a receipt from me, even though I did get your message. # 6-10: Do not send receipts in these cases: if from ptownson then leave if from ladd@ then leave if from @telecom-digest.org then leave if from wollman@ then leave if from massey then leave if from noahm@lcs.mit.edu then leave LCS administrative staff usually, writing me a note about something. They don't want reciepts, neither do I. # 12-28: Mail Daemon Handling if subject 'User unknown' then save "/u/ptownson/t-request" if subject 'Delivery Report' then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if from smtp then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if subject SMTPLINK then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if from Mail_System then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if from postm then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if to post then leave if from daemon then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if from bounce then save "u/ptownson/bounced" if from mmdf then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if from network then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if from uucp@ then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if from mail@ then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if from administrator then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" if from root@ then leave if from gateway then save "/u/ptownson/bounced" Users unknown are filed in a box where I would manipulate the name out of the mailing list. 'postm' allows for postmasters, postmistresses, etc. But there have been legitimate users in the past whose name was Emily Post, etc. And now and then, a root owner will write me for some kind of business. Mostly it all went in a bounced box where it would get zapped frequently. # 28-31: what mail is left over should be legitimate; ie, from a # real person. Either they wrote an article or admin request. # If they wrote to -request or subscribe, then send one type of # autoreply, and if apparently an article for the Digest, send # the other type. if to -request then execute /u/ptownson/.elm/requestreply if to subscri then execute /u/ptownson/.elm/requestreply if subject subscri then execute /u/ptownson/.elm/requestreply if subject cancel then execute /u/ptownson/.elm/requestreply I send two types of autoreplies. One is worded for people who have send what is suspected to be an article for publication. We'll get to that later. The other type of autoreply is for people who would ask to be added to or removed from the mailing list. Letters to telecom-request or with a subject line which includes the words (un)subscribe or cancel get the other kind. This is no longer used since subscription things now go to majordomo at John Levine's place. # 32-36: But if they posted it direct to comp.dcom.telecom and some local # site forwarded it here, sometimes there will be no 'To', and sometimes # there will be spurious blank lines in the header where they should not # be. We make an effort to repair that, and once the envelope is repaired # if possible, we send the new mail right back here to be filtered again. # I also get bcc'd and cc'd on other people's mail sometimes. if to feedback then save "u/ptownson/feedback" if to dmassey then leave if to dcom then execute /u/ptownson/.elm/fix.blankline if to editor@ then execute /u/ptownson/.elm/autoreply if not to ptownson then execute /u/ptownson/.elm/fix.apparently-to If an article for the Digest, send the autoreply. Massey's mail is forwarded to him separately. People who write to comp-dcom-telecom@ their.site wind up here, but with extra blank lines unfortunatly. I will show you how I fix that. Mail with me as cc or bcc sometimes does not have my name in it, just as the Digest does not always have your name in the 'To' line. I try to deal with that also. #37: At this point we can issue the reply message for remaining mail always execute /u/ptownson/.elm/autoreply # The 'always' instruction always ends filtering. # Patrick Townson, November 5, 1991 # changes for eecs.nwu.edu made in 1992. # changes made for massis.lcs.mit.edu 11-8-95 # changes made for telecom-digest.org 04-13-97 # further changes and refinements made 08-26-97 # further changes for Tribute/Massey mail made 06-26-99 --------------------------------- Now these next scripts treat the odd pieces of mail which need more work, due to blank lines and no recipient but recieved 'apparently to' # #! /bin/sh # sed '1,/^$/{ # /^$/d # }' |/u/ptownson/.elm/autoreply Remove the # marks as needed at the far left side only. This takes mailing lists I am on and removes blank lines as needed then funnels the mail over to the autoreply mechanism. # #!/bin/sh # sed "1,/^$/{ # s/to:/To:/ # w /u/ptownson/.elm/tmp/bcchead.$$ # }" > /u/ptownson/.elm/tmp/bcc.$$ # trap "rm -f /u/ptownson/.elm/tmp/bcc*.$$" 0 1 2 3 15 # if grep '^To: ' /u/ptownson/.elm/tmp/bcchead.$$ > /dev/null # then : # elif grep '^Apparently-To: ' /u/ptownson/.elm/tmp/bcchead.$$ > /dev/# null # then sed '/./,/^$/{ # s/^Apparently-// # }' /u/ptownson/.elm/tmp/bcc.$$ | /usr/local/bin/filter -o /u/ptownson/.elm/filter-errs ; exit # fi # cat /u/ptownson/.elm/tmp/bcc.$$ | /usr/lib/sendmail \\ptownson # rm -f /u/ptownson/.elm/tmp/bcc.$$ # exit This script looks at mail where I am listed as a cc or bcc and corrects it for the Digest. Because I do not know if it is for the Digest or not I don't want to send a reciept, so I have to mail it back to my box. The first backslash with my name tells unix to mail it absolutely! to me, bypassing any .forward files and the backslash before that is needed to serve as a 'quote' for the next backslash. If I am not mistaken, I think a long-time reader, David Tamkin helped me with some of this. Just remember, if you ever want to write to some user directly and by-pass any filters or other steps he has in your way, write to him absolutely! by backslashing his name like this: some_user@his.site.com becomes \some_user@his.site.com and the backslash says ignore any .forward files you come across, just go for his mailbox. This is only guarenteed for Unix/Linux systems, and if *your* system requires you to quote the backslash in order to get it accepted as a backslash then do that also, i.e. \\. Obviously, .forward files serve a good purpose when people move to a different machine, etc and want their mail forwarded. So use the backslash only in cases where you know the .forward file is feeding into filter-rules pertaining to spam, etc. For instance, my .forward file here at massis.lcs.mit.edu looks like this: "| /usr/local/bin/filter -o /u/ptownson/.elm/filter-errs" That says pipe the mail to the elm filter on the local machine (massis) to the attention of ptownson and deal with any errors that elm can't handle. When the stream hits the filter it is dealt with as described above. Most of you know that 'telecom-digest.org' itself is simply an alias which points to massis, just as 'editor' points to ptownson when it gets here. Not too bad, I guess, for someone who suffered such extensive brain damage like I did following my brain aneurysm November 29, 1999, but I could never reconstruct all that today if I were just starting any Digest. Two months in a coma in Kansas Rehabilitation Hospital followed by another month or three in rehab and then a year or so in a nursing home ... but now days I get *so* tired from working at my computer. Spam is the last thing I need to see, but I sure do get it. Obviously, old scripts written in the early 1990's are not sufficient today, but maybe some readers can learn something by studying them. PAT ------------------------------ Subject: Last Laugh! Re: Microsoft: ILoo No Hoax After All From: tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 22:27:59 GMT > I mean, would anyone stay in the outhouse privvy long enough to be > able to login and read news or mail or spam or whatever? No, no, no. You all fail to understand. Remember that Microsoft just recently promised to deliver revolutionary new anti-spam technology on MSN? This is all part of the plan. Instead of just sitting on the pot, you'll be able to use all that formerly wasted time deleting spam from your inbox! >>==>> The *Best* political site >>==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL | Free Software and Politics <<==+ ------------------------------ 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #455 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu May 15 17:10:07 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4FLA7K15710; Thu, 15 May 2003 17:10:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 17:10:07 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305152110.h4FLA7K15710@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #456 TELECOM Digest Thu, 15 May 2003 17:10:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 456 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Beware of CameraWare (TELECOM Digest Editor) Book Review: "Mobile VPN", Alex Shneyderman/Alessio Casati (Rob Slade) Cheap Wireless Ethernet Bridge & IMUX Setup to Deliver 3xE1 (Mac) Re: From the Archives: 19th Century Telegraphers (Linc Madison) Re: SBC Fraud Detection (Joel Garry) Re: Microsoft: ILoo No Hoax After All (Steven J. Sobol) Re: Microsoft: ILoo Internet Project a Hoax (Walt Howard) Re: A Vonage Hack or, Is This the Party to Whom I am Connected? (joe) Re: Tell Me Service (Joseph) Re: Tell Me Service (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Re: TELL-me; 800-555 Numbers (+1 3 0 3 5 4 3 2 3 1 1) Re: TELL-me; 800-555 Numbers (Steven J. Sobol) 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, 15 May 2003 16:19:06 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Beware of CameraWare - An FBI Sting! Please see to it that this message is posted to as many newsgroups and other places on the Internet as possible. The web site known as CameraWare.com (also known as ttinet.com and also known as surveylens.com) out of San Diego, CA are government (FBI) informants Their phone number is 800-525-2527. Their principal product appears to be Camera Ware. CameraWare.com is a 99 percent porn operation. They give away free camera (sending to the net) software, in order to induce people to use their 'service'. They charge some sum of money for a 'viewer' to see the images others have transmitted. In order to operate the CameraWare sending software, you have to fax to them various documents such as a copy of your credit card (front and back), a copy of your driver's license, etc. AND sign a printed statement that you will not send any illegal images over the net, meaning mostly child porn stuff. In their 'central exchange' (the site where all the images being sent are captured and then dissemintated to everyone who has a viewer which you have to pay for), they think nothing is wrong with capturing all the images sent in and relaying them to the FBI (which is, I personally think), the basis of the whole operation. If Cameraware somehow gets customers mixed up, associates the wrong images with the wrong customer, that that's no big deal to them. I want to warn all netizens that CameraWare is a front for the FBI, or at the very least they are extremely cordial the the FBI and show the government your personal ID card/picture, your credit card and whatever other information they have on you. In addition to two pictures of me which the FBI alleged came from CameraWare (the print outs had Camera Ware images on the page), from a broadcaster logged onto their site under the name TEST they also proceeded to show me some photographs of very young guys (naked photos) from a broadcaster logged in as the name 'gay guys in Independence', insisting "these had to be from you also". The pictures frankly were rather sickening, but even more sickening to me is that **the only way** that picture of me along with a copy of my State of Kansas ID card and my Visa card could have come into their possession was from the folks at CameraWare, which they admitted was the case. So be Very Aware of CameraWare, ( http://cameraware.com ) and its two affiliated sites ( http://ttinet.com ) and ( http://surveylens.com ) since if you have done anything in front of a camera for them chances are likely it has already or is being sent to the FBI. When the two FBI guys came to my door earlier today, they asked if they could look at my computer, and I volunteered to let them see the whole thing. They found nothing, and went away with their usual bluster about 'how we do not believe you' and 'we are going to keep our eyes on you' etc. Its embarassing to me that I actually referred a couple customers to them I know of (from Yahoo and AOL Messengers) to CameraWare, thinking the guys might enjoy the service. And I am also embarassed that I right here on TELECOM Digest (my home site) put up glowing messages about CameraWare for guys on T.D. who might enjoy that sort of thing. The only reason I sent them my picture ID card and a signed statement that I would not break any laws when using CameraWare was because I trusted them ... I never expected them to violate my privacy this way. Just be Very Aware that CameraWare is an FBI sting operation. Patrick Townson ptownson@telecom-digest.org ------------------------------ From: Rob Slade Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 07:59:38 -0800 Subject: Book Review: "Mobile VPN", Alex Shneyderman/Alessio Casati BKMBLVPN.RVW 20030401 "Mobile VPN", Alex Shneyderman/Alessio Casati, 2003, 0-471-21901-0, U$45.00/C$69.95/UK#33.50 %A Alex Shneyderman %A Alessio Casati %C 5353 Dundas Street West, 4th Floor, Etobicoke, ON M9B 6H8 %D 2003 %G 0-471-21901-0 %I John Wiley & Sons, Inc. %O U$45.00/C$69.95/UK#33.50 416-236-4433 fax: 416-236-4448 %O http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471219010/robsladesinterne http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471219010/robsladesinte-21 %O http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471219010/robsladesin03-20 %P 330 p. %T "Mobile VPN" Part one presents wireless data fundamentals. Chapter one gives an introduction to mobile virtual private networks (MVPN), and the emphasis on cellular technology points out that the authors are familiar with the telecommunications, rather than security, field of work. The material contains a weak suggestion that MVPNs may be useful, lots of alphabet soup, and very little in the way of conceptual background. The data networking technologies in chapter two are not explained very clearly: basic ideas get bogged down with details. Cellular radio interfaces are listed in chapter three, with data services that can be provided over cellular networks in chapter four. Part two looks at MVPN and advanced wireless data services. MVPN fundamentals, in chapter five, basically reiterates the text from chapter two, with a little extra emphasis on virtual private networks. Chapter six describes various GSM (Global System for Mobile communications)/GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System) offerings. Options for CDMA2000 (Code Division Multiple Access) are listed in chapter seven. Chapter eight explains MVPN equipment components and requirements. Possible developments in mobile VPN are advanced in chapter nine. This book once again emphasizes the divide not only between the cellular and wireless LAN camps, but also between communications and security. It fails to bring all the related technologies together between two covers. At the same time, for those in the LAN or security fields who need to know about cellular service offerings, this work does not provide a consistent level of explanation and depth of background for those issues. Possible utilities are tabulated, but these could be obtained from almost any cell company sales office. copyright Robert M. Slade, 2003 BKMBLVPN.RVW 20030401 rslade@sprint.ca rslade@vcn.bc.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca p1@canada.com "If you do buy a computer, don't turn it on." - Richards' 2nd Law ============= for back issues: [Base URL] site http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev/ or mirror http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade/ CISSP refs: [Base URL]mnbksccd.htm Security Dict.: [Base URL]secgloss.htm Security Educ.: [Base URL]comseced.htm Book reviews: [Base URL]mnbk.htm [Base URL]review.htm Partial/recent: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/techbooks/ Security Educ.: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/comseced/ Review mailing list: send mail to techbooks-subscribe@egroups.com ------------------------------ From: dmcdonnell@hotmail.com (Mac) Subject: Cheap Wireless Ethernet Bridge & IMUX Setup to Deliver 3xE1 Date: 15 May 2003 07:08:32 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I want to provide 90 telephone/faxes to a location about 12km away with clear line of sight. I need to do this cheaply and reliably. I figure the cheapest way is this: 2 x RAD IPmux-4 with 3xE1 2 x 3COM Wireless LAN Outdoor Ethernet Bridge I plug my Telco´s E1s into the IPmux, plug that into the 3COM microwave bridge, point the bridge at my target and have the reverse setup at the other end with the emerging E1s plugged into my PBX. It's by far the cheapest way I can figure to try to do this. Question is: Will it work? What do you guys think? TIA For product details see: www.rad.com/Article/0,6583,12971,00.html www.3com.com/products/en_US/detail.jsp?tab=prodspec&sku=3CRWEASY96A ------------------------------ From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: From the Archives: 19th Century Telegraphers Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 10:14:45 -0700 Organization: LincMad.com Consulting Reply-To: Telecom@LincMad.com My favorite "true story" (note the quotation marks) of 19th Century telegraphy is the story of the naming of the town of Iatan, Texas. The town was founded by the Texas & Pacific Railway in 1881. The story goes that the first inhabitant of the town was the telegraph operator. The railroad needed a name to put on the map, so they sent a message to the telegrapher, asking him for a name. The town was located along what is now I-20 between Abilene and Big Spring. There wasn't a whole lot out there but dust and tumbleweed, bringing the telegrapher to the conclusion that he had just been posted to hell. The name he sent back was "Satan," in honor of the ruler of that similar place. To the telegrapher's surprise, the message back showed no trace of irritation, much less did they ask him for a more suitable name. It turns out that there was a slight dropout on the line, turning ... .- - .- -. into .. .- - .- -. (S A T A N) (I A T A N) Of course, there are others who say that the name of the town had something to do with the name of a nearby ranch (the Williams-Waddell Iatan Tank Ranch), but I prefer to think of it as a town with a red cape, a broken-off horn, and a bent pitchfork. In any case, Iatan, Texas, has been deserted for 30 years now. The other railroad-related (though not telegraph-related) story, this one verifiably true, is the naming of Coalinga, California. It was Coaling Station A, which became Coaling A, which became Coalinga. www dot LincMad dot com / Telecom at LincMad dot com Linc Madison * San Francisco, California ------------------------------ From: joel-garry@home.com (Joel Garry) Subject: Re: SBC Fraud Detection Date: 15 May 2003 11:37:25 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I assume the only reason or the main > That is, unless the new tenants didn't quite give you the entire, > truthful account of the matter, in the proper context. Please make > sure *YOU* don't get egg on your face in this matter. > old days, including who calls whom, for how long, how often, etc. PAT] Thanks for the replies. The essential problem is that I really can't prove a negative, viz, that they are not lying. Given the landlord/tenant business context, I must assume they are lying, but I can assume it is trivial rather than SBC's implication that it is major (ie, the guy that flaked on the rent is actually living there). Since they have their own cellphone, it is not worth anything for me to do any more than I already have, and from the (admittedly coldhearted) landlord point of view, there is some value in them believing we are all part of Big Brother and so being very prompt with their rent. That conflicts with my desire to be a good-guy landlord, but I've been doing that long enough to know the issues. And of course, hacks and social engineering _by_ the phone company are interesting in themselves, and as a database geek, I'm also interested in how their systems actually work. jg @home.com is bogus. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think the 'way' their fraud detection system works is very sophisticated to say the least, but probably not entirely accurate. Consider for example, the use of telephone calling cards to call certain mid-east countries from a pay phone in the larger cities and the inner city neighborhoods. Their allegations that 'fraud is likely on those calls' is a slap on the face to most of the immigrants living in those areas. AT&T (and all the old Bell Companies are like peas in a pod in some billing issues, etc) has been sued a couple times over that issue, i.e. discrimination in credit practices) but they still stick to their guns on it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steven J. Sobol Subject: Re: Microsoft: ILoo No Hoax After All Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 02:16:02 -0000 Organization: JustThe.net LLC From Michael D Sullivan (zyxNOSPAM@camsul.com): > But MSN's executive team, which had heard of the iLoo through news > reports, took the unusual step of killing the project on Monday, she > said, believing that the portable toilet "wasn't the best extension of > our brand." > So is Microsoft sh*tting us, or what? All I can say is that the iLoo > would have provided a uniquely feature-rich user experience, which is > typical of MS brand extensions. And the Microsoft name is already synonymous with crap ... Pat says: > gee-whiz ... I mean, would anyone stay in the outhouse > privvy long enough to be able to login and read news or mail or spam > or whatever? I sit on the can taking a dump reading my Java and XML programming books sometimes for 10 or 15 minutes at a time, so who knows ... (That's probably more info than you needed :) Of course, how sanitary could a bathroom PC Possibly be? Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge, JustThe.net POTS: Toll Free from anywhere in the USA or Canada, 888.480.4NET (4638) HTTP: www.JustTheNetLLC.com MAIL: 5686 Davis Drive, Mentor on the Lake, OH 44060-2752 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But there is much difference between your personal bathroom and one of the filthy toilets the city fathers set up for use during park events isn't there? I would hope so. I can sit in my bathroom comfortably for several minutes also, but that is a different thing. I guess it may depend on what model is being used for the outhouse. Are they copying the style made famous by the Chicago Park District or the Chicago Transit Authority for their subway-station men's rooms? Or are they copying more sanitary, clean facilities? Oh, and while we are on the subject of filthy toilets please don't forget to login today on CameraWare.com with your camera and ID cards handy. FBI needs to get your photo and ID cards on file. PAT] ------------------------------ From: howard@rumba.ee.ualberta.ca (Walt Howard) Subject: Re: Microsoft: 'iLoo' Internet Project a Hoax Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 05:18:25 +0000 (UTC) Organization: A poorly-installed InterNetNews site In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > REDMOND, Wash. (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. said a company news release > that it was developing a portable toilet with Internet access, called > an "iLoo," was a hoax perpetrated by its British division. > The April 30 release, issued by the company's MSN Internet division in > the United Kingdom, said Microsoft was developing a portable toilet > with a wireless keyboard and an extending height-adjustable plasma > screen in front of the seat. The iLoo was to debut at festivals this > summer in Britain. Actually this was one of the better Internet jokes this year. If they had released it on April 1 as everyone else does, I think even those of who don't much like M$ would have had to grant that they are starting to "get it". But with "embracing" April Fools' Day, and then "extending" it to April 30, some of us worry about the "extinguish" ... And Pat, to answer your question about my funny .sig, you do a bang-up job keeping the postings as text. In a fair number of the unmoderated newgroups, newbies who use GUI news software keep the default settings, and some vendors think the default should be text+html or even html-only. A bunch of us dinosaurs don't like that. Rather than retaliate with nroff or scribe markup in our own posts, we use grumbly signatures. Walt Howard /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign InterNet: whoward@ieee.org \ / No HTML or M$Word in mail or news! BellNet: +1 780 492 7262 X / \ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Why don't the Usenet authorities in that case simply set their own software not to accept any HTML in postings. The ones that come through here to *my* telecom group just get tossed out. PAT] ------------------------------ From: joe@obilivan.net Subject: Re: A Vonage Hack or, Is This the Party to Whom I am Connected? Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 11:52:43 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications John R Levine wrote: > Vonage has a nice call transfer feature. If you're on the phone with > party A, you can flash, dial #90, party B's number, # and hang up. It > then calls party B and the call continues between A and B. I use it > to transfer to my ILEC phone when my net connection is crummy, to my > cell phone when I have to leave, etc. You can use it regardless of > whether you or party A originated the first call. > The hack is that when party B's phone rings, the CLID displayed is > party A's, even if you made both calls. That is, call A, then > transfer to B, and B sees a call from A, not from you. Just think of > the fun you can have. It works even if A is an 800 number. Neat, isn't it. I've already sent recorded airport information to a couple of my pilot friends who have Caller ID. It appears to them that the Kennedy Airport Terminal Information Service roboton is calling them. ;-) I understand the feds are worried about Vonage being used by gangstas and bin Laden jerks. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Please no more bin Laden stories here. If the US goverment had any sense they would have treated that World Trade Center thing as the **mass murder** it was rather than a 'terrorist act' which Dubya wanted so desparatly to happen. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Tell Me Service Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 19:48:27 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On Wed, 14 May 2003 05:51:58 -0400, Michael Andrews, Sr. wrote: > What is the number please? If you mean the number of the service it's 1-800-555-TELL (1-800-555-8355) > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, 800-555-1212 will get you first > hand experience with them. I am sure they probably have an administra- > tive number as well, I just do not know the number. Maybe someone > else knows. PAT] 1-800-555-1212 is now run by Tell Me with voice response. If you are unsuccessful you can reach a real operator, but only during their working hours. On off hours no operator is available. AT&T really wanted to drop toll-free directory entirely, but I guess this was the best they could do. Replies are seldom read. Please reply in the group ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Tell Me Service Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 11:55:31 GMT > What is the number please? The number for Tell Me service is 1/800-555-TELL. The technology is pretty fun, and works about as well (and as poorly) as most voice technology these days. If you speak clearly through a clean connection, the system will generally understand you. If you're using a speakerphone or other less clean connection, or if you speak quickly, or slur your works, or if you have an accent, you won't have much luck. Sadly, the services provided by 555-TELL don't work nearly as well. The traffic system not only uses bad data, but can't even correctly produce the little data it has. My (one) experience with the movie system gave me out-of-date information. The system also offers point-to-point directions, IMO the most useful feature, even though it crashes every so often ("a system error has prevented ..."). -Joel ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 12:56:39 -0600 From: Paul Migliorelli (+1 3 0 3 5 4 3 2 3 1 1) Subject: Re: TELL-me; 800-555 Numbers I remember seeing both with Tellme's phonebooth, and it's wakeup call option, at first, on caller i d, a 6 4 0 number would be sent. If you called it, you'd get the Tellme lady autattendant for admin offices. I think later on the number shown was the 800 555 tell number. Then it would also show another number and if you called it, you'd get an explanation of what tellme was with the option to be connected there. ------------------------------ From: Steven J. Sobol Subject: Re: TELL-me; 800-555 Numbers Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 02:17:37 -0000 Organization: JustThe.net LLC From Mark J Cuccia (mcuccia@tulane.edu): > I don't offhand know the administrative number of "Tell-Me", neither a > toll-free 800/888/877/866 type number nor a California NPA based "POTS" > number. I don't either, though before Verizon fixed my problem of getting charged toll charges to the 555-Tell number on my Verizon Wireless phone, people were passing around the AC 408 (local) number that got you into the service... Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge, JustThe.net POTS: Toll Free from anywhere in the USA or Canada, 888.480.4NET (4638) HTTP: www.JustTheNetLLC.com MAIL: 5686 Davis Drive, Mentor on the Lake, OH 44060-2752 ------------------------------ 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #456 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu May 15 18:42:56 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4FMguS16488; Thu, 15 May 2003 18:42:56 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 18:42:56 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305152242.h4FMguS16488@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #457 TELECOM Digest Thu, 15 May 2003 18:43:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 457 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Retail Future: Painless Checkout, Knowing Scanners (Monty Solomon) "I'm Just Dave" (Monty Solomon) The Exterminator (Monty Solomon) The NoCat Night Light - 802.11b Light Bulb (Monty Solomon) Challenge Response (Joey Lindstrom) Re: Spit Or Spamola (Joey Lindstrom) WIN 36 D Manual (Eric) Qwest Creditors Give It Time To Submit '02 Financials (Eric Friedebach) Re: TidBITS Editors Warn That Antispam C-R Will be Ignored (P Wallich) 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs (50 Wires)? (Lain) SMS Come to Home Phone in France (Jean-Bernard CONDAT) Re: Connecting Two Wireless Routers in One Network (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) I Think I am Free of Them Now ... (TELECOM Digest Editor) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 02:08:11 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Retail Future: Painless Checkout, Knowing Scanners By Paul Hoskins BERLIN, May 13 (Reuters) - Bean tins with radio transmitter chips, smart shelves that know when to restock and automatic checkout simply by pushing a loaded trolley past a sensor -- supermarket fantasy? No, it's German retail giant Metro AG's (DE:MEOG) vision of the near future, already ringing up the tills in the sleepy northern town of Rheinberg. Metro's "Future Store Initiative," a collection of technology aimed at boosting store efficiency, micro-marketing and ending long checkout queues, is also on display here at the Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) conference, where Europe's major retailer and consumer brands are plotting the future of shopping. Metro and its partners, including chip giant Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) and software group SAP , are seeking to usher out the decades-long reign of the bar code in favour of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips, which can provide information passively and are now as small as half a grain of rice. When queried by a radio device, RFID chips respond by transmitting a unique ID code, often using energy from the initial radio signal to power their reply. As the RFID technology falls in cost -- to as little as three cents per chip in the next three years -- they are expected to appear on an ever-widening array of products. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34188439 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 09:11:57 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: I'm Just Dave Shorn of cellular service and cable systems, AT&T seems destined for history's dustbin. But David Dorman, Ma Bell's folksy new chief, is proving it's too soon to count the old gal out. The top post at AT&T had once been the most prestigious perch in corporate America. But by the time David Dorman took the job six months ago, the obvious question was why anyone in their right mind would want it. Dorman's predecessor, C. Michael Armstrong, had tried to brake the company's decline in long-distance service with $110 billion in acquisitions that briefly turned AT&T into the country's largest cable system operator. The gambit proved distracting and futile. Chastened by Wall Street, AT&T ended up going through its third major breakup, spinning off its cellular business and -- on the same day Dorman assumed command -- selling the cable business to Comcast. What was left of AT&T looked so uninviting that Armstrong jumped to Comcast rather than sticking around. In a further humiliating touch, the company's stately Basking Ridge, N.J. headquarters also was hawked, and executives relocated to smaller digs. Dorman took over a phone business that was shrinking fast, and a global data network in a world glutted with fiber. It has been a Sisyphean struggle. Last year AT&T's noncable revenue slid 10% for the second year in a row. The company loses 300,000 consumer accounts a month, sending revenue in that critical segment down a jaw-dropping 22%. Cleaving AT&T from its cable business didn't help matters. Instead, the new AT&T shares promptly began a steady slide, losing half their value by April. That left the company's market capitalization at $11 billion, compared with $110 billion five years earlier. Only a face-saving 1-for-5 reverse stock split kept the shares with the famous symbol "T" from trading in the $2 range. These days the shrunken company is frequently mentioned as a bite-size acquisition for one of the powerful local phone companies that AT&T spawned 20 years ago. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34131486 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 09:14:04 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Exterminator Bug-ridden programs are savagely costly. Microsoft engineer Amitabh Srivastava may have just what we need -- a software insecticide. A strange thing happened last spring to the Board of Directors web page of furniture maker Herman Miller, Inc. Instead of seeing the company's quarterly numbers, staffers saw a Star of David and a sad face. The chief executive thought someone was mocking his Protestant faith. Computer security chief Dennis Peasley thought, "This has to be a hack." But it was no hack, just a software glitch in how Microsoft's PowerPoint program recognized Herman Miller's custom fonts. Amitabh Srivastava, a computer scientist deep inside Microsoft Research, is the guy Microsoft is counting on to automate and accelerate the process of purging mistakes. "The impression is that we don't write very good software," says Srivastava. "Every time my computer crashes, it is a reminder of my failure." Computer bugs have been around since malfunctions in a 1945 Mark II were blamed (facetiously) on a moth trapped in a relay. Nowadays the term refers to programming flaws--commands that don't accomplish the desired result because computers have a habit of following the letter rather than the spirit of the instructions handed to them. The cost to customers of these flaws is necessarily a nebulous figure, but for what it's worth a National Institute of Standards & Technology report puts it at $38 billion a year. Evaluating only the cost of intrusions by hackers, who exploit flaws in computer security, Gartner Group comes up with $5.4 billion a year. Srivastava's fix is an arsenal of tools that help code testers fumigate buggy code. He has a big fan in Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. "Software quality is about removing or preventing defects. The sooner any defect is caught, the better--ideally, they are simply never coded," says Gates. Building clean code is getting more daunting, especially for Microsoft . The Windows operating system has 50 million lines of code (a line averages 60 characters) and grows 20% with every release. It's put together by 7,200 people, comes in 34 languages and has to support 190,000 devices -- different models of digital cameras, printers, handhelds and so on. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34131541 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 09:19:11 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The NoCat Night Light - 802.11b light bulb How many cats does it take to screw in a light bulb? Contributed by: Rob Flickenger Back in March 2003, some friends and I were hanging out at a really good coffee shop in Sebastopol. This particular coffee joint is housed in an old wooden train station building, with very high ceilings, old style hanging industrial lamps, and even a couple of old trains serving as small shops, still on the tracks. Unfortunately, there's no wireless available at this shop (there was, once upon a time, back when O'Reilly was located across the street from it. But that was ages ago, and even then the signal wasn't all that it could have been.) As we sat around drinking our high octane beverages, we got to talking about the best way to provide coverage in such a huge space. The room we were in was a common room, open at all hours (the front enterance is huge, and doesn't even have a door.) While you could put an access point in one of the enclosed shops in the building, coverage in the open area would likely be spotty at best. You would want the AP to be located high up off the ground, where everyone could see it. Almost simultaneously, we all looked up and noticed the lamps hanging from the wooden rafters. What if you could house an AP in a package the size of a large lightbulb, and install it in an existing light socket? This seemed like a good idea, but how would you get network access to it without running CAT5 to the socket? Easy: Powerline Ethernet. http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/h/352 ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 08:07:34 -0600 Subject: Challenge Response Reply-To: joey@telussucks.info On Wed, 14 May 2003 17:46:21 -0400 (EDT), editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: > Now I have just a little peanut-size Digest; I am sure many guys have > much larger mailing lists and publish more frequently than myself, > and probably more messages in each issue, but I really feel that those > of us who are Usenet moderators or mailing list managers have to take > on the extra duties needed to make our lists work. So if you have to > spend an hour or so copying all your names onto a whitelist, what is > the big deal? You cannot expect your users to have to carry this > extra burden. PAT] I agree. I've been lobbing feedback at the authors of the MDaemon mail server (which I use) for about a year now asking for this feature, and while it hasn't turned up yet, they seem to be very positive about the idea. I agree that the big problem with C-R is mailing lists. What will overcome it is cooperation between developers of mail server software and mailing list software (which in some cases is the same developer - MDaemon includes a built-in mailing list facility). There are big challenges to overcome insofar as the initial signup to a mailing list is concerned. But on an ongoing basis, there are easy fixes. The simplest would be a new header line, maybe "X-Mailing-List:", that could be whitelisted by the recipient. That way, no matter who each message in the list is "from:", it will pass through. Yes, spammers could take advantage of this, but think about it. If a spammer decided to take advantage of *THIS* list by substituting his own "X-Mailing-List: TelecomDigest" line into his spam, it will only work for spam sent to subscribers of *THIS* list. It won't work for anyone else. Given the very, very small return rates that spammers get, it would be very uneconomical for a spammer to bother with this. The other thing that could be done is at the server level, but this would require the development of a new mail protocol, something that would allow a receiving system to verify a sending system is "legitimate" (and I'll leave the criteria for determining that as a topic for debate). But if we had the will to do that, then we likely wouldn't need challenge-response in the first place. -- Joey Lindstrom -- Telus Sucks http://www.telussucks.info ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 08:34:43 -0600 Subject: Re: Spit Or Spamola Reply-To: joey@telussucks.info On Wed, 14 May 2003 19:59:58 -0400 (EDT), editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: > They are all horrible. Why would Microsoft or any reputable company > consider installing computers in them? PAT] You've just answered your own question. Microsoft is not a reputable company. -- Joey Lindstrom -- Telus Sucks http://www.telussucks.info [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, in the grand scheme of things, they are a reputable company, in the same way that Southwestern Bell is a reputable company. They are not dishonest or an FBI shill, for example (like cameraware.com). Microsoft does not steal money from their customers. Many guys on the net do not like Microsoft and make mock of Bill Gates and his things, but overall, Microsoft is an honest and reputable company, just like Southwestern Bell. Why they would get into the business of stocking filthy toilets with computers is quite beyond me. PAT] ------------------------------ From: t568aort568b@aol.com (Eric) Subject: WIN 36 D Manual Date: 15 May 2003 08:40:43 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I am looking for a programing manual for a WIN 36D phone system. Thanks in advance! ------------------------------ From: Eric Friedebach Subject: Qwest Creditors Give It Time To Submit '02 Financials Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 11:50:03 -0500 Organization: Purity Of Essence/Plant Operational Error Reply-To: Eric Friedebach Tara Murphy, 05.15.03, Forbes.com NEW YORK - Making headlines this morning, Qwest Communications International says its creditors gave it until July 15 to submit its 2002 financial results. The telecom needed more time to restate $2.2 billion in revenue for 2000 and 2001, as part of a probe into whether Qwest inflated its revenue by improperly booking sales and swapping network capacity. Qwest is upholding its 2003 financial guidance, calling for its revenue decline to be in line or less than last year's 7.5% drop. http://www.forbes.com/2003/05/15/cx_tm_0515video1.html Eric Friedebach [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Did any of you defenders of 'quasi- government agencies' happen to notice in the news recently how the New York Transit Authority was caught misconfiguring their books and records to show multi-million dollar losses over a two year period (when in fact they had made a small profit) as a way to justify a fare increase? And people wonder why I say so much of our federal and state government is corrupt; rotten to the core. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Paul Wallich Subject: Re: TidBITS Editors Warn Readers That Antispam C-Rs Will be Ignored Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 13:09:53 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In article , johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) wrote: >>> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wonder why it is so many people are >>> opposed to this obviously good spam-fighting technique. I wonder also >> As a mailing-list administrator, I'm surprised you don't appreciate it. >> What do you plan to do if you start getting hundreds of challenges a day? > Actually, the mailing list is run by majordomo2 on my network. And I > do the same thing with challenges that every other list manager does. > I ignore them. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe that explains things a little > better. People send email asking you to validate and you ignore their > request. Then the same person writes me a personal note saying 'why > am I not getting the Digest?' and they do have my personal name on > the white list so they get an answer from me personally but still do > not get any issues of the Digest. :( I tell them in essence 'try > again with majordomo' and they tell me they are trying but not getting > any results. Would you **please** at least edit any acknowledgement > file sent out by majordomo to include a statement saying 'you must > white list 'ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu' and *@telecom-digest.org to > receive this publication. But Pat, depending on how the challenge-response software is set up (usually badly) the users are never going to see those files. The majordomo acks and associated info will just get dumped because the addresses are not on a whitelist and don't respond to challenges. It's a catch-22. paul [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well hopefully the issue has receieved enough publicity recently that when people want to sign up to get this TELECOM Digest by email they will know to whitelist the Digest addresses. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Hans Lain Subject: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs (50 Wires)? Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 13:32:08 -0700 Organization: Global Crossing Telecommunications Just curious - 66-block - why is it called such when it has 25-pairs (50 wires)? Thanks, Hans [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think if you count the number of punchdown places you will find 66 of them. The reason for the extras is that a few of the punchdowns are multipled elsewhere on the block and there are also some spares to attach 'foreign' (in re the Bell System's old days) equipment, such as all the phones on the block being able to use a common loud speaker page, etc. also 'tied onto' the 66 block. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jean-Bernard CONDAT Subject: SMS Come to Home Phone in France Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 07:17:41 +0200 Organization: Chrystol, B.P. 59, 93402 Saint-Ouen Cedex, France The passion of French people for SMS (Short Message Services) will be more and more actual. All ads will be present in a 160-characters SMS format and receive on a portable phone. Three operators accept this kind of spamming: Orange (a sub. of France Telecom), SFR (Cegetel) and Bouygues Telecoms (DECT-type comms). Orange win the war for having a "technology in advance" again the two others official operators. You can send with one-finger typing method and without grammatical errors (!) a 160-characters from one portable Orange phone ... to another portable phone, a home phone, an ADSL phone or an email. The sending of an SMS for a group will be possible soonly. If the destinataire don't have a SMS-compatible phone, the message will be transmit by an automated voice message. The sending of a SMS costs 0,15 euro (taxes included). The acknoledge receipt cost the same price if the SMS is sending on a new SMS-compatible phone (price of this phone: between 80 and 150 euros). Do you have the same stupid and expensive service in other countries than France? Jean-Bernard Condat CHRYSTOL (first patent & trademark European insurance) B.P. 59, 93402 Saint-Ouen Cedex, France condat@chrystol.com tel:/fax: +33 153013874 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Connecting Two Wireless Routers in One Network Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 11:49:51 GMT > You want ONE router and the rest ACCESS POINTS. The access points > should be tied to the hardwired ethernet ports of the router. This > way, all the wireless traffic is on the same subnet, and you can move > from one to another without losing your connection. Can the access points be connected wirelessly, something like this: T1 -cable-> WIRELESS ROUTER -wireless-> ACCESS1 -wireless-> ACCESS2 etc. That way, say, the 10th access point can be far away from the T1, but still wirelessly connected to it. Or doesn't it work that way? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 01:15:24 -0400 (EDT) From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: I Think I am Free of Them Now ... Some readers may recall that about one week ago, I finally got the needed courage to totally dump Southwestern Bell and go with one of their local competitors here in Independence. Their voicemail hell, long times to wait in queue for a representative and the typical rep's arrogance and ignorance finally got through to me. That, and the fact that although as a medically disabled senior citizen receiving Social Security disability payments I receive a special rate from SWB called 'Life Line' service, my monthly bill kept getting higher and higher. I had to call them monthly to get corrections made on the bill. Although they promised over a month ago to reduce my bill (or the DSL portion of the bill) by $20 per month, at first they tried to ignore that promise totally; then after I called and reminded them of their promise they tried to claim they could not do it. Then after I yelled about that, they agreed 'maybe they could knock off $15 each month provided I signed a contract for another full year of service just as things were; with no changes (other than the reduction on DSL pricing.) Then I found out that new DSL customers were already getting the service for $20 per month less than what I had to pay, with no contracts. I went over to see Duane, one of the owners of the local ISP who had in fact started a CLEC a few months ago. Fully qualified CLEC (not just a broker) with co-located equipment in the CO here in town. I keep the same phone numbers, (LNP), etc. $24.95 plus tax per month with a whole raft of features that SWB was charging extra on each month. Trouble was, he could not convert me from Southwestern Bell as long as I had DSL service. SWB will *not* convert DSL customers! So he told me go over to our local cable suppler and get Internet service from him instead. I got the cable internet turned on the same day, called Bell to get theirs turned off, and went back to Prairie Stream (local telco)to see Duane. He put the conversion order in the same day with SBC. That was last Friday. SWB continued to squabble and fuss about it. First they said that since the DSL had not been officially turned off they could do nothing. That order went through from SWB finally Tuesday. Duane tried again. This time SWB said there was a lock on my account against giving it away. NOT SO! I called SWB/SBC back again and told them to please let go of the line. We might do it soon, they said. Today, (Thursday, nearly a week after this started) I got back to Duane and SWB/SBC had some other excuse. I think they felt if they kept stalling long enough I would eventually get over being sore at them and quit trying to get the line. Finally, this afternoon I got a call from the clerk at Prairie Stream saying the conversion had been completed. Local service, call-waiting, caller ID, three way calling, other features and 100 minutes of long distance anywhere in the USA for $24.95 per month plus tax, total about $37 per month. The cable internet replaces the DSL, and Cable One sells it routinely for $5 per month less than SBC's DSL, however since I also get cable TV they knocked off another $10 per month. Price-wise, I will be paying about the same as I paid before with cable now getting more and phone (via Prairie Stream) getting much less, but it nets out to $5-7 per month less in total. But it was not just the money ... it was the overall corporate attitude of SBC. I asked Duane who was their operator services company. His eyes got sort of big as he looked at me, as if to say 'well you do know a few things about this business, dont you?' Honestly I expected he would say it was one of the bottom feeders, Pilgrim or Integratel or one of those so he could make some money. It turns out operator services is still handled by SBC, the same place they get their copper pairs. But otherwise Prairie Stream is a licensed, fully qualified telco in Kansas, 'in competion with' SBC. The only things I have noticed different so far this evening are a couple minor things; differences in the ESS switch generics, just tiny little audible differences in the ringing and busy signal sounds, cadence, etc. Tomorrow morning I must remember to go to the bank and see the manager and ask her to dishonor, and refuse to pay any further autodrafts from SBC. I will keep you notified of how it goes otherwise. Patrick ------------------------------ 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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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 #457 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri May 16 03:05:48 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4G75mZ18753; Fri, 16 May 2003 03:05:48 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 03:05:48 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305160705.h4G75mZ18753@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #458 TELECOM Digest Fri, 16 May 2003 03:06:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 458 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics Enter cdma2000 (Monty Solomon) Motorola Improves Customer Service: New Two-Way Radio (Monty Solomon) CIENA Launches LightWorks Services to Improve Economics (Monty Solomon) T-Mobile Says Scraps Microsoft Smart Phone Launch (Monty Solomon) MSN For Mac OS X Launch Boosts Mac Users' Online Experience (M Solomon) Web Profiling Is Getting Personal/Database Companies Collate (M Solomon) Backhoe Accident Cuts Boston Net Service (Monty Solomon) Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs (John Stahl) Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs (M Bartlett) Verizon Sets Up Phone Booths to Give Access to the Internet (M Solomon) ***Not For Publication, Please*** (Name Withheld) Re: I Think I am Free of Them Now ... (Steven J. Sobol) Re: SMS Come to Home Phone in France (Joseph) Re: From the Archives: 19th Century Telegraphers (Dave Garland) 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, 15 May 2003 21:11:34 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics Enter cdma2000(R) Open CDMA Chipset Offers Unprecedented Choices for cdma2000(R) Handset Manufacturers DALLAS and GENEVA, May 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Wireless industry leaders join efforts to stimulate an open environment for CDMA handsets -- STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM) (ST), Texas Instruments Incorporated (NYSE:TXN) (TI), and Nokia (NYSE:NOK) today announced that TI and ST will offer ICs, based on technology developed jointly with Nokia that together compose standard CDMA chipsets. The chipset ICs will be marketed by ST and TI to handset manufacturers worldwide for cdma2000 1X and 1xEV-DV (1x Evolution for Data and Voice) mobile Internet handsets. This technology has been incorporated in the Nokia-specific chipset used in its cdma2000 1X phones, and following generations of this technology will be used in Nokia-specific chipsets for future 1xEV-DV handsets. Availability of qualified samples of the cdma2000 1X chipset is expected next quarter. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34201916 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 21:12:25 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Motorola Improves Customer Service with New Two-Way Radio Technology for The Restaurant and Retail Industries - May 15, 2003 07:00 AM (PR Newswire) CLS Series Provides Reliable Communication in Fast-Paced Environments ATLANTA, May 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Building on its history of success with two-way radio technology, Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT) announced today its newest line of business two-way radios: the CLS Series. Recognizing the need for a compact, easy-to-use solution, Motorola CLS Series business two-way radios provide retail and restaurant users the ability to communicate in fast-paced environments while maintaining superior customer service. The Motorola CLS Series radios have been designed to answer the growing demand of retail and restaurant users who are looking for a lightweight and affordable wireless communication solution to help maintain business efficiency and competitive edge. With an easily accessible Push-To-Talk (PTT) button on the front of the radio combined with the headset accessory, users can have instant access to co-workers and easily manage requests and tasks with hands-free convenience (hands-free available on 1410 model with optional accessory). - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34202183 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 21:15:33 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CIENA Launches LightWorks Services to Improve Economics CIENA Launches LightWorks Services to Improve Economics of Service Delivery and Enable Carrier-Class, High-Bandwidth Data Services - May 15, 2003 08:05 AM (BusinessWire) LINTHICUM, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 15, 2003-- Company Enters Next Phase of Network Strategy, Improving Carriers' Service Profitability While Maximizing Existing Infrastructure of its network strategy with the launch of its LightWorks(TM) Services initiative. The initiative includes an extension of CIENA's distributed intelligence across all products, and the addition of data-focused features and products to the Company's existing solutions portfolio. This will result in a lowering of service providers' capital and operating costs (CAPEX/OPEX), thereby enabling them to improve the efficiency and profitability of their traditional service offerings. The initiative also allows carriers to use their existing network infrastructure more efficiently and to create new opportunities in the substantial enterprise data services market. Today's network traffic is predominantly data, yet the majority of carrier revenue comes from voice traffic. LightWorks Services is CIENA's solution for service providers who want to use a single network to provide multiple traditional data services, such as private lines, ATM and Frame Relay, without sacrificing carrier-class reliability. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34203233 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 21:16:52 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: T-Mobile Says Scraps Microsoft sSart Phone Launch BONN, May 15 (Reuters) - Europe's second largest mobile phone operator T-Mobile International [TMOG.UL] said on Thursday it had shelved plans to introduce a mobile phone powered by Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) software. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34204424 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 21:18:23 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: MSN for Mac OS X Launch Boosts Mac Users' Online Experience MSN Subscription Services Now Available on Macintosh OS X for the First Time REDMOND, Wash., May 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) today announced the broad availability of MSN(R) services to users of Mac OS X with the premiere of MSN for Mac OS X, the first Internet subscription service from MSN built specifically for consumers using Mac OS X. Users of Mac OS X in the United States can now boast a better Web experience, with top-requested features including a powerful junk e-mail filter with multiple layers of filtering; customizable parental controls that help parents protect their children from inappropriate online content and limit communication with strangers; and free, round-the-clock, Mac-specific customer support. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34204823 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 21:56:19 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Web Profiling Is Getting Personal / Database Companies Collate Web Profiling Is Getting Personal Database Companies Collate Life Stories From Records By MIKE SWIFT, Courant Staff Writer Rakesh Gupta probably has a file on you. His company probably knows how much money you make, what risks you're willing to take when you invest, your race, perhaps even your religious faith. Gupta's company, infoUSA, is in the business of allowing anybody with a computer and a credit card to learn those things about you, too. InfoUSA probably has even given you a number, a 12-digit code it uses to track 220 million Americans, no matter where they move - theoretically for life. Compiled from sources drawn from thousands of public records and proprietary sources, infoUSA claims to have built the best consumer databases in a rapidly growing industry. Gupta says there is a "tremendous" appetite for infoUSA's data. http://www.ctnow.com/hc-omniscient0504.artmay04.story ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 23:02:25 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Backhoe Accident Cuts Boston Net service By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 5/14/2003 An errant backhoe blade wrought havoc on Internet service throughout Boston yesterday, and The Boston Globe's Internet site, Boston.com, was among the victims, as was the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. Workers accidentally sliced through a fiber-optic data cable used by Dallas-based Allegiance Telecom Inc., a telecommunications company that hosts the server computers of Boston.com and other local businesses. The accident, which occurred at about 6:45 a.m., disrupted Internet services throughout the day. Randy Brandenburg, Boston.com vice president of product and technology, said the website actually never lost contact with the Internet because it has a secondary data connection. Unfortunately, the domain name service (DNS) computer for the site was still operated by Allegiance, and was knocked offline. A DNS computer is part of a global network of machines that direct visitors to the correct Web servers. If DNS is down, it doesn't matter whether the Web server is working, because Internet users will have no way of reaching the server. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/134/business/Backhoe_accident_cuts_Boston_Net_service+.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 21:29:31 -0400 From: John Stahl Subject: Re.: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs I recall that it was named as such by Western Electric (they owned the patents on it) because (conflicting stories here!) it was either introduced or Patented in 1966 or maybe just because the contact looked something like the letter-J. The designation had nothing to do with the size or capacity of the block - (does a RJ11 have 11-contacts?) The Bell Syatem later (about the mid to late 80's time frame, so it was called the 88-block) designed a smaller more compact punch-down "system" (called the 88-block) at the request of the then Bell Operating Companies (BOC's) which was unanimously rejected by the BOC's due to three factors: a) the need for new hand assembly (punch-down) tools, b) additional items had to be stocked and carried by the installers (new design consisted of two basic parts: frame and contact blocks of several sizes) and, 3) the design was far more flimsy than the 66-block "standard". However, this changed design was later resurrected after the divestiture (1994) of the "Bell" System by the new supply "arm", Lucent, who renamed it the 110-connecting block and sold to the developing CPE market. (The story I heard from a reliable source at AT&T was that someone found all the tooling and samples they had made (back in 1988) for the BOC's, figured it was better to try selling it than to scrap it, and handed it to their new sales force to run with it to this emerging new market. Bingo, the 110-series has now out-sold the 66-blocks (it can pass higher standards such as CAT5 and 6, etc. due to smaller size) but will never attain the high reliability levels of the "original" 66-block design (just can't seem to kill it!) That's the way I heard it some years ago from a couple of retired WECO people who claimed to be involved in the punch-down block design and manufacture. John Stahl Telecom Consultant Aljon Enterprises ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 02:54:09 +0000 (GMT) From: Matt Bartlett Subject: Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs Organization: Optimum Online Actually, Pat, I belive 66 Blocks are called that due to the size of the IDC punchdowns. They are 66mm, as the 110 blocks are 110mm. Hans Lain wrote in message news:telecom22.457.10@telecom-digest.org: > Just curious - 66-block - why is it called such when it has 25-pairs (50 > wires)? > Thanks, > Hans > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think if you count the number of > punchdown places you will find 66 of them. The reason for the extras > is that a few of the punchdowns are multipled elsewhere on the block > and there are also some spares to attach 'foreign' (in re the Bell > System's old days) equipment, such as all the phones on the block > being able to use a common loud speaker page, etc. also 'tied onto' > the 66 block. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 23:04:05 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon Sets Up Phone Booths to Give Access to the Internet By BARNABY J. FEDER Verizon Communications yesterday introduced one of the oldest items in its inventory -- the humble phone booth -- as its newest weapon in the bitter competition to dominate the broadband communications market of the future. Verizon said that subscribers to its high-speed Internet access service would be able to go online wirelessly at no charge when they are near a Verizon phone booth in Manhattan. Verizon said that 150 phone booths -- from the Battery to Columbia University -- had already been equipped with radio-signal technology, popularly known as Wi-Fi, to enable mobile computer users who are within 300 feet of a booth to connect to the Internet. About 1,000 booths covering virtually all of Manhattan and a few spots in the other boroughs will become Wi-Fi "hot spots" by the end of the year, the company said. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/14/technology/14NET.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 20:04:50 PDT From: Name Withheld Subject: ***Not For Publication, Please*** Hi Pat: A few issues ago you referred to, in your comment following a posting from a while ago that you reposted, the old Western Union public office in ... Chicago! You mentioned that you could describe it if anyone wanted to hear about it, well, I for one WOULD like to hear about it! There was one here, in San Francisco, through the mid-late 1980's, but it was pretty much like a Currency Exchange inside, and it seemed mainly to function as a place to wire or to receive wired money. It was NOT well appointed in any way. I guess they ended up closing it down around the time when liquor stores all over town became Western Union contract agents. As always, I'd like to hear reminiscences about the old home town! My two cents, please don't publish this as I don't need to get the shit spammed outta me again like I did when you posted my remarks to Withheld! Thanks again from Withheld. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, the public office in Chicago was very well appointed in the very old days (1930s to 1970s or so). Then eventually they moved it a few feet to the north just as a tiny little 'currency exchange' type place, as you described yours. The cut-rate liquor stores (there are a million of them in Chicago, every block or two) all became Western Union money agents once WUTCO officially dropped the telegram business and went almost exclusively into money transfer. But while the public office was open, it was a 24 hour per day thing, with rather elegant highback leather chairs, plush carpeting, marble writing tables and a marble counter for the clerk, several spitoons discretely around the room with ashtrays, and of course a large grandfather clock (with Western Union works in it as well as one of the cream-colored dials on its face) and soft lighting. The public office was always a comfortable climate. In the back area, behind where the clerk worked, were five or six of the large teletype machines. There were usually a couple men working back there, and a woman at the counter. But sometimes as traffic (in the office and on the wires) dictated, there would be an extra person in the back or maybe two people working the counter. During overnight hours there would be one person, most often a young lady, working both the counter and the machines in back as needed. I think the circuits to the teletype machines were wired in a 'hunt' fashion, where if the first machine was in use when a second message came in it would 'hunt' to the second machine and so on. Usually there was always a din of noise in the room from the banging of the teletype keys. On very rare occassions there would be dead silence when all the machines were idle, that would happen maybe for all of ten or fifteen seconds, then suddenly you would hear a 'whir' and a 'humming' noise as the gears engaged on one of the machines and that machine would start to present a message. If all five or six of the machines were going at the same time it did get a little bit noisy. Then gradually all would be dead silence and about fifteen seconds later, that 'whir and hum' would start again, followed a few seconds later by the keys hitting the carriage as another message rolled in, or maybe the little bell would ding anxiously a few times to say its roll of paper was depleted, or maybe the distant operator was trying to get the attention of the telegrapher on this end of the line. One of the guys would walk over, install or untangle the paper jam and get it started again. Usually the one or two guys working in the back worked all five or six machines, just going from one to another, tearing off a sheet of paper with a message or sending out a message. There was a spindle like thing where the clerks put the new outgoing messages, and from which the guys in the back would take things to go out. Although the office had no air conditioning, it was always rather cool since there were several overhead fans which were running most of the time. The phone was *always* ringing with customers calling in their outgoing messages, which the clerk would write down to put on the spindle. The clerk had to both 'work the counter', answer the phone and account for the money. Western Union phones were *always* some exchange-4321, but the office in Chicago had WABash 4321 for the public office and WABash 7111 for the switchboard in the HQ upstairs. There was a sort of rule that if there was only one clerk (often times the case) and there was both a phone call and a customer at the counter the customer came first, which possibly explains why the phone would ring so incessantly; the clerks got to it when they could. Many times the phone was answered with the single word 'Hold ...' and the phone reciever set back down on the desk for a few minutes while the clerk finished whatever. I guess WUTCO felt it was better to allow the phone to ring 20-30 times, then be answered and left on the desk for a few minutes. Voicemail and holding in a queue was a later thing anyway. I will say the clerks were usually sort of harassed by the constant phone calls and the line of customers waiting. If you went in the public telegraph office to send a message, you first went to the marble writing desk, took one of the forms, and using the fountain pen provided you would (preferably) carefully print out the message you wanted to send, and include the name and address of the recipient and your own name and address. Then you walked over with your piece of yellow paper and handed it to the clerk. She would put on her glasses, review your message for legibilty and count the number of words. Quite often she might look over her glasses and squint at the paper then look at you and say 'what is this word here?' You told her, and with her red pencil like a school teacher examining your work she would circle the illegible word and pencil it in more carefully elsewhere on the page. Then after all the editorial work was finished, she would count up the words and tell you that will be $1.25 if you want immediate delivery today or seventy five cents if you don't mind having it held over as a night telegram to be sent tonight. Or whatever. You would hand her the money, she would put in in the cash box and with her various rubber stamp indicias proceed to clobber the paper with rubber stamps, and initial them as she was doing it. Then the message would go on the spindle or maybe the man in back would take it and proceed to send it over the wires. If you told her you were going to wait for an answer to come back, you would go be seated in the waiting room area. Periodically, the men in the back would hand something over to the clerk who would read it, fold it and put it an envelope, then to the room at large she would say, 'message recieved for Mr. Johnson' (or whomever) and if Mr. Johnson was there waiting, he would get up, come over to the counter and collect his message, then leave. All the time this was going on, the phone would be ringing continuously. The clerks knew what the messages said, they had to read them as they folded them up to go in envelopes, etc. And the clerks could turn their emotions on and off along with each customer they dealt with. A message would be handed to her from the back saying 'grandma passed away at 10 last night, will you come home for the funeral?' The clerk would say 'a message for Mr. and Mrs. Johnson' and when the man and his wife came up to the counter expecting to hear the worst, as they opened the envelope and read the worst maybe the wife would clutch her husband's hand they both would be silent. The clerk would frown and say that's really terrible news, I sure am sorry ... Then the next piece of paper handed to her from the back said 'junior graduated from high school' and as the clerk called for the Smiths to come to the counter, she was all smiles. 'He must be a very bright boy. I bet you are really proud of him, honey' Of course the Smiths were glad to get this news and smiled back at the clerk. The clerk turned on smiles and tears almost constantly with the customer she was with, depending on the news they had received. And the clerk was also very kind as needed. If the customer was illiterate (and many folks were in those days, unable to write much except their names, and very poor reading skills) the clerk was expected to help them also. If you told her, in ten minutes and a couple thousand words what you wanted conveyed, she would listen very patiently and print it out carefully in her red pencil in ten or twelve words. But in those cases where the clerk had to write the message out for an illiterate customer, there had to be a special rubber stamp indicia go on the back side: it said 'my name is (name), I am an employee of Western Union in the Chicago Public Office. The message on the reverse side was written by myself as it was dictated to me by (name), the sender.' Then Name was expected to sign back there also, or scrawl his mark or whatever to show he wanted the message sent. Then the clerk would take his money, and put the message on the spindle like any other. Now and again messages would come in for illiterate customers also. Incoming messages were always placed in an envelope for the customer's privacy. The clerk would announce 'message for Mr. Johnson' and Johnson would come forward. He would never admit that he could not read: his excuse always was 'I forgot to bring my glasses, could you help me with it?' and the clerk would hand him the sealed envelope for *him* to open and hand her the message he wanted 'help with reading'. She would read it to him, but had a similar indicia: 'customer (name) asked for assistance in reading this message. My name is (name), I am an employee of Western Union in Chicago. When the customer signed that or put his mark there, then she would read the message to him. Meanwhile the old Bell System 300 set on her desk would ring another 20 times; she would eventually answer it, tell the caller 'hold ...' and go back to what she was doing reading Mr. Johnson's message to him and explaining it as needed. The Western Union Public Offices were always very dignified places, and the clerks and telegraphers were always very efficient and quite honest. They all had to sign an agreement when they came to work for WUTCO saying they understood and would not violate the FCC rules pertaining to secrecy in communications and they would get fired if they did violate that regulation from FCC. In most towns, especially smaller places, usually the telegraph office was connected to the bus station or the train station, since those were 24 hour operations also. Many times the overnight telegraph agent was also the bus agent. It helped keep payroll costs down during the overnight hours. An aquaintence of mine was employed by the telegraph agent in Hammond, Indiana back in 1955 or so. He told me there were times that some of the messages people sent would literally break your heart. Like most, they worked out of the bus terminal building there in Hammond (the old one). He said one day the morning bus came through and a very cheerful, all smiles young lady got off the bus, collected her suitcase and came right in his office. She told him 'my mother said to send a telegram immediatly when I got here to let her know I was okay'. This young lady, all smiles, wrote her message up and handed it to Randy (my friend) to be sent. (There they did not have a clerk and a fancy office, just one guy to operate the machines and do it all.) Randy took her money, and sat down at the typewriter like keyboard of the monster machine to send it. The gracious young lady thanked him and smiled as she walked away with her suitcase. He said, 'the next morning I went in the bus depot to get my morning coffee and bring it back in my office. The same young lady was there again with her suitcase, and it was obvious she had been crying. She sent another message saying "I am on the way back home." and as she paid me this time, she broke down crying again. I wanted to be of some help to her if I could, but you know, the company had strong rules about *ever* 'getting involved' with a customer or *ever* revealing their names or the contents of their messages, etc. Those were always private communications. Now technically I do not work for Western Union, I work for a private telegraph agent. But WUTCO would have leaned so heavily on my boss to fire me he would have had to do so or WUTCO would have made trouble for him if he did not. So I just had to keep my mouth shut. But there were so many times people would come in the office to send messages and you could see how they were hurting as they told you their messages and paid you for them. You just had to try and ignore it and respect their privacy.' PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steven J. Sobol Subject: Re: I Think I am Free of Them Now ... Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 22:59:48 -0000 Organization: JustThe.net LLC From TELECOM Digest Editor (): > I went over to see Duane, one of the owners of the local ISP who had > in fact started a CLEC a few months ago. Fully qualified CLEC (not > just a broker) with co-located equipment in the CO here in town. I > keep the same phone numbers, (LNP), etc. $24.95 plus tax per month > with a whole raft of features that SWB was charging extra on each > month. Trouble was, he could not convert me from Southwestern Bell as > long as I had DSL service. SWB will *not* convert DSL customers! So > he told me go over to our local cable supplier and get Internet service > from him instead. I got the cable internet turned on the same day, > called Bell to get theirs turned off, and went back to Prairie Stream > (local telco) to see Duane. He put the conversion order in the same day > with SBC. That was last Friday. You should escalate to the state PUC if necessary. Has worked for me in my many fights with SouthWorstern Beast. :> Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge, JustThe.net POTS: Toll Free from anywhere in the USA or Canada, 888.480.4NET (4638) HTTP: www.JustTheNetLLC.com MAIL: 5686 Davis Drive, Mentor on the Lake, OH 44060-2752 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Finally, Thursday, a full six days after it started I got converted totally away from Southwestern Bell, I think. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: SMS Come to Home Phone in France Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 18:25:21 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On Thu, 15 May 2003 07:17:41 +0200, Jean-Bernard CONDAT wrote: > The sending of a SMS costs 0,15 euro (taxes included). The acknoledge > receipt cost the same price if the SMS is sending on a new > SMS-compatible phone (price of this phone: between 80 and 150 euros). > Do you have the same stupid and expensive service in other countries > than France? T-Mobile US charges 5 cents (~4 Euros) per message sent. Standard plans give a 50 message incoming allowance gratis per month. Some plans used to come with a SMS allowance. My plan gives me 300 outgoing plus 50 incoming messages per month and also gives me a GPRS data allowance of 1 MB. My plan is no longer available but you can get a 500 SMS "bucket" of messages bucket of minutes for US$3 (2.6 Euros) per month. Our billing is somewhat different than the European model in that we also pay for all our incoming calls as well, but a little different than European mobile providers we commonly get large "buckets" of monthly calling minutes as opposed to most European "a la carte" per call charging schemes. Replies are seldom read. Please reply in the group ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: From the Archives: 19th Century Telegraphers Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 21:05:14 -0500 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when Linc Madison wrote: > The other railroad-related (though not telegraph-related) story, this > one verifiably true, is the naming of Coalinga, California. It was > Coaling Station A, which became Coaling A, which became Coalinga. Then there's Eleva, Wisconsin. It was originally named Little Chicago, but is reputed to have acquired its new name after fall weather turned bad faster than expected, interrupting the fellow who was painting the "Elevation 1234" marking on the local railroad water tower. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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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 #458 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri May 16 13:14:53 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4GHEr321768; Fri, 16 May 2003 13:14:53 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 13:14:53 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305161714.h4GHEr321768@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #459 TELECOM Digest Fri, 16 May 2003 13:14:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 459 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson UNE Platform CLECs (Fred Goldstein) FTC vs. Spammers; Even Though They're From Government (Danny Burstein) Verizon Battling on Broadband (Monty Solomon) Verizon Wireless Get It Now (Monty Solomon) Re: Microsoft: 'iLoo' Internet Project a Hoax (Daniel W. Johnson) Re: Backhoe Accident Cuts Boston Net Service (joe@obilivan.net) Problem With HFA3824A DSSS Baseband Processor Chip (Jude Prakash) Re: From the Archives: 19th Century Telegraphers (Mike O'Dorney) Want to Learn RF Basic (Abdu Muktar) Telecom Digest Foolishness (Ken Hoehn) Last Laugh! Another Spammer With an 800 Number (jt) 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: Fred Goldstein Subject: UNE Platform CLECs Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 10:18:44 -0400 Pat, I was curious about Prairie Stream, your local CLEC. It appears that they are one of many companies selling "UNE Platform". This was one of the big controversies at the FCC last winter, and the final rules aren't even out yet; its availability may decline over the next few years. With UNE Platform, the CLEC essentially outsources their entire network to the ILEC. They purchase the loop, the switch ports, the minutes of switch usage, and the minutes of trunk usage from the ILEC. The wholesale price for these "Unbundled Network Elements" is supposed to be based on cost, using a complex formula called TELRIC (total element long-run incremental cost). It is not supposed to take retail tariff price into account. So if the retail rate is much higher than TELRIC cost, then there's a decent profit margin for the CLEC. If the TELRIC price is too high, then UNE-P isn't profitable and is not sold -- that's the case in most "independent" ILEC areas. From the customer's point of view, the service remains the same but the bill changes. That's why they like to convert in-place lines rather than new ones. The process of taking over a line as UNE-P is simple, provided that the CLEC has bonding to the ILEC's operational support systems (OSS), and there are various outsourcing companies who provide this OSS help to CLECs. The CLEC, as the carrier of record, gets the switched access fees (minutes of use) from the long distance company. The semantics are tricky. Under FCC guidelines and indeed the way the Telecom Act is written, UNE-P CLECs are' "facilities-based". The fact that they rent all of the facilities from the ILEC is irrelevant. A "resale" CLEC is dealing in ILEC's tariffed services, at tariff-minus rates unrelated to cost. Most resellers have converted over to UNE-P. UNE-P has two main benefits. One is that it lets CLECs build up a customer base before intalling their own switch, so even a CLEC who intends to do their own switching may want to start with UNE-P. The other is that it caps the rate an ILEC can get away with charging, in this era of barely-regulated monopolies. If the ILEC retail/tariff rate gets too high, the CLECs can just sell it as UNE-P. So it helps keep ILECs honest. ILEC-affiliated DSL services are technically not regulated, not common carriers, not tariffed, so they do not have to cooperate with UNE-P. Thus the ILECs hold it hostage: If you switch your line to UNE-P, then they take away your DSL. The raw ILEC DSL bit pipe is currently common carriage, and a couple of states require ILECs to provide that to UNE-P customers. Covad's and other CLEC-owned DSLAMs are available to UNE-P, but they don't have the most widespread coverage, and their costs tend to be higher. That's why you had to switch your data provider. The ILECs would rather lose a DSL subscriber than cooperate with a UNE-P CLEC -- or they're gambling that given the choice of changing both providers or changing none, more people will change none. That's another reason to keep your personal email address separate from your ISP's domain, especially if it's a cable or ILEC-affiliated ISP. Fred Goldstein k1io fgoldstein at ionary dot com ionary Consulting http://www.ionary.com/ ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: FTC vs. Spammers; Even Though They're From the Government Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 09:16:38 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC The press release referenced below has a good description of a bunch of lawsuits and similar stuff. And it also talks about getting people to shut down open relays. Who'd have thunk it? Law Enforcement Posse Tackles Internet Scammers, Deceptive Spammers Initiative Launched to Prevent Spammers From Concealing Identity and Evading Detection "In the latest in a series of law enforcement initiatives targeting Internet fraud, the Federal Trade Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission, United States Postal Inspection Service, three United States Attorneys, four state attorneys general, and two state regulatory agencies today announced they have filed 45 criminal and civil law enforcement actions against Internet scammers and deceptive spammers. In addition to the law enforcement actions, the FTC and 21 U.S. and international agencies have launched an initiative to get organizations in 59 countries to close the open relays that allow spammers to avoid detection by spam filters and law enforcers." http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2003/05/swnetforce.htm _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 23:09:38 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon Battling on Broadband Verizon Battling on Broadband By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff, 5/14/2003 Escalating the battle to bring high-speed Internet connections to tens of millions of American homes, Verizon Communications unleashed a flurry of new offerings yesterday including cheaper and faster service -- with free high-speed wireless connections from converted pay phones thrown in as well. With cable companies such as Comcast Corp. amassing a consistent two-to-one lead over Baby Bell competitors, Verizon launched what one executive called its ''broadband big bang.'' It cut the price for its high-speed digital subscriber line service from $50 to $35 a month -- $30 for customers who add long-distance and wireless phone service -- while doubling top download speeds for many customers to match faster cable modems. DSL offerings will include new Microsoft-provided special content and services. At the same time, Verizon activated the first 150 of a planned 1,000 wireless fidelity, or WiFi, hot spots in New York City, created by converting surplus pay phones with wireless broadband Internet gear. Its DSL subscribers can use them for free with a special air card device plugged into their laptops or other wireless computer devices. Verizon expects to bring similar WiFi service to Boston and other US markets in coming months. Industry analysts said Verizon's moves were likely to turbocharge the already booming growth in broadband home Internet connections, which increased by 6.4 million homes last year, to 17.4 million total, according to Leichtman Research Group, a Durham, N.H., consulting firm. That would step up pressure on conventional dial-up service providers, such as America Online, while building bigger markets for delivering music, video, and other entertainment and information over fast Internet hookups. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/134/nation/Verizon_battling_on_broadband+.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 08:50:42 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon Wireless Get It Now Send Birthday Greetings, Well Wishes and More Using Verizon Wireless Get It Now(SM) - May 16, 2003 08:20 AM (PR Newswire) Mobile Greetings on Get It Now Lets Customers Shop for Greeting Cards From Their Wireless Phone BEDMINSTER, N.J., RALEIGH, N.C. and SAN FRANCISCO, May 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon Wireless and Mobile Greetings, Inc. today announced that Get It Now(SM) customers can now add a fun and unique touch to their everyday wishes by sending an animated greeting from their wireless phone to any e-mail address. Remembering a birthday or other special occasion has never been easier with Mobile Greetings on Get It Now. Customers can browse, preview, and choose from hundreds of animated greeting cards to be sent directly from their wireless phone from virtually anywhere. For those who are on-the-go, sending a Mobile Greetings card from their Get It Now phone means not having to miss being part of a special moment. Verizon Wireless customers can download cards from their phone or visit Mobilegreetings.com where they can manage their address book, change their profile, and check the status of purchased greetings. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34227735 ------------------------------ From: panoptes@iquest.net (Daniel W. Johnson) Subject: Re: Microsoft: 'iLoo' Internet Project a Hoax Date: 15 May 2003 21:03:00 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ howard@rumba.ee.ualberta.ca (Walt Howard) wrote in message news:... > And Pat, to answer your question about my funny .sig, you do a bang-up > job keeping the postings as text. In a fair number of the unmoderated > newgroups, newbies who use GUI news software keep the default > settings, and some vendors think the default should be text+html or > even html-only. A bunch of us dinosaurs don't like that. Rather than > retaliate with nroff or scribe markup in our own posts, we use grumbly > signatures. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Why don't the Usenet authorities in > that case simply set their own software not to accept any HTML in > postings. The ones that come through here to *my* telecom group > just get tossed out. PAT] For comp.dcom.telecom, the only relevant authority is Patrick Townson. For comp.risks, the authority is Peter G. Neumann. But who, pray tell, would the "Usenet authorities" be for an UNmoderated group like news.admin.net-abuse.email? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, 'Usenet Authorities' in this context would be the well-respected netters who are in a position to issue 'newgroup' commands in things like the cancel/control area of the news. Gene Spafford at Purdue University comes to mind (although I realize he has retired from the position for a few years now) and the guy who mostly replaced him who is at uunet. His name escapes me at this minute, but his email name is 'tale'. (David Lawrence? ) Some of those guys who are much smarter than myself, and have been around as long or longer than myself. The guys who can issue computer commands to establish/maintain new Usenet newsgroups, and whose word on same is accepted by sysadmins who would have to administer their own news spools. That is how Usenet was established and originally maintained was it not? In fact, I think 'tale' maintains a moderator's mailing list even now. It used to be, at least, that when a vote was taken to establish a new Usenet newsgroup, when the vote carried, someone like 'tale' or Gene Spafford would issue a 'newgroup' and as it worked its way through the net, other sysadmins would honor it. Aren't they doing that anymore at all? Those are the guys I refer to as the 'authorities' in Usenet. Sometime back in the early 1980's there was a major revision in the software which was used in Usenet; that was followed a couple years later (1985?) by a realignment of news group names and categories, when .arpa lists were consolidated into Usenet News. Doesn't anyone pay attention to those guys any longer? Has the anarchy gotten that much out of control? PAT] ------------------------------ From: joe@obilivan.net Subject: Re: Backhoe Accident Cuts Boston Net service Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 05:46:30 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications That kind of accident is inexcusable in this day and age, with the locater services that are available. Monty Solomon wrote: > By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 5/14/2003 > An errant backhoe blade wrought havoc on Internet service throughout > Boston yesterday, and The Boston Globe's Internet site, Boston.com, > was among the victims, as was the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. > Workers accidentally sliced through a fiber-optic data cable used by > Dallas-based Allegiance Telecom Inc., a telecommunications company > that hosts the server computers of Boston.com and other local > businesses. The accident, which occurred at about 6:45 a.m., disrupted > Internet services throughout the day. > Randy Brandenburg, Boston.com vice president of product and > technology, said the website actually never lost contact with the > Internet because it has a secondary data connection. Unfortunately, > the domain name service (DNS) computer for the site was still operated > by Allegiance, and was knocked offline. A DNS computer is part of a > global network of machines that direct visitors to the correct Web > servers. If DNS is down, it doesn't matter whether the Web server is > working, because Internet users will have no way of reaching the > server. > http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/134/business/Backhoe_accident_cuts_Boston_Net_service+.shtml ------------------------------ From: javajude@mailcity.com (Jude Prakash) Subject: Problem With HFA3824A DSSS Baseband Processor Chip Date: 16 May 2003 06:12:46 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi, We are using HFA3824A chip as a baseband procesor in our system. We are connecting a system to another system, connecting I,Q by wire. baseband processor is set for variable length packet. ie.,Number of bits transmitted need not be programmed prior to transmission. The receiver asserts frame_sync (mdrdy), Rx_Clk and Rx_Data as long as energy present & correlation is above threshold. Here, I observe some funny behaviour. If i transmit N bytes, the Rx data length is always more than N. At the end of every packet junk data gets introduced. If the Tx packet is small, length of junk is even comparable to the actual data size. Can anyone explain why this happens? Is this inevitable, as the receiver doesnt know how many bits it is looking for? Is this a function of Threshold settings, Is the effect so pronounced because of wired setup we use currently? (wire length is one feet, approx) Is there any way to solve/overcome this? Thanks Jude Prakash Swami. ------------------------------ From: modorney@aol.com (Mike O'Dorney) Subject: Re: From the Archives: 19th Century Telegraphers Date: 16 May 2003 08:15:45 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ >> The other railroad-related (though not telegraph-related) story, this >> one verifiably true, is the naming of Coalinga, California. It was >> Coaling Station A, which became Coaling A, which became Coalinga. And, following this off-topic thread - Tobar, California was named for an arrowed sign along the railroad, directing people to the nearest tavern - "To Bar" Cheers, Mike O ------------------------------ From: abdumuktar@yahoo.com (Abdu Muktar) Subject: Want to Learn RF Basic Date: 16 May 2003 08:47:15 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi All, I want to learn about RF basic to test a radio switch. Can you suggest me a book or a website that would be helpful to me. I am very thankful for your time. Thanks, Abdu abdumuktar@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: Ken Hoehn Subject: Telecom Digest Foolishness Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 12:09:59 -0400 Pat: A suggestion: Is there someway we can separate the 'wheat from the chaff' with regard to the digest, in order to return it to some semblance of it's previous value? Perhaps another list dedicated to the 'chaff'??? Many of us have limited time: conventional jobs, and normal home lives, and as such don't have the time to read through megs and megs of endless political whining and fighting among the various list members and yourself. You had a very valuable and wonderful product in the form of the Digest, but it is REALLY declining in the past months. I don't understand why it is so hard to comprehend that we tune into your list for communications information, not to hear your political viewpoints, (name deleted by PT) and his ilk being nasty to people, etc. I spend WAY more time on the 'scroll down' button then I do reading the list of late. No list can be immune from the occasional diversion into such topics ...and that is naturally and understandably why you have your disclaimer about 'mostly but not exclusively ...'. The problem is that the political silliness, and the mean, vengeful, nasty postings are starting to exceed the truly valuable information. YOU YOURSELF often even react strongly and thank a poster heartily when a real, actual, valuable item of information is added. Please, don't let a valuable resource become another victim to anonymity of the internet, and the associated tendancy for unhappy, bitter people to behave in ways they would not in normal, face to face, "real life" meetings. No one is going to change your opinions and positions, nor will any other list member change another's. The ONLY result of all this foolishness is a decline in the value of the publication. Can we stop it, or at least slow it, before it goes too far and people simply stop tuning in (and therefore posting)? Ken [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you *very much* for saying that. Yours is one of the most valuable pieces of information posted here in recent months. I'll try harder. To me -- in case you had not noticed it -- TELECOM Digest is about the one thing in *my life* which means very much these days, and my cat 'Missy'. I guess I should harder to restore what used to be (I am told) was a valued internet resource. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jt Subject: Last Laugh! Another Spammer With an 800 Number ... Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 09:51:49 -0400 Organization: WorldCom Canada Ltd. News Reader Service AUSTAD'S GOLF we've GOT your GAME. [snip] You may receive this mailing again. [Oh, I hope not...] OPM Network 7700 Camino Real Suite 300 Boca Raton, FL 33433 1-800-678-2536 ------------------------------ 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #459 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat May 17 00:50:03 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4H4o3w24924; Sat, 17 May 2003 00:50:03 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 17 May 2003 00:50:03 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305170450.h4H4o3w24924@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #460 TELECOM Digest Sat, 17 May 2003 00:50:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 460 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: UNE Platform CLECs (dold@UNEXPlatfo.usenet.us.com) Re: Cheap Wireless Ethernet Bridge & IMUX Setup Deliver 3xE1 (W Howard) Kevin Poulson Movie: "Everybody Hates The Phone Company" (Richard H Fan) Re: Backhoe Accident Cuts Boston Net Service (Charles Cryderman) Re: From the Archives: 19th Century (Charles Cryderman) Re: Book _Cheaper By The Dozen_, Learning Morse (Bill Horne) Re: Microsoft: 'iLoo' Internet Project a Hoax (Scott Dorsey) Re: Microsoft: 'iLoo' Internet Project a Hoax (Steven J. Sobol) Re: Microsoft: 'iLoo' Internet Project a Hoax (John David Galt) Re: 911 Operators Getting Addresses and More Qs About Service (D Phelps) Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs (B Turok) Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs (Dave Phelps) Re: Beware of CameraWare: an FBI Sting Operation (John Higdon) Re: T-Mobile Says Scraps Microsoft Phone Launch (John Higdon) Re: U.S. Moviegoers Don't Mind Theater Ads - Study (Clark W Griswold) Re: From the Archives: 19th Century Telegraphers (Wes Leatherock) 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@UNEXPlatfo.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: UNE Platform CLECs Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 18:21:12 UTC Organization: a2i network Fred Goldstein wrote: > With UNE Platform, the CLEC essentially outsources their entire > network to the ILEC. They purchase the loop, the switch ports, the Fred, you covered the UNE-P bases very well technically. But you left out the snide remarks that I am forced to put in. CLECs invested way too much capital in starting their facilities based offerings. The benefit was to be down the road somewhere. Magically, just as the CLEC picture stabilized, and there was some hope of seeing ROI, UNE-P pops up. It is not only so much better than resale that it virtually forces resellers to convert, it makes owning facilites equipment stupid. In areas where facilities already exist, it is cheaper to UNE-P. So, now there is a bunch of not-yet-amortized equipment that the CLECs wish they didn't have their money tied up in. There is new opportunity for startups with no capital to become full fledged "carriers", selling whatever UNE-P offers. All they need are two salesman and a billing program or outsource. But wait! Who does this new opportunity hurt? The real CLEC who invested money up front, and can't cut his costs far enough. The previous reseller who spends months with consultants trying to wade through the reorder process, to convert existing lines to the new UNE-P without losing any features. What? That feature isn't UNE-P? 88% of my resale lines use that feature. Who does it benefit? Brand new startups that SBC can make fun of in the series of ads about nothing but suits working for the company, as they crash around trying to drive cherry pickers and argue who's going to go down a flooded manhole. No, I said that wrong. It benefits the bohemoth. Because as soon as the CLECs convert to UNE-P, they will offer some good deal to the facilities based carriers, so that they can tell the PUC what wonderful rates they are offering to the competition. That competition will be made up of sharks who scavenged the facilities at the bankruptcy sales of the original CLECs, and will themselves be driven out of business the next time the ILECs move the slippery rock in the stream of competition. ------------------------------ From: howard@rumba.ee.ualberta.ca (Walt Howard) Subject: Re: Cheap Wireless Ethernet Bridge & IMUX Setup to Deliver 3xE1 Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 18:46:41 UTC Organization: A poorly-installed InterNetNews site In article , Mac wrote: > I want to provide 90 telephone/faxes to a location about 12km away > with clear line of sight. I need to do this cheaply and reliably. I > figure the cheapest way is this: > 2 x RAD IPmux-4 with 3xE1 > 2 x 3COM Wireless LAN Outdoor Ethernet Bridge > I plug my Telco´s E1s into the IPmux, plug that into the 3COM > microwave bridge, point the bridge at my target and have the reverse > setup at the other end with the emerging E1s plugged into my PBX. > Will it work? What do you guys think? TIA I am not qualified to say if it will work, but let me point out an additional feature of this plan. If it does work, not only you but also everyone else with an antenna near your line-of-sight and for several km past in each direction can listen to all your phone lines. If they dislike you enough, they can probably even inject some signals of their own for your system to pick up. For some users, in some places, this isn't a problem. Others are unnerved by the possibility. Solutions are available, but obviously raise the price. Walt Howard /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign InterNet: whoward@ieee.org \ / No HTML or M$Word in mail or news! BellNet: +1 780 492 7262 X / \ ------------------------------ From: richardhellfan@hotmail.com (Richard Hell Fan) Subject: Kevin Poulson Movie: "Everybody Hates The Phone Company" Date: 16 May 2003 13:15:04 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ http://www.filmjerk.com/nuke/article501.html In 1990, Kevin Poulson took over Pacific Bell's telephone switching network in order to ensure that he'd be the 102nd caller to Los Angeles radio station KIIS FM in order to win a Porsche 944 S2. He used these same techniques to win trips to Hawaii and thousands of dollars in cash. It is even rumored that Poulson jammed federally ordered wiretaps on reputed mobsters and jammed the phone lines when he was featured on "Unsolved Mysteries." Along with Kevin Mitnick, Poulson is one of the most notorious hackers in history, and the first person ever to be banned from using the internet by the US Government. Later this year, the director of "The Kid Stays In The Picture" goes the docudrama route to bring Poulson's story, entitled "Everybody Hates The Phone Company," to the big screen. ------------------------------ From: Charles Cryderman Subject: Re: Backhoe Accident Cuts Boston Net serv Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 16:51:14 -0400 Good day to you Pat, may you stay healthy to continue to keep you moderating. joe@obilivan.net wrote: > That kind of accident is inexcusable in this day and age, with the > locater services that are available. If you think that is bad, once around 1989 or so, we had some DS3s go down at the company I worked for. The final reason for the outage was some homeless folks started a fire to cook some food under a highway viaduct. What had happened was the fire melted some fiber pairs the were routed under the bridge. When this happened we were using Wiltel (way before WorldCom) as our provider. We contacted MCI as well as a regional carrier for capacity. No one could help other then AT&T. As in turned out Were getting DS3s from Wiltel, that was reselling to us from MCI, that was leasing fiber from Wiltel. Now you may think that AT&T did a good job by not losing their fiber. The reason they didn't was because the conduit their fiber was in was over to the side about three feet and the fire wasn't hot enough to melt theirs as well. Communications, the most incestuous driven industry in the world. Chip Cryderman ------------------------------ From: Charles Cryderman Subject: Re: From the Archives: 19th Cen Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 16:55:36 -0400 One more for the off subject item list: Novi Michigan was named because in was the sixth exit off the highway. The sign read "NO VI" as in number 6. Now it is one of the fastest growing suburbs of Detroit. Chip Cryderman ------------------------------ From: Bill Horne Subject: Re: Book _Cheaper By The Dozen_, Learning Morse Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 19:46:39 GMT Mark Atwood wrote in message news:telecom22.455.2@telecom-digest.org: > In the nonfiction book _Cheaper By The Dozen_, there is a scene where > industrial engineer Frank Gilbreth teaches his 12 children Morse code > by giving them a list of mnemonic words that have the cadence for the > morse of a given letter, that begins with that letter. > However, the book itself only gives the first few such mnemonics. > This seems like such a better memorization aid than any other I've > seen. > Does anyone know what the full set is? > Mark Atwood | When you do things right, mra@pobox.com | people won't > be sure you've done anything at all. http://www.pobox.com/~mra > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Tell us the ones you remember or saw > in the book, please. PAT] Pat, This sounds like a neat historical item and a great conversation piece, but I'll add a note of caution for those aspiring ham operators in your audience. Hate to be a party-pooper, but researchers long ago found that learning code this way is counterproductive. The best way to learn Morse code is to associate the letters directly with the sound of the letter being sent, rather than with "dots" and "dashes" or neumonics for them. Anyone interested in learning the code should write to the American Radio Relay League, 225 Main St., Newington Connecticut, 06111. They have excellent study materials, including tapes, for very short money. There are also Morse code practice programs available as shareware: check out http://69.3.157.98/SCARD/files/ for a list. HTH. I am not affiliated, get no money, etc. Bill, W1AC (Remove "nouce" from return address for direct replies) ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Microsoft: 'iLoo' Internet Project a Hoax Date: 16 May 2003 14:33:46 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Walt Howard wrote: > Actually this was one of the better Internet jokes this year. If they > had released it on April 1 as everyone else does, I think even those > of who don't much like M$ would have had to grant that they are > starting to "get it". But with "embracing" April Fools' Day, and then > "extending" it to April 30, some of us worry about the "extinguish" ... Makes sense for a Microsoft product to be a little bit late. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: Steven J. Sobol Subject: Re: Microsoft: 'iLoo' Internet Project a Hoax Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 20:26:59 -0000 Organization: JustThe.net LLC > From Daniel W. Johnson (panoptes@iquest.net): >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Why don't the Usenet authorities in >> that case simply set their own software not to accept any HTML in >> postings. The ones that come through here to *my* telecom group >> just get tossed out. PAT] > For comp.dcom.telecom, the only relevant authority is Patrick Townson. > For comp.risks, the authority is Peter G. Neumann. But who, pray tell, > would the "Usenet authorities" be for an UNmoderated group like > news.admin.net-abuse.email? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, 'Usenet Authorities' in this > context would be the well-respected netters who are in a position to > issue 'newgroup' commands in things like the cancel/control area of > the news. Gene Spafford at Purdue University comes to mind (although I > realize he has retired from the position for a few years now) and the > guy who mostly replaced him who is at uunet. His name escapes me at > this minute, but his email name is 'tale'. (David Lawrence? ) Yes. You do understand also that the admins at the major news sites -- Supernews, Newsguy, Usenetservers to name a couple of the providers, along with the big academic sites and ISPs -- probably have a lot of say? But in reality, I suspect nothing will be done about it. Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge, JustThe.net POTS: Toll Free from anywhere in the USA or Canada, 888.480.4NET (4638) HTTP: www.JustTheNetLLC.com MAIL: 5686 Davis Drive, Mentor on the Lake, OH 44060-2752 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, I understand all that. My use of the phrase 'Usenet Authorities' was just a short hand way of saying all you did, and my earlier note of rebuttal was just intended to respond to panoptes@iquest.net who disputed if there were overall or 'meta authorities' on Usenet or not. PAT] ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Subject: Re: Microsoft: 'iLoo' Internet Project a Hoax Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 14:28:05 -0700 Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society >> And Pat, to answer your question about my funny .sig, you do a bang-up >> job keeping the postings as text. In a fair number of the unmoderated >> newgroups, newbies who use GUI news software keep the default >> settings, and some vendors think the default should be text+html or >> even html-only. A bunch of us dinosaurs don't like that. Rather than >> retaliate with nroff or scribe markup in our own posts, we use grumbly >> signatures. >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Why don't the Usenet authorities in >> that case simply set their own software not to accept any HTML in >> postings. The ones that come through here to *my* telecom group >> just get tossed out. PAT] > For comp.dcom.telecom, the only relevant authority is Patrick Townson. > For comp.risks, the authority is Peter G. Neumann. But who, pray tell, > would the "Usenet authorities" be for an UNmoderated group like > news.admin.net-abuse.email? > > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, 'Usenet Authorities' in this > context would be the well-respected netters who are in a position to > issue 'newgroup' commands in things like the cancel/control area of > the news. Gene Spafford at Purdue University comes to mind (although I > realize he has retired from the position for a few years now) and the > guy who mostly replaced him who is at uunet. His name escapes me at > this minute, but his email name is 'tale'. (David Lawrence? ) Some of The news.announce.newgroups moderation team are the people who send out "newgroup", "rmgroup", and related commands for mainstream newsgroups. David Lawrence used to head that committee but appears to have left the net; his successor is Russ Allbery at Stanford. ("alt.*" and regional hierarchies have their own local administrators.) Anyone who wants to create a new group, or to participate in the political process of group creation, should start by checking out http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/faqs/big-eight.html These administrators, however, are not in a position to filter the messages in newsgroups. Messages for an unmoderated group can be injected into Usenet from any news server, and there has not been any serious attempt to create a blacklist of news servers that allow posts with phony "From" addresses, the way many ISPs now control junk e-mail by blacklisting "open relays." So everyone has to do his own filtering or live with the junk. That's just how the technology works. ------------------------------ From: Dave Phelps Subject: Re: 911 Operators Getting Addresses and More Qs About the Service Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 21:54:10 -0500 Organization: www.tippenring.com In article , gmhall@apk.net says: > Many of the 911 calls made that day were from cell phones, so I can > understand why the operator might not have had an exact address. But > shouldn't they have a database about most of the well known buildings > in the city? If the caller says he is in the such-and-such building > on such-and-such college campus, shouldn't they have that in their > database? Well, the government, as usual, has squandered a tremendous amount of money figuring out how to make 911 work, such as by adding more administrators, and little money actually makes it to operations. So, the database idea mentioned by Joey that was used by cab companies ten years ago hasn't occurred to 911 folks yet. In my area (admittedly I haven't seen many PSAPs outside of my county), if a PSAP has a database, it is something the PSAP purchased, unrelated to 911. I believe that a major problem with 911 is that it is a closed system. I can't add an interface that would sit between the dispatcher and the 911 equipment and do other database lookups based on incoming 911 information -- that would be considered 'tampering'. Of course, if the government hadn't guided 911, it would probably be little more than a speed dial from anywhere to the nearest PSAP, so I'm not saying government involvement is bad. Just that, when there isn't any real government oversight, it seems easy for money to be blown on BS, rather than something useful, such as the aforementioned database. In article , 6212hgk@newsguy.com says: > What database? Who makes such a database? There are many. It's called computer-aided dispatching. At least in my area, it is not part of the 911 system. Rather, it is an option available to the PSAP, usually at quite an expense. Dave Phelps Phone Masters Ltd. deadspam=tippenring ------------------------------ From: Brandon Turok Subject: Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 18:52:03 -0700 Organization: Astound Broadband Actually, I think it has more to do with Western Electric's very arbitrary product numbering scheme (with such memorable items as the 1A-type [insert item here]) than the actual number of clips on the block. All the BSPs I have refer to it as a "66-type connecting block" rather than "66-block" which is the abbreviated form most of us use these days. On an interesting side note, another BSP I have from the late 1970s is a complete how-to on 110 blocks, except at that time they were still referred to as "88-type connecting blocks." Brandon Turok Freelance Phone Phreak (925) 685-7688 http://www.loonquawl.com/ Dial-A-Machine (925) 288-9825 Free when you call from work Hans Lain wrote in message news:telecom22.457.10@telecom-digest.org: > Just curious - 66-block - why is it called such when it has 25-pairs (50 > wires)? > Thanks, > Hans > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think if you count the number of > punchdown places you will find 66 of them. The reason for the extras > is that a few of the punchdowns are multipled elsewhere on the block > and there are also some spares to attach 'foreign' (in re the Bell > System's old days) equipment, such as all the phones on the block > being able to use a common loud speaker page, etc. also 'tied onto' > the 66 block. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Dave Phelps Subject: Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 22:43:56 -0500 Organization: www.tippenring.com In article , user@domain.com says: > Just curious - 66-block - why is it called such when it has 25-pairs (50 > wires)? > Thanks, > Hans > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think if you count the number of > punchdown places you will find 66 of them. The reason for the extras > is that a few of the punchdowns are multipled elsewhere on the block > and there are also some spares to attach 'foreign' (in re the Bell > System's old days) equipment, such as all the phones on the block > being able to use a common loud speaker page, etc. also 'tied onto' > the 66 block. PAT] I recall seeing somewhere that they were created in 1966. Of course, that wouldn't explain 110's now, would it? Dave Phelps Phone Masters Ltd. deadspam=tippenring ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: Beware of CameraWare - An FBI Sting! Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 20:35:31 -0700 In article , TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > When the two FBI guys came to my door earlier today, they asked if > they could look at my computer, and I volunteered to let them see > the whole thing. They found nothing, and went away with their usual > bluster about 'how we do not believe you' and 'we are going to keep > our eyes on you' etc. FBI showed up at your place and you let them in? Without a warrant (or did I miss that part)? AND you showed them your private business on your computer (again, without a warrant)? ANY law enforcement that shows up at my house, for whatever reason, is entertained on the doorstep, with the front door closed. If they have probable cause, they'll have a warrant in hand. I'm not going to give them a chance to go shopping ... for anything! Trust me: if an FBI agent showed up unannounced at my door sans warrant and asked to look at anything I own, the answer would be a polite, but firm "no". 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: Yes, I know, and that is good practice in many cases, but as the lady who operates the Montgomery County Jail for our sheriff said to me once, 'no one likes an asshole'. I *could* have asked for that, and yes, they would have gone to get one. Actually, what officers generally do when those obstacles are presented to them is one of them gets on the radio and asks an officer at the station to 'please go see the Judge and get me a search warrant on (name of case or defendant). Five or ten minutes, or maybe an hour later, the warrant would have arrived. It might have delayed their ultimate purpose (a raid on my premises) by several minutes, but it would have happened anyway. Your being obstinate simply makes them even more so. Anyway, I *knew* there was nothing around for them (the two FBI guys were on a kiddie porn hunt which is part of the FBI sting thing that CameraWare is set up [by them] for) so I figured let them come in and have their fun. My main purpose in posting that message was to let the net know that cameraware.com, ttinet.com, and surveylens.com (their subsidiary web sites) are up to no good if they get your credit card number, ID card or social security number or picture image. And if you *did* have something around they wanted, and thought by stalling them for time requiring a warrant you would have the time to destroy or secrete somewhere whatever it was they wanted, you should know that while they are standing there tapping their toes, waiting for a warrant to arrive (in a few minutes), their very observant eyes and ears would be working overtime. And you know, if a police officer **very sincerely believes** that evidence is being disposed of, he can go in anyway, and explain it to the judge later on, and usually be forgiven for it. In other words, by the time police come to your door, warrant or no warrant, it is generally too late for you anyway. I am too much of a civil libertarian to go along with the idea 'if you have nothing to hide, then why keep them out.' But I am a pragmatist and I know that regardless of what the constitution requires, the adminis- tration has 'work arounds' at their fingertips. Remember, no one likes an asshole. Sometimes winning a battle now and then causes you to lose the whole war. PAT] ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: T-Mobile Says Scraps Microsoft sSart Phone Launch Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 20:26:54 -0700 In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > BONN, May 15 (Reuters) - Europe's second largest mobile phone operator > T-Mobile International [TMOG.UL] said on Thursday it had shelved plans > to introduce a mobile phone powered by Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) > software. I guess T-Mobile dodged that bullet! John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: Clark Wilhelm Griswold, Jr. <73115.dot.1041.at.compuserve.dot.com> Subject: Re: U.S. Moviegoers Don't Mind Theater Ads - Study Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 16:33:24 -0600 jmeissen@shell1.aracnet.com (John Meissen) wrote: > They've already lost me. Because of this abuse I now wait for the > movies to be released on DVD and enjoy them in the confort and privacy > of my home for a fraction of the cost and none of the hassle. There > are probably one or two movies a year that I figure warrant actually > watching on the big screen. Same here. As society continues to devolve, the "me first" mentality makes any kind of public interaction more and more distasteful. Cell phones ringing, people chatting, people bringing young children along have all made the thought of attending a movie in a public theater one of the last things I will do with my entertainment dollar. The last time I ventured out to the local first run cineplex, one couple brought in an entire take out meal in two grocery bags and proceedure to munch away while sitting in the row in front of me. ------------------------------ From: wesrock@aol.com (Wes Leatherock) Date: 17 May 2003 00:33:29 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: From the Archives: 19th Century Telegraphers I think you were wise to put quotation marks around "true story." The Handbook of Texas Online, a remarkable and authoritative resource on any subject about Texas, and which it appears you may have consulted, has this to say about Iatan. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ----------------------------------------------- IATAN, TEXAS. Iatan is on Interstate Highway 20/U.S. Highway 80 about six miles west of Westbrook in west central Mitchell County. The settlement was established as a station on the Texas and Pacific Railway when the line was built into the area in 1881. The community, known occasionally as Vista, may have taken its present name from the nearby Williams-Waddell Iatan Tank Ranch. On March 20, 1890, a post office was granted to Daniel Crowe and remained in service until it was moved to Westbrook on September 10, 1924. A school, which also served as a Methodist church, was established in 1891. In 1930 sixty students were enrolled, but the district was consolidated with the Westbrook school district in 1938. The population of Iatan in 1940 was reported at 125, but by 1950 it had declined to twenty, where it remained for at least the next ten years. By 1972 only a railroad station remained at the site. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lore and Legend: A Compilation of Documents Depicting the History of Colorado City and Mitchell County (Colorado City Record, 1976). Charles G. Davis On Thu, 15 May 2003 10:14:45 -0700 Linc Madison nobody@example.com wrote: > My favorite "true story" (note the quotation marks) of 19th Century > telegraphy is the story of the naming of the town of Iatan, Texas. > The town was founded by the Texas & Pacific Railway in 1881. The story > goes that the first inhabitant of the town was the telegraph operator. > The railroad needed a name to put on the map, so they sent a message > to the telegrapher, asking him for a name. The town was located along > what is now I-20 between Abilene and Big Spring. There wasn't a whole > lot out there but dust and tumbleweed, bringing the telegrapher to the > conclusion that he had just been posted to hell. The name he sent back > was "Satan," in honor of the ruler of that similar place. > To the telegrapher's surprise, the message back showed no trace of > irritation, much less did they ask him for a more suitable name. > It turns out that there was a slight dropout on the line, turning > ... .- - .- -. into .. .- - .- -. >(S A T A N) (I A T A N) > Of course, there are others who say that the name of the town had > something to do with the name of a nearby ranch (the Williams-Waddell > Iatan Tank Ranch), but I prefer to think of it as a town with a red > cape, a broken-off horn, and a bent pitchfork. > In any case, Iatan, Texas, has been deserted for 30 years now. > The other railroad-related (though not telegraph-related) story, this > one verifiably true, is the naming of Coalinga, California. It was > Coaling Station A, which became Coaling A, which became Coalinga. > www dot LincMad dot com / Telecom at LincMad dot com > Linc Madison * San Francisco, California ------------------------------ 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 #460 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat May 17 14:08:24 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4HI8Ot28300; Sat, 17 May 2003 14:08:24 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 17 May 2003 14:08:24 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305171808.h4HI8Ot28300@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #461 TELECOM Digest Sat, 17 May 2003 14:08:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 461 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson From the Archives: The Alascom Story (Mike Riddle and Don Kimberlin) Re: Beware of CameraWare - An FBI Sting! (John Higdon) A Couple of Lost Messages This Weekend (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, 17 May 2003 10:00:00 CDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: From the Archives: The Alascom Story For your reading this weekend, I offer an item from the Telecom Archives, 'The Alascom Story' which appeared eleven years ago. It was originally written by Don Kimberlin for a Fidonet echogroup on the FCC. (Echos were what we on Usenet refer to as news groups.) Don submitted it to Fido in April, 1992 and about the same time Mike Riddle forwarded it to Usenet and our Digest. I hope you will like this report on the history of telecommunications in Alaska, as it was told eleven years ago. PAT Date: Sun, 05 Apr 92 10:06:31 CST From: Mike.Riddle@ivgate.omahug.org (Mike Riddle) Subject: The Alascom Story From the Fidonet FCC echo: Originally posted: 02 Apr 92 23:45:00 Originally from: Don Kimberlin Here's some info for those who get propagandized about how "the phone company" or "AT&T" is the only telecommunications entity in the world that accomplishes anything. The following was received here today from Alascom, the original "interstate" and "international" common carrier for Alaska, that, in addition to a pretty illustrious history, has today become one of the world's most called-upon "fast response" providers of transportable satellite stations for public communications, even down to being the real communications earth station provider during Desert Storm, operating quietly behind the scenes while AT&T and MCI beat their breasts about "providing the troops with phones from Saudi Arabia": THE ALASCOM STORY "From telegraph wires strung across vast stretches of wilderness to the emergence of satellites, fiber optics and solid-state digital technology, telecommunications in Alaska have made a quantum leap in a relatively brief span of time. "What is now Alascom began as the Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System (WAMCATS), a "talking wire" strung overland across Alaska's wilderness and linked to a submarine telegraph cable connecting Seattle with Juneau, Sitka and Valdez. "Congress passed the act that created WAMCATS in 1900 in order to open communication channels between Alaska's isolated military outposts and the rest of the nation. A provision in the bill set the conditions for the eventual foundation of a civilian system. That year the first operational telegraph link was completed, with 25 miles of line (part of a $450,000 plan by the Army Signal Corps) strung from Nome Military headquarters to the Port Safety outpost. "Three years later, land lines connected western Alaska, Prince William Sound, the Interior and Southeast. An unsuccessful underwater telegraph cable had been laid in 1900 across Norton Sound from Port Safety to Fort Saint Michael. This early effort was ripped apart by ice blocks, but replaced in 1903 with a new wireless system. The Norton Sound radio link was the world's first application of a permanent radio-telegraph link for public communications, earning it a place in telecommunications history. "By 1905, 1500 miles of land lines, 2,000 miles of submarine cable and 107 miles of wireless links comprised WAMCATS' unique and growing network. "With the discovery of gold and subsequent law enforcement problems at this early part of the century, WAMCATS' telegraph linked San Francisco and Washington military headquarters with their far-flung Alaskan outposts. "The military allowed commercial and non-military traffic on the system, providing it did not interfere with military operations. The Alaska Railroad, completed in 1923, pushed development from the port of Seward through Anchorage and into the Interior. Eventual increase in commercial traffic led to a telegraph link with Ketchikan and established that community as the main relay point between Seattle and Seward. "By 1916, half of WAMCATS' land line were abandoned in favor of wireless stations, which reduced costs and increased communications reliability in the harsh climates that made maintaining wire lines so difficult. For the next two decades, little growth was experienced as Alaska withdrew from the limelight of the post-goldrush era. "During the 1930's, submarine cables, supplemented by radio links, slowly replaced the `talking wire'. To reflect the changing technology, Congress renamed WAMCATS as the Alaska Communications System (ACS) in 1936. "With the outbreak of World War II, Alaska's geographic importance became evident to the nation`s leaders and substantial activity in communications began once again. The Alaska Highway project was pushing forward and communications with the outside world were vital to the war effort. "Communications links with the Lower 48 were upgraded in the mid-1950's when AT&T laid a submarine telephone cable between Ketchikan and Port Angeles, Washington. "When Alaska was granted statehood in 1959, Western Electric had been operating the strategic White Alice Communications System (WACS) for the government. WACS provided circuits for remote military installations and to villages that had been beyond reach of the Alaska Communications System. "WACS provided the technology that could relay voice communications over high mountain ranges. This system functioned by bouncing strong radio signals off the Earth's troposphere, a costly process due to the huge amounts of power required to produce sufficiently strong signals at a distance. Used in conjunction with the Distant Early Warning line of radars (DEW line), White Alice sites featured ten-story-high troposcatter antennas, some of which are still standing as silent monuments to a bygone technology. "Meanwhile, RCA had established itself in the state by winning contracts to supply personnel and maintenance to scattered armed forces communications sites. As private enterprise became more involved in Alaskan communications, the Federal government decided to stop providing communications to the commercial and private sectors. "In 1969, Congress passed the Alaska Communications Disposal Act. Among interested bidders to purchase the Alaska Communications System were General Telephone, Continental Telephone and RCA Global Communications. RCA was the successful bidder at a price of $28.5 million in cash and a pledge to immediately invest an additional $30 million for badly needed improvements to the then seriously overtaxed and outdated ACS. "RCA had purchased rights to provide the state's commercial traffic with a network including toll centers at Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau and Ketchikan; a network of marine radio stations, a submarine cable terminating in Southwest and a scattering of high-frequency (HF) radio communications sites. "Concurrent with the purchase of ACS, RCA's pioneering satellite technology in long distance communications made its debut on the international scene. "RCA renamed its Alaska operating unit Alascom, and in 1973 purchased the Bartlett Earth Station, then the only one in Alaska and Alaska's sole satellite link with the outside world. Shortly thereafter, Alascom constructed its own first satellite station at Lena Point, near Juneau, bringing Alaska into the era of modern satellite technology. "The first functional domestic satellite system in the nation appeared later that year when Alascom began using the Canadian Anik II satellite on a regular basis. Howard Hawkins, the forward-thinking president of RCA Alascom's parent company, RCA Communications, pushed full speed ahead on plans to construct earth stations across Alaska on a substantial scale. "By 1974 Alascom had constructed earth stations at Prudhoe Bay, Nome, Bethel and Valdez. The same year, RCA launched its own satellites, SATCOM 1 and 2, and all of Alascom's satellite traffic was switched to the new "birds." "In July 1976 RCA Alascom entered into an agreement with the Department of the Air Force to lease most of the military's antiquated White Alice facilities and replace them with 22 modern satellite earth stations. "Replacement of the military's aging communications system was largely completed by Alascom in the late 1970's; the earth stations built to replace the White Alice system required construction in formidable places. For example, a year of pre-planning was needed to get equipment to Shemya in the Aleutian Islands on the once-a-year supply barge. "In the late 1970's, the federal government was beginning to look at reshaping the domestic telecommunications industry to foster competition. The giant RCA Global Communications, which also operated worldwide communications of many sorts, was ordered by the FCC to divest itself of domestic satellite communications -- of which RCA Alascom was a foremost part. RCA American Communications (RCA Americom) was formed as a totally independent corporation and given the responsibility for handling all domestic satellite business of RCA. "In June, 1979, RCA Alascom was purchased by Pacific Power and Light Company (now PacifiCorp) of Portland, Oregon. The purchase price was $200 million cash and taking over $90 million of Alascom's long term debt. "Meanwhile, Alascom had expanded its service by constructing more than 200 earth stations and serving even the smallest rural communities in the state. Company pride and commitment to Alaska was never more evident than on October 27, 1982, when Alascom launched its own satellite -- Aurora I -- the only satellite of its kind and devoted exclusively to use by a single state -- Alaska. "Along with the new `bird,' Alascom's plant improvements had vastly upgraded its satellite and terrestrial links within the state and to interstate points. A new multipurpose building in Anchorage was constructed on Government Hill, consolidating all local Alascom components in one complex. "Always forging ahead with new technology, Alascom established the first satellite communications for offshore oil rigs in the mid-1980's, developing a gyro-stablized satellite antenna that compensated for the pitch and roll of the drilling vessels. "Live television, a given anywhere else in the United States, arrived late in Alaska. Entertainment programs were a week or two late arriving in Anchorage by film or tape. After showing in Anchorage, the material was sent onward for even later showing in Fairbanks and then Juneau. National news was taped off the air in Seattle and put on the first available northbound plane. In most cases, Walter Cronkite addressed his Alaskan audience a day later than the Lower 48. "Today, live programming is beamed throughout Alaska using Alascom's Aurora I, and events of interest to the world are beamed out from Alaska; events like the visit of Pope John Paul, the rescue of the trapped whales, and coverage of the Valdez oil spill all traveled out via Alascom's Aurora I. The same Alascom satellite is used to relay long distance learning to remote sites throughout the state. "Presently, Alascom employs more than 700 people in Alaska and operates more than 300 sites statewide with microwave and satellite communications. Alascom also works under contract for several companies that require specialized communications at remote mining and oil drilling sites. Alascom also operates the state's marine radio network and an aviation weather service for pilots. "In the last few years, Alascom has become known throughout the global telecommunications industry as the experts on rapid deployment of transportable earth stations, delivering them to remote sites by air freighter or helicopter and setting up operation within hours. Alascom was called upon by the oil industry in Alaska to provide remote communications from the tragic spill site in Prince William Sound when the tanker Exxon Valdez lost its cargo in the pristine Alaskan waters. "In 1989, Alascom was called upon by the U.S. Navy to fly its transportable earth station to Puerto Rico to re-establish communications devastated by Hurricane Hugo on that Caribbean island. The same year, Alascom transportable earth stations and personnel were deployed to Panama in support of the U.S. forces in Operation Just Cause. "One year later, as the Iraqis invaded Kuwait, Alascom was once again thousands of miles from home providing satellite communications support to our Armed Forces operating in the Saudi theatre as part of Desert Shield, and then Desert Storm. "On May 29, 1991, Alascom launched its second satellite -- Aurora II -- as a replacement for the aging Aurora I which was almost out of station-keeping fuel after nine years of faithful service. The new satellite, more sophisticated and powerful than its predecessor, will continue to provide a variety of telecommunications services to Alaska's growing population. "More recently, Alascom entered the era of international submarine fiber optic cables by linking its communications network with a spur that runs off the North Pacific Cable that runs between Portland, Oregon and Japan. The Alascom spur, which lands at Seward, Alaska, proceeds underwater to a point 1,900 miles south, where the transPacific portion of the cable is tapped, using methods like those employed for joining multiple European nations on transAtlantic cables. This connects Alaskans not only with the Lower 48 but also directly with the Orient via the latest in digital fiber optics technology. "The story of Alascom has been the story of growth. In 1971, when the company took its first few steps, Alaska's long distance telephone traffic amounted to 5 million calls per year. Today, Alascom handles in excess of 95 million calls annually and is doing so at substantial rate reductions from jsut 20 years ago. Over that short history, Alascom has lowered its interstate calling rates by 85% while reducing intrastate calls by 25%. A call that cost $10.00 in 1971 today costs only $1.56. THE FUTURE: "The years ahead are full of promise and excitement. As Alaska enters the last decade of this century, plans are already being laid for Alascom to enter the twenty-first century in the way WAMCATS entered the twentieth century, full of dedication and committed to serving its state and its people -- and now increasingly expanding that scope to the world, wherever and whenever needed. Origin: The Nebraska Inns of Court (inns.omahug.org) (1:285/27) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When noting the money figures and some of the technology, remember this was published in 1991 and was talking about late 1980's events. PAT ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: Beware of CameraWare - An FBI Sting! Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Sat, 17 May 2003 08:49:39 -0700 In article , > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, I know, and that is good practice > in many cases, but as the lady who operates the Montgomery County Jail > for our sheriff said to me once, 'no one likes an asshole'. I *could* > have asked for that, and yes, they would have gone to get one. Actually, > what officers generally do when those obstacles are presented to them > is one of them gets on the radio and asks an officer at the station > to 'please go see the Judge and get me a search warrant on (name of > case or defendant). Five or ten minutes, or maybe an hour later, the > warrant would have arrived. It might have delayed their ultimate > purpose (a raid on my premises) by several minutes, but it would have > happened anyway. Your being obstinate simply makes them even more so. I know that is a great dramatic ploy in the movies, but there is a flip side. First, if the police of whatever flavor have enough probably cause for a warrant, they usually have it in hand. You don't just order a warrant like a pizza, and exercising your Fourth Amendment rights does not constitute grounds to issue a warrant. Second, once you have given consent for police entry and/or examination, EVERYTHING on your premesis is fair game. If the police are executing a warrant, only those things specified in the warrant are seizable and usable in a specific case. When you say, "go ahead and have a look", you are opening yourself up to anything. In fact, this is why if grounds for a warrant are shakey, your consent is paydirt. At that point, they can haul you in for ANYTHING they find. > Anyway, I *knew* there was nothing around for them (the two FBI guys > were on a kiddie porn hunt which is part of the FBI sting thing that > CameraWare is set up [by them] for) so I figured let them come in and > have their fun. Without an attorney, you don't know that. You have no idea what kind of obscure laws they might have up their sleeve just to get you hauled in. You were very lucky. > And if you *did* have something around they wanted, and thought by > stalling them for time requiring a warrant you would have the time to > destroy or secrete somewhere whatever it was they wanted, you should > know that while they are standing there tapping their toes, waiting > for a warrant to arrive (in a few minutes), their very observant eyes > and ears would be working overtime. And you know, if a police officer > **very sincerely believes** that evidence is being disposed of, he can > go in anyway, and explain it to the judge later on, and usually be > forgiven for it. In other words, by the time police come to your door, > warrant or no warrant, it is generally too late for you anyway. I am > too much of a civil libertarian to go along with the idea 'if you have > nothing to hide, then why keep them out.' But I am a pragmatist and I > know that regardless of what the constitution requires, the adminis- > tration has 'work arounds' at their fingertips. Remember, no one likes > an asshole. Sometimes winning a battle now and then causes you to lose > the whole war. PAT] Yes, I've seen the movies. There is no harm in making the police dot every eye and cross every tee. That's what they are paid to do. Understand that I am not talking about cooperating with a police investigation about which I might, as a third party, have important information. The police need the cooperation of citizens to do their job. But if I am the suspect (as you were in the above described incident), I'm not going to surrender my rights in the hope that by being a "nice guy", my legal problems will somehow be lessened. It is the job of the police to get evidence of a crime. One of those methods involves convincing the suspect that if he bends over, it will all go easier for him. Patrick, that is a ploy, not reality. Frankly, it sounds as though you facilitated some very sloppy police work. Set up a sting, round everyone up who walks by, and then sort it all out. If a few people like you had demanded warrants and correct procedures, the costs of such an operation in both time and money would have made such a scattergun approach unworkable, and the need for your warning to Digest readers would have evaporated. Don't kid yourself: it is the folks who bend over who end up in the pokey for long stretches for petty crimes. Standing up for your rights may make you an asshole to the cops, but it is the courts who will ultimately determine your fate. When you willingly hand over incriminating evidence, there is very little you can do about it later. 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 *did* talk to my attorney about the whole event later the same day. You ARE mostly correct. But I was so shocked to see them at the door, my head was not screwed on as straight as it should have been, I guess. And I was still thinking about the lady who runs the Montgomery County Correctional Center (what we locally refer to as the 'jailhouse') and her very practical speech to me about pragmatism and assholes, and 'trying to be a good citizen whenever possible' thoughts. And I know you are correct about how if you voluntarily admit police then they can use whatever they find. But I knew there was just nothing to be found. They spent a few minutes looking at the computer room and the network stuff, then lost interest. They did grudingly admit that the ugly pictures were from some other login name, (other than what Camerware had for me) and they agreed that 'porno spam' was a 'problem' on the net. What made me so nervous and sick about the whole thing was I had *thought* that CameraWare was just your 'typical' porn on the Internet place. It did not occur to me that they routinely turn over their files and pictures from their servers to FBI. I guess I have a few things to learn about the net. When they left, one of the FBI guys gave me a business card, and happened to notice my camera. He sort of waved the card past the camera as he handed it to me, and I got the idea of letting other people know about CameraWare.com so for a couple nights now, I have placed the business card in front of my camera and used the video sender to show it to the other users there. I do not know if ttinet.com (operators of CameraWare) would approve of that or not but I did it anyway, and they did not cut me off as I suspected they would when they saw my 'broadcast'. Anyway, it was disillusioning to say the least. I just hope that all the guys who read the good things I said about CameraWare here at one time don't get caught up in the FBI trap as I did. Nothing came of it for me, but still ... PAT] ------------------------------ From: ptownson@telecom-digest.org Subject: Lost Messages Date: Sat, 17 May 2003 12:00:00 CDT Two sort of small, (but important to their senders) messages bit the dust, fell into the bucket today in the process of being handled for the Digest. John Higdon wrote one as a REply to the earlier message on the movie being made about Kevin Poulsen. John wondered how close to accuracy the message would be. Please resubmit it if possible. The other one was a REply to the news posted by Monty Solomon on advertisements in movie theatres; who liked them, who did not mind them, etc. The guy who wrote this message (name unknown to me) made the suggestion we need a return to the drive-in movies concept of the 1950-60s era. He said then people could use their cell phone in the privacy of their own car and not disturb others. Please resubmit that also, whoever you are. Well, have a nice weekend! 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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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 #461 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon May 19 00:03:42 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4J43gO05991; Mon, 19 May 2003 00:03:42 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 00:03:42 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305190403.h4J43gO05991@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #461 TELECOM Digest Sun, 18 May 2003 23:59:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 462 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson MCI Gets Iraq Rebuild Contract (Danny Burstein) Re: U.S. Moviegoers Don't Mind Theater Ads - Study (John Stahl) Re: Beware of CameraWare - An FBI Sting! (Ron Bean) Re: Beware of CameraWare - An FBI Sting! (Dave Phelps) Spam Assassin, I Am (Joey Lindstrom) Re: Spam Assassin, I Am (Alan Premselaar) Re: Spam Assassin, I Am (Jonathan Nichols) General Tells How Cell Phone Foiled US Attack in Iraq (Michael Chance) Intel Looks Ahead On Wireless (Monty Solomon) Plan for Internet Lists of Molesters Stirs Controversy (Monty Solomon) Literary Groups Decry Patriot Act as Invasion of Privacy (Monty Solomon) Comcast Open to Adding WiFi Service (Monty Solomon) James Otterbeck, on Verizon's Hot Dash Into WiFi Net Access (M Solomon) Reach Out and Block Someone / Massachusetts Consumers Have (M Solomon) Leave me Alone! / With Junk E-mail Out of Control, Internet (M Solomon) As Google Goes, So Goes the Nation (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: Danny Burstein Subject: MCI Gets Iraq Rebuild Contract Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 01:52:49 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC "MCI, the telecommunications firm formerly known as WorldCom Inc., which filed for bankruptcy protection last year after disclosing a massive accounting scandal (US $11 billion), has been awarded a $45 million contract to build Iraq's mobile GSM phone network, reported the Wall Street Journal (May 15). ""We are very pleased by this news, as we have been working with the US Government and MCI to provide GSM, and ensure that Iraq had the right technology for its people, compatible with the rest of the region and the world," said Rob Conway, CEO of the GSM Association in a statement. [ snippety snip. rest of article, which has a lot more info on many other contracts, is at: http://www.itp.net/news/10530239994705.htm and the origqinal WSJ clip, paid subscription required, is at the following ugly url (watch out for line wrap): http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB105296363137806100-search,00.html?collection=wsjie%2F30day&vql_string=mci%3Cin%3E%28article%2Dbody%29 Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 May 2003 14:20:37 -0400 From: John Stahl Subject: Re: U.S. Moviegoers Don't Mind Theater Ads - Study Clark Wilhelm Griswold, Jr. <73115.dot.1041.at.compuserve.dot.com> wrote: > Same here. As society continues to devolve, the "me first" mentality > makes any kind of public interaction more and more distasteful. Cell > phones ringing, people chatting, people bringing young children along > have all made the thought of attending a movie in a public theater one > of the last things I will do with my entertainment dollar. > The last time I ventured out to the local first run cineplex, one > couple brought in an entire take out meal in two grocery bags and > proceedure to munch away while sitting in the row in front of me. Ah, remember Drive-In Theaters of the 60' and 70's? Maybe it's time for some forward thinking commercial endeavor to bring back to good-old drive-in movie theaters. There, people can watch a movie and do what they want in the privacy of their vehicles (now there are SUV's to handle the large families) where they can eat, play, talk on cell phones, etc., without bothering their neighbor in their SUV! The last movie drive-in, in this area (believe closed in the late 80's due to competition with TV) even had a RF transmitted sound system which "broadcast" audio directly to your in-car radio. With the car-radio sound systems of today they would now probably have to broadcast in stereo to get the full effect of the movie! John Stahl Aljon Enterprises ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 May 2003 18:49:59 -0500 From: Ron Bean Subject: Re: Beware of CameraWare - An FBI Sting! > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note:... > They spent a few minutes > looking at the computer room and the network stuff, then lost interest. Maybe another difference between small-town Kansas and Chicago... > They did grudingly admit that the ugly pictures were from some other > login name, (other than what Camerware had for me) ... So they figured searching your computer would be a good use of their time? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, consider it from the Federal Bureau of Inquisition's point of view: Anyone that owns a computer (any private citizen, I mean, not the government of course) is most likely using it to store pornography, right? Ask any police officer or federal agent. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Dave Phelps Subject: Re: Beware of CameraWare - An FBI Sting! Date: Sat, 17 May 2003 20:04:33 -0500 Organization: www.tippenring.com In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to no-spam@amadeus.kome.com: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, I know, and that is good practice > in many cases, but as the lady who operates the Montgomery County Jail > for our sheriff said to me once, 'no one likes an asshole'. I *could* > have asked for that, and yes, they would have gone to get one. Actually, > what officers generally do when those obstacles are presented to them > is one of them gets on the radio and asks an officer at the station > to 'please go see the Judge and get me a search warrant on (name of > case or defendant). Five or ten minutes, or maybe an hour later, the > warrant would have arrived. It might have delayed their ultimate > purpose (a raid on my premises) by several minutes, but it would have > happened anyway. Your being obstinate simply makes them even more so. The point of requiring a warrant is a lesson in circular logic. If everyone that had nothing to hide allowed unwarranted searches, then the fact that someone wouldn't allow a search would, in itself, be probably cause to perform a search. IMHO, compliance, although easier, slowly erodes our civil rights. Dave Phelps Phone Masters Ltd. deadspam=tippenring [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are right. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 18:39:00 -0600 Subject: Spam Assassin, I Am Reply-To: joey@garynuman.info When I'm not busy filtering spam, I moderate the "Gary Numan Digest", a mailing list for fans of the British singer/songwriter (y'all remember "Cars", right?) Anyways, I recently posted to the Gary Numan Digest explaining to everyone that I had now installed SpamAssassin on the server. Well, one wag pointed out that Gary Numan had released a song in 1982 Called "I, Assassin", and to call attention to the similarity, "sang" a verse of the song, replacing "I, Assassin, I am" with "Spam Assassin, I Am". One thing led to another and ... well ... ok, it's a groaner, but also mildly amusing. :-) ORIGINAL LYRICS =============== We are assassins We are not evil We act with reason and heart Your heart We are not vicious Is that surprising? We're so much larger than life I, Assassin, I am I, Assassin, I am "I just arrived Something to fix This new depression" We are not hunters We are just patient We'll wait a lifetime for you Just you I've never felt good I've never felt bad I've never felt much at all I, Assassin, I am I, Assassin, I am "There's nothing personal Just read the papers That's real" NEW LYRICS ========== We're Spam Assassins We are not evil We clean the junk from your mail Your mail We are not vicious Is that surprising? We filter con jobs and porn Spam Assassin, I am Spam Assassin, I am "Spam just arrived! Something to fix This new pestilence" We're not spam hunters We are just patient We filter con jobs and porn For you I've filtered evil I've filtered "free" deals I've filtered "make money now" Spam Assassin, I am Spam Assassin, I am "There's nothing personal Just read the headers That's fake" Any musicians out there? Maybe we could cut a hit single ... :-) (If anyone would like to hear the original, I can email a low-bitrate MP3, just drop me a line.) / From the desk of Joey Lindstrom / One day I got on the usual bus, and when I stepped in, I saw the most / gorgeous blond Chinese girl ... I sat beside her. I said, "Hi," and she / said, "Hi," and then I said, "Nice day, isn't it?," And she said, "I saw / my analyst today and he says I have a problem." So I asked, "What's the / problem?" She replied, "I can't tell you. I don't even know you ..." I / said, "Well sometimes it's good to tell your problems to a perfect / stranger on a bus." So she said, "Well, my analyst said I'm a / nymphomaniac and I only like Jewish cowboys... By the way, my name is / Denise." I said, "Hello, Denise. My name is Bucky Goldstein ..." / --Steven Wright [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you send an audio file of the song to the Telecom Archives, I will put it up for everyone who might like to hear it. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 10:38:04 +0900 Subject: Re: Spam Assassin, I Am From: Alan Premselaar What album is that on? I might actually have it. On 5/19/03 9:39 AM, "Joey Lindstrom" wrote: > When I'm not busy filtering spam, I moderate the "Gary Numan Digest", a > mailing list for fans of the British singer/songwriter (y'all remember > "Cars", right?) Anyways, I recently posted to the Gary Numan Digest > explaining to everyone that I had now installed SpamAssassin on the > server. > Well, one wag pointed out that Gary Numan had released a song in 1982 > Called "I, Assassin", and to call attention to the similarity, "sang" a > verse of the song, replacing "I, Assassin, I am" with "Spam Assassin, I > Am". One thing led to another and... well... ok, it's a groaner, but > also mildly amusing. :-) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 19:29:05 -0700 From: Jonathan Nichols Reply-To: jnichols@pbp.net Organization: pbp.net Subject: Re: Spam Assassin, I Am Joey Lindstrom wrote: > When I'm not busy filtering spam, I moderate the "Gary Numan Digest", a > mailing list for fans of the British singer/songwriter (y'all remember > "Cars", right?) Anyways, I recently posted to the Gary Numan Digest > explaining to everyone that I had now installed SpamAssassin on the > server. > Well, one wag pointed out that Gary Numan had released a song in 1982 > Called "I, Assassin", and to call attention to the similarity, "sang" a > verse of the song, replacing "I, Assassin, I am" with "Spam Assassin, I > Am". One thing led to another and... well... ok, it's a groaner, but > also mildly amusing. :-) I'll PayPal you $1 if you re-make "Assassing" by Marillion. :P~ ------------------------------ From: Michael Chance Subject: General Tells How Cell Phone Foiled U. S. Attack in Iraq Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 01:56:04 GMT Rowan Scarborough THE WASHINGTON TIMES The Army's only retreat in the lightning-fast war to oust Saddam Hussein came after an Iraqi general in the town of Najaf cell-phoned ahead to his troops that a regiment of Apache attack helicopters was on the way. http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030508-11542690.htm [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It would seem while the USA was busily blowing up telephone exchanges in Iraq, they must have overlooked one of the exchanges for cell phones. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 22:16:20 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Intel Looks Ahead On Wireless Arik Hesseldahl, 05.16.03, 10:00 AM ET NEW YORK - From the tone and sheer number of TV ads that chipmaker Intel is running these days showing people working on notebook computers anywhere and everywhere, you'd think that wireless Internet access on a notebook PC might be the application that single handedly saves the PC market. It hasn't happened yet. But indications from Intel (nasdaq: INTC - news - people ) are that is has big plans on the wireless front. Intel calls its wireless platform Centrino, and it consists of a Pentium-M processor and Wi-Fi wireless networking components. So far, the success of the Centrino platform isn't clear--though, judging by the popularity of it among PC manufacturers using it in their latest notebook lines, they think it's a success. At its analysts' meeting in New York, Intel offered a peek forward at what's next for Centrino. Its next Centrino-branded platform is currently codenamed "Dothan," and it will appear in the second half of the year, likely in time for the holiday gift rush. Dothan will consist of a faster Pentium M processor and dual-band wireless networking capability. The Pentium chip will be produced on Intel's new 90-nanometer technology, which means that the transistors and other elements on the chip will be smaller than those on the current generation of Intel chips, which are made on 130-nanometer technology. The shrink will save room on the chip itself, allowing Intel to put 2 megabytes of Level 2 memory cache on the chip, which should speed up performance for certain tasks considerably. http://www.forbes.com/2003/05/16/cx_ah_0516tentech.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 22:34:36 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Plan for Internet Lists of Molesters Stirs Controversy State seeks to publish photos of sex offenders By Christopher Rowland, Globe Staff, 5/15/2003 When Hudson Police Captain David Stephens learns of a high-risk child molester in town, he unleashes a publicity barrage. He tacks laminated notices to telephone poles, warns individual neighbors, and notifies local day-care centers. Local elementary school principals are required to sign a receipt acknowledging the warnings, so police and town officials can be sure every base has been covered in the effort to alert the community. Starting today, if the plan survives a possible court challenge that was expected this week, the state's Sex Offender Registry Board will take those local warnings a step further, using the Internet to publicly post the names, addresses, and photographs of more than 350 Level 3 sex offenders residing throughout the state. Computer users will be able to click on a city or town, and find the identities of convicted child molesters and rapists living in that community. Information will include the offender's photo, name, and home and work address; the charges the offender was convicted of; and a physical description. Stephens, who already publishes the identities of Hudson's two Level 3 sex offenders on his Police Department website, applauded the state for putting more information about potentially dangerous criminals into the public domain. He predicted that phones will light up in dozens of police departments as soon as the information hits cyberspace. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/135/west/Plan_for_Internet_lists_of_molesters_stirs_controversy+.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 22:48:02 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Literary Groups Decry Patriot Act as Invasion of Privacy By David Mehegan, Globe Staff, 5/16/2003 A national coalition of publishers, authors, librarians, and booksellers yesterday called on Congress to modify the part of the antiterrorist USA Patriot Act that allows the government to secretly inspect Americans' book-buying and -borrowing habits. The statement is signed by 32 organizations, including the American Booksellers Association, the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers, the American Library Association, PEN American Center, and the giant booksellers Borders and Barnes & Noble. It endorses a bill filed in March by Representative Bernard Sanders, Independent of Vermont, that would exempt bookstore sales records and library borrowing records from some provisions of the act. In a separate statement supporting the Sanders bill, former US representative Patricia Schroeder, president of the library association, said, ''Section 215 seriously undermines the First Amendment-protected activities of authors and publishers, booksellers and librarians, and indeed anyone who reads.'' http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/136/nation/Literary_groups_decry_Patriot_Act_as_invasion_of_privacy+.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 22:54:05 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Comcast Open to Adding WiFi Service By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff, 5/16/2003 A top executive of Comcast Corp. said yesterday his company would roll out its own service if rival Verizon Communications draws a big market with its offer of high-speed wireless Internet access through ''WiFi'' gear mounted on pay phones. But speaking at a Massachusetts Telecommunications Council conference in Boston, David Fellows, Comcast's chief technology officer, said he remains nervous about pouring resources into WiFi services that rely on unlicensed public airwaves, rather than wireless services in the better-controlled licensed spectrum. WiFi stands for wireless fidelity and refers to systems that offer 11-megabit-per-second Net access in a roughly 300-foot zone around a ''hot spot'' transmitter. Verizon this week said it has activated the first 150 of a planned 1,000 WiFi hot spots in New York, using gear mounted on pay phones that will offer free wireless Net access for its customers who buy Verizon digital subscriber line access at home or its dial-up Net service. If it proves popular and successful, Verizon would likely offer similar services in Boston and other markets, according to James Otterbeck, the Verizon senior vice president of emerging markets. Fellows said, ''If there's a market there, I can attach a [transmitting device] anywhere there's coaxial cable'' to activate WiFi coverage. ''If the world wants a blanketed WiFi service, if there's a demand for it, our network infrastructure can respond'' with similar service. ''If it turns out this is a killer idea, then we can very quickly respond.'' Fellows said that earlier in his career, as a technology investor with Pilot House Ventures in Boston, he reviewed several business plans for WiFi-like services. But he said, ''I always thought really hard about launching a commercial service in unlicensed spectrum'' that can be prone to interference, overcrowding, and security lapses. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/136/business/Comcast_open_to_adding_WiFi_service+.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 11:07:12 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: James Otterbeck, on Verizon's Hot Dash Into WiFi Net Access By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff, 5/18/2003 Verizon Communications unveiled a project last week to turn the lowly city pay phone into a key weapon in its competition for dominance of 21st-century high-speed wireless Internet access, activating the first 150 of a planned 1,000 WiFi hot spots in New York City. In contrast to stand-alone WiFi providers such as Wayport and Boingo, Verizon offers the service only to existing Internet customers, who will receive the service for free from upgraded pay stations marked with signs reading You Are Hot. James A. Otterbeck, Verizon's senior vice president of emerging markets, spoke with Globe telecommunications writer Peter J. Howe about Verizon's WiFi plans. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/138/business/James_Otterbeck_on_Verizon_s_hot_dash_into_WiFi_Net_access+.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 11:17:33 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Reach Out and Block Someone / Massachusetts Consumers Have By Bruce Mohl, Globe Staff, 5/18/2003 Massachusetts consumers have telemarketers on the run. Tired of unwanted phone calls from companies trying to sell them things, Massachusetts residents have placed more than 1.1 million phone numbers, or about 40 percent of all residential lines, on the state's do-not-call list. A month-and-a-half into the state's do-not-call experiment, homeowners are starting to enjoy the silence. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/138/business/Reach_out_and_block_someone+.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 11:20:17 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Leave Me Alone! / With Junk E-Mail Out of Control With junk e-mail out of control, Internet experts want to redesign the whole system By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 5/18/2003 You think the dozen or two spam e-mails you delete every day are a lot? That's nothing to Paul Judge, chief technology officer of CipherTrust, an Alpharetta, Ga., company that sells e-mail filtering technology to dozens of major US firms. Armed with his software, Judge's customers discard billions of unwanted e-mail messages every day. Yet it's not enough. Spam is out of control. The flood of pornographic ads, financial scams, and other junk e-mail is rising at a rate of 15 percent a month. Around half of all Internet mail sent this year will be unwanted advertisements, according to Brightmail Inc., a California e-mail filtering company. Cleaning this rubbish out of corporate mailboxes will cost American businesses $10 billion this year in lost productivity and extra computer expense, according to Ferris Research, an e-mail technology research firm in California. People frequently ignore important e-mails in their inboxes because they're surrounded by so much spam. Filtering devices meant to keep spam away sometimes toss out good messages along with the bad. Reminiscent of the early days of fax machines, people sending important e-mails now follow up with a phone call to make sure the e-mail got through. ''Spam is putting the Internet in jeopardy,'' said Phillip Hallam-Baker, principal scientist for the computer security firm Verisign Inc. To avoid e-mail obsolescence, the Internet Engineering Task Force, the global group that sets Internet standards, tapped Judge and other e-mail experts to overhaul e-mail and come up with effective spam blocking techniques. The first meeting of this new working group, held in March, featured presentations from technical gurus, civil libertarians, and representatives of Internet advertising companies spooked by the rise of junk e-mail. Instead of fighting spam piecemeal, they want to redesign the globe's entire e-mail system. Until recently, such an overhaul would have seemed too radical to contemplate. Not anymore. ''We have the attention of the Internet community in a way we've never had before,'' Judge said. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/138/business/Leave_me_alone_+.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 12:13:01 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: As Google Goes, So Goes the Nation By GEOFFREY NUNBERG You don't get to be a verb unless you're doing something right. Do a Google search on "ford," for example, and the first batch of results includes the pages for the Ford Motor Company, the Ford Foundation, the Betty Ford Center, Harrison Ford and Gerald R. Ford - all good guesses at what a user would be looking for, particularly considering that Google estimates its index holds more than 16 million pages including the word. Google now conducts 55 percent of all searches on the World Wide Web. People have come to trust the service to act as a digital bloodhound. Give it a search term to sniff, and it disappears into the cyber wilderness, returning a fraction of a second later with the site you were looking for in its mouth. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/18/weekinreview/18NUNB.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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #462 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon May 19 13:36:34 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4JHaY009523; Mon, 19 May 2003 13:36:34 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 13:36:34 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305191736.h4JHaY009523@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #462 TELECOM Digest Mon, 19 May 2003 13:36:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 462 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson SBC *Finally* Acknowledges I am Gone (TELECOM Digest Editor) WFMT Making Some Changes Soon (TELECOM Digest Editor) Disney to Begin Renting "Self-Destructing" DVDs (Monty Solomon) Flexplay Introduces 'EZ-D,' The 48 Hour DVD (Monty Solomon) Black-Book Backup Plan: Losing Your Cellphone, Not Your Mind (M Solomon) Re: General Tells How Cell Phone Foiled US Attack in Iraq (John Higdon) Re: CameraWare is an FBI Sting Operation (Charles B. Wilber) 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, 19 May 2003 12:09:04 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: SBC *Finally* Acknowledges I am Gone Around Thursday of last week, SBC finally let loose of their tight grip on my local service. As I mentioned, first I had to deal with my being 'ineligible' for conversion (to a CLEC) since I had DSL on my line. Once we got through that, by me changing my Internet from Southwestern Bell to the local cable company; then SBC tried to say I was ineligible for conversion since I had a 'PIC freeze' on my line which prohibited any changes. On both of these occassions, it was incumbent on *me* to wade through voicemail hell and wait in a long queue to speak to a live person at SBC. That finally happened last Thursday. I called back to Prairie Stream again after all that and Mike tried once again -- I think his fourth or fifth try -- to move my account and lo and behold, it got through okay. In their office there at TerraWorld, in the basement of (what used to be) the Arco Corporate Center, they have some terminals which are hooked up to their stuff in the SBC central office over at 6th and Maple Streets. In addition to TerraWorld being the local ISP here in town, they also offer DSL service through some brokered arrangement with SBC and they now offer 'Prairie Stream Communications' (local telephone service) as well, and the telephone service thing is licensed or approved by the Kansas Commission for same. Not a single peep out of SBC except one service rep at SBC saying 'we are sorry to see you going'. Now today, Monday, I guess SBC finally noticed I was gone. At 10:45 AM today, my phone rang with an 'out of area' message on caller ID and when I answered, it was a **recorded message** from SBC saying 'we notice your phone service has been changed. If you authorized this change, you need not do anything; if you did NOT request the change, please call us toll free at 866- something.' The message repeated itself twice, then disconnected. That seems to be how little SBC cares either way about their customers. I dialed the number they announced, as usual got voicemail and a menu to choose through, however, god bless them, this time a recording came on saying 'based on your phone number, you are a valued customer and we are going to handle your call on an expedited basis.' I did not wait around. We will see what they have to say tomorrow and the day after that. To Fred Goldstein and Clarence Dold: You both had some very succinct and detailed commentaries to make on the 'Prairie Stream' operation. Thank you, and would you (or anyone else) care to contribute further to this thread? I for one am anxious to know all I can about it. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 20:53:06 -0600 From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: WFMT Making Some Changes Soon Following is an article about WFMT that was recently published in the Chicago Tribune. Many of you are well aware that I'm no great fan of WFMT, but I thought you might be interested anyway. -------------------- WFMT: Still standing tall, but slowly, surely eroding -------------------- By John von Rhein Tribune music critic May 12, 2003 People who go around whining that things aren't what they used to be can be awfully tiresome. But if you were to argue that things are getting no better fast at WFMT-FM 98.7, you would hear no argument from longtime listeners who recall the time not so long ago when it was the most cultured radio station in North America. In overall broadcast quality, WFMT still stands tall compared with the average U.S. classical music outlet, at a time when many such stations either have sold out to pop formats (such as Chicago's WNIB-FM, once the city's second classical bandwidth) or dumbed down their programming to bite-size Bach and Vivaldi punctuated by grating commercial jingles. A number of major broadcast markets, notably Detroit, San Diego and Tulsa, have no classical radio station at all. But much of what made WFMT truly distinctive seems to be eroding in slow but perceptible degrees, a decline driven by the difficulties of making classical radio commercially viable but also by economic reverses suffered by the fine-arts station's corporate parent, Window to the World Communications, which also owns and operates public broadcasting station WTTW-Channel 11. The Arbitron ratings evidence a decline of another sort. WFMT, which had habitually trailed classical rival WNIB a percentage point or two until that station's demise in 2001, scored a dramatic ratings leap immediately thereafter, going from a 1.9 average share of listeners in winter 2001 to 2.9 in winter 2002. The ratings have since leveled off, falling to 1.7 in the most recent Arbitron survey. Last week brought more changes and belt-tightening at non-profit WFMT that, combined with the cutbacks and bloodletting at WTTW earlier this year, have observers worried about the direction in which WFMT is going. "If they're not dumbing down their product, they certainly are diluting it," said a former staffer. Two program hosts, Mel Zellman and Jan Weller, have been let go from the station. Both announcers will be missed, particularly Zellman, a 40-year WFMT veteran who took early retirement in 1999 but remained on an interim basis until early this month. Cost-saving move In an unrelated move, WFMT has instituted a cost-saving automated system that affects the programming from 6:05 p.m. to midnight seven days a week. As of Monday, the station is due to convert its evening broadcast hours to the Prophet, or NexGen, system, which replaces a live announcer with prerecorded announcements and program elements. NexGen is widely used by pop and jazz stations such as Chicago's WNUA-FM 95.5 and in several classical radio outlets including KING-FM in Seattle and KDFC-FM in San Francisco. The system's rationale is that it cuts announcer costs, allowing the program host -- in this case, Lisa Flynn -- to load (or "rip") CDs into the system in a fraction of the time it would take to play and record each piece. Dan Schmidt, president and chief executive of WTTW Communications, said that converting to an automated system on weeknights isn't that radical a move for WFMT, given the fact that much of the station's evening programming already consists of pretaped concert broadcasts. He further points out that the "LaSalle By Night" program, which airs from midnight to 6 a.m. daily with Peter Van De Graaff as host, has been prerecorded for the last 25 years. WFMT chief Steve Robinson says the station will save "not an insubstantial amount" -- somewhere in the five figures -- by eliminating the actual presence of an announcer during evening hours. WFMT purchased the NexGen equipment several years ago with the intention of automating portions of its broadcast schedule long before now, he says, but installation was delayed because of software and other technical issues. The idea of making "LaSalle By Night" fully automated "has crossed our mind," he adds, but "there's no firm plan" to do so as yet. If I were one of the remaining WFMT program hosts, I'd be nervous. If the evening shift, featuring introductions and lead-outs by a "virtual" Lisa Flynn, functions without glitches, what is to prevent the station from going automated on a nearly 24-hour basis? In the enlightened days when Ray Nordstrand and Norman Pellegrini ran the station, some listeners would complain that WFMT was stuffy and impersonal. Even if that were true (which I never believed), that's nothing compared with the impersonal tone the station will assume when even greater blocks of its broadcast schedule wind up as stored digital files to be retrieved at the click of a mouse and sent out by an uplink operator from an otherwise empty studio. Robinson insists "we are here to serve listeners with quality-music programs," while Schmidt defends the use of computer technology, at both WFMT and its public television parent, as a means to make the stations more productive and cost-effective. But the economic battering WTTW has recently taken, which led to a scaling back of Schmidt's much vaunted "Network Chicago" vision, has awakened fears that WFMT's already compromised standards could be compromised even further. Suffering a major blow The demise last January of WTTW's two-year-old arts-entertainment newspaper, City Talk, combined with the elimination of 23 staff jobs at the public broadcasting outlet, dealt a major blow to Schmidt's "Network Chicago" synergy of TV, radio, print and online content. The failure of City Talk was blamed on its failure to generate enough ad revenue. The plain fact was the local market didn't need another newspaper. For WTTW to launch a publication that cost roughly $750,000 a year to produce seemed an act of pure hubris. At a staff meeting in January that some insiders reportedly called a "near mutiny" of angry and bitter employees, Schmidt was forced to defend his $296,515 annual compensation, the company Lexus he drives and other perks at a time of mass layoffs and aggressive funding appeals. In WFMT's case, Schmidt argues, those appeals are necessary to make up for station's advertising income, which is limited by the fact that "you can't generate a lot of commercial revenue when you're broadcasting Mahler symphonies." The station's latest such pitch for contributions, which ran for a week in April, was its second most successful ever, raising $442,000 from 4,000 donors. But WFMT may be pushing that loyalty beyond its limits. Although the station normally mounts a fund drive once only every 17 weeks, it has scheduled another beg-a-thon in June so that it can finish out the fiscal year a bit more flush than before. So what do listeners get for their loyalty? They hear a laudable amount of live or taped concerts and operas, including performances broadcast live from WFMT's own studio. They hear jingle-free, announcer-read ad copy, the station's proud trademark for most of its 52-year existence. The quality classical and folk music programming listeners expect from WFMT is still there, according to Robinson. "I vehemently deny there's any dumbing down here -- never while I'm around," he insists. Others may find that, on any given day, the "new" WFMT can be a frustrating mixture of the good, the fluffy and the distasteful. Consider: Broadcasts by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Lyric Opera remain conspicuous by their absence. One of the station's most knowledgeable program hosts, the veteran Don Tait, is underemployed, while the fumbling newcomer Scott Thomas suffers from overexposure. (Hard to believe the latter was retained but Weller, whom Robinson himself praises as "gifted," was dismissed.) Sorely missed is Tait's "Collector's Corner" series, a model of its kind, which presented serious, comprehensive musical portraits of important musicians in recorded history. By comparison, the weekly "Music in Monaco" series is little more than a glorified infomercial for Monaco tourism. Canned series such as the maudlin "The Romantic Hours" just take up valuable air time. And the "listener-friendly" weekday morning music quizzes are a WNIB-style gimmick that would never have been instituted if Pellegrini were still running the show. Indeed, given the National Public Radio background of both Robinson and Schmidt, it is no coincidence WFMT programming has taken on an increasing "Public Radio" tone -- again something that would have been anathema to the old regime. Rumors persisted Rumors have been circulating for some years that WTTW, despite sizable assets including a $20 million endowment, is waiting for the right moment to sell WFMT, thereby shoring up its financial position within the network of Public Broadcasting affiliates, all of whom are similarly cash-strapped. In February 2001, WNIB-FM left the airwaves after being sold to the Salt Lake City-based conglomerate Bonneville International for $165 million. Recent changes and upheavals in the WTTW family have only reawakened the buzz, which Schmidt dismisses as "paranoia." "Those rumors are understandable, given the astronomical value of WFMT's license on the commercial market," says the WTTW president. "We understand, and so does our board, that WFMT is a community asset. One of the reasons we can justify our existence is the fact that for 35 years we have been a safe harbor, holding this asset for the community. Whether you agree or not that our stewardship has been perfect, we do take it very, very seriously. "I understand that with the passage of time there will always be some people who remember what they feel was the Golden Age [of WFMT]. I would submit that the services have evolved and we've had to do some things to make the station viable in today's world. I understand the paranoia, but it's really not justified." Such reassurances may not be enough to satisfy those listeners who believe the fine arts radio station is in gradual decline and that those qualities of class, knowledgability and taste that once made it a pacesetter in fine arts broadcasting -- not just in the U.S. but in the world -- could be further compromised. Copyright (c) 2003, Chicago Tribune [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My thanks to Chicago Tribune for making this article available on their web site, and my thanks to a Digest reader for making me aware of it. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 23:21:29 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Disney to Begin Renting "Self-destructing" DVDs LOS ANGELES, May 16 (Reuters) - This disc will self-destruct in 48 hours. That is the warning The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE:DIS) will issue this August when it begins to "rent" DVDs that after two days become unplayable and do not have to be returned. Disney home video unit Buena Vista Home Entertainment will launch a pilot movie "rental" program in August that uses the self-destruction technology, the company said on Friday. The discs stop working when a process similar to rusting makes them unreadable. The discs start off red, but when they are taken out of the package, exposure to oxygen turns the coating black and makes it impenetrable by a DVD laser. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34234690 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 23:24:46 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Flexplay Introduces 'EZ-D,' The 48 Hour DVD EZ-D Will Feature Titles From Buena Vista Home Entertainment Including The Recruit, The Hot Chick, 25TH Hour, Frida & Signs NEW YORK, May 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Flexplay Technologies, Inc, a privately held company based in New York, today announced that Buena Vista Home Entertainment Division of The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) will use its flexible play DVD technology to make movies available to consumers in test markets beginning this August. The introduction of this innovative product, branded "EZ-D," will include BVHE titles The Recruit, Rabbit Proof Fence, The Hot Chick, 25th Hour, Heaven, Equilibrium, Frida and Signs. EZ-D will incorporate Flexplay's proprietary flexible play technology into a standard DVD. A Flexplay enabled DVD is similar to a conventional DVD, except that it has a 48 hour viewing window that begins when the disc is removed from its packaging. Consumers will then be able to enjoy the movie as many times as they wish during this time frame. After 48 hours of impeccable play, the DVD will no longer be readable by the DVD player and can then be recycled. A Flexplay enabled DVD works in all players, DVD drives and gaming systems designed to accept a standard DVD. GE Plastics, a division of GE (NYSE:GE), has been a key strategic collaborator in the advancement of Flexplay's proprietary technologies, developing a new patented Lexan(R) resin co-polymer essential to the flexible play design. EZ-D's goal is to expand the overall home entertainment market by appealing to consumers whose rental consumption has diminished due to the perceived inconvenience of the current rental process. EZ-D will give these consumers easy access to recently released titles in places they already shop and the opportunity to watch them at their convenience without worrying about returns, late fees or scratched discs. EZ-D offers retailers the opportunity to expand their existing DVD business; and for first time DVD retailers, easy entree into the growing DVD category. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34231247 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 09:54:17 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Black-Book Backup Plan: Losing Your Cellphone, Not Your Mind By WALTER S. MOSSBERG When my assistant Katie lost her cellphone on the D.C. subway last week, her biggest regret wasn't the loss of the device itself, though that did cost her money and time. The biggest loss was the 90 phone numbers she had programmed into the phone. Like many people -- especially young people -- Katie doesn't carry a PDA. She uses her phone as her electronic address book. Other folks even use the crude calendars and note pads in cellphones to jot down a random date or note. And when your phone is lost or stolen, or if it breaks or dies, that precious information is gone. Unlike PDA owners, neither Katie, nor 99% of cellphone owners, back up the data in their phones, or even are aware that such a backup is possible. But it is. So, this week we decided to make the best of a bad situation and review several products that back up and synchronize your phone's address book and/or calendar using a personal computer. Not only do these products spare you the burden of re-entering hundreds of letters and numbers when you lose your phone, but they let you use your phone as a more complete device, with your office calendar and contacts synchronized to it, instead of having to carry a phone and PDA. Each allows you to enter addresses, and in some cases dates, on the PC and then transfer them to the phone. That's much easier than tapping in all the data on the phone's keypad. http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/solution-20030514.html ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: General Tells How Cell Phone Foiled U. S. Attack in Iraq Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 21:36:44 -0700 In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It would seem while the USA was busily > blowing up telephone exchanges in Iraq, they must have overlooked one > of the exchanges for cell phones. PAT] But they weren't ignoring the cell phones. Cell phone conversations were being closely monitored for intelligence gathering purposes. Many successful hits were accomplished by the use of this activity. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ Date: 19 May 2003 10:21:07 EDT From: Charles.B.Wilber@Dartmouth.EDU (Charles B. Wilber) Subject: Re: CameraWare is an FBI Sting Operation --- PAT wrote: Remember, no one likes an asshole. --- end of quote --- You use that phrase twice in explaining why you allowed law enforcement access to your computer and computer files. You identify yourself as a civil libertarian but quickly relinquish your civil liberties rather than risk being perceived an "asshole." I would have expected a "civil libertarian" to have demanded due process if for no other reason than to maintain the integrity of the system. When we begin relinquishing liberties because someone who has already demonstrated his adversial intent might think us "assholes" I believe we will find ourselves with very few liberties before long. Charlie Wilber [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As Bunyan once noted in 'Pilgrims Progress', "what I say and what I do, in real life are often two. Help me -- oppressed by things undone -- make my thoughts and my deeds be truly one." Or as someone else once said, "Know yourself, accept yourself, be yourself". Or, as noted in the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, Simon Johnson, who had been renamed 'Peter' had just finished a vigorous debate with Jesus in which he claimed 'I will follow you to the death, I will never leave you.' Jesus responded 'that is baloney. The sun will not come up tomorrow morning before you have denied me three times!' Peter went out to walk around; at various times, three young ladies stopped him and said 'we have seen you around; you are one of those guys'. Each time, Peter denied it vigorously, and upon denying Jesus the third time, the cock crowed. Peter, realizing what he had done, went away privatly and wept bitterly. Ditto. I only wish I could be a stronger person that what I am. 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #462 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon May 19 19:43:24 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4JNhNx11556; Mon, 19 May 2003 19:43:24 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 19:43:24 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305192343.h4JNhNx11556@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #463 TELECOM Digest Mon, 19 May 2003 19:43:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 463 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Web Vigilantes Give Spammers Big Dose of Their Own Medicine (M Jervis) WSJ on Stoopid Spammer Tricks (Marcus Jervis) Re: From the Archives: The Alascom Story (Please invert everything left) Automated Emailing? Schedule Reminders NO NOT SPAM :) (no.email.) Re: Beware of CameraWare - An FBI Sting! (JohnM) Re: Leave Me Alone! / With Junk E-Mail Out of Control (tonypo1@sdc.cox) Re: General Tells How Cell Phone Foiled U. S. Attack in Iraq (tonypo1) Re: MCI Gets Iraq Rebuild Contract (Mike Hartley) 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: Marcus Jervis Subject: Web Vigilantes Give Spammers Big Dose of Their Own Medicine Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 20:29:25 +0000 SPAM AND EGGS Web Vigilantes Give Spammers Big Dose of Their Own Medicine They Find Mass E-Mailers And Play Tricks on Them By MYLENE MANGALINDAN Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL When all 24 office phones at Scott Richter's e-mail marketing company started ringing at once, with nobody at the other end of the line, employees knew they were under attack again. Daniel Dye, the systems administrator, could do little. After 15 minutes into the lunchtime assault last month, Mr. Dye recalls yelling, "Go ahead and pull your phones out of the walls for now. It'll be easier to think about what to do." Examining the phone system's central computer, Mr. Dye found that someone had hacked into it and programmed a feature that caused all the phones to ring at the same time. Mr. Richter's company had been "flamed" -- attacked by a shadowy group of vigilantes who have taken to harassing spammers using just about any means they can dream up. Spam, or unsolicited commercial e-mail, has set off a war between marketers and people who hate spam. Mr. Richter, who is a mass commercial e-mailer, has become a frequent target of attackers known as antispammers. They form a loose affiliation that uses the Internet to coordinate attacks from around the world. E-mail marketers often feel powerless against them. "It's an underground cult running it," says Mr. Richter, whose Westminster, Colo., e-mail marketing business, Optinrealbig.com (www.optinbig.com1), pitches mortgages, adult-related products and Viagra. "You don't know who they are." Here's one of them: Mark Jones, a 26-year-old software engineer in Enterprise, Ala., who calls himself a "soldier" in the war against spam. From his home at night, he tracks down spammers by tracing the complex routing code hidden in e-mail messages. He reports them to what antispammers call "realtime blacklists," Web sites that track known spam sources and allow computer administrators to block certain Internet addresses. Then, he fights back. "Anytime we find a source of spam," he says, "we spam them back." After his three children were asleep late one Saturday night last November, Mr. Jones sat down at his PC for a bit of spammer-flaming. First, he says, he visited a Web site, slashdot.org (www.slashdot.org2), that's a favorite among techies; he pulled down a list of about 10 alleged spammers. He programmed his personal computer to send a letter to each supposed spammer in the same way many spammers do: through so-called open relays and mail servers that forward e-mail in ways that make it hard to track down the sender. As his finishing stroke, he had his PC send the message to each spammer 10,000 times. "We use the same methods the spammers use," says Mr. Jones, chuckling. "It's a bombardment." Spam is out of control. It's the No. 1 complaint of most e-mail users. AOL Time Warner Inc.'s America Online unit, the No. 1 Internet service, says as much as 80% of incoming e-mail to its system is spam. Laws to regulate it have been proposed in Congress. Mass e-mailers don't consider turnabout fair play. Such bombardment can be devastating to their businesses. When Tom Tsilionis walked into his office in Newark, N.J., one morning last month, he too was greeted by the sound of ringing phones, 12 of them. "You're going to have some kind of day today," one of his frazzled receptionists told him. "Everything's down: E-mail's down; servers are down; the Web site's down." Mr. Tsilionis denies that he is a spammer. He runs Perfect Telecom, a telecom and Web-hosting company whose clients include bulk e-mailers. When he was attacked, he called his Greek data center in Athens. He got confirmation that all 184 server computers had stopped working, overwhelmed by roughly 15 million e-mail messages that had arrived all at once. Meanwhile, 30,000 complaints had been filed against Mr. Tsilionis's company with the telecommunications companies that provide his Internet access, leading them to cut off Mr. Tsilionis's access. His business stayed down for 10 days. "I thought in this country you're innocent until proven guilty," says Mr. Tsilionis. No one knows how many antispammers there are. Antispammers can't even agree on a common definition of spam. Many are like Mr. Jones, who works in solitude and says he has little idea who his fellows are and doesn't really care. He doesn't consider any of his tactics to be illegal. On the receiving end, Mr. Richter, 32, last month got in the mail five copies of Glamour that he hadn't subscribed to, followed by four copies of Cosmopolitan days later. Among the names to whom the periodicals were addressed: "I hate you," and "Die, spammer." It's easy for antispammers to sign up marketers under fake or real names for free trial subscriptions by going to Web sites such as bluedolphin.com (www.bluedolphin.com5). Publishers are willing to send the bills after subscriptions start. His assistant regularly cancels unsolicited subscriptions. Mr. Richter doesn't consider himself a spammer because he says he sends e-mail only to lists of people who have "opted in" by indicating to someone they have done business with that they are willing to receive e-mail promotions. After the telephone attack on Mr. Richter's office, Mr. Dye, the systems administrator, called the police to report the intrusion. Some marketers say they would love to take legal action against vigilantes, but it's hard to track them down. David Kramer, a Silicon Valley lawyer who has followed the spam issue, says many antispammer tactics are illegal. Crashing a data center by flooding it with traffic is certainly a form of trespassing and tampering with private property, he says. Some antispammers disavow the more-extreme tactics. These less-fanatical activists, sometimes disparaged in antispam circles as "quakers" or "spam apologists," advocate strictly legal approaches such as reporting spammers to service providers. Mark Ferguson, a 40-year-old Healdsburg, Calif., resident says he sticks to reporting spammers to Internet services and blacklists. But he acknowledges his fellow activists include people who use legally questionable methods. "We have some nut cases," he says. Clearly, a big attraction for some of the more extreme vigilantes is bragging rights. Karen Hoffmann, a 42-year-old computer systems analyst, attained fame among antispammers two years ago for documenting the real-estate properties of a bulk mailer named Thomas-Carlton Cowles, who lives in her hometown, Toledo, Ohio. She tracked down Internet addresses he had registered, visited the physical locations of each one. Then she took pictures of his house and buildings in which he had offices and put them on a Web site. Ms. Hoffmann says her objective was to dispel a myth that spammers aren't well-off. "It turns out this gentleman lives in a very expensive home," she says. Mr. Cowles, who heads an e-mail marketing company called Empire Towers Corp., declines to comment, says an Empire employee who asked not to be named, because he doesn't want to encourage Ms. Hoffmann. Privately, says the employee, Mr. Cowles calls her "my stalker." Ms. Hoffman denies stalking him. Write to Mylene Mangalindan at mylene.mangalindan@wsj.com7 URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB105329334253835400,00.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As far as *I* am concerned, these vigilante folks are all heros who deserve rewards for their efforts. That is the kind of thing I used to do in the 'old days' (pre-brain desease days) and when spammers were actually few and far between. I do not know if anyone remembers or even cares anymore, but when SpamKing was a big name on the net (early 1990s) I was responsible for 'outing' him. Ditto for that other guy about the same time; the fellow who acted as a female impersonator hawking magazine subscriptions over the net. In this latter case, someone sent me his driver's record from the State of New York and I published it here. I mean, ten or twelve years ago we thought that spam was *bad news* and I was pleased to do my part to help stamp it out, even at some risk to myself. That's how we were in those days on the net. Each of us did what we could. SpamKing was my little contribution to the effort. Now, I can do very little it seems. My brain desease has largely forced me to just sit on the sidelines and cheer for *my* team, the guys who continue to fight spam however they can. God speed to all these guys who, IMO can do no wrong. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Marcus Jervis Subject: WSJ on Stoopid Spammer Tricks Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 20:36:49 +0000 (This is from the May 5 Wall Street Journal) STUPID SPAMMER TRICKS: Our original idea for this item was to offer the "Seven Deadly Sins of Spammers" as a follow-up to our earlier takes on e-mail abusers and instant-messaging missteps. Those earlier items focused on irritating things done by Internet users out of carelessness, ignorance or because the technology's so new that the etiquette is unclear. But by its very nature, spam is rude and irritating. After we agreed spammers' First Deadly Sin was existence, #2 through #7 seemed underwhelming. So much for that. But we remain fascinated by the ebbs and flows of the endless tide of spam that washes up in our e-mail boxes. The weird stuff cast up on the beach winds up in Spam of the Week, but what about the strange eddies that deposit that stuff there? Here's some of the particularly annoying, entertaining and just plain baffling things we've seen drifting along in the spam currents of late. The "Fell on My Keyboard" Effect: At the end of spam subject lines you'll often find a random assemblage of letters that makes it look the sender face-planted at his or her terminal. "Pounds Melt Away with HGH k forktolewl" "Merida, Xanax, Valium - No Physical Exam Needed jajesvgcw c" "ebay insiders club. hundkysga" And so forth. Those random letters are there to foil spam filters employed by servers -- if thousands of messages arrive with the same subject line, Internet-service providers know they can be discarded as spam. Those random letters are automatically generated for each subject line, and fool the filters into seeing each message as unique. (A variant of this trick is used to append characters to the fictitious return e-mail addresses that underlie spammers' fictitious names, which is why you can mark a message as spam one day and get the same message from the same "person" the next day.) What baffles us is that this trick works great for fooling software, but not for fooling actual people: Even if the idea of losing weight by gobbling down human growth hormone doesn't make us hit "Delete," we're not going to puzzle over what a "forktolewl" is. So why bother? We suppose the answer is one or both of the following: A) It just takes one moron out of tens of thousands to make the spam worthwhile; or B) spammers get their money for delivery, not for results. Either way, it strikes us as silly. Misery and Company: It's fairly common to wind up on a group spam with lots of work or school colleagues whose e-mail addresses share the same domain name, and sometimes that can result in a certain odd spam-as-community effect: "Gosh, the CEO and I are both being invited to Fire your boss -- Work for just 5 hours a week!" But a strange thing we've noticed recently is that more and more such messages have Subject lines and/or message bodies addressed to just one person from the group. This can lead to some horse laughs when a spam suggests to all that one poor person needs something, um, enhanced. But what's really weird is the complete randomness of the targeting. In our office we see a lot of e-mails aimed at one guy in our graphics department and an administrative assistant who hasn't worked here in years. What gives? What I Meant to Say Was: Diversify, diversify, diversify. Good for investors, good for spammers. But it's entertaining when hard-working spammers get their wires crossed and you get e-mails with the From line "Mortgage Rates Too High" and the Subject line "Hot young girls want to meet you" -- or vice versa. Hey, if you were a spammer, one day it would happen to you too. Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: We do have one good thing to say about spam -- keeping up with what's trendy seems like excellent preparation for dealing with the mysteries of teenagers. Before Christmas it seemed like every other spam was for those little radio-controlled cars. In January it was toy hovercrafts. A month ago, Italian charm bracelets. Two weeks ago we were drowning in variants of the "most wanted Iraqis" decks of cards. On Thursday morning Jace got three different chances to get a free hamburger. What will it be come Memorial Day? Who can even guess? Spammed, But Why?: Then there are those spammers we simply can't figure out. Why did a relatively straightforward porn spam about cheerleaders' proclivities begin like this: "Hildfleda filled our cups again, and excused herself to her kitchen yard, leaving the three of us a He did not speak again"? And in perhaps the biggest spam mystery so far, why did someone send both Tim and Jace the first chapter of Gen. Louis Jules Trochu's "The French Army in 1867," complete with footnotes, but with no apparent offer attached? If anybody can enlighten us about these two, we'd be grateful. That's our collection of spam annoyances and mysteries. Now, what about yours? What bizarre spam trends have you seen? Got a spam mystery of your own -- or an answer to one of ours? Write to us at realtime@wsj.com, and we'll post them this Thursday. If you want to share your thoughts but don't want your letter published, please make that clear. Write to Tim Hanrahan and Jason Fry at realtime@wsj.com ------------------------------ From: 6212hgk@newsguy.com (Please invert everything left of the @ to reply) Subject: Re: From the Archives: The Alascom Story Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 18:15:32 GMT On Sat, 17 May 2003 10:00:00 CDT, TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > For your reading this weekend, I offer an item from the Telecom > Archives, 'The Alascom Story' which appeared eleven years ago. > "In June, 1979, RCA Alascom was purchased by Pacific Power and > Light Company (now PacifiCorp) of Portland, Oregon. The purchase > price was $200 million cash and taking over $90 million of Alascom's > long term debt. Alascom has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of AT&T Corporation since at least 1997. Don't know if divestiture was required when Scottish Power bought Pacificorp, or if AT&T was just collecting companies as usual. Nobody but a fool goes into a federal counterrorism operation without duct tape - Richard Preston, THE COBRA EVENT. ------------------------------ From: no.email.address.entered@none444.yet Subject: Automated Emailing? Schedule Reminders NO NOT SPAM :) Reply-To: darnellbarber@yahoo.com Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 18:30:11 GMT ****Please respond at darnellbarber@yahoo.com****** I unfortunately don't have a chance to visit this board as often as I should. Hello everyone, I've recently been asked to take on a challenge for many communities in my area, approximately 20 altogether. All have different appointments, agendas, schedulings etc ... And I'd like to be able to send automated emails/cellphone alerts/reminders to individuals in all particular groups once a scheduled event as arrived. If this goes according to plan it will grow from there. Each community should have around 1,000 recipients. So, basically there will be 20 different calendars and roughly 20,000 people that I will have to update on "their particular" communitties events daily. Is there a service that will help in this endeavor or does anyone suggest we invest in our own server. Would our own server have a solution to this problem. Thanks in advance, Darnell Barber ------------------------------ From: res0644m@gte.net (JohnM) Subject: Re: Beware of CameraWare - An FBI Sting! Date: 19 May 2003 12:28:15 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ John Higdon wrote in message news:: > In article , TELECOM Digest Editor > wrote: >> When the two FBI guys came to my door earlier today, they asked if >> they could look at my computer, and I volunteered to let them see >> the whole thing. They found nothing, and went away with their usual >> bluster about 'how we do not believe you' and 'we are going to keep >> our eyes on you' etc. > FBI showed up at your place and you let them in? Without a warrant (or > did I miss that part)? AND you showed them your private business on > your computer (again, without a warrant)? > ANY law enforcement that shows up at my house, for whatever reason, is > entertained on the doorstep, with the front door closed. If they have > probable cause, they'll have a warrant in hand. I'm not going to give > them a chance to go shopping ... for anything! > Trust me: if an FBI agent showed up unannounced at my door sans > warrant and asked to look at anything I own, the answer would be a > polite, but firm "no". > 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: Yes, I know, and that is good practice > in many cases, but as the lady who operates the Montgomery County Jail > for our sheriff said to me once, 'no one likes an asshole'. I *could* > have asked for that, and yes, they would have gone to get one. Actually, > what officers generally do when those obstacles are presented to them > is one of them gets on the radio and asks an officer at the station > to 'please go see the Judge and get me a search warrant on (name of > case or defendant). Five or ten minutes, or maybe an hour later, the > warrant would have arrived. It might have delayed their ultimate > purpose (a raid on my premises) by several minutes, but it would have > happened anyway. Your being obstinate simply makes them even more so. > Anyway, I *knew* there was nothing around for them (the two FBI guys > were on a kiddie porn hunt which is part of the FBI sting thing that > CameraWare is set up [by them] for) so I figured let them come in and > have their fun. > And if you *did* have something around they wanted, and thought by > stalling them for time requiring a warrant you would have the time to > destroy or secrete somewhere whatever it was they wanted, you should > know that while they are standing there tapping their toes, waiting > for a warrant to arrive (in a few minutes), their very observant eyes > and ears would be working overtime. And you know, if a police officer > **very sincerely believes** that evidence is being disposed of, he can > go in anyway, and explain it to the judge later on, and usually be > forgiven for it. In other words, by the time police come to your door, > warrant or no warrant, it is generally too late for you anyway. I am > too much of a civil libertarian to go along with the idea 'if you have > nothing to hide, then why keep them out.' But I am a pragmatist and I > know that regardless of what the constitution requires, the adminis- > tration has 'work arounds' at their fingertips. Remember, no one likes > an asshole. Sometimes winning a battle now and then causes you to lose > the whole war. PAT] A couple of good reasons (I think, at least) to make them get a warrant: - a warrant permits them to search for specific items, not just anything in general that might catch their eye. Only those items specified in the warrant may be seized. - it forces them to document the matter and leave a paper trail that can be followed later, if needed. JM ------------------------------ From: tonypo1@sdc.cox.net Subject: Re: Leave Me Alone! / With Junk E-Mail Out of Control Organization: The Ace Tomatoe and Cement Company Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 22:28:06 GMT In article , monty@roscom.com says: > With junk e-mail out of control, Internet experts want to redesign > the whole system > By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 5/18/2003 > You think the dozen or two spam e-mails you delete every day are a lot? > That's nothing to Paul Judge, chief technology officer of CipherTrust, > an Alpharetta, Ga., company that sells e-mail filtering technology to > dozens of major US firms. Armed with his software, Judge's customers > discard billions of unwanted e-mail messages every day. > Yet it's not enough. Spam is out of control. The flood of pornographic > ads, financial scams, and other junk e-mail is rising at a rate of 15 > percent a month. Around half of all Internet mail sent this year will > be unwanted advertisements, according to Brightmail Inc., a California > e-mail filtering company. Cleaning this rubbish out of corporate > mailboxes will cost American businesses $10 billion this year in lost > productivity and extra computer expense, according to Ferris Research, > an e-mail technology research firm in California. > People frequently ignore important e-mails in their inboxes because > they're surrounded by so much spam. Filtering devices meant to keep > spam away sometimes toss out good messages along with the bad. > Reminiscent of the early days of fax machines, people sending > important e-mails now follow up with a phone call to make sure the > e-mail got through. > ''Spam is putting the Internet in jeopardy,'' said Phillip > Hallam-Baker, principal scientist for the computer security firm > Verisign Inc. > To avoid e-mail obsolescence, the Internet Engineering Task Force, the > global group that sets Internet standards, tapped Judge and other > e-mail experts to overhaul e-mail and come up with effective spam > blocking techniques. The first meeting of this new working group, held > in March, featured presentations from technical gurus, civil > libertarians, and representatives of Internet advertising companies > spooked by the rise of junk e-mail. > Instead of fighting spam piecemeal, they want to redesign the globe's > entire e-mail system. Until recently, such an overhaul would have > seemed too radical to contemplate. Not anymore. ''We have the > attention of the Internet community in a way we've never had before,'' > Judge said. > http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/138/business/Leave_me_alone_+.shtml I sent the link to the other members of the technical committee of the Ocean State Free-Net with these comments: Of all the methods presented -- they all reek of blatant commercialism trying to capitalize on the misery of those of us who receive such volumes of unsolicited email. The only one I like is the reverse MX lookup. But with that should be a requirement codified in federal law that makes spammers use legitimate email and toll-free contact numbers for removal. In addition, an ADV header would be a good thing to include. There should also be a civil remedy included (Hell, it's a tort issue now.) and a criminal penalty. I think jail time would be a good deterrent. Other than that, most of the open relays in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia have been closed. It's the $*#(*&$# Chinese and Korean relays that move most of the spam through the world. So you know what, why not just torpedo their net connections until they can learn to play nicely? I'm pretty sure the Chinese government wouldn't mind the net being cut off from the rest of the world. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Here is a good one for you. About a week ago now, I switched to cable internet through our local cableco, a company named CableOne. They are a small outfit by comparison to SBC Global, the 'other' provider here in Independence, with their DSL service. I have been mostly running in parallel the past several days, to make certain cable internet will work as well or better than DSL. I have to have service here. Well, I have yet to get a *single* piece of spam via CableOne. Not a single bit. Yet ... on the remains of the DSL line, I use the pop server of Outlook Express to still go collect mail sent through SBC Global, and the spam continues to pour in there in huge quantities each day. 40 or 50 pieces of spam each day is not out of the question at all via SBC Global. And as usual, SBC's attitude is to do nothing. They won't even build separate mailboxes to put it in. Just dump it all over the main account. Much of it is not even bounce- able. Just keep zapping it and moving along. Often times you cannot even get it all cleared out before more arrives. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tonypo1@sdc.cox.net Subject: Re: General Tells How Cell Phone Foiled U. S. Attack in Iraq Organization: The Ace Tomatoe and Cement Company Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 22:35:59 GMT In article , mchance@swbell.net says: > Rowan Scarborough > THE WASHINGTON TIMES > The Army's only retreat in the lightning-fast war to oust > Saddam Hussein came after an Iraqi general in the town of Najaf > cell-phoned ahead to his troops that a regiment of Apache attack > helicopters was on the way. > http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030508-11542690.htm > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It would seem while the USA was busily > blowing up telephone exchanges in Iraq, they must have overlooked one > of the exchanges for cell phones. PAT] Kind of interesting that they didn't. Those cell towers sing at a very easily trackable frequency. Wouldn't be all that hard to send a bomb right into the towers. But I think we realized the value of wireless comms in this instance. Had they used the wired telephone network it would have been difficult to tap. But wireless -- boys and girls, while we don't have the power to easily tap into GSM and the like, I can assure you that the Fed and military have the capability. ------------------------------ From: Mike Hartley Subject: Re: MCI Gets Iraq Rebuild Contract Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 18:38:43 +0100 > "MCI, the telecommunications firm formerly known as WorldCom > Inc., which filed for bankruptcy protection last year after > disclosing a massive accounting scandal (US $11 billion), has > been awarded a $45 million contract to build Iraq's mobile > GSM phone network, reported the Wall Street Journal (May 15). > ""We are very pleased by this news, as we have been working > with the US Government and MCI to provide GSM, and ensure > that Iraq had the right technology for its people, compatible > with the rest of the region and the world," said Rob Conway, > CEO of the GSM Association in a statement. I'm sure congressman Issa is somewhat less escatic now that sanity appears to be prevailing. Ha ha. Mike ------------------------------ 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 #463 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue May 20 18:31:57 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4KMVvC17535; Tue, 20 May 2003 18:31:57 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 18:31:57 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305202231.h4KMVvC17535@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #464 TELECOM Digest Tue, 20 May 2003 18:31:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 464 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson SBC Network Prepared to Handle Millions of Calls for Americans (Solomon) Internet Worm Disguised as E-Mail From Microsoft (Monty Solomon) Motorola Showcases Digital TV and Broadband Solutions (Monty Solomon) Motorola Sensor Helps Alert Drivers and Improve Tire Safety (M Solomon) DoCoMo to Offer Overseas Roaming for 3G Users (Monty Solomon) Harris Interactive Poll Reveals Hottest Home Technology Trends (Solomon) Sony to Launch 'Charlie's Angels' Game Online (Monty Solomon) Sony Online Entertainment Ships PlanetSide(TM) (Monty Solomon) Agere Systems Announces Integrated GPRS Hardware; Software (M Solomon) Automatic Harvesting of AOL Instant Messenger Screen Names! (M Solomon) WorldCom Pays And Lives to Tell About It (Eric Friedebach) Re: E-911, was: Re: My New Vonage Account (Tom Austin) Re: TidBITS Editors Warn That Antispam C-Rs Will be Ignored (R. Bonomi) Re: MCI Gets Iraq Rebuild Contract (Steven J. Sobol) Re: Web Vigilantes Give Spammers Big Dose of Own Medicine (Al Iverson) Re: UNE Platform CLECs (Fred R. Goldstein) Re: Automated Emailing? Schedule Reminders NO NOT SPAM :) (John Levine) 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, 19 May 2003 22:58:41 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: SBC Network Prepared to Handle Millions of Calls SBC Network Prepared to Handle Millions of Calls for American Idol Fans; SBC Reports a 63% Increase in California Calls Handled by Its Network after Last Week's Semi-Final Round - May 19, 2003 01:20 PM (BusinessWire) SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 19, 2003--Last Tuesday, the SBC (NYSE:SBC) telecommunications network processed close to 41.3 million phone calls in a span of just two hours by the company's California and Northern Nevada customers -- many of whom were participating in the semi-finals voting for Fox's hit reality TV show, American Idol. On a typical weekday evening, about 25.3 million calls are placed in those same two hours -- from 9 to 11 p.m. The bottom line: SBC customers in California and Northern Nevada placed an additional 16 million calls during the voting period for American Idol. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34252426 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 23:07:00 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Internet Worm Disguised as E-Mail From Microsoft SAN FRANCISCO, May 19 (Reuters) - A new computer worm that disguises itself as an e-mail from Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) is spreading, computer security firms warned on Monday. The e-mail containing the worm, dubbed Palyh or Mankx, appears to come from support@microsoft.com, but is not from the software company. When the attachment is opened, the worm copies itself to the Windows folder, scoops up e-mail addresses from the hard disk and starts sending itself out, said U.K-based Sophos. The malicious program can spread itself to other Windows machines on a local area network, anti-virus vendors said. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34253416 - http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.sobig.b@mm.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 22:09:11 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Motorola Showcases Digital TV and Broadband Solutions for Motorola Showcases Digital TV and Broadband Solutions for European Operators At Mediacast 2003 Motorola's digital set-top and networking solutions enable operators to expand their services for the home and office LONDON, May 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT) Broadband Communications Sector, the world's leading supplier of cable modems and digital cable set-tops, will demonstrate a variety of digital TV and broadband solutions at Mediacast 2003, held at ExCel, in London, May 20-22, 2003. The display will include the European preview of Motorola's personal video recording (PVR) technology. Motorola is demonstrating products that highlight the company's unique leadership in designing and deploying end-to-end cable systems -- from infrastructure to consumer premise equipment. These devices are designed to further leverage an operator's existing network while providing consumers with video entertainment options and new ways to extend their high-speed connections. Recently announced in North America, the Motorola DCT6000 family of set-tops are examples of devices that enable operators to deliver compelling, high-interest services such as PVR, high-definition television (HDTV), and other processing-intensive applications, to their cable customers. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34244640 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 22:13:54 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Motorola Sensor Helps Alert Drivers and Improve Tire Safety Device Helps Automotive Manufacturers Meet Driver Safety Demands and Government Regulation PHOENIX, May 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The new MPXY8020A pressure sensor from Motorola, Inc.'s (NYSE:MOT) Semiconductor Products Sector has the potential to help reduce blowouts, extend tire life and improve gas mileage. The MPXY8020A helps drivers maintain proper tire pressure by notifying them when tire pressure is not at the optimal pressure level. Proper tire inflation decreases tread wear (prolonging tire life) and improves gas mileage. When a tire is under-inflated, the surface area that contacts the road increases and causes more friction. This increases tread wear and potentially increases the amount of gasoline used. The MPXY8020A represents a significant step in Motorola's tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) strategy. The sensor is available with microcontrollers and a radio frequency (RF) communication device, offering a comprehensive Motorola chipset for automotive engineers and helping automotive manufacturers address safety demands that have emerged in recent years. Government agencies, advocacy groups, technology consortia, electronics vendors and automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have joined a global movement to increase automobile occupant safety. In the United States, for example, Congress passed the Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation (TREAD) Act of 2000, which mandated that automotive manufacturers install tire pressure monitoring systems within a three-year window from Nov. 1, 2003 to Oct. 31, 2006. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34245227 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 22:15:03 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: DoCoMo to Offer Overseas Roaming for 3G Users TOKYO, May 19 (Reuters) - NTT DoCoMo Inc (TOKYO:9437) said on Monday it would launch an international roaming service for users of its third-generation (3G) mobile phone service in June to boost demand among business users and other frequent travellers. Under the new system, users of DoCoMo's 3G service, dubbed FOMA, would remove subscriber identity module (SIM) cards from FOMA cellphones and put them in handsets that work on a global system for mobile communications (GSM) networks. They would then take the GSM handsets overseas to make and take calls using their original phone numbers. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34245320 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 22:20:35 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Harris Interactive Poll Reveals Hottest Home Technology Trends: Americans Turn to the Computer for Home Entertainment Computer Edges Out Traditional Entertainment Devices in Overall Importance REDMOND, Wash., May 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The focal point of home entertainment is changing as the computer edges out traditional consumer electronic devices in overall importance, according to the results of a new survey conducted by Harris Interactive Inc. for Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT). The survey, which polled more than 2,000 computer users ages 13 years and older, revealed that the computer is redefining how people entertain themselves in the home. Almost half of those surveyed said their computer is more important than their television (43 percent), while nearly two-thirds said their computer outranks their CD player (63 percent), stereo (61 percent) or DVD player (59 percent). - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34247725 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 23:10:42 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Sony to Launch 'Charlie's Angels' Game Online LOS ANGELES, May 19 (Reuters) - "Charlie's Angels," the 1970s TV show that spurred a blockbuster movie and now a sequel is coming back yet again -- as a video game. Sony Corp.'s (TOKYO:6758) movie division on Monday said would release an online video game based on "Charlie's Angels" to coincide with the new "Angels" movie which it is also releasing. The double-barreled release comes as Hollywood and the games industry increasingly look to cross-promote their offerings on the view that the hype over a game can help boost the fortunes of a new movie, and vice versa. Sony Pictures Digital Networks said "Charlie's Angels: Angel X" would be released in June to tie in with the June 27 theatrical debut of "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle." - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34253501 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 23:13:16 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Sony Online Entertainment Ships PlanetSide(TM) the World's First Sony Online Entertainment Ships PlanetSide(TM) the World's First Massively Multiplayer Online First-Person Action Game First Planned Post-Launch Features Announced, Includes New Vehicles and Game Options SAN DIEGO, May 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Sony Online Entertainment Inc. (SOE), a worldwide leader in massively multiplayer online gaming, announced that its highly-anticipated massively multiplayer online first-person action game, PlanetSide(TM), has shipped to U.S. and Canadian retail stores. The groundbreaking game allows thousands of players to fight online in an all- hours-of-day global war that has never been seen before in the first-person action genre. The company also announced its first planned post-launch additional features including several new vehicles and game options. PlanetSide has a suggested retail price of $49.99, and includes a 30-day subscription to the game. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34254848 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 23:21:16 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Agere Systems Announces Integrated GPRS Hardware and Software Agere Systems Announces Integrated GPRS Hardware and Software Package for Data and Multimedia-Enhanced Mobile Phone Designs Chip Design Combines Baseband, Mixed Signal and Power Management Functions in One-Third Less Space Than Previous-Generation GPRS Solutions ALLENTOWN, Pa., April 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Agere Systems (NYSE: AGR.A, AGR.B) today announced a new General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) hardware and software solution for developing feature-packed mobile phone designs. This complete GPRS package offers a new integrated chip design, enhanced audio performance, outstanding software and protocol stack processing, as well as the design and manufacturing flexibility handset makers need to successfully deliver the latest multimedia and data features, such as digital photo imaging, multimedia messaging service, high-speed web browsing, high-resolution color displays and Java-based gaming. Agere's Sceptre(TM) TC GPRS solution combines baseband, mixed signal functions as well as a unique CMOS-based power management implementation in one-third less space than previous generation Agere chip sets. This hardware and software platform offers the highest performance category supported by operators, leading interoperability testing, and is software qualified to the most recently published Global Certification Forum (GCF) performance specification. Agere supplies the complete core GPRS capabilities needed to get wireless handset customers to market quickly. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=33899386 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 01:01:17 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Automatic Harvesting of AOL Instant Messenger Screen Names! Date: 16 May 2003 20:45:50 -0000 From: To: bugtraq@securityfocus.com Subject: Automatic Harvesting of AOL Instant Messenger Screen Names! http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/321830 ------------------------------ From: Eric Friedebach Subject: WorldCom Pays And Lives to Tell About It Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 08:39:40 -0500 Organization: Purity Of Essence/Plant Operational Error Reply-To: Eric Friedebach Dan Ackman, 05.20.03, Forbes.com NEW YORK - WorldCom, the bankrupt company that is still the nation's second-largest long-distance telecommunications carrier, agreed yesterday to settle massive accounting fraud charges brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by making a post-bankruptcy payment of $500 million, with most of that money slated to go to investors in company shares. The company had, by its own account, overstated the income it reported on its financial statements by approximately $9 billion over several years, which kept its share price relatively healthy for a while, even as the telecom sector tumbled from dizzying heights. By the time the company disclosed the fraud in late June 2002, its longtime chief executive, Bernard Ebbers, had been fired and its shares were trading for about $1. Under the settlement, WorldCom neither admits nor denies the charges -- though it admitted the substance of them some time ago. The settlement actually calls for a $1.5 billion fine, but the amount would be reduced to $500 million and paid after the company emerges from bankruptcy. The money will be paid ultimately to investors, whose claims would normally be wiped out in bankruptcy. http://www.forbes.com/2003/05/20/cx_da_0520topnews.html Eric Friedebach ------------------------------ From: tom.austin@usa.xerox.com (Tom Austin) Subject: Re: E-911, was: Re: My New Vonage Account Date: 20 May 2003 06:59:56 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ joe@obilivan.net wrote in message news:... > Danny Burstein wrote: >> The techies among us who'll be carrying the Vonage box around and >> plugging it into the nearest wideband connection are just going to >> have to dig out those stone knives and bearskins. >> Life is hard. Tough. Live with it. > What are the odds that one of us techies carries our Vonage box to the > "nearest" broadband connection and end up at a location without a POTS > line handy? I would say "close to zero." > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I agree. I think that most guys who are > getting the Vonage system understand it to be first and foremost a way > to eliminate outrageous telco long distance charges and only in second > or third place is the ability to use it for emergency (as in police/fire > department) dialing. And since Vonage is in the process of adding > their customers to the appropriate public safety database which should > apply in the vast majority of cases when emergencies occur, I cannot > see what the problem is. PAT] The main problem that I see with this type of service is what are you going to do when the electric and your battery back up die? At least with a telco it provides its own power. (Unless you have all cordless fones in which case all bets are off.) Another question. Can you string extensions off of the phone end of the Cisco box? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I dunno what you are going to do in the unlikely event the electricity and the battery backup are both gone. What do you do when the US Government bombs your telephone exchange or a tornado blows it over or it catches fire. Those three choices are equally unlikely, are they not, but they have all happened in recent memory. You neglected to include the possibility that when your elec- tricity and battery are gone, your gas powered generator stops working because you ran out of gas for it or the wind quits blowing for your windmill generator or the solar power generator quits working. I guess no matter how prepared you wish to be, there will always be something to stop you. What about the people who use cellular phones almost exclusively for communications? What happens to them when their power goes off and the battery pack on the phone goes dead? You can attach any kind of wired telephone you wish on the back side of a Cisco ATA-186 box; i.e. in addition to a 'regular phone' you can have a wireless base for a wireless phone; you can have a 'Y' connector to service another extension; you can even attach the trunk side of a small PBX back there; that is, when any extension dials '9' (or whatever is used for an outside line) the little PBX will switch in the Cisco ATA box and present dial tone to the user. One thing you cannot do, very successfully, is have two calls going in or out at the same time. There is a provision to do that (two ports on the back of the Cisco) and you can do 'three way calling' (although Vonage does not advertise it) with a hook-flash. There just is not enough bandwidth to make two acceptable connections. As long as you flash *just once* you can have a consult with a third number, but after that consult is set up, a second flash really makes for a lousy connection on the two outsiders and yourself. You need a *really wide* pipe -- a very heavy duty internet connection, to be able to handle two calls at once, i.e. two 'trunk lines' on a PBX. Most users would not be able to get *that much* internet piping at one time. Overall, I think Vonage is quite sufficient for most guys, however, as long as you only need ONE connection open at a time. Two or three extensions off hook at the same time is okay. On that you are only limited by the available RENs on the local part of the line. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: TidBITS Editors Warn Readers That Antispam C-Rs Will be Ignored Organization: Not Much From: bonomi@c-ns (Robert Bonomi) Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 07:32:20 GMT In article , > White lists can use wild cards can't they? So couldn't you say > something like 'accept all mail from *@telecom-digest.org' or 'accept > mail from *@massis.lcs.mit.edu'? The white list should only have > what is needed in the acceptable address lines to uniquely qualify > what you want to receive. Maybe I will supply all users here with an > address of the form 'yourname@telecom-digest.org' **only for use when > writing to me**. > Why is it so many of the most vocal opponents of spam are also the > most pessimistic? Any suggestions made, any plans laid out, none of > them will ever work for whatever reasons. Listen up: no *one single > plan or idea* will ever fit all occassions. Most plans and ideas on > the other hand will each take a nip out of the spam traffic. You have > to do what you can, little by little. That's why C-R is one of the > better plans I have heard of. And here's what happens if *everybody* starts using C-R: A attempts to send B a message. B is using a C-R system, so the message gets quarantined, while C (the C-R agent for B) sends the challenge to A. A is using a C-R system, so the message gets quarantined, while D (the C-R agent for A) sends the challenge to C. C sees a 'new' address, that of D, and generates a challenge to D. D sees a 'new' address, that of C, and generates a challenge to C. C, being an automatic system, *cannot* respond to the "prove you're a person" from D. If it's "aggressive", it notes multiple messages from D, *without* the 'human' response, and blocks it as a spammer. If it's *stupid* programming, it generats _yet_another_ challenge to D. And you have an 'infinite loop' that results in *both* systems crashing. Communication _totally_ fails. In addition, when somebody on USENET posts a request for information/help, and then expects me to JUMP THROUGH HOOPS to _help_them_..... Well, I can't be bothered. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Ahhhh ... communication _totally_ fails, does it? :( You could have summarized everything above that line by using the age-old illustration of *my* autoreply daemon getting into a battle with *your* autoreply daemon. You obviously did not review, or did not note closely the script I ran here recently which explained how to handle that. My autoreply daemon (which is sort of like C-R) has a unique word in its subject line. When it sees that word in the subject (meaning *very likely* it is responding to itself, but not in every case) then the autoack steps out of the way and lets the message past, for further examination by the filter rules. I seriously doubt that communication will _totally_ fail by people using C-R. Email traffic might get reduced by oh, let's say 40-50 percent or so (or roughly the amount of traffic that is spam) as a result. And frankly, I do not think anyone at all reasonable expects *you* to 'jump through hoops' or go out of your way to help them. It would be great if you wanted to work along with other guys on the net and until if/when a complete rebuild of email software is completed (which I have heard is underway) during this crisis we have on the net of email spam. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steven J. Sobol Subject: Re: MCI Gets Iraq Rebuild Contract Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 00:39:34 -0000 Organization: JustThe.net LLC From Mike Hartley (mike.hartley@ntlworld.com): >> ""We are very pleased by this news, as we have been working >> with the US Government and MCI to provide GSM, and ensure >> that Iraq had the right technology for its people, compatible >> with the rest of the region and the world," said Rob Conway, >> CEO of the GSM Association in a statement. > I'm sure congressman Issa is omewhat less escatic now that sanity > appears to be prevailing. There is some irony in the fact that the company chosen has ever owned and operated a wireless phone network, at least not in the US. Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge, JustThe.net POTS: Toll Free from anywhere in the USA or Canada, 888.480.4NET (4638) HTTP: www.JustTheNetLLC.com MAIL: 5686 Davis Drive, Mentor on the Lake, OH 44060-2752 ------------------------------ From: Al Iverson Subject: Re: Web Vigilantes Give Spammers Big Dose of Their Own Medicine Organization: Radparker & Associates Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 21:15:32 -0500 Patrick Townson wrote: > Now, I can do very little it seems. My brain desease has largely > forced me to just sit on the sidelines and cheer for *my* team, the > guys who continue to fight spam however they can. God speed to all > these guys who, IMO can do no wrong. PAT] Pat, Compare for a moment. If law enforcement was allowed to do "anything they can" to stop crime, you'd be in jail, the hospital, or the morgue, for your webcam antics, or past prior acts. Are you sure that "they can do no wrong" is the right way to go? I'm not. Al Iverson -- http://www.spamresource.com Disclaimer: All of my opinions are mine alone. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But we are not talking about law enforcement people; we are talking about guys trying to protect the net from spammers. Where does law enforcement fit into that? The government does not give an iota about spam on the net; I mean, they do not officially approve of it but if they really were against it and the fake names/addresses used there would have been laws against it by now, just as there are laws against tampering with the computers of large corporations and the government, which are equally (compared to spam) as destructive. I really feel the government's attitude on spam is, the more the merrier. If it can get to the point that most guys get so disgusted they put their computers on a shelf in the closet to gather dust along with their citizen band radios, then things will return to the point they were at in the 1970-1980's period, when only large corporations and the government had computers. How cozy that will be! And of course there are plenty of laws already on the books to protect *those people* against destruction of their systems. Effectively, they got radios out of the hands of people by turning their backs on the abusers of same, now if they turn their back (or pass some diddly lip service law to placate people) on spam until email/news is abused so badly no one wants to bother with it any longer, they'll have effectively taken away another way for citizens to communicate. Are you aware of how bad the CB radio version of 'spam' had gotten by 1980 as people began ditching the medium entirely in favor of the newer 'fool proof' CB-Simulator thing that Compuserve was offering? All I know is I support community efforts to block unwanted email from getting through using a variety of legal techniques such as actually calling their 800 numbers to inquire about their worthless products and useless services, and doing a better job of making spammers known throughout the community; a better job than any of them do on their own without a little bit of prodding. All I know is that where twenty, or even ten, or possibly five years ago, the net used to be a worthwhile and very *fun* part of my life, lately it has become so spam-ridden (50-60 pieces per day in my personal email; another 10- 20 per day in the Digest mailbox) that it just isn't *fun* any longer. And my 'web cam antics'? What did you mean by that? That I maintain my http://friends-of-independence.n3.net weather cam focused on the alley behind my house or were you more interested in the fact that I got my own revenge on CameraWare (that bunch of sneaks who forward their stuff to FBI) by focusing a little Logitech camera on a sign which says 'CameraWare is an FBI sting, beware!' and leaving it 24 hours per day on a ttinet.com server so that all the other folks who frolic around on there can see *my* image (!). I did not even run it on my licensed copy of CameraWare ... I downloaded a 'trial' copy of the video sender and used that instead. If they want to track me down through my dynamic IP address, then let them. Or maybe I broadcast a slide show of the kind they would approve, with my warning message about CameraWare.com parked on the screen also. That 'antic' draws in a few thousand viewers each night. Is that what you were talking about? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 22:39:41 -0400 From: Fred R. Goldstein Subject: Re: UNE Platform CLECs On Fri, 16 May 2003 18:21:12 UTC, dold@UNEXPlatfo.usenet.us.com wrote, > Fred, you covered the UNE-P bases very well technically. > But you left out the snide remarks that I am forced to put in. Following up as Pat asked ... Clarence, I held my words on the snide remarks, but I understand your frustration. UNE-P makes it easy to say you're a CLEC, compared to CLECs who use real live non-ILEC facilities of any sort. > CLECs invested way too much capital in starting their facilities > based offerings. The benefit was to be down the road somewhere. > Magically, just as the CLEC picture stabilized, and there was some > hope of seeing ROI, UNE-P pops up. Well, I don't see all that much conflict -- the ILECs still have the lions' share, so CLECs are still competing more with the ILECs than each other. My unoriginal motto here -- CLECs must hang together, or they'll hang separately. > It is not only so much better than resale that it virtually forces > resellers to convert, it makes owning facilites equipment stupid. In > areas where facilities already exist, it is cheaper to UNE-P. So, now > there is a bunch of not-yet-amortized equipment that the CLECs wish > they didn't have their money tied up in. There is new opportunity for > startups with no capital to become full fledged "carriers", selling > whatever UNE-P offers. All they need are two salesman and a billing > program or outsource. Indeed, many UNE-P CLECs start up that way -- what, after all, is Prairie Stream? And there are many more like them. Now if they're just taking away margins from incumbents, they're not hurting other CLECs. One problem is that the "Class of 97" CLECs spent money like crazy, just wanted to "party like it's 1999", and put in facilities that shouldn't be there. In 1998, I examined one major city (on behalf of a potential competitor) and discovered that five companies had been pulling fiber around many of the same streets and suburban industrial parks. So even that early on, there was no need to pull new glass. And need I mention how expensive CLEC CO switches were in 1997, when you basically had your choice of a 5ESS or DMS-500? Today's CLEC switches are much, much cheaper, both to buy and operate. > Who does it benefit? Brand new startups that SBC can make fun of in > the series of ads about nothing but suits working for the company, as > they crash around trying to drive cherry pickers and argue who's going > to go down a flooded manhole. To some extent true. But note that SBC et al are not exactly friendly to UNE loop CLECs, who own their own switches and/or DSLAMs and just rent the retail copper loops. As I've said many times here and elsewhere, there is, in economic terms, a "natural monopoly" on most loop plant, so the best way to have the benefits of competition is to structurally separate the outside plant (loops, etc., including the buildings needed to access them) from the ILEC service companies (and their switches). Right now, perversely, the mechanics of using a loop are much, much harder for a real facilties-based CLEC than for a UNE-P reseller. > No, I said that wrong. It benefits the bohemoth. Because as soon as > the CLECs convert to UNE-P, they will offer some good deal to the > facilities based carriers, so that they can tell the PUC what > wonderful rates they are offering to the competition. > That competition will be made up of sharks who scavenged the > facilities at the bankruptcy sales of the original CLECs, and will > themselves be driven out of business the next time the ILECs move the > slippery rock in the stream of competition. The Class of 97 publicly-traded CLECs are all, for the most part, bankrupt, but there are many (mostly newer) privately-held CLECs who are doing better. They make up most of my clientele. And we do enjoy buying pre-owned (not always pre-used) gear cheaply off of eBay and elsewhere. That's a natural phase in an industry's evolution -- early players often tank, leaving assets behind at discounted prices that enable new competitors to prosper. When I plug today's equipment prices into my UNE-Loop CLEC financial model, the rates of return are much nicer than they were with the prices of two years ago, when you had to buy most stuff new. Nonetheless, there remain advantages to starting out with a little UNE-P, if it is used as a way to gather a critical mass of customers. I would not like that aspect of UNE-P to go away. Fred Goldstein k1io fgoldstein "at" ionary.com ionary Consulting http://www.ionary.com/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I shared the messages to date from Fred and Clarence Dold with the guys at TerraWorld (our local ISP who does Prairie Stream). I got a few answers to toss out in the event anyone wants to answer them: 1: UNE-P is *not* a new concept which magically showed up a year or two ago. It has been around since the telreg act, and was thought about before then. Sage is another UNE-P but unlike Prairie Stream it does not go into very small rural towns. Sage is willing to do business in Topeka or Wichita for example, but won't touch Independence or Cherryvale or Caney, Kansas. Sage wants at least 10-15 thousand loops (or pairs) in town bare minimum to start with. Cost per line has to be better than the most rural, most expensive rates for them. 2: (I quote Duane now). He said "we started out here as a small town ISP, so huge profit margins are out of the question; we know that. We began as an ISP, and even today know what working real close to the wire on a budget is all about. However, any of your buddies who think TerraWorld any longer is just a hick town ISP; we have numbers in Chicago if they want a local dialup." 3: (Quoting Mike, his associate) "the FCC is going to require, in the next two or three years, that all UNE-P things must have their own switches. Must ... or go out of business. But that is okay, that is what we planned on from the beginning anyway. It will not come as a big surprise when all UNE-P operations have to do it. Right now we are mostly looking for a good customer base." 4: Mike and Duane both are quite familiar with the Kansas Commission and pointed out that in their opinion, Kansas, unlike many state commissions, *hates* -- with a passion -- Sprint (formerly United Tel in much of the northern part of the state) and Southwestern Bell. They said the commission leans 'real hard' on both Sprint and Bell as the two carriers of record whenever/however they can. 5: Prairie Stream is not just an 'Independence operation'. They said to me they are available anywhere in *Kansas* in Sprint (United Tel) or Southwestern Bell territory. They are based here, of course, but do serve any little town in Kansas as a UNE-P operation as long as it is Southwestern Bell. 6: I asked if they thought Prairie Stream mattered any to Bell's way of thinking. "You bet they know we are here! Unlike Sage, our main competitor in our size, we are the only ones willing to take tiny little towns in Kansas, population five, or fifty or five hundred or like Independence, eight thousand. We are starting to hurt Southwestern Bell a little bit with our customer base of between three and six or seven thousand customers across Kansas. They see us eating into them a little. We have not had as much luck making inroads into Sage's customer base as we would like, but the Bell and Sprint (old United Tel's) customers are coming to us in droves." 7: I asked Duane how, being in the (formerly) Arco Corporate Office building they were the only tenants in the building on 620-331 exchange, instead of 620-332 like all other tenants in the landlord- provided telephone system. Now it is the Independence Corporate Office Center (since Arco gave it away to the city when they went out of business before going bankrupt). He said, if I quote him correctly, the 'B-LEC' (or building local exchange carrier) still is the landlord of the building (City of Independence); landlord was leasing pairs from Southwestern Bell for the operation, but we took that over from landlord when we first moved in the building a few years ago, back when TerraWorld was up on the second floor. You notice we are down in the basement now, right next to the phone room with all the house pairs. Makes it easier, less work, having the terminals we use along with the Cisco equipment all right together. He said it was just some 'historical artifact' of Southwestern Bell that everyone in town is on 331 except Arco Building which is 332 with the city offices and schools, etc. Originally when the B-LEC was started for Arco, they had it for the 'private phone customers' of Indy Corporate Building. Now it just stays that way is all, and when 331 began to get squeezed a few years ago, the overflow stuff like Dobson Cell One got put over onto 332. Now that Independence has lost population (believe it or not we had almost 14,000 residents in the 1920's, and even 9000 residents in the 1980-90's) with Arco gone, Harry Sinclair dead and the oil industry in general a different animal than it used to be, Southwestern Bell says they will not run out of space on 331 in the near future, but if/when they do, they'll continue with 332 and then 330 (now just Montgomery Sheriff and Cingular Wireless numbers). A final question from me to Clarence and Fred or whoever: It used to be that when you got a competitor's phone service and wanted to keep your 'old' phone number, the CLEC had to assign you a bogus number and have call forwarding on your old number pointing to that bogus number which was 'really' what you had. Is that still the case? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 20 May 2003 02:39:02 -0000 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Automated Emailing? Schedule Reminders NO NOT SPAM :) Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA Hi. As usual, anything that says it's not spam actually is spam. I swatted this in all the other groups that run through here. In article you write: > ****Please respond at darnellbarber@yahoo.com****** I unfortunately don't > have a chance to visit this board as often as I should. > Hello everyone, I've recently been asked to take on a challenge for > many communities in my area, approximately 20 altogether. > All have different appointments, agendas, schedulings etc ... > And I'd like to be able to send automated emails/cellphone > alerts/reminders to individuals in all particular groups once a > scheduled event as arrived. If this goes according to plan it will > grow from there. > Each community should have around 1,000 recipients. > So, basically there will be 20 different calendars and roughly 20,000 > people that I will have to update on "their particular" communitties > events daily. > Is there a service that will help in this endeavor or does anyone > suggest we invest in our own server. Would our own server have a > solution to this problem. > Thanks in advance, > Darnell Barber John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711 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: He did NOT say 'this is not spam'. I think he meant the purpose of the software he was soliciting was not for spam purposes. If he had said 'this is not spam' or 'I only mail to people who opt-in' or similar language, he would never have seen the light of day here. But you can have broadcast-style messages in a non-spam context, for example like this Digest or others like it. At least that is what I thought he was trying to say. 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #464 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue May 20 21:30:58 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4L1UvI18654; Tue, 20 May 2003 21:30:58 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 21:30:58 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305210130.h4L1UvI18654@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #465 TELECOM Digest Tue, 20 May 2003 21:31:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 465 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #383, May 20, 2003 (Angus TeleManagement) Book Review: "Protected Internet, Intranet, and VPNs" (Rob Slade) Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX+ Dialaround (Robt Bonomi) Re: Surcharges to Pay Phone Owners on Toll-Free Number Provider (Bonomi) Re: EarthLink Gets $16M in Spam E-Mail Case (Robert Bonomi) Re: Reach Out and Block Someone / Massachusetts Consumers Have (Gillis) Re: 911 Operators Getting Addresses and More Q About Service (Bonomi) Re: Book _Cheaper By The Dozen_, Learning Morse (Scott Dorsey) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 11:05:39 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #383, May 20, 2003 ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 383: May 20, 2003 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: ** Court Says CRTC Can't Set Hydro Pole Rates ** Aliant to Sell Xwave in June ** IP Phone Company Plans Canadian Entry ** MCI to Pay $500 Million Fine ** Internet Registrar Accuses Critic of Libel ** One-Third Value Internet More Than TV ** IBM, Avaya Team for Outsourcing ** CRTC Orders Bell to File Missing Tariffs ** Kamloops Asks CRTC to Resolve Telus Dispute ** Competitors Get Break on Service Fees ** Moody Upgrades BCE ** FCC Okays Spectrum Resale ** Ebbers Sues B.C. Ranch, Defaults on Loan ** Bureau Named Microcell Chair ** Look Appoints COO ** Ontario Funds College High-Tech Research ** New CDR Service Bureau Launched ** Whatever Happened to Unified Messaging? ============================================================ COURT SAYS CRTC CAN'T SET HYDRO POLE RATES: The Supreme Court has upheld a lower court ruling that the CRTC cannot set the rates that provincial hydro utilities charge cablecos for using their poles. ** In 1999, the CRTC set a rate of $15.89/year for cableco use of hydro poles; the hydro utilities appealed to the Federal Court and won last year. The Canadian Cable Television Association then appealed to the Supreme Court. (see Telecom Update #202, 292, 333). ALIANT TO SELL XWAVE IN JUNE: At Aliant's annual meeting last week, President Jay Forbes told shareholders that the company would complete the sale of its IT subsidiary Xwave Solutions by June 30. He provided no details on the buyer or the selling price. ** The buyer is rumoured to be Platinum Equity, a privately held Los Angeles company that has acquired about 40 high- tech firms since 1995. IP PHONE COMPANY PLANS CANADIAN ENTRY: Vonage, a New Jersey company that offers consumer and small business phone service over high-speed Internet connections, says it is negotiating with a Canadian telecom company, and hopes to offer service in the Canadian market by the end of the year. www.vonage.com MCI TO PAY $500 MILLION FINE: MCI, formerly WorldCom, has agreed to pay investors US$500 million -- the largest penalty ever levied by the Securities and Exchange Commission -- to settle charges that it fraudulently inflated earnings by at least $9 billion. The settlement still requires court approval. INTERNET REGISTRAR ACCUSES CRITIC OF LIBEL: The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA--www.cira.ca) has served Cirawatch Corp. (www.cirawatch.ca) a Notice under the Libel and Slander Act for publishing an article that suggested CIRA engages in racial profiling, targeting applicants with Middle Eastern names, when evaluating new domain name applications. ** CIRA says it "has a zero tolerance policy with respect to any form of racial discrimination." Cirawatch has removed the article from its website and posted a letter asking CIRA 23 questions about registration procedures. ONE-THIRD VALUE INTERNET MORE THAN TV: According to a National Viewer Survey sponsored by the Canadian Cable Television Association, 33% of Canadians say their home Internet connection is more important than their TV. For those aged 15 to 19 years, the figure is 56%. IBM, AVAYA TEAM FOR OUTSOURCING: IBM Global Services and Avaya Global Services have agreed to combine their "resources, systems, and offerings" to offer and support outsourced voice systems in the U.S. and Canada. CRTC ORDERS BELL TO FILE MISSING TARIFFS: The CRTC has ordered Bell Canada to "forthwith" file nine tariffs for services identified in Decision 2002-76 as bundles requiring tariffs (see Telecom Update #362), "notwithstanding Bell Canada's view" that the services in these bundles are forborne or are billed at tariffed rates. KAMLOOPS ASKS CRTC TO RESOLVE TELUS DISPUTE: The City of Kamloops wants to use Telus ducts for fibre optic cable connecting 40 city buildings and schools, but says Telus is demanding $800,000 in unnecessary make-ready charges, more than doubling the City's projected costs. Kamloops has asked the CRTC to intervene. www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2003/8690/c121_200306127.htm COMPETITORS GET BREAK ON SERVICE FEES: Responding to a Call- Net application, CRTC Telecom Decision 2003-31 rules that when competitors provide local service to apartment building residents, the variable service charge the CLEC pays the incumbent telco for each loop will be at the residential rate, not the previously applied business rate. www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2003/dt2003-31.htm MOODY UPGRADES BCE: Moody's Investor Services has raised its credit rating for BCE from negative to stable. Moody's rates BCE's unsecured debt three levels above junk. FCC OKAYS SPECTRUM RESALE: The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has adopted new rules to permit wireless licensees to lease capacity to third parties, and to streamline processing of licence transfers. It has called for comment on further steps to expand the secondary market for spectrum. EBBERS SUES B.C. RANCH, DEFAULTS ON LOAN: Former WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers is suing the 200,000 hectare B.C. ranch he bought in 1998 with money he borrowed from WorldCom. The suit claims that a private company owned by Ebbers had a contract to help sell Douglas Lake Ranch in late 2002 and is entitled to $100,000 in consulting fees. ** Ebbers owed over US$400 million to WorldCom when he resigned last year. He failed to make the first loan payment of $25 million, due April 29. BUREAU NAMED MICROCELL CHAIR: Former CRTC Chair Andre Bureau has been named Chairman of Microcell Telecommunications. He replaces Charles Sirois, who remains on the Board. LOOK APPOINTS COO: Rene Vocelle, Look Communications' Senior VP Finance, has been named Chief Operating Officer as well. (See Telecom Update #378) ONTARIO FUNDS COLLEGE HIGH-TECH RESEARCH: Communications and Information Technology Ontario will provide $1.34 million to telecom-related research projects at five Ontario colleges. NEW CDR SERVICE BUREAU LAUNCHED: Former employees of Canadian call accounting pioneer MDR Telemanagement have launched a new call accounting service bureau and communication auditing business, Smart Thought Technology, based in Burlington, Ontario. (www.smartthought.ca) WHATEVER HAPPENED TO UNIFIED MESSAGING? By now, we were all supposed to be getting voice mail, e-mail, and faxes through a single interface on a single device. The current issue of Telemanagement examines why unified messaging hasn't been widely adopted, and what its prospects are today. ** Also in this issue: Ian and Lis Angus compare the strategy and prospects of Bell Canada, Telus, AT&T Canada, Sprint Canada, and GT/360 in The New Competitive Landscape. ** Telemanagement is available only by subscription. For more information on Canada's #1 source for expert, independent telecom analysis, and guidance, call 800-263-4415 ext 500 or go to www.angustel.ca/teleman/tm.html. ============================================================ HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-MAIL: editors@angustel.ca FAX: 905-686-2655 MAIL: TELECOM UPDATE Angus TeleManagement Group 8 Old Kingston Road Ajax, Ontario Canada L1T 2Z7 =========================================================== HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR UNSUBSCRIBE) TELECOM UPDATE is provided in electronic form only. There are two formats available: 1. The fully-formatted edition is posted on the World Wide Web on the first business day of the week at http://www.angustel.ca 2. The e-mail edition is distributed free of charge. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to: join-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.com To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to: leave-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.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 2003 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: Rob Slade Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 14:00:51 -0800 Subject: Book Review: "Protected Internet, Intranet, and VPNs",A. Moldovyan BKPIIVPN.RVW 20030404 "Protected Internet, Intranet, and Virtual Private Networks", Alexander Moldovyan et al, 2003, 1-931769-14-1, U$44.95/C$67.95 %A Alexander Moldovyan %A Nick Moldovyan %A Doug Summerville %A Vladimir Zima %C 295 East Swedesford Road, PMB #285, Wayne, PA 19087 %D 2003 %G 1-931769-14-1 %I A-LIST LLC %O U$44.95/C$67.95 fax 702-977-5377 mail@alistpublishing.com %O http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1931769141/robsladesinterne http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1931769141/robsladesinte-21 %O http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/1931769141/robsladesin03-20 %P 310 p. %T "Protected Internet, Intranet, and Virtual Private Networks" Despite the slim size, it is still disconcerting to find that there are only three chapters in this book. Chapter one provides an introduction to client/server networking, while implying that the technology is *not* hierarchical. Basic networking concepts are covered, but the writing has an academic pomposity without the requisite rigour. Figures and illustrations are not only unhelpful, but may actually confuse issues, and typographical and grammatical errors abound. Lists of idiosyncratic, and very odd, attack taxonomies are given in chapter two. Items like "attacks on the security policy and administration procedures" aren't really explained, while "attacks on permanent components of the security system" seems to be limited to cryptanalysis. Chapter three has some descriptions of virtual private networks, tunnelling, IPSec, and key management protocols. The writing is hard to understand, there does not seem to be any logical organization to the material, and the mistakes in the content do not inspire any confidence in the reliability of any part of this text. All the topics touched on here are covered much more effectively in other works, but the topics are so random that it is difficult to make specific recommendations. For those interested in the basics of data communications I would suggest Tanenbaum (cf. BKCMPNWK.RVW), while "Building Linux Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)" (cf. BKBLVPNS.RVW) is a good introduction to VPNs themselves. copyright Robert M. Slade, 2003 BKPIIVPN.RVW 20030404 ====================== rslade@sprint.ca rslade@vcn.bc.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca p1@canada.com "If you do buy a computer, don't turn it on." - Richards' 2nd Law ============= for back issues: [Base URL] site http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev/ or mirror http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade/ CISSP refs: [Base URL]mnbksccd.htm Security Dict.: [Base URL]secgloss.htm Security Educ.: [Base URL]comseced.htm Book reviews: [Base URL]mnbk.htm [Base URL]review.htm Partial/recent: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/techbooks/ Security Educ.: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/comseced/ Review mailing list: send mail to techbooks-subscribe@egroups.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX+ Dialaround Organization: Not Much From: bonomi@c-ns (Robert Bonomi) Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 06:15:10 GMT In article , Justin Time wrote: > Mark J Cuccia wrote in message > news:: >> The Telecom-USA subsidiary of MCI-Worldcom (BTW, has anyone else >> noticed how with all of the bad publicity "Worldcom" has had over the >> past year, that they have gone back to calling themselves *JUST* MCI >> in recent TV/Radio/print commercials and ads? They were calling >> themselves MCI-Worldcom when they merged some five-or-so years ago, >> and slowly began phasing out the 'MCI' part of the name to use just >> Worldcom, although "The Neighborhood" last year referred only to 'MCI' >> in its commercials) ... anyhow ... MCI-Worldcom's Telecom-USA (and >> even the Telecom-USA name has rarely identified itself publicly as >> being part of MCI) has come out with yet another so-called "ten-ten-" >> dialaround. >> They first had 'ten=ten-three-two-one' some years ago (101-0321+, >> originally 10-321+), and I forget the "deal" offered on that one. Then >> they started with 'ten-ten-two-twenty' (101-0220+) which was >> originally a Western Union LD access code (as 10-220+) back in the >> 1980s, this 101-0220 having the 1980's TV puppet 'star' ALF as the >> spokesman along with some other "trendy" pitchmen and celebs, with the >> "one buck" for twenty minutes, 7-cents a minute after. >> The "catch" with the 101-0220+ is that ONCE THE LINE ANSWERED, whether >> wrong number, answering machine/voicemail, or called party really >> unable to carry on a lenghty conversation at that moment -- you were >> ding'd for a buck!!! >> Now there is 'ten-ten-nine-eight-seven' from (MCI-Worldcom's) >> Telecom-USA. Supposedly 3-c per min (with a 39-cents, I think, >> per-call connection charge) to anywhere in the US, Candaa, and most of >> western Europe. They claim no monthly fees -- that is, no monthly >> 'membership' or plan fees, but obviously basic taxes and other "fees >> required by the government" such as "network access fees" and >> Universal Service Fund, etc. are going to be tacked on for any month >> that one makes billed calls via 101-0987+. > Just because I could play with a spreadsheet, consider the following > table: > Min Chrg Connect Total > 1 $0.03 $0.39 $0.42 > 2 $0.06 $0.39 $0.45 > 3 $0.09 $0.39 $0.48 > 4 $0.12 $0.39 $0.51 > 5 $0.15 $0.39 $0.54 > 6 $0.18 $0.39 $0.57 > 7 $0.21 $0.39 $0.60 > 8 $0.24 $0.39 $0.63 > 9 $0.27 $0.39 $0.66 > 10 $0.30 $0.39 $0.69 > 11 $0.33 $0.39 $0.72 > 12 $0.36 $0.39 $0.75 > 13 $0.39 $0.39 $0.78 > 14 $0.42 $0.39 $0.81 > 15 $0.45 $0.39 $0.84 > 16 $0.48 $0.39 $0.87 > 17 $0.51 $0.39 $0.90 > 18 $0.54 $0.39 $0.93 > 19 $0.57 $0.39 $0.96 > 20 $0.60 $0.39 $0.99 > Now add the USF to this, and yes, you will save money over using > 101-0220, but its still a rip-off! It's -not- that much of a rip-off. Utility depends _utterly_ on your *usage* pattern. Practically all the good 'per minute' rate plans have a monthly service charge. Typically around $5/mo. For someone who makes _only_a_few_, relatively short, calls a month, that 'base fee' is a killer. Make 3 6-minute calls a month, at $0.05/minute, plus a $4.95/mo 'plan fee', and your "cost" is in nearly $0.33/minute ($5.90 total). Using 10-10-220 for those 3 6-minute calls is _cheaper_. almost 50% cheaper. At a total of $2.97, or $0.165/minute. Using 10-10-987, saves another 40%. total charges of $ 1.71, or about $0.095 minute. Make a _hundred_minutes_ of LD calls a month, at a 'plan rate' of $.05/min, but with a $4.95/mo plan fee, and your "true cost" is $0.10/minute. Make 10 ten-minute calls via 10-10-987, and your cost is under $0.07/min. "The more things change, the more they remain the same" applies. You have to know _your_ calling pattern, and select the rate structure that is right *FOR*YOU*. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Surcharges to Pay Phone Owners on Toll-Free Number Providers Organization: Not Much From: bonomi@c-ns (Robert Bonomi) Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 07:41:11 GMT In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > Does the FCC have a one-size-fits-all standard on pay phone > surcharges? If the toll-free number in question is to access a > calling card network, does the surcharge apply whether or not the call > to the ultimate station is completed? Yup. Well, mostly. I believe the payphone operator is entitled to one 'surcharge' for each call beyond the first that occurs in a 'multiple call' session to a calling-card network. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: EarthLink Gets $16M in Spam E-Mail Case Organization: Not Much From: bonomi@c-ns (Robert Bonomi) Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 07:49:13 GMT In article , Danny Burstein wrote: > And, for that matter, how come there's no criminal prosecution in this > case? Or even a little visit by te local gendarmes asking some > questions? Most people (probably including some of the spammers) > would, when facing Elliot Ness, reconsider their little criminal > charade. 48 hours after the judgement, the "gentleman" _was_ arrested. Felony 'fraud', and 'identity theft'. > One might think, just barely, that some law enforcement type somewhere > or another would see credit card fraud and identity theft as > actionable criminal pursuits? Somebody like the N.Y. State Attoral, maybe(?) who *did* arrest him. > I'd love to hear from an Earthlink rep answers to those > questions. Unless, just maybe, there wasn't any credit card theft [a] > and all he did was make up numbers that matched the checksums. And all > Earthlink did was see that the card number looked valid and didn't do > any actual verification. They were *real* credit cards. Being prosecuted under _newly_enacted_ "identity theft" statute in NY. ------------------------------ From: Al Gillis Subject: Re: Reach Out and Block Someone / Massachusetts Consumers Have Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 16:08:02 -0700 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com I'd love to sign up on one of these lists but I'm being a little cautious (also, the vocal spammers at my home aren't that bad yet). But I keep wondering if some enterprising business mogul isn't sitting back, waiting for those list to fill up. Then he'll sue the list administrator on some trumped up notion of how keeping the lists a secret is a breach of HIS right to know who's on it, or how it's a public record he should have access to or something. Then, if he wins, he'll not only have a list of good residential telephone numbers, but likely will have the names and address to go with the numbers as well. What a demographic windfall that would be! Al Monty Solomon wrote in message news:telecom22.462.14@telecom-digest.org: > By Bruce Mohl, Globe Staff, 5/18/2003 > Massachusetts consumers have telemarketers on the run. > Tired of unwanted phone calls from companies trying to sell them > things, Massachusetts residents have placed more than 1.1 million > phone numbers, or about 40 percent of all residential lines, on the > state's do-not-call list. A month-and-a-half into the state's > do-not-call experiment, homeowners are starting to enjoy the silence. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/138/business/Reach_out_and_block_someone+. shtml ------------------------------ Subject: Re: 911 Operators Getting Addresses and More Qs About the Service Organization: Not Much From: bonomi@c-ns (Robert Bonomi) Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 07:10:45 GMT In article , Joey Lindstrom wrote: > On Wed, 14 May 2003 15:06:30 -0400 (EDT), Mark Brader wrote: >> Gail Hall writes: >>> I was surprised a couple nights ago when they played some of the >>> 911 call tapes on a TV news broadcast. >>> Callers stated very clearly the name of the building they were in and >>> that the building was on the campus of the university, which they also >>> named. Callers said there was shooting going on there. But the >>> operator wants to know the exact address. ... >> It would be particularly disconcerting for a caller who was used to a >> place where the building name *is* the complete address. That's how >> it was when I was in university: "Physics Building, University of >> Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1" was the complete address of that >> building. Later the university was assigned a street address, but it >> was still a *single* address -- 200 University Av. W. -- for the whole >> main campus, maybe 30 buildings, and that's still the way it is today. >>> But shouldn't they have a database about most of the well known >>> buildings in the city? >> Sounds good to me! > The whole thing does sound kinda ridiculous, especially with > well-known landmarks. If I fell down and couldn't get up while > attending an NHL game, I'd tell the 911 operator (who I called on my > cellphone) I was at "the Saddledome". I would not tell her I was at > "555 Saddledome Rise S.E." because until I just now looked it up, I > had no idea that was the building's address. (and I can't figure out > how they got "555" since it's the only building on Saddledome Rise > S.E., which is basically a small piece of asphalt extending at right > angles off Olympic Way S.E.) > When I dispatched cabs TEN YEARS AGO, we were using computer systems > advanced enough so that when somebody called in from "Petro Canada > Tower" or "Chinook Centre" or any other named building, they just had > to say the name of the building (and which entrance they were at, if > applicable). We just had to type in the name of the building (or one > of several abbreviations for that place). The computer would figure > out where it was, what the address was, what zone it was in, etc., and > dispatch the closest car. Why a modern-day 911 system wouldn't be as > good as this is completely beyond me. (Today, that same cab company > has more-advanced systems, including the ability to automatically call > up the address based on caller-ID, providing that that customer had > called previously from the same phone number, as well as GPS-based > dispatching of "the closest" taxi.) What are you folks paying "E-911" > fees for, if the system still isn't any better than what you had in > the 1970's? Taxi dispatching makes for all sorts of 'interesting' situations. Places that _don't_have_ a 'street address' of _any_ sort -- e.g. a 'crew shack' in a railroad switching yard. You enter the yard off ____ street, and then drive for a mile-and-a-half (literally), on a maze of un-named, un-marked, *mostly* (but not all) paved trails to get to the shack. You learn "where to go" to _pick_up_ a crew, by *taking* a crew out there -- with *them* navigating. Large complexes where _all_ the buildings address of the street that the complex 'fronts' on. I've been in an apartment complex with 60+ buildings that all addressed off the street you drove into the complex from. Into this *maze* of 'esthetically pleasing' curved streets, about 4 buildings per street segment, and *NO* rhyme nor reason (that I could make out, anyway) to how the building numbers were assigned within the complex. "Themed" mobile-home parks -- leading to things like "go to the intersection of Jackie Gleason and Red Skelton.." University campuses can introduce their own set of problems. e.g. when every thing addresses off the 'frontage' street (like the apartment complex described above) *and* you have multiple buildings named after the same benefactor. Once the driver of the lead unit of a parade of three fire trucks, a battalion chief car, and an ambulance hollers at me "Where's the Searle Building?" And I had to respond "which one?" (got me an _awfully_ dirty look, incidentally -- but there was a "Searle Hall of Biological Sciences", and the "Searle Student Health Center" on *opposite* ends of the campus.) The fire-truck driver *did* have a little additional info, which identified the Bio. Sciences bldg, so I could direct him to the right place. :) Other places that don't have street addresses -- boat launching ramps, picnic 'shelters' in parks, etc. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: We have a few cases like that here. But several years ago at the request of police/fire authorities, things were set up so that all the former 'rural route box numbers' were changed to definite numbers in a logical order, so that now if you say to police 'I am at 1736 County Road 4300' they know exactly where to find you. The only exception that remains is Independence Community College. *Everything* there uses the address 1086 West College Avenue with the (again, exception) of two or three buildings on the west side of the campus which use '2900 Brookside Drive' for which there is no reason or logic, that is just what they are called. However almost everyone in town (and certainly police and fire) know that our campus has a half dozen 'internal' streets known respectively as A, B, C, D, E and F and that the dorms are known by those internal streets which are 'A' dorm, etc. Those almost make sense, since 17th Street and College Avenue (main entrance) is about eleven hundred west, and Brookside Drive intersects 58 Road at about 3000 South which is the next 'major' road. Ditto with the Coffeyville Industrial Park (which is between Coffeyville and Liberty, Kansas, where Amazon.com is located. Officially it is (I forget) some number on North Sunflower Street in Coffeyville, but they just go by the names of the companies there. PAT] ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Book _Cheaper By The Dozen_, Learning Morse Date: 20 May 2003 14:14:40 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Bill Horne wrote: > Mark Atwood wrote in message >> In the nonfiction book _Cheaper By The Dozen_, there is a scene where >> industrial engineer Frank Gilbreth teaches his 12 children Morse code >> by giving them a list of mnemonic words that have the cadence for the >> morse of a given letter, that begins with that letter. > Hate to be a party-pooper, but researchers long ago found that > learning code this way is counterproductive. The best way to learn > Morse code is to associate the letters directly with the sound of the > letter being sent, rather than with "dots" and "dashes" or neumonics > for them. This method IS a way of associating the letters with the sound of the letter being set ... it's memorizing words that have the same cadence and long-short sequence of the code and associating them with the letter. It's fairly ingenious and the military has used it in code training classes in the past. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So who is going to tell us the words to go with the symbols? 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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V22 #465 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue May 20 22:50:19 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4L2oID19693; Tue, 20 May 2003 22:50:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 22:50:19 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305210250.h4L2oID19693@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #466 TELECOM Digest Tue, 20 May 2003 22:50:00 EDT Volume 22 :Issue 466 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson EFFector 16.13: EFF to Testify on Consumer Rights (Monty Solomon) Motorola Acquires Technologies and Implementations of (Monty Solomon) FEATURE-Online Game Strategy Splits Video Game Industry (Monty Solomon) Unsuspecting Computer Users Relay Spam (Monty Solomon) Barcoding Humans (Monty Solomon) Madrid Music Web Site Tests Downloading Legality (Monty Solomon) Policy Post 9.11: P2P Users Should Beware of Privacy, Security (Solomon) CDT Headline: Authentication Privacy Principles Working Group (Solomon) CDT Headline: Report on TIA Due This Week; Privacy Laws (Monty Solomon) Staff Manager's Issues Report: Privacy Issues Related to Whois (Solomon) Re: WorldCom Pays And Lives to Tell About It (John Higdon) Re: UNE Platform CLECs (dold@UNEXPlatfo.usenet.us.com) Re: MCI Gets Iraq Rebuild Contract (Mike Hartley) Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line? (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Email, Other Vulnerable Spots on my Setup (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: Tue, 20 May 2003 19:19:44 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 16.13: EFF to Testify on Consumer Rights EFFector Vol. 16, No. 13 May 14, 2003 ren@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 252nd Issue of EFFector: * EFF to Testify on Consumer Rights * San Francisco Court Considers Legality of Backup DVD Copies * Update on TIA and CAPPS II * Deep Links (5): Police Raid Ohio State Students for P2P * Staff Calendar * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/16/13.php ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 19:24:06 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Motorola Acquires Technologies and Implementations Motorola Acquires Technologies and Implementations of the Multimedia Home Platform (DVB MHP) from Cadence - May 20, 2003 04:00 AM (PR Newswire) This technology acquisition allows Motorola to enhance its DVi and DTH set-top product lines by offering a critical platform for interactive home media applications LONDON, May 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Mediacast -- Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT) Broadband Communications Sector today announced that it has acquired technologies of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NYSE:CDN), implementing the DVB Multimedia Home Platform. The announcement was made at the Mediacast 2003 trade show, May 20-22 in London. This strategic technology acquisition allows Motorola Broadband to add MHP to the capabilities of its DVi and DTH (direct-to-home) product lines of interactive digital set-tops, further enhancing the functionality of these products. The addition of MHP to its portfolio will enable Motorola to offer a complete, comprehensive, and cost-effective solution to the European and Asian markets, in addition to offering solutions from middleware partners. Cable, satellite, and terrestrial operators will benefit by having greater flexibility in deploying interactive applications. The MHP software, based on Java(TM) technology, will be incorporated into the DVi and DTH set-tops, starting with the DVi3000 in the third quarter of 2003. By early 2004, the software will reside as a standard capability in all DVB-based DVi set-tops. With this offering cable networks and content operators will benefit from the open MHP standard platform that generates new revenue streams by providing interactive services to their subscribers and viewers through cable television. With this technology, European communities will have access to vital, local, interactive information applications that previously were only possible via the computer. Many homes in Europe do not have computers, so offering these applications via the DVi3000 in combination with the household's TV will cost-effectively and quickly make these applications available to all communities, with maximum customer acceptance and usage. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34260107 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 19:38:24 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FEATURE-Online Game Strategy Splits Video Game Industry By Reed Stevenson and Ben Berkowitz LOS ANGELES, May 20 (Reuters) - It's a karaoke machine and a video conferencing center, a wireless jukebox and a DVD player. The latest and greatest gadget in home entertainment? No, just the well-worn video game console your kids already have in the living room. In the turf war being fought to control space in the living room of the future, rivals Sony Corp. (TOKYO:6758) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) have made it clear that the current generation of game consoles were meant to be Trojan horses -- the real pay-off would come when the machines were connected to a network. Now, as both companies unveil the Internet-based services expected to be the next big thing for the $30 billion games business, sharp differences over their strategies have emerged along with a debate about how much consumers will be willing to pay for such online offerings. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34269901 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 19:58:38 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Unsuspecting Computer Users Relay Spam By SAUL HANSELL At first, it looked as if some students at the Flint Hills School, a prep academy in Oakton, Va., had found a lucrative alternative to an after-school job. Late last year, technicians at America Online traced a new torrent of spam, or unsolicited e-mail advertisements, to the school's computer network. On further inquiry, though, AOL determined that the spammers were not enterprising students. Instead, a spam-flinging hacker -- who still has not been found - had exploited a software vulnerability to use Flint Hills' computers to relay spam while hiding the e-mail's true origins. It was not an isolated incident. The remote hijacking of the Flint Hills computer system is but one example among hundreds of thousands of a nefarious technique that has become the most common way for spammers to send billions of junk e-mail messages coursing through the global Internet each day. As spam has proliferated -- and with it the attempts by big Internet providers to block messages sent from the addresses of known spammers - many mass e-mailers have become more clever in avoiding the blockades by aggressively bouncing messages off the computers of unaware third parties. In the last two years, more than 200,000 computers worldwide have been hijacked without the owners' knowledge and are currently being used to forward spam, according to AOL and other Internet service providers. And each day thousands of additional PC's are compromised at companies, institutions and -- most commonly of all -- homes with high-speed Internet connections shared by two or more computers. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/20/technology/20SPAM.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Readers are invited to use the New York Times without registering, to preserve their own privacy and avoid some spam in the process: user name: telecomdigest password:telecomdigest is the thing I use. You are welcome to use it also. I have a concern about the final sentence in Monty's report above. 'Most common (places for abuse) are homes with high-speed Internet connections shared by two or more computers.' See my inquiry elsewhere in this issue. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 21:31:01 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Barcoding Humans The era of implanting people with identity chips is up on us By Angela Swafford, Globe Correspondent, 5/20/2003 The painless procedure barely lasted 15 minutes. In his South Florida office, Dr. Harvey Kleiner applied a local anesthetic above the tricep of my right arm, then he inserted a thick needle deep under the skin. ''First we locate a prime spot,'' he said. ''The next thing is to release the button that triggers the injection mechanism, and that's it, the cargo's been delivered.'' The ''cargo'' was a half-inch-long microchip inside a glass and silicone cylinder that carries my permanent identification number. For an instant, I remembered the famous scene in the movie ''Fantastic Voyage'' in which a miniaturized Raquel Welch and her companions are inserted, submarine and all, into the vein of a patient. In my case, the tiny chip inside me can transmit personal information to anyone with a special handheld scanner. Theoretically, this VeriChip will allow doctors to call up my medical records even if I'm too badly hurt to answer questions. It is also supposed to allow me to get money from an automatic teller machine by flashing my arm instead of punching in my PIN number. Or reassure airport security that I am a journalist, not a terrorist. And, though the VeriChip strikes critics as Orwellian, its makers think the surgically implanted IDs could be the Social Security numbers of the future in a nervous world. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/140/science/Barcoding_humans+.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 19:03:22 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Madrid Music Web Site Tests Downloading Legality By Bernhard Warner, European Internet Correspondent LONDON, May 20 (Reuters) - A new music download service launched on Tuesday in Madrid tests a legal loophole in Spanish copyright law that appears to give Web sites permission to sell songs online without consent from record companies. Running under a banner on its homepage that reads "No Rules. No limits", the new service, Puretunes.com, is sure to raise the ire of the music industry. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34260441 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 19:11:31 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Policy Post 9.11: P2P Users Should Beware of Privacy and Security A Briefing On Public Policy Issues Affecting Civil Liberties Online From The Center For Democracy And Technology Contents: (1) P2P Users Should Beware of Privacy and Security Risks (2) Risks from Inadvertent Sharing of Sensitive Files (3) "Spyware" Violates Privacy, Denies User Choice (4) Other Legal Risks in Peer-to-Peer Networks http://www.cdt.org/publications/pp_9.11.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 19:09:45 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CDT Headline: Authentication Privacy Principles Working Group From: CDT Info Subject: CDT Headline: Authentication Privacy Principles Working Group Releases Interim Report Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 16:24:34 -0400 Authentication Privacy Principles Working Group Releases Interim Report A working group comprised of CDT, other consumer groups, privacy experts and leading Internet companies released consensus Privacy Principles intended to guide the development of authentication systems for consumer-initiated transactions and government services. The Authentication Privacy Principles address issues such as notice, user control, marketplace diversity, collection limitation, and accountability. May 14, 2003 Interim Report of the Working Group http://www.cdt.org/privacy/authentication/030513interim.pdf http://www.cdt.org/privacy/authentication/030513interim.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 19:12:16 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CDT Headline: Report on TIA Due This Week; Privacy Laws From: CDT Info Subject: CDT Headline: Report on TIA Due This Week; Privacy Laws Inadequate, CDT Testifies Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 16:36:00 -0400 Report on TIA Due This Week; Privacy Laws Inadequate, CDT Testifies The Pentagon this week issues a report detailing the efficacy, costs and privacy implications of its Total Information Awareness program. Privacy issues are a key concern because, as a new CDT analysis shows, existing laws place few limits on the government's use of commercial information for anti-terrorism purposes. CDT Executive Director Jim Dempsey testifies May 20 on these and related issues before a House subcommittee, where will emphasize that government anti-terror efforts must be subject to in-depth Congressional oversight and that checks and balances on surveillance cast aside in the haste of the PATRIOT Act of 2001 need to be re-established. May 19, 2003 Testimony by Jim Dempsey: http://www.cdt.org/testimony/030520dempsey.shtml http://www.cdt.org/testimony/030520dempsey.pdf CDT Report Privacy's Gap: The Largely Non-Existent Legal Framework for Government Mining of Commercial Data [pdf]: http://www.cdt.org/security/usapatriot/030519cdt.pdf ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 20:34:25 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Staff Manager's Issues Report on Privacy Issues Related to Whois Staff Manager's Issues Report on Privacy Issues Related to Whois (13 May 2003) Contents Summary Preliminary Catalog of Issues Issues Concerning Data Collection Issues Concerning Data Quality Issues Concerning Data Handling Issues Concerning Data Disclosure Issues Concerning Data Use Issues Concerning Classification of Registrants Issues Concerning Commercial Confidentiality and Rights in Data Stakeholder Groups and Their Apparent Positions Whois/Privacy Activities in Other Groups Recommended Process for Proceeding Characteristics of the Issues General Counsel's Remarks on Scope Recommendations for Proceeding http://www.icann.org/gnso/issue-reports/whois-privacy-report-13may03.htm ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: WorldCom Pays And Lives to Tell About It Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 17:56:29 -0700 In article , Eric Friedebach wrote: > NEW YORK - WorldCom, the bankrupt company that is still the nation's > second-largest long-distance telecommunications carrier, agreed > yesterday to settle massive accounting fraud charges brought by the > U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by making a post-bankruptcy > payment of $500 million, with most of that money slated to go to > investors in company shares. Which puts shareholders ahead of creditors when it comes to getting paid. Even in bankruptcy, Worldcom continues as king of slime. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: dold@UNEXPlatfo.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: UNE Platform CLECs Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 23:04:53 UTC Organization: a2i network Fred R. Goldstein wrote: > Following up as Pat asked ... Clarence, I held my words on the snide > remarks, but I understand your frustration. UNE-P makes it easy to > say you're a CLEC, compared to CLECs who use real live non-ILEC > facilities of any sort. Yours appeared to be a very balanced view. Mine is that of someone who has given up on telco. ;-( > CLECs. One problem is that the "Class of 97" CLECs spent money like > crazy, just wanted to "party like it's 1999", and put in facilities > that shouldn't be there. In 1998, I examined one major city (on > behalf of a potential competitor) and discovered that five companies > had been pulling fiber around many of the same streets and suburban > industrial parks. So even that early on, there was no need to pull > new glass. And need I mention how expensive CLEC CO switches were in > 1997, when you basically had your choice of a 5ESS or DMS-500? > Today's CLEC switches are much, much cheaper, both to buy and operate. When we decided to pull the switch out of one growing city, and serve it from a nearby switch, we could do everything but DSL. I looked up ___all___ of the DSL customers that we had. I thought I was misspelling the name of the city. We only had four customers, and none of them were paying for DSL. Three were on some promotional deal, and the fourth hadn't started billing yet. On the other hand ... that was how it had to be. You did some homework about what cities were growing, what politics were friendly to a new CLEC, and spent a _lot_ of money, as the entry ante into the fray. Of course you were very secretive about what you were doing, just like the other CLECs ... It would seem to me that you would have to have overlapping efforts, or else someone wasn't very good at seeing an opportunity. The fact that you collided was unfortunate. > A final question from me to Clarence and Fred or whoever: It used to > be that when you got a competitor's phone service and wanted to keep > your 'old' phone number, the CLEC had to assign you a bogus number and > have call forwarding on your old number pointing to that bogus number > which was 'really' what you had. Is that still the case? PAT] I'm a billing guy, and the details are fading away, but it's not as bad as you might think. If I recall correctly, there was only one dummy number per NPA-NXX-N000 block. That was to get the call headed in the right direction, toward your switch, where the translation was done. I don't remember the detail, but the "real" number was in the new switch. The methodology of doing the lookup required a placeholder of sorts, but that placeholder served many numbers. maybe ;-) Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA ------------------------------ From: Mike Hartley Subject: Re: MCI Gets Iraq Rebuild Contract Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 01:14:59 +0100 >> ""We are very pleased by this news, as we have been working >> with the US Government and MCI to provide GSM, and ensure >> that Iraq had the right technology for its people, compatible >> with the rest of the region and the world," said Rob Conway, >> CEO of the GSM Association in a statement. > I'm sure congressman Issa is omewhat less escatic now that sanity > appears to be prevailing. > There is some irony in the fact that the company chosen has ever owned > and operated a wireless phone network, at least not in the US. Yeah. Don't ya love it ;+) But in areas other than the kurdish north[1] it looks mainly flat and I'm sure buying cell sites is cheap and unlikely to be subject to planning control. Cell and microwave planning is easy, road coverage only in unpopulated ares. Lots and lots of COWs, to quote a previous thread. Swtiches in containers. Sites on high buildings in previously government areas difficult to find, I'm guessing. It's not rocket science to design working GSM network using off the shelf propagation planning tools and excel spreadheets, then built it using standard configuration switching equipment, scaffold piping, generators and gaffer tape. I'm sure the US has some *very* high resolution geaographic data that will make the design process much quicker- you could produce a costed plan within weeks. Niche demand will be very high immediately, and in the long term Pitched at the right price you can sell a huge amount of voice minutes on a very low cost network, especially if people value connectivity over quaility. And by the way equipment vendors really need the work. Telecom-military conspiracy theory? (lights fuse and ducks) Mike [1]Who ISTR have their own GSM network. ------------------------------ Subject: Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line? Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 00:40:48 GMT In a month or so, I'll be moving out of my area code, and, just to make things hard, for three months I'll have only a temporary address and a cell phone. To make matters really hard, my cell phone may change during those three months. What I'd like to do is keep my old number, even though there will be no phone line attached to it. Then I'd like to use what Verizon calls "Ultra Call Forwarding" to remotely change the number to which my old phone number forwards. So, does anyone know if: 1. I can keep my phone number after I leave? 2. If I'll have trouble with the call forwarding? Also, I actually have two numbers on my current line, via identa-ring (a.k.a distintive ringing). So: 3. Will there be a problem forwarding both numbers? (Currently, it's not a problem.) I'm in the 718/834-xxxx exchange, serviced locally by Verizon. Many, many thanks. -Joel ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Email, Other Vulnerable Spots on my Setup Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 21:00:00 CDT Elsewhere in this issue a short newsclip from Monty Solomon told about a school computer which had been hacked and was being used to send out tons of spam. The article in the New York Times went on to say that among the most vulnerable for this were 'private homes with highspeed internet service and two or more computers' ... which is what I have! :(I want some advice from guys who know about this sort of thing. My configuration is this: Three computers, two operating systems: Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows 2000 (which is partitioned and mostly I use the Linux partition.) My old XP was zapped to install the 2000 and the Linux. A Linksys 4 port router box. (Three computer machines and the Vonage). The Linksys router feeds into the Motorola Surfboard Cable Modem, and to cableone.net I am known by the Linksys box 192.something. The computer machines mostly stay turned on all the time. The Linksys gets a new DHCP 'lease ticket' from cableone.net every few days. My question is how vulnerable am I to hacking by a spammer or other trouble-maker? In practical terms ... what additional 'firewall' or other protection do I need? How can I tell, if I can tell, what if anything is happening while I am asleep or otherwise not right here? Comments, suggestions welcome. 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 #466 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed May 21 12:45:00 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4LGj0k23693; Wed, 21 May 2003 12:45:00 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 12:45:00 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305211645.h4LGj0k23693@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #467 TELECOM Digest Wed, 21 May 2003 12:45:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 467 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson VoIP and the Broadband Connection (unspammable-3107@workbench.net) Re: UNE Platform CLECs; Local Number Portability (Fred Goldstein) Re: UNE Platform CLECs (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Connecting Two Wireless Routers in One Network (Monty Solomon) Re: MCI Gets Iraq Rebuild Contract (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX Dialaround (Linc Madison) Re: Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line? (Sam Etler) Re: Book _Cheaper By The Dozen_, Learning Morse (Mark Atwood) Re: Reach Out and Block Someone / Massachusetts Consumers (Paul Wallich) Re: Reach Out and Block Someone / Massachusetts Consumers (John Levine) Re: E-911, was: Re: My New Vonage Account (John R. Levine) New Archive File Installed: Spam Assassin, I Am (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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 20:57:19 -0400 From: unspammable-3107@workbench.net Subject: VoIP and the Broadband Connection Fred R. Goldstein's message in previous issues of TELECOM Digest got me to wondering about something. Fred talked about his "clientele", which I gather from the context are people who hire Fred to come to their area and help them set up a working CLEC (if my assumption is wrong, I'm sure Fred will comment). The point is that it seems now that there may be a way for those with few technical skills to start up and run a CLEC. Now my question is, is there any similar type of assistance available for someone who might want to set up a wide area wireless broadband system? I'm not talking about a piddly system that had a five mile radius and can't penetrate trees, I'm talking about something similar to what the guys at this eastern Michigan ISP are doing: http://www.m33access.com/default.asp?MyView=WirelessServiceArea I *KNOW* wireless broadband is probably more cost intensive to set up than a CLEC, but now that telephone-via-internet services such as Vonage, VoicePulse, and Packet8 are available, I have two thoughts. One is that there aren't as many years left as everyone thinks for traditional wireline telephony -- if you understand the concept behind the book, "The Tipping Point", you understand that large changes can happen very quickly. The other is that as people decide that they only need their wireless or VoIP phones to communicate, a certain percentage are going to want a pure-play Broadband service that doesn't require them to be in the service area of a DSL or cable Internet provider, nor will they want to be forced to purchase a "bundle" containing telephone or cable TV service they don't want in order to get the broadband service they do want. For example, in my neck of the woods you see a LOT of Dish Network and DirecTV satellite dishes (and even a few C-band dishes). DSL isn't available at any price, but if it were you'd have to take at least one line of traditional phone service to get it. Cable modem service is available, but the already high price goes up even higher if you don't also subscribe to cable TV, AND the cable company will not give a residential customer more that 128K upload speed no matter what tier of service they subscribe to (forget trying to do a three-way call using a VoIP service). There are a few wireless carriers around here but they cherry-pick in two ways: First, they don't cover much of the rural areas of the county at all, and second, their price tiers are geared to small business service (don't call them unless you can pay $200 a month!). And then I look at that wireless ISP in eastern Michigan which covers a huge chunk of mostly rural area, and they offer a 256K home service for $55 a month (or $35 if you only need 128K, but I wouldn't try to run VoIP over that). And I wonder how in the world they can offer service for that price, especially over as wide an area as they do, when most everybody else is claiming their service won't even penetrate trees?! It seems obvious to me that anyone who could come into an area and set up that type of system and assist the local owners in running it would be much in demand. You might not get filthy rich or anything at first, but it would help a lot of people and you'd have the advantage in many cases of being the first in an area to offer reasonably priced wireless broadband service. By the way, I will mention one thing I've heard about wireless broadband and VoIP. The concern with wireless broadband is not so much high latency (although obviously that's not real desirable) as varying latency. Echo cancellation doesn't work well when latency jumps all over the place from packet to packet. It would be better to have 300 or 400 ms of stable latency (even though that's a fairly high amount for VoIP) then to have average smaller latency figures that jump all over the place from one second to the next. Or so I've heard, anyway. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Finally, some twenty years following divestiture, (of AT&T and the 'telephone company') Bell is starting to get their due, aren't they? Between VOIP getting off the ground and the CLECs *really* getting started -- not just brokering long distance sales -- it really is coming around, isn't it? What do you want to wager that ten years from now, Whatever Bell will be a historical item to be remembered, fondly perhaps, but none the less, a memory. During the first twenty years of divestiture, as Ma the old lady got all shriveled up in her old age, her kids grew bigger and bossier and more brazen than ever. Some of the kids even got to be prime candidates themselves for divestiture, although it never happened. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: UNE Platform CLECs; Local Number Portability Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 22:44:42 -0400 Pat asked me or Clarence to follow up thusly, > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I shared the messages to date from Fred > and Clarence Dold with the guys at TerraWorld (our local ISP who does > Prairie Stream). I got a few answers to toss out in the event anyone > wants to answer them: > 1: UNE-P is *not* a new concept which magically showed up a year or > two ago. It has been around since the telreg act, and was thought > about before then. Sage is another UNE-P but unlike Prairie Stream it > does not go into very small rural towns. Sage is willing to do > business in Topeka or Wichita for example, but won't touch Independence > or Cherryvale or Caney, Kansas. Sage wants at least 10-15 thousand > loops (or pairs) in town bare minimum to start with. Cost per line has > to be better than the most rural, most expensive rates for them. UNE-P comes from the Telecom Act wording that makes all network elements available unbundled, subject to certain provisions that the current FCC is starting on. Total Service Resale is an older idea. UNE-P didn't happen in 1996 because the ILECs objected, as did the Iowa Utilities Board. The ILECs claimed that network elements could only be combined by the CLEC, in collocation cages. It went all the way to the Supreme Court, who approved it somewhere around 1998. Now a good thing about UNE-P is that it works in small towns. With no collocation or other hardware bogie, a CLEC can just hit the UNE-P button, so to speak, on any line in their service territories (telco/state). Thus it is the only viable "competition" in many small towns, at least at present. > 3: (Quoting Mike, his associate) "the FCC is going to require, in the > next two or three years, that all UNE-P things must have their own > switches. Must ... or go out of business. But that is okay, that is > what we planned on from the beginning anyway. It will not come as a > big surprise when all UNE-P operations have to do it. Right now we > are mostly looking for a good customer base." That's another good thing about UNE-P; it lets the CLEC build up customers before paying the $10-30k to the telco for the right to put in a colo rack, plus the monthly charges, plus the cost of the hardware in each central office. UNE-P operators who understand this will do well; those who count on its perpetual success are taking big chances. > 6: I asked if they thought Prairie Stream mattered any to Bell's way > of thinking. > "You bet they know we are here! Unlike Sage, our main competitor in > our size, we are the only ones willing to take tiny little towns in > Kansas, population five, or fifty or five hundred or like > Independence, eight thousand. We are starting to hurt Southwestern > Bell a little bit with our customer base of between three and six or > seven thousand customers across Kansas. They see us eating into them a > little. We have not had as much luck making inroads into Sage's > customer base as we would like, but the Bell and Sprint (old United > Tel's) customers are coming to us in droves." Good for them! BTW, the margins on UNE-P in many Sprint territories are really poor. I don't know the Kansas rates, but I've seen some rural areas where their unbundled local loops go over $70/month. In NJ, for instance, Sprint United's cheapest loops (a couple of their rate centers) are $18/mo, up to around $35 in the smaller towns. VZ's smallest-town rates are much lower. Unbundled loops from most independent ILECs are very costly. > A final question from me to Clarence and Fred or whoever: It used to > be that when you got a competitor's phone service and wanted to keep > your 'old' phone number, the CLEC had to assign you a bogus number and > have call forwarding on your old number pointing to that bogus number > which was 'really' what you had. Is that still the case? PAT] No. That was "interim number portability". That goes away once "Local Number Portability" is available, which is the case in most places (not all, but the preponderance of Bell and other developed areas). LNP is a different story, so I'll just give a short intro here. A telephone number in an LNP area is like a domain name, NOT an actual address (like an IP address). In the old days, of course, the phone number was a real address, and each switch had its prefix code(s). With LNP, each switch has a single Location Routing Number (LRN) in each LATA that it serves. (CLEC switches can serve pretty big areas.) There's a local number portability data base which all LECs have access to. So when a customer changes LECs, the number is put into the LNP data base, specifying the LRN of the switch that it's on. When a call is made to that number, the "N minus 1" switch for the *dialed* prefix (e.g., the tandem that would normally serve the customer's number, on its original carrier, or another end office directly connected to that number's home switch) does a lookup on the LNP database. That returns the LRN; the call is then sent to the switch with that LRN. The serving switch then terminates the call to the dialed number, which is installed on that switch like any other. Example: My home phone is 617-244-xxxx. It is not on the VZ switch that owns 617-244, but that switch subtends the Newton tandem. So a call from Kansas to my home will go through the LD network and end at the Newton tandem, which will see that 617-244 is a portable prefix, and which will then query the data base. The data base will return the LRN of the serving AT&T switch (say, 617-916-zzzz, but that's not necessarily the right answer). The Newton tandem will then send the call to the AT&T switch. The 617-244 switch will never get touched. As a policy matter, prefix codes, or (more often nowadays) thousands-blocks, are assigned to LECs. NEW numbers come from those blocks. But once a number is assigned to a subscriber, it can be moved to any LEC. The rate center assignment is based on the number, nothing else. Also note that this hasn't fully taken effect yet for wireless calls, though that is planned for later this year. -- Fred Goldstein k1io fgoldstein at ionary dot com ionary Consulting http://www.ionary.com/ ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: UNE Platform CLECs Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 02:43:32 GMT On Mon, 19 May 2003 22:39:41 -0400, Fred R. Goldstein posted the following to comp.dcom.telecom: > A final question from me to Clarence and Fred or whoever: It used to > be that when you got a competitor's phone service and wanted to keep > your 'old' phone number, the CLEC had to assign you a bogus number and > have call forwarding on your old number pointing to that bogus number > which was 'really' what you had. Is that still the case? PAT] That was "interim" number portability and is no longer in use (in most, if not all areas). Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD, USA (delete NOSPAM from address to mail me) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 22:00:44 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Re: Connecting Two Wireless Routers in One Network amity@mainsoft.com (Ronen Amity) inquired of the group, asking about Connecting Two Wireless Routers in One Network on 14 May 2003 04:42:43 > Is there a way to connect two wireless routers together (so you can > move from one to the other without a glich)? > If so, how can I do it? AirPort Extreme: How to Use Multiple Base Stations to Create a Wirelessly Distributed Network http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107454 Designing AirPort Extreme Networks http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=52002 AirPort Extreme http://www.apple.com/airport/ ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: MCI Gets Iraq Rebuild Contract Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 02:35:00 GMT On Tue, 20 May 2003 00:39:34 -0000, Steven J. Sobol posted the following to comp.dcom.telecom: > From Mike Hartley (mike.hartley@ntlworld.com): >>> ""We are very pleased by this news, as we have been working >>> with the US Government and MCI to provide GSM, and ensure >>> that Iraq had the right technology for its people, compatible >>> with the rest of the region and the world," said Rob Conway, >>> CEO of the GSM Association in a statement. > [snip] > There is some irony in the fact that the company chosen has ever owned > and operated a wireless phone network, at least not in the US. Actually, MCI did operate one of the first cellular systems in the U.S. The Pittsburgh MSA A-block system was initially licensed to MCI Cellular Telephone Company. I think it ultimately ended up being owned by AT&T Wireless after several changes in ownership. And, of course, MCI was the largest reseller in the country for quite some time. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD, USA (delete NOSPAM from address to mail me) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You know, I bet Illinois Bell *still* rues the day that the little radio repair shop in Joliet, Illinois got permission from the Illinois Commerce Commission to start that 'small, private users only' microwave link between Chicago and Saint Louis, back in the late sixties. Even more than that, perhaps, the day that Mr. Carter got court permission to attach his device to the 'phone company' lines. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX+ Dialaround Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 00:23:56 -0700 Organization: LincMad.com Consulting Reply-To: Telecom@LincMad.com In article , Robert Bonomi wrote: > In article , Justin Time > wrote: >> Mark J Cuccia wrote in message >> news:: >>> Now there is 'ten-ten-nine-eight-seven' from (MCI-Worldcom's) >>> Telecom-USA. Supposedly 3-c per min (with a 39-cents, I think, >>> per-call connection charge) to anywhere in the US, Candaa, and >>> most of western Europe. They claim no monthly fees ... >> Just because I could play with a spreadsheet, consider the >> following table: >> Min Chrg Connect Total >> 1 $0.03 $0.39 $0.42 >> 2 $0.06 $0.39 $0.45 >> 19 $0.57 $0.39 $0.96 >> 20 $0.60 $0.39 $0.99 >> Now add the USF to this, and yes, you will save money over using >> 101-0220, but its still a rip-off! > It's -not- that much of a rip-off. > Utility depends _utterly_ on your *usage* pattern. > Practically all the good 'per minute' rate plans have a > monthly service charge. Typically around $5/mo. > For someone who makes _only_a_few_, relatively short, calls a month, > that 'base fee' is a killer. But it is REALLY EASY to find plans that do not have any monthly service charge. Just go to > Make 3 6-minute calls a month, at $0.05/minute, plus a $4.95/mo 'plan > fee', and your "cost" is in nearly $0.33/minute ($5.90 total). > Using 10-10-220 for those 3 6-minute calls is _cheaper_. almost 50% > cheaper. At a total of $2.97, or $0.165/minute. > Using 10-10-987, saves another 40%. total charges of $ 1.71, or > about $0.095 minute. > Make a _hundred_minutes_ of LD calls a month, at a 'plan rate' of > $.05/min, but with a $4.95/mo plan fee, and your "true cost" is > $0.10/minute. > Make 10 ten-minute calls via 10-10-987, and your cost is under > $0.07/min. > > "The more things change, the more they remain the same" applies. > You have to know _your_ calling pattern, and select the rate > structure that is right *FOR*YOU*. However, there is ABSOLUTELY NO POSSIBLE DOMESTIC CALLING PATTERN for which either 101-0220 or 101-0987 is the right plan. On the plan I'm currently on, I save money on every single call compared to 101-0220, with no monthly fee. I pay more than 101-0987 only on calls lasting more than 78 minutes, which is a very small proportion of my long-distance calls. Even on calls to Canada and Western Europe, I would have to talk for a while to break even with 101-0987. If I make three 6-minute calls in a month, I pay $0.63, plus tax. That's a savings of over 60% compared to 10-10-987. If I use 100 minutes of LD in a month, I pay $3.50, with no monthly fee. If I make ten 10-minute calls, my cost is barely half of what it would be on 10-10-987. And I don't even claim that the rates I pay are the lowest out there. The bottom line is, anyone who uses either 10-10-220 or 10-10-987 for domestic calls is just too lazy to do even a cursory job of comparison shopping. Telecom-USA is counting on the multitudes of suckers to use those services. There could be some calls to western Europe where, if you reasonably expect the call to last more than a few minutes, the 101-0987 rates might be towards the low end of the scale, but I'd bet that such calls are a tiny percentage of their business. www dot LincMad dot com / Telecom at LincMad dot com Linc Madison * San Francisco, California [TELEOCOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah Link, but about FREE for the cost, or more precisely, factored into the overall cost? On our cell phones night minutes are never used entirely, have all the inter/intrastate you want. On services like Prairie Stream, have 100 minutes per month inter/intra as part of the package including local service. And of course Vonage gives you a big dollup of calling to anywhere, anytime unlimited for as much (little?) Why does anyone actually *pay* for long distance calls at all anymore? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 23:35:18 -0500 (CDT) From: Sam Etler Subject: Re: Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line? > What I'd like to do is keep my old number, even though there will be > no phone line attached to it. Then I'd like to use what Verizon calls > "Ultra Call Forwarding" to remotely change the number to which my old > phone number forwards. See if you can get a service called "Remote Call Forwarding". This will allow you to forward all calls to a specific number automatically. In my experience most LECs can provide this (I've gotten them from at least 4 different ILECs). It's generally a fixed fee per month per path, the number of paths defines how many simultaneous calls you can have. Not sure if this will work with "Ultra Call Forwarding". It's possible you can get them to give you that service without a physical line. Hard to say. RCF service generally doesn't make it easy to change the forward to number. You probably would need to call up the LEC and ask them to do it for you, possibly incuring a charge. Not sure about charges for long distance either. I've only ever forwarded to a toll free number. > 3. Will there be a problem forwarding both numbers? (Currently, it's > not a problem.) If you can do it, you should have no problems doing both. > I'm in the 718/834-xxxx exchange, serviced locally by Verizon. That's a DMS-100 (NYCKNYBRDS1) so it should have no problems supporting RCF. It's all a question of if you can get Verizon to sell it to you. sam ------------------------------ From: Mark Atwood Subject: Re: Book _Cheaper By The Dozen_, Learning Morse Date: 20 May 2003 21:37:07 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) writes: > This method IS a way of associating the letters with the sound of > the letter being set ... it's memorizing words that have the same > cadence and long-short sequence of the code and associating them > with the letter. It's fairly ingenious and the military has used it > in code training classes in the past. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So who is going to tell us the words > to go with the symbols? PAT] Well, the first 3 are: A dit dah a-BOUT B dah dit dit dit BOIS-ter-ous-ly C dah dit dah dit CARE-less CHILD-ren Mark Atwood | When you do things right, mra@pobox.com | people won't be sure you've done anything at all. http://www.pobox.com/~mra ------------------------------ From: Paul Wallich Subject: Re: Reach Out and Block Someone / Massachusetts Consumers Have Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 23:03:06 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In article , Al Gillis wrote: > Monty Solomon wrote in message > news:telecom22.462.14@telecom-digest.org: >> By Bruce Mohl, Globe Staff, 5/18/2003 >> Massachusetts consumers have telemarketers on the run. >> Tired of unwanted phone calls from companies trying to sell them >> things, Massachusetts residents have placed more than 1.1 million >> phone numbers, or about 40 percent of all residential lines, on the >> state's do-not-call list. A month-and-a-half into the state's >> do-not-call experiment, homeowners are starting to enjoy the silence. > I'd love to sign up on one of these lists but I'm being a little > cautious (also, the vocal spammers at my home aren't that bad yet). > But I keep wondering if some enterprising business mogul isn't sitting > back, waiting for those list to fill up. Then he'll sue the list > administrator on some trumped up notion of how keeping the lists a > secret is a breach of HIS right to know who's on it, or how it's a > public record he should have access to or something. Then, if he > wins, he'll not only have a list of good residential telephone > numbers, but likely will have the names and address to go with the > numbers as well. What a demographic windfall that would be! I think you're confused here. The list has to be a public record to be effective. Telemarketers have to know who's on it so that they can avoid calling those numbers. They're welcome to keep a copy of the list for their own enjoyment, but it seems there's little reason to call anyone on that list since a) you know they don't want telemarketing calls and b) you get to incur a hefty fine. I suppose the list could be useful for some non-telemarketing advertisers, but as a goldmine it's probably overrated. paul ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Reach Out and Block Someone / Massachusetts Consumers Have Date: 21 May 2003 01:48:30 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > But I keep wondering if some enterprising business mogul isn't > sitting back, waiting for those list to fill up. Then he'll sue the > list administrator on some trumped up notion of how keeping the > lists a secret ... Uh, the do not call lists aren't exactly secret. For the NY do not call list, anyone who telemarkets to New York numbers is required to have copies of it, either sent out quarterly on CD-ROM or online on demand, and to use it to listwash their calling lists so they never, ever call someone on the DNC list. That's how DNC lists work. If a telemarketer calls someone on the list, he's subject to significant per-call penalties. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711 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: E-911, was: Re: My New Vonage Account Date: 21 May 2003 02:02:03 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > The main problem that I see with this type of service is what are you > going to do when the electric and your battery back up die? At least > with a telco it provides its own power. (Unless you have all cordless > fones in which case all bets are off.) You use your real phone or maybe your cell phone. Vonage says very clearly that they do not recommend their phone as the only phone you have. > Another question. Can you string extensions off of the phone end of > the Cisco box? Yes and no. The Cisco documentation is sort of vague, but I get the impression that two phones are fine, a whole house full of wire and five phones with real bells would be pushing it. Cisco designed the ATA to put on desks in an office as an alternative to their more expensive integrated IP phones. Then you plug them all into a LAN, the LAN plugs into your VoIP PBX. It's kind of surprising that the ATA, which is designed for low-loss low-latency LANs, works so well over the slow lossy public Internet. ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 06:17:43 -0600 Subject: New Archives File: Spam Assassin, I Am Reply-To: joey@garynuman.info Pat has kindly installed that "I, Assassin" song, along with the "Spam Assassin" replacement lyrics, into the /reports section of the Telecom Digest. I'm thinking of putting the song through a karaoke authoring system and replacing the vocals with the new lyrics, but I'm not sure the world is ready for that. :-) / From the desk of Joey Lindstrom / When I was a baby, I kept a diary. Recently, I was rereading it. It / said, "Day 1 -- Still tired from the move. Day 2 -- Everybody talks to / me like I'm an idiot." I was upset because on my second birthday, I / went from being one to being two, and my age doubled in a year. I / figured at this rate, by the time I'm six, I'll be ninety. / --Steven Wright [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For a copy of this .mp3 file and a copy of the lyrics, look in http://telecom-digest.org/reports and select the TWO items (I, Assassin .mp3 and the companion I, Assassin ReadFirst). I hope you all enjoy it. It is important to take the ReadMeFirst file to go along with the .mp3 portion. My thanks to Joey Lindstrom for making this valuable contribution to the Telecom Archives and for his help each month on Share Day with the CD distribution. 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #467 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed May 21 21:14:13 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4M1EC226262; Wed, 21 May 2003 21:14:13 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 21:14:13 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305220114.h4M1EC226262@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #468 TELECOM Digest Wed, 21 May 2003 21:13:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 468 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line? (Justin Time) Re: Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line? (Bill Horne) Re: Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line? (John Bartley) Re: Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line? (Ray & Rita Normandeau) Re: Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line? (Name Withheld) Re: UNE Platform CLECs; Local Number Portability (George Mitchell) Re: MCI Gets Iraq Rebuild Contract (sigix) Re MCI Gets Iraq Rebuild Contract (Steven J. Sobol) Re: MCI Gets Iraq Rebuild Contract (Justin Time) AOL Voicemail -- Journalist's Query (Carl) Re: E-911, was Re: My New Vonage Acct (unspammable-3107@workbench.net) Re: Connecting Two Wireless Routers in One Network (Clarence Dold) Ring Count Before Rolling to Voicemail (Reed Loefgren) Desperately Seeking Old Issues of TELEMANAGEMENT MAGAZINE (onshore) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line? Date: 21 May 2003 05:36:51 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) wrote in message news:: > In a month or so, I'll be moving out of my area code, and, just to > make things hard, for three months I'll have only a temporary address > and a cell phone. To make matters really hard, my cell phone may > change during those three months. > What I'd like to do is keep my old number, even though there will be > no phone line attached to it. Then I'd like to use what Verizon calls > "Ultra Call Forwarding" to remotely change the number to which my old > phone number forwards. > So, does anyone know if: > 1. I can keep my phone number after I leave? > 2. If I'll have trouble with the call forwarding? > Also, I actually have two numbers on my current line, via identa-ring > (a.k.a distintive ringing). So: > 3. Will there be a problem forwarding both numbers? (Currently, it's > not a problem.) > I'm in the 718/834-xxxx exchange, serviced locally by Verizon. > Many, many thanks. > -Joel Try "Vacation Service" as it will effectively suspend the service and allow it to be reconnected. The sticking point is they may want it reinstalled at the original service point. Rodgers Platt ------------------------------ From: Bill Horne Subject: Re: Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line? Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 13:57:22 GMT Dr. Joel M. Hoffman wrote in message news:telecom22.466.14@telecom-digest.org: > In a month or so, I'll be moving out of my area code, and, just to > make things hard, for three months I'll have only a temporary address > and a cell phone. To make matters really hard, my cell phone may > change during those three months. > What I'd like to do is keep my old number, even though there will be > no phone line attached to it. Then I'd like to use what Verizon calls > "Ultra Call Forwarding" to remotely change the number to which my old > phone number forwards. > So, does anyone know if: > 1. I can keep my phone number after I leave? You may keep the number if you pay for Remote Call Forwarding, as you mention. > 2. If I'll have trouble with the call forwarding? You'll have to pay all forwarding charges, i.e., you must pay the per minute cost of forwarding your calls from your old rate center to wherever your cell phone is served from. > Also, I actually have two numbers on my current line, via identa-ring > (a.k.a distintive ringing). So: > 3. Will there be a problem forwarding both numbers? (Currently, it's > not a problem.) You'll have to convert them both to RCF. HTH. Bill ------------------------------ From: 6212hgk{invert}@newsguy.com (John Bartley K7AAY (ex-KGH2126)) Subject: Re: Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line? Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 19:28:16 GMT Can't you just have an answering service answer it? Or, perhaps, have it redirected to a colleague's or friend's location, then have voice mail set up to give the new number? Either way, MUCH cheaper. On Wed, 21 May 2003 00:40:48 GMT, joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) wrote: > In a month or so, I'll be moving out of my area code, and, just to > make things hard, for three months I'll have only a temporary address > and a cell phone. To make matters really hard, my cell phone may > change during those three months. > What I'd like to do is keep my old number, even though there will be > no phone line attached to it. Then I'd like to use what Verizon calls > "Ultra Call Forwarding" to remotely change the number to which my old > phone number forwards. > So, does anyone know if: > 1. I can keep my phone number after I leave? > 2. If I'll have trouble with the call forwarding? > Also, I actually have two numbers on my current line, via identa-ring > (a.k.a distintive ringing). So: > 3. Will there be a problem forwarding both numbers? (Currently, it's > not a problem.) > I'm in the 718/834-xxxx exchange, serviced locally by Verizon. Nobody but a fool goes into a federal counterrorism operation without duct tape - Richard Preston, THE COBRA EVENT. ------------------------------ From: SAGactors@yahoo.com (Ray&Rita Normandeau) Subject: Re: Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line? Date: 21 May 2003 13:21:03 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) wrote in message news:: > What I'd like to do is keep my old number, even though there will be > no phone line attached to it. Then I'd like to use what Verizon calls > "Ultra Call Forwarding" to remotely change the number to which my old > phone number forwards. Since you are in (718): There used to be an exchange in Manhattan that was ALL remote call forwarding. This was popular when 718 started and Queens/BK/BX businesses didn't want clients to know where they based on AC. If you can't get forwarding as you now wish, you could: get a number at that Manhattan exchange and have intercept give that number out, or give out your cell number. For Long distance at 2.9 cents per minute see: https://www.onesuite.com/ promo 034720367 ------------------------------ From: Withheld at Reader's Request Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 08:04:22 -0500 Subject: Re: Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line? [Pat - please omit my e-mail address from response. Thanks.] Subject: Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line? Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 00:40:48 GMT > So, does anyone know if: > 1. I can keep my phone number after I leave? > 2. If I'll have trouble with the call forwarding? > Also, I actually have two numbers on my current line, via identa-ring > (a.k.a distintive ringing). So: > 3. Will there be a problem forwarding both numbers? (Currently, it's > not a problem.) > I'm in the 718/834-xxxx exchange, serviced locally by Verizon. Joel - In the past we had an office in Ft. Worth for which, when it closed, we wanted the main number forwarded to Dallas (different local CO) for at least two months. We paid a setup fee of $16 plus $58 per month to establish "Telebranch" with SBC Southwestern Bell, forwarding the calls to a designated POTS line in Dallas. I'm sure Verizon must offer some similar service, for as many numbers as you want to pay this type fee. As for the distinctive ringing, I would think you would lose that, since you would be forwarding two lines to an already existing service with it's own features, etc. But if you have caller ID on the phone you're planning to use to accept calls from these two numbers, maybe Verizon can send a DNIS number with the calls (i.e., the last 4 digits of each respective forwarded number)to help you identify which number the caller dialed. Hope this helps. ------------------------------ From: George Mitchell Subject: Re: UNE Platform CLECs; Local Number Portability Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 13:16:30 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Fred Goldstein wrote: > LNP is a different story, so I'll just give a short intro here. A > telephone number in an LNP area is like a domain name, NOT an actual > address (like an IP address). In the old days, of course, the phone > number was a real address, and each switch had its prefix code(s). > With LNP, each switch has a single Location Routing Number (LRN) in > each LATA that it serves. (CLEC switches can serve pretty big areas.) In the earliest days of dial telephones, the telephone number really was an actual equipment address. With the introduction of common control in crossbar exchanges, a lookup step was introduced which made it possible to translate arbitrarily from a directory number to an equipment location. (Just splitting hairs, I know.) -- George Mitchell (obfuscated email address) ------------------------------ From: sigix@gondor.org (sigix) Subject: Re: MCI Gets Iraq Rebuild Contract Date: 21 May 2003 16:02:26 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Mike Hartley wrote in message news:: >>> ""We are very pleased by this news, as we have been working >>> with the US Government and MCI to provide GSM, and ensure >>> that Iraq had the right technology for its people, compatible >>> with the rest of the region and the world," said Rob Conway, >>> CEO of the GSM Association in a statement. >> I'm sure congressman Issa is omewhat less escatic now that sanity >> appears to be prevailing. >> There is some irony in the fact that the company chosen has ever owned >> and operated a wireless phone network, at least not in the US. > Yeah. Don't ya love it ;+) > But in areas other than the kurdish north[1] it looks mainly flat and > I'm sure buying cell sites is cheap and unlikely to be subject to > planning control. Cell and microwave planning is easy, road coverage > only in unpopulated ares. Lots and lots of COWs, to quote a previous > thread. Swtiches in containers. Sites on high buildings in previously > government areas difficult to find, I'm guessing. > It's not rocket science to design working GSM network using off the > shelf propagation planning tools and excel spreadheets, then built it > using standard configuration switching equipment, scaffold piping, > generators and gaffer tape. I'm sure the US has some *very* high > resolution geaographic data that will make the design process much > quicker- you could produce a costed plan within weeks. Niche demand > will be very high immediately, and in the long term Pitched at the > right price you can sell a huge amount of voice minutes on a very low > cost network, especially if people value connectivity over > quaility. And by the way equipment vendors really need the work. > Telecom-military conspiracy theory? (lights fuse and ducks) Well, I guess this might further any "telecom-military conspiracy" theories out there, but it also lends support to the decision to award MCI this contract -- they have experience in this area. MCI was also the telecom company awarded the contract in Afghanistan to provide cell service there (also GSM, btw, though the MSC's support CDMA as well ... not sure about the base stations). Anyway, as far as I can figure, they just out-source the whole cellular technology parts anyways. See http://www.afghanwireless.com/news_6apr.html for more info. ------------------------------ From: Steven J. Sobol Subject: Re: MCI Gets Iraq Rebuild Contract Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 17:57:06 -0000 Organization: JustThe.net LLC From Michael D Sullivan (zyxNOSPAM@camsul.com): >> There is some irony in the fact that the company chosen has ever owned >> and operated a wireless phone network, at least not in the US. > Actually, MCI did operate one of the first cellular systems in the > U.S. The Pittsburgh MSA A-block system was initially licensed to MCI > Cellular Telephone Company. I think it ultimately ended up being > owned by AT&T Wireless after several changes in ownership. Did they own and operate it, or just own the license? > And, of course, MCI was the largest reseller in the country for quite > some time. Exactly. Reseller. Screwed a lot of people out of a lot of money in the process, too, including some of my friends and many people who have posted to the cellular newsgroups. Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge, JustThe.net POTS: Toll Free from anywhere in the USA or Canada, 888.480.4NET (4638) HTTP: www.JustTheNetLLC.com MAIL: 5686 Davis Drive, Mentor on the Lake, OH 44060-2752 ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: MCI Gets Iraq Rebuild Contract Date: 21 May 2003 05:40:16 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Mike Hartley wrote in message news:: >>> ""We are very pleased by this news, as we have been working >>> with the US Government and MCI to provide GSM, and ensure >>> that Iraq had the right technology for its people, compatible >>> with the rest of the region and the world," said Rob Conway, >>> CEO of the GSM Association in a statement. >> I'm sure congressman Issa is omewhat less escatic now that sanity >> appears to be prevailing. >> There is some irony in the fact that the company chosen has ever owned >> and operated a wireless phone network, at least not in the US. > Yeah. Don't ya love it ;+) > But in areas other than the kurdish north[1] it looks mainly flat and > I'm sure buying cell sites is cheap and unlikely to be subject to > planning control. Cell and microwave planning is easy, road coverage > only in unpopulated ares. Lots and lots of COWs, to quote a previous > thread. Swtiches in containers. Sites on high buildings in previously > government areas difficult to find, I'm guessing. > It's not rocket science to design working GSM network using off the > shelf propagation planning tools and excel spreadheets, then built it > using standard configuration switching equipment, scaffold piping, > generators and gaffer tape. I'm sure the US has some *very* high > resolution geaographic data that will make the design process much > quicker- you could produce a costed plan within weeks. Niche demand > will be very high immediately, and in the long term Pitched at the > right price you can sell a huge amount of voice minutes on a very low > cost network, especially if people value connectivity over > quaility. And by the way equipment vendors really need the work. > Telecom-military conspiracy theory? (lights fuse and ducks) > Mike > [1]Who ISTR have their own GSM network. And all this comes on the heels of some tough rhetoric that MCI should be banned from all federal contracting because of their past actions ... Rodgers Platt ------------------------------ From: bialik@aya.yale.edu (Carl) Subject: AOL Voicemail -- Journalist's Query Date: 21 May 2003 10:48:47 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Has anyone tried AOL Voicemail, or do you know someone who has? I'd like to interview someone who's tried it for an article I'm writing. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 17:15:49 -0400 From: unspammable-3107@workbench.net Subject: Re: E-911, was Re: My New Vonage Account On 21 May 2003 02:02:03 -0400, johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) wrote: >> The main problem that I see with this type of service is what are you >> going to do when the electric and your battery back up die? At least >> with a telco it provides its own power. (Unless you have all cordless >> fones in which case all bets are off.) > You use your real phone or maybe your cell phone. Vonage says very > clearly that they do not recommend their phone as the only phone you > have. Well, they may say that in kind of a wink wink, nudge nudge way, but that's not how many customers use their service. Granted that a majority probably do have cell phones, but still, one of the recommended ways to cope with a power outage is to get a fairly hefty Uninterruptable Power Supply, and plug into it ONLY you cable or DSL modem, your router, and your ATA-186 (and if you don't have a regular corded phone -- something everyone should have -- then you want to make sure your cordless phone base is also plugged into the UPS). None of the above devices are extremely power hungry, so a good UPS will keep them going for at least an hour or two. If you're worried about outages that might extend beyond that, and you don't have a cell phone, you can always get an inverter that connects to your car battery and a long extension cord, and use that to keep everything powered for a while (don't forget to run the car to recharge the battery every few hours). And if your power frequently goes out for longer periods than that, you might want to think about investing in a good generator anyway. Bear in mind that many cell phones can place calls to 911 even if they are not subscribed to any service, so a cell phone with car power adapter might be sufficient backup protection for the "once in a blue moon" extended power outage. >> Another question. Can you string extensions off of the phone end of >> the Cisco box? > Yes and no. The Cisco documentation is sort of vague, but I get the > impression that two phones are fine, a whole house full of wire and > five phones with real bells would be pushing it. Cisco designed the > ATA to put on desks in an office as an alternative to their more > expensive integrated IP phones. Then you plug them all into a LAN, > the LAN plugs into your VoIP PBX. It's kind of surprising that the > ATA, which is designed for low-loss low-latency LANs, works so well > over the slow lossy public Internet. I read in some Cisco specification sheet that the ATA-186 can handle phones with up to a combined REN of 5. This is all the regular phone companies are required to provide. I have read that they provide a much lower ringing voltage than a regular phone line but it is still adequate to ring any normal phone. So while on a regular phone line you might be able to put six or seven ringers on a line before the voltage starts to degrade to the point that some phones wouldn't ring, the ATA-186 may already be operating at the low end of specs and therefore I wouldn't try to push it much over the rated five ringers (especially with older phones with real bells). Speaking of which, if you have an older phone that has an anti-tap setting (usually a piece of stiff wire that is moved to one of two possible positions) you will want to make sure it's in the lowest tension setting. You can't use pulse dialing with an ATA-186 anyway (at least not without adding some sort of pulse-to-tone convertor in the circuit), and the higher tension setting may make it difficult for the phone to ring reliably. (The anti-tap setting was to keep the ringer from "pinging" in sync with the dial pulses while rotary dialing, as might happen on some lines. Even if the phone was touch tone, if there were other phones on the line that had rotary dialing, they could cause the bells to ping. This was especially undesirable on party lines, since it alerted nosy neighbors as to when to listen in!). By the way, does anyone besides me find it somewhat ironic that VoIP services like VoicePulse, Packet8 and Vonage will ONLY work with tone dialing, yet many traditional phone companies STILL charge EXTRA for touch tone? Be thankful if they have stopped charging extra for it in your state! ------------------------------ From: dold@Connecting.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: Connecting Two Wireless Routers in One Network Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 17:27:47 +0000 (UTC) Organization: a2i network John R. Levine wrote: > Bonus advantage: access points do less than routers so they tend to > be less expensive. The commodity routers at Fry's Electronics are cheaper than the APs. I do notice in the Apple page cited by someone else that they simply turn off DHCP on the others. Contrary to my earlier post, they indicate that they should all be on the same channel. But they speak of "main base station" and "remote base stations", so maybe that doesn't apply to other vendors. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107454 Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA ------------------------------ From: reedl@tatteredcover.com (Reed Loefgren) Subject: Ring Count Before Rolling to Voicemail Date: 21 May 2003 14:11:10 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi all, Can someone here tell me where in a Mitel SX-2000 lite switch one sets the number of rings on a call before that call rolls to voicemail? I've poked around CDE but haven't stumbled across a form that indicates this. Regards, rl ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 14:04:40 -0700 From: onshore@netcom.ca Subject: Desperately Seeking Old Issues of TELEMANAGEMENT MAGAZINE I am a starving entrepreneur that is looking for old issues (and even the most recent one) of Telemanagement Magazine. It is the monthly publication from the Angus TeleManagement Group. I am trying to put a business proposal together for a competition and some of the back issues contain some information that I am desperately looking for. The most current edition also contains some information that could help me a great deal. If anyone is willing to part with any or all of them I would promise to return them if you need them back. With many thanks for helping out. Please call Ron at 1-800-217-2075 and press "0" or e-mail me at onshore@netcom.ca [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I publish Angus Telemanagement every week here in the Digest, and have done so for a few years now. Normally it arrives here every Monday -- rarely on Tuesday -- and if you consult our Telecom Archives and go backward through the Digest issues, you will run into Angus Telemanagement about every Monday going back forever, same as our other archives stuff. See if that helps you any. 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: 620-330-6774 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 #468 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed May 21 23:12:33 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4M3CXR27105; Wed, 21 May 2003 23:12:33 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 23:12:33 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305220312.h4M3CXR27105@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #469 TELECOM Digest Wed, 21 May 2003 23:13:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 469 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Hacking the Night Away (Joey Lindstrom) Re: Email, Other Vulnerable Spots on my Setup (Bill Horne) Re: Email, Other Vulnerable Spots on my Setup (Daryl R Gibson) Re: Email, Other Vulnerable Spots on my Setup (John Bartley) Your Localnet Vulnerabilities (John Beaman) Re: Beware of CameraWare - An FBI Sting! (Alister) Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX Dialaround (Linc Madison) Re: Last Laugh! Another Spammer With an 800 Number ... (Zed**3) B101 FM-WBEB Philadelphia (Chris Nowinski) 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, 21 May 2003 09:11:25 -0600 Subject: Hacking the Night Away Reply-To: joey@telussucks.info On Tue, 20 May 2003 22:50:19 -0400 (EDT), editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: > of thing. My configuration is this: > Three computers, two operating systems: > Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows 2000 (which is partitioned and > mostly I use the Linux partition.) My old XP was zapped to install > the 2000 and the Linux. > A Linksys 4 port router box. (Three computer machines and the Vonage). > The Linksys router feeds into the Motorola Surfboard Cable Modem, and > to cableone.net I am known by the Linksys box 192.something. The > computer machines mostly stay turned on all the time. The Linksys > gets a new DHCP 'lease ticket' from cableone.net every few days. > My question is how vulnerable am I to hacking by a spammer or other > trouble-maker? In practical terms ... what additional 'firewall' or > other protection do I need? How can I tell, if I can tell, what if > anything is happening while I am asleep or otherwise not right here? > Comments, suggestions welcome. The first thing I'd recommend to someone in your situation is a Linksys (or similar) box. But since you've already got one, I don't need to. :-) The Linksys is a pretty good firewall and should protect you from most "brute force" attacks (ie: if somebody discovers a vulnerability in Windows TCP/IP, they can't take advantage of it simply by trying to connect with a particular port on your machines, because your Linksys box will stop it). Your main concern now is with trojans and other malware that manages to get inside one of your machines. Once installed and running, it can "phone home" for instructions, or launch denial of service attacks, or (as in the example you cited) start sending zillions of spam messages. All of this *WILL* get through the Linksys box, because it appears (to the Linksys) that YOU are initiating all of this traffic and thus it's ok. Now, there's lots of things you can do to protect yourself from this happening, ranging from "simple, cheap, and pretty darned expensive" to "complicated, expensive, and darned near foolproof". I'll leave the latter for the experts. As for the former: 1) Get a good personal firewall and install it on each PC. I highly recommend "ZoneAlarm" from www.zonelabs.com (I am not affiliated in any way). ZoneAlarm operates in a different way than the Linksys box does (well, it does offer the same type of protection that the Linksys does, but having the Linksys where it is keeps any malicious traffic away from your machine in the first place. If someone was trying to packet-flood you, your machine would crash without the Linksys in place). When ZoneAlarm is enabled, *ALL* incoming and outgoing traffic is set to go through ZoneAlarm first, and ZoneAlarm won't allow anything to go through until the *PROGRAM* that is initiating it (or receiving it, in the case of a server-type application) has been cleared BY YOU to do so. Thus, when you first begin using ZoneAlarm, you'll get several pop-ups from ZoneAlarm, asking you questions like "Do you wish to allow Windows Media Player to access the internet? Yes/No". You can tell ZoneAlarm to remember your decision, so once you've said "yes", that decision remains effective. You can change your decision later (in the Zone Alarm config). If you upgrade to a new version of Windows Media Player, ZoneAlarm will detect this and give you the same pop-up question again. Thus, if anything gets into your computer and tries to "phone home" or send traffic *ANYWHERE*, you'll know - because ZoneAlarm will ask you for permission to allow it to talk to the internet. And once you say no, that's it -- it can't get through. It's still in your machine, but it's neutered. 2) What vectors can such malware use to get into your machine? Some have taken advantage of security holes in web browsers like Internet Explorer, but far and away the *BIGGEST* security hole you've got is your email client. You've heard it before, but I'll say it again: beware attachments, especially from anyone you don't know. Obvious things are any .EXE and .PIF files, but even a Microsoft Word .DOC file can carry an infection. (JPG, GIF, and MP3 should be fine) If it's something you really wanna open (someone's just sent you an important document that you specifically asked for, but you're not sure if *HIS* computer might be infected), make sure your anti-virus is up to date (see point #3), then detach the file to disk, SCAN IT, and only then open it. Some email clients, notably Outlook/Outlook Express, are dangerous because they can receive an infected file and allow that infection into your computer EVEN IF YOU DO NOT OPEN THE EMAIL. Stay far, far away. Use PMMail, The Bat, Eudora, or pretty much anything else. 3) A good anti-virus scanner, most of which also keep an eye peeled for other types of malware (spyware, spambots, that sort of thing). Keep it up to date. I recommend the AVG antivirus program which is *FREE* for personal use on one machine (but you simply sign up for three different licences, then apply one licence to each of your three machines). Daily updates, works like a hot-damn. If you want more flexibility in scanning and a few more features, you need to upgrade to a better version of AVG, but it's still cheap like borscht and well worth the money. Having this in place is nice because if something does slip past the Linksys, your mail client, and ZoneAlarm, you'll at least eventually find out it's there BY YOURSELF rather than getting a nasty phone call from your ISP. -- Joey Lindstrom -- Telus Sucks http://www.telussucks.info [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What do you know about an anti-virus program called 'PC-Cillin'. Any good? By the way, Joey, if it is true as you say, that *even if you do not open the email attachment, the virus can get out*, then what prevents all the email servers along the way, including the one that stores your mail before you call for it from getting infected also? The virus attachment has no idea where it is at? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Bill Horne Subject: Re: Email, Other Vulnerable Spots on my Setup Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 13:53:50 GMT TELECOM Digest Editor wrote in message news:telecom22.466.15@telecom-digest.org: [snip] > I want some advice from guys who know about this sort > of thing. My configuration is this: > Three computers, two operating systems: [snip] > A Linksys 4 port router box. (Three computer machines and the Vonage). > The Linksys router feeds into the Motorola Surfboard Cable Modem, and > to cableone.net [snip] > My question is how vulnerable am I to hacking by a spammer or other > trouble-maker? In practical terms ... what additional 'firewall' or > other protection do I need? Go to the Windows Update site, and install all the critical updates on all your Windows boxes. Ditto the Linux software: RedHat has an excellent update service for their distro, and I assume Suse & Debian do the same. Unpatched machines are the biggest infection vector for computer viruses. The Linksys box does a good job of isolating you from inbound port scans and direct attacks, since there's no way to address a machine on your internal network from outside unless you set up port forwarding. Because your Linksys is a Network Address Translation (NAT) router, it prevents your Windows or Linux boxes from having externally-addressable access. Of course, if the Linksys firmware is compromised, all bets are off. That said, the Linksys does *nothing* to protect you from Trojan Horses and email viruses, since those come into your system with your email or in files that you download. So, you *must* have CURRENT antivirus software and use it in "autoprotect" mode. Be sure the Linksys has a complex password (you changed the default, right?), and *never* enable remote maintenance in it. You might want to use the filtering feature to cut off any IRC attempts, since many Trojans connect to IRC servers to get instructions. Never open email attachments from anyone that you don't trust, and only if you're expecting them to send you a specific file! Noone is going to send you The Secret Of Life[tm], so it's OK to wait a few minutes while you confirm something you're not sure of. > How can I tell, if I can tell, what if > anything is happening while I am asleep or otherwise not right here? Use Tripwire, or similar software, to detect changes to your operating system software. If a hacker gets in via a Trojan, he'll "root kit" the machine, i.e., he'll install specially designed software which hides his intrusion and makes it possible to come back later without your logs showing anything amiss. Tripwire will reveal files that have been altered, provided it's installed before the machine is compromised. You'll need to update the Tripwire tables after updating your OS, but it's easy to do and well worth the peace of mind. HTH. Bill ------------------------------ From: Daryl R Gibson Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 11:37:18 -0600 Subject: Re: Email, Other Vulnerable Spots on my Setup > Elsewhere in this issue a short newsclip from Monty Solomon told about > a school computer which had been hacked and was being used to send > out tons of spam. The article in the New York Times went on to say > that among the most vulnerable for this were 'private homes with > highspeed internet service and two or more computers' ... which is > what I have! :(I want some advice from guys who know about this sort > of thing. My configuration is this: > Three computers, two operating systems: > Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows 2000 (which is partitioned and > mostly I use the Linux partition.) My old XP was zapped to install > the 2000 and the Linux. > A Linksys 4 port router box. (Three computer machines and the Vonage). > The Linksys router feeds into the Motorola Surfboard Cable Modem, and > to cableone.net I am known by the Linksys box 192.something. The > computer machines mostly stay turned on all the time. The Linksys > gets a new DHCP 'lease ticket' from cableone.net every few days. > My question is how vulnerable am I to hacking by a spammer or other > trouble-maker? In practical terms ... what additional 'firewall' or > other protection do I need? How can I tell, if I can tell, what if > anything is happening while I am asleep or otherwise not right here? > Comments, suggestions welcome. > PAT Get ZoneAlarm for your Windows OSs. (They have a paid product and a free-for-personal-use product.) Make certain all of the superuser accts on your Linux box have adequate passwords. Consider restricting shell access on your Linux box to the localhost only. Make certain Sendmail is patched and there is no guest ftp or telnet access into the Linux box. If you are running a Web server on the Windows box, make certain to install MS's URLScan product. Daryl ---------------------------------------------------------------- "As you ramble through life, brother, no matter what your goal, keep your eye upon the doughnut, and not upon the hole" --Dr. Murray Banks, quoting a menu ---------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.drgibson.com http://www.salesstar.com Personal Motivation and Positive Attitude [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What do you know about PC-Cillin, an anti-virus program, if anything? PAT] ------------------------------ From: 6212hgk{invert}@newsguy.com (John Bartley K7AAY (ex-KGH2126)) Subject: Re: Email, Other Vulnerable Spots on my Setup Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 19:26:23 GMT IMMEDIATELY download and install this freeware: http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp Then study 'personal firewall software' and make your own decision. On Wed, 21 May 2003 21:00:00 CDT , TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > Elsewhere in this issue a short newsclip from Monty Solomon told about > a school computer which had been hacked and was being used to send > out tons of spam. The article in the New York Times went on to say > that among the most vulnerable for this were 'private homes with > highspeed internet service and two or more computers' ... which is > what I have! :(I want some advice from guys who know about this sort > of thing. My configuration is this: > Three computers, two operating systems: > Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows 2000 (which is partitioned and > mostly I use the Linux partition.) My old XP was zapped to install > the 2000 and the Linux. > A Linksys 4 port router box. (Three computer machines and the Vonage). > The Linksys router feeds into the Motorola Surfboard Cable Modem, and > to cableone.net I am known by the Linksys box 192.something. The > computer machines mostly stay turned on all the time. The Linksys > gets a new DHCP 'lease ticket' from cableone.net every few days. > My question is how vulnerable am I to hacking by a spammer or other > trouble-maker? In practical terms ... what additional 'firewall' or > other protection do I need? How can I tell, if I can tell, what if > anything is happening while I am asleep or otherwise not right here? > Comments, suggestions welcome. Nobody but a fool goes into a federal counterrorism operation without duct tape - Richard Preston, THE COBRA EVENT. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 08:53:07 -0500 From: John Beaman Subject: Re: Beware of CameraWare - An FBI Sting! Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 20:56:44 +0100 Are you a total moron? Giving a scan of both sides of your credit card gives someone all the information they need to cloan it!. I suspect the "FBI Raid" was just part of a scam to extract more personal information to make credit card fraud at your expense even more profitable. TELECOM Digest Editor wrote in message news:: > Please see to it that this message is posted to as many newsgroups and > other places on the Internet as possible. > The web site known as CameraWare.com (also known as ttinet.com and > also known as surveylens.com) out of San Diego, CA are government > (FBI) informants Their phone number is 800-525-2527. Their principal > product appears to be Camera Ware. CameraWare.com is a 99 percent porn > operation. They give away free camera (sending to the net) software, > in order to induce people to use their 'service'. They charge some sum > of money for a 'viewer' to see the images others have transmitted. > So be Very Aware of CameraWare, ( http://cameraware.com ) and its two > affiliated sites ( http://ttinet.com ) and ( http://surveylens.com ) > since if you have done anything in front of a camera for them chances > are likely it has already or is being sent to the FBI. When the two > FBI guys came to my door earlier today, they asked if they could look > at my computer, and I volunteered to let them see the whole thing. > They found nothing, and went away with their usual bluster about 'how > we do not believe you' and 'we are going to keep our eyes on you' etc. > Its embarassing to me that I actually referred a couple customers to > them I know of (from Yahoo and AOL Messengers) to CameraWare, thinking > the guys might enjoy the service. And I am also embarassed that I right > here on TELECOM Digest (my home site) put up glowing messages about > CameraWare for guys on T.D. who might enjoy that sort of thing. The > only reason I sent them my picture ID card and a signed statement that > I would not break any laws when using CameraWare was because I trusted > them ... I never expected them to violate my privacy this way. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, you are right, Alister. I am (or was) rather a moron in this case. But I do NOT think the 'FBI Raid' was part of the scam. Those guys were real. Two FBI agents and One Independence Police Detective came out together. All three had bright shiny badges they showed me, and anyway, I have seen the Independence officer around town. That part was not bogus. They were dead serious. According to their business card, the FBI guys came from the nearest FBI office, in Wichita, Kansas, about a hundred miles away. I guess whenever they go to a different town, they always pay a visit to the local constabulary in the process. But regards cameraware.com (or really, *anything*.com) it just drove one more nail in my coffin regards trust (like honesty) on the net. It basically does not exist. But, finding no 'kiddie porn' anywhere around, they soon lost interest. Strangely enough (or maybe not so strange) the only porn I had was what had come that morning in the email via sbcglobal.net and it was waiting patiently on the computer for me to trash it as I do a couple times each day. Wasn't there an item in the news a month or so ago (Monty Solomon? not sure) about the FBI doing raids on several hundred (thousand?) homes of Americans in the past year looking for just that sort of thing? It just now occurred to me a very good way to be EVIL and make trouble for someone would be to (1) secretly transmit to their computer one or two or three pictures of naked children and then (2) use their computer as a relay to send out a few hundred or a few thousand spams offering to 'trade pictures', then (3) be a 'good citizen' and notify the FBI about it a few days later. Some of these dear, sweet older people just recently getting into computers would not have any idea what hit them when the FBI came and broke into their house looking for the kiddie porn, and (on the basis of 1 and 2 above) finding it and correspondence offering to trade. I do recall about five years ago there was a particularly *nasty, evil* spam attack on some guy in New York State doing something similar, writing under this guy's name, offering kiddy porn pictures for sale. Remember, five or six years ago the FBI was just starting to get sort of sophisticated on tricks like that. As I said to the two guys who came here all the way from Wichita convinced they were going to make a big haul, "Do you *really* think if those things were mine you would have had my *real* picture and *real credit card number on file at the same time?" Well Alister, I am not *that much* of a moron, but I did certainly learn something about trusting people on the net, which, FYI, we used to be able to do all the time when I first got in it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX+ Dialaround Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 17:35:06 -0700 Organization: LincMad.com Consulting Reply-To: Telecom@LincMad.com In article , Linc Madison wrote: > And I don't even claim that the rates I pay are the lowest out there. > The bottom line is, anyone who uses either 10-10-220 or 10-10-987 for > domestic calls is just too lazy to do even a cursory job of comparison > shopping. Telecom-USA is counting on the multitudes of suckers to use > those services. There could be some calls to western Europe where, if > you reasonably expect the call to last more than a few minutes, the > 101-0987 rates might be towards the low end of the scale, but I'd bet > that such calls are a tiny percentage of their business. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah Linc, but about FREE for the > cost, or more precisely, factored into the overall cost? On our > cell phones night minutes are never used entirely, have all the > inter/intrastate you want. On services like Prairie Stream, have 100 > minutes per month inter/intra as part of the package including local > service. And of course Vonage gives you a big dollup of calling to > anywhere, anytime unlimited for as much (little?) Why does anyone > actually *pay* for long distance calls at all anymore? PAT] Sometimes it isn't convenient to call on my cellphone. Also, I pay the same 3.5 cents/minute for incoming calls on my toll-free number, with only a $0.49 monthly fee for having the toll-free number. Anyway, I also sometimes need to make calls (especially to time zones east of me) before my cellphone's night rate kicks in, or I need to send a fax, or various other things that I can't easily do with a cellphone. As to the unlimited calling from home for a flat monthly fee, I've looked into those, but not yet found one that is a low enough flat fee to entice me. The cheapest I've seen is $20/month, but even that is more than my usage most months. That's a good bit cheaper than Vonage, by the way. At 3.5 cents/minute, my long-distance bill seldom tops $10 a month, even including the occasional call to friends in London and Paris. I'll repeat the plug from my earlier post: if you want to check out long-distance calling plans from a website that doesn't try to steer you to their particular favorite, go to . With just a few general questions (lots of in-state, out-of-state, or international calls; lots of weekday calls or mostly evening/weekend; etc.), they will pull up a selection of plans from various providers, including both 1+ and 101-XXXX, for you to examine. [Disclaimer: I have no connection with ABTolls.com, other than as a happy user.] www dot LincMad dot com / Telecom at LincMad dot com Linc Madison * San Francisco, California ------------------------------ From: gc@radix.net (Zed**3) Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Another Spammer With an 800 Number ... Date: 21 May 2003 17:16:27 GMT Organization: Spontaneous In article , jt wrote: > AUSTAD'S GOLF > we've GOT your GAME. > [snip] > You may receive this mailing again. > [Oh, I hope not...] > OPM Network 7700 > Camino Real Suite 300 > Boca Raton, FL 33433 > 1-800-678-2536 You'll probably get a lot of mailings from them. OPM Network is apparently a spammer for hire. I get several spams a day from them for various products. Unlike the typical spammer using open relays and forged headers, these people have their own mail server and spam direct. It is still spam, but at least it should be easy to filter out. ------------------------------ From: bandsherein@yahoo.com (chris nowinski) Subject: B101 FM-WBEB Philadelphia Date: 21 May 2003 14:04:15 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Attention: Do not listen to B101 - WBEB Philadelphia because ... 1)They do not care at all about their listeners. 2)Their morning show team refuses to answer the phones even while a contest is in progress and they have no winner. 3)Their telephone lines, both local and toll-free are disconnecting callers if nobody picks up within 2 minutes, which makes it impossible to get through to the station. Yet they do not care to do anything about it. 4)Their morning show team misleads and decieves its listeners as well as disrespects and insults their intelligence. Thank you. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The only thing above I can really comment on is point (3) above. Many telcos cut off unanswered ringing lines after 2-3 minutes. Larry King, on a radio talk show he hosted at one time used that technique for many months: the announcer would say 'to talk live to Larry King, dial ACC-NXX-ZZZZ. After you call us, *allow the phone to continue ringing, when we answer, you will be put on the air live at that minute with Mr. King.' The idea was to avoid humongous phone bills either for their listeners dialing the number and having to wait on hold for thirty or forty minutes through two other callers and a few sponsor messages or themselves if they had given an 800 number and done the same thing. The only ones still doing that and trying to get away with having telco foot the bill for the time no one is talking is a station out of San Francisco/Oakland called KEAR, also known as 'Family Radio'. They run a 90 minute call in question/answer/comment program every weeknight over the national satellite they use and a few times each night give out their toll free number for listeners, telling them 'let it ring, we will get it when it is your turn to talk'. But AT&T (their 800 number vendor) says 'no way!' and cuts callers off in about 2-3 minutes of open ringing. So do not always blame the radio station for that, although by now the station should know what is going to happen to listeners/contestants. I do know that after Larry King was advised that was happening to his callers, his response was to over the air tell his listeners to begin using Sprint instead of AT&T when they called him. AT&T's response to that: "Great! Let Sprint have all the unbillable traffic instead of us." 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V22 #469 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu May 22 14:58:53 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4MIwrh01493; Thu, 22 May 2003 14:58:53 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 14:58:53 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305221858.h4MIwrh01493@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #470 TELECOM Digest Thu, 22 May 2003 14:59:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 470 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: "The Book of Wi-Fi", John Ross (Rob Slade) Non-Completion Disconnects (Mark J Cuccia) Re: B101 FM-WBEB Philadelphia (Ed Ellers) Re: Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line? (John R. Levine) Re: Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line? (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on 2nd ATA Port (Hoffman) Re: MCI Gets Iraq Rebuild Contract (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: E-911, was Re: My New Vonage Account (John R. Levine) NJ Approves Do-Not-Call List (Lisa Kidd) Mapping Telephone Exchanges (Adrian) 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: Thu, 22 May 2003 08:13:00 -0800 Subject: Book Review: "The Book of Wi-Fi", John Ross BKBKWIFI.RVW 20030404 "The Book of Wi-Fi", John Ross, 2003, 1-886411-45-X, U$29.95/C$44.95 %A John Ross %C 555 De Haro Street, Suite 250, San Francisco, CA 94107 %D 2003 %G 1-886411-45-X %I No Starch Press %O U$29.95/C$44.95 415-863-9900 fax 415-863-9950 info@nostarch.com %O http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/188641145X/robsladesinterne http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/188641145X/robsladesinte-21 %O http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/188641145X/robsladesin03-20 %P 260 p. %T "The Book of Wi-Fi" Chapter one provides the usual explanation of 802.11 technologies, right down to the typical non-description of direct sequence spread spectrum. Components and devices, and some reasonable suggestions on evaluation and purchase, are listed in chapter two. Generic planning and basic installation, mostly of access points, is covered in chapter three. Chapter four presents Windows dialogue boxes and configuration programs for the installation of wireless LAN cards. General network setup options are listed in chapter five, and although Windows 98, ME, 2000, and XP are covered, the material has almost nothing to do with wireless technology. Chapter six has a description of the Macintosh AirPort program, while a list of network utilities for Linux is given in chapter seven, and UNIX in eight. Products for PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) are recorded in chapter nine. Chapter ten looks at issues of range and power. There is a reasonable overview, but little that is of help to the user. The use of wireless technology as a network repeater, and directional antennae, are discussed in chapter eleven. Twelve examines connecting to a public network. There is a brief description of wardriving and warchalking in chapter thirteen. Chapter fourteen is probably the best item in the book: a series of good recommendations for secure practices. Specific virtual private network programs are listed in chapter fifteen, but there isn't a really solid explanation of the technology. Quick checks for some kinds of troubleshooting are given in chapter sixteen. The technical level of this work varies from chapter to chapter, but generally it is below the point that a user who would need to get a book on wireless LANs would find useful. This is all right for simple activities, but not much more. copyright Robert M. Slade, 2003 BKBKWIFI.RVW 20030404 ====================== rslade@sprint.ca rslade@vcn.bc.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca p1@canada.com "If you do buy a computer, don't turn it on." - Richards' 2nd Law ============= for back issues: [Base URL] site http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev/ or mirror http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade/ CISSP refs: [Base URL]mnbksccd.htm Security Dict.: [Base URL]secgloss.htm Security Educ.: [Base URL]comseced.htm Book reviews: [Base URL]mnbk.htm [Base URL]review.htm Partial/recent: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/techbooks/ Security Educ.: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/comseced/ Review mailing list: send mail to techbooks-subscribe@egroups.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 09:29:11 CDT From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: Non-Completion Disconnects chris nowinski wrote (in part): > Do not listen to B101 - WBEB Philadelphia because ... > 3) Their telephone lines, both local and toll-free are disconnecting > callers if nobody picks up within 2 minutes, which makes it > impossible to get through to the station. Yet they do not care to > do anything about it. and Pat added: > The only thing above I can really comment on is point (3) above. Many > telcos cut off unanswered ringing lines after 2-3 minutes. (snip) > The only ones still doing that and trying to get away with having telco > foot the bill for the time no one is talking is a station out of San > Francisco/Oakland called KEAR, also known as 'Family Radio'. They run a > 90 minute call in question/answer/comment program every weeknight over > the national satellite they use and a few times each night give out > their toll free number for listeners, telling them 'let it ring, we will > get it when it is your turn to talk'. But AT&T (their 800 number vendor) > says 'no way!' and cuts callers off in about 2-3 minutes of open > ringing. > So do not always blame the radio station for that, although by now the > station should know what is going to happen to listeners/contestants. > I do know that after Larry King was advised that was happening to his > callers, his response was to over the air tell his listeners to begin > using Sprint instead of AT&T when they called him. I don't know "when" each of the major LD carriers started implementing such "Non-Completion Disconnects" in their networks, but I think that AT&T was the first to implement it 10+ years ago. MCI and Sprint followed not too much longer afterwards. I remember that in the mid-1980s, AT&T was doing "non-completion disconnects" after about three-to-five minutes of a "non-supervised" ringing (or busy) type situation on *OVERSEAS* calls, even those to (at the time still free) Directory Assistance in a distant country, if you were in the "please hold for operator to answer, your call is in queue" condition, waiting for the "inward/D.A." operator in the distant country to answer the line. I think that *MAYBE* Pittsburgh IOC could keep a connection to a distant country up even if the connection hadn't supervised, but even that has most likely changed. But in the mid-1980s, calls within the US (and possibly to Canada as well) via AT&T which hadn't yet "suped" in two minutes of ringing/etc., were not necessarily disconnected. I don't think that the mid-size LD carriers (Qwest, Frontier/GC, etc) necessarily do their own "non-completion disconnects" yet, but if they are using AT&T/MCI/Sprint to continue the link further down the line to the distant-end LEC/CLEC/etc., any non-suped condition of 2-min's of unanswered ringing will result in the "non-completion disconnect" message from whatever major LD-carrier that the mid-size carrer (or reseller) has connected to. And even if the LD carrier isn't doing any non-completion disconnect of their own and are connected *directly* to a distant-end LATA's LEC/CLEC/WSP/etc., the calling-end and/or called-end LEC/CLEC/WSP/etc. *WILL* drop a non-suped connetion after about two minutes. This seems to be a "standard/default" in most digital type local central office switches (Lucent 5ESS, Nortel DMS, etc). There may be *SOME* situations where a switch or "the network" will hold a non-suped connection up for longer than two minutes, possibly such as calls to emergency numbers which might not necessarily return a "suped" condition, or not "suping back" right away. But with the condition of the telco industry today, not all of the connecting carriers/telcos/providers involved on such calls to non-suping emergency numbers will necessarily be configured to keep such a non-suped connection up after two minutes. So these days, even if the LD-carrier used doesn't do non-completion disconnects on non-suped ringing after two-minutes, the local telcos on one or the other end (or both ends) of the connection (landline *and* wireless) are most likely going to drop the connection since it hasn't yet "suped". BTW, back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Mutual Broadcasting System's call-in lines at their "World Headquarters" in Arlington VA started off as 703-682-. I seem to think that the last four digits used were -4177, but I could be wrong. The physical street address for the Mutual building/studio was at 1755 South Jefferson Davis Highway in Arlington VA. I *THINK* that CBS/Viacom/Paramount/Westwood/Infinity/ etc, the current owners of what "was Mutual", still provides some "former Mutual" news/info programs (now simply branded as Westwood) and also "so-called NBC-Radio" news/info programs out of this Arlington VA building. And, during the late 1970s and into the 1980s, I *most certainly* remember the (now late) Fred Lowrey's recorded announcement: "Let the connection begin to ring. We'll answer when it's close to your turn. Now (once again), here's Larry"... (This is the Mutual Broadcasting System.... bee-doop) Mark J. Cuccia ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: B101 FM-WBEB Philadelphia Organization: Insight Broadband Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 04:58:49 GMT PAT, the TELECOM Digest Editor, noted: > The only ones still doing that and trying to get away with having > telco foot the bill for the time no one is talking is a station out of > San Francisco/Oakland called KEAR, also known as 'Family Radio'. Family Radio is a Christian radio network of long standing -- they were founded in 1958 and took over KEAR, their first station, in 1959 -- with not only a good number of local stations in the U.S. but a shortwave station, WYFR; a satellite service for Europe, North Africa and the Middle East; and, of course, several webcasts. (As with some other U.S. private SW stations, they fudge a bit. The FCC doesn't allow SW stations to broadcast to U.S. listeners, so WYFR claims that its North American beam is intended for Canada and Mexico.) They can be found at http://www.familyradio.com/. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I sure am glad we got the ob-telecom thing out of the way for what I want to say next about Family Radio. Their 'empire' has been on the air for about 45 years now, and as Ed Ellers might agree, I think among broadcasters of that nature, they are the largest, in terms of number of stations and geographic coverage of their signal. In terms of 'regular' (that is AM and FM stations) they own outright some thirty or so AM/FM stations throughout the USA, including WJCH in the Chicago area (actually in Joliet, IL), WFSI on the east coast based out of Annapolis, Maryland, another one in New York City, and of course KEAR out of San Francisco, which is their flagship station. All their stations use 24 hour satellite service based out of their headquarters in Oakland, CA. They have a bunch of stations up and down the Pacific coast in California. They also have another fifty or sixty 'repeater/transla- tor' low power unmanned operations which are fed by the powerhouse stations in the various cities named above. The only place you cannot get them very well is over here in the center of the country, where there is not as much population as the east/west coasts or Chicago. Oakland, CA runs the entire thing with satellite feeds to the various stations and translator/repeaters. It is the same program on every- thing, all the time. The only differences are that they have an 'east coast feed' and a 'west coast feed' running on different time schedules and at 59 minutes after each hour there is a silence to allow the local repeaters/translators to inject their station ID's, however some of the really small translator/repeater operations simply feed direct off of KEAR or WFSI. Then they have channel 9753 on DISH satellite (which is one of about forty channels brokered through 'Sky Angel') for the benefit of anyone else nationally who otherwise cannot recieve them on a local station/ repeater/translator. And they have one or two television stations on the west coast. And they own WFYR, a shortwave radio operation out of somewhere in Florida. And they are in the process of turning up a *five hundred thousand watt* AM station in Taiwan for mainland China and a similar thing for India. And, they own a few other 'smaller' shortwave facilities around the world. Family Radio is a *huge* operation, all controlled by Harold Camping. It started out as a 'traditional' Christian ministry over forty years ago. In recent years however, it has degenerated to the point that an 80 year old man (Harold Camping) is the *only* 'preacher' heard on the station with his rather peculiar version of the gospel and Bible interpretations. Either you hear relatively good, very conservative (musically speaking) music OR you hear Harold Camping, 24 hours per day, adjusted by time zones or FCC-mandated station ID messages. Most mainline Christian ministries have totally disowned or disavowed any connection to Family Radio, which is also known by its more formal name, 'Family Stations, Incorporated'. Oh, he also has an audio feed on his web site http://familyradio.com along with numerous books and pamphlets he has written over the years and gives away freely to whoever writes or calls and asks for same. His critics -- almost everyone in the mainline churches -- say that Harold Camping has grown quite senile and dotty in his old age and that he refuses to 'let go' of what used to arguably be the premiere religious radio service in the USA. One of his most influential critics is the 'Dominion Sky Angel' consortium which has announced they intend to drop Family Radio from the (public, retail use) satellite as of July 1. They say they are dropping Family Radio with 'much distress' because of all the objections that have been raised to Camping's 'Bible teachings' in the past couple years. He will still have his own truckload of radio/TV stations and repeater/translators around the world however and his web site. An alternative web site http://familyradioiswrong.com and a new book called 'Dangerous Airwaves' (with a cover photo of a satanic looking Harold Camping) tells you all anyone would wish to know about this. His critics -- and the number of same seems to be growing daily -- claim that despite what Camping says, he is trying to make a cult of zombies out of Family Radio listeners, a Jim Jones or David Koresh kind of thing. And he seems to be sort of successful at it. Just imagine, an 80+ year old man, allegedly senile and mentally ill with a tight grip on a worldwide radio network like Family Radio. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 22 May 2003 02:23:46 -0000 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > In a month or so, I'll be moving out of my area code, and, just to > make things hard, for three months I'll have only a temporary address > and a cell phone. To make matters really hard, my cell phone may > change during those three months. Plan A: get cell service from Sprint or Nextel so you don't have to change your number when you move. Then disconnect your POTS phone and have the usual referral recording to your cell number. Plan B: remote call forwarding. Effective but expensive. Plan C: find a friend in the same rate center (NY zone 6) who will let you move your phone line there, then use regular old call forwarding. When your number changes, call your friend, ask him or her to plug a phone into your line, change the forward-to number, then send them a nice box of chocolate for a thank-you. VZ will be happy to send the bill to wherever you happen to be. I did this for a year or so when I moved out of Cambridge Mass in 1995, and it worked great. Plan D: Sign up for Vonage, port your numbers to your new Vonage service, since they do have service in NY zone 6. (Vonage now allows two numbers per unit, dunno if you can port both of them but there's no technical reason why not.) If you happen to be someplace with broadband Internet service, plug in your Vonage box and answer the phone when it rings. If you're not, use the web-based control panel to turn on call forwarding to wherever you are. > What I'd like to do is keep my old number, even though there will be > no phone line attached to it. Then I'd like to use what Verizon calls > "Ultra Call Forwarding" to remotely change the number to which my old > phone number forwards. > So, does anyone know if: > 1. I can keep my phone number after I leave? > 2. If I'll have trouble with the call forwarding? > Also, I actually have two numbers on my current line, via identa-ring > (a.k.a distintive ringing). So: > 3. Will there be a problem forwarding both numbers? (Currently, it's > not a problem.) > I'm in the 718/834-xxxx exchange, serviced locally by Verizon. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711 johnl@iecc.com Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner http://iecc.com/johnl Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line? Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 13:54:15 GMT >> What I'd like to do is keep my old number, even though there will be >> no phone line attached to it. Then I'd like to use what Verizon calls >> "Ultra Call Forwarding" to remotely change the number to which my old >> phone number forwards. > See if you can get a service called "Remote Call Forwarding". This Aha! Thanks. This is what I needed to know. (Funny how Verizon didn't know I could do this ...) They don't support virtual numbers, so I'd need two RCF lines, once for each of my current numbers. Also, I cannot change the number to which the line is forwarded myself --- I have to call customer service, and then the change takes up to a day. This solution will cost $40/month ($20 times two lines) plus a $25 set-up fee. Also, Verizon charges a few pennies per minute for every forwarded call. I also got another solution e-mailed to me: (in the interests of privacy, I'm withholding the name and e-mail of the person who sent it to me --- I tried to reply with a quick "thank you" via e-mail, but the sender's incoming SMTP server rejects my dynamic IP outgoing SMTP server. *sigh*) > Plan D: Sign up for Vonage, port your numbers to your new Vonage > service, since they do have service in NY zone 6. (Vonage now allows This is an excellent idea for keeping my number and having RCF. Vonage charges $26/month, and has the added benefits of Vonage, including the ability to change the number to which the line is forwarded immediately, via the web. However, while Vonage supports virtual phone numbers (so I could move my current main and virtual number to Vonage), they don't support LNP to virtual phone numbers, so if I want to keep both of my phone numbers, even though they are on the same line, I'd have to get TWO Vonage accounts. (Also, according to the Vonage web site, virtual phone numbers don't work when the ATA is not connected to the network! The rep didn't know this. That's pretty important!) Futhermore, and this is the really expensive part, Vonage doesn't support "new number" messages. Once I move permanently, at the end of the summer, if I want callers to my old numbers to get a "the number you have called has changed" type of message, my only option is to keep my full Vonage account, which in this case means two accounts, one for each number, at a cost of $52/month!! Verizon will give me a "changed number" message for 6 months for free. Thank you to this list for all the helpful information. -Joel ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on Second ATA Port Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 13:58:24 GMT > Although I bet it can also have virtual numbers. For those of you > unaware of this feature on Vonage, you can order any number of virtual > numbers in your own or other cities for $4.99 month, allowing There's an enormous drawback to virtual numbers, according to the Vonage web site. They DON'T WORK if the ATA is disconnected, turned off, etc. So if your internet goes down and someone tries to call, or your power goes out, etc., it seems the virtual number just won't work. Take a look at the end of the answer to FAQ 9 on http://vonage.com/features_virtual_phone_number.php -Joel [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: However, one day when I first got Vonage and was experimenting with it, my ATA box got diconnected by accident from my router. I called my Vonage phone, and when Vonage was 'unable to locate me' it put the call through to the voicemail after a few seconds. Wouldn't that happen with alias or virtual numbers also? So all is not lost, you simply have to later retrieve the messages from voicemail. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: MCI Gets Iraq Rebuild Contract Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 01:26:06 GMT On Wed, 21 May 2003 17:57:06 -0000, Steven J. Sobol posted the following to comp.dcom.telecom: >> Actually, MCI did operate one of the first cellular systems in the >> U.S. The Pittsburgh MSA A-block system was initially licensed to MCI >> Cellular Telephone Company. I think it ultimately ended up being >> owned by AT&T Wireless after several changes in ownership. > Did they own and operate it, or just own the license? They owned and operated it -- won it in one of the first FCC cellular comparative hearings to be decided. They even had an entire department of their Washington office devoted to this cellular system's FCC relations. And then they got out of the cellular business. If I recall correctly, they sold out to McCaw or one of its predecessors, such as Providence-Journal. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD, USA (delete NOSPAM from address to mail me) ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: E-911, was Re: My New Vonage Account Date: 21 May 2003 22:10:40 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Well, they may say that in kind of a wink wink, nudge nudge way, but > that's not how many customers use their service. Granted that a > majority probably do have cell phones, but still, one of the > recommended ways to cope with a power outage is to get a fairly hefty > Uninterruptable Power Supply, and plug into it ONLY you cable or DSL > modem, your router, and your ATA-186 (and if you don't have a regular > corded phone -- something everyone should have -- then you want to make > sure your cordless phone base is also plugged into the UPS). OK, but what about the other 90% of the problem? I don't know about your cable system, but the systems I know run off regular commercial power, and when the power goes out, the cable goes out. (Since most people's TV and PC don't work without power either, who cares?) DSL probably keeps working since the DSLAM is at the telco CO and can use the CO's power, but I wouldn't immediately count on all of the rest of the routers upstream equipment having adequate power. For VoIP you're also affected by routing problems betweeen Vonage HQ in New Jersey and you, and all of the other pieces of the Internet between them and you, some of which is designed to telco standards but a lot of which isn't. Telcos design central offices so that they can keep running during a long power outage, but that's quite expensive. A few years ago there was an ice storm north of here that knocked down large numbers of backbone power lines. At my sister's house in Vermont, phone service was hardly affected since the wires are mostly underground and the CO has a generator and a fairly large gas tank, but it was over a week until the power came back on. I love my Vonage phone but I really think I want something more reliable for 911 calls. > I read in some Cisco specification sheet that the ATA-186 can handle > phones with up to a combined REN of 5. Hmmn, I'll have to go back and check. I have a few more phones I might want to plug into it. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711 johnl@iecc.com Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner http://iecc.com/johnl Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: Lisa Kidd Subject: NJ Approves Do-Not-Call List Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 22:52:23 -0400 More bad news for telemarketers: Governor McGreedy signed a do-not-call bill into law, making New Jersey the 35th state to have a do-not-call list to stop telemarketers. "TRENTON - Most other states got there sooner, but New Jersey today added a law to the books that will help Garden State residents squelch annoying telemarketing calls. " Signing up for the list through a toll-free number, which will be announced when the mechanics are worked out, is expected to substantially reduce the number of sales pitches phoned to people's homes. Charities and politicians can still call. Even those who don't sign up stand to benefit from rules that limit calls to between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. and require the disclosure within 30 seconds of who's calling and what they're selling." Rest of article: http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/5913020.htm [Philadelphia Inquirer] ------------------------------ From: ka1tl1n1@hotmail.com (Adrian) Subject: Mapping Telephone Exchanges Date: 21 May 2003 22:29:00 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Where can I find a map of telephone exchanges -- i.e. locating where the first 3-digits of a telephone number refer to geographically. I want to find the nearest modem bank closest to me from a list of possible numbers. Thanks, Adrian ------------------------------ 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: 620-330-6774 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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Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #470 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu May 22 19:03:14 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4MN3Ek02831; Thu, 22 May 2003 19:03:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 19:03:14 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305222303.h4MN3Ek02831@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #471 TELECOM Digest Thu, 22 May 2003 19:03:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 471 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Hacking the Night Away (Joey Lindstrom) Re: Your Localnet Vulnerabilities (Dave Phelps) Re: Email, Other Vulnerable Spots on my Setup (Colin Sutton) Re: Ring Count Before Rolling to Voicemail (Justin Time) Panasonic 900MHz Cordless Phone (PeeknBoo) SpamAssassin Evaluation (Joey Lindstrom) Re: E-911, was Re: My New Vonage Account (Ed Ellers) Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on ATA Port (de Corazones) Re: Mapping Telephone Exchanges (Paul A Lee) Panasonic VB44030 Phone System Manuals (David Currey) NobelCom / HelloCollege (Michael Scovetta) Question of Some CDP Data and Its Meaning (William J King) Repeat: Desperately Seeking Old Issues TELEMANAGEMENT MAGAZINE (onshore) Re: Beware of CameraWare - An FBI Sting (Geoffrey Welsh) Last Laugh! Re: MCI Gets Iraq Rebuilding Contract (Geoffrey Welsh) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 06:01:58 -0600 Subject: Re: Hacking the Night Away Reply-To: joey@garynuman.info On Wed, 21 May 2003 23:12:33 EDT, editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What do you know about an anti-virus > program called 'PC-Cillin'. Any good? By the way, Joey, if it is > true as you say, that *even if you do not open the email attachment, > the virus can get out*, then what prevents all the email servers along > the way, including the one that stores your mail before you call for > it from getting infected also? The virus attachment has no idea where > it is at? PAT] It's not because the piece of code itself is particularly virulent, but because it has been specifically targetted at weaknesses in the way Outlook handles attachments. I'm not sure of the exact specifics, but the upshot is that the email (with infected attachment) must be downloaded *INTO OUTLOOK* for this to take place. The servers along the way, and any OTHER client that downloads it (so long as the user doesn't then try to open the attachment), are safe. I have no experience with PC-Cillin, perhaps someone else can comment on that one. On Wed, 21 May 2003 23:12:33 -0400 (EDT), I wrote: > Now, there's lots of things you can do to protect yourself from this > happening, ranging from "simple, cheap, and pretty darned expensive" to > "complicated, expensive, and darned near foolproof". I'll leave the > latter for the experts. As for the former: This must have been confusing. My first quote was meant to be "simple, cheap, and pretty darned EFFECTIVE", not "expensive". Sorry, I was in a hurry. :-) -- Joey Lindstrom -- Telus Sucks http://www.telussucks.info ------------------------------ From: Dave Phelps Subject: Re: Your Localnet Vulnerabilities Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 00:17:17 -0500 Organization: www.tippenring.com In article , JBeaman@address- withheld says: > Also, I have ZoneAlarm running on all my computers, configured to > alert me if any unapproved application/process tries to access the > Internet. This is to stop Trojans, email forwarders, and spyware > programs from doing any further harm should one actually get > installed on my computers. Do you have other users on your network? How do you prevent your users from clicking "permit" when zonealarm asks them if they want to allow the recently emailed and inadvertently installed trojan to call home? Dave Phelps Phone Masters Ltd. deadspam=tippenring ------------------------------ From: Colin Sutton Subject: Re: Email, Other Vulnerable Spots on my Setup Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 12:12:54 GMT Organization: BigPond Internet Services (http://www.bigpond.net.au) Bill Horne wrote in message news:telecom22.469.2@telecom-digest.org: > TELECOM Digest Editor wrote in message > news:telecom22.466.15@telecom-digest.org: >> My question is how vulnerable am I to hacking by a spammer or other >> trouble-maker? In practical terms ... what additional 'firewall' or >> other protection do I need? > Go to the Windows Update site, and install all the critical updates on > all your Windows boxes. But wait a few weeks after Microsoft makes each patch available, until all the bugs with the patch are fixed: For example, the following were reported by Woody's XP watch (http://www.woodyswatch.com) : MS03-013 hasn't been fixed yet - http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=819634 813489: April 2003, Cumulative Patch for Internet Explorer (IE) 6 Service Pack 1 and 330994: April 2003, Security Update for Outlook Express (OE) 6 SP1 are giving PC users running Windows XP and Norton Internet Security (NIS) some challenges in being able to access the Internet after their install. If you are running NIS 2002 on a Windows XP system and install both patches, when the PC re-boots, neither Internet Explorer nor Outlook Express can access the Internet. You can install the IE update with NIS 2002 disabled, and it'll work. But OE 6 can't get at any POP servers to read email, if NIS 2002 is running. There's a good list of patches at http://www.ethan-c-allen.com/xpsp2/ Regards, Colin Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.481 / Virus Database: 277 - Release Date: 13/05/03 ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: Ring Count Before Rolling to Voicemail Date: 22 May 2003 09:54:01 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ reedl@tatteredcover.com (Reed Loefgren) wrote in message news:: > Hi all, > Can someone here tell me where in a Mitel SX-2000 lite switch one sets > the number of rings on a call before that call rolls to voicemail? > I've poked around CDE but haven't stumbled across a form that > indicates this. > Regards, > rl Try looking for the timer that controls RNA -- Ring no answer or CFN -- Call Forward No Answer. That's what I set on PBX units from other manufacturers. Rodgers Platt ------------------------------ From: moore410@msn.com (PeeknBoo) Subject: Panasonic 900MHz Cordless Phone Date: 22 May 2003 10:38:47 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ My Panasonic Phone rings every half hour, one time, for no reason. Does anyone have a problem like this or no what to do about it? Thanks. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Isn't that one ring every X minutes intended as a reminder for something? For example, a call (it thinks was) left on hold and never retrieved; an alarm for some condition it (again) thinks it is supposed to remind you about? Would a general reset of the entire unit clear the problem? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 13:05:26 -0600 Subject: SpamAssassin Evaluation Reply-To: joey@telussucks.info SpamAssassin has been assassinating spam here for five days now, and so far the statistics look like this: SMTP messages received: 1256 Of these, how many were identified as spam: 348 Of the 348 "spams", how many false positives: 3 Known spams that got through the filtering: 18 Not bad. Not bad at all. Anyways, if you've been considering trying SpamAssassin but just haven't had the time or hardware to do it, and so long as your domain doesn't handle huge amounts of mail, I'd be more than happy to help with your evaluation. Simply put, you can set your domain's MX records to point to my box. My box will spam-filter your mail(*), then forward all mail for your accounts to a host that you specify (ie: your existing mail host). All you have to change is your MX records. (*)You can either have me filter spam completely out of your mail flow and into my "spambox", where I'll go through it every day or two hunting for false positives, or you can have me *MARK* suspected spam as spam but otherwise let it continue to flow through to your system, where you can write your own custom rules to shunt spam wherever you want it. (I "mark" spam three ways based on spam probability: low, medium, and high. I've never seen a false positive land in medium or high yet, so you could move those items aside and check 'em once a week, or kill 'em outright, while keeping a closer eye on the "low" probability spam. "Low" is probably a misnomer, though - it's still very, very probably spam.) I'd be willing to do this free of charge for anyone up to 60 days. After that, I'll have to start charging for it - but I'm not here to try to drum up business. The point of the exercise is to allow *YOU* to see how darned effective this thing is, over a reasonable trial period. Once you do, I'm sure you'll want to implement SpamAssassin in your own system. I'm sold on this thing and I just wanna help spread the word. :-) SpamAssassin is a free of charge product and I have no connection to it other than as a hugely enthusiastic user of it. So, if you've got a personal domain, or even a small business domain, and you'd like to try this out, drop me an email. If you get a LOT of spam, so much the better - it makes for more impressive test results. :-) -- Joey Lindstrom -- Telus Sucks http://www.telussucks.info [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The admins here at LCS/MIT use spam- assassin on my account at massis at least, and my results are similar to yours. Each day there will be at least a dozen, minimum, spams caught by spam assassin; most days many, many more. It has very few 'false positives' but then the tolerance level is set to what I can deal with. Since I do run a Digest after all, and consider myself to be accountable to all *legitimate* users for their incoming mail, I do spend a few minutes each day scanning the return addresses on all I find in the spam bucket, looking for 'false positives' and fishing out those I find now and then, so I can send them a receipt for their mail. Overall spam assassin seems to work pretty well. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: E-911, was Re: My New Vonage Account Organization: Insight Broadband Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 19:21:59 GMT John R. Levine wrote: > I don't know about your cable system, but the systems I know run off > regular commercial power, and when the power goes out, the cable > goes out. At least some cable systems (including Insight in Louisville, Kentucky) have various types of UPSes deployed along their cable plant. Insight put in AlphaPower battery backups when they rebuilt their system to 750 MHz hybrid fiber/coax in the 1990s; when they decided to add cable telephony they replaced those with new units, also from AlphaPower, that included natural gas-fueled generators that start automatically when commercial power fails. Since these are fed by the gas mains, they can run for quite a while and don't need to have fuel trucked in (as is the case with the Diesel-powered generators in some telco COs). ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on Second ATA Port From: Seises de Corazones Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 19:58:24 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net I ordered 200 oxen, but joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) sent me this instead: >> Although I bet it can also have virtual numbers. For those of you >> unaware of this feature on Vonage, you can order any number of virtual >> numbers in your own or other cities for $4.99 month, allowing > There's an enormous drawback to virtual numbers, according to the > Vonage web site. They DON'T WORK if the ATA is disconnected, turned > off, etc. So if your internet goes down and someone tries to call, or > your power goes out, etc., it seems the virtual number just won't > work. Take a look at the end of the answer to FAQ 9 on > http://vonage.com/features_virtual_phone_number.php I looked at answer #9 and I don't see what you are alluding to: 9. Will the Virtual Phone Number show on the Caller ID displays of people that I call? No. Since your primary line number is what is used to make outgoing calls, only this number will show on Caller ID displays. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: However, one day when I first got > Vonage and was experimenting with it, my ATA box got diconnected > by accident from my router. I called my Vonage phone, and when > Vonage was 'unable to locate me' it put the call through to the > voicemail after a few seconds. Wouldn't that happen with alias > or virtual numbers also? So all is not lost, you simply have to > later retrieve the messages from voicemail. PAT] Another neat feature is you can specify a phone number that is rung immediately if your ATA is down. So you can specify your cell phone number, and if your ATA is disconnected or your net connection is down, it will be connected directly to your cell phone, instead. Ted Rathkopf [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes! That is a good feature. On the 'dashboard' feature of Vonage, it asks for that blank to be filled in and stresses it is not intended as a number to be used for regular call forwarding but only to be used as a 'failsafe' number to be used for call forwarding if the Vonage system was down for some reason. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Paul A Lee Subject: Re: Mapping Telephone Exchanges Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 16:00:45 -0400 In TELECOM Digest V22 #470, ka1tl1n1@hotmail.com (Adrian) wrote: > Where can I find a map of telephone exchanges -- i.e. locating > where the first 3-digits of a telephone number refer to > geographically. > I want to find the nearest modem bank closest to me from a list of > possible numbers. Reasonable results can be obtained from: http://www.mapquest.com/maps/areacode.adp http://www.dslreports.com/coinfo If you're willing to pay, try: http://www.delorme.com/ http://www.mapinfo.com/ 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 Tell your senator you support Senate Bill 877 to CAN-SPAM . Find him/her at http://www.senate.gov/. ------------------------------ From: dc2758@aol.com (David Currey) Subject: Panasonic VB44030 Phone System Manuals Date: 22 May 2003 13:32:28 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ A customer of mine has recently purchased a Panasonic VB44030 phone system and needs to know how to make changes to his configuration. Does anyone know how to configure a Panasonic VB44030 or, better yet, can anyone tell me how to obtain some programming manuals for this phone system? Thanks in advance, David Currey ------------------------------ From: nospam_googlegroups@scovetta.com (Michael Scovetta) Subject: NobelCom / HelloCollege Date: 22 May 2003 14:05:55 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Just a tidbit for all of you looking for prepaid calling cards ... Think twice before using NobelCom (www.nobelcom.com) or HelloCollege (www.hellocollege.com) (both the same company). Their "terms" are hidden away on their website and include the following text: "Refunds will be offered in the form of exchanges or store-credit on all cards having a full balance, excluding discontinued products. $20 calling cards expire 90 days after first use unless otherwise stated. " The first part of that means that if you buy a card and the card doesn't work, you are SOL. I have purchased a few cards from them in the past, and about 80% of the time, either the call cuts out randomly, forcing you to call the person back (+ another connection fee) or the voice levels are so poor, you can hardly hear the other person. I have tried contacting customer support and they won't even discuss a refund (pro-rated or otherwise). I wish someone had posted their experiences with Nobelcom, it would have saved me $22. Mike ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 18:56:31 GMT From: bill@Hawaii.Edu (William J King) Subject: Question of Some CDP Data and Its Meaning Organization: University of Hawaii From 'sho cdp entry or sho cdp nei detail' this data appears: Protocol Hello: OUI=0x00000C, Protocol ID=0x0112; payload len=27, value=00000000FFFFFFFF010121FF00000000000000024B7F6A40FF00C3 Can't locate anything on the Cisco URL that explains it. Anyone have a reference? William J. King Networking/Telecommunications bill@hawaii.edu ( e-mail ) Actually: 21 degrees 17 minutes 56.2653 seconds North 157 degrees 48 minutes 57.8565 seconds West .,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"* ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 10:37:18 -0700 From: onshore@netcom.ca Subject: Repeat: Desperately Seeking Old Issues of TELEMANAGEMENT MAGAZINE Dear Pat: I have looked in the Digest and the link from the Digest and the information that I am looking for is not there. I searched both sources very thoroughly before sending the e-mail to be posted. Thank you for posting my e-mail. If you could repost the the plea for the magazines I would appreciate it. Still desperately seeking Telemanagement Magazines. Ron onshore@netcom.ca ------------------------------ From: Geoffrey Welsh Subject: Re: Beware of CameraWare - An FBI Sting! Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 17:49:18 -0400 Organization: Bell Sympatico On a similar note, not at all telecom related: just over a week ago in the west end of the old city of Toronto, a 10-year old girl went missing while walking a couple of blocks home from a friend's house. Pieces of her body were recovered about a day later. Although the police have claimed that they're only one step away from arresting the perpetrator, they are currently asking every adult male in the neighborhood for a DNA sample (quite the fishing expedition, no?), and noting the names of any who refused. Many have already been on the radio saying that they didn't want to be named as someone who refused, and it has opened up the question of whether the police are using the rage in the neighborhood as a form of pressure. According to a news radio station, the police are saying that the DNA sample will be used only for this one case and will be destroyed afterwards ... but, no matter how much I want to see this killer caught, I certainly don't want the police here or anywhere else using the possibility of some kind of public retribution -- for which they will disclaim any responsibility, of course -- to pressure people to 'willingly' waive their legal rights. Geoffrey Welsh This address is not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Unsolicited bulk mail is spam, no matter what regulations (real or imagined) it complies with! FIGHT SPAM AND SCAMS: DISCONNECT CHINA FROM THE INTERNET! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That is the kind of environment (Chicago) I am familiar with, and regretably most accoustomed to. In Chicago, at least, mid all its corruption by civic authorities and leaders, a very common tactic of police is to *attempt* (not always successfully, but usually) to bully people into 'cooperating' with them. I've even seen them go into a courtroom in a high profile case *with their guns* (no one else is allowed to have guns in the court house), line the walls -- literally several dozen of them -- and stare quietly at the members of the jury during the jury's deliberations, just daring the jury to not go along with the conclusions reached by the police. When called to task for that behavior, they'll tell you they are also 'citizens' (that's very true!) and entitled like any citizen to observe trials held publicly,([which is the only way I think any of us would want trials to be] and that is very true also.) Police are good at driving 'wedges' between members of a community in the way you suggest. There was a very sad case in Chicago several years ago, where an accused sex offender (who was found not guilty) got hassled by police afterward and wound up winning various lawsuits against a small private Catholic school and the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese (and it had nothing to do with any errant priest, either! If anyone is interested in hearing more details, let me know. Suffice it to say that while the overwhelming majority of police officers in smaller and medium size towns are honest men and women who are mortified by some of their bretheren in larger cities like Chicago, there are a few who think nothing of tarnishing their badges and getting their uniforms filthy. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Geoffrey Welsh Subject: Last Laugh! Re: MCI Gets Iraq Rebuild Contract Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 17:57:16 -0400 Organization: Bell Sympatico Steven J. Sobol wrote: > There is some irony in the fact that the company chosen has ever owned > and operated a wireless phone network, at least not in the US. Maybe MCI just slammed the procurement procedure? Geoffrey Welsh This address is not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Unsolicited bulk mail is spam, no matter what regulations (real or imagined) it complies with! FIGHT SPAM AND SCAMS: DISCONNECT CHINA FROM THE INTERNET! ------------------------------ 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #471 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu May 22 23:53:05 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4N3r5L04302; Thu, 22 May 2003 23:53:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 23:53:05 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305230353.h4N3r5L04302@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #472 TELECOM Digest Thu, 22 May 2003 23:54:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 472 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Hacking the Night Away (Daniel W. Johnson) Re: Hacking the Night Away (Mark Crispin) Re: Mapping Telephone Exchanges (Joseph) Re: Mapping Telephone Exchanges (Gary Breuckman) Re: Mapping Telephone Exchanges (Reed) Re: Mapping Telephone Exchanges (KevinM) Re: SpamAssassin (Joey Lindstrom) Re: Apple's New Service Beats Illegal Free Sites (Maher Harb) EFFector 16.14: Supreme Court to Hear California DVD Case (M. Solomon) Re: Your Localnet Vulnerabilities (Gary Breuckman) Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on 2nd ATA Port (Hoffman) Re: E-911, was Re: My New Vonage Account (Ed Ellers) Testing New Freeware (Projeto Traipse) 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: panoptes@iquest.net (Daniel W. Johnson) Subject: Re: Hacking the Night Away Date: 22 May 2003 15:14:33 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Joey Lindstrom wrote in message news:: > Some email clients, notably Outlook/Outlook Express, are dangerous > because they can receive an infected file and allow that infection into > your computer EVEN IF YOU DO NOT OPEN THE EMAIL. Stay far, far away. > Use PMMail, The Bat, Eudora, or pretty much anything else. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What do you know about an anti-virus > program called 'PC-Cillin'. Any good? By the way, Joey, if it is > true as you say, that *even if you do not open the email attachment, > the virus can get out*, then what prevents all the email servers along > the way, including the one that stores your mail before you call for > it from getting infected also? The virus attachment has no idea where > it is at? PAT] Most of the email servers along the way are not using Outlook/Outlook Express (or any other email CLIENT). ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: Re: Hacking the Night Away Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 16:53:43 -0700 Organization: Networks & Distributed Computing On Thu, 22 May 2003, Joey Lindstrom wrote: > It's not because the piece of code itself is particularly virulent, > but because it has been specifically targetted at weaknesses in the > way Outlook handles attachments. I'm not sure of the exact specifics I am. The attack is against the "preview" feature of Outlook and other programs of that type. Basically, the attachment is sent with a MIME type of IMAGE/JPEG or the like, which the preview feature assumes means that it's an image that it should show in the preview. Instead of opening the JPEG viewer on the attachment data, Outlook and most other programs of its ilk detach the attachment with that filename to a temporary directory, then do the equivalent of a Windows double-click on it. That way, instead of Outlook being configured to know what to do with JPEG files, it uses the Windows extension registry to do the job. It's a very natural way to do things on Windows. It's the simplest way to do it. It's also extremely dangerous. If the attachment has a filename of xxx.EXE or xxx.PIF or any one of several other executable file types, instead of opening the JPEG viewer, it runs the executable. Oops. Outlook is the most representative of programs which are guilty of this, but it's not the only such program. Other programs from other vendors are just as guilty. As long as people want email programs that draw pretty pictures, instead of using quality programs (such as Pine), they're going to experience this type of problem. As long as vendors spend more time worrying about drawing pretty pictures instead of security, this is going to happen. -- Mark -- http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But you know, I think there have been some improvements in recent versions of Outlook Express. I have, I think, version 6. Now and again email arrives for me which has some attachment to it, but when I click to get the attachment (normally a small drop down box then appears listing it by name) but sometimes the contents of the drop down box will all be greyed out and attempting to click on it anyway produces a message saying 'Outlook has examined this item, and found it to be very dangerous. Shall I destroy it now?' You get no choice of 'no', just an 'OK'. That's not to say that Outlook catches it all, but Microsoft seems to have gotten wiser about such things at least in 2000/XP with Outlook Express 6. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Mapping Telephone Exchanges Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 15:11:02 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On 21 May 2003 22:29:00 -0700, ka1tl1n1@hotmail.com (Adrian) wrote: > Where can I find a map of telephone exchanges -- i.e. locating > where the first 3-digits of a telephone number refer to > geographically. > I want to find the nearest modem bank closest to me from a list of > possible numbers. http://www.telcodata.us/telco.html gives lots of information about particular switches and also the serving company. Depending on what you look at for each entry it will list all exchanges served by that company and you can also find the physical address of the particular switch. Replies are seldom read. Please reply in the group. ------------------------------ From: Gary Breuckman Subject: Re: Mapping Telephone Exchanges Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 19:25:58 -0500 Organization: Puma's Lair - catbox.com In TELECOM Digest V22 #470, ka1tl1n1@hotmail.com (Adrian) wrote: > Where can I find a map of telephone exchanges -- i.e. locating where > the first 3-digits of a telephone number refer to geographically. > I want to find the nearest modem bank closest to me from a list of > possible numbers. How near or far away a modem bank is has little meaning, except for toll charges. Once the call is digital, it should make no difference where it terminates. Might not work out that way, of course, but nearest is not always best, perhaps no relationship at all. -- Gary Breuckman [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think when Adrian inquired about the 'nearest modem bank closest to me' the intention was to find something which was toll-free locally, or with very minor toll charges. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Reed Subject: Re: Mapping Telephone Exchanges Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 20:11:42 -0600 Organization: None Whatsoever Bear in mind that some providers may only have one actual POP (point of presence/ modem bank) in a given local area. The various access numbers on your list may use a form of call forwarding to route your call to the same POP. They do this to make it look like a local call to you (avoiding local toll or message unit charges). --reed Adrian wrote: > Where can I find a map of telephone exchanges -- i.e. locating > where the first 3-digits of a telephone number refer to > geographically. > I want to find the nearest modem bank closest to me from a list of > possible numbers. ------------------------------ From: kmclinden@yahoo.com (KevinM) Subject: Re: Mapping Telephone Exchanges Date: 22 May 2003 18:40:34 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Paul A Lee wrote in message news:: > In TELECOM Digest V22 #470, ka1tl1n1@hotmail.com (Adrian) wrote: >> Where can I find a map of telephone exchanges -- i.e. locating >> where the first 3-digits of a telephone number refer to >> geographically. >> I want to find the nearest modem bank closest to me from a list of >> possible numbers. > Reasonable results can be obtained from: > http://www.mapquest.com/maps/areacode.adp > http://www.dslreports.com/coinfo > If you're willing to pay, try: > http://www.delorme.com/ > http://www.mapinfo.com/ > 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 > Tell your senator you support Senate Bill 877 to CAN-SPAM > . Find him/her at > http://www.senate.gov/. You should also check out www.telecomworm.com for a list of area code/exchange lookup sites. ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 17:34:28 -0600 Subject: Re: SpamAssassin Reply-To: joey@garynuman.info On Thu, 22 May 2003 19:03:14 -0400 (EDT), editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The admins here at LCS/MIT use spam- > assassin on my account at massis at least, and my results are similar > to yours. Each day there will be at least a dozen, minimum, spams > caught by spam assassin; most days many, many more. It has very few > 'false positives' but then the tolerance level is set to what I can > deal with. Since I do run a Digest after all, and consider myself to > be accountable to all *legitimate* users for their incoming mail, I > do spend a few minutes each day scanning the return addresses on all > I find in the spam bucket, looking for 'false positives' and fishing > out those I find now and then, so I can send them a receipt for their > mail. Overall spam assassin seems to work pretty well. PAT] What's your false positive rate? Ballpark figure? One in a hundred? I'm in kinda the same boat as you, in that I'm reticent to simply chuck anything that SpamAssassin considers spam. This thing is good, but it isn't PERFECT. I host email for 22 domains totalling about 65 users. There's a few "vanity" domain names but others are for small businesses and there's an associated website. Their email address is ON THE WEBSITE, thus it attracts a lot of spam. Today was heavy. From 6:15am this morning until now (5:18pm), I've got 85 messages in my "spambox" to wade through. It's been my experience that simply glancing at the return address isn't enough, as a lot of spam has valid-looking names there. For me, a quicker method is glancing at the subject line itself. 9 times out of 10, it's very obvious what is spam and what isn't. Those that are borderline, I open (with a non-HTML mail client) and take a quick peek. At this point, again, a very quick glance tells me if it's obviously spam. If it's not so obvious, I'll start reading more carefully from the beginning. If it turns out to be a false-positive, I try to stop reading as soon as I can -- there's a privacy issue here after all (and before anyone asks, my users HAVE ALL SIGNED OFF on this) -- and forward the mail directly to the user's mailbox. One thing I've also started doing is classifying, at the server level, just how likely an identified spam really is spam, based on the score. I've arbitrarily assigned 5 through 15 as "Low", 15 through 30 as "Medium", and above 30 as "High", and my server modifies both the subject line and a special X-header accordingly. So far, there've been NO false positives in the "Medium" and "High" categories, so I may at some point start simply killing anything from those two categories, and only sift through "Low". Even then, that's a fair amount of spam. If it gets too heavy, I'll begin passing it along to my users (marked up by SpamAssassin as spam of course) and let them do the sifting, which is probably what most sysadmins using SpamAssassin are doing anyways (I do the "sifting" as a courtesy, it's not part of the service that any of my customers are paying for -- nor, in fact, is any spam filtering of any kind). Y'know, I can't remember if I mentioned this in my earlier posts ... I don't remember doing it but if I did, my apologies. Anyhoo, this edition of SpamAssassin that I'm using is a *WINDOWS* edition and comes packaged along with the current (beta) version of the MDaemon server for the Windows platform. I expect other Windows-based mail servers will probably add this functionality at some point down the line, if not already. Point is, for all you Windows folks: SpamAssassin isn't just for *nix junkies anymore. :-) Finally, some QUALITY software for Windows. Yeah, I know, that's always been an oxymoron, but not anymore. :-) / From the desk of Joey Lindstrom / / I went to the cinema, and the prices were: Adults $5.00, children $2.50. / So I said, "Give me two boys and a girl." / --Steven Wright [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My ballpark figure is about one false positive out of one hundred. Generally I find one or two false positives per week, depending on what you view as spam. (Remember, I do solicit email at this address; people respond to my solicitations ... do they!) More than 99 percent of spam assassin's choices as trash are things I would select as trash also. The spam assassin installed here is Unix flavored of course. I would look into the Windows version if I had stayed with sbcglobal, in fact, maybe I should anyway. Now going on two weeks after I left sbcglobal and DSL, I have been too lazy to go in and edit my POP and SMTP server lists on Outlook Express, so I still stop in at sbcglobal and the spam still rolls in over there. When I eventually edit my mail accounts list to eliminate any stops over at sbcglobal, I guess the spam will just keep piling up there forever. SBC sure does not intend to deal with any of it; they are a common carrier, ya know ... as they self rightously told me whenever I complained in the past. PAT] ------------------------------ From: mharb@yahoo.com (Maher Harb) Subject: Re: Apple's New Service Beats Illegal Free Sites Date: 22 May 2003 17:39:16 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ The idea that I have to pay 99c per song is stupid. This's way too expensive. They should charge something like a nickle/song. Until they do so I will continue to use kazaa. I'm sure most people would agree with me. As for Applemusic and their silly commercials ... they can only hope to fool the computer illiterates with this ploy. I'm not wasting any money on records. I haven't done so in years. Monty Solomon wrote in message news:: > By WALTER S. MOSSBERG > > For several years now, the music and technology industries have > been casting about for a legal Internet music service that might > rival the wildly popular bootleg services, like Napster and Kazaa, > where songs can be grabbed for free. But the results have been > dismal -- until this week. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 20:39:58 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 16.14: Supreme Court to Hear California DVD Case on May EFFector Vol. 16, No. 14 May 21, 2003 ren@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 253rd Issue of EFFector: * Supreme Court to Hear California DVD Case * TIA Report Shines No New Light * EFF Accepting Used Car Donations * Deep Links (6): Oops! We Engineered Your Rights Away * Staff Calendar * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/16/14.php ------------------------------ From: Gary Breuckman Subject: Re: Your Localnet Vulnerabilities Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 20:13:19 -0500 Organization: Puma's Lair - catbox.com In article , "John Beaman wrote: > Also, I can't stress this enough. Make sure you change the default > admin password on your router! There are far too many people buying > these things, plugging them in, and doing nothing configuation-wise to > secure them. While I think it's always a good idea to change default passwords, I think it should be pointed out that the default is to NOT allow any changes to the router from the Internet side, only from inside the local network -- so if you own all the systems, two, three, and are the only user, changing the password is not a very critical issue. On the other hand, if the router is in a public place, or an office with many users -- changing the password prevents 'helpful' actions by the local natives :) -- Gary Breuckman ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on Second ATA Port Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 01:52:40 GMT >> There's an enormous drawback to virtual numbers, according to the >> Vonage web site. They DON'T WORK if the ATA is disconnected, turned >> off, etc. So if your internet goes down and someone tries to call, or >> your power goes out, etc., it seems the virtual number just won't >> work. Take a look at the end of the answer to FAQ 9 on >> http://vonage.com/features_virtual_phone_number.php > I looked at answer #9 and I don't see what you are alluding to: Oops. Should be #10: +----------< | | They work a lot like email address aliases. In the same way that you | can have more than one email address point to the same email account, | you can have more than one Vonage number link to your Vonage primary | number. Behind the scenes, the Vonage Call Routing Network points your | Virtual Number calls to your primary line. This transfer is just as | fast and seamless as any other Vonage phone call. Virtual numbers will | not work if your ATA is not registered with our network or powered | off. | +--------------------> It looks like the virtual number will not be routed to your main number or even to voicemail when the ATA is off. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But I will tell you just as Vonage does above, 'behind the scenes the VONAGE CALL ROUTING NETWORK' points the alias or virtual number to the 'real' number first, *then* the whole thing sets out looking for you. If it cannot find you for whatever reason, then it goes to voicemail -- which is *not* on your computer nor is it (voicemail) under your direct control, so it has nothing to do with your electrical supply, etc. Vonage will not find you or it finds you alright, but you do not respond, whatever ... so voicemail comes in and takes over. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: E-911, was Re: My New Vonage Account Organization: Insight Broadband Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 01:53:02 GMT Someone wrote: > By the way, does anyone besides me find it somewhat ironic that VoIP > services like VoicePulse, Packet8 and Vonage will ONLY work with tone > dialing, yet many traditional phone companies STILL charge EXTRA for touch > tone? Be thankful if they have stopped charging extra for it in your > state! In Kentucky, BellSouth doesn't offer pulse-only on new lines, but does give a $1.00/month credit to those who already had lines without tone dialing. I suspect many states won't allow the charge to be dropped entirely because it would result in a net rate increase to the few, mostly elderly, people who do not have tone capability. ------------------------------ From: traipse_sp@yahoo.com.br (Projeto Traipse) Subject: Testing a New Freeware (WebGPS) Date: 22 May 2003 20:42:34 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi there - I'm still [beta] testing a GPS freeware (WebGPS). I'll be glad if you spend a couple of seconds and stop by: www.traipse.com.br . New ideas or bug reports are *very* welcome at traipse_sp at yahoo dot com dot br. TIA 4 any help. Traipse ------------------------------ 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #472 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri May 23 14:05:53 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4NI5re08326; Fri, 23 May 2003 14:05:53 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 14:05:53 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305231805.h4NI5re08326@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #473 TELECOM Digest Fri, 23 May 2003 14:06:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 473 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Time Warner Cable Dials in Phone Service (Monty Solomon) Harvard Study Wrestles With Gator (Monty Solomon) 802.11g Heads For Standards Approval (Monty Solomon) Last Stop Before the Media Monopoly (Monty Solomon) Can the Web Beat Big Media? (Monty Solomon) The Great Media Gulp (Monty Solomon) TiVo Q1 Results (Monty Solomon) Kazaa Says on Track to be Most-Downloaded Program (Monty Solomon) Re: FEATURE-Online Game Strategy Splits Video Game Industry (David) Vodavi 1224EX (Bruce Adler) Information on An Unlisted Number (Michael) Re: SpamAssassin (Carlo Coggi) Re: SpamAssassin (Steven J. Sobol) Re: Mapping Telephone Exchanges (Clarence Dold) 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, 23 May 2003 03:45:11 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Time Warner Cable Dials in Phone Service By Ben Charny and Evan Hansen Staff Writers, CNET News.com AOL Time Warner's entry into voice service Thursday highlights the latest headache for regional phone companies, whose lock on the so-called local loop is looking increasingly precarious. Time Warner Cable's "Digital Phone" includes unlimited local, in-state and domestic long-distance telephone service for $40 a month and will be initially available only in the Portland, Maine, area. Combined with similar offerings from cable providers such as Comcast and Cablevision Systems, major local phone companies across the country -- sometimes called RBOCs (regional Bell operating companies) -- are close to seeing the collapse of the last barriers to local phone competition. "This is one of the big fears among the RBOCs, that cable companies will make a major push in local telephone markets," said Mark May, an analyst at Kaufman Bros. "Cox and Comcast have launched local services, and cable operators have made inroads offering telephone service at significant discount to the RBOCs." After years of delay, real competition is finally making its way into the local residential telephone market, promising enormous industry upheavals similar to those that shook the long-distance market nearly two decades ago. The number of local telephone lines controlled by the nation's major phone companies has been dropping steadily since 2001, according to In-Stat/MDR analyst Norm Bogen. In the first half of 2001, the RBOCs saw the number of local phone lines on their networks drop by about 2 percent. Since then, the trend has continued, with the Bells losing 4 percent of their local lines by the first half of 2002. ... http://news.com.com/2100-1037-1008962.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And it is good to see it happening, is it not? The lady in the office at our cableco, Cable One said to me that 'part of the deal, when Time Warner traded us over to Cable One was that they (Time Warner) was going to share some of their technology on voice telephony with us as time went along.' She continued, 'they are starting phone service in Oregon soon (this was told me about two weeks ago) and we are doing it in Tulsa and parts of Cherokee County in Oklahoma. Give us a couple years maybe then even Prairie Stream will have some non-Bell competition.' I don't know about you other guys, but that sort of thing gives me so many thrills, it really does. Just imagine, in this part of the country, *two or three real choices* in telephone service; *two or three real choices* in Internet service. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 03:33:05 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Harvard Study Wrestles With Gator By Declan McCullagh Staff Writer, CNET News.com A Harvard University researcher has completed an investigation of the Gator advertising utility, offering a glimpse into the workings of one of the Web's most controversial pop-up networks. Gator is a utility, sometimes derided as "spyware," that monitors a user's Web browsing activity and displays relevant advertisements. Until this week, the service promised advertisers that it could slap promotions onto a computer screen when a reader visited a competitor's Web site. According to , pop-up advertisements for Sun Microsystems' powerful V880 server, boasting "See how Sun beats IBM," are aimed at Gator users who visit IBM.com. In the cutthroat travel business, Orbitz, Travelocity.com, Priceline.com, and Cheap Tickets have purchased pop-ups that Gator users visiting arch rival Expedia will see, the study found. Expedia, in turn, uses Gator to aim its own "bargain fares" ads at all four of its competitors' sites. The report "provides some data as to how much advertising Gator is showing and to whom it is targeted," said author Ben Edelman, who has testified as an expert witness against Gator in at least one legal challenge to its service. "For Web site operators, and to be sure, their legal staff, it's important to know whether Gator is targeting them or not, and if so, how much." Scott Eagle, Gator's senior vice president for marketing, said the company was examining the report for possible errors, but he did not contest specific findings as of late Wednesday. Nevertheless, Eagle raised general doubts about the study's methodology, observing that the report relied on information gleaned from Gator's client software without taking into account actions performed on Gator's servers. http://news.com.com/2100-1032-1008954.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 03:48:06 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: 802.11g Heads For Standards Approval By Richard Shim Staff Writer, CNET News.com The latest wireless networking specification is on track for standards approval, which should open the door for further adoption of the already popular technology. A working group within the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), an organization responsible for setting standards for the networking industry, finished work on the most recent version of the 802.11g wireless networking specification last week. That version, 8.2, will likely be the final form of the 802.11g specification, which is expected to be approved as a standard at an upcoming IEEE meeting on June 12. The standardization could increase the momentum of 802.11g. While some companies have already taken the plunge, basing products on the specification, the more conservative yet influential players such as Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft have been waiting for the specification to become a standard. Companies have cited the technology's incompatibility with 802.11b as the main reason for their hesitation. http://news.com.com/2100-1039-1008774.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 03:49:38 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Last Stop Before the Media Monopoly FCC chairman Michael Powell is likely to get media ownership deregulated -- even though public comment is running 97 percent against it. By Eric Boehlert May 23, 2003 | By all accounts Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell knew his crusade to eliminate decades' worth of media ownership limits was going to be a bruising fight, both inside and outside the commission. The prospect of a rush toward more media consolidation raises all sorts of hot-button issues about the future of American media and the role news plays in a democratic society. Powell now looks likely to emerge victorious, via a party-line 3-2 vote among FCC commissioners set for early June. But thanks to an avalanche of negative public feedback, surprisingly chilly reception from both Democratic and Republican members of Congress, and the unusually public spat that's broken out internally at the FCC over the details of the final proceedings, the battle leading up to the vote -- as opposed to the actual outcome -- is emerging as a compelling http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/05/23/powells_fight/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 03:51:05 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Can the Web Beat Big Media? FCC czar Michael Powell says new technologies will let diversity flourish even as giant corporations consolidate their control over TV and newspapers. Dream on. Editor's note: Eighth in a series on the consolidation of power and ownership in the media landscape. By Farhad Manjoo May 21, 2003 | Michael Powell, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, is an anachronism. The things he enjoys -- deregulation and new technology -- are icons of a bygone era, a gilded age that long ago lost its luster. But Powell remains a believer; in just about every speech he makes, he extols the virtues of the Internet or cellphones or Wi-Fi or TiVo. "Something really different has happened, and it is more than an aberration," Powell said in a speech in late April. "We have, I think, witnessed the arrival of something new -- a defining tenet around which to organize our thinking, our industrial activity, and our conception of the public interest. It is technology -- not classic economics, not political science, not law, but physics, biology and chemistry." The rhetoric is not unlike much of what we heard on CNBC in 1999: The world has changed. The old rules no longer matter. Let's get rid of them. The rules Powell has been itching to scrap are those that place ownership limits on companies that own newspapers and television stations. Critics of the plan fear that it will lead to an ever more concentrated media world, one in which much of what we see, hear and read is controlled by a handful of mega-corporations. But Powell's argument is not obviously wrong. During the past decade, at the same time that TV, radio and the newspapers have become the domain of a cozy club of barons, we've seen the Web grow into a serious rival to the traditional media, providing ordinary Americans with news sources from which they'd long been cut off. Still, regardless of the platform, the most popular content remains in the keep of a small and shrinking bunch. Why is this so? The answer is obvious, say critics of deregulation: A firm that owns a great swath of the traditional media has phenomenal leverage on new platforms. A Web site may be great -- but it becomes even greater, and only really valuable, when you also own TV stations and newspapers, a situation that Powell's rules will exacerbate. TV still matters. Newspapers still matter. And the Web, while it's growing in importance, is still no match. http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/05/21/web_vs_big_media/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 04:00:16 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Great Media Gulp By WILLIAM SAFIRE WASHINGTON The future formation of American public opinion has fallen into the lap of an ambitious 36-year-old lawyer whose name you never heard. On June 2, after deliberations conducted behind closed doors, he will decide the fate of media large and small, print and broadcast. No other decision made in Washington will more directly affect how you will be informed, persuaded and entertained. His name is Kevin Martin. He and his wife, Catherine, now Vice President Dick Cheney's public affairs adviser, are the most puissant young "power couple" in the capital. He is one of three Republican members of the five-person Federal Communications Commission, and because he recently broke ranks with his chairman, Michael Powell (Colin's son), on a telecom controversy, this engaging North Carolinian has become the swing vote on the power play that has media moguls salivating. The F.C.C. proposal remains officially secret to avoid public comment but was forced into the open by the two commission Democrats. It would end the ban in most cities of cross-ownership of television stations and newspapers, allowing such companies as The New York Times, Washington Post and Chicago Tribune to gobble up ever more electronic outlets. It would permit Viacom, Disney and AOL Time Warner to control TV stations with nearly half the national audience. In the largest cities, it would allow owners of "only" two TV stations to buy a third. We've already seen what happened when the F.C.C. allowed the monopolization of local radio: today three companies own half the stations in America, delivering a homogenized product that neglects local news coverage and dictates music sales. And the F.C.C. has abdicated enforcement of the "public interest" requirement in issuing licenses. Time was, broadcasters had to regularly reapply and show public-interest programming to earn continuance; now they mail the F.C.C. a postcard every eight years that nobody reads. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/22/opinion/22SAFI.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: NY Times goes require registration to read articles therein. Readers here are invited to use our group login to avoid unwanted spam and privacy invasions: login telecomdigest and password telecomdigest PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 04:15:01 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: TiVo Q1 Results Strong Consumer Demand Fuels Record Q1 Subscription Growth for TiVo; Home Media Option Contributes to Improved Bottom Line Results - May 22, 2003 04:00 PM (PR Newswire) - TiVo's standalone and DIRECTV subscription growth increases 88% compared to Q1 last year, for a total subscription base of 703,000 - Total service and technology revenues grew 63%, while significantly narrowing loss - TiVo extends licensing portfolio with new TiVo Basic service level to drive deployment - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34304688 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 04:26:10 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Kazaa Says on Track to be Most-Downloaded Program LOS ANGELES, May 23 (Reuters) - Sharman Networks Ltd on Thursday said its Kazaa file-sharing software was on track to set a record in the next day as it becomes the most-popular free program on the Web with over 230 million downloads. By hitting that total, Kazaa would surpass the popular ICQ instant messaging program, Sharman said. Kazaa's growing popularity comes at a crucial time for the music industry as it battles file-swapping services in court and tries to develop commercially viable online music services. As of late Thursday, the Kazaa Media Desktop application -- a file-sharing software that has drawn the wrath of the music industry by enabling its users to swap songs for free -- had been downloaded 229,150,955 times, as measured by Download.com, which is owned by CNET Networks Inc.(NASDAQ:CNET) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34308635 ------------------------------ From: geercon@alltel.net (David) Subject: Re: FEATURE-Online Game Strategy Splits Video Game Industry Date: 23 May 2003 09:46:01 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Monty Solomon wrote in message news:: > By Reed Stevenson and Ben Berkowitz > LOS ANGELES, May 20 (Reuters) - It's a karaoke machine and a video > conferencing center, a wireless jukebox and a DVD player. The latest > and greatest gadget in home entertainment? > No, just the well-worn video game console your kids already have in > the living room. > In the turf war being fought to control space in the living room of > the future, rivals Sony Corp. (TOKYO:6758) and Microsoft > Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) have made it clear that the current generation of > game consoles were meant to be Trojan horses -- the real pay-off would > come when the machines were connected to a network. > Now, as both companies unveil the Internet-based services expected to > be the next big thing for the $30 billion games business, sharp > differences over their strategies have emerged along with a debate > about how much consumers will be willing to pay for such online > offerings. > - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34269901 So what are Sony's major initiatives (new products, services, features) related to online gaming over the next 12 to 18 months? ------------------------------ From: Bruce Adler Subject: Vodavi 1224EX Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 05:43:01 GMT I'm replacing a 616FLEX with a 1224EX. Can anyone tell me how to configure a Single Line Adapter (SP584-00) on the 1224EX? There's no mention of the SLA in the 1224EX's manual. On the 616, it's one of the subfunctions of function *08 (the other subfunction is "Basic Keyset". But on the 1224EX, function *08 only has subfunctions for "Basic Keyset" and "DSS". I'm tempted to setup the SLA as a "Basic Keyset", does anyone know whether that would work? Thanks. ------------------------------ From: krulla11@yahoo.com (Michael) Subject: Information on an Unlisted Number Date: 22 May 2003 23:42:20 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hello, I would like to know if there is any way getting information like a name and address of the person of a unlisted phone number. If so how do I do it? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oftentimes, yes, but not from telco. One thing telco seems to do pretty well is guard their subscriber's privacy on request. Did the person ever provide their email address or telephone number to *anyone else* such as a credit grantor or an email directory? You can check things like credit bureau 'headers' (which are NOT part of the protected under law part of their credit bureau files.) You can check email directories such as switchboard.com and other such, in the hopes the person sent email and their email address got picked up along the way. You can check 'city directories' to see if the person is listed there. You can look in the local court house at public records to see if the person was ever part of any legal process (either won a judgment or had one entered against them.) Regards 'credit bureau headers', those are the part of the credit bureau file *above* the perforated line as we used to say, the address, the phone number, the birth date and the *social security number* used to identify the person. That is all public information. Only the bottom part of the report (below the perforated line) is protected information, the part known in the business as the 'trades'. You have to be a bonafide credit grantor *and* be in possession of an application for an extension of credit to see those things. Most people think because they have a 'non pub' phone number they have covered their tracks pretty well. Not really. Anyone can be located, if the stakes are worth it. The better sources of information, while available on the internet are not free like most of the spam email we get. You have to have an account with the databases, or cut a deal with a broker to get what you want. The old paper records (mostly microfilm) are free of course, if you know how to use them. But most searchers do not want ancient history, they want 'here and now' current information. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: SpamAssassin From: noemail@forme.com (Carlo Coggi) Organization: Organization Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 10:53:36 GMT By comparison, here's a review of Apple's own Baysian filter in its free Apple Mail (for OS X): http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=75&u=/nf/20030522/tc_nf/21571 &printer=1 How Apple's Spam Filter Stacks Up Tiernan Ray, www.EcommerceTimes.com I won't say I don't receive pitches for the occasional mortgage discount or Vegas vacation, the latest performance-enhancing elixir or anatomical wonder pills. Somehow those untidy and still slightly amusing offenders still wriggle past my defenses. In general, though, I've had good results with a built-in spam stopper in Apple Computer's Mail program, which I've used daily since it was released with the Jaguar update of OS X last year. Amid the frantic hand-wringing over unwanted e-mail, I've heard relatively little mention of this program, so I thought I'd offer my impressions gleaned from nearly 10 months of using the product. On the whole, the Mail client in OS X does an excellent job of sorting out the refuse. Of the 125 or so daily e-mails I have received in the last week, about 700 went straight to the Junk folder that Apple Mail sets up. Despite the annoying come-ons that get through the filter, my Inbox remains relatively free of everything but real correspondence. Just as important, my perusal of the Junk folder on most days shows that little or nothing in the way of real mail has been misfiled. Sniffing Out Spam We all know spam when we see it, but enabling a computer to recognize it is the challenge and the goal of spam programs. Apple says it has gone beyond the approach taken by most filters, which is to look for words or addresses only in the header information of an e-mail. A technology that Apple calls "latent adaptive semantic analysis" is a process of searching through a message's entire text for patterns of words in combination, according to Apple representative Ken Bereskin. He says the company has speech experts on staff who have helped develop a unique approach to parsing combinations of words. The filter in Mail also allows you to train the program by flagging messages that the software thinks are Junk, then offering you the option to veto those judgments. In addition, a rules screen lets you specify specific senders or content that should automatically be swept into the Junk folder. Happily, I was able to avoid all of this complexity and simply turn Mail's filter to "automatic," at which point it absconds with suspected messages and dumps them in the Junk folder. That means there was almost no startup penalty for using the filter, which was a big relief in turning the thing on in the first place. Of the few messages that were misfiled early on, it was easy to set Mail straight by clicking the "not junk" button in the program's control bar. As rates have come down, I've considered adding the word "mortgage" to the program's default junk filter, but I find it's easy enough to click the "junk" button and dispatch the occasional problem e-mail to the dustbin of history. Spam 'Em Back Apple's Mail has its limitations. Many institutions use a central spam-filtering application on the server, which can insert into the header field of messages a tag such as "X-Spam-Flag." This flag can tell your e-mail client that the message is spam, and the client then can handle it appropriately. Apple's Mail doesn't automatically include X-Spam-Flag as a rule, which means it doesn't work as a good citizen out of the box. However, if you're like me and work out of a home office, or if you don't want an institution filtering your mail, this may not bother you. I've often found the bulk mail folder, for example, to be an unwelcome feature of free mail services such as Yahoo ( Nasdaq: YHOO -news ) and Hotmail. Aside from misfiling some things, it seems like a crude method that fails to diminish the tide of crud flowing to these free addresses. It's easy enough to set up a rule in Mail to support the spam header if you really want to. More important, rules for spam in the Mail program do not allow recipients to automatically "bounce" junk mail back to the sender. This is a curious omission for an otherwise well-designed program. The bounce function effectively tells spammers you're not in, which may compel them to take you off their mailing list. Then again, the return address listed on a spam message may belong to just another poor shlub on the list, so bouncing messages may do no more than further the harassment. A Step Forward To be fair, not everyone is thrilled with the results of the Mail program. As one blogger has written, some find the filter catches only a small percentage of their junk. I can't rightly say why results vary so much, but it may be that the Apple filter is not a heavy lifter for those who receive literally hundreds of spam messages per day. From my perspective, though, Apple's filter is a step in the right direction. It may not be the best filter, but it comes with the platform, it's easy to use, and it works well most of the time. I'm looking forward to the next version, with the release of the Panther update to OS X, in which we will hopefully see an option to automatically forward our spam to Senator Conrad Burns. ------------------------------ From: Steven J. Sobol Subject: Re: SpamAssassin Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 12:15:55 -0000 Organization: JustThe.net LLC Joey Lindstrom (joey@garynuman.info) wrote: > I'm in kinda the same boat as you, in that I'm reticent to simply > chuck anything that SpamAssassin considers spam. I'm designing a system whereby SpamAssassin tags the spam with an X-Spam-Score header and I let my users decide whether to keep it or not. I'm also going to give them individual control of their spamassassin and procmail configurations. Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge, JustThe.net POTS: Toll Free from anywhere in the USA or Canada, 888.480.4NET (4638) HTTP: www.JustTheNetLLC.com MAIL: 5686 Davis Drive, Mentor on the Lake, OH 44060-2752 ------------------------------ From: dold@MappingXTe.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: Mapping Telephone Exchanges Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 14:00:17 UTC Organization: a2i network Adrian wrote: > Where can I find a map of telephone exchanges -- i.e. locating > where the first 3-digits of a telephone number refer to > geographically. > I want to find the nearest modem bank closest to me from a list of > possible numbers. Given that you aren't concerned about the difference between two miles and five miles, just toll versus non-toll, and they are places that you would recognize around your home, you might be able to make sense of the nanpa listings. http://www.nanpa.com/number_resource_info/co_code_assignments.html http://www.nanpa.com/nanp1/AllCodes.zip ALLCODES.MDB nanpa npa nxx State NPA NXX Use OCN Company RC Switch "CA" "707" "993" "AS" "7379" "PAC - WEST TELECOMM, INC." "LOWER LAKE" "OKLDCAAN1KD" As someone else mentioned, the actual switch in this case is in Oakland, so that would be misleading, but I "know" that Lower Lake is a local call to me. Pac-West isn't my ISP, but apparently a company they contract with for the local numbers. You are interested only in RC, the Rate Center. Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA 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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V22 #473 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri May 23 19:02:56 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4NN2uN09650; Fri, 23 May 2003 19:02:56 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 19:02:56 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305232302.h4NN2uN09650@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #474 TELECOM Digest Fri, 23 May 2003 19:03:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 474 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: MCI Sucks!!!! (Jack Daniel) Cable TV Powering (was E-911, and Before That, Vonage) (Neal McLain) E1 Alarms (Vcc Ground) Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" on Second ATA Port (G. Mitchell) Re: B101 FM-WBEB Philadelphia (Chris Nowinski) Re: Cheapest Long Distance Call Card Rates From Europe to U.S. (Dave) Re: Mapping Telephone Exchanges (John R. Levine) Re: Mapping Telephone Exchanges (tonypo1@sdc.cox.net) Re: NobelCom / HelloCollege (Joseph) 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: Jack Daniel Reply-To: JackDaniel@RFSolutions.com Subject: Re: MCI Sucks!!!! Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 17:00:03 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net MCI/Worldcom screwed me too! Their business invoices are intentionally complex and confusing. After going through several peple to get an explanation of some fee coddes, I discovered I had been charged for a service that was doscontinued SEVEN years ago! I finally got a person to admit the charges were for a service they hadn't even offered for years. I asked for a refund and was advised they were only obligated by FCC tarrifs to refund six months regardless of the nature or duration of the charges. They said they would post six months credit to my account. This was not the first time they they screwed me over the 15 plus years I was loyal to them, but I decided it would be the last time. I immedeatly contacted my local carrier (Verizon) and switched all my long distance and 800 line service to them. The next invoice showed up with no credit, but I was assured it was because the credit missed the final month's accounting and a credit or check would be issued. The next invoice showed up and I was still being billed for the invalid service and the base rates as though they were still rendering service. Although I was given a telephone number, extension and name of the person who promised to stop the charges and issue a credit, it was apparently bogus info because no one could locate that individual for a follow up. I did however get a confirmation that the services had been transferred to Verizon and to just ignore the invoice as a corrected one would be sent. The following month I was billed AGAIN for the invalid and discontinued services. I got pissed and called every number I could find and NOBODY knew what I was talking about. One person said MCI couldn't help me because I wasn't even a customer according to her info. I finally got a supervisor that was one of the most abusive people I have ever talked to. She had one objective ... screw the customer every way you can! Despite the fact that everyone said they couldn't locate my records, past account or anything at all about the six month credit, she obviously had a file open because she would cite dates and comments when to her advantage. I was told; - Since I never sent in a formal WRITTEN discontinuance of MCI/Worldcom services, I had to pay charges ... even after Verizon had taken over the accounts. - But since I no longer had no account with Worldcom, I could not request a credit. - Sending a written discontinuance request would not reinstate a claim for credit because the claim had to exist before the discontinuance of service. - She said 'someone' had improperly issued some credits to my account and I was LUCKY Worldcom didn't reverse those. When I asked who issued the credits (the mystery man I first talked to) she said there was no way to trace that in their system. - I pointed out that since she obviously has a record of the credit towards the invalid service, that should confirm the verbal agreement to discontinue that service. HERES THE BEST RESPONSE OF ALL; "Sir, It's your word against mine". So ... IF you want customer respect and want to deal with an honest company, MCI / Worldcm is NOT a good choice. No matter what you do with these people, document it in detail, get names, record conversations, etc. You may need it to sue them later. PS: I just got my first Verizon invoice. It was just 5 pages instead of 20, gave complete details of calls and services on ONE imvoice and was 1/3 what I had been paying Worldcom/MCI. They even called to see if everything was OK. =============================================================== shpat01 wrote: > I cancelled my telephone line two months ago, and the cancellation did > not go through for another month. When I received a full month's bill > (and not the prorated bill), I called up the customer service, and she > said, that she will have to take the cancellation order again, and > that I have to pay the bill in full, and I should keep checking if the > line has been disconnected, and then call back the customer service to > get a credit on my account. > Today, I called MCI customer service, and they said that the financial > department can give me a refund, and they cannot help. The financial > representative transferred me back to the customer service department, > saying they cannot help me, and the customer service should be able to > help me. They kept transferring me back and forth, I kept repeating > the same story everytime I was transferred, finally the seventh time, > the representative told me that they cannot give me a credit, because > the last invoice is not pro-ratable. This is unbelievable, because on > my first line, they did send me a pro-rated bill. > I think MCI is collecting money from people using these kind of > tactics, and trying to come out of bankruptcy. I hope that the company > is doomed for ever. > Speaking of their accounting, none of the representatives have any > clue of what's going on in the system. They kept sending me someone > else's bill, and that account was disconnected a long time ago!! I had > to make a lot of phone calls to get that issue fixed. > Please stay away from MCI, and save your precious time and money (and > peace of mind). ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 08:22:07 -0600 From: Neal McLain Reply-To: nmclain@annsgarden.com Organization: Ann's Garden Subject: Cable TV Powering (was E-911, and before that, Vonage) John R. Levine wrote: > I don't know about your cable system, but the systems I know > run off regular commercial power, and when the power goes > out, the cable goes out. (Since most people's TV and PC > don't work without power either, who cares?) Whereupon Ed Ellers added: > At least some cable systems (including Insight in Louisville, > Kentucky) have various types of UPSes deployed along their > cable plant. Insight put in AlphaPower battery backups when > they rebuilt their system to 750 MHz hybrid fiber/coax in the > 1990s; when they decided to add cable telephony they replaced > those with new units, also from AlphaPower, that included > natural gas-fueled generators that start automatically when > commercial power fails. Since these are fed by the gas mains, > they can run for quite a while and don't need to have fuel > trucked in (as is the case with the Diesel-powered generators > in some telco COs). Cable TV systems are powered by power supplies distributed throughout the network. A large cable system may have dozens of power supplies scattered throughout the network. A typical pole-mounted power supply is a 2- or 3-cubic foot box mounted 10 to 20 feet above grade. Each power supply provides power for perhaps a dozen amplifiers in the immediate neighborhood. Each power supply interfaces as follows: - Input: 115-volt 60-Hz sine wave. It is permanently wired to the power company's regular 115-volt distribution service. Depending on power company policy, the supply may be metered or unmetered; if metered, the meter (and associated disconnect switch) are typically mounted on the same pole as the power supply, around six feet above grade. - Output: 60-, 75-, or 90-volt 60-Hz square wave at something between 5 and 15 amperes depending on the application. This voltage is imposed on the cable (the same cable that carries the RF signal) and provides power for amplifiers in both directions. Each amplifier contains its own local power supply ("power pack") that converts the square wave into DC for the amplifier circuitry. In a large cable system, a given trunk line may have as many as 20 cascaded amplifiers (or sometimes more, but that's another story). The trunk line may pass through half-a-dozen power supply zones, each of which may provide power for three or four trunk amplifiers. It isn't necessarily true that "when the power goes out, the cable goes out." It's quite possible for a power outage in one neighborhood to knock out just one power supply, thus affecting an the entire trunk line. So the cable could be out, but the power still operating. Conversely, for some subscribers, the power could be out but the cable still operating. Most cable systems built since the 1970s incorporate backup power supplies that use rechargeable batteries. Typical backup power supplies can provide operating power for several hours. (Historical anecdote: some early backup power supplies used standard car batteries; once that word got around, stolen batteries became a problem.) In recent years, large cable networks have been broken up into smaller sub-networks, each fed from a separate node in the network. Each node is connected by fiber to a master headend (the resulting topology is sometimes called "tree and bush" or "pepperoni pizza"). This technique greatly reduces the number of amplifiers in cascade, thus improving performance and reliability. And it's essential for cable modem service or telephony, since these services require dedicated bandwidth capacity for each active user. Each node is powered separately, and incorporates backup power. The first line of defense against power outages is provided by batteries. Other forms of backup power include diesel generators and, as Ed Ellers noted, gas generators. And I've even heard of backup power systems that utilize mechanical flywheels, although I've never seen one. Further information about CATV powering: http://www.sbe24.org/archive/pdf-files/dec97.pdf http://www.sbe24.org/archive/pdf-files/feb98.pdf Neal McLain nmclain@annsgarden.com ------------------------------ From: vccground@yahoo.co.in (Vcc Ground) Subject: E1 Alarms Date: 23 May 2003 08:52:56 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hello, 1) Can anybody clearly explain me the E1 alarms? Particularly AIS. This is all what I know: Let's take an example of two E1 equipment, say A and B, connected back to back say with a cross-crimped cable (with no other equipment like repeaters, channel banks etc in between). Suppose the E1 here is "framed" and the transmit path of mux A gets disrupted. So there will be a loss of signal at the receive path of B and it goes into a state what the T1 people in USA call a "red alarm". Now B in its transmit direction will set bit number 3 of NFAS frames i.e odd numbered frames. So this will be a "remote alarm indication" or "yellow alarm" in T1 parlance for mux A. Upon registering this alarm condition mux A will stop sending its normal payload and instead sends an "all 1s" signal also called "AIS" or "blue" alarm towards B. Mux B also starts sending the same "all 1s" signal towards A. Err am I right? If I am what's the scenario in case of "unframed" E1 because there isn't any bit 3 kind of thing in it? In either case how does this "all 1s" signal help in recovering? What exactly is the recovery procedure? Also how does the receiver can still recover clock from this AIS signal? Also, what's this "multiframe AIS"? To add to this confusion, the data book of Rockwell E1 framer that I'm using says that if there's a "loss of receive signal" condition, then the framer will immediately start sending AIS towards the other end. No need of setting bit 3 of NFAS frame, in case of "framed" E1, and wait for the other end to send AIS first? 2) Please suggest some web sites that have good and neatly explained tutorials on analogue and digital telecom. Long live groups!! Thanks, Vcc Ground PS: I'd appreciate if replies to my message are posted here on groups rather than sent to my email. I feel this would help others who are equally confused like I am. Thank You. ------------------------------ From: George Mitchell Subject: Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on Second ATA Port Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 09:46:25 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Vonage is beginning to look like something I would want. But it does not yet have distinctive ringing, a feature which my family has fallen in love with. When I wrote to questions@vonage.com, they told me they "may in the near future" support it. I suppose we could deduce from the caller ID who the call is for, but distinctive ringing is so much more convenient. I also asked if I could install the Cisco ATA-186 behind a firewall with NAT and received the following incoherent reply: The Cisco ATA would sit behind the router and must have a dynamic IP not static to work with our service. This is why DHCP and NAT are required for our service to work properly. Looking at the Cisco release notes, it appears that you can statically NAT port 2427 to your ATA-186, but the idea that the device requires a dynamic IP address just seems wrong. Pat: if and when I do sign up, what email address should I give for the Refer-a-Friend program so that you can get a credit? -- George Mitchell (obfuscated email address) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Two points ... I think Vonage said to me that the 'second port on the back of the ATA' could be used, so you might try this: see if Vonage will give you a second, unique number intended as a FAX number. I think it will carry voice as well, even though the bandwidth is not sufficient for two calls at the same time. Get a second phone with an easily identifiable ring that would not be confused with the ringing (of the phone which is plugged into the first port). When someone calls the 'second' number, when it reaches you I think what Vonage does is somehow routes it through the second (allegedly fax) port. So then, when the new phone you got makes it own little tinkle sound (because someone called on that 'fax' number) you answer that phone instead of the 'regular' VOIP phone. Now you have your 'distinctive ring', sort of, just like I have my number in Independence (let's call it X) and my distinctive ring number (let's call it Y) and where X rings me, Y goes ring-ring. Your X will ring, your Y will buzz or make some other feeble sound, because it comes out on port two to a 'fax machine' -- it thinks. You will not be able to use an alias or virtual number, since those are collected up and sent down through the net to port one on the back of the ATA. You will probably have to buy an actual second number from them, since, if I understand them correctly the way they trick the incoming signal into exiting on port two at your end instead of port one is with some sort of a bit on the front of the stream coming in. If you got a FAX number (actually intended and used as a fax through the second port) from Vonage to start with,(I am told they do that same sort of thing [trip some bit on the start of the stream] so it aims at port two rather than one on the way out) that I think you might get a bit cheaper, but Vonage would no doubt look askance at someone using a fax line for voice purposes. Obviously you still get only one conversation at a time, but distinctive ring is like that also. One actual instrument, one mouth/ear piece, one conversation. Distinctive ring is a great service if you are a person like me, living alone and all you want is a way to easily and audibly detirmine the proper answer phrase, etc, but if you have two or three guys all living together and sharing phones, none of the various 'split up a single line' techniques like call waiting or three way calling or distinctive ringing are going to work. One or more of the guys is going to have to wait to use (answer or originate) a call of his choice. I have my 800 number pointed at my distinctive ring-ring number as a way to tell whose nickle is paying for the call. If you live with two or more guys, then you need two or more actual pairs, and actual instruments, and actual mouth/ear pieces to have two or more actual conversations so there is no impatient, angry guy waiting to use the phone. I do not know how you intended to use your 'distinctive ring like' number if you decided to go with Vonage, but the system (unless you get either a *very wide* internet pipe or two regular pipes) is only going to handle one call in or one call out at a time. For next: you and any other readers: *If* you decide you want to try Vonage, I feel they are trustworthy and competent in what they do, so I am not afraid of being humiliated or mortified in recommending them. To sign up, please send me email as follows: send a message here to telecom in the usual way, with a subject line saying 'not for publication. Send Vonage coupon to (your name/email address)'. I will in turn send you an 'e-coupon' (a link to a special URL) which signs you up AND automatically gives me a month's service in the process. You have no obligations at all, it is month by month, so come and go when you want; they charge your credit card for the whole thing. But read over the URL carefully you get in return from them (via me) so you do not get something you do not want. I guess by now you all know my email address: ptownson@telecom-digest.org . Oh, another point: If Vonage wanted to offer a true distinctive ring type service they could fix it so the 'distinctive ring-ring' number (NOT just an alias virtual number) sent that bit at the start of the stream directing the call to port two on the back of the ATA and then got Cisco to build for them something that would interupt the ringing voltage in just the right sequence for ring-ring versus ring and then feed the two outputs (of ring and ring-ring) into port one. Then your single line phone would behave exactly the same as it does with Bell. Just a suggestion for whatever those are worth these days from a brain deseased demented old fool who has no credibility any longer, as anyone on the net could tell you. PAT] ------------------------------ From: bandsherein@yahoo.com (chris nowinski) Subject: Re: B101 FM-WBEB Philadelphia Date: 22 May 2003 21:23:00 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ bandsherein@yahoo.com (chris nowinski) wrote in message news:... > Attention: > Do not listen to B101 - WBEB Philadelphia because ... > 3)Their telephone lines, both local and toll-free are disconnecting > callers if nobody picks up within 2 minutes, which makes it impossible > to get through to the station. Yet they do not care to do anything > about it. Hi Editor, what is your email so I can send you some mail privately? The station (WBEB) blames the disconenct problem solely on the telephone company and actually advised me to call them. When I called of course they said they couldn't discuss or do anything about it without the station's proper authorities doing the calling. The station refuses to do anything, and considering how the d.j.'s couldn't even pick you up for a half hour of ringing (when their toll free lines didn't hang up before), you can imagine what the situation is now with only 2 minutes to stay on a line. Hey, you wouldn't happen to know of how to find out different radio station's backdoor numbers or something similar? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You reached me at the best email address possible. I do not know about your specific community's telephone system, but in many/most towns, there are things called 'choke exchanges' which are used for radio station contest lines or call in lines. These exchanges (for instance in Chicago it was 312-591) are set up to make an orderly flow of calls into the station. When the 'choke exchange' gets more calls than can be handled -- as often times happens during contests or very popular call in shows -- then the choke exchange cuts in and refuses to accept any more calls, or sometimes allows it to ring forever unanswered. This prevents your town's phone service from getting totally clogged up with calls for the contest or whatever. The numbers on a choke exchange are often times simply the last four digits of some other number with the choke exchange prefix. For example, the number at a Chicago area radio station might be 312-944-1234, a non-published number. The 'choke' version of the number might be 591-1234 which is highly publicized where people are invited to call with music requests or contest entries, etc. If you happen to know what the 'real' number is (in the example 944-1234) then you could dial that and *sometimes* have better luck in getting through than by using the 'official' number given out of 591-1234. Often times, 'choke exchanges' are not dialable outside the local calling area. For example again, 591-1234 might be dialable from the 312/773/847/708 area codes -- in other words, the radio station's listening range -- but not reachable from let's say, 415 in San Franciso or 212 in New York, because the radio station would not be heard in those places. It helps if you know the prefixes which are likely in the area where the radio station is located (again, in Chicago for an example) Whitehall, Superior, Delaware and a few others in the 'near north side' of Chicago. Going through them one at a time adding on the suffix '1234' you might reach the station, bypassing the choke exchange for whatever benefit that gave you. Another kind of back door approach might be the way you got through to the radio station's administrative offices; they did not keep you waiting or refuse to pick up right away on that line, did they? Does the radio station (administrative offices) have a direct-inward-dial type system to call individual offices direct? Or a centrex system, or one of those things where you listen to a short menu of choices then punch what you want? On most of those systems you can also 'break out' to various extensions around the complex. When you get a choice of 'pressing X to reach information, etc' instead you just press the desired three or four digit extension you really want. On most of those voicemail systems you can use 'operator escape' which means press the single digit zero to be transferred to a live human being. I can tell you that the DJ or program host or engineering staff have one of those extensions as well. Your job is to 'reverse engineer' or 'social engineer' the answer out of the radio station. Let's say the radio station 444-1000 has extension 1234 in the DJ area. Where he (DJ) would very likely allow the choke (or other publicized number simply ring forever when he was in that mood) he would be much more likely to immediatly answer on the extension 1234 line; after all, it could be his boss calling; or one of his co-workers to ask about lunch, etc. If you can reverse engineer and find out that internal number which rings there in the DJ or program host area, you will most likely get through ONE TIME. If they are not shocked at having some listener from the public calling them on that line and actually take your request once, they most likely will not fall for it a second time. So you want to find out the *administrative number* for the radio station and begin to patiently explore the workings of its phone system. If you get a voicemail or auto attendant operator answer, learn the menu options and experiment with 'breaking out' to regular extensions around the building. Here is a practical example my recent past, and we talked a little about this yesterday in the Digest. Family Radio in Oakland, CA is a bit bureaucratic and difficult to work with. One day recently, their computerized system went haywire; the computer was totally out of context in what it was saying and the music it was playing. The taped station ID for 'KEAR' was popping in and out on an irregular basis with hillarious results (really!). I called their toll free number, 800-543-1495 and the disinterested doofus who took my call had no idea what I was talking about or wanted. To her, I was another of the several crank calls she gets each day. I called back again on the regular number 510-568-6200 and told the lady answering on that line that I wanted 'KEAR network control'. Uh, uh ... you can't have them. I will take a message and relay it. The message was never relayed. When the problem continued a few hours later (and in fact got worse, the endless loop tape saying 'KEAR San Francisco' was simply repeating itself over and over a couple minutes at a time, I called back on the main number 510-568-6200 (not the toll free number used to get their books, etc) and this time I asked for the Programming Department. A nice lady answered the phone, we had a pleasant chat and I told her that the network computer thing was *still* out of order. She apologized profusely, said they had tried to 'fix it about an hour ago and she guessed it was still wrong'; she would tell them again, and I sensed that she got up from her desk and went and told them right away because a minute or two later the errant endless loop tape went off and the regular programming resumed. The next day more or less the same thing happened. The network computer was somehow out of whack, the recorded messages were giving time checks *entirely* at the wrong times, the station ID thing was popping in and out at inappropriate times, and furthermore, the EAS (an automatic signal which cuts in as needed to give emergency community announcements [such as it being northern California, earth- quakes]) was squeeking every so often. This time I figured, to hell with them, let them pay for the call, and I used the 800 number again, but rather than operator escaping with zero so I could tell the dizzy doofus what I wanted, instead I pressed '290' and after it rang a couple times a lady answered who identified herself as 'network control' and *she* fixed the problem immediatly. Now days, when I have some concern about their programming/network computer there at Family Radio I want to tell them about, I call the toll free version of their main number and 'operator escape' to extension 290 and it gets fixed pronto. I suspect that if you 'play the numbers' correctly you could get your way also. Just a hunch. PAT] ------------------------------ From: nipper1999@aol.com (Dave) Subject: Re: Cheapest Long Distance Call Card Rates From Europe to U.S. Date: 22 May 2003 21:29:06 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Try the CogniCall International Calling Card. It's not prepaid, so you do not have to worry about wasted minutes. Just pay for what you use. There is no monthly fee so if you don't use it, you don't pay. You can use it to call from over 50 countries to almost anywhere in the world and it's free to obtain so it's nice to have even as a backup. Rates are listed on the site: http://cognigen.net/cognicall/?savemoneynow aaronep@pacbell.net (Aaron Epstein) wrote in message news:: > Can anyone suggest the long distance company that has the lowest rates > for calling the U.S. from Europe using a calling card? > Aaron in N. Hollywood ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Mapping Telephone Exchanges Date: 23 May 2003 00:59:13 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> Where can I find a map of telephone exchanges -- i.e. locating >> where the first 3-digits of a telephone number refer to geographically. >> I want to find the nearest modem bank closest to me from a list of >> possible numbers. The physical location of a switch or modem bank doesn't tell you anything useful any more. A switch and adjacent modem bank can be located anywhere in the LATA, with prefixes assigned all over the place. For example, my Vonage phone has an Ithaca NY number, but the switch is in Syracuse, 75 miles away, and it serves prefixes from Ithaca and Cortland up to Watertown, a range of about 200 miles. Ray Chow's local calling area database is the best resource I know to find out what's a local call from any particular phone number. It's at http://www.areacode-info.com/!plans/lca-chow.htm John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711 johnl@iecc.com Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner http://iecc.com/johnl Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: tonypo1@sdc.cox.net Subject: Re: Mapping Telephone Exchanges Organization: The Ace Tomatoe and Cement Company Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 05:04:26 GMT In article , palee@riteaid.com says: > In TELECOM Digest V22 #470, ka1tl1n1@hotmail.com (Adrian) wrote: >> Where can I find a map of telephone exchanges -- i.e. locating >> where the first 3-digits of a telephone number refer to >> geographically. >> I want to find the nearest modem bank closest to me from a list of >> possible numbers. > Reasonable results can be obtained from: > http://www.mapquest.com/maps/areacode.adp > http://www.dslreports.com/coinfo > If you're willing to pay, try: > http://www.delorme.com/ > http://www.mapinfo.com/ > 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 > Tell your senator you support Senate Bill 877 to CAN-SPAM > . Find him/her at > http://www.senate.gov/. Interestingly -- at least in RI they're all off by about a block. For example, 401-621 is served by the switch on the corner of Washington St. adn Greene St. in downtown Providence. Mapquest shows it at Chapel St. and Snow St. As another example, 401-353 is on Mineral Spring Avenue, about a block before MSA, RI 44 and Woonasquatucket Rd. come together. Mapquest shows it as being on RI 44 when in reality it's on MSA (Aka RI 15). For another test I asked it for 401-461 which I know is on Broad St. in Providence. That one they actually get right. Now for the kicker -- a switch that isn't Verizon. I tried 401-854 which is MCI's switch. It shows it in the same location as 401-621 but is actually on Parsonage St. in the Jewlrey District of Providence. While it may put you in the general area, in some cases it's way off and in others it's right on. Tony ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: NobelCom / HelloCollege Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 08:19:46 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On 22 May 2003 14:05:55 -0700, nospam_googlegroups@scovetta.com (Michael Scovetta) wrote: > I have purchased a few cards from them in the past, and about 80% of > the time, either the call cuts out randomly, forcing you to call the > person back (+ another connection fee) or the voice levels are so > poor, you can hardly hear the other person. I have tried contacting > customer support and they won't even discuss a refund (pro-rated or > otherwise). One would probably ask why you would continue to use cards from these people if the service you received with the cards was substandard? Usually you get what you pay for. The majority (at least what I've seen) of these cards that are usually sold at novelty and ethnic groceries and the like usually have some "gotcha" that's in miniscule type on their ad posters even though in large letters some say "no connection charge." If there's no connection charge there are other things like so much will be deducted from the value of the card periodically, maintenance fees and whatever other gotchas including such things as charging 65 cents per call from pay telephones. If you want a more up front deal you'll use regular branded cards from AT&T, MCI or Sprint though I don't have any great admiration for any of these companies. Replies are seldom read. Please reply in the group ------------------------------ 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #474 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri May 23 22:58:48 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4O2wmq10729; Fri, 23 May 2003 22:58:48 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 22:58:48 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305240258.h4O2wmq10729@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #475 TELECOM Digest Fri, 23 May 2003 22:59:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 475 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: SpamAssassin (Joey Lindstrom) RBOCS Profit on UNE-P, CompTel Says (John Stahl) Re: Apple's New Service Beats Illegal Free Sites (Linc Madison) Re: Hacking the Night Away (Gary Breuckman) Looking for Headsets and Peripherals (Chuk Gleason) More Details, Please (Lisa Minter) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 12:29:48 -0600 Subject: Re: SpamAssassin Reply-To: joey@telussucks.info On Fri, 23 May 2003 14:05:53 EDT, Steven J. Sobol wrote: > Joey Lindstrom (joey@garynuman.info) wrote: >> I'm in kinda the same boat as you, in that I'm reticent to simply >> chuck anything that SpamAssassin considers spam. > I'm designing a system whereby SpamAssassin tags the spam with an > X-Spam-Score header and I let my users decide whether to keep it or > not. I'm also going to give them individual control of their > spamassassin and procmail configurations. Hmm, not a bad idea (the spam score header). Alas, the MDaemon flavour of SpamAssassin does not, as yet, have any way to hand individual control to my users. It's a serious lack, but it's beta ... -- Joey Lindstrom -- Telus Sucks http://www.telussucks.info ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 14:54:34 -0400 From: John Stahl Subject: RBOCS Profit on UNE-P, CompTel Says Dateline May 23, 2003: America's Network runs an article related to the recent FCC UNE-P decision: > RBOCS profit on UNE-P, CompTel says > WASHINGTON CLEC industry group CompTel released a report this week that > it says proves that the Bell operating companies are making, not losing, > money on UNE-P. By Shira Levine. America's Network article: http://www.americasnetwork.com/americasnetwork/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=57969 CompTel UNE-P Study: http://www.comptel.org/press/may22_2003.html If the CompTel "facts" prove true, it sure looks like the RBOCs do make a profit, contrary to their testimony to the FCC, on their UNE-P line rental to the CLECs! Come on FCC, let's keep competition in the Telephone Industry. John Stahl Consultant Aljon Enterprises [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I suspect that 'making a profit' thing is probably true when you deduct the overall high cost of labor intensive customer service reps, which Bell does not need as many of since the CLECs have to provide the customer service and computerized billing. For instance, if there are enough people like me who no longer need to call once a month bare minimum to get adjustments on their bill due to SBC billing errors, etc, then SBC does not need as many reps. The equipment does not take care of itself, there still is a need for technicians, etc, but historically, Bell has always been a very labor intensive and top-heavy organization. I expect as we did with AT&T, we will see that begin to change soon enough. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: Apple's New Service Beats Illegal Free Sites Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 13:31:41 -0700 Organization: LincMad.com Consulting Reply-To: Telecom@LincMad.com In article , Maher Harb wrote: > The idea that I have to pay 99c per song is stupid. This's way too > expensive. They should charge something like a nickle/song. Until > they do so I will continue to use kazaa. I'm sure most people would > agree with me. As for Applemusic and their silly commercials ... they > can only hope to fool the computer illiterates with this ploy. I'm > not wasting any money on records. I haven't done so in years. So how do you think the musicians you like can pay their bills? "It's not about the money, it's about the music," wears a little thin when the landlord is pounding on your door. Sure, the superstars are well past worrying about such things, but there are a lot more good musicians than there are superstars. I might knock it down to maybe 39c or 49c, so you could put together a whole disc for around $7 to $10 (after all, I'm doing the work of compiling the songs and making the actual disc), but there has to be some revenue to pay the artists for making the music, and a nickel a song doesn't do that. www dot LincMad dot com / Telecom at LincMad dot com Linc Madison * San Francisco, California ------------------------------ From: Gary Breuckman Subject: Re: Hacking the Night Away Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 17:27:45 -0500 Organization: Puma's Lair - catbox.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But you know, I think there have been > some improvements in recent versions of Outlook Express. I have, I > think, version 6. Now and again email arrives for me which has some > attachment to it, but when I click to get the attachment (normally a > small drop down box then appears listing it by name) but sometimes the > contents of the drop down box will all be greyed out and attempting to > click on it anyway produces a message saying 'Outlook has examined this > item, and found it to be very dangerous. Shall I destroy it now?' You > get no choice of 'no', just an 'OK'. That's not to say that Outlook > catches it all, but Microsoft seems to have gotten wiser about such > things at least in 2000/XP with Outlook Express 6. Outlook Express 6, by default, forbids opening attachments of a type that "might be dangerous" - however they do that without actually examing the attachment - aimed at folks who did not have / did not keep current a virus scanner and were getting burned ... If you have a virus scanner, and want to disable this somewhat draconian behavior, go to tools options security and uncheck the box that says "Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus." -- Gary Breuckman ------------------------------ From: Chuk Gleason Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 19:08:48 -0400 Subject: Looking for Headsets and Peripherals Once again, I come to the temple of telephony knowledge, seeking, yet admitting my unworthiness... I'm in a situation where I am setting up some sub-rate (less than T1) microwave links; and the orderwire interface is a 6 pin modular jack on the front panel of the radio. Pairs from outside to inside are +12V & Gnd, Receive Audio, and Transmit Audio (or maybe TX & RX). What I'm interested in is a simple black box, that I can plug in here, and then use your basic dollar-3-eighty cheapy Walmart headset for a residential grade cordless phone; kind that has tip-ring-sleeve mini-phone plug on it. If it's out there, in commercial land, I don't know it, because I can't seem to come up with the right thing to call it; or else it's probably really expensive. Any thoughts on this? It seems simple enough, but Friday nite brain fade has taken over ... Thanks, Chuk Gleason Cary, NC ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 19:05:12 EDT From: Lisa Minter Subject: More Details, Please Dear Pat, I have read TD for quite a few years, but have never written before. But you said something the other day which piqued my curiosity. In that off-topic message from the dude in Canada who told about that horrible, sick murder of the little girl (around Toronto somewhere I think) and how police were trying to get all the guys in town to submit to DNA testing you had a moderator note about someone in Chicago who filed suit against the Catholic Church and you said it was not one of the 'funny priest' things. Mind telling a little more of that? Also I wonder why police wanted all the _guys_ in town to submit DNA but they did not ask the same of all the women in town -- or did they? Lisa underscore Minter at yahoo.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Sure enough! And welcome on board, Lisa. I do not know why police would make those 'suggestions' of all the men but not make the same 'suggestions' of the women. I suppose because in most police fantasies about marauding gangs of pedophile pornographers and kidnappers it does not occur to them that sometimes women can also do 'those things'. Police like to watch Fox News and that sort of situation does not interest Fox very often. In a quick nutshell here, because being off-topic -- while I am a specialist and professional at doing so -- it is not really good for the Digest: A middle age guy in Chicago was accused of pedophile acts. He swore up and down that he was guilty of no such thing, but you know (or police will tell you) how those guys lie. Anyway, the guy was arrested, put in Cook County Dungeon (err, Jail) and held there for about five weeks. His bond (to get out of jail and wait for trial) was set at a 'mere' one million dollars. Under Illinois law you have to post one-tenth of the bond (in his case, a 'mere' hundred thousand dollars). Even if you are found not guilty or pay a bribe to the judge or whatever later on, of the hundred thousand you paid for bond, you only get ninety percent of it back with the remainder (in his case) of ten thousand dollars being an administrative fee. So in other words, as soon as the police decided to pin the tail on this donkey he went in hock for ten thousand dollars. He lost his little apartment (after police spread sufficient venom around all over the place) and he lost his job. His older brother took in his dog and as much of his furniture as he could store. The brother could ill afford to post a hundred thousand dollars in bail money -- their entire family could not do anything close -- so there was no choice but leave the guy sit in jail. A month comes and goes; the guy was allowed to see his public pretender (err, defender) lawyer for the first time the day he was taken to court in shackles and handcuffs, which always makes a wonderful impression on a judge or jury, wouldn't you agree? Meanwhile the man's family was able to raise a few thousand dollars to get a *real* attorney on the case. The lawyer -- the real one -- totally smashed to pieces the feeble case which the state had put together -- a case they had 'rubber stamped' based on what the cops had told them. They would not admit they had no case, and asked the court to delay things another week while they looked for the witness or the victim, who never was found. The court went along with that and gave the state another week or two weeks to get its act together. Judges around Chicago always do what police and the state ask them to do; if not, the judge knows that *he* will be on the state prosecutor's short list for an early trip to prison himself. Everyone around Cook County it seems has the goods on everyone else. Any of them could squeal if they wanted to, someone else would wind up going to prison, be it judge, prosecutor, police officer or county employee. So there is a sort of 'mutual understanding' in Cook County between the bunch of them. You do things my way when I ask, and we will get along fine. Another week or two goes by, the man is taken back to court a second or third time (I do not know for sure) but again in shackles and handcuffs. This time the state really cannot find any excuses to keep on holding him, so the judge cuts the guy loose. Now the fun begins. Sort of shell shocked from the experience, the guy goes back to his brother's house and tries to rebuild his life. He happens to go out one day to the grocery store or somewhere and on his bus ride back to his brother's house where he was staying temporarily, he passes one of the police officers who had arrested him a month or two months earlier. The cop is quite shocked of course, "why is this pedophile pervert out of jail? Did he get some lawyer who found loop- holes or was it some 'liberal' judge who cut him loose? In any event, this will never, never do." The guy goes on to his brother's house but a week or two after that had found a new house for himself and his dog and had moved there. The cop takes it upon himself to go to the Catholic elementary school directly across the street from the brother's house and whisper a little carefully orchestrated poison in the ear of the Sister (nun) in charge of the school. "Psst, Sister, did you know in the house right across the street there is a pedophile guy who we arrested but got out of jail?" Needless to say the nun was frantic. She decided it would be best if she wrote a note and sent it home with all the kids for their parents about this. Remember now, the cop had told the story to the nun just a wee bit out of context (in order to protect himself from slander and libel charges) and when the nun sent a note home with the kids she said what she THOUGHT she had heard the cop say (which is what the cop was hoping would happen) so the end result was the parents of the little brats all got a note saying 'a *convicted* pedophile was living across the street from the school.' And the nun, because she thought she was a smart lady, did not list the exact address of the house of the 'convicted pedophile', she just phrased it 'across the street from the school'. Fast forward now about another week or two when the brother of the man who was the alleged 'convicted pedophile' happened to find a copy of the letter the nun had sent home with the brats. He found his copy in some trash can, which is I guess where at least one of the brats or his parents had tossed it. He was, to say the least, quite livid about it. He goes over to the school to see the nun, who was the principal of the school and demands some kind of answer. "Well don't blame me", she said. "All I did was report what the police told me, and I had to do that under the state law about reporting possible abuse of kids." The brother pointed out to the nun that there had been no conviction at all, no adjudication by the court that this man was a pedophile, and that although the nun had tried to be vague about the exact address, anyone could see there was **only one house** on his side of the street so for all intents and purposes the nun had published and distributed (by sending home with the kids) a slanderous and libelous document about a non-existent 'convicted pedophile' living in his house, 'across the street from the school'. "Well then you should sue the police," said the nun in a self righteous tone. He told her the police had not distributed the printed matter, she had done that. "You fell in the police trick bag." he told her. "The oldest trick in the book ... a police officer lights a fuse then quickly steps out of the way to allow some community know-nothings to do his dirty work for him as the explosion occurs ... naturally police will disavow any knowledge of or responsibility for the note you sent home with the kids." Two or three days after that religious order which runs the school, the school itself, and the nun as an individual (who served as principal) were all three served with legal documents, naming each of them jointly and severally responsible for damages to his reputation and asking the court to award damages of five million dollars. The religious order was included because they had failed to properly supervise the work of their employee, the school principal. The manure hit the fan blades to be sure. Even the police showed up at the man's house one day, trying to bully him into dropping the lawsuit. "Why don't you sue us instead of the nun?" asked the cops. The guy said, "Are you kidding? I am suing where the money is, and anyway police would stall forever on and probably never pay even if I did get a judgment which is unlikely since you guys did not actually print or do anything; you just whispered at the nun and hoped she would fall for it, which she did. Like always, you did your damage and it cost you nothing; you got the community in an uproar and helped spread the usual hate and discontent you are so good at." The guy got his judgment but settled it for a couple thousand dollars and a printed apology from the nun and the school. Since the school was part of an 'independent' religious order and not accountable to the Archdiocese of Chicago, the Archdiocese was not held responsible but the (then) Cardinal Cody loaned the order the money to pay the judgment and later forgave the debt. So you see, Lisa, wedges can work two ways. Police can and do think nothing of trying to split up families and friendships and people's employment and homes when they get one of their 'pedophile' fantasies, but citizens can often times twist the wedge the other way, causing police to lose credibility in the community as well as happened in this case. This case was originally reported in Chicago Tribune, in I think 1978 or 1979. I was reminded of it when I read the story in last week's issue of (New York's) Village Voice discussing the affair with the Friedman family in Queens, NY who were victimized several years ago. In Chicago at the time of the 1978 incident, police had just finished doing a number on the Jewish day care center in the Rogers Park neighborhood. I guess they felt they owed the same courtesy to the Catholics. 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 #475 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat May 24 23:58:12 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4P3wCa16641; Sat, 24 May 2003 23:58:12 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 24 May 2003 23:58:12 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305250358.h4P3wCa16641@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #476 TELECOM Digest Sat, 24 May 2003 23:58:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 476 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on 2nd ATA Port (J. Levine) Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on 2nd ATA Port (Corazones) Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on 2nd ATA Port (Mitchell) Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on 2nd ATA Port(J. Hoffman) Vonage Review (GR) Re: MCI Sucks!!!! (John Higdon) Re: Non-Completion Disconnects (Greg Monti) Re: Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line? (John) GPRS & CDMA (chivalc) Re: E1 Alarms (Kenneth Becker) Re: E-911, was Re: My New Vonage Account (Shaun Ewing) Re: Information on an Unlisted Number (David B. Horvath, CCP) An Older Telecom-Digest Posting (my Net Pioneers Proof) (Ralph Hyre) 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: 24 May 2003 03:21:27 -0000 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on Second ATA Port Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > I also asked if I could install the Cisco ATA-186 behind a firewall > with NAT and received the following incoherent reply: Gee, they should have a better answer for you than that. Visit their router info page at http://www.vonage.com/learn_routers.php which has instructions for configuring a variety of NAT routers to work with the ATA. I canr report from experience that when I plugged my ATA into my sister's NAT router behind telco DSL, it came right up and worked. The advice on that web page largely consists of telling you not to set up filter rules in the router that block the ports that the ATA uses. > If you got a FAX number (actually intended and used as a fax through > the second port) from Vonage to start with, ... As likely as not it'd only work for faxes. According to the manuals on the Cisco web site, the ATA can be configured for fax pass-through, that is, the ATA acts fakes the far end fax machine, decodes the fax data stream, and just sends the fax data back to headquarters where they reconstitute the fax for the call to the other end. If I were selling second fax lines, I'd set them up so that they only work for fax pass-through calls. It looks to me like they can configure the ATA to play different ring cadences if they want to, so real distinctive ring's not out of the question. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711 johnl@iecc.com Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner http://iecc.com/johnl Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on Second ATA Port From: Seises de Corazones Date: Sat, 24 May 2003 05:22:28 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net I ordered 200 oxen, but George Mitchell sent me this instead: > I also asked if I could install the Cisco ATA-186 behind a firewall > with NAT and received the following incoherent reply: > The Cisco ATA would sit behind the router and must have a dynamic > IP not static to work with our service. This is why DHCP and NAT > are required for our service to work properly. > Looking at the Cisco release notes, it appears that you can statically > NAT port 2427 to your ATA-186, but the idea that the device requires a > dynamic IP address just seems wrong. There is no way to program an IP address into the ATA. It is configured to get its IP address via DHCP. If you are behind a firewall with NAT, you should be able to configure your firewall to be a dhcp server and give an IP address to the ATA. I even have my DHCP server configured to give a specific IP address to the ATA based on its MAC address. So it's dynamic in the sense that it is assigned by DHCP, but it is static in that it is always the same IP address > [ You have no obligations at all, it is month by month, so come and go > when you want; they charge your credit card for the whole thing. But > read over the URL carefully you get in return from them (via me) so > you do not get something you do not want. ] A couple things to be aware of: * When you cancel, you need to cancel more than 10 days before the end of the billing cycle, or they bill you for the following month. * There is a $40 disconnect fee once the risk free trial period is over. So, if you cancel within 10 days of the end of the billing cycle, you will be charged up to $80 for cancellation, and if it's more that 10 days from the end of the billing cycle you will be charged $40 for cancellation. Ted Rathkopf ------------------------------ From: George Mitchell Subject: Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on Second ATA Port Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 22:39:22 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Two points ... I think Vonage said to > me that the 'second port on the back of the ATA' could be used, so > you might try this: see if Vonage will give you a second, unique > number intended as a FAX number. [...] > I do not know how you intended to use your 'distinctive ring like' > number if you decided to go with Vonage, but the system (unless you > get either a *very wide* internet pipe or two regular pipes) is > only going to handle one call in or one call out at a time. I plan to get a fax number and use the fax port for my fax modem. I use the distinctive ringing to distinguish between calls for my home business and calls for my wife. The Vonage service already sounds very good, especially with all the things that Qwest would nickel-and-dime me to death for (caller ID, call waiting), but distinctive ringing would be a great marketing plus for them anyway. Cisco's technical documentation for the ATA-186 indicates that they already support distinctive ringing, so I suspect it's a question of turning it on at Vonage's switch. I invite any potential customers interested in distinctive ringing to let Vonage know. > For next: you and any other readers: *If* you decide you want to try > Vonage, I feel they are trustworthy and competent in what they do, so > I am not afraid of being humiliated or mortified in recommending > them. To sign up, please send me email as follows: send a message here > to telecom in the usual way, with a subject line saying 'not for > publication. Send Vonage coupon to (your name/email address)'. I will > in turn send you an 'e-coupon' (a link to a special URL) which signs > you up AND automatically gives me a month's service in the process. > You have no obligations at all, it is month by month, so come and go > when you want; they charge your credit card for the whole thing. But > read over the URL carefully you get in return from them (via me) so > you do not get something you do not want. I guess by now you all know > my email address: ptownson@telecom-digest.org . [...] > PAT] Thanks for the info! -- George Mitchell (obfuscated email address) ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on Second ATA Port Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Sat, 24 May 2003 13:36:35 GMT > not yet have distinctive ringing, a feature which my family has fallen > in love with. When I wrote to questions@vonage.com, they told me they > "may in the near future" support it. I suppose we could deduce from > the caller ID who the call is for, but distinctive ringing is so much > more convenient. Don't know if they will/can offer this, but the most convenient feature would be if Vonage passed the CALLED NUMBER downstream. Then you'd know which of several (possibly virtual) numbers were called, or if a non-Vonage number was called, which you have set to forward to your Vonage device. My GSM cellphone will display "forwarded call" when I forward my home phone to my cellphone. It's an immensely useful feature, because I can forward all my calls to my cell when I travel, and give out my cell number only to people I HAVE to talk to. If I see "forwarded," I may or may not answer, but if someone's callig me directly, I know I want to answer it. I use distinctive ringing at home, too. Only about 11 people have my distincive ring number, and when that rings, I always answer it. -Joel ------------------------------ From: GR Subject: Vonage Review Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 02:08:36 GMT Organization: Road Runner I just installed Vonage (telephone service over broadband internet connection) on my Roadrunner service and have the following info to share: 1) Installation was an easy no brainer of plugging a few things in and following the clear directions. 2) At $40/mo for unlimited LD service, it pays for itself for me. 3) I designated my main number to be in area 716 (different from my AC of 585), so my relatives in Buffalo can call me at no cost to them. 4) It comes with features you have to pay the phoneco extra for (like voicemail, call forwarding, call waiting). I had to go to their web site to turn off most of that stuff. 5) Voice quality seems pretty good, but I haven't given it much of a test yet. 6) I worried about how many phones I could plug in, since the Cisco ATA box that is used talks about only powering one. I found that just disconnecting my phoneco connection at the main point of entrance, and connecting the Cisco box to the existing wiring worked fine with 7 phones (and maybe a few other devices I have forgotten about?). 7) They have a neat feature, that if the internet is down (unclear if this means if your Cisco box is just off or what), they will redirect calls to a number you specify (no charge). gr ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: MCI Sucks!!!! Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Sat, 24 May 2003 19:14:47 -0700 In article , Jack Daniel wrote: > IF you want customer respect and want to deal with an honest company, > MCI / Worldcm is NOT a good choice. > No matter what you do with these people, document it in detail, get > names, record conversations, etc. You may need it to sue them later. Better advice is to avoid MCI completely. Not only have I had 100% bad experiences with the company, even after I thought I was rid of them, they have come back like a bad burrito. Even recently, I have received billing for non-existent services against an account that was closed in 1995. And I get the same routine you have described: we can't help you. "We can't issue any credits because the account is closed. If we re-open the account to make adjustments, there will be a "restoral fee", as well as other fees that will be charged." So now, I just throw anything that comes from MCI in the trash. I would recommend everyone else do the same thing. Run from that company as fast as you can. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: Greg Monti Subject: Re: Non-Completion Disconnects Date: Sat, 24 May 2003 00:03:55 -0400 On Thu, 22 May 2003 09:29:11 CDT, Mark J Cuccia wrote: > BTW, back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Mutual Broadcasting > System's call-in lines at their "World Headquarters" in Arlington VA > started off as 703-682-. I seem to think that the last four digits > used were -4177, but I could be wrong. Very close. Larry King's call-in number was 703-685-2177. Served out of the Columbia Pike central office of what was then the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company of Virginia, now Verizon. > The physical street address for > the Mutual building/studio was at 1755 South Jefferson Davis Highway > in Arlington VA. Curiously, that building is no longer served by the Columbia Pike CO. Around 1987, a separate CO, called Crystal City, was opened to serve office buildings and hotels in that dense neighborhood. That CO, CLLI ARTNVACYDS0, had a curioius statistical quirk for many years after it first opened: all of the prefixes in that office had a 1 or a 0 as the middle digit. When that CO opened, all prefixes served by it were of the form 703-41X. They've since added 703-60X prefixes, and later 703-699 and 703-872. Greg Monti, New York, New York, USA gmonti@mindspring.com ------------------------------ From: John Subject: Re: Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line? Date: Sat, 24 May 2003 02:18:25 -0700 On Thu, 22 May 2003 13:54:15 GMT, in comp.dcom.telecom you wrote "Re: Keeping my Phone Number With no Phone Line?": > Verizon will give me a "changed number" message for 6 months for free. It's too bad that all of Verizon doesn't do this free for 6 months. When I moved from Verizon territory to SBC territory in the L.A. area, Verizon told me they only give the recorded new number message for 30 days. Beyond 30 days they charge $20/month for the recorded message! ------------------------------ From: chivalc@yahoo.com (chivalc) Subject: GPRS & CDMA Date: 24 May 2003 04:12:02 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi there, Does GPRS or something parellel technology available for CDMA devices ...? ------------------------------ From: Kenneth Becker Subject: Re: E1 Alarms Date: Sat, 24 May 2003 10:41:35 -0400 Organization: Lucent Technologies Vcc Ground wrote: > Hello, > 1) Can anybody clearly explain me the E1 alarms? Particularly AIS. > This is all what I know: > Let's take an example of two E1 equipment, say A and B, connected back > to back say with a cross-crimped cable (with no other equipment like > repeaters, channel banks etc in between). Suppose the E1 here is > "framed" and the transmit path of mux A gets disrupted. So there will > be a loss of signal at the receive path of B and it goes into a state > what the T1 people in USA call a "red alarm". Now B in its transmit > direction will set bit number 3 of NFAS frames i.e odd numbered > frames. So this will be a "remote alarm indication" or "yellow alarm" > in T1 parlance for mux A. Upon registering this alarm condition mux A > will stop sending its normal payload and instead sends an "all 1s" > signal also called "AIS" or "blue" alarm towards B. Mux B also starts > sending the same "all 1s" signal towards A. > Err am I right? If I am what's the scenario in case of "unframed" E1 > because there isn't any bit 3 kind of thing in it? In either case how > does this "all 1s" signal help in recovering? What exactly is the > recovery procedure? Also how does the receiver can still recover clock > from this AIS signal? Also, what's this "multiframe AIS"? > To add to this confusion, the data book of Rockwell E1 framer that I'm > using says that if there's a "loss of receive signal" condition, then > the framer will immediately start sending AIS towards the other end. > No need of setting bit 3 of NFAS frame, in case of "framed" E1, and > wait for the other end to send AIS first? > 2) Please suggest some web sites that have good and neatly explained > tutorials on analogue and digital telecom. > Long live groups!! > Thanks, > Vcc Ground > PS: I'd appreciate if replies to my message are posted here on groups > rather than sent to my email. I feel this would help others who are > equally confused like I am. Thank You. I really ought to look up the appropriate standards before I reply, but they're all at work. However, the basic idea is as follows: Alarm Indication Signal is usually framed all 1's. Equipment downstream of such is designed to tear down telephone calls when in receipt of same. Now, it's been a while since I was a DACS II maven, but the general idea on receipt of an AIS at a MUX was to change the signalling (remember signalling? That stuff we used to use when everything was POTS?) to first hang up any existing telephone calls, then to seize the trunks or what all so that no equipment would even try to use that link for a phone call or what all. The reason MUX A would send the AIS signal as well would be in the case of repeaters and the like. That E1 leaving "A" may be going through repeaters or, more likely nowadays, may be imbedded inside of an E3 or SDH signal. All the equipment in the path of the signal leaving "A" would alarm an AIS, a decent tool in an attempt to figure out where the fault has occured. Basic idea: AIS is an indication to downstream equipment that something upstream has a problem. My understanding is that AIS is framed all 1's in both T1 and E1 domains. Given that E1 is B3ZS with, effectively alternate mark inversion (i.e., successive 1's are transmitted as +1 -1 +1 ..., 0's as zero's), there's no problem with downstream gear extracting clock. The framing is still there so one doesn't get LOF at the receiving entities. Unframed E1's are probably all 1's, period, same with unframed T1's. I'm pretty sure the Rockwell framer has it right. When you don't have a good receive signal there's no point in sending garbage, so LOF, Bit Error Rate above some threshold, or LOS (loss of Signal) are all good reasons to send AIS. I'm not sure without looking what NFAS frames are, but I suspect the bit you're talking about is in the E1 framing byte. Since AIS is framed all 1's, the framing still works and the bit is still used, AIS or no AIS. Yellow alarm is what you get when the far end can't receive what you're sending. If your a Digital Cross-Connect System (DCS) and you're receiving Yellow on some input, you don't want to cross-connect that Yellow to frame output; that would tell the next piece of gear in line that their transmit signal to use is busted, not the case. Instead, you send AIS to indicate to the next piece of gear in line that there's a problem upstream and to stop using the trunk. Hence, AIS gets sent everwhere to tell equipment to stop using the trunk line; Yellow Alarm gets sent in the reverse direction of the fault to indicate to the transmitting equipment in a 2-way connection that there's a problem with the transmitter; and Red Alarm is what you indicate when you're receiver doesn't see a signal. By the by: The front of the frames I've mucked with have had both red and yellow lights on the front. Actually, two reds - one for Major (Red alarm) and another for critical (something's gone wrong that affects a LOT of traffic - like an OC48 going down). The yellow alarm is often called "minor". Questions? Ken Becker DACS I/DACS II/DACS IV/WBM ------------------------------ From: Shaun Ewing Subject: Re: E-911, was Re: My New Vonage Account Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 02:36:18 +1000 > By the way, does anyone besides me find it somewhat ironic that VoIP > services like VoicePulse, Packet8 and Vonage will ONLY work with tone > dialing, yet many traditional phone companies STILL charge EXTRA for > touch tone? Be thankful if they have stopped charging extra for it in > your state! Ouch ... I couldn't imagine paying for tone dialing in this day and age. I've never even heard of the phone company charging extra for tone dialing here in Australia (they probably did once upon a time, but I don't remember). The phone exchange we used to be on before moving offices (start of 2002) only supported tone dialing. If you put a pulse device on the line the exchange wouldn't pick up the dialing. I don't use any pulse dialing devices anymore. I've got a few rotary dial phones in storage here that still work - but I don't have any actually connected. --Shaun ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 May 2003 18:31:56 EDT From: dhorvath@cobs.com (David B. Horvath, CCP) Subject: Re: Information on an Unlisted Number On 22 May 2003 23:42:20 -0700, krulla11@yahoo.com (Michael) wrote: > Hello, > I would like to know if there is any way getting information > like a name and address of the person of a unlisted phone number. If > so how do I do it? And why do you want this information Michael? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oftentimes, yes, but not from telco. > One thing telco seems to do pretty well is guard their subscriber's > privacy on request. Did the person ever provide their email address > or telephone number to *anyone else* such as a credit grantor or an > email directory? You can check things like credit bureau 'headers' > (which are NOT part of the protected under law part of their credit > bureau files.) You can check email directories such as switchboard.com > and other such, in the hopes the person sent email and their email > address got picked up along the way. Another thing to try is Google -- many people include their phone numbers in their .sig or web pages. David B. Horvath, CCP Consultant, Author, International Lecturer, Adjunct Professor Member: ICCP Educational Foundation Board and ICCP Test Council; Chair of LPR&GC CMP ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 17:35:11 PDT From: R Hyre Subject: An Older Telecom-Digest Posting (My Net Pioneers Proof) Google is pretty amazing. Hard to believe that a mere 6 years after I posted about blue boxes, that: 1) Novation got out of the modem business; 2) I was consulting for AT&T, the company. - Ralph Date: Mon 9 Jan 84 00:58:03-EST From: Ralph W. Hyre Jr. RALPHW@MIT-XX.ARPA Subject: Blue boxes I have often wondered if the telco would hassle me because my customer-provided equipment has the ability to do blue boxing. My equipment (a Novation Apple-Cat modem) uses a digital-analog converter to generate DTMF tones, although it is not limited to these frequencies. - Ralph Hyre (ralphw@mit-xx) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Ralph, when I get around to working some day on the Pioneers web site (which has been dreadfully neglected now for a long time) I will surely remember that you are eligible for membership in the Pioneers. I may get onto it again soon. 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #476 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun May 25 00:51:01 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4P4p0G17145; Sun, 25 May 2003 00:51:01 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 00:51:01 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305250451.h4P4p0G17145@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #477 TELECOM Digest Sun, 25 May 2003 00:51:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 477 Inside This Issue: Happy Memorial Day to All! Phone Companies See Their Future in Flat-Rate (Marcus Didius Falco) Cyber Menace: Integrated Defensive Policy Needed (Ravi V Prasad) Re: B101 FM-WBEB Philadelphia (Chris Nowinski) 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, 24 May 2003 03:13:51 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: NYTimes: Phone Companies See Their Future in Flat-Rate Very interesting article. Of course, you recall that trying to switch to measured rates was the big policy goal of US phone companies through the 60s, 70s, 80s, and even the 90s (remember Indiana?). The theory was that growth in phone lines would occur at the rate of population growth, which was pretty stagnant. Now phone "lines" are taking off (though some are wireless, and wireless are even starting to impinge upon wired), but competition, particularly from the flat-rated internet and broadband, is making messages less of a growth industry. Many people find their toll bill has fallen as they use the "free" evening and weekend minutes on their cell phone for social calling. Most people are doing this to some extent, and recent plans allow "unlimited" night and weekend calling. (My plan allows "only" 3200 evening and weekend minutes per month. About the most miserly plan I have seen recently offers 500 weekend minutes.) Perhaps as a partial result of this, perhaps as a partial result of competition, the toll business is down the tubes. Two major interexchange carriers have gone through bankruptcy, and there are rumors that AT&T is looking for a baby Bell to buy it out. But, reportedly, the cell phone business is also doing poorly. Rates continue to decline. Actually, they offer more and more minutes and other features for the same price. Are we seeing the decline of the telephone business? http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/23/business/23PHON.html May 23, 2003 Phone Companies See Their Future in Flat-Rate Plans By NICHOLAS THOMPSON Fifteen years ago, Arthur C. Clarke in the science-fiction novel "2061: Odyssey Three" predicted a future as follows: "With the historic abolition of long-distance charges on 31 December 2000, every telephone call became a local one, and the human race greeted the new millennium by transforming itself into one huge, gossiping family." That future may be at hand, only a few years behind schedule, as a result of the telephone industry's declining economic fortunes, increasing competition and recent technological advances. Starting with MCI, which introduced its Neighborhood plan in April 2002, most leading phone companies AT&T, BellSouth, Qwest Communications, SBC Communications and Verizon have rolled out programs that allow customers in some states to make unlimited local and national calls for one flat monthly price. These unlimited-use plans offer callers the advantage of predictability and less time spent checking monthly bills. They commonly cost $50 to $60 a month with services like voice mail and caller ID bundled in, making the price only slightly higher than the $48 that American households typically spend on local and long-distance calling, according to the Federal Communications Commission. The introduction of the flat-rate plan at MCI, formerly WorldCom, a company currently going through bankruptcy proceedings, is "exceeding expectations," according to a spokeswoman, Claire Hassett. A spokesman for Verizon, Jim Smith, calls his company's program a "ripping success." Such positive responses from customers are good news for an industry that faces a number of incipient threats, including the loss of market share to calls made over the Internet, cellphone-addicted young customers who spurn land lines, and families who swap their second telephone lines for high-speed Internet connections. In its last quarterly statement, Verizon, for example, reported that its total telecommunications revenue was down 3 percent but that its bundled plans had helped prevent a greater loss. Jeffrey Kagan, an Atlanta-based telecommunications analyst, calls the unlimited plans "the defibrillator for the industry." The move toward unlimited access plans stems from the Telecommunica- tions Act of 1996, which created a regulatory process that allowed local phone companies to enter the long-distance market. It has taken years for these companies, the so-called Baby Bells, to win federal approval in many areas, and they can now offer long-distance service in 41 states and the District of Columbia. Over all, the Bell companies provide about 16 percent of residential long-distance service, according to the F.C.C. In the meantime, the long-distance carriers which hold about 9 percent of the local service market, according to the New Paradigm Resources Group, a Chicago-based research firm are hoping that unlimited bundled programs will enhance their business. MCI, for example, provides 3.5 million customers with local service, but 2 million of those are signed up with its Neighborhood plan. The Bells and the long-distance companies both see growth in bundled plans, made possible by technology and changing consumer habits, as a way to secure market share. Most calls now travel most of their journey over fiber optic lines that connect the whole country. A company's expense in routing a call depends very little on the distance the call travels, but largely on whether a call needs to travel across lines owned by other phone companies and the access fees charged for that use. In most cases, calling a friend across the country now costs your phone company about as much as calling your next-door neighbor. New customer habits also make selling unlimited plans easier. Consumers have become accustomed to paying a flat fee for other services like cable television, regardless of whether they watch it 3 or 30 hours a week. For generations, telephone companies have billed calls individually, taking into account both the geographical distance between those talking and the length of the call. But with the wireless phone industry selling plans with unlimited access, customers have become used to flexible plans and have started to demand them from their land-line providers. "Wireless plans started to tear down the thinking of distance- dependent calling," says Charles Golvin, a senior analyst with Forrester Research. For phone companies, bundled plans create a predictable revenue flow and decrease the paperwork involved in separate billing systems and itemized phone bills. The plans have not been around long enough to show how they affect the churn rate, the percentage of a company's clients who leave for a competitor during a given period. Still, managers of most companies think that customers who buy these packages are more loyal. "It's human nature," said Eileen Connolly, a spokeswoman for AT&T. "People have less desire to move away from you if you have all their business." The companies are also hoping that these customers will be more likely to buy other bundled services like cellular, digital subscriber lines for connecting to the Internet, and other future services. The bundling strategy is particularly important as cable companies start to offer phone service along with high-speed Internet access. Mr. Smith of Verizon said he did not worry about customers who may end up paying less under unlimited-use plans than under standard plans. "We'll end up selling them more sooner or later," he said. No one is certain how customer use will change as people switch to these plans. But evidence from other industries suggests that it will increase significantly. "Usage more than doubles on unlimited wireless-calling plans," said Berge Ayvazian, a senior research fellow at The Yankee Group, a market research firm, "and if broadband is always on, the Internet is always in use." But there will be a limit, of course. There are only 24 hours in a day and unlimited-use plans for cellphones, land lines and broadband Internet access will all be competing for consumer time. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: 2@r67.net (Ravi V Prasad) Subject: Cyber Menace: Integrated Defensive Policy Needed Date: 24 May 2003 05:47:40 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad Published in the "Times of India", edit page, on Tuesday, 20 May 2003 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/uncomp/articleshow?msid=46885502 Copyright: Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, 2003 International Publishing Rights in all media with Times of India, 2003 By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad In his article "A Virtual Non-Starter - Cyber Terrorism May Not Be for Real" (Times of India, Tuesday, 08 April 2003, edit page), Mr Vikas Singh, Associate Editor of the Times of India, described the consequences of cyber terrorism, especially on control systems and networks of computer-controlled devices. Mr Singh referred to an incident in Australia where a million litres of sewage were released into the water supply. What set off alarm bells among cybersecurity professionals worldwide was that 44 previous attempts by Vitek Boden had remained undetected; Boden being thwarted only by non-computerized backup safety measures. India's SCADA-controlled (Supervisory Control & Data Acquisition Systems) electricity grids, power distribution systems, dam controls, water supplies, barrage controls, and sewage networks are highly vulnerable to attacks by cyberterrorists since almost none of them have up-to-date intrusion detection mechanisms installed. Worse, at least 30 percent of such Indian SCADA networks are accessible by modems which could be connected to the Public Switched Telephone Network. Moreover, public sector employees in India's infrastructure sectors are lax about non-computerized backup security procedures which are nowadays routinely implemented in SCADA systems abroad. India's banking sector, stock exchanges, and telecom and internet networks are also highly vulnerable since they have implemented piecemeal security solutions rather than an integrated defensive policy. A second threat that India faces is loss of highly sensitive data from government offices. For over six years Pakistani cracker groups such as G-Force Pakistan, Pakistan Hackerz Club, Anti-India Crew, World's Fantabulous Defacers and Silver Lords have been regularly breaking into the computer systems of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Nuclear Science Centre, Ministry of Defence, Prime Minister's Office, Cabinet Secretariat, Home Ministry, Ministry of External Affairs, and those of the three services, and accessing information. The damage that they caused was limited only by their adolescent mindsets rather than by any Indian cybersecurity measures. They could have caused far greater damage to India's reputation if, instead of plastering puerile anti-Indian obscenities on the websites of various Indian ministries, they had altered the officially published texts of the speeches of Vajpayee, Advani or Fernandes on these government websites to make it appear that they were, say, calling for the genocide of Muslims in India or for a nuclear strike on Pakistan. Such semantic attacks have been carried out on the websites of several news agencies abroad where crackers altered news reports about various corporations in order to manipulate share prices. Now that India's National Informatics Centre is hosting the websites of the new Afghan government, it would also be open to attacks by Middle Eastern organizations such as Ikhwan al Muslimoon, Jamaat Islami, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Khilafah, Izz al-Din Al-Kassam, and Nida'ul Islam which have well-developed offensive information warfare capabilities. Far more serious than Pakistan is the long-term threat posed by China. While Pakistani cracker groups are mainly adolescents who receive encouragement and infrastructural support from Inter Services Intelligence, China's People's Liberation Army has successfully integrated the latest C4ISRT (Command, Control, Communications and Computers Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Targeting) and information warfare techniques into its People's War doctrine. PLA's offensive and defensive infowar capabilities are now next only to NATO's. While China's offensive infowar capabilities are mainly targeted against Taiwan, USA, Japan and South Korea, they could be turned against India at any time, especially as China and India will inevitably jostle for geopolitical supremacy in Asia in the coming decades. In mid-1999, China established a task force on information warfare composed of senior politicians, military officers and academics, headed by Xie Guang, Vice-Minister of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. Other key members were Fu Quanyou, Chief of China's General Staff, Yuan Banggen, Head of General Staff Directorate, Major General Wang Pufeng, Senior Colonel Wang Baocun, Shen Weiguang, Wang Xiaodong, Qi Jianguo, Liang Zhenxing, Yang Minqing, Dai Qingmin, Leng Bingling, Wang Yulin, and Zhao Wenxiang. This task force had prepared detailed plans to cripple the civilian information infrastructures of Taiwan, USA, India, Japan and South Korea. Qi Jianguo and Dai Qingmin have formulated a comprehensive scheme: First, China would not attack military or political targets in these countries but would target their financial, banking, electrical supply, water, sewage, and telecommunications networks. Second, Chinese companies would establish business links with private companies in these countries. After carrying on legitimate business for some time, they would insert malicious computer codes and viruses over commercial e-mail services. Third, the viruses and malicious codes would be sent through computers in universities in third countries so that they could not be traced back to China but would be thought to be the handiwork of adolescent pranksters. Fourth, the attacks would be launched when the political leadership of the target countries was preoccupied, such as with election campaigns. Leng Bingling, Wang Yulin, and Zhao Wenxiang are in charge of mobilizing students and businessmen to support their military's cyberattacks against civilian targets in these countries. PLA has conducted several field exercises. An "Informaticized People's Warfare Network Simulation Exercise" was conducted in Echeng District of Hubei Province. Five hundred soldiers simulated cyberattacks on the telecommunications, electricity, finance, and television sectors of Taiwan, India, Japan and South Korea. Ten functions were rehearsed in another exercise in Xian in Jinan Military Region: planting information mines; conducting information reconnaissance; changing network data; releasing information bombs; dumping information garbage; disseminating propaganda; applying information deception; releasing clone information; organizing information defense; and establishing network spy stations. In Datong, forty PLA specialists are preparing methods of seizing control of networks of commercial internet service providers in Taiwan, India, Japan and South Korea. They held demonstrations for Beijing Region Military Command, Central Military Commission, and General Staff Directorate. Chief of General Staff Fu Quanyou presided over an exercise in Lanzhou and Shenyang Military Regions which simulated electronic confrontation with countries south and west of Gobi Desert. This focused on electronic reconnaissance, counter-reconnaissance, electronic interference and counter-interference. It tested the battle readiness of PLA's command automation systems, command operations, situation maps, audio and graphics processes and controls, and data encryption systems. Smaller exercises were carried out in Chengdu Military Region and Guangzhou Military Region. While it is gratifying that the Indian government has decided to establish a national center on information systems security, it should tap the expertise of universities and private software and internet companies, rather than merely rely on the outdated knowledge of unmotivated government employees. In addition to the government and defence sectors, this Centre should cater to India's banking networks, stock exchanges, telecom and internet networks, power and water supplies, and transportation sectors. By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad The author heads a group which analyzes fourth-generation warfare and C4ISRT (Command, Control, Communications and Computers Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Targeting) in South Asia. He is also Advisor, Information Warfare & Revolution in Military Affairs, Centre for Monitoring Chinese Military Activities. Cyber Menace: Integrated Defensive Policy Needed By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad Published in the "Times of India", edit page, on Tuesday, 20 May 2003 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/uncomp/articleshow?msid=46885502 Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad GSM: {91} 98 117 56789 Pager: {91} [11] 96 22 17 36 60 rvp@r67.net, rvp@50g.com Fax: {91} [11] 25 26 68 68 Cyber Menace: Integrated Defensive Policy Needed By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad Published in the "Times of India", edit page, on Tuesday, 20 May 2003 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/uncomp/articleshow?msid=46885502 Copyright: Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, 2003 International Publishing Rights in all media with Times of India, 2003 ------------------------------ From: bandsherein@yahoo.com (chris nowinski) Subject: Re: B101 FM-WBEB Philadelphia Date: 23 May 2003 19:07:20 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ bandsherein@yahoo.com (chris nowinski) wrote in message news:: > bandsherein@yahoo.com (chris nowinski) wrote in message > news:: (Deleted stuff about backdoors, etc.) Pat, Alot of what you said wasn't pickedup by me. I'm into the possibilities of the phone system, but just not as well versed in these types things as you might be. As far as bypassing the choke by that trick about same suffix, different prefix, how come this method would not work all the time in helping to win a contest, etc.? I am going to try and see if I can find the real number doing that but I can't understand why it wouldn't always work to bypass the choke in getting through. On using their business line to get the backdoor number, what if a receptionist always answers the line, what do you do to get the backdoor number, how do you reverse engineer it? And another station has a computer menu and asks for first couple letters of person to contact, but it wont actually reach them in the DJ booth. and that 0 operator escape isn't universal to all stations I guess right? I don't understand how to operator escape, and if you have any other tips in finding those undisclosed studio numbers it would be great. Thanks. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The choke thing won't always work since some places do not relate the choke exchanges to any specific number. Some places have the choke numbers actually go into the stations on a non-dialable number, for example CHoke 1-2345 may actually go into the station on 146-2309 or something equally obscure and non-dialable. Not all telcos use the simple minded one-on-one relationship that Illinois Bell used to use in Chicago. In those cases, you could go out and work for a living (or read through a dozen back issues of the ANTI-WAR Digest) before you otherwise 'won' any contests or prizes. If you have to use the 'front door' to reach the 'back door' so to speak and the front door is always answered by a receptionist (no matter how snooty or arrogant he or she happens to be -- the key is how smart they are) and there is no automatic dialing or voicemail system available, then you are SOL ... what I said only works in the cases where the front door is answered by an auto-attendant which is is not well programmed, which is most of them. What you do when you 'social engineer' or 'reverse engineer' a phone system is get the people in the know on the inside to tell you a few clues they really should not be saying. It helps if you talk to one person one day and someone different the next day who either does not know the first person or similar. But the more snooty and arrogant the front door is, the less likely they will even talk to you at all. I suppose you could always hire Kevin Poulsen to work on this backdoor seeking project for you. 'Operator Escape' is simply the telco voicemail term for systems which allow the caller to press zero and reach a human being instead of just another recorded message. If you call somewhere and get a voicemail menu of choices, press 1 for this and press 2 for that, etc, try pressing zero and see what it gets you. Or if you get a voicemail menu with several choices but one of the possible digits is conspicuous in its absence, such as press 1 for this, press 3 for that but you do not hear any 'press 2' option, then go ahead and try '2' anyway, along with two or three more digits and see what you get. Maybe there is a PBX back there somewhere, and all the internal extensions begin with 2xx or whatever. Kevin Poulsen is the man you need to speak to about this topic, and no, I do not know how to reach him. 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #477 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun May 25 15:39:01 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4PJd1f21025; Sun, 25 May 2003 15:39:01 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 15:39:01 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305251939.h4PJd1f21025@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #478 TELECOM Digest Sun, 25 May 2003 15:39:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 478 Inside This Issue: Have a Happy, Safe Memorial Day From the Archives: End of Dial Tone Monopoly (Don Kimberlin) Re: Vonage Review (J Kelly) Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on 2nd ATA Port (Mitchell) Re: RBOCS Profit on UNE-P, CompTel Says (Steve Michelson) Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs? (Ballantyne) Re: GPRS & CDMA (Steven J. Sobol) Re: Time Warner Cable Dials in Phone Service (Paul Wallich) Re-programming a CDM9500BA (Larry Dykas) 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: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: From the Archives: End of Dial Tone Monopoly Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 14:00:00 CDT When the following article first appeared in TELECOM Digest, almost thirteen years ago, the end of the dial tone monopoly was just a dream for most folks. Now that it has become a very real thing, with more and more small CLECs going with UNE-P it has become a reality in many parts of the USA. That is certainly the case here in Independence, where we can choose our internet service from competitors as well as our phone service. Here is the article from thirteen years ago, when is was still just a dream: > Date: Thu, 30 Aug 90 20:30:07 CDT > From: TELECOM Moderator > [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu > Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #606 > BCC: > Message-ID: <9008302030.ab18594@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 30 Aug 90 20:30:00 CDT Special: Dial Tone Monopoly Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson The End of the Dial Tone Monopoly [Donald E. Kimberlin] ----------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 30 Aug 90 20:20:00 CDT From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Organization: Telecommunications Network Architects, Safety Harbor, FL Subject: The End of the Dial Tone Monopoly Several weeks ago, one of our British colleagues here placed a good description of the current status of telephone services deregulation in the UK, and asked for a response that indicated the usual question of, "How is it over there?" The way here in the US is definitely different, but no one seemed to respond. It just might be that many US Digest readers don't yet understand. What follows is a short piece I recently prepared for an editor, and I hope it answers both kinds of parties: THE END OF THE DIAL TONE MONOPOLY By: Donald E. Kimberlin, Principal Consultant Telecommunications Network Architects Safety Harbor, FL August 12, 1990 While many Americans have been trained to believe that "dial tone" is the sacrosanct property of telephone companies, evidence is coming clear to show that "dial tone" is not a "natural monopoly." Saying this is certain to raise many hackles, but it is time we faced up to it: The "natural monopoly" view of providing Public Switched Telephone Network services on a local basis was valid in its 1913 context, when the Bell interests struck a deal to end their pillage of Indpendent telephone companies in the U.S. Technology and removal of the art of running a telephone network from the status of "trade secret" has changed all that. It's occurred so rapidly and in so many ways that few know of all the prongs now stuck into what was once a nicely-closed pie. Even though it was published, few took note that in 1984, the departing Chairman of the FCC said in a speech that since the demonopolization of long distance service had been accomplished, the time had come to work on breaking up the local telephone monopoly. Nobody reported that speech, except the general press the following day. It was obvious the Chairman had touched on a taboo of the telephone business. Despite the fact that the FCC's Open Network Architecture mandate has gone on and continues to move, nobody wants to face up to what it really means: Detaching the dial tone of the local network from the wires of the local telephone company, separating the two such that the dial tone is put on somebody else's transmission channel, or connecting the local telephone company's wire to somebody else's dial tone. That's not any technological breakthrough. It's been possible for decades. The single thing that made the dial tone and transmission channel inseparable was the lack of "somebody else" being around to do it with. Well, that's all changed, in more ways than one might think. Let's run through a few of the possibilities that really could happen today ... but for the desire of "somebody else" to take up the cudgel and push the matter into full visibility. There are some historical backgrounds to the alternatives that may be worth knowing about; these often have roots in history of things the monopoly-era telephone business didn't care too much about. They are generally exemplified in reasons behind the FCC's 1947 and 1948 decisions that opened radio-paging and use of microwave radio to non-Telcos. (That's right, we're here talking of temblors some four decades prior to the eruption of nearly unbridled competition in "the phone business.") For the most part, the Bell interests had so narrowly focused their business that even though they claimed anything moving information was their birthright, there were numerous items they handled in only the most marginal of ways. Among these was telephone service to ships in coastal waters, several earlier versions of mobile telephone service, various forms of telegraphy, burglar alarm services and others. For the most part, other firms engaged these markets, particularly in the 65% of the land area of the U.S. covered by non-Bell "Independent" telephone companies, which focused totally on telephone business. In that large territory, almost all non-telephone aspects of telecommunications were provided by private, often local business. These almost all used some form of radio in their business and became known as Radio Common Carriers (RCC's). We can thus see the roots of the FCC policy of two competing cellular companies in every market reaching back into these RCCs. In fact, McCaw Cellular, one of the larger "non-wireline" cellular operators, was a long-standing RCC in the pre-divestiture era. In that era of the "natural monopoly," there was more "patching" and "hauling" of dial tone on RCC facilities than ever made official print. Where it was of note, the Telcos treated it as "private," not as a connection of their PSTN to another common carrier. The point was that the only breach in the wall was the connection of "foreign apparatus" at the extremity of the local network; the bond between dial tone and local telco wire remained intact. The traffic truth was that telcos accounted for less than half of the stations and traffic with boats and aircraft, and as the famous Huber report showed, less than a third of paging and mobile radio operations. Much of that had already extended the "dial tone" into non-Telco hands. That situation was stable for several decades, but it ultimately did wind up today with dial tone coming from non-wireline cellular carriers and even dial marine VHF shore stations that are now all private. The "hauling" of dial tone we can readily see today as microwave bypass, but it has also gone a giant step beyond. In a case that no Telco-employed "consultant" will tell about (it's doubtful they have been "trained" on it), Arco Oil Company put in its own private microwave from downtown Dallas, Texas to its corporate headquarters in suburban Richardson, about ten miles away. Arco's reason: Dissatisfaction with the performance levels of GTE of Texas, the "natural monopoly" dial tone supplier for Richardson. The microwave hauled Southwestern Bell dial tone from downtown Dallas to Richardson. To reach Arco, all one did was dial a Dallas number. The dial tone on Arco's PBX was SW Bell, not GTE. When Arco's "illegal action" was discovered, GTE of course wanted its brother in the cloth, Southwestern Bell to disconnect the dial tone. Both telcos got the Texas utility regulators to order them to disconnect, but Arco is no stranger to court action. Arco immediately went to the FCC, arguing that the dial tone was only incidental to connections containing a high proportion of interstate traffic, which was beyond the purview of the Texas State regulators. The result: The FCC ordered Southwestern Bell to maintain dial tone supply to Arco's microwave channels to Richardson, to provide interstate calling service. GTE and Southwestern Bell appealed, and after several years in the Federal Appeals courts, GTE and SW Bell lost again in early 1990, with but one step left: The U.S. Supreme Court. It is unlikely that GTE or SW Bell want to risk a Supreme Court decision after the several slaps they have suffered on their way to the Supreme Court; they doubtful would want to be responsible for it becoming wide public knowledge that the "natural monopoly" for a dial tone is really no longer supported by the US government and its courts. An outfall of this is that if you have the means and desire, you can really carry in a dial tone from wherever you want. That opens a wealth of possibilities. It means that anyone who has the means to provide transmission to your premises can import a dial tone from whatever local telco network they want. The issue to settle is if they can SELL it to you. This portends a boon to independent Telcos located in the hinterlands who want to engage in selling their dial tone to people a thousand miles away. (And if you REALLY understand the true love/hate relation between Bell and Independent Telcos in the US, you'll see that's not a flight of fancy!) Who would sell this dial tone? The first moves have already been made in England, where instead of simply demonopolizing long distance, the government authorized a "duopoly," permitting England's globe-spanning Cable & Wireless to establish Mercury Communications to provide local dial tone as well. Mercury has done so in more than one way. In the major cities, Mercury immediately pulled fiber into abandoned steam pipes and used Northern Telecom's telephone network architecture and equipment to pop electronic exchanges in service with a speed most telephone people would not understand. The Mercury network was operational almost overnight, in typical telephone capital plan terms. And, Mercury offered services that British Telecom hadn't thought of, like Centrex, intrinsically available in the NT equipment, but not in BT-controlled designs, even the fabled System X. In less-dense areas, Mercury used existing technology to use vacant capacity in cable TV systems to reach telephone subscribers. The latter method has been slow to expand, but not for technical limits as much as economic disagreement with the cable operators. The implication for the U.S. is obvious: Your local cable TV company has the transmission plant in place to become the "other phone company in town." The technology to get telephone channels on the present coaxial cble plant exists; there is no need for a "fiber rebuild" to handle the need. Existing unused capacity in many US cable TV systems offers in the order ot 50,000 lines of capacity in every cable passing every building. The "fiber" story is chanted by Telcos, because they need fiber to get their capacity up to be able to compete in wideband data and television carriage. Adding fiber to the cable TV systems is just a convenience and modernization to their plant. In fact, in many disparate areas of the nation, cable TV companies have quietly sold telephone and data channel capacity for years, some even interconnected between cable companies for distances in excess of 100 miles, and channels up to T-1 digital rate. Again, these are not applications stories your Telco-paid "consultant" is likely to tell you about, but they are not secret nor are they illegal. Carrying a dial tone down them is no great technology problem at all. Another front of the attack on the "dial tone monopoly" exists in the buzzword "co-location" now being raised more loudly by another new form of competition to the local Telcos, the Alternative Access Carriers. The AACs are typically local fiber optic network providers such as the Metropolitan Fiber Systems now building in more than 20 cities around the nation, with nearly parallel competition from Teleport Communications in most of the same cities, while there are a number of unpublicized regional local fiber companies, like Florida's Intermedia Communications. Williams Telecommunications Group headquartered in Tulsa, OK seems to be making moves to acquire some of these firms and as well build some plant of its own in cities. Another aspect of this incursion into the "local monopoly" may come from MCI, through its acquisition last year of the local facilities of Western Union Telegraph natiowide. My own work led to discovering miles of brand new Western Union conduit in the streets of Los Angeles late last year prior to the MCI purchase, while another recent revelation was discovery of *wooden* WUTCo conduits in Oklahoma City recently. All this is now MCI property, and its purpose is obvious; MCI's intent to use it is not yet so obvious. The AAC segment is following MFS's lead to get local Telcos ordered to permit interconnection of their channels to user premises to Telco dial tone. But, they have no need to wait for that. They can just as well import dial tone from wherever they want, for VSATs already make that practical. In fact, if the U.S. can get cheap computer data entry performed on Caribbean islands by VSAT link, what is there to prevent U.S. AACs from importing cheap dial tone via VSAT from them as well? Probably nothing, if anyone really looks into the possibility. And, most recent, we have alternative space-based potentials. Motorola's IRIDIUM is but one, and has recently been well-publicized and described. Less public is NASA's Personal Access Satellite System (PASS), which proposes to use techniques rather well-developed by the military for acquiring and tracking on geosynchronous satellites. PASS focuses on developing use of the 35 gigahertz portion of the spectrum where enormous dish gains are possible with 0.3 meter (12 inch!) dishes and tiny transportable earth stations, offering megabit-sized data streams to even the remotest of locations. Both IRIDIUM and PASS propose use of satellite "crosslinks," the satellite term for having the switching network in the sky with direct trunklines between satellites. So, you could readily be in Detroit but getting your dial tone from Auckland. In fact, what's to say there can't be a "virtual Centrex" located in satellites, so the "global corporation" can have a "global Centrex?" In this context of our ability to get a dial tone from anywhere at a cheap price, does it really seem so strange that we do it? The technology for much of it is already in hand; some of it has really already been used, and all of it is so close to accomplishment that we will be doing it soon. The largest obstacle is not in technology at all; it is in people's emotions and in vested economic interests of an industry that faces threats many of its most endangered species participants cannot even understand: America's local "natural monopoly" telephone companies. ---------------- (Historical afternote: One way to understand the way in which the "natural dial tone monopoly" has been fabricated and ingrained into minds in the U.S. is to read a book on the non-Bell "independent" telephone industry. This history has been documented several times this century, and the latest is titled, "The Spirit of Independent Telephony," by Charles A. Pleasance, 1989, ISBN 0-9622202-0-7. It indexes 37 U.S. cities that once had independent telcos competing with Bell, and I know of others that had multiple independent Telcos, some until after WW II. This history will surprise some when they learn that the Independent telcos even tried to form a non-Bell long distance network; one that Bell interests finally quashed with the formation of AT&T's Long Lines "department," really a shadow company that built the long-distance links and pooled the money collected for long distance calls. The point here is that the "natural monopoly" concept for dial tone is a fabrication that may have made sense in 1913, was driven home by vested interests, and today is obviously a dinosaur running out of food.) ------------------------------ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Seems hard to believe doesn't it, that the well fed dinosaur is about to run out of food, twenty years after we quit routinely feeding it. I guess it can still live from its fat for a few more years, however. PAT] ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Re: Vonage Review Date: 24 May 2003 21:21:35 -0700 Organization: Newsguy News Service [http://newsguy.com] I seriously considered Vonage, but they have no local numbers for Iowa. I just signed up last week for Qwest Preferred Unlimited, I pay $44.99/month for local with Caller ID, Call Waiting, and Call Forwarding (and maybe some stuff I don't care about that I don't remember) and unlimited long distance anytime, anywhere in the 50 states, including in state calls. I was paying more than that for local plus the long distance I was using at onesuite.com so this seemed like a no brainer. I hate Qwest, but at a price like that I couldn't pass it up. How the heck do they make any money with rates like this? In article , GR says: > I just installed Vonage (telephone service over broadband internet > connection) on my Roadrunner service and have the following info to > share: > 1) Installation was an easy no brainer of plugging a few things in and > following the clear directions. > 2) At $40/mo for unlimited LD service, it pays for itself for me. > 3) I designated my main number to be in area 716 (different from my AC > of 585), so my relatives in Buffalo can call me at no cost to them. > 4) It comes with features you have to pay the phoneco extra for (like > voicemail, call forwarding, call waiting). I had to go to their web > site to turn off most of that stuff. > 5) Voice quality seems pretty good, but I haven't given it much of a > test yet. > 6) I worried about how many phones I could plug in, since the Cisco > ATA box that is used talks about only powering one. I found that just > disconnecting my phoneco connection at the main point of entrance, and > connecting the Cisco box to the existing wiring worked fine with 7 > phones (and maybe a few other devices I have forgotten about?). > 7) They have a neat feature, that if the internet is down (unclear if > this means if your Cisco box is just off or what), they will redirect > calls to a number you specify (no charge). [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: 'How in the heck they can make money with rates like that' is very simple to understand: Alex Bell's invention of more than 125 years ago, quickly grew from a baby into a full-size and very fearsome dragon and dinosaur. For the next half-century or so, the dinosaur did like all fearsome beasts its size, it took what it wanted. Only when the dragon and dinosaur slayers came along about 35 years ago did it slightly start to come under control; and now, 30-35 years later; and officially 20 years after it was 'killed', the dinosaur is starting to actually slow down. The way it can 'make money like that' is because the bottom line costs are so dirt cheap to begin with. Now they are starting to charge what they should have been charging all along. PAT] ------------------------------ From: George Mitchell Subject: Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on Second ATA Port Date: Sat, 24 May 2003 22:20:22 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com In my latest correspondence with the Vonage folks, they claim they charge the 3% Federal excise tax on top of their posted rates, but no other fees. This is a BIG win for them, especially if they are not subject to the federal access line charge (currently $6 on my first line and $6.99 on my second). Can any current customers verify that this is true? They also say they use up to 90Kbps of your internet bandwidth, and they now say they will be looking into distinctive ringing in the "near future." -- George Mitchell (obfuscated email address) ------------------------------ From: Steve Michelson Subject: Re: RBOCS Profit on UNE-P, CompTel Says Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 08:17:49 -0400 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I suspect that 'making a profit' thing > is probably true when you deduct the overall high cost of labor > intensive customer service reps, Plus advertising/marketing and (I believe) bill rendering costs, which the Bells can't attribute to their UNE-P offerings to CLECs, since it is the CLECs who pick up marketing and bill rendering for their own customers. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 15:24:16 +0000 (GMT) From: du651@freenet.carleton.ca (Joseph Ballantyne) Subject: Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs? Organization: The National Capital FreeNet Hans Lain (user@domain.com) writes: > ...66-block - why is it called such when it has 25-pairs (50 wires)? They're called "66 block" because all the various models made by all the various manufacturers (that I've ever seen) include the string "66" in the model number. E.g., "NE-66QAE-50", "NT-66QAA25", "R66B", "66B3-50". So "66 block" is a generic term for all blocks in that physical package, regardless of their internal connections. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think if you count the number of > punchdown places you will find 66 of them. Usually there are either 50 connections (on a 25-pair block) exposing six pins for each connection or 100 connections (on a 50-pair block) exposing three pins for each connection. There are a very few hybrid blocks ("NE-66QAG-42") that have a mix of six-pin and three-pin connections, for use in key system backplanes. ------------------------------ From: Steven J. Sobol Subject: Re: GPRS & CDMA Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 15:42:22 -0000 Organization: JustThe.net LLC From chivalc (chivalc@yahoo.com): > Hi there, > Does GPRS or something parellel technology available for CDMA > devices ...? 1xRTT is the current next-generation high-speed data technology for CDMA, to be followed by 1xEV-DO and 1xEV-DV within the next year or two. Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge, JustThe.net POTS: Toll Free from anywhere in the USA or Canada, 888.480.4NET (4638) HTTP: www.JustTheNetLLC.com MAIL: 5686 Davis Drive, Mentor on the Lake, OH 44060-2752 ------------------------------ From: Paul Wallich Subject: Re: Time Warner Cable Dials in Phone Service Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 12:00:43 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > By Ben Charny and Evan Hansen > Staff Writers, CNET News.com > AOL Time Warner's entry into voice service Thursday highlights the > latest headache for regional phone companies, whose lock on the > so-called local loop is looking increasingly precarious. [snip] > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And it is good to see it happening, is > it not? The lady in the office at our cableco, Cable One said to me > that 'part of the deal, when Time Warner traded us over to Cable One > was that they (Time Warner) was going to share some of their technology > on voice telephony with us as time went along.' She continued, 'they > are starting phone service in Oregon soon (this was told me about two > weeks ago) and we are doing it in Tulsa and parts of Cherokee County in > Oklahoma. Give us a couple years maybe then even Prairie Stream will > have some non-Bell competition.' I don't know about you other guys, > but that sort of thing gives me so many thrills, it really does. Just > imagine, in this part of the country, *two or three real choices* in > telephone service; *two or three real choices* in Internet service. PAT] I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it could be nice to see some real choices in phone service, but on the other hand this could be a signal for ILECs to start abandoning the POTS market as everyone competes for the add-on services. If telephone over cable (even with a UPS on the customer side) is only as reliable as cable tv or internet service, that's going to be an enormous step down in quality for most people, and if (as usually happens in such competitions) other voice carriers succeed in bringing landline local loops down to their level, that would be very unfortunate indeed. At $40 a month or so, AOLTW's service seems targeted to people who can afford multiple service providers, so may not be an issue initially. paul ------------------------------ From: Larry Dykas Subject: Re-programming a CDM9500BA Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 12:43:53 -0400 Dear Patrick Townson, I have a brand new Audiovox/Toshiba CDM9500BA cellphone. It cost me about $250. The BA at the end of the model number means that ONLY BellAtlantic companies (i.e. Verizon) can be accessed by this phone. Can you give me a name of a company that can re-program the phone to use AT&T or Sprint services? Or, where to get the codes to reprogram it myself? Sincerely, Larry Dykas [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: BellAtlantic may be different than AT&T in their procedures, but I do not think so, meaning what you are asking *cannot be done*. In AT&T's case, there is 'firmware' in the phone which flatly refuses any service changes away from AT&T. When I first got my AT&T phone (a Nokia 5165) it was a pretty good deal, but I found that here in Independence all I could do with AT&T was 'roam' (as 'extended area') on Cell One rather than get a 'true' AT&T signal. The signal strength was never that good. Both the local Cell One and Cingular Wireless stores had Nokia 5165 phones, as did the local Radio Shack (hawking them as Alltel) and the U.S. Cellular dealer. My offer to all of them was 'whoever can convert this Nokia 5165 over to their carrier gets a contract from me'. All the wizards here in town looked over the phone closely and all came to the same conclusion: it cannot be modified. They all tried; one even suggested some hardware mods in it. "Well, it is a Nokia 5165", I protested. 'No matter', they said. If you are not gonna be an AT&T customer you pitch that phone in the trash. A nice lady from AT&T customer service even told me the same thing; your two choices are be our customer or trash the phone. I went with Cingular Wireless and still have a Nokia 5165 phone (and in fact, the sales guy in our Cingular Wireless store even used some kind of 'patch cord' to transfer over my address book from the old to the new Nokia 5165). But no one could pull the phone itself away to Cingular from AT&T. I strongly suspect the BA phone is the same way, but I do not know that positively. It will stay forever with the BA companies. Ain't the phone company good enough for you any longer, is that it? What I did with the *old* (AT&T) Nokia 5165 after it had been turned off from its Chicago area 630 number was get it put on Tulsa, OK AT&T prepaid service as a spare phone. I called 800-888-7600 and asked for new prepaid service on the Nokia. While I waited on hold, the nice lady got a new number for me (918-630-something) and walked me through programming the new number into the phone. After we did that she said if I gave her my credit card number she would turn it on; I gave her $25 and she put it on prepaid. So it still runs on the same old Dobson Cell Tower east of town, with a much better signal than what Cell One was providing the phone when AT&T (as a roaming, extended area customer) was operating it. You may want to do the same with your BA phone; just keep it on prepaid service as a spare cell phone. All my Nokia 5165 accessories (spare battery, Cell Socket, earphones, etc) still work on it as they do on my 'regular' (Cingular) phone. That's one reason I wanted to stay with the Nokia, so I did not have to buy all new accessories. I have since changed it from the 'Tulsa market' (which is what we are in here in Independence) to the 'Wichita market' (a/c 316-841-something) so I could have an area 316 number for the phone. And you paid $250 for the phone? Must really be a grand instrument. Most places hand you a phone for free if you contract with them, or you can get new cell phones for $25-50. By the way, folks, my brain desease has gotten worse, so as of June 1, Lisa Minter (lisa_minter@yahoo.com) is going to be taking over the Digest for occassional issues. No distribution changes or list changes are anticipated.) PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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End of TELECOM Digest V22 #478 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon May 26 18:33:10 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4QMXAY26501; Mon, 26 May 2003 18:33:10 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 18:33:10 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305262233.h4QMXAY26501@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #479 TELECOM Digest Mon, 26 May 2003 18:33:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 479 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #384, May 26, 2003 (Angus TeleManagement) Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on 2nd ATA Port (J. Levine) Re: Time Warner Cable Dials in Phone Service (John Higdon) Re: Re-programming a CDM9500BA (Matt Bartlett) Re: Re-programming a CDM9500BA (Joseph) Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs? (Leatherock) CLEC Availability List - Connecticut? (Daniel Rosenzweig) Re: E1 Alarms (Phil McKerracher) 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, 26 May 2003 10:56:02 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #384, May 26, 2003 ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 384: May 26, 2003 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: ** UBS to Offer Rural Broadband on Inukshuk Spectrum ** SaskTel Adopts Nortel Multimedia Platform ** Bell Adds "Network Charge" to Business Bills ** RIM Loses Round in Patent Fight ** Aliant to Expand DSL Access ** CCTA: Give CRTC Authority Over Utility Poles ** Bell Data Channel Rate Increase Denied ** Juniper to Launch Low-Price Hotspot Bundle ** Faster Wireless LAN Standard Nears Approval ** Court Okays Vote on WorldCom Plan ** Dube to Head Bell Nordiq ** AirIQ Raises $6 Million ** MMO2 Takes Huge 3G Writedown ** When You Need a Second Opinion in Telecom UBS TO OFFER RURAL BROADBAND ON INUKSHUK SPECTRUM: Unique Broadband Systems says it has signed a contract for exclusive use of 36 MHz of Inukshuk Internet's wireless spectrum in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, and B.C. A subsidiary, UBS Wireless Services, will use the spectrum to provide high-speed Internet access in "underserved suburban and rural communities." The deal requires regulatory approval. ** Inukshuk, a wholly owned subsidiary of Microcell, won licences in March 2000 to offer wireless Internet service in nine provinces. It recently received a one-year extension, to March 2004, on meeting its initial licence conditions. (See Telecom Update #226, 344) SASKTEL ADOPTS NORTEL MULTIMEDIA PLATFORM: SaskTel will deploy Nortel Networks' Multimedia Communications Portfolio to offer unified access to e-mail, telephones, file sharing, and video conferencing. ** The US$5 million deal also includes migrating SaskTel's DMS switches to Nortel's Succession Voice over IP platform. BELL ADDS "NETWORK CHARGE" TO BUSINESS BILLS: Bell Canada will introduce a new $2.95 per month per account "network charge" for business customers who subscribe to one of Bell's LD savings plans, effective July 28. A similar charge has been levied on consumer bills since 2001. RIM LOSES ROUND IN PATENT FIGHT: A U.S. federal court has sided with NTP Inc. in its patent infringement suit against Research In Motion, makers of BlackBerry wireless devices. On Friday, the judge added $8.8 million to the $23.1 million in damages levied last year by a jury. The decision will be appealed. ALIANT TO EXPAND DSL ACCESS: Aliant will spend $30 million this year to expand DSL coverage across the Atlantic provinces. Among the communities that will benefit: Tignish PE, Bouctouche NB, Wycocomagh NS, and Witless Bay NL. CCTA: GIVE CRTC AUTHORITY OVER UTILITY POLES: The Canadian Cable Television Association has urged the federal government to amend the Telecommunications Act to grant the CRTC authority to set the rates that utility power companies charge for cableco access to their poles. (See Telecom Update #383) BELL DATA CHANNEL RATE INCREASE DENIED: CRTC Telecom Order 2003-197 denies a Bell Canada application to charge for a multi-point feature on interexchange data channels. Alarm companies objected that they were not given enough notice. The Commission said Bell failed to provide necessary price cap information. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Orders/2003/o2003-197.htm JUNIPER TO LAUNCH LOW-PRICE HOTSPOT BUNDLE: According to published reports, Juniper Networks' new Wi-Fi product will sell for US$800, compared to about $2,000 for competing products. The package is said to include everything needed to set up a single-site public Wi-Fi hotspot. FASTER WIRELESS LAN STANDARD NEARS APPROVAL: The IEEE 802.11g working group has finished work on a draft standard for wireless LANs with speeds of 54 Mbps, nearly five times as fast as current products. The draft will almost certainly be given final approval at an IEEE meeting in mid-June. COURT OKAYS VOTE ON WORLDCOM PLAN: A U.S. bankruptcy judge has given WorldCom approval to hold a creditors' vote on the company's proposed new structure. If the plan is approved, the two largest shareholders will be MatlinPatterson Global Opportunities and Financial Ventures LLC, with 17% and 13%, respectively. DUBE TO HEAD BELL NORDIQ: Former Bell Canada Senior VP Roch Dube has been named President and CEO of Bell Nordiq Group, majority owner of Telebec and NorthernTel. He replaces Isabelle Courville, recently named Bell Canada's President, Enterprise. AIRIQ RAISES $6 MILLION: AirIQ, a Pickering, Ontario, provider of vehicle tracking services, has received a $6.2 million loan from Lenbrook Corp. and other investors. MMO2 TAKES HUGE 3G WRITEDOWN: UK cellular carrier MMO2, formerly BT Wireless, has cut the carrying value of its UK and German 3G licenses -- worth more than 10 billion pounds on its previous balance sheet -- by 5.9 billion pounds. WHEN YOU NEED A SECOND OPINION IN TELECOM: Angus Dortmans Associates consults to Canadian organizations that use telecommunications and network services as essential business tools. Our focus is on practical issues and measurable results, delivered on-time and on-budget. ** "Angus Dortmans Associates are knowledgeable and helpful in understanding the complexities of the telecommunications marketplace. We rely on their extensive expertise to assist with operational and strategic planning in this dynamic and evolving area." --Thomas Oakes, Director, IT McCarthy T=E9trault ** Contact Henry Dortmans, 905-686-5050 x300 or 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: join-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.com To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to: leave-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.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 2003 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: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on Second ATA Port Date: 25 May 2003 15:36:54 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > In my latest correspondence with the Vonage folks, they claim they > charge the 3% Federal excise tax on top of their posted rates, but > no other fees. This is a BIG win for them, especially if they are > not subject to the federal access line charge (currently $6 on my > first line and $6.99 on my second). Can any current customers > verify that this is true? Yes, it's true. Keep in mind that the "access charge" is a lie, it's simply part of the monthly rate that a telco is allowed to list separately to create the false impression that it goes somewhere other than into their pocket. The actual taxes that they evade are the 911 and universal service fees as well as state sales tax. I see a sales tax line on the invoice form, so the may charge tax if you're in New Jersey where they are. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711 johnl@iecc.com Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner http://iecc.com/johnl Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: Time Warner Cable Dials in Phone Service Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 08:42:39 -0700 In article , Paul Wallich wrote: > I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it could be nice to > see some real choices in phone service, but on the other hand this > could be a signal for ILECs to start abandoning the POTS market as > everyone competes for the add-on services. If telephone over cable > (even with a UPS on the customer side) is only as reliable as cable tv > or internet service, that's going to be an enormous step down in > quality for most people, and if (as usually happens in such > competitions) other voice carriers succeed in bringing landline local > loops down to their level, that would be very unfortunate indeed. In my area (Silicon Valley), cable service, as decrepit as it is, happens to be far more reliable than the telephone service. Furthermore, when there is an incident that damages aerial or underground facilities, the cable company is on the scene hours before SBC. I live in a wooded area and fires are not uncommon. I remember a fire that took out power, cable, and telephone service for some of us. The cable company got there first and restored cable. Next came SBC, who refused to enter the area of the damaged cable until the power company came out and blessed it as "safe". Finally the power company showed up and restored power. Telephone service wasn't restored until late the next day. > At $40 a month or so, AOLTW's service seems targeted to people who can > afford multiple service providers, so may not be an issue initially. If the cable company here offered telephone service, there would be no reason whatsoever to keep SBC for anything. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 13:26:33 +0000 (GMT) From: Matt Bartlett Subject: Re: Re-programming a CDM9500BA Organization: Optimum Online The CDM9500 is a CDMA phone Dual-Band/Tri-Mode 800/1900Mhz phone. Verizon uses CDMA. AT&T uses TDMA and/or GSM so the phone would not work. Sprint uses CDMA @ 1900Mhz, but they will only active a Sprint-branded phone. As Pat mentioned below, the firmware is different. Just to finish the list, T-Mobile & Cingular is GSM as well, and Nextel uses iDEN. Neither one of those would be compatible either. Larry Dykas wrote in message news:telecom22.478.8@telecom-digest.org... > Dear Patrick Townson, > I have a brand new Audiovox/Toshiba CDM9500BA cellphone. It cost me > about $250. The BA at the end of the model number means that ONLY > BellAtlantic companies (i.e. Verizon) can be accessed by this phone. > Can you give me a name of a company that can re-program the phone to > use AT&T or Sprint services? Or, where to get the codes to reprogram it > myself? > Sincerely, > Larry Dykas > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: BellAtlantic may be different than AT&T > in their procedures, but I do not think so, meaning what you are > asking *cannot be done*. In AT&T's case, there is 'firmware' in the > phone which flatly refuses any service changes away from AT&T. When I > first got my AT&T phone (a Nokia 5165) it was a pretty good deal, but > I found that here in Independence all I could do with AT&T was 'roam' > (as 'extended area') on Cell One rather than get a 'true' AT&T signal. > The signal strength was never that good. Both the local Cell One and > Cingular Wireless stores had Nokia 5165 phones, as did the local Radio > Shack (hawking them as Alltel) and the U.S. Cellular dealer. My offer > to all of them was 'whoever can convert this Nokia 5165 over to their > carrier gets a contract from me'. All the wizards here in town looked > over the phone closely and all came to the same conclusion: it cannot > be modified. They all tried; one even suggested some hardware mods in > it. "Well, it is a Nokia 5165", I protested. 'No matter', they said. > If you are not gonna be an AT&T customer you pitch that phone in the > trash. A nice lady from AT&T customer service even told me the same > thing; your two choices are be our customer or trash the phone. > I went with Cingular Wireless and still have a Nokia 5165 phone (and > in fact, the sales guy in our Cingular Wireless store even used some > kind of 'patch cord' to transfer over my address book from the old > to the new Nokia 5165). But no one could pull the phone itself away to > Cingular from AT&T. I strongly suspect the BA phone is the same way, > but I do not know that positively. It will stay forever with the BA > companies. Ain't the phone company good enough for you any longer, is > that it? > What I did with the *old* (AT&T) Nokia 5165 after it had been turned > off from its Chicago area 630 number was get it put on Tulsa, OK AT&T > prepaid service as a spare phone. I called 800-888-7600 and asked for > new prepaid service on the Nokia. While I waited on hold, the nice > lady got a new number for me (918-630-something) and walked me through > programming the new number into the phone. After we did that she said > if I gave her my credit card number she would turn it on; I gave her > $25 and she put it on prepaid. So it still runs on the same old Dobson > Cell Tower east of town, with a much better signal than what Cell One > was providing the phone when AT&T (as a roaming, extended area customer) > was operating it. You may want to do the same with your BA phone; just > keep it on prepaid service as a spare cell phone. All my Nokia 5165 > accessories (spare battery, Cell Socket, earphones, etc) still work on > it as they do on my 'regular' (Cingular) phone. That's one reason I > wanted to stay with the Nokia, so I did not have to buy all new > accessories. I have since changed it from the 'Tulsa market' (which is > what we are in here in Independence) to the 'Wichita market' (a/c > 316-841-something) so I could have an area 316 number for the phone. > And you paid $250 for the phone? Must really be a grand instrument. > Most places hand you a phone for free if you contract with them, or > you can get new cell phones for $25-50. > By the way, folks, my brain desease has gotten worse, so as of June 1, > Lisa Minter (lisa_minter@yahoo.com) is going to be taking over the > Digest for occassional issues. No distribution changes or list > changes are anticipated.) PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Re-programming a CDM9500BA Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 06:34:23 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On Sun, 25 May 2003 12:43:53 -0400, Larry Dykas wrote: > I have a brand new Audiovox/Toshiba CDM9500BA cellphone. It cost me > about $250. The BA at the end of the model number means that ONLY > BellAtlantic companies (i.e. Verizon) can be accessed by this phone. > Can you give me a name of a company that can re-program the phone to > use AT&T or Sprint services? Or, where to get the codes to reprogram it > myself? You cannot use AT&T for either their TDMA (IS-136) service or their GSM service as that handset is for CDMA (IS-95) only. Aside from that you can most likely only use the phone when reprogrammed on another CDMA network. Because different mobile phones work on different technologies you can't just switch between carriers unless the handset is compatible with the network you are wanting to use. GSM handsets on the other hand can be used on any GSM network provided that the handset is not "locked" to that carrier though the lock can be defeated by either entering unlock codes or having the handset reflashed. You cannot use the Toshiba/Audiovox on Sprint even though they are a CDMA network because Sprint will only activate phones that they either they sell or have been on their network in the past. On Sun, 25 May 2003 12:43:53 -0400, [Pat, as moderator wrote]: > And you paid $250 for the phone? Must really be a grand instrument. > Most places hand you a phone for free if you contract with them, or > you can get new cell phones for $25-50. $250 for a full-featured phone is believe it or not a not ridiculous price to pay for a phone. Sure, you can get a phone for free if you are just signing up for a service, but like most things in life you get what you pay for. If you want a simple phone with minimal features the free or cheap phone may work just fine for you. Some people want more than that and if that's what they want there are all sorts of choices that can be made. It all comes down to what you need or can afford. $21,000 Vertu phones may be just the ticket for some high roller and free phones may be just the thing for those that want just the basics. Replies are seldom read. Please reply in the group ------------------------------ From: wesrock@aol.com (Wes Leatherock) Date: 26 May 2003 01:56:51 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs? On Sun, 25 May 2003 15:24:16 +0000 (GMT) du651@freenet.carleton.ca (Joseph Ballantyne) wrote: > Hans Lain (user@domain.com) writes: >> ...66-block - why is it called such when it has 25-pairs (50 wires)? > They're called "66 block" because all the various models made by all the > various manufacturers (that I've ever seen) include the string "66" in > the model number. E.g., "NE-66QAE-50", "NT-66QAA25", "R66B", "66B3-50". > So "66 block" is a generic term for all blocks in that physical package, > regardless of their internal connections. Probably for the same reason 500-type telephones or 300-type telephones are called by that nomenclature even though there are not 500 or 300 of anything. And then there are 2500 sets. Various vacuum tubes had numbers that were not related to the counting numbers of any component of the tube. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: danielzr@netzero.net (Daniel Rosenzweig) Subject: CLEC Availability List - Connecticut? Date: 26 May 2003 14:07:57 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Are there any competative local phone companies (consumer) available in Connecticut? Is there a good (read - not only showing sponsored providers) listing online? What about DSL comparison (cable modem too, but that's already off-topic :-) ? Thanks. ------------------------------ From: Phil McKerracher Subject: Re: E1 Alarms Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 20:51:07 GMT Organization: blueyonder (post doesn't reflect views of blueyonder) Kenneth Becker wrote in message news:telecom22.476.10@telecom-digest.org: > Vcc Ground wrote: >> 1) Can anybody clearly explain me the E1 alarms? Particularly AIS... >> 2) Please suggest some web sites that have good and neatly explained >> tutorials on analogue and digital telecom. AIS is very briefly explained on my ISDN tutorial site at www.mckerracher.org/isdn if that helps. Basically, it's the network side saying "I'm here but I can't provide service". It helps in diagnosing because it means that the fault is probably not on the link that is receiving the alarm (otherwise you would be seeing loss of signal or loss of framing), but further upstream somewhere. This particular alarm has no equivalent in the other direction (upstream from user to network). Phil McKerracher www.mckerracher.org ------------------------------ 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #479 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue May 27 19:42:27 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4RNgRP03058; Tue, 27 May 2003 19:42:27 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 19:42:27 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305272342.h4RNgRP03058@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #480 TELECOM Digest Tue, 27 May 2003 19:42:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 480 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson How to Unclog the Information Artery (Monty Solomon) Easier Rules May Not Mean More Newspaper-TV Deals (Monty Solomon) From PlayStation to Supercomputer for $50,000 (Monty Solomon) AOL Founder Said to Consider a Spinoff (Monty Solomon) New ReplayTV Models May Skip Some Features (Monty Solomon) Qualcomm News (Monty Solomon) CIENA Reports Second Quarter Results (Monty Solomon) Cisco Announces First Production Deployment of Cable Voice (M Solomon) EPIC Alert 10.10 (Monty Solomon) Nextel Delivers Secure, Fast Efficient Data Access to Mobile (Solomon) Verizon Gives 11 Million New York and New England Customers (M Solomon) Paris-Wide Wireless Internet Hotspot 'Wi-Fi' Pilot Launched (M Solomon) Re: SpamAssassin (Bill Horne) Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs? (Art Jackson) Last Laugh! The Spammers Are Getting Brazen (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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 02:18:46 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: How to Unclog the Information Artery By SAUL HANSELL THE libertarian roots of the Internet run deep. It was the place where innovation trumped experience, where the little guy had as big a megaphone as the largest network, where the small business could reach a global market, where the public could regulate far better than any government. No one imagined that the megaphone would become so loud or that it would speak so often of penis enlargement pills and opportunities for unusual financial transactions in Nigeria. As the quantity of spam rises to drown out other e-mail, the libertarian is being replaced by the draconian. Regulate it, ban it, censor it, tax it, the cries rise up. Do something, anything, to keep it out of my mailbox. Internet companies boast of their spam-fighting tools. There are, in fact, a wide range of proposals for taming spam. Some involve technological innovation or legislation; many involve both. "It is clear we must act,' Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said last week at a hearing on spam before the Commerce Committee, which he heads. "For Congress's part, we should make no mistake. Unless we can effectively enforce the laws we write, those laws will have little meaning or deterrent effect on any would-be purveyor of spam." Most of the bills in Congress are built around imposing penalties for sending deceptive e-mail, like a message from "jenny" with the subject of "About last night." Some also want to make it easy to spot spam, typically by requiring the label ADV in the subject line of commercial e-mail. But what exactly is spam? Some say it is any e-mail you didn't ask for. But if that standard were applied to postal mail, entire industries like credit cards and catalogs would come to a halt. Those companies want to ensure that any crackdown on spam doesn't prevent them from moving their business into the electronic age. So far, the bills in Congress say that it is enough to let e-mail recipients opt out and to give them an easy way to avoid future e-mail. Some states are considering a tougher standard, banning all e-mail to people who don't opt in, or request it. Others are taking matters into their own hands. Volunteer spam fighters are creating lists of Internet addresses of spammers to boycott. And some Internet service providers are preparing to dig even deeper moats around people's in-boxes, blocking mail from anyone the recipient doesn't already know. The biggest potential reductions in spam may come from some more radical ideas, like imposing a small fee, like a postage stamp, for sending e-mail. And much of the spam problem could be stopped if the recipient of an e-mail message could verify the identity of the sender. But checking ID's at the door, in effect, is quite a change for a system virtually hardwired for libertarian anonymity. Everyone in the world of the Internet is thinking about spam. Following are excerpts from conversations with seven people who have some ideas for a solution: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/25/business/yourmoney/25SPAM.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 02:56:51 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Easier Rules May Not Mean More Newspaper-TV Deals By JACQUES STEINBERG and ANDREW ROSS SORKIN For all the efforts by media companies to persuade the Federal Communications Commission to loosen its restrictions on media consolidation, few are expected to go on immediate spending sprees once the proposed rule changes are enacted, as anticipated, on June 2. The conventional wisdom has predicted a rash of deals after the commission implements the rules, which include lifting the ban on owning a newspaper and a television station in the same market, as well as relaxing the criteria allowing broadcasters to own two or more local stations. Under this thinking, newspaper companies would snap up television stations, and companies with deep holdings in broadcast television stations would do likewise with newspapers. And broadcasters would move to buy more stations in their current markets. But interviews in recent days with senior executives and investment bankers of the media companies indicate that the short-term impact on cross-ownership deals may be far less than some envision. While Media General and the Tribune Company said they intend to pursue such arrangements aggressively, other companies, including Gannett and the Belo Corporation, are expressing more caution. And the News Corporation, the Walt Disney Company and Viacom are not expected to buy newspapers in markets where they already own stations. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/26/business/media/26PAPE.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 03:00:32 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: From PlayStation to Supercomputer for $50,000 By JOHN MARKOFF As perhaps the clearest evidence yet of the computing power of sophisticated but inexpensive video-game consoles, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has assembled a supercomputer from an army of Sony PlayStation 2's. The resulting system, with components purchased at retail prices, cost a little more than $50,000. The center's researchers believe the system may be capable of a half trillion operations a second, well within the definition of supercomputer, although it may not rank among the world's 500 fastest supercomputers. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the project, which uses the open source Linux operating system, is that the only hardware engineering involved was placing 70 of the individual game machines in a rack and plugging them together with a high-speed Hewlett-Packard network switch. The center's scientists bought 100 machines, but are holding 30 in reserve, possibly for high-resolution display application. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/26/technology/26XSUPE.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 03:04:26 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AOL Founder Said to Consider a Spinoff By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK Stephen M. Case, mastermind of America Online's record-breaking acquisition of Time Warner, has begun to talk favorably of undoing the deal by spinning off AOL, according to two senior company officials who have spoken with him. Mr. Case's opinions may have little effect on AOL Time Warner's future, however, because of his waning power at the company. His views may even reflect his own frustration with his changing status. But his private comments over the last few months about spinning off AOL run counter to public statements he made just a few months ago, when he was defending both the idea of the merger and his own place in the company. Through a company spokesman, Mr. Case declined to comment. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/27/business/media/27CASE.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 03:11:58 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: New ReplayTV Models May Skip Some Features By Franklin Paul NEW YORK, May 21 (Reuters) - ReplayTV on Wednesday said it would likely leave untouched for now some controversial features on its home television recording machines but may strip them from new models. ReplayTV, the digital video recorder maker purchased last month by Japan's D&M Holdings Inc. (TOKYO:6735) from bankrupt SONICblue Inc. (PK:SBLUQ), said it is mulling the fate of ReplayTV's features, which include the ability to skip commercials, and to send saved programs over the Internet. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34292171 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 03:15:40 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Qualcomm News Qualcomm unveils new line of powerful mobile chips - May 22, 2003 12:00 AM (Reuters) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34293688 QUALCOMM Announces WCDMA (UMTS)/GSM/GPRS Multimode Solution Supporting HSDPA - May 22, 2003 06:45 AM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34295649 QUALCOMM Demonstrates High-Speed Call Set-up With QChat(TM) Push-to-Talk Technology - May 22, 2003 06:45 AM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34295650 KTF Renews Commitment to QUALCOMM's BREW(TM) Solution by Extending Contract to Offer BREW-Based Services in South Korea - May 22, 2003 06:46 AM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34295656 QUALCOMM and BellSouth International Sign Agreement to Launch BREW(TM)-Based Services in Nine Latin American Countries - May 22, 2003 06:45 AM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34295662 QUALCOMM Announces Complete End-to-End CDMA2000 Revision D Commercial Solution - May 22, 2003 06:45 AM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34295666 QUALCOMM Announces Highly Integrated Dual-CPU Single Chip Solutions for High-Performance Multimedia Wireless Devices - May 22, 2003 06:45 AM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34295670 QUALCOMM Announces CDMA2000 1X Chipset Solution for Entry-Level 3G Devices - May 22, 2003 06:45 AM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34295678 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 03:16:05 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CIENA Reports Second Quarter Results LINTHICUM, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 22, 2003--CIENA(R) Corporation (NASDAQ:CIEN), a leading provider of global networking solutions, today reported its second quarter results for the period ending April 30, 2003. Revenue for the quarter totaled $73.5 million, representing sequential growth of 4% from the prior fiscal quarter. On a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) basis, CIENA's reported net loss for the period was $75.5 million, or a net loss of $0.17 per share. The quarter's GAAP results include non-cash deferred stock compensation charges of $4.4 million, amortization of intangible assets of $3.4 million, and net restructuring costs of $2.7 million. Revenue for the six months ending April 30, 2003 totaled $144.0 million. On a GAAP basis, CIENA's net loss for the six-month period was $182.6 million, or a net loss of $0.42 per share. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34295842 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 03:18:16 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cisco Announces First Production Deployment of Cable Voice Cisco Announces First Production Deployment of Cable Voice Over IP Solution; Time Warner Cable First to Deliver Residential VoIP, Video and Data ''Triple Play'' Bundle - May 22, 2003 08:01 AM (BusinessWire) SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 22, 2003--Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:CSCO) today announced that Time Warner Cable, a leading provider of cable television and high-speed Internet access services, is now delivering a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) cable primary-line residential telephone service, Digital Phone, to customers in Portland, Maine. Using the industry-leading Cisco(R) Internet Protocol (IP) voice solution, Time Warner Cable is gaining significant operating efficiencies by adding their Digital Phone service to their existing Cisco Powered Network infrastructure. Time Warner Cable is delivering a "triple play" bundle of services using standards-based technologies and intelligent networking based on Cisco products, including voice, video and internet access. This infrastructure also provides the foundation for future services such as video telephony and multiplayer on-line gaming. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34296626 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 00:49:43 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EPIC Alert 10.10 ======================================================================= E P I C A l e r t ======================================================================= Volume 10.10 May 23, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Published by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) Washington, D.C. http://www.epic.org/alert/EPIC_Alert_10.10.html ====================================================================== Table of Contents ====================================================================== [1] Pentagon Submits Report on Info Awareness Project [2] EPIC Testifies at Senate Spam Hearing [3] Justice Department Reports on PATRIOT Act Implementation [4] FTC Workshop on Technologies for Protecting Personal Information [5] EPIC Obtains ChoicePoint Documents in FOIA Suit [6] News in Brief [7] EPIC Bookstore: Invisible Punishment [8] Upcoming Conferences and Events http://www.epic.org/alert/EPIC_Alert_10.10.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 01:14:42 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Nextel Delivers Secure, Fast and Efficient Data Access to Mobile Nextel Delivers Secure, Fast and Efficient Data Access to Mobile Workers with a Mobile VPN Solution That Leverages IBM Software; Solution is Part of the Nextel Alliance with IBM - May 21, 2003 09:30 AM (BusinessWire) RESTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 21, 2003--Nextel Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:NXTL), a leading provider of fully integrated digital wireless communications, today announced it is offering a new mobile Virtual Private Network (VPN) solution that uses IBM (NYSE:IBM) software to provide mobile workers a higher level of security, faster response times and more efficient access to key enterprise data anywhere on Nextel's all-digital packet data network. The IBM software, WebSphere Everyplace Connection Manager (WECM), allows Nextel subscribers to utilize a standards-based VPN platform that provides reliable, secure, high-speed connections to wirelessly access mission-critical data. WebSphere Everyplace Connection Manager helps corporate IT departments streamline the systems they need to support corporate customers by providing a consistent platform that offers network optimization, end-to-end security and scalability which reduces costs and improves user experience. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34281791 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 03:25:09 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon Gives 11 Million New York and New England Customers Easy Verizon Gives 11 Million New York and New England Customers Easy Access To 24-hour Online Service Center - May 22, 2003 01:18 PM (PR Newswire) Temporary User IDs and Passwords Distributed with May Bills Simplify Registration, Access to Shopping, Ordering, Repairs and Online Bill Review and Payment Options NEW YORK, May 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon has swung wide open the entrance to its dynamic e-commerce Web site by giving temporary user IDs and numeric passwords to all residential customers throughout New York and New England who are not already registered to use the site. More than 4 million New Englanders and 7 million New Yorkers will find computer-generated IDs and passwords printed on the top right-hand corner of their May phone bills, allowing them to use the site and its advanced features immediately. Upon visiting the site and using the codes the first time, customers will personalize both the ID and password. Normally, customers must first register to use the site, filling in an electronic form with security validation based on their most recent phone bill. As always, Verizon is taking all necessary steps to protect customer information. This speedy registration capability still restricts access to customer information to that specific customer and does not change Verizon's security procedures. It just simplifies the registration process for the authorized user. Customers who use the temporary ID and password to go to the site and personalize access limit that access to only those individuals who know the codes. Alternatively, customers can call Verizon to deactivate the codes. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34302103 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 03:33:46 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Paris-Wide Wireless Internet Hotspot 'Wi-Fi' Pilot Launched Paris-Wide Wireless Internet Hotspot ''Wi-Fi'' Pilot Launched by City's Transport Authority, RATP Based on Cisco Technology - May 26, 2003 08:00 AM (BusinessWire) The Regie Autonome Des Transports Parisiens Selects Cisco Systems to Provide Wireless Internet and Interconnection Technology in Trial that Could Put Paris at Forefront of Public Hotspot Service Delivery in Europe Cisco Systems announced today that it is working with Naxos, one of two telecommunications subsidiaries of the Regie Autonome des Transports Parisiens (RATP), the Independent Paris Transport Authority, in a WiFi (wireless fidelity) test of local area network points deployed in the city's metro stations. The project, named WIXOS (for Wi-Fi eXtensible aux Operateurs de Services), is a potential precursor to the roll out of a metropolitan area network that will be used to ensure the development of hotspots for wire-free Internet access with minimum visual and environmental impact on the French capital. Paris has one of the densest metro systems in the world, comprising 400 stations with an average distance of just 550 metres between each one. The wireless network is supported by a Cisco Metro Ethernet switching architecture, which runs over part of the 40,000 kilometres of optic fibre cabling controlled by Telcite, RATP's other telecommunications subsidiary. The transport authority believes it may be able to use this infrastructure to build a city-wide Wi-Fi network that could be used by French Internet service providers to offer on-the-move Web and email access to their customers. The aim is to allow both street-level and underground commuters to log onto the network whilst travelling with a laptop and/or a PC to or from work, as they would from their offices or homes, and access emails, surf the Web or pick up location-specific information such as travel news. Among others, the service is expected to be of great value to travelling business people, who could do much more work while out and about and would no longer need to return to the office to pick up messages in between meetings. The service providers Bouygues Telecom, T-Online's Club Internet, TELE2, TLC Mobile and WIFI Spot have already all committed to participating on the platform. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34327702 ------------------------------ From: Bill Horne Subject: Re: SpamAssassin Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 01:07:41 GMT Joey Lindstrom wrote in message news:telecom22.472.7@telecom-digest.org: > I'm in kinda the same boat as you, in that I'm reticent to simply > chuck anything that SpamAssassin considers spam. This thing is good, > but it isn't PERFECT. I host email for 22 domains totalling about 65 > users. There's a few "vanity" domain names but others are for small > businesses and there's an associated website. Their email address is > ON THE WEBSITE, thus it attracts a lot of spam. [snip] A recent study by the Center for Democracy and Technology (http://www.cdt.org/speech/spam/030319spamreport.shtml) found that email addresses which were published in "URL encoded" format did not receive any spam. So, if you encode an email address on your website, browsers *can* read it, but address harvesters don't recognize it as an email address at all. The CDT report gives one technique which works for addresses inside hyperlinks: see http://www.mooreshopping.co.uk/articles/encodemail.htm for details on an encoding technique that's more robust than CDT's, and which works for all text on a site. YMMV: spam prevention is an arms race, so eventually the address harvesters will be reprogrammed to find encoded addresses. However, if you 'must' have your email address in public view, this technique will work for now. Paradoxically, the more people use it, the less effective it will be, but so long as the percentage of 'educated' users is small, it won't be worth the spammers time or money to catch it. HTH. Bill Horne P.S. Also, encoding the address in 'human readable' format (e.g., bhorne.nouce, where the meaning of '.nouce' is fairly obvious) also prevented spam. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs? From: Art Jackson Organization: W4TOY Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 01:34:36 GMT wesrock@aol.com (Wes Leatherock) wrote in news:telecom22.479.6@telecom-digest.org: > On Sun, 25 May 2003 15:24:16 +0000 (GMT) du651@freenet.carleton.ca > (Joseph Ballantyne) wrote: >> Hans Lain (user@domain.com) writes: >>> ...66-block - why is it called such when it has 25-pairs (50 >>> wires)? >> They're called "66 block" because all the various models made by >> all the various manufacturers (that I've ever seen) include the >> string "66" in the model number. E.g., "NE-66QAE-50", >> "NT-66QAA25", "R66B", "66B3-50". So "66 block" is a generic term >> for all blocks in that physical package, regardless of their >> internal connections. > Probably for the same reason 500-type telephones or 300-type > telephones are called by that nomenclature even though there are > not 500 or 300 of anything. > And then there are 2500 sets. > Various vacuum tubes had numbers that were not related to the > counting numbers of any component of the tube. > Wes Leatherock > wesrock@aol.com > wleathus@yahoo.com Most youngsters now days, think vacuum tubes are those things at the Bank drive-thru, where you put a check into a cannister, then it's sucked away somewhere. Hopefully after a while, it comes back with money in it. ;-) Art Jackson W4TOY Owensboro, KY USA Life is God's open book test. In order to pass, you must open His book to find the answers. ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 18:01:50 -0600 Subject: Last Laugh! The Spammers Are Getting Brazen Reply-To: joey@garynuman.info Here's a piece of spam that caught my eye today (headers included). The thing that made it unique (at least, as far as the spam I've personally seen) is that this guy actually *CALLS* what he does "spamming" and brags about how much spam he sends out. It also gives an interesting insight into how spammers think, as it refers to people as "sheep" that will eventually cave in and buy their shit if enough spam floods their mailboxes. Of note: 1) This spammer claims that his system is "ANTI-SPAMMER PROOF". This particular spam was identified as spam both through an RBL lookup (spews.org) as well as by SpamAssassin, netting a rather high score of 24 (of which 5 was added due to its being flagged by spews.org, so 19 all by itself). 2) The silly bugger left us a toll-free number to call. I recommend that everyone call right away for all the details on how you too can get in on the act. Be sure to have a pen and paper handy, otherwise you might have to call back repeatedly to ask for clarification on any details you may have missed. :-) Note that this number DOES work from Canada (at least it does from area code 403 in southern Alberta). On Tue, 27 May 03 01:15:13 GMT, Spamming for Big $$$$ wrote: >Return-path: >Received: from 200-158-225-91.dsl.telesp.net.br >(200-158-225-91.dsl.telesp.net.br [200.158.225.91]) > by lairdsflooring.com (oldtimeradiovault.com [208.38.10.100]) > (MDaemon.PRO.v6.8.0rc3.R) > with ESMTP id 60-md50000000019.tmp > for ; Mon, 26 May 2003 14:21:37 -0600 >Received: from oc5.fnil0.net [229.4.192.226] by 200-158-225-91.dsl.telesp.net.br with ESMTP id 30BF82AA125; Tue, 27 May 2003 01:15:13 -0100 >Message-ID: <26o$9k405-z-75@fd9oa9> >From: "Spamming for Big $$$$" >To: >Date: Tue, 27 May 03 01:15:13 GMT >X-Priority: 1 >X-MSMail-Priority: High >X-Mailer: eGroups Message Poster >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: multipart/alternative; > boundary=".4B.43202.87_" >X-RBL-Warning: spam from 200.158.225.91 refused, see http://www.spews.org >X-Lookup-Warning: MAIL lookup on richard@poprx.com does not match 200.158.225.91 >X-MDRcpt-To: joey@lairdsflooring.com >X-MDRemoteIP: 200.158.225.91 >X-Return-Path: richard@poprx.com >X-MDaemon-Deliver-To: spam@garynuman.info >Reply-To: richard@poprx.com >X-Spam-Status: Yes, hits=24.0 required=5.0 > tests=BULK_EMAIL,CASHCASHCASH,CLICK_BELOW_CAPS,EXCUSE_19, > EXCUSE_3,HTML_30_40,HTML_FONT_BIG,HTML_FONT_COLOR_BLUE, > HTML_FONT_COLOR_RED,HTML_LINK_CLICK_CAPS, > HTML_LINK_CLICK_HERE,HTML_MESSAGE,HTML_TITLE_UNTITLED, > MARKETING_PARTNERS,MDAEMON_SPAM_BLOCKER,MIME_HTML_ONLY, > MISSING_MIMEOLE,MISSING_OUTLOOK_NAME,MONEY_MAKING, > ONLINE_PHARMACY,RATWARE_EGROUPS,REMOVE_FROM_LIST, > X_PRIORITY_HIGH > version=2.53 >X-Spam-Level: ************************ >X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.53 (1.174.2.15-2003-03-30-exp) >X-Spam-Report: ---- Start SpamAssassin results > 24.00 points, 5 required; > Message preview: > Untitled Document The reason YOU are recieving the TWICE PER WEEK "CONFIDENTIAL Money Making Newsletter" Because you Opted-In and Subscribed directly with us. Read this E-mail completely and if you decide to unsubscribe, > please allow up to 3 weeks to be removed from our mailing list. [...] > Content analysis details: > X_PRIORITY_HIGH (1.9 points) Sent with 'X-Priority' set to high > RATWARE_EGROUPS (4.3 points) Bulk email software fingerprint (eGroups) found in headers > MDAEMON_SPAM_BLOCKER (5.0 points) Message has been marked by MDaemon's Spam Blocker > CLICK_BELOW_CAPS (0.5 points) BODY: Asks you to click below (in capital letters) > ONLINE_PHARMACY (0.9 points) BODY: Online Pharmacy > EXCUSE_3 (0.1 points) BODY: Claims you can be removed from the list > MONEY_MAKING (2.7 points) BODY: Discusses money making > BULK_EMAIL (1.6 points) BODY: Talks about bulk email > MARKETING_PARTNERS (2.1 points) BODY: Claims you registered with some kind of partner > EXCUSE_19 (0.6 points) BODY: Claims you opted-in or registered > REMOVE_FROM_LIST (0.0 points) BODY: To be removed from list > HTML_LINK_CLICK_HERE (0.1 points) BODY: HTML link text says "click here" > HTML_30_40 (0.9 points) BODY: Message is 30% to 40% HTML > HTML_FONT_COLOR_RED (0.1 points) BODY: HTML font color is red > HTML_MESSAGE (0.1 points) BODY: HTML included in message > HTML_FONT_BIG (0.3 points) BODY: FONT Size +2 and up or 3 and up > HTML_LINK_CLICK_CAPS (1.1 points) BODY: HTML link text says "CLICK" > HTML_FONT_COLOR_BLUE (0.1 points) BODY: HTML font color is blue > HTML_TITLE_UNTITLED (0.4 points) BODY: HTML title contains "Untitled" > MISSING_MIMEOLE (0.5 points) Message has X-MSMail-Priority, but no X-MimeOLE > MIME_HTML_ONLY (0.1 points) Message only has text/html MIME parts > CASHCASHCASH (0.0 points) Contains at least 3 dollar signs in a row > MISSING_OUTLOOK_NAME (0.6 points) Message looks like Outlook, but isn't > ---- End SpamAssassin results >X-Spam-Flag: YES >X-Spam-Processed: oldtimeradiovault.com, Mon, 26 May 2003 14:21:40 -0600 >Subject: ***SPAM-M*** Score/Req: 24.00/05.00 - Learn to SPAM and make BIG $$$$$$$$$$$$$ >X-Joey-Spam-Level: Medium > >Untitled Document > >The reason YOU are recieving the TWICE PER WEEK "CONFIDENTIAL Money Making Newsletter" Because you Opted-In and Subscribed directly >with us. Read this E-mail completely and if you decide to unsubscribe, please allow up to 3 weeks to be removed from our mailing list. > >LEARN HOW TO SPAM AND MAKE A FORTUNE!!! > >Send MILLIONS of Bulk E-Mails Every Day and Make THOUSANDS per WEEK! > >Hello Future Spamming Partner!! > >My name is Richard Schuler, I'm a 23 year old Multi-Millionare and I'm inviting you to Learn How to Spam Millions of People Per Day like I do with my Online Pharmacy Business. My Company - Efficient Systems - sends OVER 600 MILLION SPAM E-MAILS per day, every single day, through a rapidly growing network of saavy and aggressive worldwide marketing partners. We are directly responsible for up to 70% of the online Viagra and Pharmacy sales on the net today and by far the largest E-Mail Marketing operation of this kind in the world, bar none! > >We teach you How to SPAM and provide you with all the tools you need in order to make THOUSANDS of dollars per week. E-Mail marketing has made my company the largest online pharmacy - built on a solid foundation of BULK E-MAIL MARKEING - doing $ 60 Million dollars per year and growing. We ROCK! > >We'll show you "insider secrets" of how to successfully send MILLIONS of e-mails every day to AOL, Hotmail, and Yahoo, to millions of eager and receptive customers who are almost DYING to get our "Free Prescription" online pharmaceuticals. CLICK HERE to jump on the Spamming Bandwagon NOW http://www.poprx.com/poprx/affiliates.html - It's never been so easy to make EASY money on the internet! >Why are we so successful?? 1. Because NO ONE can bring us down! And 2. Because we KICK ASS with Our HACKER PROOF and ANTI-SPAMMER PROOF sales websites and because when you get right down to it, PEOPLE ARE LIKE SHEEP, and if the "sheep" get enough e-mail shoved at them, the sheep WILL become customers! It's that simple and it's the key to our success and the prosperity of our partners! We've just kicked off a drive to recruit THOUSANDS of new sales partners and affiliates. Some of our largest Spammers are being paid $55,000 per week! Contact us and JOIN US NOW! > >Check out our sites. >We Provide 24/7 Customer Care at >888-232-8086 >www.pearlrx.com >http://www.rxdirect-md.com/index.html >http://www.poprx.com/poprx/ >http://www.poprx.com/poprx/affiliates.html > > >Ready to Get Started and Start Sending Lots of E-Mail For Us?? > >Call or E-Mail me NOW! > >Sincerely, > >Richard Schuler >E-Mail me by Clicking HERE >My Personal Phone numbers are: >954-536-9448 >954-650-3364 > >EFFICIENT SYSTEMS >2148 SW 38TH STREET >DANIA, FL 33312 >888 232-8107 x 206 > >Not Interested in Getting our Twice Per Week Money Maker Newsletters?? >No Problem! Just Send an E-mail to jim@poprx.com with the words: >"I'm Passing up this Opportunity to Make BIG Money" > >Or Click Here Now... REMOVE ME >(Please Allow up to THREE WEEKS to be removed from our Mailing List) > > > > > > > > > htyojzgyytaavtiq vm x hn iioufrw /From the desk of Joey Lindstrom / / The sun never sets on the British Empire. But it rises every morning. / The sky must get awfully crowded. / --Steven Wright [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I *certainly hope* this issue of the Digest gets out okay with this incredible spam enclosed. If I see it start bouncing back, maybe I will eliminate this message and simply summarize it instead. When Joey sent it here to me it fell in *my* spam bucket as well. Let's see what happens. 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #480 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue May 27 23:27:20 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4S3RKQ04093; Tue, 27 May 2003 23:27:20 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 23:27:20 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305280327.h4S3RKQ04093@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #481 TELECOM Digest Tue, 27 May 2003 23:27:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 481 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: From the Archives: End of Dial Tone Monopoly (joe@obilivan.net) Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on 2nd ATA Port (Ed Ellers) Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on 2nd ATA Port (Mitchell) AOL Says F.C.C. Rule Holds Back Its Instant Messaging (Monty Solomon) Re: Apple's New Service Beats Illegal Sites (Dave Close) Cellphone Network in Baghdad (Henry) mBanking Application (Divya) Callmaster IV (help) Anyone Use Infone? (J Kelly) Re: SpamAssassin (Garrett Wollman) A Bitter Taste in my Mouth (TELECOM Digest Editor) Testing New Freeware -- WebGPS (Projecto Traipse) Vonage Testing (Patrick Townson) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: joe@obilivan.net Subject: Re: From the Archives: End of Dial Tone Monopoly Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 11:53:33 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Seems hard to believe doesn't it, that > the well fed dinosaur is about to run out of food, twenty years after > we quit routinely feeding it. I guess it can still live from its fat > for a few more years, however. PAT] Wireline dial-tone is not a natural monoply but it certainly is a practical monoply where distribution has to be on copper pairs. New York City learned the hard way when it had two hostile phone companies competing in Manhattan with dupicate aerial wires all over the place. Even if the "resellers" eventually set up their own switches, how do they connect to the LECs MDF? That is simply a nightmare, both from a logistical standpoint and from a "fox guarding the hen house" standpoint. So far, only cable wireline has emerged as a true competitor for wireline. They come in from the get-go with their own local switch and local "copper." The accounting fictions and manipulations that are presently rampant over the "true" costs of reselling an LEC's switch and local plant are ripe for a repeat of the failed 1900 Manhattan fiasco. No one, but no one, can honestly allocate the costs of, say, SBC's No. 5ESS and copper in Kansas City or its DMS-100 and copper in San Antonio. True competition means zero use of the "RBOC's" facilities, other than inter-office traffic handoffs. ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on Second ATA Port Organization: Insight Broadband Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 02:51:23 GMT John R. Levine wrote: > Keep in mind that the "access charge" is a lie, it's simply part of > the monthly rate that a telco is allowed to list separately to > create the false impression that it goes somewhere other than into > their pocket. Oh? Last time I heard, ILECs at least were *required by the FCC* to charge that access fee over and above what the state commission allowed them to charge -- something that several states vigorously objected to, to no avail. ------------------------------ From: George Mitchell Subject: Re: Vonage Users Can Now Activate "FAX" Line on Second ATA Port Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 22:30:53 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com John R. Levine wrote: > Yes, it's true. Keep in mind that the "access charge" is a lie, > it's simply part of the monthly rate that a telco is allowed to list > separately to create the false impression that it goes somewhere > other than into their pocket. The actual taxes that they evade are > the 911 and universal service fees as well as state sales tax. I > see a sales tax line on the invoice form, so the may charge tax if > you're in New Jersey where they are. Thanks for the confirmation! Now, does anyone know the right person at Vonage to get distinctive ringing turned on? If so, Vonage will have one new customer ... -- George Mitchell (obfuscated email address) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: At least one Vonage customer has already tried it (after testimonials here) and wound up quitting it. This friend of mine (on the west coast, in SFCA) said that he had given his Vonage number to a business contact, who called but did not reach him, nor did Vonage notify him of any voicemail. Two observations by me: (1) either Vonage does not yet *entirely* have its act together or (2) maybe the business associate of my friend lied about trying but failing to get through. I don't know what to think. On my various tests of my personal Vonage line, I have never had that trouble. Have any others of you (with Vonage units) tried tests to see how it worked when you got an incoming call? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 08:50:28 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AOL Says F.C.C. Rule Holds Back Its Instant Messaging By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK As Internet instant messaging heads beyond simple text to audio-video interactions, AOL Time Warner says it is in danger of falling behind, partly because of conditions the government set in approving AOL's acquisition of Time Warner more than two years ago. Through its America Online and other instant messaging services, the company now dominates the field, serving more than 59 million of the estimated 77 million Americans who used an online instant messaging system last month. But as AOL and its rivals in the field, Microsoft and Yahoo, prepare to roll out high-speed instant messaging that allows people to see and talk to one another, AOL Time Warner says it fears that regulatory restrictions will place it at a disadvantage. As a condition of approving AOL's acquisition of Time Warner, the Federal Communications Commission imposed a restriction making it harder for AOL to offer video connections to instant messaging users if it did not link its instant messaging networks with those of competitors. The agency said that unless AOL allowed such links, so that users of the other messaging systems could communicate with AOL's users, the company would not be allowed to provide video instant messaging to customers who used high-speed Internet connections from its sister company, Time Warner Cable. AOL has not yet opened its system to those competitors, and although AOL could offer video instant messaging through other high-speed service providers, the Time Warner Cable stricture is a significant impediment to marketing the service around the country. AOL Time Warner agreed to that condition at the time. But in a filing sent to the F.C.C. last month, AOL Time Warner argues it is unfairly constrained by the rule. The company says it is not as dominant as the F.C.C. had feared back in January 2001, when the agency gave its approval, that in fact it has lost market share and in recent months even users. And so, AOL says, it should not be forced to open its instant messaging service to other companies' networks. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/26/technology/26AOL.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 19:45:49 -0700 From: Dave Close Subject: Re: Apple's New Service Beats Illegal Free Sites Date: 26 May 2003 19:44:55 -0700 Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California Linc Madison writes: > I might knock it down to maybe 39c or 49c, so you could put together a > whole disc for around $7 to $10 (after all, I'm doing the work of > compiling the songs and making the actual disc), but there has to be > some revenue to pay the artists for making the music, and a nickel a > song doesn't do that. In fact, it might -- if the money all went to the performer. Their take on a normal $20 CD isn't much more than a nickel per song. The rest goes to the middlemen in the business. If performers could serve up tracks directly from their own servers, pricing might be much lower. Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA "You can't go to Windows Update dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 and get a patch for stupidity." dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu -- Kevin Mitnick [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Dave is correct on this. When I released the *first edition* of the Telecom Archives CD (back in 1995-96) the company which pressed it and sold it for me was selling it for (I think) about $39 per copy. My 'royalty' on the sales was about $1.50-2.00 per entire CD. Now I agree they had to 'press' it, produce it and market it. But still, $1.50 'royalty' per copy was pretty skimpy. PAT] ------------------------------ From: henry999@eircom.net (Henry) Subject: Cellphone Network in Baghdad Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 06:31:25 +0300 Organization: Elisa Internet customer telecom-relevant: http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0526-07.htm Cheers, Henry ------------------------------ From: traineensp@softcell.co.in (Divya) Subject: mBanking Application Date: 27 May 2003 02:32:13 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi, As part of my college final semester study I have chosen the topic "M-Commerce Illustrating mBanking Applications"...I am going to browse thru the entire M-Commerce technology in a nutshell covering issues w.r.t. security,services(blutooth applications,GSM family-GPRS,EDGE and the like, the current 2G services along with the forthcoming 3G services ...) Actually I am expected to create some study on my own accord without any refereces from books or "cut-copy-pastes" from the Internet ... I also approached a few people regards this for help w.r.t. WML language implementation in the simple mBanking application I intend to design/code ... I was strictly warned that I being a newbie will find it rather tough to develop something so advanced ... I was suggested to use HTML only initially to view some simple application program (not necessarily mBanking Application) and then if that worked , I should be going ahead with the WML translation bit. I am a lil' concerned as to finally what I should study as part of my seminar work and hence seeking guidance from you experienced pple outhere ... Can anybody suggest some simple college-level application along with some reference books/websites from where I can get an idea....Have gone thru Google for the same and did find some related info...But want to ask you for a second opinion and a more one-to-one advice.... Also can anyone suggest how do I narrow down my scope within M-Commerce or what are the latest loopholes found in this field which I could study upon and come out with my original solutions? Thanks in advance and for reading this exceptionally long query. Kindly bear with me ... I promise not to write any more lengthy ones. This being my first time here ... I need to give brief introduction of my background as well. Regards, DR ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 15:25:38 +0400 From: help Subject: Callmaster IV Organization: EIM Greetings, Any idea where can I find a technical guide for Callmaster IV? Thank you, Ali ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Anyone Use Infone? Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 16:48:16 -0500 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Reply-To: jkelly@newsguy.com I've been seeing some ads for Infone on TLC. It looked intriguing, so I checked out the webpage. No monthly fee, 89 cents per call, up to 15 minutes, then 5 cents after that. They claim to do directory assistance, TeleConcierge, Directions and Roadside Assistance, movie times, and you can upload your palm or outlook info so you can access it via the service. It looks pretty good, but I rarely have a need for this type of thing, but since there is no monthly fee I signed up. I haven't thought of any reason to call it to see how it works just yet. Maybe I'll try it the next time I'm looking for a hotel room. Wondering if anyone has tried it and what they thought of it. ------------------------------ From: wollman@lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: SpamAssassin Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 00:57:04 UTC Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science In article , Steven J. Sobol wrote: > I'm designing a system whereby SpamAssassin tags the spam with an > X-Spam-Score header and I let my users decide whether to keep it or > not. I'm also going to give them individual control of their > spamassassin and procmail configurations. This is precisely what I do for myself. I run MIMEdefang, which works in conjunction with File::Scan, SpamAssassin, and many other Perl modules to provide a wide range of message processing services as a sendmail mail filter (milter). Here's a rough description of how I process my mail: - If any recipient is postmaster or abuse, immediately accept the mail without any other action. (This is an essential step, and one many people forget, which leaves them liable to be blacklisted should anyone ever have cause to send mail to those addresses.) - If the sender claimed to be me in the SMTP HELO or EHLO command, but wasn't connecting from one of my addresses, reject the connection at the first opportunity. This is technically a violation of the SMTP standard, but I'm not losing any sleep over it. - If MIMEdefang found something that has the signature of a Windows worm, trojan, or virus, reject it (at the end of the DATA phase). Since I don't use Microsoft software these are rarely of any concern to me, other than the annoyance of receiving 15 copies of Klez every day in my mailbox. - If no non-HTML body parts were seen, reject the message (again, at the end of the DATA phase, before the sender has disocnnected) with the message "HTML mail not accepted here." - Run SpamAssassin on the message. If the message receives a score greater than 10, reject it with the error "This message tastes like spam.". Otherwise, delete any pre-existing spam headers from the message and re-label it in accordance with what SpamAssassin told us. - Finally, collapse redundant multipart/alternative messages generated by people with misconfigured mail programs by deleting all except the text/plain version. This processing happens on all messages through my server -- most importantly, it happens on messages going through my mailing-lists as well, so I can program the list resender to bounce the probable spam. I also run procmail, which does duplicate-suppression for me. (This makes being on a dozen high-volume mailing-lists somewhat more tolerable.) In addition, messages with a SpamAssassin score of at least five get filed to a special mailbox called $MAILDIR/spam. The rest of the mail goes to my regular inbox. I have a cron job set to run every morning before I get in to work apprising me of the contents of the spambox so that I can see whether there's anything needing personal attention, and when it gets too big I just truncate it. -- Garrett A. Wollman |[G]enes make enzymes, and enzymes control the rates of wollman@lcs.mit.edu |chemical processes. Genes do not make ``novelty- Opinions not those of|seeking'' or any other complex and overt behavior. MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| - Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 21:14:17 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: A Bitter Taste in my Mouth I *thought* I was done with Southwestern Bell -- totally ... but I know there is going to be a final billing to be paid. The computer e-billing arrived today in my email, asking for $113.00 give or take a couple dollars. After looking at the copy of the bill on line, I really could not figure it out. My DSL was disconnected (in lieu of cable internet) on May 13; the phone was supposed to be converted the same day. I told you how they (SBC) first claimed I was 'not eligible for conversion' since I had DSL on my line. After I assured that was out of the way, they then claimed there was a 'PIC freeze' on my line. We got that out of the way presumably on May 13. They said I would receive a half month's credit (May 14 through May 28) on my FINAL bill. Sometime the next day, Prairie Stream took over. Anyway, I decided to call them this morning after the email with my final e-bill arrived from them. First I called the Business Office, and after wading through various voice mail menus I got a recording saying 'due to the three day holiday, we are extremely backed up on calls; you may have to wait several minutes. 'Several' turned out to be 35 minutes. Then another recording said they could not find a record of my account and it asked for the 'final three digits' on 'the letter you received from us'. My main concern was that DSL was billed yet once again, for the next month, of $49.95. I wanted that removed. When a woman first answered me, she INSISTED I had not been a customer *since August, 2001* and the balance was all written off ... she would not budge from that position. I hung up, and called back, this time to the 'Internet Depart- ment' and waited some time on hold there for a billing specialist. There, I heard an interesting thing about the Bell computers, which I had not known before. When they ask for your number and put it in, they do not automatically get your account; they get a listing of all the different names of people who have had that number over the years, including yourself. That's (among other things) what the final three digit identifier after your number tells them. That's why many times the rep will ask 'who am I speaking to' before she starts talking, so that she can pick you out of the list of people who have had your number in the past. This latest rep (from the DSL side, who was a 'billing specialist' told me that no indeed, my old balance (of less than a month) had NOT been written off, that the former rep 'must have made a mistake'. She hemmed and hawed around for awhile, hoping *I* would tell her what I thought was due. I told her the $113 was in error; that I expected a half month's credit and I did not intend to pay for another month of DSL. "Well, how much do YOU think you should pay?" I told her to start by taking off the fifty dollars for DSL and split the remainder which is billed in advance in half ... maybe $30-40 sounded about right. I was on the phone in total for 1.5 hours trying to straighten out my final bill. I finally told her to send me *in writing* a final bill so I could pay it. She agreed she would do that. I also told her that I had notified my bank to *dishonor and return unpaid* any automatic debits from Southwestern Bell or SBC. Then she said if I would agree to go ahead now and send in a check to pay off the old account and agree to a fresh start with *them* she would apply a hundred dollar credit to my account AND set my new DSL account at $29.95 per month with no contract. (Saving me $20 each month over what I was paying. In other words, about two or three months of totally free phone service. You know, I really resented that. If they can afford to give me the service for $29.95 per month with another $100 in credit, then they *should* give it that way all the time. Then early this afternoon, on my way over to Marvin's grocery store, I stopped in at the Arco Building to see Duane and Mike (the VP in charge of marketing), and say hello to a couple old friends of mine who still work there (for TerraWorld). When I came back home after Marvin's and got my mail, there was my first bill from Prairie Stream for the grand total of $47. That's because in addition to the $24.95 plus tax (or about $37 in total) I turned on a couple additional features Prairie Stream does not give totally free. I asked Mike (marketing VP at Prairie Stream) what his goals were for the company in the months ahead. He said if they can get one percent of SWB's customer base in Kansas (about 1.6 million customers here) they will be quite happy, or maybe ten percent of Sprint's (formerly United Tel's) customer base. In other words, ten to twelve thousand customers will suit them fine. He also said to me that 'while Fred Goldstein was theoretically correct in his figures, etc, it was not quite that simple.' We talked UNE-P for a few minutes, and Mike said Prairie Stream already has eight employees strictly for the 'phone side' (not counting the 8-10 employees of TerraWorld). He noted that SBC is still 'full of tricks' which they do not hesitate to try on us from time to time. A couple of execs from SBC came in to pay them a 'courtesy call' one day right after the company (Prairie Stream) first went on line a few months ago. He suggested the biggest disaster for all the UNE-P CLECs will come when "Bell decides to reduce *their* price to around $25 for 'take the whole package service'. There won't be a CLEC left in business after that.' He said there are not many people who care either way about ideology and politics between phone companies. He said there were not many customers like you (meaning myself) who give a damn either way. They grew up with AT&T/Bell and assume they are going to die with the company. Yes, they have complaints about Ma Bell same as you (again, meaning me) and you have to go through voicemail hell to reach someone to talk to but people are accustomed to that from 'the phone company'. He said Prairie Stream and Sage (among others, all the CLECs) make their money on long distance calls, and where in Caney, Kansas it costs Prairie Stream money to service an account, in Independence they actually make a few cents per line. They hopefully make it up in long distance calls. He said if Bell 'wises up' and goes to $25 for 'take it all' service, that will be the last day we get any customers, because most folks do not care either way; they just like 'saving money'; look at how MCI got started many years ago, undercutting Bell on long distance. There was more to it than that of course, people's general ignorance about phone company tariffs and the old separations and settlements process contributed to it as well. But ask anyone their overall impression of Bell, and while folks will bitch and moan about the telephone company, at least they usually trust them. Prairie Stream and the other CLECs don't yet have that luxury of a hundred year track record with a lot of public trust. A few folks like yourself (meaning me) have grudges against Bell and just in general do not want to deal with them, but most folks trust them and love them, all that. If Bell ever decided to cut their rates, that would be the end of us guys, because people would quit having divided loyalty between their wallets and trust. Instead of money being an issue, they could go back to simple trust in the 'winner'. And Bell knows that also. Look at their mocking commercials showing guys digging in a flooded utility hole. I really think Southwestern Bell (maybe the other Bells as well) is going to fight tooth and nail with the CLECs and I expect before long you are going to see all of them hopping on the $25 'take it all' package, plus maybe a wee bit more LD for another ten per month or similar. For me, I am sticking with Prairie Stream. PAT] ------------------------------ From: traipse_sp@yahoo.com.br (Projeto Traipse) Subject: Testing a New Freeware (WebGPS) Date: 22 May 2003 20:42:34 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi there - I'm still [beta] testing a GPS freeware (WebGPS). I'll be glad if you spend a couple of seconds and stop by: www.traipse.com.br New ideas or bug reports are *very* welcome at traipse_sp at yahoo dot com dot br. TIA 4 any help. Traipse ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: Vonage Testing Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 22:00:00 CDT A friend of mine signed up for Vonage service, and has already chosen to discontinue it. He said (and I cannot detirmine the veracity of his statements either way) that he had recieved a phone call via his Vonage number (in SFCA area, the same as my number) and that Vonage had not given him the call, nor did it reach his voicemail. That got me to thinking about *my* number, so I tried a few tests earlier tonight (Tuesday), then wrote a note to Vonage Customer Service asking for some answers. Here is the letter I sent them: To: Cc: Subject: Explain caller ID Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 21:01:22 -0500 My account number is (number). My Vonage phone number is 415 (number). At 8:30 PM today, May 27, central time, I conducted one of my routine tests on my Vonage phone, since I have heard complaints about incoming calls not always getting through correctly. Using my home telephone 620-331-XXXX I dialed into my Vonage line (above) to make sure it would ring, which it did. After about 30 seconds or so, the call went into voice mail. So far so good ... BUT, the caller ID on my phone and the identifier on the voice mail message on my two tests both indicated the call came in from 415-874-7467 instead of my number 620-331-XXXX. I did not attempt to block my number or try any other 'tricks' in the process. Curious, I twice tried dialing into 1-415-874-7467 and both times I got a 'fast busy' signal from my local telco. Thinking it might have just been a fluke of some kind, I waited a few minutes and tried it again with the same results, on caller-ID and the call back number. DO YOU KNOW WHY? My home telephone number is serviced by Prairie Stream Communications. Then I tried the same test using my Cingular Wireless phone 620-330-6774 ... on this test, both times Vonage reported correctly where the call was coming from but ... on the first attempt, after Vonage rang several times (I sat here and heard it ring) I got the 'fast busy' and was not transferred to voicemail at all. On the second test using Cingular Wireless it did report me correctly (as to number) and it did correctly transfer me to voice mail. My questions are why the first two tests did it report incorrectly where I was calling from, and why on the second group of two tests did it first busy me out rather than give me voice mail. Answers appreciated. I am going to try it again a couple times using *67 in front of the Vonage number and see if you folks honor the privacy flag. I left the two test messages (from 8:30 PM and 8:47 PM in my voicemail; you are more than welcome to login on my account and listen to them if you think they might reveal what went wrong.) You ARE providing a great alternative to Ma Bell,and I appreciate that. Patrick Townson (address) Independence, KS 67301 email: ptownson@cableone.net email: ptownson@telecom-digest.org (I am the editor of this internet telecom journal.) ================================= I got back an automated 'we will investigate' reply, with a suggestion to send in more information if I wished. If/when I get further word on this I will put it in the Digest also. PAT ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. 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Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #481 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed May 28 14:23:14 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4SINEU08168; Wed, 28 May 2003 14:23:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 14:23:14 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305281823.h4SINEU08168@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #482 TELECOM Digest Wed, 28 May 2003 14:23:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 482 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Microsoft Pulls XP Update Over Glitch (Monty Solomon) Pennsylvania Attorney General Stonewalls on Secret (Monty Solomon) Telefonica Launches 1.7 Bln Euro Offer for Terra (Monty Solomon) Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs (Dave Garland) Re: Vonage and Taxes (John R. Levine) Re: Vonage Testing (John R. Levine) Re: A Bitter Taste in my Mouth (John Hines) Re: E1 Alarms (Vcc Ground) Re: Vonage Testing (joe@obilivan.net) Re: B101 FM-WBEB Philadelphia (Chris Nowinski) Re: Time Warner Cable Dials in Phone Service (Paul Wallich) Re: Callmaster IV (Paul A Lee) Re: Last Laugh! The Spammers Are Getting Brazen (Joey Lindstrom) Re: Last Laugh! The Spammers Are Getting Brazen (Dave Garland) 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, 28 May 2003 03:47:07 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Microsoft Pulls XP Update Over Glitch By TED BRIDIS AP Technology Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. withdrew a security improvement for its flagship Windows XP software after it crippled Internet connections for some of the 600,000 users who installed it. Microsoft officials said Tuesday the update _ which had been available as an option since Friday on its "Windows Update" Web site _ apparently was incompatible with popular security software from other companies, such as Symantec Corp. Microsoft said Internet connections failed immediately for an unspecified number of more than 600,000 computers using Windows XP who downloaded and installed the update. Consumers could reconnect only by removing the update, which promised to improve reliability for types of secure Internet connections commonly used by corporations. The glitch occurs amid a debate in Washington among cybersecurity experts whether the technology industry should test the reliability and security of such updates more aggressively. Hackers can easily attack government systems where updates aren't installed routinely, but some experts install them only reluctantly because of worries about unintended consequences of some updates. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34335576 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 03:11:33 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CDT Headline: Pennsylvania Attorney General Stonewalls on Secret From: CDT Info Subject: CDT Headline: Pennsylvania Attorney General Stonewalls on Secret Content Blocking Scheme Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 14:00:52 -0400 Pennsylvania Attorney General Stonewalls on Secret Content Blocking Scheme The Pennsylvania Attorney General has denied an administrative appeal that CDT filed challenging the AG's refusal to disclose the Internet web sites that he has blocked under a controversial state law. Since mid-2002, the Attorney General has issued over 300 secret censorship orders, with no judicial oversight or public review whatsoever. The orders require ISPs to block web sites that perhaps contain child pornography, but the orders also have resulted in the blocking of hundreds or thousands of legitimate web sites that share the same "IP address" as the illegal sites. May 27, 2003 CDT Statement on Attorney General's Denial of Appeal http://www.cdt.org/speech/pennwebblock/030522cdt.shtml Attorney General's Denial of Appeal [pdf], May 22, 2003 http://www.cdt.org/speech/pennwebblock/030522pennresponse.pdf CDT's Original Appeal [pdf], April 22, 2003 http://www.cdt.org/speech/pennwebblock/030422appeal.pdf CDT's Report on Pennsylvania Web Blocking Law [pdf], February 2003 http://www.cdt.org/speech/pennwebblock/030200pennreport.pdf More information: http://www.cdt.org/speech/pennwebblock/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 09:56:55 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Telefonica Launches 1.7 Bln Euro Offer for Terra By Daniel Flynn MADRID, May 28 (Reuters) - Leading Spanish telecoms company Telefonica (MC:TEF) on Wednesday launched a 1.73 billion euro ($2.04 billion) cash offer for the remaining 62 percent of its Internet unit Terra Lycos (MC:TRR). At 5.25 euros a share, the offer is pitched at half of Terra's flotation price, but Telefonica said it represented a 15 percent premium over the average price of Terra shares during the last six months. It said the bid was conditional on receiving tenders for at least 75 percent of the company's capital. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34339017 ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs? Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 22:40:57 -0500 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when wesrock@aol.com (Wes Leatherock) wrote: > Various vacuum tubes had numbers that were not related to the counting > numbers of any component of the tube. Ah, but it was very common for the first digits to identify the filament voltage. Maybe universal, when the format was number(s)-letter(s)-number(s). Which is why many tubes had identifiers starting with "6" (6v was the standard filament voltage) or "12" (which often had center-tapped filaments that would operate on either 12v or 6v). ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Vonage and Taxes Date: 28 May 2003 03:19:53 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> Keep in mind that the "access charge" is a lie, ... > Oh? Last time I heard, ILECs at least were *required by the FCC* to > charge that access fee over and above what the state commission > allowed them to charge -- something that several states vigorously > objected to, to no avail. I should have been clearer. You certainly have to pay the access charge, but the telco keeps the access charge money, whereas all of the other little charges are remitted to other places. Or to look at it another way, if one telco has a montly rate of $20 with a $6 access charge, while the other has a rate of $26 with no access charge, the amount you'd pay and the amount they'd keep would all be the same. The access charge was supposed to be a short-term transition aid after the Bell breakup in the 1980s, to be phased out as monthly rates were adjusted for the loss of separations money. But somehow that never happened. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711 johnl@iecc.com Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner http://iecc.com/johnl Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: John R. Levine Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2003 2:27 AM Subject: Re: Vonage Testing > on my two tests both indicated the call came in from 415-874-7467 > instead of my number 620-331-XXXX. I did not attempt to block my > number or try any other 'tricks' in the process. > DO YOU KNOW WHY? My home telephone number is serviced by Prairie > Stream Communications. Well, yeah. Sounds like your pals at Prarie Stream are either using a cheapo LD carrier that doesn't pass CLID, so it inserts the sort-of-random CLID of the place where the call is dumped back to the LEC, or more likely the CLID is just broken on LD calls and you're the first to notice. Ask them and find out. By the way, incoming calls on my Vonage line work fine, but they use different CLECs in different parts of the country, so if there are problems, it may well be related to the particular CLEC that hosts the numbers. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711 johnl@iecc.com Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner http://iecc.com/johnl Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: John Hines Subject: Re: A Bitter Taste in my Mouth Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 10:00:46 -0500 Organization: www.jhines.org TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > He suggested the biggest disaster for all the UNE-P CLECs will come > when "Bell decides to reduce *their* price to around $25 for 'take the > whole package service'. There won't be a CLEC left in business after > that.' SBC is well on its way. It just got its way in Illinois, pushing up the wholesale rate on the line to $22 (something like that). My phone bill shows a line charge of $9.10 to which 4.49 in federal access charge is added. Somehow, in light of these two numbers, the SBC spokeswoman said with a straight face, that competitive pressure was going to hold down residential rates, and there wasn't going to be any increase. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You bet they are on the way. In my snail mail today, the postman brought me the letter I had been expecting ever since I 'divorced' SBC: From the 'Come Back Home' Department (that is really what they call it) this letter: 'From SBC Kansas for $25.70 per month *or less* we will give you Unlimited Local Calling, Call Waiting, Caller ID, Speed Calling 8, and no reconnection fee.' The letter went on to say for an additional $20 per month, I would get unlimited long distance calls anywhere, anytime. Or instead for $10 per month I could have 500 minutes per month of long distance (two cents per minute at that rate) with additional minutes after 500 at five cents per minute. Well gee whiz, they offered it to me for 4 cents per minute once with a $2 monthly fee; now they are up to 5 cents per minute? Oh, and a $50 VISA gift card in any event, just for allowing them to come into my home once again. Those people are *so* brazen! I guess they just do not understand how anyone could and would 'divorce' them just on principle alone ... I guess they do not understand why anyone would get offended by their constant mixups on the bills, and the time spent maneuvering through voicemail hell, etc. Then the back side of this letter gave a half-page in very tiny print of the 'terms and conditions' which would apply. Do you remember in a previous issue of the Digest I quoted Mike at Prairie Stream saying that most people do not care; they go by price (to them) and trust (in the traditional provider) and when the Bells narrow the price gap people will return to the 'place they were brought up with and trusted'? Although I -- like most everyone on this Digest -- was brought up 'in the Bell System' (and Mike also said that very young people who had never 'known about Bell System' [with divesture occuring before they were born or before they could have had any knowledge of same] were mostly their customer base) I have no real interest in remaining/going back to them. Mike said "the young people today (he is in his fifties) do not care about having to punch their way through voice mail. You (meaning me) and I grew up in manual offices, we either asked the operator for the 'business office' when we wanted to talk to them or else we walked over a few blocks to the business office and talked to the nice lady in person, seated at her desk. Then we migrated from manual to CLinton (Mike is from Coffeyville) or EDison (my Independence) but we could still sit at their desk and talk to them. Whatever we said, then the nice lady would call upstairs to the 'frames' and tell the man up there what we wanted done. That is such a foreign concept to today's young people, almost as odd as the fact that we used to get neatly *handwritten* (then in 'later years') neatly typed out telephone bills from an army of bookkeepers at telco. If anyone today has any compunctions or opinions on telco idealogy and personal service, it is not the very young people. And the old people, while still trusting 'Bell System' to do the right thing in the long run only come to us because their monthly pension checks are too small to allow them to continue with 'the winner, the one they trust'. Let Bell cut their prices across the board, they'll run back to them also. Young people do not know what life without voicemail hell is like. You (meaning again, me) and I know and resent these changes. But voicemail hell is only a small part of it. The old people remember how, when their phone went out during a winter storm it was the brave men from Bell who came out and risked their lives climbing the pole. Charles Brown (AT&T chairman during divestiture) remarked crypticaly one one time: 'when was the last time MCI lost two of their men who fell to their death from the side of a mountain in Colorado during a winter storm because they felt that phone service for a small community was that important?' ... that's trust and admiration. The CLECs don't have that. I am not sure if we ever will. "You (again meaning me) and I know the importance of preserving our communities. We know *why* it is more important to shop at the local store downtown instead of going to Walmart. Walmart does not need our business but the small merchants downtown desparatly need our business. So we shop with them. At the start of the last century there were some people who hated 'the Bell', and there are some folks today who still feel Bell is a giant dragon creature which has run amuck. We are going to stay in business as long as we can; hopefully forever." I told Mike that supporting our local business places included supporting our local telephone company IMO, along with our local ISP and our local cableco. Anyway, all that 'fine print' on the back side of the 'return home' letter from SBC has me confused. I do not think I will be switching back to them anytime soon. PAT] ------------------------------ From: vccground@yahoo.co.in (Vcc Ground) Subject: Re: E1 Alarms Date: 28 May 2003 03:26:30 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Phil McKerracher wrote in message news:: > Kenneth Becker wrote in message > news:telecom22.476.10@telecom-digest.org: >> Vcc Ground wrote: >>> 1) Can anybody clearly explain me the E1 alarms? Particularly AIS... >>> 2) Please suggest some web sites that have good and neatly explained >>> tutorials on analogue and digital telecom. > AIS is very briefly explained on my ISDN tutorial site at > www.mckerracher.org/isdn if that helps. > Basically, it's the network side saying "I'm here but I can't provide > service". It helps in diagnosing because it means that the fault is > probably not on the link that is receiving the alarm (otherwise you > would be seeing loss of signal or loss of framing), but further > upstream somewhere. This particular alarm has no equivalent in the > other direction (upstream from user to network). > Phil McKerracher > www.mckerracher.org Thanks. ------------------------------ From: joe@obilivan.net Subject: Re: Vonage Testing Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 03:50:20 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications I have had none of those problems with my Vonage. I've had it for three months now. Then again, only my daughter and one friend call in; otherwise it is an outgoing only line. My daughter always rings through just fine so far as I know. As to caller id, if you transfer a call, Vonage sends the caller id of the transferred number rather than your Vonage number. That doesn't follow "protocal" but it is, nonethess, sort of neat. ;-) Another great thing about Vonage call transfer, at least when you have a RBOC wireline phone handy, too, is that you can transfer a call with annoying echo (a sometimes occurence) off your Vonage line to the RBOC line and continue the call as a Vonage flat-rate call (assuming the unlimited plan). Patrick Townson wrote: > A friend of mine signed up for Vonage service, and has already chosen > to discontinue it. He said (and I cannot detirmine the veracity of > his statements either way) that he had recieved a phone call via his > Vonage number (in SFCA area, the same as my number) and that Vonage > had not given him the call, nor did it reach his voicemail. That got > me to thinking about *my* number, so I tried a few tests earlier > tonight (Tuesday), then wrote a note to Vonage Customer Service asking > for some answers. Here is the letter I sent them: > To: > Cc: > Subject: Explain caller ID > Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 21:01:22 -0500 > My account number is (number). My Vonage phone number is 415 (number). > At 8:30 PM today, May 27, central time, I conducted one of my routine > tests on my Vonage phone, since I have heard complaints about incoming > calls not always getting through correctly. > Using my home telephone 620-331-XXXX I dialed into my Vonage line > (above) to make sure it would ring, which it did. After about 30 > seconds or so, the call went into voice mail. So far so good ... BUT, > the caller ID on my phone and the identifier on the voice mail message > on my two tests both indicated the call came in from 415-874-7467 > instead of my number 620-331-XXXX. I did not attempt to block my > number or try any other 'tricks' in the process. > Curious, I twice tried dialing into 1-415-874-7467 and both times I > got a 'fast busy' signal from my local telco. Thinking it might have > just been a fluke of some kind, I waited a few minutes and tried it > again with the same results, on caller-ID and the call back number. > DO YOU KNOW WHY? My home telephone number is serviced by Prairie > Stream Communications. > Then I tried the same test using my Cingular Wireless phone > 620-330-6774 ... on this test, both times Vonage reported correctly > where the call was coming from but ... on the first attempt, after > Vonage rang several times (I sat here and heard it ring) I got the > 'fast busy' and was not transferred to voicemail at all. On the second > test using Cingular Wireless it did report me correctly (as to number) > and it did correctly transfer me to voice mail. > My questions are why the first two tests did it report incorrectly > where I was calling from, and why on the second group of two tests did > it first busy me out rather than give me voice mail. > Answers appreciated. I am going to try it again a couple times using > *67 in front of the Vonage number and see if you folks honor the > privacy flag. I left the two test messages (from 8:30 PM and 8:47 PM > in my voicemail; you are more than welcome to login on my account and > listen to them if you think they might reveal what went wrong.) > You ARE providing a great alternative to Ma Bell,and I appreciate > that. > Patrick Townson > (address) > Independence, KS 67301 > email: ptownson@cableone.net > email: ptownson@telecom-digest.org (I am the editor of > this internet telecom journal.) > ================================= > I got back an automated 'we will investigate' reply, with a suggestion > to send in more information if I wished. If/when I get further word > on this I will put it in the Digest also. > PAT [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: However, this morning at about 9:30 AM my Vonage phone rang with a 732 area code number ... a person named 'Taylor Missouri' (that was his name, not the town where he was located) was calling from Vonage tech support to look into the problem with me. He said there were two ways of dealing with the number at the recipient's end. He said 'maybe my number had previously been assigned to some company with a PBX-type system'. He asked me to hold on while he changed something at his end, then asked me to try my call again. I tried my call again, and on those two tests the calling number ID'd on Vonage as 'unavailable'. Shortly after those latest two tests, the Vonage caller-ID later this morning went back to identifying my calls from 620-331 landline as the 415 pseudo number which always returns a fast busy when I attempt to dial into it from either Vonage or landline or cellular. The end result, according to Mr. Missouri was that it was not their problem; not their fault. I wonder what he did when he 'did something' that changed the Vonage box's way of ID'ing me from 415-pseudo to 'unavailable'? Oh, he said by the way, he was aquainted with customer John Levine and had talked to him in the recent past. John, are you having trouble with your Vonage also? PAT] ------------------------------ From: bandsherein@yahoo.com (chris nowinski) Subject: Re: B101 FM-WBEB Philadelphia Date: 28 May 2003 05:14:35 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ bandsherein@yahoo.com (chris nowinski) wrote in message news:: > bandsherein@yahoo.com (chris nowinski) wrote in message > news:: > > > bandsherein@yahoo.com (chris nowinski) wrote in message > > news:: > (Deleted stuff about backdoors, etc.) > Pat, (Deleted stuff about chokes, front/back doors to radio stations, social engineering, etc.) Pat, Maybe you're right, but I don't think Kevin is available to do that, considering his past. I am just so frustrated with the way WBEB is conducting business, and my message about them says it all. and it doesn't look like it will change. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You're durn tooting Kevin is not available ... I think the terms of his Federal Probation are that he has to stay away from the computer; not touch it or tamper with it. I only used him as an illustration of how hopeless I consider your dilemma with WBEB to be. I wish we could be of more help. Maybe a reader or two will write you privately with other suggestions. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Paul Wallich Subject: Re: Time Warner Cable Dials in Phone Service Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 09:37:55 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In article , John Higdon wrote: > In article , Paul Wallich > wrote: >> I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it could be nice to >> see some real choices in phone service, but on the other hand this >> could be a signal for ILECs to start abandoning the POTS market as >> everyone competes for the add-on services. If telephone over cable >> (even with a UPS on the customer side) is only as reliable as cable tv >> or internet service, that's going to be an enormous step down in >> quality for most people, and if (as usually happens in such >> competitions) other voice carriers succeed in bringing landline local >> loops down to their level, that would be very unfortunate indeed. > In my area (Silicon Valley), cable service, as decrepit as it is, > happens to be far more reliable than the telephone service. Furthermore, > when there is an incident that damages aerial or underground > facilities, the cable company is on the scene hours before SBC. > I live in a wooded area and fires are not uncommon. I remember a fire > that took out power, cable, and telephone service for some of us. The > cable company got there first and restored cable. Next came SBC, who > refused to enter the area of the damaged cable until the power company > came out and blessed it as "safe". Finally the power company showed up > and restored power. Telephone service wasn't restored until late the > next day. I think each of us is arguing from experience. Mine (New York and Vermont) is that once the phone line gets installed it's incredibly reliable. Power less so, and cable less than that. In Manhattan, cable service was famously bad, with random outages (whether for "upgrade" or "maintenance" or simply amusement) that lasted anywhere from hours to days. For a while the cable company went so far as to run advertisements touting their intent to actually show up for service calls on the day promised. If the phone company had offered people TV they would have taken it in a minute, and not because they loved the phone company. In a wooded area where the power goes out a few times a month and cable service ditto, I've never had a landline problem. In addition, even when cable (tv and internet) is nominally connected, quality can be dicey. Transmissions break up regularly on some channels, and and mail servers, routers and DNS are catch-as-catch-can. Anybody have stats on this kind of thing? paul ------------------------------ From: Paul A Lee Subject: Re: Callmaster IV Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 10:22:52 -0400 In TELECOM Digest V22 #481, Ali wrote (in part): > Any idea where can I find a technical guide for Callmaster IV? Fire up Adobe Acrobat Reader and go to: http://support.avaya.com/edoc/docs/terminal/trmcmiv1.pdf http://support.avaya.com/edoc/docs/terminal/trmcm4u2.pdf And, for a selection of CM4 docs: Make sure you get the entire link on that one -- everything between the "<>". For the Avaya technical database start page: Again, everything between the "<>". 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 Tell your senator you support Senate Bill 877 to CAN-SPAM . Find him/her at http://www.senate.gov/. ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 08:15:14 -0600 Subject: Re: Lat Laugh! Spammers Getting Brazen Reply-To: joey@telussucks.info On Tue, 27 May 2003 19:42:27 -0400 (EDT), editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I *certainly hope* this issue of the > Digest gets out okay with this incredible spam enclosed. If I see it > start bouncing back, maybe I will eliminate this message and simply > summarize it instead. When Joey sent it here to me it fell in *my* > spam bucket as well. Let's see what happens. PAT] As you can see in the subject line above, when it arrived back at my servers, the entire Digest was flagged as spam. I've since whitelisted the Digest, which I shoulda done as soon as I implemented SpamAssassin. Live and learn. :-) If/when I forward any more spam, I'll just stick it on a website and then forward the URL. :-) My apologies to anyone who missed Digest #480 (as a result of their own mail systems trapping this issue as spam), which can be downloaded from telecom-digest.org . -- Joey Lindstrom ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: Last Laugh! The Spammers Are Getting Brazen Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 22:48:49 -0500 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when Pat wrote: > I *certainly hope* this issue of the Digest gets out okay with this > incredible spam enclosed. I certainly hope that the personal telephone numbers are really those of the spammer and not some poor schmuck who the spammer is out to get. (The toll-free number is indeed that of the same sort of sleazy drug peddlar who inhabits your in-box. And remember, for bonus points, call from a pay phone, pay phones are getting scarce and the pay-phone operators will benefit from the call at the spammer's expense.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And for extra bonus points, if you find out those non-toll-free numbers are the spammer's also, consider poll- uting them so badly he has to get those numbers changed also, and Bell is never able to re-assign them to anyone (in good conscience, if Bell has one) ever again. Use loop arounds, cheapo long distance services, *67, etc to otherwise protect your own privacy when calling him, of course. 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: 620-330-6774 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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Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #482 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed May 28 16:22:19 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4SKMJY08876; Wed, 28 May 2003 16:22:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 16:22:19 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305282022.h4SKMJY08876@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #483 TELECOM Digest Wed, 28 May 2003 16:22:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 483 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX+ Dialaround (Ed Gibbs) Re: Anyone Use InFone? (Kelly Daniels) Re: Anyone Use Infone? (John Bartley) 3nd French TV Channel Lost "france3.com" to a Korean Sex Site (J Condat) Advice Needed on Home Based Telephone System (Jibe) Re: Microsoft Pulls XP Update Over Glitch (John Higdon) Altigen VoIP Problem (saeker) *67 Does Not Work When Calling Toll-Free (Jim Brooker) Last Laugh! Jim Carrey Movie Sparks Flood of Calls to God (Carl Moore) 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: egibbs@my-deja.com (Ed Gibbs) Subject: Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX+ Dialaround Date: 28 May 2003 08:37:20 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Mark J Cuccia wrote in message news:: > Now there is 'ten-ten-nine-eight-seven' from (MCI-Worldcom's) > Telecom-USA. Supposedly 3-c per min (with a 39-cents, I think, > per-call connection charge) to anywhere in the US, Candaa, and most of > western Europe. They claim no monthly fees -- that is, no monthly > 'membership' or plan fees, but obviously basic taxes and other "fees > required by the government" such as "network access fees" and > Universal Service Fund, etc. are going to be tacked on for any month > that one makes billed calls via 101-0987+. snip ... > It seems "too good to be true", and when things SEEM that way, they > USUALLY ARE -- too good to be true. snip ... > Anyone have any experience or comments? Here is my experience. My son used 101-0987 to call the UK and talked for 206 minutes. Should have been around 6 bucks. Shortly after I got a letter from the MCI High Toll Department advising me that they had blocked my MCI long distance due to unusual high tolls. When I called to inquire, they informed me that the call to the UK was billed at non-subscriber rates and the cost was $482.31, or $2.31 per minute. They claimed that the call did not get billed at the 101-0987 rate because my local service provider (AT&T) blocked required information, something which AT&T denies. MCI told me (repeatedly) that the only way to get the call re-rated correctly was to "set up an account" with MCI, which they kindly offered to do for me. That sounded suspicious, so I asked if "setting up an account" meant switching my LD to MCI, and of course the answer was yes. When I declined to do that they declined to do anything about the incorrect rate, despite repeated requests over half an hour of questioning them about what had happened. They admitted it was an error, they admitted they would benefit from the error, they simply refused to correct it unless I "set up an account" with MCI. The rep even claimed that he had spoken to his supervisor, and unless I set up an account there was nothing they could do for me to correct their error. They said my only other option was to contact AT&T since "it is their problem." AT&T of course denies that it is their problem, they say they are not blocking anything, could not block anything if they wanted to, and can do nothing about MCI's internal problems. Calling the 101-0987 customer service number mysteriously connected me to MCI's high toll department again, where after once again explaining that this was a 101-0987 call the rep (a different one) suddenly remembered that they had been having a lot of problems lately with 101-0987 calls not coming through right, and that of course he would re-rate the call, and it would be around $6 instead of $481. He also offered to remove the block on MCI long distance, but I asked him to make it permanent instead. Is this a new tactic to get people to switch to MCI -- threaten them with ridiculous charges for 101-0987 calls if they don't? If so it's a good one. I'm sure the FCC will be as amused as I am -- I just sent them a formal complaint with all the supporting documentation this morning. Ed Gibbs [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Good for you, but I really doubt anything will come of it. Very few have ever been able to move MCI out of their fraudulent ways. Now and then a court somewhere will fine them, but that is about all. Even in this latest bankrupty fiasco, the multi-million (or is it multi-billion?) fine imposed on MCI will mostly go to the stockholders. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 10:55:12 -0700 From: Kelly Daniels Reply-To: telco@teleport.com Organization: Personal Subject: Re: Anyone Use InFone? Hello, I worked extensively with the company, the database accesses and the call switching hooks and regulatory approval. I like the concept but have not yet tried the sign-up process. I tested the results of my work in 1992 and all around the area, the users have found it to be a real stand-up service. I stopped working with them in 1996 and keep in touch regularly. The company has a real good name here in the founding area, Southwest Portland Metro area. I hope it works out for you. Kelly ------------------------------ From: 6212hgk{invert}@newsguy.com (John Bartley K7AAY (ex-KGH2126)) Subject: Re: Anyone Use Infone? Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 17:45:33 GMT It's actually Info One in Beaverton, Oregon. They were ditched for cheaper overseas operators by cellcos, and therefore developed a service competitive with the cost of 411 from other providers. http://oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/business/105377756115280.xml?oregonian?fng On Tue, 27 May 2003 16:48:16 -0500, J Kelly wrote: > I've been seeing some ads for Infone on TLC. It looked intriguing, so > I checked out the webpage. No monthly fee, 89 cents per call, up to > 15 minutes, then 5 cents after that. They claim to do directory > assistance, TeleConcierge, Directions and Roadside Assistance, movie > times, and you can upload your palm or outlook info so you can access > it via the service. > It looks pretty good, but I rarely have a need for this type of thing, > but since there is no monthly fee I signed up. I haven't thought of > any reason to call it to see how it works just yet. Maybe I'll try it > the next time I'm looking for a hotel room. > Wondering if anyone has tried it and what they thought of it. Nobody but a fool goes into a federal counterrorism operation without duct tape - Richard Preston, THE COBRA EVENT. ------------------------------ From: Jean-Bernard CONDAT Subject: 3nd French TV Channel Lost "france3.com" to a Korean Sexual Site Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 18:23:54 +0200 Organization: Chrystol, B.P. 59, 93402 Saint-Ouen Cedex, France 3nd French TV Channel France3 lost www.france3.com in South Korea It surely sometimes happened to you to seek the program TV of a French chain by consulting its web site. Nothing more. But do not let your children consult only the site france3.com: you would very be likely to have some images of Korean pornography instead. Once the dissipated surprise, France3 decides to attack the problem by assigning in summary procedure the Korean owner of the domain name cybersquatt, Mr. Segwon KIM, in front of the TGI of Nanterre. May 17, 2001, the decision makes prohibition with the part intimated to use france3.com and orders with the Korean registrar to make the transfer of the rights for the benefit of the French company. Immediately, a Korean judge seized in the absence of the France3 company refuses the exequatur French summary procedure. France3 retorts immediately by carrying out a procedure UDRP against Mr. KIM. The single Korean expert refuses the transfer by pure protectionism (WIPO D2001-1322). The pressure goes up when the happy owner, profiting from the notoriety of France3 to hang a maximum of Net surfers, refuses the friendly offer of sale of his domain name. France3 retente a new procedure UDRP ... which shows decision WIPO D2002-1181: refusal to re-open the debate for defect of new evidence. In this last expertise, a college of three experts was indicated by the arbitration of WIPO among the two experts introduced by each party. Mrs. Nathalie DREYFUS took part in this decision within the framework of the college of the three experts, the two others of which the president being Korean. Even if the language of procedure is the language of the reservator of the domain name, Korean, it were astonishing that WIPO supports Korean experts whereas certain Australian experts had been more neutral. This question of neutrality of the college of experts is a first disturbing point of this file. French expert DREYFUS for its part wrote a "dissenting opinion" in favour of the transfer of the domain name to the profit of the France3 company. Its arguments: France3 is titular of a valid mark, the domain name pointed towards a site pornographic from which the owner drew money: it could not thus be in good faith. Only difficulty: in Korea, the France3 company is not known of the man in the street... Also, the two experts replaced the judge to establish the value of the mark, which is not theirs competence. While seeking in the numerical files of the Web, it is easily possible to find the first pages of the site france3.fr February 20, 1997, signed VTCOM and posting proudly: "France3: the French television of curiosity and the proximity." On the other hand, the first Web signs of the site in construction france3.com date from December 27, 1996. The webmaster then signed its site by a simple email duval@worldnet.fr, proof undeniable of a first draft of site reserved at a French shelterer known good WORLDNET. January 17 and on April 18, 1997, the site was in the same state ... to die out on December 27, 1996 ... per lapse of memory of payment of the shelterer. March 31, 2001 appears in the numerical files of the site france3.com, a page arranged by Mr. KIM announcing "we are preparing for the best porn site: go@france3.com." Oddly, the simple anteriority of the first site france3.com realized by the webmaster French DUVAL was never presented in logic FILO ("first in, last out"), absolute rule of attribution of all the domain names according to rules' of the ICANN. This lapse of memory shows the importance of the evidence prefabricated in the installation of very new product, even a Web site France3 having forgotten this basic rule ... allows from now on all our children of surfer nicely on a very functional and madly erotic site. Prohibited at least 16 years! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I want to apologize that the above message does not appear -- to me at least -- to use good grammar or English as I am used to seeing it. Many times I will attempt to correct a message in the Digest from a non-English speaking writer but in this case because I have little knowledge of the French web site and no knowledge at all of the Korean interloper, I did not want to attempt any editing and ruin what Mr. Condat was trying to say. I thought it best to simply present it and ask you readers to try and figure it out. My impression is France Television has a web site; a Korean site came along and took over the name, causing some confusion and embarassment to people who consult the web seeking information about French television programs; also that between ICANN and the courts, the French people lost the battle to regain their web site. Did I get that correct? PAT] ------------------------------ From: kyle@2nikon.net (Jibe) Subject: Advice Needed on Home Based Telephone System Date: 28 May 2003 09:57:05 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I run a business out of my home and use Webley service to handle all of the business phone traffic including three mail boxes, faxes via email, and simultaneous call forwarding to my cell phone so I never miss the call even if I am on the road or away from home (these features I like and need). They have voice recognition system that I do not need and Webley is not very flexible in customizing this feature along with some of the custom greetings they offer, which is some what inconvenient. Their service costs me close to $200 a month. In addition to that I pay local telephone company $70 a month plus long distance $250 a month, which brings a total to $520 a month. Well, I've started thinking that I might be able get rid of Webley and use my home digital system with some inexpensive equipment and/or software to get similar features. I have Panasonic DBS 308/616 telephone system, with three lines coming in and 10 units installed in my house. Any advice or recommendation on possible business phone system set up, long distance and local services that will allow me to keep the features I need and reduce the cost will be greatly appreciated. ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: Microsoft Pulls XP Update Over Glitch Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 11:25:39 -0700 In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > By TED BRIDIS AP Technology Writer > The glitch occurs amid a debate in Washington among cybersecurity > experts whether the technology industry should test the reliability > and security of such updates more aggressively. Hackers can easily > attack government systems where updates aren't installed routinely, > but some experts install them only reluctantly because of worries > about unintended consequences of some updates. This seems to be a Microsoft phenomenon. I routinely install Mac OS-X upgrades without the slightest difficulty. Same goes for Sun Solaris. I have complete confidence in them because they have earned it through actually delivering quality product reliably. Sounds like what the article really means is, "Microsoft ought to be more rigorous about its OS patches and fixes." John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: saeker@sbcglobal.net (Saeker) Subject: Altigen VoIP Problem Date: 28 May 2003 11:38:46 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I have a server running in Arlington that is running Altigen. I have a block of DID's from the phone co. Now if I wanted to add an office in Dallas (different area code) and run it VoIP how would I get it to have a Dallas area code but still use the phone server - DID's in Arlington? ------------------------------ From: Jim Brooker To: editor@telecom-digest.org Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 15:47:05 -0400 Subject: *67 Does Not Work When Calling Toll Free Pat: I noticed your suggestion in one of the Digest messages regarding spammers that *67 will protect your identity when calling a Toll Free number. Not true. *67 will set the privacy flag to prevent the caller's number from displaying on Caller ID. It will not block delivery of ANI to services such as Toll Free which have a right to see the number since they're paying for the call. It also does not block the ANI from delivery to services such as PRI if the PRI is setup to display the caller's ANI. I'm sure you know this already but I wanted to remind you so as not to give people a false sense of security. The difference between delivery of Caller ID info an ANI delivery is often a point of confusion in these discussions. Jim [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: NO! I NEVER said use (or rely upon) *67 when calling a toll free number. In that message, we were discussing the non-toll-free numbers the spammer placed in his message. (Go back and read the message again.) Someone said 'the toll free number given is obviously one of those rodents hiding' (or words to that effect). I would then add to question extensively the person who answers at that toll free number. Tell him you are the editor of a toll-free business directory published in the Digest. Then he queried, 'are those other numbers also his or are they some innocent victims of the spam?' (or words to that effect). *Assuming* that those 'other numbers' are the main numbers to the switchboard at the spam-hive, then they need to be released from duty is what I said (or words to that effect.) Never try to hide yourself or relieve yourself in secret when you are dealing with a toll-free number. Never, never! But for the other numbers included in the message, do what your heart and conscience tells you needs to be done, and if you need to relieve yourself, so be it. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 13:27:11 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Last Laugh? "Jim Carrey Movie Sparks Flood of Calls to God" WINS radio (1010 AM, New York) has on web site an article about consequence of the movie "Bruce Almighty". There is a telephone number used in the movie with the 776 prefix instead of 555, and this is causing calls to the seven-digit number where it exists. The article says such calls have been received by two Florida families, and also in South Carolina, Arkansas, and Colorado, and, ironically, a church in Sanford, North Carolina. And more from the article: A spokesman for Universal Studios told the Rocky Mountain News in Colorado that the number was picked because it doesn't exist in Buffalo, NY (where the movie is set). (This writer's remark: Stupid.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So who is the stupid one, Carl? The Rocky Mountain News (probably) or Universal Studios (definitly) or God, for not having FX's or 'tie lines' from all those communities where He is known as 'Bruce'. 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #483 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed May 28 20:13:57 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4T0Dvh09994; Wed, 28 May 2003 20:13:57 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 20:13:57 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305290013.h4T0Dvh09994@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #484 TELECOM Digest Wed, 28 May 2003 20:13:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 484 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Another SBC 'Come Back Home' Gimmick (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX Dialaround (Steven Sobol) Re: Time Warner Cable Dials in Phone Service (Steven J. Sobol) CTI Question (bingoo) Re: 66-Block - Why is Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs (Julian Thomas) Re: Last Laugh? Jim Carrey Movie Sparks Flood of Calls to God (s falke) Re: *67 Does Not Always Work When Calling Toll Free (Jim Brooker) *67 Does NOT Aways Work, Period (*67) BT Call Rates - Straws in the Wind? (Steve Hayes) Re: Anyone Use Infone? (J Kelly) 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, 28 May 2003 18:48:36 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Another SBC 'Come Back Home' Gimmick I told you that Tuesday's mail had a 'wonderful offer' from SBC to induce me back into the fold. $25 more or less for local service and a raft of features; $20 more for totally unlimited long distance. A half page in fine print of restrictions on a separate sheet of paper in the mailing as well. No thanks ... I have my principles, you know. Today, Wednesday came another mailing piece from them. DSL wants me to come back home also. For only $149, as 'a special offer to a former customer' if I would agree to rejoin, they will give me an 'SBC Home Networking Solution'. This home networking thing from sbcglobal.net is a (I think it is 802.11) wireless router. I am told I can plug the wireless base station into my Linksys router (just as I have my ATA box from Vonage plugged in now) then walk around everywhere with my laptop; out in the back yard, wherever. 'These are only $149 each; you can have as many as you need for each PC or laptop you own. All you need is this gateway and a wireless adapter for each computer. As an SBC DSL cust- omer, you shouldn't be restricted in using your computer wherever you please. Share printers, scanners, etc. A professional-grade firewall. Transfer files between computers. Act today!' Of course what they did NOT say was that one day, their DSL sells for $49.95 per month, the next day a rep will tell you that with 'Total Connections' you get it for $29.95 per month, the day following another rep tells you the earlier rep was in error but because she 'regrets the error the previous rep made she will authorize DSL for $34.95 per month as long as you promise to have a one year contract, and on it goes. What they also will NOT tell you is that as long as you have DSL you *must* have their phone service also. Like yesterday's mail, this latest offer for Wireless Home Networking Solutions came with a bunch of small print terms and conditions attached. Oh, and this 'special offer' of Wireless Home Networking Solutions is just for SBC customers of course, at the same post office box (29010) in San Antonio, Texas where 'Come Back Home' is located. But you know, I *still* do not trust them, and I still prefer to do business with local area guys whenever possible. PAT ------------------------------ From: Steven J. Sobol Subject: Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX+ Dialaround Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 20:42:12 -0000 Organization: JustThe.net LLC From Ed Gibbs (egibbs@my-deja.com): > When I called to inquire, they informed me that the call to the UK was > billed at non-subscriber rates and the cost was $482.31, or $2.31 per > minute. They claimed that the call did not get billed at the 101-0987 > rate because my local service provider (AT&T) blocked required > information, something which AT&T denies. Get the state Public Utilities Commission FCC on their slimy asses, file complaints with the attorneys general in your state and whichever state they're incorporated in, and talk to the local and national news media. And be prepared for the eventuality that you might end up in court. I don't think AT&T is at fault here either, but I might include them in the PUC complaint, and document your problem and file a dispute with AT&T in writing. Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge, JustThe.net POTS: Toll Free from anywhere in the USA or Canada, 888.480.4NET (4638) HTTP: www.JustTheNetLLC.com MAIL: 5686 Davis Drive, Mentor on the Lake, OH 44060-2752 ------------------------------ From: Steven J. Sobol Subject: Re: Time Warner Cable Dials in Phone Service Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 20:43:05 -0000 Organization: JustThe.net LLC From Paul Wallich (pw@panix.com): > I think each of us is arguing from experience. Mine (New York and > Vermont) is that once the phone line gets installed it's incredibly > reliable. Perhaps Verizon is more reliable, as an ILEC, than SBC. Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge, JustThe.net POTS: Toll Free from anywhere in the USA or Canada, 888.480.4NET (4638) HTTP: www.JustTheNetLLC.com MAIL: 5686 Davis Drive, Mentor on the Lake, OH 44060-2752 ------------------------------ From: box11@udyog.com (bingoo) Subject: CTI Question Date: 28 May 2003 13:44:12 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I'd be a part of a project involving CTI. The client has a Inter-Tel Axxess system with 6 T1 lines with about 100 toll-free numbers. I'd appreciate if someone could answer a couple of questions: 1. In such a set up, do the toll-free numbers generally work on the T1 lines or are they separate analog lines? 2. We intend using a PC to handle the incoming and outgoing calls with an IVR application. There are about 5,000 incoming calls in a day. Can one PC handle the entire work or do we need more PCs? 3. What'd be the configuration of the PCs? What telephony card will be used? 4. Can the IVR application be developed using VB with some TAPI tools? 5. How does the PC interface with the telecom system (Inter-tel)? 6. Where can I get more info on CTI technology and how to develop CTI applications? Thanks in advance! --Bingoo ------------------------------ From: Julian Thomas Subject: Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs? Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 16:06:20 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com In , on 05/27/03 at 10:40 PM, Dave Garland may have used oatmeal boxes, old string, and new, used, and recycled electrons to say (at least in part): >> Various vacuum tubes had numbers that were not related to the counting >> numbers of any component of the tube. > Ah, but it was very common for the first digits to identify the filament > voltage. Maybe universal, when the format was > number(s)-letter(s)-number(s). Not for transmitter tubes (remember 807's or 829B's??) and only for US type designation. Julian Thomas: jt@jt-mj.net http://jt-mj.net In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State! Boardmember of POSSI.org - Phoenix OS/2 Society, Inc http://www.possi.org All power corrupts, but we need the electricity. ------------------------------ From: s falke Subject: Re: Last Laugh? Jim Carrey Movie Sparks Flood of Calls to God Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 20:51:42 GMT I heard a new variation in a recent teevee movie...909-133-xxxx --s falke Carl Moore wrote... > WINS radio (1010 AM, New York) has on web site an article about > consequence of the movie "Bruce Almighty". There is a telephone > number used in the movie with the 776 prefix instead of 555, and this > is causing calls to the seven-digit number where it exists... ------------------------------ From: Jim Brooker Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 16:56:48 -0400 Subject: Re: *67 Does Not Work When Calling Toll Free Sorry for the confusion. I still assert, however, that the use of *67 is a bad idea for anonymity since Caller ID can be blocked and ANI delivery cannot. You can not be certain when calling into an unknown environment that *67 will keep your number from the called party. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: NO! I NEVER said use (or rely upon) > *67 when calling a toll free number. In that message, we were discussing > the non-toll-free numbers the spammer placed in his message. (Go back > and read the message again.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are correct about that. I do not ever recommend that the telephone be used for harassment; all I ever seek to do is advise spammers of the frequent high cost of using an 800 number. Always call and inquire; after all, that is what they asked you to do when they placed their sp--, er, 'advertisement' wasn't it. Call as often as you need to, until you understand completely about the product or service they are offering. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 16:05:38 CDT From: *67 Subject: *67 Does NOT Always Work, Period Pat: *** PLEASE WITHHOLD MY NAME -- PUT A *67 ON IT PLEASE *** Obviously, one should not think of using *67 (11-67) when calling toll-free numbers (800, 888, 877, 866), as the ANI is deliverable. But even when calling "POTS" numbers, don't always expect *67 to be "secure". Your ANI is STILL deliverable. The only "privacy" that you are "guaranteed" of is that *67 will "flag" your originating number as "not to be delivered as Caller-ID over the called party's local loop". The destination central office will most likely still have your telephone number in its records. If the called party considers such calls as harrassing, they can always use various "annoyance call" complaint procedures through their local telco, which could include THEIR use of *57 (11-57) Call Trace, or other more traditional "trap-and-trace" methods. They may also have "anonymous call rejection" as well, so that so-called "private number" calls won't even get through. And then there are the LD-carriers and CLECs/etc. which might not even honor the "privacy flagging" of your calling number when you as the calling party use *67 to call the desired number. Sometimes these CLECs and LD-carriers simply have things mis-configured, and if properly alerted to the fact will most likely correct the situation, but there are other CLECs/etc who probably don't even give a sh**. Also, don't expect to "hide behind a PBX" will necessarily prevent or hinder your calling number from being tracked. The calling number might not necessarily go "out" of the PBX on the network, but your PBX staff might keep records as well ... There are numerous ways to prevent SS7 Caller-ID from being delivered, such as the "cheapo-LD" companies, loop arounds, etc. that you suggest ... but even with all of them, I still wouldn't want to be calling from a number that is associated with me because there are still ways of tracking numbers near the calling end of the call, usually via ANI, which the calling party usually has NO control over delivery or recording of. Mostly -- I would NEVER attempt to believe that *67 protects my privacy. It might "appear" to do so on an occasional call where I don't want the called party to "immediately" know my number. But in most cases, where SS7 connectivity is there, my number has been delivered throughout the network all the way to the called party's telco central office. And who knows how my number could be recorded/etc. by them for future proceedings. (again, Pat, please keep my name with-held from this post ... thanks) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Very good advice. *67 really only works well in cases where it is administratively inconvenient to try and search out the caller, and it doesn't really matter anyway. I am reminded once again of how several years ago obscene phone calls to Queen Elizabeth were made by someone who thought they could 'hide behind a switchboard and not get caught'. Go back now to the early 1960's ... the Queen's personal staff had been getting at least one, sometimes two or three calls daily from an 'anonymous' admirer which were (to put it kindly) obscene, and to be more to the point very scurrilous and sick in nature. I am quoting now from the Chicago Tribune's account. For the first few days of the calls, the Queen's personal staff simply laughed them off, and had a great joke of it. But eventually, they began to get tired of the game, and put in a complaint with British Telecom asking for assistance in stopping the calls. When someone asks, or makes demand under the Queen's name, the underlings usually hop to it, and they did in this case, beginning to 'trace' the calls. BT eventually got back with a report that the calls were originating in the United States, and they asked their associates at AT&T in White Plains, NY to look into it for them. AT&T did investigate it, and eventually traced the calls back to Illinois Bell which in turn found that the calls originated in the 'Chicago- Superior' central office. A technician (or whatever they called them in those days) in turn found the calls were originating from the switchboard at WHItehall 4-6211 -- the Lawson YMCA. They got that far in their tracing efforts after 4-6 weeks; faster and more diligent in their search than any other instances, because it *was* the Queen after all. After all, being an international call, they probably would not have looked that far had it been any 'regular' person. British Telecom formally asked for help on the matter, and a day or two later, *Chicago Police* showed up and served a search warrant on the chief operator at Lawson asking to look at her toll tickets, which were just old paper things in those days. After a couple hours of reading through reams of paper 'tickets' they found what they wanted. But they had to build a complete case out of it. Later that day, a technician from Illinois Bell came out to Lawson with some equipment. He took off the back of the switchboard, walked inside it and starting attaching his equipment (which were simply some wires to a recording device.) Remember, in those old days, multi-position switchboards were big, humongous things; Lawson has a couple thousand rooms and another hundred or so administrative extensions off the board. In those days there were a couple operators per workshift and the supervising operator. The man came out of the inside of the board, set up his recorder and with a glare in his eyes said to the two operators on duty, "and you two had better keep your traps shut. If you tip him off, the police will arrest you also for interfering. Just keep plugging your calls." It was not uncommon in those days of manual service for an operator to be friendly with a subscriber and maybe tip him off to trouble brewing. The women did not intend to lose their jobs on account of this sick phreak. Sure enough, a bit later that day or the next, a call was recorded on the tape machine. Police made an arrest and the Chicago Tribune's account of the incident was entitled 'the Queen chats with another sick queen.' So, star-67, you are quite correct. Depending on how bad they want you, they will find you. *67 doesn't do any good, its just a small consumer-grade stumbling block. I am not suggesting that spammers (or their innocent victims as the case may be) warrant *that much* attention. Anyway, we don't harass people, do we? We just make inquiries about things we saw on the net. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steve Hayes Subject: BT Call Rates - Straws in the Wind? Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 22:41:20 +0000 Following on from a number of items recently in TELECOM Digest, I think some people may be interested in new call rates that British Telecom are introducing. BT have a number of "Together" options which involve a higher monthly charge than the standard line rental but lower call charges. Here in the UK, we are used to paying timed charges on local as well as long distance calls. The new rates apply to the "Together" options and come into effect 1st June. First of all, all distinction between local and long distance calls are going entirely. Weekday calls will cost the same (the old weekday local rate) to anywhere in the country. Many years ago, the head of BT remarked that there was no longer any technical reason to charge more for long distance. This has been the case from payphones for some years (as well as with some competitors to BT). The more startling change is to calls made on weekday evenings and at weekends. BT have sneakily increased the minimum per-call charge by a penny to 6p (about 9 US cents) but you'll be able to talk up to an hour for that. Previously, a 1 hour long distance call would have cost 1 pound 20 pence, now it will cost 1/20th as much. However, all local calls less than 6 minutes long and long distance calls less than 3 minutes will actually go up in price slightly. I know we make a lot of calls to answering machines and other short calls so our bill could even go up a bit. I'm sure this scheme was dreamed up to look good in advertising though BT are non-starters in misleading adverts when compared with their competitors. When I look at our bills, they are mostly made up of line rental charges and calls to mobiles (cellphones). Landline call charges aren't really that significant. There are also Together options which allow flat rate calling anywhere in the UK on evenings and weekends and, at a much higher price, at any time. We use the phone more than most people but our call charges, excluding calls to mobiles, are never high enough to make the flat-rate schemes attractive. BT use various methods to discourage or prevent these rates applying to Internet access calls. ISPs can provide flat-rate access for a monthly charge of about 15 pounds separately from the phone bill and I suppose this isn't much more than the usual ISP charges in the USA for example. For many years, BT seemed preoccupied with protecting their call charge revenues. They tried to prevent flat-rate Internet access and I suspect that fear of VOIP was a motivating factor. Now they seem to have switched tack. They are trying to move people onto flat-rate packages and are pushing DSL, at least in those places where they have made it available. It may be working - apparently their profits are going up again after years in the doldrums. At 6p an hour, it wouldn't be worth messing around with VOIP! We've dallied with some of BT's competitors over the years but have ended up back with mother. The cable phone service featured misleading and very high call charges and terrible customer service. The other "indirect" companies mean dialing extra digits, waiting longer for calls to connect and having to deal with additional bills in exchange for possible savings of a few pennies. Life's too short for that. The big incumbent phone companies can always swat the competition. It takes a while for competitors to eat into their business enough to offset the hit to revenues that comes with being competitive with them. The incumbents do rely on consumer inertia but they can and will move to compete when it becomes in their interest to do so. I use an indirect company for international calls where even BT's best rates are much higher. The company I use has just increased their rates for calls to the USA - they are now only 0.1p per minute less than BT's rate for weekday local calls. Now its only slightly cheaper to call California than to phone our neigbours. Steve Hayes South Wales, U.K. ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Re: Anyone Use Infone? Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 16:50:15 -0500 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Reply-To: jkelly@newsguy.com Thanks for the link. Their website gave the impression the service had been around for awhile, and I thought I had seen an ad for it a year or so ago. Sounds like the company has been around, but not the "Infone" service itself, at least not using that name. I almost tried Infone today to find a notary service, but just as I was reaching for the phone my wife called me, and she told me that my bank could notarize my document, so I never used my excuse to try Infone. It is cheaper than my cellular providers 411 service, which costs $1.25 so I'm sure at some point I will try it out, unless they go belly up first. My hunch is that they will not make it. On Wed, 28 May 2003 17:45:33 GMT, 6212hgk{invert}@newsguy.com (John Bartley K7AAY (ex-KGH2126)) wrote: > It's actually Info One in Beaverton, Oregon. They were ditched for > cheaper overseas operators by cellcos, and therefore developed a > service competitive with the cost of 411 from other providers. > http://oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/business/105377756115280.xml?oregonian?fng > On Tue, 27 May 2003 16:48:16 -0500, J Kelly wrote: >> I've been seeing some ads for Infone on TLC. It looked intriguing, so >> I checked out the webpage. No monthly fee, 89 cents per call, up to >> 15 minutes, then 5 cents after that. They claim to do directory >> assistance, TeleConcierge, Directions and Roadside Assistance, movie >> times, and you can upload your palm or outlook info so you can access >> it via the service. >> It looks pretty good, but I rarely have a need for this type of thing, >> but since there is no monthly fee I signed up. I haven't thought of >> any reason to call it to see how it works just yet. Maybe I'll try it >> the next time I'm looking for a hotel room. >> Wondering if anyone has tried it and what they thought of it. ------------------------------ 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #484 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu May 29 19:04:57 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4TN4vM15271; Thu, 29 May 2003 19:04:57 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 19:04:57 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305292304.h4TN4vM15271@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #485 TELECOM Digest Thu, 29 May 2003 19:05:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 485 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson ICB HeadsUp Headlines For the Period Ending May 29, 2003 (J.Oppenheimer) Dot.TK Problems (Kozlovia@myRemarQ.tk) Re: *67 Does NOT Always Work, Period (joe@obilivan.net) Re: *67 Does NOT Always Work, Period (PaulCoxwell@aol.com) Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs? (Herb Stein) Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs? (D. Clayton) Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX+ Dialaround (Ed Gibbs) Re: CTI Question (Justin Time) Computer Telephony Integration (Marco Barroso) Re: Anyone Use Infone? (Telco) ZPDI Scam - Lawsuit Yet? (Bat) Last Laugh! Telecom Acronyms (J Kelly) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Judith Oppenheimer Subject: ICB HeadsUp Headlines For the Period Ending May 29, 2003 Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 16:40:58 -0400 ICB HeadsUp Headlines for the period ending May 29, 2003 ______________________________________________ from http://ICBTollFreeNews.com - Covering the Political, Legal and Marketing Arenas of 800, ENUM and Dot Com. ______________________________________________ ________________________sponsor _______________ http://CellPhoneMan.com Nationwide Cellular & PCS Superstore - 500 Anytime Minutes & Unlimited Weekends for Only $39.99 Per Month! - Free Nokia 1260 - Free Car Charger - Free Belt Clip - Free Handsfree Kit - Free Nationwide Long Distance* - Free Voice Mail - Free Call Waiting - Free 3 Way Calling - Free Battery Charger - NO Credit Card needed *No wireless long distance charges apply to calls placed from your Home Service Area to anywhere in the U.S. Standard airtime charges apply. CLICK NOW!! http://CellPhoneMan.com !!! ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME ... can be the difference between controlling your 800 number and service -- and not controlling your 800 number and service. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5868 CHALLENGES FOR NEUSTAR'S KIDS.US "There is no automated way to differentiate between a glazed doughnut and a suntanned breast." CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5867 SHOULD DATABASE OWNER SET POLICY TOO? NANC says its "support for the LLC approach is based on the demonstrated success of the North American Portability Management (NAPM) LLC that is responsible for contracting with third parties to manage the local number portability databases." Has a well-intentioned NANC Chair has been mislead by a well-oiled telco lobbying machine into comparing apples and oranges and supporting a slick, fast-track plan to game the NPRM process? CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5866 LOUIS TOUTON RESIGNS ICANN Touton came to ICANN in 1999 as its first employee and has since served as ICANN's Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5865 CALLING ALL RESP ORGS The LLC will own the Toll Free Database - the Cash Cow. And membership in the LLC would be open to all Resp Orgs, according to Michael Wade of the SMS/800. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5864 MGT AND OWNERSHIP OF TOLL FREE DATABASE BY LLC This LLC is on a fast track behind closed doors talking about Toll Free Database Ownership. I have seen dominant RespOrgs among this group deny subscribers' rights to their toll free numbers in violation of FCC Regulations, and flagrantly ignore recent FCC Rulings. Is this appeal to Own the database, versus Administrate it, a Red Flag? CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5863 NONEXISTENT .BIZ ADDRESSES REDIRECTED TO SLEAZY SITES You won't believe who's getting away with it, free and clear! CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5862 ______________________________________________ ________________________sponsor _______________ 4.5 STANDALONE TOLL FREE SERVICE No/Low Monthly Fee, No Set-up Fee, No Contract Free Toll Free Numbers, Free Vanity Numbers 6 Second Billing, No Credit Card Needed! CLICK HERE: http://WhoSells800.com ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ IETF ENUM INTERNET DRAFT This document discusses the use of the Domain Name System (DNS) for storage of E.164 numbers. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5861 PTO GRANTS VERISIGN INTERNET SEARCH PATENT "Method of determining unavailability of an internet domain name", specifically: a patent for searching the DNS. Has the PTO dropped their balls?! One thing is for sure - this could be one more annuity for VeriSign to make on the world's language and ENUMbering space. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5860 DATES SET FOR COMMENTS IN SLAMMING RULEMAKING The FCC's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau released the Third Order on Reconsideration and Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FCC 03-42) seeking comments about slamming on March 17, 2003. Comments are due June 2, 2003 and replies are due June 17, 2003, 45 and 60 days, respectively, after publication of the Order in the Federal Register. The Order was published in the Federal Register on April 18, 2003. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5859 NO TRANSFER OF DOMAIN AFTER RELATIONSHIP SOURS The panelist found that the domain was registered with the approval of the trademark holder at a time when the two companies were on good terms. "The UDRP is not the basis on which the Parties may argue the ownership or usage rights of a business asset." Amen. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5858 ENUM - IT'S ALL IN THE CONSENT Internet Telephony has published an article, "ENUM -- It's All In The Numbers", that boasts, "There are 400 million telephone numbers and over 130 million Internet customers in the United States... an unstoppable trend ... of which VoIP is now in the center ... the telephony market's brightest star". Aren't these the same people telling the FCC they won't use a lot of numbers, they're not widely deployed, and they're only an info service? ("Many resellers prefer to 'fly below the radar' to keep competitors [and who else?] from realizing the potential of this market.") But scroll down for the real nugget. "The process of ENUM registration may be part of a traditional sale of a PBX system or hosted IP telephony service from a carrier." (Of course they'll let you know they're registering your number "on your behalf", "with your consent", in "the ENUM system.") So this is Opt-in ENUM. CONTINUED HERE: http://www.icbtollfree.com/article_free.cfm?articleId=5857 ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ EVERY 3.6 SECONDS SOMEONE DIES FROM HUNGER http://www.hungersite.com/ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ Subscribe and unsubscribe to this MailList at http://ICBTollFreeNews.com. Copyright 2003 ICB, Inc. All rights reserved. ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ------------------------------ From: Kozlovia@myRemarQ.tk (Kozlovia@myRemarQ.tk) Subject: Dot.TK Problems Date: 29 May 2003 00:07:23 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ My domain works fine ... sometimes the rollover in the browser slows down. http://www.myremarq.tk Any one else have any dot.TK problems? ------------------------------ From: joe@obilivan.net Subject: Re: *67 Does NOT Always Work, Period Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 06:19:17 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications *67 wrote: > If the called party considers such calls as harrassing, they can > always use various "annoyance call" complaint procedures through their > local telco, which could include THEIR use of *57 (11-57) Call Trace, > or other more traditional "trap-and-trace" methods. They may also have > "anonymous call rejection" as well, so that so-called "private number" > calls won't even get through. *57 is another consumer gadget. Where I live it will only trap CPNI on an intra-LATA call. Of course, a law enforcement authorized trap would do as you state. > And then there are the LD-carriers and CLECs/etc. which might not even > honor the "privacy flagging" of your calling number when you as the > calling party use *67 to call the desired number. Sometimes these > CLECs and LD-carriers simply have things mis-configured, and if > properly alerted to the fact will most likely correct the situation, > but there are other CLECs/etc who probably don't even give a sh**. If they don't give a sh** they will eventually have to contend with the FCC. Although the FCC isn't clear about many things, the honoring of *67 is spelled out in no uncertain terms in their 1995 decision; at least at "the consumer-to-consumer" level, as you put it. > There are numerous ways to prevent SS7 Caller-ID from being delivered, > such as the "cheapo-LD" companies, loop arounds, etc. that you suggest > ... but even with all of them, I still wouldn't want to be calling > from a number that is associated with me because there are still ways > of tracking numbers near the calling end of the call, usually via ANI, > which the calling party usually has NO control over delivery or > recording of. Are you a criminal per chance? ;-) If not, why all the preoccupation with your number occasionally being delivered contrary to your wishes? I have caller id, and ... ------------------------------ From: PaulCoxwell@aol.com Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 05:38:14 EDT Subject: Re: *67 Does NOT Always Work, Period > I am reminded once again of how several years ago obscene phone calls to > Queen Elizabeth were made by someone who thought they could 'hide > behind a switchboard and not get caught'. Go back now to the early > 1960's ... the Queen's personal staff had been getting at least one, > But eventually, they began to get tired of the game, and put in a > complaint with British Telecom asking for assistance in stopping the Interesting story Pat, and not one I've heard before. Just one point to nit-pick though: British Telecom did not exist in the 1960s. Back then it would have been the G.P.O. (General Post Office) involved at this end of the investigation. Paul Coxwell Norfolk, England ------------------------------ From: Herb Stein Subject: Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs? Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 21:19:30 -0500 Julian Thomas wrote in message news:telecom22.484.5@telecom-digest.org: > In , on 05/27/03 at 10:40 PM, Dave > Garland may have used oatmeal boxes, old > string, and new, used, and recycled electrons to say (at least in > part): >>> Various vacuum tubes had numbers that were not related to the counting >>> numbers of any component of the tube. >> Ah, but it was very common for the first digits to identify the filament >> voltage. Maybe universal, when the format was >> number(s)-letter(s)-number(s). > Not for transmitter tubes (remember 807's or 829B's??) and only for US > type designation. Should I look through my stuff? I'm sure I likely have 807s (6.3v) and a fair number of 1625s (12v). 829B ( I have the socket) and the baby version, 832A? Klystrons etc. too. Drifting off topic, however. (How about a 432something from a Bell TD-2 microwave system. Got that too. > Julian Thomas: jt@jt-mj.net > http://jt-mj.net Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 952-4601 ------------------------------ From: David Clayton Subject: Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs? Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 15:46:07 +1000 Organization: Customer of Connect.com.au Pty. Ltd. Art Jackson contributed the following: > Most youngsters now days, think vacuum tubes are those things at the > Bank drive-thru, where you put a check into a cannister, then it's > sucked away somewhere. Hopefully after a while, it comes back with > money in it. ;-) Or as we used to call them "FET's with pilot lights" ... :-) That made it easier for us late 1970's trainee technicians who had only dealt with semiconductors to "wrap their heads around" how these things worked. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@XYZ.acslink.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. (Remove the "XYZ." to reply) Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. ------------------------------ From: egibbs@my-deja.com (Ed Gibbs) Subject: Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX+ Dialaround Date: 29 May 2003 04:26:03 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Good for you, but I really doubt > anything will come of it. Very few have ever been able to move MCI out > of their fraudulent ways. Now and then a court somewhere will fine > them, but that is about all. Even in this latest bankrupty fiasco, > the multi-million (or is it multi-billion?) fine imposed on MCI will > mostly go to the stockholders. PAT] Me too, but I wanted to get on record anyway. Here is what I asked for as resolution in the complaint: 1. A fine equal to or greater than the value of the new business gained with this tactic. 2. Notification to all customers who switched to MCI as a result of this tactic that they are free to switch back to their old carrier at no cost. 3. A permanent prohibition on using this or similar tactics. 4. Telecom*USA to prominently warn in their ads and web pages that the rate advertised may not be delivered, and that actual rates may be 70 times higher. 5. Telecom*USA to provide a customer service number for billing complaints that does not automatically route to MCI's customer deception department. What do you figure my chances are? ;-) Steven Sobol's comments are appreciated as well, but I think as long as the billing stays resolved I won't go ballistic, I'll just leave it with the FCC. I will probably file a complaint with AT&T though, just to cover the bases. I do recognize after reading some of the other posts that even though one rep told me that the calls had been re-rated, there is no assurance that I won't be billed for them incorrectly anyway, and that they won't tell me "Too bad, pay up." If that happens I will be calling my State AG, my congressman, the local media, etc. Watch this space for further developments. Ed Gibbs ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: CTI Question Date: 29 May 2003 06:14:41 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ box11@udyog.com (bingoo) wrote in message news:: > I'd be a part of a project involving CTI. The client has a Inter-Tel > Axxess system with 6 T1 lines with about 100 toll-free numbers. > I'd appreciate if someone could answer a couple of questions: > 1. In such a set up, do the toll-free numbers generally work on the T1 > lines or are they separate analog lines? > 2. We intend using a PC to handle the incoming and outgoing calls with > an IVR application. There are about 5,000 incoming calls in a day. Can > one PC handle the entire work or do we need more PCs? > 3. What'd be the configuration of the PCs? What telephony card will be > used? > 4. Can the IVR application be developed using VB with some TAPI tools? > 5. How does the PC interface with the telecom system (Inter-tel)? > 6. Where can I get more info on CTI technology and how to develop CTI > applications? > Thanks in advance! > --Bingoo The type of questions you are asking here show that you really need a consultant on the project who knows more telephony than programming. While I'm not stating you couldn't learn the information, it would be a lot faster and save a lot of time in debugging if you had some expert advice on the telephone line side of the project at the start. A consultant would be able to help determine the number of ports needed for the IVR on the PC and if a single PC would be able to handle the peak calling periods. Just my 37 cents (before taxes). Rodgers Platt ------------------------------ From: mbarroso@consultant.com (Marco Barroso) Subject: Computer Telephony Integration Date: 29 May 2003 10:10:17 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I've been trying to figure out this solution for a few hours and decided to drop my question on this news group. I have a very basic scenario. A call center using phone system MITEL SX-200 without the CTI interface yet. I just need to record incoming calls and store them(voice, ext #) into a database. I know there is the Intel NetMerge software, but I do not know if it provides the option to record calls. Is there any easy cost effective solution for this. Either developing the software in house or purchasing an existing solution and integrating with our needs ? Thanks, Marco ------------------------------ From: Telco Reply-To: telco@teleport.com Subject: Re: Anyone Use Infone? Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 17:10:40 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net It's Actually Metro One, there is Info NXX and Info 411 and Info ... as many other smaller competitors. Metro One got started as a free service with all these same features except they had an advertiser in-between the number given and the first ring on the complementary connection. The advertiser paid the 25 cents for the connection and information service. This was local to Portland only and the service was widely copied throughout the country. Each DA provider found the same thing, high use from consumers, good advertiser participation typically killed the service because the advertiser could not justify paying more than 25 cents per call often adding up to $1,000 per month. Users could not pay any offset until LECs increased their charges to something Metro One could underecut. Now that LECs and IXC are able to raise their charges, Metro One can come in at a much lower price. They just lack the comparable connection of a 555 number. I think it is a great service, I have used it on my AT&T wireless service for years and as I said in a previous post I did some consulting work at their migration from free service to the Wireless providers. I do not need to sign-up though, I have the service on my AT&T wireless account. I pay a little more but I dial the service from 411 or area code 555-1212. I do not have to change my dialing habits. Kelly John Bartley K7AAY (ex-KGH2126) wrote: > It's actually Info One in Beaverton, Oregon. They were ditched for > cheaper overseas operators by cellcos, and therefore developed a > service competitive with the cost of 411 from other providers. > http://oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/business/105377756115280.xml?oregonian?fng > On Tue, 27 May 2003 16:48:16 -0500, J Kelly wrote: >> I've been seeing some ads for Infone on TLC. It looked intriguing, so >> I checked out the webpage. No monthly fee, 89 cents per call, up to >> 15 minutes, then 5 cents after that. They claim to do directory >> assistance, TeleConcierge, Directions and Roadside Assistance, movie >> times, and you can upload your palm or outlook info so you can access >> it via the service. >> It looks pretty good, but I rarely have a need for this type of thing, >> but since there is no monthly fee I signed up. I haven't thought of >> any reason to call it to see how it works just yet. Maybe I'll try it >> the next time I'm looking for a hotel room. ------------------------------ Reply-To: Bat From: Bat Subject: ZPDI Scam - Lawsuit Yet? Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 12:03:03 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications Anyone know if there's a class action lawsuit against ZPDI (Zero Plus Dialing) yet? They ripped me off too; my wife made a collect call via 1-800-COLLECT 40 miles away for 8 mins and we got hit $22.92! After called ZPDI at 1-800-456-7587 several times and finally talking to a "Tammy" -- I was told I would receive a $20.87 credit in a month or so but yea, right -- I'll believe it when I see it. The actions by ZPDI are unforgiveable and it smells like 1-800-COLLECT and from what I've read other companies may be in on this scam silently passing the calls to these companies who charge out at 1000% more and probably share the profits with the parent company??? This is absolute thievery. Is the mafia now doing the phone company gig? Please ... Anyway -- the only thing I've seen about this class action possibilty is this guy: http://www.girardgibbs.com/zpdi.html Anything else out there? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 15:39:45 -0500 From: J Kelly Subject: Last Laugh! Telecom Acronyms Pat- I thought some people on the group might find these amusing. 3G [3rd Generation] Gosh! Golly! Gee! Gadgets Galore...Gradually (seanjr@another.com) Girls, Gambling and Games! AHAG Aha! How Authentically Goofed-up (adapted from ravi_bowgal@yahoo.com) AMPS Answering May Produce Static. At least My Phone Still works (mdlloyd@mindspring.com) ...And Many Phones Scrapped (Masao Yamasawa, Japan) ...And More Places Served (Masao Yamasawa, Japan) Americans Must Prove Something (cellshop@candw.ky, Cayman Islands) ALI Addresses: Lost and Inconsistent ANI Absolute Numbskull Indicator (adapted from sdevry@home.com) AOL Acronym Overload Land ATIS Alliance Taking It Slow (diedre@flash.net, USA) BSP Coating on Manuals) Butt Sweat Protected (Stevve Adams, tazdpwwo@yahoo.com) BTTC Boring, Tiring, Tedious and Cumbersome. CALEA Cops And Lawmakers Eating Assets. Criminals And Libertarians Each Abhor (it). CARNIVORE [FBI email sniffing system] Copious Agents Reading Nearly Infinite Volumes of Redundant Emails CCITT Croissants & Coffee Interrupted by Technical Trivia. Crazy Committee Interested in Travel & Talk Call Collect If Totally Trapped (adapted from arrowset@sympatico.ca) CDMA Could've Done More Arithmetic Can't Determine Market Availability (C. Baldwin, marvell@juno.com) Can Disconnect Mobiles Anywhere (doug.kramon@attws.com) Can't Dial in Most Areas (mdlloyd@mindspring.com) Cash Doesn't Matter Anymore (duenasd@kuentos.guam.net) ... or ... Coverage Doesn't Matter Anymore (mdlloyd@mindspring.com) ... or ... Capacity Doesn't Matter Anymore (Masao Yamasawa, Japan) Can Digital Match Analog (anonymous, from Australia, where digital= (GSM and CDMA) are replacing analog by government fiat) Connecting Doesn't Mean Anything (pringre@charlie.cns.iit.edu) Calls Drop Most Anywhere Collisions Destroy Most Accesses (C=E9sar del Pino, Spain) Christian Dior Mobile Accessories (seanjr@another.com) Customers Don't Mean Anything (Keith Horak) Commercially Deployed and Miles Ahead (this one...) Cleverly Designed to Maximize the Airwaves (...and following...) Cool Data and Multimedia Applications (...are from...) Customers Deserve More Airtime (...Qualcomm advertisements...) Can Do Most Anything Can't Do Much Anyway (Mak, England) CDPD Capacity Did Prove Deficient. CIA Can't Ice Anyone. CIBER Cents Ignored By Eliminating Revenue. Can It Bill European Roamers? (Jack Hwang, USA) CIO Career Is Over (keilsohn@home.com) CLEC Can't Lose Enough Cash. CRTC Canada's Reward for Tired Campaigners CTIA Cancer Tales Inhibit Achievements. Can't Take It Anymore DVD Diminishing VCR Dominance EDGE Enhanced Design to Go Erroneous (tshveta@netscape.net). ESN Engineer Safer Numbering. ETSI Eradicate TIA Standards Immediately ('Q'). European Travel and Sightseeing Initiative. Existing Telecom Standards Insufficient (Harshawardhan Lele, harshawardhan.r.lele@tek.com, India) FCC Funnel Cash to Congress First Class Catastrophe Forcing a CALEA Compromise Frequently Causing Chaos (Telcordia Wireless Interconnect Class of May, 1999) Friendly Candy Company (Telcordia August 1999 San Francisco Wireless Basics Class) Flippin' Calling-party-pays Controversy (hilld@aztechcon.com) Gates, Bill Greedy And Terrible Eater of Software Competitors, "Bullying Is Lotsa Laughs". GPRS Group of People Reading Specs (and doing nothing) (tshveta@netscape.net, USA) Gullible Punters Requiring Speed (seanjr@another.com) GPS Great Plan for Spying Going Places Slowly GSM God Send Mobiles [c. 1992] Gotta Start Making Money [c. 1993] Giant Static Maker [c. 1994] Got Services and MOU Gone to Some other Method (C. Baldwin, marvell@juno.com) Great Software Monster (vesa.maki@benefon.fi) Giant Software Mistake (Michael.Heilman@Ericsson.com) Goodluck Sending Messages (mdlloyd@mindspring.com) God Save Motorola (freaky1_1@excite.com) Giant Signaling Machine (david@sanders-consulting.com) God Silence these Morons (Mike Belin, California) HLR Here Lie Roamers How Lost 'R u? (Benjamin.Smith@uscellular.com) IBM It's Being Mended (jimd@spider.com) I Believe in Mediocrity (jimd@spider.com) I've Been Moved (Joe Walsh, w10981@email.mot.com) Immature, But Marketable (fred@dinkler.com) It's Better done Manually (Alan McCreary, mccreary@acs.ucalgary.ca) I Blame Microsoft (Krishna Prasad, krisprasad@hotmail.com, India) iDEN It Don't Enhance Nothin' It Drops Every-call Now! I do Everything Nextel IHA I hate acronyms (Robert Pierce, USA) IIS Impossible to Initiate Safely (Manuel Baselga, Spain) ILEC Idiots Liking Excessive Charges (Telcordia Wireless Interconnect Class of May, 1999) IMT-2000 It's Marketing Trying To (make us say) ooo! INTEL I Never Took Engineering Lessons (jfbeaumont@yahoo.com) IMTS Idiots Must Talk Somehow (Telcordia August 1999 San Francisco Wireless Basics Class) ISDN Innovation Subscribers Don't Need Internet Saved d'ere Neck It Still Does Nothing (lduenweg@sisktel.com) Ich Sehe Das Nicht ([German version] harald.hoffmann@osiconsult.co.at) I Smell DeutcheMarks Now! (Andrew-till@psion.com) I See Dollars Now (Phil Audino, ETRI) It Sometimes Does Network (kplus@bellatlantic.net) I Still Don't Know (asinghal@hotmail.com) I Suspect Dubious Nomenclature (arrowset@sympatico.ca) Invention Sucks Dollars Nicely (fred@dinkler.com) ISO Illegible Software Ordinances (Manuel Baselga, Spain) Invariably Soon Outdated (Manuel Baselga, Spain) Infinite Sheet Organizers (adapted from Manual Baselga, Spain) IT Idiotic Torturers Insolent Terrorists ITU Impossible To Understand (lborjesson@ts.es) It's Totally Useless (mlombino@ibm.net) It Troubles You (chandrani.chaudhuri@wipro.com) LANP Let's Ask Next Person (Telcordia Wireless Interconnect Class of May, 1999) LATA LEC Ain't Toting Across (Telcordia Wireless Interconnect Class of May, 1999) Leave A Telco Alone (Telcordia Wireless Interconnect Class of May, 1999) Long Awaited Technical Assistance (arrowset@sympatico.ca) Local Access Telephones Arbitrarily (Manuel Baselga, Spain) LEC Losing Existing Customers (Telcordia Wireless Interconnect Class of May, 1999) LERG Let Everyone Rage & Groan (Telcordia Wireless Interconnect Class of May, 1999) Let Everyone Really Guess (Telcordia Wireless Interconnect Class of May, 1999) LIDB Looking Into Dead Beats (Terrie Tyler, Hewlett Packard) LMDS Lucrative Method for Delivering Service (Tim Kridel, Wireless Review Magazine) LNP Lost Network Performance. Lotsa Nervous People Lots of Network Problems (Michele Young, YoungIdeas) LRIC Low Rate Incumbent Cash-flow (Telcordia Wireless Interconnect Class of May, 1999) Macintosh Most Applications Crash. If Not, The Operating System Hangs (dlmclaug@eos.ncsu.edu) Many Anguished Customers, Mostly Academic and Clueless (lellis@southwind.net) MCSE Must Call Someone Experienced (sdevry@home.com) Microsoft Most Intelligent Customers Realize Our Software Only Fools Teenagers (Andrew-till@psion.com) Methodically I Copy and Reproduce Original SOFTware (sgangupantula@hotmail.com) Must I Continually Repulse Offensive Snubs, Outrages and Foolish Taunting? MIN (there's) Money In Numbers (sdrownjr@snowhill.com) MMS Mangled My Snapshots MSA Mostly Static Area MOS Marketing Office Silliness (diedre@flash.net, USA) MSC Must Send Cash (Dana.A.Borgman@usa.alcatel.com) NAMPS Not All Mobile Phones Suck (cellshop@candw.ky, Cayman Islands) NANP Not Another New Phone-number! (Dana.A.Borgman@usa.alcatel.com) Network Administrators Never Panic (arrowset@sympatico.ca) Not Another Numbering Plan! (Telcordia August 1999 San Francisco Wireless Basics Class) NMT (Scandinavian originated analog cellular) Nokia's Money Tree No More Troubles (Ronald.Plasmeijer@cmg.nl) Nice Moments Together (Ronald.Plasmeijer@cmg.nl) NSA No Such Agency Never Say Anything (mhahn@tcbtech.com) Nasty Silence Abroad (adapted from pringre@charlie.cns.iit.edu) Nursing Security Ailments (pringre@charlie.cns.iit.edu) No Secrets Anymore NTSC Not Twice the Same Color (anderslu@stud.ntnu.no) PAL Peace At Last (anderslu@stud.ntnu.no). PCIA PCS Couldn't Increase Admissions. PCMCIA People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms (ebb@usa.net) Pretty Crappy Micro-Computer Inspired Acronym (arrowset@sympatico.ca) PCS Pretty Cool Stuff. [c. 1990] Plagiarized Cellular Standards. [c. 1993] Piles of Confusing Standards (kirk@synacom.com) Prettymuch Cellular Service (egastle@sympatico.ca) Plentya Cash for Spectrum. [c. 1995] Purchased Cellular Service (eccell1@execpc.com) Pray for Cash from Sheiks [c. 1997] Please Connect Sometimes! (mdlloyd@mindspring.com) Push Cloned Service Pretty Cruddy Service (a happy customer) Particularly Crappy Service (Aaron Ayling, US Cellular) PDC (Japanese digital cellular standard) Perfect Domestic Connection (Masao Yamasawa, Japan) Please Don't Crash (pringre@charlie.cns.iit.edu) Please Dial Cautiously (pringre@charlie.cns.iit.edu) PLMN Pay Lotsa Money Now (diedre@flash.net) PSAP (Emergency call answering point) Please Serve All Promptly (adapted from ravi_bowgal@yahoo.com) Politicians Scream At Problems RCMP Red Canadians Manhandling with Pepper RSA Rural Static Area (Telcordia Wireless Interconnect Class of May, 1999) Reasonably Secure Access Rarely Served Adequately SID Some Idiot's Decision (cellshop@candw.ky, Cayman Islands) Say It's Domestic (Manual Baselga, Spain) SMDS Small Men in Dancing Shoes (m.steinberg@hill.com) SMS Save My Soul (shveta@bell-labs.com) Simply Mobile Spam (rkunz@physio-control.com) Splintered Message Supply Save Money Slowly (seanjr@another.com) SNAFU Silly Nations Allow Frequency Uncoordination SNMP Simply Not My Problem (Edward Bill - 72460.1503@compuserve.com) Say Nicely, "More Pornography!" (hackerwiz@yahoo.com) SS7 Signaling Sins: 7 (Manual Baselga, Spain) SSP Service Screw-up Point (ravi_bowgal@yahoo.com) TCAP Telecommunications Capability Appears Poor (ravi_bowgal@yahoo.com) TDMA The Dumb Man's Analog (mdlloyd@mindspring.com) Turns Delicate Machines Autistic. Too Dumb to Move Aside (Cliff Baldwin - marvell@juno.com) Though Digital, May Be Antiquated ('Q') Technical Disaster Mixed with Analog (freaky1_1@excite.com) Too Damn Many Acronyms TIA Titles In Abeyance. TELECOM This Euphoric, Least Effective Career Of Mine (Mike Belin, California) Tired Euphemism for Lazy, Egotistical, Crazy Old Managers (Mike Belin, California) TETRA The Endless Try to Reach Agreement (Giuseppe Scarpi, Italy). TLA Three Letter Acronym (ctaylo07@harris.com) TTFN Ta Ta For Now! (patrick.j.casey@tek.com, USA) URL Unable to Readily Locate Unable to Register Lately (seanjr@another.com) UWB Un-Wanted Bursts UWCC Used to Want CDMA to Crash Un-Wanted Consortium Collapses VLR Visitors (please) Leave Rightaway (ravi_bowgal@yahoo.com) Visitors Lie Repeatedly WAP Win Another Problem (jap@parametro.es) Windows Abandons PCs (manual.baselga@parametro.es) Wear A PDA (manual.baselga@parametro.es) Where Are the Phones? (halvard.lundgard@telenor.com) What! Another Protocol? WiFi With Inadequate Fortifications against Intruders WIN Wreck IS-41 Now! Wow! It's New! WNP Worst Number Problems (Telcordia Wireless Interconnect Class of May, 1999) WWW World Wide Wait Wait, Wait, Wait (Michel Houde, lmcmiho@lmc.ericsson.se) Warm Waffles Wanted (Ricardo Baudin, Telefonica Moviles, Spain) Wonderful Windows Waiting (Masao Yamasawa, Japan) ------------------------------ 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: 620-330-6774 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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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 #485 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri May 30 13:05:56 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4UH5uT20882; Fri, 30 May 2003 13:05:56 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 13:05:56 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305301705.h4UH5uT20882@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #486 TELECOM Digest Fri, 30 May 2003 02:40:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 486 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson WNBA.com to Conduct First-Ever Live Video Webcast of Game (M Solomon) Jabber, Inc. Enters Wireless Instant Messaging/Wireless (Monty Solomon) America Online Announces Enhancements to Radio@AOL (Monty Solomon) EarthLink Introduces spamBlocker (Monty Solomon) PacketVideo Powers Wireless Multimedia Coverage of World Ski (M Solomon) EBay Patent Case Could Portend More Claims (Monty Solomon) Qwest Communications Reports First Quarter Earnings (Monty Solomon) Agere Systems Delivers Custom Microchip With Largest Number (M Solomon) America Online & Dolby Laboratories Join to Provide Dolby AAC (Solomon) AOL Time Warner and Microsoft Agree to Collaborate (Monty Solomon) In a First, a WGBH Series Goes Commercial (Monty Solomon) For TiVo and Replay, New Reach (Monty Solomon) Palm Announces Alliances in Voice Over IP, Wi-Fi, Security (M Solomon) Cingular Wireless and Yahoo! Messenger Give Users Instant (M Solomon) Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX+ Dialaround (G Welsh) Seeking Recommendation of Vendor For Multi-Line System (Alan Schnittman) Share Day and a Change in Personnel (TELECOM Digest Editor) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 22:28:09 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: WNBA.com to Conduct First-Ever Live Video Webcast of a Game WNBA.com to Conduct First-Ever Live Video Webcast of a Game in Women's Professional Sports History - May 29, 2003 11:59 AM (PR Newswire) Groundbreaking Video Webcast of Game on May 31 Available Free to All Fans By Using RealNetworks' RealOne(TM) Player NEW YORK, May 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The WNBA announced today that WNBA.com will feature the first-ever live video webcast of a game in women's professional sports history on Saturday, May 31 at 7:30 p.m. ET when the Detroit Shock and rising star Swin Cash host the Charlotte Sting and two-time Gold Medallist Dawn Staley. The groundbreaking video webcast will be available for free to all fans. WNBA fans around the world using RealNetworks'(Nasdaq: RNWK) RealOne(TM) Player will be able to access the live streaming video webcast through WNBA.com. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34349334 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 22:31:07 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Jabber, Inc. Enters Wireless Instant Messaging and Wireless Jabber, Inc. Enters Wireless Instant Messaging and Wireless Real-Time Communications Market; SMS Gateway First Product in Wireless Suite; Available to Enterprises and Carriers In Q3 - May 28, 2003 07:00 AM (BusinessWire) DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 28, 2003--Jabber, Inc., the leading developer of open architecture for enterprise- and carrier-class presence-enabled communications, including instant messaging (IM), today announced plans to introduce an advanced product suite designed to add presence and real-time communication capabilities to wireless devices and services. As the spearhead to its overall wireless strategy, Jabber, Inc. announced that its SMS (Short Message Service) Gateway, the first product in its wireless suite, will be made available to mobile operators and other customers in Q3 of this year. Several other new wireless products, such as HTTP and Wireless Village client gateways and new clients for mobile devices, will be offered later in the year in response to increasing demand from both enterprises and mobile operators. Jabber, Inc. is also planning service extensions that will help wireless and wire line users locate, communicate, and share digital content with one another. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34338857 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 22:36:41 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: America Online Announces Enhancements to Radio@AOL DULLES, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 28, 2003-- Latest Upgrade for AOL for Broadband Members Offers New Community and Convenience Features and Enhanced Functionality Use of Dolby Audio and AOL's Proprietary Ultravox Platform Enhances Radio@AOL Sound Quality for Members with Both Narrowband and Broadband Connections Infinity Broadcasting Deal Brings Select Stations Online for the First Time Following the successful launch of AOL(R) for Broadband 8.0 PLUS earlier this spring, America Online, Inc., the world's leading interactive services company, today introduced the latest enhancements to its popular Radio@AOL services. A newly launched version of Radio@AOL for Broadband offers listeners better sound quality, new features that promote convenience and sharing, as well as more programming. In addition, an enhanced version of Radio@AOL for members with a narrowband connection offers dramatically improved sound quality and faster, more reliable service. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34339943 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 22:41:28 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EarthLink Introduces spamBlocker New Feature is Available to Subscribers at No Additional Charge and Blocks Virtually 100% of All Junk Email EarthLink Joins Anti-Spam Coalition ATLANTA, May 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- EarthLink(R) (Nasdaq: ELNK), today became the first major Internet service provider to include, at no additional charge, an optional spam-blocking feature that enables EarthLink subscribers to eliminate virtually 100 percent of all junk email. spamBlocker(SM) is included with EarthLink's TotalAccess(R) 2003 Internet software, and users can now download a copy at http://www.earthlink.net/spamblocker. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34339984 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 22:51:11 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: PacketVideo Powers Wireless Multimedia Coverage of World Ski Telecom Italia Wi-Fi Project Combines HP iPAQ and PacketVideo Technology for Streaming and Download of Nordic Ski Highlights at Val di Fiemme, Italy The world Nordic ski championship is a highly-anticipated event in the Trentino region of Italy. TV coverage has been the only way to bring all the action to the public, but this year TV coverage has been extended to the mobile handsets of visitors to the championship. PacketVideo, the world leader in mobilemedia software, has provided its streaming video solution for mobile devices to power a new wireless WiFi service offered during the Val di Fiemme World Nordic Ski Championship which occurred Feb. 18th -- March 1st, 2003. The service is part of a broader WI-Fi testing project owned by Telecom Italia. The Val di Fiemme World Nordic Ski Championship is the first Telecom Italia event in which a streaming video service has been offered via wireless devices (specifically HP iPAQ PDAs). Nordic skiing is very strong with the Northern Europe audience, where Wi-Fi services and public hot spots are common. Recognizing that many visiting Nordic ski fans are familiar with WiFi services, the organizing committee of the championship accepted the pilot project sponsored by Telecom Italia. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34341571 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 23:12:55 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EBay Patent Case Could Portend More Claims By Lisa Baertlein PALO ALTO, Calif., May 28 (Reuters) - This week's $35 million patent-infringement verdict against eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) could portend additional successful claims to come from people who hold patents that apply to Internet commerce, legal experts said on Wednesday. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34343948 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 23:16:15 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Qwest Communications Reports First Quarter Earnings Qwest Communications Reports First Quarter Earnings, Operational Highlights, and Additional Results of Financial Restatement and Audit Review - May 29, 2003 07:01 AM (PR Newswire) * First Quarter Diluted EPS of $0.09 * Total Principal Amount of Short- and Long-Term Borrowings Decreases $333 Million In the First Quarter, and Approximately $500 Million Year-To-Date (See "Debt Update" For Details) * Cash and Cash Equivalents Increase Approximately $100 Million to $2.4 Billion * 530,000 Access Lines Signed Up For Long-Distance Service Following 271 Approvals In Nine States * Retail Consumer Access Line Losses Improve for Third Consecutive Quarter - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34347044 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 23:18:28 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Agere Systems Delivers Custom Microchip With Largest Number Agere Systems Delivers Custom Microchip With Largest Number of ARM Processors Ever Integrated Into a Single Chip - May 29, 2003 08:00 AM (PR Newswire) ALLENTOWN, Pa., May 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Agere Systems (NYSE:AGR.A, AGR.B) today announced a significant technological achievement by integrating more ARM(R) processors in a single microchip than any other semiconductor provider. Agere combined eight ARM966E-S(TM) processor cores to provide a highly integrated custom solution, providing four times more processing power than typical chips. By integrating eight cores on a single device, Agere is able to provide customers four times the processing power on a single device, reducing costs and improving time to market. The application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) is in full production today. Most integrated circuit devices using ARM processors in the market today integrate only one or two ARM cores. By integrating eight cores, Agere is able to meet the demand for a significantly higher level of processing power. Agere is delivering the ASIC to a leading wireless base station provider. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34347384 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 23:21:02 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: America Online and Dolby Laboratories Join to Provide Dolby AAC America Online and Dolby Laboratories Join to Provide Dolby AAC Technology for Superior Streaming Audio Through Radio@AOL and Radio@AOL for Broadband - May 28, 2003 02:02 PM (BusinessWire) NEW YORK & SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 28, 2003-- New Format Enables AOL to Deliver Improved Listening Experience to AOL Members, While Gaining Network Efficiencies America Online Inc., the world's leading interactive services company, and Dolby Laboratories, have announced the introduction of Dolby(R) AAC technology, an enhanced version of the world standard MPEG AAC technology. This streaming technology is being introduced with new versions of Radio@AOL and Radio@AOL for Broadband, offering an enhanced listening experience for millions of AOL members who tune in to the popular radio services. Working closely with AOL, Dolby developed and optimized Dolby AAC technology, which dramatically improves the radio listening experience for consumers by streaming audio content with higher quality at lower bit rates (64 kbps for broadband and 14 kbps for narrowband). Dolby AAC will be streamed to Radio@AOL and Radio@AOL for Broadband listeners via AOL's proprietary Ultravox streaming media platform, which offers further benefits, including faster song starts and shorter time periods between songs. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34342435 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 23:25:02 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AOL Time Warner and Microsoft Agree to Collaborate on Digital AOL Time Warner and Microsoft Agree to Collaborate on Digital Media Initiatives and Settle Pending Litigation - May 29, 2003 04:06 PM (BusinessWire) REDMOND, Wash. and NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 29, 2003--Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) and AOL Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: AOL) today announced an agreement to collaborate on long-term digital media initiatives that will accelerate the adoption of digital content, and to settle the pending litigation between their companies. The two companies have also agreed to a new royalty-free, seven-year license of Microsoft's browsing technology and a variety of steps designed to ensure that their products work better with each other. Under the digital media agreement, the companies will work together on a series of initiatives to support the more rapid deployment of digital media for consumers and support new business models for content owners through digital rights management technology. The companies aim to help develop a successful digital media environment that is secure from piracy, open to all companies across multiple industries, and offers consumers access to broad content in a compelling manner that is easy to use. As part of this agreement, the two companies have entered into a long-term, non-exclusive license agreement allowing AOL Time Warner to use Microsoft's Windows Media 9 Series and future software for creating, distributing and playing back high-quality digital media. The legal settlement resolves the private antitrust lawsuit filed against Microsoft in January, 2002 by AOL Time Warner's America Online, Inc. unit on behalf of its subsidiary, Netscape Communications. As part of the settlement, Microsoft will pay $750 million to AOL Time Warner. In addition, as part of today's announced settlement, Microsoft has agreed to provide AOL Time Warner's AOL online service with a new distribution channel for its software to certain PC users worldwide. Also, the two companies will cooperate to ensure the best possible AOL member experience on current and future Microsoft operating systems, including commitments by Microsoft for technical cooperation and information disclosures. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34351634 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 00:17:30 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: In a First, a WGBH Series Goes Commercial In a first, a WGBH series goes commercial By Suzanne C. Ryan, Globe Staff, 5/28/2003 For the first time in its history, WGBH-TV, the leading creator of programming for PBS, will produce a series for a commercial network instead of public television. "Peep and the Big Wide World," a daily 30-minute science show for children ages 3 to 5, will debut on TLC and the Discovery Kids Channel, two cable networks, in 2004. WGBH (Channel 2) shopped the proposed show around after PBS declined to pick it up for national broadcast. The station said it might not be the last time a show developed at the public TV outlet ends up on commercial television. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/148/nation/In_a_first_a_WGBH_series_goes_commercial+.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 00:32:33 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: For TiVo and Replay, New Reach By DAVID POGUE WHY hasn't the digital video recorder become the must-have, smash-hit, world-changing appliance of the digital age? For DVR cult members, "Why have only a million people bought these machines?" is as mind-bending a mystery as "What's the meaning of life?" and "What's the deal with Dick Clark?" If you're among the 6.3 billion stubborn holdouts, here's the deal with DVR's. They're like videocassette recorders, except that they record shows onto a hard drive instead of tapes. You look over a two-week TV listings grid and press a Record button on the remote for each show that you want "taped." Another press sets the machine to record every episode of that series automatically. Over time, the DVR builds a list of captured shows, ready to begin playback in whatever eccentric time slots your schedule affords. You'll never know or care when they were originally broadcast or on what channel; you're just grateful that there's always something good on. Because a DVR can also jump forward 30 seconds at a time during playback or pause a live broadcast, its net effect is to free you from the slavery of the commercials, the filler and the rigid scheduling of live TV. One of the leading theories concerning the DVR's modest sales is that you can't describe the concept in a tidy sentence or two, as you've just discovered. In that respect, the situation is about to get a lot worse. Thanks to a new fee-based software upgrade from TiVo and newly enhanced free options on ReplayTV, these boxes don't just hook up to your TV; they also connect to your home computer network and the Internet. The resulting explosion of new features is clever, convenient and addicting - but won't make the DVR concept any easier to describe. (Replay models numbered 4000 and higher, and TiVo Series2, offer these features.) http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/29/technology/circuits/29stat.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 22:14:57 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Palm Announces Alliances in Voice Over IP, Wi-Fi and Security SAN DIEGO, D: All Things Digital, May 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq: PALM) today announced five agreements with technology companies for voice over IP (VoIP), Wi-Fi, and authentication software based on protocol developed by Cisco. These agreements make wirelessly using the Internet or corporate network more accessible, versatile and secure for professionals using the Palm(TM) Tungsten(TM) C handheld while away from their desks or out of the office(1). VLI, Linksys, Wayport, WiFinder and Meetinghouse Data Communications introduced products, services and special offers that capitalize on the integrated Wi-Fi of the Tungsten C handheld for Wi-Fi campus networkers and small office or home office (SOHO) professionals. The first Palm handheld computer to ship with integrated Wi-Fi, the Tungsten C handheld is the most powerful Palm branded device, with 400MHz of ARM processing power; 64MB(2) of memory to manage data-intensive applications; a built-in keyboard; and a 320 x 320 transflective TFT display, Palm's sharpest screen to date, for indoor and outdoor viewing. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34349098 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 22:21:24 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cingular Wireless and Yahoo! Messenger Give Users Cingular Wireless and Yahoo! Messenger Give Users Instant Interaction; Cingular Customers Can Now Stay Connected With Yahoo! Messenger Users ATLANTA, May 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Cingular Wireless announced today it is extending its PC-to-mobile messaging services by allowing users of Yahoo!(R) Messenger (http://messenger.yahoo.com), one of the Internet's fastest growing instant messaging services, to send instant messages to Cingular Wireless customers' phones via text messaging. Offered only with Yahoo! Messenger, the service enables Cingular Wireless customers to have two-way conversations with PC users with their mobile phones. This enhancement broadens Cingular's suite of PC-to-mobile messaging applications which give PC users three different options to reach Cingular Wireless customers: 1) via email, 2) via the Cingular Send A Message web page, and 3) via Yahoo! Messenger. Through this partnership, Cingular customers and Yahoo! Messenger users can send messages to one another between their wireless phones and desktops, allowing real time, any time communication. Now Cingular customers can stay connected with their Yahoo! friends while they are on the move. For more information, visit Cingular's website at http://www.cingular.com/pc2mobile. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34348497 ------------------------------ From: Geoffrey Welsh Subject: Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX+ Dialaround Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 18:19:40 -0400 Organization: Bell Sympatico > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: [...] Even in this latest > bankrupty fiasco, the multi-million (or is it multi-billion?) fine > imposed on MCI will mostly go to the stockholders. PAT] I believe that the fine was $US 500 million (essentially 33 cents on the dollar -- due to bankruptcy -- for a $US 1.5 billion fine, not still bad for a $US 9 billion misdeed -- had it been outright theft, they'd have made $US 8.5 billion!) but, when you say "stockholders", you must mean the group formerly known as "secured creditors" because the people who held MCI Worldcom stock a year ago will be left with absolutely nothing following the reorganization. Geoffrey Welsh This address is not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Unsolicited bulk mail is spam, no matter what regulations (real or imagined) it complies with! FIGHT SPAM AND SCAMS: DISCONNECT CHINA FROM THE INTERNET! ------------------------------ From: Alan Schnittman Subject: Seeking Recommendation of Vendor For Small Multi-Line Phone System Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 18:09:37 -0500 Hi, I am seeking recommendations of a vendor for small multi-line phone system. The location is a restaurant in the city of Chicago. Our needs go beyond that of a typical restaurant. I envision something along the lines of a 4 line system with 6 to 8 extensions, fax and credit approval "extensions", auto-attendant, and voice-mail. Most stations will not need full functionality; in fact, the simpler the phone the better. I have never been involved in the selection and installation of a telephone system. It seems that a used AT&T Merlin system (or something similar) could meet our needs. I'm a bit leery of buying this kind of stuff without some expert guidance so we'd like to find a local installer/vendor to work with us. Please contact me directly with any suggestion or recommendations, and I will follow-up with a summary to the group. Thanks in advance, ==================================================== Alan Schnittman | Brainchild Evolution, Inc | schnitt@mindspring.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- prototype design & development | computer interface embedded control | analog & digital circuits | software development -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I suggest for starters you chat with Mike Sandman mailto:mike@sandman.com since he is an expert in all things telephonically. I think he would be able to find you some good help in Chicago on this project. Or call him at 630-980-7710. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 01:23:23 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Share Day and a Change in Personnel This is the time each month when we take a brief pause in the Digest to remind you of my financial needs in the production/editing expenses of the telecom website and TELECOM Digest. It should be an old story by now, but the Digest and Archives are SHAREware, not FREEware. Here in comp.dcom.telecom and the Digest and the Archives you get a reasonably free from spam newsgroup with telecom news you can use each day. While Usenet and this newsgroup remains a free resource to the net -- and you can just FTP into our archives, or web-surf into our website, the only reason it has gotten to be 22 years old this summer has been because I have worked on it hard and long for many years. This summer I have two main projects for the Archives: I will be installing the *entire* 22 year publication history of the Western Union Technical Review. It began in 1947 and ceased publication in 1969. They'll all be on line here later in the summer in the 'technical' section of the Telecom Archives. Then also, I will be working on our Bell System/telephone heritage museum, with many hundreds of .jpg and text files, and links to other telephone museums. Most of that will eventually be located in the 'history' section of the archives. For third, I will take some time this summer to consult with the doctor to have my head examined, to see if I can *ever* get over this dreadful brain desease, or, if as the doctor who came down from UK-Lawrence on behalf of Social Security to certify me stated, 'there is no hope for any real recovery. You (meaning me) are going to remain unbalanced for the rest of your life.' :( With that in mind, I have a new editor for the Digest starting tomorrow. Lisa Minter, from here in Independence, is going to take over the day-to-day editing. Nothing will change here; the mailing list remains the same; where you send email stays the same. The only difference is you will see Lisa's name on the masthead quite frequently. I'll be around some also. So, for June SHARE day, if you have not yet, or not recently, made a SHARE gift to help with the production expenses of the Digest, I sure hope you will do so today, or over this weekend. Of course you can ftp it all for free from massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives or you can surf the web to http://telecom-digest.org as well, but one reason for the mostly quality you see there is because this Usenet newsgroup comp.dcom.telecom and the Digest and the Archives are mostly spam free and because I and many others have worked hard on it over the years. A year from now, this Digest will be as old as Western Union Technical Review was when it died. I hope to expand the Archives by about fifty percent this summer. Like usual, if you make a SHARE gift to the newsgroup/archives/digest this weekend, you can have a CD of the total 22 year output if you ask for it. All the back issues of the Digest from volume 1 issue 1 through the present time, along with all the special reports, the technical files, etc. And, if that is not enough, Joey Lindstrom will include a half-dozen old time radio shows with a telephone related theme, including Agnes Morehead's "Sorry, Wrong Number". Just ask for it *and include your mailing address if you want it* when you send your gift this weekend. You can pay with credit card if you wish through PayPal, using the clicker at the very bottom of the home page at http://telecom-digest.org or any PayPal template indicating payment to 'editor@telecom-digest.org' . If you prefer to send checks or money orders, the address is TELECOM / PO Box 50 / Independence, KS 67301-0050. In any event, *please* do it this weekend, and indicate if you want a copy of the CD or not. Until we chat again, take care and have a very pleasant summer. Say hello to Lisa tomorrow! 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #486 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri May 30 14:55:48 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h4UItm621758; Fri, 30 May 2003 14:55:48 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 14:55:48 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200305301855.h4UItm621758@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #487 TELECOM Digest Fri, 30 May 2003 14:56:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 487 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Lamo Hacks Cingular Claims Site (Monty Solomon) Diversity is Squashed in FCC Rules Change (Monty Solomon) Court Confirms DMCA 'Good Faith' Web Site Shut Down Rights (M Solomon) MS03-018: Cumulative Patch for Internet Information Service (M Solomon) AOL, Microsoft to Talk About IM (Monty Solomon) France's 3rd TV Channel Loses the Same Dispute Twice (Jean-B. Condat) Re: Dot.TK Problems (James Bellaire) Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs? (s falke) Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs? (Justin Time) Re: *67 Does NOT Always Work, Period (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Re: SpamAssassin (Arvel Hathcock) Re: Vonage Testing (Steve Michelson) DTMF Questions? (nick) Re: In a First, a WGBH Series Goes Commercial (Hudson Leighton) Re: Share Day and a Change in Personnel (Pete Romfh) A Friendly Fax Spammer Needs to Hear From You (Ron Chapman) 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, 30 May 2003 01:28:01 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Lamo Hacks Cingular Claims Site By Christopher Null Cingular can issue insurance to its mobile-phone customers to protect them against loss and damage, but it apparently can't ensure that hackers won't have full access to their personal data. Adrian Lamo, a hacker who in the past has broken into The New York Times and Yahoo, found a gaping security hole in a website run by a company that issues the insurance to Cingular customers. By accessing the site, Lamo said he could have pulled up millions of customer records had he wanted to. He said he discovered the problem this weekend through a random finding in a Sacramento Dumpster, where a Cingular store had discarded records about a customer's insurance claim for a lost phone. By simply typing in a URL listed on the detritus, Lamo was taken to the customer's claim page on a site run by lock\line LLC, which provides the claim management services to Cingular. Normally, this page should have been reachable only by passing through a password-protected gateway, but by simply entering the valid URL, Lamo discovered that individual claims pages could be accessed, no password authentication needed. Each page contained the customer's name, address and phone number, along with details on the insurance claim being made. Altering the claim ID numbers (which were assigned sequentially) in the URL gave Lamo access to the entire history of Cingular claims processed through lock\line, comprising some 2.5 million customer claims dating back to 1998. Lamo said the hack was similar to his discovery of a security hole at Microsoft in October 2001, where the server was configured to assume that if a user could reach a certain URL that was otherwise unpublished on the Internet, that user must be authorized to do so and must already be logged in. As with his other hacks, Lamo said he had no intent of profiting from the exploit, just pointing out a security flaw. http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,59024,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 01:37:51 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Diversity is Squashed in FCC Rules Change By Robert Kuttner, 5/28/2003 FREE MARKETS, taken to extremes, sometimes lead to monopolies. Monopolies, in turn, undermine the benefits of free markets -- consumer choice, innovation, and competition to offer a good product at an attractive price. That's why even the most capitalistic of societies have laws and regulations against monopolies. If there were one supermarket chain or one hotel group or one airline, the quality would soon deteriorate to the level of service in the late Soviet Union. Consumers would be captive to higher prices, too. Mass media are a very special kind of product, because they involve not just commerce but speech. Congress and the courts have long endeavored to ensure that a wide diversity of voices will be heard. That is about to change for the worse next week, when the Federal Communications Commission is expected, by a 3-2 vote, to throw out several decades of regulation limiting media monopolies. The FCC chairman, Michael Powell, is trying to ram the vote through before wider opposition can build, short-circuiting the commission's usual public comment process. Even if legal, Powell's scheme is awful policy. If he wins, all three major networks could be owned by the same conglomerate (which could also be a defense contractor). The limits on cross-ownership of newspapers and radio and TV stations will also be lifted, as will the constraints on networks' ability to buy up local TV stations. If you want a glimpse into this utopia, consider the deregulation of radio, which Congress enacted in 1996. Before then, the FCC limited how many stations any one company could own, and ownership was widely diversified. It took less than a decade for most US radio stations to be owned by just three conglomerates. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/148/oped/Diversity_is_squashed_in_FCC_rules_change+.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 08:46:47 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Court Confirms DMCA 'Good Faith' Web Site Shut Down By Ashlee Vance in San Francisco A U.S. court has extended the power of the DMCA even further with a ruling this week that backs up copyright holders' ability to shut down a Web site on "good faith." InternetMovies.com had asked the District Court for the District of Hawaii to require that copyright holders investigate infringing Web sites before shutting them down. This rational request was rejected by the court, as its granted the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and any other DMCA zealot the right to put the clamp on Web sites at will. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/30943.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am not quite certain why the court feels the traditional rules of the internet and the web do not apply here. The rule has always been do not leave your valued and private possessions laying around publicly (on the web for example) if you do not want other folks (web users) examining or confiscating them. I would not, for example, deliberatly leave my wallet sitting out on the sidewalk in front of my house and then try to *sue you* or otherwise punish you for examining it or possibly taking it. That seems to be what Hollywood is doing; they want the benefits of Internet exposure to their films (and the musicians, their music) but then they do not want to play by the traditional rules established for the World Wide Web. Just suppose for example I were to play by the same rules: use the Telecom Archives files as a lure to get everyone to send me tons of money and insist they (archives) were all my personal property and if you used them I could sue you. How far would that get me? Why does Hollywood get away with it? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 09:12:55 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: MS03-018: Cumulative Patch for Internet Information Service Title: Cumulative Patch for Internet Information Service (811114) Date: 28 May 2003 Software: Microsoft(r) Windows NT(r) 4.0, Windows(r) 2000, or Windows(r) XP Impact: Allow an attacker to execute code of their choice Max Risk: Important Bulletin: MS03-018 Microsoft encourages customers to review the Security Bulletins at: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-018.asp http://www.microsoft.com/security/security_bulletins/ms03-018.asp ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 01:04:49 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AOL, Microsoft to Talk About IM By Ed Frauenheim and Jim Hu Staff Writer, CNET News.com As part of their major truce announced Thursday, AOL Time Warner and Microsoft pledged to discuss making their instant messenger products talk to each other. The promised cooperation comes after years of IM acrimony between the two tech giants. But it's not clear the talks will end IM turf wars -- the companies did not provide a specific time line for allowing their rival services to communicate. http://news.com.com/2100-1032-1011379.html ------------------------------ From: Jean-Bernard Condat Subject: France's 3rd TV Channel Loses the Same Dispute Twice Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 06:37:27 +0200 Organization: Chrystol, B.P. 59, 93402 Saint-Ouen Cedex, France Our French readers may wish from time to time to consult the program listings of their favourite French television station using its Web site. Nothing more normal, you would think. TF1.com, for example. Or perhaps France3.com? But, says our correspondent Jean-Bernard Condat of chrystol.com, you might not get what you expect at the latter address; more likely you will find yourself viewing Korean pornography. So what is the history of this strange state of affairs? Our correspondent reports that when the inevitable shock subsided at premier French broadcaster France Television group, the operator of no less than three French TV channels, France 2, France 3, and TV5, the company attacked the problem with both hands by taking court action against the Korean owner of the seemingly cybersquatted domain name, one Segwon Kim, in the Tribunal de Grand Instance, Nanterre. Back in May 2001, the French court's decision was to order the registrar of the domain name, also based in Korea, to transfer the domain name to France 3. But in a subsequent court action in Korea, conducted in France 3's absence, a Korean judge was persuaded to overrule the French order. As an aside to the story, regular domain name watchers will be aware that in .com proceedings only a US court can truly trump a Korean one (mainly because the .com registry is subject to US jurisdiction). So the Korean decision stood unchallenged. Although one might have thought that France 3 would have opted for the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) before court action, they proceeded to file a UDRP complaint before the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) after hearing of the Korean court's decision. A single WIPO panelist refused to transfer the domain name [http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/decisions/html/2001/d2001-1322.html] (WIPO D2001-1322) - decision in Korean language only. Still not wanting to withdraw from the challenge, France 3 decided it wouldn't let matters lie at this. So, after abortive sale discussions with the registrant, the company made a further attempt to recover the domain name under the UDRP in which a decision was published this week [http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/decisions/html/2002/d2002-1181.html] (WIPO D2002-1181) - decision in Korean language only. On this occasion, unfortunately for France 3, the three member WIPO panel refused to re-open the case on the grounds of lack of new evidence. The panel was made up of one French member, Nathalie Dreyfus, and two Korean members. The French panelist prepared a "dissenting opinion" which was in favour of transfer of the domain name on the basis that France 3 holds a registered trademark and the domain name was pointed towards a commercial pornographic website. Presumably also, the panelist might have thought that there was no apparent or obvious reason why a pornographic website would be called "France 3" in any case. However, the majority of the panel held that in Korea, France 3 is not known to the man in the street ... perhaps therefore it was thought that the registrant could not reasonably be expected to know of the existence of the television channel bearing the same name. In an interview with our correspondent, Ms Dreyfus said (our translation): "This decision is very significant within the UDRP environment because France 3 were the holders of a valuable mark, the domain name pointed to a pornographic website from which the registrant was taking money; it couldn't be in good faith to my mind. But, in Korea, France 3 is not well-known. "Once again, one can only advise French organisations to be vigilant and establish a coherent Internet strategy for their marks by way of methodical reservation and surveillance policies within the domain name system." Our correspondent concludes, "I interviewed the CEO of France 3 this morning ... he does not like the UDRP decision ..." With the long and no doubt expensive process that France 3 have adopted for the domain name in question, Demys believes our correspondent's comment could well turn out to be the understatement of the year. Jean-Bernard Condat CHRYSTOL (European IP's insurance) B.P. 59, 93402 Saint-Ouen Cedex, France condat@chrystol.com tel:/fax: +33 153013874 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is a reprint in good English of the original item which appeared here a few days ago. Thank you for resubmitting it. It really is outrageous how so many porn sites have chosen to take over the internet. Consider the message yesterday from Judith Oppenheimer in 'Heads Up Headlines' discussing how the .biz domain (still mostly vacant and inactive) has been taken over by some porn spam outfit. From what I gather in Oppenheimer's report, any .biz not genuinely assigned somewhere points to the porn site. And that really is obscene! The whole internet idea has gotten rotten to the core, hasn't it. :( PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 23:47:58 -0500 From: James Bellaire Subject: Re: Dot.TK Problems At 07:04 PM 5/29/2003 -0400, Kozlovia@myRemarQ.tk wrote: > My domain works fine ... sometimes the rollover in > the browser slows down. ... > Any one else have any dot.TK problems? Only that thousands of DNS hits come from people adding .com incorrectly at the end of .tk domains such as yours. Browser behaviour helps. A browser that cannot find x.tk will often add .com to try to find the server. Plus I get email at my domain complaining about content on .tk sites and spammers using .tk domains -- but not enough to give up on using my very short domain. James Bellaire @ tk.COM since 1994 ------------------------------ From: s falke Subject: Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs? Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 13:57:01 GMT Herb Stein wrote: > Julian Thomas wrote: >> In , on 05/27/03 at 10:40 PM, Dave >> Garland may have used oatmeal boxes, old >> string, and new, used, and recycled electrons to say (at least in >> part): >>> Various vacuum tubes had numbers that were not related to the counting >>> numbers of any component of the tube. As far as US "receiving"-tube numbering, anyone remember the early "00A" cold-cathode rectifier and "01A" triode? IIRC the "01A" had a 2.15V filament for operation from a single lead-acid cell, and the filament was also the cathode ... 4 pins didn't allow for any more. [Aside -- I stumbled across an "00A" residing in a currently operational welder -- but the associated timing circuit is dead/bypassed.] Slightly back on topic: http://www.westernelectric.com/ --s falke ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: 66-Block - Why is it Called Such When it Has 25-Pairs? Date: 30 May 2003 07:04:59 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ David Clayton wrote in message news:: > Art Jackson contributed the following: >> Most youngsters now days, think vacuum tubes are those things at the >> Bank drive-thru, where you put a check into a cannister, then it's >> sucked away somewhere. Hopefully after a while, it comes back with >> money in it. ;-) > Or as we used to call them "FET's with pilot lights" ... :-) "FET's with pilot lights" It took me a few seconds to remember what a FET was! Considering I worked with tubes (or valves for those who claim we don't speak English but American) and have seen the progression of solid state electronics from 2 x 3 inch circuit boards having individual components, to "cordwood" boards that had the beginnings of intergrated circuits to full-blown intergrated circuits and then to medium and large scale devices, it took a moment to remember a FET was a Field Effect Transistor. Rodgers Platt ------------------------------ Subject: Re: *67 Does NOT Always Work, Period Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 14:10:49 GMT One final point (question, really) about CID and *67. If I forward my home phone to my own 800-number, can I capture incoming CLID? -Joel [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Sometimes, yes, depending on the configuration of the switch. For fun, try this combination or dialing string: *67*71+(800 number) (assuming 71 is the code for forwarding.) Then try reversing them as in *71*67+(800 number). In other words you are saying 'I want the number withheld and I want to foward to ....' then in the other case 'I want to forward to and I want privacy on forward to ....' Do you get the same results each time? (hee hee). Then try the same two sequences but with a non-800 number. Or really stack 'em up on the front end: *67*71*70*77+number. (Privacy, forward to, do not disturb me, I do not want any anonymous number calls and dial this number.) PAT] ------------------------------ From: arvel@altn.com (Arvel Hathcock) Subject: Re: SpamAssassin Date: 30 May 2003 10:06:39 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ > Hmm, not a bad idea (the spam score header). Alas, the MDaemon flavour > of SpamAssassin does not, as yet, have any way to hand individual > control to my users. It's a serious lack, but it's beta ... This will be coming and will be ready this summer. Arvel Hathcock CEO, Alt-N Technologies, Ltd. Helping the World Communicate! http://www.altn.com http://www.mdaemon.com http://www.relayfax.com ----------------------------------------------------------------- MDaemon 6.8 is coming soon! SSL security for SMTP/POP/IMAP users, Heuristic & Bayesian AntiSpam, WAP/WML/XHTML mobile support. http://www.altn.com/press/press_release.asp?ReleaseID=64 ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ From: Steve Michelson Subject: Re: Vonage Testing Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 06:56:58 -0400 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises One question I would have is "does the caller ID on your Prairie Stream Communications line show up properly on others' caller ID boxes?" Probably the answer to your voicemail question is a limited number of ports on their voicemail system. "Patrick Townson" wrote in message news:telecom22.481.13@telecom-digest.org... > Using my home telephone 620-331-XXXX I dialed into my Vonage line > (above) to make sure it would ring, which it did. After about 30 > seconds or so, the call went into voice mail. So far so good ... BUT, > the caller ID on my phone and the identifier on the voice mail message > on my two tests both indicated the call came in from 415-874-7467 > instead of my number 620-331-XXXX. I did not attempt to block my > number or try any other 'tricks' in the process. > Curious, I twice tried dialing into 1-415-874-7467 and both times I > got a 'fast busy' signal from my local telco. Thinking it might have > just been a fluke of some kind, I waited a few minutes and tried it > again with the same results, on caller-ID and the call back number. > DO YOU KNOW WHY? My home telephone number is serviced by Prairie > Stream Communications. > Then I tried the same test using my Cingular Wireless phone > 620-330-6774 ... on this test, both times Vonage reported correctly > where the call was coming from but ... on the first attempt, after > Vonage rang several times (I sat here and heard it ring) I got the > 'fast busy' and was not transferred to voicemail at all. On the second > test using Cingular Wireless it did report me correctly (as to number) > and it did correctly transfer me to voice mail. > My questions are why the first two tests did it report incorrectly > where I was calling from, and why on the second group of two tests did > it first busy me out rather than give me voice mail. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have found out that on local (620 area calls) it is reported correctly. On inter-lata calls it sometimes reports correctly with name and number, other times not. Regards the lack of trunks in the second example, I have to wonder why Vonage does not do as the Bells: if they have a call going to voicemail, that takes priority over the number of rings to be used. Bell will hang on to the call for another ring or two as needed while they continually probe for a trunk inbound to voicemail, then seize it the instant they can do so. Vonage seems to take the position 'well, the thirty seconds we are to wait has been done, so too bad.' Bell says better to wait a bit longer than just busy out the call. Also, where Bell lets you dial your own number and (upon being returned busy) get forwarded to voice mail. Vonage makes you dial another number on the exchange, the same way the early voicemail systems that Bell used to use did.) PAT] ------------------------------ From: i141802596@yahoo.com (Nick) Subject: DTMF Questions? Date: 30 May 2003 04:19:04 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ This is my homework; I never learn any DTMF technique before, so I need your helo, please. 1. Can I use 89C52 to act as a DTMF generator or decoder? 2. If I don't use the DTMF decoder IC, can I use other simple componets to make a decoder? 3. What is the principle of DTMF generator or decoder? Thank you very much! ------------------------------ From: hudsonl@skypoint.com (Hudson Leighton) Subject: Re: In a First, a WGBH Series Goes Commercial Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 06:29:16 -0500 Organization: MRRP In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > In a first, a WGBH series goes commercial > By Suzanne C. Ryan, Globe Staff, 5/28/2003 > For the first time in its history, WGBH-TV, the leading creator of > programming for PBS, will produce a series for a commercial network > instead of public television. > "Peep and the Big Wide World," a daily 30-minute science show for > children ages 3 to 5, will debut on TLC and the Discovery Kids > Channel, two cable networks, in 2004. > WGBH (Channel 2) shopped the proposed show around after PBS declined > to pick it up for national broadcast. The station said it might not > be the last time a show developed at the public TV outlet ends up on > commercial television. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/148/nation/In_a_first_a_WGBH_series_goes_c ommercial+.shtml What about This Old House; it is on commercial stations (as a rerun). -Hudson http://www.skypoint.com/~hudsonl ------------------------------ From: Pete Romfh Subject: Re: Share Day and a Change in Personnel Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 06:55:06 -0500 Organization: Not Organized TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: == snipped == > With that in mind, I have a new editor for the Digest starting > tomorrow. Lisa Minter, from here in Independence, is going to take > over the day-to-day editing. Nothing will change here; the mailing > list remains the same; where you send email stays the same. The > only difference is you will see Lisa's name on the masthead quite > frequently. I'll be around some also. === snipped == Welcome Lisa !! You must have done something to really get Pat upset enough to (bless, curse, saddle) you with this new task. =;) I appreciate your willingness to step up to the driver's seat. Pete Romfh, Telecom Geek & Amateur Gourmet. promfh at Texas dot net [Lisa Note: Thanks very much for your good words, Pete. Today is nagware day here at the Digest, so please (all of you) consider getting your tithes and offerings in pronto; I would rather not have to ask two or three times before today is out, but I may anyway. And you get a CD in return, if you provide a mailing address. I was here the day a couple years ago when the psychiatrist came down here from the University of Kansas at Lawrence on behalf of Social Security to give Patrick a head examination, and wound up declaring Patrick a lost cause and certified him disabled for the intents of Social Security Title 2 money each month. Anyway, remember for your gifts, you can use credit cards as desired to 'editor@telecom-digest.org' at any PayPal place, or use http://telecom-digest.org at the very bottom of the home page. If you prefer a check then use the address of TELECOM, PO Box 50, Independence, KS 67301. Specify if you want a CD or not. Lisa Minter] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 12:27:45 -0400 From: Ron Chapman Subject: A Friendly Fax Spammer Needs to Hear From You I have a fax machine. I use it for my own purposes, which are very nearly nothing -- but it sure is handy to have one. Apparently, at some point someone I dealt with via fax gave or sold my number (which is the second line in my home, which I use primarily for voice) to a fax spamming service. I have occasionally gotten phone calls on that line (which should never ring, because it's used only for outgoing and we don't give it to anyone for incoming), calls which were fax machines bleeping at me. Today I got a phone call and heard the fax tones, and immediately turned on the fax machine. I received the fax in its entirety. It was fax spam from a mortgage company, Empire Mortgage. Then I noticed the very top, where the lawfully required "to" and "from" information is printed. Interesting. The "From" line says Empire Mortage at 1-888-405-5537. But the body of the fax says that Empire Mortgage is at 866-242-2962. Hmmmmm. Then I notice that the "To" part of the header says "*67,7******" (number deleted here for privacy, thank you very much). Aha! The fax spamming service didn't need an area code, AND is actively defeating caller ID so that we can't tell who the fax spamming service is. And in fact, at the bottom of this sheet in very small print, it says to call the 888-405-5537 number if you'd like to be removed from their database. I'm sure many of you are interested in mortgage rates, now that the rates are down even further. Even if you don't own a house or have any intention to own a house, even if you can't afford one, I'm sure Empire Mortgage would be happy to answer any questions you have about rates or how a mortgage works. And I'm sure that this fax spamming service's automated system needs to be tested, to make sure it's online and running. Do your public duty as you see fit. ------------------------------ 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #487 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat May 31 23:39:14 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h513dE828781; Sat, 31 May 2003 23:39:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 23:39:14 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200306010339.h513dE828781@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #488 TELECOM Digest Sat, 31 May 2003 23:39:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 488 Inside This Issue: Editor: Lisa Minter Call Blocking May be Safety Risk (Monty Solomon) AOL, Microsoft Pact Shakes up Web Rivalries (Monty Solomon) Comcast Sues City of San Jose, CA in Franchise Dispute (Monty Solomon) Consumers Buy, But May Not Need, Unlimited Calling (Monty Solomon) Honda Accord Cog Commercial (Monty Solomon) Denial of Service via Algorithmic Complexity Attacks (Monty Solomon) Broadband A Go-Go / In City After City, High-Speed Wireless (M Solomon) Hacker Takes a Crack at TiVo (Monty Solomon) Re: DTMF Questions? (Gordon S. Hlavenka) Re: *67 Does NOT Always Work, Period (John Higdon) New ACD Product For Panasonic KXTD Systems (Jake Dempsey) Re: B101 FM-WBEB Philadelphia (Chris Nowinski) International Speaking Clock Interest (Richard) Data Was Lost on Me Two Times (John A. Gasperin, Jr.) PC-to-Phone Telephone Calls Over Broadband Connection (John Smith) Domain Name History? (mrbog) 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, 30 May 2003 22:42:42 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Call blocking May be Safety Risk By Erica Noonan, Globe Staff, 5/29/2003 Residents who have placed their names on the state's do-not-call list as a way to cut down on junk telemarketing pitches may have inadvertently blocked another sort of call -- an emergency public safety notification. Reverse 911 calls -- pre-recorded telephone messages from local police departments warning residents of a missing child, chemical spill, fire, terrorist threat, or other public safety emergency -- are not necessarily reaching households scrubbed from commercial telemarketing databases or with unpublished phone numbers. Most, if not all, of the state's Reverse 911 programs are administered by Indiana-based Reverse 911, a private company that uses commercially available telephone databases scrubbed of residents who have placed themselves on no-call lists. An estimated 1.1 million Massachusetts phone numbers are on the state's Do Not Call Registry, which slaps telemarketers who call off-limits numbers with up to $5,000 in fines per unwanted call. But police officials across the the northwest suburbs say they are concerned that some residents won't receive important police warnings. Reverse 911 systems are online or under development in 30 Massachusetts communities, including Lowell, Burlington, Tewksbury, Andover, Littleton, Waltham, and Cambridge. Some police departments are planning public information campaigns to publicize their Reverse 911 programs and encourage residents with unpublished or no-call numbers to contact their local departments. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/149/northwest/Call_blocking_may_be_safety_risk+.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 23:14:32 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AOL, Microsoft Pact Shakes up Web Rivalries By Reshma Kapadia NEW YORK, May 30 (Reuters) - AOL Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:AOL) and Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ:MSFT) settlement of an anti-trust lawsuit AOL brought against the software giant could redraw the lines in the competitive landscape for digital music and video. "The settlement has the potential to be a very big deal for the firms involved and the digital media landscape," said Paul Ritter, program manager for Internet business strategies at Yankee Group." However, it is not such good news for other players, from Apple Computer Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and RealNetworks Inc. (NASDAQ:RNWK) to smaller players. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34357220 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 23:19:50 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Comcast Sues Calif. City (San Jose) in Franchise Dispute SAN FRANCISCO, May 30 (Reuters) - Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ:CMCSA) said on Friday it has sued San Jose, California, alleging city officials are seeking to have the No. 1 U.S. cable television service provider build a local telecom network in exchange for operating rights for Silicon Valley's biggest city. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, claims the city has illegally used franchise renewal talks to force the cable provider to construct a voice, data and video network "free of charge" for the city's use. The cable provider claimed in its lawsuit filed on Thursday that San Jose is violating federal law governing cable franchise renewals and that the cost of its desired network would be passed on to local Comcast subscribers, which would essentially be an unlawful tax under California law. Comcast, which provides cable service to more than 159,000 households in San Jose, is seeking to renew a local franchise inherited through its November 2002 acquisition of AT&T Broadband from AT&T Corp. (NYSE:T). - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34361053 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 23:21:18 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Consumers Buy, But May Not Need, Unlimited Calling By Jessica Hall PHILADELPHIA, May 30 (Reuters) - Residential telephone customers have been drawn by the allure of unlimited calling plans that offer "all you can eat" service for flat rates, but most subscribers end up paying for more than they need and giving carriers an unexpected windfall in revenues. Competition in the U.S. telecommunications industry has intensified as long-distance and local carriers have entered each other's markets with discount packages that include flat-rate, unlimited calling plans. The companies tout the plans as a convenient way for customers to budget their monthly expenses and to get "one stop shopping" for many services. But customers may be choosing convenience over value, industry executives and analysts said. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34361072 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I know this is the case for Patrick and myself. Since switching to Prairie Stream, we get a hundred minutes per month of long distance included in an unlimited local calling plan, which is only Independence, but the hundred minutes per month of long distance picks up most other stuff. Then we have unlimited free calling at night on the Cingular Wireless phone. And we get 500 minutes included in the Vonage package (which now is a wireless phone with a base attached to the Vonage ATA. So we take it all over the house and yard. I do not know what possible need we could have for *more* long distance, unlimited or otherwise in a package. Lisa M.] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 00:08:36 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Honda Accord Cog Commercial http://home.attbi.com/~bernhard36/honda-ad.html http://paradiselost.com/index.php?module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=2 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 10:22:56 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Denial of Service via Algorithmic Complexity Attacks Scott A. Crosby scrosby@cs.rice.edu Dan S. Wallach dwallach@cs.rice.edu Department of Computer Science, Rice University Abstract: We present a new class of low-bandwidth denial of service attacks that exploit algorithmic deficiencies in many common applications' data structures. Frequently used data structures have ``average-case'' expected running time that's far more efficient than the worst case. For example, both binary trees and hash tables can degenerate to linked lists with carefully chosen input. We show how an attacker can effectively compute such input, and we demonstrate attacks against the hash table implementations in two versions of Perl, the Squid web proxy, and the Bro intrusion detection system. Using bandwidth less than a typical dialup modem, we can bring a dedicated Bro server to its knees; after six minutes of carefully chosen packets, our Bro server was dropping as much as 71% of its traffic and consuming all of its CPU. We show how modern universal hashing techniques can yield performance comparable to commonplace hash functions while being provably secure against these attacks. http://www.cs.rice.edu/~scrosby/hash/CrosbyWallach_UsenixSec2003/index.html http://www.cs.rice.edu/~scrosby/hash/CrosbyWallach_UsenixSec2003.pdf ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 18:10:09 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Broadband A Go-Go / In city after city, high-speed wireless WIRELESS Broadband A Go-Go In city after city, high-speed wireless access may be the next Internet revolution By Steven M. Cherry I've got a Dell laptop on my knees and the wind is in my (very short) hair. I've got as many windows open as a beach house in summer-Google searches and instant messages to my wife; in the background, a new batch of e-mails downloads and my hometown public radio station streams on. It's the usual cruise down the information superhighway at 2 Mb/s. But I'm also hurtling down an actual superhighway-U.S. Interstate 4, at a very real 115 km/h. I'm in a Ford Mustang convertible, under cotton-ball clouds and a postcard-blue Florida sky. The Dell is outfitted with a prototype card that communicates with a test network set up by broadband wireless start-up MeshNetworks Inc. Earlier and a few miles away in Mesh's Maitland headquarters, outside Orlando, I had asked Rick Rotondo, whose business card calls him Mesh's "director of disruptive technologies," how fast we could go and still retain a broadband connection. After all, laptops using the best-known wireless Internet technology, IEEE 802.11, will move beyond an access point and lose their connections at mere bicycle speeds. Rotondo had grinned impishly and asked, "How big a speeding ticket do you want to pay?" Even at speed-limit speeds, the Mesh network held up, with download data rates of at least 500 kb/s. That's faster, on the road and in the air, than Aerie Network Inc.'s Ricochet service, which blankets Denver with 128 kb/s coverage, maintaining connections at city-street driving speeds of about 45 km/h. Though slower than Mesh, Ricochet is no experiment-it made a highly publicized but failed attempt to go national in 2000, and now lives on in the Mile High City with several thousand subscribers. One, the Denver Police Department, uses it to put squad cars on the department's internal network. http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeature/jun03/bb.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 18:19:26 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Hacker Takes a Crack at TiVo By Elisa Batista Raffi Krikorian is an unapologetic TiVo fanatic. The MIT graduate student and blogger regularly takes apart his two beloved TiVo digital video recorders to soup them up and writes software code that makes the devices do party tricks, like changing the titles of TV shows or downloading weather maps off the Internet. Now Krikorian is taking his love affair to another level: Amazon.com is currently taking preliminary orders for Krikorian's new book, TiVo Hacks, a guide to 100 popular ways to score more features. The book, which O'Reilly & Associates plans to release late this summer, provides step-by-step directions on everything from how to add storage space to your recorder to how to get a 30-second-skip feature on the remote control. http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,59028,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 15:44:15 -0500 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Reply-To: nospam@crashelectronics.com Organization: Crash Electronics Subject: Re: DTMF Questions? Nick wrote: > This is my homework :-) At least you're honest about it. > 1. Can I use 89C52 to act as a DTMF generator or decoder? Generator yes, if you run the clock speed fast enough you should be able to PWM some DTMF on an output pin. I've made them talk, so DTMF should be OK. As an alternate, you can spit pulses on two pins and mix them externally. A bit of filtering and you could have "true" DTMF. A decoder possibly, but it would be much more difficult. > 2. If I don't use the DTMF decoder IC, can I use other simple componets > to make a decoder? Yes, but you'll need to take some analog classes first. > 3. What is the principle of DTMF generator or decoder? The DTMF generator makes two tones at a time. There are 8 tones, arranged on a 4X4 grid for 16 possible combinations. The 8 tones were selected to have the least likelihood of interfering with each other, and also the 16 pairs had to sound pleasant to the ear. The DTMF receiver detects the tone pairs. A quick Googling(TM) should give you all the details. Gordon S. Hlavenka http://www.crashelectronics.com Grammar and spelling flames welcome. Yes, that's really my email address. Don't change it. ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: *67 Does NOT Always Work, Period Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 15:39:07 -0700 In article , joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) wrote: > One final point (question, really) about CID and *67. If I forward my > home phone to my own 800-number, can I capture incoming CLID? If your 800 number points to a POTS line, you will either get the ANI of the forwarded number (as converted to CID), or you will get the CID of the calling party, but with the privacy flag set ... so it would probably show up as "private". If your 800 number is delivered on dedicated trunkage, you will get either the ANI of the forwarded number or the CID of the calling number (with the privacy flag set) ... or both. Your 800 usage bill will most likely contain the ANI of the forwarded number. ANI never passes through a forward. CID does pass with the flags, which in this case would be a forward flag and a privacy flag set. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: JakeD@rosestudios.com (Jake Dempsey) Subject: New ACD Product For Panasonic KXTD Systems Date: 30 May 2003 16:43:55 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ You wanted it, we built it, Panasonic is selling it ... http://www.rosetechnologies.com/Rosetech/RoseComm/index.htm get in touch for information and a demo CD. Rose Technologies 9 Lake Bellevue Drive, Suite 218 Bellevue, WA 98005-2454 Tel. (425) 637-2344 x293 Fax (425) 637-8655 Email: CTITeam@RoseStudios.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But what does it do, precisely? You failed to mention that in your spam! Lisa M.] ------------------------------ From: bandsherein@yahoo.com (chris nowinski) Subject: Re: B101 FM-WBEB Philadelphia Date: 30 May 2003 22:50:47 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ bandsherein@yahoo.com (Chris Nowinski) wrote in message news : > bandsherein@yahoo.com (chris nowinski) wrote in message > news : >> Pat, > (Deleted stuff about chokes, front/back doors to radio stations, > social engineering, etc.) > Pat, > Maybe you're right, but I don't think Kevin is available to do that, > considering his past. I am just so frustrated with the way WBEB is > conducting business, and my message about them says it all. and it > doesn't look like it will change. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You're durn tooting Kevin is not > available ... I think the terms of his Federal Probation are that he > has to stay away from the computer; not touch it or tamper with it. > I only used him as an illustration of how hopeless I consider your > dilemma with WBEB to be. I wish we could be of more help. Maybe a > reader or two will write you privately with other suggestions. PAT] Yes, that would be cool if someone does. Hey, at least you talked about some possibilities. I'm not giving up, and I'm making it my business to somehow someway elicit change on that station. I wil let ya know how it turns. Appreciate everything. Chuck ------------------------------ From: singaporewriter@yahoo.co.uk (Richard) Subject: International Speaking Clock Interest Date: 31 May 2003 03:13:38 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi folks, However "anoraky" this may seem, I am interested in researching how the concept of the speaking clock or "timeline" differs from country to country. It seems almost all countries with a reasonable telecommunications system (i.e. most barring Iraq, Afghanistan and a few more -- no offense intended or meant), do offer this service. However, I'm interested in how the content and actual language content of the message differs from country to country. I live in Japan at the moment and there's a difference between here and the UK in that the message here is unsponsored and although I am not able at this point to transcribe it into roman characters, I'd appreciate anyone reading this in another country and with knowledge of the speaking clock to provide me with the details of the access number for the country's speaking clock, the content of the message and any other info, including a web site if possible. I remember clearly the UK version "beep ... beep ... beep ... at the third stroke, the time sponsored by Accurist will be ... ten thirty precisely..." ad infinitum. So please, if anyone can help, please post a reply or email me at: ukwriter@naa.att.ne.jp Thanks a lot, Richard Mort [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Iraq no longer has a viable (or any) telephone system. Mr. Bush put it out of service in the name of the 'war on terrorism'. It may return someday. Here in the United States, the speaking clock in Washington, DC at 202-653-1920 says thus: "US Naval Observatory Master Clock; at the tone Eastern Daylight Time, twenty-one hours, fifty-eight minutes, fifteen seconds" (then a beep and a short pause and continuing), one hour, fifty-eight minutes, twenty seconds Greenwich Mean Time." There are three incoming clock lines, each synched five seconds apart, the one you come in on allows you to listen for 55 seconds, then disconnects. They all first recite Eastern Daylight (or Standard, depending on the time of year) Time, give a short beep then recite the Greenwich Mean Time, which is four hours ahead of Eastern Daylight. They cannot give the entire recitation in ten seconds which is why they first give Eastern time followed by Greenwich Mean Time five seconds later. One of the three incoming lines is synched to give the time as 10,20,30,40,50,exactly and the Greenwhich offset as 15,25,35,45,55,05 ... The second line gives the time as 15,25,35,45,55,05 with the Greenwich offset as 20,30,40,50, exactly, 10; and the third line says 05,15,25,35,45,55 and the Greenwich offset as 10,20,30,40,50, and exactly; those are the 'second digits' it recites. Depending on the clock line you come in on, the phone will either ring once, twice or not at all until it can 'hook' on to the clock and begin its recitation at one of the five second points mentioned above. Since you can only listen for fifty five seconds before being cut off, one of the three lines never reaches a point in its recitation where the time is 'exactly' on a minute. Subsequent calls in queue (above the three clock lines which are available) simply ring open for a few more seconds until one of the clock lines is freed up. Quite a few years ago, this master clock was also the 'great-grand master' pulsing agent for the 'grand master' and regional area local 'master' clocks in various communities. It would throw current on a line for a half-second or so, which would synch the communities' master clocks, which in turn did the same pulsing from time to time to synch the local clocks (such as the one Patrick had on the wall in his office back in Chicago.) The 'other' master clock here in the USA is the one in Boulder, CO at the National Institute for Standards and Time Measurement, also a federal agency. 303-499-7111 gets their talking clock. It is a little bit different. It simply recites "at the tone, two hours, fifty-five minutes Coordinated Univeral Time. (Beep!) No seconds count given. About 40 remaining seconds in the minute are a continuous tone and a tick signal. (You would have to ask them the meaning of those audible tones, I know they have some purpose. Since that audio is 'tapped' from the audio feed for their radio station WWV, it also is different in that there are places on the west coast (such as California) where you not only can hear WWV at 5 10 and 15 megs on your shortwave radio, you can also hear the station NIST operates in Hawaii (WWVJ) quite well also. To avoid having the audio from WWV 'compete with' the audio from WWVJ in Hawaii, at about 40 seconds after the minute, the Colorado people shut off their continuous tone while Hawaii announces 'at the tone the time will be', the immediatly afterward, Colorado says 'at the tone the time will be' then exactly on the minute, they both beep. And there are other instances during the hour (of two or three minutes each) when Hawaii wants to make other announcements or else Colorado does, so they each shut off their tone signal at those times while the other one speaks. If Colorado is doing the talking when you call in on 499-7111 you will hear that instead of the tone signal. If Hawaii is doing the talking, then you (on the phone end of the line) just get silence and ticking until it is at the minute exactly and time to cut in with the 'at the tone' message. Patrick has here a LaCrosse Technology Weather Station and a wristwatch from the same company (LaCrosse) which autosets the time shown from the NIST thing in Boulder. Lisa M] ------------------------------ Reply-To: John A. Gasperin, Jr. From: John A. Gasperin, Jr. Subject: Data Was Lost on Me Two Times Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 15:00:29 -0400 Hi Pat, I have given my name and email and info about me several times in the past, but the info gets lost (I come back as null) when hitting your site. I also looked at the gay site on the news page at your site and got a page not displayed. Am I doing doing something wrong?? I was going to call your number but figured you couldn't be bothered. Kind Regards, John Gasperin [TELECOM Digest Editor PAT note: I can always take time to be bothered. While I was comatose from my brain aneurysm, the news people went out of business, or changed the way they distributed the news. I never have bothered to replace or change it. So you are doing nothign wrong; it just does not work any longer. Your 'name and email and info' that you mentioned is that thing at the front of the web site where four or five years ago, it was considered 'cute' to put javascripts all over the place in your web sites. That thing asking for your name was **only** intended for amusement, so it could call you by your name each time around. It still works -- but I would never bother with it again -- but you have to allow your browser to store cookies, and most guys these days are completely opposed to that. I don't blame them. If your Internet Explorer or other browser is set for 'accept no cookies' or 'pitch them out after you get them', then that 'feature' on the telecom web site won't work correctly. If the telecom web site cannot find that cookie it left there before (because you bash them or otherwise erase them) then it is going to ask you time and again to give the information, or else it will call you 'null'. At least I do let you in to look around as desired; many web sites these days will not do that much if you do not accept and keep their cookies. Yahoo for example will not let you in if it cannot find a proper cookie from your earlier visits. I am sort of sorry I put that javascript thing in there, but the web was a lot different place in those days. Now I regret bothering with all that javascript stuff. PAT] ------------------------------ From: bpearson1966@hotmail.com (John Smith) Subject: PC-to-Phone Telephone Calls over Broadband Connection Date: 31 May 2003 17:36:10 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ I am looking for a free piece of software that will allow me to make phone calls to landlines using the microphone connected to my PC. I know this is possible with a standard internet connection, but wondered if there was software available that could do this on a Broadband connection. ------------------------------ From: dterrors@hotmail.com (mrbog) Subject: Domain Name History? Date: 31 May 2003 20:01:13 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hello, Is there a way to find out the history of a domain name's registration? For example I bought a domain name recently, and then later I was given some indication that it may have previously been owned by someone else who just let it expire. Where can I find out who used to have my domain name? Thank you. ------------------------------ 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #488 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Jun 1 15:19:01 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h51JJ1003342; Sun, 1 Jun 2003 15:19:01 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2003 15:19:01 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200306011919.h51JJ1003342@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #489 TELECOM Digest Sun, 1 Jun 2003 15:19:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 489 Inside This Issue: Editor: Lisa Minter Re: Comcast Sues Calif. City (San Jose) in Franchise Dispute (J Higdon) Re: Comcast Sues Calif. City (San Jose) in Franchise Dispute (L Madison) Re: DTMF Questions? (Arthur Kamlet) Re: DTMF Questions? (Nick) FCC's Martin Expects Local Phone Decision Out Soon (Monty Solomon) What Happened to the FCC Web Site? (JohnF) Re: PC-to-Phone Telephone Calls over Broadband Connection (Pete Weiss) Re: PC-to-Phone Telephone Calls over Broadband Connection (joe@obilivan) Re: Hacker Takes a Crack at TiVo (joe@obilivan.net) Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX+ Dialaround (C. Dold) Re: International Speaking Clock Interest (Shaun Ewing) Re: International Speaking Clock Interest (Joseph) Re: Domain Name History? (Gordon S. Hlavenka) Re: Call Blocking May be Safety Risk (Paul Wallich) Thanks for Helping on SHARE Day (TELECOM Digest Editor) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. WE DO NOT PERMIT NAME/EMAIL ADDRESS HARVESTING FROM THIS JOURNAL. 'SALTED' EMAIL ADDRESSES APPEAR HEREIN TO VERIFY THIS. YOU GET SUED IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT IF YOU GET CAUGHT SPAMMING OR SENDING VIRUSES. DON'T DO IT. See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Higdon Subject: Re: Comcast Sues Calif. City (San Jose) in Franchise Dispute Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 22:40:27 -0700 In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > The cable provider claimed in its lawsuit filed on Thursday that San > Jose is violating federal law governing cable franchise renewals and > that the cost of its desired network would be passed on to local > Comcast subscribers, which would essentially be an unlawful tax under > California law. And round and round it goes. And this is why Silicon Valley has archaic cable and Internet connectivity. Since there is no competition from the cable company, SBC sits back and provides its 1940's-style telephone service. Why bother to do more? There's no competition from anyone! Why Comcast, which operates a 30-year-old cable infrastructure in San Jose, is nit-picking about issues in its franchise agreement is beyond me. They don't even have a product to offer; there is nothing to discuss. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: Comcast Sues Calif. City (San Jose) in Franchise Dispute Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 23:01:29 -0700 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > SAN FRANCISCO, May 30 (Reuters) - Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ:CMCSA) said > on Friday it has sued San Jose, California, alleging [blahblahblah] The article mentions that Comcast inherited the system from AT&T. The other interesting factoid is that San Jose was the first urban cable TV franchise in the United States. They were rewarded for their pioneering efforts with high prices and crappy service. When I lived in San Jose, from 1985 to 1987, my neighborhood was still waiting to be wired for cable, almost 20 years after the franchise was awarded. ------------------------------ From: kamlet@panix.com (Arthur Kamlet) Subject: Re: DTMF Questions? Date: 1 Jun 2003 00:00:13 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: ArtKamlet@REMOVE.com In article , Gordon S. Hlavenka wrote: > The DTMF generator makes two tones at a time. There are 8 tones, > arranged on a 4X4 grid for 16 possible combinations. The 8 tones were > selected to have the least likelihood of interfering with each other, > and also the 16 pairs had to sound pleasant to the ear. And all combinations are of relatively prime tones, so there will be no harmonics generated within the low-pass filtering for speech (call it 4KHz). > The DTMF receiver detects the tone pairs. Many many years ago the editors of the Bell Labs Journal naively published a detailed description of DTMF tones including some of the uses within the network. In those olden days, the same network was used both to carry voice traffic as well as for signalling information which set up the call, arranged for billing or no bill, and for disconnect. Signalling DTMF tones were different from DTMF tones used for designating the 16 keypad tones, and publishing the signalling DTMF information let the cat out of the bag. The first Phone Phreak mimeographed circulars began appearing soon after, and the first circuit box seized by the police used a blue Radio Shack type metal, and so became known as a blue box. Not until many years later when the signalling network was separated from the voice/message network did blue boxes go out of style. Here in Columbus we built the systems which collected billing data, and that made it easy to write software to spot calls that appeared to have blue box written all over them. None of these techniques relied at all on the voice network information, only the call setup information. For example, a line showing a pattern of calling itself, and staying offhook -- presumeably listing to busy for an hour or so -- several times a day was what got the local phone company to get a court order to tap a well-known TV actor's phone, and he was later arrested for blue box use. One of my colleagues here in Columbus had a drawer full of confiscated blue boxes. So the interesting DTMF tones were those formerly used for network signalling, not TT dialing. Art Kamlet ArtKamlet @ AOL.com Columbus OH K2PZH ------------------------------ From: i141802596@yahoo.com (Nick) Subject: Re: DTMF Questions? Date: 1 Jun 2003 10:25:26 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Gordon S. Hlavenka wrote in message news:: > Nick wrote: >> This is my homework > :-) At least you're honest about it. >> 1. Can I use 89C52 to act as a DTMF generator or decoder? > Generator yes, if you run the clock speed fast enough you should be > able to PWM some DTMF on an output pin. I've made them talk, so DTMF > should be OK. As an alternate, you can spit pulses on two pins and > mix them externally. A bit of filtering and you could have "true" > DTMF. > A decoder possibly, but it would be much more difficult. >> 2. If I don't use the DTMF decoder IC, can I use other simple componets >> to make a decoder? > Yes, but you'll need to take some analog classes first. >> 3. What is the principle of DTMF generator or decoder? > The DTMF generator makes two tones at a time. There are 8 tones, > arranged on a 4X4 grid for 16 possible combinations. The 8 tones were > selected to have the least likelihood of interfering with each other, > and also the 16 pairs had to sound pleasant to the ear. > The DTMF receiver detects the tone pairs. > A quick Googling(TM) should give you all the details. > Gordon S. Hlavenka http://www.crashelectronics.com > Grammar and spelling flames welcome. > Yes, that's really my email address. Don't change it. 2. I can use what method if I don't use the DTMF decoder IC? Can you explain this method at length? Thanks. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2003 11:03:26 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FCC's Martin Expects Local Phone Decision Out Soon NEW YORK, May 21 (Reuters) - The controversial decision to force the biggest local telephone companies to keep sharing their networks with rivals will likely be made public in less than a month, Federal Communications Commissioner Kevin Martin said on Wednesday. The agency voted on Feb. 20 but only had a framework of an agreement and since then the FCC staff and commissioners have been working on a final order to flesh out the technical details and edit the draft. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34286036 ------------------------------ From: JohnF Subject: What Happened to the FCC Web Site? Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2003 13:09:29 -0400 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Is it me? Or Earthlink? Is www.fcc.gov still there? I've been trying for the past week? [Lisa Minter note: Yes it is still an active web site. Seeing your message earlier this afternoon, I decided to test it through cableone.net and got through just fine. A message on the top of the front page announced that 'due to the War on Terrorism', public access to the FCC headquarters would be limited. You must go in through a certain entrance and must be escorted all the time you are in the building. Lisa M] ------------------------------ From: Pete Weiss Subject: Re: PC-to-Phone Telephone Calls over Broadband Connection Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2003 09:49:52 -0400 Organization: Penn State University -- Administrative Information Services On 31 May 2003 17:36:10 -0700, bpearson1966@hotmail.com (John Smith) wrote: > I am looking for a free piece of software that will allow me to make > phone calls to landlines using the microphone connected to my PC. I > know this is possible with a standard internet connection, but > wondered if there was software available that could do this on a > Broadband connection. For purposes of this discussion, how do you distinguish between "standard internet connection" and "broadband connection?" /Pete [Lisa Minter note: When I first saw his message, my assumption was that by 'standard internet' he was referring to 28 or 56K dialup connections and that 'broadband' was used to mean either DSL or cable or ISDN. Lisa M] ------------------------------ From: joe@obilivan.net Subject: Re: PC-to-Phone Telephone Calls over Broadband Connection Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2003 06:02:11 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications I think you're confused. There is software that will allow you to make PC-to-PC voice calls over the Internet. Making phone calls is a different matter because you have to reach a wireline portal, which folks like Vonage and other voice over internet providers pay a lot of money to provision. John Smith wrote: > I am looking for a free piece of software that will allow me to make > phone calls to landlines using the microphone connected to my PC. I > know this is possible with a standard internet connection, but > wondered if there was software available that could do this on a > Broadband connection. ------------------------------ From: joe@obilivan.net Subject: Re: Hacker Takes a Crack at TiVo Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2003 06:23:44 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications Monty Solomon wrote: > By Elisa Batista > Raffi Krikorian is an unapologetic TiVo fanatic. > The MIT graduate student and blogger regularly takes apart his two > beloved TiVo digital video recorders to soup them up and writes > software code that makes the devices do party tricks, like changing > the titles of TV shows or downloading weather maps off the Internet. > Now Krikorian is taking his love affair to another level: Amazon.com > is currently taking preliminary orders for Krikorian's new book, TiVo > Hacks, a guide to 100 popular ways to score more features. The book, > which O'Reilly & Associates plans to release late this summer, > provides step-by-step directions on everything from how to add > storage space to your recorder to how to get a 30-second-skip feature > on the remote control. Moan! There goes TIVO's great secret skip feature. ------------------------------ From: dold@MCIXWorldc.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX+ Dialaround Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2003 15:16:41 UTC Organization: a2i network Ed Gibbs wrote: > When I called to inquire, they informed me that the call to the UK was > billed at non-subscriber rates and the cost was $482.31, or $2.31 per > minute. They claimed that the call did not get billed at the 101-0987 > rate because my local service provider (AT&T) blocked required > information, something which AT&T denies. As an IXC, we suffered some difficulty that would explain this issue. There were several different "codes" that would eventually land in the same switch, where the authorization lookups were done by ANI. At this point, we could no longer see the original code used to route the call to our switch, so it was impossible to differentiate one "plan" from another. We didn't allow casual dialing. All of our users were pre-subscribed, so we never paid any attention to the field with the "code" in it. Some upstream switch was stripping off the codes, so when we instituted this goofy plan where customers dialed a 1010 code for special international rates, we ran into trouble. ------------------------------ From: Shaun Ewing Subject: Re: International Speaking Clock Interest Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2003 21:54:03 +1000 Richard wrote in message news:telecom22.488.13@telecom-digest.org: > However, I'm interested in how the content and actual language content > of the message differs from country to country. I live in Japan at > the moment and there's a difference between here and the UK in that > the message here is unsponsored and although I am not able at this > point to transcribe it into roman characters, I'd appreciate anyone > reading this in another country and with knowledge of the speaking > clock to provide me with the details of the access number for the > country's speaking clock, the content of the message and any other > info, including a web site if possible. I'm not aware of a web site. But here in Australia the speaking clock is accessed by dialing 1194. The actual time is given local to each state and the minute and seconds marker are accurate UTC. Examples: "At the third stroke, it will be nine fifty-one and twenty seconds. beep beep beep" "At the third stroke, it will be nine fifty-two precisely. beep beep beep". The cost is that of a local call. Regards, Shaun [Lisa Minter Note: I think both NIST in Colorado and NAVOBS in Washington, DC have web sites for all their activities and not just the talking clocks. Lisa M.] ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: International Speaking Clock Interest Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2003 06:05:28 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On 31 May 2003 03:13:38 -0700, singaporewriter@yahoo.co.uk (Richard) wrote: [Lisa wrote:] > The 'other' master clock here in the USA is the one in Boulder, CO > at the National Institute for Standards and Time Measurement, also a > federal agency. 303-499-7111 gets their talking clock. It is a little > bit different. It simply recites "at the tone, two hours, fifty-five > minutes Coordinated Univeral Time. (Beep!) No seconds count given. > About 40 remaining seconds in the minute are a continuous tone and a > tick signal. (You would have to ask them the meaning of those audible > tones, I know they have some purpose. Since that audio is 'tapped' from > the audio feed for their radio station WWV, it also is different in > that there are places on the west coast (such as California) where you > not only can hear WWV at 5 10 and 15 megs on your shortwave radio, > you can also hear the station NIST operates in Hawaii (WWVJ) quite > well also. To avoid having the audio from WWV 'compete with' the > audio from WWVJ in Hawaii, at about 40 seconds after the minute, the > Colorado people shut off their continuous tone while Hawaii announces > 'at the tone the time will be', the immediatly afterward, Colorado > says 'at the tone the time will be' then exactly on the minute, they > both beep. And there are other instances during the hour (of two or > three minutes each) when Hawaii wants to make other announcements or > else Colorado does, so they each shut off their tone signal at those > times while the other one speaks. If Colorado is doing the talking > when you call in on 499-7111 you will hear that instead of the tone > signal. If Hawaii is doing the talking, then you (on the phone end > of the line) just get silence and ticking until it is at the minute > exactly and time to cut in with the 'at the tone' message. WWVH in Kauai, Hawaii also can be reached by telephone. +1 808 335 4363. Differing from WWV (+1 303 499 7111) the service answers in a female voice. At the tone : with the same information as from WWV. It gives details in the message between time of the contact address and finally ends the message with 'Aloha.' Replies are seldom read. Please reply in the group ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 22:46:17 -0500 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Reply-To: nospam@crashelectronics.com Organization: Crash Electronics Subject: Re: Domain Name History? mrbog wrote: > Where can I find out who used to have my domain name? Plug it into the Internet Wayback Machine at and see what comes up. Gordon S. Hlavenka http://www.crashelectronics.com Grammar and spelling flames welcome. Yes, that's really my email address. Don't change it. ------------------------------ From: Paul Wallich Subject: Re: Call blocking May be Safety Risk Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2003 11:42:45 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > By Erica Noonan, Globe Staff, 5/29/2003 > Residents who have placed their names on the state's do-not-call list > as a way to cut down on junk telemarketing pitches may have > inadvertently blocked another sort of call -- an emergency public > safety notification. > Reverse 911 calls -- pre-recorded telephone messages from local police > departments warning residents of a missing child, chemical spill, > fire, terrorist threat, or other public safety emergency -- are not > necessarily reaching households scrubbed from commercial telemarketing > databases or with unpublished phone numbers. > Most, if not all, of the state's Reverse 911 programs are administered > by Indiana-based Reverse 911, a private company that uses commercially > available telephone databases scrubbed of residents who have placed > themselves on no-call lists. So it's the citizens' problem that the company contracted to do a particular job has chosen to implement its systems in a way that pretty much guarantees it will fail to do that job? My first reaction is that everyone in Massachusetts doing business with Reverse 911 deserves a refund and three apologies. (Of course it's more complicated than that, but then dealing with things that are more complicated than that is why local jurisdictions would contract with a third party in the first place...) Paul [Lisa Minter note: And you know about how fast the refund will be issued, I assume? Lisa M.] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2003 14:44:49 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Thanks for Helping on SHARE Day My thanks to the several of you who responded favorably to the SHARE Day message at the end of May. Most of you said you already had the CD and did not want another copy, which is also fine. If you meant to do something but did not yet get around to it, please handle it now, as this won't happen again until the end of June. Credit cards or otherwise via Paypal: 'editor@telecom-digest.org' using the PayPal click button at the bottom of the home page for the Digest which is http://telecom-digest.org If you prefer snailmail TELECOM / P O Box 50 / Independence, KS 67301 and don't forget to include your name and mailing address if you want one of the CDs ... Thanks again, 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'. 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Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #489 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Jun 2 14:06:55 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h52I6tq09026; Mon, 2 Jun 2003 14:06:55 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 14:06:55 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200306021806.h52I6tq09026@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #490 TELECOM Digest Mon, 2 Jun 2003 14:07:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 490 Inside This Issue: Editor: Lisa Minter Telecom Update (Canada) #385, June 2, 2003 (Angus TeleManagement) Re: DTMF Questions? (Marcus Jervis) Re: DTMF Questions? (Paul A Lee) Re: Comcast Sues CA City (San Jose) in Franchise Dispute (John Higdon) Re: Comcast Sues CA City (San Jose) in Franchise Dispute (Lee Johnson) Re: Comcast Sues CA City (San Jose) in Franchise Dispute (Neal McLain) Re: Call Blocking May be Safety Risk (Justin Time) 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, 02 Jun 2003 10:28:16 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #385, June 2, 2003 ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 385: June 2, 2003 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: ** Call-Net Proposes Jump Start for Local Competition ** Rogers to Ask for Bundling Restrictions ** Teleglobe Sells Core Business ** Bell Sells Stake in Certen ** UBS Increases Stake in Look ** Canada's Phone Prices Lower Than in U.S. ** Futureway Rebranded as FCI Broadband ** Bell Market Trial Proposal Denied ** Bell Civic Notification Service Trial Approved ** Alberta First Nation to Install High-Speed Network ** BWireless Launches Wi-Fi Hotspots ** Rogers Issues Shares to Pay Down Debt ** TIW Faces NASDAQ Delisting ** Cygnal Reports Red Ink ** Who Can Slay the Billing Dragon? ============================================================ CALL-NET PROPOSES JUMP START FOR LOCAL COMPETITION: Call-Net has asked the CRTC for rule changes to help competitors gain and retain residential customers (see Telecom Update #382). The proposals include a CRTC-mandated campaign to inform consumers about local phone competition, lengthening the ban on incumbents' "winback" calls from three to 12 months, streamlining the transfer of loops to competitors, and a two- year 50% discount on unbundled loop charges. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2003/8622/c25_200306789.htm ROGERS TO ASK FOR BUNDLING RESTRICTIONS: At the Rogers Communications annual general meeting on May 30, Ted Rogers said Rogers will shortly ask the CRTC to prohibit the incumbent phone companies from bundling local service with other residential services. TELEGLOBE SELLS CORE BUSINESS: On May 30, Teleglobe Inc. completed the sale of its core voice and data business, for US$125 million, to Teleglobe International Holdings, majority-owned by funds affiliated with N.Y.-based Cerberus Capital Management. A U.S. bankruptcy court last week reduced Teleglobe's price from the US$155 million agreed to last September. (See Telecom Update #350) BELL SELLS STAKE IN CERTEN: Bell Canada is selling its majority stake in Certen Inc. to its joint-venture partner Amdocs for $89 million (see Telecom Update #269). Certen will continue to produce Bell's customer bills until 2010, but Bell will manage ongoing evolution of billing systems in- house, reabsorbing 189 Certen employees for this purpose. UBS INCREASES STAKE IN LOOK: Unique Broadband Systems is paying Telesystem $1.7 million for shares in Look Communications, raising UBS's stake from 20% to 30% -- with an option to buy majority control of Look by December 2005. (See Telecom Update #366) CANADA'S PHONE PRICES LOWER THAN IN U.S.: According to SeaBoard Group, wireline residential phone service costs about 40% less in Canada than in the U.S., but wireless service prices are about the same in both countries. www.seaboardgroup.com FUTUREWAY REBRANDED AS FCI BROADBAND: Beginning today, Futureway Communications will operate under the name FCI Broadband. The Markham-based telecom carrier does not plan to change its legal identity or its mix of local, long distance, and Internet services. ** Futureway has adopted a new call centre system and billing platform from Toronto-based Datex. BELL MARKET TRIAL PROPOSAL DENIED: The CRTC has turned down a Bell Canada application for a market trial of a "mini flexibility" bundle for residential customers. The Commission said the service is too similar to existing bundles to qualify as a legitimate market trial. www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Orders/2003/o2003-213.htm BELL CIVIC NOTIFICATION SERVICE TRIAL APPROVED: The CRTC has approved a four-month market trial by Bell Canada of a service allowing Sarnia municipal staff to exchange text messages with residents over the PSTN during emergencies. This is one of five emergency notification systems Sarnia is trialing. www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Orders/2003/o2003-204.htm ALBERTA FIRST NATION TO INSTALL HIGH-SPEED NETWORK: The Blood Tribe (Kainaiwa Nation) in southern Alberta has contracted with SkyBridge Wireless and Stratacom LLC to install a fixed wireless network providing high-speed Internet access to local government, businesses, and residents. BWIRELESS LAUNCHES WI-FI HOTSPOTS: Vancouver-based BWireless Zones Inc. has opened three high-speed wireless Internet hotspots in downtown Toronto and Ottawa, and plans to install another 102 across Canada this year. Service is free until year-end. ROGERS ISSUES SHARES TO PAY DOWN DEBT: Rogers Communications is raising $250 million in new equity, which it will use to pay off about 10% of its corporate debt. TIW FACES NASDAQ DELISTING: Telesystem International Wireless has been warned by NASDAQ that its shares will be delisted because their value has fallen under US$1. TIW has asked NASDAQ for a review and is implementing a one-for-five share consolidation. CYGNAL REPORTS RED INK: Oshawa-based Cygnal, which builds and installs communications networks, had first quarter revenue of $33.8 million, 7% less than the same period last year. It had a net loss of $1 million for the quarter, compared to a $600,000 profit a year earlier. WHO CAN SLAY THE BILLING DRAGON? In the June issue of Telemanagement, available this week, John Riddell reports on efforts by Bell Canada and Telus to overcome a crisis in corporate billing, while Lis and Ian Angus suggest self- defense measures for corporate bill-payers. Also in Telemanagement: ** "Utilities Offer New Broadband Data Options" ** "IP-PBX Adoption: Driven by Events, Not Technology" ** "802: A Management Guide to Network Standards" Telemanagement is available only by subscription. For more information on Canada's #1 source for expert, independent telecom analysis and guidance, call 800-263-4415 ext 500 or go to http://www.angustel.ca/teleman/tm.html. ============================================================ HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-MAIL: editors@angustel.ca FAX: 905-686-2655 MAIL: TELECOM UPDATE Angus TeleManagement Group 8 Old Kingston Road Ajax, Ontario Canada L1T 2Z7 =========================================================== HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR UNSUBSCRIBE) TELECOM UPDATE is provided in electronic form only. There are two formats available: 1. The fully-formatted edition is posted on the World Wide Web on the first business day of the week at http://www.angustel.ca 2. The e-mail edition is distributed free of charge. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to: join-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.com To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to: leave-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.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 2003 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: Marcus Jervis Subject: Re: DTMF Questions? Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2003 20:37:44 +0000 kamlet@panix.com (Arthur Kamlet) wrote: > Many many years ago the editors of the Bell Labs Journal naively > published a detailed description of DTMF tones including some of the > uses within the network. > In those olden days, the same network was used both to carry voice > traffic as well as for signalling information which set up the call, > arranged for billing or no bill, and for disconnect. > Signalling DTMF tones were different from DTMF tones used for > designating the 16 keypad tones, and publishing the signalling DTMF > information let the cat out of the bag. The signalling tones he refers to are called MF (Multi-Frequency). Of course DTMF (dual tone multifrequncy) is also multifrequency, and MF is also dual tone, but the two designations kept the two signalling schemes from being confused. DTMF is used on subscriber lines, and MF used as in-band trunk signalling. DTMF tones are in a matrix and use odd frequencies to avoid intermodulation products falling in the passband of any of the other tones. So the rows 123, 456, 789, *0# get frequencies 697, 770, 852, 941 Hz and the columns 147*, 2580, 369# get 1209, 1336 and 1477 Hz. MF tones use even frequencies such as 700, 900, 1100, 1300 Hz, etc, and they are not arranged in the same matrix format as DTMF. (stuff deleted) > For example, a line showing a pattern of calling itself, and staying > offhook -- presumeably listing to busy for an hour or so -- several > times a day was what got the local phone company to get a court order > to tap a well-known TV actor's phone, and he was later arrested for > blue box use. Would that be Bob Cummings? The bust happened while he was in Seattle working at a dinner theatre in the 1970s. He was caught using it in his hotel room. i141802596@yahoo.com (Nick) wrote: > 2. I can use what method if I don't use the DTMF decoder IC? Can you > explain this method at length? I wouldn't bother. Although the concept is simple, you would not believe the amount of engineering that goes into a good DTMF decoder. I worked for a place once that designed them, and there are big tradeoffs between sensitivity, talk-off rejection (the ability to reject voice/music sounds that happen to contain brief instances of two valid tones), bandwidth, etc. ------------------------------ From: Paul A Lee Subject: Re: DTMF Questions? Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 12:44:19 -0400 In TELECOM Digest V22 #488, Gordon S. Hlavenka wrote (in part): > The DTMF generator makes two tones at a time. There are 8 tones, > arranged on a 4X4 grid for 16 possible combinations. The 8 tones were > selected to have the least likelihood of interfering with each other, > and also the 16 pairs had to sound pleasant to the ear. I don't know if the Bell Labs folks were going for "pleasant to the ear" (since that is subjective, anyway). By all accounts I've read, though, the frequency combinations were selected to have the lowest probability of being closely approximated by any sounds in human speech. Even with a rigorous selection process, and even now, with improved DTMF decoder discrimination, the phenomenon known as "talkoff" still occurs. This is when a decoder interprets unusual voice qualities as DTMF signals and unexpectedly activates features or misroutes a call in an automated attendant or IVR menu. I even read one (uncorroborated) account of a woman who could essentially "yodel" or "shriek" a few entire telephone numbers (local calls, one would suppose). 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 Tell your senator you support Senate Bill 877 to CAN-SPAM . Find him/her at http://www.senate.gov/. ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: Comcast Sues Calif. City (San Jose) in Franchise Dispute Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2003 13:05:29 -0700 In article , Linc Madison wrote: > In article , Monty Solomon > wrote: >> SAN FRANCISCO, May 30 (Reuters) - Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ:CMCSA) said >> on Friday it has sued San Jose, California, alleging [blahblahblah] > The article mentions that Comcast inherited the system from AT&T. The > other interesting factoid is that San Jose was the first urban cable > TV franchise in the United States. They were rewarded for their > pioneering efforts with high prices and crappy service. When I lived > in San Jose, from 1985 to 1987, my neighborhood was still waiting to > be wired for cable, almost 20 years after the franchise was awarded. And that same system lives today! That same archaic "A/B" cable kludge is STILL in operation in San Jose. In today's San Jose Mercury News, a front page story tells about Comcast adding HDTV to cable systems Bay Area wide. No mention is made about San Jose, however, which won't see any such thing. As a San Jose resident, I wrote off having cable two years ago when it became evident that there would never be modern cable services in this city for the foreseeable future. I also had the foresight to insist that they remove all traces of the drop and any other wiring. Why was this good? AT&T Broadband apparently had a nationwide practice of leaving drops connected at the pole so that they could send goons around and accuse recent disconnects of stealing cable service and intimidating them into paying for reconnection. True to form, they did this to me. However, the look on the goons' faces when I took them in the backyard and pointed out that there was no wiring between my house and the pole was priceless. I put our cable company about one notch under MCI on the scum scale. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: Lee Johnson Subject: Re: Comcast Sues Calif. City (San Jose) in Franchise Dispute Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2003 23:20:19 -0400 John Higdon wrote: > In article , Monty Solomon > wrote: >> The cable provider claimed in its lawsuit filed on Thursday that San >> Jose is violating federal law governing cable franchise renewals and >> that the cost of its desired network would be passed on to local >> Comcast subscribers, which would essentially be an unlawful tax under >> California law. > And round and round it goes. And this is why Silicon Valley has > archaic cable and Internet connectivity. Since there is no competition > from the cable company, SBC sits back and provides its 1940's-style > telephone service. Why bother to do more? There's no competition from > anyone! > Why Comcast, which operates a 30-year-old cable infrastructure in San > Jose, is nit-picking about issues in its franchise agreement is beyond > me. They don't even have a product to offer; there is nothing to > discuss. We've had Comcast for years and I don't have any major complaints with their product. Their service has always been prompt and competent. Three cheers to them for exposing an attempted shake-down maneuver by the local cable board gang looking for illegal kickback. That's not a mere "issue in a franchise agreement," that's a solicitation for a bribe. No wonder why Silicon Valley doesn't have good service with a den of thieves serving on the local commission. Imagine how much of that stuff goes on across the country, and it all gets passed on to the TV viewer. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2003 23:58:36 -0600 From: Neal McLain Reply-To: nmclain@annsgarden.com Subject: Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute John Higdon wrote: > Why Comcast, which operates a 30-year-old cable infrastructure in > San Jose, is nit-picking about issues in its franchise agreement > is beyond me. They don't even have a product to offer; there is > nothing to discuss. Well, the city government apparently thinks there's a lot to discuss. Otherwise, why would this issue have come up in the first place? The whole point of the "nit-picking" is that Comcast wants to extend its franchise so that it can build a whole new network and completely abandon that "30-year old infrastructure." . The lawsuit is over the city's demand that Comcast build a separate telephone/data network for the city's use. The basis of this demand stems from fact that Comcast places its facilities on the city's "streets and ways." The phone company uses the city's streets and ways. Does that entitle the city to free phone service? The power company uses the city's streets and ways. Does that entitle the city to free power service? The gas company uses the city's streets and ways. Does that entitle the city to free gas? Newspapers place distribution boxes on the city's streets and ways. Does that entitle the city to free copies of every newspaper? Taxi companies use the city's streets and ways. Does that entitle city employees to free taxi rides? And yes, cable TV companies use city streets and ways (and they pay a 5-percent-of-gross-revenue [*] franchise fee for the privilege). But does that entitle the City of San Jose to a free telephone/data network, the cost of which will be borne by cable TV subscribers? [*] Actually, 5.26 percent. . Neal McLain Nmclain@annsgarden.com [Lisa Minter Note: Actually, here in Independence, the street lights are powered and maintained by KGE, the power utility. When I have called the city offices to report a street light was out, they told me to call KGE, and gave me the number to use to reach them. The KGE rep asked for the street intersection and some other landmark, then I saw their truck out there working on it later. And regards cable, the cable company (it was Time Warner until a few months ago, now it is Cable One does give a lot of free service, such as a channel for the use of Independence High School and a channel for the use of the Community College and a channel for the use of the city. And on all the channels, the cable company cooperates with the weather service office in Wichita by running a 'ticker' (ribbon strip) on the bottom of the screen on every channel when there is some emergency condition or when police/firemen request it. So utilities do give many tradeoffs like that in exchange for using public right of way. Lisa M] ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: Call blocking May be Safety Risk Date: 2 Jun 2003 05:54:36 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Paul Wallich wrote in message news:: > In article , Monty Solomon > wrote: >> By Erica Noonan, Globe Staff, 5/29/2003 >> Residents who have placed their names on the state's do-not-call list >> as a way to cut down on junk telemarketing pitches may have >> inadvertently blocked another sort of call -- an emergency public >> safety notification. >> Reverse 911 calls -- pre-recorded telephone messages from local police >> departments warning residents of a missing child, chemical spill, >> fire, terrorist threat, or other public safety emergency -- are not >> necessarily reaching households scrubbed from commercial telemarketing >> databases or with unpublished phone numbers. >> Most, if not all, of the state's Reverse 911 programs are administered >> by Indiana-based Reverse 911, a private company that uses commercially >> available telephone databases scrubbed of residents who have placed >> themselves on no-call lists. > So it's the citizens' problem that the company contracted to do a > particular job has chosen to implement its systems in a way that > pretty much guarantees it will fail to do that job? My first reaction > is that everyone in Massachusetts doing business with Reverse 911 > deserves a refund and three apologies. > (Of course it's more complicated than that, but then dealing with > things that are more complicated than that is why local jurisdictions > would contract with a third party in the first place...) > Paul > [Lisa Minter note: And you know about how fast the refund will be > issued, I assume? Lisa M.] Sometime in the next geological epoch? Rodgers Platt [Lisa Minter Note: Ha ha, very funny! In many places that is true, but it works better/faster here. In January each year, the old people here in Kansas apply for their 'food sales tax' refunds and their real estate tax refunds by going to the city hall to fill out the proper forms. Patrick went to get his around mid-January. The city hall clerk filled in the paper work and sent it in to the state of Kansas. The paperwork said 'allow two months for processing', but six days later a form letter came back saying the state was going to offset his refund due to an unpaid debt for ambulance service owed to the City of Junction City when he went to the hospital in Topeka with his aneurysm. I helped him file an appeal to that since the ambulance/hospital bill was paid for through SRS in Kansas. They responded to that saying 'give us another two months to consider the appeal.' Then about a week after that, his refund check showed up refunding the real estate thing (it is called the 'Homestead Tax') and the food sales tax totally. For Homestead I think they refund 25 percent of the taxes old people and disabled persons pay; and the food sales tax is on some flat rate formula also. I thought two or three weeks processing time was rather effecient. Lisa M.] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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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 #490 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Jun 2 16:08:20 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h52K8KT10085; Mon, 2 Jun 2003 16:08:20 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 16:08:20 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200306022008.h52K8KT10085@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #491 TELECOM Digest Mon, 2 Jun 2003 16:08:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 491 Inside This Issue: Editor: Lisa Minter AOL Pulls Nullsoft File-Sharing Software (Monty Solomon) Websites Provide High-Tech Options For Local Debate (Monty Solomon) With Wireless, an English City Reaches Across Digital Divide (M Solomon) Former FCC chairman: Deregulation is Right-Wing Power Grab (M Solomon) Resistance Really Was Futile (Monty Solomon) FCC's Powell Must be Held to His Word (Monty Solomon) Digital Media Becomes Focus as Microsoft and AOL Settle (Monty Solomon) SARS Worsens Growing cellphone Glut in China (Monty Solomon) DoCoMo to Launch Sony Ericsson Megapixel Phones (Monty Solomon) Make Way For the Contender to Google's Crown (Monty Solomon) Re: International Speaking Clock Interest (Paul A Lee) Re: International Speaking Clock Interest (Dale Neiburg) Re: Domain Name History? (JDS) No Dialtone Unless I Phone Myself (Sam) Re: PC-to-Phone Telephone Calls over Broadband Connection (John Levine) mBanking (Divya) Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX+ Dialaround (Ed Gibbs) Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX+ Dialaround (C Cryderman) 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, 2 Jun 2003 00:07:24 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AOL Pulls Nullsoft File-Sharing Software By Jim Hu Staff Writer, CNET News.com A day after developers at America Online's Nullsoft unit quietly released file-sharing software, AOL pulled the link to the product from the subsidiary's Web site. The software, called Waste, lets groups set up private, secure file-sharing networks. The product became available on Nullsoft's Web site on Wednesday, just days shy of the four-year anniversary of being acquired by AOL. Waste is a software application that combines peer-to-peer file sharing with instant messaging, chat and file searches. Users can set up their own network of friends and share files between each other. The features of Waste are similar to those of file-swapping services such as Kazaa and the defunct Napster, but the difference is that only small networks of people (up to 50, according to the Web site) can use it. The software also offers encryption and authentication to prevent non-invitees from accessing the private networks. The quiet launch of Waste was the work of Nullsoft's principal developer, Justin Frankel, a soft-spoken 20-something known for his tech savvy and his streak of rebelliousness. Waste had been used internally to share files between AOL's San Francisco office, where Nullsoft is based, and its Dulles, Va., headquarters, according to Ian Rogers, a former founding member of Nullsoft. http://news.com.com/2100-1032-1011585.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 00:12:25 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Websites Provide High-Tech Options For Local Debate Opinion is divided on benefits of allowing anonymous posts By Matt Viser, Globe Correspondent, 6/1/2003 Mike spends a lot of time communicating with his Marlborough neighbors. He never sees them, though. They don't even know his last name. And he doesn't talk. He types. Mike posts his messages on a discussion board called 'Speak Out' on www.marlborough.com, an unofficial town website known as the Marlborough Web. Last week, nearly 700 messages were posted on the site, on topics that include a heated mayoral race, the US-backed Middle East peace plan and the state's seat belt law. Throughout the suburbs, similar websites -- and rival sites --- with online discussion forums are emerging, creating new arenas for discussion and challenging the traditional sense of community. Instead of gathering at town hall or at the local bar or coffee shop to gossip about neighbors or debate the news of the day, people are booting up. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/152/west/Websites_provide_high_tech_options_for_local_debate+.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 00:31:08 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: With Wireless, an English City Reaches Across Digital Divide By MARK LANDLER MANCHESTER, England, May 29 - Three years ago, Shirley Hughes lived a life of dreary routine, collecting welfare checks, bringing up two children as a single mother, passing her evenings in front of the television. Today, she teaches her neighbors how to use computers at a local college while studying for a teaching certificate. At home, she skips "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in favor of the Internet, which she surfs avidly, downloading patterns for patchwork quilts, her favorite hobby. Ms. Hughes's computer is connected to the Internet "24/7," as she puts it, through a technology known as Wi-Fi. For her, it has been a virtual passport out of the decaying industrial landscape of East Manchester, a place only now recovering from the end of history's last great commercial revolution. Wi-Fi, or wireless fidelity, has generated a lot of excitement here and in the United States as a way to offer high-speed Internet access in airports, cafes, bars and restaurants - anywhere one finds a surfeit of laptop-toting customers and a scarcity of telephone jacks. In Manchester, the once-grimy Victorian city famous as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, Wi-Fi is being used, for the first time ever on this scale, as a way to bridge the digital divide. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/31/technology/31WIFI.html [Lisa Minter Note: I just was reminded by Patrick that the way to deal with NY Times articles in order to preserve your own privacy and cut back a little on spam is by using the group username: telecomdigest and the group password: telecomdigest Lisa M] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 01:22:55 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Former FCC chairman: Deregulation is a Right-Wing Power Grab Reed Hundt says Monday's historic vote is "the culmination of the attack by the right on the media." By Eric Boehlert May 31, 2003 | The Federal Communications Commission will meet in Washington on Monday for a historic vote on the future of media ownership in the United States. By all accounts, the Republican-dominated commission will ease long-standing rules so that more and more of the nations newspapers and broadcast stations can be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Underlying that agenda, Clinton-era FCC chairman Reed Hundt sees something more primal unfolding: an extraordinary conservative power grab that could shape the political landscape for generations. For all the philosophical conflict over diversity in the media and the efficiency of the free market, Hunt told Salon this week, the vote is really about an alliance of interests between the political right and the corporate media. "Conservatives," he said, "hope that the major media will be their friends." The FCC's two Democrats have strongly opposed the deregulation measure that's been pushed by current FCC chairman Michael Powell, a close ally of the Bush White House, and public response to the proposal has been heavily opposed. But Hundt's radical critique is all the more striking because he is an establishment lawyer thoroughly versed in the diplomatic niceties of high government office. He attended prep school with Al Gore and law school with Bill Clinton and served as FCC chairman under Clinton from 1993 to 1997. He is now a senior advisor at McKinsey and Co., the international consulting firm. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/05/31/fcc/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 01:25:49 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Resistance Really Was Futile Microsoft and AOL announce an unholy $750 million alliance. Where does that leave Mozilla, Netscape's open-source rebel child? By Andrew Leonard And so, the browser wars end, again, not with a bang, but with a plea bargain. If there's one thing the analysts are agreeing on in the wake of Thursday's settlement between Microsoft and AOL Time Warner, it's that the Netscape browser is finally kaput. In return for a cool $750 million from Microsoft, AOL is dropping its private antitrust suit against Bill Gates and Co. -- and, as an extra goodie, getting a seven-year royalty-free license to use Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser. Prospects for the future health of AOL's Netscape division appear dim. There are other important aspects to the agreement, which we'll get to in a minute, but for now, consider this: Normally, when one party forks over $750 million to another to settle a lawsuit, that's usually a pretty good sign that the party ponying up the cash is guilty, guilty, guilty. You can be excused for thinking that Microsoft, mindful that a federal appeals court unanimously found it guilty of abusing its monopoly power to crush Netscape, wanted to cut a deal to avoid the chances of getting dinged for even bigger numbers in court. But the closer you look at the provisions of the agreement, the better it appears for Microsoft. As part of the deal, AOL is also receiving a license to Microsoft's Windows Media technology and is agreeing to cooperate on instant messaging and digital rights management services. These are all areas that Microsoft has, with good reason, targeted as crucial markets of the future. Microsoft has always wanted a piece of every online transaction: If it controls the Web browser, and the content distribution technology, and the digitial rights management software, well, $750 million suddenly seems like chump change if it means getting the largest media corporation and largest online service in the world to use your software. AOL, after all, was desperate to begin paying down its $23 billion in debt. Far from admitting guilt, it looks as though Microsoft took advantage of AOL's need for cash to establish another major beachhead for its products. http://www.salon.com/tech/col/leon/2003/06/02/unholy_alliance/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 01:37:45 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FCC's Powell Must be Held to His Word By Dan Gillmor Mercury News Technology Columnist Monday, barring an 11th-hour change of bureaucratic heart, the Federal Communications Commission will give a gaggle of powerful corporations a gift of enormous value. The three Republican commissioners will outvote two Democrats in easing long-standing rules designed to prevent a few companies from controlling too much of the media we read, hear and view. The question is not whether the FCC vote can be stopped, though a draft plan may be tweaked a bit at the edges. The Republican majority, led by President Bush's handpicked chairman, Michael Powell, appear determined to proceed despite opposition from what may be the most ideologically diverse group ever assembled. To be fair, the commission is under pressure from the courts, which have interpreted current law in a way that almost requires more media consolidation. Congress, once again, has failed to step up to an issue of paramount national importance. Assuming the fix is in, let's ask a different question: Where do we go from here? http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/5989915.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 01:39:48 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Digital Media Becomes Focus as Microsoft and AOL Settle By STEVE LOHR The corporate armistice declared last week between Microsoft and AOL Time Warner reflected two companies moving from the past to the future. The abandoned past included a last lingering vestige of the Internet browser wars of the 1990's, a private antitrust suit that Microsoft has now agreed to pay AOL Time Warner $750 million to settle. The future involves using the Internet to deliver commercial program content, mainly movies and music, to consumers who are equipped with a growing array of digital devices to receive it, from personal computers to digital televisions to smart cellphones. And the two companies must do so in a way that is convenient for users and profitable for media companies, while keeping digital piracy to a manageable minimum. Both Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, and Richard D. Parsons, his counterpart at AOL Time Warner, spoke last Thursday about how their collaboration could accelerate the adoption of digital media for the Internet while maintaining copyright protection. The central technology in pursuit of that goal is the software for handling and protecting digital media. And last week's pact included a long-term, nonexclusive license agreement allowing AOL Time Warner to use Microsoft's Windows Media software for distributing and playing back digital media. The media player is the crucial piece in the puzzle. It resides on the user's computer or other device and opens a portal to what the industry calls rich media - movies, music, video - delivered over the Internet, just as the browser is a portal for viewing Web pages. The media player takes on additional importance because it seems to be the likely vehicle for some of the vital technology in the emerging field of digital rights management - a fancy name for piracy protection. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/02/technology/02PLAY.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 07:59:10 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: SARS Worsens Growing Cellphone Glut in China By Doug Young HONG KONG, June 2 (Reuters) - Sales clerk Zhang Yanghong is at the front line of a growing cellphone price war in China that has analysts and investors increasingly worried. A recent production surge and the SARS virus outbreak are threatening to create an even bigger cellphone glut in the world's largest wireless market and dent the growth outlook for both domestic manufacturers and many of the world's top phone makers. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34366070 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 08:00:55 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: DoCoMo to Launch Sony Ericsson Megapixel Phones TOKYO, June 2 (Reuters) - NTT DoCoMo Inc (TOKYO:9437) said on Monday it would launch a new camera phone model with the world's highest resolution later in the week, fuelling competition for dominance in the rapidly growing photo phone market. The new handsets, manufactured by Sony Ericsson and set to hit store shelves on Wednesday, are expected to retail for between 30,000 yen and 40,000 yen ($251-$335) apiece, said a spokesman for DoCoMo, Japan's dominant mobile phone operator. The planned release of the new handsets, with a resolution of 1.3 million pixels, comes two weeks after J-Phone beat larger rivals DoCoMo and KDDI Corp (TOKYO:9433) in launching the world's first megapixel phone, made by Sharp Corp (TOKYO:6753). Although DoCoMo is the last of the three operators to introduce megapixel phones, which are suitable for making standard-sized prints, the resolution of its latest phones is higher than J-Phone's million pixels and KDDI's 1.24 million. Launched by J-Phone in late 2000, camera-mounted handsets became the hottest telecoms trend in Japan, offering a rare bright spot in the country's mobile phone market, which is near saturation. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34367051 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 02:49:12 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Make Way For the Contender to Google's Crown By Kieren McCarthy You're not going to believe this, but a new search engine has just appeared and, well, it may be better than Google. Obviously, that sounds slightly ridiculous but after having spent a day devising weird and wonderful searches and comparisons, not only has it stood up to the test but it's so good that you realise how much of an effect Google has had on your thinking when it comes to searching the Net. You can go try it now -- it's at Turbo10.com -- but for God's sake, before you start emailing and ranting and raving, read the rest of this story as it will probably cover what you're going to say. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/30963.html ------------------------------ From: Paul A Lee Subject: Re: International Speaking Clock Interest Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 13:31:29 -0400 In TELECOM Digest V22 #488, our esteemed Editor wrote (in part): > Here in the United States, the speaking clock in Washington, DC > at 202-653-1920 says thus: > "US Naval Observatory Master Clock; at the tone Eastern Daylight Time, > twenty-one hours, fifty-eight minutes, fifteen seconds" (then a beep > and a short pause and continuing), one hour, fifty-eight minutes, > twenty seconds Greenwich Mean Time." The actual wording used (based on the example above) would be: "US Naval Observatory Master Clock; at the tone, Eastern Daylight Time, twenty-one hours, fifty-eight minutes, fifteen seconds" "Universal Time, one hour, fifty-eight minutes, twenty seconds" . A one-per-second "tock" sound plays during the spoken time announcement, but is suspended for the two-second interval in which each mark tone sounds. There _is_ a difference between Greenwich Mean Time [GMT], which is astronomical, and (Coordinated) Universal Time [UTC], which is based on more accurate timing. See http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/UT.html. UTC is also referred to as "Zulu time", from the phonetic alphabet for "Z", which is the identifier of the time zone corresponding to GMT (see http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/world_tzones.html). You can get a "freshness date" on satellite weather images by looking for the "Z" time (e.g., "2334Z" for an image taken at 11:34 PM UTC) along the edge of NOAA satellite images. Zulu time is also widely used in communications networks to synchronize activities that span several time zones, and, of course, in military operations. > Patrick has here a LaCrosse Technology Weather Station and a > wristwatch from the same company (LaCrosse) which autosets the time > shown from the NIST thing in Boulder. The radio signal with the data stream for synchronizing is on WWVB at 60 kHz. See http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/ for more background. LaCrosse's stuff is a little pricey. For the techno-geeks and precision freaks among the readership who are turned on by such a gadget (me included) but are concerned about the cost, check out Casio Wave Ceptor watches (Google or Yahoo! for "Wave Ceptor" or "WaveCeptor"), starting around $25. Also, I picked up an "Atomic" (brand name) digital clock/calendar/thermometer at Wal-Mart for $20. 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 Tell your senator you support Senate Bill 877 to CAN-SPAM . Find him/her at http://www.senate.gov/. [Lisa Minter Note: Is it the Hawaii operation (WWVB) which does that or (more logically) the Boulder, CO operation (WWV) which handles the synching, or both/either? Both the weather station and the wristwatch have an LED picture of a little radio tower on them which flash off and on in the synching process but illuminate steadily once the signal has been 'grabbed' and is being held on to. The watch has a little battery inside it which tunes and 'listens to' the radio signal. The weather station just plugs into a power supply. The Radio Shack store downtown has things like you describe also. I took Patrick's wristwatch to the jewelry store downtown to get the battery changed in it and the lady there noted 'there are no buttons of any kind on this; how do you set the time?' I told her to observe after the new battery was put in, presently it would set itself. And after about five minutes of blinking and flashing seemingly random digits on the screen it began to do just that. There is one tiny pinhole size thing on the side where a pin or very small screw driver or ballpoint pen tip fits in and that either turns the watch off or allows for time zone settings. Both the watch and the weather station only seem able to 'latch onto' the time signal when they are outdoors (anytime) or indoors but sitting on a window ledge during overnight hours when the signals must be the strongest. Whenever they lose the radio signal for whatever reason then something inside the device keeps them on very accurate time until they are able to reclaim the signal later on. Lisa M] ------------------------------ From: Dale Neiburg Subject: Re: International Speaking Clock Interest Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 09:36:56 -0400 In Telecom Digest V22, #488, Lisa noted: > Here in the United States, the speaking clock in Washington, DC at > 202-653-1920 says thus: "US Naval Observatory Master Clock; at > the tone Eastern Daylight Time, twenty-one hours, fifty-eight > minutes, fifteen seconds" (then a beep and a short pause and > continuing), one hour, fifty-eight minutes, twenty seconds > Greenwich Mean Time." > There are three incoming clock lines, each synched five seconds > apart, the one you come in on allows you to listen for 55 seconds, > then disconnects. They all first recite Eastern Daylight (or > Standard, depending on the time of year) Time, give a short beep > then recite the Greenwich Mean Time, which is four hours ahead of > Eastern Daylight. It may also be of interest to note that the friendly but authoritative voice is that of the late and much-lamented George Fenniman, Groucho Marx's old sidekick. Dale Neiburg ** NPR Satellite Operations ** 202-513-2640 "It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious." --Alfred North Whitehead ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Domain Name History? From: JDS Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2003 16:43:16 GMT >> Where can I find out who used to have my domain name? > Plug it into the Internet Wayback Machine at > and see what comes up. That will only show web pages that were served up for that domain, so at best it will only give you clues as to who used the name after 1995 (when the first Web pages appeared). The first domain names were registered in 1985. If someone has better information on this, I for one am keenly interested. ------------------------------ From: ymailus@yahoo.com (Sam) Subject: No Dialtone Unless I Phone Myself Date: 2 Jun 2003 11:01:38 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi folks, Wierd problem: I can't get a dialtone at my house phone extension unless I phone my house first from my cellphone. I thought the wiring was broken inside the telephone wire and shaked each bit of it to see if I could find the break. Then suddenly someone phoned me and presto I got my dialtone again. Now every time I don't get a dialtone on my extension I phone my house with my cell phone as a work around. My adsl modem shares the filter with my second phone on my extension. Both my main and my extension phone sockets have adsl filters. Any ideas what is happening? Sam [TELECOM Digest Editor PAT notes: A modem on a DSL line should not be filtered, for starters. The filter should *only* go on the phone side of a split line like yours. If you have extension phones around as well, put them *exclusively* on the filtered side of the line. Never have a voice telephone 'share a filter' with the DSL side of the line, which shouldn't be filtered to start with anyway. In other words, run the DSL modem direct to the wall jack. At some point on the line, insert a 'Y' connector to which you attach a filter on one leg of the 'Y' connector which runs to your voice phone. Wherever you want to have an extension, use another filter and as needed 'Y' connector. A filter for each voice phone line! A 'Y' connector as needed for each voice phone extension! See if that helps your problem any. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jun 2003 21:25:34 -0000 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: PC-to-Phone Telephone Calls over Broadband Connection Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > I am looking for a free piece of software that will allow me to make > phone calls to landlines using the microphone connected to my PC. I > know this is possible with a standard internet connection, but > wondered if there was software available that could do this on a > Broadband connection. Any PC phone software that works over dialup will work over broadband, and will probably work a lot better since 28Kb (the upstream rate on a 56K modem) is pretty marginal for voice calls. There's lots of software for free PC-to-PC voice conversation, including most popular chat software from AOL, Yahoo, and other places. To make calls to normal phones, you have to use someone's IP->phone gateway and since the demise of the dot.com bubble, nobody does that for free. The largest gateway provider is Net2phone, www.net2phone.com, who is widely resold by Yahoo and others and charges 2 cents/minute for calls to US numbers. If I were going to use their service, I'd use it via Yahoo Messenger rather than directly, because Yahoo will sell you call chits $10 at a time while Net2phone's minimum is $25. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711 johnl@iecc.com Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner http://iecc.com/johnl Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: traineensp@softcell.co.in (Divya) Subject: mBanking Date: 1 Jun 2003 23:33:49 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi, As part of my college final semester study I have chosen the topic "M-Commerce Illustrating mBanking Applications" ... I am going to browse thru the entire M-Commerce technology in a nutshell covering issues w.r.t. security,services(blutooth applications,GSM family-GPRS,EDGE and the like, the current 2G services along with the forthcoming 3G services ...) Actually I am expected to create some study on my own accord without any refereces from books or "cut-copy-pastes" from the Internet ... I also approached a few people regards this for help w.r.t. WML language implementation in the simple mBanking application I intend to design/code ... I was strictly warned that I being a newbie will find it rather tough to develop something so advanced ... I was suggested to use HTML only initially to view some simple application program (not necessarily mBanking Application) and then if that worked , I should be going ahead with the WML translation bit. I am a lil' concerned as to finally what I should study as part of my seminar work and hence seeking guidance from you experienced pple outhere ... Can anybody suggest some simple college-level application along with some reference books/websites from where I can get an idea. Have gone thru Google for the same and did find some related info. But want to ask you for a second opinion and a more one-to-one advice. Also can anyone suggest how do I narrow down my scope within M-Commerce or what are the latest loopholes found in this field which I could study upon and come out with my original solutions? Thanks in advance and for reading this exceptionally long query. Kindly bear with me. I promise not to write any more lengthy ones. This being my first time here. I need to give brief introduction of my background as well. Regards, DR ------------------------------ From: egibbs@my-deja.com (Ed Gibbs) Subject: Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX+ Dialaround Date: 2 Jun 2003 04:32:55 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ dold@MCIXWorldc.usenet.us.com wrote in message news:: > As an IXC, we suffered some difficulty that would explain this issue. > There were several different "codes" that would eventually land in the > same switch, where the authorization lookups were done by ANI. At > this point, we could no longer see the original code used to route the > call to our switch, so it was impossible to differentiate one "plan" > from another. We didn't allow casual dialing. All of our users were > pre-subscribed, so we never paid any attention to the field with the > "code" in it. Some upstream switch was stripping off the codes, so > when we instituted this goofy plan where customers dialed a 1010 code > for special international rates, we ran into trouble. I can understand a billing technical error, as long as it gets corrected. I also appreciate the fact that they pro-actively saw an unusual pattern of charges, put a block on the service, and notified me. That was great. What I just can't get around is the fact that BOTH the high toll department and the Customer Service Department told me that I needed to "set up an account" to resolve the issue. The fact that they both used the same euphemism for switching my long distance to MCI makes me believe that they were following a script. Why would a script for resolving a known technical issue with 101-0987 billing require the customer to change their long distance provider to MCI in order to correct the billing? That is what is really bugging me. I told them over and over that these were 101-0987 calls. I even read portions of the web site to them over the phone (the parts about no commitment, $.03 per minute to the UK and Canada, etc.). They simply refused to do anything to correct the billing unless I "set up an account." They even tried to tell me it was an AT&T Local problem, and sent me on a wild goose chase to AT&T customer service. AT&T of course wondered why I was calling them about an MCI billing problem. It was only after I called Telecom*USA customer service (which automatically connected me back to the MCI High Toll department) that I finally got a rep with some sense who agreed to re-rate the calls at the proper rate. I only hope it stays fixed -- I have nothing in writing, have not been billed yet (either accurately or inaccurately), and my request to Telecom*USA for a corrected listing of the charges has been unanswered for over a week. Given the technical issues that you described with Telecom*USA billing there are probably a lot of customers who are experiencing the same problem, especially in light of the saturation ad campaign Telecom*USA is currently running. If they are all getting the same script (switch your LD to MCI or pay up), then there must be a fair percentage of them who are giving in and switching under the threat of huge bills. And that is just plain wrong. No one should be forced to switch their long distance to MCI in order to get MCI to correct an internal billing error. Ed Gibbs [Lisa Minter note: In looking through the old archives here in my spare time I notice an article or two dealing with some Telecom USA problems where they thought there was some fraud going on. I wonder if I should fetch those and ask Patrick about reprinting them? Lisa M.] ------------------------------ From: Charles Cryderman Subject: Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX+ Problems Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 10:58:52 -0400 A quote of Geoffrey Welsh "I believe that the fine was $US 500 million (essentially 33 cents on the dollar -- due to bankruptcy -- for a $US 1.5 billion fine, not still bad for a $US 9 billion misdeed -- had it been outright theft, they'd have made $US 8.5 billion!) but, when you say "stockholders", you must mean the group formerly known as "secured creditors" because the people who held MCI Worldcom stock a year ago will be left with absolutely nothing following the reorganization." Actually the fine is to reimburse the poor shareholders. From the abstract on the New York Times web page: "MCI, former WorldCom, agrees to settle fraud accusations by Securities and Exchange Comm. by paying $500 million penalty that will ultimately be given to investors; biggest fraud case ever filed by SEC is being resolved with largest penalty it ever sought; if settlement is approved by federal judge, it will remove one of last significant obstacles to MCI's emerging from largest Chapter 11 bankruptcy ever filed; in departure from previous bankruptcy law, agreement is structured under new provision of federal law that allows government to divert penalties destined for Treasury to investors instead; typically, claims of shareholders in bankruptcy have been wiped out in favor of those filed by creditors; despite size of penalty, some of MCI's industry rivals say settlement is too small and ineffective compared to financial harm done; lawyers representing investors who have filed class-action suit, including New York State employees' pension fund, say $500 million would not satisfy claims of shareholders who say they have lost 'tens of billions of dollars' from MCI's misleading accounting." Chip Cryderman ------------------------------ 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 #491 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Jun 3 00:47:34 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h534lXQ13291; Tue, 3 Jun 2003 00:47:34 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 00:47:34 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200306030447.h534lXQ13291@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #492 TELECOM Digest Tue, 3 Jun 2003 00:47:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 492 Inside This Issue: Editor: Lisa Minter Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute (John Higdon) Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute (AES/newspost) Re: Make Way For the Contender to Google's Crown (Thomas A. Horsley) Question: Hunting Works With Alternate Local Phone Service? (Tak To) Re: DTMF Questions? (Arthur Kamlet) Re: DTMF Questions? (Kenneth Becker) Re: DTMF Questions? (Al Gillis) Re: No Dialtone Unless I Phone Myself (Steven J. Sobol) Re: No Dialtone Unless I Phone Myself (Paul A Lee) Re: No Dialtone Unless I Phone Myself (Jim Hopkins) Re: Former FCC chairman: Deregulation is Right-Wing Power Grab (tonypo1) Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX+ Dialaround (Gail Hall) Who is Lisa Minter? (Kenneth P. Stox) Re: AOL Pulls Nullsoft File-Sharing Software (Bill Horne) Re: International Speaking Clock Interest (Al Gillis) Re: International Speaking Clock Interest (Paul A Lee) 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: Comcast Sues Calif. City (San Jose) in Franchise Dispute Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2003 11:50:42 -0700 In article , Lee Johnson wrote: > We've had Comcast for years and I don't have any major complaints with > their product. Their service has always been prompt and competent. > Three cheers to them for exposing an attempted shake-down maneuver by > the local cable board gang looking for illegal kickback. That's not a > mere "issue in a franchise agreement," that's a solicitation for a > bribe. No wonder why Silicon Valley doesn't have good service with a > den of thieves serving on the local commission. Imagine how much of > that stuff goes on across the country, and it all gets passed on to > the TV viewer. Or put another way, our city fathers are not going to let a Philadelphia company walk in and pick the pockets of local San Jose residents without contributing something back to the community. If Comcast can trapse through our backyards, tear up our streets, and then shake the coins out of our pockets selling us thirty-year-old technology, then I see no harm in having them fullfil standard and typical franchise conditions. Quite honestly, I'm delighted that my city government is not bending over for an East Coast mega-corporation. As far as I am concerned, if east coasters want to pump cash out of California, they can give something in return. In article , Neal McLain wrote: > The whole point of the "nit-picking" is that Comcast wants to extend > its franchise so that it can build a whole new network and completely > abandon that "30-year old infrastructure." Uh huh. We have been hearing this for decades from the half-dozen companies who have bought the system and then continue to milk the revenue out of the sixties technology. Comcast is just the latest in a long line of empty promise providers. > The lawsuit is over the city's demand that Comcast build a separate > telephone/data network for the city's use. The basis of this demand > stems from fact that Comcast places its facilities on the city's > "streets and ways." These are standard conditions that upon which many cities insist. Phone, gas, electricity and the like are utilities, covered under completely different arrangements. > Newspapers place distribution boxes on the city's streets and ways. > Does that entitle the city to free copies of every newspaper? I believe they pay for that space. > Taxi companies use the city's streets and ways. Does that entitle city > employees to free taxi rides? Taxis pay considerable fees that are distributed back to the city. Ask a cabbie what a medallion costs these days. > And yes, cable TV companies use city streets and ways (and they pay a > 5-percent-of-gross-revenue [*] franchise fee for the privilege). But > does that entitle the City of San Jose to a free telephone/data network, > the cost of which will be borne by cable TV subscribers? I would rather see the city dictating to the out-of-town cable company rather than the other way around. The city has made some demands. Rather than discuss those demands, Comcast has sued the city. As far as I am concerned, Comcast can pick up its toys and go home. If it wants to tap the very lucrative San Jose market, it can do a little bending over of its own. Besides, as you point out, the money comes from the subscribers, anyway. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: AES/newspost Subject: Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2003 15:54:09 -0700 In article , Neal McLain wrote: > So utilities do give many tradeoffs like that in exchange for using > public right of way. Lisa M] The primary tradeoff we should all insist on for any kind of "highway" that passes in front of our houses, whether its a physical highway (i.e., a road) or an "information highway" (i.e., a wire, cable or fiber) is that **anyone** should be able to use it, in return for a reasonable toll charge, even if this highway is built and maintained by a private firm. Suppose a developer were to agree to build, pay for, maintain, and own all the streets in some large development -- and then proposed to allow only a developer-owned taxi company, a developer-owned moving company, a developer-owned delivery service to use those streets? (Or maybe a private developer builds a toll road between two cities, and proposes to block any trucking companies other than one owned by the developer.) Whether or not you'd regard these as examples of "public right of ways", allowing some one to build and own them and then not allow other competitors to use them in return for a fair and reasonable "toll" is bad (and also anti-competitive and economically damaging) social policy. I'm not sure our Congress fully understands this ... INTERESTING POST. THE AUTHOR, JOHN HIGDON, POSTS FREQUENTLY TO THIS GROUP AND SEEMS TO BE GENERALLY ACCURATE AND TECHNICALLY WELL INFORMED -- EVEN IF ALSO PRETTY GRUMPY. In article , John Higdon wrote: >>> SAN FRANCISCO, May 30 (Reuters) - Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ:CMCSA) said >>> on Friday it has sued San Jose, California, alleging [blahblahblah] >> The article mentions that Comcast inherited the system from AT&T. The >> other interesting factoid is that San Jose was the first urban cable >> TV franchise in the United States. They were rewarded for their >> pioneering efforts with high prices and crappy service. When I lived >> in San Jose, from 1985 to 1987, my neighborhood was still waiting to >> be wired for cable, almost 20 years after the franchise was awarded. > And that same system lives today! That same archaic "A/B" cable kludge > is STILL in operation in San Jose. In today's San Jose Mercury News, a > front page story tells about Comcast adding HDTV to cable systems Bay > Area wide. No mention is made about San Jose, however, which won't see > any such thing. > As a San Jose resident, I wrote off having cable two years ago when it > became evident that there would never be modern cable services in this > city for the foreseeable future. I also had the foresight to insist > that they remove all traces of the drop and any other wiring. > Why was this good? AT&T Broadband apparently had a nationwide practice > of leaving drops connected at the pole so that they could send goons > around and accuse recent disconnects of stealing cable service and > intimidating them into paying for reconnection. True to form, they did > this to me. > However, the look on the goons' faces when I took them in the backyard > and pointed out that there was no wiring between my house and the pole > was priceless. > I put our cable company about one notch under MCI on the scum scale. > John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS > +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 "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) ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Make Way For the Contender to Google's Crown From: tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 01:16:52 GMT > You can go try it now -- it's at Turbo10.com -- but for God's sake, > before you start emailing and ranting and raving, read the rest of > this story as it will probably cover what you're going to say. I'm sorry, I read the story and it is yet another search engine that still doesn't have the one feature I want most: When the top 10 results are all variations on the same $#@! online manual that appears in 47 million different incarnations, I want to be able to point at one of the matches I just got and say, "OK, now refine my search by showing me the stuff that matched my original query, but is most unlike this thing you just found". (I already read the $#@! online manual, I'm searching for the bits of wisdom they left out of the $#@! manual ... I run into this constantly with linux and gnu documents :-). -- >>==>> The *Best* political site >>==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL | Free Software and Politics ==+ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2003 18:51:55 -0400 From: Tak To Subject: Question: Hunting Works With Alternate Local Phone provider? As far as I can tell there is only one set of telephone wires going into my house, and I believe the wires are owned by Verizon, and terminated at a Verizon CO. So how would an alternate local service provider (e.g., AT&T) work? Do they rent usage of wire and CO equipment from Verizon? And how would traditionally CO features such as hunting work if I switch local service? Currently I have Verizon for local service and I have two lines that hunts each other. The hunting feature is free. I am tempted to give AT&T local service a try since their rate plans are cheaper for my usage. However, I have yet to find an AT&T representative who understands what hunting is, let alone what would happen to the feature if I switch. They keep saying that forward-when-busy is the same (but not free). While these two might well be equivalent, the lack of knowledge of the representatives makes me wonder. Tak To takto@alum.mit.edu.- [taode takto ~{LU5B~}] NB: trim the .- to get my real email addr [Lisa Minter Note: To get a good idea of how it works, see the messages from the middle of May here dealing with Prairie Stream Communications, CLECs and UNE-P services. Essentially what happens is the CLEC leases *all the equipment and lines and switches* -- in total everything -- from the local incumbent (or ILEC) carrier. What- ever you do, *do not* go with AT&T. They do not need your business and most of the reps you talk to will be the same as the ones you have talked to thus far. Do not stay with Verizon either; they do not need your business, and the reps go to the same training school as the ones from AT&T. If at all possible, select from one of the various CLECs working in Verizon territory who are informed and very eager to have your account. Also, their prices are about half what the big guys charge, but they make up for it by not making you go through voicemail hell to reach them. Imagine, a phone company where you dial their number, someone answers it right away and the same person usually then helps you completely, with no double talk or lies along the way. Sounds unreal? Grep or index through the last 30-50 issues of this Digest looking for Fred Goldman as the author to see how these new phone companies work. Also another author here on the topic is Clarence Dold, and Patrick Townson or TELECOM Digest Editor. It is too complicated and technical to print it all over again here, but with Prairie Stream at least (our local competitor) they just transfer a 'mirror image' of your account over to themselves and take it over (with your permission). Expect Verizon to make a big fuss about it, claiming you are 'not eligible' for conversion, etc. Telcos do that with every customer who leaves them. Oh, and if you do have DSL service from Verizon they will probably claim you are not eligible for conversion either unless you give up the DSL and go with some other internet provider as we had to do, which was fine with us; SBC Global was so full of spam who would want to keep them unless there was no choice. Let us know how it works for you, but DO NOT go to AT&T for it ... that's like jumping out of one fire into another one. Lisa M.] ------------------------------ From: kamlet@panix.com (Arthur Kamlet) Subject: Re: DTMF Questions? Date: 2 Jun 2003 15:32:41 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: ArtKamlet@REMOVE.com In article , Marcus Jervis wrote: >> For example, a line showing a pattern of calling itself, and staying >> offhook -- presumeably listing to busy for an hour or so -- several >> times a day was what got the local phone company to get a court order >> to tap a well-known TV actor's phone, and he was later arrested for >> blue box use. > Would that be Bob Cummings? The bust happened while he was in Seattle > working at a dinner theatre in the 1970s. He was caught using it in > his hotel room. Yes. The AMARCS AT&T Billing System was modified to add these pattern detection features, and PNB got a court order to search the suite where he was staying, and brought in the cops. I wasn't there, but I got a second hand account of watching the AMARCS printer spit out well-known blue box calling patterns and tracking down the caller. Art Kamlet ArtKamlet @ AOL.com Columbus OH K2PZH ------------------------------ From: Kenneth Becker Subject: Re: DTMF Questions? Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2003 16:49:14 -0400 Organization: Lucent Technologies Paul A Lee wrote: > In TELECOM Digest V22 #488, Gordon S. Hlavenka > wrote (in part): --- Big Snip > I even read one (uncorroborated) account of a woman who could > essentially "yodel" or "shriek" a few entire telephone numbers (local > calls, one would suppose). A couple of things. It's not just the talk-off that gets to the designer. There are more specifications on the generation and reception of these tones than you can take a stick to -- and I know, because I had to implement one once! At one time there was an officially approved tape that one would have to run through one's decoder that would digits one was >>supposed<< to hear as well as those one wasn't. There was a write-up in the BLSJ one time about a woman who I believe worked in Chicago somewhere. Whenever she would get onto a conference call with a certain piece of Centrex equipment she would crash it. There was just something in her voice that drove the DTMF decodes, anyone's DTMF decoder, crazy. I believe that Bell Labs hired her for a time back in the late 70's or so as a final check on some new decoder algorithms. The algorithms required tweaks to get past her. Ken Becker ------------------------------ From: Al Gillis Subject: Re: DTMF Questions? Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 16:53:23 -0700 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com (much deleted...) >> 2. I can use what method if I don't use the DTMF decoder IC? Can you >> explain this method at length? > I wouldn't bother. Although the concept is simple, you would not > believe the amount of engineering that goes into a good DTMF decoder. > I worked for a place once that designed them, and there are big > tradeoffs between sensitivity, talk-off rejection (the ability to > reject voice/music sounds that happen to contain brief instances of > two valid tones), bandwidth, etc. Time changes doesn't it? A couple of decades ago I designed and built some test equipment using a chip from Teltone. It was quite a complex affair, with numerous resistors, capacitors and other "jelly bean" components surrounding this giant DTMF decoder chip. Given the times and the "state of the art" as regards semiconductor development it was quite a design! Nowadays, however, the same equipment would have a modicum of signal conditioning and one ASIC to do the same job. And, you'd probably get "change back from your dollar" as well! ------------------------------ From: Steven J. Sobol Subject: Re: No Dialtone Unless I Phone Myself Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2003 21:07:53 -0000 Organization: JustThe.net LLC From Sam (ymailus@yahoo.com): > My adsl modem shares the filter with my second phone on my > extension. Both my main and my extension phone sockets have adsl > filters. > Any ideas what is happening? > Sam > [TELECOM Digest Editor PAT notes: A modem on a DSL line should not be > filtered, for starters. Correct. DSL modems *need* the higher frequencies filtered out by the filters and if you filter your DSL modem, it'll never work. As a point of clarification, ANALOG modems and fax machines only use normal voice frequencies and need to be filtered in order to work properly. Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge, JustThe.net POTS: Toll Free from anywhere in the USA or Canada, 888.480.4NET (4638) HTTP: www.JustTheNetLLC.com MAIL: 5686 Davis Drive, Mentor on the Lake, OH 44060-2752 ------------------------------ From: Paul A Lee Subject: Re: No Dialtone Unless I Phone Myself Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 17:35:37 -0400 In TELECOM Digest V22 #491, ymailus@yahoo.com (Sam) wrote (in part): > Wierd problem: I can't get a dialtone at my house phone extension > unless I phone my house first from my cellphone. I thought the wiring > was broken inside the telephone wire and shaked each bit of it to see > if I could find the break. > Then suddenly someone phoned me and presto I got my dialtone again. Now > every time I don't get a dialtone on my extension I phone my house with > my cell phone as a work around. My educated hunch is that you have a problem with one of the phone sets or other devices connected to your house wiring. There may be leakage across the line, or leakage to ground, or some voltage imposed on the loop from a defective set with external power. The leakage could cause enough current flow to make the CO switch disable your line until it is reset by an incoming call or an open loop condition. It's also possible, though, that the leakage could be in the telco's part of the loop. If you have an honest-to-goodness network interface [NID] -- a protector with a modular jack and plug connection so that you can disconnect all of the inside wiring from the line -- try this: The next time you discover you have no dial tone, try unplugging the line at the NID and then plug in a phone there, and see if you get dial tone. If you do get dial tone, the problem is in your house. Try unplugging each of the phones and other devices connected to the phone line, one by one, until you find the no dial tone problem has gone away. The last device you unplugged has a problem. If you do NOT get dial tone back when you test at the NID, try the test again with a different phone, to make sure you weren't testing with the bad phone. If you STILL do not get dial tone back at the NID, try your "reset" technique (call your own number), and then plug in the test phone to see if you then have dial tone. Then unplug the test phone from the NID while it is still off hook. Wait a while -- however long it usually takes for your dial tone to go away. Plug the test phone in again. If you still have no dial tone, it's a telco problem. 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: Jim Hopkins Subject: Re: No Dialtone Unless I Phone Myself Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 03:12:16 GMT What I'd try, in addition to verifying the wiring as Pat suggested, is to go to the box (SNI, Subscriber network Interface) on the outside of the house, disconnect all the phones and inside wiring, and then check it a few times during the day. (Of course, let it go long enough that the problem's likely to appear -- in other words, if it usually happens twice a day, don't just give it ten minutes.) What's possibly happening is that there's some sort of high/medium resistance fault on the line, either in your house or on the metallic pair from the C.O., and the telco's automatic line insulaton test is identifying that fault and setting the line high & dry. When you call it. it resets the line in software and it works until the next LIT test. If it never happens when you have your phones and inside wire disconnected, get an ohmmeter and measure between the two conductors and between each conductor and ground. You shouldn't see any continuity at all -- a resistance of at least a megohm and probably just infinite on any practical meter. If it does happen with yoiur stuff unhooked complain loudly to the phone company, and make sure they understand that you've already unhooked all your stuff and it's still broken. Jim Sam wrote in message news:telecom22.491.14@telecom-digest.org... > Hi folks, > Wierd problem: I can't get a dialtone at my house phone extension > unless I phone my house first from my cellphone. I thought the wiring > was broken inside the telephone wire and shaked each bit of it to see > if I could find the break. > Then suddenly someone phoned me and presto I got my dialtone again. Now > every time I don't get a dialtone on my extension I phone my house with > my cell phone as a work around. > My adsl modem shares the filter with my second phone on my > extension. Both my main and my extension phone sockets have adsl > filters. > [TELECOM Digest Editor PAT notes: A modem on a DSL line should not be > filtered, for starters. The filter should *only* go on the phone side > of a split line like yours. If you have extension phones around as > well, put them *exclusively* on the filtered side of the line. Never > have a voice telephone 'share a filter' with the DSL side of the line, > which shouldn't be filtered to start with anyway. In other words, run > the DSL modem direct to the wall jack. At some point on the line, > insert a 'Y' connector to which you attach a filter on one leg of the > 'Y' connector which runs to your voice phone. Wherever you want to > have an extension, use another filter and as needed 'Y' connector. A > filter for each voice phone line! A 'Y' connector as needed for each > voice phone extension! See if that helps your problem any. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tonypo1@sdc.cox.net Subject: Re: Former FCC chairman: Deregulation is a Right-Wing Power Grab Organization: The Ace Tomatoe and Cement Company Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2003 20:41:21 GMT In article , monty@roscom.com says: > Reed Hundt says Monday's historic vote is "the culmination of the > attack by the right on the media." > By Eric Boehlert > May 31, 2003 | The Federal Communications Commission will meet in > Washington on Monday for a historic vote on the future of media > ownership in the United States. By all accounts, the > Republican-dominated commission will ease long-standing rules so that > more and more of the nations newspapers and broadcast stations can be > concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. > Underlying that agenda, Clinton-era FCC chairman Reed Hundt sees > something more primal unfolding: an extraordinary conservative power > grab that could shape the political landscape for generations. > For all the philosophical conflict over diversity in the media and the > efficiency of the free market, Hunt told Salon this week, the vote is > really about an alliance of interests between the political right and > the corporate media. "Conservatives," he said, "hope that the > major media will be their friends." > The FCC's two Democrats have strongly opposed the deregulation measure > that's been pushed by current FCC chairman Michael Powell, a close > ally of the Bush White House, and public response to the proposal has > been heavily opposed. But Hundt's radical critique is all the more > striking because he is an establishment lawyer thoroughly versed in > the diplomatic niceties of high government office. He attended prep > school with Al Gore and law school with Bill Clinton and served as FCC > chairman under Clinton from 1993 to 1997. He is now a senior advisor > at McKinsey and Co., the international consulting firm. > http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/05/31/fcc/ And of course at the same time they'll be intensifying efforts to crack down on rogue operators. Between the links of this administration to ultra-powerful and conservative Christian groups, and now the media ownership rules changing I believe we're rapdily heading down the road to a theocracy. Interestingly the extreme right hasn't gone after the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms. That's a dangerous oversight on their part. [Lisa Minter Note: Not really; it is more likely IMHO they would go after the First Amendment rights of speech. Too many of them keep and bear arms themselves, but most of them have no use at all for Usenet and other forms of free speech. Lisa M.] ------------------------------ From: Gail M. Hall Subject: Re: MCI/Worldcom/Telecom-USA's Latest 101-XXXX+ Dialaround Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2003 19:10:07 -0400 Reply-To: gmhall@apk.net On Sun, 1 Jun 2003 15:16:41 UTC, in comp.dcom.telecom message , dold@MCIXWorldc.usenet.us.com wrote: > Ed Gibbs wrote: >> When I called to inquire, they informed me that the call to the UK was >> billed at non-subscriber rates and the cost was $482.31, or $2.31 per >> minute. They claimed that the call did not get billed at the 101-0987 >> rate because my local service provider (AT&T) blocked required >> information, something which AT&T denies. > As an IXC, we suffered some difficulty that would explain this issue. > There were several different "codes" that would eventually land in the > same switch, where the authorization lookups were done by ANI. At > this point, we could no longer see the original code used to route the > call to our switch, so it was impossible to differentiate one "plan" > from another. We didn't allow casual dialing. All of our users were > pre-subscribed, so we never paid any attention to the field with the > "code" in it. Some upstream switch was stripping off the codes, so > when we instituted this goofy plan where customers dialed a 1010 code > for special international rates, we ran into trouble. Smacks of incompetence to me! If you are going to have a "ten-ten" number, you should certainly make sure that your switches are in place and you can sort out those calls. I have heard so many stories about MCI here and elsewhere, including their slow or no response for correcting errors, that I would not do business with them at all. I wonder how much money they are donating to the Bush & Company campaign coffers to get the big contracts they are getting. MCI should spend *less* money on annoying us with their many telemarketing calls and and high-priced TV ads and spend *more* money and effort on correcting problems with customers they already have. Gail in Ohio USA ------------------------------ From: Kenneth P. Stox Subject: Who is Lisa Minter? Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2003 21:19:34 -0500 Just curious, who is Lisa Minter? Did I miss something? -Ken Stox stox@imagescape.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note (PAT): Yeah, you missed something. Lisa Minter is a pleasant young lady who, since the first of June, has taken over editorial stuff at the Digest to help me out while I do other things. My deseased brain has progressively gotten worse, rather than better, and gradually, once I purchase my one way ticket to Hell will take over entirely. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Bill Horne Subject: Re: AOL Pulls Nullsoft File-Sharing Software Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 03:23:50 GMT Monty Solomon wrote in message news:telecom22.491.1@telecom-digest.org: > By Jim Hu > Staff Writer, CNET News.com > A day after developers at America Online's Nullsoft unit quietly > released file-sharing software, AOL pulled the link to the product > from the subsidiary's Web site. > The software, called Waste, lets groups set up private, secure > file-sharing networks. The product became available on Nullsoft's Web > site on Wednesday, just days shy of the four-year anniversary of being > acquired by AOL. Waste is a software application that combines > peer-to-peer file sharing with instant messaging, chat and file > searches. Users can set up their own network of friends and share > files between each other. [snip] This has been debated at great length on Slashdot (http://www.slashdot.org/), and there are several mirror sites listed there. Since Nulsoft released WASTE under the Gnu Public License, it's free and shareable. AOL is trying to claim it isn't, and the original download site (http://www.nullsoft.com/free/waste/) now contains a notice saying that "The posting of the Software on this website was not authorized by Nullsoft." and that "Any license that you may believe you acquired with the Software is void, revoked and terminated." (A curious choice of words). Long story short: this will probably be the bellweather test of the GPL. AOL has deep pockets, and they and their friends are scared witless of *any* peer-to-peer system, let alone one with built-in encryption that prevents the music industry from snooping around looking for .mp3's. So, AOL is probably going to try to get a court to say that the GPL can't be applied to WASTE, even though Nullsoft released it that way on Nullsoft's own website. Stay tuned. This will be fun to watch. Bill [Lisa Minter Note: So we are not going to be allowed to have any GPL type stuff any longer if AOL, the music industry or The Phone Company disagrees with it? I wonder if most of us commoners will even be allowed to use the net if AOL isn't able to make money on it? Lisa M] ------------------------------ From: Al Gillis Subject: Re: International Speaking Clock Interest Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 17:08:27 -0700 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Joseph wrote in message news:telecom22.489.12@telecom-digest.org: > On 31 May 2003 03:13:38 -0700, singaporewriter@yahoo.co.uk (Richard) > wrote: > [Lisa wrote:] >> The 'other' master clock here in the USA is the one in Boulder, CO >> at the National Institute for Standards and Time Measurement, also a >> federal agency. 303-499-7111 gets their talking clock. It is a little (Much deleted...) > WWVH in Kauai, Hawaii also can be reached by telephone. > +1 808 335 4363. Differing from WWV (+1 303 499 7111) the service > answers in a female voice. At the tone : with the same information > as from WWV. It gives details in the message between time of the > contact address and finally ends the message with 'Aloha.' So are there "talking clocks" in other countries? I'd expect that some European countries and possibly South Africa, Austrailia or Brazil might have such conveniences. I recall that decades ago I used to receive time checks from WWV in Boulder as well as from a Canadian station. I don't know where that station was based but it's announcements alwasy began "Dominion Observatory, Canada. At the tone Eastern time will be ...". As I recall that station broadcast on 7.00 Megacycles. At least that's what my Hallicrafters S-35 dial said. Nowadays, of course, it would be Megahertz, wouldn't it! Oh, and Lisa ... It's nice having you here. Thanks for helping us, and most of all, for helping our pal Pat. Thanks!! Al [Lisa Minter note: Sure, CJR (the Canadian station) is still around. And it is still at 7 megahertz (and wherever else). I do not know what they do on the telephone, probably something. Maybe Joey Lindstrom or another Canadian reader could tell us. And thanks for your good thoughts. Lisa M] ------------------------------ From: Paul A Lee Subject: Re: International Speaking Clock Interest Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 17:40:50 -0400 In TELECOM Digest V22 #491, our esteemed Editor (Lisa M) wrote (in part): > Is it the Hawaii operation (WWVB) which does that or (more logically) > the Boulder, CO operation (WWV) which handles the synching, or > both/either? According to the NIST web site (http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/), the Hawaii station is WWVH, the data stream station is WWVB, and the audio from Fort Collins is WWV. > Both the watch and the weather station only seem able to 'latch onto' > the time signal when they are outdoors (anytime) or indoors but > sitting on a window ledge during overnight hours when the signals must > be the strongest. You're right about the nighttime effect. The NIST site has maps of the approximate signal pattern and reach at various times. At 60 kHz, solar energy would easily overpower distant reception of the signal during daylight. I also have the signal dilemma in my basement office. I usually have to take the clock off the wall and set it overnight in a "sweet spot" I found, where it can get the WWVB signal in Pennsylvania. They're still neat gadgets, and very useful for keeping my various systems' times set accurately. 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 Tell your senator you support Senate Bill 877 to CAN-SPAM . Find him/her at http://www.senate.gov/. ------------------------------ 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: 620-330-6774 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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Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #492 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Jun 3 16:35:25 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h53KZOn17345; Tue, 3 Jun 2003 16:35:25 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 16:35:25 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200306032035.h53KZOn17345@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #493 TELECOM Digest Tue, 3 Jun 2003 16:35:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 493 Inside This Issue: Editor: Lisa Minter Behind the Media Ownership Rule and Its End, One Man (Monty Solomon) TV News That Looks Local, Even if It's Not (Monty Solomon) [Calif.] Assembly OKs Curbs on Driver Phone Use (Monty Solomon) Internet Battle Raises Questions About First Amendment (Monty Solomon) From PC to Personal Web server (Monty Solomon) Counteracting the Internet Rumor (Monty Solomon) TiVo Service Tracks Viewer Data (Monty Solomon) Re: AOL Pulls Nullsoft File-Sharing Software (***) Re: AOL Pulls Nullsoft File-Sharing Software (John Stahl) Re: AOL Pulls Nullsoft File-Sharing Software (Barry Margolin) Time'n'Tempo (Joey Lindstrom) Re: Comcast Sues Calif. City (San Jose) in Franchise Dispute (L Johnson) Re: DTMF Questions? (Marcus Jervis) Re: International Speaking Clock Interest (Joseph) Re: Make Way For the Contender to Google's Crown (Wayne Mery) First, We Have to Kill all the Lawyers (Marcus Jervis) 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, 2 Jun 2003 22:59:26 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Behind the Media Ownership Rule and Its End, One Man By STEPHEN LABATON WASHINGTON, June 1 - Nearly 30 years ago, a young Republican lawyer named Richard E. Wiley led the Federal Communications Commission as it approved a landmark regulation that restricted a company from owning both a newspaper and a broadcast station in the same city. On Monday the F.C.C. is expected to repeal that rule in more than 100 cities as part of the most significant overhaul of media regulations in a generation. The change would be the culmination of a long campaign by the nation's biggest media conglomerates, which are intent on entering new local markets and expanding in those where they already have a presence. And it would come despite objections from an array of politically liberal and conservative critics who fear broad consolidation in the news and entertainment businesses. But those objections were no match for big media, whose top lawyer and chief Washington strategist is none other than Mr. Wiley, now 68 years old, and by all accounts the most influential media and telecommunications lawyer in the country. To critics who would accuse him of selling out the very public-interest safeguards he helped put in place as F.C.C. chairman during the Ford administration, Mr. Wiley says simply that his policy views are now different because the industry is different. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/02/business/media/02FIRM.html [Lisa Minter note: To read New York Times articles readers here are invited to use the group username: telecomdigest and the group password: telecomdigest to avoid having to give personal identification which could lead to spam, etc. Lisa M.] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 23:02:29 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: TV News That Looks Local, Even if It's Not By JIM RUTENBERG with MICHELINE MAYNARD When viewers in Flint, Mich., tuned in to the Fox 66 "News at 10" last Thursday night, the station's resident firebrand, Mark Hyman, was at the ready to serve up some passionate punditry. "Black, Asian and Hispanic seniors are graduating from colleges this spring in ethnically themed ceremonies that are out of bounds for whites," Mr. Hyman, the station's commentator, inveighed. Before passing the camera's attention back to his colleagues on the Flint news team, he added, "Segregated ceremonies have no place in America's college campuses." If Mr. Hyman's tan looked out of place in central Michigan, or if his commentary seemed ill suited to a city with a large population of minority groups, there was good reason. Mr. Hyman was actually in a studio just outside Baltimore, not sharing a set with the Flint news team. As he does most nights, Mr. Hyman also addressed audiences of local news programs in cities across the country, including Pittsburgh, Oklahoma City and Rochester, from right where he sat in Hunt Valley, Md. Mr. Hyman is part of a national team of anchors, commentators and weathercasters that, when plans are complete, will report for all 62 television stations owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group. Sinclair calls it "Central Casting." To the company, it is an efficient way to cut the costs of local journalism, bringing news to small stations that otherwise would go without. But to opponents of a proposal before the Federal Communications Commission to loosen media ownership rules, the set in Maryland is a frightening sign of things to come. Today the commission is expected to enact new rules that will allow media companies to increase the percentage of the national television audience they can reach from 35 to possibly 45. It is also expected to make it easier for companies to own two or even three stations in a single market -- or a newspaper and television station in a single market. For all of the derision local news sometimes takes for segments about surfing dogs or waterskiing squirrels, it has become a focal point in the complicated debate over media consolidation. Several civic groups have warned that the more stations a company like Sinclair can own, the more likely that company will make all those stations similar -- often based on its own out-of-town taste or political disposition. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/02/business/media/02TUBE.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 23:13:21 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: [Calif.] Assembly OKs Curbs on Driver Phone Use By Nancy Vogel, Times Staff Writer SACRAMENTO - Drivers beware: Californians would face a $20 to $50 fine every time they zipped down the road while holding cell phones to their ears under a bill that passed the Assembly on Thursday. If it clears the Senate and is signed by Gov. Gray Davis, the bill will make California the second state after New York to prohibit drivers from using hand-held cell phones. http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-me-cellfones30may30001418,1,2862897.story ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 21:57:54 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Internet Battle Raises Questions About the First Amendment By ADAM LIPTAK The beauty queen and the cad both have Web sites. Katy Johnson, who was Miss Vermont in 1999 and again in 2001, uses her site to promote what she calls her "platform of character education." "She is founder of Say Nay Today and the Sobriety Society," the site says, "and her article `ABC's of Abstinence' was featured in Teen magazine." Tucker Max's site promotes something like the opposite of character education. It contains a form through which women can apply for a date with him, pictures of his former girlfriends and reports on what Mr. Max calls his "belligerence and debauchery." Until a Florida judge issued an unusual order last month, Mr. Max's site also contained a long account of his relationship with Ms. Johnson, whom he portrayed, according to court papers, as vapid, promiscuous and an unlikely candidate for membership in the Sobriety Society. The order, entered by Judge Diana Lewis of Circuit Court in West Palm Beach, forbids Mr. Max to write about Ms. Johnson. It has alarmed experts in First Amendment law, who say that such orders prohibiting future publication, prior restraints, are essentially unknown in American law. Moreover, they say, claims like Ms. Johnson's, for invasion of privacy, have almost never been considered enough to justify prior restraints. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/02/national/02INTE.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 22:11:49 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: From PC to Personal Web Server By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 6/2/2003 How broad is your broadband service? Not as broad as it ought to be. The millions who've signed up for high-speed home Internet services don't seem to mind. But an impressive new product may soon have them calling on Internet providers to open the digital spigot even wider. Compared to dial-up modem service, today's broadband services dole out data with lavish abandon. The cable TV company Comcast serves up Internet data at 1.5 million bits per second; so does the DSL service offered by the telephone company Verizon. That's plenty for Web surfing and even downloads of fairly large files. But the Internet is not a one-way street. What if you'd like to send some data of your own? Suddenly your broadband connection seems a good deal narrower. Comcast offers a top upload speed of just 256,000 bits per second; with Verizon DSL, it's just 128,000 bits per second. So what? If all you're sending over the network is the occasional e-mail, this is plenty. Granted, it's tough to share big MP3 music files with your friends, but you're not supposed to do that anyway, right? That's the logic driving the design of today's home broadband services. It's broadcast logic, based on the worldview of the TV and radio industries. People want the Internet, the theory goes, because they want to soak up great quantities of news and information, fed to them by entertainment giants and their corporate sponsors. The anonymous millions have little interest in broadcasting right back -- pumping their own streams of data onto the Net. Says who? The popularity of personal Web pages and blogs has proven that ordinary people are eager to put their lives and interests onto the Internet. Slow uploading limits them to today's simple Web-based publishing methods. But what would they do with more bandwidth, and easier tools for personal publishing? We may soon find out, thanks to a cool piece of software called Vibe that turns any broadband-connected PC into a personal server, capable of sharing your favorite files with anybody, anywhere. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/153/business/From_PC_to_personal_Web_server+.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 22:24:13 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Counteracting the Internet Rumor By SHERRI DAY After receiving an e-mail message one evening in April, Clara Miller thought her love affair with Starbucks was over. According to the e-mail message, titled "Starbucks vs. Israel," the Starbucks Corporation was closing all its stores in Israel in May. The note did not include information about why the company had decided to pull out of Israel, but its tone suggested a nefarious intent. Some people assumed that Starbucks was joining an Arab boycott of American businesses in Israel, while others thought the company had decided to abandon its business in the country for fear of terrorist attacks. The e-mail message also called for action, asking readers to stop patronizing Starbucks, to e-mail or phone the company to complain and to pass the note on to "everyone you can." For Mrs. Miller, 39, a private investment manager who lives in Greenwich, Conn., the e-mail message meant the immediate end of almost daily runs to Starbucks for a tall decaf caramel macchiato or a Frappuccino. "I was determined that I was not going back to Starbucks," said Mrs. Miller, who said she believed the e-mail message because it came from a person she considered to be a reputable source. That day she forwarded the message to about 30 of her cyberbuddies. But Mrs. Miller's boycott lasted only one day because the implication of the e-mail message was not true. Starbucks had said it was pulling out of Israel because it was dissolving its ties with a partner in the country and because of an economic downturn in the area. Starbucks, a company that has fast become a battle-scarred veteran of Internet rumor wars, was facing an increasingly common problem: the Internet rumor that would not go away. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/02/technology/02NECO.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 22:40:46 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: TiVo Service Tracks Viewer Data By Robert Lemos Staff Writer, CNET News.com TiVo announced on Monday that it will sell limited information about the viewing habits of its subscribers to advertisers and broadcasters. The company's new service will let broadcasters and advertisers subscribe to a quarterly audience-measurement report that will track viewing habits during prime-time shows. TiVo, which provides digital video recorder (DVR) services and devices, eventually plans to use its technology to provide data on consumer patterns for any show or commercial. http://news.com.com/2100-1041-1012372.html ------------------------------ From: apexx@softhome.net (***) Subject: Re: AOL Pulls Nullsoft File-Sharing Software Date: 2 Jun 2003 23:40:27 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Monty Solomon wrote in message news:: > By Jim Hu > Staff Writer, CNET News.com > A day after developers at America Online's Nullsoft unit quietly > released file-sharing software, AOL pulled the link to the product > from the subsidiary's Web site. > The software, called Waste, lets groups set up private, secure > file-sharing networks. The product became available on Nullsoft's Web > site on Wednesday, just days shy of the four-year anniversary of being > acquired by AOL. Waste is a software application that combines > peer-to-peer file sharing with instant messaging, chat and file > searches. Users can set up their own network of friends and share > files between each other. > The features of Waste are similar to those of file-swapping services > such as Kazaa and the defunct Napster, but the difference is that only > small networks of people (up to 50, according to the Web site) can use > it. The software also offers encryption and authentication to prevent > non-invitees from accessing the private networks. > The quiet launch of Waste was the work of Nullsoft's principal > developer, Justin Frankel, a soft-spoken 20-something known for his > tech savvy and his streak of rebelliousness. > Waste had been used internally to share files between AOL's San > Francisco office, where Nullsoft is based, and its Dulles, Va., > headquarters, according to Ian Rogers, a former founding member of > Nullsoft. > http://news.com.com/2100-1032-1011585.html The author of WASTE is the same one who released Gnutella. Here is a short and incomplete list for mirrors carrying W.A.S.T.E. But before you unpak the W.A.S.T.E files you have downloaded, please do a checksum first. MD5 Checksum e3609e352afba37683c47ce60f9086bb waste-setup.exe 554cfa7350333aa4e6eb3b6e24201d80 waste-source.zip 5645d0378b5bca6d2cf337686dca9a4d waste-source.tar.gz 115d1a2554db4490bdf97b9862df5a24 waste.zip ftp://ftp.wiresec.net/waste http://acm.smsu.edu/waste-source.tar.gz http://antisocial.sublinear.net/ http://blockwars.com/waste/ http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/blogs/gems/home/waste.zip http://edwards.servehttp.com:969/waste/ http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail.php3?fid=1054104235 http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?threadid=137077 http://gonze.com/waste.tar.gz http://grazzy.mjoelkbar.net/waste/ http://hivesecurity.com/waste.html http://johnli.vort-x.net/waste/ http://johnli.vort-x.net/waste/mirrors.txt http://keyurp.com/files/waste-source.tar.gz http://mitsugi.host.sk/waste/ http://penguinal.net/crankcase/ http://scriptingnews.userland.com/2003/05/30#When:2:48:46PM http://slackerbitch.free.fr/waste/ http://toke.mirrorz.com/waste/ http://users.adelphia.net/~patrickpaulsmith/waste-setup.exe http://waste.2mbit.com http://webspace.utexas.edu/aboulgak/waste/waste.html http://www.blibbleblobble.co.uk/Misc/waste.zip http://www.cleanstick.org/jon/junk/waste-source.tar.gz http://www.dhorrocks2003.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ http://www.geocities.com/the_great_hacker/waste.html http://www.j-it.de/waste/ http://www.lancemurdoch.org/p2p http://www.lighter.net/waste/ http://www.merzwaren.com/waste/ http://www.northarc.com/waste_web http://www.samsimpson.com/waste-source.tar.gz http://www.sifnt.net/waste.zip http://www.theafers.com/random/waste-setup.exe http://www.virtuelvis.com/temp/waste-source.tar.gz http://zen2.eum.ro/~gelu/waste/ https://cat2.ath.cx/cat2/waste.html eDonkee ed2k:7Cfile7Cnullsoftwaste-sourcezip7C2611757Cd9eff5442b2f4ab391487c21f99986797C ed2k:7Cfile7Cnullsoftwaste-sourcetargz7C2147307Cf5d0dbda5e7eb7a9774c7650fa3063837C ed2k:7Cfile7Cnullsoftwaste-setupexe7C1735897C5f2e6a0160b41410d413a965560071e27C Freenet freenet:CHK@by9ePv1hz40M2nTE8ellaf1O3I8SAwI,rfITJS Bctnter8Tlj6QSIg ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 06:31:49 -0400 From: John Stahl Subject: Re: AOL Pulls Nullsoft File-Sharing Software > Monty Solomon wrote in message > news:telecom22.491.1@telecom-digest.org: > The software, called Waste, lets groups set up private, secure > file-sharing networks. The product became available on Nullsoft's Web > site on Wednesday, just days shy of the four-year anniversary of being > acquired by AOL. Waste is a software application that combines > peer-to-peer file sharing with instant messaging, chat and file > searches. Users can set up their own network of friends and share > files between each other. Just out of curiosity, did anyone manage to download a copy of the WASTE program before it was pulled to evaluate it? Sounds like a great program to set up mini-networks between peers. It would seem to me (though I'm not a lawyer) that once released by Nullsoft, any copies downloaded would fall under the original "free" licence and any copies subsequently made of the original "free" copy would also be licence "free". That could go on for ever, multiplying to as many copies as can be made. . AOL must figure that it has some commercial value if they pulled it because from what has recently been published about them, they seem to really need the revenue! John Stahl Telecom/Data Consultant Aljon Enterprises ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: AOL Pulls Nullsoft File-Sharing Software Organization: Genuity Managed Services, Woburn, MA Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 14:14:12 GMT In article , Bill Horne wrote: > Long story short: this will probably be the bellweather test of the > GPL. AOL has deep pockets, and they and their friends are scared > witless of *any* peer-to-peer system, let alone one with built-in > encryption that prevents the music industry from snooping around > looking for .mp3's. So, AOL is probably going to try to get a court to > say that the GPL can't be applied to WASTE, even though Nullsoft > released it that way on Nullsoft's own website. > Stay tuned. This will be fun to watch. > Bill > [Lisa Minter Note: So we are not going to be allowed to have any > GPL type stuff any longer if AOL, the music industry or The Phone > Company disagrees with it? This hardly seems to suggest that. They're not saying that the GPL is generally invalid, just that since they own NullSoft they have a say in how their own software is licensed, and they didn't authorize it to be distributed under the GPL. Their employees are bound by company policy, they can't just go off on their own licensing the company's software, can they? Barry Margolin, barry.margolin@level3.com Level(3), Woburn, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group. ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 08:17:33 -0600 Subject: Time'n'Tempo Reply-To: joey@telussucks.info On Tue, 3 Jun 2003 00:47:34 EDT, editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: > [Lisa Minter note: Sure, CJR (the Canadian station) is still around. > And it is still at 7 megahertz (and wherever else). I do not know > what they do on the telephone, probably something. Maybe Joey Lindstrom > or another Canadian reader could tell us. And thanks for your good > thoughts. Lisa M] Here in Calgary, AGT (Alberta Government Telephones, predecessor of Telus) operated "Time & Temperature" on 403-262-0002 for many, many years. Then one day they decided to put in a new system, one that allowed them to run an ad prior to the time and temperature announcement (but curiously only ever ran ads for AGT/Telus) -- and for some reason decided that this required a new phone number, 403-233-2222. That went on for several years, and then one day they changed the phone number again - don't know why, since (to the listener anyways) it appeared to be exactly the same system, with one slight change - after the time and temperature announcement, there was also a one-day weather forecast (the whole thing was completely automated). The new phone number was 403-263-3333. And then a few years ago Telus decided to abandon the whole thing. No press release, no nothing -- you phoned it up and you got a recording saying it had been discontinued. Today, calling the latter number gives you an out of service recording, while the other two have (I believe) been reassigned to other subscribers (so please don't call them). To the best of my knowledge, none of the CLEC's operating in Calgary (Sprint Canada, AT&T Canada, Bell West) are operating a similar service. A quick check of the white pages yields nothing under "TIME". One odd note: when they first set up 403-233-2222 with the completely automated readout of time AND TEMPERATURE (this was new -- the old 403-262-0002 did not give temperature readings, just the clock), they preprogrammed it with all the various possibilities. For whatever reason, separate recordings were used for temperature values either below or above zero (Celsius). For example, if it was +1C outside, the playback would be something like this: "temperature" "one" (each of those two words was a separate recording, played one after the other) But if it was -1C, it would do this: "temperature" "minus one" ...rather than what might have been more logical: "temperature" "minus" "one" (three recordings, with the "one" recording being exactly the same as in the first example, and a new "minus" recording which could have been played in front of the temperature value in all situations where the temperature was below zero.) The reason I bring this up is that while the system worked great in the summertime, and would yield results like "temperature" "thirty-five", whoever programmed it didn't account for Calgary's sometimes-brutal winters. For the first few years at least (they eventually fixed it), the system would not produce a reading lower than -29C. Even if it was -35C outside, you'd get: "the time is" "four" "thirty-seven" (pause) "temperature" "minus twenty nine" Had they doubled-up the use of the above-zero recordings (and inserted a "minus" recording), this wouldn't have been a problem. :-) -- Joey Lindstrom ------------------------------ From: Lee Johnson Subject: Re: Comcast Sues Calif. City (San Jose) in Franchise Dispute Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 01:35:09 -0400 John Higdon wrote: > In article , Linc Madison > wrote: >> In article , Monty Solomon >> wrote: >>> SAN FRANCISCO, May 30 (Reuters) - Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ:CMCSA) said >>> on Friday it has sued San Jose, California, alleging [blahblahblah] >> The article mentions that Comcast inherited the system from AT&T. The >> other interesting factoid is that San Jose was the first urban cable >> TV franchise in the United States. They were rewarded for their >> pioneering efforts with high prices and crappy service. When I lived >> in San Jose, from 1985 to 1987, my neighborhood was still waiting to >> be wired for cable, almost 20 years after the franchise was awarded. > And that same system lives today! That same archaic "A/B" cable kludge > is STILL in operation in San Jose. In today's San Jose Mercury News, a > front page story tells about Comcast adding HDTV to cable systems Bay > Area wide. No mention is made about San Jose, however, which won't see > any such thing. Probably because the Bay Area didn't try to shake down the cable operator. In honest municipalities, Comcast provides fine service. But clearly there is little incentive to invest in corruption land. > As a San Jose resident, I wrote off having cable two years ago when it > became evident that there would never be modern cable services in this > city for the foreseeable future. I also had the foresight to insist > that they remove all traces of the drop and any other wiring. > Why was this good? AT&T Broadband apparently had a nationwide practice > of leaving drops connected at the pole so that they could send goons > around and accuse recent disconnects of stealing cable service and > intimidating them into paying for reconnection. True to form, they did > this to me. > However, the look on the goons' faces when I took them in the backyard > and pointed out that there was no wiring between my house and the pole > was priceless. > I put our cable company about one notch under MCI on the scum scale. Just as long as you put them 100 notches above your local cable board, the source of your troubles. John Higdon wrote: > In article , Lee Johnson > wrote: >> We've had Comcast for years and I don't have any major complaints with >> their product. Their service has always been prompt and competent. >> Three cheers to them for exposing an attempted shake-down maneuver by >> the local cable board gang looking for illegal kickback. That's not a >> mere "issue in a franchise agreement," that's a solicitation for a >> bribe. No wonder why Silicon Valley doesn't have good service with a >> den of thieves serving on the local commission. Imagine how much of >> that stuff goes on across the country, and it all gets passed on to >> the TV viewer. > Or put another way, our city fathers are not going to let a > Philadelphia company walk in and pick the pockets of local San Jose > residents without contributing something back to the community. And what is wrong with Philadelphia, pray tell? > If Comcast can trapse through our backyards, tear up our streets, and > then shake the coins out of our pockets selling us thirty-year-old > technology, No more or less than any other utility. > then I see no harm in having them fullfil standard and > typical franchise conditions. Right, standard and typical, not outright bribe solicitation which is what the issue is. > Quite honestly, I'm delighted that my city government is not bending > over for an East Coast mega-corporation. Ahh, so your prejudice is showing. The problem for you is that the company is not based on the west coast. Presumably you wouldn't have any problems with them if it was. > As far as I am concerned, if east coasters want to pump cash out of > California, So doing business is now called "pumping cash". By your standard, any California company that does business with the dreaded east coast is "pumping cash" from them. Perhaps we should just economically isolate California from the rest of the country for your sake to avoid any and all 'pumping', no? > they can give something in return. So you don't mind bribes and illegal shake downs. I'm shocked. ------------------------------ From: Marcus Jervis Subject: Re: DTMF Questions? Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 05:55:53 +0000 kamlet@panix.com (Arthur Kamlet) wrote: >> Would that be Bob Cummings? The bust happened while he was in Seattle >> working at a dinner theatre in the 1970s. He was caught using it in >> his hotel room. > Yes. > The AMARCS AT&T Billing System was modified to add these pattern > detection features, and PNB got a court order to search the suite > where he was staying, and brought in the cops. > I wasn't there, but I got a second hand account of watching the AMARCS > printer spit out well-known blue box calling patterns and tracking > down the caller. I saw in the obituaries in the Seattle paper a few weeks ago that the security manager from Pacific NW Bell who worked on that case died recently. Blue Boxes really are from another era, when you consider how cheap phone calls are these days. Kenneth Becker wrote: > Paul A Lee wrote: >> In TELECOM Digest V22 #488, Gordon S. Hlavenka >> wrote (in part): >--- Big Snip >> I even read one (uncorroborated) account of a woman who could >> essentially "yodel" or "shriek" a few entire telephone numbers (local >> calls, one would suppose). I recall back years ago someone's laugh would simulate 2600 Hz, forcing a disconnect. A friend of mine used to joke that he was laughed off the line. > A couple of things. It's not just the talk-off that gets to the > designer. There are more specifications on the generation and reception > of these tones than you can take a stick to -- and I know, because I had > to implement one once! At one time there was an officially approved tape > that one would have to run through one's decoder that would digits one > was >>supposed<< to hear as well as those one wasn't. The one we used in the 70s was from Mitel. Run the tape and hook a counter to the DTMF decoder to see how many valid digits it detected. If it only got a few when running the whole tape, that was a good decoder. Al Gillis wrote: >> I wouldn't bother. Although the concept is simple, you would not >> believe the amount of engineering that goes into a good DTMF decoder. >> I worked for a place once that designed them, and there are big >> tradeoffs between sensitivity, talk-off rejection (the ability to >> reject voice/music sounds that happen to contain brief instances of >> two valid tones), bandwidth, etc. > Time changes doesn't it? A couple of decades ago I designed and built > some test equipment using a chip from Teltone. It was quite a complex > affair, with numerous resistors, capacitors and other "jelly bean" > components surrounding this giant DTMF decoder chip. Given the times > and the "state of the art" as regards semiconductor development it was > quite a design! Nowadays, however, the same equipment would have a > modicum of signal conditioning and one ASIC to do the same job. And, > you'd probably get "change back from your dollar" as well! I worked in Teltone's lab! Those were great receiver chips. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: International Speaking Clock Interest Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 09:56:48 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: joeofseattle@yahoo.com On Mon, 2 Jun 2003 17:08:27 -0700, Al Gillis wrote: > So are there "talking clocks" in other countries? I'd expect that > some European countries and possibly South Africa, Australia or > Brazil might have such conveniences. Yes, there are speaking clocks in other countries. There's one in the UK and I know that there's one in Israel (in Hebrew of course.) Often the speaking clock is accessed by a "short code" in foreign countries. Here in the US speaking clocks are generally regular telephone numbers. I know the time in Portland, Maine is +1 207 775 4321. For a time it was sponsored, but for now it just gives the time (Eastern) and local temperature (in Fahrenheit.) It does not give seconds but just the time. I believe the announcement will repeat two times then disconnect. Replies are seldom read. Please reply in the group ------------------------------ From: wsm0@lehigh.edu (Wayne Mery) Subject: Re: Make Way For the Contender to Google's Crown Date: 3 Jun 2003 09:39:15 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Monty Solomon wrote in message news:: > By Kieren McCarthy > You're not going to believe this, but a new search engine has just > appeared and, well, it may be better than Google. > Obviously, that sounds slightly ridiculous but after having spent a > day devising weird and wonderful searches and comparisons, not only > has it stood up to the test but it's so good that you realise how much > of an effect Google has had on your thinking when it comes to > searching the Net. > You can go try it now -- it's at Turbo10.com -- but for God's sake, > before you start emailing and ranting and raving, read the rest of > this story as it will probably cover what you're going to say. > http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/30963.html SPAM? If it's so great, why's it been down for several days? ------------------------------ From: Marcus Jervis Subject: First Thing We Do Is Kill All the Lawyers Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 05:16:42 +0000 Hey, here is something good off the net from years ago. Ever seen this? I like to drag this out whenever anyone claims that "Shakespeare said, first lets kill all the lawyers". "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." -- William Shakespeare _King Henry VI_, part II act IV, scene ii, line 86 The line is from _The Second Part of Henry VI_, act IV, scene ii, line 86; spoken by Dick the butcher, a follower of Jack Cade of Ashford, a common bully who tries to start a rebellion on which the Yorks can later capitalize to seize the throne from Henry (it's a very complicated story). The line is spoken during a scene in which Cade and his followers put on airs about their common family heritage, fantasize about how they would rule when Cade is king, and bitterly denounce the educated and literate. Killing the lawyers is part of the conspiracy to undermine the rule of law and protections of the people, but it also expresses the conspirators' contempt for the educated. In the same scene, the group grabs Emmanuel the Clerk, who is asked by Cade "dost thou use to write thy name? or hast thou a mark to thyself, like an honest plain-dealing man?" and Emmanuel replies: "Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I can write my name." At this All reply: "He hath confessed: away with him! he's a villain and a traitor" and the Clerk is dragged offstage. ------------------------------ 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #493 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Jun 4 00:49:07 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h544n7V19800; Wed, 4 Jun 2003 00:49:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 00:49:07 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200306040449.h544n7V19800@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #494 TELECOM Digest Wed, 4 Jun 2003 00:49:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 494 Inside This Issue: Editor: Lisa Minter AOL Undone (Monty Solomon) Web Users Desert AOL (Monty Solomon) The Glossies: Why AOL TW Must Die (Monty Solomon) Media Giants Hint That They Might Be Expanding (Monty Solomon) Atheros Ships First Final-Spec 802.11g Chip (Monty Solomon) Apple: Your Smartphone's Best Friend (Monty Solomon) .Mac: "Returned Mail" Message After Sending Mail to Mac.com (M Solomon) Re: Comcast Sues Calif. City (San Jose) in Franchise Dispute (P Wallich) Re: International Speaking Clock Interest (Randolph J. Herber) Re: AOL Pulls Nullsoft File-Sharing Software (William Warren) Re: International Speaking Clock Interest (PaulCoxwell@aol.com) Vonage Working Good on Cable but not on DSL (David Jensen) 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, 3 Jun 2003 21:57:05 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AOL Undone Penelope Patsuris, 06.03.03, 7:00 AM ET NEW YORK - Remember Disney's Go Network and NBCi? When these ill-fated Internet ventures were still in the mega-hype phase, the buzz was that they'd be spun off so shareholders of the parent media firms could cash in on the online frenzy. Of course it never happened. Now AOL Time Warner (nyse: AOL - news - people ) finds itself in the ironic position of possibly having to unload its Web division in order to unlock the full value of the traditional-media assets that until recently were deemed a drag on earnings -- publishing, networks, movies and music. After defiantly defending the AOL-Time Warner merger as recently as January, ex-AOL Chairman Stephen Case now supposedly supports the idea of spinning the unit off. Why? Maybe it's redemption. But whatever Case's current desires, a spinoff or outright sale within the next 18 months makes sense. The reason: The Time Warner side of the house deserves a break. Because of the AOL albatross, including a crushing $26 billion in debt, the Time Warner properties haven't been getting much credit for their snappy performances over the past two years. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) for these businesses -- which make up 84% of the company's overall revenue--rose by 13% from 2001 to 2002. But AOL shares have lost 60% of their value since then. Guilt by association? http://www.forbes.com/home/2003/06/03/cx_pp_0603aol.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 21:59:10 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Web Users Desert AOL Owen Gibson Troubled US media giant AOL Time Warner today admitted its internet subscribers were quitting the service at a faster rate than expected. The declining user base of America Online has been identified by analysts as one of the main drags on the company's share price, which has plummeted 57% since the company's record-breaking 67bn merger with Time Warner in January 2001. Speaking to an audience of analysts at the Deutsche Bank media conference in New York, the company's chief financial officer, Wayne Pace, admitted customers were continuing to abandon AOL for rival internet service providers but insisted profits would be maintained through continued cost cutting. http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,7496,968942,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 23:16:20 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Glossies: Why AOL TW Must Die Simon Dumenco Folio:, Jun 2 2003 Yeah yeah yeah: Everybody and his brother already knows that the union of AOL and Time Warner was the worst merger in the history of the known universe, and that the marriage was doomed pretty much from the moment the delusional couple stumbled into the, uh, corporate honeymoon suite. (Insert joke here about the shareholders being the only ones who got screwed.) All the reasons are, in retrospect, excruciatingly obvious, beginning with the fact that the bride (AOL) pretended that she was way wealthier and more established (not to mention prettier) than she really was. The groom (Time Warner) is right to be pissed off, the reasoning goes, because his true love-who once seemed to glow with youthful charisma and boundless promise-turned out to be a two-faced floozy who'd led on previous suitors (advertisers, partners, auditors) with overpromises and more than a bit of not-so-artful dissembling. But beyond that unfortunate reality, there's another reason that the marriage is doomed. It's not polite to discuss it, but if you were able to have this couple over to your house for a dinner party, you and all your guests would later be unable to stop yourselves from speaking the truth: The bride is STUPID! Not just sorta dumb. I'm talking intellectually impaired. Feebleminded. Ox-headed. Oh, she was such a beautiful bride-until she opened her mouth! http://foliomag.com/ar/marketing_why_aol_tw/index.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 23:19:55 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Media Giants Hint That They Might Be Expanding Firms Eye Newspapers, TV Stations in New Areas for Them By Alec Klein and David A. Vise Washington Post Staff Writers The mighty of the media industry will grow mightier while smaller competitors fall by the wayside. That appeared to be the consensus after yesterday's ruling by the Federal Communications Commission to relax rules on the concentration of media ownership. Major media companies, such as Tribune Co., are signaling a growing appetite for television stations and newspapers in markets where they already have a presence. Meanwhile, some small to mid-size firms are showing a readiness to put up a for-sale sign, if only because competition could get tougher in an increasingly consolidating industry with fewer, more powerful players. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5450-2003Jun2.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 23:38:47 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Atheros Ships First Final-Spec 802.11g Chip By Tony Smith WLAN chip maker Atheros today became the first to market with 802.11g product based on the final draft -- version 8.2 -- of the standard when it announced it has begun shipping its third-generation, AR5002 family of client and base-station Wi-Fi silicon. The AR5002 line provides dual-band 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless networking based on 802.11b, g and a, through two-chip solutions (a MAC/baseband part plus a radio chip). The AR500X provides full-range dual-band networking, while the AR5002G supports the 2.4GHz band standards and the AR5002A targets the corporate 5GHz market with Wireless Multimedia Enhancements (WME) quality-of-service provision, a sub-set of the yet-to-be-ratified 802.11e spec. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/69/30998.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 23:41:45 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Apple: Your Smartphone's Best Friend By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco It may only be a minor point upgrade, but Apple today cemented its position as the smartphone's best friend. While the mission is not complete, Apple is making good progress toward the threefold plan of getting a top notch Bluetooth stack, working with the phone vendors and most important of all, ensuring it all works through a good human interface. iSync 1.1, released today, supports a host of new devices, including the Nokia 3650 and 7650, Series 60 phones, and many more from Motorola and Sony Ericsson. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/68/31019.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 23:54:07 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: .Mac: "Returned Mail" Message After Sending Mail to a Mac.com http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86362 .Mac: "Returned Mail" Message After Sending Mail to a Mac.com Address Your may see an email message about "returned mail" when you try to send an email to a Mac.com email address. Email sent to a .Mac (pronounced "dot Mac") account is returned with one of the following messages: * "454 Access temporarily denied. Cannot resolve PTR record for XX.XX.XX.XX" * "557 Access denied. Cannot resolve PTR record for XX.XX.XX.XX" To protect .Mac members from unsolicited bulk email (UBE or "spam"), nthe address used to send email to a Mac.com recipient is verified before delivery is allowed. If the Domain Name System (DNS) server(s) for the email address provider are not available or are incorrect, the email is refused with the above-mentioned messages. ------------------------------ From: Paul Wallich Subject: Re: Comcast Sues Calif. City (San Jose) in Franchise Dispute Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 16:46:50 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In article , John Higdon wrote: > I would rather see the city dictating to the out-of-town cable company > rather than the other way around. The city has made some > demands. Rather than discuss those demands, Comcast has sued the > city. As far as I am concerned, Comcast can pick up its toys and go > home. If it wants to tap the very lucrative San Jose market, it can do > a little bending over of its own. Besides, as you point out, the money > comes from the subscribers, anyway. There's another angle to the question of whom the money comes from: let's say, just for argument's sake, that the city actually needs the voice and data connections that they're asking Comcast to provide. If Comcast doesn't provide them, San Jose is going to have to contract with someone else to provide that network. Depending on the current state of the infrastructure, that's likely to require significant investments in both central office and outside-plant hardware, all ultimately at taxpayer expense. Just watch the screaming a few years down the line when someone points out that the same job could have been done for a fraction of the price as part of a metropolitaton CATV upgrade. paul ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 18:37:35 +0000 (GMT) From: herber@dcdrjh.fnal.gov (Randolph J. Herber) Subject: Re: International Speaking Clock Interest Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory In article , [SNIP] > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: .... [SNIP] > The 'other' master clock here in the USA is the one in Boulder, CO > at the National Institute for Standards and Time Measurement, also a > federal agency. 303-499-7111 gets their talking clock. It is a little > bit different. It simply recites "at the tone, two hours, fifty-five > minutes Coordinated Univeral Time. (Beep!) No seconds count given. > About 40 remaining seconds in the minute are a continuous tone and a > tick signal. (You would have to ask them the meaning of those audible > tones, I know they have some purpose. Since that audio is 'tapped' from > the audio feed for their radio station WWV, it also is different in > that there are places on the west coast (such as California) where you > not only can hear WWV at 5 10 and 15 megs on your shortwave radio, > you can also hear the station NIST operates in Hawaii (WWVJ) quite > well also. To avoid having the audio from WWV 'compete with' the > audio from WWVJ in Hawaii, at about 40 seconds after the minute, the > Colorado people shut off their continuous tone while Hawaii announces > 'at the tone the time will be', the immediatly afterward, Colorado > says 'at the tone the time will be' then exactly on the minute, they > both beep. And there are other instances during the hour (of two or > three minutes each) when Hawaii wants to make other announcements or > else Colorado does, so they each shut off their tone signal at those > times while the other one speaks. If Colorado is doing the talking > when you call in on 499-7111 you will hear that instead of the tone > signal. If Hawaii is doing the talking, then you (on the phone end > of the line) just get silence and ticking until it is at the minute > exactly and time to cut in with the 'at the tone' message. > Patrick has here a LaCrosse Technology Weather Station and a > wristwatch from the same company (LaCrosse) which autosets the time > shown from the NIST thing in Boulder. Lisa M] The Hawaiian station is WWVH. Here is a description of the WWV and WWVH signals: http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/stations/iform.html > [Lisa Minter note: Sure, CJR (the Canadian station) is still around. > And it is still at 7 megahertz (and wherever else). I do not know > what they do on the telephone, probably something. Maybe Joey Lindstrom > or another Canadian reader could tell us. And thanks for your good > thoughts. Lisa M] http://inms-ienm.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/time_services/shortwave_broadcasts_e.html ==> NRC Short Wave Station Broadcasts (CHU) Time accuracy superior to telephone time accuracy is available throughout Canada and in many other parts of the world by means of NRC's radio time signals broadcast continuously from short wave radio station CHU. If corrections are made for the propagation delay from CHU to the user, and for delays in the user's receiver, an accuracy of better than 1 ms can be obtained. Signal availability at a user's location depends on ionospheric conditions. CHU also broadcasts a time code which can be decoded with common computers and modems. Three frequencies are used: 3330, 7335, and 14 670 kHz. The transmission mode, upper single sideband with carrier re-inserted, provides time signal service without requiring a special SSB radio, and also provides three standard frequencies. 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.) [Lisa Minter Note: I am sorry I misidentified the Canadian station, which is CHU at 7 megahertz, not CJR as I mistakenly stated. Lisa M.] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 16:09:01 -0400 From: William Warren Subject: Re: AOL Pulls Nullsoft File-Sharing Software > [Lisa Minter Note: So we are not going to be allowed to have any > GPL type stuff any longer if AOL, the music industry or The Phone > Company disagrees with it? I wonder if most of us commoners will > even be allowed to use the net if AOL isn't able to make money on > it? Lisa M] Since AOL owns Nullsoft, it's a real, honest-to-God legal question. If Nullsoft intended to release WASTE (AOL claims not), then the question is if they had a right to do it without AOL's consent. If the release was intentional, and AOL can't convince a judge to quash it, then the question will be if the GPL can be revoked by the licensor. Unless AOL can prove Nullsoft wasn't entitled to release the software, and I'll defer to the lawyers amoung us as to how difficult that will be, then it'll come down to a test of the GPL. William Warren (Remove ".notme" from my address if you want to email me) ------------------------------ From: PaulCoxwell@aol.com Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 20:03:25 EDT Subject: Re: International Speaking Clock Interest >> So are there "talking clocks" in other countries? I'd expect that >> some European countries and possibly South Africa, Australia or >> Brazil might have such conveniences. > Yes, there are speaking clocks in other countries. There's one in the > UK and I know that there's one in Israel (in Hebrew of course.) Often > the speaking clock is accessed by a "short code" in foreign countries. > Here in the US speaking clocks are generally regular telephone > numbers. I know the time in Portland, Maine is +1 207 775 4321. For We have had a speaking clock in Britain for decades. For many years the standard GPO (General Post Office) announcement ran, for example: "At the third stoke, it will be two, thirty-five, and ten seconds...", followed by three short pips. At the exact minute, the announcement was along the lines of "At the third stroke, it will be two, thirty-six, precisely ..." When the minute count was zero, it was replaced by the phrase "o'clock," e.g. "At the third stroke, it will be three, o'clock, precisely" or "At the third stroke it will be three, o'clock, and ten seconds..." As the "o'clock" phrase replaced a minutes number, there was a definite pausebefore it. The modern clock uses a man instead of a woman, and the phrasing is now "At the third stroke the time sponsored by Accurist will be...." I forget the year in which the change was made to accommodate the sponsor, but it was after privatization and the creation of British Telecom. As for access numbers, up until the early 1980s most areas, with the exception of a few large urban centers, used the local number 8081. It was quite possible to dial into the speaking clock in any such exchange from anywhere in the country (and indeed from outside of Britain). Many large towns had other recorded services such as weather, travel information etc. on other 80x1 numbers. London, a city with a 3L-4N numbering plan since the early days, used a simple three-digit access code for the clock, this being 846 or TIM (other three-digit short codes were used for DIRectory, ENGineering, etc.). When the city went to all-figure numbering in the late 1960s, the TIM code was dropped and the local access code 123 introduced, although many people today still talk about "calling Tim" to check the time. In the 1980s the 8081 number was removed from service and all exchanges arranged to accept the 123 access code (which is not dialable from outside the local exchange). You might like to visit the excellent "Phone Trips" site at http://www.wideweb.com/phonetrips Have a look for the "Telephons Sounds in Great Britain" tapes from November 1971. They include a brief recording of the British speaking clock of that era, and a recording of the Irish Republic and Jersey clocks. ------------------------------ From: jensen@htn.net (David Jensen) Subject: Vonage Working Good on Cable Internet But Not Good on DSL Date: 3 Jun 2003 15:00:50 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ We have been experimenting with Vonage at four locations. Two of the locations have DSL (1.5Mbit down/256Kb up) through Sprint and two have Cable Internet through Road Runner (close to 3Mbit down/unsure of upload). We have been very happy with Vonage on the Cable Internet and completely disgusted with the service on the Sprint DSL. With the cable Internet, you can't distinguish it from a POTS line. With the DSL, you give up and use the POTS line! While it is true that the cable Internet has a lot more bandwidth, there is still PLENTY of excess capacity with the DSL considering that Vonage supposedly uses only 90Kb up and down. When calling from the DSL lines, both caller and receiver have significant dropout periods where you don't hear the other party. If you try surfing on the net at the same time you are talking, it really gets bad. That's just surfing, not downloading files. Does anyone have an explanation for this inconsistency? Any solutions? I tried the reduced bandwidth feature but was very unhappy with the audio quality and I think the dropouts continued. I would love to love the service on the DSL as well as the cable Internet. Thanks for your thoughts. How can we make it work? David Jensen ------------------------------ 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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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 #494 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Jun 4 02:01:11 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h5461Aj20598; Wed, 4 Jun 2003 02:01:11 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 02:01:11 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200306040601.h5461Aj20598@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #495 TELECOM Digest Wed, 4 Jun 2003 02:01:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 495 Inside This Issue: Editor: Lisa Minter Re: TV News That Looks Local, Even if It's Not (Steven J. Sobol) Re: TV News That Looks Local, Even if It's Not (J Kelly) Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute (Neal McLain) Re: No Dialtone Unless I Phone Myself (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Re: First Thing We Do Is Kill All the Lawyers (AES) Re: Time'n'Tempo (Mark Roberts) Re: Hunting Works With Alternate Local Phone Provider? (Gary Breuckman) Last Laugh! Something Funny From the Monastery (Shalom Septimus) 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: Steven J. Sobol Subject: Re: TV News That Looks Local, Even if It's Not Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 23:14:38 -0000 Organization: JustThe.net LLC From Monty Solomon (monty@roscom.com): > Mr. Hyman is part of a national team of anchors, commentators and > weathercasters that, when plans are complete, will report for all 62 > television stations owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group.Sinclair > calls it "Central Casting." To the company, it is an efficient way to > cut the costs of local journalism, bringing news to small stations > that otherwise would go without. Hm. Real stations like WVPX-TV 23 in Akron, Ohio don't do that. WVPX-TV used to be WAKR-TV 23 (and later WAKC-TV), co-owned with WAKR-AM 1590 and WONE-FM 97.5. For years it was an ABC affiliate, but Akron's a small market and people in Akron can get all the stations from Cleveland, 30 miles to the north. I'm not sure how bad their numbers are. They shed their local newscast about the same time as, or shortly after, losing their ABC affiliation. But about ... oh, I don't recall, a year, maybe 18 months ago, the station now known as the region's PAX-TV affiliate brought local news back to Akron. WKYC-TV 3, Cleveland's NBC affiliate, owned by Gannett (of USA TODAY fame), now produces a local newscast for WVPX. I think it's a good deal. Akron got their own REAL local newscast back -- it's not just a rehash of Cleveland news, and it's reported by people who have the Akron/Canton area as their beat. Channel 3, in return, gets broader coverage down in Akron/Canton, which enhances the reputation they promote (they stress local coverage as a key reason to watch their newscasts). THAT'S the way to do it, and IMHO both TV stations deserve kudos for going forward with the decision. http://www.Akron23.com/ http://www.WKYC.com/ Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge, JustThe.net POTS: Toll Free from anywhere in the USA or Canada, 888.480.4NET (4638) HTTP: www.JustTheNetLLC.com MAIL: 5686 Davis Drive, Mentor on the Lake, OH 44060-2752 ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Re: TV News That Looks Local, Even if It's Not Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 18:54:54 -0500 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Reply-To: jkelly@newsguy.com On Mon, 2 Jun 2003 23:02:29 -0400, Monty Solomon wrote: > By JIM RUTENBERG with MICHELINE MAYNARD > When viewers in Flint, Mich., tuned in to the Fox 66 "News at 10" last > Thursday night, the station's resident firebrand, Mark Hyman, was at > the ready to serve up some passionate punditry. we see Mark here in Cedar Rapids, too. > Today the commission is expected to enact new rules that will allow > media companies to increase the percentage of the national television > audience they can reach from 35 to possibly 45. It is also expected > to make it easier for companies to own two or even three stations in > a single market -- or a newspaper and television station in a single > market. Here in Cedar Rapids we also have a TV station that is owned by a Newspaper. KCRG-TV9 is owned by the Cedar Rapids Gazette (or more precisely, the Gazette Company owns both, along with an AM radio station). And, KGAN and KFXA are in bed together. While they are not owned by the same company, Sinclair manages both, and they share the news studio and staff, running local news at 9pm as "Fox News at Nine" (which is also broadcast on KDSM-TV17 in Des Moines) and then the same people on the same set do "CBS2 News at Ten." They call this a Local Marketing Agreement, and it is simply a way around the ownership caps. They split expenses 50-50 and income 50-50. They even answer the phone as "CBS2 Fox 28 and 40". So nothing is really changing as I see it with the new rules, since the broadcasters have found loopholes in the current rules anyway. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 22:30:35 -0600 From: Neal McLain Reply-To: nmclain@annsgarden.com Subject: Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute Lisa Minter wrote: > [Lisa Minter Note: Actually, here in Independence, the street lights > are powered and maintained by KGE, the power utility. When I have > called the city offices to report a street light was out, they told > me to call KGE, and gave me the number to use to reach them. The KGE > rep asked for the street intersection and some other landmark, then I > saw their truck out there working on it later. [...] So utilities do > give many tradeoffs like that in exchange for using public right of > way. Unless Kansas law is vastly different from that of other states, streetlight service is not a tradeoff; it's a service that KG&E sells and the city purchases at rates specified in tariffs on file with the Kansas Corporation Commission. Similar situations exist in every state. The party desiring streetlight service (the municipal, county, state, or federal government, or a private party) pays a flat monthly fee, per streetlight, that covers the service. In a typical situation, where the streetlight is supported by a utility-company pole, the fee covers rental of the streetlight, rental of the space on the pole, energy, and maintenance. If the city owns the streetlight and its supporting structure (as is often the case in newer residential areas with underground utilities), the fee may cover only energy and maintenance. Some utility companies also offer flat-rate billing for cable television power supplies. Madison Gas & Electric (Wisconsin) charges the same flat fee for every power supply in its territory. Public Service Electric & Gas (New Jersey) charges a flat monthly fee based on a one-time measurement of the current in the hot wire that feeds the power supply. Lisa continued: > And regards cable, the cable company (it was Time Warner until a few > months ago, now it is Cable One does give a lot of free service, > such as a channel for the use of Independence High School and a > channel for the use of the Community College and a channel for the > use of the city. FCC regulations allow Local Franchising Authorities (LFAs) to require Public, Educational, and Government (PEG) access channels as part of cable television franchise agreements. The channels you mention are probably PEG channels required by franchise. I guess you could call this arrangement a "tradeoff" for use of the city's right-of-way, since it's a franchise requirement just like the 5% franchise fee. Lisa continued: > And on all the channels, the cable company cooperates with the > weather service office in Wichita by running a 'ticker' (ribbon > strip) on the bottom of the screen on every channel when there is > some emergency condition or when police/firemen request it. These are EAS (Emergency Alert System) messages mandated by FCC rules. Although the EAS is used primarily for weather information, it can be used for any type of emergency message: chemical spills, child abduction alerts, nuclear power plant warnings, tsunami warnings, volcano warnings, avalanche warnings, earthquake warnings. A list of EAS codes is posted at . The EAS mandate applies to: Television broadcast stations. Radio broadcast stations (preceded by that god-awful DTMF burrr-burrr-burrr noise). All ground-based multichannel video providers (cable television systems, open video systems, MMDS systems), but *not* to satellite systems. Since this a federal mandate applicable to all cable television systems, I don't think it really qualifies as a tradeoff for use of right-of-way. John Higdon wrote: > In article , Neal McLain > wrote: >> The whole point of the "nit-picking" is that Comcast wants to >> extend its franchise so that it can build a whole new network and >> completely abandon that "30-year old infrastructure." > Uh huh. We have been hearing this for decades from the half-dozen > companies who have bought the system and then continue to milk the > revenue out of the sixties technology. Comcast is just the latest in > long line of empty promise providers. Well, I don't think either of us can predict the future. So here's a suggestion: mark your calendar for June 4, 2004, and post an update then on Comcast's progress. John H. continued: >> The lawsuit is over the city's demand that Comcast build a separate >> telephone/data network for the city's use. The basis of this >> demand stems from fact that Comcast places its facilities on the >> city's "streets and ways." > These are standard conditions that upon which many cities insist. See my comments at "John R. Levine wrote ..." below. John H. continued: > Phone, gas, electricity and the like are utilities, covered under > completely different arrangements. Certainly they are. Utility companies are regulated by state public service/public utility commissions, not by local governments (although local governments still maintain some control over right-of-way usage, but that's another story). By and large, all state regulatory commissions abide by the same fundamental principle: all users pay the same tariffed rates for the same services. City governments don't get special breaks: they pay the same rates for electricity, telephone service, gas, water, streetlight rental, etc. as any other businesses. In many (most?) states, this principle applies even if the city itself is the utility: it must impute the cost of utility services it uses. >> Newspapers place distribution boxes on the city's streets and ways. >> Does that entitle the city to free copies of every newspaper? > I believe they pay for that space. Sure they do. This is a cost borne by newspaper readers, similar to the 5% franchise fee borne by cable TV subscribers. But this arrangement doesn't force newspaper readers to subsidize general government operations by providing, say, free newspapers for city offices or free publication of legal notices. >> Taxi companies use the city's streets and ways. Does that entitle >> city employees to free taxi rides? > Taxis pay considerable fees that are distributed back to the city. > Ask a cabbie what a medallion costs these days. This is a cost borne by taxi riders; again, it's similar to the 5% cable TV franchise fee. But this arrangement doesn't force taxi riders to subsidize general government operations by providing, say, free taxi rides to government employees or free package/document delivery services for government departments. >> And yes, cable TV companies use city streets and ways (and they pay >> a 5-percent-of-gross-revenue [...] franchise fee for the >> privilege). But does that entitle the City of San Jose to a free >> telephone/data network, the cost of which will be borne by cable TV >> subscribers? > I would rather see the city dictating to the out-of-town cable > company rather than the other way around. The city has made some > demands. Rather than discuss those demands, Comcast has sued the > city. As far as I am concerned, Comcast can pick up its toys and go > home. If it wants to tap the very lucrative San Jose market, it can > do a little bending over of its own. Besides, as you point out, the > money comes from the subscribers, anyway. In other words, you believe that cable TV subscribers *should* have to subsidize general government operations? I wonder how many cable TV subscribers would agree with that position if it were put to a referendum vote. John R. Levine (in a private e-mail) wrote: [quoting me]: >> And yes, cable TV companies use city streets and ways (and they pay >> a 5-percent-of-gross-revenue [...] franchise fee for the >> privilege). But does that entitle the City of San Jose to a free >> telephone/data network, the cost of which will be borne by cable TV >> subscribers? > Why, yes, as a matter of federal law, it does. Municipalities can > and do require that the franchisee build a logically separate network > for government use. Google for "i-net" or "institutional network" > and you'll find successful i-nets all over the country, in big cities > (including New York, Pittsburgh, and Seattle) and small (Ithaca NY, > down the road from here.) Most I-nets are physically separate as well as logically separate: separate cable, separate electronics, separate power supplies, separate drops. About the only things common to both networks are trenches, the line-side wiring of power supplies, and (sometimes) pole hardware and strand. A photo of a utility pole supporting both physical networks is posted at . John L. continued: > This is a well settled part of the law. When the municipalities > around here were regegotiating the cable franchise, there was plenty > of wrangling about the details of the i-net, but there was no > question that Time-Warner was required to build one. It's hard to > imagine on what basis Comcast in San Jose thinks that they're special > and the law that applies everywhere else doesn't apply to them. I agree that many I-nets exist (over the years, I've dealt with several of them, both on the cable side and the regulatory side). In my experience, they all date back to the Great Franchise Wars of the 1970s. Back in those days, LFAs were demanding -- and often getting -- all sorts of extra goodies (the City of Sacramento even demanded that the cable company plant trees!). Cable companies often assented to these demands in order to gain a competitive edge over their competitors in franchise proceedings. The Communications Act of 1996 put a stop to most of this nonsense, but, as you note, it excluded I-nets: "SEC. 303. PREEMPTION OF FRANCHISING AUTHORITY REGULATION OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES. "(D) Except as otherwise permitted by sections 611 and 612 [of the Communications Act of 1934 as amended], a franchising authority may not require a cable operator to provide any telecommunications service or facilities, other than institutional networks, as a condition of the initial grant of a franchise, a franchise renewal, or a transfer of a franchise." There are no FCC rules implementing this section. In all of 47 CFR 76, there are only two references to "institutional": 47 CFR 76.925, which allows a cable operator to include the cost of an i-net -- if it provides one -- in calculating the costs of complying with the franchise. 47 CFR 76.1505, which deals with Open Video Systems, and doesn't apply to franchised cable systems. But this is hardly "well settled" law: laws don't get settled until somebody sues somebody. And this law (or loophole in the law) probably won't be settled until somebody takes it all the way to the Supreme Court. Maybe Comcast will be the case. Presumably, the City of San Jose is relying on the 303(D) of the 1996 Act. Comcast will probably bring up the fairness issue I've been talking about: why should cable TV subscribers be forced to subsidize general government operations? In a subsequent message, John L. wrote: [quoting me]: >> Comcast will probably rely on a fundamental fairness question: why >> should cable TV subscribers be forced to subsidize general >> government operations? > Presumably because the Congress said so. After all, the franchise > fee subsidizes general government operations, too. To overturn a > law, a court has to decide that it violated some Constitutional > provision. The only one I can think of would be equal protection > under the 14th amendment, but it's hard to see cable subscribers as > a protected class. In theory, the 5% franchise fee is supposed to reimburse the LFA for costs associated with franchise regulation (administrative overhead, right-of-way management, support of PEG channels), not general operations. And many of them do just that. But I agree that many LFAs do indeed use it for general operations. Neal McLain nmclain@annsgarden.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: No Dialtone Unless I Phone Myself Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 21:13:19 GMT > Wierd problem: I can't get a dialtone at my house phone extension > unless I phone my house first from my cellphone. I thought the wiring As a guess, you have a phone that needs to be powered, and the batteries are running low. When you call your own phone, the ring voltage leaves enough power to get a dial tone. I've seen this happen many times with speaker phones. -Joel ------------------------------ From: AES/newspost Subject: Re: First Thing We Do Is Kill All the Lawyers Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 18:59:38 -0700 In article , Marcus Jervis wrote: > "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." > -- William Shakespeare > _King Henry VI_, part II Does the rest of this post (deleted for brevity) bring up uncomfortable memories for anyone else of real-world events not so long ago in Cambodia, and too many other places around the globe? "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: markrobt@hotmail.com (Mark Roberts) Subject: Re: Time'n'Tempo Organization: 1.94 meters Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 02:27:07 GMT Joey Lindstrom had written: > Here in Calgary, AGT (Alberta Government Telephones, predecessor of > Telus) operated "Time & Temperature" on 403-262-0002 for many, many > years. Then one day they decided to put in a new system, one that > allowed them to run an ad prior to the time and temperature > announcement (but curiously only ever ran ads for AGT/Telus) -- and for > some reason decided that this required a new phone number, 403-233-2222. [...] OK, so I have a really strange idea here. I don't see any place on the web where these numbers are listed. How's about collecting them all in a single place? I can do it -- would be a simple text file at first and then a little more as time went on (har, har) -- is there interest in this? I think the information that would be needed includes: 1) City or metro area 2) Phone number (for major metro areas: (a) is the number valid in more than one area code (b) is it just a prefix followed by any four numbers ) 3) Time only, time and temperature, temperature only, weather only; 4) Free or toll; 5) Any interesting history (examples: mnemonics, two- or three-digit service codes). This could be one of those things where either no one cares or I'll get flooded with replies, but I'm willing to give it a try. See for a sample. Mark Roberts Oakland, California markrobt@hotmail.com ------------------------------ From: Gary Breuckman Subject: Re: Question: Hunting Works With Alternate Local Phone provider? Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 23:05:00 -0500 Organization: Puma's Lair - catbox.com In article , "Tak To" wrote: > Currently I have Verizon for local service and I have two lines that > hunts each other. The hunting feature is free. I am tempted to give > AT&T local service a try since their rate plans are cheaper for my > usage. However, I have yet to find an AT&T representative who > understands what hunting is, let alone what would happen to the feature > if I switch. They keep saying that forward-when-busy is the same (but > not free). While these two might well be equivalent, the lack of > knowledge of the representatives makes me wonder. One of the differences, on most systems, is that 'forward on busy' counts as a local call, so you spend 6-cents or whatever a local call costs you each time you hunt to the second line. Some businesses here had that set up on, say, a 10-line group, so a call that has to 'hunt' all the way to the end using forward-on-busy could end up costing 9 'units' of local calls to get there. -- Gary Breuckman ------------------------------ From: Shalom Septimus Subject: Last Laugh! Something Funny From the Monastery Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 00:48:13 -0400 Reply-To: druggist@pobox.com On Wed, 04 Jun 2003 00:15:27 +0100, in alt.sysadmin.recovery (Message-ID: ) armageddon@heresiarch.demon.co.uk (Chris Suslowicz) wrote: > In article , > "Rik Steenwinkel" wrote: >> Couple of years ago I was helping someone move house; I was driving, and >> we were stuck in a traffic jam. Co-driver was bored stiff (as was I), >> and started playing with a T65[1] that was part of the inventory. After >> miming taking a call, he wound down the window, and signalled the driver >> next to him to do likewise. "Misconnected; it's for you". >> [1] Dutch Telco '70s and '80s standard issue desktop phone. > A student prank that worked better than expected: > The emergency telephones in the lifts officially had no numbers, > were barred from calling anything other than the campus emergency > number, etc. but a little effort soon obtained the _real_ number for > each lift. So: someone gets into the lift, presses "up" and the > doors close. A few moments later, the phone rings and is answered > "Muirhead lift 2, third floor, going up". Caller sks if the person > in the lift knows where they can find "X" (their tutor, who (unknown > to the caller) got in at the previous floor), and received: > "One moment, please" > > "It's for you." > > Result: one _seriously_ boggled tutor (as well as the original caller). > All was explaing over a pint of Newcastle Brown. > Chris. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am reminded of the time I was in the Chicago Temple Building in downtown Chicago, going up to see the answering service I used at the time (Rogers Answering Service) which was on the 12th floor. In the lobby of the building was an old gentleman who functioned as the 'elevator starter' looking after things. There was an annunciator panel which lit up to show him where each of the four elevators was at in their shafts, and he had a six button (five lines and hold) phone there with each button being a direct line to each elevator and a line to the elevator machine room on the roof and one button was an extension from the Chicago Temple's PBX system. He saw me get on one elevator alone, nodded hello to me and dispatched that car upward. We got to around the 8th floor (actually between 8 and 9 I think) and with sort of a rough bump we came to an abrupt halt. Too far up to open the door on 8 and too low to open the door on 9. What am I to do? I picked up the phone in the elevator ( a 'direct line'; no dialing; just pick it up and it starts ringing at the desk in the lobby). After a couple rings he answered and said 'yes, young man, what might ye be needing? it appears to me ye might be stuck there!' (With a distinctive Scottish brogue in his voice.) I told him I was indeed stuck. 'Hmmm', he said, 'well the Building Engineer was on his way up there a couple minutes ago, I will see if I can reach him. Meantime, do me a favor, just wait around please. Do not go anywhere. We will call you back in minute or so.' Don't go anywhere?? I hung up the phone, stood around tapping my toes for about a minute that seemed more like an hour, then the phone rang again. It was the Building Engineer calling me from the machine room on the roof. 'You ready to get out of there?' I told him I was and he said he had replaced the 'stick fuses' on that car several times that day already but they are not holding up; there is a dead short somewhere so I have to call the elevator company out here, but in the meantime I will use the manual crank to raise you up to a level floor so you can step out. V-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y the elevator moved up several inches in the shaft as this guy cranked me up. (It is not as difficult as it sounds, the mystery of hydraulics is something I do not under- stand, but just a small, simple hand crank inserted in the cable pulley that the man turned by hand brought the car up a few inches so it would latch on the door and allow it go open). When the car leveled with the floor on 9 and the door went open, there were three or four people standing there waiting for an elevator so they could go out to lunch. I guess the engineer anticipated that because as I walked out, the little loud speaker there started talking with him on it saying 'car three is going out of service on the 9th floor, get another elevator please'. The people muttered but walked down to another elevator instead. These were vintage 1925 Otis cars. 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 #495 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Jun 4 02:07:28 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h5467R320700; Wed, 4 Jun 2003 02:07:28 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 02:07:28 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200306040607.h5467R320700@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #495 TELECOM Digest Wed, 4 Jun 2003 02:01:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 495 Inside This Issue: Editor: Lisa Minter Re: TV News That Looks Local, Even if It's Not (Steven J. Sobol) Re: TV News That Looks Local, Even if It's Not (J Kelly) Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute (Neal McLain) Re: No Dialtone Unless I Phone Myself (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Re: First Thing We Do Is Kill All the Lawyers (AES) Re: Time'n'Tempo (Mark Roberts) Re: Hunting Works With Alternate Local Phone Provider? (Gary Breuckman) Last Laugh! Something Funny From the Monastery (Shalom Septimus) 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: Steven J. Sobol Subject: Re: TV News That Looks Local, Even if It's Not Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 23:14:38 -0000 Organization: JustThe.net LLC From Monty Solomon (monty@roscom.com): > Mr. Hyman is part of a national team of anchors, commentators and > weathercasters that, when plans are complete, will report for all 62 > television stations owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group.Sinclair > calls it "Central Casting." To the company, it is an efficient way to > cut the costs of local journalism, bringing news to small stations > that otherwise would go without. Hm. Real stations like WVPX-TV 23 in Akron, Ohio don't do that. WVPX-TV used to be WAKR-TV 23 (and later WAKC-TV), co-owned with WAKR-AM 1590 and WONE-FM 97.5. For years it was an ABC affiliate, but Akron's a small market and people in Akron can get all the stations from Cleveland, 30 miles to the north. I'm not sure how bad their numbers are. They shed their local newscast about the same time as, or shortly after, losing their ABC affiliation. But about ... oh, I don't recall, a year, maybe 18 months ago, the station now known as the region's PAX-TV affiliate brought local news back to Akron. WKYC-TV 3, Cleveland's NBC affiliate, owned by Gannett (of USA TODAY fame), now produces a local newscast for WVPX. I think it's a good deal. Akron got their own REAL local newscast back -- it's not just a rehash of Cleveland news, and it's reported by people who have the Akron/Canton area as their beat. Channel 3, in return, gets broader coverage down in Akron/Canton, which enhances the reputation they promote (they stress local coverage as a key reason to watch their newscasts). THAT'S the way to do it, and IMHO both TV stations deserve kudos for going forward with the decision. http://www.Akron23.com/ http://www.WKYC.com/ Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge, JustThe.net POTS: Toll Free from anywhere in the USA or Canada, 888.480.4NET (4638) HTTP: www.JustTheNetLLC.com MAIL: 5686 Davis Drive, Mentor on the Lake, OH 44060-2752 ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Re: TV News That Looks Local, Even if It's Not Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 18:54:54 -0500 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Reply-To: jkelly@newsguy.com On Mon, 2 Jun 2003 23:02:29 -0400, Monty Solomon wrote: > By JIM RUTENBERG with MICHELINE MAYNARD > When viewers in Flint, Mich., tuned in to the Fox 66 "News at 10" last > Thursday night, the station's resident firebrand, Mark Hyman, was at > the ready to serve up some passionate punditry. we see Mark here in Cedar Rapids, too. > Today the commission is expected to enact new rules that will allow > media companies to increase the percentage of the national television > audience they can reach from 35 to possibly 45. It is also expected > to make it easier for companies to own two or even three stations in > a single market -- or a newspaper and television station in a single > market. Here in Cedar Rapids we also have a TV station that is owned by a Newspaper. KCRG-TV9 is owned by the Cedar Rapids Gazette (or more precisely, the Gazette Company owns both, along with an AM radio station). And, KGAN and KFXA are in bed together. While they are not owned by the same company, Sinclair manages both, and they share the news studio and staff, running local news at 9pm as "Fox News at Nine" (which is also broadcast on KDSM-TV17 in Des Moines) and then the same people on the same set do "CBS2 News at Ten." They call this a Local Marketing Agreement, and it is simply a way around the ownership caps. They split expenses 50-50 and income 50-50. They even answer the phone as "CBS2 Fox 28 and 40". So nothing is really changing as I see it with the new rules, since the broadcasters have found loopholes in the current rules anyway. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 22:30:35 -0600 From: Neal McLain Reply-To: nmclain@annsgarden.com Subject: Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute Lisa Minter wrote: > [Lisa Minter Note: Actually, here in Independence, the street lights > are powered and maintained by KGE, the power utility. When I have > called the city offices to report a street light was out, they told > me to call KGE, and gave me the number to use to reach them. The KGE > rep asked for the street intersection and some other landmark, then I > saw their truck out there working on it later. [...] So utilities do > give many tradeoffs like that in exchange for using public right of > way. Unless Kansas law is vastly different from that of other states, streetlight service is not a tradeoff; it's a service that KG&E sells and the city purchases at rates specified in tariffs on file with the Kansas Corporation Commission. Similar situations exist in every state. The party desiring streetlight service (the municipal, county, state, or federal government, or a private party) pays a flat monthly fee, per streetlight, that covers the service. In a typical situation, where the streetlight is supported by a utility-company pole, the fee covers rental of the streetlight, rental of the space on the pole, energy, and maintenance. If the city owns the streetlight and its supporting structure (as is often the case in newer residential areas with underground utilities), the fee may cover only energy and maintenance. Some utility companies also offer flat-rate billing for cable television power supplies. Madison Gas & Electric (Wisconsin) charges the same flat fee for every power supply in its territory. Public Service Electric & Gas (New Jersey) charges a flat monthly fee based on a one-time measurement of the current in the hot wire that feeds the power supply. Lisa continued: > And regards cable, the cable company (it was Time Warner until a few > months ago, now it is Cable One does give a lot of free service, > such as a channel for the use of Independence High School and a > channel for the use of the Community College and a channel for the > use of the city. FCC regulations allow Local Franchising Authorities (LFAs) to require Public, Educational, and Government (PEG) access channels as part of cable television franchise agreements. The channels you mention are probably PEG channels required by franchise. I guess you could call this arrangement a "tradeoff" for use of the city's right-of-way, since it's a franchise requirement just like the 5% franchise fee. Lisa continued: > And on all the channels, the cable company cooperates with the > weather service office in Wichita by running a 'ticker' (ribbon > strip) on the bottom of the screen on every channel when there is > some emergency condition or when police/firemen request it. These are EAS (Emergency Alert System) messages mandated by FCC rules. Although the EAS is used primarily for weather information, it can be used for any type of emergency message: chemical spills, child abduction alerts, nuclear power plant warnings, tsunami warnings, volcano warnings, avalanche warnings, earthquake warnings. A list of EAS codes is posted at . The EAS mandate applies to: Television broadcast stations. Radio broadcast stations (preceded by that god-awful DTMF burrr-burrr-burrr noise). All ground-based multichannel video providers (cable television systems, open video systems, MMDS systems), but *not* to satellite systems. Since this a federal mandate applicable to all cable television systems, I don't think it really qualifies as a tradeoff for use of right-of-way. John Higdon wrote: > In article , Neal McLain > wrote: >> The whole point of the "nit-picking" is that Comcast wants to >> extend its franchise so that it can build a whole new network and >> completely abandon that "30-year old infrastructure." > Uh huh. We have been hearing this for decades from the half-dozen > companies who have bought the system and then continue to milk the > revenue out of the sixties technology. Comcast is just the latest in > long line of empty promise providers. Well, I don't think either of us can predict the future. So here's a suggestion: mark your calendar for June 4, 2004, and post an update then on Comcast's progress. John H. continued: >> The lawsuit is over the city's demand that Comcast build a separate >> telephone/data network for the city's use. The basis of this >> demand stems from fact that Comcast places its facilities on the >> city's "streets and ways." > These are standard conditions that upon which many cities insist. See my comments at "John R. Levine wrote ..." below. John H. continued: > Phone, gas, electricity and the like are utilities, covered under > completely different arrangements. Certainly they are. Utility companies are regulated by state public service/public utility commissions, not by local governments (although local governments still maintain some control over right-of-way usage, but that's another story). By and large, all state regulatory commissions abide by the same fundamental principle: all users pay the same tariffed rates for the same services. City governments don't get special breaks: they pay the same rates for electricity, telephone service, gas, water, streetlight rental, etc. as any other businesses. In many (most?) states, this principle applies even if the city itself is the utility: it must impute the cost of utility services it uses. >> Newspapers place distribution boxes on the city's streets and ways. >> Does that entitle the city to free copies of every newspaper? > I believe they pay for that space. Sure they do. This is a cost borne by newspaper readers, similar to the 5% franchise fee borne by cable TV subscribers. But this arrangement doesn't force newspaper readers to subsidize general government operations by providing, say, free newspapers for city offices or free publication of legal notices. >> Taxi companies use the city's streets and ways. Does that entitle >> city employees to free taxi rides? > Taxis pay considerable fees that are distributed back to the city. > Ask a cabbie what a medallion costs these days. This is a cost borne by taxi riders; again, it's similar to the 5% cable TV franchise fee. But this arrangement doesn't force taxi riders to subsidize general government operations by providing, say, free taxi rides to government employees or free package/document delivery services for government departments. >> And yes, cable TV companies use city streets and ways (and they pay >> a 5-percent-of-gross-revenue [...] franchise fee for the >> privilege). But does that entitle the City of San Jose to a free >> telephone/data network, the cost of which will be borne by cable TV >> subscribers? > I would rather see the city dictating to the out-of-town cable > company rather than the other way around. The city has made some > demands. Rather than discuss those demands, Comcast has sued the > city. As far as I am concerned, Comcast can pick up its toys and go > home. If it wants to tap the very lucrative San Jose market, it can > do a little bending over of its own. Besides, as you point out, the > money comes from the subscribers, anyway. In other words, you believe that cable TV subscribers *should* have to subsidize general government operations? I wonder how many cable TV subscribers would agree with that position if it were put to a referendum vote. John R. Levine (in a private e-mail) wrote: [quoting me]: >> And yes, cable TV companies use city streets and ways (and they pay >> a 5-percent-of-gross-revenue [...] franchise fee for the >> privilege). But does that entitle the City of San Jose to a free >> telephone/data network, the cost of which will be borne by cable TV >> subscribers? > Why, yes, as a matter of federal law, it does. Municipalities can > and do require that the franchisee build a logically separate network > for government use. Google for "i-net" or "institutional network" > and you'll find successful i-nets all over the country, in big cities > (including New York, Pittsburgh, and Seattle) and small (Ithaca NY, > down the road from here.) Most I-nets are physically separate as well as logically separate: separate cable, separate electronics, separate power supplies, separate drops. About the only things common to both networks are trenches, the line-side wiring of power supplies, and (sometimes) pole hardware and strand. A photo of a utility pole supporting both physical networks is posted at . John L. continued: > This is a well settled part of the law. When the municipalities > around here were regegotiating the cable franchise, there was plenty > of wrangling about the details of the i-net, but there was no > question that Time-Warner was required to build one. It's hard to > imagine on what basis Comcast in San Jose thinks that they're special > and the law that applies everywhere else doesn't apply to them. I agree that many I-nets exist (over the years, I've dealt with several of them, both on the cable side and the regulatory side). In my experience, they all date back to the Great Franchise Wars of the 1970s. Back in those days, LFAs were demanding -- and often getting -- all sorts of extra goodies (the City of Sacramento even demanded that the cable company plant trees!). Cable companies often assented to these demands in order to gain a competitive edge over their competitors in franchise proceedings. The Communications Act of 1996 put a stop to most of this nonsense, but, as you note, it excluded I-nets: "SEC. 303. PREEMPTION OF FRANCHISING AUTHORITY REGULATION OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES. "(D) Except as otherwise permitted by sections 611 and 612 [of the Communications Act of 1934 as amended], a franchising authority may not require a cable operator to provide any telecommunications service or facilities, other than institutional networks, as a condition of the initial grant of a franchise, a franchise renewal, or a transfer of a franchise." There are no FCC rules implementing this section. In all of 47 CFR 76, there are only two references to "institutional": 47 CFR 76.925, which allows a cable operator to include the cost of an i-net -- if it provides one -- in calculating the costs of complying with the franchise. 47 CFR 76.1505, which deals with Open Video Systems, and doesn't apply to franchised cable systems. But this is hardly "well settled" law: laws don't get settled until somebody sues somebody. And this law (or loophole in the law) probably won't be settled until somebody takes it all the way to the Supreme Court. Maybe Comcast will be the case. Presumably, the City of San Jose is relying on the 303(D) of the 1996 Act. Comcast will probably bring up the fairness issue I've been talking about: why should cable TV subscribers be forced to subsidize general government operations? In a subsequent message, John L. wrote: [quoting me]: >> Comcast will probably rely on a fundamental fairness question: why >> should cable TV subscribers be forced to subsidize general >> government operations? > Presumably because the Congress said so. After all, the franchise > fee subsidizes general government operations, too. To overturn a > law, a court has to decide that it violated some Constitutional > provision. The only one I can think of would be equal protection > under the 14th amendment, but it's hard to see cable subscribers as > a protected class. In theory, the 5% franchise fee is supposed to reimburse the LFA for costs associated with franchise regulation (administrative overhead, right-of-way management, support of PEG channels), not general operations. And many of them do just that. But I agree that many LFAs do indeed use it for general operations. Neal McLain nmclain@annsgarden.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: No Dialtone Unless I Phone Myself Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 21:13:19 GMT > Wierd problem: I can't get a dialtone at my house phone extension > unless I phone my house first from my cellphone. I thought the wiring As a guess, you have a phone that needs to be powered, and the batteries are running low. When you call your own phone, the ring voltage leaves enough power to get a dial tone. I've seen this happen many times with speaker phones. -Joel ------------------------------ From: AES/newspost Subject: Re: First Thing We Do Is Kill All the Lawyers Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 18:59:38 -0700 In article , Marcus Jervis wrote: > "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." > -- William Shakespeare > _King Henry VI_, part II Does the rest of this post (deleted for brevity) bring up uncomfortable memories for anyone else of real-world events not so long ago in Cambodia, and too many other places around the globe? "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: markrobt@hotmail.com (Mark Roberts) Subject: Re: Time'n'Tempo Organization: 1.94 meters Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 02:27:07 GMT Joey Lindstrom had written: > Here in Calgary, AGT (Alberta Government Telephones, predecessor of > Telus) operated "Time & Temperature" on 403-262-0002 for many, many > years. Then one day they decided to put in a new system, one that > allowed them to run an ad prior to the time and temperature > announcement (but curiously only ever ran ads for AGT/Telus) -- and for > some reason decided that this required a new phone number, 403-233-2222. [...] OK, so I have a really strange idea here. I don't see any place on the web where these numbers are listed. How's about collecting them all in a single place? I can do it -- would be a simple text file at first and then a little more as time went on (har, har) -- is there interest in this? I think the information that would be needed includes: 1) City or metro area 2) Phone number (for major metro areas: (a) is the number valid in more than one area code (b) is it just a prefix followed by any four numbers ) 3) Time only, time and temperature, temperature only, weather only; 4) Free or toll; 5) Any interesting history (examples: mnemonics, two- or three-digit service codes). This could be one of those things where either no one cares or I'll get flooded with replies, but I'm willing to give it a try. See for a sample. Mark Roberts Oakland, California markrobt@hotmail.com ------------------------------ From: Gary Breuckman Subject: Re: Question: Hunting Works With Alternate Local Phone provider? Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 23:05:00 -0500 Organization: Puma's Lair - catbox.com In article , "Tak To" wrote: > Currently I have Verizon for local service and I have two lines that > hunts each other. The hunting feature is free. I am tempted to give > AT&T local service a try since their rate plans are cheaper for my > usage. However, I have yet to find an AT&T representative who > understands what hunting is, let alone what would happen to the feature > if I switch. They keep saying that forward-when-busy is the same (but > not free). While these two might well be equivalent, the lack of > knowledge of the representatives makes me wonder. One of the differences, on most systems, is that 'forward on busy' counts as a local call, so you spend 6-cents or whatever a local call costs you each time you hunt to the second line. Some businesses here had that set up on, say, a 10-line group, so a call that has to 'hunt' all the way to the end using forward-on-busy could end up costing 9 'units' of local calls to get there. -- Gary Breuckman ------------------------------ From: Shalom Septimus Subject: Last Laugh! Something Funny From the Monastery Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 00:48:13 -0400 Reply-To: druggist@pobox.com On Wed, 04 Jun 2003 00:15:27 +0100, in alt.sysadmin.recovery (Message-ID: ) armageddon@heresiarch.demon.co.uk (Chris Suslowicz) wrote: > In article , > "Rik Steenwinkel" wrote: >> Couple of years ago I was helping someone move house; I was driving, and >> we were stuck in a traffic jam. Co-driver was bored stiff (as was I), >> and started playing with a T65[1] that was part of the inventory. After >> miming taking a call, he wound down the window, and signalled the driver >> next to him to do likewise. "Misconnected; it's for you". >> [1] Dutch Telco '70s and '80s standard issue desktop phone. > A student prank that worked better than expected: > The emergency telephones in the lifts officially had no numbers, > were barred from calling anything other than the campus emergency > number, etc. but a little effort soon obtained the _real_ number for > each lift. So: someone gets into the lift, presses "up" and the > doors close. A few moments later, the phone rings and is answered > "Muirhead lift 2, third floor, going up". Caller sks if the person > in the lift knows where they can find "X" (their tutor, who (unknown > to the caller) got in at the previous floor), and received: > "One moment, please" > > "It's for you." > > Result: one _seriously_ boggled tutor (as well as the original caller). > All was explaing over a pint of Newcastle Brown. > Chris. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am reminded of the time I was in the Chicago Temple Building in downtown Chicago, going up to see the answering service I used at the time (Rogers Answering Service) which was on the 12th floor. In the lobby of the building was an old gentleman who functioned as the 'elevator starter' looking after things. There was an annunciator panel which lit up to show him where each of the four elevators was at in their shafts, and he had a six button (five lines and hold) phone there with each button being a direct line to each elevator and a line to the elevator machine room on the roof and one button was an extension from the Chicago Temple's PBX system. He saw me get on one elevator alone, nodded hello to me and dispatched that car upward. We got to around the 8th floor (actually between 8 and 9 I think) and with sort of a rough bump we came to an abrupt halt. Too far up to open the door on 8 and too low to open the door on 9. What am I to do? I picked up the phone in the elevator ( a 'direct line'; no dialing; just pick it up and it starts ringing at the desk in the lobby). After a couple rings he answered and said 'yes, young man, what might ye be needing? it appears to me ye might be stuck there!' (With a distinctive Scottish brogue in his voice.) I told him I was indeed stuck. 'Hmmm', he said, 'well the Building Engineer was on his way up there a couple minutes ago, I will see if I can reach him. Meantime, do me a favor, just wait around please. Do not go anywhere. We will call you back in minute or so.' Don't go anywhere?? I hung up the phone, stood around tapping my toes for about a minute that seemed more like an hour, then the phone rang again. It was the Building Engineer calling me from the machine room on the roof. 'You ready to get out of there?' I told him I was and he said he had replaced the 'stick fuses' on that car several times that day already but they are not holding up; there is a dead short somewhere so I have to call the elevator company out here, but in the meantime I will use the manual crank to raise you up to a level floor so you can step out. V-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y the elevator moved up several inches in the shaft as this guy cranked me up. (It is not as difficult as it sounds, the mystery of hydraulics is something I do not under- stand, but just a small, simple hand crank inserted in the cable pulley that the man turned by hand brought the car up a few inches so it would latch on the door and allow it go open). When the car leveled with the floor on 9 and the door went open, there were three or four people standing there waiting for an elevator so they could go out to lunch. I guess the engineer anticipated that because as I walked out, the little loud speaker there started talking with him on it saying 'car three is going out of service on the 9th floor, get another elevator please'. The people muttered but walked down to another elevator instead. These were vintage 1925 Otis cars. 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #495 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jun 5 00:31:45 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h554ViJ26343; Thu, 5 Jun 2003 00:31:45 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2003 00:31:45 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200306050431.h554ViJ26343@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #496 TELECOM Digest Thu, 5 Jun 2003 00:32:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 496 Inside This Issue: Editor: Lisa Minter Re: Vonage Working Good on Cable Internet Not Good on DSL (B Margolin) Re: Vonage Working Good on Cable Internet Not Good on DSL (John Levine) Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute (Dave Garland) Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute (Neal McLain) Re: George Fenniman (was Re: Intl Speaking Clock Interest) (M Jervis) Telecom - Media Alert Thursday Morning (Shelley Pritikin) Re: Vonage Working Good on Cable Internet Not Good on DSL (joe@obilivan) Re: No Dialtone Unless I Phone Myself (John Higdon) Hanging Up On Wireless Spam (Eric Friedebach) Industrial Electronics Handbook (Noyes Publications) Hack a SPAMMER Week (Rik) Re: Who is Lisa Minter? (David Clayton) Re: TV News That Looks Local, Even if It's Not (Steven J. Sobol) Re: DTMF Questions? (Gordon S. Hlavenka) 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: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Vonage Working Good on Cable Internet But Not Good on DSL Organization: Genuity Managed Services, Woburn, MA Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 14:18:06 GMT In article , David Jensen wrote: > Does anyone have an explanation for this inconsistency? Although you have sufficient bandwidth in both cases, VOIP (Voice over IP) is also *very* sensitive to latency and jitter. Network backbones that are designed to carry VOIP traffic often make use of IP's Quality-of-Service features to give high priority to this traffic, to minimize packet drops and provide consistently low latency. Consumer ISPs are not likely to provide this prioritization, and your service contract with them almost certainly doesn't guarantee a level of quality sufficient to support high-quality VOIP. Barry Margolin, barry.margolin@level3.com Level(3), Woburn, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jun 2003 06:12:15 -0000 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Vonage Working Good on Cable Internet But Not Good on DSL Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > When calling from the DSL lines, both caller and receiver have > significant dropout periods where you don't hear the other party. > If you try surfing on the net at the same time you are talking, it > really gets bad. That's just surfing, not downloading files. Yuck. There's a couple of possibilities. For Vonage or any VoIP system to work well, you need a fat enough bit pipe, which you have, a reasonably low-latency route from your point on the net to theirs, and low packet loss. Your symptoms sound like packet loss. One possibility would be congestion at the point where your ISP's network connects to Vonage's, but I also use Sprint (via a T1, not DSL) and that works fine. I would guess that either your local ISP is doing some packet rate limiting and not telling you, or there's a bottleneck between your part of the net and the gateway to Vonages' network on AT&T or Qwest. Try a traceroute to 12.144.47.27, which is the host that manages connections, and to 63.146.102.34 which is a host that handles voice traffic. A healthy connection should show a consistent round trip time (I see about 27ms, which is quite low, DSL will make that higher but under 200 is OK), and no dropped packets. If you're seeing a bigger delay or stars for missed packets somewhere on the route, that's probably where the problem is. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711 johnl@iecc.com Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner http://iecc.com/johnl Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 02:09:11 -0500 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when Neal McLain wrote: > you believe that cable TV subscribers *should* have to subsidize > general government operations? Personally, I believe that cable TV operators *should* have to comply with whatever they agreed to. If they agree to perform services in order to get the job, that's their perogative. As is their right to decline the franchise, and move on to some other town that promises to be more profitable. If they choose to pass the cost on to their subscribers (instead of taking it out of their profits), I guess that's up to them, so long as their decision is consistent with the franchise agreement. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 06:52:49 -0600 From: Neal McLain Reply-To: nmclain@annsgarden.com Subject: Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute Paul Wallich wrote: > In article , John Higdon > wrote: >> I would rather see the city dictating to the out-of-town cable >> company rather than the other way around. The city has made some >> demands. Rather than discuss those demands, Comcast has sued the >> city. As far as I am concerned, Comcast can pick up its toys and go >> home. If it wants to tap the very lucrative San Jose market, it can >> do a little bending over of its own. Besides, as you point out, the >> money comes from the subscribers, anyway. > There's another angle to the question of whom the money comes from: > let's say, just for argument's sake, that the city actually needs the > voice and data connections that they're asking Comcast to provide. If > Comcast doesn't provide them, San Jose is going to have to contract > with someone else to provide that network. Depending on the current > state of the infrastructure, that's likely to require significant > investments in both central office and outside-plant hardware, all > ultimately at taxpayer expense. Just watch the screaming a few years > down the line when someone points out that the same job could have > been done for a fraction of the price as part of a metropolitaton > CATV upgrade. But that doesn't prevent the city from contracting with Comcast to do the job. My point all along has been the question of fairness: is it fair to impose the entire cost of the city's special network on the backs of cable television subscribers when the network is intended to support general government operations rather than just cable TV subscribers? If the city wants the network, it should follow its normal purchasing procedures: send out an RFQ, take bids, and award it to the best/lowest bidder. If Comcast can do it for the best price, great! If somebody else can beat Comcast's price, great! The JEDI (Jefferson Eastern Dane Interactive) Network in Dane and Jefferson Counties in Wisconsin is an example of just such a network. School districts and community colleges got together, figured out what they needed, wrote up the specs, and sent out an RFQ. As it happened, the cable TV company (Marcus, now Charter) got the job, but they had to beat out some powerful telco competition to get it. . Neal McLain nmclain@annsgarden.com ------------------------------ From: Marcus Jervis Subject: Re: George Fenniman (was International Speaking Clock Interest) Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 05:24:42 +0000 Dale Neiburg wrote: > In Telecom Digest V22, #488, Lisa noted: >> Here in the United States, the speaking clock in Washington, DC at >> 202-653-1920 says thus: "US Naval Observatory Master Clock; at >> the tone Eastern Daylight Time, twenty-one hours, fifty-eight >> minutes, fifteen seconds" (then a beep and a short pause and >> continuing), one hour, fifty-eight minutes, twenty seconds >> Greenwich Mean Time." > It may also be of interest to note that the friendly but authoritative > voice is that of the late and much-lamented George Fenniman, Groucho > Marx's old sidekick. Not true, although this rumor/legend is widely believed. The voice has a heavier timbre than George Fennneman. The voice on the clock is the late Fred Covington, a minor film and television character actor type-cast as a southerner who died in 1993 at 65. Fenneman died in 1997 at age 77. Covington played a slave auctioneer in the notable 1977 TV mini-series Roots. He had a small role in Norma Rae in 1979 (played Austin Purvis) and in 1981 he was the man in the jail in The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia. He also had a guest role on the TV series In the Heat of the Night (but not the movie). He played Sheriff Bentley in the 1979 TV movie Freedom Road with Muhammed Ali and Kris Kristofferson. Fenneman had a lot more work over the years than Covington, but in movies and on television he always did voice-overs, narration or played an announcer, even when he was Groucho's straight man. By the way, Fenneman was born in Beijing and died of emphysema and Covington died of cancer. ------------------------------ From: Shelley Pritikin Subject: Telecom - Media Alert Thursday Morning Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 16:45:39 -0700 Dear Patrick, Integra Telecom has been a big CLEC success story in its five-state region of the West and Mid-West. The company is making a major financial milestone announcement Thursday morning at 8am PST. The media alert is printed below. There's an 800 number if you want to call in live to the press conference and ask questions. We also have the CEO and industry analysts on hand for interviews. Please let me know if you're interested. Best, Shelley Pritikin Lane Marketing Communications (503) 546-7873 direct (503) 341-6480 cell shelley@lanemarketing.com MEDIA ALERT INTEGRA TELECOM TO ANNOUNCE MAJOR COMPANY FINANCIAL NEWS AT BREAKFAST PRESS CONFERENCE PORTLAND, Ore. - June 4, 2003 - Integra Telecom, a fast growing provider of local, long-distance and Internet services for small and midsize businesses, will announce major company financial news Thursday, June 5 at 8 AM. PACIFIC TIME 11 AM EASTERN. WHO: Integra Telecom CEO Dudley Slater WHEN: Thursday, June 5, 2003 7:45 AM continental breakfast 8:00 AM announcement*** PACIFIC Go to www.integratelecom.com/fcf for press release after 8:00 AM WHERE: Multnomah Athletic Club Ainsworth Room 1849 SW Salmon St. Portland, OR 97207 WHAT: Breakfast press conference announcing major company news. WHY: Based in Oregon, Integra Telecom is a leading alternative provider of all-in-one communications services for small and mid-sized businesses in the West. *** You may access the press conference by phone by calling 1-800-430-1833 just before 8 AM. When prompted, enter the conference code 748-1923 followed by the # key. If the conference has not yet started, you will be placed on hold. PACIFIC TIME - 11 AM EASTERN. ------------------------------ From: joe@obilivan.net Subject: Re: Vonage Working Good on Cable Internet But Not Good on DSL Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 18:20:08 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications David Jensen wrote: > We have been experimenting with Vonage at four locations. Two of the > locations have DSL (1.5Mbit down/256Kb up) through Sprint and two have > Cable Internet through Road Runner (close to 3Mbit down/unsure of > upload). We have been very happy with Vonage on the Cable Internet > and completely disgusted with the service on the Sprint DSL. With the > cable Internet, you can't distinguish it from a POTS line. With the > DSL, you give up and use the POTS line! While it is true that the > cable Internet has a lot more bandwidth, there is still PLENTY of > excess capacity with the DSL considering that Vonage supposedly uses > only 90Kb up and down. When calling from the DSL lines, both caller > and receiver have significant dropout periods where you don't hear the > other party. If you try surfing on the net at the same time you are > talking, it really gets bad. That's just surfing, not downloading > files. > Does anyone have an explanation for this inconsistency? Any solutions? > I tried the reduced bandwidth feature but was very unhappy with the > audio quality and I think the dropouts continued. I would love to love > the service on the DSL as well as the cable Internet. > Thanks for your thoughts. How can we make it work? The issue is with your DSL provider's throughput, not with Vonage. There is some pretty lousy DSL out there. ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: No Dialtone Unless I Phone Myself Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 09:14:45 -0700 In article , joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) wrote: >> Wierd problem: I can't get a dialtone at my house phone extension >> unless I phone my house first from my cellphone. I thought the wiring > As a guess, you have a phone that needs to be powered, and the > batteries are running low. When you call your own phone, the ring > voltage leaves enough power to get a dial tone. I've seen this happen > many times with speaker phones. I have had this problem caused by Network Interface devices that telcos install at the MPOE for testing purposes. Many people are unaware that telco linemen can clip onto their lines anywhere between their homes and the CO, activate this device, and freely talk on the line without the customer interfering by picking up the phone to use it. To the customer, the line sounds dead. When the lineman is through talking, he restores the NI. Sometimes the NI doesn't "restore" properly and needs a shot of ring voltage to reconnect the customer. For this reason, I removed them all ... everywhere I had analog POTS service. Never had that problem again. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: Eric Friedebach Subject: Hanging Up On Wireless Spam Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 13:26:56 -0500 Organization: Purity Of Essence/Plant Operational Error Reply-To: Eric Friedebach Arik Hesseldahl, 06.04.03, Forbes.com NEW YORK - The beep coming from the mobile phone is sudden, and unexpected. An icon shaped like a tiny envelope appears on the display, indicating that a message is waiting. Clicking through a few buttons reveals the content of a text message -- essentially an e-mail sent to the phone. It reads -- in Spanish -- "Congratulations! Claim your vacation when you call," followed by a phone number. While the war against spam is raging openly on the personal computer front, the battle against unwanted mail on wireless devices in the U.S. is more like the Cold War. Wireless service providers have spent years hardening their defenses against the onslaught, while those spammers who might seek to target cell phones are digging in. The stakes are high: With cell number portability looming, wireless users who get fed up with paying for incoming spam could desert their carriers in droves. But there is little doubt that the war will heat up soon. Wireless devices of every stripe are connecting to the Internet in such numbers that, by 2007, e-mail addresses associated with mobile phones will outnumber conventional e-mail addresses. Wireless users worldwide are already sending billions of text messages every month--more than 62 billion in December 2002 alone, according to Mobile Streams, a U.K.-based research firm. http://www.forbes.com/2003/06/04/cx_ah_0604spam.html Eric Friedebach ------------------------------ From: Noyes Publications Subject: Industrial Electronics Handbook Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 15:16:52 -0400 Reply-To: Noyes Publications Don't let the title of this book fool you. This is a "hands-on" basic guide to electronics for anyone with at least high- school level physics knowledge. INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS FOR ENGINEERS, CHEMISTS... ($65.00) http://www.williamandrew.com/titles/1467.html Written initially for engineers, chemists, and technicians to assist with troubleshooting in the lab, we discovered on a closer look that this guide is easy to understand and contains plenty of examples and labs that make this book an excellent primer on electronics. Several reviewers on Amazon have given it 5 stars and called this "a must-have book for anyone unfamiliar with electronics." If you have specific questions about this title, please contact Brent Beckley by email at brent.beckley@williamandrew.com or by telephone at +1 607 773 1840 x673. William Andrew Inc. sends new book announcements on occasion to select individuals. Of course, if you do not want to receive announcements in the future, please REPLY to this email and type "REMOVE" in the subject line. ------------------------------ From: ukdiveboy@yahoo.com (Rik) Subject: Hack a SPAMMER Week Date: 4 Jun 2003 13:29:15 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Could someone please hack http://moire.costpharm.com:6699/, they keep send me SPAM. Thanks, Rik. ------------------------------ From: David Clayton Subject: Re: Who is Lisa Minter? Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2003 08:38:02 +1000 Organization: Customer of Connect.com.au Pty. Ltd. Kenneth P. Stox contributed the following: > Just curious, who is Lisa Minter? Did I miss something? > -Ken Stox stox@imagescape.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note (PAT): Yeah, you missed something. Lisa > Minter is a pleasant young lady who, since the first of June, has > taken over editorial stuff at the Digest to help me out while I do > other things. My deseased brain has progressively gotten worse, rather > than better, and gradually, once I purchase my one way ticket to Hell > will take over entirely. PAT] Sorry to hear that you now become a politician Pat! :-) Seriously, good on Lisa for keeping things rolling and good on you Pat for everything that you've done so far. Hopefully you'll be able to do some "QC" on the moderation for quite a while yet. Regards, David. David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@XYZ.acslink.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. (Remove the "XYZ." to reply) Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. ------------------------------ From: Steven J. Sobol Subject: Re: TV News That Looks Local, Even if It's Not Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 23:31:16 -0000 Organization: JustThe.net LLC From J Kelly (jkelly@newsguy.com): > people on the same set do "CBS2 News at Ten." They call this a Local > Marketing Agreement, and it is simply a way around the ownership caps. Yeah, but a Local Marketing Agreement is not the problem here. I'd argue that many LMAs actually benefit the community. The problem is a single owner broadcasting the exact same "local" news to many markets. Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge, JustThe.net POTS: Toll Free from anywhere in the USA or Canada, 888.480.4NET (4638) HTTP: www.JustTheNetLLC.com MAIL: 5686 Davis Drive, Mentor on the Lake, OH 44060-2752 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 21:03:22 -0500 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Reply-To: nospam@crashelectronics.com Organization: Crash Electronics Subject: Re: DTMF Questions? Nick wrote: >>> 2. If I don't use the DTMF decoder IC, can I use other simple componets >>> to make a decoder? >> Yes, but you'll need to take some analog classes first. > 2. I can use what method if I don't use the DTMF decoder IC? Can you > explain this method at length? Explain it at length? No -- that's what the analog classes will do. Basically, you have to construct 8 precision filters, feed their outputs to integrating comparators, connect the comparator outputs to 89C52 input pins, and then look for events where exactly one row filter and one column filter "ring" simultaneously for a certain minimum period. Make this period too long and you miss a lot of valid digits, make it too short and you "detect" a lot of events that aren't DTMF. It's possible to connect an A/D converter to a DSP and run DTMF decoding entirely in software, but an 89C52 isn't fast enough for it. So you'll need to build the filters. >>> This is my homework If you make it work this way you should get an awesome grade :-) Gordon S. Hlavenka http://www.crashelectronics.com Grammar and spelling flames welcome. Yes, that's really my email address. Don't change it. ------------------------------ 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #496 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jun 5 00:57:03 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h554v2A27007; Thu, 5 Jun 2003 00:57:03 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2003 00:57:03 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200306050457.h554v2A27007@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #497 TELECOM Digest Thu, 5 Jun 2003 00:57:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 497 Inside This Issue: Editor: Lisa Minter Motorola Broadband Introduces Consumer Solutions (Monty Solomon) EarthLink Launches New Tool to Block Rich Media Ads (Monty Solomon) Palm to Acquire Handspring (Monty Solomon) No Big Changes to Telecom Decision - FCC's Martin (Monty Solomon) FEATURE-Wireless Web Access Gets Communal in NYC (Monty Solomon) Cingular / Siemens S56 Dual Band 850/1900 MHz GSM/GPRS Handset (Solomon) Lucent Technologies Launches New VDSL Product That Delivers (M Solomon) Court Orders Verizon to Name Song Swappers (Monty Solomon) EMI Sues Bertelsmann Over its Napster Backing (Monty Solomon) Broadband Internet Use Has Its Risks, Study Finds (Monty Solomon) Apple's iSync 1.1 Broadens Support for Mobile Phones (Monty Solomon) Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute (John Tower) Re: Time'n'Tempo (Al Gillis) 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, 4 Jun 2003 22:10:41 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Motorola Broadband Introduces Consumer Solutions Business Motorola Broadband Strengthens Commitment to Retail Markets, Introduces Consumer Solutions Business HORSHAM, Pa., June 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT) Broadband Communications Sector today announced the formation of a new business dedicated to delivering the company's "connected home" solutions to consumers. The new consumer solutions business will focus on the development and retail distribution of Motorola's next-generation home electronics products. Leveraging Motorola's retail brand presence and global leadership in cable modems and digital set-tops, the consumer solutions business will promote broadband connectivity in and around the home. In addition to Motorola wireless cable modem gateway, telephony, and home networking products, the business will market and support a portfolio of innovative, multi-function devices, such as the award-winning Motorola DCP501, an all-in-one, cable-ready home theater system. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34401036 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 22:02:04 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EarthLink Launches New Tool to Block Rich Media Ads Enhanced Pop-Up Blocker Now Stops Annoying Animated Ads From Taking Over Subscribers' Web Surfing Experience ATLANTA, June 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- EarthLink(R) (Nasdaq: ELNK) today launched the latest version of its Pop-Up Blocker(SM), equipped with a feature that combats the growing number of rich media ads on the Internet. Pop-Up Blocker is an optional feature that allows customers, at no additional charge, to better control their Web surfing experience and can be downloaded at http://www.earthlink.net/home/software. Rich media ads, which often are created in the form of pop-ups or animated and audio-enabled cartoons that move across Web pages, are the latest online intrusion that users are now encountering with increasing regularity. EarthLink supports the contention of many industry pundits that this new genre of "screen stealing" advertisements will constitute almost half of all Web ads served by the end of the year. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34403134 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 07:55:12 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Palm to Acquire Handspring Palm Announces Acquisition of Handspring to Bolster Industry Leadership; Board Approves PalmSource Spin-off Transaction Scheduled to Close in Fall, Driving Transformation of Handheld Industry * Combined Leadership Creates Greater Opportunity for Growth and Innovation * Operational Synergies Provide Path to Cost Savings and Profitability * Merged Company to Aggressively Drive the Future of Mobile Devices MILPITAS, Calif. and MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The boards of directors of Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq: PALM) and Handspring, Inc. (Nasdaq: HAND), a leading maker of Palm OS(R) smartphones, today announced that they each have unanimously approved a definitive agreement for Palm to acquire Handspring to form a new, stronger market leader in mobile computing and communications. The Palm board also gave final approval for the spin-off of PalmSource, Inc. http://ir.palm.com/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=palm&script=411&layout=-6&item_id=418770 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 08:09:17 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: No Big Changes to Telecom Decision - FCC's Martin ATLANTA, June 3 (Reuters) - Details of the controversial decision to force the biggest local telephone companies to keep sharing their networks with rivals will be consistent with the initial announcement in February despite speculation to the contrary, Federal Communications Commissioner Kevin Martin said on Tuesday. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34393026 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 08:12:05 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FEATURE-Wireless Web Access Gets Communal in NYC By Francesca Segre NEW YORK, June 3 (Reuters) - In crowded and diverse New York City, an invisible technology is creating a new sense of neighborhood. A growing number of people in Manhattan are using short-range wireless networks to access the Web. In a city where nothing is cheap, these networks are being shared among neighbors or anyone who happens to be within 300 feet (90 metres) of the transmitter, at no cost. This so-called Wi-Fi technology can be used for free by anyone with a laptop computer or handheld gadget equipped with a card, which costs less than $100, designed to pick up the radio signal. In a time of massive budget cuts, these free access points are becoming a rare public service some generous New Yorkers are providing for their neighbors. Dustin Goodwin attached his Wi-Fi transmitter next to the window on the outside of his New York City apartment two years ago. The transmitter allows neighbors and passersby to connect to his high-speed Internet service over his phone line, a technology known as digital subscriber line, or DSL. He's been sharing his wireless Internet link for free ever since. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34392819 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 22:05:09 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cingular / Siemens S56 Dual Band 850/1900 MHz GSM/GPRS Handset E-mail, Polyphonic Sounds, and Optional Camera Give Phone Full Functionality ATLANTA and SAN DIEGO, June 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Cingular Wireless and Siemens today announced the immediate availability of the S56 mobile phone, which is powered by Cingular's Global System for Mobile communications (GSM(TM)) network. Cingular Wireless is the first carrier to offer the S56 in North America. The handset's combination of design, messaging capabilities, business and entertainment features provide Cingular customers with the perfect balance between business and pleasure. The dual band 850/1900 MHz GSM/GPRS handset with full-color display incorporates technology and applications designed to help consumers manage and enjoy their professional and private lives, including personal e-mail, an integrated speakerphone, extended personal information management and polyphonic sound for rich-sounding ringtones. An optional clip-on Mobile Camera with flash, available for $79.99, helps users capture life experiences, and e-mail them to friends and family using Cingular's Photo Messaging Service. In addition, wireless Java(TM) technology provides consumers with access to a growing number of downloadable business and entertainment features, including full color and motion games. This technology also allows consumers to download, store, and access applications. To enable fast downloads, the S56 features GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) Class 10 technology for high-speed wireless data access using Cingular's Wireless Internet Express Service. GPRS also enables fast Internet browsing via a Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) 1.2.1 browser. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34401368 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 22:06:35 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Lucent Technologies Launches New VDSL Product That Delivers V-16(TM) IP DSLAM Combines Fastest DSL Technology With IP To Bring Ethernet Service to business and residential subscribers ATLANTA, June 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Lucent Technologies (NYSE:LU) today announced a new Very High-Speed Digital Subscriber Line (VDSL) product that enables service providers and private network operators to deliver the fastest DSL speeds yet to their business and residential customers. Based on a new Internet Protocol (IP) design, the V-16(TM) IP DSLAM, supports "triple play" voice, data and video services, including "Ethernet in the First Mile" data services, over existing copper wiring. The solution allows service providers to offer a wide-range of high-value advanced multimedia services, including video conferencing, video-on-demand, broadcast TV, streaming media, interactive gaming and super-high-speed Internet access. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34401143 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 22:32:49 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Court Orders Verizon to Name Song Swappers By Andy Sullivan WASHINGTON, June 4 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday ordered Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) to immediately reveal the names of two customers suspected of illegally distributing hundreds of songs over the Internet. Verizon said it would hand over the customers' names to recording-industry investigators within a day or so, opening them up to lawsuits or other disciplinary action. But the telecommunications giant said it would continue to fight the industry in court over the proper way to crack down on the online song-swapping that record labels say hurts CD sales. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34408327 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 22:35:06 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EMI Sues Bertelsmann Over its Napster Backing By Sue Zeidler LOS ANGELES, June 4 (Reuters) - EMI Group Plc (LSE:EMI) on Wednesday became the second big record label to join a $17 billion legal fight brought by music publishers against Bertelsmann AG (UL:BERT) for allegedly perpetuating online piracy by funding the Napster music-swapping service. The EMI lawsuit follows a similar suit filed last month by Vivendi Universal's (NYSE:V) Universal Music Group. Both companies are joining the legal salvo initiated in February by music publishers, which included rhythm & blues pioneers Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller. All three suits accuse Bertelsmann of perpetuating Napster's success by investing more than $100 million in the service. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34408034 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 23:06:05 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Broadband Internet Use Has Its Risks, Study Finds By LAURIE J. FLYNN Besides speed, the most coveted feature of a broadband connection is that it is always on. But according to a study that is scheduled to be released today, those two advantages are exposing broadband customers to far greater risk than most of them realize. The study, conducted by the National Cyber Security Alliance, highlights the chasm between the assumptions of consumers about the security of their Internet connection and the reality. The result is a high risk of hacking, viruses and identity theft, according to Keith Nahigian, the spokesman for the alliance and a consultant to the Office of Homeland Security. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/04/technology/04NET.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 23:09:49 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Apple's iSync 1.1 Broadens Support for Mobile Phones; Adds Safari CUPERTINO, Calif., June 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Apple(R) (Nasdaq: AAPL) today announced the release of iSync 1.1, Apple's breakthrough synchronization software that lets users automatically sync their contacts and calendars on their Mac(R) with those on their cell phones, Palm OS devices and iPods. iSync 1.1 adds support for over 20 mobile phones from Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and Siemens, as well as Mac-to-Mac synchronization of Safari(TM) bookmarks for .Mac subscribers. iSync 1.1 supports more Bluetooth-enabled phones than any other syncing software and has added syncing via USB for several Motorola phones. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34385828 ------------------------------ From: John Tower Subject: Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 23:59:10 -0400 Neal McLain wrote: > Unless Kansas law is vastly different from that of other states, > streetlight service is not a tradeoff; it's a service that KG&E sells > and the city purchases at rates specified in tariffs on file with the > Kansas Corporation Commission. > Similar situations exist in every state. The party desiring > streetlight service (the municipal, county, state, or federal > government, or a private party) pays a flat monthly fee, per > streetlight, that covers the service. In a typical situation, where > the streetlight is supported by a utility-company pole, the fee covers > rental of the streetlight, rental of the space on the pole, energy, > and maintenance. If the city owns the streetlight and its supporting > structure (as is often the case in newer residential areas with > underground utilities), the fee may cover only energy and maintenance. Our town's streetlights used to be owned by the local electric distribution utility, but the town purchased the streetlights from the utility instead of leasing and contracted out the maintenance to another company as a cost saving maneuver. The result is that the town pays less money and any dark streetlights are fixed much faster. ------------------------------ From: Al Gillis Subject: Re: Time'n'Tempo Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 20:03:46 -0700 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Mark ... Your idea is pretty cool! I like having numerous "test numbers" available and Time and Temp numbers are pretty good as long as they don't disconnect right away. Frequently, when testing PBX trunk routing it's good to have a bunch on numbers onto which you can drop come calls and verify that things are working right. Tomorrow at work I'll come up with some numbers for the Portland, Oregon area. While it's not exactly time and temp I use a "Surf Report" number for the island of Maui as a test destination! Al Mark Roberts wrote in message news:telecom22.495.6@telecom-digest.org: > Joey Lindstrom had written: >> Here in Calgary, AGT (Alberta Government Telephones, predecessor of >> Telus) operated "Time & Temperature" on 403-262-0002 for many, many >> years. Then one day they decided to put in a new system, one that >> allowed them to run an ad prior to the time and temperature >> announcement (but curiously only ever ran ads for AGT/Telus) -- and for >> some reason decided that this required a new phone number, 403-233-2222. > [...] > OK, so I have a really strange idea here. I don't see any place on the > web where these numbers are listed. How's about collecting them all in > a single place? > I can do it -- would be a simple text file at first and then a little > more as time went on (har, har) -- is there interest in this? > I think the information that would be needed includes: > 1) City or metro area > 2) Phone number > (for major metro areas: > (a) is the number valid in more than one area code > (b) is it just a prefix followed by any four numbers > ) > 3) Time only, time and temperature, temperature only, weather only; > 4) Free or toll; > 5) Any interesting history (examples: mnemonics, two- or three-digit > service codes). > This could be one of those things where either no one cares or I'll > get flooded with replies, but I'm willing to give it a try. > See for a sample. > Mark Roberts > Oakland, California > markrobt@hotmail.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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #497 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jun 5 23:15:46 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h563Fj502811; Thu, 5 Jun 2003 23:15:46 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2003 23:15:46 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200306060315.h563Fj502811@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #498 TELECOM Digest Thu, 5 Jun 2003 23:16:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 498 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Counteracting the Internet Rumor (Ray&Rita Normandeau) Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute (Neal McLain) Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute (Herb Stein) Integra Telecom Announces Cash Flow Positive (Shelley Pritikin) Re: George Fenneman (Dale Neiburg) Re: No Dialtone Unless I Phone Myself (David Clayton) Duplicate CDR (Tele-competence) Extra Keys on Telephone? [*][#][A][B][C][D] (Educron) Re: Hack a SPAMMER Week (tonypo1@sdc.cox.net) Re: Call Blocking May be Safety Risk (joe@obilivan.net) Please Add our Link (Keith Munson) Another Fun Spam (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: SAGactors@yahoo.com (Ray&Rita Normandeau) Subject: Re: Counteracting the Internet Rumor Date: 4 Jun 2003 23:17:02 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Monty Solomon wrote in message news:: > By SHERRI DAY > After receiving an e-mail message one evening in April, Clara Miller > thought her love affair with Starbucks was over. Sometimes it is more then a rumour. On 9/11 at WTC an ambulance crew was charged $130 for water to treat victims. As the crew paid for the water out of their own money they later called Starbucks main office to make sure that they had not been overcharged. Starbucks hung up on them. The important deatils are here: http://snopes2.com/rumors/starbuck.htm I have never entered a Starbucks since. I will not patronize anyone where you can not ask a question of corporate HQ. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2003 07:08:23 -0600 From: Neal McLain Reply-To: nmclain@annsgarden.com Subject: Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute Dave Garland wrote: > It was a dark and stormy night when Neal McLain > wrote: >> you believe that cable TV subscribers *should* have to subsidize >> general government operations? > Personally, I believe that cable TV operators *should* have to comply > with whatever they agreed to. If they agree to perform services in > order to get the job, that's their perogative. As is their right to > decline the franchise, and move on to some other town that promises > to be more profitable. If they choose to pass the cost on to their > subscribers (instead of taking it out of their profits), I guess > that's up to them, so long as their decision is consistent with the > franchise agreement. I fully agree that "cable TV operators *should* have to comply with whatever they agreed to." But, in reviewing the original Reuters article about this altercation, plus this entire TD thread, I can't find any assertion that the original franchisee (the company that originally built that famous "30-year-old cable infrastructure"), or any subsequent owner (TCI, AT&T, etc.), has ever agreed to build an I-net. http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34361053 Assuming that this is the same franchise agreement that Comcast has acquired, both Comcast and the city are still bound by it. In which case, Comcast can rightfully claim that it has not agreed to build an I-net. In which case, if the city wants Comcast to build an I-net, it has two choices: - It can demand that Comcast build it for free (i.e., on the backs of cable subscribers) as part of the franchise-transfer and franchise-renewal procedures authorized by 303(D) of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, or, - It can contract with Comcast (or any other company), to build it (as I suggested in a previous post), thereby spreading the cost over all beneficiaries of the network, not just cable subscribers . Since (to my knowledge) 303(D) has never been adjudicated, Comcast apparently believes that it can win in spite of the 303(D) loophole. Of course, I may have missed something. Maybe some previous franchisee actually has agreed to build an I-net (in which case, I'm sure we'll hear from John Higdon). Or maybe 303(D) actually has been adjudicated (in which we'll hear from John Levine). Neal McLain nmclain@annsgarden.com ------------------------------ From: Herb Stein Subject: Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2003 10:02:39 -0500 Neal McLain wrote in message news:telecom22.496.4@telecom-digest.org: > Paul Wallich wrote: >> In article , John Higdon >> wrote: >>> I would rather see the city dictating to the out-of-town cable >>> company rather than the other way around. The city has made some >>> demands. Rather than discuss those demands, Comcast has sued the >>> city. As far as I am concerned, Comcast can pick up its toys and go >>> home. If it wants to tap the very lucrative San Jose market, it can >>> do a little bending over of its own. Besides, as you point out, the >>> money comes from the subscribers, anyway. >> There's another angle to the question of whom the money comes from: >> let's say, just for argument's sake, that the city actually needs the >> voice and data connections that they're asking Comcast to provide. If >> Comcast doesn't provide them, San Jose is going to have to contract >> with someone else to provide that network. Depending on the current >> state of the infrastructure, that's likely to require significant >> investments in both central office and outside-plant hardware, all >> ultimately at taxpayer expense. Just watch the screaming a few years >> down the line when someone points out that the same job could have >> been done for a fraction of the price as part of a metropolitaton >> CATV upgrade. > But that doesn't prevent the city from contracting with Comcast to do > the job. > My point all along has been the question of fairness: is it fair to > impose the entire cost of the city's special network on the backs of > cable television subscribers when the network is intended to support > general government operations rather than just cable TV subscribers? > If the city wants the network, it should follow its normal purchasing > procedures: send out an RFQ, take bids, and award it to the > best/lowest bidder. If Comcast can do it for the best price, great! > If somebody else can beat Comcast's price, great! I'd have agree with this statement. I'm not in favor of subsidies (welfare) for any reason. But if the "powers that be" see fit to provide one, they should be funded by taxpayers and not rate payers. > The JEDI (Jefferson Eastern Dane Interactive) Network in Dane and > Jefferson Counties in Wisconsin is an example of just such a network. > School districts and community colleges got together, figured out what > they needed, wrote up the specs, and sent out an RFQ. As it happened, > the cable TV company (Marcus, now Charter) got the job, but they had > to beat out some powerful telco competition to get it. > . > Neal McLain > nmclain@annsgarden.com Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 952-4601 ------------------------------ From: Shelley Pritikin Subject: Integra Telecom Announces Cash Flow Positive Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2003 09:13:14 -0700 Dear Patrick, Integra Telecom announced today that it is now free cash flow positive. It is the first facilities-based CLEC telecom company west of the Mississippi to do so. The press release, along with backgrounders and an FAQ, may be accessed at I also have the CEO and industry analysts on hand for interviews. Please let me know if you're interested, or if you'd like more information for a trend story on the comeback of small telecoms. Best, Shelley Pritikin Lane Marketing Communications (503) 546-7873 direct (503) 341-6480 cell shelley@lanemarketing.com ------------------------------ From: Dale Neiburg Subject: Re: George Fenneman Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2003 14:00:47 -0400 In Telecom Digest V22, #495, Marcus Jervis wrote: >> It may also be of interest to note that the friendly but authoritative >> voice is that of the late and much-lamented George Fenniman, Groucho >> Marx's old sidekick. > Not true, although this rumor/legend is widely believed. The voice has a > heavier timbre than George Fennneman. > The voice on the clock is the late Fred Covington, a minor film and > television character actor type-cast as a southerner who died in 1993 > at 65. And another reader wrote me off-list to add: > I got this message today from Geoff Chester of the US Naval > Observatory Public Affairs Office regarding the voice on the clock. > I didn't think it sounded like Fenneman (close, but not Fenneman) so > I wrote to the observatory and asked: > "We don't know who started the George Fenneman "urban legend", but > it has been around for years. The voice actually belonged to the > late Fred Covington, an actor who had "bit" parts in "The Night the > Lights Went Out in Georgia" and "Norma Rae"." These two sent me in search of my sources, and I found one so far, a 1987 broadcast in which Dr. Bill Klepczynski, then Deputy Director of the Time Services Department at the observatory, repeatedly identified Fenneman as the speaker and even (telecom connection!) gave some anecdotes about the technologies involved. I have to conclude that either Klepczynski was mistaken in 1987, or Chester is now. Conspiracy theories, anyone? Dale Neiburg ** NPR Satellite Operations ** 202-513-2640 "Whether you think you can, or think you can't, you're right." --Henry Ford ------------------------------ From: David Clayton Subject: Re: No Dialtone Unless I Phone Myself Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2003 18:59:03 +1000 Organization: Customer of Connect.com.au Pty. Ltd. joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) contributed the following: >> Wierd problem: I can't get a dialtone at my house phone extension >> unless I phone my house first from my cellphone. I thought the wiring > As a guess, you have a phone that needs to be powered, and the > batteries are running low. When you call your own phone, the ring > voltage leaves enough power to get a dial tone. I've seen this happen > many times with speaker phones. I recently had an issue with line corrosion where it would only clear up (temporarily) when I rung my phone, (sending ring current through the bad joint), perhaps this is an extreme example of the same thing? Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@XYZ.acslink.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. (Remove the "XYZ." to reply) Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. ------------------------------ From: telecombharat@yahoo.com (Tele-competence) Subject: Duplicate CDR Date: 5 Jun 2003 06:47:55 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi, I'm reading up on telecom billing systems, and I noticed that all commercial billing software ( Arbor, Amdocs etc ) have mechanisms to prevent duplicate Call Detail Records from being processed. Can someone tell me how/when duplicate CDRs are created? One more question -- when a subscriber calls another subscriber within the same switch ( same NPA-NXX ), will two CDRs be generated? one for the originating call and one for the terminating call? Because this looks like the instance when duplicate CDRs are created, doesn't it? Thanks, sridhar ------------------------------ From: Educron Subject: Extra Keys on Telephone? [*][#][A][B][C][D] Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2003 14:54:50 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net How come the A B C D keys (seperate from the number pad) aren't used on most telephones, even though they are part of the standard in the US? ------------------------------ From: tonypo1@sdc.cox.net Subject: Re: Hack a SPAMMER Week Organization: The Ace Tomatoe and Cement Company Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2003 01:03:39 GMT In article , ukdiveboy@yahoo.com says: > Could someone please hack http://moire.costpharm.com:6699/, they keep > send me SPAM. Well -- it's a site registered to a French national. What's interesting though is that it's admin contact is in the UK as indicated by the +44 in the phone number. But what's with the 0-70, do they allow 0 as a region code in the UK? Registrant: Cost-zone.com (MSSGMEIQXD) 32414 Tu Lounde Paris FR Domain Name: COSTPHARM.COM Administrative Contact, Technical Contact: Cost-zone.com (LIYFBFJQRO) admin@cost-zone.com 32414 Tu Lounde Paris FR +44-0-70-7905-1126 Record expires on 23-May-2004. Record created on 23-May-2003. Database last updated on 5-Jun-2003 02:01:15 EDT. Domain servers in listed order: BRIAN.HILLHOST.COM 203.102.181.38 CRAIG.HILLHOST.COM 203.102.181.33 JAMES.HILLHOST.COM 210.10.156.105 DAVID.HILLHOST.COM 210.10.156.106 ------------------------------ From: joe@obilivan.net Subject: Re: Call blocking May be Safety Risk Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2003 17:50:49 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications Paul Wallich wrote: > In article , Monty Solomon > wrote: >> By Erica Noonan, Globe Staff, 5/29/2003 >> Residents who have placed their names on the state's do-not-call list >> as a way to cut down on junk telemarketing pitches may have >> inadvertently blocked another sort of call -- an emergency public >> safety notification. >> Reverse 911 calls -- pre-recorded telephone messages from local police >> departments warning residents of a missing child, chemical spill, >> fire, terrorist threat, or other public safety emergency -- are not >> necessarily reaching households scrubbed from commercial telemarketing >> databases or with unpublished phone numbers. >> Most, if not all, of the state's Reverse 911 programs are administered >> by Indiana-based Reverse 911, a private company that uses commercially >> available telephone databases scrubbed of residents who have placed >> themselves on no-call lists. > So it's the citizens' problem that the company contracted to do a > particular job has chosen to implement its systems in a way that > pretty much guarantees it will fail to do that job? My first reaction > is that everyone in Massachusetts doing business with Reverse 911 > deserves a refund and three apologies. > (Of course it's more complicated than that, but then dealing with > things that are more complicated than that is why local jurisdictions > would contract with a third party in the first place...) > Paul Who cares about "reverse 911?" Like, I have Caller ID and Privacy Manager, thus unless I know you I don't want to hear from you. ------------------------------ From: Kevin Munson Subject: Please Add Our Link Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2003 15:53:13 -0700 Mr. Patrick Townson, Please add the following link on your website. BRICKMAIL Here is the actual URL: http://www.shester.com/brick/BrickMain.html BRICKMAIL is the most Innovative stand-alone VoiceMail/Auto Attendant System available on the market! With BRICKMAIL'S incredible list of Fantastic Standard Features * Ease of Use -- Low Cost * Unmatched Warranty, & 24/7 On-Line Tech Support * Its Very Simple to see why BRICKMAIL is By Far the Most Valuable System Available for Dealers & their Customers! ****UNMATCHED FEATURES****UNMATCHED PRICE****UNMATCHED WARRANTY**** Thank you in advance for the free listing, Kevin "Brick-Man" Munson National Sales Director Shester Communications Inc. 159 S. Lincoln Street, Suite 221 Spokane, WA 99201 888.511.1588 TOLL-FREE 509.789.2366 FAX kevinm@shester.com www.shester.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well okay, Kevin, here is your free listing regards your voicemail system. I hope it gets you a little business. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joey Lindstrom Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2003 19:22:23 -0600 Subject: Another Fun Spam Reply-To: joey@garynuman.info Got another one similar to the one I forwarded to the Digest a while ago -- this time, so as not to trip SpamAssassins all over the internet, I'll just give you the URL: http://www.interocitor.net/funspam1.txt It's very similar to the one I sent the first time, but with a few new nuances: 1) This time he includes a CELLPHONE number. Hmmm. 2) The brazen attitude continues. The SUBJECT line and FROM line are particularly interesting, but I won't repeat 'em here because doing so will likely get THIS posting flagged as spam. :-) Enjoy. All hail SpamAssassin! / From the desk of Joey Lindstrom / / Droughts are because God didn't pay his water bill. / --Steven Wright ------------------------------ 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #498 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jun 6 19:15:45 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h56NFiG07544; Fri, 6 Jun 2003 19:15:45 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2003 19:15:45 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200306062315.h56NFiG07544@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #499 TELECOM Digest Fri, 6 Jun 2003 19:16:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 499 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson My New Toy ! (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute (John Higdon) Re: Please Add Our Link (Dave Phelps) Verizon and Shady Centrex Sales - What Do I Do? (Dave Bushnell) Re: New ACD Product For Panasonic KXTD Systems (Jake Dempsey) Re: Hack a SPAMMER Week (Mark Crispin) Re: Hack a SPAMMER Week (Chaz) Re: Hack a SPAMMER Week (Paul Coxwell) Re: ZPDI Scam - Lawsuit Yet? (Xavier) Last Laugh! was Re: Comcast Sues San Jose (Charles Cryderman) 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, 6 Jun 2003 01:14:41 (EDT) From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2003 21:47:51 -0700 In article , Herb Stein wrote: > I'd have agree with this statement. I'm not in favor of subsidies > (welfare) for any reason. But if the "powers that be" see fit to > provide one, they should be funded by taxpayers and not rate payers. Why should taxpayers fund that which benefits subscribers to the cable service? The network is a condition for allowing the company to do business in the city. Why should those of us who will have nothing to do with the cable services subsidize that which enables the services to those who do? I want nothing to do with Comcast. I don't what their inferior TV service. I certainly don't want their restrictive Internet service. Why should I have to fund anything that has to do with them? In article , Neal McLain wrote: > Assuming that this is the same franchise agreement that Comcast has > acquired, both Comcast and the city are still bound by it. In which > case, Comcast can rightfully claim that it has not agreed to build an > I-net. But there is NO franchise agreement in place. TCI, then AT&T, now Comcast have been dickering with the city for years and years. The city could toss Comcast at any time and invite someone else in. And I wish it would. Actually, what I really wish is that the city would take it over and make it a municipal system. > Of course, I may have missed something. Maybe some previous franchisee > actually has agreed to build an I-net (in which case, I'm sure we'll > hear from John Higdon). Or maybe 303(D) actually has been adjudicated > (in which we'll hear from John Levine). The city has put down its terms for a franchise agreement. Its position is that if Comcast won't accept them, it will find a cable company who will. In the meantime, San Jose residents suffer from a thirty-year-old infrastructure that no one will upgrade until after a franchise agreement is signed. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: Dave Phelps Subject: Re: Please Add Our Link Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2003 23:05:07 -0500 Organization: www.tippenring.com In article , kevinm@shester.com says: > [INSERT NAME HERE] is the most Innovative stand-alone VoiceMail/Auto > Attendant System available on the market! With [INSERT NAME HERE]'S > incredible list of Fantastic Standard Features * Ease of Use -- Low > Cost * Unmatched Warranty, & 24/7 On-Line Tech Support * Its Very > Simple to see why [INSERT NAME HERE] is By Far the Most Valuable > System Available for Dealers & their Customers! Pat, none of us, I'm sure, needs any help receiving spam. Dave Phelps Phone Masters Ltd. deadspam=tippenring [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Now Dave, don't be modest or too shy to ask for help getting more spam if you need it. The *only reason* that piece of crap got in here was because it was slightly ob-telecom, dealing with technical details of voice mail. Normally, most spam does not see the light of day here. If it had had *my name* in the subject line as so many spammers do this days in order to trick you into thinking it is personal mail; that they know you personally, etc it would have hit the bit bucket faster than the bounce messages I get from your site to each autoreply my computer sends your computer. But because there was a slight bit of redemption in the message (as noted before, ob-telecom dealing with voice mail and a technician for same) I suggested to Lisa to go ahead and let it through. Lisa (who is not around today) reminded me that 'a lot of guys are embarassed about the size of their, err, (stack of spam each day?) but are too shy or timid to ask for some kind of professional (or unprofessional) help in getting more of it.' So consider that message to be our gratuitous effort to help you out. Are you positive you don't need more? Are you surely? Just ask if you do! PAT] ------------------------------ From: batcave@dma.net (Dave Bushnell) Subject: Verizon and Shady Centrex Sales - What Do I Do? Date: 6 Jun 2003 12:58:38 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Hi folks - I'm the Internet and web guy at my company, and although I have no real telecom expertise this has fallen to me as Resident Geek, so I'm hoping to get some input from you who have a better knowledge of all this. Verizon has been pushing us hard through their "authorized sales reps" to move our 5 POTS lines to what appears to be dial-9 Centrex. Although this could fill another post -- they were so pushy and shady that we ended up with a New York State Public Service Commission beef. So we started all this with a very bad taste in our mouths, and now we're being exceptionally cautious. Their whole pitch is that if we switch to digital service our monthly bill will go down about $5 a line, and we'll get other services for free that we were paying for, like call forwarding and such. Their only pitch has been "just sign here and you'll start saving money!" in an extemely pushy way. We're suspicious. As I said, we have five lines, going into a Toshiba DK40 hybrid system. Is there any reason (despite the bad taste in my mouth) I shouldn't do this? Does it have drawbacks they aren't explaining to us? Any catches? Any hard questions you suggest I ask them before I sign? I'd like to at least give them a hard time. :-) Thanks *very* much in advance for any input you might have. I'd rather not give them the satisfaction of switching over and I'd sort of just like to punch them in the nose for being such *****, but saving money is saving money. -- Dave [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Dave, there *are* some good things to say about 'centrex service', and it does place a heap of phone equipment at your disposal with little/no cash outlay. Having the phone company 'run your switchboard' sounds like a good idea in theory, but what do you do when telco is disrupted for a short time, i.e. an earthquake, a fire in the CO, etc. And although you probably will save some money (I am taking your word on their figures) how will it work where **your customers** are concerned. Those are the people you have to please. DO NOT take any contract from telco; you want to be able on short notice to return to the old system if it is better. I imagine some readers here could give you more specifics on the advantages and disadvantages of centrex. By the way, you *do* know what 'centrex' stands for, don't you? Historically it goes back to the time when telco was putting an 'X' on the end of all their service offerings, as for example 'Fax' where the 'X' is short for 'exchange service'. Centrex means 'CENTRal office eXchange service', or your phone equipment is all in the central office. PBX stands for '(P)rivate (B)ranch E(X)change or a privately owned/operated switchboard. These were originally the old cord switchboard things, while PABX were for the AUTOMATED (or dialing) versions of same. The context of 'private' in the above examples meant that only select persons (your employees or your guests; persons of your choosing) could exchange telephonically over it. Every offering the phone company had at one time ended in 'X' I think, usually meaning 'exchange' ... theirs! PAT] ------------------------------ From: JakeD@rosestudios.com (Jake Dempsey) Subject: Re: New ACD Product For Panasonic KXTD Systems Date: 6 Jun 2003 11:05:32 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Rose Technologies in the maker of this product, we are not a Partner of Panasonic. We are here to give you information and support, All pricing and other materials come from Panasonic or through their distributors. We do not sell the ACD/IVR product. JakeD@rosestudios.com (Jake Dempsey) wrote in message news:: > You wanted it, we built it, Panasonic is selling it ... > http://www.rosetechnologies.com/Rosetech/RoseComm/index.htm > get in touch for information and a demo CD. > Rose Technologies > 9 Lake Bellevue Drive, Suite 218 > Bellevue, WA 98005-2454 > Tel. (425) 637-2344 x293 > Fax (425) 637-8655 > Email: CTITeam@RoseStudios.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But what does it do, precisely? You > failed to mention that in your spam! Lisa M] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh, what good news! Dave Phelps, if you want to quietly slip over to that site and stock up on more spam as needed, everyone here will understand and no one will laugh or make fun of you. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: Re: Hack a SPAMMER Week Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2003 22:45:58 -0700 Organization: University of Washington On Thu, 5 Jun 2003 tonypo1@sdc.cox.net wrote: > Well -- it's a site registered to a French national. What's interesting > though is that it's admin contact is in the UK as indicated by the +44 > in the phone number. But what's with the 0-70, do they allow 0 as a > region code in the UK? > +44-0-70-7905-1126 Assuming that that number is not fake, the correct format of that number is +44 7079 051125 or domestic 07079 051125. Does that format look familar? It's a UK cell phone. I'll bet that it's an unregistered prepay cell phone. -- Mark -- http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. Si vis pacem, para bellum. ------------------------------ From: Chaz Subject: Re: Hack a SPAMMER Week Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2003 09:02:41 +0100 wrote in message news:telecom22.498.9@telecom-digest.org: > In article , ukdiveboy@yahoo.com > says: >> Could someone please hack http://moire.costpharm.com:6699/, they keep >> send me SPAM. > Well -- it's a site registered to a French national. What's interesting > though is that it's admin contact is in the UK as indicated by the +44 > in the phone number. But what's with the 0-70, do they allow 0 as a > region code in the UK? > Registrant: > Cost-zone.com (MSSGMEIQXD) > 32414 Tu Lounde > Paris > FR > Domain Name: COSTPHARM.COM > Administrative Contact, Technical Contact: > Cost-zone.com (LIYFBFJQRO) admin@cost-zone.com > 32414 Tu Lounde > Paris > FR > +44-0-70-7905-1126 > Record expires on 23-May-2004. > Record created on 23-May-2003. > Database last updated on 5-Jun-2003 02:01:15 EDT. > Domain servers in listed order: > BRIAN.HILLHOST.COM 203.102.181.38 > CRAIG.HILLHOST.COM 203.102.181.33 > JAMES.HILLHOST.COM 210.10.156.105 > DAVID.HILLHOST.COM 210.10.156.106 The '07' prefix is designated for mobile phones in the UK. Regards, Chris ------------------------------ From: PaulCoxwell@aol.com Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2003 09:55:28 EDT Subject: Re: Hack a SPAMMER Week >> Could someone please hack http://moire.costpharm.com:6699/, they keep >> send me SPAM. > Well -- it's a site registered to a French national. What's interesting > though is that it's admin contact is in the UK as indicated by the +44 > in the phone number. But what's with the 0-70, do they allow 0 as a > region code in the UK? > Registrant: > Cost-zone.com (MSSGMEIQXD) > 32414 Tu Lounde > Paris > FR > Domain Name: COSTPHARM.COM > Administrative Contact, Technical Contact: > Cost-zone.com (LIYFBFJQRO) admin@cost-zone.com > 32414 Tu Lounde > Paris > FR > +44-0-70-7905-1126 No, the national zero prefix has probably just got left in by mistake (or maybe deliberately to foil at least a few attempts at contact!). The listed 07079 number is part of the "personal numbering" or "find me anywhere" range, which could be redirected to almost anywhere. According to the database at www.ukphoneinfo.com, numbers starting 070790 are allocated to a provider known as PNC Tele.com PLC. Don't bother calling though. I've already tried the number and it's not in service. ------------------------------ From: jmartin@novagate.com (Xavier) Subject: Re: ZPDI Scam - Lawsuit Yet? Date: 6 Jun 2003 08:09:27 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Don't know anything about a lawsuit - but I just got hit for $25.45 on a 3 minute call from across the state. $8 1/2 a minute -- that's criminal!! Bat wrote in message news:: > Anyone know if there's a class action lawsuit against ZPDI (Zero Plus > Dialing) yet? They ripped me off too; my wife made a collect call via > 1-800-COLLECT 40 miles away for 8 mins and we got hit $22.92! After > called ZPDI at 1-800-456-7587 several times and finally talking to a > "Tammy" -- I was told I would receive a $20.87 credit in a month or so > but yea, right -- I'll believe it when I see it. > The actions by ZPDI are unforgiveable and it smells like 1-800-COLLECT > and from what I've read other companies may be in on this scam > silently passing the calls to these companies who charge out at 1000% > more and probably share the profits with the parent company??? > This is absolute thievery. Is the mafia now doing the phone company gig? > Please ... > Anyway -- the only thing I've seen about this class action possibilty > is this guy: > http://www.girardgibbs.com/zpdi.html > Anything else out there? ------------------------------ From: Charles Cryderman Subject: Last Laugh! was Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2003 11:49:22 -0400 Lex Luther had it right the first time. A couple of well aimed nuclear devices along the San Andreas fault and who cares about cable service in San Jose' (Los Angeles and all points between). Chip Cryderman ------------------------------ 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #499 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Jun 7 14:36:01 2003 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id h57Ia1P12848; Sat, 7 Jun 2003 14:36:01 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2003 14:36:01 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200306071836.h57Ia1P12848@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson cc: johnl@iecc.com Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V22 #500 TELECOM Digest Sat, 7 Jun 2003 14:36:00 EDT Volume 22 : Issue 500 Inside This Issue: Editor: Lisa Minter The Popularity of Get It Now(SM) From Verizon Wireless Soars (M Solomon) Variant of Bugbear Virus Spreading on PCs (Monty Solomon) US Extends Probe of News Corp Bid to Buy DirecTV (Monty Solomon) Court Rejects Wireless Challenge to FCC Ruling (Monty Solomon) W32.Bugbear.B@mm Category 4 (Monty Solomon) Bugbear Virus Shut Down Stanford University E-Mail (Monty Solomon) EPIC Alert 10.10 (Monty Solomon) Wired Magazine Story to Detail Slammer Web Attack (Monty Solomon) Glitches Hit Sony Ericsson Megapixel Phones-DoCoMo (Monty Solomon) Wireless PCs for Mass. State Police (Monty Solomon) BellSouth Increased Dial-Up Performance Through Support (Monty Solomon) Re: Verizon and Shady Centrex Sales - What Do I Do? (unspammable-3107) Re: Verizon and Shady Centrex Sales - What Do I Do? (Dave Phelps) Re: Verizon and Shady Centrex Sales - What Do I Do? (Rich Greenberg) Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute (Herb Stein) Re: Last Laugh! was Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in (joe@obilivan.net) Re: Last Laugh! was Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in (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: Sat, 7 Jun 2003 03:20:35 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Popularity of Get It Now(SM) from Verizon Wireless Soars The Popularity of Get It Now(SM) from Verizon Wireless Soars as Customers Download Nearly 12 Million Applications - Jun 5, 2003 11:33 AM (PR Newswire) Customers Continue Ramping Up Rate of Application Downloads BEDMINSTER, N.J., June 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest wireless service provider, announced today its Get It Now(SM) customers are feeding an insatiable appetite for downloadable applications, thanks to new and sticky applications on its popular Get It Now service. As of 12 Noon on Sunday, June 8 -- just eight short months since the Get It Now national launch -- customers will have downloaded 11,762,894 Get It Now games, ring tone packages, entertainment applications and more (a single download may consist of a bundle of up to 10 ring tones; each month, ring tone packages are one of the most popular downloads). The rate of downloads has skyrocketed to 2.3 million downloads in May 2003, up from just under 1 million a month in the first few months of service that began in September 2002. On average, nearly 75,000 applications were downloaded each day in the month of May alone. ... - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34417468 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2003 03:22:48 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Variant of Bugbear Virus Spreading on PCs SEATTLE, June 5 (Reuters) - A variant of the "Bugbear" worm, which spread around the Internet last October, opening back doors on computers and logging keystrokes, has started to infect users around the world, putting them at risk of losing confidential information. The Bugbear variant is better at using addresses in a user's e-mail program, sending itself to those addresses using the infected user's identity, said David Emm a marketing manager for Network Associates Inc.'s (NYSE:NET) Anti-Virus Emergency Response Team. The new worm also sends mail with familiar subject lines such as "Interesting ...", "Just a reminder" and "Hi!" to try and get any recipients to open e-mail containing the worm. Once activated, the Bugbear variant tries to disable some security programs and starts to snoop on an infected system. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34421188 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2003 03:26:57 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: US Extends Probe of News Corp Bid to Buy DirecTV WASHINGTON, June 5 (Reuters) - News Corp. (AUS:NCP) on Thursday said antitrust enforcers at the U.S. Department of Justice have asked it for more information about its proposal to invest $6.6 billion in Hughes Electronics Corp. (NYSE:GMH) The department's antitrust division declined to give the deal early clearance, deciding instead to extend its investigation of how the deal could affect competition. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34423653 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2003 03:31:14 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Court Rejects Wireless Challenge to FCC Ruling WASHINGTON, June 6 (Reuters) - Cellular phone customers may be able to switch carriers without losing their phone numbers as early as November after an appeals court rejected a challenge by the industry on Friday. A U.S. appeals court upheld the Federal Communications Commission's long-delayed rule forcing wireless telephone companies to let switching customers keep their phone numbers. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia turned back arguments by Verizon Wireless and the cell-phone industry's trade group that the rule was unnecessary, arbitrary and capricious. The FCC said last year that the rule was needed because companies would not likely offer the option on their own, locking in consumers who were dissatisfied with the service but did not want to change their phone number. The judges concluded that the wireless companies had filed their challenge too late, and they dismissed the industry's contention that the agency had misinterpreted what the law deems "necessary" to protect consumers. The judges said the argument amounted to "dueling over dictionary definitions," which it called "pointless." - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34432088 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2003 03:44:38 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: W32.Bugbear.B@mm Category 4 Excerpt from http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/ W32.Bugbear.B@mm is a Category 4 mass-mailing, polymorphic worm that also spreads through network shares. This worm infects a select list of executable files, has keystroke-logging and backdoor capabilities and will attempt to terminate the processes of various antivirus and firewall programs. http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.bugbear.b@mm.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2003 03:43:06 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Bugbear Virus Shut Down Stanford University E-Mail SAN FRANCISCO, June 6 (Reuters) - The Bugbear worm, which resurfaced this week after initially infecting computers last October, on Thursday shut the e-mail system at Stanford University for nine hours, the university said on Friday. Stanford said it disabled all outgoing e-mail on Thursday due to a large volume of messages infected with the Bugbear.B virus. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34441202 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2003 03:48:16 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EPIC Alert 10.10 ======================================================================= E P I C A l e r t ======================================================================= Volume 10.11 June 6, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Published by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) Washington, D.C. http://www.epic.org/alert/EPIC_Alert_10.11.html ====================================================================== Table of Contents ====================================================================== [1] EPIC Conference Explores Privacy and Technology Issues [2] Ashcroft Testifies on PATRIOT Act Implementation [3] Inspector General Criticizes DOJ on September 11 Detainees [4] FCC Opens Door to Media Consolidation [5] Council of Europe Adopts Declaration of Freedom on the Internet [6] News in Brief [7] EPIC Bookstore: Privacy Times [8] Upcoming Conferences and Events http://www.epic.org/alert/EPIC_Alert_10.11.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2003 03:05:38 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Wired Magazine Story to Detail Slammer Web Attack By Reed Stevenson SEATTLE, June 5 (Reuters) - Wired magazine is planning to publish the underlying code for the Slammer worm that slowed Internet traffic to a crawl in January, raising questions over whether such articles inspire future hackers or educate potential victims. The article, which will be published in Wired's July issue due out on Tuesday, details how the Slammer worm, also known as "SQL Slammer", spread rapidly through the Internet on Jan. 25, shutting down Internet service providers in South Korea, disrupting plane schedules and knocking out automatic teller machines. The article includes the underlying software code for Slammer. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34427453 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2003 03:10:55 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Glitches Hit Sony Ericsson Megapixel Phones-DoCoMo TOKYO, June 5 (Reuters) - NTT DoCoMo Inc (TOKYO:9437) said on Thursday that technical glitches had affected its first megapixel phones, manufactured by Sony Ericsson, marring the debut of a new photo-phone model with the world's highest resolution. DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile phone operator, sold about 40,000 units of the camera-phone on the day of its launch on Wednesday. It said e-mail software on the model, which has a resolution of 1.3 million pixels, could freeze up when a message is typed, under certain conditions. The company said the problem could be solved by a software upgrade and that it did not plan to carry out a recall. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34414144 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2003 03:14:23 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Wireless PCs for Mass. State Police Massachusetts State Police Teams with HP to Roll Out High-tech Patrol Cars; Advanced Mobile Technologies Help Police Fight Crime - Jun 5, 2003 11:00 AM (BusinessWire) PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 5, 2003--Bad guys beware: Troopers patrolling the highways of Massachusetts are being equipped with the latest crime-fighting tools -- high-tech, wireless mobile computers. The Massachusetts State Police have teamed up with HP (NYSE:HPQ) to outfit patrol cars with PCs that can access a secure statewide data communications system for pertinent information, such as outstanding warrants and arrest records. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34417153 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2003 03:16:33 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: BellSouth Delivers Increased Dial-Up Performance Through Support BellSouth Delivers Increased Dial-Up Performance Through Support of New V.92 Modem Standard ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 5, 2003-- V.92 Standard Offers Better Compression for Quicker Downloads and New Features such as Modem-on-Hold and Quick Connect BellSouth (NYSE:BLS) today announced that customers of its dial-up Internet service, BellSouth(R) Internet Service, now benefit from BellSouth's support of the V.92 modem standard. V.92 is a new industry standard for dial-up communications that delivers improvements over the previous V.90 standard and makes Internet dial-up communications faster, easier and more enjoyable. Support of V.92 enables BellSouth's dial-up Internet customers to enjoy faster downloading with enhanced compression of data, the ability to temporarily place Internet connections on hold while taking or placing a phone call and quicker connection times between the modem and the Internet. These new features are available throughout the BellSouth region at no additional cost for BellSouth Internet Service customers. Customers only need a V.92 capable dial-up modem to take advantage of these new enhancements. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34416953 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2003 22:49:20 -0400 From: unspammable-3107@workbench.net Subject: Re: Verizon and Shady Centrex Sales - What Do I Do? My guess is that the biggest reason Verizon wants to get you on Centrex is to lock you in as a customer. Not only will they likely insist that you sign a contract for as long a period of time as they can convince you to go for, but they'll also "helpfully" disconnect (and possibly even remove, if you let them do it) your current PBX. What that means is that should another company come along with a better deal -- and that could be either a competitive local phone company, or one of the new companies springing up that offers voice over IP service (such as VoicePulse or Vonage or something similar) -- you can't get out of the contract with Verizon right away. But even when that contract runs out, you will still be faced with having to buy all new equipment, unless you have the presence of mind to hang onto your existing PBX and make sure it's not damaged in any way during the transition. So here are the questions I would ask: 1) Will I be required to sign a contract that in any way limits my ability to discontinue using your service at will? 2) Will you reconnect my existing PBX if I am not happy with your service (and if so, will you change me anything to do so)? 3) Will I have complete freedom to choose a carrier other than Verizon for InterLATA and/or IntraLATA long distance? 4) What, if anything, will I be charged for each "dial 9" local call? 5) Will my business phone numbers be changed? And if someday I stop using this service, can I still keep those numbers? IMHO, what you just may find if you dig a little is that there is something anticompetitive going on here. I'm sure others will have more to say, but personally I'd run as fast as I can from this kind of deal, unless ALL the answers are right (starting with the assurance that you can stop using the service at any time with NO penalty whatsoever). ------------------------------ From: Dave Phelps Subject: Re: Verizon and Shady Centrex Sales - What Do I Do? Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2003 01:24:06 -0500 Organization: www.tippenring.com In article , batcave@dma.net says: > As I said, we have five lines, going into a Toshiba DK40 hybrid > system. Is there any reason (despite the bad taste in my mouth) I > shouldn't do this? Does it have drawbacks they aren't explaining to > us? Any catches? Any hard questions you suggest I ask them before I > sign? I'd like to at least give them a hard time. :-) Yes. The drawback is that you will be signing a relatively long term contract with severe cancellation penalties. Your users will complain about having to dial the extra 9, so plan on programming your switch to insert the 9 for them. There is are only two reasons salespeople are pushy: commissions and quotas. As much as they would like you to believe it, they *aren't* looking out for your best interest. Take your time. Review the agreement. Consider talking to other service providers. Consider talking to your vendor, or if your vendor is also a Verizon reseller, talk to another vendor or telecom specialist in your area. Saving $25/month doesn't seem like it's much reason to let them push you into something you may regret. Dave Phelps Phone Masters Ltd. deadspam=tippenring ------------------------------ From: richgr@panix.com (Rich Greenberg) Subject: Re: Verizon and Shady Centrex Sales - What Do I Do? Date: 6 Jun 2003 21:42:19 -0400 Organization: Organized? Me? In article , Dave Bushnell wrote: > Hi folks - > I'm the Internet and web guy at my company, and although I have no > real telecom expertise this has fallen to me as Resident Geek, so I'm > hoping to get some input from you who have a better knowledge of all > this. > Verizon has been pushing us hard through their "authorized sales reps" > to move our 5 POTS lines to what appears to be dial-9 Centrex. > Although this could fill another post -- they were so pushy and shady > that we ended up with a New York State Public Service Commission beef. > So we started all this with a very bad taste in our mouths, and now > we're being exceptionally cautious. In addition to Pat's good advice, I would add that you should get any promises made by Verizon in writing and signed by a high level Verizon officer. 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: Comcast Sues San Jose in Franchise Dispute Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2003 20:49:56 -0500 John Higdon wrote in message news:telecom22.499.2@telecom-digest.org: > In article , Herb Stein > wrote: >> I'd have agree with this statement. I'm not in favor of subsidies >> (welfare) for any reason. But if the "powers that be" see fit to >> provide one, they should be funded by taxpayers and not rate payers. > Why should taxpayers fund that which benefits subscribers to the cable > service? The network is a condition for allowing the company to do > business in the city. Why should those of us who will have nothing to > do with the cable services subsidize that which enables the services > to those who do? Of course, you should not have to if that is the case. Perhaps I misunderstood the earlier comments. I thought that the cable company was being asked to provide a voice and data system for the city. If the city needs such a network, someone has to build it. If that is in fact the case, the rate payers ought to be off the hook. > I want nothing to do with Comcast. I don't what their inferior TV > service. I certainly don't want their restrictive Internet > service. Why should I have to fund anything that has to do with them? > In article , Neal McLain > wrote: >> Assuming that this is the same franchise agreement that Comcast has >> acquired, both Comcast and the city are still bound by it. In which >> case, Comcast can rightfully claim that it has not agreed to build an >> I-net. > But there is NO franchise agreement in place. TCI, then AT&T, now > Comcast have been dickering with the city for years and years. The > city could toss Comcast at any time and invite someone else in. And I > wish it would. Actually, what I really wish is that the city would > take it over and make it a municipal system. >> Of course, I may have missed something. Maybe some previous franchisee >> actually has agreed to build an I-net (in which case, I'm sure we'll >> hear from John Higdon). Or maybe 303(D) actually has been adjudicated >> (in which we'll hear from John Levine). > The city has put down its terms for a franchise agreement. Its > position is that if Comcast won't accept them, it will find a cable > company who will. In the meantime, San Jose residents suffer from a > thirty-year-old infrastructure that no one will upgrade until after a > franchise agreement is signed. > John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS > +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 Herb Stein The Herb Stein Group www.herbstein.com herb@herbstein.com 314 952-4601 ------------------------------ From: joe@obilivan.net Subject: Re: Last Laugh! was Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2003 18:22:58 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications Charles Cryderman wrote: > Lex Luther had it right the first time. A couple of well aimed > nuclear devices along the San Andreas fault and who cares about > cable service in San Jose' (Los Angeles and all points between). > Chip Cryderman Hey, what about us who live in Calyfornia who don't agree with all that stuff? You simply want to snuff us, no mater what? [Lisa Minter note: Isn't Lex Luther the arch-enemy of Superman in the comic books? Lisa M.] ------------------------------ From: John Higdon Subject: Re: Last Laugh! was Re: Comcast Sues San Jose in Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2003 16:30:05 -0700 In article , Charles Cryderman wrote: > Lex Luther had it right the first time. A couple of well aimed > nuclear devices along the San Andreas fault and who cares about > cable service in San Jose' (Los Angeles and all points between). Sometimes we think the same thing about much of that which lies east of the Mississippi. John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS +1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ 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: 620-330-6774 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. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 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 #500 ******************************