From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Aug 21 02:43:45 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.3) id i7L6hja23286; Sat, 21 Aug 2004 02:43:45 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2004 02:43:45 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200408210643.i7L6hja23286@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 #392 TELECOM Digest Sat, 21 Aug 2004 02:43:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 392 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Choosing AT&T Wireless Worst Mistake (Steven J Sobol) Re: Choosing AT&T Wireless Worst Mistake (John Levine) Re: VoIP Firm Tussles With States Over Phone Numbers (Steven J Sobol) Re: Internet Patent Claims Stir Concern (Joseph) Info re: NorVergence and the Salzanos? (Satchel Paige) Re: How Do I Get "Kewlstart" From my Phone Company? (Tony P.) Re: Number Not in Use (Tony P.) Re: Microsoft Pays Dear For Insults Through Ignorance (William Warren) A Place For Political/Social Issues Discussion (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: Steven J Sobol Subject: Re: Choosing AT&T Wireless Worst Mistake Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 20:32:32 -0500 Ankur Shah wrote: > From all the hoopla around the two companies, I thought Cingular had > already started the process of acquisition of ATTWS back in > February. They may have, but there are a lot of things that have to happen for it to be finalized. > "Eventhough Cingular has bought AT&T the merger is not complete when > it comes to infrastructure consolidation.". > So Cingular has "bought" ATTWS, but is just waiting for a nod from the > FCC to consolidate the shares? Infrastructure - Infrastructure consolidation refers to consolidating the two *networks.* This may happen quickly, or it may not (e.g. Verizon Wireless's creation, which happened around four years ago, and it took them at least three years to standardize policies, billing systems and calling plans across all of their markets.) JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, http://JustThe.net/ Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net PGP Key available from your friendly local key server (0xE3AE35ED) Apple Valley, California Nothing scares me anymore. I have three kids. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Aug 2004 02:03:21 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Choosing AT&T Wireless Worst Mistake Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > And you're correct, a friend of mine in New Jersey is able to switch > between AT&T and Cingular networks (though, he's a ATT sub) without > problems. I think its just that ATTWS permits free roaming on > Cingular, whereas Cingular prohibits doing the same on ATTWS or any > other carrier's network. This is partly a technical question, but mostly a question of your rate plan. Cingular and AT&T for the most part use the same technology, TDMA migrating to GSM in both the 800 MHz AMPS band and the 1900 MHz PCS band. That means that an AT&T handset will work in a Cingular network and vice versa. My Cingular phone is quad mode, GSM 1900, GSM 800, TDMA 800, and analog 800, and roams just fine onto AT&T in places like Pittsburgh where Cingular has no service. My plan offers national roaming, so it doesn't cost any extra when I do so. Verizon is almost entirely CDMA, so you can only roam onto them with analog AMPS, and most phones are programmed to try really hard to find a digitial system before falling back to analog. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: John are you *certain* the Cingular and AT&T Wireless handsets are interchangable? Reason I ask is the AT&T rep said AT&T locked the firmware in the phone so they could NOT be swapped with any other service (Nokia 6100 series at least) and the Cingular Wireless rep and the Alltel rep both confirmed the same thing. The Alltel tech at their shop here in Independence spent close to an hour attempting to reprogram my Nokia 6100 phone to work on their network with no success. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steven J Sobol Subject: Re: VoIP Firm Tussles With States Over Phone Numbers Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 20:34:34 -0500 Jack Decker wrote: > Without an unfettered supply of phone numbers from NANPA, SBC IP > argues, it and other carriers' rollouts of Net phone service will be > hampered. Employees of Vonage, VoicePulse and other VoIP services would laugh at that. SBC continues as the absolute lamest telecom company in existence. JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, http://JustThe.net/ Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net PGP Key available from your friendly local key server (0xE3AE35ED) Apple Valley, California Nothing scares me anymore. I have three kids. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: SBC is just trying to make an end run around the rules. They know what's going on, and are trying to get around having to get their paperwork in order in a timely way. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Internet Patent Claims Stir Concern Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 18:39:31 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Fri, 20 Aug 2004 07:08:17 GMT, Telecom digest editor wrote: > If NY Times sells their print edition mailing list, I cannot see why > they would not sell their internet mailing list. PAT] Well, it's pretty evident that you're going to believe what you want to believe so even if the NYT says that they won't send you unsolicited offers if you opt out when you register you believe they will so it appears that there's no way to mollify you. You're better off not registering and using someone else's registration or not going to NYT links. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Any number of companies which send spam out make that claim, i.e. "you must have mistakenly agreed to accept our stuff." PAT] ------------------------------ From: dor@writeme.com (Satchel Paige) Subject: Info re: NorVergence and the Salzanos? Date: 20 Aug 2004 18:41:19 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Does anyone know what is happening with NorVergence and it's former executives, specifically the Salzano brothers? Will there be criminal charges? Any info will be appreciated. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: How Do I Get "Kewlstart" From my Phone Company? Organization: ATCC Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2004 01:50:35 GMT In article , merlyn@visi.com says: > bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) writes: >> In article , Kyler Laird >> wrote: >>> I'm trying to set up a home PBX and I decided to just take a crack at >>> getting kewlstart/calling party control/disconnect supervision on my >>> home line. I called Verizon and got bounced around until I hit >>> someone "with 31 years of experience" who had never heard of such a >>> thing. I was told that Verizon certainly doesn't offer it. >>> I suspect that someone in Verizon knows how to provision the switch >>> and can twiddle a few bits to give it to me. Is that reasonable? How >>> do I find that person? >> No it is _not_ reasonable. Not for a _residential_ POTS phone line. >> If you want to pay for a 'commercial rates' _trunk_ line, Then you can >> start talking about things like "wink start" vs "ground start" vs >> "loop start", "E&M" vs "T&R", "MF" vs "DTMF" signalling, etc., etc., >> ad nauseum. > FWIW: kewlstart isn't a telco line type like a loopstart or > groundstart trunk line. Its a special mode of the Asterisk soft PBX > system that takes a normal loopstart line (ie. a POTS line) and > watches for a certain event on it to handle line drops (ie. remote > disconnect detection) better than normal loopstart signalling. > (ie. a posting on the Asterisk users archives from the main author > kewlstart is what we call loopstart with battery drop. this is also > known as "far end disconnect supervision" to some people. Basically > when the switch hangs up on you, it drops battery for a fraction of a > second to signal that you've been hung up on. > As such, you won't find any telco offering it, because its a special > mode that Asterisk has for its FXO cards on a plain old loopstart > telephone line. Its not surprising at all that nobody at any telco has > heard of it, and the OP is barking up the wrong tree for nothing. What ever happened to CPC? I forget exactly how it worked but the switch would actually reverse polarity on the line to indicate the call had dropped or some such. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Number Not in Use Organization: ATCC Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2004 02:05:47 GMT In article , Wesrock@aol.com says: > In a message dated Thu, 19 Aug 2004 21:14:12 GMT, Nick Landsberg > writes: >> By the way, I had heard an urban legend that "ring back tones" were >> established in order to try to prevent what the Telco termed "theft of >> service." Consider the following example: >> "Mom, I'll call you when I get there and hang up after exactly two >> rings. I should be there around 8 PM or so." Some say that the >> Telco's were concerned that they were losing money because the >> customers were communicating "out of band" but never completing a >> billable call. >> Can anyone confirm this (or deny this)? Can anyone put an approximate >> date when they started using "ring back tones" rather than you hearing >> the electrical buzz from the actual ringer on the far end phone? >> Thanks, NPL > With step euipment originally some of the ringing current was fed > back to the calling party. So you did hear the actual ringing and > that form of code calling was indeed not uncommon. > Even after they used a separate ringing tone, it was usually > operated by the same relay that applied ringing current to the called > party. Not anymore. I tried a test and called my home number from my cell -- heard ring tone on the cell but the home phone rang about a second AFTER ring tone had ended. ------------------------------ From: William Warren Subject: Re: Microsoft Pays Dear For Insults Through Ignorance Organization: Comcast Online Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2004 03:20:58 GMT William Warren wrote in message news:telecom23.391.11@telecom-digest.org: [snip] > The rote memorization we were burdened with as children (Johnny points > to map and says "This is Columbia. The capitol city is Bogota. They > export Medicines.") must give way to more enlightened ideas about > Geopolitics: location is not nearly as important as attitude when it > comes to other peoples and ways of life. [snip] > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Your points are all very good, but I > believe a person, to be well rounded or knowledgeable in political > science needs to have a geography background as well. To a point, I agree: however, the slavish attention to irrelevant detail that cursed our primary education (and made test preparation easy for a generation of teachers overwhelmed by the Baby Boom) has hurt us more than we realize. I don't think Americans need to know the capitol city of Columbia; better that they know the kinds of people who live and work there, and their value systems. What we need to succeed in business (or, for that matter, International Politics) is knowledge about people, not places. > Now I do not expect American troops to all be well-verse in > political science, but I *would* expect that before they get > dispatched to host countries (like Saudi Arabia for example) to be > instructed on the types of lifestyles, etc which offend their hosts, > when the soldiers have free time. [snip] Which translates into requirements (recently lifted IIRC) that female soldiers wear burkas while off base. The Saudis managed to offend a lot of female soldiers, and in the process show the same sort of jingoism which you see in the U.S. population. _THAT_ is Political Science, an area of study in which monarchies are notoriously undistinguished. The funny thing is, we're making each other's points stronger: had the U.S. Soldiers been educated about the views of other people in other nations, they might have objected less and fit in more. Had the Saudis been less arrogant, or less afraid of foreign ideas about the role of women, they might have invited the soldiers to meet with local peoples to learn first hand about how the culture is different. C'est la guerre: everybody wants someone else to adapt. William [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But I think we Americans shoul do the adapting; after all, *we* are guests in their land. I do not think the Saudi people said to us "oh please come over here and protect us." I think it was a case (in the latest instance) where the USA wanted a strategic location to make war with the Iraqi people, and earlier with the Iranian people. So *we* asked the Saudi people "may we be there to do our thing?" The Saudi people okayed that, so it behooves the Americans to act like guests. And yes, the female headwear was one item of contention. Another item of contention was that however people wish to observe their religious activites, they deserve respect while in that observance. Some of the soldiers were 'disorderly in their conduct' when around the Saudi people engaging in their religious practices. There were various bones of contention that the Americans were, well, walking around like they owned the place. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2004 01:42:13 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: A Place For Political/Social Issues Discussion I have put up a sort of on-the-fly 'bulletin board' for people to use for discussion about the candidates in the November election, and would appreciate everyone who wants to participate to use it for open discussion. There are two parts, one for general discussion and one part specifically for November election discussion. Names and registration are not needed nor desired. Just go in there and do your thing, please. If you want, you can 'register' but I don't think it gives you any additional privileges if you do or do not. http://kerry-or-bush-2004.us.tt PAT ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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