From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Jul 17 14:18:35 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.3) id i6HIIZe29526; Sat, 17 Jul 2004 14:18:35 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2004 14:18:35 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200407171818.i6HIIZe29526@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 #338 TELECOM Digest Sat, 17 Jul 2004 14:18:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 338 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Tune In, Turn On, Skype Out (baracooda) Call Adtran (Jamie Karczewski) TelePort Platinum Fax/Modem, and Converting ADB to USB? (AES/newspost) From Ray and Rita to Industry Professional (Ray Normandeau & R Frazier) DSL Steel or Copper (rud) Problems with Vonage and Bellsouth/PPPoE (Richard Thomas) Cord Untangling (Michael Muderick) Re: Power of the Net in Next Election (Linc Madison) Re: Power of the Net in Next Election (ranck@vt.edu) Re: Power of the Net in Next Election (Charles Cryderman) Re: Norvergence Question (Bart) For Techs Sake: VoIP: Reality Amidst the Hype (VOIP News) Share Day for July, 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: wayne.chiang@gmail.com (baracooda) Subject: Re: Tune In, Turn On, Skype Out Date: 16 Jul 2004 16:13:24 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I have a Deskoid Robotic PC design that is ideal for Skype. Check it out at http://funkycoldamoeba.blogspot.com . I need partners to co-develop this idea, if anybody is interested, let me know. VOIP News wrote in message news:: > http://www.techcentralstation.com/070104F.html > Tune In, Turn On, Skype Out > By Kevin Werbach Published 07/01/2004 TCS > Somewhere between Sweden, Estonia, and London, a small band of software > developers is fomenting a revolution. Their product, Skype, > has been downloaded fifteen million times worldwide in less than a > year, without any marketing budget. It is provoking consternation > among government officials. And it has large incumbents worried. > If that sounds like the profile of peer-to-peer (p2p) file-sharing > programs like Napster and Kazaa, it should. Not only is Skype a > product of the same team that launched Kazaa, the most popular p2p > file-sharing application, Skype is a p2p tool itself. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2004 20:01:56 -0400 From: jamie karczewski Subject: Call Adtran I am a Norvergence T1 customer stuck between a rock and a matrix box. Today I spent literally 9 hours on the phone and I finally got somewhere. I transferred all voice lines to AT&T, getting DSL as a temp. solution but having the Matrix remain. Listen closely. I spoke to a Project Manager at Adtran; the manufacturer of the Total Access 850 a.k.a the NORVERGENCE MATRIX box. If you look at your contract's fine print area you will find a clause detailing the fact that NORVERGENCE declines responsibility of the Matrix box warranty to the customer and it reads in detail how they are not responsible in some way for the equipment. I called the number found at the bottom of this page http://www.crm.adtran.com/cgi-bin/submit_ticket.pl?route_to=Post+sales+support and was asked to open a ticket window. I then spoke in detail about my Matrix box without mentioning until the end that I "acquired" the equipment through Norv. I then was connected to a Project Manager and another supervisor to speak in detail about the machine and what they were legally allowed to discuss with me given the current situation. I asked him to speak so I could read between the lines and was told that in order to continue service through another ISP one would have to have the company contact Adtran in order to continue the service. I obtained a difficulty level as a 3 with 10 being very difficult. Adtran is currently designing software to easily crossover to another ISP. There is hope for Norvergence customers and if anyone would like the contact info I'd gladly provide. Call Adtran and see what they say www.adtran.com ------------------------------ From: AES/newspost Subject: TelePort Platinum Fax/Modem, and Converting ADB to USB? Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2004 14:21:17 -0700 Shutting down an older Power Mac 8600 the other day freed up a 1995 Global Village/TelePort Platinum External Fax/Modem. It's not a bad modem -- only 28K but I only intermittently need modem or fax these days -- and I'd think about converting to a newer Mac because of its special pass-through capability. That is, you run a normal phone connection _through_ this modem -- i.e., you run the phone cord from the wall plug to an input jack on the modem, and another phone cord from an output jack on the modem to your combined phone/answering machine. The modem camps across the line but lets phone calls go through to the phone. When either you or the answering machine answers a call the modem does nothing unless it hears an incoming fax whistle, in which case it automatically disconnects the pass-through to the phone, grabs the line, wakes up the Mac, and receives the fax. It also of course also allows the computer to dial outgoing fax or modem connections. The problem is, it connects to the Mac via an ADB cable, which we don't got no more. So: 1) Anyone know of a comparable currently available external pass-through modem with USB connectivity? 2) Anyone know if this unit is likely to work using an ADB/USB adaptor (if such exists) with currently available fax software? 3) Lacking satisfaction on any of the above, anyone want to make a modest bid on this gadget, with manual and (maybe) software diskette (which I haven't found yet)? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2004 18:00:41 PDT From: Ray Normandeau & Rita Frazier Subject: From Ray and Rita to Industry Professional FYI: Smart Beep will be discontinuing service in September! If you are one of the many currently satisfied SB customers you will surely be disappointed; but you may wish to plan ahead. If in doubt ask Smart Beep. Unlike internet hoaxes, we are NOT asking you to forward this to all your friends. Rather, keep this secret to yourself as a reward for being one of the many faithful readers at http://www.RayRita.us This foreknowledge may give you a leg up in the industry. Ray and Rita ------------------------------ From: ruddager99@hotmail.com (rud) Subject: DSL Steel or Copper Date: 17 Jul 2004 10:20:35 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Does anyone know if you can use steel communication wire to run a DSL line? The cable is Belden LL7874/E108998/9504. I've got a brand new 500' spool of the stuff and DSL being installed in the area (finally!) Thanks. ------------------------------ From: Richard Thomas Subject: Problems With Vonage and Bellsouth/PPPoE Organization: BellSouth Internet Group Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2004 00:08:58 -0500 Has this been an issue for anyone else? I have a home network that usually connects through Bellsouth DSL via a Linux firewall and the PPPoE client.Everything usually runs snappy and fine. Two days ago, I obtained and installed the Vonage Motorola VT1000 appliance. I disabled the PPPoE stuff and started DHCP and rewrote my NAT/firewall rules and everything seemed kind-of OK. There was some funky stuff but it was past bedtime. The next day (yesterday) I tried SSHing in from work but had forgotten to reconfigure ddclient (oops) so had no idea of the IP. Today I had that set up OK and connected with SSH fine. Problem was, whenever I did anything that produced rapid network activity (even ls or ifconfig), the connection would just hang (not disconnect but just stop). I could open new connections fine but they would also fall prey. note that it seemed OK to sit there banging away on the enter key, I could scroll through pages and pages that way, just stuff that produced output quickly seemed to cause the problem. So I got home tonight and try reading some news. The client (Agent) connects then hangs. Some packet sniffing reveals that some data (the article numbers) starts being returned to the client and then stops. Similar symptoms to the above. Ok, so maybe it's my NAT/firewall rules? Well, I take my '98 box off the network and plug it directly into the back of the Vonage box. Renew the IP and I'm out to the net. Except the problem is still occuring with connections to the news server (did I mention that some websites seem slow to load and some images aren't loading?). Well, I've been on goose chases before where I made a minor change to software and spent hours chasing it down only to find out that Bellsouth coincidently had some network problems. So I take the Vonage box out, reconfigure my Linux box for PPPoE and wahay, we're back to regular snappy internet access and no agro from the Bellsouth nntp server. Anyone know if I have a faulty appliance? Is this a known problem? Should I just stick the appliance behind my firewall and if so, does anyone have a link to a good guide on how best to do this? Thanks Rich An animal so poor in spirit that he won't even fight on his own behalf is already an evolutionary dead end; the best he can do for his breed is crawl off and die, and not pass on his defective genes. --R.A.Heinlein ------------------------------ From: Michael Muderick Subject: Cord Untangling Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2004 06:41:20 -0400 After untangling the cord, I have come across a successful method of restoration. Wrap the cord coil by coil around a piece of iron rod of proper diameter. PUsh it very tightly around the rod. Then put the rod in the oven (not microwave-it's iron) for about 15 minutes. It sort of reforms the coils and when you pull the rod out, it seems to be better. I also use dishwashing liquid to clean really ratty cords. I now have a box of 100's (what a time waster!) if anyone needs one. MOstly blacks, ivory and brown. Some restored , some not. Michael@muderick.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Power of the Net in Next Election Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2004 08:41:28 -0700 From: Linc Madison Reply-To: lincmad@suespammers.org Organization: California resident; nospam; no unsolicited e-mail allowed In article , Robert Bonomi wrote: > In article , >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, I tend toward being >> libertarian myself and wish they stood even a chance in hell of >> getting elected, but that is so unrealistic in this country, where >> the Demopublicans and the Republicrats prevail. I will be >> interested however in seeing whether Pastor Soaries and his buddy >> Bush put their heads together and decide 'because of the risk of >> terrorism' to have the election in November called off, as per > Not-so-clever use of "intellectually dishonest" language. You want > people to belive that CNN and Newsweak (sic) reported that 'those > people' are contemplating calling off the election. > When, *IN*ACTUAL*FACT*, what is being reported is concern over the > likelihood of terrorist activities coinciding with certain other > events. > WITH NOT ONE WORD about potentially 'calling off the election'. > Of course, you've never let facts get your the way before, why start > now? "Not one word" about potentially calling off the election -- and YOU're talking about someone ELSE not letting facts get in their way?? >> Both of those news sources seem rather certain there will be some >> terrorist activities at the conventions later this month and next >> month. PAT] > There is, quite simply, *NO*CHANCE* of the entire November elections > being 'called off', or even 'postponed'. > To move the date of the election for _FEDERAL_ offices (and *only* > federal offices) a literal 'Act of Congress' would be required. Which is EXACTLY what DeForest Soaries, the head of the federal Election Assistance Commission, asked Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to put forward. To quote Newsweek: "Ridge's department last week asked the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel to analyze what legal steps would be needed to permit the postponement of the election were an attack to take place. ... Soaries, a Bush appointee who two years ago was an unsuccessful GOP candidate for Congress, wants Ridge to seek emergency legislation from Congress empowering his agency to make such a call." Now what exactly was that about "not one word about calling off the election"?? > Then there is the matter of the elections for _STATE_ and local > offices. This would require additional, state-level, legislation in > *each* of the 50 states. Yes, but, with enabling legislation from Congress, the federal government can set the date for federal elections. It happens as a matter of custom that state elections are held on the same day, but it is only a matter of custom. Suppose that an attack happens late in the day on the west coast, after polls in the east have closed. It would be possible for the federal government to postpone the Congressional and Presidential elections, while letting states choose whether or not to let their state and local election results stand. > And, of course, any attempt to move the date of the election past > January 3 would introduce a constitutional crisis of (literally) > unimaginable magnitude. It is in the Constitution that the term of > elected Federal officials expire on that date. *REGARDLESS* of > whether a successor has been elected or not. Provision is made for > the State Governor to 'appoint' someone to fill a vacancy in the > House or Senate, *but*, in most cases, the governorship is _also_ > vacant, for the same reason, at the same time. Not true, on several levels. First of all, the governor cannot appoint anyone to the House of Representatives, only to the Senate. No one can serve in the House of Representatives without having been elected. "When vacancies happen in the Representation from any state, the executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill the vacancy." Second, it is not true that most governorships will be vacant if the election is not held by January 3rd. Many states elect their governors at the midterm election, deliberately to avoid competition for the voters' attention. For the same reason, the mayor of San Francisco is elected to a four-year term, but always in an odd-numbered year. Thus, the governor of California and the mayor of San Francisco are in office until the elections in 2006 and 2007, respectively, regardless of what happens with the 2004 election. In fact, only 11 states will elect governors this year: DE, IN, MO, MT, NC, ND, NH, UT, VT, WA, and WV. >> [PAT:] Since normally any changes voted into law do not affect the >> incumbent but only his successors, Truman could have theoretically >> been around for many more years. > FALSE TO FACT. such changes do not affect the _current_term_ of the > sitting official. It can make it illegal for them to run for > re-election _again_, even though they -first- were elected into > office when such a restriction was not in effect. Turns out, you're both wrong! While it is *possible* to write a law that makes it illegal for an officeholder to run for further re-election -- as has been done with many term limit laws -- the fact is that the 22nd Amendment specifically exempted Harry Truman. In theory, Truman could've run for a third or fourth term. >> Take it one step farther: After serving as President for one day >> short of 10 years, Jones runs for Vice President again, on a ticket >> with Brown. I didn't find anything in a quick search of the >> Constitution that would prohibit that. > Bzzzzt! You didn't look very hard. > The last part of Amend XII reads: > "But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of > President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of > the United States." Well, it actually isn't quite that simple. The 22nd says that a person may not be *elected* more than twice. Being constitutionally ineligible to be *elected* is not quite exactly the same thing as being constitutionally ineligible to *serve*. The latter standard remains as in Article II, Section 1: a natural-born citizen, at least 35 years old, residing in the United States for at least 14 years. >> Brown and Jones are elected. One week into his term as President, >> Brown keels over from a massive pulmonary embolism. Jones becomes >> President again, for another nearly four years. Nothing in the >> Constitution to prevent that, as far as I can see. > Sure there is. Jones is *ineligible* to be vice-president. See above. But is Jones ineligible to be Speaker of the House? How about Secretary of State? See the 25th Amendment. Henry Kissinger can't become President under any circumstances without another amendment. However, theoretically, Bill Clinton could be elected VP and then become President. He could also become Speaker or President Pro Tem or Secretary of State, and be elevated by succession from there. >> There doesn't appear to be anything in the Constitution to prohibit >> one person from serving as President for quite some time, with a >> little conniving. > There IS *one* 'loophole' in the rules, as currently written. > A person can run for Vice-President, and be elected to _that_ office > an indefinite number of times -- *as*long*as* he is 'eligible' for > the office of President. He *is* 'eligible' if he has not: > (a) been elected President twice > -or- > (b) (1) Been elected President once > *and* > (2) Served as president for more than 2 years of a term to which > some other person was elected President. > Thus, if he runs for, and is elected as, Vice-President every four > years, and the sitting President resigns after 'two years and a day', > the process _can_ be repeated in perpetuity. Your reasoning has a couple of flaws. If a Vice President gets different shills to take the top slot on the ballot each time (using each one no more than twice), the elected President can resign on Inauguration Day each time, leaving the repeat President in place with only the briefest of interruptions. In any case, even if our fictional repeat VP-turned-Prez were to wait for 2y+1d into each term, its not clear that the "two years of a term to which some other person was elected President" clock gets reset each time. I would argue that such a person would, after having served a cumulative total of more than two years of terms to which other people were elected, be eligible only once to be elected President in his or her own name. He or she would still be eligible to one elected term, though, even if the cumulative term of unelected service exceeded 10 years. Of course, it's all academic, since the political reality is that anyone who tried to pull such a scheme would be driven off the political stage in a metaphorical hearse. In article , Robert Bonomi wrote: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And who sets up the rules for when >> the conventions are held? I had heard the party seeking office >> always had theirs first and the party in office always had theirs >> last. Is that correct? > It's bullsh*t. pure and simple. > Each party chooses _when_ and *where* it will hold it's national > convention. True. > Due to the size of the event and the _length_ of time the facilities > are needed, sites and dates are selected _several_ years in advance. > almost assuredly at least 5 years in advance, probably closer to 10. Not true. The time and place of the Democratic convention were decided in December 2002. The Republicans picked their convention site and dates in January 2003. The conventions are planned more than a year in advance, but far less than 5 years. The *bids* for the conventions might be prepared 5 years in advance, though. Factoid: Over 10,000 NYPD officers will be protecting the Republican convention site. That's more people than we have looking for bin Laden. Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * lincmad@suespammers.org * primary e-mail: Telecom at LincMad dot com All U.S. and California anti-spam laws apply, incl. CA BPC 17538.45(c) This text constitutes actual notice as required in BPC 17538.45(f)(3). DO NOT SEND UNSOLICITED E-MAIL TO THIS ADDRESS. You have been warned. ------------------------------ From: ranck@vt.edu Subject: Re: Power of the Net in Next Election Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2004 14:03:28 UTC Organization: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Correct me if I am wrong: I believe > the term of office is 4 years but any given person can serve up to > two complete terms maximum. I believe this came about at the urging > of Republicans in 1950 when President Truman was in office, because > they (Republicans) were quite annoyed at President Roosevelt getting > *four* terms in office, even though he died about a year after getting True, but it took a Constitutional amendment to make this change. It is Amendment XXII. The term is still 4 years and they pretty much *have* to have an election (using the Electoral College) to select a President every four years. They can't just postpone it indefiniately. There are some situations where Congress itself has to choose the President, but the wording all says there must be a new term starting every 4 years. > I do believe in 1968 when President Johnson was finishing his term in > office, the Democrats were going to run him for a second (complete) > term (recall, he finished the final year of Kennedy's term) but they > would not let him do that, since if he *had* won (instead of Nixon) > his two complete terms *plus the extra time left over from Kennedy* > would have run him past the statuatory length of time allowed in > office, under the new rules. PAT] I don't think so. Amendment XXII allows for 2 full elected terms as president and up to 24 months finishing up for someone else who has died or left office. If Johson had served more than 2 years of Kennedy's term, then he would have been ineligible for a second term of his own. Still, there is a limitation where if you serve more than half of someone elses term you can't get 2 full terms of your own. Bill Ranck Blacksburg, Va. ------------------------------ From: Charles Cryderman Subject: Re: Power of the Net in Next Election Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2004 14:24:42 -0400 Our Esteemed Moderator commented: > "Correct me if I am wrong: I believe the term of office is 4 years > but any given person can serve up to two complete terms maximum. I > believe this came about at the urging of Republicans in 1950 when > President Truman was in office, because they (Republicans) were > quite annoyed at President Roosevelt getting *four* terms in office, > even though he died about a year after getting elected the fourth > time. Since normally any changes voted into law do not affect the > incumbent but only his successors, Truman could have theoretically > been around for many more years. So the Republicans got Eisenhower > in office in 1952. He was an enormously popular president and the > Republicans were sorry (in 1960) when he wound up having to leave > office also because of those rules they (Republicans) had passed > several years before. > I do believe in 1968 when President Johnson was finishing his term > in office, the Democrats were going to run him for a second > (complete) term (recall, he finished the final year of Kennedy's > term) but they would not let him do that, since if he *had* won > (instead of Nixon) his two complete terms *plus the extra time left > over from Kennedy* would have run him past the statuatory length of > time allowed in office, under the new rules. PAT] In 1951 the 22nd amendment to the Constitution was added. Unless you wish for me to quote the whole thing I will summarize it. You can not be elected to the office of President more then twice. Also no person who has held the office as President or has acted as President for more then two years of a term which someone else was elected President can be elected more then once. There is also an exception for the current office holder at the time is was enacted (Truman). As to President Johnson, he could have ran for another term but choose not to himself. The democratic leadership was POed by it but he knew that because of his actions in Vietnam he'd be a liability. Also, to run for President you have to be fully qualified for office. That is why, to the horror of many Clintonites, he could not run for another term. I had heard many on talk radio saying asking "Why can't he run and then resign after two years?" For some reason those hosting these radio shows would never come right out and say, "Because, he is not eligible to be President." I love the Constitution and keep a copy at my side. Chip Cryderman ------------------------------ From: Bart Subject: Re: Norvergence Question Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2004 10:07:13 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: spam@icpage.com On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 18:47:54 -0400, no one wrote: > On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 04:35:53 -0700, William Van Hefner > wrote: >> If you'd like to see an example of the Norvergence contract, you can >> browse through http://www.thedigest.com/docs/norvergence . I'd be more >> likely to sign my own death warrant than sign a contract like this. >> William Van Hefner >> Editor - http://www.thedigest.com > One of the licenses on the page Hefner refers to says that you can > terminate the service (clause 7 of > http://www.thedigest.com/docs/norvergence/07122004-PelasEquipmentLeaseContract.pdf > or http://www.norvergence.com/PDFs/General_Terms_and_Conditions.pdf ) > The SLA is at > http://www.norvergence.com/PDFs/ATM_Service_Level_Agreement.pdf and > says "Customer may terminate the Affected Services without penalty if, > in any single calendar month: (i) Network Downtime exists for at least > ninety-six (96) hours in the aggregate; or (ii) any single event > entitling Customer to credits under Network Availability exists for a > period of at least thirty-six (36) consecutive hours." (there's some > other good stuff in there). > But that doesn't seem to terminate the equipment lease. See section 5 > of http://www.norvergence.com/PDFs/General_Terms_and_Conditions.pdf > "NorVergence is not a party to any hardware rental or lease contract > between customer and customer's financing bank. Hardware Rental or > Lease Agreements between Customers and their Lenders are > non-cancelable and not part of or affected by NorVergence Circuitry > Services in any way." > Some of the pricing is given in the documents on the page Hefner > refers to above . The ones > I saw show the lion's share of the fees going to the leasing company. ------------------------------ From: VOIP News Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2004 14:10:45 -0400 Subject: For Techs Sake: VoIP: Reality Amidst the Hype Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.washingtontechnology.com/news/1_1/telecom-it-infrastructure/24051-1.html By Gary Arlen Special to Washington Technology Despite the growing trend to pronounce the 'Voice over Internet Protocol' acronym as a nasally 'voip,' purists still prefer to enunciate the letters V-O-I-P when they abbreviate the emerging technology. However they say it, 'VoIP' discussions almost always are accompanied by the term 'hype' which almost rhymes, if you pronounce both of those four-letter words with a combination Cockney and New Joisey accent. VoIP has been deemed one of the most significant technology trends confronting government IT managers (Washington Technology, June 7). Yet after two years of the aforementioned hype, the Commerce Department is the only sizeable federal agency to acknowledge a widespread VoIP deployment. Vendors such as Cisco Systems Inc. and Avaya Inc. which offer significantly different approaches in their VoIP solutions acknowledge that most of their installations in government offices are still largely trials numbering dozens (sometimes up to 100) stations. They keep hoping that these trials will roll into wider-scale deployments. The Defense Department's recent certification of VoIP as an authorized solution has encouraged Internet telephony advocates. Full story at: http://www.washingtontechnology.com/news/1_1/telecom-it-infrastructure/24051-1.html 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/ ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Share Day For July, 2004 Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2004 14:00:00 EDT 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. In particular, those readers who have benefitted in the past few months after reading here about the Norvergence scandal are requested to participate, perhaps with a donation equal to one month's savings on a Norvrgence Matrix box you avoided contracting for. 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. Or if you prefer, send a check or money order to Patrick Townson/TELECOM, Post Office Box 50, Independence, Kansas 67301-0050. The amount you send is entirely up to you. You know best how much you can afford and whether or not this Digest has any value for you. Thank you very much. Patrick Townson, Editor/Publisher TELECOM Digest ------------------------------ 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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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 #338 ******************************