From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue May 25 17:08:17 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.3) id i4PL8HZ27927; Tue, 25 May 2004 17:08:17 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 17:08:17 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200405252108.i4PL8HZ27927@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 #258 TELECOM Digest Tue, 25 May 2004 17:08:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 258 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson T-Mobile USA to End Network Venture With Cingular (Monty Solomon) Humble Cell Morphs Into Device for All Seasons (Monty Solomon) Re: The Strike Goes On (Paul Vader) Re: The Strike Goes On (David B. Horvath, CCP) Understanding the WAN (David C.) Re: ICANN Wins Round in Internet Suit (Robert Bonomi) Re: Verizon Payphones in non-Verizon Area (BV124@aol.com) Ringing Multiple Devices (was Re: Bye, Bye, Ma Bell) (Joel Hoffman) Re: The E-Fax Police Are After Me! (nstrom@ananzi.co.za) Re: Western Union Public Telegraph Offices (Lisa Hancock) Northern Telecom Vantage 12 Help (jr9@sympatico.ca) VoIP,Inc. Announces Joint Venture With Korean Corporation (PressRelease) Share Day for May, 2004 (TELECOM Digest Editor) 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: Tue, 25 May 2004 08:33:48 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: T-Mobile USA to End Network Venture with Cingular T-Mobile USA to End Network Venture with Cingular and Acquire California/Nevada Network and Spectrum; Acquisition Positions T-Mobile USA for Strong Growth - May 25, 2004 01:15 AM (BusinessWire) BELLEVUE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 25, 2004--T-Mobile USA, Inc. ("T-Mobile USA"), the U.S. operating subsidiary of T-Mobile International AG & Co. KG ("T-Mobile International"), the mobile communications subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE:DT) ("Deutsche Telekom"), today announced it has entered into agreements with Cingular Wireless LLC ("Cingular") to terminate their wireless network sharing joint venture and for T-Mobile USA to acquire 100% ownership of the shared networks in California and Nevada for $2.5 billion. The purchase price of $2.5 billion for the GSM network in California/Nevada will be offset by $200 million related to the unwinding of the joint venture, resulting in a net cash payment of approximately $2.3 billion to Cingular. In addition, T-Mobile USA will: -- provide network services to Cingular under a wholesale arrangement until Cingular's customers in these markets transition to the networks it will acquire through its pending merger with AT&T Wireless Services, Inc. ("AT&T Wireless"); -- replace its existing roaming agreement with Cingular with a new nationwide agreement with improved terms; -- transfer 10 MHz of New York spectrum in exchange for certain California spectrum owned by Cingular as specified in the termination provisions of the joint venture agreement; -- acquire an additional 10 MHz of spectrum from Cingular in certain key California markets for $180 million; and -- receive an option to acquire an additional 10 MHz of spectrum in other key California markets from Cingular within two years. While the joint venture has owned and successfully operated the networks that service both companies' customers in these markets since its formation in 2001, this new agreement with Cingular is expected to position T-Mobile USA for continued operational success and strong growth in the future. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=41618239 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 10:05:15 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Humble Cell Morphs Into Device For All Seasons By Yoshiko Hara EE Times TOKYO, Japan - The mobile phone of the future was demonstrated, in bits and pieces, at the Business Show Tokyo 2004 earlier this month. While no single model included all the potential features of upcoming phones, various units had enough of them to prove that the next-generation handset is being transformed into personal entertainment/information devices. Some received radio and TV broadcasts; some played music, videos and games. Others functioned as electronic money or personal identification systems, with the help of wireless ICs; still others accessed the Internet to remotely control home robots. Of all those functions, digital TV reception linked with data transmission is expected to be one of the killer applications that will increase the average revenue per user for carriers. Europe's heated DVB-H activity shows that TV reception is an attractive feature for consumers (see story, page 18), but beaming it through a built-in tuner does not contribute to a mobile carrier's profits. That's why carriers are interested not only in delivering terrestrial digital TV broadcasts, but also in downloading program-related data. Japan's terrestrial DTV service can broadcast for mobile service and for stationary reception of high-definition programs. Mobile broadcasts employ 1/13 of a 6-MHz piece of bandwidth that is assigned to each broadcaster. The rest of the 6-MHz band is used for one channel of high-definition or three channels of standard-definition programming. Broadcasters plan to begin mobile digital TV broadcasts in Japan sometime next year. In the beginning, they will simulcast regular TV broadcasts. To make use of the limited bandwidth available for mobile broadcasting, H.264 encoding will be used to compress video data. http://www.commsdesign.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=20900447 ------------------------------ From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) Subject: Re: The Strike Goes On Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 11:43:16 -0000 Organization: Inline Software Creations TELECOM Digest Editor writes: > According to the Independence Reporter for Sunday, May 23, the labor > dispute at SBC continues. It's over. A tentative agreement was reached early this morning. > at our central office in Independence, over at 6th and Maple, there > was no sign of any action other than back on Friday (when the strike > started) two guys with picket signs on the sidewalk in front for a > short time, but then they went away and there was nothing. Despite what you might have heard during the strike, the CWA has a pretty decent relationship with SBC. It's not uncommon to see managers buying lunch for the strikers, letting them use the bathrooms where security allows, etc. Sometimes you just gotta strike though, or the executives forget they have to actually make concessions now and again. > cages, came and went normally. Telco may just allow this strike to > linger on and make no real effort to settle it anytime fast. What > is the reaction I really doubt that was ever the plan. There is no upside to a strike for either side. > response in other communities? My understanding is it is not just > SBC on strike, but all the (remnants of) Baby Bells. No, that's wrong. It's just the CWA members working for SBC. * * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 09:09:41 -0400 Subject: Re: The Strike Goes On From: someone@somewhere.org Reply-To: someone@somewhere On Mon, 24 May 2004 23:18:57 -0400 (EDT), our esteemed moderator wrote: > According to the Independence Reporter for Sunday, May 23, the labor > dispute at SBC continues. There was a time in the United States when > a strike at the telephone company meant bad news. Now, all it seems > to amount to is a slight delay in getting an answer from Directory > Assistance or the operator. Please hide my email address and full name, too much SPAM (and I don't want my comments connected back to the source). The wife of a good friend works for SBC in the Cleveland Ohio area. Knowing that she is "management" I spoke with him. It seems that the Union planned to go out for four (4) days to show the company how important they were. Senior management decided that the union members would not be allowed back to work after those four days and all prior offers would be taken off the table. Except for repairs and new service provisioning, there should be no real impact. While I realize that I am hearing a biased viewpoint, it seems that the union was being unreasonable in these economic times. They wanted a raise (in excess of inflation), no co-pay for medical, no reduction in medical benefits, and a no-layoff clause. The company was willing to offer more money but in return for co-pay for medical. The company was willing to promise another job in the same state for anyone layed off. From my conversation, it sounds like the union is in a power play and I'm not sure who is going to lose. I know the employees/union members will lose in the end, but that's the way it always is. ------------------------------ From: DaveC Subject: Understanding the WAN Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 12:14:50 -0700 Reply-To: me@privacy.net I've got a pretty good understanding about the workings of the LAN, but now my curiosity is wandering to the WAN. I'd like to understand the area of data network switching and routing before a packet gets to the customer's site. Are there any good primers, intros, etc. on-line to help someone learn about how it all works? Thanks, DaveC me@privacy.net This is an invalid return address Please reply in the news group ------------------------------ Subject: Re: ICANN Wins Round in Internet Suit Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 15:08:00 +0000 In article , George Mitchell wrote: > Monty Solomon wrote: >> U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz dismissed allegations that the >> Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers had violated >> federal antitrust laws in its attempts to bar VeriSign from adding >> services like Site Finder, which effectively took control of all >> unassigned .com and .net domain names and redirected them to the >> company's Web site. > To refresh people's memory, Site Finder was a VeriSign "service" > which made nonexistent second-level domain names under .com and .net > appear to exist, rendering one popular spam test useless. VeriSign > nominally discontinued this "service" months ago, but I still see > as many as a dozen instances per day where the root name servers are > supplying addresses instead of name server referrals in response to > queries in the .com and .net zones. I haven't investigated any > further, but this seems to contradict VeriSign's statement that they > have stopped doing this. Nope. not at all. there are situations where a _host_ itself is listed in the root registry. i.e. where it is a declared nameserver for a 2nd-level domain. Querying for that host *will* resolve directly from the root servers. ------------------------------ From: BV124@aol.com Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 00:53:40 EDT Subject: Re: Verizon Payphones in non-Verizon Area Spotted one tonight in Glendale, CA (SBC-Pac Bell area) adjacent to the Sav-On Drug store on East Broadway. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 20:00:29 GMT From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Subject: Ringing Multiple Devices (was Re: Bye, Bye Ma Bell) Organization: Excelsior Computer Services > VoIP services have to compete on features. For example, AT&T's > CallVantage offers a 9-way conference bridge, and the ability to have > a call ring up to five devices. Both of these features can be done on > a landline, but I don't know of any providers who offer the multiple > ring capability. Do you mean up to five different numbers ring at once, as in, say, your CallVantage line, a landline, and a cellphone? THAT would be a wonderful feature. -Joel ------------------------------ From: nstrom@ananzi.co.za Subject: Re: The Efax Fax Police are After Me!!! Date: 25 May 2004 13:55:22 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Fred Atkinson wrote in message news:: > By the way, does anyone know of an online fax service that > allows you to paste text into a form, put a telephone number into a > text box in that form, press submit, and have that fax go through? It > is just that I send faxes so rarely (and since I have the free Efax > account, I can't send faxes over that number), that I'd rather pay by > the fax rather than by the month. Try tpc.int; specifically, http://www.tpc.int/sendfax.html If the destination number is within their coverage area (http://www.tpc.int/fax_cover_auto.html) it should work fine for you. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Western Union Public Telegraph Offices Date: 25 May 2004 10:11:20 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock): > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: By 1979, there was nothing of any > significance left to the old Western Union empire. > ...Lisa, I am curious; what were YOU doing on West Lake Street, > during the seventies or anytime since? I was MISPELLING! I wasn't on Lake Street, I was downtown at LA SALLE St, opposite the commuter railroad station (formerly Rock Island). > The main Western Union Building downtown *was* nice at one point; > the last time I walked past in the middle nineties (when I was > strongly thinking about checking out of Chicago once and for all), > the building was not in good condition, Speaking of buildings, I was downtown visiting a friend and her window looked out onto a vacated Western Union building. I was all excited, thinking maybe there were some forgotten goodies left behind (maybe telegraph blanks, misc hardware). My friend immediately insisted the building (owned now by her employer) "had been completed emptied, absolutely nothing whatsoever left in it!" I suspect my friend, knowing how cluttered my apt is, might have known otherwise but didn't want me adding more junk. I still am curious as to when telegram rates went up and voice long distance rates when down so that the telephone became cheaper to use than telegrams. My guess is in the late 1950s/early 1960s, which I believe really caused WU's downfall since that eliminated the basic need for a telegram (speed). Did WU's rates vary by mileage as long distance rates did or were they flat for the whole continental U.S.? Of course, for business users, the convenience of a two-way conversation to make plans would be worth paying a premium for voice long distance over a telegram. I wonder if WU had bulk rates for high volume telegram senders, like a business. I was once in an industrial company's personnel office and they had recalled laid off workers by sending them Mailgrams; I presume they would've previously used telegrams. Even into the 1960s it's possible many urban factory workers didn't have their own telephone or spoke English that well, so a telegram provided the notice and the interpretation was done by the recipient rather than a company secretary trying to explain it. That is, here's a single message and a list of recipients. Another cost/curve breakdown would be person-to-person calls, which are essentially obsolete. I believe the premium for such a call is extremely high relative to direct station dialed. This began in the mid 1970s when AT&T introduced lower dialed-direct rates -- operator handled rates started to go up while dialed direct would go down. The only thing I don't know if it's worth going person when calling from a payphone since the payphone LD rates are so damn high. Unfortunately, it's virtually impossible to find out how much you'll be gouged for a payphone LD call today. Back in the 1970s, before the rate drop, it was typical for business to make all their calls person-to-person (remember that charges didn't start until the desired party got on the line, and that could mean a savings of several minutes while the recipient was located.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Western Union had 'day rates' (for delivery same day), 'overnight rates' (for delivery next day) and 'priority rates' (for same day delivery, even late at night). Mail- grams were in connection with the post office, when messenger service was discontinued. You sent the mailgram by phone (or in one of the dwindling number of public offices) and it was transmitted to a teletype machine at the post office of record for the requested zip code. At the receiving location, postal clerks attended to the teletype machine, folding and inserting the message into a window envelope, and the local postal carrier delivered it to you. Even with the postal service's spotty record for delivery on a timely basis, they are usually able to offer next day delivery within the same zip code. At least they were then, in the 1960's. I dunno any longer. I could not imagine *you* (Lisa) ever being on the corner of Lake Street and Kedzie Avenue. There was a WUTCO public office there for many years, a few blocks down the street from the telephone company (in those days we called it euphemistically 'Kedzie Bell' since it was and still is the Chicago-Kedzie central office of Illinois Bell/ Ameritech/SBC. And telco had a public business office there also, long since gone. It was quite a grand old business area, between the WUTCO office, the telephone company, a hospital, any number of theaters and other stores in the 1930-60's era. But by 1960, things had changed there. The Jewish people had long since moved out, going to Rogers Park and Skokie; the area was becoming increasingly minority; most of the merchants had long since either begun using iron gates across their storefronts at night time or had vanished entirely, and those who remained took the hint and fled for their lives that Tuesday night in April, 1968 when Dr. King was assassinated and the whole neighborhood went up in flames and rioting. WUTCO was already limping along in bankruptcy at that point and decided to close their inceasingly shabby public telegraph office and rented it out to some agent who partioned off the huge, formerly glamorous office into a small section with heavy glass behind which he could stand to sell money transfers (the one area the company was still making money at). Telco closed their public office also, and over a few months consolidated their operators from the second floor of the Kedzie c.o. building to wherever else in the USA they put them. Lisa, you mentioned that you had meant to say 427 South Lasalle Street, the main, downtown office of WUTCO. Quite a historic location, where the original telegraph office had stood which was destroyed in the great fire of October, 1871; where the grand WUTCO office building was constructed early in the twentieth century, whose first floor public telegraph office ran a very close second only to Illinois Bell's upscale taste in public office furbishings. And when you passed by the area in the late seventies, it was all gone. Only the little dingy storefront with bullet proof glass remained and the cut-rate liquor store next to it, occupying the rest of the (now) greatly partitioned (former) public office. Ditto the former WUTCO public telegraph office at Lawrence and Broadway on the north side or the south side version at 63rd and Englewood. When AT&T is bankrupt and gone (how long that will be, I won't venture a guess), I wonder what will happen to their grandiose office building on Wacker Drive downtown. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 00:46:44 EDT From: jr9@sympatico.ca Subject: Northern Telecom Vantage 12 Help Hi all. Are any of you familiar with the old Vantage 12 phone system from the 1980s? A local church has one and we would like to enable toll denial on some of the sets, but the programming manual we have seems to be for a later version of the control card, and the codes don't work. According to the manual, all programming uses the 'Feature' key, but where the manual says the phones should have the 'Feature' key, the phones instead have the 'Privacy Release' key ... and using it does not seem to work for the programming. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, Jeff ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 19:57:53 +0400 From: Editor PressReleaseNetwork.com Subject: VoIP, Inc. Announces Joint Venture With Korean Corporation PRESS RELEASE NETWORK http://www.pressreleasenetwork.com Fort Lauderdale, FL - May 25, 2004 (PRN): VoIP, Inc. (OTCBB: VOII) today announced that it has signed a Joint-Venture Agreement ("Agreement" with iCable Systems Co., Ltd., a Korean corporation ("iCable'). Under the Agreement, VoIP, Inc. and iCable have formed iMax Solutions, Inc., a Nevada corporation ("iMax") to act as a joint venture vehicle for both of the companies to develop Voice Over-IP related products with exclusive marketing of iCable products in North and South America. iCable is an R & D oriented company with 37 highly qualified Voice Over IP engineers focusing on the VoIP and WiMax Technologies. iCable products are based on the Broadcom® Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM), BCM1112 CHIP; Broadcom Corporation, the leading provider of silicon solutions enabling broadband communications. As a manufacturer of these products, iCable projects $30 million in sales for 2004 and $50 million for 2005 for the Korean based company. iCable's lead product is their S-MTA (Stand-alone Multimedia Terminal Adaptor) which provides two VoIP telephone lines for customers having broadband-cable or DSL Internet access. Key features include a built in DHCP server; other products include the S-MTA with built in Cable Modem, ADSL Modem, & 911 Life Line patent pending technology. Each of these products are available with integrated WiFi access point. A new product, the IP Set-top box, will be used in the new world of technology where, Voice, Video and Data converge and will be known as the "Triple Play". Under the Agreement, 51% of iMax will be owned by VoIP, Inc. and 49% by iCable. The Agreement is subject to VoIP, Inc. paying iCable $5 million dollars in two equal installments. The first installment is due on June 30, 2004, with a 30 day grace period; the second payment is due on July 30, with a 60 day grace period. VoIP, Inc. will attempt to obtain the necessary funds through private placements of equity or debt securities, and if unable to do so, will either forfeit its rights under the venture or will attempt to renegotiate the deal. Under the Agreement, iCable will contribute all of its rights and interest in contracts and rights with current customers in North and South America. iMax shall have the exclusive right to use iCable's intellectual property and rights to its products in North and South America. iCable has guaranteed iMax Solutions minimum yearly sales for 2004, 2005 and 2006 of $10 million, $25 million and $40 million respectively. The entire Agreement between the respective parties can be found in VoIP, Inc.'s Form 8K filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission on the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/webusers.htm which will be filed by VoIP, Inc. within two business days from the date of this press release. Further information on iCable can be found at: http://www.icablesystem.com VoIP, Inc.'s (http://www.voipincorporated.com) goal is to become a world leader in providing voice over IP customer premise equipment and in addition, premium voice over IP subscriber-based enhanced telephony services, as well as innovative WiFi and WiMAX technology solutions for residential and enterprise customers globally. Steven Ivester VoIP, Inc. Tel: (954) 434-2000 12330 S.W. 53rd Street Suite 712 - Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33330 Email: sivester@voipincorporated.com Website: http://www.voipincorporated.com Editor & CEO Press Release Network editor@pressreleasenetwork.com http://www.pressreleasenetwork.com ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Share Day For May, 2004 Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 3:50:00 EST Instead of changing the Digest over to an advrtising supported forum, I have always elected to keep it as a user supported forum, and for the most part keep it spam and virus free. I am *only* able to do this because of financial support from readers here, and if you would rather not see these messages every month, then please pitch in and help now and then! Consider it sort of like public radio, which goes on for days at a time trying to raise money ... and maybe I should adopt the same system. Turn over the entire Digest once or twice a year to fund raising (entire issues, etc) and stop doing it when the budget for the year has been raised. But for now, I will stick with the present system of devoting a few messages at the end of each month to raising money for the Digest publication expenses. Out of 400-500 messages per month, in a spam, virus free environment, two or three (only) devoted to fund raising. You know who you are; please provide some help here financially. You can use Pay Pal to donate with a credit/debit card by going to our web site http://telecom-digest.org and at the bottom of the home page look for the PayPal 'donate' button. 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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 #258 ******************************