From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Dec 1 01:35:15 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iB16ZFn18579; Wed, 1 Dec 2004 01:35:15 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 01:35:15 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200412010635.iB16ZFn18579@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 #574 TELECOM Digest Wed, 1 Dec 2004 01:35:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 574 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Welcome to our VOIP News Readers (TELECOM Digest Editor) Cingular to Offer Faster Wireless Service (Monty Solomon) Britain's BT to Offer Movies, More via Internet (DailyLead from USTA) Re: Data Communication Versus Telecommunications (Al Gillis) Re: VOIP News Closing Down (Lisa Hancock) Re: Audix Later Delivery (Pete Romfh) Re: Can't Find Linksys IP (John R. Levine) Re: Can't Find Linksys IP (Barry Margolin) Re: Trial Shows How Spammers Operate (Geoffrey Welsh) Share Day for December, 2004 (TELECOM Digest Editor) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. 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, 01 Dec 2004 01:00:00 EST From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Welcome to our VOIP News Readers This is just a short note to say hello to the VOIP News readers who have chosen to join us here at this Digest. Jack Decker did a great deal to raise public awareness of VOIP as a legitimate and useful way to communicate; a way that will, in the next few years by and large come to replace conventional telephony as we know it now. Please feel free to send messages here as you did with Jack Decker and VOIP News. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 22:06:16 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cingular to Offer Faster Wireless Service ATLANTA (AP) -- Cingular Wireless LLC will begin deploying a speedier wireless Internet service next year, a move made possible by the network capacity gained with the recent acquisition of AT&T Wireless as Cingular tries to catch up with to catch up with rivals led by Verizon Wireless. The nation's biggest cell phone company provided few details with Tuesday's announcement except to say it would launch the service in a "substantial" number of markets by the end of 2005 and "most" major markets by the end of 2006. Cingular already offers the new service in six cities where it had been launched by AT&T Wireless before its acquisition by Cingular in late October _ Dallas, Detroit, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle _ but had yet to move beyond trials itself due to capacity constraints before the merger. The Atlanta-based company said the wireless technology it is using, known as third-generation or 3G, will offer average data speeds between 400 kilobits per second to 700 kilobits per second _ on par with entry-level DSL and cable broadband connections. That speed would be a shade faster than the high-speed service which Verizon already sells in 14 markets and which Sprint Corp. plans to begin rolling out by the end of this year. The Cingular-AT&T Wireless service is based on a technology known as "UMTS," while Verizon and Sprint are using a platform called EV-DO. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 14:49:38 EST From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA Subject: Britain's BT to Offer Movies and More via Internet Telecom dailyLead from USTA November 30, 2004 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=17789&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Britain's BT to offer movies and more via Internet BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Fiedler named BellSouth COO * VoIP gear shipments up in Q3 * Cross Telecom enlists Pannway for video, VoIP rollout USTA SPOTLIGHT * SUPERCOMM: TIA's and USTA's Premiere Event EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * Electronics makers begin production of broadband chip * Is IPTV the next big thing? REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Verizon seeks compromise on Philadelphia Wi-Fi plan * Kazaa's owner outlines defense strategy * Phone companies struggle under current regulatory arrangement Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=17789&l=2017006 Legal and Privacy information at http://www.dailylead.com/about/privacy_legal.jsp SmartBrief, Inc. 1100 H ST NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20005 ------------------------------ From: Al Gillis Subject: Re: Data Communication Versus Telecommunications Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 18:58:53 -0800 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Justin Time wrote in message news:telecom23.573.12@telecom-digest.org: > jrefactors@hotmail.com (Matt) wrote in message > news:: >> When people say telecommunications, it implies data communications, >> correct? I want to know if data communication and telecommunications >> usually are used interchangably. >> Please advise. thanks!! >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In the Usenet hierarchy, 'telecom' is >> one of the sub-groups under the larger category 'dcom'. I would say >> the two terms are mostly interchangeable, but data communications >> does include a lot more than just voice. PAT] > The meaning would have to depend on the context. The more general > term is telecommunications, having two major divisions, voice and > data. The reason telecom -- voice is a sub-group of dcom -- data > communications on the Internet newsgroups is due to the original focus > of the Internet, computer-to-computer communications. As far as the > history goes, data communications in the form of telegraphy pre-dates > telephony or voice communications. My understanding of the word > telecommunications is that it encompasses every form of communication > that was carried by wire (before the age of wireless.) > Rodgers Platt My views follow the logic expressed by Rodgers Platt ... I construe "Telecommunications" as electronic communications (or maybe even just electrical communications) of which there are a bunch of flavors: voice, data (either the old 1BM kind of data communications or the newer IP kind, made popular by Cisco, 3Com and that ilk), video (as in Video conferencing or even television) and possibly even Morse code! I've noticed that recently the "Data Boys" seem to think Telecom refers to voice-related communications. I think that's because they know little of the history of this art/science and they don't know the etymology of the word telecommunications. Per the Encyclopedia Britannica: Telecommunications: The science and practice of transmitting information by electromagnetic means. A wide variety of information can be transferred through a telecommunications system, including voice and music, still-frame ... So there! Al ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: VOIP News Closing Down Date: 30 Nov 2004 19:00:56 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > ... VOIP, which frankly, I believe is the telecom 'wave of the > future'. I hate to be a party pooper, it seems some basic questions remain to be answered about VOIP. Such as: 1) The mainstream press (plus my own experience) describe VOIP sound quality as _almost_ as good as a regular landline phone. When will it be 100% as good or better as landline 100% of the time? 2) The mainstream press says VOIP reliability still has a way to go, and is also dependent on the quality of the broadband connection one happens to be using. In data communications, it is very common to encounter "bunch-ups" when a lot of people just happen to hit their 'enter' key all at once; when this happens, there is a delay. For data transmission or internet use that is tolerable, but not on a voice conversation. It was like this in the early days of telephony when long distance lines were very limited and callers had to be queued for an available trunk. How and when will VOIP address this issue so that the reliability of VOIP is equal or better than landline 100% of the time? 3) The fact remains that VOIP usually needs the Baby Bells to deliver most of their calls. Despite what the FCC says, the Baby Bells are burdened with regulatory obligations, such as accomodating deadbeats and providing service to every location. I can't help but suspect the VOIP providers would not be interesting in running their cables or even providing service to high crime slum areas that the Baby Bells do support. Further, the Baby Bells have to have human service reps to handle customer complaints, ironically some coming from the possibility that VOIP providers failed to provide proper ANI and innundated customers with campaign calls (as recently described in this newsgroup). There have been some posts here recently complaining about long waits for service for some VOIP providers. It's one thing to be a novel new technology serving techo-geeks who can live with glitches. I suspect the high volume campaign callers didn't care if a percentage of calls failed to go through. But as the service expands into many people depending on the phone to make a living, such problems won't be tolerated. In my humble opinion, VOIP has a long way to go, further than its proponents recognize. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So, there are a few shortomings still to be dealt with on VOIP. No one has ever claimed it was perfect; far from it. But the trade offs are worth considering. Like the Walmart versus the downtown store argument we had; some people may prefer its inexpensive cost and flexibilty over some of the traditional telecom 'advantages'. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Pete Romfh Subject: Re: Audix Later Delivery Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 22:29:36 -0600 Organization: Not Organized Tom Niesen wrote: > Hello, > I'm a part-time telecommunications administrator for a > private college. My job includes switch and audix > administration. My problem is this; For years we've had > occasional complaints of late delivery of Audix messages. > Sometimes a few days late, sometimes a few hours. It's > hit and miss. On occasion, changing out the phone seems > to fix the problem, other times it's switching ports that > works out. I have a faculty member that is having an > ongoing problem with late Audix delivery and none of the > above has solved his issue. > I did an archive search of the subject on Google but > can't find too much written about it. Any suggestions? > Tom Niesen Frequently the late delivery in Audix is due to the recipient's mailbox being full. You can display activity on the sender's and recipients mailboxes to see when it left the one and arrived in the other. Then do a List Measurements Subscriber Month and compare the maximum space used to the mailbox size. If the mailbox is full you can give them a larger mailbox, or check their mesage retention time and see if they are squirreling away messages. I had a user today who was complaining she wasn't getting messages. When I looked she had 385 old messages stored in her mailbox. She didn't know how to delete a message so she was just hitting # after every message to go to the next one. I educated the user and cleaned out her stored messages and she's fine now. Pete Romfh, Telecom Geek & Amateur Gourmet. promfh at hal dash pc dot org ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Can't Find Linksys IP Date: 30 Nov 2004 21:06:48 -0500 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> I am using Vonage at home. My Linksys wireless router is=0D >> connected to Vonage unit and the Vonage unit is connected to=0D >> the incoming cable modem. I have not logged into the wireless=0D >> router in a while, now I forgot it's IP address, how do I find it? I had to corral a recalcitrant Linksys access point the other day, which I did by downloading and running the otherwise not very useful Windows setup program that Linksys provides. It uses some sort of undocumented broadcast scheme to find the Linksys box regardless of its IP address. On the other hand, if your router is doing NAT, as they all do, I would be amazed if it put itself anywhere other than 192,168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1. Failing that, another straightforward way to find it is to open the status window for the wireless connection on one of the client machines and see what address is listed as the gateway. On recent version of Windows, open the wireless from the network connection window, click on the Support tab and take a look. Whatever's listed for the gateway is the router. ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Can't Find Linksys IP Organization: Symantec Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 00:23:01 -0500 In article , BHAM KAL wrote: > Hi, > I am using Vonage at home. My Linksys wireless router is connected to > Vonage unit and the Vonage unit is connected to the incoming cable > modem. I have not logged into the wireless router in a while, now I > forgot it's IP address, how do I find it? Connect a PC to a LAN port of the router, and configure it to get its network settings by DHCP. Then check its default gateway with "ipconfig". Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** ------------------------------ From: Geoffrey Welsh Subject: Re: Trial Shows How Spammers Operate Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 00:55:36 -0500 Steve Sobol wrote: > Bull. The screensaver is meant to be installed on a lot of different > computers that will be used to flood spammer sites with > traffic. That's the textbook definition of a DDoS. By your definition (or your textbook's), listing an interesting story on an aggregation site such as FARK - thus bringing many viewers who would not have otherwise viewed the page - would qualify as a DDOS attack. I suggest that a DDOS attack is one which intends to fill either the publisher's bandwidth or its servers' connection tables with the specific intent of making the site unavailable to as many visitors as possible. That's why they call is Denial Of Service; anything which does not attempt to prevent views by others is NOT a DDOS attack. I have installed the screen saver and, if anything, I'm disappointed in how little of the available bandwidth it uses. I am certain that I could manually generate more traffic to the spammers' web sites than the screen saver does -- if I didn't have to spend several minutes between each visit determining the next site to visit. This software seems specifically designed NOT to interfere with other visitors, but simply to generate a constant level of unprofitable traffic to a large number of sites based on the theory that the spammers are being charged for the traffic they generate -- which, if it is not always true, probably will become true when the spammers' hosts discover that these sites are now generating a significant volume of traffic. I could be generating revenue for a lot more spammers' web hosts, and I'd be glad to do it. The ultimate test, of course, would be to visit the sites reported by the screen saver to verify that they are still operational. If so, then the screen saver is at least an unsuccessful DDOS, if a DDOS at all. I suggest that you find a better textbook. Or collect some facts before claiming that what others (in this case, Lycos) write is a lie. Geoffrey Welsh ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Share Day For December Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 1:15:00 EST Instead of changing the Digest mailing list over to an advertising supported forum, I have always elected to keep it as a user supported forum, and for the most part keep it spam and virus free. I have been experimenting, not entirely successfully, with advertising through Google on the web site, but not the mailing list. I am *only* able to do this because of financial support from readers here, and if you would rather not see these messages every month, then please pitch in and help now and then! Consider it sort of like public radio, which goes on for days at a time trying to raise money ... and maybe I should adopt the same system. Turn over the entire Digest once or twice a year to fund raising (entire issues, etc) and stop doing it when the budget for the year has been raised. But for now, I will stick with the present system of devoting a few messages at the end of each month to raising money for the Digest publication expenses. Out of 400-500 messages per month, in a spam, virus free environment, two or three (only) devoted to fund raising. You know who you are; please provide some help here financially. You can use Pay Pal to donate with a credit/debit card by going to our web site http://telecom-digest.org and at the bottom of the home page look for the PayPal 'donate' button. Or if you prefer, send a check or money order to Patrick Townson/TELECOM, Post Office Box 50, Independence, Kansas 67301-0050. The amount you send is entirely up to you. 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