From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Oct 30 21:08:50 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9V18o219001; Sat, 30 Oct 2004 21:08:50 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 21:08:50 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410310108.i9V18o219001@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 #520 TELECOM Digest Sat, 30 Oct 2004 21:08:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 520 Inside This Issue: Don't Forget to Set Clocks Back Now! XM vs. IPod - XM's New Portable Satellite Radio (Monty Solomon) New Treo 650 Is Better Than Ever; Rivals Offer Alternatives (M Solomon) Re: Clicking in Phone Line From Electric Fence (Eric Tappert) Re: Clicking in Phone Line From Electric Fence (David Clayton) Re: New Electronic Check Law Sinks 'Float' (Rick Merrill) Re: New Electronic Check Law Sinks 'Float' (AES/newspost) Re: What Happened to Channel 1? (Neal McLain) Re: What Happened to Channel 1? (Stanley Cline) Re: Verizon California Terminates ISDN, FX Other Services (Isaiah Beard) Re: Advice Needed on SMS Servers (John Levine) Re: Home Phones Face Uncertain Future (w_tom) Re: Yet Another Telco Tax Proposed (Clark W. Griswold, Jr.) Re: VOIP and Telnet (Hank Karl) Re: Cybersquatter Update (Hank Karl) Re: Owner of Stolen 'sex.com' Can Sue VeriSign - Court (Steve Sobol) New Telecom Web Site on the Way (Patrick Townson) 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: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 22:28:23 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: XM vs. IPod - XM's New Portable Satellite Radio Will XM's new portable satellite radio make the iPod obsolete? By Paul Boutin Listen to this story on NPR's Day to Day. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4128832 Apple Computer and XM Radio both unveiled hot, next-generation portable music players this morning. Apple's upgraded iPod Photo has 60 gigs of storage capacity, a color screen, and new software that lets you bloat it with photos as well as music. (Cost: $499 for the 40-gig model, $599 for the 60-gig version.) XM's new MyFi player is, in short, the first satellite radio Walkman. It can tune into 130-plus channels of digital radio and even store five hours of programming for you to play back at your leisure. (Cost: $349.99, plus $9.99 per month for an XM subscription.) My instant take on today's game of whiz-bang one-upmanship is that both companies lost. It's now five hours after Apple's U2-bedecked press conference, and I still haven't stopped yawning. This new iPod Photo is the same iPod we're already sick of hearing about. The 2-inch color screen isn't the start of any digital revolution-all it does is turn your iPod into a camera phone that can't take pictures or make phone calls. http://slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2108707 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 01:05:56 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: New Treo 650 Is Better Than Ever, But Rivals Offer Alternatives New Treo 650 Is Better Than Ever, But Rivals Offer Some Alternatives By WALTER S. MOSSBERG PalmOne's Treo smart phone has been the best combination of phone, PDA and e-mail device on the market. It had a few key flaws, though, so the company has now released a new, improved model, the Treo 650, to be sold by Sprint starting next month. But the rest of the industry is catching on to the idea of making a phone that, like the Treo, actually has a full keyboard for banging out e-mails. So the competition will be tougher for the new Treo than it was for its predecessor. Over the last week, I've been testing the new Treo 650, and comparing it with two other PDA phones that have now morphed into models with keyboards. One is the Microsoft-based Pocket PC phone. The other is the Sony Ericsson P910 smart phone, based on the Symbian operating system. I concentrated on the new keyboards in these two competitors because that's their main new feature. I have already reviewed another major Treo competitor, the new BlackBerry 7100t, sold by T-Mobile. My verdict: The Treo is better than ever, but the two newest keyboard phones, like the new BlackBerry, will give some new options to mobile e-mail users who prefer different designs and different software. http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20041028.html ------------------------------ From: Eric Tappert Subject: Re: Clicking in Phone Line From Electric Fence Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 02:38:20 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 20:16:58 UTC, ranck@vt.edu wrote: > Matt wrote: >> The phone line for the caretaker and ONE of the two office >> lines experience a continual hum as well as a click, click, click, >> click, click, every time the electric fence fires off. The program >> director does not experience any known issue on his line, and the >> other line in the office is fine. I find this very odd, since both of >> the office lines come in (presumably) on the same cable? >> Any thoughts? Verizon is kinda stumped on this issue, so I'm >> trying to see if I can figure anything out to help them out. Does >> this sound like a grounding issue? If so is it at the demarc box? Or >> on a line some place? Why only one phone line and not the other? > Many years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I looked after some > 4-wire leased circuits that we used for data communications. > Occasionally, usually after a thunderstorm, one of those lines would > get noisy. I would call what was then a Bell company and report noise > on circuit number blah. The trouble ticker writer would ask for the > phone number, which I didn't have because it was a leased 4 wire, not > a real phone line, but they'd take down the circuit number and almost > exactly 20 minutes later I would get a call from a technician asking > me how I knew there was noise on that cicuit. I learned that if I > told them the truth, that I had put an oscilloscope on there and could > see it, they would get upset. After some further conversation they'd > go and check it out. After the techs got to know me, they would tell > me more and the noise usually turned out to be caused by what they > called "bad carbons." These are some sort of grounded protective > devices that apparently get leaky some times. I am willing to bet > that is what the problem is for you. Now, good luck getting anyone to > understand the old Bell System term "bad carbons." I assume these are > sort of surge suppressors of some sort, but what the modern phone > company might call them is anybody's guess. > Bill Ranck > Blacksburg, Va. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The most unusual thing I ever saw which > was sort of like that was when I worked for a place which used wire > contacts on their doors and windows for a security alarm company. One > night when it was time to go home, I could not get the alarm to 'set' > and had to call the alarm company to get them to come over and fix it. > The trouble when this happened was usually around the elevator doors > which would slide open and closed. For continuity in the wire, there > was a wire grill like thing which had to be put across the elevator > door opening when you were leaving the premises for the night. The > repairman came out (he had a buttset with him with clamps on the ends > of the wires) and he stood there at the elevator where the grill went > across the doors, clamped on his buttset and *talked* through the > wires to the office where he worked, where someone else was making > adjustments as they talked. Now that I think about it, I guess there > is no reason you could not carry on a conversation over the wires of > an alarm system. PAT] OK, you're in luck, I know the origin of the term "bad carbons". A carbon protector is a "spark gap" like device that uses carbon electrodes (acually small blocks of carbon) separated by 3 mils of air for an insulator. This air gap breaks down somewhere between 500 volts and 1000 volts. One carbon block of the pair is tied to local ground, the other to either tip or ring. The entire protector has two pairs of blocks (one pair for tip, one for ring). The idea is that if a surge (lightning induced, typically, but also power company switching operations on joint use pole lines can also introduce a surge) exceeds the breakdown voltage of the 3 mil air gap between the blocks, an arc forms and a low impedance path to ground protects the premises equipment. These protectors are used at customer premises entrances, CO entrances (actually on the MDF), and at aerial to underground junctions (to protect the underground cable). The NEC requires them on premises where the circuit runs between buildings (no flames, please, I know there are exceptions to that general rule). The "problem" is that when an arc forms it sometimes "pits" the carbon blocks and results in some carbon granules floating around the air gap. This can cause a resistance (often highly variable or intermittent) to the grounded block, unbalancing the line (typically only one of the pairs of blocks has the problem). Thus the term "bad carbons". Modern protectors use gas discharge tubes instead of carbon blocks separated by air. The sealed discharge tube effectively eliminates the loss of balance due to particles of the electrodes shorting the gap. Unfortunately, the old carbon blocks are only replaced when they go bad or a modern NID is installed, so there are still lots of them out there. They are usually referred to as "station protectors" or "primary protectors" (to differentiate them from the SCRs and diodes used to protect the circuit cards. Those are called "secondary protectors".) Hope this helps. Eric Tappert ------------------------------ From: David Clayton Subject: Re: Clicking in Phone Line From Electric Fence Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 18:38:36 +1000 Matt contributed the following: > Hi, > Got a weird problem that I'm looking for a possible resolution > to. There is a fairly large farm with about a mile of electric fence > around the cattle area, with a pulsing electric fence. Apparently > this is a heavy duty pulser and is able to power 100 miles of fence. > The phone line for the caretaker and ONE of the two office > lines experience a continual hum as well as a click, click, click, > click, click, every time the electric fence fires off. The program > director does not experience any known issue on his line, and the > other line in the office is fine. I find this very odd, since both of > the office lines come in (presumably) on the same cable? Since one line is ok, it is possible the faulty line is actually on a "split pair" where (for some portion of the run) it is connected using different legs of 2 pairs in a cable, rather than both legs of one pair. It will still have connectivity and work, but if there is any junk about, you'll hear it (as you have described). Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@XYZ.myrealbox.com Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. (Remove the "XYZ." to reply) Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: New Electronic Check Law Sinks 'Float' Organization: Comcast Online Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 18:45:42 GMT Lisa Minter wrote: > WASHINGTON (AFP) - Electronic banking in the United States took > another step forward as a new law took effect allowing digitized > images of checks to become their legal equivalent. > The new law, aimed at easing the burden of transferring billions of > paper checks between banks, has drawn praise from the banking industry > as a more efficient way of moving money, but is being criticized by > some consumer advocates. > The Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act, or Check 21, was pushed > by the industry and regulators in the wake of the disruption to > banking following the September 11, 2001 attacks. > Under the law, any bank in the check-processing chain can convert the > original check into a digital image known as a substitute check and > throw away the original. Banks are required to accept the digitized > images as the "legal equivalent of the original check for all > purposes." IF these images were accessed it would give criminals access to an image of the customer's signature. Said criminal could then use a laser printer with 640 dpi resolution to print checks that would be indistinguishable from the photo check after a 240 dpi Scan!? ------------------------------ From: AES/newspost Subject: Re: New Electronic Check Law Sinks 'Float' Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 14:22:00 -0700 In article , Lisa Minter wrote: > Consumers are unlikely to get their cancelled checks back, although > some banks had already stopped this practice. Not sure what the practice is in other places, but at my Credit Union you can view a scanned image of any of your cleared checks online (only after logging in to your personal account, of course). Seems to work pretty well in practice, and meets my occasional need to verify a check written earlier. Can only trust that the connection is secure, of course, although a hacker attack would probably be directed at other aspects of an account, e.g. online funds transfers. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 16:03:00 -0500 From: Neal McLain Subject: Re: What Happened to Channel 1? Pat wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I read your tinyurl page > and it was quite interesting. I also tried your > suggestion about an antenna on the television and over > the air signals from Channel 4. I did *not* get anything > different than what I got before (some hiss and snow with > a very faint image.) You *did* tune the television set to channel 4, didn't you? Also, what sort of antenna were you using? Assuming you used a decent antenna and tuned the TV to channel 4, but still couldn't get a picture, I would have to conclude that either W04EJ was not on the air at the time, or that its signal is too weak at your home. Given that W04EJ only puts out 310 watts, that might be possible. Whose signal was that "very faint image" anyway? > However, if what you suggest is true about interference from > Coffeyville CC, then why isn't that also true of the guy who does > the low power repeater of Trinity Broadcasting on (I think) channel > 22 or 23 here in Indy? Cable One does not block out that channel on > account of him; in fact I think Trinity is on our cable 22. Because cable channels (above channel 13) operate at different frequencies than broadcast channels. Three examples: CHANNEL BROADCAST CABLE NUMBER FREQUENCY FREQUENCY ------- ----------- ----------- 4 66- 72 MHz 66- 72 MHz 22 518-524 MHz 168-174 MHz 23 524-530 MHz 216-222 MHz Note that broadcast channel 4 and cable channel 4 are the same, but 22 and 23 are not. For a comparative list of all broadcast-vs.-cable channels, and the history behind it, see: http://www.sbe24.org/archive/c24sep97.asp#seventeen > I seem to remember channel 4 from *years* ago when as a young kid I > lived and visited in Coffeyville. It seems to me it was a 24 hour > per day transmission of some weather station. The cameras always > looking at the weather dials, and background music. That would have > been 1954-55. PAT] Perhaps you might contact the college and see if they publish a program guide. I searched the college's website, but couldn't find anything about their TV station. Neal McLain [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Good idea. If I think of it I will call them on Monday. Yes, I turned the television set to channel 4 on over the air, but for an antenna, I cheated. I did not want to take the TV set I had available at the time out to the backyard where there is an antenna (very high) so I used a small, at ground level, but electrically amplified antenna. I really am just not in a position to climb up a ladder onto the back porch roof area. If one of the young guys around the area had been here, I would have asked him to do it, but everyone seems to have been away celebrating (or avoiding) Neewollah week events. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: What Happened to Channel 1? Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 13:17:53 -0400 Organization: Roamer1 Communications Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 16:30:23 -0500, PAT wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I read your tinyurl page and it was > quite interesting. I also tried your suggestion about an antenna on > the television and over the air signals from Channel 4. I did *not* > get anything different than what I got before (some hiss and snow with > a very faint image.) However, if what you suggest is true about inter- > ference from Coffeyville CC, then why isn't that also true of the guy > who does the low power repeater of Trinity Broacasting on (I think) > channel 22 or 23 here in Indy? Cable One does not block out that > channel on account of him; in fact I think Trinity is on our cable 22. "Cable" 22 and "UHF" 22 aren't at the same frequency at all. UHF 22 is approximately where cable 73 is (at around 470 MHz), while cable 22 is down around 170 MHz, near the bands used for VHF business radio, pagers, etc. The only overlap between broadcast TV stations and cable TV channels are in the 2-13 range, where VHF stations and cable stations directly overlap, and in the very high cable channels (cable 65 and above), where UHF stations and cable stations overlap with 2 MHz of separation between them (i.e., the visual and aural carriers of cable 65+ are 2 MHz below those of UHF 14+, with standard and HRC cable frequency plans anyway.) As for the channel 4 issue, my guess as to why Cable One isn't using it now is that they used to use it for a premium channel such as HBO using negative traps (which remove the signal of a given channel or group of adjacent channels), and they moved HBO to another analog channel or to digital and left channel 4 idle because reusing it for something else would require visiting the homes of all current customers who don't have HBO to remove traps. Comcast in the area where my parents live (northwest Georgia a few miles south of Chattanooga, TN) doesn't use channels 2 or 14 for the very same reason ... to reuse them would require going around to thousands of homes and removing "HBO" and "Showtime" traps. Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time." -/usr/games/fortune ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard Subject: Re: Verizon California Terminates ISDN, FX, Other Services Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 13:22:52 -0400 Tim@Backhome.org wrote: > What useful purpose does ISDN serve these days? It's VERY useful, actually. Where I work, we have a number of Tandberg 6000's and Polycom FX devices scattered on a number of sites, and quite a few of them are hooked up to both Gigabit ethernet and 3 bonded ISDN PRIs each. Videoconferencing is VERY big, even bigger now that businesses are trying to cut their travel expenses. While videoconferencing over IP is fine inter-office and usually works well within the continental US, there have been plenty of instances where connections to developing countries (South Africa, Guyana, parts of Russia) and even some parts of Europe (Belgium, the UK, Ireland) where the backbone connection over IP is unacceptably bad for even 384kbps full motion video with voice. However many of these sites can be very easily and reliably reached by dialing in to their ISDN lines. Lousy connections suddenly become very crisp 384kbps video and audio. In fact as recently as last week, the US Department of Commerce was leasing our equipment and services to connect to their contacts in certain countries which I probably shouldn't name. Good luck trying to get to those places by IP. Even domestically, ISDN has helped helped greatly. On 9/11 and for days afterwards while flights were grounded, ISDN saved our hides. A number of emergency meetings had to happen, and the 'net was horribly congested. But ISDN? I thanked my lucky stars for circuit-switched connections that day, and I know a lot of other businesses did too. Although New York was a total loss for a while, all other sites were still able to communicate. ISDN made my department look like heroes and miracle workers then. I also know for a fact that even very modern, cutting-edge companies like XM radio continue to use ISDN lines. Their remote New York studios are connected to the headquarters in Washington via bonded ISDNs. They consider their services too critical to risk putting on a T1 and hoping the internet backbone will hold up. A direct dial ISDN connection was the only acceptable solution. E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So you are suggesting that ISDN makes a very good backup system in the case of emergencies? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 30 Oct 2004 21:34:56 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Advice Needed on SMS Servers Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > 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. Unless you have access to the number portability database, you can't tell. It's easy enough to go to nanpa.com and find out what carrier each prefix is assigned to, but now that people can move from carrier to carrier and keep the phone number, the prefix info is only a guess. If you really can't afford your own SMS gateway, you might take a look at clickatell.com or zimepl.net which offer SMS gateway service priced per message via their servers. By the way, if I SMS a name and partial address or zip code to shortcode 46645 on any US network, Google will look up the phone number and SMS it back for free. Is that similar to what you plan? 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: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 08:44:18 -0400 From: w_tom Subject: Re: Home Phones Face Uncertain Future Bubble memory was suppose to replace disk drives. Mainframes were being obsoleted by mini computers. Mini computers were obsoleted by PCs. The CRT would make the office paperless. In each case, the predictions were made assuming a static world. Common mistake when predictions are based upon business school concepts rather than first learning the details. One must first appreciate the dynamics -- which means extensive experience and underlying knowledge of details and the long term potential of new technology. Long and complex sentences that say those predictions assumed too much fiction -- and therefore fail to see the entire future. One need only see why AT&T is almost nothing more than a paper company to appreciate why such fictional predictions are not viable. What do land lines provide? Security. Predictable service. Almost unlimited bandwidth. Three major weaknesses in cell phones. The weakness with dedicated service is the lack of mobility. No problem. Move the existing technology towards its three strengths. Virtually every building in these towns are being rewired with direct fiber optic cables -- from CO to every building. That means VoIP, massive data transfers, security, the reliability not provided, yet, by cell phones, and a host of other yet to be discovered features. Third generation cell phone technology has finally made standard (POTS) phones obsolete. The baby Bells are not dominated by myopic MBA managers whose education literally destroys both innovation and what little remains of AT&T. AT&T management has a static perspective because they view from anti-innovative B-school concepts. If AT&T still ran the baby Bells, then Nokia's predictions would have merit. But baby Bells (about 10 years too late) suddenly realized that they too will go the way of the anti-innovation AT&T. Baby Bells are finally, after more than 50 years, rewiring their entire network. Cell phones will always be chasing land line communication just as the PC chases the mini computer (ie Sun) which in turn chases the main frame (IBM). Cell phones have limits such as radio frequencies which means cell phone towers may eventually be replaced by WiFi type technology -- to keep chasing the land line companies. But don't expect mobiles to replace land line just as IBM found new purpose in their core businesses (once IBM replaced their MBAs with computer guys, then IBM rediscovered innovation meaning that a main frame is no longer a dinosaur). Devil is always in the details which means the manager must have 'dirt under his fingernails'. Without a long detailed list of advantages and disadvantages for each technology combined with a list of future markets and innovations, then one can only make predictions like business school graduates and that BBC article. These latter people routinely stifle innovation because they don't have education from where innovation happens. Spread sheets and marketing mentalities are important peripheral parts of business; but only with a short term perspective. To see the future of land lines with a long term perspective, one must apply knowledge and experience of the technology. 3G cell phones will take future business from land line companies as the second generation (now considered unreliable) cell phones are replaced. And land line companies must discover, invent, and expand into new markets -- which also means innovation. Any land line company that intends to be alive in 10 years will have replaced or duplicated their entire network in fiber -- and learned new products based upon the new demands of that technology. Standard technologies potentially on the chopping block: faxes, portable phones, conventional dial up phones, international shortwave broadcasting, and maybe even conventional letters. Remember what happens to companies who don't innovate. Any Baby Bell that uses the bean counter concepts of cost controls is doomed just like Western Union and AT&T. AT&T and Western Union both were dead center in a wonderful future -- and instead failed to innovate their core business. Nokia's article assumes the Baby Bells are also anti-innovative. It even fails to see the massive move to fiber. Nokia also has a serious problem. Cell phone technology, once complex, has now become so simple that others can also build phones. Standard cell phone chip sets are doing to Nokia what happened to IBM's PC business. Ironic. Innovation threatens Nokia for same reasons that Nokia feels their product will replace the Baby Bells. 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. Check out this link: > The fixed line phone in the home could soon disappear, a study by > mobile firm Nokia shows. > < http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/technology/3762844.stm > ------------------------------ From: Clark W. Griswold, Jr. Subject: Re: Yet Another Telco Tax proposed Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 22:25:43 -0600 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote: > 1) One is the ever increasing demand for government services. All > of us are guilty of that even though we all blame someone else. At the federal level and at most local levels, the "ever increasing demand" is primarily social transfer taxes, not roads or other classic government responsibilities. The single largest component of my local tax bill is the county hospital. Don't tell me we do not have government mandated universal healthcare in the US. I pay thousands every year to cover the uninsured. ------------------------------ From: Hank Karl Subject: Re: VOIP and Telnet Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 13:49:32 -0400 Organization: NETPLEX Internet Services - http://www.ntplx.net/ On 27 Oct 2004 13:04:43 -0700, rshlain@hotmail.com wrote: > It is possible to have VOIP and be able to connect to machines that > have modems and use telnet? I'm not sure what effect telnet will have. You will generally need to get four UDP sessions connected plus a session for the signaling to have a VoIP conversation. Another factor is the modem speed and codec used. You will probably have to use G.729A or G.723.1 or some other low bitrate codec. So you can use VoIP over a modem and it can sound OK (I've done this using Windows Messenger to a colleague in England who only had a "56K" dial up line, and he sounded ok (It wasn't toll-quality, but I knew who was talking and what he said). Codecs use more bandwidth on the Internet than their nominal rate implies. For example, G.729A (8KHz) generally uses 20 bytes of data per sampling interval, the RTP header is 12 bytes, and the UDP/IP header is 28 bytes. If you use G.723.1 at 5.3 KHz, you will have a smaller data packet, but you don't reduce the rest of the payload. If you put two or more data packets in a UDP/IP message, you get better link utilization, but the delay (end-to-end and roundtrip) suffer. If your system can use header compression, things will go a lot better. If you're interested in more details on bandwidth, see http://www.telchemy.com/references/bw_efficiency.html If you'd like to hear what low-bitrate codecs sound like, check out http://www.nine-9s.com/prod_speech_codec_comparisons.htm There are audio files that have been compressed and decompressed for codecs ranging from 1.2K to G.799A (8K) On 28 Oct 2004 09:45:56 -0700, dog4dogg@yahoo.com (kansasman) wrote: > rshlain@hotmail.com wrote in message > news:: >> It is possible to have VOIP and be able to connect to machines that >> have modems and use telnet? >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If I understand it correctly, VOIP -- >> or at least Vonage -- can do everything a telephone can do. PAT] > In my experience, in order to have VoIP, you need to have DSL or > Digital Cable with Broadband. I hope this is helpful! > I was curious about this too -- and I found this site to be helpful in > answering some of my basic questions: > http://www.inclusive.com/trng/voip/facets.htm Or you could try www.testyourvoip.com and see if it works. > Good Luck! > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe also the man has not only broad > band and a fast local area network like myself (and most of you) but > he also has (built in by default) 'Dial Up Networking' and he now and > then uses that instead of the broadband, (as I do when I wish to call > some small BBS type thing.) He wonders if *his modem* will work with > his Vonage phone on his broadband line. PAT] On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 14:16:41 GMT, Rick Merrill wrote: > rshlain@hotmail.com wrote: >> It is possible to have VOIP and be able to connect to machines that >> have modems and use telnet? > Yes, of course: it is a telephone. But WHY would you want to because > VoIP requires that you already have broadband or equivalent. Broadband isn't available everywhere yet. Some people are stuck with analog modems. ------------------------------ From: Hank Karl Subject: Re: Cybersquatter Update Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 13:53:25 -0400 Organization: NETPLEX Internet Services - http://www.ntplx.net/ On 27 Oct 2004 22:45:48 GMT, Ed Clarke wrote: > If you go look at the Network Solutions homepage, you'll find that > they give you a great break on renewing a domain -- $19.99 per year -- > if you renew for five years. The fact that this is more than twice > what others charge (http://www.godaddy.com for example at $8.95) ... > And they are also associated with VeriSign who will give you a great > deal on an SSL certificate at $895 per year ( or you could go to > GeoTrust and get the equivalent for $229 with renewals at $179 ). Godaddy also has an "auto-renew" feature so that you don't inadvertently lose your domain name. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So, if this 'social contract' implies > that non-working/unoccupied URLs are to go to at best a very generic > 'not in service' screen, then a web site on which a fee had not been > paid -- therefore being unoccupied or non-working should go there as > well. PAT] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So the Public Interest Registry *could* do the same thing if they felt like it; either 'renew' or put a short hold on a URL pending a final notice to the owner. Of course that might put a crimp in things for the penis enlargement company and the pornographers. I am still waiting to hear from Mr. Mikka K. who came to us through the garynuman mail server in Calgary, Alberta who has insisted that PIR *had* to do it the way they did, shoving internet history out of the way, and rolling out the red carpet for Bealo, SA. Imagine, the same day PIR bumped me out, they moved Bealo SA right in. I sure hope I did not cause them any inconvenience. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Owner of Stolen 'sex.com' Can Sue VeriSign - Court Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 10:15:42 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Gary Breuckman wrote: > As you said, that difference is 'traditional' and not really enforced > these days -- anyone can apply for the com/org/net TLDs without regard > for what they want to do with them. 'edu' is the only one that's > really restriced anymore. Same with us/biz/info and most of the > country code TLDs. And even EDU isn't enforced completely. It's supposed to be for four-year institutions ONLY, yet you have Cuyahoga Community College in my hometown -- tri-c.edu -- and Victor Valley College and Barstow College in this area -- vvc.edu and barstow.edu. All three are two-year community colleges. 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. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Do you know who the .EDU registrar is? I suppose I could try 'whois .edu' and try to see how it resolves. Reason I ask is maybe someone will decide to start a sex education course on the internet and ICANN, out of their deep respect for that kind of website (after all, there are so many sex sites on the net now) will suggest putting them in .edu . PAT] ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: New Telecom Web Site on the Way Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 21:00:00 EDT I am very pleased to announce that a totally new, totally remodeled telecom-digest.org web site is going to be opening in the next few days. All the links have been checked and verified, a better, and I hope easier format is being installed, but with all the back issues over the past twenty-three years still intact, and the other special reports, etc. We (my associates and myself) had hoped for a November 1 opening; it may be a little later or it may be a little earlier. Look for it to possibly be in place on Monday. No spy cookies, no splash screens you cannot exit from, none of the javascript stuff I had on the old pages. Watch for its arrival maybe Monday or Tuesday and let me know what you think. To our USA readers: Don't forget to set your clocks *back one hour* sometime Saturday night or Sunday if you live in most parts of the USA. 'Fall behind' .... Patrick Townson, Editor/Publisher TELECOM Digest ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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