From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Dec 27 15:47:46 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id iBRKlk024269; Mon, 27 Dec 2004 15:47:46 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 15:47:46 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200412272047.iBRKlk024269@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 #620 TELECOM Digest Mon, 27 Dec 2004 15:48:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 620 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Adelphia Reports Billions in Losses Going Back Over Years (dailyLead) Drill Bit Size (Fred Atkinson) The Secret Life of Phone Numbers (Alan Burkitt-Gray) Re: What Tandem in Telcom Means? (Wesrock@aol.com) Re: USTA Sends Strange Letter to Wal-Mart (Mark Atwood) Re: My High Hopes About Google Ads (Dave Garland) Re: My High Hopes About Google Ads (LB@notmine.com) Re: My High Hopes About Google Ads (Bob Goudreau) Re: Last Laugh! Doctor and Hospital Bills (Dave VanHorn) 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: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 12:45:13 EST From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA Subject: Adelphia Reports Billions in Losses Dating Back Over Years http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=18342&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Adelphia reports billions in losses dating back over years BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Experts: Mobile phone viruses may pose threat * Researchers predict Ethernet services boom * Nextel chief sees big things on the horizon * Lucent's Russo reaps gains from company's turnaround USTA SPOTLIGHT * "3G Wireless with WiMAX and Wi-Fi" -- Now in the Telecom Bookstore EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * As GPS use grows, privacy concerns emerge REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Israel restricts pornographic mobile phone content * FCC: Local-access lines up 7% in first half of 2004 Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=18342&l=2017006 Legal and Privacy information at http://www.dailylead.com/about/privacy_legal.jsp SmartBrief, Inc. 1100 H ST NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20005 ------------------------------ From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Drill Bit Size Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 10:11:37 -0500 Can anyone on here tell me what the standard bit size that is used by telephone installers to drill the holes for running standard, four pair telephone wire through (like drilling a hole through the baseboard into the floor to pull the wire in to wire a jack mounted on the baseboard)? Fred Atkinson ------------------------------ Reply-To: From: Alan Burkitt-Gray Subject: TELECOM Digest: The Secret Life of Phone Numbers Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 13:27:18 -0000 Organization: Alan Burkitt-Gray I thought Digest fans would be interested in this programme on BBC Radio 4 tonight (Monday 27) at 20.00 GMT (3pm ET): It's available when broadcast from the BBC Radio Four website in RealAudio on http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio4.shtml?fm (you can download a free player if you don't already have it) The Secret Life of Phone Numbers Dialing up stories from the history of telephony, Ian Peacock recalls the days of two-digit phone numbers and purring dial tones, GPO operators and mechanical exchanges. He discovers that this era was still with us even as digital technology and mobile phones entered our lives in the 1990s. Producer Alan Daulby The BBC has a listen again facility, also in RealAudio, for up to seven days after original broadcast: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/progs/listenagain.shtml Alan Burkitt-Gray alan@burkitt-gray.com 7 Foxes Dale, London SE3 9BD, UK tel 020 8463 0365 international +44 20 8463 0365 mobile 079 6202 1330 international +44 79 6202 1330 ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 09:13:24 EST Subject: Re: What Tandem in Telcom Means? In a message dated Sat, 25 Dec 2004 00:53:57 -0800, Tim@Backhome.org writes: > Wesrock@aol.com wrote: >> In the late 1940s I made a call from a coin box in Los Angeles, and >> the operator had to go to rate-and-route to learn which (manual) toll >> tandem to plug into which had trunks toward the destination. L.A. had >> so many outgoing manual toll trunks that they had to be distributed >> among various tandems; as I recall, for my call the operator was >> director to (manual) toll tandem No. 4. which had trunks for the MX >> (multi-switch) routing to the destination. > If you were calling out of the area before DDD came in effect in the > late 1950s, there was always rate-and-route for calls out the LA area, > and probably most areas of the country. I'm not sure what point you are making. Toll operators had keyshelf bulletins giving routes to the commonly called points, and in most cases direct trunks to a large number of places directly in their multiples. Rate-and-route operators existed everywhere, to determine the routing to places with less traffic, including the smallest places and toll stations, that were not listed on the keyshelf bulletin. What I found unusual about Los Angeles was that it had outgoing trunks to so many places that the toll operator had to know (whether from her knowledge, the keyshelf bulletin or rate-and-route) not only that she had to first reach a tandem with trunks to places not in her multiple but that there were several different tandems because there were so many different trunk groups they could not all be accomodated either in the multiple before the operator or in a single toll tandem as was the case in most places. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: USTA Sends Strange Letter to Wal-Mart From: Mark Atwood Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 01:49:21 GMT John Levine writes: >> 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. Should email have similar "obligations"? So long as I know what I'm getting, I am perfectly happy paying for my "fake telephony". And, VoIP or no, the USF should be elimated. Now. Immediately. Yesterday, if possible. Mark Atwood | When you do things right, people won't be sure mark@atwood.name | you've done anything at all. http://mark.atwood.name/ http://www.livejournal.com/users/fallenpegasus ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: My High Hopes About Google Ads Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 00:12:00 -0600 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > I did not realize '.tc' was assigned to Germany. It's not. It's assigned to the Turks and Caicos Islands. But apparently the German registrar owns "us.tc", and it's subdomains of that they're giving away. (I expect that it's not possible to move to somebody else's name server, you're not actually getting an IP number from smartdots but, I think, just some forwarding wizardry.) > For some reason, I thought that '.de' was their country code. Quite correct, .de is Germany. But the registrar has presumably they've paid the .tc government (or whoever has ultimate authority over that TLD) to purchase "us.tc", "net.tc", "at.tc", "de.tc", etc. A lot of tiny countries seem to be trying to cash in on their namespace this way. > 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. I'm not sure, but what with your page apparently being in a frame, who knows what Google looks for. That 'META name="LANGUAGE" content="DE,german,deutsch"' is an obvious connection to "German", as the T&C Islands are English-speaking. ------------------------------ From: LB@notmine.com Subject: Re: My High Hopes About Google Ads Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 05:55:56 -0500 Organization: Optimum Online Jeffrey Mattox wrote: > 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] Pat, It appears Google is like E-bay. Both are 800 pound gorillas that you do not have to dance with, but since so many folks do dance with you are stuck with their rules. To answer some of your "why" questions. Google _does_ have competition and good business sense says they have every reason to be as quiet as possible on many things. It appears you are stuck with the Golden Rule of business: Those with the Gold make the rules LB ------------------------------ From: BobGoudreau@ withheld on request Subject: Re: My High Hopes About Google Ads Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 11:48:18 -0500 [As always, please delete my email address from the message header and from the digest ToC=2E Thanks=2E] >>> 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. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I did not realize '.tc' was assigned > to Germany. It's not. It's assigned to the Turks and Caicos Islands, which is a British territory in the Caribbean. > For some reason, I thought that '.de' was their country code. True, but irrelevant. Dave didn't claim that the .tc domain was assigned to Germany. What he actually said was that the .tc and net.tc SUBdomains (not the overall .tc domain) were ADMINISTERED by (not assigned to) a German registrar COMPANY (not the government of the Federal Republic of Germany). Presumably, SmartDots purchased the rights to those subdomains through legitimate means from the registrar of the overall .tc domain, which is an English company called AdamsNames Limited. AdamsNames itself presumably has an arrangement with the T&C government (or possibly their colonial superiors in London) to administer the .tc name space. Bob Goudreau Cary, NC [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It seems like that Adams Company has a lot of domains they give away for free, just for asking, and taking. Both '.tf' and '.tc' are entirely divided up with lots of sub-domains under them, including all the various two letter country codes and all the USA domains such as .org, .com, .net, etc ... if you go to http://smartdots.com or http://cydots.com or http://www.unonic.com or http://dhs.org you will see a drop down menu listing (in each case) **dozens** of domains and sub-domains, etc where you are free to help yourself, as long as the unique name of your site is not taken. http://cydots.com gives away all the '.ms' domains the same way. And they all -- cydots, smartdots, unonic, etc give lots of free webmaster tools, if you want them; passworded web sites, hit counters, email, etc. 'dhs.org' is out of Australia, and they give away lots of dhs.org subdomains, and also 'n3.net'. They --'dhs.org' -- ask for a five dollar donation for their work which can be paid through PayPal, but all the '.tc', '.tf', and '.ms' domain names are totally free, and they also offer email, and various webmaster tools Every one of them works like re-directors, but they offer to 'cloak' the real site you are at with whatever name you tell them. I am sure there are more like that, those are the only ones I found thus far. I do not know where '.ms' (smartdots.com) is located, but it must be that same Adams Company, or at least they use the same domain name-picking software that '.tf' (known to be Adams Company) uses. So I suggest everyone stock up on domain names from all those countries. PAT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: Dave VanHorn From: Dave VanHorn Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Doctor and Hospital Bills Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 08:40:44 -0500 > [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] Two years ago, I was in intensive care for pancreatitis. No mild attack this, nine weeks in the hospital, plus another 6 at home. Through all this time, no food, no water, I ate through a tube in my arm. Roughly $250k Insurance picked up most of the tab though. ------------------------------ 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 #620 ******************************