From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Dec 21 20:20:55 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iBM1KsZ12089; Tue, 21 Dec 2004 20:20:55 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 20:20:55 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200412220120.iBM1KsZ12089@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 #612 TELECOM Digest Tue, 21 Dec 2004 20:21:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 612 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Cromwell vrs. Sprint Settlement (TELECOM Digest Editor) What Tandem in Telcom Means? (Jack) Re: DIrectv Not Honoring Tivo Lifetime Service (Joseph) Re: DirecTV Not Honoring Tivo Lifetime Service (jmeissen@aracnet.com) More on TiVo and Lifetime Subscriptions (Lee Sweet) Re: Cell Phone Company Records the Tower Handling Call (Lisa Hancock) Re: Cell Phone Company Records the Tower Handling Call (A. Burkitt-Gray) Re: Hanging Up On Wireless Spam (T. Sean Weintz) Re: Motorola MD481 Cordless (Weston Fire 22) 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: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 19:41:41 EST From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Cromwell vrs. Sprint Settlement Some time ago, I mentioned here that Sprint had decided it was in their best interest, legally, to settle with customers in the class action suit "Cromwell vrs. Sprint Communications Company, LP", Docket number 99-2125-GTV in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. I told you how to apply for relief, as a member of the Class (anyone who used Sprint service during the 1998-1999 time period, but I forgot exactly what the complaint was about; I suspect it was something to do with their slovenly customer service). I used their local service (the old United Telephone) during much of 1999 when living in Junction City, KS). Well, my 'relief' arrived today in snailmail: a Fifty Dollar prepaid Sprint phone card. Its like a plastic phone card; the one side of the card has a large $50 printed on it, the Sprint corporate logo; and the phrase 'Domestic Long Distance'. The reverse side of the card had the interesting stuff on it: An 800 number to use to place calls (800-858-1799); my ten digit card number which begins with '687' and seven more digits, and the instructions to use it. "For customer service, call 1-800-981-7012. To place another call, do not hang up. Press # for 2 seconds. The maximum rate per domestic minute is 19 cents, **assuming the call is not made from a U.S. payphone.** An additional charge of $2.85 *per call* applies if calling from a U.S. phone or the minute rate equivilent, All rates are subject to change. " 19 cents per minute ??? $2.85 payphone surcharge ??? I dunno, somewhere I read that Sprint was supposed to be so much cheaper than AT&T ... of course I know this card was *free*, but still, is the above their 'typical' rates? "This prepaid card given 'in full settlement' (as of the first time I use it) expires in thirteen months, on January 31, 2006. " Patrick Townson ------------------------------ From: Jack Subject: What Tandem in Telcom Means? Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 18:31:01 -0500 Organization: NTT/VERIO I am new to telcom. I came across the term Tandem many times (eg. LEC Access Tandem). What exactly does Tandem mean? Is there any good book or website that would help me understand basic concepts? TIA! Jack [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You might try checking on the net for a group of books called "Lee's ABC of Telephones". That's a good start. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: DIrectv Not Honoring Tivo Lifetime Service Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 12:46:59 -0800 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On 20 Dec 2004 11:58:39 -0800, googlenospam@netcrafting.com wrote: > I cannot believe this is happening. I thought a lifetime > subscription lasted the lifetime of the Tivo unit? This is not the > case for folks who were serviced by Pegasus. Beware if you buy a > lifetime Tivo on Ebay that was owned by a customer who got their > satellite service from Pegasus. Well, buying anything "lifetime" should always be considered a risk. What lifetime are they referring to? Yours, the satellite receiver, the company? What applies to gym memberships probably applies to all things that you buy. Buying a "lifetime" anything is always a gamble. Unless in the original agreement they vowed to continue your service on the "lifetime" basis no matter who the company became I'm afraid you're probably sunk. ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@aracnet.com Subject: Re: DirecTV Not Honoring Tivo Lifetime Service Date: 21 Dec 2004 22:16:26 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com In article , Michael Muderick wrote: > Pat is correct in his answer. The lifetime guarantee should be > honored. It seems that these days the decision to honor commitments is at the whim of whoever is in charge. I have stopped doing business with McAfee (Network Associates now?) because if a similar incident. A friend had paid a premium for an anti-virus product with "Free Lifetime Upgrades". We had to rebuild his system because of a hard-drive failure, and after re-installing the software it failed to update. Several layers of "customer support" would only tell us "You have to buy the latest version". We threw it in the trash and installed the free version of Avast! (http://www.avast.com/). John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com ------------------------------ From: Lee Sweet Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 16:38:24 -0500 Subject: More on TiVo and Lifetime Subscriptions I thought someone would post this by now, but since they haven't, here's the answer: This issue appears to have been corrected. Just get to the TiVo Specialty Group at DirecTV and they know what to do. The details are in this thread at tivocommunity.com, the number one place for TiVo info on the 'net. Some CSRs were saying that they can't do anything about the transfer of lifetime, but DirecTV (with whom your contract is, not anyone at TiVo) does know the right answer if you get to the right group. Frontline CSRs are often known for the quickie answer (as we all know from other industries that we hear about :-) ). Here's the thread: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=207060 [And, hello to PAT, who I worked with many years back on getting my company's vanity tollfree number!] __ Lee Sweet Datatel, Inc. Manager of Telephony Services and Information Security How higher education does business Voice: 703.968.4661 Fax: 703.968.4625 Cell: 703.932.9425 lee@datatel.com www.datatel.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Hello back to you, Lee. Don't be such a stranger around here! PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Cell Phone Company Records the Tower Handling Call Date: 21 Dec 2004 13:36:28 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Isaiah Beard wrote: > Of course, in our current era, these same logs are convenient for > investigators in they can potentially bolster a claim that you were > elsewhere than your purported alibi. Nowadays we are tracked through many ways, some known, some unknown. Some of us have highway toll transponders on our cars. Many of us carry ID badges with sensors. Many of us use mag cards for transit fares. A great many retail transaction points, from convenience stores to tollgates, have recording TV cameras. This information is often used by prosecutors. But I wonder how often defense attorneys can access this information and at what cost to the defendant. > Refuting the validity of this evidence to bolster the prosecution's > case depends on how far away that cell tower was. There are plenty of > reasons for a non-adjacent cell to take your call. Perhaps the > nearest cell was at capacity and could not handle your call, but your > phone happened to be able to pick up a not-so-nearby cell that had > slots free. > In any case, cell site records aren't a smoking gun. Even if you > happen to be making a call at a cell that covers the scene of a crime, > there can still be a rather wide area that the cell covers, anywhere > from a radius of a quarter of a mile (for microcells in dense metro > areas) to several miles (in rural areas). I initiate a number of cell phone calls from the same spot but at least four separate locations show up on my bill. Sometimes the location name isn't close to the physical location -- I was once a good 20 miles away from the location named on one call. > However, even now, not many 911 call centers can retrieve this info, > because the capability requires expensive upgrades that many local > governments haven't bothered to spend money on. My state charges a $1 extra per month per line (land and cell) for 911 upgrades. ------------------------------ Reply-To: From: Burkitt-Gray Subject: Re: Cell Phone Company Records the Tower Handling Call Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 22:01:21 -0000 Organization: Alan Burkitt-Gray Isaiah Beard wrote: "Refuting the validity of this evidence to bolster the prosecution's case depends on how far away that cell tower was. There are plenty of reasons for a non-adjacent cell to take your call. Perhaps the nearest cell was at capacity and could not handle your call, but your phone happened to be able to pick up a not-so-nearby cell that had slots free." In the Huntley case I mentioned earlier there was just such an example. Huntley's phone was picked up by a base station some way off, but the prosecution brought in someone from the phone company -- Vodafone I think but I can't remember -- to show that because the terrain (Soham, near Cambridge, in eastern England) is very flat there was a good signal from the distant base station at his home, where he did the murders. Someone from the phone company tried it out and demonstrated it to the jury with complex maps showing the field strength around the area. Google "Soham murder" and you should find reports of the case if you're interested. Meanwhile have a look at this article from The Guardian's Online section in 2001 http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,,608434,00.html. Under UK data protection law (which is matched in other European Union countries) citizens have a right to see personal data held about them by private companies on payment of a small fee. In that article a journalist, S A Mathieson, showed how he tested the law with the mobile phone company Orange and demanded to see the data it kept on his locations when he made calls. Orange had to comply with the Data Protection Act. Mathieson wrote: "[Guardian] Online can now reveal that the base station used by an Orange subscriber is retained at the beginning and end of every call, whether outbound or inbound, including calls to retrieve voicemail," and wrote later in the same article: "Orange ... currently retains location data for six months. Vodafone already keeps it for a year, BT Cellnet [since separated from BT and renamed O2] for "at least a year", and Virgin Mobile has retained it since its foundation in November 1999. It plans to hold such data for six years, citing financial regulations. One2One [now T-Mobile] refused to disclose its retention period. Other than this information, none of the networks would discuss location data further than to say they complied with the law." Alan Burkitt-Gray alan@burkitt-gray.com ------------------------------ From: T. Sean Weintz Subject: Re: Hanging Up On Wireless Spam Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 18:15:40 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com SPARKY wrote: > what's next; SPAM deliveried to your TV via your cable box? Um, isn't that what commercials are? ------------------------------ From: Weston Fire 22 Subject: Re: Motorola MD481 Cordless Date: 21 Dec 2004 16:41:28 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Well, I was suspecting as much, so I decided I would email their support and see what they gave me, well, here is their response. It must be the company line: Dear Bruce, Thank you for choosing Motorola! If your phone is dialing on pulse dialing and not tone dialing, you will need to check with your phone service provider to see if the line is digital or analog b/c if it is not a digital line then the phone is not going to dial on tone dialing. Please let us know if we can further assist you. Thanks, Freda Allman Motorola Cordless Support ------------------------------ 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. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2004 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE JUST 65 CENTS ONE OR TWO INQUIRIES CHARGED TO YOUR CREDIT CARD! REAL TIME, UP TO DATE! SPONSORED BY TELECOM DIGEST AND EASY411.COM SIGN UP AT http://www.easy411.com/telecomdigest ! ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V23 #612 ******************************