From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Mar 13 14:30:02 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id i2DJU2922855; Sat, 13 Mar 2004 14:30:02 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2004 14:30:02 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200403131930.i2DJU2922855@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V23 #120 TELECOM Digest Sat, 13 Mar 2004 14:30:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 120 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson The End of Dial Tone Monoply (Archives Reprint - Don Kimberlin) SkyFILES: The Aftermath of DISH/Viacom (Monty Solomon) Re: Seen on a Manhole Cover (Fred Goldstein) Re: Ever Heard of PeoplePC Online? (Wesrock@aol.com) Re: Ever Heard of PeoplePC Online? (dold@EverXHeard.usenet.us.com) Dial From Outlook (Saturnius) Re: Anybody Know About Broadband Over Power Lines? (Scott Dorsey) Re: Off Premise Extension (Scott Dorsey) Re: Caller ID for PC (Clarence Dold) Re: Last Laugh! Important notify about your e-mail (William Warren) 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. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk is definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== 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 Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2004 12:51:09 EST Subject: End of Dialtone Monopoly Fourteen years ago, in 1990, Donald Kimberlin presented an article to the Digest Archives on some of the massive changes which were starting to take place in the telecom industry and for this weekend I thought it might be worth a second look. PAT Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa04352; 31 Aug 90 0:04 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa02297; 30 Aug 90 22:35 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ac07282; 30 Aug 90 21:30 CDT Date: Thu, 30 Aug 90 20:30:07 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #606 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.) End of TELECOM Digest Special: Dial Tone Monopoly [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: (from 2004) And the above article is the way one man, Don Kimberlin, saw things as the 1990's got underway. Arco *had* been headquartered here in Independence for many years prior to their corporate relocation to Richardson, Texas and their 'discovery' at that point of the GTE service they would be 'stuck with'. But microwave transmission was nothing new to Arco at that point. They were also using microwave facilities for various purposes at their offices here in Independence. Their microwave 'wire room' was located in Room 217 in the Arco (now known as Independence Corporate Office) Building here, and in recent years was the offices of TerraWorld, our local ISP, which made use of some of the 'dishware' on the roof of the building left behind by Arco. TerraWorld expanded into telephone service (as Prairie Stream Communications) in 2002 and moved into basement quarters at the Arco Building where access to the house pairs and building LEC was more convenient for them. A small fire in the Arco Building on the second floor last year did some minor damage to the remains of the old 'wire room' in room 217. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2004 10:55:56 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: SkyFILES: The Aftermath of DISH/Viacom by Michael Hopkins Viacom and EchoStar have ended their skirmish. But was the dispute just the beginning of more challenges to come for the cable and satellite TV industry? The spat between the companies, concerning DISH Network's carriage of Viacom channels and CBS owned-and-operated nets, not only put the spotlight on the two entities. It opened up a Pandora's Box of issues for the entire pay-TV business. This week, consumers got a peek behind the curtain that divides them from the wizardry of multichannel programming. They've learned a lot about how "their" channels get chosen -- and they may begin to push for the chance to pick and choose only the channels they want instead of paying for dozens of channels they don't really care to watch. That could be troublesome for pay-TV services and programmers. http://www.skyreport.com/viewskyreport.cfm?ReleaseID=1342#Story4 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2004 08:47:25 -0500 From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: Seen on a Manhole Cover chsvideo@hotmail.com (Lincoln J. King-Cliby) wrote, >fg> The LERG entries, which DSL Reports seems consistent with, are a bit >> strange. It shows 760-750 as an RSC ("remote switching center", the >> "large remote"), a remote node off of the San Marcos DMS-100 switch >> (which also has a lot of Vista prefix codes on it). An RSC can serve >> a few thousand lines, depending on load. It's run by the host >> switch's processor, with backhaul trunks to the host, but has its own >> internal switching matrix (and "emergency standalone" capabilities). >> It's theoretically possible to put a few trunks onto an RSC, but >> normally the trunks (to other switches) are all at the host. > Interesting ... out of curiosity by "few thousand" do you mean "less > than a prefix", "a prefix", or "a few prefixes"? (Further, must a > exchange exist entirely on a RSC or can it be split between the RSC > and the host switch?) Prefix codes nowadays are like DNS addresses; they can be flexibly pointed at whatever. They are portable between switches and carriers, though they are not geographically portable, which simply means that a given prefix is billed to a given place, no matter where the physical switch or customer is. Even absent number portability, number assignment is via a common pool in the host, so prefix codes are not really assigned to remotes. > There are very few true ISDN lines on campus as far as I am aware > (Beginning of this week: 15, end of this week: 11) and I'm fairly sure > that they're provisioned off of the PointSpan. > At one point in the past the campus was (POTS/Analog) Centrex based, A hA! That's probably why there's an RSC listed for that code. It was probably there for the Centrex. The Centrex was replaced but the LERG entry was not removed. The RSC itself might have been pulled out after the Centrex went away, if nobody else was using it. The LERG doesn't have to be accurate; trunks go to the host, so whatever the LERG (the source of all of this info) says about host-remote assignment is, well, merely informational. A carrier using the LERG will send 760-750 to the host, whether or not it's used at a remote, whether it's billed as San Marcos or Vista (both on the same switch). > but AFAIK everything is now provisioned off of the PointSpan ... I > think even the COCOTS (actually owned and operated by some 3rd party) > hang off of the PointSpan [When I called an ANAC on one of them I got > a 760-750-xxxx number, and our Telephone Services people will assign > #s anywhere from -0001 to -9999 off of the PointSpan]. The code has probably been rerouted to your PBX, via the host. > For what it's worth, I think the "Large Remote" lives in the > "Telecommunications Building" which is located between two of our > parking lots and about the size of a _small_ apartment ... I know > where the various bits of the PointSpan live on campus, and that isn't > it. Also, all of the copper bundles that (I'm assuming) used to come > into campus from the "outside" have been hacked off right inside the > cable vault and abandoned in place. Connections to the outside world > appear to be entirely fiber-based, with the exception of the one coax > for "my" CATV service. Hmmm, more evidence that the remote has been redeployed someplace else. >>> ...What gives -- why to we have a GTE manhole out there? >> Most likely, the campus just happened to be on a backbone route to GTE's >> territories, which are scattered all over southern California, including >> the valley north of San Marcos, in western Riverside County. > Aha, I guess I had assumed that GTE would either use some wireless > method or route their traffic over "someone else's" network between > territories rather than resorting to their own backbone ... don't ask > me why ... Nobody uses wireless nowadays to serve wireline except for *very* remote routes. It's all glass. Toll revenues are divided among carriers based on who owns how much of the toll network, so GTE had good reason to do their own hauling. A lot of smaller telcos meet the Bell at the exchange boundary, but GTE could afford to pull more. > And to make this even sadder, I live in a GTE (well, GTE dba > Verizon) area in southwestern Riverside County 909-69x -- I guess it > seemed so far out of place. > Thanks for your reply! > Lincoln ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2004 10:01:18 EST Subject: Re: Ever Heard of PeoplePC Online? In a message dated Fri, 12 Mar 2004 18:03:56 EST, TELECOM Digest Editor ptownson@telecom-digest.org writes: > Its up to you to make sure the local dialup number is truly local or > in your calling area. The same thing is true on AOL. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com ------------------------------ From: dold@EverXHeard.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: Ever Heard of PeoplePC Online? Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2004 16:48:28 UTC Organization: a2i network TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > month, you can get the PeoplePC Online 'Accelerated' version where They, or at least the name and the kid in the ads on TV, have been around for a while. A couple of years ago you could get a PC and internet service for $29.95 per month, with a new PC every year or two. I think they gave up on that one, and just offer the ISP service now. I have no experience with them. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well that child on television is with a group known as 'Net Zero', and they say they are traveling all around the USA encouraging people to take the 'NetZero Challenge', and he informs us there is no reason guys would not want to get involved. Is NetZero the same as PeoplePC Online? PAT] ------------------------------ From: saturnius@gmx.net (saturnius) Subject: Dial From Outlook Date: 13 Mar 2004 09:02:55 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello, I am looking for a product that connects a standard telephone with MS Outlook. I was just wondering whether there is a standard telephone with a serial/USB/Bluetooth interface and an Outlook plugin. I would like to use the Outlook Contacts but also keep my standard telephone. Is there something like this? ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Anybody Know Anything About Broadband Over Power Lines? Date: 13 Mar 2004 09:11:00 -0500 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Matt Simpson wrote: > Does anybody know anything about broadband service provided over power > lines? It's basically an impractical idea. Power lines are not exactly the constant-impedance at very high frequencies. Currently there are systems to run 50 baud and 110 baud data over long-distance transmission lines for switch control and signalling, but much more than that isn't reliable. The folks promoting BPL are mostly promoting it for last-mile access in rural areas, which is in fact the place where the lines are least going to be able to handle any sort of impressed carriers. > I'm in an area where cable and DSL are not available, and I'm not > really thrilled with the satellite option. I've been reading about > powerline broadband, which until recently seemed mostly experimental, > and hoping it would catch on. Sadly, you will probably also be in a location where BPL won't be available for a long time either. The whole notion of using the low voltage power system for distributing RF is a bad one. You might be more likely to find reasonably priced satellite network service soon. > Now I'm reading reports that Cinergy is starting to roll the service > out to their customers in the Cincinnati are (not geographically far > from me). > http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/03/02/biz_biz1acin.html Give it some time and see how this one plays out. It's going to be interesting to see if they can make the system work at all without totally wiping out AM radio in the process of providing intermittent service to small areas. But we'll see. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Off Premise Extension Date: 13 Mar 2004 09:12:56 -0500 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Michael Muderick wrote: > He'll be using a Panasonic wireless system that has an auto-attendant > built-in so calls can be routed to any of 3 extensions. Is there any > way around Centrex? The houses are less than a 1/2 mile apart. Does > Verizon offer just a dry pair, or loop between two locations? That > would be ideal. In some areas you can still get dry pairs, but it depends on the local infrastructure. Ask the telco to connect you with whoever handles radio loops and burglar alarm circuits. It may take a good while to find the right person, but once you do manage to get him, ask about 48F circuits. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: dold@CallerXIDX.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: Caller ID for PC Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2004 16:54:24 +0000 (UTC) Organization: a2i network J Kelly wrote: > Does anyone know of an inexpensive device for Caller ID on a PC that > plugs into either a COM port or a USB port? I can't seem to find an > inexpensive PCI modem that does CID, I've gone through 5 now that > claim to, but they never work (damned winmodems!). I want to avoid > using the old USR Sportster external modem due to the size, I'm hoping > to find something more compact. My USRobotics 56K Voice PCI shows caller ID, both with the software that came with it, and the built in Fax driver with WinXP. With WinXP, when the phone rings, there is a pop up, noting that a call is coming in from XXX-XXX-XXXX, would I like to answer it as a fax machine? It came bundled in the Dell PC when I bought it, so I don't know how expensive it is as a retail item. Why not get a $10 caller ID device at Target, and plug it in to the "phone" port of your modem? Or are you trying to do some computer work with the CID? Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8-122.5 ------------------------------ From: William Warren Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Important notify about your e-mail account. Organization: Comcast Online Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2004 14:15:39 GMT wrote in message news:telecom23.119.14@telecom-digest.org: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This not so funny spam showed up in > my mailbox here at MIT on Friday. PAT] > Dear user of e-mail server "Telecom-digest.org", > We warn you about some attacks on your e-mail account. Your computer > may contain viruses, in order to keep your computer and e-mail account > safe, please, follow the instructions. > For details see the attach. > Sincerely, > The Telecom-digest.org team http://www.telecom-digest.org > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There then followed a particularly > nasty virus the 'Telecom-digest.org team' sent out around the net to > everyone. NASTY IGNORANT PEOPLE DOING THIS.! PAT] Pat, It's just W32.Cone.D@mm, which is relatively benign. See http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.cone.d@mm.html for details. HTH. Bill Warren [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It may well be 'relatively benign' as you suggest. But I still do not like having things go out *under my name* which could harm or break up someone else's computer and have them think I said or did it. I guess it does not matter what I like or don't like. At first I thought it was sort of funny when those things came from 'microsoft updates' (as they still do), but now they also come from PFSR, and various other good organizations, usually disguised as a way to 'clear the viruses out of your computer', or 'prevent spam from reaching you'. Indeed ... just by rote teaching and suggestions I flush it all away, since I do not really know that much about computers or their innards. But I really feel sorry for the guys who know even less than myself about computers and feel that something which comes from 'microsoft security department' or PFSR must be for their own good and should be installed right away 'just as the people at Microsoft told me to do.' 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, Yahoo Groups, 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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