From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Apr 7 23:58:05 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id i383w5225318; Wed, 7 Apr 2004 23:58:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 23:58:05 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200404080358.i383w5225318@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 #169 TELECOM Digest Wed, 7 Apr 2004 23:57:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 169 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson PC Magazine Review of VoIP Services (VOIP News) Canada CRTC Initiates VoIP Hearings (VOIP News) ENUM Still Stalled in US (VOIP News) Re: User Request for PSTN Info (William Warren) Re: Walmart Mix Up Balancing Credit Cards Causes Major Hassle (Thomas) Re: Walmart Mix Up Balancing Credit Cards Causes Major Hassle (Sobol) Re: Skype is Not Hype (Chip G) Re: Obituary: Inventor of Telephone Answer Machine Dies (William Warren) Re: Radio Signals (William Warren) Re: Cell Phones Exceed Land Lines in Maine (John Levine) Re: Dropped Words With VOIP (Hank Karl) IBM System/360 40 Years Old Today (Lisa Hancock) Phone Card Retail Business (C. Nelson) The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales (Monty Solomon) Last Laugh! I Did Mention Ozzie & Harriet Earlier (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. =========================== 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: VOIP News Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 13:09:54 -0400 Subject: PC Magazine Review of VoIP Services Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com I think I may have mentioned this before, but we've had several new subscribers (hey, if you like this list, feel free to tell your friends and associates, we can always accommodate more readers!), and I've seen two different reminders about this article this morning. So, for those who may have missed it, PC Magazine is running a review of various VoIP services in their May, 2004 issue - but, you can also read it online: http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,115053,00.asp Or, if you want to read it all on a single page (not recommended if you're running at 800x600 screen resolution or lower, since it runs off the edge of the screen), use this link: http://www.pcworld.com/resource/printable/article/0,aid,115053,00.asp 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: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 13:13:55 -0400 Subject: Canada CRTC Initiates VoIP Hearings Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040407.gtcrtc0407/BNStory/Technology/ Globe and Mail Update OTTAWA-GATINEAU, April 7 The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has provided its preliminary views on the regulatory framework applicable to voice communications services using Internet Protocol, and has initiated a proceeding to examine the regulatory requirements for the provision of these services. The commission considers that there is a need to set out its views on the regulatory regime applicable to the provision of those services. Full story at: http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040407.gtcrtc0407/BNStory/Technology/ ------------------------------ From: VOIP News Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 11:40:24 -0400 Subject: ENUM Still Stalled in US Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.cbronline.com/currentnews/c1ba1096a4c7819180256e6f0032d4bb By Kevin Murphy Public deployment of ENUM, the three-year-old standard for using telephone numbers over the internet, is still a way off in the US, despite the fact that many people think it will be an essential component of widespread voice over IP adoption. The US government came out in favor of accelerating ENUM plans in February 2003, but little has happened since, as the telecommunica- tions, cable and internet industries try to hammer out the details of how implementation should happen. Interested parties organized into a group called the ENUM Forum have agreed that the best way to introduce ENUM in the US would be to form a limited liability corporation, which would receive contractual authority to run ENUM from the government. But there is still disagreement over how the ENUM registries contracting with this LLC would be required to operate. The complex issue takes into account political boundaries and competition and revenue concerns. Full story at: http://www.cbronline.com/currentnews/c1ba1096a4c7819180256e6f0032d4bb ------------------------------ From: William Warren Subject: Re: User Request for PSTN Info Organization: Comcast Online Date: Thu, 08 Apr 2004 00:27:39 GMT Charles G Gray wrote in message news:telecom23.168.15@telecom-digest.org: > I saw your request for info in the Telecom Digest. I teach at Oklahoma > State University in the master of science in telecommunications management > (MSTM) program. One of my classes is Telecommunications Industry > Overview, where I give students the "50,000 foot view" - really a > broad-brush approach. [snip] Professor Gray, Please give the group your opinions on these forward-looking questions. TIA. 1. Will VoIP become a serious alternative to circuit-switched telephony? A. If VoIP is viable, do you predict it'll be used with dedicated "telephones", or with PC's? A combination? B. If VoIP is not the future transport mechanism, what is? 2. Will the SS7 network be replaced by IP? There are tremendous savings available with the more common IP equipment replacing the SS7 routers, but telcos move at glacier-like speeds, and tend to resist change. Will their hearts melt for Cisco? 3. Do you support the Negroponte Switch, i.e., do you agree that everything now on wire will become wireless, vice versa? Are geostationary satellites a special case of the swith to a "wired" paradyme for over-the-air broadcasts? 4. What does the growth in fiber capacity mean for the traditional LECs? Will Shannon's theories about the switching vs. capacity balance be realized with the death of the "traditional" circuit-switched exchange? What will that mean to the consumer, or the businessman? 5. Will there be a backlash against the idea of "always on" connectivity that the cellular network makes possible? We've already heard of theaters jamming cellphones, but I'm more interested in your opinion of the users' reactions to having an electronic leash in their pocket all the time. Do you think that society will start to value privacy more than communication? Thank you for your time. Bill ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2004 01:05:41 +0100 From: Graeme Thomas Subject: Re: Walmart Mix Up Balancing Credit Cards Causes Major Hassle [ PAT: please delete my email address, as usual. ] In article , J Kelly writes > On Wed, 7 Apr 2004 00:02:13 +0100, Graeme Thomas wrote: > I'm curious about "blocking". Does anyone know what happens if I call > a hotel and reserve a room for sometime in the future, say six months, > and I use a debit card to guarantee the room, do they generally block > your card for the amount of that room? Or do they not do anything > with you card number until check in time. I only have a debit card > and I have an aversion to using it for hotel reservations, but maybe I > shouldn't be concerened about it. I have used my PayPal debit card at > check-in time and they blocked 5 days worth of the room cost to it at > that time. They did not unblock it when I paid the total at the end of > the week, only charged the final amount. The blocked charge "falls > off" the PayPal card after 10 days if it isn't finalized by the > merchant. I believe that the hotel is only supposed to put through a nominal amount, to check that the card is valid, rather than (say) the cost of the room. It would not surprise me if some hotels tried the card for something like the full room cost. The issuing bank will remove unsatisfied authorizations after a certain time. That time is up to the bank, but Visa used to recommend 45 days (and perhaps still does). That period was determined during the old days, when payments were made from paper slips, which could take weeks to come through. The delays were particularly noticeable from foreign transactions. When the hotel finally gets around to charging you (at check-out time) any previous authorizations should get cancelled automatically. I would not be astonished were this to fail sometimes, either. A potential problem with blocked amounts comes from "pay at pump" fuel stations. They typically do an authorization for the maximum amount they'll dispense. In the UK, with my card, that's £60, or around $110. The financial transaction, at the end of the day, is only for the fuel dispensed, of course. The differences can mount up. Graeme Thomas ------------------------------ From: Steven J Sobol Subject: Re: Walmart Mix Up Balancing Credit Cards Causes Major Hassle Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 19:45:27 -0500 TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Wesrock@aol.com: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: We have a very nice branch of Bank of > America here in town, at Penn and Locust Street. The lady told me they > have checking accounts at no charge for old people as long as their > social security money is on direct deposit to that bank. I've thought > about moving my account over there from Commerce National Bank, but > Commerce is much closer to my house and has a 24 hour drive through > auto teller I can use. PAT] My wife had a nasty experience years ago with the BofA branch on Seventh Street in Victorville, CA, but most of the other area branches are great, including the one in Apple Valley and the two Victorville branches that aren't on Seventh. I'm mightily impressed with the way they take care of us these days. They're huge, but at least around here, they don't act huge. JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, Apple Valley, CA PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net Domain Names, $9.95/yr, 24x7 service: http://DomainNames.JustThe.net/ "someone once called me a sofa, but i didn't feel compelled to rush out and buy slip covers." -adam brower * Hiroshima '45, Chernobyl '86, Windows 98/2000/2003 ------------------------------ From: Chip G Subject: Re: Skype is Not Hype Organization: Comcast Online Date: Thu, 08 Apr 2004 02:15:13 GMT Jack Hamilton wrote in message news:telecom23.168.4@telecom-digest.org: > VOIP News wrote: >> [Comment: Above and beyond the problems with Skype described in this >> article, my opinion is that any service that relies on the computer's >> audio circuitry will not be around for long. The reason is that for >> optimal sound quality, both ends really need to use a headset - >> otherwise you get audio feedback loops from speakers to microphone. >> But in order to use a headset, you have to disconnect your speakers >> and standalone microphone (if any) from your computer's sound system. > No, you need to disconnect only the speakers. There won't be any > feedback into a standalone microphone if the sound is coming through a > headset. If you use a headset anyway because you want better sound > than comes through the cheap speakers that came with your computer, or > you don't want to disturb the neighbors, there's no expense except the > microphone. >> And even if you somehow work around that, if you let your computer >> play streaming audio or background music while you work, you have to >> shut that down every time you take a call. > Which would be the polite thing to do during a call in any case. Or you could use the really cool Plantronics MX-10 (I don't work for Plantronics but do believe that they have some pretty cool and great quality stuff). The MX-10 allows you to simulataneously connect the audio jacks from your PC and the audio connection from your telephone so you can use one headset to simultaneously listen to both PC and telephone. If you want the external PC speakers too, simply use a splitter on the audio out jack from the PC. ------------------------------ From: William Warren Subject: Re: Obituary: Inventor of Telephone Answering Machine Dies at 92 Organization: Comcast Online Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 23:49:45 GMT Eric Friedebach wrote in message news:telecom23.167.6@telecom-digest.org: > Associated Press, April 5, 2004 > MILWAUKEE -- Joseph James Zimmermann Jr., who invented the telephone > answering machine in 1948 and patented it a year later, has died at > the age of 92. According to Jay Leno, Zimmermann's last words were "Doc! Pick up!". ------------------------------ From: William Warren Subject: Re: Radio Signals Organization: Comcast Online Date: Thu, 08 Apr 2004 00:11:09 GMT Carl Moore wrote in message news:telecom23.168.11@telecom-digest.org: > Responding to a Nov. 2002 message: I have had cases where KYW > (Philadelphia news-radio, 1060 AM) got bounced to me in Michigan, > Ohio, West Virginia, and North Carolina. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: [snip] Radio signals are funny creatures. When I was the Engineer at a "sundowner" local AM station, I got a request from a group of radio buffs, asking that our station participate in a trial to see which of the members could hear us at night. Of course, a daytime station has to sign off at sundown, but there's a loophole: from Midnight to local sunrise is the "Experimental Period", when anybody can fire up even if they're only a daytime licensee. I was due for a major phone-equipment changover a couple of weeks later, which required my presence during the graveyard shift. So, I wrote back, said "Sure!", and borrowed a morse-code practice oscillator to use for ID's. The station in question had a directional array: two towers fed at different phase angles, to "protect" a station in Canada on the same frequency. The great majority of the station's power was directed westward, with a "notch" aimed at the Canadian licensee, but because the array was fed with an adjustable "phaser", i.e., an phase-shifting coil/capacitor network, I could "steer" the signal pretty much anywhere I wanted. No point in aiming it East: that was just the Atlantic. So, from Midnight to 1 AM, I aimed our signal NorthWest, from 1 AM to 2 AM, West, etc., while the telco techs ripped out their old cable entrance and "rodded" the pipe to fit a new cable that we all hoped would cure a persistent problem with RFI getting into the neighbors' phones. We got 17 "QSL" cards from the SWL enthusiasts, which must have been a large success rate, because their association sent me a copy of the newsletter in which they talked about the "phenominal" results. When it got to about 5:30 AM, I shut down, return the phaser to it's normal settings, and the AM DJ showed up in time for the 6 AM start (we had a "Pre-Sunrise Authorization"). I never told the SWL club that I'd been steering the array around the compass all night; what the hell, they felt good to get a "rare one", and I had time to kill. Radio signals may be funny creatures, but radio Engineers are funnier. Bill ------------------------------ Date: 7 Apr 2004 21:11:18 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Cell Phones Exceed Land Lines in Maine Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> Verizon is not the only landline telco in Maine. There are plenty of >> independents. I would be surprised if there were more cell phones >> than landlines, since in large parts of rural Maine, your cell phone >> just plain doesn't work. > But rural areas, by definition, are not heavily populated, so there > wouldn't be many landlines in rural Maine either. Not a whole lot, but considerably more than zero. Not all of the independents are in the boondocks either, e.g. Casco and Old Town. > Cell phone access doesn't matter for tourists and visitors -- You must know different people than I do. The ones I know depend heavily on their cell phones when travelling. Regards, John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies" Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Sewer Commissioner "I shook hands with Senators Dole and Inouye," said Tom, disarmingly. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 17:43:14 -0400 From: Hank Karl Subject: Re: Missed Words and VOIP Organization: Nine-9s Hi Pat, You wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have a Cisco ATA-186 and there is > *no way* to run it to the head of the line, when used with (either) a > Linksys router or (my present) NetGear router. The Cisco simply has > to take a position on the router, or maybe I could get another router > or 'cable splitter' or something to shove it into the cable modem > *first* then run the line to the NetGear with everything else (less > the ATA). Should I conclude from what you are saying, that the > Motorola TA has that condition as part of it, i.e. it feeds into the > cable, then also feeds 'the other way' not only to the telephone > instrument but also allows a 'pass through' to a router from there? > That would be ideal, if all I had to do was swap TA boxes and > re-arrange some wiring. PAT] Yes, I suggest swapping TA boxes. The Motorola has two Ethernet ports, one goes to your cable modem, the other to your router. I don't think that putting the Cisco ATA before your router will do much good, even if you could get two IP addresses from your ISP (one for the router, the other for the Cisco ATA.) See http://www.vonage.com/small_business/installation_multiple.php Also see http://broadband.motorola.com/consumers/products/vt1000v/ Hank Karl Eastern Regional Manager www.Nine-9s.com +1 (203)207-0047 (v) Hank.Karl@Nine-9s.com +1 (215)243-7320 (f) email my cellphone: page.Hank.Karl.2@Nine-9s.com Representing: http://www.telchemy.com/ VQmon Voice over IP Quality Monitoring software http://www.telesoft-intl.com/ ISDN, T1 RBS, E1 R2 CAS, Frame Relay, ML-PPP, X.25, http://www.agoralabs.com/ elemedia(tm) H.323, Video Codecs, and Audio Codecs http://www.tntss.com/ dynamicsoft(tm) SIP [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well I do not intend to even ask for a second IP address just to service the Vonage phone, since that would cost me another fifty dollars per month, or more than double the effective cost of my Vonage phone, and Cable One would not accept 'next month free' coupons from Vonage, nor do they issue such things on their own. If I find anyway in the various links which were given here a couple issues ago about 'throttling' the other software when Vonage wants to be there, or if somehow moving the ATA to the head of the line makes a difference (like you, I cannot really imagine it would unless the other things can be slowed down temporarily), then I will do that. It is very rare I actually get incoming calls on Vonage, and when I am going to make outgoing calls I can reach over to the Win 98 and Win 95 and slow them down manually. Maybe I can get some sort of 'cable splitter' (the Motorola TA perhaps?) and maybe the other programs, while they splash and walk all over the internal LAN would not do so on the cable itself. I really dunno now. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: IBM System/360 40 Years Old Today Date: 7 Apr 2004 13:23:39 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com It was 40 years ago today (4/7/64) that IBM announced its System/360 line of mainframe computers, introducing an architecture still used today and breaking new ground. S/360 was built with the idea of teleprocessing and soon it was used for considerable data communication. The Bell System's had a lot of business from this, both dial-up and private lines. I don't think S/360's precedessors, such as the 7090, did much teleprocessing except in very specialized circumstances. The S/360 architecture of channels and interupts worked well with teleprocessing requirements. The growth of S/360 fueled Bell System work in modems and data transmission. Today we take all the following for granted, but it was a major technological and software achievement for IBM to achieve the following features in 1964. The success of S/360 and its successors in the marketplace made computers a commonplace item in industry and government. The principles of its architecture and operating system, described below, were included in the PC. S/360 had several advantages: 1) A uniform machine for both science and business applications. Science/engineering requires high speed numeric processing, typically using fixed binary words. Business requires character manipulation, typically using single alpha-numeric characters grouped in varying lengths. Companies could now use a single machine to do both kinds of work efficiently. 2) A uniform machine for both large and small applications. To keep hardware costs down, small machines had limited storage addressing and command sets. The architecture of S/360 made it possible for economical small machines to be sold that were compatible with large machines. This meant as customers grew and required more powerful computers, they need not rewrite their applications. 3) Hardware emulation of earlier computers. This allowed customers to continue using older applications until they got around to converting them. (Many never bothered to convert). The use of hardware (microcode) emulation allowed the old applications to run faster on the new machine without change. 4) Multi-tasking. Computer CPUs were extremely fast, much faster than mechanical printers, disks, and tapes. S/360 allowed for several programs to run at the same time, making more efficient use of the machine's full resources. For example, on-line programs could run while batch jobs were running. Multi-tasking required a sophisticated hardware approach to keeping applications separate and serviced. 5) A sophisticated operating system: While earlier machines had some control programs, S/360 had sophisticated support services. Simple machines had none. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I remember when Amoco credit card phased out their manual accounting operation and went with S-360 in 1964 or so. Geeze, forty years ago ... :( PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Phone Card Retail Business From: C. Nelson Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 20:47:07 GMT I am trying to setup my own business website for selling international/domestic prepaid phone cards. It will work like this: User enters the name of the country he/she wants to call and this site give all bunch of phone card plans and then user enters Credit card information to buy the card. In return this site give 1-800 number and a unique account number/pin number to make a call. This unique nubmer expires after certain minutes of call and user has to buy online again to make more calls. from what I understand there are consolidators or wholesale companies through which all the big and small telecommunication companies sell their prepaid calling cards. They are not going to sell cards to somebody like me who is retailing $50,000 worth of cards in a month. I am trying to find the list of these consolidators or wholesale companies. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 23:15:45 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales - An Empirical Analysis Felix Oberholzer Harvard Business School Koleman Strumpf UNC Chapel Hill March 2004 Abstract A longstanding economic question is the appropriate level of protection for intellectual property. The Internet has drastically lowered the cost of copying information goods and provides a natural crucible to assess the implications of reduced protection. We consider the specific case of file sharing and its effect on the legal sales of music. A dataset containing 0.01% of the world's downloads is matched to U.S. sales data for a large number of albums. To establish causality, downloads are instrumented using technical features related to file sharing, such as network congestion or song length, as well as international school holidays. Downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero, despite rather precise estimates. Moreover, these estimates are of moderate economic significance and are inconsistent with claims that file sharing is the primary reason for the recent decline in music sales. ... http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March2004.pdf ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 17:20:21 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Last Laugh! I Did Mention Ozzie and Harriet Earlier You put in a bracketed Editor's Note in the message I sent about ACLU Suit. An earlier message from me mentioned that David Nelson (son of Ozzie & Harriet) was indeed stopped, then recognized and allowed to proceed. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, Carl, I know you did, which is what inspired me to think of him when I gave my response. Poor David Nelson. I guess his mother would remember him as the black sheep in the family, if that was his real name. Probably most of the mothers of David Nelson are wondering where they went wrong in his upbringing. I guess all we can do is keep our fingers crossed and hope this long nightmare will end on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, when 'they' get unceremoniously kicked out *on their ass!* We should only hope. But things are looking pretty grim. It is very rare that someone seated is removed but it has happened. 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. 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If you donate at least fifty dollars per year we will send you our two-CD set of the entire Telecom Archives; this is every word published in this Digest since our beginning in 1981. 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 V23 #169 ******************************