From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Aug 18 00:36:28 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.3) id i7I4aSi01556; Wed, 18 Aug 2004 00:36:28 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 00:36:28 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200408180436.i7I4aSi01556@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 #386 TELECOM Digest Wed, 18 Aug 2004 00:37:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 386 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Nine Phone Firms Back Revamped Fees (Jack Decker - VOIP News) Internet Calls Add Foreign Accent (Jack Decker - VOIP News) LecStar Uses Power Lines For VoIP Trial (Jack Decker - VOIP News) Phone Fraud! Beware of extremeISP.com (Raj) Re: Delete: Bathwater. Undelete: Baby (Lisa Hancock) Re: Delete: Bathwater. Undelete: Baby (T. Sean Weintz) Re: Delete: Bathwater. Undelete: Baby (Dave Garland) Re: Number Not in Use (Owain) Re: Number Not in Use (T. Sean Weintz) Re: Wardriving Guilty Plea in Lowe's Wi-Fi Case (Nick Landsberg) Number of Corporate Phone accounts? (Robert J. Dennison) Re: Outdated Operator Inward Codes (William Warren) wipphone.com is The Best Deal Out There (Erez Davidov) RCN Mach 7 Launch Underway Ahead of Schedule (Monty Solomon) FCC Official Says Wary of Cingular-AT&T Concern (Monty Solomon) 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: Jack Decker Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 12:11:03 -0400 Subject: Nine Phone Firms Back Revamped Fees Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2004-08-16-phone-fees_x.htm By Paul Davidson, USA TODAY Long-distance bills likely would fall and local phone rates rise under a sweeping industry-backed proposal to federal regulators to overhaul the fees phone companies pay each other to connect calls. The plan, unveiled by a group of nine leading local and long-distance companies after more than a year of talks, would likely mean lower bills for chatty long-distance callers but higher tabs for those who make fewer long-distance calls. The proposal's prospects are uncertain because it must be approved by the Federal Communications Commission. Three of the four regional Bell companies, Verizon Communications, BellSouth and Qwest Communications, did not sign on and that could prompt the FCC to make changes. Also, states may challenge it in court because it eliminates in-state fees under their control. Still, the fourth Bell, SBC Communications, and all three big long-distance companies, AT&T, MCI and Sprint, were among those endorsing the plan. Participants expect it at least to form the basis of FCC action. [.....] local phone companies are losing access-fee revenue as long-distance calling shifts to wireless and Internet-based phone services, which pay low or no connection fees. Full story at: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2004-08-16-phone-fees_x.htm 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: Jack Decker Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 12:43:31 -0400 Subject: Internet Calls Add Foreign Accent Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-08-15-voip_x.htm By Paul Davidson, USA TODAY Can't make it to France this summer? In the digital age, the next best thing to being there might be this: a French phone number. Primus Telecommunications on Monday will become the first major broadband phone provider to add an international flavor to anything-goes, Internet-based calling. Customers of Primus' Lingo Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone service will be able to choose a local number in cities including London, Paris and Tokyo in more than a dozen countries. The number, which costs $9.95 a month, can be used only for incoming calls as a second line to basic Lingo service. At $19.95 a month, Lingo users already get unlimited local and long-distance calls, including unlimited calls to Canada and Western Europe. Full story at: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-08-15-voip_x.htm ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 21:55:10 -0400 Subject: LecStar Uses Power Lines For VoIP Trial Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20040817S0010 By Antone Gonsalves, TechWeb News LecStar Telecom Inc. on Tuesday said it is testing the use of broadband over power lines in providing Internet-based telephone services. LecStar, the Atlanta-based communications subsidiary of Fonix Corp., launched a trial of the voice-over-Internet service using power lines of a Southeastern United States electric utility company, which LecStar declined to identify. The trial, which started earlier this month, involves about 165 homes in the utility's service region. Two other companies that provide other Internet-based services are also participating in the trial to an equal number of homes, Michael Britt, vice president of channel development for LecStar said. Full story at: http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20040817S0010 ------------------------------ From: rajmatazz@gmail.com (Raj) Subject: Phone Fraud: xtremeISP.com ? Date: 17 Aug 2004 20:32:08 -0700 This person called repeatedly on a too good to be true offer claiming to represent xtremeisp.com. The offer was for dialup OR broadband service(he did not know the difference or did not care) for 2 years at a flat rate $285 USD. In exchange he offered a Dell computer, Nokia phone, vacation package and 1000 USD online shopping package. He only wanted my checking account number. I hung up on him saying that I would research and get back to him. The numbers he left me with are 1-866-751-9360 and 1-510-248-4104, which he claimed to be calling from New York; on checking was found to be from Oakland, CA. I suspect fraud. Any clues ? thanks! Raj [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Sounds to me to a bit rotten also. And another one to watch out for is the television ad for 'get a new computer with no credit check. If you have a telephone and a checking account you can have a new computer for just $35 per week.' $35 per *week* for 52 weeks and they debit/ACH your checking account each week. That's a scam also. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Delete: Bathwater. Undelete: Baby Date: 17 Aug 2004 11:06:00 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) wrote: > Feh. The fault is solely the other people for not USING A PHONE to > back up an email contact, especially if the two parties have never > communicated before. I agree, the other people are wrong to be upset. Phone or conventional mail, and if the project was vitally important, certified mail. While I use email often and find it a convenience, I absolutely do not consider it to be an "official" or highly reliable method. If I send an important message and I don't receive a response, I will telephone or write the recipient. If critical, I will use certified mail with return receipt. Email gets lost for lots of reasons: People are constantly changing their email address. My employer changed my address at least four times for various reasons since we got email. My postal address has been changed only once (we moved our location), and even if you sent postal mail to my old location someone would look me up and forward it to me. While we had forwarded for a brief time when email changed, now old-addressed messages are just discarded. Servers fail and messages are lost. I have had that happen severals times to both my employer and my private email. People who get a lot of spam may delete the message by accident. Due to viruses, some people (including me) don't open and delete all messages from anyone they don't know. Some people check their email constantly, others check it only occassionally. Some people don't use their email for important stuff, only to send jokes and the like. You can mispell a postal address and the letter will still arrive, but you must get every character of an email address correct. While sometimes undeliverable or delayed messages are reported back, not all are (and some messages are still delivered despite a non-deliverable message). Email is a useful tool, but it has limitations. When I shot slides, I mailed them to Kodak. I shot a great many rolls and none were ever lost. I wish email had their reliability but the reality is it does not. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: However, Paul, I am not in a position > to use the telephone either to call submitters and let them know their > message was received... I think you're comparing two different things. As a website moderator, you'll handling a high volume of postings as well as spam. Undoubtedly you get things not even relevant to telecom sent by honest mistake or an intentional all-call flood. ------------------------------ From: T. Sean Weintz Subject: Re: Delete: Bathwater. Undelete: Baby Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 15:33:06 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Paul Vader wrote: > I wasn't talking about you -- I was talking about the digest item, where > some bonehead researcher was mad at an acquaintance because they didn't > return their email and they lost a grant because of it. > Gee, writing it out like that makes it REALLY obvious that this was a > made-up story. * > * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something > like corkscrews. Made up or not ... we have had the EXACT same scenerio described happen here. The non-profit that I work for gets ALL of it's funding from federal grants. Our spam filter has thrown a monkey wrench into the works more than once -- other non-profits we deal with tend to use the cheapest ISP they can find, which means the ISP they choose to use is likely to be a spamhaus, which means their IP address space is usually on one or more blocklists. ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: Delete: Bathwater. Undelete: Baby Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 21:35:58 -0500 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when PAT wrote: > come to visit. Then some bonehead went and changed the password on > it. If someone wishes to once again set up a community reading > account name on NYT please do so and tell the rest of us what it > is. I was going to suggest http://www.bugmenot.com , a site that supplies account information that may be borrowed for use by people who prefer not to register directly. But they've been down for the last day. Feel free to use user=operator10 pw=operator10 at least until some moron messes with it. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you for doing this. Everyone who likes to check out the NYT feel free to use operator10 for user name and password. And http://www.bugmenot.com is another good source if it is going to stay up. PAT] ------------------------------ From: spuorgelgoog@gowanhill.com (Owain) Subject: Re: Number Not in Use Date: 17 Aug 2004 11:55:50 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Ned Protter wrote: > I dialed it. After two rings I got three shrill tones and an > announcement that the number was not in service. I dialed > again with the same result. > How could I receive a call from an out-of-service number? Are you sure the announcement was a genuine telephone company announcement, or had the telemarketer put an answering machine on the line with a fake annoucement? I'd expect a genuine announcement not to ring first. Owain ------------------------------ From: T. Sean Weintz Subject: Re: Number Not in Use Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 15:29:32 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Robert Bonomi wrote: > Yup. with the right equipment and telco-connection, the _entire_ > caller-ID data is under the control of the customer. They can make it > say _anything_ they want it to. Oh yeah, with a VOIP extension at home to our PBX here at work, which has two PRI's for it's outgoing/incoming calls, I have been sorely tempted to play prank call games at night with friends. The potential is unlimited. I mean what would YOU do if you got call at 3:00am from some idiot insisting that he wants to order a pizza, and caller ID said it was from the whitehouse ... People just don't know how easy it is to spoof caller ID if ya got ISDN. ANI is another matter, of course. ------------------------------ From: Nick Landsberg Reply-To: SPAMhukolautTRAP@SPAMattTRAP.net Subject: Re: Wardriving Guilty Plea in Lowe's Wi-Fi Case Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 19:30:26 GMT Jack Decker wrote: > Pat, please conceal my e-mail address as usual. > On Mon, 16 Aug 2004 01:13:39 GMT, Nick Landsberg > wrote: [SNIP] I had said .... > ... Given the circumstances as I have seen them described in this > forum, several individuals "set up shop" in the parking lot of this > store. (Correct me if I'm wrong on the details please.) One > individual with a laptop computer was actively engaged in "finding > a way in" to this store's wireless network .... [SNIP] Jack's partial reply: > One reason there is so much confusion on this case is because the > press insists on republishing old, inaccurate information which makes > it appear as though two separate incidents were all one incident. > This may work when you're making a film loosely based on historical > events, but it is never good journalism. > Paul Timmins was nowhere near the store on the night of the break-in. > He was in fact minding his own business, getting ready to go on an > out-of-town business trip to the west coast, one that he had been > looking forward to I might add. The incident in which Paul had > accessed Lowes wireless network, checked his e-mail and attempted to > do some web surfing (which he discontinued when he realized he was on > Lowes corporate network) happened months earlier. > Since a lot of folks are using analogies, here's one that probably > comes pretty close. [MORE SNIPPAGE of GOOD STUFF] > Now as I say, it's not a perfect analogy but I think it comes pretty > close. Some may say that anyone who is "wardriving" is in fact worthy > of jail; I just wonder if such people think that people should be > jailed for going five miles over the speed limit. My limited > understanding is that "wardriving", when done without malicious > intent, really is about as close as you can get to a victimless crime > (granted you're exchanging minuscule amounts of data with a network, > but in the grand scheme of things it's next to nothing, like finding a > penny on the sidewalk and taking it without attempting to find the > rightful owner). > Of course, stealing credit card numbers is several magnitudes worse. > But, Paul never stole credit card numbers, he never suggested that > anyone else should go and steal credit card numbers, and he certainly > wasn't present when the credit card numbers were being stolen. Thank you Jack. That was a plausible explanation. One which had not been put forth before as far as I recall. I did not recall the part about Mr. Timmins NOT being at the scene on that particular day. Given that, I agree that Timmins got a raw deal. The "thief" in your analogy should be prosecuted, as I am sure you will agree. My understanding of the incident was flawed and I thank you for your correction. [Jack and Pat also made some other good points which I will not get into here.] NPL [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to quoting police and newspapers on 'crime' reports. And the sad thing is, I *should know better* due to my own case, and furthermore if you cannot trust police for (at least) an accurate account of their activities if not necessarily their internal motives, then who in hell can you trust? Does *anyone* tell the truth any longer? Maybe not. That's not a question to answer out loud, just to think about. PAT] ------------------------------ From: rjdennison@hotmail.com (Robert J. Dennison) Subject: Number of Corporate Phone Accounts? Date: 17 Aug 2004 11:25:56 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Any idea how I can find out how many corporate phone accounts exist in North America (or U.S. only)? This is essentially a market sizing exercise, but I thought a few of you guys might be able to steer me in the right direction ... Thanks, R. ------------------------------ From: William Warren Subject: Re: Outdated Operator Inward Codes Organization: Comcast Online Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 02:43:50 GMT wrote in message news:telecom23.385.10@telecom-digest.org: > I am a supervisor of a telecommunications company. We have very > outdated operator inward codes and would like any information on how > to obtain updated ones. Merri, They're in the LERG. HTH. HAND. William Warren (Filter noise from my address for direct replies.) ------------------------------ From: edavidov007@yahoo.com (Erez Davidov) Subject: wipphone.com Is The Best Deal Out There Date: 17 Aug 2004 14:02:43 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Guys, I have read your postings and I did try Vonage (I didnt like it). after doing some on line search I came up with this web site: www.wipphone.com They have the best rate. I did like the live support,it seems to good to be true. dont take my word for it- just check it. They have a downloadable soft phone that comes with 30 minutes phone calls in the US.(The 30 minutes is free.) I tried it - I loved it. All my family has one so we talk for free (no money between wipphone and wipphone -- it is free.) Check also their calling plans that they have it is the DEAL that everyone looking for. Please comment on this after you check it. Peace out. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 17:36:55 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: RCN Mach 7 Launch Underway Ahead of Schedule Fastest Residential Cable Modem on Market Provides Speed for Cutting-Edge Applications PRINCETON, N.J., Aug. 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- RCN Corporation announced today that it had officially launched MegaModem Mach 7(SM), two weeks ahead of its original schedule. This represents RCN's second free speed upgrade in the last 12 months, solidifying the company's broadband advantage. Customers with MegaModem Mach 5(SM), RCN's cable modem service with 5 Mbps download speeds, will be automatically upgraded to MegaModem Mach 7, with an industry-leading 7 Mbps download speed. Customers with MegaModem Mach 3, RCN's standard cable modem service with 3 Mbps download speeds, will be automatically upgraded to MegaModem Mach 5. Both speed tiers will enjoy industry leading upload speeds of up to 800 Kbps. http://finance.lycos.com/qc/news/story.aspx?story=200408171801_PRN__PHTU026 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 18:53:20 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FCC Official Says Wary of Cingular-AT&T Concern WASHINGTON, Aug 17 (Reuters) - A top U.S. communications regulator on Tuesday expressed skepticism that Cingular Wireless' proposed purchase of another major wireless carrier would be complicated by its owners' main business of traditional land line service. Cingular, owned by BellSouth Corp. (NYSE:BLS) and SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE:SBC), proposed buying AT&T Wireless Services Inc. (NYSE:AWE) for $41 billion in cash and become the largest U.S. wireless carrier. They argue it would improve service and lead to new offerings. The Consumer Federation of America and other opponents of the deal say the deal would instead reduce competition and push prices higher. The CFA also said that, in many states, telephone services would mostly come from one company. The U.S. Justice Department's antitrust division and the Federal Communications Commission are both weighing whether the deal would benefit or harm consumers and have sought a myriad of industry data. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43173568 ------------------------------ 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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