From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jan 22 00:36:32 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id i0M5aWQ17943; Thu, 22 Jan 2004 00:36:32 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 00:36:32 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200401220536.i0M5aWQ17943@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 #31 TELECOM Digest Thu, 22 Jan 2004 00:36:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 31 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: America's Opinion of AOL (Clarence Dold) Re: America's Opinion of AOL (Lightspeed Technical Support) Re: America's Opinion of AOL (Nick Landsberg) Re: America's Opinion of AOL (Kilo Delta One Sierra) Re: Is LD by the Minute Going the Way of the Dodo? (Kilo Delta One) Re: Is LD by the Minute Going the Way of the Dodo? (John Levine) Re: Is LD by the Minute Going the Way of the Dodo? (SELLCOM Tech) Re: All-Zeros Numbers (Joey Lindstrom) Re: All-Zeros Numbers (Gordon S. Hlavenka) Re: Using Calling Card to Dial Internet Access From Hotel? (Stan Cline) Re: Ring Through to POTS (Gordon S. Hlavenka) Re: Wireless Home Networks (SELLCOM Tech support) Re: Wireless Home Networks (Joey Lindstrom) Re: Is LD by the Minute Going the Way of the Dodo? (Joey Lindstrom) 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 is 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: dold@AmericaXsX.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: America's Opinion of AOL Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 23:13:15 UTC Organization: a2i network Paul wrote: > Personally, I think they're scumbags. It is almost impossible to > cancel service with them. I witnessed a friend of mine on the phone > with them for an hour trying to cancel his son's AOL account. Seems > she kept "losing" the account info while he was on the line. You > know, that crazy computer system, gosh darn ... After having AOL for many years, I disconnected without problem a month or so ago. There was a slight detour as the agent offered some minor free service, which struck me as less than the mailers that come out all the time. That was it. The service is gone. No hassle. I don't think I ever actually used AOL, but my daughter was as attached to her AOL user name as I am to my rahul account, even thought I pay more for it than I should. She decided that "free" was better, so now I get to read an advertisement at the bottom of every one of her emails. I don't think I ever had a complaint about AOL service, other than once when she sent the same email to everyone in her mail address book, which triggered some internal spam control and blocked her account. Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8-122.5 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 15:46:09 -0800 From: Lightspeed Technical Support Subject: Re: America's Opinion of AOL > Personally, I think they're scumbags. It is almost impossible to > cancel service with them. I witnessed a friend of mine on the phone > with them for an hour trying to cancel his son's AOL account. Seems > she kept "losing" the account info while he was on the line. You > know, that crazy computer system, gosh darn ... > She made him repeat his full name, address, account number, credit > card number, blood type, etc. at least 4 times during the call. They > really try to wear you out. Even though it was the parent's credit > card on the account, AOL had the nerve to tell him they were not > authorized to cancel the account and the son would need to do it. But > the son is not 18 yet, so go figure. > Their intent, in my opinion, is to get you to just hang up in disgust > and live with the bill for another month. > -- Paul Don't know about the US, but my wife worked in billing at AOL Europe. The call centre down in Waterford had a department referred to as either "the cancellation department" or "the member save department" (depending whether or not one was talking to a customer.) These guys were paid commission for every account they stopped from cancelling, and were authorised to use all sorts of incentives to entice people to stay on (my wife's job included auditing all the freebies that the member save department was giving away.) mike. ------------------------------ From: Nick Landsberg Subject: Re: America's Opinion of AOL Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 01:31:00 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet [ Much Snipped ] Our esteemed moderator wrote, in part: > (AOL claimed once a billion pieces of spam in a month ... > imagine that!) Pat, It's more like 2.4 Billion pieces of SPAM per DAY which hits AOL now, according to an article regarding the recently passed "Right to Spam" bill. That's an average of 100,000,000 per hour. At those rates, we can forget about the usual peaking factors I normally use for computing BHCA, it's a steady stream. That's almost 30,000 pieces of junk Email every second. Anyone care to venture a guess as to how much CPU power it takes to run their SPAM filter and how many CPU's are dedicated to just that? Or how much disk space they need to store all of that SPAM assuming that the Junk mail folder is cleared out on average once per day? I bet yahoo is in the same boat. The Resident Skeptic and Professional Paranoid. ======================= "It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious" - A. Bloch ------------------------------ From: kd1s@aol.comremvthis (Kilo Delta One Sierra) Date: 22 Jan 2004 01:39:48 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: America's Opinion of AOL > Many of us feel that the purpose of AOL is to give experienced > internet users a group to make ethnic jokes about. Hey -watch it. I had been a Cox subscriber until I told them to take their sub-par network out of my @#(*&@#$& house. Too damned expensive for what I was getting. Then I needed some way to at least check email. Installed AOL 9.0 and it's not bad really. As much as I've slammed it it works reasonably well. It does dumb down many things but I can deal with that temporarily. And the nice thing - it's free, free, free until the 1st of March. One nice thing about AOL is that any Time/Warner content is free, stuff like Time and a few other online magazines that are normally subsciption only. But once I get the DSL installed I'll just ditch it. But UPS tried delivering my DSL stuff today. As many times as I've told them that they should try to deliver before 5PM they never do. ------------------------------ From: kd1s@aol.comremvthis (Kilo Delta One Sierra) Date: 22 Jan 2004 01:35:31 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Is LD by the Minute Going the Way of the Dodo? > In our area, SBC is now advertising $20/month per *business* line, > unlimited long distance. For our little company, that means for > $80/mo. I can have unlimited LD on our 4 lines. Seems too good an > offer from the "evil empire". Sure, it's got a one year term, but > heck, still a good deal. This is the grid of what they are offering > here in Ohio: Be careful. I noticed that around here Verizon is offering business customers in RI $38 a month for unlimited. In the fine print on the ad you see that normal line charges apply. Not sure what the RI line charge is but it's probably still a savings for business since it also includes unlimited local and LD. Usually it's about .02 for local calls so you'd have to make 31+ hours of outgoing local a month to justify the $38. That doesn't even factor LD. Sounds like a fairly good deal for you though. Just beware. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jan 2004 04:23:36 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Is LD by the Minute Going the Way of the Dodo? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > http://www05.sbc.com/Products_Services/Business/Catalog/1,,13--12-1-13,00.html > Can anyone find a "gotcha" in the $20 plan? If you don't make many international calls, it does look like a good deal. I see they also have a total package for $59 for the first line and $44 for each add'l line, so maybe that's cheaper. > Why do they even offer the $50/mo plan with 3.5 cents/min.? The $50 is total, not per line. If you have three or more lines that each make less than $20/mo of calls, this plan is better. Regards, John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of The Internet for Dummies, Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Sewer Commissioner "A book is a sneeze." - E.B. White, on the writing of Charlotte's Web John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711 johnl@iecc.com Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner http://iecc.com/johnl Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: SELLCOM Tech support Subject: Re: Is LD by the Minute Going the Way of the Dodo? Organization: www.sellcom.com Reply-To: support@sellcom.com Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 04:38:56 GMT Paul posted on that vast internet thingie: > In our area, SBC is now advertising $20/month per *business* line, > unlimited long distance. For our little company, that means for > $80/mo. I can have unlimited LD on our 4 lines. Some fear that the land line phone may be heading the way of the typewriter. Steve http://www.sellcom.com Discount multihandset cordless phones by Siemens, AT&T, Panasonic, Vtech 5.8Ghz; TMC ET4000 4line Epic phone, OnHoldPlus, Talkswitch, Watchguard! Brick wall "non MOV" surge protection. Minuteman UPS systems If you sit at a desk www.ergochair.biz you owe it to yourself. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 17:47:00 -0700 From: Joey Lindstrom Reply-To: Joey Lindstrom Organization: Telus Sucks! Subject: Re: All-Zeros Numbers Tuesday, January 20, 2004, 10:02:49 PM, editor wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I cannot understand how someone would > get seven zero numbers, even if the zeros were not consecutive > (that is were in the area code and the rest of the number in various > orders. PAT] The toll-free number for Super 8 Hotels is 1-800-800-8000. This of course is non-consecutive but it's still seven 0's. Another valid number would be 1-800-800-0000, and indeed when I dial that number, it's answered by an autoattendant who says "thank you for calling PC Connection". That's got eight 0's. Similarly, combinations like 1-810-800-0000 and 1-710-700-0000 would all be valid - all with seven 0's. Back to the original poster (sorry, lost your name): Up until the late 1980's (or was it early 1990's?), the city of Calgary (where I live) had phone numbers that all began with "2" - that is, all phone numbers were in the format 2xx-xxxx. Finally, they ran out of such numbers in the 403 area code, and began assigning central office codes that began with other digits (note: at this time, only "nnx" format office codes were used. Later, "nxx" codes were used, and that gave Calgary 18 more codes that began with "2". "200" and "211" are not used.) The first such code was 569. Around about that time I moved to a new place, and since we didn't have number portability at that time, and since I was moving to a new central office area, I had to get two new phone numbers -- one for my voice line, and one for my BBS. The numbers assigned were: 569-0000 569-0008 I figured the first one should be used by the BBS: it was easier to remember, and it would likely attract crank callers anyways - better to have them listen to my modem's screams than wake me up at 3am. I used the latter as my voice line. I didn't ask for an "easy to remember" number on this occasion, but it's possible that this might not have been a random assignment. My previous BBS number was 248-9999, and I *HAD* requested that number (and paid a monthly surcharge for the privilege), so when I moved to a new location, it's POSSIBLE that somebody at the phone company went looking for a similarly easy to remember number to replace it. Nobody ever told me so, and I no longer had to pay that monthly premium for a "special" number. It's just as likely this happened by chance. (Please don't try calling any of the numbers mentioned: I haven't had those numbers for about a decade and I'd rather you didn't bother the new holders of those numbers.) Anyway, the reason I mentioned the bit about all numbers beginning with "2": a couple of months after getting these numbers, I had reason to call somebody at the billing office of the phone company, which was located in Edmonton (which had all of its numbers begin with "4", btw). I spoke to a lady and she said she would phone me back, and would I please give her a number she could reach me at? Certainly, I said, and gave her 569-0008. After a brief pause, she said "I thought you said you lived in Calgary". "I do," said I. "Well, that number can't be right, because ALL numbers in Calgary begin with '2'," she replied, in a very prissy manner. I had to spend the next couple of minutes convincing this lady that I wasn't jerking her around: she thought I was some sort of crank, and that I was giving her a fake phone number for some reason. And she worked for the PHONE COMPANY. :-) Eventually, she agreed to hang up and phone me back directly, just to prove I was really at that number. Lily Tomlin woulda been proud of her. Joey Lindstrom ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 22:14:59 -0600 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Reply-To: nospam@crashelectronics.com Organization: Crash Electronics Subject: Re: All-Zeros Numbers Dr. Hoffman wrote: > When I was in high school, I had a parent with a phone number ending > in -0000. A teacher wanted a parent-teacher onference, and when I > gave the teacher the number, I got punished and had to stay after > school for lying. When I was in high school, I knew that xxx-9979 (where xxx was any local exchange) was some kind of test number that would _always_ return a busy signal. We students had to fill out cards each year containing, among other things, our home phone number. I always put down a 9979 number. I know it saved me at least once, because I was sent up for some offense and the dean gave up dialing after about half an hour and told me to go back to class :-) It'd be interesting to know what that number was testing, if anybody out there has a clue ... This was in the mid-1970s, the CO was then 312-832 (now 630-832). -- Gordon S. Hlavenka http://www.crashelectronics.com "If we imagined he could _find_ the car, we could pretend it might be fixed." - Calvin [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It was testing the busy signal generator, that is, the equipment causes you to hear busy signals. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: Using Calling Card to Dial Internet Access From Hotel? Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 01:42:22 UTC Organization: Roamer1 Communications - Dunwoody, GA, USA Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org In article , Joe Blo wrote: > I tried using my laptop to dial my local internet connection telephone > number via my calling card from my hotel room. It did not work, even > though I perfected the pauses and touch tone codes to where the > laptop got through and started connecting. However no connection could > be established. If I dialed direct from the hotel long distance, this > number worked fine (@ a 1.50 per minute) Could it be that some calling > cards (my Walmart & AT&T branded) could degrade the signal through its > signal path significantly to cause problems? If the calling card involved uses VoIP at any point during the call, it definitely could -- but AFAIK, the Wal*Mart/Sam's AT&T cards don't use VoIP ... but things are subject to change. ;) I've seen calling cards that would complete data calls fine but only at v.34 speeds on lines known to get good v.90 connections on other calls, and others that would work for data calls only sometimes, only for domestic calls, or only for calls to specific areas (usually smaller towns, which are more likely to be "off-net" for wholesale VoIP carriers and so handed off directly to a standard circuit-switched IXC.) I doubt the hotel had anything to do with it. Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time." -/usr/games/fortune ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 22:41:25 -0600 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Reply-To: nospam@crashelectronics.com Organization: Crash Electronics Subject: Re: Ring Through to POTS NJ wrote: > I was wondering if there are services available that will allow you to > get a local number that would ring through to another number. > Example: Let's say my cell phone number is 123-555-1234, but I don't > want to give that out or print it on my business cards. Can I get a > phone number (that can later be ported if necessary) that would ring > to the cell phone (or any other number I designate)?? In other words, you want to abstract your phone number. I've actually got a double-abstraction set up at the moment ... I used to own a retail store. When I closed the store, I wanted to keep the phone number (630-691-xxxx) in case I manage to reopen some day. But the number is served by a different CO than my home office number (630-832-xxxx). So I ordered "Remote Call Forwarding" on that line. This immediately forwards all calls to the original number to my home office; there is no physical presence for the store number anyplace. But I'm not always in the office, so I have "Busy Line Transfer" and "Alternate Answering" on the office line. These two services transfer all calls to my cellphone if the office line is busy or unanswered after 4 ring cycles. People mostly call me on the 691 number. That's always forwarded to the 832 number; if I'm on the phone or on the road that bounces to the cellphone. I use the cellphone voicemail to take messages. To retrieve messages, I pick up my office phone and dial my own number -- That's busy (since I'm calling from it) so it forwards to the cellphone, which is off when I'm in the office so it goes to voicemail, where I punch in my PIN and pull messages without using airtime. SBC charges me $19.50/month for RCF, and 60 cents each for BLT and AA. Plus whatever the usage charges are for the forwarded calls -- last month that was about ten bucks. (630-691 and 630-832 are in adjacent COs so all the calls are local.) BTW you can abstract your email also; buy yourself a domain someplace (they can be had for $10/year or less) and have the mail forwarded to your real email address. That way, when you change ISPs you don't have to tell everybody your new email address; just update the forwarding with your domain registrar. The downside to this, of course, is that spam follows you just as easily as people :-/ Fortunately I find that Mozilla's bayesian filter trashes spam pretty effectively for me. Gordon S. Hlavenka http://www.crashelectronics.com "If we imagined he could _find_ the car, we could pretend it might be fixed." - Calvin ------------------------------ From: SELLCOM Tech support Subject: Re: Wireless Home Networks Organization: www.sellcom.com Reply-To: support@sellcom.com Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 04:36:50 GMT Stan posted on that vast internet thingie: > So now, the 'karma question' comes into play. Do I find out which of > my neighbors is Mr. (or Mrs.) Netgear and Mr. Linksys and tell them to > please turn on some security before someone comes along and downloads > all their birthday party pictures? If I was going to be a nice > neighbor and do that, what stops me from getting hit with the > question, "Well now, what were you doing accessing my network?" Well, it might be a "neighborly" thing to visit with some of your closer neighbors and tell them what you noticed coming up on your computer. Be prepared to be a really really good neighbor and maybe set up their wireless networks for them. You might make a good friend or two. Steve at SELLCOM http://www.sellcom.com Discount multihandset cordless phones by Siemens, AT&T, Panasonic, Vtech 5.8Ghz; TMC ET4000 4line Epic phone, OnHoldPlus, Talkswitch, Watchguard! Brick wall "non MOV" surge protection. Minuteman UPS systems If you sit at a desk www.ergochair.biz you owe it to yourself. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 18:01:04 -0700 From: Joey Lindstrom Reply-To: Joey Lindstrom Organization: Telus Sucks! Subject: Re: Wireless Home Networks Wednesday, January 21, 2004, 4:14:14 PM, editor wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well my suggestion is that if you > find out who they are that you send them an *unsigned, anonymous* > email telling them about it. In fact if you can get into NetGear or > Linksys you can probably send them email in their own names using > their mail client. That's a rather large assumption, Pat. Even if I find somebody's unprotected network, and they've got sharing turned on and are mostly unsecure, it's *HIGHLY* unlikely I'm going to be able to use their mail client unless: 1) They've installed some sort of Remote Desktop service, and 2) Have not secured it with a username/password (and most of them won't let you run them that way). Only then will I be able to use THEIR mail client to do anything. (Well, unless I'm a REALLY devious bastard and try to shoehorn in one of those "backdoor trojan" programs, which essentially is the same thing as a Remote Desktop service except it would be installed by me, not by the owner of the machine. However, doing this is NON-trivial and I personally wouldn't know how to do this, nor would probably most people here.) If they've got file sharing turned on without passwording, I might be able to steal their files from their hard drives and figure out what their email address is, but that's about it. (All of this assumes Windows operating systems - and in this case, it's about 99.99% likely. Anyone using a more robust operating system is also probably smart enough to turn on router security.) Pat, I know you love the sound of your own voice, but please: reserve your comments for things you know something about. Joey Lindstrom ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 18:07:41 -0700 From: Joey Lindstrom Reply-To: Joey Lindstrom Organization: Telus Sucks! Subject: Re: Is LD by the Minute Going the Way of the DoDo? Wednesday, January 21, 2004, 4:14:14 PM, Paul wrote: > In our area, SBC is now advertising $20/month per *business* line, > unlimited long distance. For our little company, that means for > $80/mo. I can have unlimited LD on our 4 lines. Seems too good an > offer from the "evil empire". Sure, it's got a one year term, but > heck, still a good deal. This is the grid of what they are offering > here in Ohio: > http://www05.sbc.com/Products_Services/Business/Catalog/1,,13--12-1-13,00.html > Can anyone find a "gotcha" in the $20 plan? Why do they even offer > the $50/mo plan with 3.5 cents/min.? > To think two or three years ago we had $500+ bills every month, now > we have sub $200 bills with ECG Telecom. I almost hate to switch > from ECG since they are the first LD company in 10 years that has > been decent and affordable. I'd suggest calling up ECG Telecom and ask for a sales rep. Not a droid, but an actual sales rep -- you know, the type of guy that might actually drop in on you once in a while and see how things are going. Explain to him/her what you just said -- about how you've been very happy with ECG but that you're quite tempted by this new offer. After a bit of back and forth, you may find that ECG will be willing to match the offer (or at least come close). It's not always about the cheapest price. If you're getting outstanding service, it's WORTH paying a bit more. Only you can decide just how MUCH more, though. While I have no experience with SBC, you'll find plenty of people here who will tell you absolute horror stories about their (alleged) customer service: you should assume worst-case scenario and that you WILL see a drop in customer service quality. Is the price difference worthwhile? Joey Lindstrom ------------------------------ 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. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-330-6774 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the second oldest e-zine/ mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2003 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. If you donate at least fifty dollars per year we will send you our two-CD set of the entire Telecom Archives; this is every word published in this Digest since our beginning in 1981. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. 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 #31 *****************************