From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Aug 4 18:45:39 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.3) id i74Mjcp26680; Wed, 4 Aug 2004 18:45:39 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 18:45:39 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200408042245.i74Mjcp26680@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 #364 TELECOM Digest Wed, 4 Aug 2004 18:46:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 364 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Net Phone calls Must be Able to be tapped - U.S. FCC (Monty Solomon) Cingular Wireless Can Now Help You 'Escape-A-Date' (Monty Solomon) Tivo Gets Nod For Users to Share Digital Shows (Monty Solomon) FCC Moves to Ban Spam on Mobile Phones (Monty Solomon) Internet Considered Crucial For Educational Success (Monty Solomon) U.S. FCC Deregulates Fiber Optics to Apartments (Monty Solomon) US Looks to be Master of Aussie IP (Monty Solomon) Re: Cheapest Incoming-Only Phone Service? (T. Sean Weintz) Re: SIP and TAPI (T. Sean Weintz) Socially Responsible Use of Your Cellphone Camera (David Blumenstein) Share Day, August 2003 (TELECOM Digest Editor) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 16:28:23 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Net Phone Calls Must be Able to be Tapped - U.S. FCC WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Internet phone carriers such as Vonage should set up their systems so U.S. law enforcers can monitor suspicious calls, the Federal Communications Commission tentatively ruled on Wednesday. By a vote of 5-0, the FCC said "voice over Internet protocol," or VoIP, providers should be subject to the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which ensures that law enforcers will be able to keep up with changing communications technologies. VoIP service is likely to replace much traditional phone service over the coming years, the commission said. The Justice Department, FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have argued that they must be able to monitor suspicious calls no matter how they are made. Technology advocates have worried that the fast-growing service, which promises to slash costs by routing phone calls over the Internet, could be harmed by excessive regulation. The ruling does not affect other regulatory questions surrounding VoIP service, such as how it should be taxed, FCC Chairman Michael Powell said. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=42904448 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 16:34:05 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cingular Wireless Can Now Help You 'Escape-A-Date' New service gives daters the perfect alibi if things go sour. DALLAS, Aug. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Ever have a blind date where all your hopes and dreams for the perfect match came crashing down at your feet? We've all been there at one time or another. The dilemma for most "dates gone bad" is you have no choice but to endure the situation until you can find an opportunity to call it a night. Cingular Wireless has taken its Voice Connect service where no other wireless carrier has dared to tread with "Escape-a-Date," one of several new options that are part of the company's Voice Connect line of information services. "Escape-A-Date" is the perfect service to use when you are afraid that your blind date may not be just right for you. This new service allows you to schedule a "rescue" phone call at a pre-set time. That way, you'll be called at the time you specify. The service tells you exactly what to say to set the tone for a speedy escape. There are eight randomly generated humorous scripts. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=42906692 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 16:35:36 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Tivo Gets Nod For Users to Share Digital Shows By Jeremy Pelofsky WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ:TIVO), maker of popular digital television recording devices, on Wednesday received approval for technology that would permit users to send copies of digital broadcast shows over the Internet to a few friends. The Federal Communications Commission voted to certify digital protections on TiVoToGo, which is not yet available but would enable a user to record and send a digital broadcast television show to up to nine other registered people who have a key allowing them to see it. The approval came despite concerns by the Motion Picture Association of America and the National Football League about the risks of unfettered distribution of copyrighted shows and illegally airing sports games outside of authorized markets. The FCC last year adopted rules to limit distribution of digital, over-the-air television programs over the Internet in an effort to prevent mass illegal copying and sharing, a problem plaguing the music industry. Most current television shows are shown in an analog format and can lose some quality when recorded. But recorded digital programs do not suffer from that problem, leading to industry concerns about unfettered mass redistribution on the Internet. The FCC last November required companies to develop measures to prevent consumers from indiscriminately distributing the higher quality digital television shows over the Web. In addition to approving TiVo's application, the FCC certified 11 other technologies proposed, including ones by software giant Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), Sony Corp. (TOKYO:6758), and RealNetworks Inc. (NASDAQ:RNWK) for protecting distribution of digital television broadcasts. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=42905617 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 16:39:39 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FCC Moves to Ban Spam on Mobile Phones WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday it would set up a list of Internet domains used by mobile-phone carriers to help keep unwanted "spam" messages off consumers' phones. Marketers that don't want to run afoul of a national anti-spam law will be able to check the list to make sure they're not sending unsolicited messages to mobile phones, the FCC said in a rule that was adopted by a unanimous vote. Congress passed a law last year that prohibits spamming mobile phones unless consumers have given permission first. The FCC was assigned to figure out how to implement that law. The Federal Trade Commission determined in June that a "do not e-mail" list would only lead to an increase in spam, but the FCC said such a list would work in the wireless world if it only consists of domain names such as sprintpcs.com, and not the names of individual accounts, such as customer@sprintpcs.com. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=42908363 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 16:45:33 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Internet Considered Crucial For Educational Success National Survey Finds Kids Give High Marks To High Speed; Internet Considered Crucial For Educational Success SAN ANTONIO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 4, 2004-- Students overwhelmingly turn to the Internet to find information not provided in school books; majority seek fast connections to complete homework assignments Children credit teachers for Internet knowledge, teens think they know best From elementary to high school, the Internet has revolutionized how and where kids learn, and enhanced their success rate in school. According to a new survey of 6- to 17-year-old students, high-speed Internet access has become a valuable and sought-after resource for schoolwork, with nearly 90 percent of all school-aged children considering a broadband connection like DSL either important or very important for completing school assignments. The national survey of 1,002 6- to 17-year-olds, conducted for SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE:SBC) was designed to identify usage patterns and attitudes about the Internet for educational purposes. The survey reveals changes in how the Internet is used throughout elementary to high school, providing a unique and in-depth look at their Internet habits and attitudes as they get older. Internet Helps Kids Succeed in School Across all age groups, students overwhelmingly believe that having Internet access helps them succeed in school with more than 70 percent of all kids surveyed saying it helps them make better grades and be stronger students. As children grow older, the Internet becomes even more integral for schoolwork. The survey finds that nine in 10 teens use the Internet to look for information for class assignments and more than 70 percent of 6- to 11-year-olds use it for that purpose. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=42905982 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 16:46:42 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: U.S. FCC Deregulates Fiber Optics to Apartments WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Local U.S. telephone carriers may deploy fiber optic networks for high-speed Internet services to residential apartment complexes without having to share the connections with rivals, U.S. regulators ruled on Wednesday. The Federal Communications Commission voted to free fiber networks built to predominantly residential buildings by carriers like Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) from access requirements that apply to existing copper telephone networks. Carriers like Verizon hope to roll out fiber to residential buildings to improve the reach of their high-speed Internet service and better compete against cable companies, which already have made significant inroads at apartment buildings. Verizon and SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE:SBC), two of the four big local telephone companies known as the Baby Bells, have said they plan to spend several billions of dollars on building new fiber optic networks across the country. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=42905274 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 17:19:58 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: US Looks to be Master of Aussie IP By Ashlee Vance in Chicago Australia has edged closer to embracing some of the least favorable aspects of US intellectual property law, including the DMCA, by agreeing to a trade agreement between the two countries. Aussie Prime Minister John Howard and US President George Bush today promoted the free trade pact that will remove tariffs on a number of goods, affecting sales of manufactured products, medicine, film and television and intellectual property Down Under. The IP issue is of particular concern to some technophiles who do not want Australia to be restricted by the DMCA, which is basically what the agreement requires. It is, however, the pharmaceutical and media issues that appear to have Australian legislators more concerned than the IP measures. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/03/us_aussie_tradepact/ ------------------------------ From: T. Sean Weintz Subject: Re: Cheapest Incoming-Only Phone Service? (Westchester, NY) Date: Wed, 04 Aug 2004 17:10:46 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com T. Sean Weintz wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Mr. Weintz, are your tenants aware of > just how insecure, how woefully lacking in security their downstairs > front door is? And who comes around to maintain it as needed? PAT] One of the things done under my watch (not my dept - I'm the IT guy, but I like to think my input had something to do with it) was to rip out the "option 3" type system and replace it with what Door King calls their "no phone bill" system, basically a barebones PBX type thing. There is a switch that sits between the pairs going up to each apt and the telco demarc -- all calls from the front panel are handled via that switch. If the tenant has phone service, the switch passes the regular pots line thru when no call is coming for that apartment from the panel. The switch has a call waiting type feature built in, so that if a call comes from the panel and there is already a call in progress on the pots lines, the tenant hears a call waiting tone and can asnwer the panel, even if they do not subscribe to call waiting from the local telco. STILL not the system I'd have chosen, but it was a big improvement, especially since in some of our buildings as many as 30% of the tenants had no phone service. And an "option 3" type system won't work for those tenants. We also used to have issues with tenants getting their phone service cut off and not telling us -- not THAT big a deal, until the telco re-assigns the number to someone else (they seem to re-assign numbers after only about three months or so here) -- One time this happened, we didn't know about it, the number was still in the database of the panel. People would go to visit that tenant at some pretty odd hours (ie: 3:00am - I think the tenant was likely a drug dealer), press the number on the panel, and some poor sod on the other end who just happens to have a new phone number gets woken up. That person who had been re-assigned the number finally filed a complaint with the police, who contacted us (because the calls of course were coming from our phone line). HOWEVER the police refused to tell us the phone number of the person complaining, so there was no way to know what number needed to be deleted from the database. 250 tenants in the building and we were supposed to figure out magically which one had had their service cut and never bothered to tell us about it. Positively SCARY. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Congratulations on your upgrade to what is essentially Interphone service. Since you did not have Enterphone (telco-style front door service) prior to 1983 you can't have it now. Telco not permitted to be in that business any longer, but they do have grandfathered customers around from more than twenty years ago. (although I do not know why in one sense: Ameritech had (and still has) a Security Alarm business as a separate subsidiary which guards stores, etc via customer premise equipment. It is still around today, even though the phone side has gone to SBC. I think it has something to do with rules against subsidiary companies having access to central office equipment, which is a no-no, since there could be 'unfair competition' as a result. But Interphone, originally a Canadian company (or whoever owns the name 'Interphone') does these things the way they should be done, which is via the **house pairs** to each apartment with no regard to the phone numbers. Up until 1983 or so, when apartment buildings went with the 'competitor' Interphone instead of telco's Enterphone Service, they naturally had to get an okay from telco for bridging into the house pairs, which according to the law in those days also belonged to telco. Sometime in the middle 1980's as divestiture was being slowly and surely implemented in this very technical business, telco (in theory at least) 'abandoned' the house pairs to the owner of the property who then became responsible for maintaining them. But the precise spot where the 'demarc' occurs in large apartment buildings has always been a matter of debate. Is it the box on the wall in the tenant's apartment (which is all the tenant really has control over) or is it a (house inside terminal box) down the hall somewhere for all the phones on that floor; or is it the big inside terminal box on the first floor or the basement (which telco claims in recent years has now been wired 'straight through' on a permanent basis to all apartments, or where Interphone has interjected their box in the basement to 'camp on to' all the house pairs, or where? When apartment dwellers call to report their phone out of order, some of the older (who are the only ones with any brains) techs come out to the premises and are puttering around down in the basement of the building trying to unravel the spaghetti like bundles of wires and deciphering the ancient tags tied onto pairs by other techs long since passed from this world. I recall this **very old, very ancient** high rise apartment building in Chicago where I used to live many years ago where I installed an intercom (an old Melco PBX actually) to a friend nearby. In a phone box on the first floor I found a cluster of pairs which disappeared down through the floor with a little paper tag and a string tying them all together. The tag had handwritten on it in old, elegant early 1900's handwriting, a note saying "This fifty pairs services the building switchboard at 7456 North Greenview" (a half block away). The switchboard at that address had been gone for many years. And the tagged note was dated 'January, 1922' and signed by a man who I am sure had long since gone to telco-tech heaven. Obviously, rules about 'before the demarc our problem, after the demarc your problem' would not apply. But its a good testimony to the way Bell System used to operate that 80 year old outside plant is still around and in use many times. PAT] ------------------------------ From: T. Sean Weintz Subject: Re: SIP and TAPI Date: Wed, 04 Aug 2004 17:18:02 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com JustSomeGuy wrote: > I'm sorta new to the VoIP standards. > I see there is SIP and H.323. As I understood it H.323 was a video > teleconfrencing standard. Reading more I see that it can also be used > to do an IP to PSTN session. I have found Microsofts TAPI 3.0 and I > am wondering if I need to study SIP in detail as well or is TAPI > sufficient? It depends on what you want to do. If you are only going to be working in the Micro$oft Windoze world, TAPI may suffuce for a lot of things. But TAPI is not a protocol, it's an API. If you are looking to write VOIP software, TAPI won't do it for you. You need to decide whether your VOIP will use SIP or H.323, and learn one of those. MOST emerging VOIP applications seem to be using SIP, but there are exceptions. The Inter-tel PBX VOIP phone sitting on my desk right now, for instance, uses H.323. More recent versions of the same phone, however, offer a choice between h.323 and SIP. ------------------------------ From: david.blumenstein@gmail.com (David Blumenstein) Subject: Socially Responsible Use of Your Cellphone Camera Date: 4 Aug 2004 14:01:48 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Let me upfront about this. I make no money off of this. In conjunction with YAHOO, there is an opportunity to possibly earn $10,000 in the name of your favorite charity by taking pictures and uploading them with your camera phone. I have put a banner on my website: www.david.com It links back to the YAHOO information page with all of the necessary information. This is a great use of mobile technology and an even greater idea. Thank you for your indulgence. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Are any cellular picture phones at the point of producing good enough pictures yet to make them worthwhile? Now I suppose if I was trying to sneak a few pictures out of a men's locker room, I would take what I could get and be grateful for that limited quality. But can even the newest and most expensive cell phones with built in cameras produce decent digital photos or .jpg images as of yet? I have not seen one yet I was very impressed with. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 17:26:10 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Share Day, August 2003 I have recently been approached by Google asking me if I wanted to participate in their cooperative advertising program. That is where when you use our search engine at http://telecom-digest.org the Google people put up 'appropriate' advertising for you to see. And according to Google, I would make lots of money by giving them this forum (Digest OnLine, and search engine) to use. I do not think I want to do that, but it is tempting. Instead of changing the Digest over to an advertising 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. 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