From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Apr 30 03:32:26 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id i3U7WQd14350; Fri, 30 Apr 2004 03:32:26 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2004 03:32:26 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200404300732.i3U7WQd14350@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 #216 TELECOM Digest Fri, 30 Apr 2004 03:31:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 216 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Roundup: Google Aims to Raise $2.7 Billion in IPO (Monty Solomon) EFFector 17.15: Verify the Vote - Stand Up for Accountable (M Solomon) Re: Good News: Four Oakland Cited in First U.S. Spam Case (Wesrock) Re: VOIP Connectivity to Multi Line Key Telephone Systems (Wesrock) Telephony Software Recommendation (Larry Snider) Re: Packet8 (Jack Decker) Review: 19th Century Telegraphers (Charles Cryderman) Re: Feds: No Analog TV by '09 (J Kelly) Re: "If I am Elected" (J Kelly) 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: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 18:37:09 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Roundup: Google Aims to Raise $2.7 Billion in IPO By CNET News.com Staff The Internet's leading search engine files plans to raise $2.7 billion in an auction-style public offering. With the filing, the company's co-founders also issue a letter to potential shareholders. Google files for unusual $2.7 billion IPO The Internet search leader files documents with regulators that provide insight into its business, as it prepares to sell shares to the public. April 29, 2004 Lifting the lid on Google: A search through the company's SEC filing pulls up some interesting findings. April 29, 2004 Co-founders release Google 'owner's manual'; Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin craft a letter to map out Google's credo as a public company. April 29, 2004 http://news.com.com/2009-1024-5202045.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 20:57:36 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 17.15: Verify the Vote - Stand Up for Accountable EFFector Vol. 17, No. 15 April 28, 2004 donna@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 287th Issue of EFFector: * Verify the Vote - Stand Up for Accountable Elections! * Op-ed: TSA and CAPPS II - Anatomy of a Cover Up * Sun Microsystems, Craigslist Donate Linux Servers and Bandwidth * MiniLinks (12): Diebold's "Pentagon Papers" * Staff Calendar: 04.30.04 - Cindy Cohn speaks at "China's Digital Future," Berkeley, CA * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/Misc/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector/17/15.php ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 19:28:45 EDT Subject: Re: Good News: Four Oakland Cited in First U.S. Spam Case In a message dated Thu, 29 Apr 2004 09:43:33 -0400, Joe Wineburgh writes: > Other unwitting companies and agencies whose computers were used > include Unisys Corp., Amoco Corp., the Administrative Office of the > United States Courts and the U.S. Army Information Center, according > to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit on Wednesday. I thought Amoco Corp. ceased to exist a number of years ago, becoming an integral part of BP, Inc. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The American Oil Company was absorbed by Standard Oil of Indiana many years ago and the new combined company became known as (AM)erican (O)il (CO)rporation, or 'AMOCO' for short. But because of regulations and laws pertaining to the ways the Standard Oil Company had to do business, with antitrust laws from years ago, and marketing rules the various Standard Oil Companies had agreed on, Amoco did business under that name everywhere *except* about five midwestern states where it was known as 'The Standard Oil Divison of Amoco'. When BP (British Petroleum) bought out Amoco, they chose to retain the 'Standard Oil Division of Amoco' name for some parts of their empire. Some of their computer facilities company wide are still known as 'Amoco' (or now) 'Amoco Division of BP'. You talk about people who would not listen to anything they were told: Amoco is/was a classic example of an unstoppable object meeting an unmoveable one. Amoco Credit Card (when it was in Chicago for about thirty years) versus Illinois Bell Telephone Company was such an example. Maybe I have told this before, I do not remember. I know that Harry Newton of Teleconnect Magazine wrote about it and my part in solving it, back about 1980 or so. The facts: Amoco Corporation was/is the largest telephone subscriber in Chicago other than (1) the City of Chicago itself [several centrex arrangements spread over five telephone prefixes] and (2) the University of Chicago which is essentially the same as (1) above. Then comes Amoco in (3)rd place with the entire 312-856 exchange, their Stanotel private network of tie-lines nationally, etc, a 'telephone bill' of only a couple *million* dollars per *month* (City of Chicago and University of Chicago by comparison each beat out Amoco's phone charges a little, not much). I worked midnight shift in Sales Authorization at the credit card office. I *knew* the amount of traffic we had on the phones all night. Nothing like the ten thousand calls per hour being recieved on the other two shifts; maybe only one call every three or five minutes. I had two clerks and one authorizer working under me on the midnight shift. The ACD (automatic call distributor) would throw the calls out to the work floor and get answered *instantly*, that's how slow it was overnight. So when the boss over me complained one day that 'dealers are complaining that the phones ring unanswered here all night, what are your guys doing?' I was very perplexed, and decided to make a few tests to see. I used the tie-line to Atlanta (where the dealer with the complaints was located) then from local (office in Atlanta) dial tone, dialed '9' for an outside line, then dialed the 1-800 number of our office in Chicago. I tried it three or four times, and always within a second or two heard a phone ringing in the room around me. Then on the fourth or fifth try (*during a silent period of a few seconds when we had no calls coming in that time of night*) I tried it again; it clicked, went through, I heard audible ring tone in my ear, but *nothing* in our room. Not a peep from the ACD. A few minutes later, during another silent period I tried it again, with the same results. Now it was obvious: **the first selected trunk in a group of how many ever toll free 800 lines coming into us was open somewhere.** As long as I kept that line 'busied out' by letting it ring open off to infinity somewhere, there were no more 'missed calls' since the dealer in question and other dealers were obliged to hunt up to the *second or subsequent lines* which were just fine. That was back in the days prior to Larry King's on-air beef with AT&T when the Mother Company started timing out 'ring/no answers' after a couple minutes. If I dialed our 1-800 and was 'lucky' and seized trunk one while it was idle, I could let it ring open until the next morning if I desired. That cured my immediate headache but gave me a new one. I reported this to my immediate supervisor the next morning (the department manager). Have you ever notice how so often your immediate supervisor or others will not note your observtions and act on them; instead they prefer to go into denial and challenge *your* credentials, i.e. "well, why hasn't anyone on the day shift ever noticed this and reported it to me?". Very simple, sir, on the day shift there is never even one second due to the volume of calls when there is not someone attempting to seize on that troubled trunk. One seizure after another, click, click, click. *Someone, some dealer somewhere* is always seizing on trunk one. After a few seconds to a minute or so with no answer, he gives up in disgust and dials again, perhaps thinking he dialed the wrong number the first time. When he abandons his call (on trunk one) and dials again, three or four seconds later, his second call may seize on trunk eighteen or wherever, because some other poor devil instantly seized on the first selected trunk and started the process over again. Now he is more convinced than ever that he dialed 'wrong' the first time. That's why no one on the day shift among your several dozen (anal retentive) clerks and authorizers ever mentioned it. Or if any of your (anal retentive) day shift people *did* hear about it, they probably wrote off the caller as a 'crank caller' the same as Illinois Bell does and did not tell you about it. Well, he did not like my little speech, my Editor's note, but two days later I was called at home in the middle of the day, and told to please stop in the office and explain all that to the Bell repair guy who had come to see me. I did, and the guy from Illinois Bell started in with the same questioning of my credentials (who was I to tell him, etc) and humoring me. With some effort I got him to go to the frames in our ACD area, and inspect the lines. Sure enough, a wire had either worked its way loose, or never been attached in the first place. Gee, so there were all the calls that had been 'lost due to inattentive clerks and authorizers' all night for goddess knows how long. Amoco came to the best conclusion they could, which was that they had not had the use of that IN-WATS line for about one or two years, and they withheld several thousand dollars from their next phone bill. Bell eventually agreed to write it off rather than risk alienating Amoco, especially since the MCI salesman was standing at the door with a big grin on his face hoping to get somewhere. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 19:48:50 EDT Subject: Re: VOIP Connectivity to Multi Line Key Telephone Systems Pat wrote, in a comment on a posting by Stanley Cline at Thu, 29 Apr 2004 03:14:18 GMT: > Or take a two-line, turn button phone. (I think Bell called them > 2500-sets?) The 2500 series of sets were the same series of sets as 500 sets, but with 12-button keypads (including * and #) rather than rotary dials. There were also the 1500 series, which were the same as the 500 sets but with 10-button keypads. Just about any 500 series set ultimately also became available in 2500 sets, with the same buttons, features, etc. A set desginated simply as 2500 (not 25xx) would be a basic single line telephone just like a basic 500 set except with the Touch-Tone oscillator rather than the rotary dail. Other manufacturers besides W.E. used the same desginators. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com ------------------------------ From: Larry Snider Subject: Telephony Software Recommendation Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 21:25:25 -0400 Organization: http://www.esnider.net I was wondering what kind of software would be best for the following hardware configuration: Alliance Server Rack Dual PIII 550Mhz CPU Card 54 Gb (3 x 18 Gb drives) 1 Dialogic VFX/40ESC 2 Dialogic D/41E 1 Dialogic D/480SC-2T1 2 Dialogic MSI/240SC Global cards each with 2 SI/80SC Global daughterboards 1 Dialogic DCB/SC Global Larry www.eSnider.net ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 17:44:56 -0400 From: Jack Decker Subject: Re: Packet8 Pat, please conceal my e-mail address ... On Wed, 28 Apr 2004 21:50:08 -0400, Method to Madness wrote: > I was thinking of getting Packet8 for phone service with my > house. $19/month is not a bad price at all when Vonage is more and > Verizon certainly is a huge rip off. I really need to get out of the > Verizon system, since they're just sucking us dry until cable > companies eventually put them out of business for home phone service. > Do these type Internet phone services work with home alarm systems? It > would really suck if I had to keep Verizon or "regular" phone service > all because of my alarm system ... UGH! The first thing to be aware of is that Packet8 by default compresses speech to a much greater degree than, say, VoicePulse or Vonage. I have heard of people successfully sending FAXes over both of the latter services (although it works best when FAX transmission speed can be slowed to 9600 bps or less), but never over Packet8. Both VoicePulse and Vonage offer high and medium compression settings, but those are optional and not the default (G.711, which is a high quality, low compression codec is the default), whereas Packet8 only offers high compression and there is no way to disable it. And yes, it does affect voice quality also to some degree. So if an alarm system is transmitting data using a built-in modem, it's not as likely to work with Packet8 as with a service that uses the G.711 codec. This is also true of other devices that send and receive data. For example, TiVO or satellite receivers that "phone home" often won't work at all on Packet8, but *sometimes* work with the higher quality codecs (again, it often depends on whether there's a way to slow down the data transmission rate). Now, having said that, some alarm companies are seeing the handwriting on the wall and are starting to offer alarm systems that either use a broadband Internet connection directly to communicate with home base, or use other workarounds. For example, an employee of ADT in Cincinnati, Ohio posted a message to a BroadbandReports.com thread (at ) that indicates that in some cases, particularly with a VoIP provider that uses high compression, you may need a newer ADT system that uses "contact ID." This employee explains that "contact ID" is ADT's newest format that sounds like DTMF (dual tone multi-frequency) tones. Also the new system dials a 1-800 number, so it would not need to be reprogrammed for 11 digit dialing. Also, some alarm companies seem to be more "VoIP friendly" than others. A couple of people posted that they have used the services of NextAlarm.com over VoIP (see thread at ). Still, I would not expect any service to work properly over a high-compression codec -- if it does, consider yourself very lucky. One other thing to be aware of is that alarm systems are usually wired to be the first device on the phone line, so a burglar can't sabotage the system simply by picking up an extension phone. My page on "How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home" at http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html has a short section showing how alarm systems need to be connected. Basically, this is the one situation where you can't just plug your VoIP adapter into any jack on the line, but instead you have to connect it ahead of the alarm system for it to work properly (assuming the alarm connects through a RJ31X jack, which seems to be a fairly standard way to hook up these devices). Also, your alarm system must dial out using touch tones rather than dial pulses. I don't think you will have to do without an alarm system in order to use VoIP, but whether you can use your existing alarm system with Packet8 is another matter entirely. You probably won't know for sure until you try it, though. Jack ------------------------------ From: Charles Cryderman Subject: Review: 19th Century Telegraphers Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 16:49:44 -0400 Just a FYI Western Union was taken over by MCI in the early nineties. At one time WU had run fiber across many of their right-of-ways and were selling long haul facilities to carriers as well as being a CAP (completive access provider). Chip Cryderman ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Re: Feds: No Analog TV by '09 Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 17:41:47 -0500 Organization: http://newsguy.com Reply-To: jkelly@newsguy.com On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 14:42:38 +0100, Miikka Kiprusoff wrote: > Either your Dad bought a very, very crappy TV, or neither of you have > figured out what that little booklet that came with it is for. > Despite it's title, "Manual" is not a Spanish story about a young > man's journey of self discovery. Among the varied instructions > contained therein will be those that direct you to disable this "fat" > mode. Result: you get a 4:3 picture centered in the middle of the > 16:9 widescreen display, with (typically) gray or black bars down the > left and right side where the rest of the 16:9 picture would be (if it > were 16:9, which it ain't). I find the gray bars unacceptable, black I could live with. But what is the point when 90%+ is in 4:3 anyway. ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Re: "If I am Elected" Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 17:53:44 -0500 Organization: http://newsguy.com Reply-To: jkelly@newsguy.com On Thu, 29 Apr 2004 15:06:25 -0400, Dale Neiburg wrote: > In Telecom Digest, number 209, the editor opined, > "Of course Bush has occassionally (?) been sometimes less than > forthright in his statements and promises ..." > But he isn't obligated to keep his campaign promises. Remember, they > all began, "If I am elected ..." > --Dale Neiburg > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: "If I am elected" ... But Dale, he > *was* elected. And when listening to my radio and 'All Things Considered' > and other propoganda produced by your employer (locally, KRPS 89.9 FM > for southeast Kansas) I get the distinct impression that your employer > looks rather askance at his antics sometimes also. PAT] Pat -- What the hell does Dale's employers opinons have to do with what Dale thinks? My employer has all kinds of crazy opinons on all sorts of things that do not agree with my own. I'm ashamed of you, I thought you had more sense than that ... You are just as bad as media who have to put their own bias into everything rather than just passing on the information. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One of the hassles with any text-based discussion group like this one is the inability to see the tongue in cheek. I *think* you failed to see Dale's humor, with him making mock of things I have stated about President Bush in the past. And I think you also failed to see my joking rejoinder back to Dale. National Public Radio is 'liberal' in their speech (i.e. no friend of Dubya who would just as soon cut them off the air if he had his way). Unlike Howard Stern who is rude, crude, and lewd, and an easy target for punishment and fining by Bush's buddies at FCC, the NPR people are more intelligent and soft-spoken. With Stern, they have a million reasons to fine him and silence him; they don't have to 'make up excuses'. With NPR, however, its a bit harder to administratively get them to shut up. 'Propoganda' is what Bush claims NPR is dishing out; they say they are neutral in their speech. And they don't spend all day talking about Bush, as Stern used to do, only some very pointed comments from time to time. When you saw my reference to 'your employer says ...' most readers -- I think -- knew I was mocking the whole thing. I never talk about 'your employer' unless I am mocking. That's the hassle with ascii-text based things; its very difficult to show any facial expressions other than simple smileys :) and simple frowns (: But, sorry if you were offended. 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. 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. 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