From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jul 2 13:44:55 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.3) id i62HitG07868; Fri, 2 Jul 2004 13:44:55 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 13:44:55 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200407021744.i62HitG07868@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 #315 TELECOM Digest Fri, 2 Jul 2004 13:44:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 315 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Norvergence Shut Down (William Van Hefner) Norvergence Fires Everyone, Closes Doors (Barry B) Re: What Happened to the "2-Way" Craze? (DevilsPGD) Re: What Happened to the "2 Way" Craze? (Keith) Re: What Happened to the "2 Way" Craze? (Scott Dorsey) Re: Pizza; Can I Tell a Cell or Pay Phone Call From CallerID? (Keith) Re: Pizza; Can I Tell a Cell or Pay Phone Call From CallerID? (S Dorsey) Re: Domain Registration Recommendations (John Schmerold) Re: WFMT, WCPE, YUSA Lost Satellite Carriage on G5-T7 (Jim Haynes) Covad to Offer VoIP Service on Front Range (Jack Decker) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Van Hefner Subject: Norvergence Shut Down Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 00:19:48 -0700 Newark, NJ, July 2, 2004 (TheDigest.Com) - Operations at Norvergence have come to a halt. Employees at Norvergence's headquarters in Newark, NJ were reportedly told by the CEO on Thursday that the company's investors had abandoned them and that the company's assets had been frozen. They were also told that they would not be receiving their paychecks and that the company would be filing for bankruptcy. The move comes after the carrier came under investigation earlier this week by the New Jersey Labor Department for allegedly bouncing employee paychecks. Over 1,300 employees at the company's Newark, NJ office were told that they must leave immediately, and were escorted out of the building by security. Newark police were called in to keep the peace, as employees poured out onto the streets with their belongings. If and when the company's bankruptcy petition is filed, we will make it available for free download via our website. William Van Hefner Editor - www.TheDigest.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I feel very sorry for the employees who worked there and wound up not getting paid their two final paychecks (mid-June and end-of-June.) I also feel sorry for the several customers who are now stuck with limited or no phone service and will be stuck in much litigation with the finance companies which bought the worthless paper from Norvergence. Its a bad scene all the way around. PAT] ------------------------------ From: BarryB Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2004 10:55 PM Subject: Norvergence Fires Everyone; Closes Doors Sorry for the news: This afternoon Norvergence fired every last employee, and told them no final pay, and no replacement for bounced checks. Your service will be terminated shortly since they did not pay their bill with QWEST or any of their cell phone providers. I can restore you long distance and toll free SAME DAY directly with QWEST - no contract - no minimum, no deposit, no activation or startup fees. Attached find disclosure and my card and brochure. Barry Bellin 201 833 4091 ---- have less - be more | blame less - forgive more ---- The world's greatest opportunities always come disguised as a problem with no solution. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: However, Barry's disclosure along with his business card and brochure were not enclosed in the mail I received. PAT] ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: What Happened to the "2-Way" Craze? Reply-To: bond-jamesbond@crazyhat.net Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Fri, 02 Jul 2004 08:15:44 GMT In message Chris Farrar wrote: > On an aside, Nextel, Telus, and a few other companies recently signed > a roaming agreement for the walkie talkie feature. Until early April > 2004 if you had a Nextel phone and were in Canada, only the telephone > part would work, the walkie talkie (Direct Connect) feature wouldn't. > Likewise a Telus Mike unit would only Direct Connect in Canada and > only operate in telephone mode in the USA. As of the middle of April > 2004, users can Direct Connect to each other in different countries > (Ie a Nextel user in Charleston South Carolina can Direct Connect to > another Nextel user in Toronto Canada, or a Nextel user could Direct > Connect from Vancouver BC to Toronto ON, or Mike from Montreal PQ to > Los Angeles CA). I believe the other 2 countries involved are > Argentina and Chile, but not positive. It's also worth noting that although not officially advertised, TELUS and Nextel customers can DC each other too. I'm in Canada, on TELUS, and I was able to have a conversation with a Nextel subscriber in TX. Next on FOX, all new REALITY SHOW promises to be a hit: "STOP A BULLET WITH YOUR HEAD" ------------------------------ From: Keith Subject: Re: What Happened to the "2 Way" Craze? Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 09:55:29 -0400 Ron Chapman wrote in message news:telecom23.312.9@telecom-digest.org: >> As soon as I heard the conversation, I of course realized this was >> illegal, > Is it? > You're thinking of cell phone conversations. I haven't read the law > word for word, so my immediate question here would be, is it in fact > illegal for you to listen in on a Nextel "Direct Connect" conversation? > Especially if it's as you describe above, and not using any part of > the cellular system? > One wonders if there isn't a loophole there whereby the Nextel stuff > doesn't fit into the law ... Good point. I was actually being a little facetious regarding the situation. I've seen the law before but I'm no lawyer. If you think about cordless phone calls, which are protected by a different law, they operate in a point to point manner(phone to base, analog FM, no repeaters, towers, etc), similar to Nextel's system, and they are protected. I suppose it depends if the judge considers Nextel's direct-connect to be a phone call or not. If the cordless phone and cell phone industries would have encrypted the conversations instead of lobbying congress to pass laws that make it illegal to listen to conversations, everyone would have been better served. Especially with unenforcable laws like these. I can sit at home and monitor cordless and cell phone calls all day long with zero threat of being caught. Then again, anyone who considers a cellphone anything BUT a radio transmitter that transmits on the open airwaves needs to reexamine how their stuff works. I would never say anything on a cellphone that I wouldn't say on a CB radio. Things have gotten better with digital cellphones, at least a $50 scanner from radio shack wouldn't help a would-be eavesdropper. Although I haven't looked, it wouldn't surprise me that someone has hacked together a way of decoding digital calls. Some of this is covered under the Electronics Communication Privacy Act (of 1986 IIRC) at: http://floridalawfirm.com/privacy.html The guys over at rec.radio.scanner have this discussion like three days a week. :) Keith ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: What Happened to the "2 Way" Craze? Date: 2 Jul 2004 10:42:25 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Ron Chapman wrote: >Is it? > You're thinking of cell phone conversations. I haven't read the law > word for word, so my immediate question here would be, is it in fact > illegal for you to listen in on a Nextel "Direct Connect" conversation? > Especially if it's as you describe above, and not using any part of > the cellular system? Yes. Check out the ECPA, which makes it illegal to listen to damn near anything. Interpreted literally, it makes it illegal to listen to anything on a broadcast subcarrier, including FM stereo. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: Keith Subject: Re: Pizza ... Can I Tell a Cell or Pay Phone Call From CallerID info? Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 09:18:53 -0400 Scott Dorsey wrote in message news:telecom23.312.15@telecom-digest.org: > If you call a pizza shop through an 800 number with your blocked cell > phone, they will not reject your call but get complete information > about the source in spite of the blocking. Blocking caller ID does > NOT DO ANYTHING about ANI. I'm trying really hard here not to just say, "Duh", but, I'll say "of course not." instead. That's why I suggested the pizza shop OP in question get an 800 number in an earlier post. No one answered my earlier question though: Is it possible to get ANI information from an 800 number delivered to a standard analog POTS line via CallerID by the telco? This wouldn't require a PBX (even a small one), and would keep the entire setup pretty simple. Keith ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Pizza ... Can I Tell a Cell or Pay Phone Call From CallerID info? Date: 2 Jul 2004 10:48:38 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Keith wrote: > I would gladly give up my name, phone number, and location on a 911 > call. Ordering a pizza, calling the local hardware store, or calling > the guy down the street to see how much he wants for his used Mustang > is an entirely different idea. I prefer that my calls be anonymous > unless I choose to identify myself. And just because this wonderful > technology has enabled the automatic violation of my privacy, doesn't > mean this is "progress". The ABILITY to transfer whatever information > is progress. Advancement in technology does not give a free pass to > abuse that technology in whatever methods a company deems appropriate > or profitable. That's fine. But if you don't give the pizza company your address and name, how can they know where to deliver the pizza? --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 02 Jul 2004 10:39:42 -0500 From: John Schmerold Subject: Re: Domain Registration Recommendations Anybody but Network Solutions. I've had a couple of domains with them since near the beginning (it's hard to believe 1993 is near the beginning of anything as pervasive as the Internet). Everytime I have to deal with them, my blood boils, I have to exercise great restraint and remind myself the the girl on the other end is being paid minimum wage to deal with very very frustrated clients. Most recently, we had a client want to move their hosting to us, the old contact made me Technical contact, but I couldn't change the DNS records, I phoned Network Solutions, they said I'm the Technical Contact in Whois, but not a technical contact for management of the account. Good luck explaining that one to anyone, myself included. We've registered as a reseller with GoDaddy & have used Joker.com. I like Joker.com, but they moved to Switzerland from Germany and I worry a little bit about the stability of my domains, probably nothing to worry about, but I do ... Biggest hassle with GoDaddy is you can't just register a domain, you have to click thru a bunch of ads for web hosting etc, as a dealer we were able to disable all that junk and have. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: WFMT, WCPE, YUSA Lost Satellite Carriage on G5-T7 Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Fri, 02 Jul 2004 16:27:14 GMT Rats! I was within days of getting a satellite dish set up so I could receive WFMT. jhhaynes at earthlink dot net ------------------------------ From: VOIP News Date: Fri, 02 Jul 2004 11:24:10 -0400 Subject: Covad to Offer VoIP Service on Front Range Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/technology/article/0,1299,DRMN_49_3006509,00.html By Roger Fillion, Rocky Mountain News Another provider of Internet-based telephone calling is coming to the Front Range. Covad Communications Group Inc. plans to offer voice-over-Internet- protocol service next month to small- and medium-sized businesses from Boulder to Colorado Springs. Full story at: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/technology/article/0,1299,DRMN_49_3006509,00.html VoIP Watch blog comments on this story: http://andyabramson.blogs.com/voipwatch/ How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ 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. 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