From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat May 22 16:09:23 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.3) id i4MK9NN23565; Sat, 22 May 2004 16:09:23 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 16:09:23 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200405222009.i4MK9NN23565@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 #253 TELECOM Digest Sat, 22 May 2004 16:09:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 253 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Spam Adversaries to Meet, Debate (Monty Solomon) Can Cable Bring DBS Back Down to Earth? (Monty Solomon) Mac OS X Update Addresses Security Concern (Monty Solomon) New TV Network To Take On TiVo and Other DVRs (Monty Solomon) TiVo Fine-Tuning its Commercial Strategy (Monty Solomon) To Record in HD is a Step Closer to Techie Heaven (Monty Solomon) Now, Two-Thirds of All E-mail is Spam (Monty Solomon) Your Cellular Number, Available Through Information Please (John Bartley) Verizon Gets Low NYS PSC Grade, Has to Pay Rebates (Danny Burstein) Re: Geico Sues Google, Overture Over Trademarks (Fred Atkinson) Re: Does AT&T Still Carry TV Programs (Danny Burstein) Re: 5.8GHz 2 Line Phones (Pete Romfh) Re: Phantom Cell Phone Call; What's Going On ...? (DaveC) FCC in a Quandary Over VoIP (Chicago Tribune via 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: Sat, 22 May 2004 03:04:25 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Spam Adversaries to Meet, Debate By Amit Asaravala Two bitter adversaries in the spam wars said Thursday they have agreed to meet face-to-face in a public debate next month. The debate will be held at the upcoming Email Technology Conference in San Francisco. It will feature Internet marketer Scott Richter, who has been accused of being one of the world's most prolific spammers, and SpamCop founder Julian Haight. The two sides are currently embroiled in a legal battle involving SpamCop's spam blacklist service, which Richter says violates the rights of his online marketing firm, OptInRealBig.com. Lawyers for both sides said they have agreed to allow the debate because they believe it will not focus on the lawsuit. However, early comments make it highly unlikely that either Richter or Haight will be able to avoid the issue. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,63537,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 03:16:39 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Can Cable Bring DBS Back Down to Earth? If you think that DirecTV's low churn figure was scary, well, don't look now, 'cause Rupert's comin' ... By Mavis Scanlon The ITV All-Stars Reunion and awards for leadership in interactive television at this month's NCTA show was a downright raucous affair compared with some of the conference's more staid sessions. Loud cheering and clapping erupted after each winner's name was called out-until Rupert Murdoch was pronounced one of the seven winners. An awkward silence descended, and people looked around to see if Murdoch was actually in the room. He wasn't. Instead, Dr. Dov Rubin, GM and VP of NDS Americas, a News Corp. subsidiary, accepted the award on Murdoch's behalf. No doubt Rubin's comments bolstered the interactive TV luminaries gathered that evening, a group that's waited to see the promise of interactivity realized in the U.S. as long as Vladimir and Estragon waited for Godot. Rubin's not exactly politically correct closing remark underscored what many in the cable industry believe: that cable's network upgrades, which allow for two-way, high-speed Internet access and telephony, among other services, give it an advantage over satellite. http://www.cableworld.com/cgi/cw/show_mag.cgi?pub=cw&mon=051704&file=cancablebring.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 02:54:23 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Mac OS X Update Addresses Security Concern CUPERTINO, California-May 21, 2004-Apple today posted a Mac OS X update to address a theoretical vulnerability in the Help Viewer application that could have been exposed when browsing the web. The update is available automatically to all users through Apple's free Software Update service or by going to http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/ . http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/may/21security.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 12:18:31 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: New TV Network To Take On TiVo and Other DVRs Diane Sherwin Millions of Americans now have digital video recorders (otherwise known as DVRs or PVRs) thanks to TiVo, ReplayTV and cable and satellite providers who offer PRVs in their satellite receiver boxes. Users who have PVRs are now calling the physical act of recording shows with their hard drive recorder "TiVo-ing" even if the service and hardware unit they are using is not actually a TiVo. This is remnisciant of how photocopying has become "Xeroxing" to many consumers and many people who blow their noses think they are using a Kleenex, when they are in fact most likely using a facial tissue. As much as consumers with PVRs rave about being able to "TiVo" their favorite shows and skip the commerials, TV executives and ad agencies are less excited. Free television content is created so that networks can sell ads. Now that model is being challenged by the progress of technology but a new TV network thinks they have the answer. Ripe Entertainment is introducing a free "on-demand" cable network, called RipeTV, which will have advertising embedded into its shows. It has seven different types of advertising that will not be able to be fast-forwarded through when recorded on a PVR. RipeTV's CEO, Ryan Magnussen, calls it "TiVo-proof." New ads include a 3-D animated advertiser logo or graphic to open and close the show, an animated logo occupying the lower third of the screen, a "video skin" or graphic frame with the advertisers brand framed around the show, video billboards in the lower third, strategically placed spots and long-form commercials. The ads are more like magazine advertisements, in a video magazine setting. http://www.audiorevolution.com/news/0504/20.ripetv.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 12:22:55 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: TiVo Fine-Tuning its Commercial Strategy By Paul Bond TiVo says its users skip about half of all primetime television commercials. Nevertheless, TiVo thinks of itself as the advertiser's best friend and not the mortal enemy some have made it out to be. "It's a delicious irony," TiVo president Mary Yudkovitz said while recently hosting an event for advertising executives in Santa Monica. "TiVo didn't create commercial avoidance." He believes that honor goes to the remote control, refrigerator and bathroom. Part of the solution, in fact, are ads delivered to TiVo hard drives that consumers will choose to watch -- which they have been doing in large numbers when the ads are educational or entertaining or when they're accompanied by a chance to win major prizes. Some video-on-demand ads (or video-to-video, as the company cryptically refers to them) are watched by as many as 20% of TiVo's users. "The punch line is, viewers love it," Yudkovitz said of TiVo-delivered commercials. And he offered up a few third-party executives for unbiased proof of his assertion. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/columns/tech_reporter_display.jsp ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 12:55:36 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: To Record in HD is a Step Closer to Techie Heaven By Jonathan Bloom, Globe Correspondent There's probably at least one in your circle of friends, the guy who loves his gadgets, who needs to have the latest home-entertainment toys first, whose pulse quickens at the mention of acronyms like DSL and DBS. Two of these gadgeteers' most lust-inducing acronyms are HDTV, the television format that offers startlingly clear pictures and sound, and DVR, a class of VCR-like devices that record content digitally on hard drives, skips over commercials, and enables live television pausing. Until recently, the twain did not meet: You could watch high-definition shows when they were broadcast, or you could use DVRs to watch whenever you wanted, but only in the pale-by-comparison standard format. Yet these two technologies are now converging, and in the place where these guys hang out -- online, of course -- the fervor is overflowing. The activity on the TiVo Community Forum, a blog linked to, but not operated by, the company, illustrates the frenzy. There are over 60,000 registered bloggers, 167,000 threads, and 1.8 million posts. A recent thread that suggested Best Buy might have some units that work with satellite TV in stock elicited over 1,800 postings. There are even more potential HD DVR owners lurking on other blogs like DBSForums.com and DBSTalk.com (DBS stands for Digital Broadcast Satellite). And these numbers represent only those users who get their HDTV from satellite or over the air. Units that work with cable-TV signals are not yet available. http://www.boston.com/yourlife/home/articles/2004/05/20/to_record_in_hd_is_a_step_closer_to_techie_heaven/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 12:59:56 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Now, Two-Thirds of All E-mail is Spam And in the U.S., spam tops 80 percent mark By Bob Sullivan Technology correspondent MSNBC When the amount of unwanted e-mail advertisements flying around the Internet surpassed the number of real e-mails last year, it was regarded as a landmark moment. Since then, things have only gotten worse, anti-spam firms say, and in April, another milestone was passed. Spam last month accounted for two-thirds of all e-mail traffic, according to e-mail monitoring firm MessageLabs Inc. Things are even worse in the United States, where spam accounted for more than one in five e-mails, according to Message Labs. The firm tracks virus and spam volume by filtering every e-mail destined for its 8,500 customers, and checking it for spam or viruses. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5032714/ ------------------------------ From: John Bartley Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 16:20:49 -0800 Subject: Your Cellular Number, Available Through Information Please The Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, a trade group who "serves the interests of service providers, manufacturers, wireless data and Internet companies", has announced its plans to add your cellular numbers to a cellular phone directory service, to be accessed through 411 and other, less spendy information providers such as Easy 411.com and Infone. Details at http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30032 John Bartley K7AAY PDX CERT NET BET ARES ARC http://celdata.cjb.net ~ Handheld's Cellular Data FAQ http://livejournal.com/users/clackablog ~ Life in the Suburbs of the Silicon Forest "Politics is the business of getting power and privilege without possessing merit." - P. J. O'Rourke ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: Verizon Gets Low NYS PSC Grade, Has to Pay Rebates Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 21:42:24 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC (cut and pasted from a PDF. reformatted for clarity) "For the Retail Service Quality Plan year ending February 29, 2004, Verizon missed Commission targets for restoring service to customers within 24 hours the "service restoration target" and for the "localized service" comprehensive category target. "Verizon's failure to meet the annual service restoration target results in a $20 million rebate. "The company will issue a one-time credit of about $35.70 on bills, beginning in June, to about 627,000 customers throughout the state who experienced a service outage lasting longer than 24 hours between March 1, 2003, and February 29, 2004. "Verizon's failure to meet another Commission standard the "localized service quality" target also will result in a $20 million rebate, which will be paid to all of its customers throughout the state in the form of a bill credit of about $2 per access line (approximately 10.1 million lines).' rest at the PSC's website. go to http://www.dps.state.ny.us [a] -> press releases -> PSC: Verizon New York to Rebate $40 Million for Targets Missed Last Year - Service Quality Improves in First Quarter of 2004 (direct url is an ugly javascript popup) [a] "dps" = "department of public service", aka public service commission. _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ Reply-To: Fred Atkinson From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Re: Geico Sues Google, Overture Over Trademarks Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 16:07:35 -0400 GEICO is not on my list of favorites, either. In the early 1980s (while living in Maryland), I had a clean record (no accidents or tickets) in five years, which is the maximum time that they could rate you for. I applied to GEICO for insurance and was told that I wasn't eligible for coverage. When I asked why, they refused to tell me claiming that in Maryland they were not required to give me a reason for denial. I called the Bank Commissioner's office (who at that time regulated the insurance industry in Maryland). When I told my story, they advised me that GEICO was indeed required to give a reason for denial. They asked me to write a letter naming whom I spoke to and what had transpired. They also said that GEICO was probably discriminating against me since I was in a 'high risk bracket' (being that I male, single, and under 30 years old at the time). The fact that I rarely get tickets and had no accident claims didn't make any difference. As I had not gotten the person's name, I called GEICO again and demanded to know why I was turned down. I was told that they didn't have to tell me in Maryland. I told her about my conversation with the Bank Commissioner's office. Ghe took my information and told me it was because I had not been with my current employer long enough (two years was not enough time?). I asked when I would be eligible. She said they were not required to tell me that. I promised her that her name and what she said would be quoted in my letter to the Bank Commissioner's office. After the Bank Commissioner contacted them, I was contacted by a representative from GEICO who now said that she could not understand why I had been told I wasn't eligible. She immediately offered me a policy at a savings (which I decided not to take because of their conduct in this matter). I pointed out that I was pretty upset because they had refused to give me a reason for denial the first two times. She told me that in Maryland they didn't have to give me a reason for denial. I dispatched another letter to the Bank Commissioner's Office advising them that GEICO was maintaining their position on the real issue. Shortly after this matter was concluded, I had a close friend (that was within a month of my age and had the same status of driving record that I had) call GEICO and request a quote. He was immediately quoted a policy and a rate. Apparently GEICO knew that any subsequent complaints for the same thing might raise more curiousity from the state regulators. Most of my records are in storage. I probably still have copies of the letters that flew around on this subject, though, if I took the time to look for them. I remember sending Harry Hueghes (who was then the Governor of Maryland) a very nice letter commending them and the Public Service Commission (that had handled a problem I couldn't get resolved with C&P Telephone on my own) for their professionalism and prompt assistance. I got a very nice letter back from the governor thanking me for taking the time to write him about it. I showed the letter to my landlord. He told me that his mother had worked for Harry Hueghes and he had seen his signature a number of times. He insisted that it was indeed the Governor's signature and not some staff person signing it. Apparently my letter made a splash. I've only ever had one serious accident in my entire driving career (it was snow and ice related and it was ruled to be beyond my control. No one was hurt including me) I say a proven track record over the last five years should negate any 'high risk bracket' you fall into because of your personal particulars. I understand that someone who has just started to drive has no track record and should probably be considered a higher risk because their is little other to base a rate quote on. Fred Atkinson ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: Re: Does AT&T Still Carry TV Programs Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 20:24:43 +0000 (UTC) Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) writes: > Now that there are so many satellites, does AT&T still carry TV > programs for the networks? I sense it is easier and cheaper to > download them via satellite. Unlikely to be AT&T per se, but plenty of terrestrial links still interconnect major parts of the television networks. That's the key ... major portions. For example, Washington<->NYC has plenty of redundant cheap hi capacity fiber circuitry. One way to tell is to watch as the local folk switch back and forth to the distant ones, and see if there's a satellite induced delay in the response. Since the birds are 24,000 or so miles away from each ground station, there's a minimum half second (and usually more) delay time involved. So, for example, when ABC"s World News Now, the late night news program from which more insoniacs get their news, flips between tgheir NYC hq. and their Washington DC correspondent, there's quick interchange. On the other hand, when they interview someone in the middle of nowhere, there's a marked delay between them. (And if it's a really remote site using a satellite truck, there's often compression delay and artifact thrown in the picture.) One of the fun things for those of us with warped senses of humor is to watch something like a Presidential news conference in Washington DC and flip through the various stations covering it. The general pattern is that the three main commercial networks will have it at the same time, but other groups (typically Fox) will be delayed. this is not hard and fast, as all these folk, for something like a White House scheduled event, can and do swap and pool. Even more fun for those of us with nothing to do is watching this when it's covered by the BBC (or BBC America) which is broadcast locally by one of the PBS stations. So the way that one works is a satellite bounce from a Washington area base station over to England, then another satellite bounce back to the US, and then, finally, a rebroadcast. _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: Pete Romfh Subject: Re: 5.8GHz 2 Line Phones Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 18:20:22 -0500 Organization: Not Organized SELLCOM Tech support wrote: > In a desperate attempt to start an "on topic" thread ... > A sincere question. > Why are there no 2 line 5.8GHz cordless phones? > Is there a technical or legal (FCC yada yada) reason for > it to be impractical for manufacturers? > We get many requests for multiline 5.8 cordless phones. > Steve at SELLCOM > http://www.sellcom.com > Discount multihandset cordless phones by Siemens, AT&T, > Panasonic, Motorola Vtech 5.8Ghz; TMC ET4000 4line Epic > phone, OnHoldPlus, Beamer, Watchguard! Brick wall "non > MOV" surge protection. Mini-Splitter log splitter! If you > sit at a desk www.ergochair.biz you owe it to yourself. I've looked around a lot and haven't seen any either. With the number of 802.11b sites in homes you'd think 5.8Ghz would be a logical option. Pete Romfh, Telecom Geek & Amateur Gourmet. promfh at Texas dot net ------------------------------ From: DaveC Subject: Re: Phantom Cell Phone Call; What's Going On ...? Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 10:18:14 -0700 Reply-To: me@privacy.net On Fri, 21 May 2004 09:34:05 -0700, jdj wrote (in article ): > My Sprint phone rings once approx 30 minutes after the call to me was > made. > I was watching my phone while watching an impromptu airshow because I was > expecting a call to come in within 5 minutes and it was a bit noisy. But > the phone did nothing when they called, while I watched it, at 13:38. I > checked it again at 13:50 and it still indicated nothing. At 14:20, the > phone "rings" once then indicates a missed call at 13:38. > That's some kind of latency ... Your cell was busy. Not your phone, but the cell (constituting the geographic area covered by the provider's antennae) was max'd out. Your call went to voice mail, instead, because there was no frequency available to deliver the call to your phone. The delivery of notification of calls missed takes a low priority, so it takes a very long time to even get the notice that you "missed" your call. Instead, I should be getting a "we screwed up and couldn't get your call to you so we're going to refund a portion of your bill" notice, but so far, nada. Happens to me all the time. DaveC me@privacy.net This is an invalid return address. Please reply in the news group ------------------------------ From: VOIP News Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 06:24:48 PDT Subject: FCC in a Quandary Over VoIP Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com Internet phone service is cheap, if it's not subject to access fees. By Jon Van Tribune staff reporter A former Ameritech executive believes he can deliver phone service through the Internet to low-income people for $5 a month. Dwayne Goldsmith, now chief of Detroit-based Inflexion Communications Corp., and his bargain-phone scheme embody the promise and peril of Internet telephony. Most experts agree that the technology, called voice over Internet protocol, is far cheaper and more feature rich than regular phone service. But the VoIP technology runs smack into a thicket of regulations, fees and taxes that dominate traditional phone service. If Inflexion's $5 service were subject to these regulations and fees, the cost structure wouldn't work. Many of those fees were established to promote universal phone service that helps the poor -- now they could prevent public housing residents from getting phones, Goldsmith said. "It doesn't make sense to collect all these dollars and then push them back to the very phone companies that failed to provide truly universal service," he said. Inflexion has asked the Federal Communications Commission to exempt its service from the system of subsidized payments that characterizes traditional phone service. So-called access fees typically paid by long-distance companies like AT&T Corp. to local phone companies like SBC Communications Inc. were instituted decades ago to keep local phone service rates low. But Inflexion's ultralow rates won't be possible if it is subject to access fees, Goldsmith argues. Goldsmith wants to supply high-speed Internet connections to densely occupied housing projects in Detroit, offering phone service as a Web-based application, much like e-mail. Residents who have computers could access the Internet from Inflexion's system, but others without computers would be supplied with phones to use Internet telephony. Inflexion would avoid the expense of billing and metering the service by selling communications in bulk to landlords who could add $5 a month to rent to cover costs, he said. FCC Chairman Michael Powell has called for "lightly regulated" Internet telephony, and Congress recently approved extending a tax moratorium on Internet services. But whether the FCC will grant Inflexion's plea to avoid traditional phone fees is unknown. Last month the FCC unanimously turned down a request from AT&T Corp. that would exempt it from paying traditional access charges on calls that use VoIP technology. "This is a landscape that's very treacherous and exciting," said David Roddy, managing director of the telecom practice at FTI Consulting Inc. "You're dealing with policy issues -- not light regulation versus heavy. Do the states give up billions in revenue they get from taxing phone service?" Rural firms wield clout If access fees go uncollected, rural phone companies will face serious financial trouble, he said, and they have considerable clout with Congress. David Siddall, a Washington lawyer who specializes in communications and a former FCC staffer, said that the agency is truly in a quandary over what to do with VoIP. Neither Siddall nor Roddy expect action from the FCC until next year. In the absence of specific rulings, VoIP companies tend to be unregulated. Vonage, a leading Internet phone provider with more than 100,000 customers, for instance, pays no access fees. "Right now VoIP is a small dribble and doesn't make much difference," said Siddall. "But the FCC recognizes that as this continues, the current system will be harmed." Roddy said that the telecom industry is headed for a "perfect storm," led by VoIP's disruptive technology. VoIP customers must have a broadband connection to make voice calls, and today most consumers get broadband either over a DSL phone line or a cable modem. But more choices are on the horizon. Wireless broadband using a standard called WiMax should become available next year, and most electric utilities are experimenting with technology to bring broadband to their customers, Roddy said. "We're about to see true competition to provide broadband, and VoIP is the key to the whole play," he said. Internet telephony's economics are so attractive that the technology will spread no matter what regulators do, said Jim Hart, senior vice president with the Burwood Group Inc. "Businesses are adopting this technology," Hart said. "It's ready for prime time. The bottom line is there." Regulators have pushed for reducing access fees and their cross-service subsidies for years, and they have become less important for large carriers like SBC and Verizon Communications. But access fees are still a major part of the revenue flow to many rural phone carriers. TDS plans market trials An important carrier is Chicago-based Telephone and Data Systems Inc., which serves more than 1 million wired phone customers, mostly in small towns and rural areas, through its TDS Telecom unit. "We're certainly looking at VoIP," said David Wittwer, chief financial officer of TDS Telecom. "We plan to do a couple of small market trials to understand how we may offer it to our customers." Industry groups are trying to build a consensus of how the existing system of intercarrier compensation should be revised, said Kevin Hess, TDS' vice president for regulatory affairs. "Clearly, changes will be made," he said. "It cannot stay the way it's done today." Inflexion's Goldsmith agrees. "We need to adjust regulation so that it matches the technological landscape," he said. Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, Chicago Tribune Company. 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