From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Mar 23 15:26:16 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id i2NKQGb01013; Tue, 23 Mar 2004 15:26:16 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 15:26:16 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200403232026.i2NKQGb01013@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 #136 TELECOM Digest Tue, 23 Mar 2004 15:26:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 136 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Previewing Level 3's Upcoming VOIP Announcement (VOIP News) Nortel Submits VOIP E-9ll Proposal (VOIP News) VoIP: Major Rip and Rep (VOIP News) Voices On Broadband (VOIP News) And Then There's VoIP Over Broadband Powerline (VOIP News) CDT: Law Enforcement Concerns Can Be Addressed (VOIP News via CDT) Re: Google Local is Cool (John A. Cummings) Re: Lawsuit Regarding Excessive Prison Phone Charges (Stanley Cline) Re: Watch Your Mouth (Colin Sutton) Re: Last Modern Towns to Go Dial? (Howie) Deja vu For TV Viewers / As Color TV Turns 50, HDTV Feels Same (Solomon) Triumph of the Telcos (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. =========================== 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: VOIP News Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 11:40:04 -0500 Subject: Previewing Level 3's Upcoming VOIP Announcement Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.americasnetwork.com/americasnetwork/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=89588 Previewing Level 3's upcoming VOIP announcement By: Joan Engebretson America's Network Weekly Level 3, which claims to operate the world's largest softswitch network, will announce a residential VOIP-over-broadband offering later this month. Unlike others who have entered this market, the carrier will use a wholesale-only approach. The company already has serious interest in the service from channel partners that include "household names in the interexchange carrier, Internet service provider, and cable MSO types of categories," said Level 3 vice president Dennis Kyle. Level 3's new service will resemble offerings from carriers such as Vonage and AT&T that ride on broadband DSL or cable modem connections, which could be supplied by any service provider. In addition, Level 3 will offer what it calls a "building block" service that will provide E911, local number portability and directory assistance services to cable companies or others that have their own softswitches. Full story at: http://www.americasnetwork.com/americasnetwork/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=89588 How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html ------------------------------ From: VOIP News Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 14:23:33 -0500 Subject: Nortel Submits VOIP E-911 Proposal Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?site=lightreading&doc_id=49828 WASHINGTON -- In response to a call from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for industry support, Nortel Networks has submitted a proposal for an architectural framework that will enable Enhanced 9-1-1 (E9-1-1) access on voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) networks. Last week at an FCC-hosted Washington forum, FCC Chairman Michael Powell urged the telecommunications industry to make the development of a nationwide VoIP E9-1-1 solution a top priority. Nortel Networks shares Commissioner Powell's views on the importance of reliable E9-1-1 service. Last week, Nortel Networks submitted a detailed proposal to NENA - the National Emergency Number Association - to address key technology challenges. Full story at: http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?site=lightreading&doc_id=49828 If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: VOIP News Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 11:53:49 -0500 Subject: VoIP: Major Rip and Rep Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://p2pnet.net/story/1041 p2pnet.net News:- We're about to go through major rip and replacement in the communications world, says Federal Communications Commission Michael Powell, speaking of VoIP deployments on top of high-speed Internet networks. Addressing the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association's trade show, to think of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) as just another voice service is missing the point and, "The truth is, a bit is a bit," he's quoted as saying in a Wi-Fi Planet report here . VoIP is a killer app" and it's going to be a "competitive revolution for the wireline [providers], but for wireless guys as well," he said. "Data isn't an incremental add-on, data is the end-game," he said earlier in his talk, urging "industry leaders" not to "look to the government to solve every problem they encounter". If the wild popularity of another data transmission protocol, Wi-Fi, took the cellular industry's own 3G plans by surprise, the lesson is not to fear a potentially disruptive technology, the Wi-Fi Planet report has him saying. "Although a nascent technology, VoIP is already forcing traditional wireline phone providers to adopt new strategies at the same time cellular phone service is eroding their revenue base." Story from http://www.p2pnet.net How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: VOIP News Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 12:21:13 -0500 Subject: Voices On Broadband Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040329-603253,00.html Voices On Broadband AT&T brings Internet phone calling to the masses. Don't worry, it's easy By ANITA HAMILTON Need another good reason to step up to high-speed Internet access at home? Here's one: it could save you money on your monthly telephone bill. That's because a technology called voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) lets you use your cable or DSL Internet connection to make cheap local and long-distance calls, all while using your regular home-phone handset. Previously offered mainly by small start-ups, VOIP has generated so much interest that long-distance giant AT&T began offering it this month. AT&T isn't the first player in the consumer VOIP market; start-ups Vonage and VoicePulse have had similar offerings for $35 and $25 a month, respectively, since last year. But support of VOIP by AT&T, the largest long-distance carrier in the U.S., promises to bring the technology into the mainstream. "AT&T's entry should broadly legitimize VOIP for residential customers," says Steve Koppman, principal analyst for Gartner Group Dataquest. ..... Full story at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040329-603253,00.html ------------------------------ From: VOIP News Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 12:29:08 -0500 Subject: And Then Theres VoIP over Broadband Powerline Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.xchangemag.com/articles/431coverstory5.html And Then There's VoIP over Broadband Powerline VoIP seems to be invading every nook and cranny of networking. Just another example: powerline communications. Jay Birnbaum, vice president and general counsel for Current Technologies, which provides products to enable utilities' electrical grids to act as broadband access networks, says the company, and its customers clearly see VoIP as the next phase of service. That is, after they get powerline-based broadband Internet access services off the ground. He adds that VoIP was one of the applications FCC Commissioner Michael Powell witnessed during his visit to Current Technologies, Potomac, Md.-based test house just after the Triennial Review decision was released. Birnbaum adds that interest in powerline is not exclusive to electric companies and their equipment suppliers. He says AT&T has publicly stated that it is looking at broadband powerline technology as a possible way to compete in the local loop. Full story at: http://www.xchangemag.com/articles/431coverstory5.html ------------------------------ From: VOIP News Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 04:55:36 -0500 Subject: CDT: Law Enforcement Concerns Can Be Addressed Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com This statement is from the Center for Democracy & Technology at http://www.cdt.org/ - the text below is from the PDF format file at: http://www.cdt.org/digi_tele/20040319voiponepager.pdf The Internet and Law Enforcement Surveillance: Law Enforcement Concerns Can Be Addressed Without Regulation, Which Would Stifle Innovation, Raise Costs, Risk Security There is nothing untappable about packet or Internet technology. Packet services currently available for voice and data are tappable at one or more points in the networks, and service providers are quite willing to work with law enforcement to satisfy interception orders quickly and fully. But the Internet is different from the traditional telephone network, and government agencies should not expect that surveillance will be carried out on the Internet the same way it is carried out in the circuit-switched telephone network. The digital revolution has produced many means of communication and it is not reasonable to require that all of them identify communications and route traffic the same way that the telephone network does. Yet the Justice Department and the FBI are trying to force the diversity of services available over the Internet into a single format resembling the telephone network. On March 10, 2004, DOJ and FBI filed a Joint Petition for Expedited Rulemaking with the Federal Communications Commission asking the FCC (a) to declare that providers of broadband access and 'Voice over IP' (or Voice on the Net) services are covered by the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), and (b) to create a regulatory process under which new communications protocols, applications, or services must be reviewed and approved by the FBI before they can be deployed. CALEA was adopted in 1994 in response to law enforcement concerns that wiretaps would be more difficult in digital telephone networks than they had been with the analog phone system. CALEA required telecommunications carriers to design basic wiretap capabilities into their networks. As it was implemented, the CALEA statute gave the FBI very precise design control over telephone switching software. The FBI was able to convince the FCC to mandate very specific features, including 'at substantial cost to carriers' features that gave the government capabilities going beyond those that had been available in older phone systems. Thus CALEA was used to enhance rather than merely preserve government surveillance capabilities. The CALEA statute applies only to telecommunications common carriers. It does not apply to 'information services.' Congress realized that the Internet was fundamentally different from the telephone system and Congress chose not to apply CALEA to the Internet and 'information services' carried over it. VoIP, email, Instant Messaging and other forms of Internet communications are information services and thus are not covered by CALEA. Although ISPs and Internet application providers must (and do) comply with interception orders under the wiretap laws, they have not had to design their networks and services to meet FBI specifications. The Joint Petition seeks to alter the balance initially struck in CALEA, and asks the FCC to extend CALEA to cover broadband Internet access generally and VoIP services specifically. Moreover, the Joint Petition asks the FCC to create a system under which any new technology that might replace a range of existing communications technologies must be reviewed and approved by the FBI before deployment. Such a prior-review requirement would destroy the United States' ability to innovate on the Internet, and would in effect overturn the critical decisions of the FCC over the years that facilitated the rise of the Internet as a mass communications medium. The changes that the FBI seeks are not necessary to allow law enforcement to carry out court-ordered interceptions. The Internet and technology industries are working hard to meet the needs of law enforcement, and the imposition of the sweeping regulatory regime advocated by the Joint Petition is not necessary to provide law enforcement with the ability to carry out its investigations. Surveillance features built in to satisfy government demands could undermine the openness and security of the Internet. For more information, contact Jim Dempsey (jdempsey@cdt.org), Lara Flint (lflint@cdt.org) or John Morris (jmorris@cdt.org) at (202) 637-9800. ------------------------------ From: John Cummings Subject: Re: Google Local is cool Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 07:15:07 -0600 wrote in message news:telecom23.132.15@telecom-digest.org: > In a message dated Fri, 19 Mar 2004 08:26:06 -0700, Phil Earnhardt > < pae@dim.com> writes: >> One wonders what countermeasures the Baby Bells -- and other >> owners of Yellow Pages services -- will launch. >> SmartPages.com is an SBC operation. > SmartPages.com is an SBC operation. RealPages.com is a BellSouth operation. John Cummings ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: Lawsuit Regarding Excessive Prison Phone Charges Organization: Roamer1 Communications - Dunwoody, GA, USA Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 08:08:18 GMT On 22 Mar 2004 07:48:57 -0800, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote: > All calls by prison inmates are made collect. The recipient > must pay extremely high charges. There is another, relatively new, growing problem -- the fact that collect calls are becoming an anachronism because of the growing amount of competition in the telecom business. * Try calling a cell phone collect -- can't do it. * Try calling a number served by a CLEC collect -- in the vast majority of cases, can't do it (most CLECs refuse to handle billing for other carriers and so most CLEC customers can't receive collect calls.) * Try calling a number served by a VoIP provider (Vonage, VoicePulse, etc.) collect -- can't do it. (VoIP providers are invariably customers of CLECs, and don't want to handle billing for other carriers either.) I know quite a few people who would be unable to call *anyone* if they were to be arrested because the only numbers they have for friends and family are cell phones, CLEC or VoIP numbers, etc. (I still have a BellSouth POTS line that is not restricted from receiving collect calls, but very few people have the number ...) IMO, the whole "prison phone" business is in need of serious reform, and not just because of what the carriers handling the calls are charging and where revenues are going. The mindset that "everyone is still a customer of the ILEC and can receive collect calls" is simply obsolete -- there has to be a better way. Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time." -/usr/games/fortune [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When I was living in Skokie, Illinois (Chicago suburb, and god -- how long ago it now seems) I had a neighbor named Ken who was employed by the Cook County Jail as an 'intake clerk'; that is, a person who sits there checking in new inmates (of which there are several hundred every 24 hours.) Ken was not precisely a model citizen himself and had gotten his job at the jail through the patronage system (what else is new?) because he had probably voted for, and encouraged others to vote for the 'right candidate' for one of the various government offices. The person got elected and handed out many jobs to reward his workers. But Ken could make sense now and then when speaking frankly about jail conditions. He said it was all too often that an arrested person getting to the jail would ask about being allowed to make a phone call to his wife or family to let them know where he was at, and it was a situation where jail (inmate) phones were 'incompatible' with the phones used by the general public (which is to say, the recipient could not receive a 'collect' call, and jail phones did not allow one to place a call to an '800' number, etc.) "The police who brought me here said I would be allowed to make a call when I got here, I have been in booking for eight hours, and still can't make any calls!" Ken said if the newly arrived inmate was an 'asshole' he would just follow the script and tell him "try calling from the phone in your cell block when you get there", knowing that would not work either, but hoping the new inmate was unaware of it. "But then one day, there was this very mild-mannered older guy getting checked in who said to me, 'what if *you* were on the 'wrong side of the counter for a change getting checked in?'" Ken said he thought about that silently and said silently to himself, "well, only through Gods grace I am not," so he handed *his* phone to the man and said "go ahead and dial a local call." The old dude was so grateful that someone had given him a chance to make a one minute phone call to his family. Cook County Jail is on the same phone centrex (773-890) as the inmate's cell block phones, but the employee phones are unrestricted. They cost no more or less to use for local calls than the inmate phones, and because it is a HUGE centrex (the entire 773-890 range) they more than likely get calls cheaper than 'regular citizens' anyway. So why not allow them to be used since this was, after all, a jail and theoreticallty innocent people were being warehoused there. Stanley, my feeling is the Corrections Industry just wants to be as punitive as possible. Those phones cannot call anywhere prepaid, they cannot get incoming calls, they cannot call 800 numbers, the call recipients cannot 'call forward' or 'three way call' incoming from inmates; in general the phones may as well not be available at all, which they wouldn't be if the Supreme Court had not said 'try your best to rehabilitate inmates' which flies in the face of everything the Corrections Industry is trying to accomplish. So they wound up giving the inmates very high priced, almost worthless phones to show who were the real bosses. Either call 'collect' (at our inflated prices) or don't call at all. Jail/prison phones cannot call the zero operator, they cannot call '411', or anything other than zero plus ten digits, collect. If there are three phones per cellblock, two of them are out of order, and the one working phone has fifty people in line to use it, then too bad. But don't touch that phone on the desk at the guard station, or else you die! PAT] ------------------------------ From: Colin Sutton Subject: Re: Watch Your Mouth Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 22:11:49 +1100 Hey, it's not 1st April yet! :-) Colin Monty Solomon wrote in message news:telecom23.132.1@telecom-digest.org: > In its Thursday ruling against Bono and Howard Stern, the FCC > announced that a new day of language policing has dawned. > By Eric Boehlert > March 19, 2004 | Taking on its new role as the indecency hanging > judge, and doing it with a vengeance, the Federal Communications > Commission on Thursday levied a fine against Howard Stern, America's > most notorious radio talk show host, and ruled that U2 frontman Bono > had been indecent and profane for using the word "fucking" in a Golden > Globes telecast. The moves were just the latest in what the FCC > suggests will be a string of penalties. Under pressure during an > election year from politicians and grass-roots groups to clean up the > airwaves, the bipartisan commission, which for years was all but > dormant on the topic, has launched an unprecedented campaign to battle > indecency on the airwaves. > http://salon.com/news/feature/2004/03/19/fcc/ Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.639 / Virus Database: 408 - Release Date: 22/03/04 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 10:47:22 -0500 From: Howie Subject: Re: Last Modern Towns to Go Dial? A quick search uncovered: Michael Hathaway reports that "[My] parents owned the Bryant Pond Telephone Company in Bryant Pond, Maine, the last hand-crank magneto company to go dial. It was in our living room and the last call was made October 11, 1983." More info at: http://www.privateline.com/TelephoneHistory5/History5.htm -Howie ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 07:49:57 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Deja vu For TV Viewers / As Color TV Turns 50, HDTV Feels Same Benny Evangelista, Chronicle Staff Writer Back in the days when black-and-white television was the norm, Pete Deksnis delighted in watching one of the few shows broadcast in living color. "No matter how lousy the show was, you looked at it," said Deksnis, who owns one of the first mass-produced color TV sets that began rolling out of an RCA factory 50 years ago this week. Today, with color TV the rule, not the exception, it's deja vu for Deksnis -- he goes out of his way now to watch one of the relatively few shows broadcast in high-definition television. "HD drove me back to network television after years of apathy," said Deksnis, who has his antique TV parked next to his HDTV set in his living room. "I'll even check the afternoon HD soap opera on CBS, but for a few minutes only, to enjoy the crystal clear picture." HDTV, because it offers dramatically higher quality video and audio than standard TV, is hyped as the biggest technological advance in TV since color. Yet HDTV has not quite caught on with mainstream consumers for many of the same reasons that held back color TV sales for more than a decade -- the high prices of sets, the fact that only a few shows and major events were broadcast in color and some initial confusion in technological standards. Consumer interest in HDTV is on the rise, yet it's hardly as fervent as the early interest in color TV. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/03/22/BUG4E5OAHI1.DTL ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 11:32:13 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Triumph of the Telcos Internet telephony advocates are predicting that free long distance means the downfall of Big Telecom. But it won't be so easy to topple the king. By G. Pascal Zachary March 23, 2004 | Technology pundits would have us believe that Internet telephony, which enables "free" phone calls for those with broadband and the proper equipment, is going to topple the established phone companies. But the future may not turn out to be so one-sided. Instead, Internet telephony (commonly referred to as VOIP, for "voice over Internet protocol") may represent just another battleground for the usual fights between the Baby Bells, the long-distance telephone companies and the cable companies. While the outcome is uncertain, Internet telephony, despite its insurgent, revolutionary credentials, stands a good chance of being co-opted by the oligarchy that rules over telecommunications in America. http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/03/23/voip/ ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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