From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Feb 25 00:46:25 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id i1P5kPI28738; Wed, 25 Feb 2004 00:46:25 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 00:46:25 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200402250546.i1P5kPI28738@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 #89 TELECOM Digest Wed, 25 Feb 2004 00:45:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 89 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Vonage Troubles (John Schmerold) Ameritech Book Review (Charles G Gray) Verizon Land Line International Rates (Roman) VoIP and DTMF Decoding (John M.) Reciprocal Link Request (Mark Evans) Re: "Out of Area" Caller ID Law (Sammy@nospam.biz) Microsoft Goes Mobile With Openwave (Eric Friedebach) Share Day for February (TELECOM Digest Editor) 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 is 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, 23 Feb 2004 14:22:03 -0600 From: John Schmerold Subject: Vonage Troubles We've been using Vonage and find that 2 - 3 times per week we pick up the phone and get dead air. When we call Vonage support during these outages, there are no available support personell. Internet connectivity is flawless during these outages (we have a lightly loaded T1.) Anyone else having this problem? Any suggestions? Has anyone figured out a way to monitor remote Vonage boxes (we were provided the Motorola VT1000 boxes) with What's Up Gold? This would be somewhat helpful if we could inform the users that there is a problem. TIA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have had the same problem in the past, (short periods of no dial tone, otherwise good connectivity, people calling in reach Voicemail (as though Vonage could not find me; the phone never even rang, etc.) Vonage tech support offered me this advice based on my Linksys router/firewall. Go to the set up screen on the Linksys router. Select 'advanced options' and then 'port forwarding'. Set up these three customized applications: TFTP from/to port 69 only, SIP from 5060 to 5063, RTP from 10,000 to 20,000. Check the box for UDP protocol only, forward all three of the above applications to whichever address applies in your case (for me it was 192.168.1.100) and check the box to enable all three applications. Then of course, save your work. According to tech support, that should end the occassional 'no dial tone' problem, and the occassional 'Vonage cant find you' problem. Your mileage may vary, depending on the kind of firewall/router you have. My Linksys firmware is 1.45.7, revision of July 31, 2003. I am a little leary whenever anyone tells me to poke all those holes in my firewall, but according to tech support once again, as long as you are routing it ONLY to the Vonage phone you should have no problems. If I wake up tomorrow to discover I was summarily raped overnight and my protections all blown to pieces I will be certain to tell everyone here about it. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Ameritech Book Review From: Charles G Gray Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 14:34:02 -0600 Pat, I ordered my copy of the Ameritech "Snapshots in Time" book when you ran the first item on it in the Digest. I received it last Friday, and I couldn't be happier with it. As an example of its thorough coverage, and demonstration of progress in the industry, readers might want to compare the operator's "headset" from 1880 (page 14) with the "earbuds" of today. The 1880 model was so heavy that it had to be supported by a shoulder harness. Regards. Charles G. Gray Senior Lecturer, Telecommunications Oklahoma State University - Tulsa (918)594-8433 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, that was pretty wild. Then the picture of the young dude with a Plantronics 'licorice stick' tube coming down to his mouth and a rubber tip in his ear was also pretty wild. Changes made in the industry over the decades have been pretty hard to believe. I first got one of those Plantronic rubber tips which just sit in your ear (I think the way it works on talking is it just hears the bones in your head rattling as you talk) in 1972 when I was working the midnight shift in Amoco Credit Card Sales Authorization. They were pretty nifty. I wish I had another one now in place of my 'more conventional' headphones. Anyone have a spare one they will send me? PAT] ------------------------------ From: rnadgor@email.com (Roman) Subject: Verizon Land Line International Rates Date: 23 Feb 2004 13:42:04 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com To make a long story short: My girlfriend is in Spain for the semester, and I have a Verizon landline in my house. I went on their website to see how much it would cost to call, and it said $0.10 a minute and a $4 fee. Sounded very cheap to me, so I made several hours of phone calls. I got my bill yesterday: $630. Called Verizon. They told me that I needed to call them and agree to pay the $4 to activate the international calling for that price. Since I did not, I was charged $3.09 a minute. They refused to charge me the $4 and then how much I would have paid, saying it was my fault I didn't pay the $4 even though on their website there is no mention of calling them to pay it or that there is a different rate if you don't pay it etc ... Has anyone had this problem or know a way to get out of it / convince them that they should charge me the price it would have been had it been $4. I'm a poor college student who simply can't afford that type of payment. I have no idea what to do. Thanks. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe an appeal to the chairman's office would work. It has for me a couple times. Or else filing a commission complaint. But really, what made you think they would automatically know of your intentions and put you on the $4 plan? For them to do that without your okay is also illegal; it is known as 'cramming'. This really isn't Verizon's fault at all; try again tomorrow with a different rep and see if she will help you before you go the appeals route. If you get out of this mess in one piece, start reading their advertising more closely, and *always* tell the business office your intentions before you make calls like this. PAT] ------------------------------ From: john@totalb.com (John M.) Subject: VoIP and DTMF Decoding Date: 23 Feb 2004 15:58:55 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I plan to implement an IVR solution using VoIP. A VoIP gateway/router connects my telco voice circuits to the local Ethernet LAN using G.711 and my app server is simply a Linux box on the LAN that acts as a VoIP termination device via the Ethernet. My app will answer a call, play an audio prompt, receive a touchtone DTMF reply, and then stream the selected pre-recorded audio program. I have one question: Does VoIP have DTMF decoding built-in to the protocol? Or would my app server have to decode the raw PCM digital audio in order to detect the touch tones? Any advice appreciated. THANKS! ------------------------------ From: Mark Evans Subject: Reciprocal Link Request Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 04:18:00 -0800 Hi Patrick, I enjoy using your website often for research and vendor information. I would like to see if you would entertain having a reciprocal link to my site? I would like to place your link at: http://www.bottaboom.com/phonelinks.htm I believe my visitors could benefit from the information contained at your site. My homepage is http://www.bottaboom.com Thanks for your consideration. J. Mark Evans President Bottaboom.com Ph: 520-572-1772 Fax: 520-572-6404 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, there is a mention of your web site, and I hope people use your service and enjoy it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Sammy@nospam.biz Subject: Re: "Out of Area" Caller ID Law Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 05:49:23 -0800 Organization: Cox Communications Mike wrote: > I registered on that Do Not Call list back when it first came out. > When it went into affect we stopped receiving all those annoying > telemarketing phone calls. But ever since that new law came out that > requires telemarketers to display info on the caller id, we've been > getting about 3 "out of area" calls everyday at the same times they > used to call. What law requires telemarketers to deliver Caller ID? ------------------------------ From: friedebach@yahoo.com (Eric Friedebach) Subject: Microsoft Goes Mobile With Openwave Date: 24 Feb 2004 10:58:11 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Aude Lagorce, 02.24.04, Forbes.com NEW YORK - Microsoft's aggressive foray into the mobile phone business gathered steam when the software giant announced an agreement with mobile software maker Openwave Systems to bring MSN Mobile services to wireless operators and handset vendors worldwide. Today's announcement, which comes just a few months after Microsoft struck a partnership with Motorola to produce a wireless phone that runs its Windows Mobile software, indicates that the world's biggest software concern is determined to pursue its push into the phone business. By embedding MSN Mobile within Openwave's Phone Suite Version 7, Microsoft wants to make it easy for operators and handset manufacturers to quickly deliver phones able to provide access to the MSN services, including Hotmail e-mail and also MSN Messenger, an instant-message service used by 110 million subscribers. The Openwave announcement is Microsoft's riposte to rival AOL, a Time Warner unit whose Instant Messenger already is available on several mass-market phones. http://www.forbes.com/personaltech/2004/02/24/cx_al_0224microsoft.html Eric Friedebach /Mortgage your Viagra!/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 23:09:01 EST From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Share Day for February We are at that time again -- once per month here, regardless of the amount of message traffic coming through -- where I pause to ask for your kind and generous financial assistance in the costs of producing and distributing the TELECOM Digest around the internet. The biggest part of my job each month is weeding through the spam and viruses which arrive relentlessly day after day. That part alone requires two to three hours daily, mainly I suppose since the spammers are getting wiser about the spam filters and traps we have set up all over to catch them. The virus spreaders are still clinging to the 'Microsoft Update' line; all that can be simply junked as is, but the spammers are getting trickier, for sure. Well none of what I say on that is anything you have not heard before many times, so let me say no more about it except that where Digests such as this one used to be able to be produced with a few key clicks most days, now it is very, very dangerous not to give at least a cursory glance at the items as they are being edited for publication. Entire Digests (of various genres) have been killed off for lack of interest among other things when one or two or three people took them over and began abusing them. Ditto Usenet newsgroups. Unlike public radio or public television, where the idea seems to be to take one or two 'fund raising' periods each year and then do literally nothing but sit on air and raise money for two or three weeks until they have met their budget for the year, I prefer to spread it out with a few messages each month over the same period of time. Five to six hundred -- or even a thousand -- messages of general interest over a month's time, then three or four fund raising reminders. My editing is far from perfect, and things slip in that some of you do not approve of, but I think TELECOM Digest is a little better than most of the text/email-based Digests on the net these days. If you want to do your part to help, as always it is greatly appreciated. You are the best person to decide what this Digest and newsgroup is worth financially, and how much you can afford to keep it going in its present form. 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #89 *****************************