From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Apr 24 12:58:14 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id i3OGwEU12674; Sat, 24 Apr 2004 12:58:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2004 12:58:14 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200404241658.i3OGwEU12674@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 #204 TELECOM Digest Sat, 24 Apr 2004 12:58:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 204 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson VOIP Fledgling in Founders Flap (VOIP News) ZipGlobal First to Offer Retail Internet Telephony Service (VOIP News) Stealth Communications Announces Official Launch of VPF ENUM (VOIP News) Canada CRTC Extends Review of IP Telephony Rules (VOIP News) Wake-up Call: Voice-over Internet Poised to Reshape (VOIP News) Taxes on VOIP Service? (Clark W. Griswold, Jr.) Packet8 -- A VOIP Review (Clark W. Griswold, Jr.) Eritrea Cellphone Curbs Put Democracy on Hold (Joseph) Cell Phone Spending's Black Hole (Eric Friedebach) Next Treo 600? (Thomas Popple) "Old Style" Telephone Call Recording Device (Diamond Dave) How to Return Lost Cellular Telephone Found on Street (Don Saklad) Re: The GMail Saga (jmayson@nyx.net) 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: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 14:14:52 -0400 Subject: VOIP Fledgling in Founders Flap Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?site=lightreading&doc_id=51585 This week's launch of StreamCast Networks Inc.'s Morpheus Voicebox put i2Telecom International Inc. on the map as a provider of voice-over-IP hardware and service to U.S. consumers (see Morpheus Morphs Into VOIP Provider ). But before taking on P2P VOIP competitors, i2Telecom was already fighting the founders of a company it acquired. The founders of SuperCaller Community Inc. are seeking to rescind the sale of SuperCaller to i2Telecom and collect damages of at least $40 million, according to the lawsuit they filed last December in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Their suit alleges that i2Telecom's directors and officers carried out an elaborate scheme to trick the founders of SuperCaller into relinquishing control of their company and intellectual property. I2Telecom says the suit is without merit and has moved to dismiss the case. Full story at: http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?site=lightreading&doc_id=51585 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: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 18:50:11 -0400 Subject: ZipGlobal Is First to Offer Retail Internet Telephony Service Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com This press release puzzles me -- maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that any supposed advantage of this kit is negated by the fact that you have to order it online. If you could walk into a local store and buy it then I could perhaps see some advantage, but a "a pay-as-you-go, off-the-shelf retail VoIP service" loses a lot when the "shelf" isn't local. So what am I missing here? http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=66295 ZipGlobal Is First to Offer Retail Internet Telephony Service Pack on Sina.com QUINCY, MA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 04/23/2004 -- ZipGlobal, a leading provider of Internet telephone services, today announced Sina.com US as the first North American online retailer to offer the ZipGlobal To-Go service kit through its virtual shopping mall, Sina Mall (http://mall.sina.com). ZipGlobal is the first in the market to offer a pay-as-you-go, off-the-shelf retail VoIP service. High-speed Internet users can purchase the To-Go kit and start making calls. To-Go users are not subject to monthly fees, binding contracts, or other surcharges. In addition, the package includes a free $10 calling bonus for making calls to domestic and international destinations. Calls to the US, Canada, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, for example, cost 2 cents per minute. "SIP-based VoIP service is still a brand new concept to most consumers. The ZipGlobal To-Go service pack allows users to try our service with no strings attached. We firmly believe in our voice quality and that our service will bring huge cost savings to customers, especially those who make frequent calls overseas. If you are not happy with the service, we will gladly refund your money. Better yet, if you decide not to continue with the service after 30 days, we will repurchase the equipment from you for $30," said Jimmy Li, ZipGlobal CEO. "We are excited that Sina is partnering with us to distribute this unique product." ZipGlobal offers benefits to customers, including: -- Significant cost savings -- Excellent voice quality -- Ease of installation, use and account tracking -- Compatible with PBX systems and fax for business use -- Enhanced features and functionality -- Global service portability The ZipGlobal To-Go pack includes a Sipura SPA-1000 telephone adapter. Customers can make calls on their ZipGlobal gateway or wireless phone by recharging their account with ZipGlobal Recharge Cards or by making payments with a credit card. ZipGlobal To-Go customers can also upgrade to the regular ZipGlobal service to customize their service plans and features. About ZipGlobal ZipGlobal, headquartered in Quincy, Massachusetts, is a leading provider of global digital telephone services. With its ground-breaking Voice-over-IP technology, ZipGlobal seamlessly integrates the best of local and long distance telecommunications to meet users' needs. ZipGlobal delivers cost-savings, technology ease-of-use, and superb sound quality that customers have come to expect from traditional phone services. Customers only need to have broadband Internet and a telephone. Web address: www.ZipGlobal.com ZipGlobal Contact Sissi Liu ZipGlobal 617-786-0909 sissiliu@zipglobal.com Full story at: http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=66295 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are right, Jack. I do not see what makes this such a great deal. Vonage, for example, runs their own 'virtual storefront' or mall, themselves. Anyone going to http://vonage.com can see their offerings, and they've been doing it for about a year or maybe a little more. But Vonage has also 'gone retail' in a bigger way I think; they are also on the shelves in Best Buy, I think, or maybe it is Computer World or Costco; not sure which. Vonage gives their own 'e-coupons' as well, or some kind of rebate plan. You buy the Motorola MTA and pay for a year's subscription up front. And the two guys who run our Radio Shack store here in Independence said they have heard that Radio Shack was probably going to get in on the Vonage action through retail store sales before long. The neat thing about retail store sales of Vonage is you buy it anonymously if desired, install it and it remains anonymous unless you choose to send in the warrantee card or the rebate paperwork, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: VOIP News Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 23:12:43 -0400 Subject: Stealth Communications Announces Official Launch of VPF ENUM Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-23-2004/0002158611&EDATE= Stealth Communications Announces Official Launch of VPF ENUM Registry NEW YORK, April 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Stealth Communications, Inc., which owns and operates the Voice Peering Fabric, the World's first and only VoIP minutes exchange to provide complete transparency between buyers and sellers of VoIP routes, today announces the official launch of the VPF ENUM Registry. "ENUM changes everything," said Shrihari Pandit, CEO and Founder of Stealth, and the leading architect behind the breakthrough technology underpinning the VPF. "ENUM is a network protocol that takes a telephone number and resolves it to a URL, like the way a traditional Domain Name Server (DNS) takes a URL (like http://www.google.com) and converts it into a numeric IP address. With ENUM, the telephone number is sent to the DNS server, which then replies back with a list of URL's. This opens up a whole new world of applications and services driven solely by a phone number," says Pandit. Imagine yourself storing a collection of fax, voice, mobile, and e-mail addresses in a single ENUM address. The person who initiates the call may access your preferred contact information and may choose the method of communications. The possibilities are endless and wide ranging: "it [ENUM] has the potential to drastically reduce the operating expenses of VoIP carriers because it allows them to terminate directly on each others network at zero cost," added Pandit. For example, telephone calls made between two organizations would transit through the PSTN and incur termination charges. Using the VPF ENUM Registry, both organizations are able to terminate calls directly to one another, with no termination costs. Access to the VPF ENUM Registry is not limited to service providers. Educational institutions, municipal governments and businesses all can use the service to cut costs, while greatly enhancing the capabilities of their voice networks. Current participants to the service include: Acropolis Telecom, Addaline.Com, Free World Dialup, MIT, Net2phone, Packet8, and Yale University. Stealth's VPF ENUM Registry presently holds over 1 million phone numbers. While this represents only a small number of the total phone numbers in the US, Pandit is quick to point out that "ENUM represents truly disruptive technology, in that it has the potential to obsolete the public phone network." Pandit envisions a day when Stealth's VPF ENUM Registry will house most, if not all of the phone numbers on the planet. And why not, it's free. About Stealth Communications, Inc. Stealth Communications, Inc., New York City's largest Internet gateway, owns and operates the Voice Peering Fabric. For more information about the VPF visit http://www.thevpf.com. For information regarding other services offered by Stealth, visit http://www.stealth.net SOURCE Stealth Communications, Inc. Web Site: http://www.stealth.net http://www.thevpf.com ------------------------------ From: VOIP News Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 23:32:35 -0400 Subject: Canada CRTC Extends Review of IP Telephony Rules Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040423.gtrnews23-3/BNStory/Technology/ Globe and Mail Update The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has extended its review of rules for telephone service using Internet protocol technology, bowing to pressure from the country's largest phone companies and consumer groups. Full story at: http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040423.gtrnews23-3/BNStory/Technology/ ------------------------------ From: VOIP News Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2004 06:34:22 -0400 Subject: Wake-up Call: Voice-Over Internet Technology Poised to Reshape Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2004/03/27/news/news07.txt Voice-over Internet technology poised to reshape telecommunications industry By STEVE ADAMS The Patriot Ledger QUINCY - Jimmy Li picks up the speakerphone and punches in a sequence of numbers on the keypad. Within seconds, a ring tone emerges from the speaker, and Li's business partner Ken Ieung responds with a groggy greeting from his hotel room. "I just called Hong Kong," Li said, triumphantly concluding a demo of his product. Another revolution is starting in the telecommunications industry and one of the skirmishes is playing out in a spare office deep inside the Kam Man Marketplace in Quincy. ZipGlobal, Li's start-up company, is selling Internet-based long-distance plans, targeting Asian-Americans in the U.S. and their family and friends overseas. The calling plans allow customers to call Asia from their home or cell phones for as little as 1 cent a minute. Full story at: http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2004/03/27/news/news07.txt ------------------------------ From: Clark W. Griswold, Jr. <73115.1041@compuserve.com> Subject: Taxes on VOIP Service? Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2004 09:20:38 -0600 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Just signed up for VOIP service from http://www.packet8.net and have been reasonably impressed with the service and voice quality. I may write up a review and post it in the near future. One thing that puzzles me though: Although the bill is refreshingly free of all the usual taxes, surcharges and fees found on land and cell bills, Packet8 does charge a 3% Spanish American War Luxury Tax (Federal Excise Tax) on the monthly subscription fee. It's not clear to me why they should be doing this. I pay that tax on the DSL line already. I also pay it on the underlying voice telephone line. Why should it apply to what is essentially a data applications service? Anyone using other VOIP service (like Vonage) see the same thing? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Your review of packet8.net appears next in this issue of the Digest. Vonage also charges F.E.T. on phone calls through them, along with a 'regulatory recovery fee'. The only ones who do not charge it (Pulver/FWD comes to mind) are the ones that *theoetically* stay entirely away from the public telephone network. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Clark W. Griswold, Jr. <73115.1041@compuserve.com> Subject: Packet8: A VOIP Review Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2004 09:42:14 -0600 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com With all the buzz about VOIP, I thought I would give one of the major players in the market a try. Packet8 (www.packet8.net) offers unlimited domestic US/Canada VOIP service for $19.99 a month, with no equipment charges, a one time $30 startup charge, 30 day trial period and no contract. International rates vary, but run between 2 and 3 cents per minute. All the usual goodies are also included: Voicemail, Conference Calling, Call Forwarding, 3 Way Calling and Caller ID. I signed up on their web site on a Sunday evening. Within seconds I had an account and was able to select an area code and city for my personal number. As with most VOIP services, the area code and city you select are completely unrelated to where you actually live. Since local/long distance outgoing calls are not billed, the decision in deciding what number to select is based on who will be calling you. Packet8 supports Local Number Portability, so theoretically, you could get you current number reassigned. On the following Friday, the Packet8 router arrived by DHL. I have to say I have never seen a piece of technology install any easier. I plugged an analog phone into the phone port of a small white box, connected it with a supplied Ethernet cable to a spare port on my router, powered it up and within seconds it had synched up and was providing dial tone. Dialing a code number provided previously by email activated the service. Packet8 suggests updating the router firmware as they have made some voice quality improvements and added features like Caller ID Name. This was easy enough to do by downloading the updater from the Packet8 web site and running it on a Windows PC on my home network. There was one small glitch: The updater scans your local net and is supposed to automatically identify the IP address of the VOIP router. For some reason updater could not find the VOIP router on my network, even though everything is on the same subnet. When I manually told it what address to use, the update completed with no further problem. I made a few test calls and had someone call me. I was very impressed with the voice quality. It's not quite wire quality, but better than most analog or digital cell service. There's just a hint of a metallic ring to the sound and a tiny bit of delay. Kind of similar to the original Sprint or SBS satellite long distance services, but not nearly the latency. They delay was most noticeable when I called a company voicemail system and was punching in various numbers. There was also a very tiny amount of echo. Test calls to a cell phone were slightly lower quality, as expected, given the multiple levels of compression and radio latencies involved. The Packet8 voicemail system works very well. You can use a generic greeting that announces the number called, or record your own personal greeting. When a message is left on the voicemail, an LED immediately lights up on the VOIP router. Depending on where you have installed the router, this may or may not be visible. One interesting feature of the voicemail is that you can forward voicemail messages to your email address. The messages are sent as .au attachments and are thus playable using Windows Media Player and other similar programs. This feature is not as useful as it could be though: The messages must be manually listened to and saved before they can be forwarded and they are only sent to the email address associated with the billing account. It would be much more useful if you could define another address for message forwarding and to be able to designate that messages get sent immediately, or if they weren't picked up within a certain amount of time. Configuration changes and call detail records are available on the Packet8 web site. I was impressed to see calls listed within seconds of their completion. The economics of VOIP come from replacing traditional phone service. I pay around $27 a month (including taxes & fees) for basic, single line residential service. I do not subscribe to any of the phone company add-ons like CallerID or Voicemail. I pay 3 cents/minute for long distance and rarely exceed $10 a month for that. Dropping from $37/month to $20/month is nice, but won't change my lifestyle. Many people are using their cell phones for long distance, so they won't see any savings there. Furthermore, people that get their broadband service using DSL (IIRC about half of the current broadband market) will not be able to drop their traditional phone service. Qwest is the only LEC offering "naked" DSL or DSL without voice service. That leaves the real market for VOIP to be cable modem users. While VOIP is here to stay, I'm not convinced that companies like Packet8 (or Vonage) will survive over the long term. Part of the savings comes from not being subject to most of the taxes and fees levied on wire and cell service. This will quickly change as the various governments start to feel the sting from not collecting funds they are used to. There's no reason that the cable companies couldn't offer VOIP directly for little or no extra charge with their broadband service and totally cut out the need for Packet8. At that point, the economics become much more compelling. I am curious about how calls are handled and where they drop off the internet on into the traditional voice net. A call I made to the UK was very clear and had little delay. Do all calls get converted by Packet8 at their San Jose, CA location, or are they carried around the world as TCP packets and converted locally? I'm also curious about the security and encryption (if any) of the internet portion of the call. Voice calls are reasonably secure, but could someone at an ISP listen in to an internet call? ------------------------ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Clark, that's the government's beef right now; they want to be able to listen in on your VOIP calls and they are not allowed to. Thanks for sending in your good review of Packet8.net PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Eritrea Cellphone Curbs Put Democracy on Hold Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 16:15:41 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.NONOcom By Emily Wax The Washington Post KEREN, Eritrea - The bowls of spaghetti were hot. The chrome-plated cappuccino maker hissed. Outside on porches, students and graying men in frayed three-piece suits sipped espressos from tiny white cups. Missing from the country's cafe culture is one major modern convenience: cellphones. And that's not something young Eritreans find charming or fair. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001910574_eritrea23.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - remove NONO from .NONOcom to reply ------------------------------ From: friedebach@yahoo.com (Eric Friedebach) Subject: Cell Phone Spending's Black Hole Date: 23 Apr 2004 13:21:22 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Aude Lagorce, 04.22.04, Forbes.com NEW YORK - What do teenagers and employees with corporate wireless accounts have in common? A propensity to tell their interlocutor, "Nah, don't worry, we can talk, I'm not paying for this." But while Mom and Dad often have calling plans that can limit the damage, companies are not always as proactive. This is becoming a serious problem. A study released last week by the Yankee Group found that U.S. enterprises now spend 25% of their total telecom budget on wireless services. Additionally 48% of large enterprises do not have a centrally managed corporate account, which makes it difficult for them to track and eventually try to curb usage. How did it all come to this point? According to Yankee Group analyst Keith Mallinson, the problems stem largely from the way companies first used cell phones -- as a perk reserved for a few top-level executives. But as costs fell, lower- level employees began selecting handsets and plans by themselves and then expensing it -- and their employers, for the most part, didn't balk. http://www.forbes.com/networks/2004/04/22/cx_al_0422wireless.html Eric Friedebach /I don't come to where you work and rock the Slurpee machine/ ------------------------------ From: drthomaspopple@hotmail.com (Thomas Popple) Subject: Next Treo 600? Date: 23 Apr 2004 13:30:11 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I'm looking to buy a Treo 600 but someone told me today that I should hold fire a little longer as a new Treo is coming out shortly. Can anyone give me any details or links to info about the new model? Thanks. ------------------------------ From: Diamond Dave Subject: 'Old Style' Telephone Call Recording Device Organization: The BBS Corner / Diamond Mine On-Line Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 17:39:16 -0400 I'm looking for what I call an 'old style' recording device. I'm looking for a 'ring' that you can place over the receiver of a phone (the round 'G' style). I used to have one many many years ago (30+) but with several moves, it either got thrown out or got lost in one of many boxes. I don't like those suction cup ones (they never worked worth a darn) and this is for a phone where I can't connect to it with a modular phone jack for those in-line recording systems. If someone knows where I can buy those "ring" devices, please post a URL here. Thanks! Dave ------------------------------ From: Don Saklad Subject: How to Return a Lost Cellular Telephone Found on the Street Date: 23 Apr 2004 18:56:42 -0400 Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science How would you return a lost cellular telephone you found ?... Where would there be postage paid mailers provided for returning someone's lost cellular telephone you find on the street ? ... . wireless service companies ?... . manufacturers ?... . or ...? . ...? ------------------------------ From: jmayson@nyx.net Subject: Re: The GMail Saga Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2004 01:13:15 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com > Here's a summary of some of my conclusions > http://www.templetons.com/brad/gmail.html And here is a summary of my impressions of the service: http://home.austin.rr.com/jmayson/blog/archives/2004_04_22_archive.html John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. 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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 #204 ******************************