From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Aug 5 00:32:16 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.3) id i754WG529754; Thu, 5 Aug 2004 00:32:16 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 00:32:16 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200408050432.i754WG529754@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 #365 TELECOM Digest Thu, 5 Aug 2004 00:32:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 365 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: POTS' Dirty Little Secret (Jack Decker) Old Bell System TTY Guys? (Jim Haynes) T Writes Down Assets (Anonymous) Re: FCC Moves to Ban Spam on Mobile Phones (Joseph) US West History (Doug Faunt N6TQS) 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, 04 Aug 2004 21:52:33 -0400 From: Jack Decker Subject: Re: POTS' Dirty Little Secret Pat, please conceal my e-mail address. On 4 Aug 2004 07:24:19 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The traditional telcos and their shills >> hate VOIP. Admittedly, the VOIP News 'story' had some problems with it >> to say the least, but Traditional Bell hardly has its hands clean, >> either, just a 125 year head start at going to the toilet in our >> drinking water. > Given everything that's been discussed here lately -- from apt house > intercoms to Norvergence -- I'm surprised to read this. > I am not connected with the phone company nor do I consider myself > a "shill" for them. Lisa, you may not consider yourself a shill for them, but if one were to apply the "duck test" ... well, let's just say that sometimes it would be awfully hard to discern the difference between what you write and what a shill for the phone company might write. > I look at their record as a subscriber and what "competition" has > done for me. If you feel that competition has not helped you, you are certainly entitled to stick with the traditional telephone company. What I can't understand is why you feel the need to try and pull the rest of us back into the same lobster pot along with you. > To be truly HONESTLY competitive: > 1) VOIP users may not have any traditional lines as "backup". Not sure what you mean here -- if this is a statement of fact, in other words, if you are saying that a person might have VoIP as their sole form of voice communication, I would say that is correct, and wonder why you would want to limit their choice if that is their choice. Are you against freedom of choice? On the other hand, if this is something you would like to see enacted into policy or law, saying that a person who has VoIP is not entitled to have any traditional lines as backup, I would definitely wonder where you were coming from. I'm going to assume that the first interpretation is what you meant. > 2) VOIP providers must provide the same service reliability as the > baby bells. That is, if a flood washes out lines, they must be > replaced in the same time frame. The service must continue in > the event of a commercial power failure. Why? Because you say so? Do I not have the right to choose a provider with less reliability than the Baby Bells, if there is some other factor that would make me feel that's a good choice for me? Why are you trying to limit my freedom of choice? Besides, you know full well that a VoIP company that uses the public Internet has absolutely zero control over how reliable the customer's ISP is. You might as well say that automobile manufacturers must be held responsible if potholes and road washouts are not fixed within a specified timeframe, even though the automakers don't legally own the roads and are not permitted to work on them! > 3) VOIP subscribers must pay all the taxes that traditional subscribers > pay such as 911 fees, deaf relay fees, etc. Why? Because you have decided we need a nanny state? Personally, I think that taxes on phone lines are the least fair way to fund such things. Even the telephone industry apparently agrees on that point, at least here in Michigan where I live -- see http://www.telecommich.org/Documents/911_white_paper.pdf > 4) VOIP providers must provide the same reports to state and federal > regulators that other companies provide on their services. Why? So they are burdened by paperwork? Because you say so? Maybe the paperwork is another thing that should go away for all providers, but in any case, maybe I don't care if my voice service provider has to file a bunch of ridiculous paperwork or not. > 5) The networks must have adequate spare capacity so that major events > generating lots of phone calls will not cause call delays. Sure, this is desirable. But maybe I'm willing to not have phone service available for a few hours on Christmas and Mother's Day if it makes my phone service more affordable. Who are you to tell me I should not have that choice? Why are you trying to limit my freedom of choice? > As mentioned in the apt house calling system, the Bell System had > developed a wide array of excellent products and services but then got > shackled by arbitrary rules to sell them. The System successors > couldn't sell that stuff so they withered away (such as Lucent and > AT&T). Customers, instead of having strong sturdy reliable and > maintainable equipment, got junk instead. Maybe they consider it acceptable. Some people say that a lot of phones on the market are junk now, yet a lot of people buy them. Why? Because they are inexpensive and provide an acceptable, though not gold-plated, level of service. If people were willing to pay more for better phones, manufacturers would make better phones. But people exercise their freedom of choice, and buy cheap phones. Maybe they could be characterized as "junk" but it's the customer's choice. > Earlier Pat described the dedication and resourcefulness of telephone > company employees -- a monopoly -- in keeping service going in > difficult conditions. Today in a competitive environment, do you > think those people and their employers would do that? I don't. You're just speculating. The truth is that some would be more dedicated to restoring service than others. Those who develop a reputation for having poor service would start to lose customers. Those who develop a reputation for providing great service might be able to charge more. But who are you to say that no one should be allowed to buy the less reliable, but less expensive service? > I note the big fire and lack of watchmen occured AFTER divesture. > Literally thousands of customers decided it was too expensive to pay > Baby Bell prices so they jumped to a cheaper alternative -- > Norvergence. No such thing as a free lunch, and all those people > are screwed. Norvergence wasn't the only cheaper alternative, and most of those who have chosen cheaper alternatives have done just fine. Yes, there was a bad apple out there, but there were all sorts of big red flags on the way that company did business from the very beginning. People got suckered in by greed and by not doing their homework. But it's always been like that. I've bought a couple used cars in my lifetime where if I'd had them inspected first, I'd have saved myself a lot of grief, but you don't hear me saying that the sale of used cars should be banned. I happen to believe that consumers should be able to choose which risks they will take in the marketplace, although when outright fraud is involved then the government has a legitimate interest in bringing the perpetrators to justice, in order to discourage further outright scams. > (Of course, we didn't see Qwest being concernred about Norvengence's > future fiscal health when it gladly offered to support them.) > MCI was a scam from day one. It was unregulated while AT&T was > regulated, so it could take the high profit cream and leave AT&T > with the high overhead waste (like any call needing operator > service). You just don't like any sort of competition in the telecommunications market, do you, Lisa? I remember when I lived in Northern Michigan and it cost about 35 cents a minute to call anywhere else in the state. I am very glad those days are long gone. As for saying that MCI was a scam from the very beginning, absent some hard evidence to the contrary I would strongly disagree with you. They were no more of a scam than AT&T. You may not have liked the way they did business, but it was because of MCI (and Sprint and all the others who came after) that now most of us don't have to worry about what a long distance call is going to cost anymore. In fact I remember when I got my mother on MCI -- she was finally willing to call her sisters who lived in other states once a week, instead of only on special occasions like Christmas and their birthdays. Later on I had to switch her off of MCI, when they started charging a ridiculous monthly minimum, but for many years MCI was the best deal out there and their low rates (compared to AT&T) made a lot of people very happy. But you don't like happy people, do you, Lisa? You'd rather see them all pay through the nose just so your principles can be enforced. > Then of course it wiped out its stockholder and lenders when it filed > for a huge bankruptcy. No such thing as a free lunch, and all those > people are screwed. So a good organization went bad. It happens. I'm not minimizing the tragedy for those who were wiped out, but do you really think MCI started their business some quarter of a century ago with the intent of someday coming to financial ruin? All I am saying is that I think you attribute a lot of undeserved malice to that company. I do think that once they went into bankruptcy, they should not have been allowed to emerge from it until they paid every creditor every last cent they owed, but unfortunately that's not how our bankruptcy laws work (which brings up a whole other subject - why is it that large corporations can get away with doggone near anything? - but I'll spare you that tirade). > Remember, one of Enron's big entities was cheapo electric power > generation. When Enron went broke, some PUCs ordered that the > existing power company take over its customer as the cheaper Enron > rate. Was that fair to existing companies? Al Capone used to force small business owners to buy "protection" from him -- was that fair to the small business owner? What has any of this got to do with VoIP? You're grasping at straws to make a point here, because you don't really have one - you simply want to see VoIP companies taxed or regulated out of existence, so you're dragging in every sort of wrongdoing in business you can think of in the hope that some of the guilt will rub off by association. > There were good reasons to establish a chartered regulated monopoly > to a utility like telephone service. Maybe in 1930 there was. Those reasons are no longer valid. [... more of Lisa's cheering for the old Bell System snipped ...] > People think "competition" will always work better than a regulated > monopoly because of the magic of the marketplace. That is economic > garbage. So you admit you don't like competition, but prefer a regulated monopoly. You apparently do not care that this has historically resulted in very high prices for end users, as well as innovation that moves at about the pace of a constipated snail. > The marketplace finds an equilibrium, but that level is not at all > necessarily where people might want it to lie. People = Lisa Hancock in the above sentence. Oh, sure, I know you could find a few others who would agree with you, many of whom probably benefited in some way from the old Bell System monopoly. But I think the majority of Americans place a high value on low prices. When you think of the largest chain store in America (Wal-Mart), the average consumer associates them with low prices. People moan and cry about how Wal-Mart and similar "box store" retailers put the smaller merchants out of business, but in the end they opt to pay the lower prices rather than shop on principle (and, candidly, they may admit that they think the smaller merchants have been overcharging them all along). > -- as we are learning the hard way, the marketplace equilibrium > (match point of demand and supply of cost) can be quite high. > Norvergence and MCI took advtg of competition by undercutting its > competitors and look what we got. Again, you're taking two of the worst examples and holding them up as though they are the norm. They are not. There are probably hundreds, if not thousands of competitive local and long distance phone companies in America that are doing right by their customers. Pat has talked often about his good experiences with Prairie Stream (I think that's the name of the company he uses). But in Lisa's world, everyone would be forced to buy phone service from the incumbent local phone company whether they want to or not. I've been accused of being too positive toward VoIP -- well, if that is true, it isn't as though Pat doesn't run opposing viewpoints, because I doubt that any two people could hold more opposing views than Lisa and I. Lisa seems to hate VoIP with a passion, to the point that she tries to smear the industry by referencing the misdeeds in other parts of the telecommunications industry. Neither Norvergence nor MCI were VoIP companies (at least not in the way that we think of VoIP companies today). Once you get beyond that, we are left with a laundry list of all the nasty things Lisa would impose on VoIP if she had her way. In some cases these are things that aren't even currently being imposed on the cellular telephone industry, and perhaps ought to be done away with altogether. What really bothers me about Lisa's posts is that she really seems to be against the consumer having freedom of choice in the marketplace. Whatever Lisa's choice is, ought to be everyone's choice, I guess, or maybe she just wants the government to tell us all what level of service we must buy. Sorry, but I disagree in the strongest possible way. Jack ------------------------------ Subject: Old Bell System TTY Guys? Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2004 01:35:53 GMT In my youth one of my telephone company friends sometimes went out to a customer site to work on the Teletype. I never saw the site or the equipment, but some of the stuff he took with him included a couple of vacuum tubes, commercial types 35L6 and 50Y6. I've always wondered what the equipment was and what the tubes had to do with it. Anybody know? jhhaynes at earthlink dot net ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2004 02:08:19 GMT From: Anonymous Subject: T Writes Down Assets Organization: Optimum Online Bloomberg News AT&T May Write Down Assets, Record 3rd-Qtr Expense August 4, 2004 17:07 EDT -- AT&T Corp., the largest U.S. long distance company, may write down the value of assets after its decision to stop seeking new residential customers. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: FCC Moves to Ban Spam on Mobile Phones Date: Wed, 04 Aug 2004 19:22:32 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Wed, 4 Aug 2004 16:39:39 -0400, Monty Solomon wrote: The article states: > 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. Gee, why doesn't the government give the spammers which office codes are for each carrier? If you're going to make it easy for spammers to spam you might as well not make it inconvenient for them! remove NONO from .NONOcom to reply ------------------------------ From: Doug Faunt N6TQS Subject: US West History Date: 04 Aug 2004 23:47:05 -0400 Organization: at home, in Oakland, California Am I correct in believing that US West was one of the "baby bells"? And what happened to the company, if so? 73, doug ------------------------------ 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'. 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