From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Aug 25 15:13:29 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i7PJDTM01532; Wed, 25 Aug 2004 15:13:29 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 15:13:29 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200408251913.i7PJDTM01532@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 #399 TELECOM Digest Wed, 25 Aug 2004 15:13:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 399 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Airport Express Leads the New Breed of Consumer APs (Monty Solomon) Linksys Voice Over IP (VoIP) Solutions (Monty Solomon) Comcast PhotoShow Deluxe (Monty Solomon) Phone Phishing (John Bartley) Phone Industry Upheaval as Ways of Calling Change Fast (Sufaud via WSJ) Avaya ODBC pw (Danny Councell) Re: Vonage - Area Codes (John R. Covert) Re: Microsoft Pays Dear For Insults Through Ignorance (T. Sean Weintz) Re: Microsoft Pays Dear For Insults Through Ignorance (Randolph Herber) Re: Number Transportability for VOIP? (John Bartley) Re: Last Laugh! Inventors of Voice Over IP [joke] (Hank Karl) Re: How Do I Get "Kewlstart" From my Phone Company? (Paul A Lee) Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind (Paul A Lee) Re: Considering VoIP For Home? Think Twice About CallVantage (charlie3) Re: Verizon Cable TV? (Neal McLain) Re: Book Review: Fighting Spam for Dummies, Levine/Young/Church (noname) Re: International Call Forwarding to US, UK or Germany (John Levine) Re: International Call Forwarding to US, UK or Germany (dave@nyoffice) AT&T CallVantage Service Now Online@Amazon.com (Jack Decker-VOIP News) 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: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 19:28:01 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Airport Express Leads the New Breed of Consumer APs Roaming charges: Hardware hunger hits Wi-Fi Level: Introductory Larry Loeb (larryloeb@prodigy.net) Principal, pbc enterprises Learn about the whole new crop of consumer-oriented APs that work with Windows and the Mac OS. True to trend, these babies are smaller, lighter, and built to deliver everything from AirTunes to pizza. Those doggoned engineers have finally gotten around to revamping the hardware that most of us use to wirelessly connect to a network. As Larry discovers in this month's Roaming Charges, the imposing blue Linksys box is about to give way to a whole new crop of consumer-oriented access points (AP) that work with Windows and the Mac OS. True to trend, these babies are smaller, lighter, and built to deliver everything from AirTunes to pizza. Well, maybe not pizza. Hardware is usually taken for granted by users, who just want the goods it provides. No one really cares much what's inside a TV set, for example; or, for that matter, a wireless LAN. The thing is, these days it pays to know a thing or two about the inner workings of your WLAN. Most brands have moved past the stage where access points were interchangeable, and competition among vendors has driven prices down to the point where a major electronics retail chain will now sell you one of the 802.11 varieties (in either b or g flavor) for about $40, which is less than half of what it would have cost a year ago. Because most APs are platform independent, you can use them with whatever sort of computer you have. With APs becoming such a commodity, manufacturers need to differentiate their products from the other boxes out there. And this is leading to the rise of APs that are backward-compatible variations of the original idea of an AP, but offering considerably more bang for your buck. In this month's Roaming charges I'll show you four new APs that integrate hardware, software, and forward-thinking design for exceptionally exciting results. They all share one thing in common: they're reengineered versions of first-generation APs/routers, such as the signature blue one from Linksys. http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/wi-roam25/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 01:49:08 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Linksys Voice Over IP (VoIP) Solutions Small Offices Save Money on Phone Calls Linksys Enters VoIP Market With New Hardware That Connects Standard Telephones and Fax Machines to a High-Speed Internet Connection IRVINE, Calif., Aug. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Linksys(R), a division of Cisco Systems, Inc., the leading provider of broadband, wireless and networking hardware for the consumer, Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) and small business markets, today announced new Voice Over IP (VoIP) products to help consumers and small offices save money and get more use out of their broadband connection. Linksys is offering three new affordable and easy to use VoIP products that enable users to connect their standard telephones and fax machines to a cable or DSL broadband connection so they can make and take calls: The Linksys Phone Adapter with 2 Phone Ports (PAP2), a Wireless-G Router with 2 Phone Ports (WRT54GP2) and a wired Broadband Router with 2 Phone Ports (RT31P2). The new Linksys VoIP hardware solutions were developed with its parent company, Cisco Systems, Inc., the worldwide leader in IP Telephony. After signing up for a Voice over IP service through a specific service provider, both families and small offices can use the Internet to make phone calls, getting substantial savings on local, long distance, and International calling while also enjoying additional features at no cost such as call waiting, voicemail, caller ID, call blocking, repeat dialing and more. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43289993 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 01:53:40 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Comcast PhotoShow Deluxe Comcast Enables Customers to Become Directors of Their Own Photo Slideshows and Makes Organizing & Sharing Personal Digital Photos Easier Than Ever - with the Launch of Comcast PhotoShow Deluxe - Aug 24, 2004 09:00 AM (PR Newswire) PhotoShow Deluxe Is the Latest Built-For-Broadband Application Now Available To Comcast's 6 Million High-Speed Internet Customers via Comcast.net, the Nation's #1 Broadband Portal* PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Comcast, the nation's number one broadband Internet provider, announced the launch of Comcast PhotoShow Deluxe -- which answers the need for a simple way to organize and share digital photos - but does it broadband-style. Leveraging broadband's interactive power, Comcast PhotoShow Deluxe also enables users to create multimedia slideshows as a special way to share their photos. Users can literally become directors of their own photo slideshows -- complete with music, transitions, animation, and clip art -- to tell their stories to family and friends: babies' first birthdays, what they did on their summer vacations, family reunions, and more. The result is a richer, lean- forward experience for both users and their recipients. Comcast PhotoShow Deluxe is available through a partnership with Simple Star, a leading consumer imaging software and services company, based in San Francisco, CA. This premium product is offered at no additional charge to all of Comcast's six million High-Speed Internet customers. This is another way Comcast is adding value as it focuses on enhanced communication along with five other key areas (sports, kids, gaming, music and movies). This announcement closely follows the announcement of another complementary communication application - Comcast Video Mail. Editor's Note: To view Comcast Video Mail press release please visit: http://www.cmcsk.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=147565&p=irol-newsArticle&t=Regular&id=601188& Even novice photo enthusiasts can quickly and easily create their own multimedia slideshows. These slideshows can then be shared online or downloaded to a CD-ROM or Video CD (VCD) for playback on TV and most DVD players. When sent via email, the slideshows are conveniently embedded as live links, which solves the problem of overwhelmed email inboxes with large photo files. Along with the link, recipients will receive a thumbnail of the first photo within the slideshow, inviting them to view the digital slideshow. Comcast High-Speed Internet customers can send their PhotoShow slideshows to any valid email address, to users operating in a Windows or Mac environment with the free Flash player installed. The recipient of the slideshow does not need to be a Comcast High-Speed Internet customer in order to view it. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43289732 ------------------------------ From: John Bartley Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 11:05:20 -0800 Subject: Phone Phishing In Monday's Mail http://www.jerrypournelle.com/mail/mail324.html#Monday the estemmed Dr. Pournelle passed on a phone-phishing story (copied at the bottom of this message). Since Caller ID is easily hacked, especially by users of IP telephony (which this call almost certainly used), it appears that IP telephony has put the unscrupulous everywhere within thirty seconds of Aunt Minnie, as it is amazingly cheap and works over infrastructure available worldwide. Recording whatever Caller ID information is available along with the date and time of the call may be useful to catch the dumbest of phone phishers ('phonshers'? 'phoshers'?), but don't put too much stock in that. Caller ID will soon become only a way for you to know when your friends and family are calling, but the ability to use it to discern prank callers and scammers is no longer reliable. Now, since (as my beloved wife puts it), 'half of all folks are below average', it should not be difficult for these thieves to make a good Second-World living at phone phishing along with their other favorite scams. Social engineering as at the heart of most fraud, and Barnum's Law surely is relevant here. Reporting? Oh, there's http://www.fraud.org/info/repoform.htm plus the FTC, local law enforcement and your telephone company, but the lack of tracability of IP calls and the unreliability of Caller ID data makes finding these blackguards nearly impossible. Any phone number they provide for a callback will be here today and abandoned tomorrow. Honeypots (a la Tom Clancy novels) are the only practical way to catch them. An enterprising Fed might list phone numbers at the addresses of retirement homes, and forward those numbers to a call center staffed with elderly-sounding folks who can tie up a phisher long enough to get a good trace. Government folks have access to ANI, a much more reliable protocol for calling party information than Caller ID, so fraudulent callers could be traced to the IP telephony provider, whereupon local law enforcement may (or may not) do something useful. The only bright spot I can see here is that, after a new wave of sob-sister stories about this fraud, folks will become more suspicious of anything from strangers, and that's not a bad idea in an election year. Anyone else have an idea on how to nail these nogoodniks before they rob Aunt Minnie of her house and assets? ============== Dr. Pournelle, I wanted to alert you of a new variant of the Nigerian Scam. I just received a telephone call from a gentleman explaining the he was from "the government" and that I had been selected to receive a grant of between $8,000 and $25,000. He had my Name, work address, and telephone number. His command of the English language was not great and the background noise sounded as if he were in a call center. I strung him out for about 10 minutes to see if I could glean any additional information from him (he offered that he was on the 4th floor of "the government building" and the treasury department was on the 17th floor). He asked for my date of birth and checking account information (just like the other scams). When it was obvious that I was not going to provide him with this he hung up. John Bartley K7AAY http://livejournal.com/users/clackablog Clackablog http://kiloseven.blogspot.com Kilo Seven "Clearly, latrines are the forgotten Last Amenity of the Apocalypse. (Other signs.. Michael Jackson as your Best Man (?), Christina Aguilara as your makeup consultant & Cher as your personal shopper.) - ginmar ------------------------------ From: sufaud@hotmail.com (Sufaud) Subject: Phone Industry Upheaval As Ways of Calling Change Fast Date: 25 Aug 2004 01:12:41 -0700 Heavy Toll Phone Industry Faces Upheaval As Ways of Calling Change Fast Cable, Internet, Wireless Hurt The Value of Old Networks, Threaten a Business Model Echoes of Railroads' Ordeal By KEN BROWN and ALMAR LATOUR Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL In just over a year, one out of every eight households in the Portland, Maine, region has signed up for Internet phone service supplied by Time Warner Inc.'s cable-television unit. For many, the phone jack in the wall that connects to the phone company's network is now just a useless hole. Time Warner is rolling out the same service to millions of consumers nationwide. ... article at: http://www.angelfire.com/co4/legalstuff/wsj_tele.htm ------------------------------ From: Danny Councell Subject: Avaya ODBC pw Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 12:56:11 -0400 If you don't currently subscribe to or participate in these technical forums, perhaps you should check them out. I've highlighted the AVAYA sections, and you might find the answer in threads already submitted. If not, post your question here! http://avaya.pbxinfo.com/ http://www.pbxtech.info www.tek-tips.com [after you sign up, you can drill down to the Avaya Definity forum] http://www.callcenterops.com/forum/index.php http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/Avaya-List/ AND if you know of any others, please send them my way! All the best, Danny Councell NetLert Communications, Inc. direct: [828] 670-9900 ext.309 fax: [828] 670-9909 e-fax: [801] 858-7132 e-mail: danny@netlert.com 'Information! In Control!' ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 14:26:47 EDT From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: Vonage - Area Codes Vonage lets you change your number at any time, and when you change your number, you have the option of either releasing the old number (permanently) or keeping it as a virtual number. When you moved from 631 to 215, if you had thought of it then, you could have changed your number and (optionally) kept your 631 number as a virtual number. Now you can still change your number to a 215 number, but you won't be able to change it to your existing virtual number. That's tough, but that's the way it is. You can always change your number to a 215 number and keep the 215 virtual number until you've told everyone to use the new number. Otherwise you're stuck. You can always change virtual numbers at any time by just requesting a new one and deleting the old one. When you have multiple real numbers (either ATA-phones or Soft-phones), and one or more virtual numbers, you get access to a web page that allows you to control which virtual numbers go to with real numbers. If we ever get full two-way number portability with non-CLEC VoIP customers, then you could port your virtual number to a cellphone or something, and then port it back to your main number. But at the moment, except for CLECs such as VoIP2Save.com (I think the actual CLEC is RNK-Telecom with VoIP2Save operating as their retail interface), while you can port _to_ a VoIP company, you can't port _out_of_ a VoIP company. In fact, if you port your real phone number to a VoIP company (other than a regulated CLEC), and decide you don't like them anymore, you may not be able to port it back. /john ------------------------------ From: T. Sean Weintz Subject: Re: Microsoft Pays Dear For Insults Through Ignorance Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 16:08:28 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com TELECOM Digest Editor Noted in response to Henry: > I've told a few old Chicago area friends I now live in 'Kansas' > (forget for a minute about Independence or the other small towns) > and when they hear 'Kansas' they immediatly begin remarking on > Kansas City (which is actually in Missouri and a few hundred miles > north and east of here; I am *no where* close to that place.) That's > how bad things are in geography in this country. But do you live near Dorothy? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If I am not mistaken, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz lived out in western Kansas somewhere; I am in the southeastern corner of the state; 110 miles southeast of Wichita, KS; 80 miles almost straight north of Tulsa, OK; about 90 miles almost straight west of Joplin, MO/Pittsburg, KS. Those are the closest larger towns. Kansas City, *MO* and its suburban town, Kansas City, KS are about 250 miles north and slightly east of us. I think -- not sure -- Dorothy was a few hundred miles west, maybe Liberal, KS or Dodge City. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 17:15:22 GMT From: herber@dcdrjh.fnal.gov (Randolph J. Herber) Subject: Re: Microsoft Pays Dear For Insults Through Ignorance Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I've told a few old Chicago area > friends I now live in 'Kansas' (forget for a minute about > Independence or the other small towns) and when they hear 'Kansas' > they immediatly begin remarking on Kansas City (which is actually in > Missouri and a few hundred miles north and east of here; I am *no > where* close to that place.) That's how bad things are in geography > in this country. PAT] There are Kansas City's in both Missouri and Kansas. They are separated by the Missouri and Kansas border and economically function as a single city. http://mq-mapgend.websys.aol.com/mqmapgend?MQMapGenRequest=FDR2dmwjDE%3byt29%26FDJnci4Jkqj%2cMMCJ%3aHOEvq%3ba1n9wa%3a%29fr01za%3a%26%40%24%3a%26%40z%3aqyb%3al4b%3aTD%15JFE%3aHOHQJ%3ba1n9wa%3a%29fr01za%3a%26%40%24%3a%26%40%24x9%40 Randolph J. Herber, herber@dcdrjh.fnal.gov, +1 630 840 2966, CD/CDFTF PK-149F, Mail Stop 318, Fermilab, Kirk & Pine Rds., PO Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510-0500, USA. (Speaking for myself and not for US, US DOE, FNAL nor URA.) (Product, trade, or service marks herein belong to their respective owners.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Right you are, but KCMO and KCKS are legally separate entities with their own governments, etc. Half of the population of Kansas live in that upper one-eighth of the state. About another one-third of our citizens live in the eastern part of the state, from Wichita eastward to Topeka. There are entire *counties* in the western part of the state with fewer than a thousand people; an example is Greely County with its two villages of Tribune and Horace, between them most of the thousand residents of the county. (Yes, the entire area was named for Horace Greely who was the publisher of Chicago Tribune in the mid 19th century.) PAT] ------------------------------ From: John Bartley Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 10:59:59 -0800 Subject: Re: Number Transportability for VOIP? On 6 Aug 2004 07:10:28 -0700, dan04@comcast.net (Dan) wrote: > Will I ever be able to sign up for VOIP and keep my existing POTS > (landline) phone number? > When? Now. I did it three months ago with Vonage. Qworst, being Qworst, 'lost' the order to move the landline number to Vonage, and only did it when I called them, three weeks after Vonage passed the order to them. Then, Qworst *kept* billing me for the 'Market Expansion Line' service to forward my out-of-boundary phone number to my (lifeline service only) landline at home, the MEL being the number which they transferred to Vonage. Meet the New Qworst; Same as the Old Qworst. Vonage, on the other hand, has been *perfect*. Yes, I know about the outage they had, but I wasn't home, and besides, it auto-forwarded the calls to my cellphone as I requested, anyway, during that outage. ------------------------------ From: Hank Karl Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Inventors of Voice Over IP [joke] Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 15:44:25 -0400 Organization: NETPLEX Internet Services - http://www.ntplx.net/ On Sun, 22 Aug 2004 19:58:16 -0700, Paul Timmins wrote: > Wow, here it was, invented by three people. > http://www.att.com/reinvent/ > (I guess the authors of RFC 2543, "SIP: Session Initiation Protocol", > (M. Handley of ACIRI, H. Schulzrinne of Columbia University, > E. Schooler of Cal Tech, and J. Rosenberg of Bell Labs [and amusingly > not listed as an inventor on Ma Bell's website] must be really upset.) They did say "REinvented" :-) SIP was not the first VoIP protocol; H.323 was published in 1996 (RFC 2543 was published in 1999). Cisco's "skinny" may predate it. And there are other VoIP protocols that have fallen by the wayside. Schulzrinne, Schooler and Rosenberg may have been the key contributors to, and authors of the first SIP RFC, but they can't claim to have invented VoIP on this basis. On the other hand, Bell Lab's engineers and scientists contributed to the ITU work on H.323 and other VoIP protocols, and chaired several ITU committees. There are also some Bell Labs (and Lucent) names in IETF standards related to VoIP. ------------------------------ From: Paul A Lee Subject: Re: How Do I Get "Kewlstart" From my Phone Company? Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 16:58:16 -0400 Organization: Rite Aid Corporation In TELECOM Digest V23 #388, Kyler Laird wrote (in part): > 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? I had not heard the term "kewlstart" before, so I did a quick Yahoo! search and reviewed what popped out. It appears that "kewlstart" is just a coined name for loop signaling with disconnect supervision. Disconnect supervision is also called "calling party control", "forward disconnect", "open loop disconnect", "open switch interval", "adjunct control", and perhaps other names. What is supposed to happen is that the CO switch (or other switch serving as the office end) will remove battery voltage from the loop for about 250 ms within 6 seconds after the far-end party disconnects. As far as I can tell, most CO switches now seem to provide disconnect supervision by default on loop-start lines. Consequently, it can be difficult to find someone at telco who knows anything about it. My company uses a store phone system configuration that requires disconnect supervision to work properly. Out of a few dozen stores per week with four to 10 lines each, I think we run into a disconnect supervision problem perhaps twice a month. As for availability on residential service, just check your current loop-start line(s) with a voltmeter and see if it drops toward zero for about 250 ms when the far end disconnects from the call. If there's no disconnect supervision, you'll see the voltage stay at about 7-8 VDC when off-hook, and about 48 VDC on-hook. On my residential service, I have three loop-start lines in hunt with disconnect supervision. The telco is Verizon and the CO switch is a 5ESS. The fact that it's residential service never was an issue in getting the signaling and hunting I needed. Paul A Lee Sr Telecom Engineer Rite Aid Corporation HL-IS-COM (Telecomm) V: +1 717 730-8355 30 Hunter Lane, Camp Hill, PA 17011-2410 F: +1 717 975-3789 P.O. Box 3165, Harrisburg, PA 17105-3165 W: +1 717 805-6208 ------------------------------ From: Paul A Lee Subject: Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 16:27:11 -0400 Organization: Rite Aid Corporation Responding to no particular post, but to the general lamentations about having to activate software: Yes, the activation procedures, serial numbers, key codes, etc., are a frustrating nuisance and introduce their own operational problems. But let's put at least some of the blame on the prodigious software bootlegging that has driven numerous software companies -- not just Microsoft -- to such measures. I remember reading (but don't recall the exact source of) an analysis of the bootleg software problem that concluded that, if all Microsoft software in use were purchased and used in accordance with the license, Microsoft would be able to reduce retail prices by 90% and still make as much profit as they do currently. I know the Microsoft bashers will take umbrage and claim that evil giant Microsoft would simply keep the extra revenue. Save your breath ... Paul A Lee Sr Telecom Engineer Rite Aid Corporation HL-IS-COM (Telecomm) V: +1 717 730-8355 30 Hunter Lane, Camp Hill, PA 17011-2410 F: +1 717 975-3789 P.O. Box 3165, Harrisburg, PA 17105-3165 W: +1 717 805-6208 ------------------------------ From: charlie@cdsdetroit.com (charlie3) Subject: Re: Considering VoIP For Home? Think Twice About AT&T CallVantage Date: 24 Aug 2004 16:22:38 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I'm having a good experience with Vonage. I've found customer support to be available and competent. Because of Vonage, every call I make is free. Because of Vonage simultaneous ring people need only one number to find me. I move the Vonage box to seasonal locations where I have broadband avialable. I expected some glitches and planned accordingly, mostly by having a cell phone for backup. (Vonage automatically rings my cell phone during network outages or when the vonage box is in my luggage between locations. If I don't pickup, Vonage records a voice message which is available via the web, landline, cell phone or Vonage phone.) We can argue that personal computers should not be adopted for record keeping and communications because hard drives crash and data can be lost. Paper and pencil are more reliable than computer disks. Paper and pencil is a lot simpler and more people know how to use them. All the above is true but that didn't stop the advance of computers. (Today I do so little handwriting, my already bad style is getting noticably worse.) When enough people cancel POTS service, as I have, the traditional phone companies fixed costs for POTS services will rise so close to revenues they won't be able to sustain the service. VOIP users like me will vigorously protest being taxed to subsidize a communications dinasaur we've abandoned. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 22:59:58 -0500 From: Neal McLain Subject: Re: Verizon Cable TV? Danny Burstein (dannyb@panix.com) wrote: > Verizon has been doing a couple of in house tests using hi > capacity DSL circuitry to provide switched video [a], which > they hope to market as an alternative to cable systems. Tony P. responded: > I was thinking about that very same thing the other day. What > would prevent me other than the agreement not to re-sell the > cable signal I pay for to streaming say, x number of channels > of CATV via 802.11g. There are a number of hacks for Linksys > devices that let you offer VoIP for several different > subscribers, and video can be compressed down to what, 6Mbps > so at 54Mbps you'd be able to offer 9 switched channels. Well, the copyright owners would certainly object. It wouldn't take them long to sic their lawyers onto you. As it happens, I've been thinking about this situation too, but for the opposite reason. Now that WFMT has lost its satellite feed, and has reinstated its web stream (at $100/year), cable systems can't get the signal from the satellite any more. So what would prevent a cable system from setting up a PC in its headend and sending the streamed signal over cable FM? Probably the same reason: copyright owners would object. But it might take them a bit longer to get their lawyers involved. Danny Burstein continued: > [a] while a cable tv system sends all the channels to your > setup and then your tv (or converter) chooses which one to > display, the video over DSL circuits don't have the same > bandwidth. > When you tune to, say, channel two on a standard cable box, the > other 50 or 100 or whatver channels are still in your apt, but > just not getting to your screen. When you tune to channel two > in a video-over-dsl circuit, the server gets the instruction to > feed that broadcast over to you. The other channels don't get > anywhere near your home. But a true FTTP network *would* have enough bandwidth to pass the entire "cable TV" spectrum to your "setup." Current HFC (hybrid fiber-cable) networks do exactly that. So why wouldn't Verizon's new FTTP network be set up the same way? Neal McLain nmclain@annsgarden.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Book Review: Fighting Spam for Dummies, Levine/Young/Church From: noname@example.invalid Organization: We Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 05:37:23 +0000 In article , John Levine wrote: >> "Fighting Spam for Dummies", John R. Levine/Margaret Levine Young/Ray >> Everett-Church, 2004, 0-7645-5965-6, U$14.99/C$21.99/UK#9.99 > I don't know what Rob Slade's problem is with the books I write. His > reviews are so full of petty complaints and factual errors that it's > hard to recognize the book he's reviewing as the one I wrote. In this > review, for example, in the chapter on desktop spam filter programs he > complains that we don't mention spamassassin. Well, of course, that's > because it runs on Unix servers, not Windows desktops. I could go > point by point but you get idea. Do you suppose, just _suppose_, that it might be because you DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT? Spamassassin *does* run on Windows desktops. > From the spamassassin home page, at Note: This is the home page for the main open-source SpamAssassin distribution. Packages downloaded here contain UNIX-oriented front-end scripts. Versions for Windows, commercial versions, and other front-ends, are listed on the wiki. Note well: "Versions for Windows..." Neat trick for a package that "doesn't run on Windows", isn't it? ------------------------------ Date: 25 Aug 2004 04:48:43 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: International Call Forwarding to US, UK or Germany Needed Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >However, my customer wants non-toll free numbers. Huh? What leads you to think that Lingo does toll free numbers? When I go through the signup menus on their web site, they're clearly offering POTS numbers in most if not all of the countries they cover, e.g., Paris numbers in France, Milan or Rome in Italy, the five state capitals in Australia, Amsterdam in the Netherlands, etc. I don't know about two numbers per account but it seems like an odd restriction. Did you call them to check? Vonage will sell you all you want, albeit only in the US and Canada. ------------------------------ From: Subject: Re: International Call Forwarding to US, UK or Germany Needed Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 09:51:33 -0400 John, The toll-free number and two international numbers per account is what the Lingo rep at the call center told me. I agree, unlimited toll-free international does not make a lot of sense, as Lingo could really lose there shirt with that sorta deal. The rep was not too familiar with this aspect of the Lingo service, as I had to lead her, rather than her tell me, about this option. I would guess that English was not the rep's first language, and since most of Primus' call centers are now based in India, its a good bet that is where she was. As far as the two number limit, this is also indicated on the website. Assuming the rep was wrong about the toll-free, Lingo is an option for those countries that Lingo has coverage in. Thanks, David ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 11:55:47 -0400 Subject: AT&T CallVantage Service Now Online@Amazon.com Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/08-25-2004/0002238318&STORY&EDATE= BEDMINSTER, N.J., Aug. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- AT&T (NYSE: T) today announced that Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN), a leading retailing Website (http://www.amazon.com), will offer AT&T CallVantage(SM) Service, the company's residential Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) broadband phone service, to consumers. Amazon.com customers can find AT&T CallVantage in the Electronics Store at Amazon.com by searching for VoIP or CallVantage. "Tech-savvy shoppers know Amazon.com to be one source where they can find all of their online purchases quickly and easily," said Cathy Martine, AT&T senior vice president for Internet Telephony. "We're delighted to launch our e-tail strategy for AT&T CallVantage Service online with Amazon.com. Our goal is to make our service widely and conveniently available to as many consumers as possible." AT&T CallVantage Service is now available to consumers in 170 U.S. markets coast to coast and is currently being trialed overseas for use by remote workers of U.S. multinational corporations. All that's required to use AT&T CallVantage is a telephone adapter provided by AT&T and a broadband connection, which lets consumers talk over high-speed Internet connections instead of traditional circuit-switched phone networks. [Comment: Once again I would remind everyone that CallVantage is on the high end of the price scale for VoIP providers -- there are other companies that offer more features, and charge $10 or $15 less per month for unlimited calling within the U.S. (and sometimes Canada also).] Full press release at: http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/08-25-2004/0002238318&STORY&EDATE= 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/ ------------------------------ 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. 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