From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Sep 4 23:39:00 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i853cx014810; Sat, 4 Sep 2004 23:39:00 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 23:39:00 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409050339.i853cx014810@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 #415 TELECOM Digest Sat, 4 Sep 2004 23:38:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 415 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: My New DVR From Cable One (Danny Burstein) Re: My New DVR From Cable One (Gary Breuckman) Re: My New DVR From Cable One (Tony P.) Re: Cordless Phones Not Working on Working Phone Line (Steve Sobol) Re: Cordless Phones Not Working on Working Phone Line (Tony P.) Norvergence Article in Chicago Tribune (Jim Haynes) Re: Solzano Rides Again! (Lisa Hancock) Re: A Competing TV Provider (Dan Lanciani) Re: Outsource Firm Sues in India / Alleged Code Theft Highlights (J M) Re: Party Lines No More? (John P. Dearing) 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: Danny Burstein Subject: Re: My New DVR From Cable One Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 13:05:03 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In TELECOM Digest Editor writes: [ snip... discussion of his new digital cable box with pvr courtesy of his cable company ] > The last thing in the world I need is a Digital Video Recorder/Cable > Converter but since I got it free I am not going to refuse it. > Totally tapeless, it can store several hours of programs in its > memory, has the ability to speed past commercial messages in a > second or two, etc. As anyone with a TIVO, one of the two original leaders in the DVR field will tell you, your television life is about to change. Dramatically. And mostly for the better. Watching your chosen programs on your own schedule is much, much, more civilized. But the other point is that your electric bill will also change, and not for the better. My TIVO pulls a steady 30 watts, and your box probably pulls about the same. (Remember that it's basically a computer hard drive in constant use plus overhead). At a typical charge of $0.20 (20 cents) per kw-hr, that's a bit over $4/month in electricity. Add another buck or two if you're using air conditining and have to dump out that heat. Usually worth it, but worth a thought or two. (And the "off" switch, if it has one, is only for show). _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I used to save the TV book which came each week in the Sunday Independence Reporter and go though it making notes of the movies I wanted to see; but I never got around to watching them anyway, and recently mostly even quit reading the Sunday paper. There is a 'TV Guide Electronic Edition' both on channel 17 on the cable and by pushing a few buttons on the remote control, but mostly all I ever watch are the TV-Land shows on Channel 56, and then not very often. Mostly I listen to KRPS 89.9 FM on the same cable, which I could get whether I paid for it or not, since it and the Tulsa NPR station (89.5 FM) are both carried gratis on the cable anyway. I have told that same thing to the lady in the office at our local CableOne a few times; namely that I don't watch television and all I want are the FM stations I can find on the cable and the high speed internet. She always gives me a dirty look when I mention the free carriage available to Pittsburg and Tulsa NPR. She said to me the other day "well, we are not gonna have those free NPR stations much longer." My response to her was "sure you will, you don't make that decision anyway, your corporate office in Phoenix does after making agreements with the FCC." Then I got an even dirtier look from her. The temperature here has been in the 95-105 degree range every day for the past two weeks, and I do leave the air conditioner (an 18,000 BTU window unit) on 24/7 usually ice cold. And I leave my computers turned on 24/7 also, so my electric bill is pretty awful most of the summer. I imagine the new DVR will add to the bill, but I tend to sit in the dark or dim light) quite a bit anyway so that is some offset. I have not yet figured out how to use the remote control unit for the DVR totally, let alone make a specific effort to watch/record anything. Since I live only three blocks from the electric power generating station, maybe I should ask them to give me a break on the high rates. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Gary Breuckman Subject: Re: My New DVR From Cable One Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 10:21:28 -0500 Organization: Puma's Lair - catbox.com In article , "TELECOM Digest Editor" wrote: > So I got downtown to pay today and the lady takes my money then brings > me a large box, and says "this is your new converter unit, I will have > my husband bring it out to your house this afternoon and remove your old > converter and swap this one in its place." After she assured me it would > *not* affect my bill at all, she explained it was their 'new style > converter unit' which is actually a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) > combined with all the features which had earlier been on the box. This > new converter unit looks exactly like the old one, but it includes an 80 > gig hard drive, and the ability to record shows as you watch them, or > record one show as you watch another, or watch 'live television' but > stop it for a few minutes to go the bathroom or get a phone call, etc. Time-Warner here (Milwaukee) also offers a DVR, it's not quite free, they want $5/month for it, but that's inexpensive enough to be of interest. You can also watch one channel and record another, or record two channels at a time, or decide towards the end of show that you've only been watching that you want to save it and watch it again later. I don't have one, we have two VCR's and that's met our needs so far. -- Gary Breuckman [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My television is a TV/VCR combination, and I do now and then watch movies I get from the Blockbuster store here in town, but I think only one time I recorded to it from the television set. I have found one interesting thing about the new DVR unit: I have a wireless cam in my back yard which focuses on a bird sanctuary area which has a feeder, water and a couple nests. By fiddling with the switches on the back of the DVR (and feeding the wireless cam into it [instead of to the video AUX input on the TV as I had been doing]) I can still watch over the birds from the comfort of my house but I can switch between a small picture inside the larger picture (what Cable One calls PIP or 'picture in picture') to a full screen picture of the birds, as the cat torments them, or a picture of what I had been watching or a little picture of one or the other superimposed on the other picture (the PIP feature). PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: My New DVR From Cable One Organization: ATCC Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 19:50:32 GMT In article , ptownson@telecom- digest.org says: > Friday afternoon I went downtown to pay some bills and one place I > stopped at was the CableOne office on Penn Street. CableOne is where I > get my internet service and my cable television/radio. I get a monthly > package through them called 'Digital Internet' which costs about $95 > per month and includes half a T-1 for internet, a 'cable modem' and a > couple hundred channels of television; the package also includes 38 > channels of non-commercial radio, including a couple channnels of > classical music. I almost never watch television; I was more inter- > ested in having fast cable internet around. Also, quite coincidentally > the cable carries 89.5 FM (NPR from Tulsa) and 89.9 FM (NPR from > Pittsburg, KS) and those two services on the cable (totally free) > offer me all the classical music I want, including channel 938 on the > cable itself which is non-commercial uninteruppted classical music all > the time. > So I got downtown to pay today and the lady takes my money then brings > me a large box, and says "this is your new converter unit, I will > have my husband bring it out to your house this afternoon and remove > your old converter and swap this one in its place." After she assured > me it would *not* affect my bill at all, she explained it was their > 'new style converter unit' which is actually a DVR (Digital Video > Recorder) combined with all the features which had earlier been on > the box. This new converter unit looks exactly like the old one, but > it includes an 80 gig hard drive, and the ability to record shows as > you watch them, or record one show as you watch another, or watch > 'live television' but stop it for a few minutes to go the bathroom > or get a phone call, etc. By the time I got home in the cab, the > guy from CableOne was sitting in front of my door with the unit. Its > about the size of a standalone VCR player, and weighs five to ten > pounds. It plugs in the cable line exactly as the older unit did > with the same outputs to television and radio or other speakers. Interestingly the digital cable boxes manufactured over the past 5 or so years have had the ability to have an HD placed in them for the express purpose of recording. It's just in the past couple of years that HD prices have dropped like a stone. It's now < $1.00 per gigabyte. I've just got basic cable right now because quite frankly, having the box isn't worth it. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Our 'basic' cable here is twenty or so channels; the 'extended basic' is sixty channels; the 'Digital Internet' package is a pretty good deal; that is what I have, and it includes several HBO things, several Showtime things, various EFTN sports channels, thirty or so digital music channels which are commercial free, etc. Plus which, I can use my credit card to purchase various 'on demand' channels, etc. Without *some kind* of cable, Independence gets *two* (out of *three* possible) television channels, provided you have a very high antenna directionally pointed to (take your pick) Wichita (110 miles northwest), Tulsa (80 miles straight south) or Joplin, MO/Pittsburg, KS (90 miles straight east). On the 'basic' cable you get twenty channels, but these twenty consist of three each of ABC, NBC, CBS (nine channels), two Foxes (Tulsa and Joplin), a couple of PBS's, and the usual assortment of municipal channels, including one channel each for city hall, Independence Community College and Independence High School. Without the 'free ride' they get on cable, you cannot get 89.9 or 89.5 FM here. 80-90 miles is just too far out of range. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Cordless Phones Not Working on Working Phone Line Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 07:39:14 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com doggie-bert wrote: > 2 days ago both of the cordless phones in my apartment stopped > working. Thinking that the phones had died we went out and bought a > new cordless phone, but this new phone also isn't working. I've tried > every phone jack in the house and corded phones work fine as well as > the new answering machine. My DSL is also working fine. All 3 of the > phones are 900 Mhz, so it could be something interfering with the > signal, but I don't know what. Anyone out there have any ideas? This used to happen to me years ago, and Ohio Bell/Ameritech reps told me to unplug the phones and let them sit for a while (10-30 minutes) and plug them back in. I have no idea *why* that solution worked, but it *did* work. 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. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Cordless Phones Not Working on Working Phone Line Organization: ATCC Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 19:55:44 GMT In article , dreisc@gmail.com says: > 2 days ago both of the cordless phones in my apartment stopped > working. Thinking that the phones had died we went out and bought a > new cordless phone, but this new phone also isn't working. I've tried > every phone jack in the house and corded phones work fine as well as > the new answering machine. My DSL is also working fine. All 3 of the > phones are 900 Mhz, so it could be something interfering with the > signal, but I don't know what. Anyone out there have any ideas? I almost hate to suggest, but is it getting power to the base unit? ------------------------------ Subject: Norvergence Article in Chicago Tribune Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 16:33:29 GMT Today's (Sep 4) Chicago Tribune has an article about Norvergence, in the business section under "Bad ring to bankrupt phone firm". Starts off telling about a small business owner who signed up for the service and is now obligated to pay $200/mo. for the electronic box, even tho he gets no service. I won't copy the article here, because of copyright, but you can read it on line. (Probably have to register, which is free). jhhaynes at earthlink dot net ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: Solzano Rides Again! Date: 4 Sep 2004 13:43:28 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to A. Reader : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I guess this time the Solzano brothers > have the money to do it right. At least one would hope so. PAT] I read a biography of Harry Truman, and one aspect may have relevance here. During the 1930s Truman, a new Senator, was assigned to the committee handling interstate commerce, including corporate bankruptcies. Truman discovered that despite some corporations going bankrupt, a lot of people were walking away quite wealthy. Sometimes both businesses and individuals are the victim of circumstances and despite their best efforts, end up in bankruptcy. (Truman, while not bankrupt, lost his own business and spent years paying off the debts). But sometimes both businesses and individuals are irresponsible, throw money away, and fail to live within a realistic budget. The rest of us end up paying for that. I don't know the underlying facts in the Norv. troubles, such as why their cash flow control was so bad that the employees weren't paid or what happened to all the up-front money received for the service leases. I do think there is a public interest in this case for an impartial body to investigate the circumstances and let the public know so it may be prevented in the future. I am also confused as to how the principals of a bankrupt organization could start a new venture so quickly before the dust as even settled on their failed one. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 03:10:27 EDT From: Dan Lanciani Subject: Re: A Competing TV Provider > ISPs are not the only players hoping to muscle in on the lucrative pay > TV services market, and as start-up U.S. Digital Television Inc. > (USDTV) has shown, delivering alternative TV services over IP > networks-as inevitable as it may seem to ISPs-is not the only option. [...] > The company is partnering with local TV stations, transmitting on > their unused digital broadcast spectrum and using their transmission > infrastructure. Its ambitious plan is to expand to 100-plus markets > over the next three years. And now we begin to see the real potential of the forced digital broadcasting transition: the reallocation of spectrum from free program material to pay TV. Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com ------------------------------ From: J M Subject: Re: Outsource Firm Sues in India / Alleged Code Theft Highlights Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 15:21:09 GMT I see a few problems with this story and it's shame that major news papers reporting one-sided story without investigating further. - Mr Jolly's account has a few problems. For example: "Jolly went directly to the Cyber Crime unit of the Mumbai Police Force" and "Low-level police in India don't really know what a computer is." I know Mumbai police has one of the most advanced facilities in India with LANs and internet access thanks to Reliance Industry founder generous donation for building new police facilities. Here is other one "I'm very surprised to hear that the police and even NASSCOM are behaving that way". May be there is a reason why, who knows what the real truth is. "In our case, instead of helping be reasone why he got good treatment. May be harresment complaint againt Mr Jolly by a women? It's very common in some countries get roughed up by police for harrasment complaints against a person. JM! Monty Solomon wrote in message news:telecom23.402.4@telecom-digest.org: > By Karl Schoenberger > Mercury News > In a case that exposes the intellectual-property risks of outsourcing > in India, a small San Carlos software company has sued Mumbai police > for refusing to investigate the alleged theft of proprietary source > code by an employee at its Indian subsidiary. > Sandeep Jolly, the founder and chief executive of Jolly Technologies, > said U.S. technology companies should beware of the risks of doing > business in his native land at a time when many are taking advantage > of the cost savings of offshoring and entrusting sensitive software > development and testing work to Indian contractors. Protection of > intellectual property is still a new concept for lawmakers, police > and prosecutors, he said. > http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9500402.htm ------------------------------ From: John P. Dearing Subject: Re: Party Lines No More? Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 19:21:06 GMT Lisa Hancock wrote: > 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. In Pennsylvania, the party-line tariff doesn't exist anymore (only as a grandfathered offering). This means that subscribers with existing party lines can keep then and aren't forced to get rid of them but no new party lines will be offered. By the 1980's and 1990's so few people still had party lines that many of them were effectively single party lines. That is, they had no "mate" on the party line. Bell then started doing "party line reassociations" which is putting party lines back together. You'd look for a Ring party with no mate and find a Tip party with no mate. Put them together and you now have a party line again. Some folks weren't too happy with this, since for years they didn't have to share the line with anyone and now they did. Anyone that complained was offered the opportunity to convert to single party service which was now nearly the same price. Once on a single party line, they could also get other features not available on party lines, like call waiting and voicemail, etc ... if they wanted. John Dearing A+, Network+ ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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