From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Dec 26 20:17:36 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iBR1HaB14461; Sun, 26 Dec 2004 20:17:36 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 20:17:36 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200412270117.iBR1HaB14461@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 #619 TELECOM Digest Sun, 26 Dec 2004 20:18:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 619 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson IPTV Pioneer Backspace Inks Deal with IPFlix (torotoro@digitalputty.com) Re: USTA Sends Strange Letter to Wal-Mart (John Levine) Re: USTA Sends Strange Letter to Wal-Mart (Marcus Didius Falco) Re: The End of TV as We Know It (torotoro@digitalputty.com) Re: Beware Sprint Phone Rebates (DevilsPGD) Re: Verizon Takes Next Big Step Toward VoIP (Tony P.) Re: Don't Disconnect VoIP Service Until You Are Ready to Lose (Tony P.) Re: Click Fraud Threatens Web (Consultant) Re: My High Hopes About Google Ads (Dave Garland) Re: My High Hopes About Google Ads (Jeffrey Mattox) Serious Vandalism on the Net Over the Holiday (Patrick Townson) Last Laugh! Hospital Bill (Lisa Minter) 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: torotoro@digitalputty.com Subject: IPTV Pioneer Backspace Inks Deal with IPFlix Date: 25 Dec 2004 16:15:31 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Backspace TV a pioneer in live IPTV broadcast has partnered with Data-Fortress Groups subsidiary IPFlix to provide all of their content to their IP Infrastructure. Founded from the marriage between an ISP and Broadcast Television Station, Digitalputty and KCCE respectively, Backspace Communications has been broadcasting live television stations over IP networks for the past four years. Backspace has developed their own account management automation software, authorization and authentications software, utilization and monitoring software, all proprietary and database driven. In addition, they have conceived and constructed a completely proprietary acquisition, encoding, and broadcasting infrastructure. Backspace TV is a true pioneer in the IPTV Marketplace. Data-Fortress has been building out their points of presence throughout Western Canada and United States West Coast for over five years. They have a complete fiber loop throughout the Greater Vancouver Metropolitan area and service a major university campus as well. Between the two, with Backspace content and DATA-Fortress networks, this pair promises to be a strong player in the emerging market of IPTV. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Dec 2004 18:35:51 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: USTA Sends Strange Letter to Wal-Mart Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > I also hope that access charge regime gets fixed soon. At least then > VoIP proponents will develop truly new features rather than just > being an arbitrage player. Completely agreed. If VoIP is so great, it should be able to support the same obligations as real telephony such as 911 and USF. >> All of the above (except for the press release and the excerpt from >> the letter) is just my opinion, of course. But we really need >> access charge reform and it is organizations like the USTA that are >> standing in the way, ... The implementation of Universal Service certainly could be improved, but it still makes it possible for you to call a whole lot of people who live outside cities and suburbs and couldn't afford a phone if they had to pay the full incremental cost. Remember that the whole point of USF is that the more people who you can call, the more useful everyone's phones are. R's of the season. John ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 23:46:09 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Re: USTA Sends Strange Letter to Wal-Mart Jack Decker on Fri, 24 Dec 2004 12:32:59 -0500 wrote about USTA Sends Strange Letter to Wal-Mart > "In this latest attempt to avoid paying what it owes, AT&T has > employed a two-part scheme. In the first part, AT&T claims that > because it briefly diverts long-distance calls between two towns in > the same state to an out-of-state 800 platform, the company can avail > itself of the lower rates carriers charge for interstate calls rather > than paying the higher rates owed to local telecom providers for > intrastate calls. Many years ago big companies in California would route their point-to-point private lines or "tie lines" through a PBX in an office in Nevada. This was a "rusty switch" in that it didn't actually switch the traffic. Still, it entitled the companies to pay interstate rates. The FCC has ALWAYS taken a very strict view on what is interstate traffic. Since the FCC is also trying to lower per-minute access charges, AT&T will probably prevail > The second part of the scheme involves playing a > brief audio clip promoting companies like Wal-Mart and SAMS > CLUB. AT&T claims that by including this brief audio clip, calls > placed using these cards are no longer phone calls but are instead > 'enhanced' services which have no obligation to support > universal service, the joint industry fund that ensures affordable, > reliable telecommunications services for rural and fixed-income > Americans as well as for connecting schools and libraries to the > Internet." The definition of "enhanced services" has been a mess for years. "Time" and "Weather" services provided by the phone company came under the definition of "enhanced" and had to be exempted from the FCC's rules many years ago, even before the divestiture. ------------------------------ From: torotoro@digitalputty.com Subject: Re: The End of TV as We Know It Date: 25 Dec 2004 16:08:20 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Very poignant posture, Monty. We at Backspace.TV have been on just that since 1999 when we founded our ISP Digitalputty.com and married it with our TV Station KCCE 50. Moreover, as an enterprise level corporation with SBC we were heavy into negotiations for distribution to their 4M Yahoo DSL Subs when they suddenly went silent last June ( about the same time they inked Microsoft IPTV ). We're broadcasting to consumers and partnering with RBOC's for their subs as well. Welcome to the future of broadcast. http://www.backspace.tv Monty Solomon wrote: > Sit back on the sofa and get ready for packetized, on-demand, digital > broadcasts. > By Frank Rose > Wired Magazine > Issue 12.12 > December 2004 > We live in the age of the digital packet. Documents, images, music, > phone calls -- all get chopped up, propelled through networks, and > reassembled at the other end according to Internet protocol. So why > not TV? > That's the question cable giants like Comcast and Time Warner and Baby > Bells like SBC and Verizon have been asking. The concept has profound > implications for television and the Internet. TV over Internet > protocol -- IPTV -- will transform couch-cruising into an on-demand > experience. For the Internet, it will mean broadband at speeds 10, > 100, or even 1,000 times faster than today's DSL or cable. Online > games would be startlingly realistic; the idea of channels would seem > hopelessly archaic. Why not indeed? > So far, the answer has been inertia. But competition is a powerful > stimulus. For years, DirecTV and EchoStar have been adding subscribers > far faster than cable, so cable companies want something satellite > can't match. At the same time, voice over IP is enabling cable > operators to poach phone customers from telcos. Combine VoIP, truly > high-speed broadband, and totally on-demand TV - and you've got such a > compelling proposition that the Bell companies figure the only way to > survive is to do likewise. > IPTV is not to be confused with television over the Internet. On the > public Net, packets get delayed or lost entirely -- that's why Web > video is so jerky and lo-res. But private networks like Comcast's are > engineered, obviously, for reliable video delivery -- which means IPTV > will look at least as good as TV coming from digital cable or > satellite. > It will be accompanied by another, equally critical change. Instead > of broadcasting every channel continuously, service providers plan to > transmit them only to subscribers who request them. In effect, every > channel will be streamed on demand. This will free up huge amounts of > bandwidth for hi-def TV and high-speed broadband. Add IP and you get > interactive services like caller ID on your TV. And the system will > be able to track viewing habits as effectively as Amazon tracks its > customers, so ads will be targeted with scary precision. Put it all > together and you've got television that's as intensely personalized > as 20th-century broadcasting was generic. > http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/start.html?pg=7 ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Beware Sprint Phone Rebates Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 21:18:00 -0700 Organization: Octanews In message Nate wrote: > 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] I would suggest that if they aren't honouring the contract, you shouldn't either. Cease paying the phone bill, for the love of god cease using the phone, then fight it when/if they come after you. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Verizon Takes Next Big Step Toward VoIP Organization: ATCC Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 12:19:17 -0500 In article , lisa_minter2001@ yahoo.com says: > http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=113914 > Posted on: Friday, 24 December 2004, 03:01 CST > Verizon Takes Next Big Step Toward VoIP > Best known locally for its spring tulip festival, the small northwest > Washington city of Mount Vernon now has a new claim to fame: the first > central office in Verizon's network to be converted from old-fashioned > circuit switching to cutting-edge packet telephony > The setup within the Skagit Valley facility doesn't look much > different than it did before the conversion, part of a $1 billion- > plus nationwide project that Verizon estimates will take five or six > years to complete. The central piece of new equipment, a Nortel > softswitch outfitted with add-ons to support legacy TDM > interconnections, takes up about as much space as the 7-foot-high, > 19-inch-wide Class 5 circuit switch it replaced. The most visible > change is that the new gear flashes with green lights, whereas the > Class 5 cabinets were"closed up and pretty mundane," says a network > operations supervisor at the facility > But the most significant difference is what you can't see: a platform > that promises to generate increased revenue through support of new > converged services while slashing capital and operational costs by up > to 50%. > Verizon is looking to ditch 2,500 Class 5 switches in about as many > local central offices in favor of IP softswitches, plus line media and > trunking gateways. The carrier is deploying Nortel's Communications > Server 2000 softswitch, Packet Voice Gateway (PVG) and Media Gateway > 9000 products. [.....] > Verizon also has installed many softswitches in five central offices > in California, but has not yet turned up service on them because > state regulators are challenging an FCC rule that does not require > incumbents to unbundle VoIP facilities to provide wholesale access > for competitors. ... "It's one of those classic state vs. federal > issues." Elby says the recent FCC ruling that found Vonage's VoIP > service to be interstate in nature and thus exempt from state > regulation has no bearing on Verizon's softswitch deployment in > California. Wholesale unbundling is a separate issue, and Elby > argues that California has erred in its judgment and questions if > this error will be fixed. Full story at: > http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=113914 Once again, too much too late for Verizon. You know that most switches have been IP aware for at least a decade, if not two. I imagine Verizon will still charge exorbitant rates which will mean that they won't gain much other than not needing the old circuit switched infrastructure anymore. So there will be some savings but not for consumers. Thanks again Verizon. I'm so glad I ditched you! ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Don't Disconnect VoIP Service Until You Are Ready to Lose Dial Organization: ATCC Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 12:21:49 -0500 In article , jack- yahoogroups@withheld says: > A very unsettling thread over on BroadbandReports.com, about how those > who have called to cancel a VoIP service at some future date have > found that it stopped working a few moments later, and could not be > reconnected. If the VoIP companies want to add fuel to the fire of > those clamoring for more regulation, actions like this will surely do > that. Note that AT&T seems to be the smelliest skunk at this picnic > (but not the only one) ... > http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,12200955~mode=flat I can't imagine why I'd get rid of my VoIP line. First, one of the things I look at when moving is if broadband is available or not. If it isn't then I don't move there. So all I'd have to do is take my Vonage router with me, disconnect the telco side of the NID and plug the Vonage router in there. And I've found that the cable companies are more than willing to keep installation appointments. Not only that, they go the length including running new cable to a location of your choice, etc. So in a day or two I can have my net service and phone service up and running at a new location. RBOC's can't move that fast. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My experience with cable (at least in rural areas) is that cable is very prompt with their installation and repairs. Same day or next day installation/repair is quite common. And you are correct; the telcos (Bell at least) are rarely that fast. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Consultant Subject: Re: Click Fraud Threatens Web Date: 25 Dec 2004 21:17:05 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com There are tools and consultants that can help you. And the big issue with click fraud is that it isn't small numbers of people making small amounts of cash, it is large scale abuse using trojan type techniques that install rogue dll's on vast numbers of pc's that is of greater concern. Overture WILL make refunds, read this blog regarding the case study : http://www.clickfraud.com/ The refunds can be large and they can be made quickly, just keep in mind that Overture cannot detect all types of fraud, you have to show the evidence, that often means recruiting a clickfraud consultant. C.F. Consultant Lisa Minter quoted an article in the Digest: > Someone could make the argument that watchdogs have better things to > do. But click fraud -- endlessly clicking on ads to generate cash or > hurt a competitor -- is a serious threat to the web business, and no > one's doing much about it. Commentary by Adam L. Penenberg. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,65324,00.html?tw=wn_story_mailer [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But some companies doing this sort of work -- Google for instance -- seem almost paranoid about webmasters and others trying to cheat them. But I have news for Google, some webmasters are honest people also trying to earn a decent living. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: My High Hopes About Google Ads Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 11:15:36 -0600 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > When I use another redirection alias, through 'us.tc' or 'net.tc' > still other ads show up in German or French. I don't know the answer to any of your other questions. But smartdots.com (the German registrar who is giving away those .tc subdomains) has a header line in their redirected pages that says the language is German. (You'll see it if you view the page source with your browser.) Chances are, Google's robot is using that header to determine the language of the ad. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I did not realize '.tc' was assigned to Germany. For some reason, I thought that '.de' was their country code. Also, I did not think that Google paid any attention to the META or HEAD lines on web pages; just the contents of the page. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 16:32:07 -0600 From: Jeffrey Mattox Subject: Re: My High Hopes About Google Ads Pat: [Please withhold my email address for spam reasons.] Pat wrote: > They claim they ... will only pay for those months on which you get > at least one hundred dollars in revenue, and that they 'reserve the > right' to not pay that if they choose to charge you for your 'costs' > in running their search engine or if they decided you were cheating > on them, etc. > I have yet to have a single month on which I 'earned' a hundred > dollars. The closest I have come was last month (November) in which > they admitted (by their calculation which is the only thing they > will use) to $98.60. So, of course no check, since it was not the > hundred dollars they insist on,... > ... I am thinking very seriously about writing off what I have lost > on Google Ad Sense unless I can find an attorney willing to sue them > to try and collect the approximately two hundred dollars they always > find reasons not to pay on, ... Pat! Calm down! From the very start, you've expected them to cheat you, so you assume they are. Not so. You have grossly misunderstood their payment scheme. For one thing, they WILL pay you what you earned. They accumulate your earnings from one month to the next until you reach $100 or more, then they pay you whatever the balance is. It is NOT a minimum $100 per month or you get nothing. They just don't want to cut checks for less than $100. Second, the charge back only applies to Google Search (not the ads) and only to some very large users of their service. This will certainly not apply to you. Even to those users, they only charge a small fraction of the earnings. As to how they calculate the payments, it depends on how much each advertiser is willing to pay, and that varies widely from one ad to the next. They keep less than half, and pay you the rest. True, they don't give you the exact ratios, but people have figured it out and there are web sites devoted to this issue. I believe it's about 70/30 (70% to you, 30% to Google). The amount varies depending on the settings the advertiser has put in, and so it's impossible to compute in advance what you will earn. You are seeing duplicate ads (or no ads) because you are expecting them to serve 12 per page. That is too many, and Google (and others) suggests you avoid putting that many ads on a page. If you only offered up the banner (4 ads), it would look and feel better. All this is explained on the Google Adsense site, and I have previously suggested you read their FAQ. But, you have repeatedly railed against them, so I assume you were convinced from the start that they were out to cheat you. You don't need lawyers. You need to calm down, wait for your first check, and read their FAQ! The only real complaint you have is their estimation that you would earn "several hundreds of dollars per month." You are earning about $100 per month. Is that really so bad? Jeff [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thus far I have earned **zero dollars and zero cents** from their ads, over three months since I started running their ads. And maybe I was convinced early on that they would cheat me, but if you actually read their lengthy terms of service, you'll see where they feel the same way about most of the webmasters. Don't bot-click, don't play games with key-words, we 'reserve the right not to pay' etc, as if *they* thought they were in charge of things around here! And they are very, very secret about *how much* they choose to pay. I have had days with a dozen click throughs and Google said it was worth ten dollars; the next day two or three times as many hits and click throughs and it was only worth ten cents. And I have never before seen a company which would not state specifically what its operation costs were (as with Google searches) and 'reserve the right' to charge that cost back after-the-fact to the webmasters who were running their ads for them. Why won't Google give any guidelines on things like this, other than just generic phrases? Anyway, they pay much, much less on clickthroughs after the search engine than on ads before it. I thought that markdown was to pay for their costs. I'd rather see them agree to pay some smaller amount of money, but *actually pay it* and not play games like they do now. I am expected to wait for several months before getting any money at all, and even then I don't know for sure how much it will be until it gets here? 'Bidvertiser' tells you exactly how many pennies they are going to pay for clickthroughs. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: Serious Vandalism on the Net Over the Holiday Date: Sun, 26, Dec 2004 18:00:00 EST It appears that over the Christmas holiday, some kiddie who got a new toy computer to play with decided to do a number on many (most? all?) newsgroups with several thousand trashy, stupid messages, repeated over and over in various newsgroups. I received messages from readers of c.d.t. who thought *I* could possibly do something about it. This newsgroup got hit pretty badly, but news.admin.net-abuse.email got it worst of all, I understand. I had some email this afternoon with John Levine about this mess, and he responded: > This is quite unusual. It's been over a year since there's > been a spew like this, and there wouldn't be now except that > there appears to be one well-connected host in Europe whose > management has taken the week off. Then I asked: > But even if the managment took the week off, didn't they have any > bots on duty? John then replied: They have a dusty server that is misconfigured and lets anyone post with fake credentials. Most likely it has been sitting there for a couple of years, unused and unnoticed. The correct thing to do with it is to pull the plug. The group that's under attack, news.admin.net-abuse.email is unmoderated so there's no approved line to handle. I found a few dozen cross posts to c.d.t and sent out cancels for them. As far as I can tell, the flood stopped this morning so apparently they woke someone up. Regards, John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of The Internet for Dummies Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Mayor "I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And I hope for all of you, the Christmas holiday was as joyful and pleasant as it has been for me! PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Last Laugh! Doctor and Hospital Bills From: Lisa Minter Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 21:07:51 EST A man suffered a serious heart attack and had open heart bypass surgery. He awakened from the surgery to find himself in the care of nuns at a Catholic hospital. As he was recovering, a nun asked him questions regarding how he was going to pay for services. He was asked if he had health insurance. He replied in a raspy voice, "No health insurance." The nun asked if he had money in the bank. He replied, "No money in the bank." The nun asked, "Do you have a relative who could help you?" He said, "I only have a spinster sister who is a nun." The nun got a little perturbed and announced loudly, "Nuns are not spinsters! Nuns are married to God." The patient replied, "Then send the bill to my brother-in-law." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Very good! I wish I had thought of that line when Stormont-Vale Medical Center came to see me to collect on the *300 thousand* dollars I owed after my brain aneurysm surgery, two months in a coma and an additional month in the rehabilitation unit. Ever see a hospital/doctor bill bottom line of $300,000.00 after three months more or less in the hospital? It almost caused me to have yet another heart attack! PAT] ------------------------------ 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 #619 ******************************