From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Mar 31 00:00:35 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id i2V50Y616168; Wed, 31 Mar 2004 00:00:35 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 00:00:35 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200403310500.i2V50Y616168@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 #152 TELECOM Digest Tue, 30 Mar 2004 23:59:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 152 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Manchester, UK Exchange Fire (Jim Burks) <<================ More Fire News from Manchester, UK Fire (TELECOM Editor) <<========== Re: Western Union Clocks (Wesrock@aol.com) Cellular Tower Leases (Roy) Re: HDTV - Looking at an All-Digital World (jmayson@nyx.net) San Francisco ballpark becomes WiFi Internet hub (Monty Solomon) Re: "Virtual" Call Forwarding (Sammy@nospam.biz) Re: A Better Way To Squelch Spam? (jmayson@nyx.net) VOIP Seeks Its FCC Level (VOIP News) Vonage Sues AT&T for Trademark Infringement (VOIP News) VoIP Reaches Out, Wirelessly (VOIP News) SPA-3000 Unveiled by Sipura Technology at the Spring VON (VOIP News) 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 are 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: Jim Burks Subject: Manchester, UK Exchange Fire Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 03:14:47 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com A fire damaged a major BT cable tunnel in central Manchester, UK early Monday morning. This seems to be their equivalent of the Hinsdale, IL fire of the '80s in the US (see TELECOM Digest archives for details). Significant disruption of the phone network at least 100 miles from Manchester in some areas. Estimates are 150,000 lines affected, including the city ambulance dispatch radios, a number of call centres and web hosting centres. My company's high capacity leased lines in the area are still down as of Tuesday evening. News links: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/5/36645.html http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/5/36652.html http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/news/stories/Detail_LinkStory=85790.html http://www.cybertrn.demon.co.uk/guardian/ Jim Burks Collierville, TN jburks2 (et) midsouth.rr.com ------------------------------ From: Editor writes: > Participating PBS stations transmit the time signal on Line 21 of the > Vertical Blanking Interval. > My Sony VCR sets itself withing about 5 minutes. I doesn't make the > DST changes until I cycle the power for some reason. My (Panasonic) doesn't make any changes until you cycle the power. A couple of months ago my power was off for a time and when it came back on it was totally confused. Finally I got the manual out and discovered that was document ... except it seemed to me the power going off and then coming back on at some later time *was* cycling the power. I cycled the power off and on manually and the time came up very promptly. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com ------------------------------ From: roy.inc@verizon.net (Roy) Subject: Cellular Tower Leases Date: 30 Mar 2004 17:27:06 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I want to buy cellular tower leases, is there a directory of cell tower lease owners? Thanks. ------------------------------ From: jmayson@nyx.net Subject: Re: HDTV - Looking at an All-Digital World Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 01:53:18 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com > The digital television (DTV) transition is moving into more American > homes via over-the-air broadcasting, cable TV, satellite and other > formats. Nearly 7 million U.S. households have bought digital TV > monitors and other display devices to take advantage of this > opportunity. Another 11 million homes are expected to buy DTV > equipment this year, and the number will grow to about 34 million > households by the end of 2006. To discuss the opportunities and > challenges, Vision spoke with a true DTV pioneer, Peter Fannon, vice > president, technology policy and regulatory affairs, > Panasonic/Matsushita Electric Corp. of America. I just don't get it. They expect Americans to pay a steep price for clearer mind-numbing crap? Quoting from TurnOffYourTV.com: "The whole point of DTV and HDTV (high definition television) is to offer a clearer TV signal -- at a price. And the price will be steep in two ways: First, the actual cost to the consumer for the new DTV products. And second, the cost to the environment as thousands of perfectly useable televisions are rendered useless and placed in trash heaps. The point of the TurnOffYourTV.com web site is for people to unplug from the tube, get rid of their television sets and replace them with books, exercise and rewarding interpersonal activities -- not to trash the television and replace it with a more expensive one." http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/commentary/digitaltv/digitaltv.html I'd just as soon let all of the analog stations go dark and forget the medium ever existed. But I'm the only one in my house who has this opinion. :-/ John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 21:00:34 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: San Francisco Ballpark Becomes WiFi Internet Hub SAN FRANCISCO, March 30 (Reuters) - The old ballgame is getting some new technology. Baseball fans bored by the slow pace of a game or wanting more statistics and information will be able to connect computer devices via wireless computer networking, or WiFi, at San Francisco Giants home games this year, the team announced on Tuesday. The Giants' stadium is, after all, called SBC Park, for telecommunications giant SBC Communications Inc. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=40967313 ------------------------------ From: Sammy@nospam.biz Subject: Re: "Virtual" Call Forwarding Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 18:14:54 -0800 Organization: Cox Communications _William_ wrote: > Question: > ================= > Does anyone know of a company that allows me to "port" (using the new > number portability capabilities) my existing landline phone number to > them and then allows me to forward that to a different number without > having to maintain an actual phoneline. Interesting question. The LECs have offered a feature since the early 1980s called "Remote Call Forwarding," which is only a logical presence in an area where you want a local presence. But, that would mean having a local number in the remote area forwarded to your physical number. Since number porting is local, I doubt what you are seeking would fall under the local number portability rules. ------------------------------ From: jmayson@nyx.net Subject: Re: A Better Way To Squelch Spam? Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 02:01:12 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com > Here's a way to do it. Let anybody issue money stamps. Let the > issuer keep the money. Let them use the money to build the necessary > server infrastructure, and if it's profitable, fine. A "stampette" > is, in effect, a one-time certificate, and the issuer is a certificate > authority whose certificates can't be cached. I'm estimating a price > of few thousand stampettes per dollar. I shouldn't have to pay even a penny because of spammers. I believe any system constructed to "stop spam" will get bypassed and abused. I don't understand why Internet users can't take it upon themselves to stop spam. I figure if *I* can do it, anyone can. John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ From: VOIP News Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 15:51:13 -0500 Subject: VOIP Seeks Its FCC Level Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?site=lightreading&doc_id=50174 The regulatory status of voice over IP (VOIP) is still undecided, even after one service's victory with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), according to speakers at the Voice Over the Net (VON) conference. Kicking off a day-long session [ed. note: a mighty long session, that] on policy and regulation, speakers reiterated the argument that VOIP is fundamentally different from telephone service and should be regulated differently. The FCC has agreed -- for now. VOIP service Free World Dialup (FWD) was granted a February petition to be considered a data service rather than a telecommunications service (see VOIP to Star at FCC ). That puts FWD, and anything looking just like it, under Title I regulation for information services, as opposed to the more restrictive Title II for telephone service. (FWD is offered by Pulver.com, the same company that organizes VON). But that's no reason for proponents of easily accessible VOIP to celebrate yet, said Blair Levin, managing director of Legg Mason Inc. who was chief of staff to former FCC commissioner Reed Hundt. Full story at: http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?site=lightreading&doc_id=50174 ---------------------------------------- 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, 30 Mar 2004 13:04:57 -0500 Subject: Vonage Sues AT&T for Trademark Infringement Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com My comments follow the excerpt ... http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/8309500.htm By Martha McKay, The Record, Hackensack, N.J. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News Mar. 30 - Vonage says AT&T is taking advantage. The Edison-based Internet telephone start-up claims AT&T stepped on its cyber-turf when AT&T named its new Internet phone service "CallVantage" and registered some Web site names that sound close to Vonage's name. Vonage makes its claims in a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in Trenton. The suit accuses AT&T of trademark infringement, among other things. "It's about the brand name," said Vonage spokeswoman Brooke Schulz. "We're concerned that our brand is being infringed upon and we're concerned there will be confusion in the marketplace." AT&T introduced "CallVantage," a service similar to Vonage's broadband phone service, in December and began selling service in New Jersey and Texas this month. AT&T chose the name CallVantage "with the intent of causing confusion, mistake, and deception as to the source of its products and services, and with the intent to present its products and services as emanating from, or being associated with, Vonage," the lawsuit said. AT&T spokesman Gary Morgenstern would not comment on the case except to say: "We think the lawsuit is totally without merit and we think we'll prevail in court." Vonage's additional claim against AT&T involves the practice by companies of purchasing the rights to Web site domain names with similar spellings to their own. Experts say companies may do this to ensure that potential customers who incorrectly type a Web site name will either be redirected to the correct site, or get an error message. Full story at: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/8309500.htm Comment: First the standard disclaimer - I am not a lawyer, and what follows is my personal opinion only. Having said that, and disregarding the domain name issue for the moment, on the face of it this appears to be one of the dumbest trademark infringement lawsuits I've ever heard of. Not only is there very little similarity between "Vonage" and "CallVantage", but the folks at Vonage surely must realize that AT&T is not some small company that can be easily bullied into changing their product's name. I can think of a lot of company names that are a lot more similar than this. For example, first there was VoicePulse, then a few weeks later, VoiceGlo. There is a company called Broadvox, and more recently a company called Broadvoice (those last two are so similar that someone commented that maybe one of them should buy a blimp, so we can tell them apart!). But, in my opinion, the only way someone could confuse "CallVantage" with "Vonage" is if they were really drunk or something. Now, the practice of purchasing a misspelled version of a competitor's trade name is probably much more questionable, and if that were the sole issue I would not be making these comments. But somehow, I really doubt that Vonage is going to be able to force AT&T to change its product's name. (For those outside the U.S. who may not understand the blimp reference -- there are two U.S. tire manufacturers that have had similar names for decades. One, Goodyear, has a blimp (actually I think more than one) that's often used for aerial video shots at sporting events, etc., and is probably one of the more recognized icons of the advertising world. The other one, Goodrich, once ran an advertising campaign that mentioned the blimp and said, "We're the OTHER guys.") ------------------------------ From: VOIP News Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 15:19:58 -0500 Subject: VoIP Reaches Out, Wirelessly Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1557451,00.asp By Sebastian Rupley The talk at the VON (Voice On the Net) conference this week in Silicon Valley is not just about Voice over IP (VoIP) technology, but the coming convergence of Wi-Fi wireless LAN technology and VoIP services. That melding is already leading to the development of new products and services, with many more expected later this year. VoIP is already in the middle of a major comeback, and most observers think that's because widespread broadband adoption and other more reliable high-data-rate technologies have finally made sound quality and ease of use good enough for phone calls placed over the Internet. VoIP is saving businesses and consumers money, and is also raising sticky issues, such as whether the Federal Communications Commission should levy tariffs on VoIP players. According to Arizona research firm In-Stat/MDR, over 5 million people will subscribe to VoIP services by 2007 five times more than there were in 2002, a trend which could represent a trouble spot for other kinds of telecommunications companies. Full story at: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1557451,00.asp ------------------------------ From: VOIP News Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 15:17:01 -0500 Subject: SPA-3000 Unveiled by Sipura Technology at the Spring VON Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.sipura.com/Documents/SipuraPressRelease005.pdf SPA-3000 Unveiled by Sipura Technology at the Spring VON Conference VoIP Phone Adapter + PSTN Gateway Functionality Combines Advanced Media Gateway with Sophisticated Call Routing and Authentication in an Ultra Compact Design SAN JOSE, CA. March 30, 2004 Expanding on the phenomenally successful SPA-2000 and the just released SPA-1000 Voice over IP telephone adapters, the SPA-3000 continues to deliver on Sipura Technology's mission to provide market leading, best-in-class VoIP end points providing freedom and opportunity to service providers and end users. The SPA-3000 will feature VoIP adapter functionality found in the SPA-2000 and SPA-1000 with the additional benefit of an integral connection for legacy telephone network hop-on, hop-off applications. SPA-3000 users will be able to leverage their broadband phone service connections more than ever by automatically routing local calls from cell phones and land lines to a VoIP service provider and vice versa. A typical user calling from a land line or mobile phone will be able to reduce and even eliminate international and long distance telephone charges by first calling their SPA-3000 via a local phone number or by using a telephone connected directly to the unit. The advanced authentication and call routing intelligence programmed into the SPA-3000 will connect the caller via the Internet to the far end destination with security and ease. At the far end, calls can be answered immediately or further processed as a local call to any legacy land line or mobile phone allowed by the SPA-3000 dial plan. By combining the all features and functionality of a Sipura phone adapter with the power of a land line connection, the SPA-3000 is a welcome addition to our growing line of voice over IP endpoints, said Jan Fandrianto, Sipura president and CEO. The SPA-3000 may also be used for life line applications. For example, depending on the service provider's set-up, callers who dial 911 can be automatically routed via the IP or legacy telephone network. If power is lost to the unit or the VoIP service is down, calls will still be sent to a traditional carrier via the FXO interface. Sipura is currently working with several service providers to further define requirements for life line support in products such as the SPA-3000. In addition to the hundreds of programmable features available with VoIP phone adapter functionality, the SPA-3000 will provide specific features to allow calls to be routed to and from the FXO interface. Some of the features available on the SPA-3000 include: - Multiple, Configurable Dial Plans Activated for Individual or Groups of Users - Single and Dual Stage Dialing - FXO / VoIP Line Sharing The SPA-3000 will be available in North America in May 2004, from Internet telephony service providers and authorized Sipura Technology distributors. Beginning in April, a paid beta and evaluation program will be offered to customers via Sipura Technology's web site. The list price of the SPA-3000 is $169.95 About Sipura Technology: Sipura Technology, Inc., located in San Jose, California, delivers products that are economically and functionally designed for large-scale global Voice over IP deployments. By providing exceptional value, Sipura Technology offers customers high quality products that support rapid service adoption with secure and sustainable growth. Web address: http://www.sipura.com Contact: Name: Sherman Scholten Company: Sipura Technology Phone: (408) 572-5674 Email: sherman@sipura.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, 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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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #152 ******************************