From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Feb 4 19:10:20 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id i150AKn07914; Wed, 4 Feb 2004 19:10:20 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 19:10:20 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200402050010.i150AKn07914@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 #57 TELECOM Digest Wed, 4 Feb 2004 19:10:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 57 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Akamai Reports Fourth Quarter 2003 & Full-Year 2003 Financial (Solomon) TiVo & Nielsen Media Research Agree to Market DVR Usage (Monty Solomon) Computer, TV, Stereo? (Monty Solomon) Microsoft Security Bulletins (Monty Solomon) IVR System Information Request (Brett Nelson) Re: Using PIX 501 With Vonage VOIP (Charles Hizark) Re: Faked CallerID Info? (McWebber) Re: Faked CallerID Info? (Daniel W. Johnson) Re: Plain Old Cell Phones Fading Away in U.S. (noname) Re: Plain Old Cell Phones Fading Away in U.S. (Phil McKerracher) Re: Jackson, Timberlake Apologize for Flash (J Kelly) Re: What If ...? was Re: Verizon Violates DNC List (noname) Real Time ANI Service Needed on Toll Free Lines (Virtual Lab Rat) Re: SCO Options, was Re: Mydoom vs. SCO (Phil Earnhardt) "David Nelson" in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Article (Carl Moore) Last Laugh! Re: Some *Good News* About Norvergence! (Chris Jones) 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 is 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, 4 Feb 2004 18:03:23 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Akamai Reports Fourth Quarter 2003 and Full-Year 2003 Financial CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 4, 2004--Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:AKAM): -- Record fourth quarter revenue of $45.2 million, up 8% quarter-over-quarter, and up 28% year-over-year -- Annual revenue grew to $161.3 million, up 11% year-over-year -- GAAP net loss narrowed to $0.02 per share -- First ever normalized net income(a) of $1.5 million, or $0.01 per share Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:AKAM), the global leader in distributed computing solutions and services, today reported financial results for the fourth quarter and full-year ended December 31, 2003. Revenue for the fourth quarter 2003 was $45.2 million, an 8.1 percent increase over third quarter revenue of $41.8 million, and a 27.7 percent increase over fourth quarter 2002 revenue of $35.4 million. Total revenue for 2003 was $161.3 million. Net loss, in accordance with United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), for the fourth quarter 2003 was $2.1 million, or $0.02 per share, compared to a net loss for the third quarter 2003 of $3.9 million, or $0.03 per share, and compared to a net loss of $55.6 million, or $0.48 per share, in the fourth quarter of 2002. Included in the fourth quarter 2003 net loss is $2.1 million of expenses associated with the retirement of debt. For the first time in its history, the Company achieved positive earnings per share of $0.01 on a normalized basis(a), generating $1.5 million positive net income for the fourth quarter, compared to a normalized net loss(a) for the prior quarter of $0.03 per share, or $3.5 million, and compared to First Call's consensus estimate for the fourth quarter of a normalized net loss of $0.01 per share. ((a)See Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures below for definitions.) Akamai ended the year with $208.4 million in cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash, marketable securities and restricted marketable securities, including $95.8 million in net debt proceeds and redemptions, an increase from $99.0 million at the end of the third quarter. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=40430314 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 18:02:38 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: TiVo and Nielsen Media Research Agree to Market DVR Usage SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Nielsen Media Research, the global leader in television measurement services, and TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO), the pioneer in digital video recording (DVR) services, have signed an agreement to deliver information on DVR usage to the television industry. This new service, which will be marketed by Nielsen Media Research, will aid advertisers and television executives seeking to understand the opportunities and effects of growing DVR usage. Consistent with their dedication to industry privacy standards, TiVo and Nielsen will collect data on television viewing patterns and trends by creating an Opt-In panel of TiVo's standalone subscribers. This fully consensual panel will provide key information for the purposes of analyzing, processing and marketing DVR usage data to the television industry. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=40430118 ------------------------------ From: Monty Solomon Subject: Computer? TV? Stereo? Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 14:00:00 EST By WALTER S. MOSSBERG EVERYONE KNOWS that personal computers come in a variety of styles and types-desktops, laptops, tablet PCs and so forth. But gradually, over the past year, a new major subtype has elbowed its way onto the family tree: the Windows Media Center PC. A Media Center PC is a high-end, well-equipped Windows PC that has a TV tuner built in and that uses a special version of Microsoft's Windows XP operating system called the Media Center Edition. It can be used on a desk or lap, just like any Windows computer. But it comes with a remote control and is meant to be operated, at least some of the time, from across the room. In this mode, you can use a Media Center PC to watch and record television, play your digital music files, view photos and video clips, and play DVDs. When Microsoft first envisioned a Media Center PC a couple of years ago, it was seen as a niche product for dorm rooms and teenagers' bedrooms. The theory was that computers would likely be placed in these rooms anyway, so they might as well contain functions that would eliminate the need to equip these rooms with TV sets, VCRs, DVD players and audio systems. But the machines proved popular with consumers, and in many more settings than teenagers' rooms. So this winter lots of PC makers are offering Media Center PCs, in both desktop and laptop versions. Some of these models are designed to look like flat-panel TVs or even stereo components, in hopes consumers will place them in the family room instead of the home office. As with so many other products, Microsoft didn't invent the idea of a Media Center computer but is merely refining the work of pioneers. Years ago Apple Computer sold a sleek, black Macintosh model called the Mac TV, with a built-in TV tuner and an elegant remote control the size of a credit card. And various Windows PC makers have also tried PCs with built-in TVs and remotes. Especially notable in this regard was Packard Bell, once the king of low-priced retail PCs. http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/report-200401.html ------------------------------ From: Monty Solomon Subject: Microsoft Security Bulletins Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 16:00:00 CST Security Bulletins http://www.microsoft.com/security/security_bulletins/ Read About the New Security Bulletin Process http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/revsbwp.asp Technical Bulletins http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/?url=/technet/security/current.asp?frame=true Learn How to Spot a Bogus Security Bulletin http://www.microsoft.com/security/antivirus/authenticate_mail.asp [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As a general rule of thumb, Microsoft Security things (and other updates/improvements to their software) do not come in email. They don't write to people in general about it. You get them by going to the Microsoft Windows Update site. At your computer, go to a blank, fresh browser screen and type in the address of record for Microsoft Updates. That's the only safe way to do it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: BMN Subject: IVR System Information Request Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 18:26:31 -0500 Organization: Bell Sympatico Looking for feedback on www.locusdialog.com speech-enabled auto attendant and call routing solutions. Hearing about any experiences with this product or similar products, good or bad or otherwise would be appreciated. Regards, Brett Nelson ------------------------------ From: hizark21@yahoo.com (Charles Hizark) Subject: Re: Using PIX 501 With Vonage VoIP Date: 4 Feb 2004 15:28:34 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Chainsman wrote in message news:: > Hi, I use Vonage VoIP with my home telephone system in a NATted and > firewalled network and it works fine. If you order Vonage now, the > current device has a simple firewall and NAT function so you can use > it like a gateway. The most important reason to do this is that your > firewall will probably not pass-through the Quality-of-Service (QoS) > tagged packets. If you use the Vonage device between your gateway and > your cable/DSL modem then the QoS tags are used and, probably more > importantly, the VoIP network activity gets the highest priority over > your networks' internally-generated traffic. > The layout that gives VoIP the highest priority (via QoS over the > cable modem network and priority over all your internal network's > traffic): network --> gateway/router --> Vonage device --> cable modem Cable companies use DOCIS 2.0 (Data over cable interface specification). DoCIS 2.0 is a form of broadband ATM. This allows flow control or hard QOS. Hard QOS is garunteed bandwidth delivery. > I have used it in both modes and if you are doing online games you > will probably not like the firewall and NAT function but if you depend > on the Vonage for your primary phone line (I do not) you will want it > as the last device before the modem. > It should be noted that Cisco was not interested in adding the > NAT/Firewall feature to their VoIP box so that's why Vonage is only > using the Motorola box now. ------------------------------ From: McWebber Subject: Re: Faked CallerID Info? Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 16:06:24 -0500 McWebber wrote in message news:telecom23.56.4@telecom-digest.org: > tablet before bedtime. At that point however the message takes a turn: > In one version of both, the other partner looks shocked and says, but > we have always taken Brand X (by name); the other partner dismisses > that with, 'Yes, I know, but the doctor says ...' the other version of > the very same commercial edits out that reference to Brand X and very > smoothly continues telling the good things about Advil. I do not know > if they were trying to save five seconds (times how many stations) on > their advertising bill, or if the lawyers for Brand X got on their > case. Same man and woman in each case. PAT] IIRC, the old Advertising Code had some rules about comparative advertising and brand names and some stations may still have such rules so as not to piss off the other company. McWebber "Richter points to the lack of legal action against his company as proof that he's operating appropriately." Information Week, November 10, 2003 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe so, but I have seen both versions of the commercial on the same station (TV Land, which is about the only thing I watch on the idiot box other than occassional PBS shows on Channel 11. Mostly I listen to radio, especially while working. PAT] ------------------------------ From: panoptes@iquest.net (Daniel W. Johnson) Subject: Re: Faked CallerID Info? Date: 4 Feb 2004 14:59:05 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com TELECOM Digest Editor added in message news:: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I guess so, if you feel that exposing > yourself on national TV is 'normal' behavior. Although I personally > feel Michael is innocent in this latest affair, victimized by a very > noisy mother, I also think he is just as goofy as she is. I do not > watch much television, and certainly not the Super Bowl. Thanks for > reminding me why not. I did not see either the horse incident or the > instance of LaToya Jackson's indecent exposure, but I certainly am > reading a lot about it. PAT] I haven't read anything about indecent exposure on the part of LaToya, just the incident with her younger sister Janet on the Super Bowl halftime show. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My bad ... I should have said 'Janet' instead of 'LaToya'. PAT] ------------------------------ From: noname Subject: Re: Plain Old Cell Phones Fading Away in U.S. Organization: ATCC Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 19:00:24 GMT In article , a_user2000@yahoo.com says: > By the time you dig through your carry case to pull out the keyboard, > unfold it, attach the PDA -- and then find the device won't balance on > your knees, the meeting is over and you have no notes. Your fancy > $500 PDA with built-in phone, is now as useful as a brick. And who > wants to hold one of those things up to your ear and try to make a > phone call? > My Nokia 8260 still runs fine and does everything I need it to do, and > my portfolio with notepad takes all the notes I need along with > holding much more information than any PDA. If they really want the things to be used in meetings for notes, etc. why not build a decent voice recognition system in that can not only detect and parse speech, but identify speaker. That would make a useful tool. Buttons are the rule of the day. It's what happens when we give the engineers free reign without considering the human element. I'm surprised none of the manufacturers have figured that out yet. ------------------------------ From: Phil McKerracher Subject: Re: Plain Old Cell Phones Fading Away in U.S. Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 22:25:58 GMT Organization: blueyonder (post doesn't reflect views of blueyonder) Justin Time wrote in message news:telecom23.56.8@telecom-digest.org: [Some quoting omitted, part of it erroneously attributed to me] > By the time you dig through your carry case to pull out the keyboard, > unfold it, attach the PDA -- and then find the device won't balance on > your knees, the meeting is over and you have no notes. Your fancy > $500 PDA with built-in phone, is now as useful as a brick ... That's why no keyboard is actually available for mine. You either write on the screen as you would on paper, or record a voice memo (useful if only one hand is free). You can also take a picture with the camera ones. I've taken a picture of a train timetable and an information board with a digital camera to save transcribing the bits I want, for example. > ... And who wants to hold one of those things up to your ear and > try to make a phone call? I don't find this a problem at all, the palm size is comfortable. > My Nokia 8260 still runs fine and does everything I need it to do, and > my portfolio with notepad takes all the notes I need along with > holding much more information than any PDA. > Rodgers Platt Surely you don't really mean the "holding much more information" bit? I currently have a couple of e-books in my xda, taking up much less physical space than paper would. They can also be read in a dark bedroom or plane without disturbing other people. Paper notes are much harder to back up, search or share. I don't see any advantage at all, except that there's no battery to go flat. Phil McKerracher www.mckerracher.org ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Re: Jackson, Timberlake Apologize for Flash Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 13:03:16 -0600 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Reply-To: jkelly@newsguy-nospam-.com On Tue, 3 Feb 2004 21:22:30 -0500, Monty Solomon wrote: > Federal Communications Commission chief Michael Powell on Monday > promised an investigation into whether CBS violated decency laws, with > potential fines of up to $27,500. If applied to each CBS station, the > fine could reach into the millions. Does anyone else wonder why they keep mentioning that affiliates may be fined? How in the hell did some little CBS affiliate in West Undershirt, Iowa have anything to do with it? They just pass through what the CBS network feeds them, they had *NO IDEA* they should be watching this in case they needed to censor it. As far as they knew it was simply a football game. The affiliates do not normally censor what the network is sending them in less they have reason to believe ahead of time that something offensive to their local audience is about to be broadcast. ------------------------------ From: noname Subject: Re: What If ...? Was Re: Verizon Violates DNC List Organization: ATCC Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 19:04:25 GMT In article , george@coventry.m5p.com says: > TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to a message: >> Even though officially the Bell System has been dead for many years, >> the droids continue to act like Ma Bell was still around, as much as >> they are permitted, don't they? I think those people act like >> divestiture was merely a stumbling-block, a minor inconvenience in >> their path. PAT] > Verizon, of course, would have been an impossibility pre-divestiture, > and even at the beginning of 1999, who would have dreamed of a merger > between the largest independent telco with a big chunk of the old Bell > System? As I was pondering Verizon's history this morning, it occurred > to me to wonder what was on Judge Greene's mind when he repartitioned > the old Bell System into the seven Baby Bells. What would have hap- > pened if he had simply spun off the existing Bell operating companies > with the nominal corporate structure which existed at the time? Surely > some of us would still be dealing with New England Telephone, or Paci- > fic Northwest Bell, etc. Would anything the size of Bell Atlantic have > merged together by this point, to be merged in its turn with GTE? New England Telephone and New York Telephone were the first to group together as Nynex. I don't think that Judge Greene envisioned the arguments about economies of scale that would be put forth by the companies. Nor did he think about diseconomies of scale as is so the case with Verizon absorbing GTE. When you think about it, Bell Atlantic probably was in the best financial position to start all this. They pretty much had the prime areas that weren't all that expensive to service and they had some plum government contracts. ------------------------------ From: me@virtuallabrat.com (Virtual Lab Rat - No Spam Please) Subject: Real time ANI service needed on toll free lines Date: 4 Feb 2004 13:18:13 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I currently use kall8.com and telcan.net for toll free service. I don't need the ability to change the ring to number in real time, and I don't need many of the other value added features these services offer. The only value added feature I need is real time ANI or near real time ANI that I can access thorugh the web or that is passed through as caller ID. At one time I used a service called IPHONE, I think they resold Worldcom service. I paid 4 cents per minute at straight 6 sec increments. They passed the ANI through to Caller ID. Even if the caller had blocked their caller ID info, I could see it. I am looking for a similar service at a similar price. Would appriciate any suggestions. ------------------------------ From: Phil Earnhardt Subject: Re: SCO Options, was Re: Mydoom vs. SCO Date: 4 Feb 2004 13:41:00 -0800 Organization: Newsguy News Service [http://newsguy.com] In article , Kenneth P. Stox says: >> "The assault on SCO is expected to last until 12 February. >> Until then, SCO has said it will use the alternative >> domain name www.thescogroup.com." > Strange. www.sco.com resolves to 216.250.128.12, and www.thescogroup.com > resolves to 216.250.128.21. Now then, if I was someone with more than > one interconnected neuron, and I was expecting a DOS attack, wouldn't I > try to locate the other server on another network? Naahhhhhh! That may have been the prior address of www.sco.com. At this instant, www.sco.com doesn't resolve to any IP address; SCO removed that name from the name servers. I presume they did this action early enough so that the name would be flushed from the caches of any normally-operating name servers -- before the attacks started. Comments on neuron interconnectivity aside, SCO's strategy of dealing with the threat appears to be working: responsiveness on requests to www.thescogroup.com is prompt. --phil ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 15:21:12 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: "David Nelson" in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Article On Jan. 18 or so, subject newspaper in western Pennsylvania had the story of an arrest in auction scam. I take it many of you heard of the scenario of the seller (of car or animal or other item) being sent a cashier's or certified check (probably by a 3rd party) for a few thousand dollars more than what the seller asked for, with the seller being asked to wire the difference to the buyer. (The scam scenario is that that check will be found to be counterfeit, with the scammers hoping that the money to be wired by the seller will be gone by then.) Anyway, there is a note of a scammer sometimes using the name of David Nelson online. David Nelson?!? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Sigh ... David Nelson always was the black sheep in the family, wasn't he? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Chris Jones Subject: Last Laugh! Re: Some *Good News* About Norvergence! Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 16:41:05 -0500 In response to Brett's (BMN ) response to Pat, I just have to say, isn't that America, to you and me? Norvergence is out there following in the footsteps of PT Barnum with the Feds sniffing around their heels to see if any illicit money might turn up, and you want to point fingers? You want to name names? There's more than enough gravy to sink this boat, so all aboard! Down with naysayers, up with profiteers, and it's everyone on the bandwagon for hiself! Women and children first! Forward, upward, outtasight! Excelsior ad whooosh! ------------------------------ 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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