From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Sep 2 16:57:54 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i82Kvrp20357; Thu, 2 Sep 2004 16:57:54 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 16:57:54 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409022057.i82Kvrp20357@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 #410 TELECOM Digest Thu, 2 Sep 2004 16:57:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 410 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Portable Media Centers (Monty Solomon) Party Lines no More? (Lisa Hancock) Spreading Spam (Eric Friedebach) Re: Verizon Cable TV? (Isaiah Beard) Re: Verizon Cable TV? (Lisa Hancock) Re: Latest NorVergence Bankruptcy Hearing News (8/26/ (Isaiah Beard) Re: You Can Still Send a Western Union Mailgram (Lisa Hancock) Re: Considering VoIP For Home? Think Twice About AT&T CallVantage (Chip) Re: Dating an Old Phone Number (Lisa Hancock) Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service (DevilsPGD) Re: Last Laugh! A Visit to Doctor's Office (DevilsPGD) 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: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 08:42:25 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Portable Media Centers Microsoft Drives a New Category of Digital Entertainment By Announcing Availability of the First Portable Media Centers Creative Zen Portable Media Center Hits Store Shelves and First Content Services Come Online; TV Tuner Card Industry Announces Broad Support for Video on the Go REDMOND, Wash., Sept. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) today announced that the first Windows Mobile(TM)-based Portable Media Centers from Creative Labs Inc. will be available to the public tomorrow at Best Buy and Creative.com and in the coming weeks from Amazon.com Inc., CompUSA Inc., Fry's Electronics, Good Guys Inc. and other electronics retailers nationwide. Portable Media Centers from Samsung Electronics and iRiver International will be available later this fall. Microsoft also solidified content sources for Portable Media Centers, with the first online offerings from MLB Advanced Media (MLB.com) and CinemaNow Inc., as well as support from four digital TV tuner card manufacturers and software company SnapStream Media Inc. These announcements give people an increasing range of choices for video content they can watch any time, any place. Portable Media Centers are a new category of multimedia players that allow people to enjoy all the digital entertainment they store on their PC -- recorded TV, music, movies and pictures -- on one device. Portable Media Centers are one of three new digital entertainment products being introduced by Microsoft tomorrow, Sept. 2, including Windows Media(R) Player 10 and the MSN(R) Music Service. Windows Media Player 10 lets consumers easily discover, play and transport digital media around the home, on the PC or onto portable devices. MSN will launch a preview release of its MSN Music service in the United States tomorrow, offering music fans access to more than 1 million tracks licensed from all five major labels and more than 3,000 independent labels. Tracks from MSN Music will be available for playback on Portable Media Centers in Windows Media Audio format. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43443610 ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Party Lines No More? Date: 2 Sep 2004 06:42:38 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com For the younger readers: Years ago installing individual copper phone lines to each subscriber was very expensive. So subscribers shared a line in an arrangement known as the "party line". This was particu- larly common in rural areas where the lines had long runs. As technology improved (such as concentrators and carrier circuits), party lines were reduced. Some Verizon engineers told me they doubt party lines exist anywhere in the U.S. anymore for the following reasons: 1) Universal Service Fee: The high expense of rural lines is subsidized by other customers. 2) Low cost fibre: They said they were a low cost fibre system that could economically handle rural service. If any lines still exist they may be from private rural cooperative phone companies in isolated places, or from subscribers who could get private line service but just don't bother to save a $1 a month. ------------------------------ From: friedebach@yahoo.com (Eric Friedebach) Subject: Spreading Spam Date: 2 Sep 2004 09:31:06 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Scott Woolley, 09.01.04, Forbes.com LOS ANGELES - This June a barrage of spam popped up in 152,000 in-boxes. They pitched the standard stuff: One was an advertisement for the "Top Drug Store Online," another offered mortgage refinancing, another spy equipment for getting "the evidence on your in-laws." And, of course, many pitched porn. But one thing made the spam unusual: It was delivered not to regular e-mail in-boxes but via text messaging to Verizon Wireless cell phone service. Once an affliction confined to e-mail boxes, spam is spreading. Besides cell phones, innovative spammers are beginning to experiment with a technology known as voice-over-Internet Protocol, or VoIP, that lets people send phone calls over the Internet. http://www.forbes.com/wireless/2004/09/01/cz_sw_0901spam.html Eric Friedebach /Favorite OnStar commercial: crying woman drops keys in toilet/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is very depressing, isn't it ... The ratio of spam to valid email continues to rise. Is the net (as a whole body) now up to the 90 percent mark yet? I know I have seen reports in the recent past setting it at about 80-85 percent of the total volume of email; I know here at telecom-digest.org it has floated along at about 85-90 percent for several months, especially on weekends when valid email drops off as people take time off from work or school, etc. A three day holiday weekend as is now approaching will surely send the spam count sky high. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard Subject: Re: Verizon Cable TV? Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 12:13:11 -0400 Lisa Hancock wrote: > I have found Verizon service to be very good. My long distance costs > went down and service quality went up when they were allowed to offer > their own long distance. I dumped AT&T. > Verizon had to enlarge their central office and worked hard with the > town to preserve nearby Victorian homes (which they owned; one was the > exchange 50 years ago) as well as make the building fit into the > historic district. Part of the need for enlargement was to accomodate > competitor's switchgear. I suppose it depends on region. Here in central NJ, the story is very different. Dial tone has been slow in many instances, and last years' northeast blackout took out phone service with it (apparently their battery setup at the central office was not operational when the blackout hit, and neither local nor LD calls could not route even for a few hours after power was restored; cell phone service actually was MORE reliable than wireline during that period). I tried broadband through Verizon for quite a while, but the frequent downtimes of a week+ drove me crazy. The last straw was when somehow, my local calling area shrunk to about half what it used to be, and suddenly calls that used to be local (including my cell phone which was provisioned in the same city, the number to which hasn't changed in over seven years) all of a sudden weren't. I'm sure I could have fought it, but it was far less effort to simply move to VoIP and stop giving Verizon my money. >> I guess it depends on where you live. Cable and telephone have both >> been prevailing regulated monopolies for a long time, and depending on >> where you live, one or the other is the lesser of two evils that you >> must pick from. If only DBS didn't have such a horrible latency >> problem, we could all drop both services. > I thought cable TV was deregulated nationally; Yes, however in many cases there are still municipal franchise agreements that regulate their operation. > Certain premium local telephone services have been deregulated, but > AFAIK in my area the price has not gone up. Again, depends on where you live. Phone service prices have risen here; cable has not. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Comcast, but in my particular case they've screwed me far less than ol' Ma Bell. E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Verizon Cable TV? Date: 2 Sep 2004 09:52:22 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Neal McLain wrote: Regarding the comment about high construction costs -- our cable company was able to quickly replace its coax with fibre system wide without too much trouble. It ran into some neighbor objections by placing large junction boxes in unwanted locations -- it easily could've worked with the community (it did with us) for better locations. > I'm sure you've heard this a hundred times before, but here it is > again: the primary reason for rising prices for cable (and satellite) > service is the increase in the wholesale cost ("license fee") for > programming. To cite the extreme case, ESPN has risen 20% per year > for the past few years, and now costs well over $2.00 per sub per > month ($2.61 according to one reader's post here a year or so ago). Would there be any resource to look at the wholesale costs of various cable shows? I'm curious as to what things like Nick, TV Land, A&E, Hist, VH1, MTV, Family, Disney, CNN, FoxNews, etc cost. (A lot of these are owned by the same company). I'm also troubled by high wholesale costs because all of these channels liberally include commercials. What about TCM (Turner Classic Movies)? They're commercial free. ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard Subject: Re: Latest NorVergence Bankruptcy Hearing News (8/26/04) Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 10:14:29 -0400 Satchel Paige wrote: > Does anyone have information or links to what latest actions were > taken at NorVergence's most recent U.S. Bankruptcy hearing in Newark, > New Jersey? I believe the date of the most recent hearing was on > August 26, 2004. Looks like largely procedural stuff happened on that date. No new real developments, except it seems some customers may have found an avenue to get out of their leases. Here's what I have from a PACER search for events on August 26, 2004 in relation to the Norvergence bankruptcy. I am not a lawyer and this is my opinion only, so my interpretations of these events may be completely inaccurate. I'm linking to the documents I retrieved so that you can draw your own conclusions. the documents will remain linked until September 15, 2004, after which time I'll bring them offline (should be plenty of time for interested parties to have a look): - A firm known as Lage-Landen financial services was granted relief from the automatic stay order imposed from the Bankruptcy filing, and has been granted permission to repossess all equipment to which it holds leases to. (Any Norvergence customers have Matrix leases with Lage-Landen?) http://tinyurl.com/5jvwd - A firm known as BANZAI, Inc., apparently a former Norvergence customer, served notice that it is revoking acceptance of the equipment that was delivered to it by Norvergence, including the Matrix box. Again IANAL, but this might be a quick and easy way for those scammed by Norvergence to get out from under these leases. I hope it works. http://tinyurl.com/4bxrq - A firm known as NITEK Electronics file a similar revocation of acceptance. Looks like this might be the avenue to go for those who are stuck with these leases, but if I were you I'd consult a lawyer first. http://tinyurl.com/6yzdu - A firm known as ALL HABITAT SERVICES filed yet another revocation. There are other documents that can be retrieved, but I get dinged on a per-page basis for each retrieval, and they all look fairly similar, aside from various certificates of mailing and other mundane items. There appears to have been a hearing held on September 1 as well, but when I checked PACER, there was nothing up yet regarding what happened in that hearing. E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But until *YOU*, individual reader with a Norvergence lease agreement, hear from your attorney to the contrary, you ARE freezing all accounts payable to Norvergence or the bank, right? To those of you who spoke so vocally against my idea of withholding payments claiming the victims would get sued, get their credit ruined, etc, none of that has happened yet, has it? To you poor small business people, let this be a good lesson to you about how to handle door to door pushy salesmen with their pitches for crappy telephone equipment who gasp as they say their time is too valuable to speak to anyone but the 'decision maker' in the company and how if you do not sign this paper here and now you won't get another chance to do so again. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: You Can Still Send a Western Union Mailgram Date: 2 Sep 2004 07:47:58 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) wrote > Lisa Hancock wrote: >> The Western Union website IIRC says Mailgrams are no longer provided. I checked their website. I was mistaken; WU still offers Mailgrams. See: http://www.westernunion.com/info/bsMessaging.asp?country=U1 Sorry about that. ------------------------------ From: Chip G Subject: Re: Considering VoIP For Home? Think Twice About AT&T CallVantage Organization: Comcast Online Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 15:10:33 GMT charlie3 wrote in message news:telecom23.408.7@telecom-digest.org: > I have Vonage set to ring my cell and Vonage phone simultaneously so I > can answer the call with either phone. At home I hear both phones > ring at the same time. I have voicemail set up so that Vonage > voicemail picks up the call before cell phone voicemail so all my > voice messages are on Vonage. > I can check Vonage voice mail with the cell phone, a land line, over > the internet or from the Vonage phone. If the cell phone was in range > during the missed call I will see a missed call message on the cell > phone and often the missed call number as well. I don't see the > missed call name on the cell phone unless the caller is in my cell > phone list. > If the Vonage box is disconnected or the network is down I have Vonage > set to forward all calls to my cell phone. > Vonage will forward calls only to one non Vonage phone but to more > than one Vonage account. It would be convenient for me if Vonage > would allow more than one non Vonage phone for simultaneous ring but > that limitation is not enough to push me to another provider. > My Vonage account has my 20+ years home phone number ported to it. > Unlike old fashioned call forwarding, simultaneous ring is set and > forget. People need only one number to find me. They don't need to > know I have a cell phone. My cell phone minutes at home are zero so I > need half the cell minutes of most people who rely on cell phones. > When I pick up my Vonage phone I hear a dial tone, my call goes > through, the person I'm talking to does not notice we are on an > internet phone. When I leave the house the house phone is clipped to > my belt, there is no cell phone number as a practical matter. > Occasionally my network goes down or the Vonage box is disconnected > for travel. Then the cell phone backs me up both for incoming and > outgoing calls. These occasions have been so rare there has been > little impact on my cell phone minutes. > There is a learning curve with VOIP. Expect some glitches. I advise > my friends who are interested to have either a cell phone or > traditional phone for backup. I also advise forwarding the house > phone to the Vonage phone for a testing period of a few months before > porting the house phone to Vonage. > For me Vonage is the right product for the right price. If the > quality of service stays as it is I won't be needing a tradiational > house phone now or in the future. Thanks Charlie. The one thing that is still unclear to me is ... What happens if someone dials your Vonage number and your cell phone is turned off or outside the coverage area for your cellular provider? Does the call get answered by your cell phone voicemail? ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Dating an Old Phone Number Date: 2 Sep 2004 09:43:10 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com elgart@earthlink.net wrote: > I have a list of old and new exchange > designations taken from the New York Times of August 24, 1930 and in > about 35 of them the first number of the new designation did not > correspond with the third letter of the old designation. I suspect > that was done deliberately to force people to learn the new numbering > scheme. Thanks for the date reference. I wish I could find something for Phila. I checked the newspapers on the date of Phila's conversion but they just had a small tidbit. Phila newspapers aren't indexed. Likewise, Phila's conversion from 3L to 2L also made almost everyone different than before. (Phila changed just after WW II). ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service Reply-To: bond-jamesbond@crazyhat.net Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 10:16:43 GMT In message John R. Covert wrote: >> Complaints would be registered by dialing *55, which would not only >> "tag" The call in the telcos database, but immediately inform you >> whether ANI and CID matches. > You're making two assumptions: > 1. That ANI is passed along through the network. There is no need > for it to be passed anywhere billing information is not needed. > 2. Even if it is passed along, the assumption that it should be > the same is not true. The ANI for a call from a DID PBX is likely > to be the main number, whereas the caller ID could be either > the main number or the actual DID number. Or even the other > way around. Or from a VoIP phone, the ANI is the number at > which the call enters the network, and the Caller ID is the > actual number. Or for a call forwarded through another > number, the ANI is the number of the phone doing the forwarding > and the caller ID is the number of the original caller. Fair enough. I think the principle is sound, but it might need some tweaking in terms of implementation. One possibility is to go strictly on a "pass the buck" system, where each telco that the call passed through is held responsible unless the telco can identify the source of the call. It's not an optical illusion. It just looks like one. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That's an old trick, but quite effec- tive. Place (and enforce) the blame on the last person or entity in the line unless *they* can push it further along. And believe me, when push comes to shove, they *will* find someone further down the line to hand the hot potato to. You give them one or two passes with a firm warning there will be no further excuses allowed, then watch how the conditions so prevalent in much of telephony get corrected/cured in a hurry. I for one, cannot see why *any* user or subscriber should ever be allowed to tamper with their own caller ID. Ditto with spam and virii hassles. If Microsoft, and the makers of hardware got together and devised a nearly foolproof method of *absolutely without question identifying every piece of equipment out there* then spam and virus writing/spreading would come to a screaming halt. Consider the ESN (electronic serial number) on your cellular phone. Some one steals it, and just a phone call from you to the carrier blacklists it forever. It will never again talk or recieve calls, as the number propogates through the hot lists. I don't hear anyone complaining that the propogation of their cell phone's ESN is somehow a 'violation of privacy rights' when a cell tower picks up the user's transmission and deals with it. Why should anyone (except spammers of course) complain when an ISP passes their traffic and looks at the computer 'electronic serial number' which has been burned in the hardware, and while not totally impossible to diddle with would frustrate most spammers totally. But back to the statement at hand: I receive spam or virii and look for the untampered with ESN of the person or place which sent it to me. Good, I found you. You are the guilty one and your machine goes on the hotlist. If you are in a position to buy a new computer every week or two just to be able to continue sending out your crapola then god bless you! Add that little economic incentive to the pressure we put on ISPs who willfully encourage that sort of customer. PAT] ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Last Laugh! A Visit to Doctor's Office Reply-To: bond-jamesbond@crazyhat.net Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 10:15:28 GMT In message Tom Smith wrote: >> 'Tis far better to have snipped too much than to never have snipped >> at all.' > Not if you are describing your circumcision. ROFL. Fair enough. It's not an optical illusion. It just looks like one. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I guess by now everyone has seen the newspaper account of the doctor who slipped up when doing that sort of thing and wound up cutting off most of 'it' by accident. The family of the little guy was livid to say the least and sued the doctor, which did not help the little guy until a bit later when some reconstructive surgery was done on him. The poor kid grew up with much psychological trauma until the surgery was done which restored his 'manhood'. PAT] ------------------------------ 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. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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SPONSORED BY TELECOM DIGEST AND EASY411.COM SIGN UP AT http://www.easy411.com/telecomdigest ! ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V23 #410 ******************************