From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Oct 27 15:59:42 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9RJxfS12144; Wed, 27 Oct 2004 15:59:42 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 15:59:42 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410271959.i9RJxfS12144@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 #516 TELECOM Digest Wed, 27 Oct 2004 15:59:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 516 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson HP Chief Science Officer Squires Joins ISOC Board (Internet Society) Norvergence Article "Customers Left Holding the Bag" (Lisa Hancock) Advice Needed on SMS Servers (Andrew Pasetti) Re: Home Phones Face Uncertain Future (Dave Close) Re: Home Phones Face Uncertain Future (Isaiah Beard) Re: Verizon California Terminates ISDN, FX Services (Tim@Backhome.org) Re: What Happened to Channel 1? (Doug Krause) Re: Take the Trouble to Block WiFi Poachers (David Quinton) Utilities Take Pass on Offering Broadband (Monty Solomon) Delphi XM MyFi (Monty Solomon) FCC OKs Cingular, AT&T Wireless Merger (Monty Solomon) The Internet of Things (Monty Solomon) Verizon Plunges Into Cable Wars With New Technology (Monty Solomon) Sony Ericsson Quad Band EDGE (Monty Solomon) Re: Cybersquatter Update (Melvin Klassen) 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: Internet Society Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 11:10:31 +0200 Subject: HP Chief Science Officer Stephen Squires Joins ISOC Board Reston, VA - October 27th, 2004 - Dr. Stephen L. Squires, Vice President and Chief Science Officer for Hewlett-Packard Company, has been appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Internet Society. The Internet Society (ISOC), a not-for-profit membership organisation founded in 1991, provides leadership in Internet related standards, education, and policy. With offices in Washington, DC, and Geneva, Switzerland, its mission is to ensure the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of people throughout the world. ISOC is also the organisational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) -- the principal body dedicated to the development of new Internet standard specifications. Dr. Squires said that he took the Board post because "I believe in the potential of the Internet Society to build on the excellent work it has done in order to continue to be recognised as a critical Internet resource serving all who use the Internet or who aspire to use it." "Dr. Squires brings a wealth of valuable Internet experience to the Internet Society, and we are delighted to have him on our Board of Trustees," said Fred Baker, Chairman of the Internet Society's Board of Trustees. As Vice President and Chief Science Officer for Hewlett-Packard Company, Dr. Squires is responsible for providing leadership in establishing overall strategic scientific and technical directions, including architectural development of the 21st century Internet. Prior to joining HP in November 2000, Squires was the special assistant for Information Technology to the director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). At DARPA he was responsible for advancing the frontier of progressively larger sectors of information technology. He developed plans for, managed, and directed the scalable systems parts of the DARPA Strategic Computing Program, the Federal High Performance Computing and Communications Program and its extension to the National Information Infrastructure. Dr. Squires earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University. "His career has seen him play a major role in managing programs that have helped enable the modern Internet. We look forward to his counsel as a member of the Board of Trustees," said Lynn St. Amour, President and CEO of the Internet Society. FOR FURTHER DETAILS Internet Society: http://www.isoc.org Peter Godwin Communications Manager E-mail: godwin@isoc.org Internet Society 4, rue des Falaises 1205 Geneva Switzerland ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Norvergence Article "Customers Left Holding the Bag" Date: 27 Oct 2004 09:24:21 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com The Newark Star Ledger reported on 10/27/04 about how many small businesses were stuck with leases they must pay for worthless service and equipment. This was their feature article on the Business Page. See: http://www.nj.com/business/ledger/index.ssf?/base/business-0/109885514466130.xml Big financing companies have filed suits against hundreds of small business that stopped making payments on their NorVergence [sic] leases. A NJ lawyer, Michael Green of Milltown, has filed a class action lawsuit against the financing companies accusing them of violating consumer protection laws. He says small business customers were misled and that the financing companies should have done due dilligence -- had they done so they would've discovered the leases were fraudulent. The leasing companies disagree. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I certainly hope and expect Mr. Green will prevail. There is **no way** the financing companies could not have known about this fraud; they are now trying to unjustly enrich themselves at the expense of the poor business people involved. There is another firm of attornies working on this matter as well, basically claiming the same thing. If the finance companies did not thoroughly investigate the paper they were being asked to handle, that is their fault. There are laws against unjust enrichment (where someone takes advantage of the stupidity or ignorance of another party) as well as against the more serious acts of fraud. I can't help but feel most of the banks and finance companies knew full well what was happening and assumed they would be able to pull it off; I doubt any of them (the finance companies) expected the little customers would revolt as they have done. "Just pay your bills, what the computer says you owe, since as you must know, computers don't make mistakes." Although the one group of attornies has suggested the business people bring their bills up to date during the interim while they try to recover for them, the latest group of attornies (Green, et al) has not commented that I know of. I still suggest that debtors *freeze all accounts payable to Norvergence** unless/until their attorney instructs them to the contrary. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Andrew Pasetti Subject: Advice Needed on SMS Servers Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 09:50:17 -0400 Hi Patrick - Perhaps you can offer me some advice on a telecom issue. We're about to roll out the latest version of Easy411, which includes call completion and sms messaging of the listing information. We don't have the resources to purchase an sms server of our own, so for the time being we were simply going to email the listing information to users who choose to enable this option. Rather than have the user select their carrier when enabling sms messaging, we were hoping to find a web site or web service that will list a user's carrier given their cell phone number. Do you know if such a site exists? Or perhaps there's a better method of handling this that you can suggest. Your advice will be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Andrew Pasetti Easy411 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Off hand, my mind draws a blank on this but perhaps other readers will have suggestions for you. In the meantime this reminds me I have not mentioned Easy411 recently. East411 is the directory assistance resource I recommend for readers of the Digest. It only costs 65 cents for one or two inquiries from a real time live operator directory assistance bureau, or about half of what your telco charges you. The best deal other than Easy411 that I know of is Vonage, which gets 99 cents per call to the bureau they use, but Easy411 does not require any special equipment and can even be used with Vonage as desired. You just dial an 800 number where you enroll your phone number (up to five phone numbers you may use) and you get billed the 65 cents on your credit card at intervals. You can even set it up as a speed dial if you wish. Remember, this is *real time* DA, records updated daily, not just a web site thing like switchboard.com where records are updated whenever. Best of all, from my perspective, Easy411 pays *me* a few cents for each call you make to their bureau on my referrals, so I am proud to be their paid spokesperson. Check it out at http://easy411.com/telecomdigest . Thanks, and if you have any ideas on SMS servers, let them know also. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dave@compata.com (Dave Close) Subject: Re: Home Phones Face Uncertain Future Date: 26 Oct 2004 17:05:28 -0700 Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California markrobt@comcast.net (Mark Roberts) writes: > All of these considerations mean that we are keeping our two > landlines. We have them on measured-rate service and have no > custom-calling features, but in a pinch, we're sure they'll be there -- something that can't be said for cell phones or VOIP. If the original article proves correct, you may find that land-line phone service will become much less ubiquitous, and much more costly. I been looking for a local retailer selling an add-in PCI card with a parallel port. A few years ago, these were easy to find and cost about $10. Now nobody seems to have any except ones which require a Windows driver (a "winpar"?), and they want $30 and up. USB has taken over. It would not surprise me to see a similar outcome for land-line telephony. For now, a land-line phone is a good stand-by. And the only way to make a data modem call reliably. But for how much longer? Tried to buy a (new) 5.25-inch floppy drive recently? Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA "Politics is the business of getting dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 power and privilege without dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu possessing merit." - P. J. O'Rourke ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard Subject: Re: Home Phones Face Uncertain Future Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 11:51:05 -0400 Lisa Minter wrote: > Nokia in the UK seems to feel landline phones will be gone entirely > in the next few years, at least in many countries, replaced by > cellular phones. Yes, and there were quite a few dot-com-boom companies in the 90's saying that by now the desktop PC would be extinct. Guess who, in fact, became extinct by now? Go figure. The landline phone's peak has come and gone, but it won't be gone. Anyone who has complained about the sound quality of a cell phone connection (nearly all of us, I would think) can attest to this. E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. ------------------------------ From: Tim@Backhome.org Subject: Re: Verizon California Terminates ISDN, FX, Other Services Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 02:52:37 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications What useful purpose does ISDN serve these days? Also, with VOIP who needs FX these days? Jeff Sutter wrote: > In my Verizon bill, there was a tiny insert, advising me that a number > of services would be "grandfathered", including some I've never heard > of, nor have the people at the Verizon (GTE) office. > They include (abbreviated list -- several custom calling bundles > omitted) > Digital ISDN Single Line Service > Verizon Dial Datalink Service > Foreign Exchange Service - Primary Service Residence > and "InContact". > GTE always made it extremely difficult to obtain residential or > business FX or ISDN services, and their billing of said services was > often fraught with gross errors (some in the customer's favor). It is > unfortunate that their obfuscation and pricing policies will now > result in justifying the end of useful technologies. ------------------------------ From: dkrause@ratcage.com (Doug Krause) Subject: Re: What Happened to Channel 1? Date: 26 Oct 2004 22:26:37 -0500 In article , DevilsPGD wrote: > Shaw cable is (or was, I don't have my TV connected to my DCT right > now) using channel 1 as a digital channel for themselves. Analog > cable still starts at 2 though. Comcast in Western Massachusetts uses channel 1 for On Demand. About 10 or 15 years ago my grandmother's cable in Arlington, Texas had Channels 1, 0, and 00. ------------------------------ From: David Quinton Subject: Re: Take the Trouble to Block WiFi Poachers Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 08:53:58 +0100 On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 15:49:43 -0400, TELECOM Digest Editor asked about disabling SSID on WiFi in response to a message from Monty Solomon. Consensus, on alt.internet.wireless newsgroup would seem to be: "Forget about disabling SSID. it provides no additional security and just screws things up. Disabling SSID is also contrary to 802.11." FREE phonecalls with other TalkTalk customers: Locate your Mobile phone: ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 21:39:58 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Utilities Take Pass on Offering Broadband Most firms skeptical of providing service over power lines By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff The nation's top telecommunications regulators are convinced that electric-power lines are finally ready to become a revolutionary new way for Americans to get high-speed Internet access, unleashing competition for cable and phone giants. But the utility companies that would actually deploy the services remain overwhelmingly skeptical. Of the nearly 160 investor-owned utilities in the United States, dozens have tried out 'broadband over power line' systems. Only one -- Cinergy Corp. in Cincinnati -- has moved ahead with a significant commercial rollout, so far attracting barely 1,500 subscribers. Dozens of utilities that ran trials of the service in the last three years took a pass on making a business venture of it. Locally, Western Massachusetts Electric Co. is starting up a 25-home trial in Agawam of a hybrid system that carries Net traffic on medium-voltage lines and uses wireless gear for the last-mile connection to homes. But the state's two dominant electric utilities are both steering clear. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2004/10/25/utilities_take_pass_on_offering_broadband/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 22:11:17 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Delphi XM MyFi The World's First XM Portable The Delphi XM MyFi is the world's first XM2go receiver - a personal XM satellite radio. The MyFi includes everything you need to enjoy XM anywhere -- in the home, in the car, and on the go. Memory Mode MyFi can store up to 5 hours of fresh new XM content. Record while you listen or schedule MyFi to record your favorite XM shows -- even when the unit is not in use. http://www.xmradio.com/myfi/index.jsp ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 23:49:49 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FCC OKs Cingular, AT&T Wireless Merger By BRUCE MEYERSON AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) -- Now that the purchase of AT&T Wireless is complete, Cingular Wireless' new status as the nation's biggest cell phone provider may prove fleeting if the merged company doesn't move quickly. The $41 billion deal, finalized Tuesday with Federal Communications Commission clearance, pairs two companies whose customer service rankings and operating performance are among the weakest in the industy. As Cingular's management takes on the sizable distraction of merging two large corporations, it may prove especially difficult to attack those issues with any speed. One top concern has been the pace at which subscribers have been switching to rivals, especially at AT&T Wireless Services Inc., though Cingular's performance in this area has been unimpressive as well. Those defections have been fueled in large part by a successful marketing campaign at Verizon Wireless, which has built a strong perception as the company with the country's most expansive cell phone network. The new Cingular hopes the added network coverage and capacity from AT&T Wireless will help counter that perception almost from the start. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44523186 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 00:43:58 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Internet of Things Start-ups jump into next big thing: tiny networked chips By Robert Weisman, Globe Staff At a renovated textile warehouse near Boston's Fort Point Channel, where 50 employees of Ember Corp. are moving this month from cramped quarters next door, young engineers are busy lining the walls with 600 wireless sensor nodes -- each containing a low-powered radio frequency microchip mounted on a printed circuit board. Technologists at Ember and a batch of other start-ups on both coasts believe such 'mesh networks' with their 'radios' -- tiny chips just seven millimeters long and seven millimeters wide -- will be the next big thing in the high-tech world, wirelessly ferrying data between hundreds of sensors throughout homes, factories, and office buildings. ... http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2004/10/25/the_internet_of_things/ Ethernet Creator Evangelizes on New Networking Revolution By Robert Weisman, Globe Staff WALTHAM -- Bob Metcalfe -- inventor, entrepreneur, pundit, and venture capitalist -- is just back from Europe and jet-lagged. Padding about the immaculate offices of Polaris Venture Partners, his current base of operation, Metcalfe enters a conference room in a white business shirt and sandals and begins expounding on his latest technology crusade: a 'system on a chip,' which will form the backbone of the coming wireless sensor networking revolution. http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2004/10/25/ethernet_creator_evangelizes_on_new_networking_revolution/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 01:49:18 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon Plunges Into Cable Wars With New Technology By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff Verizon Communications Inc. said yesterday it will extend a powerful new fiber-optic network capable of delivering cable television to 1 million US homes and businesses by year's end, including more than 100,000 in suburban Boston. The new network, versions of which Verizon already has deployed in test markets in California, Florida, and Texas, is expected to ratchet up the competition between cable and phone companies, as Verizon uses the massively upgraded network to sell ultrafast Internet access and packages of interactive television programming. Verizon said it will launch services starting this winter in Essex and Middlesex counties north and west of Boston. It declined to identify the cities and towns it will target first, although Lexington, Newburyport, Newton, Reading, and Topsfield are considered by telecommunications executives familiar with Verizon's plan to be likely prospects. Verizon is building similar networks in eight other states this year. Besides enabling the nation's biggest phone company to offer cable television, including potentially high-definition programming delivered on demand, the network would allow Verizon to vault past Comcast Corp. and RCN Corp. with Internet access at speeds that are six to 10 times faster than today's cable and Verizon broadband offerings. While a new entrant into the cable TV market may cause more consumer excitement, broadband data could be an equally lucrative business for Verizon. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2004/10/22/verizon_plunges_into_cable_wars_with_new_technology/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 15:41:46 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Sony Ericsson Quad-band EDGE / WiFi Combo PC Card Sony Ericsson introduces new Quad-band EDGE / WiFi Combo PC Card - Essential Travelling Tool Provides Convenient Wireless Access 25 October 2004 San Francisco at CTIA Wireless IT -- Sony Ericsson today announced a new quad-band PC Card that provides convenient wireless Internet access for laptop and notebook users wherever they need to be online. Bridging the cellular and WiFi worlds, the GC89 PC Card combines global EDGE coverage with the popular WiFi technology in a single card which is compatible with both Windows and Macintosh computers. The new GC89 card further strengthens Sony's Ericsson's leadership position in EDGE PC Cards gained from the highly successful launches of the GC82, GC83 and GC85 PC cards. The GC89 card delivers connectivity through EDGE, GPRS, CSD, SMS over the GSM 850, 900, 1800 and 1900 bands world-wide. And, for those areas covered by wireless local networks: homes, offices, and hotspot locations such as airport lounges, coffee shops and hotels, the GC89 provides 802.11b and g connectivity with speed potential in excess of 50 Megabits per second. http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?cc=global&lc=en&ver=4001&template=pc1_1_1&zone=pc&lm=pc1&prid=2432 ------------------------------ From: Klassen@UVic.CA (Melvin Klassen) Subject: Re: Cybersquatter Update Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 18:06:20 UTC Organization: University of Victoria On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 22:17:55, TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > By doing 'whois -h whois.publicinterestregistry.net > internet-history.org' I found some interesting details on the > cybersquatter who ripped off the name being used as a repository for > Internet History Society and put his penis enlargement ads there instead: I wonder how much the cyber-squatter pays for the bandwidth that is used by visitors to his web-site? I wonder what he's charged if a tool like 'wget' ("get-an-entire-web-site") is used to get every web-page and image from the site? I wonder what happens when 'wget' is used inside a DO-loop, and the entire web-site is repeatedly fetched, and copied to /dev/null ? I wonder what happens when every reader of c.d.t runs the same DO-loop at 12:00 GMT on the 1st day of the month, i.e., shortly after the "cut-off" date/time for the previous month. Will his Internet provider bill him for the usage? If the web-site has a "monthly-quota", will the web-site become inaccessible for the remaining days in the month, when the quota is exceeded? I wonder. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Don't have ugly thoughts like that; ugly thinking is *my* domain. I suspect that the persons running the stolen web site (internet-history.org) and the persons running the *real* web site (www.promotechnology.com) are one and the same otherwise known as 'Bealo Group, SA'. In case you have not checked it out, the bogus history site run by the cybersquatter is sort of constructed 'on the fly' with some javascript which looks at what you asked for (in this case the URL internet-history) and slaps that phrase at the top of his otherwise page on penis enlargment ads. I have tried it with a few other inoperative URLs in .org and they get the same web page nonsense fed in those cases also, with the bogus URL slapped on the top with a message saying 'you want to buy this page?' I had thought that a few months ago one of the registrars had tried that same stunt, redirecting unused URLs to some sort of 'helpful page' offering suggestions for where you might find what you wanted instead. I had thought when that happened and became obvious there were several people on the net who put much pressure on that registrar to make them quit doing it. Or maybe I am mistaken; I usually am these days. Now this is just an ugly thought of my own, but suppose -- just suppose -- the Public Interest Registry people had cut some sort of deal with the Bealo Group SA in Switzerland: We will fork over to you all the .org names where the owner unwittingly did not pay our ransom to keep the page alive. You fill the page with offensive ads, and when the real owner comes back and gets on his knees, begging and pleading for his page to be released back to him and offering to pay some outrageous sum of money, you give him (real owner) back the page and split the profits with us at PIR. Considering how quickly the cybersquatter moved in and took over internet-history.org (the day it was taken back by PIR for whatever reason) I feel there *must have been some collusion between the registrar PIR and the Bealo Group, SA.* How else would the cyber- squatter have know to act on it that quickly? So if the cybersquatter collects several hundred dollars in ransom money on a site, and he splits (or even gives some percentage of the money to PIR) that's a better deal for PIR than simply trying to make do with the pitiful little 'registration fees' ICANN otherwise authorizes them to rip off from netizens. That, along with the fact that no registrar who supposedly acts in the public interest (such as the traditional meaning of the .org domain) -- unless he was totally insane and lacked any due diligence -- would have given away an internet history site to the penis enlargement company. I think it might be a good case for an attorney who likes doing pro-bono things on behalf of the net. But by all means, anyone who feels like trying w-get as per the earlier instructions in this message go right ahead, and don't forget when you sign up your favorite companies in the us.tf or the net.tf domains to be sure to not put down Bealo Group SA and www.promotechnolgy.com as the administrative contacts when asked to list a contact name. Just as a reminder also, the contact phone number you should avoid using is +41.227347.210 at Post Office Box 138 in Geneva Switzerland. 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'. 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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 #516 ******************************