From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Apr 25 17:46:45 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id i3PLkjX24184; Sun, 25 Apr 2004 17:46:45 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2004 17:46:45 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200404252146.i3PLkjX24184@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 #208 TELECOM Digest Sun, 25 Apr 2004 17:46:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 208 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Google / Why World's Hottest Tech Company Will Struggle (Monty Solomon) Re: Bad Weather Storm; Vonage Goes Out (Linc Madison) Re: Bad Weather Storm; Vonage Goes Out (Tony P.) Re: Bad Weather Storm; Vonage Goes Out (Rich Greenberg) Seeking Telecom Site (Keith) Email Address Abuse (name withheld at request) Re: Book Review: 19th Century Telegraphers (Wesrock@aol.com) Re: How to Return Lost Cellular Phone Found on Street (Phil Earnhardt) Senate Mulls Internet Tax Ban (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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2004 01:08:22 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Google / Why World's Hottest Tech Company Will Struggle Why the world's hottest tech company will struggle to keep its edge http://businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_18/b3881001_mz001.htm Google's Goal: "Understand Everything" http://businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_18/b3881010_mz001.htm What Eric Schmidt Found at Google http://businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_18/b3881011_mz001.htm ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Bad Weather Storm; Vonage Goes Out Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2004 11:42:54 -0700 From: Linc Madison Reply-To: lincmad@suespammers.org Organization: California resident; nospam; no unsolicited e-mail allowed In article , Clark W. Griswold, Jr. <73115.1041@compuserve.com> wrote: [discussing the federal excise tax on telephone services] > The IRS http://www.irs.gov/publications/p510/ar02.html#d0e734 has a > really broad definition on what it can cover - and who can claim an > exemption. An interesting point: Those really cheap phone cards you > buy would be even cheaper -- the tax is included on those. Which also > means sales tax is being charged on a federal tax. There's nothing the least bit unusual about that. All excise taxes are always included in the price on which sales tax is calculated. Show me any example where sales tax is computed with an *exemption* for the amount of the federal tax -- *that* would be noteworthy. > By the way -- the next time someone tries to argue that Amtrak should > be getting a direct subsidy to level the playing field with all those > public highways and interstates, you might point them to the $30 > Billion every year that US taxpayers are paying for those roads. Exactly the point -- the public highways and interstates are subsidized by the taxpayers, tilting the playing field. To *level* the playing field, we should subsidize rail travel, too. Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * lincmad@suespammers.org * primary e-mail: Telecom at LincMad dot com All U.S. and California anti-spam laws apply, incl. CA BPC 17538.45(c) This text constitutes actual notice as required in BPC 17538.45(f)(3). DO NOT SEND UNSOLICITED E-MAIL TO THIS ADDRESS. You have been warned. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Bad Weather Storm; Vonage Goes Out Organization: ATCC Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2004 19:28:10 GMT In article , Wesrock@aol.com says: > This was, I think, the same night as the storm hit Independence. > Our power didn't go off, but it has a number of times in bad storms. > Not our SBC phone service, however. It's always interesting that the phone service usually stays up and running while the electrical lines get torn to hell. And I've noticed in serious storms electric lines are always the first to go, but the phone lines, short of a pole coming down stay up. Looking at the BSP's I've got it seems that drops to homes and cabling in general is well secured. Electrical lines look like something a child put together. Perfect example -- around here the electrical wire to the buildings is underground on the main street of this neighborhood. But the way they did it was every other block or so, a transformer is up on a pole and the resultant wires are sub-ducted to fan out to the buildings. But get this, further down the street everything is underground, right to the point of the generation plant. It's ridiculous -- that's what happens when you've got an industry that wasn't as closely watched as Bell was. Now the big argument is who is going to pay for the burial of HV transmission lines that create an ugly scar across India Point in Providence. True estimated cost is $12 million, Narragansett Electric (National Grid, PLC) says it'll be $20 million because if they did that they want to build in several other conduits. The thing about this is that I know what their profit margins are. Narragansett is a transmission company only. They own the distribution network so it's pure gravy for them. Not much goes back into upgrading their wire plant. They can well afford to absorb the entire cost of the project but refuse to. The above is similar to how Brayton Point (A PG&E site) is flushing cooling water in Buzzards Bay which then flows into Narragansett Bay that's tens of degrees higher in temperature than the surrounding water. It has decimated stocks like winter flounder, etc. I worked with the Environmental Unit creating the presentation evidence for a trial - the profit they make is obscene. They could well afford to put up cooling towers and return the water to the bay at approximately the same temperature but they won't. It's still being fought. Interestingly one of the questions on the Political Compass test is "What's good for big business is good for everyone." You have to answer between Strongly Disagree or Strongly Agree with the statement. Can anyone guess what I selected? ------------------------------ From: richgr@panix.com (Rich Greenberg) Subject: Re: Bad Weather Storm; Vonage Goes Out Date: 25 Apr 2004 11:47:47 -0400 Organization: Organized? Me? In article , TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > My questions are: since battery will keep computers going temporarily, > and assuming one's cable line/or phone and DSL line was working, I am Sure, I do that. My DSL modem and router run off the UPS. > wondering if one could not run a battery to the Motorola MTA and the > router and keep your Vonage on line even when the computers otherwise > are shut down? I made do with my cellular phone overnight so it was I would assume that these draw little enough power that the UPS battery could carry them for a while. Wouldn't last forever tho. Rich Greenberg Work: Rich.Greenberg atsign worldspan.com + 1 770 563 6656 N6LRT Marietta, GA, USA Play: richgr atsign panix.com + 1 770 321 6507 Eastern time zone. I speak for myself & my dogs only. VM'er since CP-67 Canines:Val(Chinook, Red & Shasta(Husky,(RIP),Red, husky)) Owner:Chinook-L Atlanta Siberian Husky Rescue. www.panix.com/~richgr/ Asst Owner:Sibernet-L ------------------------------ From: Keith Subject: Seeking Telecom Site Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2004 15:49:40 -0400 I'm looking for a telecom site I used to visit a few years ago. This particular one was run rather informally, admin might have been named Tom, and had a plethora of information regarding telecom, telephones, etc. It had a section on history, a telecom book review section which was pretty huge, might have had an old payphone section, etc. I'm thinking it was called telecom resources, telephone resources, or something to that effect. No luck on google. Any idea or am I just babbling? Thanks. Keith ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2004 23:15:39 -0700 From: Name and Email Address Withheld Subject: Email Address Abuse When I submitted a response to your BB three days ago, I used my MIT alumni email address, which is the return address on this note. That's been my MIT-related email address for a year or two, at least. You posted it, thank you, and I want to let you know that now, no more than three days later, I've received my first spam email message addressed to (withheld) I have ever received. They obviously work really fast these days. OK, fine, I've changed my MIT email address, and any mail addressed to (withheld) will now be trashed with no notice or reply of any kind, and I'll never see it. MIT has my new email address (also withheld) for use in MIT business. Please keep it to yourself, and don't post it. As soon as I receive any spam addressed to the new one, my MIT email address will change again to something even more obscure and secret. I hate spam. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So do all of us. And its no secret that the slimy characters who rip off email addresses find TELECOM Digest to be easy pickings since there are still a few of the regulars here who are willing to use their real names and email addresses (as I do). I refuse to make the **decent guys** here (most all) have to go through hoops to be able to correspond with each other on topics here. The default here has always been 'email addresses included, notify me to have your address withheld as needed.' But some day soon the default is going to change to 'no email addresses included, notify me if you *do* want your address as part of the message'. Just as you now are expected to add a line at the start of your message (or by pre- arrangment tell me) to withhold your address, or include that request somewhere in your message, you'll have to start telling me in each message if you **do** want your email address used. And it would be a good idea to begin grepping and extracting all the names and email addreeses you find here, index them and save them for your ease in responding directly and privatly to each other, since once I start eliminating all addresses by default, I do not intend to impose on myself by forwarding mail back and forth between you. And my sincere thanks to all the list-making spammers who are gradually pushing me in that direction. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2004 10:24:27 EDT Subject: Re: Book Review: 19th Century Telegraphers In a message dated 24 Apr 2004 20:13:52 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) writes: > I'd like to know more about Western Union from the postwar era (WW II) > to the present. In the 1960s they had a microwave network, they even > launched satellites, and they had government defense contracts to > handle data networks. It would seem a natural for them to handle the > growing computer data transmissions, but it all ended up to AT&T. > > The only WU history I have is "The Story of Telecommunications" by > George Oslin. It is a starting point, but a weak one. Oslin somewhat > glosses over some very critical issues. He blames the FCC for > favoring AT&T at the expense of Western Union, poor management, labor > troubles, and the forced wartime merger of Postal Telegraph, but does > not get into adequate detail and the time periods are somewhat merged > together. The Postal Telegraph-Cable Company was definitely a second and did not have local service in many smaller places. > We know long distance phones rates declined after WW II. At some > point the cost of a voice call became cheaper than sending a telegram; > I wonder when that point was reached (my guess is the late 1950s). > It's amazing how in old movies people contact home with urgent > messages by telegram rather than voice long distance, but in the 1940s > long distance was still very expensive, especially for more distant > calls. (I think short haul long distance was more affordable.) Western Union provided a telephone service, primarily long distance, for many years before and after World War II. In old advertisements you will find some companies advertised "W.U. Phone." It apparently worked much like a toll terminal from the Bell System and other established telcos, which were direct to/from the inward and outward toll boards, plugged in manually by the toll operator. The Daily Oklahoman in the late 1940s-1950s had a *group* of toll terminals which were reached as L.D. 343 (connected to the manual PBX) as well as L.D. 419 which went directly to the city editor's desk ... Presumably the arrangement was not uncommon among other businesses with a good deal of toll traffic. One thing that hurt W.U. in later years was the growth of businesses to areas outside the CBD. Most businesses of any size had a teletypewriter connection to/from the main W.U. office in town to send and receive telegrams, and W.U. had extensive wire networks through the CBD and other heavy user areas. But as businesses moved further out, they had to rely on the incumbent telco to lease them lines for these WUX terminals, since it wasn't economically feasible to install their own copper over such wide ranging areas. (For W.U., as for telcos, the lion's share of the revenue came from business users.) Actually, the telcos gave W.U. numerous breaks, including billing for telegrams placed by telephone on your telephone bill (yes, and even from coin boxes, where the operator would collect the coins just as for a telephone call). AT&T and its subsidiaries, in particular, wanted to preserve W.U. as a competitor, if for nothing else to avoid being the only option for communications and even more open to charges of monopoly. They sold TWX to W.U., which eventually (but probably too late) integrated it with their Telex system. W.U. also became a competitive long distance carrier after that came into the picture, and at one time I knew their 10XXX prefix. But the message telegraph business, requiring labor to type up the messages, and then to deliver them physically, was inherently high cost. Telephone subscribers enter their messages themselves (by speaking directly to the other customer, with no transcription or delivery functions involved). (In an earlier day, telegrams were sent by telegraph operators using Morse code; this required not one but two operators, one at the receiving end as well at the transmitting end, so even more costly.) > FWIW, WU says a telegram today costs $15 to send, it will be delivered > by an express company. I _think_ a telegram still has more legal > weight as an "official" message over a fax; kind of the equivalent of > a certified letter where you need proof of sending and receipt of your > message. I don't know how many people send telegrams today; their > business is money transfers and other bill paying services. Note the > original Western Union went bankrupt some years ago which was covered > up by creating a parent corporation to file to keep their name clean. I thought W.U. had given up the message telegram business entirely and no longer had any circuits of its own. I have read several places that you can't send (or receive) a telegram now in the U.S.A., but it might be obscurely available. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Back in the days when '900 Premium service' was a big thing and AT&T was one of several carriers which billed for those calls via telephone bills, AT&T decided it wanted out, since the fraud rate was so high and the customer service requirements of dealing with dirty old men with bad memories who could never remember making 'those calls' when questioned by their wives, etc were so labor intensive. A couple of the porn vendors who were relying heavily on AT&T billing for their 900 calls filed suit to force AT&T to continue that billing arrangement. They claimed it was the only convenient and practical way for them to get their money. AT&T said 'we are not in the collection agency business'. But the argument in court by the porn vendors was to rely on the 'precedent' set by the relationship between WUTCO and Bell to insist that it was 'perfectly common for AT&T to engage in doing collecting as a phone bill item on information services, i.e. Western Union'. I imagine Bell never thought that arrangement made back in the 1920's would ever show up to bite them in the ass seventy years later. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Phil Earnhardt Subject: Re: How to Return a Lost Cellular Telephone Found on the Street Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2004 09:24:08 -0600 Organization: Kaos OnLine Coalition On 23 Apr 2004 18:56:42 -0400, Don Saklad wrote: > 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 ? ... As other posters have demonstrated, there's no specific procedure for doing this. There are two services I know of which provide a specific mechanism to get valuables such as cell phones returned to you. If you believe their marketing pitch, having such tags on your valuables will increase the odds that they will be returned to you. They both address the problem: how can you provide a mechanism to return valuables without providing identification information (e.g., an address/phone number on a tag on a keychain could cause the keys to be abused). The products these companies provide are similar: professional labels which securely attach to your valuables. There is a unique identifier, an 800 number, and a URL on each tag. The finder of an object is given instructions on how to return it to the service company, who will then return it to you. The companies are StuffBak ( www.stuffbak.com ) and BoomerangIt ( www.boomerangit.com ). I have not used either service; I'd love to hear first-hand stories from subscribers to these -- or other similar services. --phil ------------------------------ From: VOIP News Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2004 13:36:16 -0400 Subject: Senate Mulls Internet Tax Ban Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1572745,00.asp By Caron Carlson The U.S. Senate is slated to vote this week whether or not to renew a ban that keeps state and local governments from taxing Internet access. But Internet services, particularly VOIP, are likely to get snared in the debate as a potential tax target not to be covered by the ban. The Internet access tax moratorium, first enacted in 1998, expired in the fall. As senators look to renew the ban, they have to consider the changes in broadband technology that have made high-speed access affordable to small and midsize businesses. The U.S. House of Representatives last fall voted to ban taxes on Internet access permanently and limit discriminatory taxes on Internet services. The Senate, however, reached a stalemate when a small group of senators fought to protect states' taxation rights. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., a former governor, was the most vocal champion for the states and is sponsoring a limited extension of the moratorium for two years. This week, Alexander will press to reach a compromise, and a middle ground could be found in the area of voice over IP, an aide to the senator said. Although the technology industry and many policymakers view VOIP as a software application that should not be subject to traditional telecom regulation, states widely view it as a potential substitute for traditional telephony; such a stance could sap states of considerable revenue. Full story at: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1572745,00.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/ ------------------------------ 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. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. 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