From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Aug 30 15:20:17 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i7UJKF117635; Mon, 30 Aug 2004 15:20:17 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 15:20:17 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200408301920.i7UJKF117635@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 #404 TELECOM Digest Mon, 30 Aug 2004 15:19:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 404 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind (Nick Landsberg) Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind (SELLCOM Tech support) Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind (Shalom Septimus) Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind (Daniel W. Johnson) Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind (Lisa Hancock) Re: Video of Old Telephone Exchanges (Jim Haynes) You Can Still Send a Western Union Mailgram (Jim Haynes) Re: Handset Tester (Ian) VoIP Troubleshooter Web Site Updated (Alan Clark) Re: VOIP Connects Workers as They Flee Convention Site (Lisa Hancock) Re: Forced Ads on Auto Response System (Lisa Hancock) Re: Phone Card Inquiry (Tom Smith) Re: Vonage VOIP and Apartment Intercom (DevilsPGD) Re: Ups and Downs (Tom Smith) LNP Wireless to Voip Possible? (John Munsey Jr) Cable Addresses? (Mike Riddle) Specific Telephone Numbers (Curious) Re: Verizon Cable TV? (Lisa Hancock) AOL VoIP in 2005 (Jack Decker - VOIP News) Last Laugh! Boom! (Lisa Minter) 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: Nick Landsberg Reply-To: SPAMhukolautTRAP@SPAMattTRAP.net Subject: Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 20:30:55 GMT Tony P. wrote: > In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com > says: >> SELLCOM Tech support wrote: [ SNIP ] >> The 1948 Western Electric rotary phone on my desk works just fine, by >> the way. The Centrex ESS still accepts rotary dial pulses and the >> ringing current still rings the telephone. Voice clarity is fine. > Definitely -- they were built for a minimum service life of thirty years. > That they've lasted nearly twice that is a good indicator of the quality > WE was able to achieve. > It would be interesting to find out how much in today's dollars the > manufacture of a 302 would cost. I bet it would be a few hundred > dollars or more. I wouldn't even begin to try to estimate that, nor would it make any sense in today's marketplace. Back in the days when *The Phone Company* owned everything (including that phone on your nightstand), it actually made perfect economic sense to design and build everything for that kind of a service life. The time and labor cost of a) dispatching a repair technician every two years or so /per phone/ b) having to maintain a larger labor force of technicians, even if all they did was replace phones in place rather than actually repair them, and c) manufacturing more phones as the old ones could no longer be repaired (remember the not insignificant costs of running more factories) would quickly overshadow the cost of manufacturing a phone which needed (almost) no maintenance. So, in this particualr case, it seems that the old book "Quality is Free" from the early 80's had more than a grain of truth in it. But that was then and now is now. We now "repair" our own phones by throwing them into the trash heap and replacing them with new ones we purchase at the local Wal-Mart or Staples. Sorry, I digress. NPL [ More Snipped ] "It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious" - A. Bloch ------------------------------ From: SELLCOM Tech support Subject: Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind Organization: www.sellcom.com Reply-To: support@sellcom.com Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 21:15:58 GMT friendly posted on that vast internet thingie: > Thanks for describing MS great products that most the world chooses to > use because they are superior and cost effective and kept very up to > date. Make sure and get XP SP2 as it's a big improvement and installs > seemlessly for the large majority of users. That is certainly an excellent point. I guess that some picky sorts might quibble regarding your choice of the word "chooses". Steve at SELLCOM http://www.sellcom.com Discount multihandset cordless phones by Siemens, AT&T, Panasonic, Motorola Vtech 5.8Ghz; TMC ET4000 4line Epic phone, OnHoldPlus, Beamer, Watchguard! Brick wall "non MOV" surge protection. Uniden 2line 5.8GHz cordless If you sit at a desk www.ergochair.biz you owe it to yourself. ------------------------------ From: Shalom Septimus Subject: Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 06:23:04 -0400 Reply-To: druggist@pobox.com On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 08:49:18 -0700, Steve Sobol wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Would you please explain what is a > 'sock-puppet' (anonymous or otherwise)? Thanks. PAT] Remember that Spanish comedian that had a sock on his hand that he would talk to? Senor Wences, I think was his name. He'd talk, and the sock (with a face drawn on it) would answer him. The insane Central American dictator in the movie "The Inlaws" did the same sort of thing without the sock (he had the face drawn right on his thumb and forefinger, if I remember correctly -- been a while since I saw that picture). In the context of Usenet, a sock-puppet is what you call it when someone posts a message, and "someone else" posts a message agreeing with or supporting the first one, but when you check the headers you find that all the messages are sent by the same person using different aliases. Essentially he's trying to make it look like he's got a vast groundswell of support, but in reality it's just the sock on his hand answering him. Presumably, what Steve meant was that this "friendly" who posted the original message was just a sock on BG's hand, giving us his message while making it look like it came from someone else. Shalom ------------------------------ From: panoptes@iquest.net (Daniel W. Johnson) Subject: Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind Date: 29 Aug 2004 11:06:02 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Would you please explain what is a > 'sock-puppet' (anonymous or otherwise)? Thanks. PAT] In the context of usenet, a sock-puppet is an alter-ego established by an individual for the purpose of posting messages that agree with his views, thus making it appear that the individual in question has more support than (s)he really does. http://www.spamfaq.net/terminology.shtml#sock ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind Date: 30 Aug 2004 11:27:07 -0700 Tony P. wrote: >> Actually, if you had programs that were 50 (fifty) years old from an >> earlier generation of IBM mainframes (ie 1401 or 7090 series from the >> 1950s) you could STILL run them without change, too. I know of people >> who did just that until at least the mid 1990s. > IBM paid a heavy price to support those old applications. The 370 > series allowed virtual machines so they could just emulate a 1401 or > 7090 to run those applications and pass the IO back to the VM/CMS > manager for display. A slight correction -- VM/CMS was not needed for predecessor machine emulation; we did emulation but not on VM. Emulation was a combination of firmware and software. >> The 1948 Western Electric rotary phone on my desk works just fine, by >> the way. The Centrex ESS still accepts rotary dial pulses and the >> ringing current still rings the telephone. Voice clarity is fine. > It would be interesting to find out how much in today's dollars the > manufacture of a 302 would cost. I bet it would be a few hundred > dollars or more. On the one hand, sturdy construction and components would make an exact duplicate of a 302 or 500 set expensive to build, although my guess is in quantity mass production about $50-$100. However, the components within are obsolete and more modern components would likely be cheaper. Building durable versions of said components would probably put the basic phone, mass produced, at $35 (which is still three times a plain phone.) Unfortunately, these prices would require mass production, but the demand isn't there, so unit prices would be higher. There's a company making high grade radio tubes under the Western Electric name that are extremely expensive; I suspect this is due to low volume and special purpose. (I wonder what tubes for say guitar amps cost at a music store?) > Planned obsolescence. It's been with us at least since World War II > and will continue to be with us. If something works for me I use it > until *I* outgrow it, not when the marketing people say I should trade > in or buy new. In the case of an automobile you can get away with driving an old car, it doesn't become incompatible with roads. But an old computer is harder to use in the world. A big problem I have is that most websites today require very high bandwidth and my modem is not fast enough; new modems require a higher operating system so I can't get one. I still use plain old "Quick Basic" which I have on 5" disks; and that is a pain to transfer over. I had Adobe 4, I had to upgrade to 5 to read stuff. Now I have to go to Adobe 6. My Netscape 3 hardly works. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That is sort of what I have here now > on one machine: a custom built (more or less) computer with two actual > hard drives (C and F); two CD-DVD drives (D and E), one of which (E) > is a writer as well; a removable USB drive with 62 MB on it (the > little 'finger-like' thing which fits in a USB socket) called (G) and > of course the 1.44 mb floppy (A). There is a slot to install another > another 1.44 mb floppy if desired and a space to install a larger > old style 5 1/2 inch floppy if I wanted, or another CD-DVD thing if > I wished, but I do not know where those latter two slots (if I were > to fill them with devices) would plug in; the ribbon connectors inside > are all in use as I recall. The problem is that many of us neither have the skills nor the time to do all of the above. I remember on my prior machine the big hoopla when DOS 5.0 came out. I bought a copy, and discovered it would do nothing for me on my 286 with 640K. I took off the EDIT/QBASIC but left the O/S in the box. I did find the EDIT extremely useful and use it extensively to this day. But I don't want to be bothered with operating system changes or multiples. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Video of Old Telephone Exchanges Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 20:34:05 GMT Or, see www.open-video.org and while you're there, look at "Telegram for America", a 1956 advertisement for Western Union. jhhaynes at earthlink dot net ------------------------------ Subject: You Can Still Send a Western Union Mailgram Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 20:37:22 GMT Because I just received one today. There's a toll-free number on the back to reply by Mailgram - 800-325-6000 The reason for the mailgram is that someone has been trying unsuccessfully to reach me by phone. I have only one phone line, and I guess they don't have my email address. I have a U.S. Robotics V.92 modem that is supposed to ring the phone when a call-waiting tone comes on the line. It does that, but apparently only sporadically. jhhaynes at earthlink dot net ------------------------------ From: google@bathfordhill.co.uk (Ian) Subject: Re: Handset Tester Date: 28 Aug 2004 13:43:04 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Joe Elichaa wrote in message news:: > I am looking for a real good handset tester that will measure values > and be able to compare these values to other handsets. Does anybody > know of such device? Thank you, Joe Ok; what values? Do you mean sound ? If so are you looking at bandwidth or quality? Basicly though a signal generator, speaker, Mic and Scope will do the job. Ian ------------------------------ From: alan@telchemy.com (Alan Clark) Subject: VoIP Troubleshooter Web Site Updated Date: 28 Aug 2004 17:55:32 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com We have updated the VoIP Troubleshooter web site, and will be adding a forum shortly. The site contains useful information on VoIP performance problems and online troubleshooting tools. Any comments or suggestions for content are welcome. Alan Clark Telchemy ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: VOIP Connects Workers as They Flee Convention Site Date: 28 Aug 2004 19:32:33 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Jack Decker wrote: > And why is this a good thing? Because you can take your IP phone or > the soft phone running on your laptop, plug it in to any broadband > tap .... _Any_ broadband tap? Wouldn't it have to have sufficient capacity and reliability to transmit voice in an acceptable manner and reliability? When you're not at home, who pays for public broadband taps? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I thought by definition, a 'broadband' line was a line with a big enough pipe to do most of those things. And wherever you are or are not (at home, for example) isn't 'public broadband' usually defined as some person or organization (ranging from a university or a Starbucks place or some internet cafe or even a private individual who supplies internet service to a large assortment of regular people with no particular discrimination in what they are actually using it for? Note, the statement was not 'plug it into any 56K dialup line'. Broadband, by definition is a large internet pipe. 'Public broadband' is what places have for their guests or customers to use. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: Forced Ads on Auto Response System Date: 28 Aug 2004 19:36:57 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com richgr@panix.com (Rich Greenberg) wrote: > 1) When asked to key in your card number or whatever, just enter > nothing. MOST systems will time out and give you a human, assuming > rotary dial. A few tell you to call back from a TT phone and dump > you. Unfortunately, they've gotten wise to people doing nothing and demand a number or cut you off. One company says to _speak_ your number and responses. ------------------------------ From: Tom Smith Subject: Re: Phone Card Inquiry Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 05:38:20 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet John R. Levine wrote: >> I'm looking for a prepaid phone card to call from the US to Europe. >> Without any payphone surcharges. What would you recommend? Breaking news. The pay phone owners are going to get their money for use of their phones. If some one else does not collect on their behalf, you will pay them directly. So you should be interested in asking for comparisons on cost differences for payphone usage. ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Vonage VOIP and Apartment Intercom Reply-To: bond-jamesbond@crazyhat.net Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 06:22:51 GMT In message cmclagan@yahoo.com (NoSpamPlease) wrote: > 1) Am I right about the voltage risk? Yes. > 2) If I disconnect the Verizon service will the Enterphone still > supply a voltage that could damage the adapter? Probably -- If it simulates a ring, it will. > 3) If Enterphone does not supply voltage, but I try to test the > arrangement before disconnecting Verizon, will I be at risk? Possibly. > 4) Are there any special devices I might use that would help me deal > with this situation? A two line cordless phone system? > Is there any hope? I really don't want to have to limit my Enterphone > use to a single wired phone (I use 4 cordless extension phones and > don't want to have to run to the kitchen every time the door is > buzzed.) How often does your door get buzzed? Can I get a w00t w00t? ------------------------------ From: Tom Smith Subject: Re: Ups and Downs Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 06:34:50 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet TELECOM Digest Noted in a response to Clive Dawson: > Unlike King Midas, where everything he touched turned to gold, > everything I touch turns to shit it seems. It is called the "fecal touch." I have long had it, and often wish I could pass it on in a game of tag. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: By now, I *should* be able to remember that I am an older, disabled senior citizen. I *should* be able to remember to just sit and watch television all day, take my medication on a regular basis, enjoy my meals on wheels when Southeast Kansas Meals on Wheels comes around each day, feed and care for my cat and my recently-arrived Fox Terrior and **keep my hands off of things I am curious about**. I wonder why I resent doing that so much and have to keep on touching things and winding up with these stinking messes? PAT] ------------------------------ From: john@munsey.net (John Munsey Jr) Subject: LNP Wireless to Voip Possible? Date: 29 Aug 2004 03:06:43 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Should I be able to port my current wireless phone number to a Voip account(T-mobile)? I have read wireless to wireless and wireline to wireless, but cannot find any info either way on wireless to Voip. Any definitive info is appreciated. ------------------------------ From: Mike Riddle Organization: Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish & Short Subject: Cable Addresses? Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 12:59:49 -0500 -- "To Reply Replace the Obvious 'mriddle'" [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The above header arrived here with no text of any sort from Mike Riddle. Since the subject had a question mark after it, my assumption is his question may have been 'What is a Cable Address' or 'Do they still have them'. The answer would be yes they still have them, although rarely used (in the sense that 'cable messages' these days are rare. When they were prevelant (when telegrams were prevelant) they functioned like 'vanity numbers' or 'easy to remember' telex/TWX numbers. A business place or organization in its advertising would often times give their address, their telephone number and their 'cable address', typically one or two words you could say to the telegraph clerk when you wished to send a message to that place. A couple cable addresses I remember were 'Symphony' which referred to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (in place of its longer telex number) and 'Beacon Hill' although I do not remember who that one was for. Just as modern day telco charges extra to give you an easy to remember number, so did Western Union charge extra, and although domestic messages were called 'telegrams' and international messages were called 'cables' or 'cablegrams', in either case easy to remember word phrases in place of numbers were called 'cable addresses'. Some cable addresses also functioned like modern day '800 toll free numbers' but not absolutely unless the subscriber agreed to pay for them. I hope this answer to Mike Riddle is satisfactory, given that no text showed up with the header; and thanks for the old memory! PAT] ------------------------------ From: curious11112001@yahoo.com (Curious) Subject: Specific Telephone Numbers Date: 29 Aug 2004 21:43:49 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I'm looking for TDD [not TTY] numbers, fax numbers, and dial-up modem numbers in: 1. Stamford, Connecticut 2. Switzerland 3. Holland 4. Canada 5. France 6. Russia 7. Germany 8. London 9. Italy Thanks in advance. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Verizon Cable TV? Date: 30 Aug 2004 09:28:10 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Danny Burstein 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. The Phila Inqr (www.philly.com) had an article on this in general. It stated that one change is that the new cabling will run fibre right to the house, cable uses fibre to the neighborhood only, then coax to the house (which is how cable serves my area). The Baby Bells are looking to provide a package of TV, telephone, and Internet. They recognize their losing traditional telephone customers. At the same time, the big cable companies plan to introduce telephone service over their networks. Given the price gouging, poor reliability, and community disrespect by the cable company, I am looking forward to Verizon's service offering. How this will work out for the consumer in terms of quality and price remains to be seen. It's very possible that competition will lower cable's price, but only slightly since Verizon will want to make big profits too and not go too far down in a price war. ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 11:36:34 -0400 Subject: AOL VoIP in 2005 Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/53185 Beta testers receiving gear Can you say crowded market? Some users in our VoIP forum have been invited into an upcoming AOL VoIP beta. AOL has signed up Level3 as a partner, been hiring for the division, and is expected to launch the product sometime in 2005. Once again the company will wind up competing with itself; Time Warner Cable's Digital Phone service is expected to go live over the next six months. Article and reader comments at: http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/53185 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: Lisa Minter Subject: Last Laugh! Boom! Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 15:18:00 -0500 A Bomb Shelter With Class If you're sure the end is near, QSleeper.com might be the site for you. The online company sells the yet-to-be-produced Quantum Sleeper, a bed that promises to protect you from biochemical terrorist attacks, kidnappers and stalkers, even natural disasters while you sleep. The bulletproof beds can be outfitted with TVs, DVD players, computers and refrigerators. Tin foil hat not included. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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