From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Jun 19 18:21:46 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.3) id i5JMLjs06946; Sat, 19 Jun 2004 18:21:46 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2004 18:21:46 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200406192221.i5JMLjs06946@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 #297 TELECOM Digest Sat, 19 Jun 2004 18:22:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 297 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Posting Norvergence to Your Threads (Franki Truth) NorVergence and How it Works (Franki Truth) Re: Norvergence Outage - Technical or Financial? (Peter) Re: Who Got the Message? There's a Way to Know (Gary Breuckman) Re: Office Telephone System Recommendations (Carl Navarro) Re: VoIP Over Power Line Set for Testing (Kyler Laird) Strange 202 Number? (Ben) FCC in Action; A Movie For You to Watch on Computer (TELECOM Digest Editor) Last Laugh! How I Spent my Friday Night (Patrick Townson) 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: Fri, 18 Jun 2004 20:25:48 EDT From: Franki Truth Subject: Posting Norvergence to Your Threads Dear Patrick Townson, I would like to know how I can post replies to your thread below. Being an ex employee of Norvergence in a high capacity I know a lot and am willing to share it all. [TELECOM Digest Editors's Note: You just send it in to the same address where you wrote just now. *Please make an effort to be in good taste.* Bear in mind this is a family-oriented Digest. And do not come back later like what's his name and demand retraction and editing of the archives. Your first submission is printed in the next message in this issue. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2004 21:46:57 EDT From: Franki Truth Subject: NorVergence and How it Works Some replies, consolidated, to earlier posters: 1. Paul Dowdy pdowdy@tpsc-arms.com Don't even think about signing. I worked as a SM for NY Market and I can not sleep at night knowing how many companies because of my "concept" training. This company is run by mobsters and they surely know how to scam. Just read the threads on this board or take a look at DSL reports http://www.dslreports.com/sitesearch?md5=468a1da2bfd1d2c7aee2ba54c597612d&s=fposts 2. pccm2468@yahoo.com (peter) Norvergence Outage - Technical or Financial It is 100% financial and here is how I know: In early 2004 Norvergence was suppose to receive 200 Million in venture capital money, from two investors. Well about five days before the papers were to be signed; they lost the 150 Million backer and went into a downward irrecoverable spin. First they lay off 500 ISR, and then they hired 100 or so back after they realized that they were in violation of WARN ACT (http://www.doleta.gov/programs/factsht/warn.htm). Then about a month or so later they had two quick layoffs and got rid off most of the Customer Service, Human Resources and some more ISRs. After another month or so, they invited a class full of SMs to training and fired all of them on the last day since they were going through corporate restructuring http://www.internalmemos.com/memos/memodetails.php?memo_id=2282 and another one by the company CEO/CMO http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,10462083~mode=flat 3. BarryB barryb@simlab.net Subject: Re: Norvergence, etc. I have sold for Qwest before and made a mistake of jumping for more money to Norvergence. Qwest can not turn off customers but apparently there is something in that contract that allows them. Now as far as 13 Mill I don't know (still have contacts in Qwest) but it's closer to a half of that, that is officially owed to Qwest. Now I also found out that one of Norvergence executives came up with a brilliant idea of telling customers that Qwest is having major outages all over US and its there fault. I also know that Qwest found that out and is planning a major lawsuit against Norvergence for slander. 4. TELECOM Digest Editor's Note, responding to Alessandra DiMaggio: Norvergence is currently suing at least one ex employee that I know of. Now not sure if this guy actually started a site or not www.norvergence-truth.com (currently is not working) but Jonathan Indyk told some of my friends who are still there that this person stole a credit card to register a site. Not sure how true this and that's why I will not post his name. I also found out that this person is currently selling his own car to pay for his legal bills. This came from straight up the management route since they saw him driving away with a for sale sign on his car from the court house. I hope to god that he has nothing to do with this site since Norvergence really has it out for him. 5. Ken Lyle : I have a list of many of NY/NJ customers if you contact me off the list I can provide it to you so your lawyer can contact them and possibly file a class action. 6. From: Blacklisted Name Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 8:07 PM To: TELECOM Digest Editor; Ken Lyle; keithmc27@netzero.com; Karen; Jeff Cohen; Dave Michaeli; Andy Grinstead; David O. Rodriguez Cc: Michael Bonnell Subject: Your Problems With Norvergence HOW DO WE CONTACT YOU? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: To get in touch with Blacklisted Name, look about two or three issues back in our archives (around June 16-17 as I recall) for the message from slopes where he asks for yet another archives adjustment. Poor Steve Lopez, he insists his name was forged to the latest complaint about that fine, outstanding company, Norvergence. He would never say anything bad about Norvergence. He does not like getting sued by them and having to hire a mouthpiece. And not to worry about your credit card stealing buddy; he has nothing to do with *this* web site at least. Now what else do you have to tell us? PAT] ------------------------------ From: pccm2468@yahoo.com (peter) Subject: Re: Norvergence Outage - Technical or Financial? Date: 18 Jun 2004 19:13:22 -0700 A follow up -- our service is still out as at 10pm EST, June 18. It went out at 10pm EST, June 15. I have called NorVergence repeatedly over the last two days, and the service is always coming back "soon". For example, Thursday morning, they claimed "95% of the 100,000 customers were back up", and that everyone would be up some time between 3 and 7pm. Today, the message was similar "all customers except a handful" are back up. Finally, 4:30pm June 18, I was given a Qwest ticket number. I called Qwest, and they had been notified. The ticket number was valid. It had been raised just 90 minutes earlier, and a technician was looking into it. To NorVergence's benefit, Qwest did confirm that they did have been a major outage on the June 15/16. However, they said this had long ago been corrected. They have promised a credit for our line charges for this month. But I realize that their promises are somewhat hollow. We will see ... Regards, Peter pccm2468@yahoo.com (peter) wrote in message news:: > Hi, > Our T1 line went out on Tuesday night (June 15), so our phones and all > internet services have been down since then. Today (June 18), all > service is still down. ------------------------------ From: Gary Breuckman Subject: Re: Who Got the Message? There's a Way to Know Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2004 04:57:31 -0500 Organization: Puma's Lair - catbox.com In article , Tony P. wrote: > In article , monty@roscom.com says: >> outgoing messages have been opened. But DidTheyReadIt is the first such >> service to keep itself a secret from the recipient, as well as the >> first to report on where the message was read. > Easy enough to defeat. Just put a new rule on the firewall that doesn't > let it get back. Who would have thought it, or prevent viewing HTML in > Eudora or Outlook -- that can be done too. You can't defeat these new services, they don't work like that. They way they work is they hold the email on their server, and send the recipient a 'new' email that just contains a link to their server. When you open the link to read the mail, they know. But the only way to avoid notifying the sender is not to open the link, and then you don't get to read the mail. -- Gary Breuckman [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Can't you browse to the server holding the mail on your own (manually copy only the pertinite parts of the URL **less the cookie data** ) and get to it that way? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Carl Navarro Subject: Re: Office Telephone System Recommendations Reply-To: cnavarro@wcnet.org Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2004 13:02:40 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 02:35:44 GMT, Jack Murphy wrote: > Mike McWhinney wrote: >> Hello, >> We are currently shopping around for a office telephone system. We do >> not need anything fancy (we have 4 lines, 8-10 phones). We're looking >> for something similar to the following: >> Is there any phone system better than this for within the same budget >> area (<$2000) We want a good phone system that is upgradeable/expand- >> able while remaining cost effective. >> Regards, >> Mike McWhinney > Hi Mike, > We are in a similiar situation and have been looking hard at the > BizFone System (http://www.bizfon.com/affordable.htm). It meets some > of your mentioned requirements specifically upgradeable/expandable, > and cost effective. We have not actually acquired this system yet, but > due to the same reasons you mentioned we likely will go this route > over the other choices available. At $1900 retail for the base cabinet of 6x8, it's going to be tough to get 10 phones in a system for less than $2k :-) As a salesman, it's also going to be tough to convince a customer who starts with a 616 key system that a PBX is better when he didn't add any extra lines or phones. In a 6 line or less key system, there is no learning curve for a square system. Line 4 is line 4 on EVERY phone. There is no need to "Park" a call and pick it up by some convoluted key press sequence. Just for fun, let's take a couple of real world examples. An 8 phone Bizfon system is about $2700 with the funny 2-call display phones. An 8 phone multi-line 6x16 Panasonic system with all display phones is about $3000.00 with voice mail, or $2350 without. The 9th and 10th funny-phone in Bizfon will cost you another $2350 since you now have to expand the cabinet to a 12x16. In Panasonic about $340 since you already have a 6x16 system The Bizfon fits a very specific niche market. I'm sure that anyone can compare it to a <> and beat it on price, availability, and features. That's why so many people (don't) one a Bizfon. Carl Navarro ------------------------------ Subject: Re: VoIP Over Power Line Set for Testing From: Kyler Laird Organization: Insight Broadband Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2004 14:10:02 GMT Mike Donnelly writes: > Horrible idea! What a monsterous source of pollution of the > electromagnetic spectrum. Power lines are just not spectrum-friendly > transmission lines for high speed data. Indeed! It uses way too many shades of green. http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/03/12/spectrum/print.html --kyler ------------------------------ From: Ben Subject: Strange 202 Number? Organization: BellSouth Internet Group Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2004 17:10:12 -0400 I received a call from a Washnigton, D.C. number, 202-700-0000. What would cause that number to show up on my CID? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well there can be numbers with four zeros and you see them now and then. For example, in Chicago, callers to police can dial 312-787-0000 which is what '911' aliases to if they know about the number, and do it in secret (use *67) as desired, where 911 won't allow that; and is chargeable; where 911 is of course auto-reverse-charged to the police and travels through a couple of sometimes inconvenient data bases on the way. So since '0000' is a legitimate (but sort of odd suffix), what about the '700' prefix? Also, admittedly odd, they do have central office codes like that sometimes. Have you checked the criss-cross listings on computer to see if the number actually exists? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2004 16:06:53 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Your FCC in Action I have a little movie you may be interested in seeing, or copying over to your own computer to show to your friends, etc. It is entitled 'Your FCC in Action' and shows your public servants as they track down a miscreant with a rogue transmitter. It sort of reminds me of the old Citizens Band radio days, except they now have newer vehicles and more modern equipment to use. The movie is only two and a half minutes long (greatly abridged; they often times spend an entire day or more driving around looking) but I did not want you to have to spend several hours or days downloading the .wmv file. Movies are terribly large and unweildy -- time consuming to download. http://fcc-in-action.us.tf If you decide to copy it over to your computer, don't forget copyright notices and ownership rights embedded in the picture. PAT ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: Last Laugh! How I Spent My Friday Night Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2004 16:00:00 EDT Friday night was very balmy, and pleasant here in Independence, so when Lisa Minter and two of her friends came by and said let's go out for drinks, I said okay, and off we went to a place I had never been before here in town called 'Austins' on West Main Street. Austin's is a rather elegantly designed night club/tavern designed for the younger set. The place was absolutely packed and very noisy. They have a dance floor area with strobe lights which blink so rapidly my eyes could not focus to it very well. The lights were blinking so rapidly it appeared to persons watching as if the kids dancing were actually frozen in place, not moving at all, only the lights blinking off and on so rapidly (several times per second.) Two bars, a 'main' one and a 'supplementary' one over by the dance area at the other end of the place. Probably three or four hundred people there, and their behavior led me to believe a sex orgy (? ?) was about to break out at any time. All those people, all that *loud* music, all that drinking, etc. Two bouncers at the front door checking ID from all coming in, etc. I am sure my friends had a good time, but after two or three drinks (vodka gimlets) I was rather dizzy (from the liquor, the constantly flashing strobe lights and my neurological shortcomings due to my brain aneurysm back in 1999-2000. And the bartender complained to me that 'until the road repairs get finished our business is *way down* ... Down? Geeze ... That whole six or eight block stretch of Main Street has been under repair for three months while the gas, telephone water and sewer people put in new stuff *and* the road gets widened. Traffic limited to one lane coming and going (a man with a sign stands at each end of the area waving cars through -- by the bridge at 18th Steet on the east and Walmart at the west directing traffic [you stop, let the other side go through, etc]). To get into Austin's one has to go down Maple Street and cut through an alley, no other way in or out it seems, for the duration, and with 300-400 young guys in there drinking, carousing, dancing and playing such god-awful loud music and the bartender complains 'our business is way down until they finish the street repairs.' I finally told Lisa and friends I really had to leave; I was beginning to get ill from it all. I went outside and the fresh breeze felt *so good* even if I did have to walk through the street repair work for several blocks to get to where I could call for the taxicab to come pick me up and drop me at home. I won't go back to Austin's any time soon; Sidecar, Wagon Wheel, Turbo's or Uncle Jack's are more my speed in my old age. That's how I spent my Friday night this week. Patrick T. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #297 ******************************