From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Sep 22 15:38:17 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8MJcHu26862; Wed, 22 Sep 2004 15:38:17 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 15:38:17 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409221938.i8MJcHu26862@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 #441 TELECOM Digest Wed, 22 Sep 2004 15:39:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 441 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson CBS Storm Washes Over Viacom (Monty Solomon) Internet Deprivation Study (Monty Solomon) Public Interest Groups Decry Shortcomings of "Save Lives" (M Solomon) Lucent Max TNT Out of Memory During Memory Allocation (Sabine Jordan) Re: TouchTone Patent (Dave Garland) Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? (vu huong) Re: Digital Age 'May Mean no TV For Poor' [UK] (Peter R Cook) Re: Vonage and SIP (Carl Navarro) Re: DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: LNP For a Move (John Levine) Re: Out of Area Calls (John R. Covert) Re: Out of Area Calls (Truth) Re: The Wal-Mart Supremacy (Lisa Hancock) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Lisa Hancock) Filipino VOIP Solution Released: Libreng Tawag Gamit Ang Internet (VOIP) Jobs at Risk if CRTC Regulates VoIP, Hearing told (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: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 11:12:07 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CBS Storm Washes Over Viacom By GERALDINE FABRIKANT As CBS News faces one of the worst public embarrassments in its history, experts say that the damage to the network's news division could be significant -- and costly. But CBS's parent company, Viacom, is not expected to suffer much of a blow from the scandal over the National Guard documents that CBS News now concedes cannot be authenticated. Viacom, which grew out of a small chain of movie theaters that Sumner M. Redstone, its chairman, acquired from his father in the 1950's, stretches far beyond CBS, and the fate of its other businesses is not closely tied to the reputation of its news operation. Viacom owns cable networks, including MTV, Nickelodeon and Showtime. The company also operates the Paramount Pictures movie studio; Simon & Schuster, the book publisher; and Infinity Broadcasting, the nation's second-largest chain of radio stations behind Clear Channel Communications. It has a controlling stake in Blockbuster Video, which it is planning to spin off soon. The television division accounted for $1.2 billion in profit, or one-third of Viacom's $3.6 billion operating income last year, but most of that profit came from the local TV stations it owns and from advertising generated by its prime-time entertainment and other programs. The national news division, whose evening news program remains stuck in third place in the ratings behind NBC and ABC, generated no more than $100 million to $300 million in operating profit, according to one person close to the company. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/22/business/media/22viacom.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 11:12:20 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Internet Deprivation Study Yahoo! and OMD Reveal Study Depicting Life Without the Internet; Study Participants Suffered Withdrawal Symptoms, Feelings of Loss When Deprived of Web Access for Two Weeks NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 22, 2004--Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company, and OMD, the world's leading media agency(1), today unveiled the findings of an Internet Deprivation Study examining consumers' media habits and their emotional connection towards the Internet. All participants in the qualitative portion of the study found living without the Internet more difficult than they expected, and in some cases impossible, because the tools and services the Internet offers were firmly ingrained in their daily lives. Participants found that many daily activities were impacted and impaired, including booking travel, checking sports scores, communicating with friends and family, and paying bills. Nearly half the respondents in a complementary quantitative study indicated they could not go without the Internet for more than two weeks and the median time respondents could go without being online is five days. The detailed findings of this Internet Deprivation Study will be discussed in-depth today at a Yahoo!/OMD joint event for marketers at The Harvard Club as part of New York's Advertising Week. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43779465 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 11:12:07 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Public Interest Groups Decry Shortcomings of "Save Lives" Digital Contact: Ben Scott, FP (202) 265-1490 x1 or Mark Cooper CFA, (301) 384-2204 Bill expected for markup Sept. 22 [Open Letter Submitted to Members of Senate Commerce Committee from Free Press and Consumer Federation of America] Dear Senator, We are writing to express our deep concerns about the Spectrum Availability for Emergency-Response and Law Enforcement To Improve Vital Emergency Services Act (the Save Lives Act). This bill finally admits that, in spite of a multibillion dollar give-away to broadcasters, the transition to digital television will take decades if the broadcasters are left to their own devices. It sets a much-needed, hard deadline for the return of some of the most valuable airwaves to the public. We support the provisions that seek to enhance public safety by devoting a part of the newly freed airwaves to use by public safety organizations. Unfortunately, the provisions that claim to protect consumers and promote the public interest in other uses of the airwaves are a disaster. After the needs of public safety users are taken care of, the Save Lives Act misallocates the airwaves between licensed and unlicensed uses, misappropriates the funds that would be raised through auction of the airwaves, and fails to adequately protect consumers from the burden of a forced transition to digital broadcasting. http://www.freepress.net/news/release.php?id=26 ------------------------------ From: jordan@rate-one.de (Sabine Jordan) Subject: Lucent Max TNT Out of Memory During Memory Allocation Date: 22 Sep 2004 02:54:54 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello, We have 4 Lucent TNTs -- of which 2 at a time are connected to a compound (shelf master and slave). We are experiencing an increase of problems during the last weeks. The machines worked very well until a few weeks ago -- we have got error-messages like these: LOG critical, Shelf 1, Slot 17, Time: 13:51:10-- FATAL ERROR Index: 2 Revision: 8.0.5 Slot 2/10 (tntcsmx) Location: e0110e58 e0162578 e00226c8 e0025c5c e00ffa78 e0097384 LOG error, Shelf 1, Slot 17, Time: 13:51:13-- lost control messaging link to slot 2/10 LOG error, Shelf 1, Slot 17, Time: 15:38:34-- WARNING Index: 179 Revision: 8.0.5 Slot 1/13 (tntcsmx) Location: e00e02fc e00229fc e0025c5c e00ffa78 e0097384 00000000 LOG alert, Shelf 1, Slot 13, Time: 15:38:34-- Protection violation: ind.prot = 0 ind.det = 1, addrType = 00001000 at 00000008 e000e108 e00e02e0 e00229fc e0025c5c e00ffa78 e0097384 We get these error messages constantly, a few times a day. The TNTs are working anyway, but sometimes, due to these error messages the machines refuse to accept connections from dial-in users. After rebooting the machines everything will be fine again, for some time. I have already found out that "FATAL ERROR Index: 2" points to an "out of memory during memory allocation"- error. Therefore I have checked the utilization of memory on the TNTs. On both of the compounds the number of "memallco failures" is conspicuously high and everytime after FATAL ERROR Index: 2 occured the number obviously increases again. The utiliziation of memory on our TNTs fluctuates between 80% and 90%. I am not sure whether we have not enough memory for our TNTs, or if there are any known issues with the software version (Revision 8.0.5) we are using, or if the problem is somewhere else. I have attached a summary of the memory utilization-output. It would be very nice, if I could get some information on how to solve the problem. Thanks in advance and best regards, Sabine Jordan Rate One GmbH Schleussnerstrasse 90 63263 Neu-Isenburg Tel: 06102/8829-312 Fax:06102/8829-399 ------- my findings ------- Maschinenverbund Standort 1/Compound Location 1: total pools: 292 total buffers in use: 137482 total memalloc: 799532401 total memfree: 799525572 memalloc in use: 6831 memalloc failures: 3307047 memfree failures: 0 memalloc high water: 11521 Histogram of memalloc'd memory block sizes: 3444 buffers in range [64,127] 1482 buffers in range [128,255] 140 buffers in range [256,511] 4 buffers in range [512,1023] 4 buffers in range [1024,2047] 2128 buffers in range [2048,4095] 2 buffers in range [4096,8191] 13 buffers in range [8192,16383] 3 buffers in range [16384,32767] 1 buffers in range [32768,65535] 1 buffers in range [65536,131071] 1 buffers in range [131072,262143] 2 buffers in range [262144,524287] 2 buffers in range [524288,1048575] Total memory in use: 7648896 bytes in 7227 buffers Histogram of free memory block sizes: 17024 buffers in range [64,127] 7 buffers in range [128,255] 115 buffers in range [256,511] 3 buffers in range [512,1023] 24 buffers in range [1024,2047] 35 buffers in range [2048,4095] 33 buffers in range [4096,8191] 27 buffers in range [8192,16383] 12 buffers in range [16384,32767] Total free memory: 2034304 bytes in 17280 buffers total segments free: 31948 total segments on free lists: 195 Maschinenverbund Standort 2/Compound Location 2: total pools: 280 total buffers in use: 25752 total memalloc: 115199326 total memfree: 115190278 memalloc in use: 9050 memalloc failures: 1106543 memfree failures: 0 memalloc high water: 17843 Histogram of memalloc'd memory block sizes: 3718 buffers in range [64,127] 1736 buffers in range [128,255] 97 buffers in range [256,511] 4 buffers in range [512,1023] 4 buffers in range [1024,2047] 3850 buffers in range [2048,4095] 2 buffers in range [4096,8191] 13 buffers in range [8192,16383] 3 buffers in range [16384,32767] 1 buffers in range [32768,65535] 1 buffers in range [65536,131071] 1 buffers in range [131072,262143] 2 buffers in range [262144,524287] 2 buffers in range [524288,1048575] Total memory in use: 11321216 bytes in 9434 buffers Histogram of free memory block sizes: 135 buffers in range [64,127] 25 buffers in range [128,255] 20 buffers in range [256,511] 291 buffers in range [512,1023] 1122 buffers in range [1024,2047] 444 buffers in range [2048,4095] 365 buffers in range [4096,8191] 268 buffers in range [8192,16383] 73 buffers in range [16384,32767] 8 buffers in range [32768,65535] Total free memory: 10510976 bytes in 2751 buffers total segments free: 165330 total segments on free lists: 1132 ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: TouchTone Patent Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 02:05:48 -0500 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote: > I saw a 1959 Bell System ad "for the future" and one of the > phones was a Touch Tone set. It used a 500 base, with a round > unit fitting through the dial hole that contained the keypad (10 button). > I think that design looks more attractive than the bigger squared off > flat front actually used for the 2500 set, but I guess that is a > subjective matter of opinion. Sort of off-topic, but the 500 set was designed by Henry Dreyfuss, a superstar industrial designer of the era who also was involved in designing the 302 set (which set the style of telephones for the next 60 years) and the Trimline, as well as the "Big Ben" alarm clock, locomotives, and the circular Honeywell thermostat. ------------------------------ From: psychoshredder@yahoo.com (vu huong) Subject: Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? Date: 22 Sep 2004 01:14:25 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Diamond Dave wrote in message news:: > On 20 Sep 2004 19:57:09 -0700, psychoshredder@yahoo.com (vu huong) > wrote: >> Hello, >> Does anyone know of any old telephone systems still in use in the US >> (i.e. SxS, etc.) If so, is it possible to post any phone numbers so I >> could "hear" them in action? > As far as I know, there are no more step or crossbar offices in the US > or Canada. The last one that I'm aware of was Nates, Quebec in Canada, > which was converted to digital in June 2002. > If you want to hear recordings of old step and crossbar offices, visit > these two websites: > Phone Trips: > http://www.wideweb.com/phonetrips WHOA!! that is an awesome site! I'm currently burning all those awesome recordings onto CDs so I can listen to em at work and in my car. Yes, I'm a vintage phone sounds dork ;) Those Evan Doorbell narratives are great! THANK YOU!!!!!!!! Vu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 10:51:08 +0100 From: Peter R Cook Subject: Re: Digital Age 'May Mean no TV For Poor' [UK] Organization: Personal In message , Gene S. Berkowitz writes: > In article , monty@roscom.com > says: >> WILLIAM CHISHOLM >> MANY low-income families across the south of Scotland will be without >> television three years from now as the cost of converting sets from >> analogue to digital reception will be beyond their financial reach, it >> has been claimed. >> A consultation document published by Ofcom, the media regulator, has >> confirmed that the Border ITV area is in line to become the first >> region in the UK to lose analogue signals in 2007 as broadcasters and >> the government embark on a four-year programme to switch to an >> all-digital system. >> http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1095472004 > Oh, please. > In three years, a digital->analog set top converter box will cost less > than a Colour TV license. > --Gene Already does. Digital Set-top box UKP50-75. Colour TV Licence UKP 116.00 But they do have to sell newspapers!! Since when did reality get in the way of a good story? Regards Peter R Cook ------------------------------ From: Carl Navarro Subject: Re: Vonage and SIP Reply-To: cnavarro@wcnet.org Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 10:06:58 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 21:10:36 -0700, Steve Sobol wrote: > Stanley Cline wrote: >> Like pretty much all other consumer VoIP services, Vonage uses SIP -- >> but Vonage only allows use of hardware devices and softphones that >> they provide. :( > Vonage sucks, then. > Unfortunately, they are the one and only VoIP provider that offers > local numbers in the Victor Valley region of California. > Unless someone else can tell me of a service that has local numbers > available in the Victorville/Apple Valley rate center, that is. Packet8 lists Victorville as a rate center. www.packet8.net Carl >> kludge. Other VoIP providers, such as VoicePulse and BroadVoice, are >> much more friendly to Asterisk users. > Broadvoice offers area-code 760 prefixes, but from what I can tell > they're all closer to San Diego than here. 760 is a weird area code > that includes suburbs of San Diego and runs north up the eastern edge > of California. > I chose 760-217 (Victorville prefix), and was told by VoicePulse that > the available rate centers are Vista, Oceanside and (coming soon) > Escondido. Those are all greater San Diego rate centers. But nothing > in the rate center 760-217 is in. ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator Date: 22 Sep 2004 09:35:53 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , John McHarry wrote: > Not always, I am afraid. For quite some time there was an "AT&T > standard" ISDN that was not compatible with National ISDN. That, of > course, had some differences from ITU-T ISDN, and the ETSI > implementation. While I am on it, the US "standards" adopted by the > BOCs are mostly non standard by ITU-T and ETSI interpretations. SS7 is > different from C7, although there are a lot of national variants of C7 > as well; cell phones are not world standard GSM; the NANP makes > standard trunk dialing unimplementable and variable length > international numbers a complete kludge; the digital hierarchy is heterodox below a certain level; I am sure the list goes on. Indeed, it goes on -- but you're very much proving my point with your list of supposed counterexamples. SS7 has a bit in every signal frame which identifies whether the wire protocol is pure ITU-T or a national variant. The ITU standard, like most in this area, explicitly contemplates a world of "gateway switches" that speak the international variant to one another, and local switches that speak a national variant. This protocol is _designed_ so that the ITU member nations can build local variants, while the protocol actually interoperates correctly at the international level. This is something, of course, that anyone in the market for a central office switch _knows_: "SS7", "CCIS7", "C7" are not precise specifiers of a suite of protocols; one buys equipment that is certified to meet a particular set of requirements and advertised as such. ISDN predates the Bell System breakup and was explicitly an AT&T project for a long time (it was also one of the first standards efforts led by Bellcore, and they screwed it up royally). Nonetheless, there is no deliberate failure to interoperate here that _I_ can see; everyone's switches, now, speak to pretty much everyone's ISDN gear, and again, this is a protocol with national variants, on purpose. GSM is a fascinating case, itself, the standards body (dominated by representatives of European governments) having oddly enough selected frequencies that it knew quite well wouldn't ever be available for use in the United States (where the largest manufacturer of cell phones and cell switches happened to be) thus splitting the world into "standard" GSM deployments and the U.S.. It seems to have worked, too; one didn't see Nokia selling many handsets nor Ericsson selling many cell sites a couple of decades ago. In any event, all of these cases are very, very different from the case of IPsec and other IETF protocols. There is _one_ suite of IPsec protocols; the IETF doesn't do national variants, and there aren't any radio frequencies involved. It is patently dishonest to claim that your product is an "IPsec" product if in fact it doesn't speak IPsec; what you say about corporations having a "responsibility to their shareholders" to engage in unethical behaviour aside, claiming that one's product is an "IPsec" product when it will not interoperate with actual standard implementations. As I said before: false advertising is illegal. The relevant authorities are not smart enough to do anything about this example of it, but that does not mean that those of us who are should not recognize it for what it is. FWIW, Nortel seems to have lost quite a bit of share in the VPN marketplace in the past few years. One might suspect that some other vendors (notably Microsoft)'s widespread deployment of actual conformant implementations that talk to one another might have something to do with this. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com But as he knew no bad language, he had called him all the names of common objects that he could think of, and had screamed: "You lamp! You towel! You plate!" and so on. --Sigmund Freud ------------------------------ Date: 22 Sep 2004 15:07:36 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: LNP For a Move Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Here is my question. Since they're both the same rate center could I > request to keep my current numbers under LNP? You can ask, but I doubt that VZ would do it since I doubt that they have any procedure to port a number to and from themselves. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711 johnl@iecc.com, Mayor, http://johnlevine.com, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 10:00:05 EDT From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls gladyretired wrote: > I get calls that are "out of area" with no phone number shown These actually do mean that EVEN THE PHONE COMPANY (at your end of the connection) has no idea about the originating phone number. Patrick wrote: > *60 service (block last caller) or block unidentified callers? The > first of these two (*60 block last caller) is probably better No. *60 will be totally ineffective against "out of area" calls. It works only for calls where either the number or "BLOCKED/PRIVATE" are shown. Nor will "anonymous call rejection" work, since these are not considered anonymous calls. However, the service which prompts the caller for his number whenever the call is EITHER blocked OR out of area, called by various names such as "Call Manager" or "Call Intercept" depending on the company. /john ------------------------------ From: Truth Organization: http://www.x.com Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 15:53:13 GMT > This is a very frustrating problem. I am on both the federal and my > state do-not-call lists. These, for the most part, have worked great, > cutting my unwanted telemarketing calls down by 90+%. So you think. This is nothing more than coincidence. The biggest telemarketers (such as long distance phone companies) are EXEMPT from these lists. This means many telemarketers can still call you if you are on these lists. This is why the do not call list is such a huge ridiculous joke. The other problem is, because the few telemarketers that are not exempt do not want to pay the high costs of determining how to not call people on these lists, they take the phone number of every person that does business with their companies, every time you buy something from a store, at check out they ask your phone number, because if you do business with a company (impossible to avoid) then that company is ALSO exempt from the do not call lists! And many people who do not want to give out their phone number, just make up a fake one, and many times across the country, YOURS is the one they are going to make up at random, and YOU will be getting that person's telemarketing calls. > However, once in a while, I get calls that are "out of area" with no > phone number shown. Sometimes, I will get these every 20 minitues and > it will last all day! The law changed recently making it illegal for telemarketers to hide their numbers from caller ID anymore, so all of them are lawbreakers, but then again, laws are ridiculous as only law abiding citizens follow them. NEVER has anyone I told not to call again and to put me on their do not call list ever done so, even so the law required them to. And since it reads "Out of area" you don't know who to report to the authorities to get them fined. Your best bet is to get a device that picks up all "out of area" calls automatically and plays a message that the number is out of service, or plays fax tones. This is the only thing that works. You can find such devices on the internet. > Of course -- when you pick up the phone to attempt to ID the > caller -- you get -- surprise -- nothing (a lawbreaker, is what you > get). So, you cannot report such a "person" to the state or > federal govt. (so much for do not call lists). Exactly. As soon as I read the PROPOSED do not call list rules while they were just deciding on the law, I saw all the telemarketers that bothered me over the years ALL appearing on the EXEMPT list. Meaning why bother to put myself on that list at all. Laws only protect the criminals, they NEVER protect the innocent law abiding citizens. If we got rid of laws, THEN we could go after these people and hurt them. But since we follow the laws and do not physically hurt or kill them, they have nothing to fear from us and can continue to harass us, thanks to laws, since they don't obey laws. > MY phone Co. (Comcast) is no help. Of course not! They are a telemarketer themselves! Now they have your phone number, and are allowed to call you since you do business with them, and will give your number out to "other businesses they feel have products and services you might be interested in" and using the "opt out" deal is too late, because your number has already been given out, opting out AFTER the fact is ridiculous. > I figure someone herein has had and solved such a problem. Don't EVER pick up or answer any call marked "out of area" Get a digital recorded message device from Radio Shack for around $9 or $19 that you connect to your phone, then call a fax machine and record the fax noises on the chip. Now when you get an "out of area" call, press the button and it plays the fax tones. (Or if you have a fax machine, just turn it on and hit answer) After 3 or 4 times, they will get tired of calling the fax machine. This is the only thing that works. The other thing would be to talk to them, pretend you are interested in their offer, so you can get the company name and address, then go there and make sure they never bother anyone ever again. Those are the only two options you have. Laws only protect the criminals. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I've tried your idea of sending all 'out of area' calls to fax or wherever, but that still requires me to stop what I was doing, get up, go find a caller ID box on my line somewhere, read it and then react to it. Is the Privcode machine still being manufactured/sold? Can you get one from E-Bay or similar? Those machines were really great. They were manufactured by International Mobile Machines in Bala Cynwyd, PA . Plugged into any phone line, they sat there quietly until there was the slightest hint of an incoming call (change in voltage, etc) then they immediatly pounced, picked up the phone line and announced to the caller, 'please enter your privcode number' (pronounced 'Pr-eye-ve Code'). Privcode numbers were three digits in length. If the caller punched in the correct number, his call was passed along, the Privcode machine would make a warble sound to tell you to answer your phone. If an incorrect code was entered, the caller was prompted a second time, then a third time, then passed to your answering machine if you had one, or just disconnected. There were special codes which allowed for callers to be automatically transferred to the answering machine and special codes to do other jobs. But *you* never heard a single sound, not a peep, until privcode had gotten the correct authorization code to ring your phone. Telemarketers and bill collectors hated the device. They worked so quickly and effeciently that only rarely did a single partial ring get through on the line before Privcode would answer. I had one of them about twenty years ago; maybe I will look around on the net and see if they are still available somewhere. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: The Wal-Mart Supremacy Date: 22 Sep 2004 07:53:25 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Lisa is quite correct; if we wish to > be consistent in our viewpoints; what was good for Traditional Bell > (getting ripped asunder, parts scattered everywhere) should be good > also for Traditional Small Town downtown. To put it another way, > why should Traditional Bell be fair game for competition but small > town grocery stores and pharmacies not be fair game? Maybe its because > so many of us hated the Bell after we studied the dirty tricks it > played on the farmer's telephone cooperatives everywhere around the > start of the 20th century, but now we love *our own small town drug > stores and grocery stores*. Maybe the Telephone Company was just to > large, to distant, to remote for us in any of our memories to relate > to it, yet when we go downtown and see all those vacant store fronts > it brings tears to our eyes. Might that be the reason? PAT] Pat, you've touched a raw nerve with your observations about the vacant store fronts and what people "love". Creating "historic districts" and historic preservation is a big thing these days in towns and cities. People want to preserve those old drugstores and buildings. But people don't want to pay the cost of that preservation. They expect old "Doc Smith" to stay around forever and run his little drugstore -- without change -- even though everyone shops at the CVS/Walgreen/Eckerd whatever. They expect old Mrs. Jones to keep her quaint old farmhouse as is even though she needs to modernize it and sell it to get money to living in a nursing home. In my town, the pvt drugstore had an old abandoned stone structure on the rear of his property. He wanted to tear it down to make more parking spaces which he needed. The town freaked out at the idea of tearing down the structure even though they didn't know what it was and it was in terrible shape. So the druggist had to pay insurance and shore up the structure and do without parking. He eventually closed. Oh -- he also had a real soda fountain/snack bar in his drugstore that the town "loved" but again didn't patronize adequately to justify its cost of operation. With divesture of the Bell System, many people thought they'd get their cake and eat it too. That is, they'd continue to get all of the support and services from the Bell System, only pay someone else less money. There is no such thing as a free lunch. What people failed to understand is that the competitive marketplace brings in all sorts of players. Sure, you could pay less, but you could also pay more, too. We've seen that in the ridiculous high cost of calling card calls from pay phones. We've also seen troubled carriers come into the picture like the infamous Norvergence. We've seen people get stuck with poor cellular phones and their provider refusing to make good and holding the customer to his year long obligation. So when a carrier like Norvergence goes belly up and customers are screwed people are surprised? They shouldn't be. What troubles me in this newsgroup is that many of the posters do not realize how everyday consumers get screwed by all this stuff. A basic tenent of true competition is that all players have equal knowledge so they can make education choices. But the reality is that consumers have very little knowledge because they companies don't want them too. Plans are very confusing and constantly changing, so even diligent consumers who study these things simply can't keep up. Many posters are in telecommunications as a living or make such extensive use that they are able to keep up with the latest deals. Some participants may be part of the new wave of business and making money from modern marketing techniques. The rest of us mere mortals are unable to do so. For myself, I got a calling card but still got screwed with $25 payphone calls (after I yelled and screamed the company cancelled the charges). Having 5c a minute LD service sounds great until you add in the $5 monthly charge, then it's not so great. Further on down the road they'll be some microfine print announcing changes to your plan that most people don't have the time or ability to study and read. (I just cancelled my Sears charge card after getting a booklet with their "new terms and conditions" that was so complex and undecipherable I just won't bother with it). [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Lisa, I think all of us suffer from these 'blind spots' in our logic and thinking. I used to be a great Bell System fan, and more than once I damned Judge Greene for facilitating the breakup; just ask any pre-1985 reader here in the Digest about my earlier attitudes on Bell System divestiture (and there are a few of them still around.) And prior to about 1990 or so, I was really rather intelligent on the workings of Bell; I mean the 'back office technical functions', etc. Then as telecom got to be more and more complex it began to slip away bit by bit. My beloved brain disease not withstanding (anyway, that was still a decade distant) I got to the point it was harder and harder to keep up with this topic and do much more than just editorial maintainence work on the telecom newsgroup, which is sort of where I am at today. When we have a relatively 'technical' message here, I am at a loss to understand most of it either, I just edit it for appearance and publish it; not try to understand it. After my brain aneurysm I moved back here to s.e. Kansas, where I was born in 1942 (the anniversary of which is two days from now, [hint! hint!]) because I could no longer deal with 'big city' problems and lifestyles. I loved our old fashioned soda fountain syle drugstore, our quaint downtown stores, etc. The first hint however, that things were not as I remembered them (think now if you will about Thomas Wolfe's novel "You Can't Go Home Again" -- remember it?) came when our sister city to the south, Coffeyville, announced that taxes had remained unpaid for several years on about *500 vacant houses*; that the city had had them for sale for many years, until they became mostly uninhabitable and run down, therefore the city was going to tear them down. Block after block after block in areas on the edge of town. Now you go for block after block on the south side of Coffeyville with nothing there but sidewalks and street signs, then a large empty field for an entire city block. Even the street signs are mostly rusted away. 18 thousand population in 1942, now slightly less than 10 thousand in 2004. Picture a fat man, with size 48 trousers who loses much weight, becomes skinny but tries to wear his same old pants. Cities never give away, or de-annex land they had taken on from the 'good old days', even though fat men who lose weight usually buy new trousers at the right size rather than walk around holding up the old pair. My grandparents house, at 815 Minnesota Street has long since been torn down, now its just one of many vacant lots along there. Here in Independence, where my mother would bring me as a four year old child on the electric trolley train from Coffeyville (when they had those things) to the Riverside Park and Zoo (still one of our remaining crown jewels today) to see the exotic birds and animals and ride the five cent carousel (still the same five cent admission price today, per the terms of the gift to the city) things are also a bit different. I walk from my house to downtown (five or six blocks) and pass at least four or five 'for sale' signs on houses along the way, some of which have been for sale as long as I have been here this time around, and if I walk five or six blocks the other direction going to the southeastern outskirts of town, I see where Independence had the same dillema as Coffeyville but several years earlier; many vacant lots, sometimes entire city blocks with only one house left, occupied, the rest of the block full of weeds, busted up sidwalks, etc. I asked the lady at the City Clerk's office in City Hall one day, "how much longer do you *realistically* expect the city to be around?" She said the official answer is forever; between you and I, I think perhaps twenty to thirty years before the town is gone totally. Maybe by that time I will be dead. And she pointed out, that three or four hundred acre plot of (former) farm land the city annexed when Walmart came to town brought us as much in tax revenue last year as the entire downtown did last year. So Lisa, maybe we better all begin to accept the Walmart Supremacy. Or are you like me and wish we could go back to 1950 to live while retaining our 2004 level of sophistication? What is the saying, 'old too soon, wise too late? PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: 22 Sep 2004 10:12:02 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) responded to TELECOM Digest Editor: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In elementary school we had IBM clocks > also, but in high school the clocks were called 'pneumatic clocks' > which is to say they operated by air pressure; a short, powerful burst > of air sent through the lines once per minute would advance the hand > on the clock one minute, and there was a master clock in the > principal's office. I never did know (or have forgotten if I did know) > who made those clocks. Does anyone remember them? PAT] I'm not familiar with air clocks. But this illustrates how much we take electric devices for granted. Way back, it wasn't necessarily cost effective or technologically possible to use electric control or propulsion. It's important to point this out because many critics of the Bell System or IBM (or other long established companies) complain that such companies were "technologically behind" and that wasn't really true. Those critics think just because something is available in lab or being marketed for the first time cost-justifies converting over an entire nationwide physical plant of still good equipment. [I see that with advocates of VOIP. Newsweek recently ran a piece on that and pointed out various problems awaiting resolution with VOIP; that technology simply has not advanced to the point advocates like to claim it has.] Some general examples: Railroad air brakes. Trains to this day are stopped by air pressure using a complicated system. In many passenger trains, the brake controls are supplemented by electric signals for faster response. Auto windshield wipers, other accessories. Years ago many "power" appliances on a car were powered by vacuum from the engine, not electricity. I believe power brakes still are. Jackhammers, tire bolt removers. AFAIK, they still use air pressure for power. Elevator readouts: The external floor indicator used to be powered by wires connecting to the elevator cable. A dial swung around indicating the floor the elevator was on. Today they use lights. I last saw this in actual use in the old Bamberger's store in Newark NJ in the 1980s. Railroad signals: In various places air pressure was used to control equipment. An example is a cab signal, which gives the engineer a readout. A noise is sounded to warn of conditions. Into the 1970s, that noise signal was created by air going through an harmonica-like unit. Today it is electronic beeps. Also, door closing signals on psgr trains (if even present) used mechanical bells, today they use electronic beeps. Today even the big bells at gradecrossings are electronic. In the early half of the 20th century, lots of control devices were powered by air pressure, not electricity. Usually by then the air compressor was driven by an electric motor, but many times the equipment was based on power from a steam engine. Indeed, downtown areas had "steam loops" in which a utility (sometimes the electric company or railroad) sold high pressure steam for heating and power. Likewise with electronics vs. electro-mechanical. In 1974, when the microprocessor was invented, the vast bulk of the Bell System plant was still step-by-step, the oldest type. Electronic boxes were extremely expensive, today we take that stuff for granted. It wasn't until the 1980s that electronic computers (and their support) became cheap enough to retire the last pure punched card tabulating machines that used all-relay technology. Also, it wasn't until the 1980s that punched cards and keypunch machines themselves were retired as input media because electronic data entry was very expensive and the keypunch machine and card reader remained cheaper. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And I have heard that one reason the old style Western Union clockswere so popular was because (at the time) electricity was delivered mostly as direct current. Alternating current at sixty cycles was not yet very common. PAT] ------------------------------ From: lr_rvr Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 06:17:08 -0000 Subject: Filipino VOIP Solution Released: Libreng Tawag Gamit Ang Internet Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com Union City, California (BUZZFON) July 8, 2004 - A small but emerging Filipino VoIP company, Bonusfon, answers to the clamor of the market today by launching, BuzzfonP2P , a free, compact and convenient soft phone that allow users makes clear pc to pc calls possible without the choppiness, echoes or the static noises; just crystal-clear voice even in low bandwidth environments. VoIP? VoIP - Voice Over Internet Protocol. It may sound alien to you now, but this is tomorrow's technology here today, VoIP is the hottest growth area and one of the most debated topic on the world wide web today! It's major advantage is to be able to make free or low cost digital calls using the internet thereby lowering communications costs and improving relations whether for personal, business or network use. At one time or another, you may have already tried it using free popular chat clients like Yahoo or MSN, though free, these applications does have it's disadvantages, like crackling sounds, choppiness, echoes and etc... This is whereVoIP softclients or webphones comes in. VoIP Softclients or VoIP softphones are software that runs on your computer, it converts your voice into digital formats, converts it to IP and uses the internet as medium to transfer data calls from one PC to another, worldwide. Using the latest communication protocols for transmission, Session Initiated Protocols (SIP) secure voice communications are possible and call set-up is much more precise. Using the latest in compression and decompression technologies (codec) calls are much clearer, no breaking up of voices and sometimes the quality is better than traditional telephones. Buzzfonp2p, a beta voip solution developed by US Based Filipino company, Buzzfon will enable you to make free and crystal clear calls from your pc to another pc. Buzzfon will be releasing their pc to phone version shortly providing the best quality international voice calls at the lowest cost. The VoIP market is presently dominated by US based broadband communications services such as net2phone, Vonage, and Yahoo. BUZZFONP2P You can download it for free at http://www.buzzfon.com. It's so easy to use, no configuration necessary, Buzzfon p2p will traverse NATs and firewalls. All you need is a headset with a microphone. Moreover, it promises to uphold the "no spyware installed" regulation. Bonusfon, a broadband VoIP service provider just launched "BuzzfonP2P " through Buzzfon.com, along side with Skype who has listed 11 million downloads and 170,000 concurrent users, Tamerlane Sanchez says "Our products and services are better than any VoIP product and service provider in the market today. " Tough words for the competition. Buzzfon says that the market is clamoring for a better VoIP softphone able to make high quality calls even in low bandwidth environments, thus the emergence of Buzzfon.com FROM PINOYS TO THE WORLD Buzzfon is set to release a next generation voip solution by October 2004. The new release will have premium features enabling users to make crystal-clear pc to pc, pc to phone, phone to pc, and phone to phone calls worldwide on the lowest rates. Rumors have been going around that users from anywhere in the world will be able to call the US for only 1 cent per minute, just hold on till you see the rest of their international calling rates. Buzzfon is poised to redefine telephony as we know of it today, from 24x7 Customer Service, crystal-clear voice calls, premium services like Addressbook, Call Redial, Do not disturb, Speed Dial, Call Waiting, Call Mute, Call Hold, Music on Hold, Call Hunting, NAT Traversal, Stun Firewall implementation, Silence Suppression, Comfort Noise; IPBX services and probably the most exciting of all is its most aggressive pricing for international voice calls. They made it clear that one of it's biggest markets will be the Philippines, with special focus on the millions of overseas Filipino workers and their relatives. This is indeed another mark made by Filipinos globally making the world a smaller place to live in through advanced technology. Kaya tawag na! Buzzfon is copyrighted and distributed by Bonusfon. CONTACT INFORMATION: Maida M. Barrientos Buzzfon.com 1 866 263 0710 Toll Free (63) 920-2570992 Philippines Direct Buzz# : 818801062 http://www.buzzfon.com ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 11:45:30 -0400 Subject: Jobs at Risk if CRTC Regulates VoIP, Hearing Told Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040921.wcvoip0921/BNStory/Technology/ By SIMON TUCK From Wednesday's Globe and Mail Gatineau, Que. Canada will face a loss of jobs and investment if it attempts to regulate Internet-based telephony services, one of the industry's U.S.-based startups warned the federal regulator Tuesday as it kicked off a review that could largely shape the future of Canada's telephone services industry. Brooke Schulz, vice-president of corporate communications for Edison, N.J.-based Vonage Holdings Corp., told the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission that geography and borders are irrelevant when it comes to voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) services. They can be launched to any market in the world from anywhere, she told the regulators at a hearing in Gatineau, Que., while consumers can use VoIP telephone services from anywhere they have access to the Internet. "I think we're in a new place that requires new thinking," said Ms. Schulz, whose company is one of a horde of startups challenging the incumbents with aggressive pricing strategies. Industry analysts have also questioned whether the commission or any other regulator is even capable of regulating VoIP and other Internet-based services. Full story at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040921.wcvoip0921/BNStory/Technology/ 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. 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. 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Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org URL information: http://telecom-digest.org ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. Copyright 2004 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #441 ******************************