From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Dec 23 15:51:12 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iBNKpCE05689; Thu, 23 Dec 2004 15:51:12 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 15:51:12 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200412232051.iBNKpCE05689@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 #616 TELECOM Digest Thu, 23 Dec 2004 15:49:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 616 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Download Site SuprNova Closes Amid Hollywood Crackdown (Lisa Minter) Browser Wars (Lisa Minter) Review: E-Mail Program Lacks 'Wow' Factor (Lisa Minter) Beware Sprint Phone Rebates (Nate) Broadband Connections Rise 38%, According to FCC (Telecom dailyLead) T1/ISDN Intergration With VoiP? (Dave) Map-Open in Send Routing Info to Hlr (Bernardo) Re: Cromwell vrs. [sic] Sprint Settlement (John Levine) Re: Cromwell vrs. [sic] Sprint Settlement (Joseph) Re: Cromwell vrs. Sprint Settlement (Steve Sobol) Re: Which is the Best Cellphone You Ever Used? (John Levine) Re: Which is the Best Cellphone You Ever Used? (Joseph) Re: Motorola MD481 Cordless (DevilsPGD) Re: Telecom Definitions: Meaning For 'Bearer'? (Todd Mueller) Re: Telecom Terms (Doug Krause) 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: Download Site SuprNova Closes Amid Hollywood Crackdown Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 13:39:57 EST By Adam Pasick LONDON (Reuters) - SuprNova.org, one of the Internet's most popular sites for finding links to download pirated movies, has been taken offline by its creator amid a legal crackdown by Hollywood's copyright cops. Slovenia-based SuprNova offered thousands of special files that enabled users to download movies, TV shows, music and other content using the BitTorrent file-transfer network. Earlier this month, the Motion Picture Association of America launched a barrage of lawsuits against people that operate the so-called "torrent" files, as well as servers on the eDonkey and Direct Connect networks. SuprNova's creator, who goes by the name Sloncek, took the site down over the weekend, citing the increased legal pressure on those hosting torrent files. In addition to MPAA's civil lawsuits in the United States and Britain, criminal charges were filed in France, the Netherlands and Finland. "SuprNova.org was more like a hobby that took most of my free time away. And now with current situation, there's too much pressure and I don't have the time for it," Sloncek told the file-sharing Web site Slyck (http://www.slyck.com). He did not respond to an emailed interview request from Reuters. In a message on SuprNova, Sloncek said: "We are sorry to inform you all, that SuprNova is closing down for good in the way that we all know it. We do not know if SuprNova is going to return, but it is certainly not going to be hosting any more torrent links." BitTorrent has quietly grown into a file-sharing behemoth, devouring up to one-third of the Internet's bandwidth by one research firm's account. Bram Cohen, the programer that created BitTorrent, has warned against using the software for illicit purposes. BitTorrent's "file-swarming" software breaks a digital file into many pieces, shares the pieces among all users who have downloaded the torrent file, then stitches them back together. It is also used for many non-illicit purposes, such as sharing non-copyrighted music and distributing video game demos. The shutdown of the premier source for movies and TV downloads through BitTorrent was welcomed by MPAA anti-piracy chief John Malcolm, who has railed against "parasites leeching off the creative activity of others." "I'm pleased. It was the most popular torrent site," he said. "They took that action voluntarily, so obviously they were concerned about their conduct. It was something we were studying, so I can understand why they were concerned." Hollywood is desperate to avoid the fate of its corporate cousins in the music industry, who have yet to recover from the illicit MP3 downloading boom that began with Napster. The large size of video content has prevented movie and TV downloads from catching on as quickly, but higher bandwidth and improving compression technology means that it may not be safe for long. "We are a little bit ahead of the curve in the sense that the movie industry is still making money. Downloading and uploading video has not become, thankfully, mainstream activity the way that downloading and uploading music became," Malcolm said. "We've also gotten out ahead because our industry has not been decimated -- yet." 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: Browser Wars Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 13:50:58 -0500 (EST) Michael Desmond Are you sick and tired of Internet Explorer? Have you grown weary of the constant vulnerabilities and patches? Do you scratch your head at sudden program lockups and crashes? Are you dismayed that Microsoft hasn't lifted a finger to improve or enhance IE since it buried Netscape's Navigator browser at the dawn of the century? Yeah, me too. Welcome to Internet Explorer backlash. For the first time since Microsoft launched its flagship browser in 1995, Internet Explorer is actually losing market share. Research firm WebSideStory reported that the enormous chunk of IE users declined from a high of 95 percent in June to 92.9 percent in October. That number could drop further, as a sudden wealth of good browser options attracts users of all stripes. A lot of the credit can go to the folks at the Open-Source Foundation, which was established in 1998 to breathe new life into the fast-failing Netscape browser platform. It's taken six years and the utter failure of Netscape the company, but Mozilla is finally delivering on its promise. Today, not one, but two significant browser alternatives are powered by Mozilla's Gecko software code base -- America Online's Netscape 7.2 and the wildly popular new Firefox 1.0 browser. Of course, even those two aren't the only IE challengers: A third major alternative, the Opera browser from Opera Software, has been serving disaffected IE users for years. With so many choices just a software download away, questions swirl. Why should you care? Which browser is best? And after all is said and done, should you really switch? Software junkies may tell you the answers are obvious and conclusions foregone, but wait; read on. *It's the Tabs, Stupid*. There are a lot of reasons why users are fleeing Microsoft Internet Explorer, but a lot of it boils down to security. Microsoft has chosen to run IE like a highly automated factory. ActiveX controls, dynamic HTML, and other technologies deliver lots of automation and programmatic control over IE. That's great if you want to integrate, say, a billing system with your browser, or have Web sites offer dynamic interfaces. But those same controls can be misused or targeted, amplifying the threat from malicious code.

Microsoft's response has been a grim parade of patches, fixes, and advisories. In some instances, Microsoft has suggested turning off features or setting security levels so high that they disable the very capabilities that make IE attractive in the first place. Finally in October, Microsoft released Windows XP Service Pack 2, a wholesale update that helped close many of the vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. But understand this: No browser is without flaws. Mozilla patched some holes of its own prior to the Firefox 1.0 release, and Opera has issued a few security-centric updates in the past year. The problem for Microsoft is the overwhelming popularity of its browser. Virus writers and hackers target IE because there are so many systems running it. Perhaps more frustrating than security leaks is the fact that Microsoft quit adding new features to its browser. The last major feature refresh for IE dates back to August 2001 -- and it shows. Firefox, Netscape, and Opera all offer significant feature improvements over IE, including tabbed browsing for juggling multiple Web pages, and built-in pop-up blocking to prevent ads from opening new browser windows. Other refinements include helpful managers for file downloads, integrated search bars, and more accessible controls for managing histories, cookie files, and the browser cache. In fact, the future of Web browsing comes down to one word: tabs. I realized it the instant I fired up multiple pages in a single Opera program window. Just like that, I could browse a half-dozen Web pages with ease, jumping from one to the next simply by clicking on the little tabs at the top of the window. What's more, I could open multiple tabbed pages in the background, so they could load while I looked at the page in the foreground. Not all tabbing systems are created equal, and no one has done it perfectly yet. Opera gets the nod for best keyboard shortcuts. For example, I can close a tabbed page by holding Shift and clicking on the page tab; clicking the tab for the foreground page bounces me to the last page I viewed. I can even drag tabs around to keep pages in neat order. Both Firefox and Netscape offer tabbing that is a bit more rigid. Time to Switch? Of the four browsers I've worked with --IE, Firefox, Netscape, and Opera -- Firefox 1.0 stood out as the best overall choice. The browser does an excellent job of faithfully displaying Web pages, offers a superior user interface, and suffers fewer crashes than my previous favorite, Opera. It's also highly customizable through something called Firefox Extensions. I installed one module that lets me navigate pages using mouse gestures, a feature I became addicted to during my Opera years.

One area where you'll hear browser makers tout an advantage is performance, or how quickly a browser can show you Web sites. I'd urge you to take any such claims with a grain of salt. In my testing, I found that performance was usually determined by the speed of my Internet connection (not surprisingly) rather than one browser or another. Although Firefox tended to outperform all the others in loading complex pages, we're talking about a difference of one to two seconds. When the dust settles, the different browsers offer their own unique benefits and drawbacks. Here's a quick take on which browser might be best for you, depending on how you work. Firefox: The best all-around alternative to IE. Great for power users who want to add functionality to the browser, and appropriate for newbies just getting started. Internet Explorer: Best for corporate users in controlled environments and those who spend most of their time on Microsoft-branded or IE-specific Web sites. Netscape: Best for AOL subscribers (with AOL Instant Messenger integration) and those who are willing to put up with some rough edges to use other goodies, including an HTML editor and e-mail program. Opera: Best for power users who keep many pages open at once and perform frequent downloads. There's an e-mail program included, but banner ads on the free version of the browser are annoying. So is it time to ditch Internet Explorer once and for all? In a word, no. Microsoft requires its browser to access its Windows Update and Office Update services, and it's not uncommon to find Web sites that are designed specifically for IE. Pages such as MSNBC.com can challenge non-Microsoft browsers. Firefox renders MSNBC pretty well, while Opera fails to render the fly-out menus on the navigation bar. For the time being, most users will need to keep IE handy, just in case. Keep in mind that you can have more than one browser on your computer. If one acts up, close it and launch the other. But for general-purpose Web browsing, there is no reason to put off the switch a minute longer. Firefox, Netscape, and Opera are an impressive trio of IE alternatives that could help shelter you from the daily blizzard of Internet exploits. Michael Desmond is a freelance writer living in Burlington, Vermont. His wife doesn't understand how anyone can get so excited about tabs. 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, Micheal Desmond, and Yahoo News. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Review: E-Mail Program Lacks 'Wow' Factor Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 13:51:53 EST By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer NEW YORK - The Firefox browser has become an instant sensation, in just a few weeks gaining impressively against Microsoft Corp.'s market-leading but malware-beleaguered Internet Explorer. Security experts worried about IE's flaws and vulnerabilities have recommended Firefox. Others, myself included, were impressed by its innovative features. The team that put Firefox together, Mozilla Foundation, now offers a free standalone e-mail application, called Thunderbird. But this time, the case for switching from Microsoft products is less compelling. I just can't see too many people abandoning Microsoft's Outlook, if they use it. Outlook is the gold standard in e-mail programs, despite its $109 list price. Among other things, Thunderbird lacks a calendar application, and its tools for sorting your incoming messages are rather rudimentary. If you're happy to sacrifice features for something free, anyone running a Windows operating system already has Outlook Express. So why bother with Thunderbird? In some ways, Thunderbird is more powerful than Outlook Express. But its built-in junk mail filter is based solely on what you, the user, consider spam and legitimate mail. Unlike many other anti-spam programs, Thunderbird will do nothing until you "train" the software by marking a few spam messages as "junk" and a few good messages as "not junk." This approach does reduce the chances of good mail ending up wrongly blocked; a peril these days with many spam-filtering programs for users who aren't careful. Thunderbird also offers Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, a technology for pulling headlines from news sites and Web journals. Headlines and articles from RSS feeds appear as normal e-mail messages so you can file them away, forward them to a friend or do whatever else you might do to e-mail. If you have multiple e-mail accounts, you can choose to view them all in one bucket with Thunderbird, or in separate folders sorted by account or type of account, say personal or work. Outlook Express lets you keep accounts separate, but only by creating separate "identities," meaning you can only view one account at a time. Another plus of Thunderbird is that it automatically enters addresses into your address book as you send out e-mail, making it easier to identify replies as legitimate and to avoid retyping the same addresses over and over. Outlook Express does that only for messages to which you've replied. Other than that, Thunderbird looks and works like any other e-mail program. Available for Windows, Mac and Linux computers, the program lets you do standard things like change fonts and sizes, specify whether to include original message in replies and check for new messages after a given number of minutes, which you specify. It supports the two most popular e-mail protocols, POP3 and IMAP. It will bring in Web-based e-mail from Google, Yahoo and America Online using those protocols (Yahoo is available as part of a $19.99-a-year premium offering). Thunderbird does not, however, support Microsoft's Hotmail or MSN services. Thunderbird does promise to let you import existing mail, address books and account settings from Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Netscape 4, Netscape 7 and Mozilla (a combo mail-browser suite from Thunderbird's developers). In practice, though, not everything worked. I couldn't import an address book from Netscape 4, and my distribution lists on Outlook Express disappeared in the conversion. And some of the features that trump Outlook Express need work. To activate RSS feeds, you must manually type in long addresses. Make a typo, and you must start over; the software doesn't let you simply change the one wrong character. Many good RSS programs these days can automatically detect feeds. And while Thunderbird lets you separate multiple e-mail accounts, there's no easy way to sort them. Rather, they are listed in the order added, not alphabetically or in some other meaningful order. Perhaps the biggest argument for switching is that Thunderbird is open-source. Two paid developers and hundreds of volunteers jointly created it, releasing the underlying software blueprints for anyone to inspect and improve upon. That, they argue, produces a better and safer product than proprietary systems like Microsoft's. For some people, that's reason enough to switch to Thunderbird. For others, I can't find a compelling reason unless you're dissatisfied 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, Associated Press. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Nate Subject: Beware Sprint Phone Rebates Date: 23 Dec 2004 09:20:02 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com After my previous Sprint contract was up, I called to see about a phone/plan upgrade. The salesman sold me a new plan and a new phone with a big rebate. Well, the rebate was turned down because the "saleperson" never changed my original plan. Called Sprint and after talking to two people (including a supervisor), they wouldn't do anything except say "talk to the rebate people". I explained that the "rebate people" aren't the ones who screwed up. They didn't seem to grasp this concept. It looks like Sprint may have sold me a very, very overpriced phone. Can you say lifelong loss of a Sprint customer? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is a typical tactic by Sprint. We have had other messages in the Digest from people who said Sprint was not honoring their rebates very well. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 13:35:04 EST From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA Subject: Broadband Connections Rise 38%, According to FCC Telecom dailyLead from USTA December 23, 2004 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=18325&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Broadband connections rise 38%, according to FCC BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Sprint-Nextel deal could boost Motorola * Mobile marketing for offline products * Acterna thrives after difficult spell USTA SPOTLIGHT * USTA urges Wal-Mart and SAM'S CLUB to Disassociate from AT&T phone card scheme EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * Germany takes Wi-Fi on the road REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * FCC order raises value of Nextel spectrum EDITOR'S NOTE * The dailyLead will not publish Friday Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=18325&l=2017006 ------------------------------ From: Dave Subject: T1/ISDN Intergration With VoiP? Reply-To: feywrayspamno@hotmail.com Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 15:05:11 GMT If I have VoiP and use a converter to what normally would be a POTS line, what if, instead, the converter went to a T1 or ISDN set up? Could I have 23 or 24 incoming VoiP calls, each going to a different DID number? Could I have an outgoing call center with 23 or 24 agents each talking over VoiP at the same time to 23 or 24 different people? ------------------------------ From: bparoli@internet.com.uy (Bernardo) Subject: Map-Open in Send Routing Info to Hlr Date: 23 Dec 2004 06:43:39 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com When I send the sendRoutingInfoForSm to the hlr, I need send the User Information with Map-Open? If I don't send this information, the hlr return error? Thanks, bp ------------------------------ Date: 23 Dec 2004 06:49:45 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Cromwell vrs. [sic] Sprint Settlement Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is a chain of stores called > 'Federated Department Stores'. I do not recall ever being in one > of them. PAT] Sure you have. They own Bloomindale's, Macy's, and a bunch of smaller regional chains. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When I used to live in Chicago, I would frequently fly to New York City for weekend visits with friends or to go shopping, and on those trips I would go into Macy's occassionally, and Alfred Bloomingdale invited me to come over to his store also. But that was in the 1960's, and I do not think either Bloomingdale's or Macy's were part of Federated at that time. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Cromwell vrs. [sic] Sprint Settlement Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 06:41:41 -0800 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 20:06:01 EST, TELECOM Digest editor wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is a chain of stores called > 'Federated Department Stores'. I do not recall ever being in one > of them. PAT] Bloomingdale's, Bon March (now Bon-Macy's soon to be just Macy's), Burdines-Macy's, Goldsmith-Macy's, Lazarus-Macy's, Macy's East/West, Rich's are some of their stores. At one time Foley's in Houston was part of the Federated Department stores. It's unlikely that they have any stores in your area of Kansas. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wonder if they have any stores in Wichita, Topeka or Tulsa, OK which are the three closest bigger towns to here. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Cromwell vrs. [sic] Sprint Settlement Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 11:15:00 -0800 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Wesrock@aol.com wrote: >>Apparently not all of us do. In particular, it has been a few years >>since Kroger has been "by far the largest grocery company in the country". > A recent survey of retail grocers in Oklahoma showed Wal-Mart > Supercenters and Wal-Mart Neighborhood Markets were in first and > second place, I forget which was which. > Albertson's was third. There are no Kroger stores in Oklahoma. Hm. I was informed by someone I consider reliable that Federated Department Stores owned Albertsons (which I thought was strange), but I don't see anything on the web, including albertsons.com and federated-fds.com, that would indicate that. 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: 23 Dec 2004 06:52:26 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Which is the Best Cellphone You Ever Used? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: On those cell phones with stubs for > antennas, it is possible at all to loosen the stub and connect a > telescoping antenna there in its place? PAT] As often as not the stub is a fake. Some phones such as the Nokia 5165 and 6340 have a socket for an external antenna, usually as part of a car kit. If you look at the back of your 5165, there's a little rubber plug over the antenna jack that you can pry out. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, I know about the little rubber plug. It has to be removed to use the Cell Socket for those Nokia models, then you can either use the antenna you screw on to the Cell Socket or the stand alone antenna, such as Mike Sandman offers. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Which is the Best Cellphone You Ever Used? Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 06:44:30 -0800 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 21:56:36 -0500, Steven Fleckenstein wrote: > It does the basics well and with a pull > out antenna picks up the signal where others with stubs don'[t] Pull out antenna is more of a requirement with CDMA phones rather than just "preference." ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Motorola MD481 Cordless Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 00:18:47 -0700 Organization: Octanews In message Weston Fire 22 wrote: > When I called the telco today, just as a goof, the lady there was > stumped as well. She checked our "settings in the switch" and we are > indeed set to tone service. She had never heard of a phone requiring > a digital line as well. As soon as I asked, she replied, we have > analog lines. As far as digital goes, think ISDN. There are plenty of digital line options, but they cost a lot more and offer little for your average home user. ------------------------------ From: toddmueller@gmail.com Subject: Re: Telecom Definitions: Meaning For 'Bearer'? Date: 23 Dec 2004 07:11:46 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com 'Bearer' channels are payload channels, they 'bear' the load. ------------------------------ From: dkrause@ratcage.com (Doug Krause) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Telecom Terms Date: 23 Dec 2004 14:23:03 -0600 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For starters, 'tele-phone' is a combin- > ation of 'phonic' which has to do with hearing, and 'tele' which > refers to communication or transfer of information. 'Tele-gram' is > made up of two parts, one of which comes from 'grap' or visual > inspection of 'tele' or the transfer of information. If something > is 'very graphic' it means it is 'a lot to look at'. So when you use > a 'telephone' you communicate information by hearing and speaking; when > you use a 'telegraph' you communicate information by reading. "Tele" means "from a distance". So telephone is distant hearing, television is distant seeing, etc. Doug Krause dijon@ratcage.com ------------------------------ 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'. 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