From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Dec 11 17:44:29 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iBBMiTO22852; Sat, 11 Dec 2004 17:44:29 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 17:44:29 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200412112244.iBBMiTO22852@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 #592 TELECOM Digest Sat, 11 Dec 2004 17:45:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 592 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Napster Entering Ringtone Market (Lisa Minter) Yahoo to Begin Testing Desktop Search in January (Lisa Minter) Supreme Court to Decide Grokster Case (Lisa Minter) What's VOip With Pictures Called? (Rick Merrill) Re: Calling Card Needed - Short Interaction Sequence (NOTvalid) Re: Sprint, Nextel in Merger Talks (pro_engineer_97@yahoo.com) Re: Sprint, Nextel in Merger Talks (Isaiah Beard) Re: Radar Detectors (Ron Chapman) Re: Radar Detectors (Tim@Backhome.org) Re: Radar Detectors (Tony P.) Re: Automatic Number Identification (ANI) Service (Steve Sobol) Re: Question About ROLM PBX Telephones (Fred Goldstein) Re: Vonage, VoicePulse Push Forward With Video (John Levine) Re: How to Call from A to B to C? Please Help (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Dropping SBC For a VoIP Solution - Vonage or Packet8 (Dave Close) Re: FAX vs VOIP (Dave Close) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lisa Minter Subject: Napster Entering Ringtone Market Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 14:10:26 EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Online music service Napster on Thursday said it reached a deal to enter the ringtone market with mobile content publisher Dwango Wireless. The "Napster Mobile" service will offer wireless customers access to ringtones, using an integrated technology extending from the PC to mobile devices. The service, scheduled to launch in the U.S. and Canada in 2005, will let Napster Mobile customers choose ringtones from a song catalog and earn credits for Napster's online music service. From time to time, Napster will send out promotional codes through the users' phones redeemable for discounts on subscriptions or download credits on Napster's service. Napster is a unit of Roxio Inc. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra . New articles daily. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance Yahoo News. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Yahoo to Begin Testing Desktop Search in January Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 14:14:45 EST By Lisa Baertlein SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc. said on Thursday it will begin testing a free desktop search service in early January, following rivals hoping to extend the reach of wildly profitable search-related advertising. Desktop search, which helps excavate information buried on computer hard drives, is seen as the next frontier in the booming search sector that has generated billions in revenues from ads generated by Web search queries. Yahoo's product will use licensed technology from Pasadena, California- based X1 Technologies Inc. to help users search e-mail and a variety of files -- from photos and music to PDF-format documents -- on their hard drives. Those search capabilities also will be integrated with Yahoo's own Web search technology, said Jeff Weiner, senior vice president of Yahoo's search and marketplace business. Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo expects to roll out rapid updates to its desktop service, which will eventually allow users to search even more of the Web -- including content from Yahoo chat groups, address book and instant messaging archives. Web search leader Google Inc., Yahoo's biggest rival, launched its test desktop search service in October. Software giant Microsoft Corp., whose Windows operating system runs on more than 90 percent of the world's personal computers, bought a desktop search business in July and has said it will launch its own desktop search engine by year-end. Ask Jeeves Inc. bought desktop search company Tukaroo Inc. in June and also has said it will launch sometime this month. Desktop search products are expected from AOL and Apple Computer Inc., too. Yahoo, Google, Ask Jeeves and Microsoft's MSN Internet division each rely on Web-search advertising to drive profits. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra . New articles daily. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance Reuters News Service. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Yahoo! News Story - Supreme Court to Decide Grokster Case Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 12:27:55 EST By Andy Sullivan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to consider whether Internet file-trading networks should be held responsible when their users copy music, movies and other protected works without permission. Online networks like Grokster and Morpheus allow millions of computer users to copy music and movies for free from each others' hard drives. Recording labels and movie studios say that cuts into their sales. But the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in August that peer-to- peer networks cannot be held liable for copyright infringement because, like a videocassette recorder, they can be used for legiti- mate purposes as well. Even as record labels challenge the appeals court's decision, they are tentatively embracing peer-to-peer networks as a way to cut distribution costs and reach out to listeners. By the time the Supreme Court hears the case next spring, all four major labels -- Vivendi Universal, EMI Group Plc, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and privately held Warner Music -- could be distributing their songs over a new generation of peer-to-peer networks like Snocap and Mashboxx that promise to collect payment for songs. The court is expected to issue a decision by June. Entertainment-industry trade groups said Grokster and other rogue networks need to be shut down if industry-sanctioned services like Snocap and Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes can flourish. "Without strong rules of the road, there will never be a level playing field for the multitude of legitimate online music services trying to do the right thing," said Mitch Bainwol, chairman of the Recording Industry Association of America. The head of a peer-to-peer trade group said the entertainment industry would be better off negotiating with his members rather than trying to sue them out of existence. "Decentralized peer-to-peer technology will forever be with us even if every presently operating company goes out of business yesterday," said Adam Eisgrau, executive director of P2P United, which counts the parent companies of Grokster and Morpheus among its members. The entertainment industry managed to shut down the first file-trading network, Napster. But Grokster and other networks that have sprung up in its wake claim their decentralized design prevents them from blocking copyrighted songs or otherwise controlling user behavior. While the entertainment industry has been unable so far to shut down peer-to-peer networks through the courts, it has sued more than 5,000 individual users for copyright infringement. The industry has also lobbied Congress for tougher copyright laws and warned peer-to-peer users they may be exposed to computer viruses, unwanted pornography and privacy risks. But traffic on file-trading networks continues to rise. An average of 7.5 million users were logged on to peer-to-peer networks in November 2004, up from 4.4 million in November 2003, according to the research firm BigChampagne. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra . New articles daily. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance Reuters News Service. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: What's VOip With Pictures Called? Organization: Comcast Online Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 16:44:29 GMT My guess is that VoIP providers will move towards videophone as soon as feasible. What do you think? - RM [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If any sort of universal interchange agreement (on handling each other's traffic) gets started, then I agree this 'VOIP-CAM' application will be a winner. Bell never did get too far along with videophone -- in terms of popular usage -- but I think we live in a different era now. PAT] ------------------------------ From: NOTvalid@surplus4actors.INFO Subject: Re: Calling Card Needed -- Short Interaction Sequence Date: 11 Dec 2004 09:00:45 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Even OneSuite charges 55 cents from payphone. But for that 55 cents you can make multiple successive calls. As far a "Short Interaction Sequence", if you frequently use same phone, you don't have to use PIN number. You can register that phone on-line as not needing PIN. Incredibly low long distance phone rates, As low as USA-Canada 1.9CPM! Works as prepaid phone card. PIN not needed for calls from home or cell phone. Compare the rates at https://www.onesuite.com/ No monthly fee or minimum. Use promotion code "034720367" for some FREE time. ------------------------------ From: pro_engineer_97@yahoo.com Subject: Re: Sprint, Nextel in Merger Talks Date: 10 Dec 2004 18:53:51 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I have been employed by Sprint PCS in the past, and am currently employed by Nextel. Nextel has excellent benefits, and has a great working environment. They don't just "talk the talk", they truly care about their employees. They will even give you $3,500 to assist with adopting a child. Sprint, on the other hand, has mediocre benefits at best, and treat their employees as "just another number". The news of this merger is a big disappointment to me, and I advise all Nextel employees to get ready for the "shaft". I reactivated my resume on all of the major job boards today. Sprint is not a good place to work. ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard Subject: Re: Sprint, Nextel in Talks: Reports Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 22:34:35 -0500 Eric Friedebach wrote: > Sprint Corp. and Nextel Communications Inc. are in merger discussions, > according to press reports. I've said this in quite a few forums, and I'll say it here: that anyone would THINK of merging these two companies defies any reasonable logic. The two networks that are run by Nextel (iDEN) and Sprint (CDMA 2000 1x) have very little in common, offer a very different feature set, and are completely and entirely incompatible with each other. Invariably, a merger would require a cost savings to work out, and that would inevitably mean integrating the two networks ... something which would be a total nightmare, and would mean that at least half of the user base would be angered that their feature set would be lost in favor of the other. Not to mention the expense involved in swapping out customer equipment in order to permit this integration (and considering the Sprint's top of the line "smart" phones cost upwards of $600 and Nextel's top of the line models are upwards of $400, they had BETTER have a plan in place to make sure the phones either compatible with the integrated network, or that they are replaced with comparable equipment that IS compatible). With Cingular and AT&T, the "synergy" of a merger was easy to see: both networks were similar, used the same standards, and even had the same lineage (started out AMPS, switched to TDMA, and evolving to GSM/EDGE). No equipment swapout is necessary because the equipment is largely the same. With Sprint and Nextel, there is no such synergy, and I would seriously doubt the long- or even medium-term viability of the merged entity. E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 22:00:35 -0500 From: Ron Chapman Subject: Re: Radar Detectors In article , Justin Time wrote: >> b) change the timing of the lights with such devices, in order to >> DRAMATICALLY shorten the time of the yellow light, a change which >> drastically increases the likelihood of your getting caught by the >> device? > Now this is a bold statement with no proof to your allegation. I didn't list the proof, but it's been proven time and again to my satisfaction. And when the municipalities in question are confronted with this proof, they act like a convenience store robber faced with film from the security camera -- they just shrug and shut up. > While I am not saying that retiming of traffic lights hasn't > occurred, can you cite some specific examples of cities where this > has been done? From http://www.namic.org/regulatorykeyissues/redlight.asp : > And, in July 2001, U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX), > testifying before the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, > said red light cameras have become profitable in some communities, > where the timing of yellow light traffic signals is shortened to the > point of where more drivers are caught running red lights. Armey > suggested that this could be explained in part by local > jurisdictions that lease camera equipment from private contractors > who are paid a percentage of each fine that is levied. motorists.com is also a good site. And this is pretty damning for the city of San Diego: http://tinyurl.com/68qqs Go to Google and do a search using the terms red light cameras timing and you'll come up with the same things I'm seeing right now. You may also want to contact Pat Bedard and Car and Driver magazine. He has the absolute facts to back all this up. > I know that in the city where I work, one unit was removed because > it was found to be installed at an intersection where the light was > improperly timed to allow traffic to clear an intersection before > the light at the next intersection turned red. That says nothing about the timing of the yellow light; it speaks only to the timing of one light turning red and the other light turning green. When the yellow light is shortened, people that were law-abiding yesterday became criminals today -- and they didn't do a thing to change their behavior. Moreover, they were never told about the timing change. It's about revenue generation, period. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: We have a situation where a sort of busy street runs parallel to railroad tracks with rather high speed trains. At an intersection where a cross street first crosses the railroad tracks then just a few feet further also crosses the busy street, they have the stop/go light synched to change when the bell starts ringing/the red light flashes/the crossing gate starts going down. The stop/go lights are on their own timing, but the very instant the railroad starts signalling a train is coming through (by flashing red lights/bell/gate about to drop) the busy street goes to yellow for a second or two, then to red. Objective: get stopped cars out of the intersection and off the tracks on the cross street before the gates go down and conceivably trap a car on the railroad tracks. On the cross street, in addition to a stop/go light right at the intersection (where it is too 'close for comfort' to the railroad track crossing) there is a 'supplementary' stop/go light a few feet *before* you get on the tracks, and if *it* goes to red you are expected to stop there, of course, but if it was green or starting to change to yellow as you traveled the roughly two or three car lengths and then went red before you got across the intersection, you are expected to stop at the other light; in other words keep the tracks clear if possible, but if a train is coming, then the light changes in a second or two to get *you* off the tracks and out of the way, even if the busy street had just a few seconds earlier gotten a green, it goes back to yellow >> red. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tim@Backhome.org Subject: Re: Radar Detectors Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 05:12:45 -0800 Organization: Cox Communications hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > I wish the cops didn't need cameras and speed traps, but motorists > have only themselves to blame. An automatic speed timing/enforcement device that permits up to 39 in a 25 mph zone is hardly a speed trap. That is a generous buffer. I am presuming the 25 mph limit is justified, which it usually is in a residential setting. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When traveling south on Pennsylvania Avenue (highway 75 here) the stop/go lights are timed in such a way that if you make one light, and *travel at the right speed* you can make all the lights all the way downtown. On the other hand, miss one light, and you miss them all. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tony P" Subject: Re: Radar Detectors Organization: ATCC Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 13:18:00 -0500 In article , Tim@Backhome.org says: > Bitu wrote: >> I have tested the spray myself. I triggered one of these nasty cameras >> intentionally one early morning when there was nobody around. I saw the >> flash go off but I have yet to receive any tickets. It is a nice >> feeling to know that I am not driving naked. These cameras are not for >> safety they are all about revenue. I have donated enough money to the >> local police department. They are not going to get me again for driving >> 5 miles over the speed limit. > The automatic devices for slight speed violations are revenue devices > for the most part. But, the devices that catch red light runners > serve a genuine safety purposes. In Southern California there just > aren't enough traffic cops. And, side collisions at intersections > because one car ran the red light is about the leading cause of > traffic deaths in the region these days. But then you get those communities that play with the yellow light timing in order to crank up the counts of red light runners. If communities played fair I wouldn't have a problem with red light cameras and in fact would welcome them. But until they do, I don't want to see them in my city which by the way they already are but not in the places where they would do the most good. In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com says: > Ron Chapman wrote: >> Ah. So maybe you can explain to me why cities that employ these >> devices: >> (a) pay nothing for them, and receive commissions from the PRIVATE >> OPERATORS who place them; and > That is not true. The cost of the machines is deducted from the net > revenue of the fines received. > Everybody supposedly thinks its good when govt "privitizes", and here > is an example of govt doing just that. >> (b) change the timing of the lights with such devices, in order to >> DRAMATICALLY shorten the time of the yellow light, a change which >> drastically increases the likelihood of your getting caught by the >> device? > I find that very hard to believe. > As as the claim of "revenue enhancement", allow me to note: > 1) One city is installing the cameras at intersections with a > seriously high accident rate. I'm familiar with these intersections, > and motorists routinely keep going even after the yellow goes to red. > In other words, these aren't questionable instances, but rather the > motorists entered the intersection clearly after their light went to > red. The sloppy driving of motorists brought this enforcement onto > themselves. > 2) My own town set up a speed trap and I watched it work. The speed > limit was 25 mph on a narrow residential street and prominently > posted. They set the flag cutoff at 40 mph. Despite it being 40, > they still cited many drivers flying through. I live next door to a parking lot and watch the police setup their speed and violation traps in there. I was talking to one of them a few nights ago and told him he's in the wrong spot, that if they moved the trap about 3 blocks away they'd bag a lot more speeders. So now there are two of them and sure enough, they're tagging left and right. But my city is becoming car hostile what with the addition of 1,900 more parking meters, and finally enforcement of the no parking within 20' of an intersection rule. ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Automatic Number Identification (ANI) Service Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 09:47:03 -0800 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Michael Quinn Michael wrote: > When I called the number to see who it was, it was an automated "voice > messaging center" (no further info was provided) which gives an option > to be removed from their call list. If that option is selected, it > reads back the number from which one is calling. Worked from home as > well as inside an ISDN PABX at my office. Who knows how long it will > be in service, so TD subcribers may wish to take advantage of while > it's there. Or you could be smart and not trust "remove" numbers. 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. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 23:57:28 -0500 From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: Question About ROLM PBX Telephones In V23 I590, phoneguide@gmail.com > ROLM was originally an IBM CBX / PBX voice switching venture that was > in North America's arrival was purchased away from the German company > SEIMENS. IBM made many advancements and improvements to the systems > proprietary operating system and architecture (Americanizing it). IBM > later sold the ROLM CBX / PBX product back to SEIMENS for a handsome > profit. That wasn't exactly how it happened. I was a BIG ROLM customer in the late 1970s and early 1980s, beta tested their LCBX, and supervised a bunch of them later. Interesting story, actually. The company (the name was formed from the first letters of the four founders' surnames, btw) was founded in Santa Clara 1969 or so. Its first product line was a range of mil-spec computers based on Data General's then-popular Nova 16-bit minicomputers. The FCC had just authorized PBX competition in 1969, after decades of monopoly. A few years later, ROLM needed a new PBX for itself and didn't like what was on the market -- most systems in 1973 were either electromechanical crossbars or wired-logic relays; the earliest electronic PBXs were not very well made. So they designed their own, creating a new product line. The first ROLM CBX came out in 1975. Within a few years, it went through several major software releases, adding lots of features. The early machines supported regular electromechanical keysets by means of an electronic deskside adapter -- it was not terribly successful though. In early 1979, with Release 5, they introduced a real electronic phone, the ETS-100. It had nice feature buttons and primitive Caller ID, showing the 4-digit calling extension number. That was a *real* shocker to callers -- I had one of the first on my desk at BBN, where I was in charge of the new LCBX. A few years later, they introduced the Rolmphone series. The original CBX suffered from a short-sighted design decision. In 1975, there were no cheap 64 kbps codec chips. So to save money, they designed the system around a 144 kbps codec, which could have much cheaper filters (12 kHz sampling instead of 8 kHz meant it could have gentler rolloff). Line cards came in "interface groups" of three boards: One line interface, one coder, and one decoder. A 3-cabinet system could hold about 800 lines, depending on the mix of trunks. It was huge by today's standards, but more compact than the electromechanical switches that it replaced. Norther Telecom came out with its SL-1 at about the same time, using standard 64 kbps coding. Well, by 1978, 64 kbps codec chips were mass-produced and cheap, so the SL-1 kept getting cheaper to build, unlike the CBX. By 1983 or so, T1 trunk interfaces were becoming available, and ROLM's design needed *six* boards and half a shelf to do one, recoding 64 kbps to 144 and back! And the new Rolmphones were 64 kbps too. ROLM was in crisis, but kept it quiet. Along came IBM, who bought into the company around 1984, buying it all a couple of years later. They paid too much ... the whole design had to be redone. Not only the 144 kbps codecs, but the main software too was obsolete. The original CBX code was very tight (bit-bummed) embedded code, hard to maintain. The multi-node VLCBX, shipped around 1982 (about two years late), had an improved code base, but was still no gem. IBM had its work cut out for it. They updated the CBX into the 8750, and came out with a new 9750 with more backplane capacity. Redwood was the baby version. But the "integrated voice/data" fad (VoIP is the same basic idea, albeit in reverse) was over, and IBM discovered that they didn't need a PBX in their product line. So they sold the whole thing to Siemens (at a big loss), who eventually phased out the native ROLM products in favor of designs based on their German HICOM systems. ISDN was a big deal in Germany and HICOM was designed from the ground up for ISDN. It wasn't a huge hit in the States and indeed Siemens/ROLM declined in market share. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Dec 2004 05:45:38 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Vonage, VoicePulse Push Forward With Video Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> Within the space of a few hours, two separate New Jersey-based Voice >> over Internet Protocol providers announced their intention to move >> forcefully into relatively uncharted space: the video telephone. > Does anybody care? Will anybody actually use it? Packet8 has been offering video all along. I can't say that it seems to have taken the world by storm. If all of the VoIP carriers agreed to interoperate so you could call anyone's videophone from anyone else's, there might be a chance of getting to critical mass. Fat chance. 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 ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: How to Call from A to B to C? Please Help Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 07:47:29 GMT In article , marc_nospam@ldezign.com says: > Hi, > I'm currently working on a venture possibility in my small town that > is an hour away from a major City. > Placing call to that major city(town A) is a long distance from my > town (town B). But a town in between (town C) is not a long distance > for both ends. > People would call from town A to town C and reach town B without any > additional charge besides the monthly charge from the services of my > own company. > That software would have to accept 2 set of entry from the clients > touch tone phone: first entry would be some unique client code and the > second entry would be the 10 digits phone number to town B. > From there the call would be made allowing a bridge to be made > between the two intended cities. > I was wondering if anyone knows what it would require technically to > achieve such thing. I don't even know how many incomming line would > be required for this project. > Hope anyone can help. If you are planning to charge for this service, you will become an intrastate (assuming A, B, and C are in the same state) long-distance carrier. You will need to pay for "intrastate special access" lines for both the incoming and the outgoing lines. You will need to disable the capability for a caller to make local calls in city C, or you will have to pay a special access surcharge. You will probably need to apply to the PUC for a certificate of public convenience and necessity, you may need to file tariffs, you will need to pay a whole lot of taxes to the feds and the state/local authorities, and you will need to file FCC form 499Q quarterly and 499A annually, which will also obligate you to pay USF charges. And you would become subject to a variety of state and federal regulations, such as the need to file annual EEO reports. Of course, you can pass all of these costs through to your customers, at which point you won't have any, because the intrastate toll for dialing 10 digits won't be much more than the charges for using your service, which will require dialing 7 or 10 digits, a customer code, and another 10 digits. If you don't jump through all the hoops, expect your local phone company to deny your line requests and/or file an FCC/PUC complaint for toll diversion and failure to comply with carrier obligations. If you aren't going to charge for this service, g*d bless you, but why would you be paying for all the lines and the software and hardware to do this, just so businesses in the next town could stiff the Bell on tolls? Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD, USA Delete nospam from my address and it won't work. ------------------------------ From: dave@compata.com (Dave Close) Subject: Re: Dropping SBC For a VoIP Solution -- Vonage or Packet8 ?? Date: 10 Dec 2004 22:26:10 -0800 Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California Rick Merrill writes: > You wired it up wrong, and I'll try to say why. It should be > Modem<>TelephoneAdapter<>Router<>PC > Then the TA does "QOS"(quality of service) to reduce the through put > so that voice quality is maintained (downloads via the router are > slowed). Also, it means that you do not have to enable DHCP on the > router unless you want it. Your system may work for some folks, so long as the TA has two jacks. But not for everyone. I have a static address and my provider does no DHCP, so they could not give an address to a TA. My DHCP server is inside my LAN, not on the router, and the router blocks DHCP requests from outside. So there is no way I could put the TA between my router and the network as it would be unable to acquire an address. When I asked Vonage about this situation, their response was that QoS doesn't work anyway, so just put the TA inside. I did and it works fine. 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: dave@compata.com (Dave Close) Subject: Re: FAX vs VOIP Date: 10 Dec 2004 22:28:07 -0800 Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California Tim@Backhome.org writes: > My 3-year old FAX machine works fine on my Vonage service. Sending or receiving? Vonage, for example, provides support for incoming fax calls, especially if you notify them. But when I've tried sending, my fax generally is unable to sync with the destination machine. Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA +1 714 434 7359 dave@compata.com dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu "Political campaigns are the graveyard of real ideas and the birthplace of empty promises." -- Teresa Heinz Kerry ------------------------------ 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. 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