From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Aug 27 14:54:23 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i7RIsNg19292; Fri, 27 Aug 2004 14:54:23 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 14:54:23 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200408271854.i7RIsNg19292@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 #401 TELECOM Digest Fri, 27 Aug 2004 14:54:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 401 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson U.S. Says Over 100 Arrested in Internet Crime Sweep (Monty Solomon) NBC Sees Last-Minute Olympic Profit Boost (Monty Solomon) Re: OS Preference (Fred Atkinson) Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind (Lisa Hancock) Re: Cincinnati Bell Alternatives (Tony P.) Re: Book Review: Fighting Spam for Dummies, Levine/Young/Church (Levine) Europe's Coming Leader in Broadband is France (Marcus Didius Falco) Forced Ads on Auto Response System (Lisa Hancock) NorVergence & the FTC (North Jersey Media Group Inc.) Response to "Hundreds Arrested in Internet Crime Sweep" (Withheld) Perfisans Delivers New Chip to Key Motherboard Makers (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 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: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 17:36:24 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: U.S. Says Over 100 Arrested in Internet Crime Sweep By Andy Sullivan and Peter Kaplan WASHINGTON, Aug 26 (Reuters) - More than 100 people have been arrested in the largest global crackdown to date on identity theft, hacking and other Internet-based crimes, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said on Thursday. The arrests followed a three-month investigation into a range of crimes from reselling co-workers' Social Security numbers to disabling Web sites, Ashcroft said. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43320357 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 17:41:49 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: NBC Sees Last-Minute Olympic Profit Boost LOS ANGELES, Aug 26 (Reuters) - NBC Universal, riding high on a Summer Olympics that appears on track to set a record for viewership, will beat early forecasts and turn a profit of $60 million to $70 million for its coverage of the Games from Athens, an NBC executive said on Thursday. With ratings running ahead of the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, executives said the network was able to release some advertising inventory that had been held back in case of a "make goods" situation, in which networks offer free time to advertisers if they fall short of ratings commitments. The released time translated into $20 million to $25 million in extra business, all of which went to the bottom line, said one executive who asked to remain anonymous. NBC had previously said it expected Athens to be as profitable as Sydney, which sources pegged at around $50 million. Through 12 days of competition, NBC's prime-time coverage of the Athens games was up 8 percent in the ratings compared with Sydney, according to Nielsen Media Research. Similarly, the other NBC Universal networks carrying the Games -- MSNBC, CNBC, USA, Bravo and Telemundo -- were also up sharply. While it was too early to say definitively what sort of effect the Games would have on the networks, particularly their non-Olympic programming, NBC Universal said there were some early positive indications. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43314507 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 13:47:02 PDT Subject: Re: OS Preference From: Fred Atkinson What's wrong with upgrading the hard drive? They are cheap these days? I just got through upgrading from a machine with a ten gigabyte hard drive to a thirty gigabyte hard drive and installed Windows 2000 on the new machine. Fred On Tue, 24 Aug 2004 12:30:47 PDT, in comp.dcom.telecom you wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Isn't Win 98 or Win 2000 actually > preferable and more flexible for most people anyway? PAT] > It depends :-) The computer I am typing on right now is Win98. The > main reason it's not getting updated is it's 4 GB Hard Drive. 2000 & > XP are too big. > The computer next to it is a laptop running Win2000. Not my choice, > but the IT setup is 5 year old Os's on 5 year old machines :-( > My two home machines (one laptop and on desktop) both run XP > Home. It's stable, supports USB2.0, and matches the newer hardware. My > rule of thumb is if you have at least 128 Mb of RAM, 20 GB of hard > drive and no offending hardware; run XP. The added features justify > it. > Mark L. Smith smith@stones.com http://smith.freehosting.net ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind Date: 26 Aug 2004 14:05:17 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com SELLCOM Tech support wrote > I just went from a "poor Microsoft why are they persecuting it" to a > "Microsoft is really really dangerous and something needs to be done" > in only a few short hours. What caused this great change of heart > you might ask? The answer is "XP". I held out for as long as I could > without buying it, but ... In the IBM mainframe world, if you happen to have an old program from 40 (forty) years ago, you can still run it without change on current machines and operating systems. The backward compatibility is there. (Yes, most old programs would have needed Y2k changes, and there was changes from COBOL to COBOL-II/MVS, but basically everything is the same). Actually, if you had programs that were 50 (fifty) years old from an earlier generation of IBM mainframes (ie 1401 or 7090 series from the 1950s) you could STILL run them without change, too. I know of people who did just that until at least the mid 1990s. The 1948 Western Electric rotary phone on my desk works just fine, by the way. The Centrex ESS still accepts rotary dial pulses and the ringing current still rings the telephone. Voice clarity is fine. Those are pretty good records of supporting someone's software/ hardware investment. I don't think Microsoft chooses to follow that way of doing business. On the other hand, Microsoft keeps rolling out new and changed operating systems year after year. As a person of limited means who tends to keep his computers for as long as possible, my personal software becomes "obsolete" and this creates problems. Intel keeps making faster and faster chips. At work, when they upgraded me from MS Word 6.0 to Word 2000, I discovered that my macros were obsolete and had to be recoded, plus other things were changed around. I had to WASTE considerable time getting things back to how I liked them. People say the new products have new features, but most of us do not NEED the new features. I do plenty of writing and Word 6.0 met all of my needs just fine. As to chip speed, it's like using an atom bomb to kill a rabbit. Many years ago, the people at GM (by Alfred Sloan IIRC) came up with the idea of a new model year, so as to encourage people to buy new cars even if they didn't need them; just to have something new and fancy. To me, Microsoft and Intel copied the same business formula. Most of us (except those who like to play around with stuff) could really do their work in DOS on a 286, maybe 386 for heavy duty needs. Everything else is window dressing. But Intel/MS wouldn't make any money if people kept their computers until they wore out. So they keep adding features and hyping them up. When Win95 came out, I could not believe people were so excited they were lining up overnight outside stores! Likewise when the Pentium came out. I will keep using my 1996 home computer with its 14.4 modem until it dies and I am forced to upgrade. Of course they've told me the hard drive isn't compatible with new machines (surprise, surprise), so I'll have to recopy my software. Some programs were on 5" floppies originally -- how I am supposed to copy those over? (I had hoped to simply move my hard drive to the new machine and go from there.) I see that DOS under Win2000 has limitations that I don't care for, but I'm screwed. MS doesn't want me doing anything in DOS, it wants me to buy all new software. [public replies only, please] ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Cincinnati Bell Alternatives Organization: ATCC Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 22:02:56 GMT In article , alg@aracnet.com says... > While you won't find my CLEC in Cincinnati I'd bet some of your local > CLECs are just as good. Here's what I'd try: Interview a couple of > the larger ones serving your area and tell them what level of business > they might get from you. Then install a PRI (or T-1) on a 60 day > trial basis (gratis if possible and with no disconnect penalty) and > see how they do. How's their installation interval? Have they > configured the trunks to work with your equipment correctly (or do you > have to spend hours troubleshooting with them)? Does the LD work as > you expect? Things like that. Reminds me of when we switched to Brooks Fiber at a former job. Thing is we only had 20 lines in the building. Unfortunately we were about two blocks away from Brooks fiber ring. So the solution was to have Verizon fiber drawn into the building and hooked up to a channel bank on premises (Our switch couldn't take a PRI type feed at the time.) From what I was told, Brooks was losing about $10K per month on our account. But the service was rock solid. Now it's MCI. Oh well. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Aug 2004 05:15:33 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Book Review: Fighting Spam for Dummies, Levine/Young/Church Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA I generally don't reply to flames from anonymous cowards who have so little confidence in what they say that they sent mail from fake addresses and don't sign their messages, but now and then I make an exception. > Spamassassin *does* run on Windows desktops. >> From the spamassassin home page, at > Note: This is the home page for the main open-source SpamAssassin > distribution. Packages downloaded here contain UNIX-oriented > front-end scripts. Versions for Windows, commercial versions, and > other front-ends, are listed on the wiki. > Note well: "Versions for Windows..." > Neat trick for a package that "doesn't run on Windows", isn't it? Had Mr. A.C. spent a few seconds and actually taken a look at the Wiki he refers to, he would find a bunch of little used add-on packages that let you set up a proxy mail server on your Windows box that they say can be set up to run mail through a version of spamassassin. I believe that they can be made to work, but I don't know anyone who uses spamassassin that way, and I certainly wouldn't recommend any of them to the nontechnical users who are the target of our book, because they're way too hard to manage and update. Spamassassin is a swell package. Indeed, it's so swell that we describe it in some detail in pages 186-188 of the server filtering chapter which apparently neither the original reviewer nor Mr. A.C. bothered to read. So like I said, it's a short book, if you're interested in anti-spam advice, flip through it at your local bookstore and decide for yourself. To download a PDF of chapter 1, visit the publisher's catalog page for the book at http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/DummiesTitle/productCd-0764559656.html and click on the Read Excerpt link below the picture of the cover. Regards, John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of The Internet for Dummies, Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, Mayor "I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 02:15:47 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Europe's Coming Leader in Broadband is France http://economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=3D3111474 http://economist.com/printedition/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=3D3111474 The attached GIF (graph of broadband) is located at http://economist.com/images/20040821/CWB428.gif European telecoms The broader art of deregulation From The Economist print edition Surprisingly, Europe's coming leader in broadband is France WHEN it comes to promoting vigorous free-market competition, France does q not spring to mind. Yet in broadband telecoms, at least, French consumers enjoy one of the most competitive markets in Europe. A new report from Ovum, a consultancy, calls France's performance stellar and predicts that it will soon overtake Germany as the European country with the most broadband-enabled telephone lines. The champion of France's broadband boom is Iliad, a young telecoms firm that offers some of the most advanced services in Europe. For a mere AC30 ($37) a month, Iliad's service, sold under the (not entirely accurate) Free brand, provides high-speed internet access, digital television and free nationwide phone calls. This is less than half the price of a similar bundle elsewhere in Europe in the few countries where it is even available. No wonder Iliad has become France's second-largest broadband-internet provider, having signed up 768,000 customers since launching its triple-play combination in October 2002. Iliad's success owes much to Autority de Regulation des Telocommunications (ART), France's telecoms regulator. ART has been getting tough with France Telecom, the dominant, partly state-owned phone company. Three years ago, ART forced the incumbent to allow its rivals to use the local loop copper wires that run from telephone exchanges to homes. ART insisted that this unbundling happen at some of the lowest prices in Europe. France had the highest rate of broadband growth in Europe last year. It has the second-largest number of unbundled local loops in Europe and, proportionately, one of the highest (see chart). Unbundled loops free rival telephone firms from the grip of the incumbent. New entrants, such as Iliad, connect the lines directly to their own equipment, inside local exchanges. This takes time and money: two years and over AC100m in Iliad's case. But then a firm can provide TV, internet and telephone services to its customers over an ordinary phone line which its rivals cannot do. Indeed, Iliad's reputation now precedes it. Under half of its customers use unbundled lines: the rest were attracted to the firm by its record of innovation. Some industry insiders mutter that ART's intervention unfairly favours new entrants. Lower prices for the local loop may discourage the development of alternatives to the phone network. Why build a competing infrastructure when you can hire the existing one on favourable terms? Yet the folks at ART seem pleased with themselves. Consumers are happy too. The clement regulatory environment has allowed Iliad to develop a nifty vertically integrated business model. Iliad designs its own set-top boxes, runs its own optical network around France and has even built the kit that sits in the local exchanges. In the age of outsourcing, this do-it-yourself approach may seem untrendy but it lets the firm save money and cut prices for consumers, says Olivier Rosenfeld, Iliad's finance chief. Amazingly, in the midst of a land grab for customers, Iliad is already making money, turning a AC34m profit on revenues of AC293m in 2003. So successful has been France's regulatory intervention that other regulators are now following suit at least in Europe. According to the Paris-based OECD, prices for unbundling have fallen in ten European countries since 2002, in some cases even making French levels now look relatively pricey. (In America, unbundling has become quite controversial State regulators have fought local phone companies to encourage local-loop unbundling but with little success. The Federal Communications Commission has, as ever, been split on the matter.) In Britain, once in the vanguard of telecoms deregulation, high prices meant that only 8,000 local loops (out of 23m) were unbundled at the end of 2003. In May, pressured by regulators, BT, the incumbent, said it would cut prices for unbundled loops by up to 70%, moving in line with the European average. France's telecoms market, like its trains, seems to have overtaken Britain's. Copyright 2004 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved. *** 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, Economist Newspaper. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Forced Ads on Auto Response System Date: 27 Aug 2004 07:03:18 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I called my credit card bank to check my balance and got their automated response system. Before it would give me the information, it forced me to listen to some ads for extra services (ie card protection, etc). Then it added salt in the wound by asking me TWICE if I wanted this package. That is, once I said no, it repeated part of the spiel then asked me again if I was sure I didn't want it. Companies have really gotten irritating with their telephone customer service. First they shoved automated response down our throats. I have no problem with that if I have a routine question, indeed, it's faster for routine questions. However, there are times when I need to talk to a competent human, and I get very annoyed how they make it very tough to break through. Now, they have these ads. I would change credit cards, except there's a catch. There are very few credit companies out there anymore, most cards are issued by huge institutions, and smaller banks contract with them for service. Whatever happened to monopoly enforcement? Does anyone think this concentration of commerce in a few hands is a good thing? [public replies only please] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 10:30:23 -0400 From: North Jersey Media Group Inc. Reply-To: dor@writeme.com Subject: NorVergence and the FTC Hi, NorthJersey.com is North Jersey's web site featuring stories from The Record and Herald News newspapers. David FTC Probes Phone Lease Scandal MARTHA McKAY The Federal Trade Commission is asking questions about a bankrupt Newark phone company at the center of a growing leasing scandal. To read more, click on link below or copy and paste it into your web browser. http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkyJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2NTc0NTY0 Visit http://www.northjersey.com each day for the latest North Jersey information and news. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 12:02:50 -0400 From: Withheld by Request Subject: Response to "Hundreds Arrested in Internet Crime Sweep" Pat, this is not for publication, especially not under my name (what you choose to post is up to you, but I'm getting tired of dealing with those who don't wish to have their view of reality disturbed in any way, especially by something like truth). However I just thought you might find this article interesting, given some of the recent discussions on how journalists don't bother to check facts once they are handed a press release by the government. What do you want to bet that even if these guys have done nothing illegal, the powers that be will not just drop the charges and go away? In my mind it should be considered journalistic malpractice to just take a government press release and rewrite it as though it were 100% factual, since it almost never is! http://p2pnet.net/story/2269 UDGNET to AP, DoJ, FBI - p2pnet.net News:- Yesterday we reported the first criminal action launched by US police agencies against a specific p2p group. Name of the group? The Underground Network. p2pnet heard from the group's the Answer Man, as he refers to himself with more than a hint of irony: Now read on >>>>>>>>>>>>> Hello everyone. As many now may know, the FBI and DoJ have executed search warrants on some of us, and questioned others (myself included). It's unfortunate they cannot get their facts straight before spouting off to the press. (Same goes for the press ... they really should be checking their facts.) To those who have no clue what I'm talking about, try Google News. (search for: underground network p2p) If you read an article, and came here looking for answers or are curious as to what's going on, I'm about to fill you in. After all, I'm the "Answer Man". (Was odd to hear the FBI refer to me by that title as too.) There have been many misconceptions in the handful of articles I've read. They all claim to be the same article by Curt Anderson of the Associated Press. Funny how I've read 30 different versions of the same article, written by the same person. It's difficult to tell how many facts were blatently wrong to begin with, but it's downright upsetting how many are currently wrong. I could never begin to explain all the misconstuded facts, as I haven't read them all. However, I would like to clear up a few "facts" I've read about a place I've been involved in for some time. That place: The Underground Network. First off, I've yet to figure out the "100 Gigabyte minimum requirement" claim for joining the network. What is it to join the network anyway? What is the network? These are the questions so many have wrong. If you're talking about the forums ... which is the only thing there IS to join in any sense, then there are no requirements. Well, no requirements past having access to a computer, the Internet, and an email account, plus being older then 13 (or lying that you are). It's the standard "requirements" of any other vB forum. There are thousands of them out there. Check Google. So that must not be what they are talking about when they say "members are required to share 100gb of copyrighted material to join" (quoting a story posted to the Register.co.uk). Excuse me? If they are talking about the hubs, well, you don't "join the network" to login to a hub. You connect to one of the hubs with our name in it. That's really all there is to it. We are just a collection of people with similar interests (read the forums to learn some of them) who also help eachother out in the hubs. To join a hub (like all other 13,000+ Direct Connect hubs out there, besides ours), you need a preset "minshare" that the hub decides. That is, files you are willing to share with other users in that hub. We do NOT police these files beyond the stuff we KNOW is illegal (underage porn, beastality, etc). Beyond that we are very clear with one point: THE USER IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR SHARE! If you connect to one of the hubs with our name on it and are sharing files you shouldn't, then YOU made a boo-boo. Not us. The media and the FBI seem to have missed this point. I've seen write-ups about how much info "is stored on" or "passes through hubs". They claim "up to 60,000 movies and 18 million songs a day" (again, quoting an article). EXCUSE me? No ... the hubs don't hold a SINGLE byte of digital information. They don't even transfer any of it from user to user in fact. Did anyone bother to do the research? They didn't call the protocol and application "Direct Connect" because it sounded pretty. Once you are in the hub as a USER (not a member -- nothing to join), you DIRECTLY CONNECT to the other users in the hub. Not too complicated ... yet the FBI "infiltrated and investigated for 3 months" and they still have the facts wrong. John Ashcroft has some explaining to do. It's a scary world we live in if our own government gathers and uses their facts this way. Oh there is so much else. Yes, users are required to share to connect to the hub. It can be a FREE open source (non-copyrighted) Linux operating system downloaded from http://www.LinuxISO.org. It could be programs YOU wrote that you want to distribute. It could be a song YOU recorded to MP3 that you want the world to hear. That's up to you. That's the USER'S responsibility. We do not condone or encourage piracy of any form. Unfortunately this fact also escaped the powers that be. A 'hub' is simply a meeting place for people to come to and have fun, chat, and share what THE USER decides they want to (and is responsible for). The hub operator DOES NOT in ANY way share or distrubute ANY material, copyrighted or otherwise. Browse around the forums. You will see what we do. We chat with each other on current events. We help each other with hardware or software troubles. We joke around and have fun. We provide a shoulder to cry on if you had a bad day. We share knowledge and information, just like every other forum on the planet. We don't ask, suggest, or force you to share illegal files or spread copyright material ourselves. (In fact, frequently we will remind people that it's not welcome on our forums. Once again, browse around and see for yourself.) Those "facts" are simply fabrication of the press, or worse, the FBI/DoJ. I'll repeat what I told the special agent this morning when he came knocking: You guys are on a wild goose chase. You're going after the wrong people in this scenario. Instead of the administrators and hub owners, you need to be worrying about the USERS that are sharing 100+ GBs of these files the FBI claimed they downloaded. The hub owner didn't push that file on you. YOU requested it, then DIRECTLY CONNECTED to the other user to download it. The hubs simply provide a meeting place for people with like interests. You can chat, get help, or share files. What you do is up to YOU. The "organization" and "admins" of the network are also misunderstood. We are not some massive group plotting against anyone. It's just everyday people with some free time that have tried to help out others when they could. Look at my posts, for example, and you'll see what I mean. I was made an "administrator of the network" simply because I have computer knowledge and could help users/"members" when necessary. I like to help -- it's what makes me tick. That isn't a crime. Each person does their own thing. Some help keep the forums running well. Some help keep the website up. Others help the hub owners with their computer problems. No one is a "ring leader". No one organizes any "warez" rings or checks the non-existant "minimum requirements of members". Misconstrued facts + false information = ignorance and inno- cent people having their hard earned personal property seized. Nothing more, nothing less. Don't be one of the ignorant ones -- know the facts and realize the truth. Hopefully this will clear up a few misconceptions and blatant lies about what the Underground Network is. I certainly hope the press will dig into the REAL facts, and actually tell the truth. I also hope that the FBI/DoJ will realize their mistake(s) and not cause any more undue harm to us. Thank you for reading. (Thursday 26th August 2004) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No, the government won't just drop the falsely-laid charges and go away. The thing in court about 'how do you plead, guilty or not guilty' is a total fiction because if you were not guilty police would not have not arrested you to start with. Everyone knows that. They *have* to give you that option due to the requirements of the USA constitution, which as any good police officer would tell you is a total abomination. I mean, imagine, giving all that scum the same freedoms and liberties as the few (very damn few! mainly us and our wives and immediate families and our co-workers in the corrections industry) good people are allowed to have. Next thing you know, they'll be expecting us to apologize when we make mistakes in who we arrest. Any good citizen knows you cannot harbor grudges or have hard feelings just because your home was ransacked and looted by the government and police. The FBI was here in Independence last week (not for me, thank goodness!) rummaging around in that 'hundreds arrested' case. I didn't see them, but our cab driver who knows all and sees all told me about it when he was bringing me home from Marvin's with my groceries yesterday. I am sure they did not come all the way down here from Wichita, KS and stay overnight at AppleTree Inn just to go back home empty handed. They always make such a big production out of whatever they do (a caravan of many cars and agents in order to arrest some nerd, ransack his house, steal his computers). The cab driver told me they were over at Arco Building (among other things there is the offices of TerraWorld) to serve a search warrant or two, and I am sure they did not go back to Wichita all heart broken and disillusioned on account of some scum who got away from them. I wonder now, with the 'hundreds arrested' if Bush, or Ashcroft or some others of their crowd will make a tie-in to 'terrorism' which is their favorite thing this year. What do you want to bet some one or more persons in the movie, music and other entertainment industry put them up to this latest attack on people? The next major outburst by police will be **August 31 or September 1** in New York before the Republicans have their convention. Watch and see. Police will go crazy, and riot just like they did in 1968 at the Democratic event in Chicago. Of course they will blame it all on the citizens, even when eventually some higher authority (such as Governor Dan Walker in Illinois in 1968) proves it was a police riot. Watch the middle to end of next week in New York as police deliver the November election victory to guess who. Their hero, their friend. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 16:01:00 +0400 From: Editor Subject: Perfisans Delivers New Chip to Key Motherboard Makers http://www.pressreleasenetwork.com Networking Technology Company Continues Proactive Execution of Strategic Plan for Launch of Next-Generation Chip Los Angeles, CA - August 27, 2004 (PRN): Perfisans Networks Corporation (OTC BB: PFNH), a next generation technology company focused on the burgeoning Gigabit Ethernet market, announced today that it has delivered its high speed, leading edge, cost-effective, system-on-chip (SOC) integrated circuits to leading manufacturers of PC motherboards in the Asia Pacific region for evaluation, prior to the full worldwide rollout of the next generation chip as the next step in the execution of the Company's strategic plan. Steve Gormley, vice president of the Company, stated that, "we believe that, once accepted and approved by the PC motherboard manufacturers, the SOC circuits will represent a revolutionary next generation technology." Mr. Gormley stated "We believe that the Perfisans' chip will run up to 10 times faster than most Ethernet chips and will also be up to three times faster than most enabled 1Gbps systems. The Perfisans' technology will provide quick and painless acceleration of the computer data delivery with the effective performance of an additional processor. Quite simply, applications will run faster and files will download and upload faster." About the ENA1001 The ENA1001 is a sophisticated System-on-a-Chip device, and uses Innovative chip architectures to bring far greater speeds to the Windows 2000 and XP customer base. The advanced features include significant cost/performance benefits to a wide array of Internet server applications that spend a significant portion of time processing network data. ENA1001 TOE technology can also be deployed in Fast Ethernet (FE) applications. The Internet server applications will further benefit from significantly reduced capital costs by not having to replace existing systems in order to upgrade with Perfisans technology. These applications will be able to offload the processing intensive TCP/IP communication protocol by employing Perfisans ENA1001 LAN on Motherboard configuration or through Perfisans ENA1001 (TOE) enabled Network Interface Cards (NIC). Network system manufacturers, in turn, will achieve reduced design cycle times, lower product development costs and faster times to market, by using Perfisans production-ready board level designs. The ENA1001's suite of TOE functions include: checksum assistance in Tx and Rx, TCP segmentation of Tx traffic, IP de-fragmentation and TCP reassembly assistance on Rx, and VLAN header insertion/removal. About Perfisans Holdings, Inc. Founded in 2001, Perfisans Holdings, Inc. is an emerging ASIC design house focused on developing leading edge, cost-effective, system-on- chip (SOC) integrated circuits (IC) and delivering innovative solutions that address the performance needs of next generation network systems. Rapidly being recognized by industry leaders for its innovative network interface products, the Company's technologies have applications in telecommunication, data communication, storage networks, content delivery networks, broadband networks, and rich streaming media. More information can be obtained from the Company's web site at www.perfisans.com. Contacts: For the Company: Steve Gormley 888.847.6972 x264 ir@perfisans.com Investor Relations: Michael Briola Executive Vice President Trilogy Capital Partners, Inc. michael@trilogy-capital.com 800.251.1770 editor@pressreleasenetwork.com http://www.pressreleasenetwork.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'. 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 #401 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Aug 27 23:50:28 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i7S3oSk22791; Fri, 27 Aug 2004 23:50:28 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 23:50:28 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200408280350.i7S3oSk22791@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 #402 TELECOM Digest Fri, 27 Aug 2004 23:48:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 402 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson OnHD.TV (Monty Solomon) Oral Arguments in Grokster & Ch. 4, 5 of "Free Culture" (Monty Solomon) EFFector 17.31: Induce Act Update - Turning Up the Heat (Monty Solomon) Outsource Firm Sues in India / Alleged Code Theft Highlights (M Solomon) Siemens Cites Problem With New Phones (Monty Solomon) Army Says JetBlue Data Use Was Legal (Monty Solomon) Nokia, Vodafone Eye Java For Wireless Revolution (Eric Friedebach) Re: Forced Ads on Auto Response System (Rich Greenberg) Re: Norvergence Employees Bilked Out of More Than Just Paycheck (Strom) Re: Book Review: Fighting Spam for Dummies, Levine/Young/Church (Sobol) Handset Tester (Joe Elichaa) MSN & Hotmail Improper Spam Filtering? (friendly) Re: NBC Sees Last-Minute Olympic Profit Boost (Joseph) Video of Old Telephone Exchanges (Rick Miller) Re: Response to "Hundreds Arrested in Internet Crime Sweep" (B Margolin) Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind (friendly) VOIP Connects Workers as They Flee Convention Site (J Decker-VOIP News) 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: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 13:55:16 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: OnHD.TV Excerpt from About OnHD.TV OnHD.TV is the first entertainment guide to High-Definition TV. The site is for HDTV owners and people who are considering buying one. OnHD.TV provides show reviews and previews, HDTV-specific viewing recommendations and HDTV shopping tips among consumer-related information. http://www.onhd.tv/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 14:32:02 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Oral Arguments in Grokster & Ch. 4, 5 of "Free Culture" EFF has put up the oral arguments in Grokster[MP3] [Ogg], so you can hear the music industry lawyers try to persuade an unpersuadable court that P2P users are all or at least 90% thieves and that P2P systems like Grokster should be shut down like Napster was. The following exchange will give you a feel for the event. One attorney argues to the court that "the Internet is not a license to steal," and that "there's nothing different from what they're doing from organizing and instructing the participants in a trafficking network that is trading in counterfeit materials". One of the judges interrupts him and says: "Let me say what your problem is. You can use these harsh terms, but you are dealing with something new. And the question is, Does the statutory monopoly that Congress has given you reach out to that something new, and that's a very debatable question. You don't solve it by calling it theft. You have to show why this court should extend a statutory monopoly to cover the new thing. That's your problem. So address that, if you would, rather than use abusive language." You don't want to miss listening to the attorney's reaction to that rebuke. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040823002045984 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 13:45:14 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 17.31: Induce Act Update - Turning Up the Heat EFFector Vol. 17, No. 31 August 26, 2004 donna@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 303rd Issue of EFFector: * Action Alert: Induce Act Update - Turning Up the Heat * This Song Belongs to You and Me * E-voting on Trial in Maryland - Stand Up for Voting Integrity! * EFF Court Docket: What's Next? * MiniLinks (11): Grokking Grokster * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/17/31.php ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 16:42:01 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Outsource Firm Sues in India / Alleged Code Theft Highlights By Karl Schoenberger Mercury News In a case that exposes the intellectual-property risks of outsourcing in India, a small San Carlos software company has sued Mumbai police for refusing to investigate the alleged theft of proprietary source code by an employee at its Indian subsidiary. Sandeep Jolly, the founder and chief executive of Jolly Technologies, said U.S. technology companies should beware of the risks of doing business in his native land at a time when many are taking advantage of the cost savings of offshoring and entrusting sensitive software development and testing work to Indian contractors. Protection of intellectual property is still a new concept for lawmakers, police and prosecutors, he said. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9500402.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 17:08:19 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Siemens Cites Problem With New Phones FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- Siemens AG said Friday it anticipates unspecified additional costs from a software problem with new mobile phones that has led retailers to suspend sales. The German electronics company said five models of its new 65 series could under certain circumstances emit a piercing melody into users' ears if the battery fails during a call. Hearing damage could result "in extreme cases," the company said in a statement. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43336931 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 23:28:59 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Army: JetBlue Data Use Was Legal By Ryan Singel An Army data-mining project that searched through JetBlue's passenger records and sensitive personal information from a data broker to pinpoint possible terrorists did not violate federal privacy law, according to an investigation by the Army's inspector general. The inspector general's findings (PDF) were accepted by some, but critics say the report simply highlights the inability of the country's privacy laws to cope with 21st-century anti-terrorism efforts. News of the Army project came to light in September 2003 when JetBlue admitted it had violated its privacy policy by turning over 5.1 million passenger records to Torch Concepts , an Alabama-based defense contractor. Torch subsequently enhanced the JetBlue data with information about passengers' salaries, family size and Social Security numbers that it purchased from Acxiom , one of the country's largest data aggregators. The Army says it was testing the data-mining technology as part of a plan to screen visitors to Army bases. ... http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,64647,00.html ------------------------------ From: friedebach@yahoo.com (Eric Friedebach) Subject: Nokia, Vodafone Eye Java For Wireless Revolution Date: 27 Aug 2004 10:54:00 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Greg Levine, 08.26.04, Forbes.com Back to basics. As technology and its applications grow ever more complex, two mobile telephone titans are teaming to tackle the obstacle they see holding back a utopia of smart phones: simplifying the software. Nokia and Vodafone -- led by Chief Executive Jorma Ollila and CEO Arun Sarin, respectively -- issued a joint statement Thursday declaring their determination to render universal the software utilizing Java. http://www.forbes.com/2004/08/26/0826autofacescan03.html Eric Friedebach /Favorite OnStar commercial: crying woman drops keys in toilet/ ------------------------------ From: richgr@panix.com (Rich Greenberg) Subject: Re: Forced Ads on Auto Response System Date: 27 Aug 2004 15:24:51 -0400 Organization: Organized? Me? In article , Lisa Hancock wrote: > I called my credit card bank to check my balance and got their > automated response system. > Before it would give me the information, it forced me to listen to > some ads for extra services (ie card protection, etc). Then it added > salt in the wound by asking me TWICE if I wanted this package. That > is, once I said no, it repeated part of the spiel then asked me again > if I was sure I didn't want it. Two things you can try: 1) When asked to key in your card number or whatever, just enter nothing. MOST systems will time out and give you a human, assuming rotary dial. A few tell you to call back from a TT phone and dump you. 2) Try their web site instead. And when you do reach a human, complain. Rich Greenberg N6LRT Marietta, GA, USA richgr atsign panix.com + 1 770 321 6507 Eastern time zone. I speak for myself & my dogs only. VM'er since CP-67 Canines:Val, Red & Shasta (RIP),Red, husky Owner:Chinook-L Atlanta Siberian Husky Rescue. www.panix.com/~richgr/ Asst Owner:Sibernet-L ------------------------------ From: nstrom@ananzi.co.za (Nathan Strom) Subject: Re: Norvergence Employees Bilked Out of More Than Just a Paycheck Date: 27 Aug 2004 12:52:16 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Isaiah Beard wrote in message news:: > Full story at: http://tinyurl.com/4zyan > (registration required unfortunately) I just made an account "telecomdigest" with password "telecomdigest" for those who don't want to register. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you! PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Book Review: Fighting Spam for Dummies, Levine/Young/Church Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 12:55:27 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com John Levine wrote: > Had Mr. A.C. spent a few seconds and actually taken a look at the Wiki > he refers to, he would find a bunch of little used add-on packages > that let you set up a proxy mail server on your Windows box that they > say can be set up to run mail through a version of spamassassin. I > believe that they can be made to work, but I don't know anyone who > uses spamassassin that way, and I certainly wouldn't recommend any of > them to the nontechnical users who are the target of our book, because > they're way too hard to manage and update. It's interesting. I've always assumed that spamassassin DOES run on Windows. It's a PERL program. What part of the package is platform- specific? 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. ------------------------------ From: Joe Elichaa Subject: Handset Tester Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 16:41:53 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com I am looking for a real good handset tester that will measure values and be able to compare these values to other handsets. Does anybody know of such device? Thank you, Joe ------------------------------ From: friendly Subject: MSN & Hotmail Improper Spam Filtering? Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 22:22:10 GMT Recently I've noticed that both MSN and Hotmail are putting emails in the junk mail folder that are clearly not junk mail and come from sources that wouldn't ordinarily be associated with spam. Is there something new going on with spam filters? Where does one go at MS(MSN or Hotmail) to find why a particular email was identified as junk mail? I've recently noticed this for a number of different/independ- ent MSN and Hotmail accounts with completely separate senders(nothing in common except MSN or Hotmail recipients). ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: NBC Sees Last-Minute Olympic Profit Boost Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 18:01:12 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 17:41:49 -0400, Monty Solomon wrote: > LOS ANGELES, Aug 26 (Reuters) - NBC Universal, riding high on a Summer > Olympics that appears on track to set a record for viewership, will > beat early forecasts and turn a profit of $60 million to $70 million > for its coverage of the Games from Athens, an NBC executive said on > Thursday. And it's no wonder! With the coverage interrupted *every* five minutes for a commercial. ------------------------------ From: rickmillerenterprises@hotmail.com (Rick Miller) Subject: Video of Old Telephone Exchanges Date: 27 Aug 2004 18:12:21 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com It's been awhile since I've posted here -- the last (and first) time I've posted here was about a year (?) ago, asking about old telephone equipment, vestiges of old / historical phone stuff still on the network. Well, last week I found it at the New England Museum of Telephony, they've got lots of old switching hardware, including SxS switches, a #3 crossbar (both working!), an Automatic Electric relay switch (I don't recall the exact type) a Leich switch, many frames of #5 crossbar, and various kinds of other neat old stuff. While there, I shot some video of the switching gear in operation, on MiniDV tape ... its good quality video but I'm not that great of a cameraperson. (grin) My question is this: Once I get the video transferred and edited to my liking, where should I host the video? I could host it on my own system, but I'm not sure my ISP would be happy about that. Anyone out there with a Telecom related webpage that might be willing to host the file? Or, what might be the first of many files if I further document the sights and sounds of these old switches? Thanks! -Rick Miller [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I would be happy to house them in the Telecom Archives here so anyone using our web pages could see them. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Response to "Hundreds Arrested in Internet Crime Sweep" Organization: Symantec Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 21:58:03 -0400 In article , Withheld by Request wrote: > You guys are on a wild goose chase. You're going after the wrong > people in this scenario. Instead of the administrators and hub owners, > you need to be worrying about the USERS that are sharing 100+ GBs of > these files the FBI claimed they downloaded. The hub owner didn't push > that file on you. YOU requested it, then DIRECTLY CONNECTED to the > other user to download it. The hubs simply provide a meeting place for > people with like interests. You can chat, get help, or share > files. What you do is up to YOU. That's what Napster did, but it didn't stop them from being shut down. Even though these organizations don't directly perform the copying, they *facilitate* it. And you know damn well what kind of material most of your users are sharing -- you know your user base, and you encourage it because that's your bread and butter. Regarding the "lies" in the article, I take that to be imprecise reporting, which is what we see for pretty much *all* news articles about anything high-tech. I don't know anything about these file-sharing networks (I've never even fired up the iMusic that came on my Mac), but I'll bet there's an "inner circle" of well-known members, and that's what they might have been referring to when they mentioned how hard it was to "join the network". Kind of like what narcotics officers have to do to meet a major distributor, as distinguished from buying a few joints from a dealer on the street. In order to find out who the big players are in the piracy networks, they have to get in good with them by appearing to be one of them. Sure, anyone can join the network, but the main bad guys aren't going to start giving out their real names to them. Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is purely IMO, but narcotics police officers, like officers who specialize in Vice matters, are the underside of a corrupted system to begin with. Total losers, all the way around. PAT] ------------------------------ From: friendly Subject: Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 02:06:02 GMT Thanks for describing MS great products that most the world chooses to use because they are superior and cost effective and kept very up to date. Make sure and get XP SP2 as it's a big improvement and installs seemlessly for the large majority of users. ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 20:41:21 -0400 Subject: VOIP Connects Workers as They Flee Convention Site Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1640338,00.asp By Ellen Muraskin Opinion: With the Republican National Convention descending on New York, Midtown employees are avoiding the office. Infinity Consulting is using Cisco IP phones and M5's IP Centrex service to stay connected from the outer boroughs and New Jersey. Let's review: Why is IP telephony relatively indifferent to physical location? Because the IP telephony server, whether an in-house IP PBX or the softswitch of your VOIP service provider, maps your public "phone" number to the IP address you log in with, every time you log on, or every time you activate the phone that logs on for you. And why is this a good thing? Because you can take your IP phone or the soft phone running on your laptop, plug it in to any broadband tap, and have an extension to a shared, Centrex-style or dedicated enterprise phone system. The server/softswitch registers your new IP address and can take calls from you or send them to you, just the way an IM server sends IM messages wherever you log in. And why is this a good thing for businesses? Because their remote workers can work wherever they like, as long as there's broadband and a VOIP-accommodating firewall. And why is this an especially good thing this week for Infinity Consulting Group, an IT services firm with an office on West 31st Street in Manhattan? Because Infinity Consulting's New York office is across the street from Madison Square Garden, where this week the Republican National Convention and its attendant battalions of security forces, not to mention protestors will make navigating everyday New York congestion look like a luge run. Full story at: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1640338,00.asp How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VoIPnews/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: VoIPnews-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ------------------------------ 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 #402 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Aug 28 15:54:52 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i7SJspH29245; Sat, 28 Aug 2004 15:54:52 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 15:54:52 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200408281954.i7SJspH29245@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 #403 TELECOM Digest Sat, 28 Aug 2004 15:54:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 403 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Book Review: Fighting Spam for Dummies, Levine/Young/Church (noname) Re: VOIP Connects Workers as They Flee Convention Site (Jim Burks) Vonage VOIP and Apartment Intercom (NoSpamPlease) Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind (Marcus Didius Falco) Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind (Tony P.) Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind (Steve Sobol) Re: U.S. Says Over 100 Arrested in Internet Crime Sweep (Tony P.) Re: Forced Ads on Auto Response System (Tony P.) Be Sure to Check Out http://kerry-or-bush-2004.us.tt (P. Townson) 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: noname@example.invalid Subject: Re: Book Review: Fighting Spam for Dummies, Levine/Young/Church Organization: We Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 12:38:08 +0000 In article , John Levine wrote: > I generally don't reply to flames from anonymous cowards who have so > little confidence in what they say that they sent mail from fake > addresses and don't sign their messages, but now and then I make an > exception. What _I_ said was of no importance. The facts, complete with authoritative source references that *anybody* can verify, spoke for themselves. Nice to see you starting off with ad hominems, too. When you can't argue the facts, what else is left? >> Spamassassin *does* run on Windows desktops. >>> From the spamassassin home page, at >> Note: This is the home page for the main open-source SpamAssassin >> distribution. Packages downloaded here contain UNIX-oriented >> front-end scripts. Versions for Windows, commercial versions, and >> other front-ends, are listed on the wiki. >> Note well: "Versions for Windows..." >> Neat trick for a package that "doesn't run on Windows", isn't it? > Had Mr. A.C. spent a few seconds and actually taken a look at the Wiki > he refers to, he would find a bunch of little used add-on packages > that let you set up a proxy mail server on your Windows box that they > say can be set up to run mail through a version of spamassassin. Mr. A.C. _had_ previously done so. And (a) played with SpamD, to see how it worked, (b) recommended it to a number of only 'somewhat' computer literate acquaintances who have had *no*trouble* installing and running the SpamD implementation. With _no_ help whatsoever from anyone, beyond the published directions. Mr. A.C. *is* a 'techie', _my_ experience with installing/configuring would in no way be typical. Precisely why I mention direct knowledge of real-world experiences of non-technical users. As for it being a proxy, there are only _three_ *possible* ways to filter mail 'on the desktop'. One being 'internally' to the mail-reader program, the second being to 'post-process' the 'inbox' _outside_ of the mail-reader program, after you have downloaded the new mail, *before* reading it. The third being through a 'proxy'. When the 'internal' capabilities of the mail-reader program are 'inadequate', you are pretty much restricted to the 'proxy' approach, as I don't know of any generally available tools that perform after-the-fact editing on the inbox. Proxies have the added advantage that they will work with _any_ mail-reader, where an after-the-fact file-editor must be tailored to the internal file format of the specific mail-reader employed. > believe that they can be made to work, but I don't know anyone who > uses spamassassin that way Your 'limited' exposure, I guess. :) There are enough such users out there that there is a commercial market, albeit a niche one, for it. > and I certainly wouldn't recommend any of them to the nontechnical > users who are the target of our book, because they're way too hard > to manage and update. For 'SpamD' -- the free tool -- I won't argue with that. As far as 'recommending' it to that user-base goes. The commercial implementation is a whole 'nuther story as regards ease-of-install/-update. Standard Windows 'wizard'. Question: did you, or did you _not_, know that the resources listed on the wiki existed at the time you wrote your rebuttal to the review? If you did not know, then your research skills are called into question. If you _did_ know, on the other hand, then your previous public statement as to *why* you excluded spamassassin from the filtering 'on the desktop' discussion is disingenuous, at best. Either way, the credibility of the author/work is called into question. > Spamassassin is a swell package. Indeed, it's so swell that we > describe it in some detail in pages 186-188 of the server filtering > chapter which apparently neither the original reviewer nor > Mr. A.C. bothered to read. Mr. A.C. read your previous remarks, where you said, _contrary_to_fact_, that "spamassassin runs ... not on the Windows desktop." Mr. A.C. addressed *that* demonstrable, and demonstrated, factual error. Mr. A.C. would have said _nothing_, *IF*, for example, you had simply stated that you had deliberately omitted spamassassin from the 'desktop' solutions discussion 'because it requires skill-levels beyond that of our target audience', or words to that effect. That _is_ a valid reason for not mentioning a product. Claiming you didn't mention it because "it does not exist" (not the exact words you used, but an accurate rendition of the meaning), when the product _does_ in fact exist, is either deliberate deception, or a by-product of ignorance. 'Which one' applies may be important to some, but the simple existence of the contra-factual claim -- without considering 'why' -- is sufficient to raise questions as to the reliability of the rest of your information. Alphonse Coward (no relation to Noel) ------------------------------ From: Jim Burks Subject: Re: VOIP Connects Workers as They Flee Convention Site Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 12:06:33 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com Jack Decker wrote in message news:telecom23.402.17@telecom-digest.org: > http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1640338,00.asp > By Ellen Muraskin > Opinion: With the Republican National Convention descending on New > York, Midtown employees are avoiding the office. Infinity Consulting > is using Cisco IP phones and M5's IP Centrex service to stay connected > from the outer boroughs and New Jersey. My company has a large sales office in the office tower over Madison Square Garden, and we upgraded our Avaya in the building to support VoIP for both PC softphones and hard VoIP sets so the users could work from other offices on the data network, or via VPN from home. Jim Burks ------------------------------ From: cmclagan@yahoo.com (NoSpamPlease) Subject: Vonage VOIP and Apartment Intercom Date: 28 Aug 2004 07:24:47 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I live in an apartment with an Enterphone "No Phone Bill" system. I recently signed up for Vonage VOIP before realizing there would be an issue of how I'll get front-door buzzes after I discontinue my Verizon service. My thinking so far is that maybe I can "reverse-split" the hookup to my phone by plugging it into BOTH the VT1000 adapter and the old hardwired line that the Enterphone uses. Presumably there would be a problem if the door buzzes while I'm on a call, but that happens infrequently enough that I could live with it. My concern, before I try this out, is that the voltage (if any) from the Enterphone might fry the VT1000, since I assume that a phone splitter would allow the volts to cross over from the landline to the pair going into the adapter. Four questions: 1) Am I right about the voltage risk? 2) If I disconnect the Verizon service will the Enterphone still supply a voltage that could damage the adapter? 3) If Enterphone does not supply voltage, but I try to test the arrangement before disconnecting Verizon, will I be at risk? 4) Are there any special devices I might use that would help me deal with this situation? Is there any hope? I really don't want to have to limit my Enterphone use to a single wired phone (I use 4 cordless extension phones and don't want to have to run to the kitchen every time the door is buzzed.) Thanks, ccm ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 00:24:05 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind At 02:54 PM 8/27/04, > I will keep using my 1996 home computer with its 14.4 modem until it > dies and I am forced to upgrade. Of course they've told me the hard > drive isn't compatible with new machines (surprise, surprise), so I'll > have to recopy my software. Some programs were on 5" floppies > originally -- how I am supposed to copy those over? (I had hoped to > simply move my hard drive to the new machine and go from there.) I had two floppy drives in my old machine, a 3 1/2 drive A: and a 5 1/4 drive B: I "upgraded" my processor, motherboard, and video card. Imagine my surprise to learn that my new motherboard can't handle two floppies, and auxiliary floppy cards are no longer available, nor are motherboards that CAN handle two floppies. I can open the machine to switch cables, and then activate the 5 1/4 drive in the bios, but that's a pain in the anatomy. What I should do, when I get a round tuit, is get a USB external drive (3 1/2), and then activate the 5 1/4 internal as the boot drive on the motherboard. Since floppies are used only for "backward compatibility" -- to access the archives of most of the last 20 years, except for the last couple which are on CD or DVD, this will probably keep me going. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind Organization: ATCC Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 14:56:37 GMT In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com says: > SELLCOM Tech support wrote: >> I just went from a "poor Microsoft why are they persecuting it" to a >> "Microsoft is really really dangerous and something needs to be done" >> in only a few short hours. What caused this great change of heart >> you might ask? The answer is "XP". I held out for as long as I could >> without buying it, but ... > In the IBM mainframe world, if you happen to have an old program from > 40 (forty) years ago, you can still run it without change on current > machines and operating systems. The backward compatibility is there. > (Yes, most old programs would have needed Y2k changes, and there was > changes from COBOL to COBOL-II/MVS, but basically everything is the > same). > Actually, if you had programs that were 50 (fifty) years old from an > earlier generation of IBM mainframes (ie 1401 or 7090 series from the > 1950s) you could STILL run them without change, too. I know of people > who did just that until at least the mid 1990s. IBM paid a heavy price to support those old applications. The 370 series allowed virtual machines so they could just emulate a 1401 or 7090 to run those applications and pass the IO back to the VM/CMS manager for display. > The 1948 Western Electric rotary phone on my desk works just fine, by > the way. The Centrex ESS still accepts rotary dial pulses and the > ringing current still rings the telephone. Voice clarity is fine. Definitely -- they were built for a minimum service life of thirty years. That they've lasted nearly twice that is a good indicator of the quality WE was able to achieve. It would be interesting to find out how much in today's dollars the manufacture of a 302 would cost. I bet it would be a few hundred dollars or more. > On the other hand, Microsoft keeps rolling out new and changed > operating systems year after year. As a person of limited means who > tends to keep his computers for as long as possible, my personal > software becomes "obsolete" and this creates problems. Intel keeps > making faster and faster chips. Planned obsolescence. It's been with us at least since World War II and will continue to be with us. If something works for me I use it until *I* outgrow it, not when the marketing people say I should trade in or buy new. I'm actually at the point now where I need to upgrade my system but am loathe to accept Win XP as it's default OS. So what I'll probably do is buy a new machine with no OS and put Win2K on it, or dual-boot and throw a Linux partition on there too. Oh hell, I may just go pure Linux at that point if SCO doesn't kill it. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That is sort of what I have here now on one machine: a custom built (more or less) computer with two actual hard drives (C and F); two CD-DVD drives (D and E), one of which (E) is a writer as well; a removable USB drive with 62 MB on it (the little 'finger-like' thing which fits in a USB socket) called (G) and of course the 1.44 mb floppy (A). There is a slot to install another another 1.44 mb floppy if desired and a space to install a larger old style 5 1/2 inch floppy if I wanted, or another CD-DVD thing if I wished, but I do not know where those latter two slots (if I were to fill them with devices) would plug in; the ribbon connectors inside are all in use as I recall. The original hard drive (C) started out at one time with Win-XP but that got me so nervous I swapped it for Win-2000, then when the new larger (80GB) hard drive was installed the Win-2000 was put on it instead (it was named [and strapped] into the 'C' position); the older original drive took a new position (F) and it was re-formatted and had Linux 9.0 installed on it. (Not Red Hat, I think it is Debian?) When I boot, it defaults after seven or eight seconds to Linux unless I tap a key and get it to boot into Win-2000. Now that Mike Rowesoft has released a new 'service pack' for Win-XP I am sorely tempted to 'upgrade' my bastardized C drive to use XP again, and I do have a product key that supposedly works on XP, but truth be told, I am **very leary** to get into such a mess on my own. You must understand, I really do not know what I am doing here; a few of you readers who have taken pity on an old, brain-diseased man have walked me through what has happened up to now over the telephone and I followed your advice and gotten this far. But from what I am reading here in the Digest, one little change or another in the hardware and I will be asked to re-register it all again. Maybe I should leave well enough alone. I was quite pleased recently to get far enough along in this odessey to get a wireless laptop (actually a very ancient IBM Think Pad with Win 95 installed from the factory but upgraded to Win 98 which I installed a wireless PCMCIA card in) which a reader donated to me working with a wireless NetGear router so I can sit in my back yard on hot summer days to work on this Digest. Am I pressing my luck trying to go further on all this? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 08:49:18 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com friendly wrote: > Thanks for describing MS great products that most the world chooses to > use because they are superior and cost effective and kept very up to > date. Make sure and get XP SP2 as it's a big improvement and installs > seemlessly for the large majority of users. Whatever. Even Microsoft is suggesting that users be careful deciding whether and how to deploy SP2. http://tinyurl.com/4bzpa http://tinyurl.com/3kse3 (Describing an over 100-page document on HOW TO APPLY A SERVICE PACK!) Apparently Bill Gates is employing Usenet sock-puppets these days. Anonymous sock-puppets, even. This isn't even an entertaining troll. 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. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Would you please explain what is a 'sock-puppet' (anonymous or otherwise)? Thanks. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: U.S. Says Over 100 Arrested in Internet Crime Sweep Organization: ATCC Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 15:03:20 GMT In article , monty@roscom.com says: > By Andy Sullivan and Peter Kaplan > WASHINGTON, Aug 26 (Reuters) - More than 100 people have been arrested > in the largest global crackdown to date on identity theft, hacking and > other Internet-based crimes, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said > on Thursday. > The arrests followed a three-month investigation into a range of > crimes from reselling co-workers' Social Security numbers to disabling > Web sites, Ashcroft said. > - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43320357 I notice that the FBI is finally consolidating the fraud cases. Anytime the loss is less than roughly $20K it isn't worth investigating because of the costs associated with the investigation. It's good to see the FTC is making the FBI perform one of its functions. Now if we could only get the intelligence side to talk to the CIA we'd be all set. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Forced Ads on Auto Response System Organization: ATCC Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 15:08:11 GMT In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com says: > I called my credit card bank to check my balance and got their > automated response system. > Before it would give me the information, it forced me to listen to > some ads for extra services (ie card protection, etc). Then it added > salt in the wound by asking me TWICE if I wanted this package. That > is, once I said no, it repeated part of the spiel then asked me again > if I was sure I didn't want it. I work for a government agency that has a brand new vm but doesn't use it because the head honcho believes that every phone should be answered by a human being. The down side of that is that we have centrex groups assigned to all the different units so people can dial in directly without going through the switchboard. Costs a fair bit per month. ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: The Forthcoming Election Discussion Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 15:00:00 EDT Just a pitch for a temporary web site of my own, for your use in cussing and discussing the upcoming presidential election. I'd appreciate your use of the board and your uncensored, unmoderated thoughts on two important social issues of the day, one being the forthcoming election between Bush and Kerry; the other topic being Same Sex Marriage (and other general discussion.) Please point your browsers to http://kerry-or-bush-2004.us.tt and I thank you in advance. 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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #403 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Aug 30 15:20:17 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i7UJKF117635; Mon, 30 Aug 2004 15:20:17 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 15:20:17 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200408301920.i7UJKF117635@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 #404 TELECOM Digest Mon, 30 Aug 2004 15:19:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 404 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind (Nick Landsberg) Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind (SELLCOM Tech support) Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind (Shalom Septimus) Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind (Daniel W. Johnson) Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind (Lisa Hancock) Re: Video of Old Telephone Exchanges (Jim Haynes) You Can Still Send a Western Union Mailgram (Jim Haynes) Re: Handset Tester (Ian) VoIP Troubleshooter Web Site Updated (Alan Clark) Re: VOIP Connects Workers as They Flee Convention Site (Lisa Hancock) Re: Forced Ads on Auto Response System (Lisa Hancock) Re: Phone Card Inquiry (Tom Smith) Re: Vonage VOIP and Apartment Intercom (DevilsPGD) Re: Ups and Downs (Tom Smith) LNP Wireless to Voip Possible? (John Munsey Jr) Cable Addresses? (Mike Riddle) Specific Telephone Numbers (Curious) Re: Verizon Cable TV? (Lisa Hancock) AOL VoIP in 2005 (Jack Decker - VOIP News) Last Laugh! Boom! (Lisa Minter) 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: Nick Landsberg Reply-To: SPAMhukolautTRAP@SPAMattTRAP.net Subject: Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 20:30:55 GMT Tony P. wrote: > In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com > says: >> SELLCOM Tech support wrote: [ SNIP ] >> The 1948 Western Electric rotary phone on my desk works just fine, by >> the way. The Centrex ESS still accepts rotary dial pulses and the >> ringing current still rings the telephone. Voice clarity is fine. > Definitely -- they were built for a minimum service life of thirty years. > That they've lasted nearly twice that is a good indicator of the quality > WE was able to achieve. > It would be interesting to find out how much in today's dollars the > manufacture of a 302 would cost. I bet it would be a few hundred > dollars or more. I wouldn't even begin to try to estimate that, nor would it make any sense in today's marketplace. Back in the days when *The Phone Company* owned everything (including that phone on your nightstand), it actually made perfect economic sense to design and build everything for that kind of a service life. The time and labor cost of a) dispatching a repair technician every two years or so /per phone/ b) having to maintain a larger labor force of technicians, even if all they did was replace phones in place rather than actually repair them, and c) manufacturing more phones as the old ones could no longer be repaired (remember the not insignificant costs of running more factories) would quickly overshadow the cost of manufacturing a phone which needed (almost) no maintenance. So, in this particualr case, it seems that the old book "Quality is Free" from the early 80's had more than a grain of truth in it. But that was then and now is now. We now "repair" our own phones by throwing them into the trash heap and replacing them with new ones we purchase at the local Wal-Mart or Staples. Sorry, I digress. NPL [ More Snipped ] "It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious" - A. Bloch ------------------------------ From: SELLCOM Tech support Subject: Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind Organization: www.sellcom.com Reply-To: support@sellcom.com Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 21:15:58 GMT friendly posted on that vast internet thingie: > Thanks for describing MS great products that most the world chooses to > use because they are superior and cost effective and kept very up to > date. Make sure and get XP SP2 as it's a big improvement and installs > seemlessly for the large majority of users. That is certainly an excellent point. I guess that some picky sorts might quibble regarding your choice of the word "chooses". Steve at SELLCOM http://www.sellcom.com Discount multihandset cordless phones by Siemens, AT&T, Panasonic, Motorola Vtech 5.8Ghz; TMC ET4000 4line Epic phone, OnHoldPlus, Beamer, Watchguard! Brick wall "non MOV" surge protection. Uniden 2line 5.8GHz cordless If you sit at a desk www.ergochair.biz you owe it to yourself. ------------------------------ From: Shalom Septimus Subject: Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 06:23:04 -0400 Reply-To: druggist@pobox.com On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 08:49:18 -0700, Steve Sobol wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Would you please explain what is a > 'sock-puppet' (anonymous or otherwise)? Thanks. PAT] Remember that Spanish comedian that had a sock on his hand that he would talk to? Senor Wences, I think was his name. He'd talk, and the sock (with a face drawn on it) would answer him. The insane Central American dictator in the movie "The Inlaws" did the same sort of thing without the sock (he had the face drawn right on his thumb and forefinger, if I remember correctly -- been a while since I saw that picture). In the context of Usenet, a sock-puppet is what you call it when someone posts a message, and "someone else" posts a message agreeing with or supporting the first one, but when you check the headers you find that all the messages are sent by the same person using different aliases. Essentially he's trying to make it look like he's got a vast groundswell of support, but in reality it's just the sock on his hand answering him. Presumably, what Steve meant was that this "friendly" who posted the original message was just a sock on BG's hand, giving us his message while making it look like it came from someone else. Shalom ------------------------------ From: panoptes@iquest.net (Daniel W. Johnson) Subject: Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind Date: 29 Aug 2004 11:06:02 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Would you please explain what is a > 'sock-puppet' (anonymous or otherwise)? Thanks. PAT] In the context of usenet, a sock-puppet is an alter-ego established by an individual for the purpose of posting messages that agree with his views, thus making it appear that the individual in question has more support than (s)he really does. http://www.spamfaq.net/terminology.shtml#sock ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind Date: 30 Aug 2004 11:27:07 -0700 Tony P. wrote: >> Actually, if you had programs that were 50 (fifty) years old from an >> earlier generation of IBM mainframes (ie 1401 or 7090 series from the >> 1950s) you could STILL run them without change, too. I know of people >> who did just that until at least the mid 1990s. > IBM paid a heavy price to support those old applications. The 370 > series allowed virtual machines so they could just emulate a 1401 or > 7090 to run those applications and pass the IO back to the VM/CMS > manager for display. A slight correction -- VM/CMS was not needed for predecessor machine emulation; we did emulation but not on VM. Emulation was a combination of firmware and software. >> The 1948 Western Electric rotary phone on my desk works just fine, by >> the way. The Centrex ESS still accepts rotary dial pulses and the >> ringing current still rings the telephone. Voice clarity is fine. > It would be interesting to find out how much in today's dollars the > manufacture of a 302 would cost. I bet it would be a few hundred > dollars or more. On the one hand, sturdy construction and components would make an exact duplicate of a 302 or 500 set expensive to build, although my guess is in quantity mass production about $50-$100. However, the components within are obsolete and more modern components would likely be cheaper. Building durable versions of said components would probably put the basic phone, mass produced, at $35 (which is still three times a plain phone.) Unfortunately, these prices would require mass production, but the demand isn't there, so unit prices would be higher. There's a company making high grade radio tubes under the Western Electric name that are extremely expensive; I suspect this is due to low volume and special purpose. (I wonder what tubes for say guitar amps cost at a music store?) > Planned obsolescence. It's been with us at least since World War II > and will continue to be with us. If something works for me I use it > until *I* outgrow it, not when the marketing people say I should trade > in or buy new. In the case of an automobile you can get away with driving an old car, it doesn't become incompatible with roads. But an old computer is harder to use in the world. A big problem I have is that most websites today require very high bandwidth and my modem is not fast enough; new modems require a higher operating system so I can't get one. I still use plain old "Quick Basic" which I have on 5" disks; and that is a pain to transfer over. I had Adobe 4, I had to upgrade to 5 to read stuff. Now I have to go to Adobe 6. My Netscape 3 hardly works. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That is sort of what I have here now > on one machine: a custom built (more or less) computer with two actual > hard drives (C and F); two CD-DVD drives (D and E), one of which (E) > is a writer as well; a removable USB drive with 62 MB on it (the > little 'finger-like' thing which fits in a USB socket) called (G) and > of course the 1.44 mb floppy (A). There is a slot to install another > another 1.44 mb floppy if desired and a space to install a larger > old style 5 1/2 inch floppy if I wanted, or another CD-DVD thing if > I wished, but I do not know where those latter two slots (if I were > to fill them with devices) would plug in; the ribbon connectors inside > are all in use as I recall. The problem is that many of us neither have the skills nor the time to do all of the above. I remember on my prior machine the big hoopla when DOS 5.0 came out. I bought a copy, and discovered it would do nothing for me on my 286 with 640K. I took off the EDIT/QBASIC but left the O/S in the box. I did find the EDIT extremely useful and use it extensively to this day. But I don't want to be bothered with operating system changes or multiples. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Video of Old Telephone Exchanges Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 20:34:05 GMT Or, see www.open-video.org and while you're there, look at "Telegram for America", a 1956 advertisement for Western Union. jhhaynes at earthlink dot net ------------------------------ Subject: You Can Still Send a Western Union Mailgram Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 20:37:22 GMT Because I just received one today. There's a toll-free number on the back to reply by Mailgram - 800-325-6000 The reason for the mailgram is that someone has been trying unsuccessfully to reach me by phone. I have only one phone line, and I guess they don't have my email address. I have a U.S. Robotics V.92 modem that is supposed to ring the phone when a call-waiting tone comes on the line. It does that, but apparently only sporadically. jhhaynes at earthlink dot net ------------------------------ From: google@bathfordhill.co.uk (Ian) Subject: Re: Handset Tester Date: 28 Aug 2004 13:43:04 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Joe Elichaa wrote in message news:: > I am looking for a real good handset tester that will measure values > and be able to compare these values to other handsets. Does anybody > know of such device? Thank you, Joe Ok; what values? Do you mean sound ? If so are you looking at bandwidth or quality? Basicly though a signal generator, speaker, Mic and Scope will do the job. Ian ------------------------------ From: alan@telchemy.com (Alan Clark) Subject: VoIP Troubleshooter Web Site Updated Date: 28 Aug 2004 17:55:32 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com We have updated the VoIP Troubleshooter web site, and will be adding a forum shortly. The site contains useful information on VoIP performance problems and online troubleshooting tools. Any comments or suggestions for content are welcome. Alan Clark Telchemy ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: VOIP Connects Workers as They Flee Convention Site Date: 28 Aug 2004 19:32:33 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Jack Decker wrote: > And why is this a good thing? Because you can take your IP phone or > the soft phone running on your laptop, plug it in to any broadband > tap .... _Any_ broadband tap? Wouldn't it have to have sufficient capacity and reliability to transmit voice in an acceptable manner and reliability? When you're not at home, who pays for public broadband taps? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I thought by definition, a 'broadband' line was a line with a big enough pipe to do most of those things. And wherever you are or are not (at home, for example) isn't 'public broadband' usually defined as some person or organization (ranging from a university or a Starbucks place or some internet cafe or even a private individual who supplies internet service to a large assortment of regular people with no particular discrimination in what they are actually using it for? Note, the statement was not 'plug it into any 56K dialup line'. Broadband, by definition is a large internet pipe. 'Public broadband' is what places have for their guests or customers to use. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: Forced Ads on Auto Response System Date: 28 Aug 2004 19:36:57 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com richgr@panix.com (Rich Greenberg) wrote: > 1) When asked to key in your card number or whatever, just enter > nothing. MOST systems will time out and give you a human, assuming > rotary dial. A few tell you to call back from a TT phone and dump > you. Unfortunately, they've gotten wise to people doing nothing and demand a number or cut you off. One company says to _speak_ your number and responses. ------------------------------ From: Tom Smith Subject: Re: Phone Card Inquiry Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 05:38:20 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet John R. Levine wrote: >> I'm looking for a prepaid phone card to call from the US to Europe. >> Without any payphone surcharges. What would you recommend? Breaking news. The pay phone owners are going to get their money for use of their phones. If some one else does not collect on their behalf, you will pay them directly. So you should be interested in asking for comparisons on cost differences for payphone usage. ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Vonage VOIP and Apartment Intercom Reply-To: bond-jamesbond@crazyhat.net Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 06:22:51 GMT In message cmclagan@yahoo.com (NoSpamPlease) wrote: > 1) Am I right about the voltage risk? Yes. > 2) If I disconnect the Verizon service will the Enterphone still > supply a voltage that could damage the adapter? Probably -- If it simulates a ring, it will. > 3) If Enterphone does not supply voltage, but I try to test the > arrangement before disconnecting Verizon, will I be at risk? Possibly. > 4) Are there any special devices I might use that would help me deal > with this situation? A two line cordless phone system? > Is there any hope? I really don't want to have to limit my Enterphone > use to a single wired phone (I use 4 cordless extension phones and > don't want to have to run to the kitchen every time the door is > buzzed.) How often does your door get buzzed? Can I get a w00t w00t? ------------------------------ From: Tom Smith Subject: Re: Ups and Downs Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 06:34:50 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet TELECOM Digest Noted in a response to Clive Dawson: > Unlike King Midas, where everything he touched turned to gold, > everything I touch turns to shit it seems. It is called the "fecal touch." I have long had it, and often wish I could pass it on in a game of tag. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: By now, I *should* be able to remember that I am an older, disabled senior citizen. I *should* be able to remember to just sit and watch television all day, take my medication on a regular basis, enjoy my meals on wheels when Southeast Kansas Meals on Wheels comes around each day, feed and care for my cat and my recently-arrived Fox Terrior and **keep my hands off of things I am curious about**. I wonder why I resent doing that so much and have to keep on touching things and winding up with these stinking messes? PAT] ------------------------------ From: john@munsey.net (John Munsey Jr) Subject: LNP Wireless to Voip Possible? Date: 29 Aug 2004 03:06:43 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Should I be able to port my current wireless phone number to a Voip account(T-mobile)? I have read wireless to wireless and wireline to wireless, but cannot find any info either way on wireless to Voip. Any definitive info is appreciated. ------------------------------ From: Mike Riddle Organization: Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish & Short Subject: Cable Addresses? Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 12:59:49 -0500 -- "To Reply Replace the Obvious 'mriddle'" [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The above header arrived here with no text of any sort from Mike Riddle. Since the subject had a question mark after it, my assumption is his question may have been 'What is a Cable Address' or 'Do they still have them'. The answer would be yes they still have them, although rarely used (in the sense that 'cable messages' these days are rare. When they were prevelant (when telegrams were prevelant) they functioned like 'vanity numbers' or 'easy to remember' telex/TWX numbers. A business place or organization in its advertising would often times give their address, their telephone number and their 'cable address', typically one or two words you could say to the telegraph clerk when you wished to send a message to that place. A couple cable addresses I remember were 'Symphony' which referred to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (in place of its longer telex number) and 'Beacon Hill' although I do not remember who that one was for. Just as modern day telco charges extra to give you an easy to remember number, so did Western Union charge extra, and although domestic messages were called 'telegrams' and international messages were called 'cables' or 'cablegrams', in either case easy to remember word phrases in place of numbers were called 'cable addresses'. Some cable addresses also functioned like modern day '800 toll free numbers' but not absolutely unless the subscriber agreed to pay for them. I hope this answer to Mike Riddle is satisfactory, given that no text showed up with the header; and thanks for the old memory! PAT] ------------------------------ From: curious11112001@yahoo.com (Curious) Subject: Specific Telephone Numbers Date: 29 Aug 2004 21:43:49 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I'm looking for TDD [not TTY] numbers, fax numbers, and dial-up modem numbers in: 1. Stamford, Connecticut 2. Switzerland 3. Holland 4. Canada 5. France 6. Russia 7. Germany 8. London 9. Italy Thanks in advance. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Verizon Cable TV? Date: 30 Aug 2004 09:28:10 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Danny Burstein wrote: > Verizon has been doing a couple of in house tests using hi capacity > DSL circuitry to provide switched video [a], which they hope to market > as an alternative to cable systems. The Phila Inqr (www.philly.com) had an article on this in general. It stated that one change is that the new cabling will run fibre right to the house, cable uses fibre to the neighborhood only, then coax to the house (which is how cable serves my area). The Baby Bells are looking to provide a package of TV, telephone, and Internet. They recognize their losing traditional telephone customers. At the same time, the big cable companies plan to introduce telephone service over their networks. Given the price gouging, poor reliability, and community disrespect by the cable company, I am looking forward to Verizon's service offering. How this will work out for the consumer in terms of quality and price remains to be seen. It's very possible that competition will lower cable's price, but only slightly since Verizon will want to make big profits too and not go too far down in a price war. ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 11:36:34 -0400 Subject: AOL VoIP in 2005 Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/53185 Beta testers receiving gear Can you say crowded market? Some users in our VoIP forum have been invited into an upcoming AOL VoIP beta. AOL has signed up Level3 as a partner, been hiring for the division, and is expected to launch the product sometime in 2005. Once again the company will wind up competing with itself; Time Warner Cable's Digital Phone service is expected to go live over the next six months. Article and reader comments at: http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/53185 How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Last Laugh! Boom! Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 15:18:00 -0500 A Bomb Shelter With Class If you're sure the end is near, QSleeper.com might be the site for you. The online company sells the yet-to-be-produced Quantum Sleeper, a bed that promises to protect you from biochemical terrorist attacks, kidnappers and stalkers, even natural disasters while you sleep. The bulletproof beds can be outfitted with TVs, DVD players, computers and refrigerators. Tin foil hat not included. ------------------------------ 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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #404 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Aug 30 22:37:21 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i7V2bKP20463; Mon, 30 Aug 2004 22:37:21 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 22:37:21 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200408310237.i7V2bKP20463@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 #405 TELECOM Digest Mon, 30 Aug 2004 22:37:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 405 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #446, August 30, 2004 (Angus TeleManagement) Postwar Bell System - Controversy? (Jeff nor Lisa) Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 (Jim Haynes) Looking for Receive-Only VoIP (Mark Atwood) Sprint Settlement Notice: Free Sprint Phone Card (ninja_fanatic) Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind (Paul A Lee) Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind (Steve Sobol) Presidential Debate on Tuesday, August 31 Probably on TV (Pat Townson) Re: Last Laugh! Boom! (Thomas A. Horsley) Re: Specific Telephone Numbers (Tony P.) Re: LNP Wireless to Voip Possible? (John R. Levine) Comcast to Market New Video Recorder (Monty Solomon) Last Laugh! Visiting the Doctor's Office (Lisa Minter) 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, 30 Aug 2004 15:57:05 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #446, August 30, 2004 ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 446: August 30, 2004 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: ** ALLSTREAM: www.allstream.com ** BELL CANADA: www.bell.ca ** CISCO SYSTEMS CANADA: www.cisco.com/ca ** CYGCOM INTEGRATED TECHNOLOGIES: www.cygcom.com ** GROUP TELECOM: www.360.net ** JUNIPER NETWORKS: www.juniper.net ** PRIMUS CANADA: www.primustel.ca ** SPRINT CANADA: www.sprint.ca ** TELUS: www.telus.com ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** Ottawa Ends Wireless Spectrum Cap ** Telus Merges Sales Groups, Plans Staff Cuts ** Federal Mediator Enters Aliant Strike ** Local Resellers to Get Toll Compensation ** Bell Buys Spectrum From Kedar ** Wi-LAN Reports Loss, Replaces Staff ** Telus Says Competitors Failing to File IXPL Reports ** Mitel Launches Call Accounting ** Rogers Upgrades Wireless Desktop ** Rogers Picks Azaire for Hotspots ** Spotwave Raises $12 Million ** Court Denies Verisign Challenge to Icann ** Com Dev Back in the Black ** Living With Converged Networks ============================================================ OTTAWA ENDS WIRELESS SPECTRUM CAP: Industry Canada has rescinded the rule that limits the amount of radio spectrum a cellular telephone company can hold. The change removes a major barrier against mergers and acquisitions in the mobile phone industry: Telus, which is currently trying to buy Microcell, could be the first major beneficiary. http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/insmt-gst.nsf/en/sf05645e.html TELUS MERGES SALES GROUPS, PLANS STAFF CUTS: Telus says it will combine its Client Solutions (large business) and Business Solutions (small and medium business) sales units into one by October. Joe Natale, current President of Client Solutions, will head the merged unit; Business Solutions President John Maduri has left the company. FEDERAL MEDIATOR ENTERS ALIANT STRIKE: Following a public appeal by labour ministers and premiers from all four Atlantic provinces, federal Labour Minister Joe Fontana has asked Aliant and its unions to meet with a federal mediator today. The strike began on April 23; the two sides have not met since July. ** The union is seeking enhanced pensions and benefits, and greater job security in face of efforts by the company's owner, BCE, to move back-office functions to Bell Canada. LOCAL RESELLERS TO GET TOLL COMPENSATION: Responding to an application by West Coast Teltech and A&A Call Link Telesolutions, the CRTC has reversed a previous ruling, now saying that "one-hop resellers" are entitled to compensation for lost business when local calling areas are expanded. (See Telecom Update #382, 390) www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2004/dt2004-56.htm BELL BUYS SPECTRUM FROM KEDAR: The newsletter Report on Wireless says that the high-speed wireless net Bell Canada plans to build in Alberta will use spectrum acquired from Mobilexchange Spectrum, a company controlled by telecom entrepreneur Mike Kedar. Kedar acquired six wireless licences in the 24 GHz range in January from Wispra, which had paid $74 million for them in the 1999 auction but never launched service. (See Telecom Update #417, 445) Wi-LAN REPORTS LOSS, REPLACES STAFF: Wi-LAN Inc's third quarter revenue was $6.1 million, down from $7.5 million a year ago. The company had a net loss of $4 million. CEO Sayed-Amr El-Hamamsy says that as a result Wi-LAN is "replacing under-performing marketing and sales personnel, including some senior executives," and is looking for two new vice-presidents to head sales and marketing. TELUS SAYS COMPETITORS FAILING TO FILE IXPL REPORTS: Telus says that competitors have not informed the CRTC about routes where they are offering inter-exchange private line service, which would trigger deregulation of Telus' IXPL service on those routes. Telus has asked the CRTC for stiffer reporting requirements. www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2004/8640/t66_200408915.htm MITEL LAUNCHES CALL ACCOUNTING: Mitel Networks has introduced the IP Telephony Accounting Solution, a utility that monitors and reports on corporate telephone usage. It includes fraud detection, validation of carrier billing, and call flow forecasting. ROGERS UPGRADES WIRELESS DESKTOP: Enhanced Wireless Desktop version 4.4, released last week by Rogers Wireless, supports e-mail synchronization with the Treo 600 smartphone and other devices. Subscribers to any of Rogers' Wireless Data Service plans can obtain Enhanced Wireless Desktop at no additional charge. ROGERS PICKS AZAIRE FOR HOTSPOTS: After an RFP process that began last December, Rogers Wireless has selected California- based Azaire Networks to provide secure authentication and authorization services in Rogers Wi-Fi hotspots across Canada. The software will allow customers to pay by credit card or have their charges applied to a Rogers Wireless account. SPOTWAVE RAISES $12 MILLION: Ottawa-based Spotwave Wireless, a developer of in-building wireless coverage technology, has raised $7 million in new venture capital, and received a $5 million line of credit from Royal Bank. COURT DENIES VERISIGN CHALLENGE TO ICANN: A U.S. federal court has thrown out Verisign's suit charging the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers with antitrust violations. Verisign launched the suit when ICANN ordered it to stop transferring customers who mis-typed web addresses to its own website. COM DEV BACK IN THE BLACK: Com Dev International, a Cambridge-based satellite components maker, reports May-June sales of $32.4 million, 42% higher than last year. Profits were $4.2 million, similar to the previous quarter and an improvement from a $1.6 million loss a year ago. (See Telecom Update #413) LIVING WITH CONVERGED NETWORKS: It's one thing to decide to merge enterprise voice and data on a common IP network; it's quite another to make it work properly. The September Telemanagement includes a feature report on "Designing Converged Networks for Manageability," including a seven-step troubleshooting checklist. Also in this issue: ** IP Centrex Comes of Age: a review of hosted services from Telus, Bell, and OneConnect. ** A Buyers Guide to Broadband-IP Phone Services: what to watch for (and watch out for) including a summary of services now available in Canada from nine companies. Subscribers to Telemanagement Online can read the new issue on our website now. To receive Telemanagement every month -- including unlimited access to Telemanagement's extensive online content -- phone 800-263-4415 ext 500 or visit www.angustel.ca/teleman/tm-sub-online.html. ============================================================ HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-MAIL: editors@angustel.ca FAX: 905-686-2655 MAIL: TELECOM UPDATE Angus TeleManagement Group 8 Old Kingston Road Ajax, Ontario Canada L1T 2Z7 =========================================================== HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR UNSUBSCRIBE) TELECOM UPDATE is provided in electronic form only. There are two formats available: 1. The fully-formatted edition is posted on the World Wide Web on the first business day of the week at www.angustel.ca 2. The e-mail edition is distributed free of charge. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to: join-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.com To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to: leave-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.com Sending e-mail to these addresses will automatically add or remove the sender's e-mail address from the list. Leave subject line and message area blank. We do not give Telecom Update subscribers' e-mail addresses to any third party. For more information, see www.angustel.ca/update/privacy.html. =========================================================== COPYRIGHT AND CONDITIONS OF USE: All contents copyright 2004 Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. All rights reserved. For further information, including permission to reprint or reproduce, please e-mail rosita@angustel.ca or phone 905-686-5050 ext 500. The information and data included has been obtained from sources which we believe to be reliable, but Angus TeleManagement makes no warranties or representations whatsoever regarding accuracy, completeness, or adequacy. Opinions expressed are based on interpretation of available information, and are subject to change. If expert advice on the subject matter is required, the services of a competent professional should be obtained. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Postwar Bell System - Controversy? Date: 30 Aug 2004 14:04:58 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com The people, business, and government of the United States put aside their differences for the duration of WW II. Everyone was united to defeat the enemy. However, the minute the war ended old issues erupted with a fury. What was the public image of the Bell System during those years? For background: The public demanded the servicemen be brought home at once, even though it would take months for ships and trains to get them home. Business demanded an end to price controls though that result in rapid inflation due to scarcity of consumer goods. The public demand consumer goods even though it would take time to convert factories from war to domestic production and get raw materials. In politics, the Dems and Repubs were at each other's throats. Communism was a big issue because of Stalin's aggression and the discovery of communist spies in government and labs. Did the Bell System get hit with the communist witchhunts? (There really were active communist spies and agents out there, but the McCarthyites missed them and went after innocent people instead). Did the Bell System make it's people sign loyalty oaths or conduct background checks for past party membership as did other organizations? [AFAIK, the Bell System was not affected by this.] The Bell System had a huge backlog of service requests to fulfill and it took years to catch up. New housing developments had a payphone battery on a corner until home phones could be installed. Did the public or regulators get impatient with the Bell System as time wore on? Looking backward, did the Bell System do all it could to meet the demand for service -- were new W/E plants built, were new installers hired and exchanges expanded on a timely basis? I've seen their publicity literature and they said they were doing all those things, but in hindsight, were they doing the best possible? Also, as the postwar era wore on and phones got installed, it became a bigger part of our culture. I believe thanks to carrier, long distance rates were reduced. Were there any "intellectuals" who criticized the growth of the telephone and Direct Distance Dialing? The official Bell System history doesn't really go into this sort of thing. It is more technical, describing all the innovations that were put into service in those years. As mentioned, the publicity documents (ie employee newsletters) talked of the big effort the company was making to meet the backlog, but that is not an objective source. ------------------------------ Subject: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 21:15:34 GMT See Who's Who in Engineering for 1940s-1950s Chicago native Walt Zenner was a graduate of Armour Institute, now Illinois Institute of Technology. He worked for Teletype Corp. from 1925 until he retired in 1965, when he was V.P. of R&D. Then he co-founded Extel. This is an obituary from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for Walt Zenner who passed away on August 27 at the age of 100. Zenner, Walter J. Publication Date: August 29, 2004 Born in Chicago February 21, 1904, passed away august 27, 2004. Survived by his wife, Lois A. (nee Martin) Zenner; sons, John "Jack" (Diana) Zenner and Tom Zenner; daughters, Mary (Harold) Webster and Chris (Larry) Litwin; 11 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his first wife, Mildred in 1975. Mr. Zenner was an inventor of communication products covered by 115 US patents and was vice president of research and development of Teletype Corp. from 1928 to 1964. He was also co-founder and chairman of Extel Corp. an early manufacturer of both dot matrix and ink jet printers of his design. Friends may visit on Monday from 4 to 8PM at the Funeral Home and on Tuesday from 1PM until time Funeral Servcie 2PM at First Congregational Church in Mukwonago (231 Roberts Dr., Mukwonago). Burial Wednesday 1PM at Mt. Emblem Cemetery, Elmhurst, IL. Memorials to First Congregational Church of Mukwonago or Kiwanis Manor in East Troy. SCHMIDT & BARTELT VAN VALIN Funeral and Cremation Service 315 Main St. (Hwy ES) Mukwonago jhhaynes at earthlink dot net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Wasn't an electronic item common in radios and television sets specifically named after him which was called the 'Zenner Diode'? In a brief summary, will someone tell us what was the purpose of the 'Zenner Diode'? PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Looking For Receive-Only VoIP From: Mark Atwood Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 20:52:27 GMT I'm looking for a VoIP provider that can receive a call on a NANP number, but cannot call out. I expect that such a service would be relatively less expensive to provide (no need to pay termination charges to anyone else). Are any of the players doing this? Mark Atwood | When you do things right, people won't be sure mra@pobox.com | you've done anything at all. http://www.pobox.com/~mra | http://www.livejournal.com/users/fallenpegasus ------------------------------ From: ninja_fanatic@yahoo.com (ninja_fanatic) Subject: Sprint Settlement Offer: Free Sprint Phone Card Date: 30 Aug 2004 14:52:08 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com If you're interested in a free $50 phone card from Sprint check out this link: http://www.casualcaller.com/images/settlementclaimform.pdf. If you were ever a Sprint customer, you can make a claim by filling out the form and sending it in! ------------------------------ From: Paul A Lee Subject: Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 16:36:06 -0400 Organization: Rite Aid Corporation In TELECOM Digest V23 #404, Shalom Septimus wrote (in part): > Remember that Spanish comedian that had a sock on his hand > that he would talk to? Senor Wences, I think was his name. > He'd talk, and the sock (with a face drawn on it) would > answer him. The insane Central American dictator in the movie > "The Inlaws" did the same sort of thing without the sock (he > had the face drawn right on his thumb and forefinger, if I > remember correctly -- been a while since I saw that picture). Senor Wences himself used a drawn-on face, rather than a sock -- on his Ed Sullivan appearances, at least. I dimly recall that he would pull a black wristlet onto his arm, draw the face on his thumb and the base of his index finger, and put a tiny wig over his knuckles as Sullivan backed away and the lights went down. There was another Wences character on the Sullivan show that was just an articulated puppet head in a box, as I vaguely recall it. Paul A Lee Sr Telecom Engineer Rite Aid Corporation HL-IS-COM (Telecomm) V: +1 717 730-8355 30 Hunter Lane, Camp Hill, PA 17011-2410 F: +1 717 975-3789 P.O. Box 3165, Harrisburg, PA 17105-3165 W: +1 717 805-6208 ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 13:06:14 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Shalom Septimus wrote: > In the context of Usenet, a sock-puppet is what you call it when > someone posts a message, and "someone else" posts a message agreeing > with or supporting the first one, but when you check the headers you > find that all the messages are sent by the same person using different > aliases. Essentially he's trying to make it look like he's got a vast > groundswell of support, but in reality it's just the sock on his hand > answering him. > Presumably, what Steve meant was that this "friendly" who posted the > original message was just a sock on BG's hand, giving us his message > while making it look like it came from someone else. Bingo. This is precisely what I meant. The poster to which I was replying sounded an awful lot like a Microsoft shill. 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. ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: Presidential Debate on Tuesday, August 31 to be Televised Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 20:39:06 -0500 The first multi-party presidential debate of the 2004 election cycle comes to New York on August 31st. Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian candidate, and Green Party candidate David Cobb, have confirmed that they will participate in the event, scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday at Sts. Cyril and Methodius Church, 502 West 41st Street. Other presidential candidates, including President Bush, Democratic challenger John Kerry, Constitution Party candidate Michael Peroutka and Independent Ralph Nader have been invited to participate, as well. The debate will be moderated by Walt Kane of News 12 New Jersey and Robert Richie of the Center for Voting and Democracy. "President Bush and Senator Kerry have been involved in 'sensitive negotiations' over debates for some time," says Badnarik, 50, of Austin, Texas. "But it isn't rocket science. We've secured a location, moderators, and a format that gives every candidate a chance to address the issues. If Bush and Kerry want a debate, they've got one. If they don't -- well, that's a statement in and of itself." The debate, which will be preceded by an all-candidate press conference, allows each candidate a five minute opening statement, a three minute closing statement, and two minutes to answer questions posed by the moderators and the audience. The debate will be open to the public, without "set-asides" for the campaigns. "In other words," says Badnarik's communications director, Stephen Gordon, "the real public, not the fan club, will have a chance to grill the candidates." ------------------------------------------------- In addition to the debate at 7:00 p.m. EST, Tuesday, there will be a fundraiser at 5:30 and a press conference at 6:00 p.m. the same day. You are all invited to attend the debate and associated activities. The event is free of charge to the public. However, seating is limited. In order to help defray the costs of the activity, your donation of $50 ensures you a seat in one of the front rows of the event. You may make this donation by calling our debate coordinator, Donald Meinshausen, at (551)358-4591 or by e-mail at freedonnow@yahoo.com. At this moment, it seems likely, albeit with no guarantees, that this debate will be televised. We will do our best to keep you informed of which media will be covering this event. If you can't attend the debate, but wish to help defray some of the costs involved, please contact Donald at (551)358-4591 or by e-mail at freedonnow@yahoo.com today. Please pass this message to other lists and people who might be interested in attending or watching this debate. Paid for by Badnarik/Campagna 2004. On Usenet in cooperation with several moderated newsgroups which have agreed to post it. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Boom! From: tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 00:17:57 GMT Actually, I've always wanted something like that (I always though of it as a "personal sarcophagus"), but I'm not all that worried about terrorist attacks, I just want to avoid air conditioning and/or heating the whole house when I'm only gonna be using the few square feet of bed for the next several hours -- that and to keep out the sound of the noisy dog barking next door :-). >>==>> The *Best* political site >>==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL | Free Software and Politics <<==+ ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Specific Telephone Numbers Organization: ATCC Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 00:52:24 GMT In article , curious11112001 @yahoo.com says: > I'm looking for TDD [not TTY] numbers, fax numbers, and dial-up modem > numbers in: > 1. Stamford, Connecticut > 2. Switzerland > 3. Holland > 4. Canada > 5. France > 6. Russia > 7. Germany > 8. London > 9. Italy > Thanks in advance. I believe CT might be 711. ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: LNP Wireless to Voip Possible? Date: 30 Aug 2004 21:39:04 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Should I be able to port my current wireless phone number to a Voip > account(T-mobile)? I have read wireless to wireless and wireline to > wireless, but cannot find any info either way on wireless to Voip. All the VoIP carriers I know of that offer POTS phone numbers get them from CLECs, so for portability purposes a VoIP line is a wireline line. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 20:52:30 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Comcast to Market New Video Recorder By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff | August 29, 2004 Starting tomorrow, Comcast Corp. will begin marketing an enhanced cable box to New Englanders that will accelerate a revolution that is changing television-watching habits, and the television industry itself. The Motorola box, which includes a TiVo -style digital video recorder, will allow millions of subscribers to watch shows on their own schedule and skip through the advertisements. Although the technology has been available for a few years, most notably from industry leader TiVo, the adoption of the digital video recording by the region's dominant cable provider signals that this disruptive technology is about to go mainstream. The Comcast digital video recorder, built around a large hard drive, will be able to store 50 hours of regular programming or 10 hours of high-definition format shows, while also letting people pause and rewind shows as they are broadcast live. Comcast will charge $9.95 a month for the system with no upfront installation charge, a steep discount from TiVo, which charges at least $99 for a stand-alone recorder plus $12.95 for monthly service. About 5 percent of US households now own digital video recording systems, a figure that is expected to rise to 22 percent by 2008, according to The Yankee Group, a Boston market research firm. Even though the numbers are small, industry executives expect growing DVR usage to roil the $58 billion US television advertising market, as increasing numbers of consumers, particularly the most affluent who are most likely to rent the devices, get the power to program their own television viewing, and ignore the traditional 30-second television spot. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/08/29/comcast_to_market_new_video_recorder/ ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Last Laugh! A Visit to Doctor's Office Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 14:46:22 -0500 There's nothing worse than a snotty doctor's receptionist who insists you tell her what is wrong in a room full of other patients. I know most of us have experienced this. You got to love the way this old guy handled it. An 86-year-old man walked into a crowded doctor's office. As he approached the desk, the receptinist said, "Yes sir, what are you seeing the doctor for today?" "There's something wrong with my dick," he replied. The receptionist became irritated and said, "You shouldn't come into a crowded office and say things like that." "Why not? You asked me what was wrong and I told you," he said. The receptionist replied, "You've obviously caused some embarrassment in this room full of people. You should have said there is something wrong with your ear or something and then discussed the problem further with the doctor in private. " The man replied, "You shouldn't ask people things in a room full of others, if the answer could embarrass anyone." The man walked out, waited several minutes and then reentered. The receptionist smiled smugly and asked, "Yes?" "There's something wrong with my ear," he stated. The receptionist nodded approvingly and smiled, knowing he had taken her advice. "And what is wrong with your ear, sir?" "I can't piss out of it," the man replied. The doctor's office erupted in laughter. ------------------------------ 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 #405 ****************************** [Note: Issue 406 got delayed in mailing and appears here after issue 407. It goes 405, 407, 406 then 408.] From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Aug 31 15:26:00 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i7VJQ0e28005; Tue, 31 Aug 2004 15:26:00 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 15:26:00 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200408311926.i7VJQ0e28005@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 #407 TELECOM Digest Tue, 31 Aug 2004 15:25:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 407 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson HBO CGMS-A Copyright Protection (Monty Solomon) Startup Launching Web-To-TV Video Service (Monty Solomon) Verizon Wireless Takes a Bite Out of 'Spam' (Monty Solomon) Verizon Issues Consumer Alert: Beware of Pop-Up Internet Ads (M Solomon) Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service (Monty Solomon) Caller ID Falsification Service (Sent by a Gnu) (ytm4jpc02@sneakemail) Re: Forced Ads on Auto Response System (Brian Inglis) Re: Forced Ads on Auto Response System (John David Galt) Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind (Paul Vader) Re: Verizon Cable TV? (Isaiah Beard) Re: Considering VoIP For Home? Think Twice About AT&T CallVantage (Chip) Re: Looking For Receive-Only VoIP (John Bartley) Re: Looking For Receive-Only VoIP (John R. Covert) Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 (Ned Protter) Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 (Klay Anderson) Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 (Justin Time) Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 (Paul A Lee) Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 (William Warren) Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 (Robert Bonomi) Re: You Can Still Send a Western Union Mailgram (Lisa Hancock) 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, 30 Aug 2004 23:20:39 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: HBO CGMS-A Copyright Protection CGMS-A: May 21 Affiliate Letter http://www.homeboxoffice.com/to/cgms_a_affiliate_letter.pdf CGMS-A: CSR Q & A http://www.homeboxoffice.com/to/cgms_a_attachment_qa.pdf HBO Copyright Protection Background http://www.hbo.com/corpinfo/cgmsafaq.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 23:34:45 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Startup Launching Web-To-TV Video Service By MAY WONG AP Technology Writer SAN MATEO, Calif. (AP) -- The promise of Internet-based video has long been hamstrung by copyright and piracy worries, slow dial-up connections, technical challenges and consumer disdain for watching blotchy videos on their home computers. But a Silicon Valley startup is tackling those obstacles, hoping to become the first major provider of cinema straight from the Internet to the living room boob tube. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43367705 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 23:40:43 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon Wireless Takes a Bite Out of 'Spam' Nation's Leading Wireless Carrier Wins Legal Injunction Against RI-Based Wireless Spammer; Champions Customer's Right to Privacy BEDMINSTER, N.J. and WOBURN, Mass. Aug. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon Wireless today announced it was granted a permanent, legal injunction against Rhode Island resident Jacob Brown, a known 'spammer' who knowingly executed a systematic spam attack on wireless phones owned by Verizon Wireless customers. The Honorable Mary L. Cooper, United States District Judge in Trenton, New Jersey, permanently enjoined Jacob Brown from sending further spam to Verizon Wireless customers. Brown and his cohorts distributed unsolicited short text messages (also referred to as 'spam') offering mortgage loans and directing individuals to adult Web sites. Additionally, these individuals 'spoofed' and disguised themselves by using IP addresses of innocent persons to distribute messages, creating identification protection for the guilty and an undercurrent of insecurity for innocent people. The company, which has long championed a customer's right to privacy and 'spam-free' wireless environment, believed legal action was necessary to deter future wireless phone 'attacks' that force customers to pay for unsolicited commercial spam messages each time one reaches their phone. The action taken against Jacob Brown is the latest of many legal filings by Verizon Wireless against wireless 'spammers.' Last year, for example, Verizon Wireless filed two suits against wireless spammers in federal court in Georgia -- which were disseminating repeated, unsolicited, text messages to Verizon Wireless customers -- and succeeded in stopping those spam attacks. These are believed to be some of the only legal actions taken in the nation against wireless spammers. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43367241 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 23:48:39 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon Issues Consumer Alert: Beware of Pop-Up Internet Ads Beware of Pop-Up Internet Ads and 'Modem Hijacking' Scheme - Aug 30, 2004 11:41 AM (PR Newswire) Consumers Who Click 'yes' to Pop-Up Ad Questions Without Reading The Fine Print Could Be Agreeing to Have Their Modems Programmed to Automatically Dial Expensive International Long-Distance Calls NEW YORK, Aug. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Consumers should read the fine print before clicking "yes" or "I accept" to questions that appear on so-called pop-up ads while browsing the Web. They could be agreeing to install software on their computers that then dials international locations. The result could be significant, and perhaps unexpected, international long-distance charges for which the customer is responsible. This scam, known as "modem hijacking," occurs when a computer user sees certain ads pop up on the screen while visiting a Web site. If the user clicks on the pop-up, a series of questions appears asking the user to choose a "yes," "I agree," or a similarly phrased button to agree to the terms and conditions of the ad. A positive response to the question triggers a software download to the user's computer - which will then automatically dial the international phone numbers at random times without the customer knowing it. The Federal Trade Commission, in response to increasing incidents involving this scam, has posted a consumer alert on its website at: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alert/modmalrt.htm. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43373331 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 08:50:55 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service By Kevin Poulsen ,SecurityFocus Aug 27 2004 2:37PM Overdue debtors beware: You may not be able to rely on Caller I.D. to screen out those annoying bill collectors much longer. A California entrepreneur has a plan to bring the hacker technique of Caller I.D. spoofing to the business world, beginning with collection agencies and private investigators. Slated for launch next week, Star38.com would offer subscribers a simple Web interface to a Caller I.D. spoofing system that lets them appear to be calling from any number they choose. "It creates an extra avenue for them to have someone pick up the phone," says founder Jason Jepson. Caller I.D. spoofing has for years been within the reach of businesses with certain types of digital connections to their local phone company, and more recently has become the plaything of hackers and pranksters exploiting permissive voice over IP systems. But Star38.com appears to be the first stab at turning Caller I.D. spoofing into a commercial venture. Jepson claims the service will charge a twenty-five cent connection fee for each call, and seven to fourteen cents per minute. http://securityfocus.com/news/9419 ------------------------------ Date: 31 Aug 2004 08:02:49 -0000 Subject: Caller ID Falsification Service (Sent by a Gnu) From: ytm4jpc02@sneakemail.com --------------- To reply by email, "Gnu" must be included in the subject line --------------- Pat, I came across this at Slashdot this morning -- I figured it might interest you. Cheers, Frank Pizer http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/30/1620237 "A US website will offer Caller ID falsification service ... slated for launch this week, Star38.com would offer subscribers a simple Web interface to a Caller ID spoofing system that lets them appear to be calling from any number they choose. [...] SecurityFocus took the site for a test drive, and found it worked as advertised. The user fills out a simple Web form with his phone number, the number he wants to call, and the number he wants to appear to be calling from. Within two seconds, the system rings back, and patches the user through to the destination. The recipient sees only the spoofed number displayed on Caller ID. Any number works, from nonsense phone numbers like "123 4567" to the number for the White House switchboard." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, you know what is good for the goose is also good for the gander as they say. Debtors can also use that service to spoof the skip tracers and bill collectors. For example, a common technique used by skip tracers who cannot find your phone number anywhere is to send you a letter from some bogus company telling you that you have won a prize; to claim the prize all you have to do is call us on this (toll free) number and punch in the 'extension' number shown. The letter is vague enough that they do not have to award any prizes, but they do match up *your* phone number (which is what they really wanted; you cannot hide it when you call an 800 number) and the specifics of your alleged indebtedness (the 'extension' number you were asked to punch in when you called), and you can be sure you will get a callback rather soon from some no-nonsense person who would like to speak with you about your debt. They don't all bother with the ruse of telling you that you won a prize, some skip tracers employ young ladies to write cozy, friendly, occassionally lurid letters using pink felt tip markers to guys (males, it seems, make up the majority of skip-traceable [or hard-core] debtors) claiming to be a long-lost friend (of the opposite sex of course; what guy would not fall for that one and eagerly return the call). "Call me on my office line at 800-xxx-xxxx and ask for extension xxxxx so we can renew our friendship." Men are always getting lured into that trap I am sorry to say. Now imagine for a minute if you *did* return those absolutely wicked, nosy, spying phone calls to (a) claim your 'prize' or (b) meet the person who had been 'flirting' with you but you returned the call via this new web site phalsification service and gave your caller ID blast as 202-456-1414 or whatever. But this new web site costs money for your phalse ID calls; why should you have to pay for the service when you could use your FWD/Pulver phone (which can call USA toll frees and gives an NYC 212 number for the caller-ID blast.) Wheeee! And a good time was had by all. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 09:40:45 GMT From: Brian Inglis Subject: Re: Forced Ads on Auto Response System Reply-To: Brian.Inglis@SystematicSW.ab.ca Organization: Systematic Software On 28 Aug 2004 19:36:57 -0700 in comp.dcom.telecom, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) wrote: > richgr@panix.com (Rich Greenberg) wrote: >> 1) When asked to key in your card number or whatever, just enter >> nothing. MOST systems will time out and give you a human, assuming >> rotary dial. A few tell you to call back from a TT phone and dump >> you. > Unfortunately, they've gotten wise to people doing nothing and demand > a number or cut you off. One company says to _speak_ your number and > responses. What happens if you use the switch hook to pulse dial a number? Thanks. Take care, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada Brian.Inglis@CSi.com (Brian[dot]Inglis{at}SystematicSW[dot]ab[dot]ca) fake address use address above to reply ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Subject: Re: Forced Ads on Auto Response System Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 19:46:42 -0700 Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society >> 1) When asked to key in your card number or whatever, just enter >> nothing. MOST systems will time out and give you a human, assuming >> rotary dial. A few tell you to call back from a TT phone and dump >> you. > Unfortunately, they've gotten wise to people doing nothing and demand > a number or cut you off. One company says to _speak_ your number and > responses. Then say something that isn't a number. Sometimes the system will pass what you've said on to a human, who can intervene. ------------------------------ From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) Subject: Re: Microsoft Changed My Mind Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 15:23:26 -0000 Organization: Inline Software Creations Paul A Lee writes: > There was another Wences character on the Sullivan show that was just > an articulated puppet head in a box, as I vaguely recall it. Close the door. * * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard Subject: Re: Verizon Cable TV? Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 11:33:52 -0400 Lisa Hancock wrote in message news:telecom23.404.17@telecom-digest.org: > Given the price gouging, poor reliability, and community disrespect > by the cable company, I am looking forward to Verizon's service > offering. Funny that. Considering the poor reliability, price gouging and community disrepect earned by Verizon, I couldn't wait to get VoIP over a cable broadband connection and drop Verizon for good. :) I guess it depends on where you live. Cable and telephone have both been prevailing regulated monopolies for a long time, and depending on where you live, one or the other is the lesser of two evils that you must pick from. If only DBS didn't have such a horrible latency problem, we could all drop both services. ------------------------------ From: Chip G Subject: Re: Considering VoIP For Home? Think Twice About AT&T CallVantage Organization: Comcast Online Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 16:27:05 GMT charlie3 wrote in message news:telecom23.399.14@telecom-digest.org: > I'm having a good experience with Vonage. I've found customer support > to be available and competent. > Because of Vonage, every call I make is free. Because of Vonage > simultaneous ring people need only one number to find me. I move the > Vonage box to seasonal locations where I have broadband avialable. > I expected some glitches and planned accordingly, mostly by having a > cell phone for backup. (Vonage automatically rings my cell phone > during network outages or when the vonage box is in my luggage between > locations. If I don't pickup, Vonage records a voice message which is > available via the web, landline, cell phone or Vonage phone.) > We can argue that personal computers should not be adopted for record > keeping and communications because hard drives crash and data can be > lost. Paper and pencil are more reliable than computer disks. Paper > and pencil is a lot simpler and more people know how to use them. All > the above is true but that didn't stop the advance of computers. > (Today I do so little handwriting, my already bad style is getting > noticably worse.) > When enough people cancel POTS service, as I have, the traditional > phone companies fixed costs for POTS services will rise so close to > revenues they won't be able to sustain the service. VOIP users like > me will vigorously protest being taxed to subsidize a communications > dinasaur we've abandoned. Thank you for the comments Charlie. Could you expand a little on your comments about using your cell phone to answer calls dialed at your Vonage number? I like the notion ... it is one of the main reasons I tried AT&T CallVantage. With Vonage, if you are outside your cell coverage area or the cellular network does not cause your phone to ring but rather go straight to voicemail on the cell phone, is the Vonage service smart enough to cause the call to keep ringing on the other destinations or to go to the voicemail box associated with it as opposed to dropping the caller into the voicemail box affiliated with the cell phone? Thanks! Chip ------------------------------ From: John Bartley Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 09:40:23 -0800 Subject: Re: Looking For Receive-Only VoIP On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 20:52:27 GMT, Mark Atwood wrote: > I'm looking for a VoIP provider that can receive a call on a NANP > number, but cannot call out. Yeah. Me, too. Anybody know? John Bartley K7AAY No answers to this e-mail address, please: It's a spam trap. Instead, johnbartley[three][at]yahoo[dot]com - substitute for content within [brackets] for correct address. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 13:52:33 EDT From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: Looking For Receive-Only VoIP Yes, you can get that (in the USofA) completely free; they finance the operation on the penny or so a minute they get for the incoming call from the PSTN. One operation doing this is at http://www.ipkall.com. They'll give you a free number in an exchange south of Seattle. No choice of where they put you. You get a web interface which allows you to forward your number to any SIP proxy, such as Free World Dialup, or your own SIP server, as you find most useful. There is no outgoing at all. /john ------------------------------ From: Ned Protter Subject: Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 01:42:03 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Wasn't an electronic item common in > radios and television sets specifically named after him which was > called the 'Zenner Diode'? In a brief summary, will someone tell us > what was the purpose of the 'Zenner Diode'? PAT] A zener diode usually serves as a voltage regulator. Most kinds of diodes are intended to conduct in one direction only. With enough reverse voltage, they will conduct the other way. This damages the diode. Clarence Melvin Zener was an American mathematician and theoretical physicist who figured out that it would be possible to manufacture a diode that would break down at a desired reverse voltage and not be damaged. Bell Labs found that he was right. If you manufacture a zener to break down at ten volts and feed it a small reverse current, ten volts will appear across the doide. If you need a higher current capacity for that ten-volt supply, you can use that zener as a reference for a power transistor. Zeners are commonly included within integrated circuits. Some radios and TVs had an item called the Zennith. IIRC, it was applied after the Quality was installed. ------------------------------ From: Klay Anderson Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 06:54:29 -0600 Organization: Klay Anderson Audio, Inc. Subject: Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 In article , TELECOM Digest Editor responded to the obituary notice haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Wasn't an electronic item common in > radios and television sets specifically named after him which was > called the 'Zenner Diode'? In a brief summary, will someone tell us > what was the purpose of the 'Zenner Diode'? PAT] No, the correct term is zener diode (pronounced zee-nar). With a zener diode (as opposed to a conventional diode) as the reverse voltage is increased the leakage current remains essentially constant until the breakdown voltage is reached where the current increases dramatically. This breakdown voltage is the zener voltage for zener diodes. While for the conventional rectifier or diode it is imperative to operate below this voltage, the zener diode is intended to operate at that voltage, and so finds its greatest application as a voltage regulator. They are named for Dr. Clarence Melvin Zener of Southern Illinois University, inventor of the device. Regards, Klay Anderson http://www.klay.com 1-800-FOR-KLAY ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 Date: 31 Aug 2004 06:32:33 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) wrote in message news:: > See Who's Who in Engineering for 1940s-1950s > Chicago native Walt Zenner was a graduate of Armour Institute, now > Illinois Institute of Technology. He worked for Teletype Corp. from > 1925 until he retired in 1965, when he was V.P. of R&D. Then he > co-founded Extel. > This is an obituary from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for Walt > Zenner who passed away on August 27 at the age of 100. > Zenner, Walter J. > Publication Date: August 29, 2004 > Born in Chicago February 21, 1904, passed away august 27, 2004. > Survived by his wife, Lois A. (nee Martin) Zenner; sons, John "Jack" > (Diana) Zenner and Tom Zenner; daughters, Mary (Harold) Webster and > Chris (Larry) Litwin; 11 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren. He > was preceded in death by his first wife, Mildred in 1975. Mr. Zenner > was an inventor of communication products covered by 115 US patents > and was vice president of research and development of Teletype Corp. > from 1928 to 1964. He was also co-founder and chairman of Extel Corp. > an early manufacturer of both dot matrix and ink jet printers of his > design. Friends may visit on Monday from 4 to 8PM at the Funeral Home > and on Tuesday from 1PM until time Funeral Servcie 2PM at First > Congregational Church in Mukwonago (231 Roberts Dr., Mukwonago). > Burial Wednesday 1PM at Mt. Emblem Cemetery, Elmhurst, IL. Memorials > to First Congregational Church of Mukwonago or Kiwanis Manor in East > Troy. > SCHMIDT & BARTELT > VAN VALIN > Funeral and Cremation Service > 315 Main St. (Hwy ES) Mukwonago > jhhaynes at earthlink dot net > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Wasn't an electronic item common in > radios and television sets specifically named after him which was > called the 'Zenner Diode'? In a brief summary, will someone tell us > what was the purpose of the 'Zenner Diode'? PAT] Pat, its ZENER - one N. zener (or Zener) (zeener) n.a semiconductor diode across which the reverse voltage remains almost constant over a wide range of currents, used esp. to regulate voltage. [1955-60; after U.S. physicist Clarence Melvin Zener (born 1905)] Rodgers Platt ------------------------------ From: Paul A Lee Subject: Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 11:14:32 -0400 Organization: Rite Aid Corporation In TELECOM Digest V23 #405, our esteemed Editor wrote (in part): > Wasn't an electronic item common in radios and television sets > specifically named after [Walter J. Zenner] which was called > the 'Zenner Diode'? In a brief summary, will someone tell us > what was the purpose of the 'Zenner Diode'? Different guy. Clarence Zener was a physicist who conceived and described the semiconductor property that Bell Labs exploited to come up with the diode they named for him. Zener diodes maintain a constant voltage drop over a range of current when reverse-biased. That makes them good reference voltage sources for voltage regulators and other voltage control circuits. Paul A Lee Sr Telecom Engineer Rite Aid Corporation HL-IS-COM (Telecomm) V: +1 717 730-8355 30 Hunter Lane, Camp Hill, PA 17011-2410 F: +1 717 975-3789 P.O. Box 3165, Harrisburg, PA 17105-3165 W: +1 717 805-6208 ------------------------------ From: William Warren Subject: Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 Organization: Comcast Online Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 03:34:27 GMT > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Wasn't an electronic item common in > radios and television sets specifically named after him which was > called the 'Zenner Diode'? In a brief summary, will someone tell us > what was the purpose of the 'Zenner Diode'? PAT] See http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/zener%20diode "The effect was discovered by the American physicist Clarence Melvin Zener (December 1, 1905 - July 15, 1993). Zener was an American physicist who described the electrical property exploited by the Zener diode, which Bell Labs named after him. Zener was a theoretical physicist with a background in mathematics who also wrote on a range of subjects including superconductivity, metallurgy, and geometric programming. Zener was born in Indianapolis, IN. It is pronounced "ZEN-ur". " Zener diodes have a precisely designed "breakdown" voltage, at which point they conduct "backwards". They are used for voltage regulators in low voltage circuits, and require current limiting (usually a series resistor) to prevent damage from the reverse current flow. HTH. William (Filter noise from my address for direct replies.) ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 05:09:14 +0000 In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to the printed obituary: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Wasn't an electronic item common in > radios and television sets specifically named after him which was > called the 'Zenner Diode'? In a brief summary, will someone tell us > what was the purpose of the 'Zenner Diode'? PAT] A Zenner diode is most commonly used as a simple voltage regulator/stablizer. It conducts if the applied voltage is greater than whatever level it is built for, and doesn't conduct if the voltage is lower than that value. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: You Can Still Send a Western Union Mailgram Date: 31 Aug 2004 09:33:22 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) wrote > Because I just received one today. There's a toll-free number on > the back to reply by Mailgram - 800-325-6000 The Western Union website IIRC says Mailgrams are no longer provided. Could it be that the Mailgram is provided by a separate company? ------------------------------ 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! 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #407 ****************************** [Note: Issue 407 reached the archives before 406 which follows now.] From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Aug 31 19:22:19 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i7VNMIV00638; Tue, 31 Aug 2004 19:22:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 19:22:19 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200408312322.i7VNMIV00638@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 #406 TELECOM Digest Tue, 31 Aug 2004 19:17:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 406 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson PBX, NBX? (Calvin) Spoofing Caller-ID (Jack Adams) Re: Handset Tester (Justin Time) Re: Specific Telephone Numbers (Nathan Strom) Verizon "Fios" FTTH network (was Verizon Cable TV?) (Neal McLain) Latest NorVergence Bankruptcy Hearing News (8/26/04)? (Satchel Paige) Re: VOIP Connects Workers as They Flee Convention Site (Isaiah Beard) Re: Phone Card Inquiry (Isaiah Beard) Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 (Sam Etler) Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 (Jack Adams) Re: Caller ID Falsification Service (Sent by a Gnu) (T. Sean Weintz) Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service (Thomas A. Horsley) Re: Last Laugh! A Visit to Doctor's Office (DevilsPGD) 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: paxsonc001@hawaii.rr.com (Calvin) Subject: PBX, NBX? Date: 31 Aug 2004 00:29:48 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hi all, I work for a small school and we are getting ready to upgrade our very old Meridian phone system to something a bit newer ... however we are having a tough time deciding what to use. Are there any good websites out their that we can use as a resource to figure out some of the differences? For instance, what is the difference between an Avaya Diffinity and a Partner? What systems do viop? How does a Cisco system compare to a 3com nbx? Any guidance would be appreciated. A little about us: We are located on a 3 acre campus. We have a network running between about 12 small buildings. We want to install about 20 extensions, as well as a couple of analog cordless phones. We want to be able to use our existing network to minimize wiring costs/ maximize flexability. What else would you like to /need to know? Ask me anything and i will tell you what I can. Thanks in advance, Cal ------------------------------ From: adamsjac@telcordia.com (Jack Adams) Subject: Spoofing Caller-ID Date: 31 Aug 2004 06:22:46 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I'm guessing that this firm uses in-band 202 signalling to "overwrite" any normal CLID message that's been launched from ISUP. Technically, it isn't a big deal. It's been a while since I knew what was required but if memory serves this is prohibited under some sort of law? I recall that this was not permitted but I don't know for sure if it was for legal or regulatory reasons. Then again, all of this seems to be fair game these days. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/30/caller_id_falsify/ ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: Handset Tester Date: 31 Aug 2004 06:49:00 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com google@bathfordhill.co.uk (Ian) wrote in message news:: > Joe Elichaa wrote in message > news:: >> I am looking for a real good handset tester that will measure values >> and be able to compare these values to other handsets. Does anybody >> know of such device? Thank you, Joe > Ok; what values? > Do you mean sound ? > If so are you looking at bandwidth or quality? > Basically though a signal generator, speaker, Mic and Scope will do > the job. > Ian I have a dog that can give your handsets a good reliability test. He loves to chew things. Rodgers Platt ------------------------------ From: nstrom@ananzi.co.za (Nathan Strom) Subject: Re: Specific Telephone Numbers Date: 31 Aug 2004 07:28:40 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com curious11112001@yahoo.com (Curious) wrote in message news:: > I'm looking for TDD [not TTY] numbers, fax numbers, and dial-up modem > numbers in: > 1. Stamford, Connecticut I'm not sure why you want them, but there are tons of fax numbers in Stamford (area code 203), as it's a very business-oriented city. Try: http://www.google.com/search?q=stamford+203+fax and double check with http://www.fonefinder.net to make sure that it's actually a Stamford exchange. The incumbent carrier is SBC, formerly SNET. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 16:06:26 -0500 From: Neal McLain Subject: Verizon "Fios" FTTH network (was Verizon Cable TV?) Lisa Hancock (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com) in TD V23#404 wrote: > The Phila Inqr (www.philly.com) had an article on this in > general. I assume the article you're referring to is "Cable's new rival: Phone lines" by Wendy Tanaka . > It stated that one change is that the new cabling will run > fibre right to the house, cable uses fibre to the neighborhood > only, then coax to the house (which is how cable serves my > area). That's why it's called FTTP (fiber to the premises) or FTTH (fiber to the home). Monte Solomon posted an article about this network in TD V23#340 ("Verizon Fios - Fiber-to-the-Premises Network") . > Given the price gouging, poor reliability, and community > disrespect by the cable company, I am looking forward to > Verizon's service offering. > How this will work out for the consumer in terms of quality and > price remains to be seen. It's very possible that competition > will lower cable's price, but only slightly since Verizon will > want to make big profits too and not go too far down in a price > war. Or that Verizon's video service will incur many of the same costs that cable companies face: - Copyright royalty fees: 1% to 2% of basic-tier revenue. - Programming license fees: 25% to 35% of upper-tier revenue. - Franchise fees: 6% to 7% of total revenue. - Free channel capacity for public-, educational-, and government-access facilities. - Support for whatever other fancy goodies (color studios, I-net, free basic service for schools and municipal buildings) that the LFA originally extracted from the incumbent cable company. Barring changes in federal law, these costs will apply even if Verizon uses the IPTV technology that Danny Burstein described in footnote [a] of his post in TD V23#394 . Which is, of course, precisely why Verizon is trying to get federal law changed. Verizon Vice Chairman and President Lawrence Babbio advocates the following: "... Wireline telephone companies that offer video as part of broadband services should not have to obtain cable franchises in every local jurisdiction, since they already have the right of way to deploy networks. Revenue needs of local governments can be met without the delay and red tape inherent in the franchising process. "Adopt a national policy that pre-empts other levels of government. Local jurisdictional borders do not apply to the realm of the Internet. Current policy subjects investments to the conflicting agendas and interpretations of regulatory agencies at every level of government." Source: Verizon News Release "Verizon Taking Lead to Transform Telecommunications Industry, Bring Technology Benefits to Consumers." Aug. 24, 2004. . Eliminating local-franchise requirements would definitely lower Verizon's costs. But you can rest assured that the cable industry will oppose any regulatory relief for telcos unless they get the same relief. Verizon's FIOS system in Keller, Texas is now up and running. One of its first subscribers has posted some pictures of the install at . Neal McLain nmclain@annsgarden.com ------------------------------ From: dor@writeme.com (Satchel Paige) Subject: Latest NorVergence Bankruptcy Hearing News (8/26/04)? Date: 31 Aug 2004 12:01:34 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Does anyone have information or links to what latest actions were taken at NorVergence's most recent U.S. Bankruptcy hearing in Newark, New Jersey? I believe the date of the most recent hearing was on August 26, 2004. ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard Subject: Re: VOIP Connects Workers as They Flee Convention Site Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 11:13:56 -0400 Lisa Hancock wrote in message news:telecom23.404.9@telecom-digest.org: > Jack Decker wrote: >> And why is this a good thing? Because you can take your IP phone or >> the soft phone running on your laptop, plug it in to any broadband >> tap .... > _Any_ broadband tap? Wouldn't it have to have sufficient capacity and > reliability to transmit voice in an acceptable manner and reliability? I agree with Pat. If the connection is not reliable enough or fails to supply sufficient bandwidth, then by definition it is not broadband. > When you're not at home, who pays for public broadband taps? That's up to you and the person or entity supplying the connection. I know quite a few hotels that offer in-room broadband connections as a courtesy (others charge an additional fee on top of the room rental, but if you carefully plan your travel you'll realize they're ripping you off). There are also wireless connections that are public; some are free, some charge a fee. Regardless, if I'm going to be using such a connection, then I'll take my VoIP phone with me and have it available for my use, just as if I was at home. ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard Subject: Re: Phone Card Inquiry Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 11:15:53 -0400 I think this is part of why payphones are slowly becoming extinct. The telephone industry as a whole seems to think that when competition threteans it, it can demand more fees and higher prices. Not so. Tom Smith wrote in message news:telecom23.404.11@telecom-digest.org: > John R. Levine wrote: >>> I'm looking for a prepaid phone card to call from the US to Europe. >>> Without any payphone surcharges. What would you recommend? > Breaking news. The pay phone owners are going to get their money for > use of their phones. If some one else does not collect on their > behalf, you will pay them directly. > So you should be interested in asking for comparisons on cost > differences for payphone usage. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 13:32:42 -0500 (CDT) From: Sam Etler Subject: Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Wasn't an electronic item common in > radios and television sets specifically named after him which was > called the 'Zenner Diode'? In a brief summary, will someone tell us > what was the purpose of the 'Zenner Diode'? PAT] It's actually a Zener Diode (one 'n') and is named after Clarence Melvin Zener. Bell Labs named the diode after him since he discovered the electrical properties associated with them. A good description of Zener Diodes is located here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zener_diode sam ------------------------------ From: adamsjac@telcordia.com (Jack Adams) Subject: Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 Date: 31 Aug 2004 12:57:03 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com While sorry to hear of Walter Zenner's passing, I can pretty much assure Pat and others that the "Zener" diode was not named after him. Noted for it's "avalanche" effect, the diode provides a reference voltage pretty much independant of the current through the device. haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) wrote in message news:: > See Who's Who in Engineering for 1940s-1950s > Chicago native Walt Zenner was a graduate of Armour Institute, now > Illinois Institute of Technology. He worked for Teletype Corp. from > 1925 until he retired in 1965, when he was V.P. of R&D. Then he > co-founded Extel. > This is an obituary from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for Walt > Zenner who passed away on August 27 at the age of 100. > Zenner, Walter J. > Publication Date: August 29, 2004 > Born in Chicago February 21, 1904, passed away august 27, 2004. > Survived by his wife, Lois A. (nee Martin) Zenner; sons, John "Jack" > (Diana) Zenner and Tom Zenner; daughters, Mary (Harold) Webster and > Chris (Larry) Litwin; 11 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren. He > was preceded in death by his first wife, Mildred in 1975. Mr. Zenner > was an inventor of communication products covered by 115 US patents > and was vice president of research and development of Teletype Corp. > from 1928 to 1964. He was also co-founder and chairman of Extel Corp. > an early manufacturer of both dot matrix and ink jet printers of his > design. Friends may visit on Monday from 4 to 8PM at the Funeral Home > and on Tuesday from 1PM until time Funeral Servcie 2PM at First > Congregational Church in Mukwonago (231 Roberts Dr., Mukwonago). > Burial Wednesday 1PM at Mt. Emblem Cemetery, Elmhurst, IL. Memorials > to First Congregational Church of Mukwonago or Kiwanis Manor in East > Troy. > SCHMIDT & BARTELT > VAN VALIN > Funeral and Cremation Service > 315 Main St. (Hwy ES) Mukwonago > jhhaynes at earthlink dot net > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Wasn't an electronic item common in > radios and television sets specifically named after him which was > called the 'Zenner Diode'? In a brief summary, will someone tell us > what was the purpose of the 'Zenner Diode'? PAT] ------------------------------ From: T. Sean Weintz Subject: Re: Caller ID Falsification Service (Sent by a Gnu) Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 15:48:43 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com PAT wrote: > Now imagine for a minute if you *did* return those absolutely wicked, > nosy, spying phone calls to (a) claim your 'prize' or (b) meet the > person who had been 'flirting' with you but you returned the call via > this new web site phalsification service and gave your caller ID > blast as 202-456-1414 or whatever. But this new web site costs money > for your phalse ID calls; why should you have to pay for the service > when you could use your FWD/Pulver phone (which can call USA toll > frees and gives an NYC 212 number for the caller-ID blast.) Wheeee! > And a good time was had by all. PAT Most of these numbers are 800 (or 877, etc.) numbers that have ANI for number identification. The new service will spoof caller ID, but will NOT spoof ANI. What they will see on the ANI info will be the billing number of the spoofing service, not the number you gave the spoofing service to use for spoofing. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In any event it won't give my actual ANI or caller ID, which is what I would be concerned about. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service From: tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 21:47:55 GMT > Slated for launch next week, Star38.com would offer subscribers a > simple Web interface to a Caller I.D. spoofing system that lets them > appear to be calling from any number they choose. "It creates an extra > avenue for them to have someone pick up the phone," says founder Jason > Jepson. Excellent! In no time at all, Caller ID will be absolutely useless, then the phone companies will start giving away the service instead of charging extra for it so the folks who make caller ID boxes and phones can unload all their hardware just before they stop supporting caller ID completely :-). (And I'll have lived through the whole era without ever having caller ID :-). >>==>> The *Best* political site >>==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL | Free Software and Politics <<==+ ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Last Laugh! A Visit to Doctor's Office Reply-To: bond-jamesbond@crazyhat.net Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 06:59:50 GMT In message Lisa Minter wrote: > "And what is wrong with your ear, sir?" > "I can't piss out of it," the man replied. > The doctor's office erupted in laughter. ROFL. Off topic, but cute. Thanks! 'Tis far better to have snipped too much than to never have snipped at all. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I thought it was cute also, and although Lisa Minter did not make a good editor for this Digest, she has had a few excellent stories for Last Laugh! items now and then. 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. 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PAT] From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Sep 1 14:23:50 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i81INo708930; Wed, 1 Sep 2004 14:23:50 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 14:23:50 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409011823.i81INo708930@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 #408 TELECOM Digest Wed, 1 Sep 2004 14:21:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 408 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Vonage(R) Now Available Nationally at Office Depot (Decker - VOIP News) Bright House Launches Online Phone Service (Jack Decker - VOIP News) AT&T Chief Refuses to 'Miss' VoIP (Jack Decker - VOIP News) Quintum Configuration AXM 800 (Waez) AT&T System 25 Help (REC Networks) Sendmail Searches for Antispam Testers (Monty Solomon) Re: Considering VoIP For Home? Think About AT&T CallVantage (charlie3) Re: Spoofing Caller-ID (John R. Covert) Re: Spoofing Caller-ID (Fileseeker) Re: Spoofing Caller-ID (Hank Karl) Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service (DevilsPGD) Re: Caller ID Falsification Service (Sent by a Gnu) (Tim@Backhome.org) Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 (AES/newspost) Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 (Kenneth P. Stox) Re: Verizon Cable TV? (Lisa Hancock) Re: PBX, NBX? (Justin Time) Re: You Can Still Send a Western Union Mailgram (Jim Haynes) Re: You Can Still Send a Western Union Mailgram (Ray Normandeau) Moderator's 'Home Brew' Computer (Mark Smith) 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: Jack Decker Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 09:27:23 -0400 Subject: Vonage(R) Now Available Nationally at Office Depot Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/09-01-2004/0002242001&EDATE= Vonage is now Available in Nearly 7,000 Retail Stores EDISON, N.J., Sept. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Vonage, the leading broadband phone company, today announced Office Depot will now sell its affordable, enhanced IP-communications services in over 700 of its stores and online at http://www.officedepot.com . High-speed Internet customers, who have a standard telephone, can sign up for Vonage service by purchasing one of two Vonage starter kits at Office Depot, both featuring Linksys devices. Either device offers customers the ability to select one of several flat-rate, full-featured residential and small business broadband telephony calling plans in the U.S. and Canada starting at $14.99. "The national roll out of Vonage's broadband telephony product at Office Depot presents a great opportunity, which will allow us to prove the value of our products on retail shelves," said Daniel Elwell, director of New Business Development for Vonage. "We are looking forward to transform the telecommunications industry with successful sales margins with one of the nation's top retailers, as Office Depot's market savvy and educated sales representatives demonstrate the value of broadband phone service to an untapped market segment." Full press release at: http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/09-01-2004/0002242001&EDATE= How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 09:29:34 -0400 Subject: Bright House Launches Online Phone Service Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040901/NEWS/409010364/1178 By LOUIS HAU St. Petersburg Times Bright House Networks said Monday it has launched Internet phone service throughout Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, putting the Tampa Bay area's dominant cable company in direct competition with Verizon Communications. Bright House plans to add phone service in Pasco County and Polk County by the end of September and in Hernando and Citrus counties by the end of December. [.....] But Bright House's offering also differs from those competing Internet services in key ways. Most importantly, Bright House says that emergency 911 calls made through its phone service will be routed directly to an emergency dispatcher, who will be able to trace the call immediately. Vonage and AT&T route such calls to an intermediary office, which forwards the call to an emergency dispatcher. In addition, a customer signing up for Bright House's phone service doesn't need to purchase a high-speed broadband connection to use it. Instead, a highspeed modem is included in the price of the service. "We're here to replace your existing phone service, not to be an adjunct to it," said Terri McNulty, vice president of high-speed online services for Brigh House Tampa Bay. Full story at: http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040901/NEWS/409010364/1178 ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 17:21:55 -0400 Subject: AT&T Chief Refuses to 'Miss' VoIP Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://news.com.com/2008-7352_3-5329496.html By Dawn Kawamoto and Ben Charny Staff Writer, CNET News.com David Dorman, AT&T's chief executive, is determined not to let history repeat itself. Ma Bell -- under prior management in the 1990s -- let the Internet revolution slip from its grasp, as companies like America Online, EarthLink and MSN grabbed the lead in providing Internet access. Now amid cutthroat pricing, rival MCI's emergence from bankruptcy, and a regulatory climate that led AT&T to step away from consumer telephone service, the company is relying on voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, as one of the tools to accelerate growth in its business segment. That segment, which comprises about 75 percent of AT&T's approximately $30 billion in annual revenue, may not receive a huge windfall in revenue from Net telephony. But VoIP, which allows businesses and consumers to make inexpensive phone calls via the Internet, plays a significant role in AT&T's long-term strategy of being the next HBO-like service to cable companies and the Baby Bells. Dorman, who recently met with reporters and editors from CNET News.com, talked about his company's views and strategy on VoIP and AT&T's CallVantage program. Full story at: http://news.com.com/2008-7352_3-5329496.html ------------------------------ From: pexavoip@yahoo.ca (Waez) Subject: Quintum Configuration AXM 800 Date: 31 Aug 2004 16:31:33 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com When we set the IVR to other than type 0 or 1, we get a busy tone, no IVR prompts. The tenor logs are : ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:47:720 CasManager: [2,0,1,1] Received message fr om cas: Setup. ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:47:720 CallInfo [5]: origCalled.digit() callingp arty () . ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:47:720 CasManager: [2,0,1,1] Sent message to cas : Call-Proc. ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:47:720 Routing requested for: public(1) orig= pu blic(0) normalized=1111* route code= tg=0. ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:47:720 1 match(es) found: 0 ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:47:720 Route response [5]: result=1 cause=0. ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:47:720 TermIVRradius [5]: peerRcvSetup excp |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:47:720 Exceeds muximum ports allowed: 0, 0 excp |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:47:720 Failed to allocate a Full Duplex channel. excp |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:47:725 TermIVRradius [5]: Dsp allocate error. ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:47:725 TermIVRradius [0]: Aborting IVR cause=41. ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:47:725 OBCSM[5]: Release from peer=0x962be998 ca use=0x29 redir=. ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:47:725 OBCSM[5]: Trying another route. ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:47:725 Route response [5]: result=0 cause=34. ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:47:725 CallInfo [5]: account =67.69.33.212. ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:47:725 CallInfo [5]: SetAcctSessionTime(10937296 07),discTicks 1093729607, connTicks 0 ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:47:725 CallInfo [5]: cause =41. ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:47:725 CallInfo [5]: send stopAccount. ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:47:725 CasManager: [2,0,1,1] Sent message to cas : Alert. ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:47:725 CasManager: [2,0,1,1] Received message fr om cas: InbandSigDone. ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:47:725 tsi connect: 000 1002 10 ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:49:950 CasManager: [2,0,1,1] Received message fr om cas: RelComp. ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:49:950 CallInfo[5]: disconnected event. cause=16 legno=0. ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:49:950 CallInfo [5]: account =67.69.33.212. ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:49:950 CallInfo [5]: SetAcctSessionTime(10937296 09),discTicks 1093729609, connTicks 0 ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:49:950 CallInfo [5]: cause =16. ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:49:950 CallInfo [5]: send stopAccount. ch |01/01| 2004/08/28|21:46:49:950 tsi disconnect: 000 1002 10 How can I resolve that? And also how can we get the IVR prompts for the other languages? We tried to create other folders in IVR folder ( thru ftp ), but we can't. How can we do that ? Thanks. ------------------------------ From: REC Networks Subject: AT&T System 25 Help Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 22:14:12 -0700 I have just got my hands on an AT&T System 25. I believe that it has the last release (R3V3). It has a ZTN142C processor card. The second card is a ZTN131. I am trying to build an octopus cord with a 25 pair Amphenol (telco) connector on one end a a 9 pin female D-Sub connector on the other end. The AT&T installation manual shows a possible pinout of the first data port (for the administration terminal) as: 26-RD SG-1 27- DCD-2 28-DTR TD-3 Does anyone know how to wire this up so I can access my system? Any help would be appreciated. Rich Eyre for REC Networks REC Networks - http://www.recnet.com - Bringing you fun and culture since 1984. http://www.animehardcoreradio.net - Anime Hardcore Radio - 24 hour a day anime! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 08:26:26 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Sendmail Searches For Antispam Testers By Robert Lemos Staff Writer, CNET News.com Sendmail has taken a first stab at software to authenticate the source of e-mail messages, a technology that will be key to preventing the proliferation of spam. The company released a module for its Sendmail e-mail server software that attempts to verify the source of messages to help Internet users block mail from unwanted senders. The technique is part of a developing Internet standard known as Sender ID . http://news.com.com/2100-1032-5330638.html ------------------------------ From: charlie@cdsdetroit.com (charlie3) Subject: Re: Considering VoIP For Home? Think Twice About AT&T CallVantage Date: 1 Sep 2004 09:01:16 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I have Vonage set to ring my cell and Vonage phone simultaneously so I can answer the call with either phone. At home I hear both phones ring at the same time. I have voicemail set up so that Vonage voicemail picks up the call before cell phone voicemail so all my voice messages are on Vonage. I can check Vonage voice mail with the cell phone, a land line, over the internet or from the Vonage phone. If the cell phone was in range during the missed call I will see a missed call message on the cell phone and often the missed call number as well. I don't see the missed call name on the cell phone unless the caller is in my cell phone list. If the Vonage box is disconnected or the network is down I have Vonage set to forward all calls to my cell phone. Vonage will forward calls only to one non Vonage phone but to more than one Vonage account. It would be convenient for me if Vonage would allow more than one non Vonage phone for simultaneous ring but that limitation is not enough to push me to another provider. My Vonage account has my 20+ years home phone number ported to it. Unlike old fashioned call forwarding, simultaneous ring is set and forget. People need only one number to find me. They don't need to know I have a cell phone. My cell phone minutes at home are zero so I need half the cell minutes of most people who rely on cell phones. When I pick up my Vonage phone I hear a dial tone, my call goes through, the person I'm talking to does not notice we are on an internet phone. When I leave the house the house phone is clipped to my belt, there is no cell phone number as a practical matter. Occaisionally my network goes down or the Vonage box is disconnected for travel. Then the cell phone backs me up both for incoming and outgoing calls. These occasions have been so rare there has been little impact on my cell phone minutes. There is a learning curve with VOIP. Expect some glitches. I advise my friends who are interested to have either a cell phone or traditional phone for backup. I also advise forwarding the house phone to the Vonage phone for a testing period of a few months before porting the house phone to Vonage. For me Vonage is the right product for the right price. If the quality of service stays as it is I won't be needing a tradiational house phone now or in the future. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 07:15:02 -0400 (EDT) From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: Spoofing Caller-ID Jack Adams wrote: > I'm guessing that this firm uses in-band 202 signalling to "overwrite" > any normal CLID message Your guess would be wrong. As the article said, "Caller ID spoofing has for years been within the reach of businesses with certain types of digital connections to their local phone company, and more recently has become the plaything of hackers and pranksters exploiting permissive voice over IP systems." Using in-band 202 signalling would only spoof an ancient, poorly designed, caller-id box, and would not even be noticed on a cellphone or by caller-id on call-waiting. And even for landline phones, all CID boxes made in recent memory only accept one caller-id, the one sent immediately after the first ring, when the caller does not yet have an in-band connection, and cannot be spoofed once the in-band connection is set up when the called party goes off-hook. In band spoofing also wouldn't change what appears on my phone bill which lists the caller ID and name of all incoming callers. This firm is clearly doing it the way the article stated. Now that Ma Bell is no longer in complete control of everything, this has become very easy to do. If you'd like a demonstration, contact me. nospamtd is not my email username, but a good guess would probably be right. And I'll tell you what number you're calling from, even if you blocked caller ID (but not if you're coming from somewhere that sends no calling number information at all). /john ------------------------------ From: Fileseeker Subject: Re: Spoofing Caller-ID Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 10:34:18 -0400 Organization: Cox Communications Jack Adams wrote in message news:telecom23.406.2@telecom-digest.org: > I'm guessing that this firm uses in-band 202 signalling to "overwrite" > any normal CLID message that's been launched from ISUP. Technically, > it isn't a big deal. > It's been a while since I knew what was required but if memory serves > this is prohibited under some sort of law? I recall that this was not > permitted but I don't know for sure if it was for legal or regulatory > reasons. > Then again, all of this seems to be fair game these days. > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/30/caller_id_falsify/ So called "Orange" boxes of both the h/w and s/w variety have been available for several years. They overwrite the CID device with sound files that can cause user defined numbers to appear on CID. Only works with CID/call waiting boxes. ------------------------------ From: Hank Karl Subject: Re: Spoofing Caller-ID Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 12:01:40 -0400 Organization: NETPLEX Internet Services - http://www.ntplx.net/ On 31 Aug 2004 06:22:46 -0700, adamsjac@telcordia.com (Jack Adams) wrote: > I'm guessing that this firm uses in-band 202 signalling to "overwrite" > any normal CLID message that's been launched from ISUP. Technically, > it isn't a big deal. It may not be in-band 202 signaling. There's been discussion in either c.d.t or c.d.voice-over-ip regarding the ability of VoIP providers to spoof caller-id. You need a VoIP device that allows you to fill in the desired caller-id, and a service that has SS7 connectivity, and will pass the caller-id without verification. Its also "well known" that some CO switches may not verify the supplied caller-id on a PRI, so all you need is a PBX that lets you configure your own caller-id. > It's been a while since I knew what was required but if memory serves > this is prohibited under some sort of law? I recall that this was not > permitted but I don't know for sure if it was for legal or regulatory > reasons. > Then again, all of this seems to be fair game these days. > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/30/caller_id_falsify/ ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service Reply-To: bond-jamesbond@crazyhat.net Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 02:32:40 GMT In message tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) wrote: >> Slated for launch next week, Star38.com would offer subscribers a >> simple Web interface to a Caller I.D. spoofing system that lets them >> appear to be calling from any number they choose. "It creates an extra >> avenue for them to have someone pick up the phone," says founder Jason >> Jepson. > Excellent! In no time at all, Caller ID will be absolutely useless, > then the phone companies will start giving away the service instead of > charging extra for it so the folks who make caller ID boxes and phones > can unload all their hardware just before they stop supporting caller > ID completely :-). There is a simple fix. Add a bankruptcy-shielded $1,000,000 fine (Including asset forfeiture) for anyone who spoofs CID, if the victim complains. This would include anyone who authorized, enabled or assisted the CID spoofing, including telcos which failed to take appropriate steps to prevent their customers from spoofing CID, principles of the company who spoofed the CID, and the actual individual who made the call. Complaints would be registered by dialing *55, which would not only "tag" The call in the telcos database, but immediately inform you whether ANI and CID matches. The fine would be paid 25% to the recipient of the call, 25% to the telco (which would be the telco's incentive to offer *55), 25% to the bounty hunter and/or repo crew to collect the assets, and 25% to the gov't. Court costs would come from the repo crew and gov't shares equally. I can bet that after approximately five such fines across the US as a whole, CID spoofing would be a thing of the past. Now ... What if you can't trace where the call originated, one of the telcos happened to "lose" the ANI information? Welp, the buck stops when you can't trace the call any further. In other words, each telco that the call passes through is responsible for payment unless they can demonstrating where the call entered their network. HAM AND EGGS: A day's work for a chicken; A lifetime commitment for a pig ------------------------------ From: Tim@Backhome.org Subject: Re: Caller ID Falsification Service (Sent by a Gnu) Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 00:31:52 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, you know what is good for the > goose is also good for the gander as they say. Debtors can also use > that service to spoof the skip tracers and bill collectors. For > example, a common technique used by skip tracers who cannot find your > phone number anywhere is to send you a letter from some bogus company > telling you that you have won a prize; to claim the prize all you have > to do is call us on this (toll free) number and punch in the 'extension' > number shown. The letter is vague enough that they do not have to > award any prizes, but they do match up *your* phone number (which is > what they really wanted; you cannot hide it when you call an 800 number) > and the specifics of your alleged indebtedness (the 'extension' number > you were asked to punch in when you called), and you can be sure you > will get a callback rather soon from some no-nonsense person who would > like to speak with you about your debt. They don't all bother with the > ruse of telling you that you won a prize, some skip tracers employ > young ladies to write cozy, friendly, occassionally lurid letters > using pink felt tip markers to guys (males, it seems, make up the > majority of skip-traceable [or hard-core] debtors) claiming to be a > long-lost friend (of the opposite sex of course; what guy would not > fall for that one and eagerly return the call). "Call me on my office > line at 800-xxx-xxxx and ask for extension xxxxx so we can renew our > friendship." Men are always getting lured into that trap I am sorry > to say. > Now imagine for a minute if you *did* return those absolutely wicked, > nosy, spying phone calls to (a) claim your 'prize' or (b) meet the > person who had been 'flirting' with you but you returned the call via > this new web site phalsification service and gave your caller ID > blast as 202-456-1414 or whatever. But this new web site costs money > for your phalse ID calls; why should you have to pay for the service > when you could use your FWD/Pulver phone (which can call USA toll > frees and gives an NYC 212 number for the caller-ID blast.) Wheeee! > And a good time was had by all. PAT] These jerks claim they are going to offer the service only to collection agencies and such. I believe it will force the FCC to expand its 1995 Calller ID ruling to prevent spoofing. The FCC still owes everyone a further decision from that 9 year old ruling pertaining to whether, or when, PBXes must send calling party number identification (the calling party's part of the caller id "deal.") ------------------------------ From: AES/newspost Subject: Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 17:01:02 -0700 In article , Sam Etler wrote: > A good description of Zener Diodes is located here: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zener_diode A nice description indeed -- except it says the pronunciation is "ZEN-ur", which I would take to mean as in "Zen Buddhism", and I've always heard it pronounced as "ZEEN-ur" (or "ZINE-ur", as in "magazine"). ????? ------------------------------ From: Kenneth P. Stox Organization: Imaginary Landscape, LLC. Subject: Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 02:22:04 GMT Jim Haynes wrote: > See Who's Who in Engineering for 1940s-1950s > Chicago native Walt Zenner was a graduate of Armour Institute, now > Illinois Institute of Technology. He worked for Teletype Corp. from > 1925 until he retired in 1965, when he was V.P. of R&D. Then he > co-founded Extel. For those who don't know the joke, Extel was short for Ex-teletype. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Verizon Cable TV? Date: 1 Sep 2004 07:01:13 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Isaiah Beard wrote: > Funny that. Considering the poor reliability, price gouging and > community disrepect earned by Verizon, I couldn't wait to get VoIP > over a cable broadband connection and drop Verizon for good. :) I have found Verizon service to be very good. My long distance costs went down and service quality went up when they were allowed to offer their own long distance. I dumped AT&T. Verizon had to enlarge their central office and worked hard with the town to preserve nearby Victorian homes (which they owned; one was the exchange 50 years ago) as well as make the building fit into the historic district. Part of the need for enlargement was to accomodate competitor's switchgear. > I guess it depends on where you live. Cable and telephone have both > been prevailing regulated monopolies for a long time, and depending on > where you live, one or the other is the lesser of two evils that you > must pick from. If only DBS didn't have such a horrible latency > problem, we could all drop both services. I thought cable TV was deregulated nationally; in my area it's been deregulated for some time. The prices have gone up. Certain premium local telephone services have been deregulated, but AFAIK in my area the price has not gone up. ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: PBX, NBX? Date: 1 Sep 2004 07:53:18 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com paxsonc001@hawaii.rr.com (Calvin) wrote in message news:: > Hi all, > I work for a small school and we are getting ready to upgrade our very > old Meridian phone system to something a bit newer ... however we are > having a tough time deciding what to use. Are there any good websites > out their that we can use as a resource to figure out some of the > differences? For instance, what is the difference between an Avaya > Diffinity and a Partner? What systems do viop? How does a Cisco > system compare to a 3com nbx? > Any guidance would be appreciated. A little about us: > We are located on a 3 acre campus. We have a network running between > about 12 small buildings. We want to install about 20 extensions, as > well as a couple of analog cordless phones. We want to be able to use > our existing network to minimize wiring costs/ maximize flexability. > What else would you like to /need to know? Ask me anything and i will > tell you what I can. > Thanks in advance, > Cal If the only reason for installing a new phone system is to gain access to new features, have you checked into upgrades to your Meridian from Nortel? It may be the cheaper -- as in less expensive -- way to go as you may be able to continue to use the same desksets rather than having to buy new. That, and you are already familiar with any administration you perform. The new Nortel system wouldn't force you to learn a completely new interface. Oh, I don't work for Nortel, never have and don't even sell their systems. Rodgers Platt ------------------------------ Subject: Re: You Can Still Send a Western Union Mailgram Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 02:45:03 GMT In article , Lisa Hancock wrote: > The Western Union website IIRC says Mailgrams are no longer provided. > Could it be that the Mailgram is provided by a separate company? Well it could be that New Valley sold the "Western Union Mailgram" service mark to someone other than the buyer of the Western Union money transfer service -- I don't know. The preprinted form, blue on white paper, says "Western Union Messaging Services" with the Western Union in the familiar shape of one word above the other and a vertical line to the right. Then Messaging Services is in fine print under that. And then it says United States Postal Service with the USPS eagle logo. And has the number 800-325-6000 printed on the back. jhhaynes at earthlink dot net ------------------------------ From: rayta@msn.com (Ray Normandeau) Subject: Re: You Can Still Send a Western Union Mailgram Date: 31 Aug 2004 21:14:28 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote in message news:: > haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) wrote: >> Because I just received one today. There's a toll-free number on >> the back to reply by Mailgram - 800-325-6000 > The Western Union website IIRC says Mailgrams are no longer provided. > Could it be that the Mailgram is provided by a separate company? Could it be that the Postal Service delivery service quality control has fallen futher then I suspect. I am expecting a package that says attempted delivery, and that a note was left when no attempt was made. This is as per USPS WWW tacking site. I think the workers just scan the pacjage and let it sit at the Post Office. ------------------------------ From: Mark Smith Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 13:11:22 PDT Subject: Moderator's 'Home Brew' Computer Reply-To: telecom-news@yahoogroups.com TELECOM Digest Editor explained his 'home brew' computer: > There is a slot to install another 1.44 mb floppy if desired and a > space to install a larger old style 5 1/2 inch floppy if I wanted, > or another CD-DVD thing if I wished, but I do not know where those > latter two slots (if I were to fill them with devices) would plug > in; the ribbon connectors inside are all in use as I recall. There should be two connectors on the floppy drive cable. The old ones had a flip on the address lines, but sometimes jumpers are used. With all your drives power connectors are more likely to be a problem, but luckily power twinning cables are available. The last time I installed a 5 1/4" floppy, I ended up salvaging a floppy cable from a 286 because new computers only have the "small" floppy connector. The 286s would have one large and one small. If you wanted to use two 3 1/2" floppies you would get an adapter from large to small. The reverse are not commonly available. Mark L. Smith smith@stones.com http://smith.freehosting.net ------------------------------ 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 #408 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Sep 2 03:11:50 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i827Bn913908; Thu, 2 Sep 2004 03:11:50 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 03:11:50 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409020711.i827Bn913908@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 #409 TELECOM Digest Thu, 2 Sep 2004 03:11:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 409 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Philly Considers Wireless Internet for All (Monty Solomon) WIPphone to Offer Free Local Phone Numbers to Top 20 U.S. (M Solomon) 53 Million American Adults are Instant Message Users (Monty Solomon) Scummy Spyware Gets Even Scummier (TELECOM Digest Editor) Skype2Phone and Phone2Skype Function (John) Re: Book Review: Fighting Spam for Dummies, Levine/Young/Church (Smith) Re: Cable Addresses? (Wesrock@aol.com) Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service (John R. Covert) Re: Verizon Cable TV? (Neal McLain) Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 (Jim Haynes) Re: Last Laugh! A Visit to Doctor's Office (Tom Smith) Re: Vonage dual ring, was Considering VoIP For Home (John Levine) Re: You Can Still Send a Westren Union Mailgram (SunGard BSR) Re: You Can Still Send a Western Union Mailgram (J Kelly) Re: Dating an Old Phone Number (elgart@earthlink.net) 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: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 22:56:36 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Philly Considers Wireless Internet for All By DAVID B. CARUSO Associated Press Writer PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Forget finding an Internet cafe. For less than what it costs to build a small library, city officials believe they can turn all 135 square miles of Philadelphia into the world's largest wireless Internet hot spot. The ambitious plan, now under discussion, would involve placing thousands of small transmitters around the city _ probably atop lampposts. Each of these wireless hot spots would be capable of communicating with the Wi-Fi network cards that now come standard with many computers. Once complete, the $10 million network would deliver broadband Internet almost anywhere radio waves can travel _ including poor neighborhoods where high-speed Internet access is now rare. The city would likely offer the service either for free, or at costs far lower than the $35 to $60 a month charged for broadband delivered over telephone and cable TV lines, said the city's chief information officer, Dianah Neff. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43441706 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 23:00:15 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: WIPphone to Offer Free Local Phone Numbers to the Top 20 U.S. NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 1, 2004-- Callers Can Now Reach Customers around the World for the Cost of a Local Call The latest salvo aimed at the likes of Vonage, AT&T and Verizon in the "VoIP Features War" is being launched as Worldwide Telco ( www.wIPphone.com ), a New York-based telecom company, establishes the first VoIP local access number network providing free local numbers for the top 20 U.S. cities. Additionally, callers to these numbers will be able to reach any wIPphone subscriber around the world for the price of a local call. The following markets will be offered in wIPphone's local access network: New York Houston Los Angeles Miami Chicago Seattle San Francisco Phoenix Washington St. Louis Boston Minneapolis Atlanta San Diego Dallas Denver Detroit Tampa Philadelphia Cleveland - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43431659 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 00:13:37 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: 53 Million American Adults are Instant Message Users http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/89/press_release.asp 53 Million American Adults are Instant Message Users Some 42% of online Americans use instant messaging, and 24% of instant messagers say they use IM more frequently than email. 9/1/2004 Some 42% of online Americans use instant messaging, and 24% of instant messagers say they use IM more frequently than email. This translates to 53 million American adults who instant message and over 12 million who IM more than emailing. On a typical day, 29% of instant messengers-or roughly 15 million American adults-use IM. The new survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project also finds that instant messaging is especially popular among younger adults and technology enthusiasts. 62% of Gen Y Americans (those ages 18-27) report using IM. Within the instant messaging Gen Y age group, 46% report using IM more frequently than email. http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/89/press_release.asp How Americans Use Instant Messaging Eulynn Shiu, Amanda Lenhart 9/1/2004 http://www.pewinternet.org/report_display.asp?r=133 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 14:59:19 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Scummy Spyware Gets Even Scummier Several months ago in an Editor's Note I told you that this kind of thing was becoming more prevalent. Other than repeatedly flushing your computer with products like Ad-Aware or other tools to seek out spies, which should be done on a regular basis anyway, another fool-proof solution (at least for now) is to keep your on line cameras *pointed at a wall or corner* when not in use and keep your audio capture (i.e. microphones) turned off through hardware (using the off/on switch or otherwise disconnected). Now, as this story from Yahoo News reported yesterday, your Moderator was not as paranoid as some of you accuse me of being. ------ From Yahoo News / Reuters / other reports Tuesday 8/31 ---- It was creepy enough when virus writers designed worms able to steal our financial data and password information off our PCs. Now, in a new twist on the standard Trojan, virus writers have managed to make spyware even seedier. The W32/Rhot-GR worm is able to hijack webcams and microphones to spy on users in their home or workplace, according to Sophos security consulting firm. It spreads via network shares, exploiting a number of Microsoft security vulnerabilities, and installs a backdoor Trojan as it travels. Besides spying on users via the webcam, it also is able to steal personal data. Industrial Espionage By Day, Peeping Tom By Night In theory, this is a very worrisome development. "In the workplace, this worm opens up the possibilities of industrial espionage. At home, it is equivalent to a Peeping Tom who invades your privacy by peering through your curtains," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "If your computer is infected, and you have a webcam plugged in, then everything you do in front of the computer can be seen -- and everything you say can be recorded." With many home users keeping poorly defended PCs in their bedrooms, there is considerable potential for abuse, Cluley observes. However, the worm is not able to manipulate images -- it can only capture them as they stream. Not in the Wild Yet The good news, Panda Software CTO Patrick Hinojosa told NewsFactor, is that there have not been any occurrences of this virus in the wild -- yet. "If it is out there, it is not spreading very fast," he says. Also, it is not a virus that is likely to get past the high-end computer security systems that many companies now have installed. Another factor that would limit the worm's spread is the issue of bandwidth. "I don't believe this will be a very effective worm even if it does get out there, because you are talking about a huge amount of bandwidth to support all these webcams." "It's a creepier development than anything else," Hinojosa says. *** 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 Yahoo News, Reuters News, others. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------- End of news report ------- Of course, if your thing is exhibitionism, if you enjoy putting yourself on public display, you can ignore all this. Yes, at one point I did enjoy operating a full time cam page of myself, but no longer. And when I do present camera images such as the street in front of my house and my back yard, I prefer to do so in a judicious and discrete manner. I'm afraid with this latest development not all members of the internet community will take the care they should to keep their cameras under *their exclusive control*. PAT ------------------------------ From: johns_95110@yahoo.com (John) Subject: Skype2Phone and Phone2Skype function Date: 1 Sep 2004 17:54:17 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com The product works great with Skype I can forward my incoming Skype call to my cell if I am not at home. www.cuphone.com/skype ------------------------------ From: John Smith Subject: Re: Book Review: Fighting Spam for Dummies, Levine/Young/Church Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 23:50:00 GMT I've used the Windows version of Spam Assassin ever since it was favorably reviewed by none other than Consumer Reports magazine a year or two ago. It takes a minute or two to set up, but the instructions are not rocket science. ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 20:32:36 EDT Subject: Re: Cable Addresses? In a message dated 8/30/04 2:23:33 PM Central Daylight Time, editor@telecom-digest.org writes: > From: Mike Riddle > Organization: Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish & Short > Subject: Cable Addresses? > Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 12:59:49 -0500 > "To Reply Replace the Obvious 'mriddle'" > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The above header arrived here with no > text of any sort from Mike Riddle. Since the subject had a question > mark after it, my assumption is his question may have been 'What is > a Cable Address' or 'Do they still have them'. The answer would be > yes they still have them, although rarely used (in the sense that > 'cable messages' these days are rare. When they were prevelant (when > telegrams were prevelant) they functioned like 'vanity numbers' or > 'easy to remember' telex/TWX numbers. A business place or organization > in its advertising would often times give their address, their > telephone number and their 'cable address', typically one or two words > you could say to the telegraph clerk when you wished to send a message > to that place. A couple cable addresses I remember were 'Symphony' > which referred to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (in place of its > longer telex number) and 'Beacon Hill' although I do not remember who > that one was for. Just as modern day telco charges extra to give you > an easy to remember number, so did Western Union charge extra, and > although domestic messages were called 'telegrams' and international > messages were called 'cables' or 'cablegrams', in either case easy to > remember word phrases in place of numbers were called 'cable addresses'. > Some cable addresses also functioned like modern day '800 toll free > numbers' but not absolutely unless the subscriber agreed to pay for > them. I hope this answer to Mike Riddle is satisfactory, given that no > text showed up with the header; and thanks for the old memory! PAT] I believe you have missed the point about the reason for "cable addresses", which were used for both cablegrams and radiograms. For cablegrams and radiograms, the "to" address was charged for at the full rate per word at the same rate as words in the text. And the cost per word was often considerable. An address like "Engineering Department, Detroit Diesel Division of General Motors Corporations, 000 Whatever Street, LaGrange, Illinois" would be pretty expensive for the sender (or, if collect, to the receiver). So the cable address was not like a vanity address ... it was a significant cost saver. "Locomotives LaGrange" was a whole bunch cheaper than all the words in a full address. (The country of address was free.) Incidentally, I don't believe Western Union recognized cable addresses in domestic telegrams ... only cablegrams and radiograms. And Western Union was not the dominant international record carrier; there were many competing cable and radio carriers, both U.S. and foreign. A cable address had to be registered with each carrier, and I believe there was a monthly or annual fee charged by each carrier. Often besides the "cable address" there would be information as to what carriers it was registered with. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are correct that cost was a factor since the full name and address were counted in international messages, at least inbound into the USA. But I recall once or twice *many* years ago when I had occassion to send a telegram to a company here in the USA and I told the message taker I wanted to send it to a 'cable address' instead of a company name and address. At first she objected saying 'cables are only international, domestic messages are telegrams'; but then she corrected herself and said "Oh, you were not referring to sending a cable, but a telegram to a *CABLE ADDRESS* which is different. That we can do." PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 20:53:12 EDT From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service > Complaints would be registered by dialing *55, which would not only > "tag" The call in the telcos database, but immediately inform you > whether ANI and CID matches. You're making two assumptions: 1. That ANI is passed along through the network. There is no need for it to be passed anywhere billing information is not needed. 2. Even if it is passed along, the assumption that it should be the same is not true. The ANI for a call from a DID PBX is likely to be the main number, whereas the caller ID could be either the main number or the actual DID number. Or even the other way around. Or from a VoIP phone, the ANI is the number at which the call enters the network, and the Caller ID is the actual number. Or for a call forwarded through another number, the ANI is the number of the phone doing the forwarding and the caller ID is the number of the original caller. /john ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 22:07:11 -0500 From: Neal McLain Subject: Re: Verizon Cable TV? Lisa Hancock hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > I thought cable TV was deregulated nationally; in my area > it's been deregulated for some time. Upper tiers (any tiers other than basic) have been deregulated nationally. The basic tier is regulated if your local franchising authority (LFA) chooses to regulate it, subject to FCC oversight. You can get more information about this from your LFA. Your cable bill should specify the name and telephone number of your LFA. By FCC definition, the basic tier contains: - All domestic local television broadcast stations. For the purpose of this definition, "domestic" means US stations, but excludes Canadian and Mexican stations; "local" means within the Designated Market Area (DMA) [as defined by Nielsen Media Research] in which the cable system is located. - All public-, educational-, government-access channels designated by the LFA for carriage on the basic tier. - Anything else that the cable company chooses to add. Source: 47 CFR 76.901(a) . > The prices have gone up. Your LFA should be able to provide you with copies of documentation concerning basic-tier rate regulation. Increases in the license fees for non-broadcast programming have driven most of the recent upper-tier price increases. See my post about this in TD V23#394 . Neal McLain nmclain@annsgarden.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Obituary: Walter J. Zenner, 1904-2004 Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 03:38:05 GMT In article , Kenneth P. Stox wrote: > For those who don't know the joke, Extel was short for Ex-teletype. I used to think that too, but actually it wasn't. This I got straight from a conversation with Walt. There was an English stock exchange telegraph association called Extel, and that name wasn't taken in the U.S. so Walt and Peter Mero, who founded Extel, took that for their company name. Their original product was a stock ticker with an electronic selector to limit what was printed to a dozen or two stocks the individual was interested in. This was called Quotemaster, and the idea was that they would be installed in homes or offices of individuals. The product and the name was sold to TransLux, who never produced it. Hence the company needed a new name and they took the name of the London company which was named Exchange Telegraph but popularly abbreviated Ex Tel. jhhaynes at earthlink dot net ------------------------------ From: Tom Smith Subject: Re: Last Laugh! A Visit to Doctor's Office Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 04:45:32 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet DevilsPGD wrote: > 'Tis far better to have snipped too much than to never have snipped > at all.' Not if you are describing your circumcision. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Sep 2004 18:56:22 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Vonage dual ring, was Considering VoIP For Home Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > I have Vonage set to ring my cell and Vonage phone simultaneously so I > can answer the call with either phone. At home I hear both phones > ring at the same time. I have voicemail set up so that Vonage > voicemail picks up the call before cell phone voicemail so all my > voice messages are on Vonage. I do the same thing, except that I don't have voice mail on my cell phone (I told them not to turn it on) so people call my Vonage number, it rings both the office phone and cell phone, and it goes to Vonage voicemail if I don't answer one of them. Since Vonage can send e-mail notifications when you get voicemail, I have a little script on my computer that catches the VM mail, scrunches it down to one line including the phone number and time, and sends that as a text message to my cell phone. So I always can tell if I have voicemail, since my office phone has the flashing light and the cell phone has its SMS messages. I give my cell phone number to almost nobody, but it's occasionally been handy that someone can call and let it ring in case I'm in the car and need to pull over to answer it (I live in NY) or otherwise can't get it in the 10 seconds before it would otherwise go to voicemail. Regards, John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of The Internet for Dummies, Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, Mayor "More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: You Can Still Send a Western Union Mailgram Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 14:54:28 -0400 From: Carpenter, J (SunGard BSR) >> Because I just received one today. There's a toll-free number on >> the back to reply by Mailgram - 800-325-6000 > The Western Union website IIRC says Mailgrams are no longer provided. > Could it be that the Mailgram is provided by a separate company? I found both mailgrams and telegrams on their web site as still being provided. http://www.westernunion.com/info/bsMessaging.asp?country=3DU1#mailgram http://www.westernunion.com/info/osTelegram.asp ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Re: You Can Still Send a Western Union Mailgram Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 14:04:54 -0500 Organization: http://newsguy.com Reply-To: jkelly@newsguy.com On 31 Aug 2004 21:14:28 -0700, rayta@msn.com (Ray Normandeau) wrote: > hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote in message > news:: >> haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) wrote: >>> Because I just received one today. There's a toll-free number on >>> the back to reply by Mailgram - 800-325-6000 >> The Western Union website IIRC says Mailgrams are no longer provided. >> Could it be that the Mailgram is provided by a separate company? > Could it be that the Postal Service delivery service quality control > has fallen futher then I suspect. > I am expecting a package that says attempted delivery, and that a > note was left when no attempt was made. > This is as per USPS WWW tacking site. > I think the workers just scan the pacjage and let it sit at the Post > Office. Yes, sometime they do. I sent a package once that said it was delivered to the recipient. The guy kept emailing me wanting to know where it was. After a couple weeks of that I went to my post office and asked the Postmaster about it. He said it had been delivered according to the Delivery Confirmation number. Upon further investigation using the tracking number on the insurance tag we find out that it was NOT delivered, and was in fact waiting for the customer to pick it up at the Chicago P.O. Had I not insured the package it is probable that we never would have found that package since the post office never left a notice that it had attempted delivery. I should add that I send and recieve a fair number of USPS Priority Mail packages, and only once has anything like that happened, usually they get where they are supposed to go quickly and without incident. ------------------------------ From: elgart@earthlink.net Subject: Re: Dating an Old Phone Number Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 18:15:01 -0400 On Mon, 16 Aug 2004 16:39:08 -0400, Arthur Kamlet wrote (in article ): > In article , Joseph > wrote: >> On Sun, 15 Aug 2004 14:31:29 -0700, wrote: >>> I am hoping you can help ... I have an old picture that has a "antique" >>> phone number. I am trying to date the picture. Below is the phone >>> number located in Brooklyn New York: >>> TRiangle 5-7871 >>> Can you date this phone number? I have searched the internet with no = >>> luck. > My best guess is East New York around late 40s early 50s. > Art Kamlet ArtKamlet @ AOL.com Columbus OH K2PZH That number was in downtown Brooklyn and could date from any time after 1930 when New York City phone numbers were converted from 3 letters 4 numbers to 2 letters 5 numbers. At that time TRIangle (874) became TRiangle 5 (875). I have a list of old and new exchange designations taken from the New York Times of August 24, 1930 and in about 35 of them the first number of the new designation did not correspond with the third letter of the old designation. I suspect that was done deliberately to force people to learn the new numbering scheme. I did notice one oddity in the list: SCHuyler (in upper Manhattan) which became SChuyler 4 and SAInt George (on Staten Island) which became SAint George 7 conflicted with each other during the 3L-4N period. This could only have been possible if calls between Staten Island and the rest of the city were long distance and had to be completed by the operator. ------------------------------ 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 #409 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Sep 2 16:57:54 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i82Kvrp20357; Thu, 2 Sep 2004 16:57:54 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 16:57:54 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409022057.i82Kvrp20357@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 #410 TELECOM Digest Thu, 2 Sep 2004 16:57:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 410 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Portable Media Centers (Monty Solomon) Party Lines no More? (Lisa Hancock) Spreading Spam (Eric Friedebach) Re: Verizon Cable TV? (Isaiah Beard) Re: Verizon Cable TV? (Lisa Hancock) Re: Latest NorVergence Bankruptcy Hearing News (8/26/ (Isaiah Beard) Re: You Can Still Send a Western Union Mailgram (Lisa Hancock) Re: Considering VoIP For Home? Think Twice About AT&T CallVantage (Chip) Re: Dating an Old Phone Number (Lisa Hancock) Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service (DevilsPGD) Re: Last Laugh! A Visit to Doctor's Office (DevilsPGD) 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: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 08:42:25 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Portable Media Centers Microsoft Drives a New Category of Digital Entertainment By Announcing Availability of the First Portable Media Centers Creative Zen Portable Media Center Hits Store Shelves and First Content Services Come Online; TV Tuner Card Industry Announces Broad Support for Video on the Go REDMOND, Wash., Sept. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) today announced that the first Windows Mobile(TM)-based Portable Media Centers from Creative Labs Inc. will be available to the public tomorrow at Best Buy and Creative.com and in the coming weeks from Amazon.com Inc., CompUSA Inc., Fry's Electronics, Good Guys Inc. and other electronics retailers nationwide. Portable Media Centers from Samsung Electronics and iRiver International will be available later this fall. Microsoft also solidified content sources for Portable Media Centers, with the first online offerings from MLB Advanced Media (MLB.com) and CinemaNow Inc., as well as support from four digital TV tuner card manufacturers and software company SnapStream Media Inc. These announcements give people an increasing range of choices for video content they can watch any time, any place. Portable Media Centers are a new category of multimedia players that allow people to enjoy all the digital entertainment they store on their PC -- recorded TV, music, movies and pictures -- on one device. Portable Media Centers are one of three new digital entertainment products being introduced by Microsoft tomorrow, Sept. 2, including Windows Media(R) Player 10 and the MSN(R) Music Service. Windows Media Player 10 lets consumers easily discover, play and transport digital media around the home, on the PC or onto portable devices. MSN will launch a preview release of its MSN Music service in the United States tomorrow, offering music fans access to more than 1 million tracks licensed from all five major labels and more than 3,000 independent labels. Tracks from MSN Music will be available for playback on Portable Media Centers in Windows Media Audio format. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43443610 ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Party Lines No More? Date: 2 Sep 2004 06:42:38 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com For the younger readers: Years ago installing individual copper phone lines to each subscriber was very expensive. So subscribers shared a line in an arrangement known as the "party line". This was particu- larly common in rural areas where the lines had long runs. As technology improved (such as concentrators and carrier circuits), party lines were reduced. Some Verizon engineers told me they doubt party lines exist anywhere in the U.S. anymore for the following reasons: 1) Universal Service Fee: The high expense of rural lines is subsidized by other customers. 2) Low cost fibre: They said they were a low cost fibre system that could economically handle rural service. If any lines still exist they may be from private rural cooperative phone companies in isolated places, or from subscribers who could get private line service but just don't bother to save a $1 a month. ------------------------------ From: friedebach@yahoo.com (Eric Friedebach) Subject: Spreading Spam Date: 2 Sep 2004 09:31:06 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Scott Woolley, 09.01.04, Forbes.com LOS ANGELES - This June a barrage of spam popped up in 152,000 in-boxes. They pitched the standard stuff: One was an advertisement for the "Top Drug Store Online," another offered mortgage refinancing, another spy equipment for getting "the evidence on your in-laws." And, of course, many pitched porn. But one thing made the spam unusual: It was delivered not to regular e-mail in-boxes but via text messaging to Verizon Wireless cell phone service. Once an affliction confined to e-mail boxes, spam is spreading. Besides cell phones, innovative spammers are beginning to experiment with a technology known as voice-over-Internet Protocol, or VoIP, that lets people send phone calls over the Internet. http://www.forbes.com/wireless/2004/09/01/cz_sw_0901spam.html Eric Friedebach /Favorite OnStar commercial: crying woman drops keys in toilet/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is very depressing, isn't it ... The ratio of spam to valid email continues to rise. Is the net (as a whole body) now up to the 90 percent mark yet? I know I have seen reports in the recent past setting it at about 80-85 percent of the total volume of email; I know here at telecom-digest.org it has floated along at about 85-90 percent for several months, especially on weekends when valid email drops off as people take time off from work or school, etc. A three day holiday weekend as is now approaching will surely send the spam count sky high. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard Subject: Re: Verizon Cable TV? Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 12:13:11 -0400 Lisa Hancock wrote: > I have found Verizon service to be very good. My long distance costs > went down and service quality went up when they were allowed to offer > their own long distance. I dumped AT&T. > Verizon had to enlarge their central office and worked hard with the > town to preserve nearby Victorian homes (which they owned; one was the > exchange 50 years ago) as well as make the building fit into the > historic district. Part of the need for enlargement was to accomodate > competitor's switchgear. I suppose it depends on region. Here in central NJ, the story is very different. Dial tone has been slow in many instances, and last years' northeast blackout took out phone service with it (apparently their battery setup at the central office was not operational when the blackout hit, and neither local nor LD calls could not route even for a few hours after power was restored; cell phone service actually was MORE reliable than wireline during that period). I tried broadband through Verizon for quite a while, but the frequent downtimes of a week+ drove me crazy. The last straw was when somehow, my local calling area shrunk to about half what it used to be, and suddenly calls that used to be local (including my cell phone which was provisioned in the same city, the number to which hasn't changed in over seven years) all of a sudden weren't. I'm sure I could have fought it, but it was far less effort to simply move to VoIP and stop giving Verizon my money. >> I guess it depends on where you live. Cable and telephone have both >> been prevailing regulated monopolies for a long time, and depending on >> where you live, one or the other is the lesser of two evils that you >> must pick from. If only DBS didn't have such a horrible latency >> problem, we could all drop both services. > I thought cable TV was deregulated nationally; Yes, however in many cases there are still municipal franchise agreements that regulate their operation. > Certain premium local telephone services have been deregulated, but > AFAIK in my area the price has not gone up. Again, depends on where you live. Phone service prices have risen here; cable has not. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Comcast, but in my particular case they've screwed me far less than ol' Ma Bell. E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Verizon Cable TV? Date: 2 Sep 2004 09:52:22 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Neal McLain wrote: Regarding the comment about high construction costs -- our cable company was able to quickly replace its coax with fibre system wide without too much trouble. It ran into some neighbor objections by placing large junction boxes in unwanted locations -- it easily could've worked with the community (it did with us) for better locations. > I'm sure you've heard this a hundred times before, but here it is > again: the primary reason for rising prices for cable (and satellite) > service is the increase in the wholesale cost ("license fee") for > programming. To cite the extreme case, ESPN has risen 20% per year > for the past few years, and now costs well over $2.00 per sub per > month ($2.61 according to one reader's post here a year or so ago). Would there be any resource to look at the wholesale costs of various cable shows? I'm curious as to what things like Nick, TV Land, A&E, Hist, VH1, MTV, Family, Disney, CNN, FoxNews, etc cost. (A lot of these are owned by the same company). I'm also troubled by high wholesale costs because all of these channels liberally include commercials. What about TCM (Turner Classic Movies)? They're commercial free. ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard Subject: Re: Latest NorVergence Bankruptcy Hearing News (8/26/04) Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 10:14:29 -0400 Satchel Paige wrote: > Does anyone have information or links to what latest actions were > taken at NorVergence's most recent U.S. Bankruptcy hearing in Newark, > New Jersey? I believe the date of the most recent hearing was on > August 26, 2004. Looks like largely procedural stuff happened on that date. No new real developments, except it seems some customers may have found an avenue to get out of their leases. Here's what I have from a PACER search for events on August 26, 2004 in relation to the Norvergence bankruptcy. I am not a lawyer and this is my opinion only, so my interpretations of these events may be completely inaccurate. I'm linking to the documents I retrieved so that you can draw your own conclusions. the documents will remain linked until September 15, 2004, after which time I'll bring them offline (should be plenty of time for interested parties to have a look): - A firm known as Lage-Landen financial services was granted relief from the automatic stay order imposed from the Bankruptcy filing, and has been granted permission to repossess all equipment to which it holds leases to. (Any Norvergence customers have Matrix leases with Lage-Landen?) http://tinyurl.com/5jvwd - A firm known as BANZAI, Inc., apparently a former Norvergence customer, served notice that it is revoking acceptance of the equipment that was delivered to it by Norvergence, including the Matrix box. Again IANAL, but this might be a quick and easy way for those scammed by Norvergence to get out from under these leases. I hope it works. http://tinyurl.com/4bxrq - A firm known as NITEK Electronics file a similar revocation of acceptance. Looks like this might be the avenue to go for those who are stuck with these leases, but if I were you I'd consult a lawyer first. http://tinyurl.com/6yzdu - A firm known as ALL HABITAT SERVICES filed yet another revocation. There are other documents that can be retrieved, but I get dinged on a per-page basis for each retrieval, and they all look fairly similar, aside from various certificates of mailing and other mundane items. There appears to have been a hearing held on September 1 as well, but when I checked PACER, there was nothing up yet regarding what happened in that hearing. E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But until *YOU*, individual reader with a Norvergence lease agreement, hear from your attorney to the contrary, you ARE freezing all accounts payable to Norvergence or the bank, right? To those of you who spoke so vocally against my idea of withholding payments claiming the victims would get sued, get their credit ruined, etc, none of that has happened yet, has it? To you poor small business people, let this be a good lesson to you about how to handle door to door pushy salesmen with their pitches for crappy telephone equipment who gasp as they say their time is too valuable to speak to anyone but the 'decision maker' in the company and how if you do not sign this paper here and now you won't get another chance to do so again. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: You Can Still Send a Western Union Mailgram Date: 2 Sep 2004 07:47:58 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) wrote > Lisa Hancock wrote: >> The Western Union website IIRC says Mailgrams are no longer provided. I checked their website. I was mistaken; WU still offers Mailgrams. See: http://www.westernunion.com/info/bsMessaging.asp?country=U1 Sorry about that. ------------------------------ From: Chip G Subject: Re: Considering VoIP For Home? Think Twice About AT&T CallVantage Organization: Comcast Online Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 15:10:33 GMT charlie3 wrote in message news:telecom23.408.7@telecom-digest.org: > I have Vonage set to ring my cell and Vonage phone simultaneously so I > can answer the call with either phone. At home I hear both phones > ring at the same time. I have voicemail set up so that Vonage > voicemail picks up the call before cell phone voicemail so all my > voice messages are on Vonage. > I can check Vonage voice mail with the cell phone, a land line, over > the internet or from the Vonage phone. If the cell phone was in range > during the missed call I will see a missed call message on the cell > phone and often the missed call number as well. I don't see the > missed call name on the cell phone unless the caller is in my cell > phone list. > If the Vonage box is disconnected or the network is down I have Vonage > set to forward all calls to my cell phone. > Vonage will forward calls only to one non Vonage phone but to more > than one Vonage account. It would be convenient for me if Vonage > would allow more than one non Vonage phone for simultaneous ring but > that limitation is not enough to push me to another provider. > My Vonage account has my 20+ years home phone number ported to it. > Unlike old fashioned call forwarding, simultaneous ring is set and > forget. People need only one number to find me. They don't need to > know I have a cell phone. My cell phone minutes at home are zero so I > need half the cell minutes of most people who rely on cell phones. > When I pick up my Vonage phone I hear a dial tone, my call goes > through, the person I'm talking to does not notice we are on an > internet phone. When I leave the house the house phone is clipped to > my belt, there is no cell phone number as a practical matter. > Occasionally my network goes down or the Vonage box is disconnected > for travel. Then the cell phone backs me up both for incoming and > outgoing calls. These occasions have been so rare there has been > little impact on my cell phone minutes. > There is a learning curve with VOIP. Expect some glitches. I advise > my friends who are interested to have either a cell phone or > traditional phone for backup. I also advise forwarding the house > phone to the Vonage phone for a testing period of a few months before > porting the house phone to Vonage. > For me Vonage is the right product for the right price. If the > quality of service stays as it is I won't be needing a tradiational > house phone now or in the future. Thanks Charlie. The one thing that is still unclear to me is ... What happens if someone dials your Vonage number and your cell phone is turned off or outside the coverage area for your cellular provider? Does the call get answered by your cell phone voicemail? ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Dating an Old Phone Number Date: 2 Sep 2004 09:43:10 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com elgart@earthlink.net wrote: > I have a list of old and new exchange > designations taken from the New York Times of August 24, 1930 and in > about 35 of them the first number of the new designation did not > correspond with the third letter of the old designation. I suspect > that was done deliberately to force people to learn the new numbering > scheme. Thanks for the date reference. I wish I could find something for Phila. I checked the newspapers on the date of Phila's conversion but they just had a small tidbit. Phila newspapers aren't indexed. Likewise, Phila's conversion from 3L to 2L also made almost everyone different than before. (Phila changed just after WW II). ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service Reply-To: bond-jamesbond@crazyhat.net Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 10:16:43 GMT In message John R. Covert wrote: >> Complaints would be registered by dialing *55, which would not only >> "tag" The call in the telcos database, but immediately inform you >> whether ANI and CID matches. > You're making two assumptions: > 1. That ANI is passed along through the network. There is no need > for it to be passed anywhere billing information is not needed. > 2. Even if it is passed along, the assumption that it should be > the same is not true. The ANI for a call from a DID PBX is likely > to be the main number, whereas the caller ID could be either > the main number or the actual DID number. Or even the other > way around. Or from a VoIP phone, the ANI is the number at > which the call enters the network, and the Caller ID is the > actual number. Or for a call forwarded through another > number, the ANI is the number of the phone doing the forwarding > and the caller ID is the number of the original caller. Fair enough. I think the principle is sound, but it might need some tweaking in terms of implementation. One possibility is to go strictly on a "pass the buck" system, where each telco that the call passed through is held responsible unless the telco can identify the source of the call. It's not an optical illusion. It just looks like one. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That's an old trick, but quite effec- tive. Place (and enforce) the blame on the last person or entity in the line unless *they* can push it further along. And believe me, when push comes to shove, they *will* find someone further down the line to hand the hot potato to. You give them one or two passes with a firm warning there will be no further excuses allowed, then watch how the conditions so prevalent in much of telephony get corrected/cured in a hurry. I for one, cannot see why *any* user or subscriber should ever be allowed to tamper with their own caller ID. Ditto with spam and virii hassles. If Microsoft, and the makers of hardware got together and devised a nearly foolproof method of *absolutely without question identifying every piece of equipment out there* then spam and virus writing/spreading would come to a screaming halt. Consider the ESN (electronic serial number) on your cellular phone. Some one steals it, and just a phone call from you to the carrier blacklists it forever. It will never again talk or recieve calls, as the number propogates through the hot lists. I don't hear anyone complaining that the propogation of their cell phone's ESN is somehow a 'violation of privacy rights' when a cell tower picks up the user's transmission and deals with it. Why should anyone (except spammers of course) complain when an ISP passes their traffic and looks at the computer 'electronic serial number' which has been burned in the hardware, and while not totally impossible to diddle with would frustrate most spammers totally. But back to the statement at hand: I receive spam or virii and look for the untampered with ESN of the person or place which sent it to me. Good, I found you. You are the guilty one and your machine goes on the hotlist. If you are in a position to buy a new computer every week or two just to be able to continue sending out your crapola then god bless you! Add that little economic incentive to the pressure we put on ISPs who willfully encourage that sort of customer. PAT] ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Last Laugh! A Visit to Doctor's Office Reply-To: bond-jamesbond@crazyhat.net Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 10:15:28 GMT In message Tom Smith wrote: >> 'Tis far better to have snipped too much than to never have snipped >> at all.' > Not if you are describing your circumcision. ROFL. Fair enough. It's not an optical illusion. It just looks like one. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I guess by now everyone has seen the newspaper account of the doctor who slipped up when doing that sort of thing and wound up cutting off most of 'it' by accident. The family of the little guy was livid to say the least and sued the doctor, which did not help the little guy until a bit later when some reconstructive surgery was done on him. The poor kid grew up with much psychological trauma until the surgery was done which restored his 'manhood'. 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 #410 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Sep 3 02:45:27 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i836jRB24511; Fri, 3 Sep 2004 02:45:27 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 02:45:27 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409030645.i836jRB24511@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 #411 TELECOM Digest Fri, 3 Sep 2004 02:45:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 411 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Charter Customers May Get Free Services (Monty Solomon) EFFEctor 17.32 Stop Government Blacklists (Monty Solomon) Apache Rejects Sender ID Proposal (Monty Solomon) Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service (Jack Decker) Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service (AES/newspost) Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service (W Rupprecht) Re: Spreading Spam (Destined) Re: Party Lines No More? (John McHarry) September Share Day (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 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: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 00:47:32 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Charter Customers May Get Free Services By JIM SUHR AP Business Writer ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Charter Communications Inc. subscribers may get free premium services under a proposed settlement the nation's third-largest cable TV systems operator reached in a lawsuit over questioned charges. As part of the deal detailed in the company's full-page advertisement Thursday in USA Today, eligible customers may be able to choose six months of free high-speed Internet service, service upgrades or movie channel service. Other options include six free pay-per-view or video-on-demand selections. St. Louis-based Charter, controlled by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen, has more than 6 million customers in 37 states. It was not immediately clear how many consumers would be eligible for the free services or the settlement's cost to Charter, though trade magazine Multichannel News reported Monday that amount may reach as much as $200 million, depending on which compensation customers choose. The settlement applies to people who subscribed to Charter's residential cable TV service before July 8 and paid a fee to participate in the company's wire-maintenance plan, or who paid a fee to rent an analog or digital converter box while getting basic or expanded basic service. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43472089 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 00:54:05 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 17.32: Alert - Stop Government Blacklists! EFFector Vol. 17, No. 32 September 2, 2004 donna@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 304th Issue of EFFector: * Action Alert: Stop Government Blacklists! * CA Alert: Ask Governor Schwarzenegger to Put Paper Trails on the Books * Skylink Wins Appeal in Garage Door Opener Case: Court Rules Copyright Law Cannot Be Used to Stifle Competition * CAPPS II Returns from Summer Vacation as "Secure Flight" * Only 61 Days Until the Election - Register to Vote Now! * MiniLinks (16): Bush Forms Civil Liberties Board * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/17/32.php ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 00:22:29 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Apache Rejects Sender ID Proposal The Apache Project has rejected the Sender ID proposal for e-mail user authentication, saying the terms of Microsoft's license for the underlying technology makes it incompatible with open source software. The decision illustrates how anti-spam efforts have become the latest battleground between the open source community and Microsoft. Apache's decision, outlined in a letter to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), culminates weeks of discussion among the IETF, Microsoft and open source advocates over whether Sender ID could work as a standard framework for anti-spam measures. http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2004/09/02/apache_rejects_sender_id_proposal.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 22:54:49 -0400 From: Jack Decker Subject: Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service Pat, please conceal my e-mail address. You wrote: > Ditto with spam and virii hassles. If Microsoft, and the makers of > hardware got together and devised a nearly foolproof method of > *absolutely without question identifying every piece of equipment > out there* then spam and virus writing/spreading would come to a > screaming halt. ..... Pat, you seem to forget one thing -- what goes out to the Internet can always be diddled with by the user. A personal computer is not like a cell phone -- it can be (and often is) built from parts. Therefore the user has control of what goes out over the net connection. Even if, some way, somehow, they figured out a way to send out an ID that the user could not diddle with, all the spammer would have to do is install a firewall that looks for that ID and strips it out. And if nobody will accept e-mail that has the ID stripped out, then the spammer will just steal valid ID's from other user machines. There are so many holes in this scheme that I can't figure it will do anything but make users who value their privacy shun the products of whatever company is crazy enough to implement it. I think you were on the right track with your other idea. Let's say they passed a law that said that for every piece of bona fide spam that a user receives and forwards to his ISP, he gets one month of free service. But, the ISP would be entitled to submit the spam to whichever system passed it along to them (the system that actually connected to their system to deliver the e-mail) and collect the value of the month of service, plus a reasonable billing fee (which could be set high enough to cover the "uncollectibles", that is, the systems they cannot collect from). So there would be an absolute rule - if spam passes through your system, you are liable to the party you passed it to, but the person that passed it to you is liable for whatever you were billed plus *your* billing fee. Note that as the spam keeps getting passed closer to the source, every party in the chain is entitled to add *their* billing fee. Now at some point one of three things will happen. One, it will get back to the system that furnished connectivity to the spammer, and they will hand the bill to the spammer (who more than likely will not pay willingly), so they get stuck paying the bill and possibly hauling the spammer into court. A few times of that happening and they will learn to be very picky about who they give connectivity to. Two, it will wind up pointing to some innocent user who's had his machine "hijacked". At that point, whoever supplies his connectivity will decide that maybe they should be suspicious when a user that normally sends one or two e-mails a day starts blasting out thousands (more on that in a moment). Three, it will wind up at the system that accepted the incoming e-mail from another country, and they will be faced with the prospect of collecting from an ISP in another country. Of course they will pass the bill along to the "foreign" ISP, but that ISP is under no legal obligation to pay in their home country, and they might not. So if they don't, the "gateway" operator must decide whether they are willing to accept any more traffic from that system. What will very quickly happen is that the foreign ISP's will discover that they must indeed pay the bill, legal obligation or not, or else they will find that no U.S. gateway will accept their e-mail, legitimate or not. When the system first starts you do a "dry run" for six months -- users are encouraged to report spam, but don't receive the free service. ISP's generate the "bills" and pass them upstream, but no payment is required. This gives everyone a chance to see how the system will work, and to identify which systems are sending spam before they incur any financial penalty (so that no ISP suddenly gets hit with 8,000 real bills when they had no idea that there was a spammer on their system). After the six months it goes into effect for real. By then the ISP's presumably have put technologies in place to limit the potential damage. One such technology might be figuring out the patterns of their various customers, similar to what credit card companies do when they offer fraud protection. As I noted above, if a customer that is normally a light user of e-mail suddenly starts blasting out e-mails by the hundreds, you may at least want to take a look at a random sample to see if he's sending out wedding invitations or spam. Presumably there are automated techniques that can deal with this, so that a real human would only have to look at messages in exceptional cases. I suppose there are some flaws in this (no plan is perfect) but it would be one way of handling the situation (with suitable modifica- tions to handle any valid objections, of course). What do you think? Jack [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Jack, you sound like a typical netter with all your objections and all your reasons why a reasonably good plan will not work so there is nothing do except sit around wringing our hands and wait until the ratio gets as close to one hundred percent garbage as possible. I will suggest if people can use home brew computers to get on the net, why can't people quit paying for cell phone service entirely and work entirely from home brew cell phones. Ah, but you say without a valid ESN their home brew or other- wise cell phone won't get out. Every tower in the world will stop them dead in their tracks. And people can jerry rig all the cellphones they want, but that magic ESN is embedded in a bit of glue buried on the mother board somewhere, burned in at the factory and no one but a damned fool or a masochist would try to swap it out. Ah ... right! So a result, only damned fools and masochists try to swap out ESNs and still expect the phone to work. Ergo, while fraud with stolen cell phones *does* exist, its a relatively minor problem. Hackers, etc do tamper with cellphone software, the telephone numbers assigned to cell phones, etc, but as a worst case scenario, when cellco has had enough fraud that particular unit becomes useless. The tower is told just do not accept anything more from that ESN regardless. At that point, you the fraudster have a choice of tossing the phone or attempting (if you have the experience) to change the burned in ESN or selling or paying someone else to do it for you. In any event, it costs you money and slows you down. Now let us assume the computer factory (Apple or whoever) embeds a little chip on the mother board somewhere and buries it in wax and glue, making it almost impossible to get out or replace, much as cell phones are constructed. Yes, a damn fool or a masochist *probably could get it out, (maybe the same guys who do it with cell phones) and to the average user, the end result would be a busted up, shorted out mother board. If a computer hardware person took the whole computer apart and looked at the mother board, they would see that ugly looking waxed up glued over little chip. Now what kind of a number would be burned into that little chip, its CSN or 'computer serial number'? I suggest something like Microsoft has done with the latest version of XP. The number would be a mathematical formula constructed on the various parts of the computer: two hard drives, one floppy, some type or another of monitor, mouse, keyboard, etc. In other words, the factory sells you an OEM, with all the above parts, and burns that number combination in the chip. But you say you built your own computer with a hard drive here, a floppy from there, an old TV set for a monitor, a mouse you got from Best Buy and a camera you bought at Walmart. Motorola cell phones had an answer for that also. The end user was permitted to reprogram a few variables *three times only* before it would lock up entirely, and (in theory at least) the unit had to go back to the factory or an authorized dealer for a reset, which involved some hardware to be attached. Not impossible, just a pain in the butt for guys. Now here is here Microsoft or Linux or Apple or whichever software maker whose operating system you plan to install in your home brew computer enters the picture: You put in your copy of XP or Linux or whatever. Just as the OS now demands you insert an *accurate* rendering of your 'product key' based on its own on the fly calculation of your system (remember how if the system is 'changed substantially' Microsoft demands it to be re-registered), the operating system -- and operating system only -- would rewrite or burn that little waxed over, glued on little chip a second time, or even a third time, or hell, to be generous if you wish, a fourth time, then it locks up. No more re-writes short of hauling the entire thing back to an 'authorized dealer' who attaches his little odd cable somewhere and 'zeros out' the counter -- not writes in the number, which the operating system calculates based on peripherals, etc -- just zeros it out so you can start over. No one knows how the OS calculates those number, no one except Microsoft (as in XP) or the factory as in an OEM shipped out for the first time. It just happens is all. The final one or two digits in the CSM would be mathematical proof on the remainder of the CSM which was generated by the OS or the factory based on your equipment and perhaps part of your usual IP address. In other words an extremely complex arrangement of letters and numbers. If you attempted to bluff your way past your own firewall it would be very unlikely you could get the check digits correct even if you did figure out how the OS looked at your peripherals. So you say you will just look for that string at your firewall and omit it entirely ... uh, uh ... or you will just substitute a new string of alphanumerics... uh, uh ... the ISP will be under much pressure to disallow any blank or mathematically miscalculated strings coming from your firewall to him, and your computer OS simply won't function at all without that correct CSM. So if your computer does not stop you, or with much effort you bluff your way past it, then the ISP stops you. The ISP looks at the math, and your computer generates the 'math problem'. Either part of it goes wrong, and you don't get to do your spam for today. Remember, the little waxed over glued in place microchip (just touch the solder and it all falls apart in your hands) contains both the 'math problem' and its check-sum solution. I guess I am saying there has to be a partnership between computer factories and people like Microsoft on the one side and the ISPs on the other side. The ISPs would continue to do their usual stumbling blocks for spammers as well on no open relays, etc. I am suggesting much could be done to make casual spamming a very time consuming and expensive task; something that would put a large number of spammes out of business. And then Jack, your 'pass the buck along up the ladder' would also add good pressure. Plus which, some of these prima donnas with their constant whining are going to have to give in to the other side as well. I am reminded of why so little of any positive value happens in politics: everyone involved thinks that if a good thing happens the other guys will get the credit; but if something bad happens, *they* will be the ones to catch hell for it. That is the same way on the net. PAT] ------------------------------ From: AES/newspost Subject: Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 14:13:12 -0700 In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to DevilsPGD : > I for one, cannot see why *any* user or subscriber should ever be > allowed to tamper with their own caller ID. I can. A business, an organization, even an individual has several "functions" or lines of business -- call 'em A, B and C. They want to publish 3 distinct phone numbers that they will always maintain open for *incoming* calls that concern A, B or C. (And also maybe they want regular customers or call recipients that they call *out* to be able to identify in an automated fashion whether the call they're receiving has to do with A, B or C.) But, maybe the organization has people making outgoing calls from phone lines all over the place, or from temporary setups, or calls concerning different subjects at different times. Allowing these outgoing calls to be given the appropriate Caller ID for the function A, B or C associated with the given call, no matter who makes 'em or from where, seems perfectly sensible to me. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Can't you think of any more hypothetical examples why you must be allowed to tamper with your caller ID? I mean, that's all totally ridiculous. Tell your people to walk over to an 'A' phone or a 'B' phone or a 'C' phone and use the appropriate line for the particular business. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service From: wolfgang+gnus20040902T142944@dailyplanet.dontspam.wsrcc.com Organization: W S Rupprecht Computer Consulting, Fremont CA Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 21:52:25 GMT > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: ... I for one, cannot see why *any* > user or subscriber should ever be allowed to tamper with their own > caller ID. Right now I have a few DID numbers that only get used for incoming calls. My asterisk pbx routes them to one of the three VOIP phones in the house. I also have one shared outgoing-only VOIP account with a different company that gives me a great price of 2-cents/minute. For outgoing calls through this service I set the CID information to be the DID phone number that is needed to call back the phone that is making that call. There are quite a few people that use the dialback button on their phone to try to call you. Half the folks I know seem to ignore the number you leave for them and just call back whatever showed up on CID. If phone companies weren't such Neanderthals they could RSA/MD5/etc sign a cookie corresponding to your DID numbers. They would then give you this cookie and you could pass to any switching equipment to "register" the outgoing CID you wanted to use for that call. If you didn't have a valid cookie signed by the owner of that DID allocation then the switching equipment wouldn't let you change the outgoing CID. That should be sufficient to cut down on folks spoofing numbers that didn't belong to them yet would also allow a person to use any of their phone's CID's with any of their other phones. Wolfgang S. Rupprecht http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/ New toy: Voice over ip phone. Sounds much better than an analog phone. http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/voip.html ------------------------------ From: Destined Subject: Re: Spreading Spam Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 16:04:05 -0700 Eric Friedebach wrote: > Scott Woolley, 09.01.04, Forbes.com > LOS ANGELES - This June a barrage of spam popped up in 152,000 > in-boxes. They pitched the standard stuff: One was an advertisement > for the "Top Drug Store Online," another offered mortgage refinancing, > another spy equipment for getting "the evidence on your in-laws." And, > of course, many pitched porn. But one thing made the spam unusual: It > was delivered not to regular e-mail in-boxes but via text messaging to > Verizon Wireless cell phone service. > Once an affliction confined to e-mail boxes, spam is spreading. > Besides cell phones, innovative spammers are beginning to experiment > with a technology known as voice-over-Internet Protocol, or VoIP, that > lets people send phone calls over the Internet. > http://www.forbes.com/wireless/2004/09/01/cz_sw_0901spam.html > Eric Friedebach > /Favorite OnStar commercial: crying woman drops keys in toilet/ > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is very depressing, isn't it ... > The ratio of spam to valid email continues to rise. Is the net (as a > whole body) now up to the 90 percent mark yet? I know I have seen > reports in the recent past setting it at about 80-85 percent of the > total volume of email; I know here at telecom-digest.org it has > floated along at about 85-90 percent for several months, especially > on weekends when valid email drops off as people take time off from > work or school, etc. A three day holiday weekend as is now approaching > will surely send the spam count sky high. PAT] I tend to get in my email boxes (Free hotmail/YAHOO/Mail.com) about the same time frame of spam ... Just wish I could figure out how to curtail it? Been thinking of using Bayesian Filtering but not sure how Effective it would with email. Now if I could find a news reader with Bayesian filter; that would be cool. Jeremy <> ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Party Lines No More? Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2004 02:57:04 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Lisa Hancock wrote: > For the younger readers: Years ago installing individual copper phone > lines to each subscriber was very expensive. So subscribers shared a > line in an arrangement known as the "party line". This was particu- > larly common in rural areas where the lines had long runs. As > technology improved (such as concentrators and carrier circuits), > party lines were reduced. > Some Verizon engineers told me they doubt party lines exist anywhere > in the U.S. anymore for the following reasons: > 1) Universal Service Fee: The high expense of rural lines is subsidized > by other customers. > 2) Low cost fibre: They said they were a low cost fibre system that > could economically handle rural service. > If any lines still exist they may be from private rural cooperative > phone companies in isolated places, or from subscribers who could get > private line service but just don't bother to save a $1 a month. A number of years ago, the situation was that party lines actually cost the telco more than private lines, but they were worried that eliminating the service would result in their having to charge everyone the party line rate, instead of vice versa. New party lines were actually bridged at the CO, that being cheaper than field bridges. To discourage such subscriptions telcos kept a list of "killer little old ladies" who were used to obnox the bridged parrty into private line service. I lived in upstate NY and had a party line because it was the cheapest way to get flat rate service between home and work. I dealt with the old bitch by grounding tip for a while. Amazing what a miles long ground loop will do. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 00:42:53 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: September Share Day Instead of changing the Digest over to an advrtising supported forum, I have always elected to keep it as a user supported forum, and for the most part keep it spam and virus free. I am *only* able to do this because of financial support from readers here, and if you would rather not see these messages every month, then please pitch in and help now and then! Consider it sort of like public radio, which goes on for days at a time trying to raise money ... and maybe I should adopt the same system. Turn over the entire Digest once or twice a year to fund raising (entire issues, etc) and stop doing it when the budget for the year has been raised. But for now, I will stick with the present system of devoting a few messages at the end of each month to raising money for the Digest publication expenses. Out of 400-500 messages per month, in a spam, virus free environment, two or three (only) devoted to fund raising. You know who you are; please provide some help here financially. You can use Pay Pal to donate with a credit/debit card by going to our web site http://telecom-digest.org and at the bottom of the home page look for the PayPal 'donate' button. Or if you prefer, send a check or money order to Patrick Townson/TELECOM, Post Office Box 50, Independence, Kansas 67301-0050. The amount you send is entirely up to you. You know best how much you can afford and whether or not this Digest has any value for you. Thank you very much. Patrick Townson, Editor/Publisher TELECOM Digest ------------------------------ 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! 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #411 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Sep 3 14:56:13 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i83IuCf00793; Fri, 3 Sep 2004 14:56:13 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 14:56:13 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409031856.i83IuCf00793@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 #412 TELECOM Digest Fri, 3 Sep 2004 14:55:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 412 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson A Competing TV Provider (Monty Solomon) Sender ID Finds Followers Ahead of Approval (Monty Solomon) Focal IVAD (Justin) Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service (Paul Timmins) Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service (Jack Decker) Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service (Hank Karl) Re: Vonage Dual Ring; was Considering VoIP For Home (charlie3) Re: Verizon Cable TV? (Neal McLain) Re: Verizon Cable TV? (Lisa Hancock) September Share Day (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. =========================== 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: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 11:04:02 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: A Competing TV Provider It uses broadcast TV infrastructure to compete with TV stations. It's not an ISP, but its business model is unique, fascinating, and strangely familiar. by Gerry Blackwell ISPs are not the only players hoping to muscle in on the lucrative pay TV services market, and as start-up U.S. Digital Television Inc. (USDTV) has shown, delivering alternative TV services over IP networks-as inevitable as it may seem to ISPs-is not the only option. IP is an option USDTV is considering for the future, says Bret Westwood, the company's vice president of Internet services and information technology. But for now, the Utah-based company is concentrating on quite a different business and technology model. In March, USDTV launched a consumer pay TV service in Albuquerque NM, Salt Lake City, and Las Vegas, offering a package with multiple time-shifted relays of 12 popular cable TV channels for $19.95 a month. Subscribers purchase a USDTV set-top box from Wal-Mart for $99, which also pulls in free local digital broadcasts. The company is partnering with local TV stations, transmitting on their unused digital broadcast spectrum and using their transmission infrastructure. Its ambitious plan is to expand to 100-plus markets over the next three years. The stations subscribers get with the USDTV service include Disney, ESPN, Fox News, The Learning Channel (TLC), and Discovery Channel. With time-shifted transmissions and local stations, the receiver brings in close to 40 digital channels, with image and sound quality superior to analog and comparable to digital services from satellite and cable companies. Some offer high definition TV (HDTV) programming as well. The number of channels is obviously far fewer than with cable and satellite. Will USDTV add more? It might, Westwood says, but that's not really the point. http://www.isp-planet.com/business/2004/usdtv.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 11:07:31 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Sender ID Finds Followers Ahead of Approval By Jim Wagner As a new Sender ID specification for beating back spam wends its way through the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), some e-mail software vendors are not waiting around for its final approval before implementing the system. They could be taking a gamble. Or they could be acting in confidence that the IETF will eventually bless a specification that will be used on e-mail systems throughout the world. One of the contributors to the Sender ID specification, Microsoft (Quote, Chart), has patents pending on certain components of the Sender ID technology it has donated to the IETF's efforts. Microsoft has repeatedly said that -- even if it is granted a patent on the technology -- it would "make licenses available on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms." But the issue has some in the open source world talking. The drive in the business community to press ahead with Sender ID comes at a time when some in the open source community are claiming the licensing stipulations around Sender ID don't interoperate with the most popular open source license variant, the General Public License (define). In a post to the IETF's MARID (MTA Authorization Records in DNS) discussion list the chairman of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), Greg Stein, called Microsoft's Royalty-Free Sender ID license agreement a barrier to any ASF project. http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3402921 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What exactly is the problem with the Open Source proponents? That *they* did not think of it first? That Microsoft may get the credit? It is really a damn shame when these intelligent men and women fight and squabble among themselves while the rest of the world has to fight with the spammers. But oh well, most of them probably never even see spam (save one or two pieces each day which slip past the myriad of filters used by their secretary to get rid of it), and those one or two pieces which they do have to view makes them angry enough to squabble with other professionals about it, but not so angry that they would even consider for a minute getting off their own high horses in order to wade through the sewer that the net has become with the rest of us. Do most of those people even realize how tragic and awful the problem of spam has become? I don't think so, otherwise they surely would not be blocking the restoration efforts as much as they do, would they? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Overdrive79@hotmail.com (Justin) Subject: Focal IVAD Date: 3 Sep 2004 06:28:33 -0700 Is anyone using Focal IVAD service?? I know it is a sort of VOIP system, hence the ability to provide 32 voice channels and up to 1.5mbps on one T1, but does anyone know about the quality/reliability of the service. The pricing is really attractive, but I want to make sure I am not tying myself into a contract with something shoddy. I would really appreciate any information you have. Thanks, Justin ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service From: Paul Timmins Organization: Telcodata.US Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2004 07:33:58 -0400 On Thu, 2004-09-02 at 16:57, editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That's an old trick, but quite effec- > tive. Place (and enforce) the blame on the last person or entity in > the line unless *they* can push it further along. And believe me, > when push comes to shove, they *will* find someone further down > the line to hand the hot potato to. You give them one or two passes > with a firm warning there will be no further excuses allowed, then > watch how the conditions so prevalent in much of telephony get > corrected/cured in a hurry. I for one, cannot see why *any* user > or subscriber should ever be allowed to tamper with their own > caller ID. Because the place that is calling, might not be the place to accept calls. If I hire a firm in India to do all my call solicitations, I'd rather people reply back to a number in the US, wouldn't you? > Ditto with spam and virii hassles. If Microsoft, and the makers of > hardware got together and devised a nearly foolproof method of > *absolutely without question identifying every piece of equipment > out there* then spam and virus writing/spreading would come to a > screaming halt. Consider the ESN (electronic serial number) on your > cellular phone. Some one steals it, and just a phone call from you to > the carrier blacklists it forever. It will never again talk or > recieve calls, as the number propogates through the hot lists. I > don't hear anyone complaining that the propogation of their cell > phone's ESN is somehow a 'violation of privacy rights' when a cell > tower picks up the user's transmission and deals with it. Why should > anyone (except spammers of course) complain when an ISP passes > their traffic and looks at the computer 'electronic serial number' > which has been burned in the hardware, and while not totally > impossible to diddle with would frustrate most spammers totally. Unfortunately, there's more to it than that. Every device connected to the internet would need this serial number. And there'd have to be some way of not being able to spoof it, which would require some sort of PKI (because otherwise, I could just simulate the serial number in software, and pick what I want). There are several major issues: 1. The current protocol doesn't support any sort of serial number. You'd probably have to develop a whole new protocol, or admit the idea that if you put it in an RFC-1822 header, it could be spoofed by anyone who cared. 2. Everyone would have to replace all their hardware. 3. Most of the systems on the internet that don't have people at their console (like mailservers, routers, webservers, databases) don't run Microsoft software. These send the majority of email, things like notifications, alerts, etc. 4. You're implementing this in software the user can control (and anyone who has physical access to their system can control the hardware, and thus the software on it). Those that are malicious would circumvent this by either replacing the driver that reads the chips' serial number, or simply using someone else's machine, and their serial number. People's machines are already being used to relay spam without their knowledge, it'd be just one more step to include their identifier in it. And more importantly, and this is a big one: This doesn't buy us anything we don't already have. Spam CAN be tracked down to its source, and it regularly is. Grandma's computer does get its internet shut off when it's massively sending spam. But is it helping? No. The scale of the attacks are far too great, and there's always something vulnerable. The problem of the matter is that sure, you get a lot of problems from (let's just say) Comcast users. Block them. Disconnect your paths to them. If you use them, switch to someone else. If you're an ISP, cut your peering to them. Good. Hope your customers don't need to receive any business from Comcast users. So when your customers call to complain that they can't reach their website you host from their house, what are you going to tell them? Comcast told them you were blocking them. Now what? Tell them that because 2% (in other words, thousands) of Comcast's users were sending spam that you disconnected one of their hundreds of links to the internet, the link between them and you? As is often said on NANOG-L: "I wholehardedly encourage my competitors to do this." > But back to the statement at hand: I receive spam or virii and look > for the untampered with ESN of the person or place which sent it to > me. Good, I found you. You are the guilty one and your machine goes > on the hotlist. If you are in a position to buy a new computer every > week or two just to be able to continue sending out your crapola then > god bless you! Add that little economic incentive to the pressure we > put on ISPs who willfully encourage that sort of customer. PAT] This only works because the networks are closed, and operate on privately owned airwaves that it's illegal to even transmit on without the permission of the carrier. You can't build your own phones to run on their network, because at that point, you're already violating federal law. Tell people they have to buy computers that are sealed up, coated in epoxy, and unchangeable and unupgradeable from their ISPs. Then you want to violate the section of federal law where they've explictly made it a crime to possess or use "access devices" that aren't yours (18 USC Section 1029), which includes ESN/MIN pairs, SIM cards, or anything else used to restrict access to the network (this already includes passwords and credit card numbers as well, so...), and use them to impersonate someone else's phone. And you want to do this with a transmitter that betrays your current location every time it tries to work? (Any transmitter can be located, given directional recievers, and simple trigonometry -- and cell companies have equipment custom made for the purpose) So, you have a choice: Buy the cheap phone at your local supermarket and have a blast, or spend tons of time and effort to clone someone else's phone, and be charged with at least 2 felonies for each person's phone you do it with. And in the end, neither prevents you from making prank calls. And just try to track down the user of a prepaid phone. It'll never work for anyone you want to. Sure, the legit people will give proper information, but people who don't want to get caught will give false information, and even if there's an ID requirement, they'll make fake ID. Even if that's verified, for the right price paid to the right people, it can be accurate (or just take someone else's valid ID data, and change the photo). Identity thieft happens every day, so verifying the identity of a user won't help much. But the "pass the buck" strategy works so well. That's why we don't have any problems with underage drinking, underage smoking, or drug trafficing. Paul Timmins Telcodata.US [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Of course we still have problems with underage drinking, and smoking, and problems with drug trafficing. But I suggest we have *fewer* problems than we would were not some coordinated efforts made to stop those problems. If legislators were like internetters, and went into lock-mode everytime one humble suggestion or another was made to cut back on underage anything (oh we can't require ID, all the kids will make their own and anyway that would be an invasion of privacy to require things like that, and the only people it would stop would be good people who were greatly inconvenienced and anyway we could never control all those foreign country web sites which sell cigarettes and drugs and sex and you name it and with the first two at least drop ship to Americans through the mail.) As Geoffrey Welsh states it in the Digest masthead each day, "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." But let anyone make a humble suggestion about something *anyone* can do to make a dent here or there, and I can assure you there will be any number of netters who will jump all over the person and be glad to explain why 'it just will not work, thus and so'. Well then, have your spam- and virii-ridden net. About twenty years ago, we saw CB radio go up in flames the same way when it became useless for any type of interaction between people. At that same time, twenty years ago, when the government put tremendous heat on Motorola to quit manufacturing and selling the infamous '02-A' programmable chip for CB radios and an equal amount of pressure on Radio Shack to make their clerks quit offering to 'do the mods' for customers who bought their radio at a local RS store things did quiet down quite a bit. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2004 07:42:53 -0400 From: Jack Decker Subject: Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service Pat, please conceal my e-mail address again. You wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Jack, you sound like a typical netter > with all your objections and all your reasons why a reasonably good > plan will not work so there is nothing do except sit around wringing > our hands and wait until the ratio gets as close to one hundred > percent garbage as possible. Pat, I think perhaps you don't realize that many of us don't get anywhere near the level of spam that you do. The problem you have is that you publish your e-mail address openly, you put it on your web site in a way that's easy for spam harvesters to pick it out, and you haven't changed it for years, AFAIK. So while you perceive it as a huge problem, many of us consider it a minor annoyance. Indeed, when I had my old address a few years ago, jack (my ISP).com, I had a huge problem with spam also. At one time that address had been on several web pages, and it was also my first name, which is a common first name, making it vulnerable to a dictionary attack. I've taken steps to limit the ways in which spammers can get my e-mail address (including using a primary address that would never be found in anyone's dictionary!) and it has helped tremendously. > I will suggest if people can use home brew computers to get on the > net, why can't people quit paying for cell phone service entirely > and work entirely from home brew cell phones. Unfortunately that's not how computers have evolved. Cell phones have always been a standalone unit, designed to conceal their "guts" from the user. Computers, on the other hand, started out as something that the home hobbyist almost had to assemble from parts and gradually evolved into the sort of "appliance" computer we see today. Also, bear in mind that computers are not designed from the outset to be used with a "pay" service. That is one thing they CAN do, but there are also many computers used in "standalone" applications that never connect to the 'net. > Ah, but you say without a valid ESN their home brew or other- > wise cell phone won't get out. Every tower in the world will stop > them dead in their tracks. And people can jerry rig all the cellphones > they want, but that magic ESN is embedded in a bit of glue buried on > the mother board somewhere, burned in at the factory and no one but > a damned fool or a masochist would try to swap it out. Ah ... right! > So a result, only damned fools and masochists try to swap out ESNs > and still expect the phone to work. Ergo, while fraud with stolen > cell phones *does* exist, its a relatively minor problem. Hackers, > etc do tamper with cellphone software, the telephone numbers assigned > to cell phones, etc, but as a worst case scenario, when cellco has > had enough fraud that particular unit becomes useless. The tower is > told just do not accept anything more from that ESN regardless. At > that point, you the fraudster have a choice of tossing the phone or > attempting (if you have the experience) to change the burned in ESN > or selling or paying someone else to do it for you. In any event, it > costs you money and slows you down. True. But again, we're dealing with a product that was designed from the outset to be used with a pay service. Until about the mid 1990's, IF you could connect to the Internet at all it was probably a "free" connection, by which I mean you were probably not using a commercial ISP. Then just prior to the burst of the "dot-com" bubble there were again ISP's that offered their services for free (sometimes in exchange for exposing you to various forms of advertising). And also, what you pay for is "Internet access", not "e-mail". Nobody has charges for e-mail as a separate item, and I doubt they ever will because the first company that tries it will suffer a massive loss of customer fleeing to competitive providers that don't charge. > Now let us assume the computer factory (Apple or whoever) embeds a > little chip on the mother board somewhere and buries it in wax and > glue, making it almost impossible to get out or replace, much as cell > phones are constructed. Yes, a damn fool or a masochist *probably could > get it out, (maybe the same guys who do it with cell phones) and to > the average user, the end result would be a busted up, shorted out > mother board. If a computer hardware person took the whole computer > apart and looked at the mother board, they would see that ugly looking > waxed up glued over little chip. Now what kind of a number would be > burned into that little chip, its CSN or 'computer serial number'? I > suggest something like Microsoft has done with the latest version of > XP. The number would be a mathematical formula constructed on the > various parts of the computer: two hard drives, one floppy, some type > or another of monitor, mouse, keyboard, etc. In other words, the > factory sells you an OEM, with all the above parts, and burns that > number combination in the chip. But who would *buy* such a motherboard? Perhaps you envision that the government would force these upon us? Well, bear in mind that existing motherboards would not have this chip, and all the spammers would have to do is lay in a supply of non-chipped motherboards, which would probably continue to be available for a very long time. > But you say you built your own computer with a hard drive here, a > floppy from there, an old TV set for a monitor, a mouse you got from > Best Buy and a camera you bought at Walmart. Motorola cell phones had > an answer for that also. The end user was permitted to reprogram a > few variables *three times only* before it would lock up entirely, > and (in theory at least) the unit had to go back to the factory or > an authorized dealer for a reset, which involved some hardware to > be attached. Not impossible, just a pain in the butt for guys. Yeah, a real pain in the butt if the motherboard comes from some manufacturer in Korea or China or someplace like that, and doesn't have a presence in the U.S. But in any case, what makes you think that any self-respecting spammer (now that should be an oxymoron!) would not have an "authorized dealer" on his payroll. I don't think this would be anywhere near the pain in the butt *for the spammer* that you make it out to be, but it would sure as heck inconvenience regular computer users who never buy completely new systems, but instead simply upgrade parts as they get out of date or wear out. > Now here is here Microsoft or Linux or Apple or whichever software > maker whose operating system you plan to install in your home brew > computer enters the picture: You put in your copy of XP or Linux or > whatever. Just as the OS now demands you insert an *accurate* > rendering of your 'product key' based on its own on the fly > calculation of your system (remember how if the system is 'changed > substantially' Microsoft demands it to be re-registered), the > operating system -- and operating system only -- would rewrite or > burn that little waxed over, glued on little chip a second time, > or even a third time, or hell, to be generous if you wish, a fourth > time, then it locks up. No more re-writes short of hauling the entire > thing back to an 'authorized dealer' ..... Whom the spammer would have in his back pocket ..... > who attaches his little odd cable somewhere and 'zeros out' the > counter -- not writes in the number, which the operating system > calculates based on peripherals, etc -- just zeros it out so you can > start over. Do you truly think the Linux community would go along with this? Cracking this scheme would become the new "holy grail" for every hacker out there. And the "little odd cable"? Available on eBay for $4.95 plus shipping. I'm serious about that, I've seen it happen. One of the video game manufacturers decided that they didn't like people buying just anyone's hard drives and installing them in their system (to increase storage capacity), so they came out with a hard drive that used oddball connectors. That apparently spawned a cottage industry of people selling less expensive hard drives that had been modified to have the "oddball" connectors. > No one knows how the OS calculates those number, no one except > Microsoft (as in XP) or the factory as in an OEM shipped out for > the first time. It just happens is all. Well, someone has to know. If necessary someone will set up a distributed computing project to figure it out. I don't think you appreciate that it's not the spammers that would hate this scheme -they will simply do whatever it takes, including having the so-called "authorized dealer" on their payroll. The people who will really hate this scheme are the people who like to tinker with their computers. Most of those people currently use Linux as their OS, which is why I say that I expect that the Linux community will be especially uncooperative. So, you might say, pass a law that they have to support it? They will laugh heartily as all the distros become available only on servers outside the U.S. Remember, ANYTHING that depends on legislation to make it work cannot work if the scheme can be thwarted simply by downloading software from outside the U.S. (or wherever this scheme is implemented). Further, it will do nothing to stop the spam that originates on servers outside the U.S. > The final one or two digits > in the CSM would be mathematical proof on the remainder of the CSM > which was generated by the OS or the factory based on your equipment > and perhaps part of your usual IP address. In other words an extremely > complex arrangement of letters and numbers. If you attempted to bluff > your way past your own firewall it would be very unlikely you could > get the check digits correct even if you did figure out how the OS > looked at your peripherals. > So you say you will just look for that string at your firewall and > omit it entirely ... uh, uh ... or you will just substitute a new > string of alphanumerics... uh, uh ... the ISP will be under much > pressure to disallow any blank or mathematically miscalculated strings > coming from your firewall to him, and your computer OS simply won't > function at all without that correct CSM. So if your computer does > not stop you, or with much effort you bluff your way past it, then > the ISP stops you. The ISP looks at the math, and your computer > generates the 'math problem'. If every ISP has to have the software to decode this, I give it 24 hours to fall into the hands of the hackers, who will then simply apply "brute force" methods to find acceptable keys (assuming that they can't immediately back-engineer the system). But also, WHY would any sane ISP implement this? They would only drive away business from people using older computers that don't support this scheme. The only pressure would be economic - the fear of losing customers - and that pressure would be very much against supporting anything like this. > Either part of it goes wrong, and you > don't get to do your spam for today. Remember, the little waxed over > glued in place microchip (just touch the solder and it all falls > apart in your hands) contains both the 'math problem' and its > check-sum solution. I guess I am saying there has to be a partnership > between computer factories and people like Microsoft on the one side > and the ISPs on the other side. Bingo. What is the incentive for such a partnership to happen, considering that many end users won't want to touch this with a ten-foot pole, especially since it will seem too "big brotherish" to many people? > The ISPs would continue to do their usual stumbling blocks for > spammers as well on no open relays, etc. > I am suggesting much could be done to make casual spamming a very > time consuming and expensive task; something that would put a large > number of spammers out of business. For the reasons I have given above, I really doubt this. Remember, the spammers have a profit motive to bypass this scheme as easily and quickly as they can, and the people who like to tinker with the guts of their computers are going to hate this and will undoubtedly find ways to spread enough FUD among the rest of us to make us not want it either. Also, one of the biqgest problems we have right now is "spam friendly" ISP's, particularly those outside the U.S., who will accept e-mail from the spammers with no questions asked (as long as the bills are paid). Those ISP's will not cooperate, they will simply ignore your checksum or whatever. You might say that other ISP's would not accept mail from such ISP's, but today we often know which ISP's are spam-friendly (at least the people who track the source of spam do) and yet most ISP's will not block e-mail coming in from those ISP's, because legitimate mail might get refused or thrown out (I'm okay with that, but a lot of other people aren't). > And then Jack, your 'pass the buck > along up the ladder' would also add good pressure. Plus which, some of > these prima donnas with their constant whining are going to have to > give in to the other side as well. I am reminded of why so little of > any positive value happens in politics: everyone involved thinks that > if a good thing happens the other guys will get the credit; but if > something bad happens, *they* will be the ones to catch hell for it. > That is the same way on the net. PAT] The problem you have is that you have to get a bunch of disparate interests, many of whom couldn't agree on what color is the sky, to come together to make this scheme work . Sure, you might get (for example) Microsoft and Dell Computers and Earthlink to all agree to support this. So the spammer simply uses Linux, or a no-name computer, or another ISP (it wouldn't surprise me if some spammers start up their own ISP if necessary). The only ones who really get inconvenienced are the people who don't spam, but who do make frequent changes in their systems. Jack [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I covered your mantra pretty well earlier in this issue so won't go into it again. "It won't work, it isn't perfect, there are loopholes, *I didn't think of it first*". And yes, Jack, I -DO- get huge amounts of spam, hourly. Sometimes when I check mail the index shows me where several pieces of spam arrived in the same one minute period. When I get ready to release this issue of the Digest in a few minutes, I go back as always and review the spam bucket just before I flush it; there will be a few dozen new spams waiting there. And no, I will not change my email address. I voluntarily choose to wade around in my hip-boots through this cesspool called the net since I like trying to help people with telecom questions. And I do appreciate every little thing that some insignificant netizen does to make my work easier. For example, for a few months I had been seeing daily, almost hourly defacing of the Archives by spammers and virus writers who were emailing a 'secret address' allegedly used only by myself internally to move files around in the Archives by email. Sometimes in zapping it out, more would show up even before the first batch had been totally cleaned out. Then one day recently, that attack on the archives ended. The spam just quit reaching me. (fingers crossed, hoping I am not speaking too soon). I *think* the sysadmin here at csail.mit.edu did some diddling of his own to protect me! No Jack, I am not going to change my address or try to hide myself. I know how frustrated new users can become attempting to find someone who can help them here at times. I was a new user once myself. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Hank Karl Subject: Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2004 10:48:43 -0400 Organization: NETPLEX Internet Services - http://www.ntplx.net/ > Allowing these outgoing calls to be given the appropriate Caller ID for > the function A, B or C associated with the given call, no matter who > makes 'em or from where, seems perfectly sensible to me. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Can't you think of any more hypothetical > examples why you must be allowed to tamper with your caller ID? I > mean, that's all totally ridiculous. Tell your people to walk over to > an 'A' phone or a 'B' phone or a 'C' phone and use the appropriate > line for the particular business. PAT] Pat, this is not hypothetical with me. I represent four companies, and have only one phone line. There are a number of "reps" out there who represent more than one company. Some will try and establish their own company identity, others work as part of the company they represent (like a consultant). So the above example is by no means hypothetical. Also, calling name may be considered to be a part of caller id. A company may desire: 1. The president's line gives the president's name, but the president's secretary's number. Or the calling name can be the person's title (but this pretentious). 2. Sales personnel's lines may give the company name but a direct number to the sales person. 3. Tech support lines may give the department name and a general department number (or an "800" type number"). For example, you may not recognize the name or number of someone calling from India, but you would recognize "Dell Support" and an 800 number. 4. Some employees would have a number that gives their name and DID number. Others would have a line that gives the company name and switchboard number. 5. Remote sales personnel (or employees who travel a lot) may supply an 800 number that is the company's PBX, which forwards the calls to them via VoIP or cellphone. 6. The company's billing name may not be the name they are commonly known by. Or the company may want to use a brand name in the outgoing calls. For example, calls from a General Motor's site may supply calling name as "Chevrolet". IANL, but I've read the Telemarketing Sales Rule guide put out by the FTC (or FCC). This is the legislation that implemented the national do not call list. They say that the caller-id does not have to be the ID of the actual line, but the number supplied does have to be answered by a human who can put you on the organization's do-not-call list. This makes a lot of sense if you consider that many calls are made from outgoing-only T1 lines. ------------------------------ From: charlie@cdsdetroit.com (charlie3) Subject: Re: Vonage Dual Ring, was Considering VoIP For Home Date: 3 Sep 2004 07:53:38 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Your script that sends an instant message to your cell phone sounds good. Any possibility you would post how that's done here? It sounds like something Vonage should create for it's customers. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2004 05:34:48 -0500 From: Neal McLain Subject: Re: Verizon Cable TV? Lisa Hancock (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com) wrote: > Regarding the comment about high construction costs -- our > cable company was able to quickly replace its coax with fibre > system wide without too much trouble. It ran into some > neighbor objections by placing large junction boxes in unwanted > locations -- it easily could've worked with the community (it > did with us) for better locations. I assume you're referring to my comment at Paragraph 2 in TD V23#394 . Did your cable company really replace its coax "system wide" with fiber? If so, it built an FTTP network just like Verizon is building. I think it's far more likely that your cable company added fiber only where it was necessary to connect those "large junction boxes" to its headend. This is the way most HFC (hybrid fiber-coax) networks are built these days; furthermore, it's consistent with your own statement in V23#404 : "... cable uses fibre to the neighborhood only, then coax to the house (which is how cable serves my area)." I suspect that most -- if not all -- of the cable company's new fiber was placed overhead, rather than underground. Underground utility lines in residential neighborhoods are usually connected to overhead utility lines running on polelines along main roads. This topology is typical of electric power and telephone networks as well as cable TV. When a cable TV company converts an all-coax network to HFC, it doesn't replace the existing coax; it just adds fiber to "nodes" in the existing coax plant, and feeds individual neighborhoods using the existing coax in those neighborhoods. It's a fairly simple matter to add ("overlash") fiber to existing overhead coax plant running along main roads. By judicious design, the company can often figure out a way overlash all of the fiber to existing overhead coax, and avoid putting any of it underground. For an illustration of how a fiber cable can be overlashed to existing coax cables, see . By contrast, a cable (or telco) company building an FTTP network must install fiber to every home, including homes in neighborhoods with underground facilities. And that's where the big costs come in. Lisa continued (discussing programming license fees): > Would there be any resource to look at the wholesale costs of > various cable shows? I'm curious as to what things like Nick, > TV Land, A&E, Hist, VH1, MTV, Family, Disney, CNN, FoxNews, etc > cost. Not that I know of. Wholesale pricing information is a closely- guarded secret; indeed, a cable (or satellite) company usually has to sign an NDA before it even gets to see a sample contract. Larger cable and satellite companies typically get better prices, based on their bulk purchases. Several years ago, several small cable companies banded together to form the National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC) in an attempt to negotiate bulk pricing for member companies. At the outset, it had good success negotiating group health insurance and equipment purchases, but it took quite some time to get the programmers to cooperate. I'm not sure where things stand today (I retired three years ago, so I've lost contact with NCTC). > A lot of these [cable networks] are owned by the same company. Indeed. Columbia Journalism Review's "Who Owns What" site lists properties owned by most of the major media companies. > I'm also troubled by high wholesale costs because all of these > channels liberally include commercials. > What about TCM (Turner Classic Movies)? They're commercial free. Well, that's the way the business operates. Most cable/satellite programmers fund their operations through two revenue streams: advertising and license fees. It's the same business model used by most magazines and newspapers. The compelling force behind this model isn't just the sum of two revenue streams; it's the way in which the two streams reinforce each other: - Revenue from consumers increases the value of the advertising. There's an old advertising-industry adage that goes something like this: advertising in a medium that the viewer/reader pays for is worth more (to an advertiser) than advertising in a free medium. - More valuable advertising provides more revenue to the programmer, which funds more/better programming, which increases the value of the programming to the consumer. Of course there are exceptions. Commercial broadcast stations are 100% advertising-supported. Shopping channels are 100% funded from product sales; indeed, they even pay commissions to the cable/satellite/broadcast companies that carry them. At the other end of the scale, several cable and satellite program services are completely (or mostly) commercial-free: - TCM is 100% supported by license fees. This was a business decision that Turner Broadcasting made when it launched TCM. - Digital music services (DMX Music and Music Choice) are 100% supported by licensee fees. Again, these were business decisions made by the respective programmers. - So-called "premium channels" (HBO, Showtime, Starz!, and all of their related spinoffs) are 100% supported by special separate-line-item license fees. The original HBO has been fee-supported since the early 1970s, when it was distributed throughout northeastern states by terrestrial microwave. This model proved to be so successful that its owner (Time, Inc.) decided to distribute it by communications satellite to reach a national audience; thus, in 1975, HBO became the first cable TV channel to be distributed by satellite. - C-SPAN and its siblings are mostly supported by license fees, although they get some foundation support. - NASA-TV is funded from NASA's budget. - The Pentagon Channel is funded by the Department of Defense. - PBSYOU is funded by CPB, the Annenberg Foundation, and PBS. - Religious channels and WORLDLINK TV are funded by direct contributions from viewers. - Classic Arts Showcase is funded by The Lloyd E. Rigler - Lawrence E. Deutsch Foundation. - RFD-TV is partially funded by advertising, but it also relies on viewer memberships ($30/year, including a program guide and a baseball cap). Study this list, and you'll notice that there are very few commercial-free video channels that rely exclusively on license fees. Most of them receive additional support from other sources: separate-line-item fees, viewer contributions, taxpayers, or foundations. I trust this explains why the majority of the channels you receive from your cable company are funded by that dual-revenue stream. Neal McLain nmclain@annsgarden.com ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Verizon Cable TV? Date: 3 Sep 2004 06:55:30 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Isaiah Beard wrote: > I suppose it depends on region. Here in central NJ, the story is very > different. Dial tone has been slow in many instances, and last years' > northeast blackout took out phone service with it (apparently their > battery setup at the central office was not operational when the > blackout hit, and neither local nor LD calls could not route even for > a few hours after power was restored; cell phone service actually was > MORE reliable than wireline during that period). I thought last year's blackout only hit northern NJ and towns near the NY border, otherwise most of the state was ok. I don't recall reading that phone central offices were out, normally their battery backups and diesels are reliable (they are tested regularly). Actually, I don't think telephone service runs off A/C at all but always from the battery, A/C charges the battery. So, if commercial power dies the battery will keep service running for a while. > The last straw was when somehow, my local calling area shrunk to > about half what it used to be, and suddenly calls that used to be > local (including my cell phone which was provisioned in the same > city, the number to which hasn't changed in over seven years) all of > a sudden weren't. That also surprises me, in my region of the country Verizon has been _expanding_ local calling areas, not reducing them. We think it's just easier for them to make the calls free rather than timeclock then and bill 4c phone calls. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 00:42:53 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: September Share Day Instead of changing the Digest over to an advrtising supported forum, I have always elected to keep it as a user supported forum, and for the most part keep it spam and virus free. I am *only* able to do this because of financial support from readers here, and if you would rather not see these messages every month, then please pitch in and help now and then! Consider it sort of like public radio, which goes on for days at a time trying to raise money ... and maybe I should adopt the same system. Turn over the entire Digest once or twice a year to fund raising (entire issues, etc) and stop doing it when the budget for the year has been raised. But for now, I will stick with the present system of devoting a few messages at the end of each month to raising money for the Digest publication expenses. Out of 400-500 messages per month, in a spam, virus free environment, two or three (only) devoted to fund raising. You know who you are; please provide some help here financially. You can use Pay Pal to donate with a credit/debit card by going to our web site http://telecom-digest.org and at the bottom of the home page look for the PayPal 'donate' button. Or if you prefer, send a check or money order to Patrick Townson/TELECOM, Post Office Box 50, Independence, Kansas 67301-0050. The amount you send is entirely up to you. You know best how much you can afford and whether or not this Digest has any value for you. Thank you very much. Patrick Townson, Editor/Publisher TELECOM Digest ------------------------------ 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. 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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 #413 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Sep 4 21:58:13 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i851wCp13577; Sat, 4 Sep 2004 21:58:13 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 21:58:13 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409050158.i851wCp13577@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 #414 TELECOM Digest Sat, 4 Sep 2004 21:57:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 414 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson The Soft Invasion (Monty Solomon) Watching TV on Your Cellphone (Monty Solomon) Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service (Monty Solomon) Citing Threats, Entrepreneur Wants to Quit Caller ID Venture (M Solomon) Is Portable Video Ready for Its Close-Up? (Monty Solomon) Protecting Your Files When a Password Isn't Enough (Monty Solomon) Cellphones in Flight Face Technical and Social Hurdles (Monty Solomon) Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service (DevilsPGD) C-SPAN to Air Badnarik/Cobb Debate (Patrick Townson) Re: Sender ID Finds Followers Ahead of Approval (Robert Bonomi) Re: Telephone Vocabulary -- "Straight Line" (Carl Navarro) Re: Telephone Vocabulary -- "Straight Line" (Tim@Backhome.org) 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: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 13:22:35 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Soft Invasion By WALTER S. MOSSBERG WHAT IF A private company could legally break into your house and rig your television so that it would always start up on a special station the company had created that showed deceptive ads every minute, all day? And what if, when you tried to change the station, you could choose only among obscure and dubious channels selected by the invading company? Oh, and suppose that same sleazy company could erect billboards for phony medical cures and get-rich-quick schemes on your lawn anytime, without your permission? And suppose it could also make a record of everything you said or did in your house and sell it to other companies? You'd be more than angry. You'd be lobbying for jail time for these guys. But something similar happens every day on the personal computers of tens of millions of people. It's offensive but legal, and it's driving its victims crazy. This phenomenon is called spyware, or adware, and it is rapidly replacing viruses and spam as the No. 1 hassle associated with using an Internet-connected computer. Spyware is a type of software placed surreptitiously on a Windows PC, often by means of a file, downloaded from a Web site, that is either invisible or is disguised as a legitimate file. Once on your PC, spyware can do many nefarious things. Unlike a virus, it rarely tries to destroy files or propagate itself through e-mail. Instead, it tries to seize control of key aspects of your machine and turn them into conduits for selling you junk, or for gathering information that can help others do so. There are many forms of spyware, but the big four, which correspond to the household examples above, are: http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/report-200408.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The two forms of protection I use against spies are 'Ad-Aware' and 'Spybot: Seek and Destroy'. Of course I also use AVG for virus protection. All three of these items are free on the web and highly effective. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 13:26:40 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Watching TV on Your Cellphone By WALTER S. MOSSBERG Not enough television in your life? Well, now you can stay tuned in at all times, thanks to your cellphone. Sprint has begun offering two different TV services on its cellphones. One, called MobiTV, offers real-time broadcasts of programming from a variety of networks. The second, called Sprint TV, serves up specially produced short clips from major networks. Each costs about $10 a month, and both are powered onto Sprint cellphones by a privately held California-based company called Idetec Inc. The Sprint phones don't actually contain TV receivers. Instead, the programs are "streamed" onto the phones, via the Internet, from servers that first convert the TV signals into digital files. While the idea of watching TV on a wireless phone is new in the U.S., it's old hat in some other countries. When I was in Korea earlier this year, I was able to receive perfectly rendered TV broadcasts on a little Samsung phone during long rides in a minibus stalled in choked traffic in Seoul. But Korean cellphone networks handle data -- like the TV streams -- much faster than Sprint's network. While Sprint's network is one of the fastest nationally deployed systems in the U.S., it's pathetically slow compared with Korean and other foreign wireless phone networks. So, my question was: How good could it be? To find out, my assistant Katie Boehret and I have been testing MobiTV and Sprint TV. Our verdict: Neither service will ever be confused with even basic cable on a cheap TV set, but MobiTV was pretty fair, while Sprint TV had serious problems. ... http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/solution-20040901.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 02:39:43 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service A Commercial Software Service Aims to Outfox Caller ID By KEN BELSON Like most bill collectors, Marvin Smith is always seeking ways to get chronic debtors to pay up. When he calls the first time, he typically hears excuses and requests for more time. When Mr. Smith calls again, the debtors often block his calls using ordinary caller ID technology from the phone company. That means he then visits in person, a time-consuming and sometimes dangerous task. But Mr. Smith, who runs a collection agency in Austin, Tex., says he may have found a solution: a new computerized service enabling him to create false outbound phone numbers with a click of a mouse, so he can skirt the call blockers. The service, the first commercial version of a technology known mainly among software programmers and the computer-hacker underground until now, was introduced nationwide on Wednesday by a California company called Star38. For $19.99 a month and as little as 7 cents a minute, customers can go to the company's Web site (www.star38.com), log in and then type the number that they want to call and the number that they want to appear on the caller ID screen of the recipient's phone. For an additional fee, they can also specify names that can appear along with their telephone numbers. http://nytimes.com/2004/09/02/technology/02caller.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 02:17:11 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Citing Threats, Entrepreneur Wants to Quit Caller ID Venture By KEN BELSON It may be known as caller ID spoofing, but it is evidently no laughing matter. Three days after the start-up company Star38 began offering a service that fools caller ID systems, the founder, Jason Jepson, has decided to sell the business. Mr. Jepson said he had received harassing e-mail and phone messages and even a death threat taped to his front door - all he said from people opposed to his publicizing a commercial version of technology that until now has been mainly used by software programmers and the computer hackers' underground. For a fee, customers using the Star38.com Web site would be able to alter the number that would appear on the caller ID screen of the recipient's phone. The technique could mask the identity of a bill collector, for example, or enable a private investigator to fool someone into answering the phone on the false belief that a friend or relative was ringing. Mr. Jepson said yesterday that he did not yet have any paying customers for the service. But he said he had received hundreds of messages from potential customers - as well as from people concerned that his product would invade their privacy. He also said he had received inquiries from five investors who were interested in investing in or buying his company. http://nytimes.com/2004/09/04/technology/04caller.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 02:34:16 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Is Portable Video Ready for Its Close-Up? By MICHEL MARRIOTT A FEW years ago, when MP3 players were establishing themselves as the hot cool thing, the next question seemed clear: What if you could take along not only music but movies, television programs, home video and still pictures in a high-tech box svelte enough to slip into a briefcase, backpack or purse, or perhaps a pocket? An answer is beginning to emerge, however tentatively. Microsoft's response takes the form of a system called the Portable Media Center, being incorporated first by Creative, an early maker of MP3 audio players, into a sort of oversized audio player with a color video screen. Samsung and iRiver will follow with sleeker versions this fall; all three will cost about $500 each and be capable of 80 hours of video play. The Windows-powered machines enter a nascent marketplace that includes devices by Archos, a French maker, and RCA. Each camp makes the case for its own pioneer status on a new frontier of hand-held devices. And all say the devices will appeal to commuters and travelers, including those looking to occupy small children on long trips. http://nytimes.com/2004/09/02/technology/circuits/02vide.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 00:36:48 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Protecting Your Files When a Password Isn't Enough BASICS By THOMAS J. FITZGERALD IT'S a prospect that nobody likes to think about: a laptop or hand-held computer left behind on a train or bus -- or worse, stolen. As people amass larger amounts of personal and business data on their hard disks, it becomes increasingly important to make sure that confidential files will stay that way, even if a machine is lost. What computer owners may not know is that a computer's standard log-on password does not block access to files on the hard disk. That line of defense can be bypassed by removing the disk and connecting it to another computer, by using forensics tools or by booting the computer to a different operating system. Various methods of file encryption are available to protect files against these kinds of direct assaults. Some of the newer ones are easy to set up and can run seamlessly in the background as you go about your work. They can encrypt individual files, or they can create "vaults" in which many files can be encrypted at once. Some can encrypt entire hard disks while others integrate smart cards or U.S.B. tokens to add extra security. To help decide whether file encryption is for you, it is useful to know some basic information about the technology, its limitations and how to spot products that may contain weaknesses. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/technology/circuits/02basi.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 02:42:24 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cellphones in Flight Face Technical and Social Hurdles By ERIC A. TAUB BUSINESS travelers who think there are not enough hours in the day, take note: in two years there may be a few more at your disposal. In 2006 the nation's commercial airliners may begin to allow passengers to make cellphone calls and connect to the Internet throughout a flight. No longer will passengers have to cram in their last cellular calls before takeoff. Instead, they will be able to use standard mobile phones to make and receive calls while in flight. Technical and social issues must still be worked out. The airlines, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Communications Commission must be assured that cellphones will not interfere with navigation or communications equipment. And the airlines also must devise ways to avoid conflict between cell yellers and passengers looking for a quiet trip. While the airlines wait for government approval, Lufthansa currently offers Internet access on some international flights. As a foreign carrier, it is not subject to federal restrictions. http://nytimes.com/2004/09/02/technology/circuits/02next.html ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Website Offers Caller I.D. Falsification Service Reply-To: bond-jamesbond@crazyhat.net Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 06:49:28 GMT In message AES/newspost wrote: > They want to publish 3 distinct phone numbers that they will always > maintain open for *incoming* calls that concern A, B or C. > (And also maybe they want regular customers or call recipients that > they call *out* to be able to identify in an automated fashion whether > the call they're receiving has to do with A, B or C.) > But, maybe the organization has people making outgoing calls from phone > lines all over the place, or from temporary setups, or calls concerning > different subjects at different times. > Allowing these outgoing calls to be given the appropriate Caller ID for > the function A, B or C associated with the given call, no matter who > makes 'em or from where, seems perfectly sensible to me. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Can't you think of any more hypothetical > examples why you must be allowed to tamper with your caller ID? I > mean, that's all totally ridiculous. Tell your people to walk over to > an 'A' phone or a 'B' phone or a 'C' phone and use the appropriate > line for the particular business. PAT] Expand this to a company like HP that runs managed/outsourced help desks. Think of a few hundred reps which each handle 6-10 different clients (different support contracts) Having 500 people running across the building to use an appropriate line, or trying to run 6-10 phone lines to every desk is beyond ridiculous. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That's an old trick, but quite effec- > tive. Place (and enforce) the blame on the last person or entity in > the line unless *they* can push it further along. And believe me, > when push comes to shove, they *will* find someone further down > the line to hand the hot potato to. You give them one or two passes > with a firm warning there will be no further excuses allowed, then > watch how the conditions so prevalent in much of telephony get > corrected/cured in a hurry. Hot potato is probably the only way to avoid endless finger pointing. If, ultimately, you end up in a situation where there is no way to prove who made the error, then you simply blame the telco that failed to keep accurate records. It will be an expensive lesson, but lets face it, a million dollars won't sink your average telco, but it will screw up whoever's budget that ends up on enough that they'll fix it, and fix it for good. If they claim technical problems, then they should get a free pass or two, but only if they demonstrate a legitimate reason for the screw up (A fatfingered typo is good. A completely wrong number is bad) AND can post a reasonably sized bond. They would be given a fixed time period in which to fix the problem (say, 168 hours), during which time complaints would be held. If they should happen to receive further complaints after the 168 hours then ALL of the complaints would apply jointly. In other words, we have to avoid sinking a company for a legitimate technical screw up, but at the same time, avoid letting people wiggle out of their responsibility by claiming incompetence. > I for one, cannot see why *any* user or subscriber should ever be > allowed to tamper with their own caller ID. I can see a few issues, but all of which could be solved by giving the actual owner the ability to get the spoofer off the hook by validating the spoof. Ideally this would be done in advance and registered "somewhere" to prevent a firm from randomizing their CID and then bribing the actual owner when they get caught. In my first call center job (ISP) our phones all had two lines. Calls from the queue came in on line 1, and outbound calls displayed the switchboard. Calls on your person line came in on line 2, and outbound calls displayed your personal number. It was a perfect system, if I was acting as a rep I would use line 1, if I was acting as a supervisor and wanted the person to be able to call back, I would use line 2. It's legitimate to want an entire company (with multiple locations, possibly in multiple countries) to want one number displayed on all outbound calls (a tollfree, perhaps), or for a contracted call center to want their outbound calls to display the name/number of their client when they dial out, either of which could be classified as spoofing. "Gee, Bill what do you want to do tonight?" "The same thing we do every night Steve. Try to take over the world!" ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: C-SPAN to air Badnarik/Cobb debate Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 13:37:28 -0500 According to a posting at http://www.c-span.org, C-SPAN will cover the debate between Green Party Presidential Nominee David Cobb and Libertarian Party Presidential Nominee Michael Badnarik on C-SPAN at 1 pm ET Monday, September 6. This is the debate which was held in New York City during the Republican National Convention. Please pass this message around to encourage your friends to watch this debate -- as it is clearly in sharp contrast to anything one will find in the produced and scripted debates between Bush and Kerry. It is up to you to help make the voice of freedom heard. Also, on Sunday, September 5, at 7:45 AM EST The program Washington Journal hosts Janet Brown, Executive Director, Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), for live call-in on C-SPAN. Ms. Brown will talk by video link from Boston about the status and history of presidential debates. She will respond to telephone calls, faxes, and electronic mail from viewers. The telephone numbers to call to find out why Badnarik is not being allowed in the debates are: > Washington Journal: Democrats (202) 585-3881 > Washington Journal: Republicans (202) 585-3880 > Washington Journal: Others (202) 585-3882 According to a recent Rasmussen poll, 68% of Americans want Michael in the debates -- including 67% of Republicans and 64% of Democrats - but not Ms. Brown, the CPD, George Bush, or John Kerry. Please don't forget to challenge the CPD on Sunday morning as to why they don't care about open debates, or even the will of the American people. Finally, the Badnarik campaign footed the lion's share of the bill for the debate in NYC, as the Cobb campaign simply did not have enough financial resources to cover the expenses. To be clear, the Badnarik campaign was more than willing to help out our third-party brothers. Several Green Party members were more than generous and slipped a few dollars into my jacket pocket to help defray the cost. However, it was costly to fly several of us to New York, pay for the building, and cover the other incidental costs for the debate. Your contribution to help cover these expenses is vital for us to continue being able to hold televised presidential debates. Please contribute now by simply clicking https://badnarik.org/. Then you might wish to pass this message to a few of your Green Party friends to see if they might consider making a small one time donation at https://badnarik.org/ to help pay for the expenses related to the first presidential debate of 2004. In peace and prosperity, Stephen P. Gordon Paid for by Badnarik/Campagna 2004 and space contributed by participating website and Usenet newsgroups. [TELECOM Digest Editors's Note: I for one would be quite interested in hearing Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry explain why they did not want to allow Mr. Badnarick -- a bonafide candidate of a legitimate political party -- to be part of the debates. I am sure Ms. Brown will enlighten us on Sunday. Yeah, and I am a terrorist also. PAT] ------------------------------ Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting Subject: Re: Sender ID Finds Followers Ahead of Approval From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 11:08:40 +0000 In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > By Jim Wagner > As a new Sender ID specification for beating back spam wends its way > through the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), some e-mail > software vendors are not waiting around for its final approval > before implementing the system that the IETF will eventually bless a > specification that will be used on e-mail systems throughout the > world. > One of the contributors to the Sender ID specification, > Microsoft (Quote, Chart), has patents pending on certain components > of the Sender ID technology it has donated to the IETF's > efforts. Microsoft has repeatedly said that -- even if it is > granted a patent on the technology -- it would "make licenses > available on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms." > But the issue has some in the open source world talking. The drive > in the business community to press ahead with Sender ID comes at a > time when some in the open source community are claiming the > licensing stipulations around Sender ID don't interoperate with the > most popular open source license variant, the General Public License > (define). > In a post to the IETF's MARID (MTA Authorization Records in DNS) > discussion list the chairman of the Apache Software Foundation > (ASF), Greg Stein, called Microsoft's Royalty-Free Sender ID license > agreement a barrier to any ASF project. > http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3402921 > > > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What exactly is the problem with the > Open Source proponents? That *they* did not think of it first? > That Microsoft may get the credit? Why not try *reading* their position paper on the subject. Even you might be able to learn something from it. Do you think there is any problem with an arrangement whereby Microsoft could, in, say 5 years, after "everybody" is using the protocol, _change_ the terms for continuing use of the technology _by_those_CURRENTLY_using_it_ to "if the technology is not embedded in a MicroSoft product, you must pay $100 for each e-mail message processed"? Do you have any doubt that MS _would_ do such a thing if they thought they could get away with it? > It is really a damn shame when these intelligent men and women fight > and squabble among themselves while the rest of the world has to > fight with the spammers. But oh well, most of them probably never > even see spam (save one or two pieces each day which slip past the > myriad of filters used by their secretary to get rid of it), Congratulations PAT, you've just re-proved the definition of USENET. to wit: "Open mouth, insert foot. Echo internationally." The ASF (pache oftware oundation) is almost exclusively a *VOLUNTEER* software development community. 'Secretaries'?? You've _got_ to be kidding! If _you_ are only getting one spam message every few minutes on average, you don't know what a *real* problem is. Contemplate getting 30-50,000 _per_day_ for one mailbox. A million-plus per day across all the accounts on the server. > and those one or two pieces which they do have to view makes them > angry enough to squabble with other professionals about it, but not > so angry that they would even consider for a minute getting off > their own high horses in order to wade through the sewer that the > net has become with the rest of us. Rant, based on delusions that are *not* supported by any actual facts. > Do most of those people even realize how tragic and awful the > problem of spam has become? I don't think so, otherwise they surely > would not be blocking the restoration efforts as much as they do, > would they? Nah, I'm *sure* they don't. That's why 'spamassassin' is one of the '*FREE* for everyone' projects under the ASF umbrella. You _have_ heard of spamassassin, haven't you? In message Fred Goldstein wrote: > Another interesting study, from CipherTrust, has just shown that the > primary users of Sender Policy Framework are (drumroll, please) -- > Spammers! Yes, it's trivial for a spammer to pass an SPF screen. So the > main potential benefit is, I suppose, making phishing a bit harder or > easier for educated users to detect. But as an anti-spam weapon, it's > nearly worthless. Which makes sense, SPF was never built to combat spam in the first place. It was built to combat forgery, and it does that nicely. Men are from Earth. Women are from Earth. Deal with it. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have heard of Spam Assassin. On my (unix-based) account at MIT I use it, and the $SPAMBOX is always full and over loaded. Despite the fact that I have the user-settable point score set very low (1 or 2 qualifies the mail as 'spam') I still manage to wind up with 85-90 percent spam in my mailbox each day, out of *hundreds* of pieces of mail daily. I think I heard that MS was granting the license in prepetuity -- forever -- to groups working to fight spam. But you seem to be saying "no matter what Microsoft says, after five or ten years they will change the terms of the license." I do not think that is so. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Carl Navarro Subject: Re: Telephone Vocabulary -- "Straight Line" Reply-To: cnavarro@wcnet.org Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 09:14:45 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com On 3 Sep 2004 18:53:47 -0400, stevekl@panix.com (Steve Kl.) wrote: > I have posted here from time to time over the past many years and have > occasionally asked questions relating to my field -- lexicography. One > of my colleagues, Joan Hall, editor of the Dictionary of American > Regional English knows I have an interest in telephone history, and > asked me the following question: >> Do you know the term "straight line," used to mean a direct telephone >> line rather than a party line? And do you have any ideas where we might >> find citations with the term? > (My family had a party line when I grew up; however, as far as I > recall, the opposite of a party line was a "private line") > Anyhow, if you are aware of the term "straight line" in this use, > please drop me an email, and include what part of the country you > were in when you used this term and your age. > Additionally, if any of you own any old phone books or other > telecommunications materials that use this phrase that DARE can cite > as written evidence, please let me know what the name of the > publication is. I'll pass it on to DARE, and they can contact you if > they need further information. > (For information on the Dictionary of American Regional English, > see http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dare/dare.html ) We used the term "straight line" in reference to the ringer. A straight line ringer would ring on frequencies of 16 2/3 to about 33 Hz, as opposed to a party line ringer that would only ring on the frequency it was tuned to. For Central Offices, private line ring generator was either was either 20 or 30 Hz. Other frequencies were different, depending on whether the ring scheme was Harmonic or Decimonic. No, I don't remember what party was what, except that party 2 was 50Hz in Harmonic. I suppose I could look it up if it's important. Carl Navarro ------------------------------ From: Tim@Backhome.org Subject: Re: Telephone Vocabulary -- "Straight Line" Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 06:51:26 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications Just a guess, but a straight line sounds more like one that is not switched, like the old hot lines and alarm McCollough loops. Steve Kl. wrote: > I have posted here from time to time over the past many years and have > occasionally asked questions relating to my field -- lexicography. One > of my colleagues, Joan Hall, editor of the Dictionary of American > Regional English knows I have an interest in telephone history, and > asked me the following question: >> Do you know the term "straight line," used to mean a direct telephone >> line rather than a party line? And do you have any ideas where we might >> find citations with the term? > (My family had a party line when I grew up; however, as far as I > recall, the opposite of a party line was a "private line") > Anyhow, if you are aware of the term "straight line" in this use, > please drop me an email, and include what part of the country you > were in when you used this term and your age. > Additionally, if any of you own any old phone books or other > telecommunications materials that use this phrase that DARE can cite > as written evidence, please let me know what the name of the > publication is. I'll pass it on to DARE, and they can contact you if > they need further information. > (For information on the Dictionary of American Regional English, > see http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dare/dare.html ) > Thank you! > Steve Kleinedler > Senior Editor > American Heritage Dictionary > -- Steve Kl. ------------------------------ 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 #414 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Sep 4 23:39:00 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i853cx014810; Sat, 4 Sep 2004 23:39:00 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 23:39:00 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409050339.i853cx014810@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 #415 TELECOM Digest Sat, 4 Sep 2004 23:38:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 415 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: My New DVR From Cable One (Danny Burstein) Re: My New DVR From Cable One (Gary Breuckman) Re: My New DVR From Cable One (Tony P.) Re: Cordless Phones Not Working on Working Phone Line (Steve Sobol) Re: Cordless Phones Not Working on Working Phone Line (Tony P.) Norvergence Article in Chicago Tribune (Jim Haynes) Re: Solzano Rides Again! (Lisa Hancock) Re: A Competing TV Provider (Dan Lanciani) Re: Outsource Firm Sues in India / Alleged Code Theft Highlights (J M) Re: Party Lines No More? (John P. Dearing) 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: Danny Burstein Subject: Re: My New DVR From Cable One Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 13:05:03 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In TELECOM Digest Editor writes: [ snip... discussion of his new digital cable box with pvr courtesy of his cable company ] > The last thing in the world I need is a Digital Video Recorder/Cable > Converter but since I got it free I am not going to refuse it. > Totally tapeless, it can store several hours of programs in its > memory, has the ability to speed past commercial messages in a > second or two, etc. As anyone with a TIVO, one of the two original leaders in the DVR field will tell you, your television life is about to change. Dramatically. And mostly for the better. Watching your chosen programs on your own schedule is much, much, more civilized. But the other point is that your electric bill will also change, and not for the better. My TIVO pulls a steady 30 watts, and your box probably pulls about the same. (Remember that it's basically a computer hard drive in constant use plus overhead). At a typical charge of $0.20 (20 cents) per kw-hr, that's a bit over $4/month in electricity. Add another buck or two if you're using air conditining and have to dump out that heat. Usually worth it, but worth a thought or two. (And the "off" switch, if it has one, is only for show). _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I used to save the TV book which came each week in the Sunday Independence Reporter and go though it making notes of the movies I wanted to see; but I never got around to watching them anyway, and recently mostly even quit reading the Sunday paper. There is a 'TV Guide Electronic Edition' both on channel 17 on the cable and by pushing a few buttons on the remote control, but mostly all I ever watch are the TV-Land shows on Channel 56, and then not very often. Mostly I listen to KRPS 89.9 FM on the same cable, which I could get whether I paid for it or not, since it and the Tulsa NPR station (89.5 FM) are both carried gratis on the cable anyway. I have told that same thing to the lady in the office at our local CableOne a few times; namely that I don't watch television and all I want are the FM stations I can find on the cable and the high speed internet. She always gives me a dirty look when I mention the free carriage available to Pittsburg and Tulsa NPR. She said to me the other day "well, we are not gonna have those free NPR stations much longer." My response to her was "sure you will, you don't make that decision anyway, your corporate office in Phoenix does after making agreements with the FCC." Then I got an even dirtier look from her. The temperature here has been in the 95-105 degree range every day for the past two weeks, and I do leave the air conditioner (an 18,000 BTU window unit) on 24/7 usually ice cold. And I leave my computers turned on 24/7 also, so my electric bill is pretty awful most of the summer. I imagine the new DVR will add to the bill, but I tend to sit in the dark or dim light) quite a bit anyway so that is some offset. I have not yet figured out how to use the remote control unit for the DVR totally, let alone make a specific effort to watch/record anything. Since I live only three blocks from the electric power generating station, maybe I should ask them to give me a break on the high rates. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Gary Breuckman Subject: Re: My New DVR From Cable One Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 10:21:28 -0500 Organization: Puma's Lair - catbox.com In article , "TELECOM Digest Editor" wrote: > So I got downtown to pay today and the lady takes my money then brings > me a large box, and says "this is your new converter unit, I will have > my husband bring it out to your house this afternoon and remove your old > converter and swap this one in its place." After she assured me it would > *not* affect my bill at all, she explained it was their 'new style > converter unit' which is actually a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) > combined with all the features which had earlier been on the box. This > new converter unit looks exactly like the old one, but it includes an 80 > gig hard drive, and the ability to record shows as you watch them, or > record one show as you watch another, or watch 'live television' but > stop it for a few minutes to go the bathroom or get a phone call, etc. Time-Warner here (Milwaukee) also offers a DVR, it's not quite free, they want $5/month for it, but that's inexpensive enough to be of interest. You can also watch one channel and record another, or record two channels at a time, or decide towards the end of show that you've only been watching that you want to save it and watch it again later. I don't have one, we have two VCR's and that's met our needs so far. -- Gary Breuckman [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My television is a TV/VCR combination, and I do now and then watch movies I get from the Blockbuster store here in town, but I think only one time I recorded to it from the television set. I have found one interesting thing about the new DVR unit: I have a wireless cam in my back yard which focuses on a bird sanctuary area which has a feeder, water and a couple nests. By fiddling with the switches on the back of the DVR (and feeding the wireless cam into it [instead of to the video AUX input on the TV as I had been doing]) I can still watch over the birds from the comfort of my house but I can switch between a small picture inside the larger picture (what Cable One calls PIP or 'picture in picture') to a full screen picture of the birds, as the cat torments them, or a picture of what I had been watching or a little picture of one or the other superimposed on the other picture (the PIP feature). PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: My New DVR From Cable One Organization: ATCC Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 19:50:32 GMT In article , ptownson@telecom- digest.org says: > Friday afternoon I went downtown to pay some bills and one place I > stopped at was the CableOne office on Penn Street. CableOne is where I > get my internet service and my cable television/radio. I get a monthly > package through them called 'Digital Internet' which costs about $95 > per month and includes half a T-1 for internet, a 'cable modem' and a > couple hundred channels of television; the package also includes 38 > channels of non-commercial radio, including a couple channnels of > classical music. I almost never watch television; I was more inter- > ested in having fast cable internet around. Also, quite coincidentally > the cable carries 89.5 FM (NPR from Tulsa) and 89.9 FM (NPR from > Pittsburg, KS) and those two services on the cable (totally free) > offer me all the classical music I want, including channel 938 on the > cable itself which is non-commercial uninteruppted classical music all > the time. > So I got downtown to pay today and the lady takes my money then brings > me a large box, and says "this is your new converter unit, I will > have my husband bring it out to your house this afternoon and remove > your old converter and swap this one in its place." After she assured > me it would *not* affect my bill at all, she explained it was their > 'new style converter unit' which is actually a DVR (Digital Video > Recorder) combined with all the features which had earlier been on > the box. This new converter unit looks exactly like the old one, but > it includes an 80 gig hard drive, and the ability to record shows as > you watch them, or record one show as you watch another, or watch > 'live television' but stop it for a few minutes to go the bathroom > or get a phone call, etc. By the time I got home in the cab, the > guy from CableOne was sitting in front of my door with the unit. Its > about the size of a standalone VCR player, and weighs five to ten > pounds. It plugs in the cable line exactly as the older unit did > with the same outputs to television and radio or other speakers. Interestingly the digital cable boxes manufactured over the past 5 or so years have had the ability to have an HD placed in them for the express purpose of recording. It's just in the past couple of years that HD prices have dropped like a stone. It's now < $1.00 per gigabyte. I've just got basic cable right now because quite frankly, having the box isn't worth it. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Our 'basic' cable here is twenty or so channels; the 'extended basic' is sixty channels; the 'Digital Internet' package is a pretty good deal; that is what I have, and it includes several HBO things, several Showtime things, various EFTN sports channels, thirty or so digital music channels which are commercial free, etc. Plus which, I can use my credit card to purchase various 'on demand' channels, etc. Without *some kind* of cable, Independence gets *two* (out of *three* possible) television channels, provided you have a very high antenna directionally pointed to (take your pick) Wichita (110 miles northwest), Tulsa (80 miles straight south) or Joplin, MO/Pittsburg, KS (90 miles straight east). On the 'basic' cable you get twenty channels, but these twenty consist of three each of ABC, NBC, CBS (nine channels), two Foxes (Tulsa and Joplin), a couple of PBS's, and the usual assortment of municipal channels, including one channel each for city hall, Independence Community College and Independence High School. Without the 'free ride' they get on cable, you cannot get 89.9 or 89.5 FM here. 80-90 miles is just too far out of range. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Cordless Phones Not Working on Working Phone Line Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 07:39:14 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com doggie-bert wrote: > 2 days ago both of the cordless phones in my apartment stopped > working. Thinking that the phones had died we went out and bought a > new cordless phone, but this new phone also isn't working. I've tried > every phone jack in the house and corded phones work fine as well as > the new answering machine. My DSL is also working fine. All 3 of the > phones are 900 Mhz, so it could be something interfering with the > signal, but I don't know what. Anyone out there have any ideas? This used to happen to me years ago, and Ohio Bell/Ameritech reps told me to unplug the phones and let them sit for a while (10-30 minutes) and plug them back in. I have no idea *why* that solution worked, but it *did* work. 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. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Cordless Phones Not Working on Working Phone Line Organization: ATCC Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 19:55:44 GMT In article , dreisc@gmail.com says: > 2 days ago both of the cordless phones in my apartment stopped > working. Thinking that the phones had died we went out and bought a > new cordless phone, but this new phone also isn't working. I've tried > every phone jack in the house and corded phones work fine as well as > the new answering machine. My DSL is also working fine. All 3 of the > phones are 900 Mhz, so it could be something interfering with the > signal, but I don't know what. Anyone out there have any ideas? I almost hate to suggest, but is it getting power to the base unit? ------------------------------ Subject: Norvergence Article in Chicago Tribune Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 16:33:29 GMT Today's (Sep 4) Chicago Tribune has an article about Norvergence, in the business section under "Bad ring to bankrupt phone firm". Starts off telling about a small business owner who signed up for the service and is now obligated to pay $200/mo. for the electronic box, even tho he gets no service. I won't copy the article here, because of copyright, but you can read it on line. (Probably have to register, which is free). jhhaynes at earthlink dot net ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: Solzano Rides Again! Date: 4 Sep 2004 13:43:28 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to A. Reader : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I guess this time the Solzano brothers > have the money to do it right. At least one would hope so. PAT] I read a biography of Harry Truman, and one aspect may have relevance here. During the 1930s Truman, a new Senator, was assigned to the committee handling interstate commerce, including corporate bankruptcies. Truman discovered that despite some corporations going bankrupt, a lot of people were walking away quite wealthy. Sometimes both businesses and individuals are the victim of circumstances and despite their best efforts, end up in bankruptcy. (Truman, while not bankrupt, lost his own business and spent years paying off the debts). But sometimes both businesses and individuals are irresponsible, throw money away, and fail to live within a realistic budget. The rest of us end up paying for that. I don't know the underlying facts in the Norv. troubles, such as why their cash flow control was so bad that the employees weren't paid or what happened to all the up-front money received for the service leases. I do think there is a public interest in this case for an impartial body to investigate the circumstances and let the public know so it may be prevented in the future. I am also confused as to how the principals of a bankrupt organization could start a new venture so quickly before the dust as even settled on their failed one. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 03:10:27 EDT From: Dan Lanciani Subject: Re: A Competing TV Provider > ISPs are not the only players hoping to muscle in on the lucrative pay > TV services market, and as start-up U.S. Digital Television Inc. > (USDTV) has shown, delivering alternative TV services over IP > networks-as inevitable as it may seem to ISPs-is not the only option. [...] > The company is partnering with local TV stations, transmitting on > their unused digital broadcast spectrum and using their transmission > infrastructure. Its ambitious plan is to expand to 100-plus markets > over the next three years. And now we begin to see the real potential of the forced digital broadcasting transition: the reallocation of spectrum from free program material to pay TV. Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com ------------------------------ From: J M Subject: Re: Outsource Firm Sues in India / Alleged Code Theft Highlights Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 15:21:09 GMT I see a few problems with this story and it's shame that major news papers reporting one-sided story without investigating further. - Mr Jolly's account has a few problems. For example: "Jolly went directly to the Cyber Crime unit of the Mumbai Police Force" and "Low-level police in India don't really know what a computer is." I know Mumbai police has one of the most advanced facilities in India with LANs and internet access thanks to Reliance Industry founder generous donation for building new police facilities. Here is other one "I'm very surprised to hear that the police and even NASSCOM are behaving that way". May be there is a reason why, who knows what the real truth is. "In our case, instead of helping be reasone why he got good treatment. May be harresment complaint againt Mr Jolly by a women? It's very common in some countries get roughed up by police for harrasment complaints against a person. JM! Monty Solomon wrote in message news:telecom23.402.4@telecom-digest.org: > By Karl Schoenberger > Mercury News > In a case that exposes the intellectual-property risks of outsourcing > in India, a small San Carlos software company has sued Mumbai police > for refusing to investigate the alleged theft of proprietary source > code by an employee at its Indian subsidiary. > Sandeep Jolly, the founder and chief executive of Jolly Technologies, > said U.S. technology companies should beware of the risks of doing > business in his native land at a time when many are taking advantage > of the cost savings of offshoring and entrusting sensitive software > development and testing work to Indian contractors. Protection of > intellectual property is still a new concept for lawmakers, police > and prosecutors, he said. > http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9500402.htm ------------------------------ From: John P. Dearing Subject: Re: Party Lines No More? Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 19:21:06 GMT Lisa Hancock wrote: > For the younger readers: Years ago installing individual copper phone > lines to each subscriber was very expensive. So subscribers shared a > line in an arrangement known as the "party line". This was particu- > larly common in rural areas where the lines had long runs. As > technology improved (such as concentrators and carrier circuits), > party lines were reduced. > Some Verizon engineers told me they doubt party lines exist anywhere > in the U.S. anymore for the following reasons: > 1) Universal Service Fee: The high expense of rural lines is subsidized > by other customers. > 2) Low cost fibre: They said they were a low cost fibre system that > could economically handle rural service. > If any lines still exist they may be from private rural cooperative > phone companies in isolated places, or from subscribers who could get > private line service but just don't bother to save a $1 a month. In Pennsylvania, the party-line tariff doesn't exist anymore (only as a grandfathered offering). This means that subscribers with existing party lines can keep then and aren't forced to get rid of them but no new party lines will be offered. By the 1980's and 1990's so few people still had party lines that many of them were effectively single party lines. That is, they had no "mate" on the party line. Bell then started doing "party line reassociations" which is putting party lines back together. You'd look for a Ring party with no mate and find a Tip party with no mate. Put them together and you now have a party line again. Some folks weren't too happy with this, since for years they didn't have to share the line with anyone and now they did. Anyone that complained was offered the opportunity to convert to single party service which was now nearly the same price. Once on a single party line, they could also get other features not available on party lines, like call waiting and voicemail, etc ... if they wanted. John Dearing A+, Network+ ------------------------------ 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 #415 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Sep 5 18:47:42 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i85MlgH22579; Sun, 5 Sep 2004 18:47:42 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2004 18:47:42 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409052247.i85MlgH22579@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 #416 TELECOM Digest Sun, 5 Sep 2004 18:47:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 416 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Police: Stalker Used GPS to Track Ex-Girlfriend (Eric Friedebach) How to Call Blocked Canadian 800 Number From U.S. (Mark) NPAC Data Feeds (Larry Gassman) Re: Spoofing Caller-ID (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: The Soft Invasion (Barry Margolin) Re: The Soft Invasion (burris) Re: The Soft Invasion (Dan Lanciani) Re: Sender ID Finds Followers Ahead of Approval (Robert Bonomi) Re: My New DVR From Cable One (DevilsPGD) Re: Party Lines No More? (DevilsPGD) Re: Party Lines No More? (Lisa Hancock) 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: friedebach@yahoo.com (Eric Friedebach) Subject: Police: Stalker Used GPS to Track Ex-Girlfriend Date: 5 Sep 2004 10:47:18 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS, 9-5-04 GLENDALE, Calif. - A Glendale businessman faces stalking charges that allege he attached a cell phone with Global Positioning System technology to his ex-girlfriend's car so he could track her every move and show up unexpectedly wherever she was. In what authorities said was the first stalking case of its kind in Los Angeles County, Ara Gabrielyan, 32, was charged last week with stalking and threatening over a six-month period to kill his former girlfriend and himself. Gabrielyan, who ran an Armenian CD and video specialty shop, is suspected of using GPS technology to pinpoint her location so he could arrange apparent chance encounters at the bookstore, at the airport, even at her brother's grave site. "This is what I would consider stalking of the 21st century -- the utilization of technology to track a victim," said Lt. Jon Perkins of the Glendale Police Department. After the unidentified 35-year-old woman broke off their nearly two-year relationship, Gabrielyan would follow her by car, show up at her doorstep and call her 30 to 100 times a day, she told police. http://tinyurl.com/6jzm3 Eric Friedebach /Favorite OnStar commercial: crying woman drops keys in toilet/ ------------------------------ From: xx-google@telefog.com (Mark) Subject: How to Call Blocked Canadian 800 Numbers From U.S. Date: 5 Sep 2004 00:09:22 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Some Canadian toll-free numbers are intentionally blocked from U.S. access by their owners, and no alternate non-toll-free number exists. Here are some such numbers: 888-242-2100 Citizenship & Immigration Canada 800-665-0354 Canada Revenue Agency 800-959-1956 Canada Revenue Agency 800-959-8281 Canada Revenue Agency 800-339-6908 ExpressVu 866-801-9995 ExpressVu 888-759-3473 ExpressVu 800-255-4541 Canada Revenue Agency? This frustrated me, so I dug up some ways around the restriction. (I'm in California, area code 510.) None is these methods is dirt cheap, but each is less expensive than going to Canada to make your call. ******************************************************* ******************************************************* ******************************************************* METHOD #1: Get a teleconferencing account from Enunciate of Toronto. The cost for a call like the one I described in method 1 above is US$0.18 per minute, plus an additional US$0.18 per minute if you access the service via Enunciate's toll-free access number (they also have an area code 416 number). Service setup requires you to sign a simple form and fax it back to Enunciate. They bill to a major credit card. This service is a little harder to use, but they'll walk you through it. Call 1-866-504-1079 to directly reach Bruneau, a very helpful corporate sales rep. IMPORTANT: make sure you have Enunciate install your conference account on their Spectel bridge, which assures that your calls to toll-free numbers will go through. Their other bridge blocks most toll-free calls, for reasons that neither they nor I understand. (I don't even know what a bridge is, but it doesn't matter: I do know that Spectel is the bridge for me.) More info: http://www.enunciate.ca ******************************************************* ******************************************************* ******************************************************* METHOD #2: Subscribe to TelCan's callback service, which should allow you to dial any Canadian toll-free number from the U.S for less than 10 cents per minute. They charge a monthly access fee of $4, which is waived for any month in which your usage is at least $20. (I haven't tried this service.) More information: http://www.telcan.net/callback/default.asp ******************************************************* ******************************************************* ******************************************************* METHOD #3: Call someone you know in Canada and have them dial out to your blocked toll-free number and then patch you and the toll-free number together via 3-way calling. (I haven't tried this method.) ******************************************************* ******************************************************* ******************************************************* Do you know of any other ways for Americans to call Canadian toll-free numbers that are blocked from U.S.? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think most 800 numbers simply get translated into a 'regular' number; if you dial via that 'regular' number you call will go through. For example, a friend of mine in Canada (Ontario) who calls me occassionally to counsel me with my computer stuff has my 800 number; but he cannot get through on it -- I have never had it specifically authorized for Canadian or other country use. So he dials in on the area codee 620 version of same number instead. My question is (1) have you tried dialing the untranslated or 'regular' number of the places you want to call and (2) are they refusing to deal with your call on those untranslated numbers? I would think there are various calling plans in your (USA) area code which would make your call cheap enough without the need for all the gymnastics you are otherwise going through to get them on the phone. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Larry Gassman Subject: NPAC Data Feeds Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2004 07:56:07 -0400 Organization: Cox Communications Is anyone aware of a company providing real-time (or near-real-time) downloads of LNP data ? I am looking for a company getting downloads from the Neustar NPAC and then reselling access to that data. I am envisioning something like a hub-service provider of NPAC data. Hopefully, this data source will be a dumbed-up interface (in relation to the Neustar NPAC-LSMS interface). I want to download data to my own database (not perform a SS7 database dip to a company like Verisign, Syniverse, SNET or TNS). I am looking for a legitimate company and data source (I am presuming this is allowed/legal). Regards. ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: Spoofing Caller-ID Date: 5 Sep 2004 00:17:41 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , John R. Covert wrote: > Jack Adams wrote: >> I'm guessing that this firm uses in-band 202 signalling to "overwrite" >> any normal CLID message > Your guess would be wrong. As the article said, "Caller ID spoofing > has for years been within the reach of businesses with certain types > of digital connections to their local phone company, and more recently > has become the plaything of hackers and pranksters exploiting > permissive voice over IP systems." That's only true if the gateway equipment serving these networks is configured to treat calling party ID from them as "network provided"; which the relevant interworking documents are quite clear that it should not. And if it's not "network provided" and the provided telephone number is not associated with the same BTN as the actual originating line or trunk, the provided number should not be transmitted to the next switch in the call path. Essentially, LECs that make it possible to "spoof" caller ID like this are broken. The regulators should simply require them to fix themselves; it is _one single bit_ of provisioning information on any switch built since the early 1990s when the formal requirement for interworking Q.931 and ISUP closed down the final loopholes in this area. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com But as he knew no bad language, he had called him all the names of common objects that he could think of, and had screamed: "You lamp! You towel! You plate!" and so on. --Sigmund Freud ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: The Soft Invasion Organization: Symantec Date: Sun, 05 Sep 2004 00:47:06 -0400 In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > This phenomenon is called spyware, or adware. Why are these lumped together these days? Didn't "spyware" used to refer to applications that covertly "phones home" to send information about you and/or your computer to the vendor? Sometimes these are legitimate applications, but the fact that they're sending this information back is not divulged to the user; other times the applications sneak in via trojans or browser exploits. The only thing I can think of that links spyware and adware is that adware also typically gets in via browser exploits. Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** ------------------------------ From: burris Subject: Re: The Soft Invasion Date: Sun, 05 Sep 2004 08:41:41 -0400 Monty Solomon wrote: > By WALTER S. MOSSBERG > WHAT IF A private company could legally break into your house and rig > your television so that it would always start up on a special station > the company had created that showed deceptive ads every minute, all > day? And what if, when you tried to change the station, you could > choose only among obscure and dubious channels selected by the > invading company? > Oh, and suppose that same sleazy company could erect billboards for > phony medical cures and get-rich-quick schemes on your lawn anytime, > without your permission? And suppose it could also make a record of > everything you said or did in your house and sell it to other > companies? > You'd be more than angry. You'd be lobbying for jail time for these > guys. But something similar happens every day on the personal > computers of tens of millions of people. It's offensive but legal, and > it's driving its victims crazy. > This phenomenon is called spyware, or adware, and it is rapidly > replacing viruses and spam as the No. 1 hassle associated with using > an Internet-connected computer. Spyware is a type of software placed > surreptitiously on a Windows PC, often by means of a file, downloaded > from a Web site, that is either invisible or is disguised as a > legitimate file. > Once on your PC, spyware can do many nefarious things. Unlike a > virus, it rarely tries to destroy files or propagate itself through > e-mail. Instead, it tries to seize control of key aspects of your > machine and turn them into conduits for selling you junk, or for > gathering information that can help others do so. > There are many forms of spyware, but the big four, which correspond > to the household examples above, are: > http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/report-200408.html > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The two forms of protection I use > against spies are 'Ad-Aware' and 'Spybot: Seek and Destroy'. Of > course I also use AVG for virus protection. All three of these > items are free on the web and highly effective. PAT] Pat, I couldn't agree more. I have used those three programs since inception and they have never failed to discover and correct a problem if it existed. burris [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: On all three of those programs of course, you need to update their dictionary or defintions files from time to time to keep them up to date. Usually whenever I think of it and do a manual run of Spybot or Ad-Aware I just tell them to go check for any updates before they start running. AVG, which scours the entire system nightly, is set to automatically check with its home every two weeks. If AVG does not find the vermin where it is hiding, then one of the other two will find it. Combine those three with Zone Alarm, a free software firewall also available on the net and your protection is reasonable. I do not know why, but Zone Alarm fails to recognize (but does not hassle or tamper with) AVG as a virus protection. Zone Alarm asks when starting up "Do you have any anti-virus protection running? I say 'yes' on account of the AVG, but Zone Alarm keeps saying it does not see any anti-virus stuff running. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2004 17:20:13 -0400 (EDT) From: Dan Lanciani Subject: Re: The Soft Invasion > By WALTER S. MOSSBERG > WHAT IF A private company could legally break into your house and rig > your television so that it would always start up on a special station > the company had created that showed deceptive ads every minute, all > day? And what if, when you tried to change the station, you could > choose only among obscure and dubious channels selected by the > invading company? Why exactly is it any more legal for companies to install unauthorized software on my machine than it is for a virus writer to do so? Is it simply because they are (self-identified) "legitimate" businesses rather than individuals? Or is it because they claim that at some point I gave them permission, much as the spammers claim that I signed up for their mail? Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com ------------------------------ Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting Subject: Re: Sender ID Finds Followers Ahead of Approval From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Sun, 05 Sep 2004 13:07:53 +0000 In article , Robert Bonomi wrote: > In article , Monty Solomon > wrote: >> By Jim Wagner >> As a new Sender ID specification for beating back spam wends its way >> through the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), some e-mail >> software vendors are not waiting around for its final approval >> before implementing the system that the IETF will eventually bless a >> specification that will be used on e-mail systems throughout the >> world. >> One of the contributors to the Sender ID specification, >> Microsoft (Quote, Chart), has patents pending on certain components >> of the Sender ID technology it has donated to the IETF's >> efforts. Microsoft has repeatedly said that -- even if it is >> granted a patent on the technology -- it would "make licenses >> available on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms." >> But the issue has some in the open source world talking. The drive >> in the business community to press ahead with Sender ID comes at a >> time when some in the open source community are claiming the >> licensing stipulations around Sender ID don't interoperate with the >> most popular open source license variant, the General Public License >> (define). >> In a post to the IETF's MARID (MTA Authorization Records in DNS) >> discussion list the chairman of the Apache Software Foundation >> (ASF), Greg Stein, called Microsoft's Royalty-Free Sender ID license >> agreement a barrier to any ASF project. >> http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3402921 >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What exactly is the problem with the >> Open Source proponents? That *they* did not think of it first? >> That Microsoft may get the credit? > Why not try *reading* their position paper on the subject. > Even you might be able to learn something from it. > Do you think there is any problem with an arrangement whereby > Microsoft could, in, say 5 years, after "everybody" is using the > protocol, _change_ the terms for continuing use of the technology > _by_those_CURRENTLY_using_it_ to "if the technology is not embedded in > a MicroSoft product, you must pay $100 for each e-mail message > processed"? Do you have any doubt that MS _would_ do such a thing if > they thought they could get away with it? >> It is really a damn shame when these intelligent men and women fight >> and squabble among themselves while the rest of the world has to >> fight with the spammers. But oh well, most of them probably never >> even see spam (save one or two pieces each day which slip past the >> myriad of filters used by their secretary to get rid of it), > Congratulations PAT, you've just re-proved the definition of USENET. > to wit: "Open mouth, insert foot. Echo internationally." > The ASF (pache oftware oundation) is almost exclusively a > *VOLUNTEER* software development community. 'Secretaries'?? You've > _got_ to be kidding! > If _you_ are only getting one spam message every few minutes on > average, you don't know what a *real* problem is. Contemplate > getting 30-50,000 _per_day_ for one mailbox. A million-plus per day > across all the accounts on the server. >> and those one or two pieces which they do have to view makes them >> angry enough to squabble with other professionals about it, but not >> so angry that they would even consider for a minute getting off >> their own high horses in order to wade through the sewer that the >> net has become with the rest of us. > Rant, based on delusions that are *not* supported by any actual facts. >> Do most of those people even realize how tragic and awful the >> problem of spam has become? I don't think so, otherwise they surely >> would not be blocking the restoration efforts as much as they do, >> would they? > > Nah, I'm *sure* they don't. That's why 'spamassassin' is one of the > '*FREE* for everyone' projects under the ASF umbrella. > > You _have_ heard of spamassassin, haven't you? > In message Fred Goldstein > wrote: >> Another interesting study, from CipherTrust, has just shown that >> the primary users of Sender Policy Framework are (drumroll, please) >> -- Spammers! Yes, it's trivial for a spammer to pass an SPF >> screen. So the main potential benefit is, I suppose, making >> phishing a bit harder or easier for educated users to detect. But >> as an anti-spam weapon, it's nearly worthless. > Which makes sense, SPF was never built to combat spam in the first > place. It was built to combat forgery, and it does that nicely. > Men are from Earth. Women are from Earth. Deal with it. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have heard of Spam Assassin. On my > (unix-based) account at MIT I use it, and the $SPAMBOX is always full > and over loaded. Despite the fact that I have the user-settable point > score set very low (1 or 2 qualifies the mail as 'spam') I still > manage to wind up with 85-90 percent spam in my mailbox each day, > out of *hundreds* of pieces of mail daily. Then you need to _learn_ how to use spam assassin. It *IS* -configurable-. If stuff gets past it, you look for any defining characteristics of what gets past it, and add a rule to filter that. Yeah, it takes a little effort to do that. But, _after_ training, it tends to be *very* effective. I run a home-brew tool, on my mailserver, that is much simpler than spam assassin (I wrote it before spam assassin was available). People only try to send me about 850 junk e-mail messages a day, so I'm not in the 'thousands' range. Quite. I've had *one* junk e-mail get through in the last month. _Two_ in the last three months. I block 2 individual IP addresses, 2 '/24' address ranges, and a '/19' assigned to Nigeria. On top of that, I block half-a-dozen domains by name, and a couple of dozen 'magic phrases'. Plus a special check that anything with an AOL, Netscape, Yahoo, or Hotmail address actually comes from the corresponding servers. In the life of the system there have been _three_ 'false positives'. One when 'netscape' mail started coming from AOL's mail-servers instead of one in the netscape domain. And two for some domains that were hosted by SBC, for which the mail came from Yahoo's servers. > I think I heard that MS was granting the license in prepetuity -- > forever -- to groups working to fight spam. But you seem to be > saying "no matter what Microsoft says, after five or ten years they > will change the terms of the license." I do not think that is so. > PAT] What you "think" doesn't matter. And the issue is not 'will they', but "_could_ they", do it. And, if they could, whether you're willing to bet the entire product line that they _will_not_. MS has _earned_ (many times over) the distrust that the rest of the industry feels towards it. There is also the issue that all 'open source' software comes with the proviso that you can modify, re-use, and even *re-distribute* (as long as you provide the source to all your 'enhancements' as well). You can even charge money for it, as long as you provide source the code 'on request'. The proposed MS license doesn't provide for that same unfettered 'pass through' for the license of the (probably defective) patented technology. At that point, it becomes an _ethical_ issue. Does one stand fast on the basic principles the organization was *founded* on, or does one abandon those principles, for the sake of 'expediency'? Some people feel that behaving ethically *is* critically important. Others, like MicroSoft, don't. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe you would like to do me a favor? My personal Spam Assassin files, (in a directory off of my ~ directory is known as '/.spamassassin') contains these four files: 'bayes_journal', 'bayes_seen', 'bayes_toks' and 'user_prefs'. 'toks' and 'seen' are both very huge binary files. 'journal' is a large file which is in ascii, and readable, consisting of several thousand lines which look like this: The letter 't' followed by a long number which begins 109440 with several more digits following then a single word or phrase, sometimes with a wild card in the middle or on the end of it such as '*word' or 'word*here' or similar. The 'prefs' file is a list of things I can do to improve my lot in life I guess. I am cautioned that I cannot change the system files and definitions (nor would I want to interfere with the work of Mr. Meyerhaus, the sysadmin here at MIT) but that what I do in the 'prefs' file will take effect for my account only. Your mission, should you wish to accept it, is to build for me a Spam Assassin which will resemble your own, with only one or two 'false positives' in a day's time. Do you want to see or examine my 'journal', 'seen', 'toks' or 'prefs' file to do this? Let me know if you wish any files from this end to be sent to you to work with. PAT] ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: My New DVR From Cable One Reply-To: bond-jamesbond@crazyhat.net Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Sun, 05 Sep 2004 03:55:56 GMT In message Danny Burstein wrote: > At a typical charge of $0.20 (20 cents) per kw-hr, that's a bit over > $4/month in electricity. Add another buck or two if you're using air > conditining and have to dump out that heat. Usually worth it, but > worth a thought or two. OTOH, since the majority of the energy used gets converted into heat, it comes straight off your heating bill if you're in an area which gets cold. > (And the "off" switch, if it has one, is only for show). Weird. My Bell ExpressVu PVR does shut off the hard drive when not in use (Although not immediately, it will update the guide and whatever other housekeeping needs to be done first) I'd rather be told "Have a nice day" by someone who doesn't mean it, than to "F--- OFF" by someone who does. ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Party Lines No More? Reply-To: bond-jamesbond@crazyhat.net Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Sun, 05 Sep 2004 03:54:42 GMT In message John P. Dearing wrote: > By the 1980's and 1990's so few people still had party lines that many > of them were effectively single party lines. That is, they had no > "mate" on the party line. Bell then started doing "party line > reassociations" which is putting party lines back together. You'd look > for a Ring party with no mate and find a Tip party with no mate. Put > them together and you now have a party line again. Any idea how much it cost them to put together parties onto party lines again? I'd rather be told "Have a nice day" by someone who doesn't mean it, than to "F--- OFF" by someone who does. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Party Lines No More? Date: 5 Sep 2004 13:20:19 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com John P. Dearing wrote > In Pennsylvania, the party-line tariff doesn't exist anymore (only as > a grandfathered offering). This means that subscribers with existing > party lines can keep then and aren't forced to get rid of them but no > new party lines will be offered. A slight correction ... Some years ago party line customers in Pa were sent a letter saying their party service was discontinued and would become private lines. AFAIK, Verizon no longer offers party service in Pa at all. I don't know about smaller companies. Prior to this, party service was restricted to existing customers who already had it. I've seen this notice in other states. ------------------------------ 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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #416 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Sep 6 04:39:42 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i868dfC27146; Mon, 6 Sep 2004 04:39:42 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2004 04:39:42 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409060839.i868dfC27146@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 #417 TELECOM Digest Mon, 6 Sep 2004 04:40:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 417 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson The Death of Diversity in Cable TV Programming (Monty Solomon) Bush to Big Cable: We Love You Time Warner, Comcast, Cox (Monty Solomon) Show Me the Convention (Monty Solomon) In Internet Calling, Skype Is Living Up to the Hype (Monty Solomon) Re: Party Lines No More? (John McHarry) Re: Party Lines No More? (John Levine) Re: Telephone Vocabulary -- "Straight Line" (John McHarry) Re: How to Call Blocked Canadian 800 Numbers From U.S. (John P. Dearing) Play DTMF Tones Over a Modem (Prospecting Sucks) Re: My New DVR From Cable One (Barry Margolin) Book Review: The Sinking of the Eastland (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 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: Sun, 5 Sep 2004 22:46:14 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Death of Diversity in Cable TV Programming C. DELORES TUCKER WOULD THE civil rights movement of the 1960s have succeeded without the help of television? Johnathan Rodgers, CEO of TV One, a new African-American network, recently posed the question -- with skepticism. The indelible images of Bull Connor's dogs, and the spiritual nonviolent resistance to them, made a human struggle palpable for Americans otherwise absorbed in more mundane affairs. Television today, particularly cable, is in some ways both a manifest of the civil rights struggle and the very tool of its continuing execution. A generation after the march over the Pettus Bridge, African-Americans, Latinos, and women own, produce, and star in a rich menu of cable programming which illuminates their culture, mobility, and challenges -- both internal and external. Much of this success is owed to the very model of the cable television platform, where developing channels are placed alongside established ones -- a platform that some media critics now want to replace with a government mandated pay-per-channel (or "a la carte") regime where consumers would have to pay a set price for individual channels. And if these would-be regulators succeed, the diversity in cable programming -- a fruit of the civil rights movement -- will die with it. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/09/05/the_death_of_diversity_in_cable_tv_programming/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2004 22:59:01 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Bush to Big Cable: We Love You Time Warner, Comcast, Cox! Washington Watch A Pre-GOP Convention Gift to Media Monopoly for Broadband August 30, 2004 The Department of Justice last Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court decision that affirmed the broadband Internet's obligation to serve as a nondiscriminatory medium. The DOJ thus joined both the FCC and the cable industry, which also want to see a reversal of what is called the "Brand X" case (for the Santa Monica-based Internet service provider of that name). A federal Court of Appeals (Ninth Circuit) found last year that the Michael Powell FCC erred when it declared that the cable industry could, in essence, operate closed broadband networks. Fighting that decision in court were ISPs Brand X and Earthlink, along with Consumer Federation of American, Consumers Union, Media Access Project (as our counsel), and CDD. The Brand X case is vitally important to the future of the Internet as a democratic medium. As the Bush DOJ told the Supreme Court: "This case is likely to determine the regulatory classification under the Communications Act that will apply to broadband ( i.e., "high-speed") Internet access services in the United States." In essence, the federal government has come to the aid of its embattled great deregulator, FCC chairman Michael Powell. In May 2002, Powell, as part of his agency's "leave no media monopoly behind" policy, approved rules that permitted cable companies to extend their monopoly in multichannel television to the broadband market. Broadband provided by cable would not have to retain the characteristics of the dial-up Internet under his new policy, which meant that cable companies could deny access to their network by all other ISPs (forcing cable broadband subscribers to use the cable operator's monopoly ISP provider). In addition, by eliminating nondiscrimination safeguards for broadband service, Powell made it much easier for cable companies to manipulate their Internet platforms to further benefit commercial media content. http://www.democraticmedia.org/news/washingtonwatch/BrandXBush.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2004 23:07:56 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Show Me the Convention OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR By MICHAEL J. COPPS Washington - As a Democratic commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission, I may not agree with many positions taken by speakers this week at the Republican National Convention. Even so, I believe our broadcast media owe us more coverage of an event that remains an important component of the presidential campaign. Yet tonight, if people around the country tune in to the commercial broadcast TV networks, most will not see any live convention coverage. That's not right. Let's remember that American citizens own the public airwaves, not TV executives. We give broadcasters the right to use these airwaves for free in exchange for their agreement to broadcast in the public interest. They earn huge profits using this public resource. During this campaign season broadcasters will receive nearly $1.5 billion from political advertising. What do we get in return for granting TV stations free use of our airwaves? Unfortunately, when it comes to coverage of issues important to our nation, the answer is less and less. Coverage of the 2000 presidential election on the network evening news dropped by a third compared to reporting on the 1996 election. During the last election cycle we heard directly from presidential candidates for an average of 9 seconds a night on the news. Local races? Forget it. In 2002 -- the most recent midterm elections -- more than half of local newscasts contained no campaign coverage at all. Local coverage has diminished to the point that campaign ads outnumber campaign stories by four to one. What coverage there is focuses inordinately on polls and handicapping the horse race. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/30/opinion/30copps.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2004 23:18:39 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: In Internet Calling, Skype Is Living Up to the Hype TECHNO FILES By JAMES FALLOWS HOW big a deal will Skype turn out to be? I have no idea whether the company itself, which was founded one year ago, will someday come to epitomize and dominate a particular booming business, the way Google ,eBay and Amazon now do. But I feel confident that the service it provides will be attractive to most people who give it a serious look. Skype, a made-up term that rhymes with "tripe," is the most popular and sexiest application of VoIP, which doesn't rhyme with anything. VoIP -- sometimes pronounced letter by letter, like C.I.A., and at other times as a word -- stands for voice over Internet protocol. Essentially, it is a way of allowing a computer with a broadband connection to serve as a telephone. This new form of conveying voice messages has so many advantages over traditional systems that the whole telecommunications industry is scrambling to see how fast it can shift traffic onto the Internet. AT&T, for example, is no longer recruiting new home customers, but it is offering many new VoIP services. Dozens of other companies - new ones like Vonage and established ones like Verizon - are selling VoIP services, too. Skype's distinction is that, for now at least, it is the easiest, fastest and cheapest way for individual customers to begin using VoIP. It works this way: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/05/business/yourmoney/05tech.html ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Party Lines No More? Date: Sun, 05 Sep 2004 23:17:39 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net DevilsPGD wrote: > In message John P. Dearing > wrote: >> By the 1980's and 1990's so few people still had party lines that many >> of them were effectively single party lines. That is, they had no >> "mate" on the party line. Bell then started doing "party line >> reassociations" which is putting party lines back together. You'd look >> for a Ring party with no mate and find a Tip party with no mate. Put >> them together and you now have a party line again. > Any idea how much it cost them to put together parties onto party lines > again? In later years, they just bridged them in the CO. This made it easy to use "killer little old ladies" to drive away other party line subscribers. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Sep 2004 06:19:41 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Party Lines No More? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Any idea how much it cost them to put together parties onto party > lines again? Not much. It was usually just moving jumpers at the CO to bridge the lines together. Everyone had a private line from the CO out to their houses. My cousins who run a rural telco in VT told me that the "attack biddie" gambit to get people to switch to private lines was a well known one. ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Telephone Vocabulary -- "Straight Line" Date: Sun, 05 Sep 2004 23:34:43 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Carl Navarro wrote: > We used the term "straight line" in reference to the ringer. A > straight line ringer would ring on frequencies of 16 2/3 to about 33 > Hz, as opposed to a party line ringer that would only ring on the > frequency it was tuned to. That would be an independent phone company. I don't think the Bells ever used tuned ringers, except as an interim in companies they acquired. > For Central Offices, private line ring generator was either was either > 20 or 30 Hz. Other frequencies were different, depending on whether > the ring scheme was Harmonic or Decimonic. No, I don't remember what > party was what, except that party 2 was 50Hz in Harmonic. I suppose I > could look it up if it's important. There was also Synchromonic ringing. Seems to me there may have been another, but it may have been a variation of one of the other schemes. My favorite was GURF ringing. You could have full selective ringing on eight or ten party lines by putting half the ringers tip to ground and the other half ring to ground. Four party ANI was also possible using diodes. Tip to ring, ring to tip, tip to ground, and ring to ground. There may have been six party, but I don't recall. Maybe there is a problem with that. If you want to go beyond that, or don't use frequency selective ringing, there is coded ringing, or divided coded ringing, using tip and ring groupings. Old magneto phones were mostly coded ringing, and you could ring other parties on your line without going through "Central". There was an alarm code that could be use to summon the neighbors if you had a fire or something. ------------------------------ From: John P. Dearing Subject: Re: How to Call Blocked Canadian 800 Numbers From U.S. Date: Mon, 06 Sep 2004 00:27:58 GMT Our esteemed moderator wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think most 800 numbers simply > get translated into a 'regular' number; if you dial via that > 'regular' number you call will go through. For example, a friend > of mine in Canada (Ontario) who calls me occassionally to counsel > me with my computer stuff has my 800 number; but he cannot get > through on it -- I have never had it specifically authorized for > Canadian or other country use. So he dials in on the area codee 620 > version of same number instead. My question is (1) have you tried > dialing the untranslated or 'regular' number of the places you want > to call and (2) are they refusing to deal with your call on those > untranslated numbers? I would think there are various calling plans > in your (USA) area code which would make your call cheap enough > without the need for all the gymnastics you are otherwise going > through to get them on the phone. PAT] Pat, Even though many toll free numbers translate to POTS lines there are just as many that do not. This is especially true with large call volume toll free numbers like the original poster was talking about. Many times these lines come in on a T-1 directly from the IEC and therefore don't have a POTS line associated with them in any way. Cheers! John P. Dearing A+, Network+ To reply: Just drop "YOURPANTS" in my address! 8-) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What you say is true, but even if the 800 lines terminated on a T-1 and were not themselves directly dialable (as a 'regular' 7-D number), all the places he mentioned such as Revenue Department, Immigration Department, etc would have directory listed 7-D 'administrative numbers' he could use and ask to be transferred as needed to the proper department. PAT] ------------------------------ From: action@xmission.com (Prospecting Sucks) Subject: Play DTMF Tones Over a Modem Date: 5 Sep 2004 18:10:12 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I use a voiceblast system which allows me to keep up to date with customers and clients. The problem I have is that I have to call into a toll-free number and then using my telephone keypad I need to key in the telephone numbers (with area-code) of the people I want to receive my voiceblast. After I input each telephone number I have to input the number "1" to confirm the telephone number. The problem I have is that I have hundreds of customers and it is very time consuming to have to key these numbers in each time. Does anyone know of a program where I can point it to a TEXT file and have it play the telephone numbers over the modem? Basically just read the numbers using DTMF tones over the modem line? Thanks J.R. http://www.freebusinesscards.com ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: My New DVR From Cable One Organization: Symantec Date: Sun, 05 Sep 2004 23:22:26 -0400 In article , DevilsPGD wrote: > In message Danny Burstein > wrote: >> At a typical charge of $0.20 (20 cents) per kw-hr, that's a bit over >> $4/month in electricity. Add another buck or two if you're using air >> conditining and have to dump out that heat. Usually worth it, but >> worth a thought or two. > OTOH, since the majority of the energy used gets converted into heat, > it comes straight off your heating bill if you're in an area which > gets cold. But during the summer it increases your electric bill for air conditioning, so over the long run they probably cancel out. >> (And the "off" switch, if it has one, is only for show). > Weird. My Bell ExpressVu PVR does shut off the hard drive when not in > use (Although not immediately, it will update the guide and whatever > other housekeeping needs to be done first) ReplayTV used to do this, although there was an undocumented way to disable it. Starting with the 4000 series, they keep the disk spinning all the time. The problem was that when you turned the device on, it took 5-10 seconds for the disk to spin up. Also, it has to spin up every hour to check the guide to see if something needs to be recorded; in quiet rooms (like bedrooms), this periodic startup noise was annoying. Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Whoever it was said earlier in this thread on Friday that this new DVR device would change my television viewing habits was sort of correct. Most of Sunday afternoon I spent in my living room fiddling with the remote learning how to set up and remove 'favorite' channels, and watching a couple of interesting movies in the meantime. I think I am going to like it. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2004 04:28:15 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Book Review: The Sinking of the Eastland I want to tell you about an interesting new book just being published, and suggest you take a look at it. "The Sinking of the Eastland: America's Forgotten Tragedy" Written by Jay Bonansinga, a professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, the 270-page book with many black/white photos uses newspaper accounts and interviews with the few remaining survivors of the July 24, 1915 accident which claimed the lives of more than 800 workers at the Western Electric Hawthorne Works plant in Cicero, Illinois. The book reconstructs the tragic event of that Saturday morning in great detail. I have touched on this incident a few times here in the Digest over the years, but never with the detail Bonansinga puts into his rendition of the horrors of that day. Everytime I mention it here in the Digest I always get at least one or two followup letters from people **in out own industry** who say they had never before even heard of the incident, let alone studied it in any detail. This is a book which all people with interest in telephone history will want to read. It was the greatest loss of lives in a single day in Chicago, exceeding even the Great Fire in 1871 (300 lives lost); the Iriquois Theatre Fire on New Years Eve in 1903 (several hundred lives lost); but 800 lost due to the Sinking of the Eastland.) Nearly everyone knows about the disaster with the Titanic in the North Atlantic Ocean; almost no one it seems knows about the Eastland. Bonansinga suggests the reason for the notoriety regards the Titanic was that the boat was full of rich and wealthy people like the Astors, the Vanderbilts and the Rockefellers, on the other hand the Eastland incident was just a couple thousand lower class people (telephone company workers) gathered for a weekend social outing. There were entire families wiped out in a few instances, and a couple departments at Western Electric who lost every single employee. Bonansinga has written seven novels which won awards, including "The Killers Game" and "The Black Mariah". This book is a work of narrative non-fiction. Since the individuals are no longer alive (the last direct survivor died in the 1980's) he has created this book based on the reconstruction of the public records from that day. I read the entire book in one day, over several hours in a couple reading sessions. Title: The Sinking of the Eastland: America's Forgotten Tragedy Author: Jay Bonansinga Format: Hardcover ISBN: 0-8065-2628-9 Recommended Price: $21.95 (USA) $29.95 (Canadian) Publication Date: October 5, 2004 Consult your book seller to obtain a copy. ------------------------------ 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! 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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 #417 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Sep 6 15:18:24 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i86JIO401947; Mon, 6 Sep 2004 15:18:24 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2004 15:18:24 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409061918.i86JIO401947@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 #418 TELECOM Digest Mon, 6 Sep 2004 15:18:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 418 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson China Threatens Internet Porn Merchants with Life (Lisa Minter) Spam Makes Up Half of All Emails in China - Expert (Lisa Minter) Mr. Minister, Please Protect the Public's Interest (Monty Solomon) Re: Play DTMF Tones Over a Modem (Clarence Dold) Re: Play DTMF Tones Over a Modem (Tony P.) Re: Party Lines No More? (Tony P.) Re: Lingo (Jack Hobbs) One Alternative, Peaceful Perspective (Badnarik for President Committee) 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: China Threatens Internet Porn Merchants with Life Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2004 11:52:00 EDT BEIJING (Reuters) - China has intensified its battle against Internet and mobile phone pornography by threatening distributors with life in prison, Xinhua news agency said. "Depending on the seriousness of the cases, the sentences range from living under compulsory surveillance, detainmen t, taking into custody by the police, to various terms of imprisonment and life imprisonment," Xinhua said. Beijing has stepped up its battle against smut in recent weeks, saying it is worried that the easy access to such material on the Internet and elsewhere will have a bad effect on youth and society. Under the latest crackdown, which started in July, authorities have shut down hundreds of Web sites and arrested more than 300 people. The new penalties were laid out on Sunday in guidelines issued by China's Supreme People's Court and the office of the country's top prosecutor, Xinhua said. A pornographic Web site that had been clicked on more than 250,000 times would be considered a "very severe" case that could warrant a life sentence for its producers, Xinhua said. It did not elaborate. China's communist rulers have gradually relaxed the puritanical rule they imposed when they swept to power in 1949, but sporadically try to crack down on the sex industry and are particularly nervous about pornography on the Internet. *** 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 and Yahoo News.. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Reply-To: ptownson@cableone.net Subject: Spam Makes Up Half of All Emails in China - Expert Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2004 11:53:41 EDT Experts say businesses and governments around the world will spend $36 billion this year to defend their computer systems against electronic spam, named for a brand of processed luncheon meat made from ground pork and ham. "Half of the e-mails in your inbox could be messages you never wanted to see," Jean-Jacques Sahel, director of international communications at Britain's Department of Trade and Industry, told a technology seminar in the Chinese capital. "China's forthcoming spam law is a welcome development which I understand is close to being finalized," he said. Spam is expected to account for about 67 percent of all e-mails worldwide this year, up several-fold from eight percent in 2001, Sahel said, citing figures from the United Nations. Reading and deleting junk e-mail costs British firms 460 pounds per worker per year in lost productivity, he said. China is the world's third-largest spam producing country, after the United States and South Korea, accounting for 11.62 percent of all unwanted messages, software firm Sophos says. Some experts blame China, which cracks down on political dissent and pornography on the Internet, for being a haven for "spammers" due to neglect. Last year, the government blocked dozens of computer servers believed to be sending spam. Western governments are pondering laws to enable crackdowns on Internet service providers, or ISPs, who allow spammers to use their systems. The term spam originally comes from "spiced ham" made by U.S. canned food giant Hormel Foods Corp. *** 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 and Yahoo News. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2004 14:59:31 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Mr. Minister, Please Protect the Public Interest Mr. Minister, please protect the public interest As the former CEO of Canfor Corp., Canada's largest softwood lumber producer, our new Industry Minister David Emerson developed a well-earned reputation for defending Canadian interests against those of the United States. Despite considerable political pressure, Emerson did not hesitate to file a $250 million arbitration claim against the U.S. over its treatment of Canadian softwood lumber nor to scuttle a trade deal that he feared would result in too many lost Canadian jobs. Once established as industry minister, Emerson wasted little time in continuing to prioritize Canadian interests. He quickly raised the prospect of tying Canadian energy exports to aggressive U.S. trade policy, commenting, "I think the United States has to make some fairly significant decisions about their relationship with Canada, just as we have to continually assess our relationship with the United States." Emerson's strong backbone will be tested in the months ahead as he faces unrelenting U.S. pressure on two initiatives that would, if adopted, provide broadcasters with unprecedented control over television signals and severely curtail consumers' expectations with regard to their rights and personal privacy. While digital copyright reform frequently takes centre stage, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the leading U.S. motion picture association, has been lobbying for two sets of broadcast controls on a backstage. These include the creation of a new international broadcasters rights treaty and the mandatory implementation of new technological controls into every device that can receive an over-the-air digital signal. For the past year, U.S. broadcasters and the MPAA have actively lobbied for the creation of the World Intellectual Property Organization's Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations. This treaty would grant broadcasters increased powers over who may control, transmit, or record broadcast signals. The U.S. would even like to extend this power to Webcasts, which could be interpreted to cover Internet downloads. http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1094422212715 ------------------------------ From: dold@XReXXPlayX.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: Play DTMF Tones Over a Modem Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2004 14:39:18 UTC Organization: a2i network Prospecting Sucks wrote: > Does anyone know of a program where I can point it to a TEXT file and > have it play the telephone numbers over the modem? Basically just read > the numbers using DTMF tones over the modem line? What OS are you running? There are several Windows programs that will dial directly from a contact list. Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8-122.5 ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Play DTMF Tones Over a Modem Organization: ATCC Date: Mon, 06 Sep 2004 15:57:34 GMT In article , action@xmission.com says: > I use a voiceblast system which allows me to keep up to date with > customers and clients. The problem I have is that I have to call into > a toll-free number and then using my telephone keypad I need to key in > the telephone numbers (with area-code) of the people I want to receive > my voiceblast. After I input each telephone number I have to input the > number "1" to confirm the telephone number. > The problem I have is that I have hundreds of customers and it is very > time consuming to have to key these numbers in each time. > Does anyone know of a program where I can point it to a TEXT file and > have it play the telephone numbers over the modem? Basically just read > the numbers using DTMF tones over the modem line? A properly configured VM system should allow group broadcasts. It's all set up on the VM box and you just key in the group ID and everyone gets it. Been that was on Octel and Intuity for years. I'd imagine even telco VM is capable, for a fee of course. You could always just use standard stop/start transfers from Procomm or the like. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Party Lines No More? Organization: ATCC Date: Mon, 06 Sep 2004 15:51:52 GMT In article , mcharryj@bellsouth.net says: > DevilsPGD wrote: >> In message John P. Dearing >> wrote: >>> By the 1980's and 1990's so few people still had party lines that many >>> of them were effectively single party lines. That is, they had no >>> "mate" on the party line. Bell then started doing "party line >>> reassociations" which is putting party lines back together. You'd look >>> for a Ring party with no mate and find a Tip party with no mate. Put >>> them together and you now have a party line again. >> Any idea how much it cost them to put together parties onto party lines >> again? > In later years, they just bridged them in the CO. This made it easy to use > "killer little old ladies" to drive away other party line subscribers. Unless of course you were to get a relentless bastard like myself. Give up something cheap? Never! ------------------------------ From: Jack Hobbs Subject: Re: Lingo Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2004 12:23:57 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Michael Hynes wrote in message news:telecom23.359.3@telecom-digest.org: > I would avoid Lingo at all costs. The service never worked. I called > tech support at which they promised to call me back within 48 hours > (48 hours!) but in point of fact it took them 6 days days days to > return my call. I cancelled and sent everything back for a refund. > Which I haven't recieved yet. I've recontacted them about same. No > response. I'll be contacting my credit card company next ... avoid > them. Oh -- PS -- my Vonage service hasn't exactly been great lately > either ... I'm responding because I think Lingo has taken an unfair beating on the boards. Not doubting your hardships, but my Lingo experience has been near-perfect. I signed up a week ago on Monday, and the Lingo adaptor was here Thursday. I had set my router so the DMZ was routed to the IP that I dedicated to Lingo. When the Lingo arrived, I just plugged in the power, ethernet, and phone cables, and I had dial tone. And, it sounded good when I called myself. A slight delay, but otherwise fine. Voice quality is fair to excellent. One call to The Netherlands had an echo. Some calls seem to have lower volume than normal. But none have been as bad as when I was experimenting with low cost international carriers on POTS. Jack ------------------------------ From: Badnarik For President Committee Subject: One Alternative, Peaceful Perspective Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2004 12:49:57 -0500 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This message has been supplied to the Internet by Badnarik for President, 2004. Since neither Bush nor Kerry will allow him to particpate in their debates and discussions, many Internet news groups will try to help him. PAT] NewsAlert@Badnarik.org How many times must a man look up Before he can see the sky? Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have Before he can hear people cry? Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows That too many people have died? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, The answer is blowin' in the wind. How many years can a mountain exist Before it's washed to the sea? Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist Before they're allowed to be free? Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head Pretending he just doesn't see? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, The answer is blowin' in the wind. -Bob Dylan 9/11 was a day which changed America -- forever. Thanks to decades of interventionist foreign policies by both the Republicans and the Democrats, 2,752 people died in New York City and at the Pentagon in this horrific attack -- the images of which will forever be etched in our hearts and minds. Our government's response has been to take it out on innocent Americans as well as the rest of the world. The Patriot Act directly attacks our most fundamental rights. This is the penalty our government imposed upon us for our suffering as a direct result of the 9/11 tragedy. Remember that Kerry voted for the Patriot Act, Bush signed it into law -- and Michael Badnarik has pledged to repeal enforcement of the Patriot Act on his first day of office. Our government has decided to punish our youth, as well. At this moment, it is reported that 982 of our children have died because they were sent into harm's way to risk their lives in order to protect the interests of big government. Remember that Kerry supported Bush's War of Aggression -- while Michael Badnarik finds it both unconstitutional and immoral. Even more deplorable, we are taking out our aggression on the citizens of Iraq. While no clear death toll exists, it is estimated that between 11,793 and 13,802 Iraqis have died as a result of our actions. All of these needless deaths occurred, yet no WMDs or link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein was ever found. While Bush and Kerry argue about who will be the tougher war president, Michael Badnarik pledges to be our peace president. This is all being done by both Republicans and Democrats in your name, and in mine. It is critical that we send not just our elected officials -- but the entire world -- the message that our government does not reflect the will of the American people. There are two very important ways in which you may help spread this word -- and let the world know that aggressive, interventionist activities are not being performed in your name. 1) On September 11, 2004, the Badnarik campaign will be holding its monthly Meetup in cities across the United States. As Meetups are held in local coffeehouses, restaurants, and similar facilities, the public will be aware of your local meeting. As this Meetup falls on the third anniversary of the tragedy in NYC, it is fitting for all of us to wear something black at our local Meetup on September 11, 2004. If you are not familiar with the Meetup concept, please check out http://badnarik2004.meetup.com/ to find out more. Then sign up at http://badnarik2004.meetup.com/ in order to attend your Meetup. There are now 320 Badnarik2004 groups worldwide which will all be meeting at the same time on 9/11. Act now to help double that number over the next six days! Remember, it's free and it's local! Make sure you pass this message to your friends and family to encourage them to attend. Feel free to invite members of your local press to attend your meeting. And don't forget to wear something black to mourn the deaths of so many people, American and foreign, who have died as a result of our policies. 2) Make a special memorial contribution to the Badnarik campaign between now and September 11. It does not matter how much you give -- just give what is in your heart. But let's all do something special this time. Let's each provide some quantity where the amount ends with $9.11. If all you can afford is $100.00, please consider making your contribution for $109.11. If you are fortunate enough to be able to afford a $1000.00 donation, by all means make it $1009.11. Even if all you can spare is $9.11, please visit https://badnarik.org/ to make your voice heard. We will be posting the contributions received that end with the digits $9.11 on the website - so your voice will be heard! It is not the amount of the contribution that counts this time - but the total amount of contributions made that end with $9.11. The more of us who donate in this special memorial contribution, the louder our voice will be heard. Please take the few seconds required to send your message to the world by making your special donation at https://badnarik.org/ today. Friends, the world is watching and wondering whether Bush or Kerry will be the next Warmonger-in-Chief of the United States. By attending your local Meeting wearing mourning colors, and by sending in your $9.11 to $1909.11 contributions, you can tell the world that most Americans approve of neither Bush nor Kerry, nor of their policies. After you sign up to attend the special 9/11 Meetup at http://badnarik2004.meetup.com/ and make your special 9/11 donation at https://badnarik.org/, please pass this message on to as many friends and family members as possible. Please encourage them, even if they don't intend to vote for Michael Badnarik, to attend this special Meetup, and to make a small 9/11 contribution -- so we can send our message of non-aggression to our elected officials and begin to apologize to the world for the actions done in our name. In peace and prosperity, Stephen P. Gordon Paid for by Badnarik/Campagna 2004 and distributed on Usenet by participating newsgroups as a public service message. Please recall that although Mr. Badnarik *was/is* eligible under law to participate in the traditional 'presidential debates' process, both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry refused to allow Libertarian Party participation. ------------------------------ 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 #418 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Sep 7 02:41:23 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i876fN606576; Tue, 7 Sep 2004 02:41:23 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 02:41:23 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409070641.i876fN606576@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 #419 TELECOM Digest Tue, 7 Sep 2004 02:41:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 419 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson UK: Net Calls Get Their Own Area Code (Jack Decker - VOIP News) Congress Hangs Up on VoIP for 2004 (Jack Decker - VOIP News) Florida Town Rises From Hurricane Wreckage With VOIP (Decker-VOIP News) Re: Spam Makes Up Half of All Emails in China - Expert (SELLCOM Tech) Re: Spam Makes Up Half of All Emails in China - Expert (Geoffrey Welsh) Re: How to Call Blocked Canadian 800 Numbers From U.S. (Mark) Re: DTMF Over Modem (Julian Thomas) Re: One Alternative, Peaceful Perspective (John McHarry) Re: The Soft Invasion (Gary Breuckman) Re: Book Review: The Sinking of the Eastland (Lisa Hancock) Re: China Threatens Internet Porn Merchants with Life (Dave Close) HDTV Forum a Big Hit (Monty Solomon) 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: Jack Decker Date: Mon, 06 Sep 2004 15:06:13 -0400 Subject: UK: Net Calls Get Their Own Area Code Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com Two articles on this topic: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3630888.stm In the UK, the telephone area code for cyberspace will be 056. Government regulator Ofcom has picked the prefix for customers who sign up to make calls via the internet. Users can also opt for geographic numbers. The decision on numbers comes as Ofcom reveals how it plans to regulate services that use the net rather than the old fashioned telephone network. Ofcom says it will use a light touch when regulating voice over net services to help the new market flourish. Call charges "Broadband voice services are a new and emerging market," said Stephen Carter, Ofcom Chief Executive. "Our first task as regulator is to keep out of the way." Full story at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3630888.stm http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39165620,00.htm Ofcom cheers industry with VoIP number ruling Graeme Wearden ZDNet UK The UK communications watchdog says it want to help build a successful VoIP market in Britain, but one tough decision still has to be taken Ofcom has begun to lay out the future for commercial voice over IP (VoIP) services in the UK. The communications regulator announced on Monday that Internet telephony service providers will be able to offer both geographic and non-geographic numbers to their customers. Geographic numbers will begin with 01 or 02, like today's existing fixed-line telephone numbers. This will allow consumers to shift onto a VoIP service but retain their existing number, or choose another that indicates where they are located. Non-geographic numbers for VoIP will begin with 056. These will be suitable for people who want to use their Internet telephony service from a number of locations. For example, they could install the necessary software on their laptop and be contactable anywhere over a GPRS or 3G link. Full story at: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39165620,00.htm ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Mon, 06 Sep 2004 15:33:27 -0400 Subject: Congress Hangs Up on VoIP for 2004 Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.internetnews.com/infra/article.php/3403911 By Roy Mark Federal legislation to exempt Internet telephony from state regulations and tariffs has all but failed in the 108th Congress, ending an ambitious effort to carve out and protect Internet-related issues from looming, and highly uncertain, telecom reform. The idea was simple enough. Because IP-enabled networks are inherently interstate in nature, they should fall solely under the jurisdiction of the federal government and its appointed agent, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). No matter what telecom reform might bring, the distinction in the meanwhile would allow the emerging Voice over IP (define) technology to compete free of state regulations and tariffs for the next few years. For good measure, the FCC would be prohibited from delegating any authority to regulate IP traffic to the states, a position supported by the majority of the five-member FCC that is conducting its own VoIP investigation under the constraints of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Full story at: http://www.internetnews.com/infra/article.php/3403911 How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Mon, 06 Sep 2004 15:50:11 -0400 Subject: Florida Town Rises from Hurricane Wreckage with VOIP Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/zd/20040905/tc_zd/134768 Florida Town Rises from Hurricane Wreckage with VOIP Triple-Play Ellen Muraskin - eWEEK Homestead, Fla., made news on Aug. 24, 1992, as the community hardest hit by Hurricane Andrew. Just south of Miami, its residents certainly hope to stay out of the spotlight this week, as Frances hits. Some IP infrastructure players, however, would like to direct our attention precisely there, because this city of 32,000 directed a good chunk of its Andrew recovery money to the infrastructure that supports a novel kind of triple-play IP service. This is to be telephone, video and data service over really broad broadband 100M-bps optical fiber to the home. Homestead is not the first U.S. city to get into the VOIP (voice over IP) business. Several have taken advantage of their rights to dig up their own streets and lay down fiber, becoming CLECs (Competitive Local Exchange Carriers). Homestead's case, however, is groundbreaking on several different levels, and bears watching. In the first place, Hurricane Andrew presented Homestead with the worst kind of "greenfield" opportunity, simply because it destroyed 80 percent of the town. It destroyed 5,000 homes completely, demolished its Air Force base, and destroyed or damaged 85,000 businesses. Where no legacy wiring exists, IP's cost of deployment compares more favorably with traditional copper. And so, among the up to 15,000 homes that are due to go up in Homestead by 2010, Ethernet-carrying fiber-optic cable is being built right in, at a cost of roughly $1,000 per home. This will support a triple-play service of flat-fee IP voice, hundreds of channels of IP-TV and HD-TV, movies-on-demand, videoconferencing, and high-speed data. The first homes are due to deploy by year's end. The service is integrated with television in a way I've not seen before: In the home, via set-top box and remote control, it will allow subscribers to control their phones and calling features through the TV screen. In practical terms, this means that if your mother-in-law calls during "The West Wing," you will see her caller ID from a picture-within-a picture, if you like, and you will be able to send her to voice mail from the comfort of your couch-potato seat. Full story at: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/zd/20040905/tc_zd/134768 ------------------------------ From: SELLCOM Tech support Subject: Re: Spam Makes Up Half of All Emails in China - Expert Organization: www.sellcom.com Reply-To: support@sellcom.com Date: Mon, 06 Sep 2004 20:02:45 GMT Lisa Minter posted on that vast internet thingie: > Experts say businesses and governments around the world will spend $36 > billion this year to defend their computer systems against electronic > spam, named for a brand of processed luncheon meat made from ground > pork and ham. > "Half of the e-mails in your inbox could be messages you never wanted > to see," Jean-Jacques Sahel, director of international communications > at Britain's Department of Trade and Industry, told a technology > seminar in the Chinese capital. You know why spam is such a problem? It is really very simple. The US ISPs who are enabling foreign spam sites with connectivity are not being held responsible for what they enable. If they would handle foreign spam sites the way domestic spam sites are handled the problem would be greatly reduced. ISPs like level3.net knowingly enable foreign spam and spam sites in spite of repeated notice. If the FTC would get the guts to deal with just level3.net things would get better fast. Steve at SELLCOM http://www.sellcom.com Discount multihandset cordless phones by Siemens, AT&T, Panasonic, Motorola Vtech 5.8Ghz; TMC ET4000 4line Epic phone, OnHoldPlus, Beamer, Watchguard! Brick wall "non MOV" surge protection. Uniden 2line 5.8GHz cordless If you sit at a desk www.ergochair.biz you owe it to yourself. ------------------------------ From: Geoffrey Welsh Subject: Re: Spam Makes Up Half of All Emails in China - Expert Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2004 18:43:53 -0400 Lisa Minter wrote: > Some experts blame China, which cracks down on political dissent and > pornography on the Internet, for being a haven for "spammers" due to > neglect. Last year, the government blocked dozens of computer servers > believed to be sending spam. You don't have to be an expert to blame China for being a part of the spam problem; analysis of the spam that I receive personally and the spam reported to me by employees at work show that the majority -- I'd estimate two thirds to three quarters -- of the URLs advertised point to China. I'd guess that others share the experience to some degree. I can only guess that the government is acting on spam sent within (or into) China and ignoring the (coincidentally, of course, revenue-generating) hosting of spammers' web sites. > The term spam originally comes from "spiced ham" made by U.S. canned > food giant Hormel Foods Corp. Well, that really explains the connection well. Geoffrey Welsh If anything worth doing is worth doing right, then surely anything not worth doing right is not worth doing at all. ------------------------------ From: xx-google@telefog.com (Mark) Subject: Re: How to Call Blocked Canadian 800 Numbers From U.S. Date: 6 Sep 2004 14:00:12 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I made a mistake in the original post. Under method 1, I referred to a "call like the one I described in method 1 above", which is obviously wrong. Here's the teleconferencing technique that I meant to include: You, as the moderator, are able to dial out to bring in an additional teleconference participant, but when you dial out, you can spend as long as you want talking to the new "participant" in a side conversation. That new "participant" can be CIC or CRA or ExpressVu or any other Canadian entity that blocks toll-free calls from the U.S., because the outbound call originates from Ontario. And way below I address this subthread initiated by the moderator: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think most 800 numbers simply >> get translated into a 'regular' number; if you dial via that >> 'regular' number you call will go through.... (1) [H]ave you tried >> dialing the untranslated or 'regular' number of the places you want >> to call...? > Pat, > Even though many toll free numbers translate to POTS lines there are > just as many that do not. This is especially true with large call > volume toll free numbers like the original poster was talking about. > Many times these lines come in on a T-1 directly from the IEC and > therefore don't have a POTS line associated with them in any way. > John P. Dearing > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What you say is true, but even if the > 800 lines terminated on a T-1 and were not themselves directly > dialable (as a 'regular' 7-D number), all the places he mentioned such > as Revenue Department, Immigration Department, etc would have > directory listed 7-D 'administrative numbers' he could use and ask to > be transferred as needed to the proper department. PAT] My original target was CIC, which sometime in the last year deactivated all three of its public 7-digit call center access numbers (one each in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal) and converted to a sole number, 888-242-2100, which is inaccessible from the entire U.S., as far I can tell. (The 7-digit numbers are still listed on some stale CIC web pages.) And CIC doesn't make its administrative numbers public. I did once call the minister's office in Ottawa for a hand, but they referred me to the 888 number. ExpressVu customer service was reachable by calling the main EV switchboard during Toronto business hours and asking to be connected, but they may have killed this back door. My original target for the technique that I laid out is CIC's, which is essentially unreachable by a mere non-hacking U.S. mortal such as me unless I find a way to dial out on a Canadian dial tone (or spoof ANI, but, again, I'm a non-hacker). So the first number I list as a primary target for my technique, and the other seven I list mainly to provide additional examples of Can. toll-free numbers blocked from the U.S. (for your testing pleasure); CRA probably has non-toll-free numbers and ExpressVu's switchboard may still connect callers to customer service on request. 888-242-2100 Citizenship & Immigration Canada (CIC) 800-665-0354 Canada Revenue Agency 800-959-1956 Canada Revenue Agency 800-959-8281 Canada Revenue Agency 800-339-6908 ExpressVu 866-801-9995 ExpressVu 888-759-3473 ExpressVu 800-255-4541 Canada Revenue Agency? ********** 1366294709 ------------------------------ From: Julian Thomas Date: Mon, 06 Sep 2004 18:25:50 -0400 Subject: Re: DTMF Over Modem [PAT - please mung my from address in the posting - thanks - jt] action@xmission.com (Prospecting Sucks) wrote about Play DTMF Tones Over a Modem on 5 Sep 2004 18:10:12 -0700: > I use a voiceblast system which allows me to keep up to date with > customers and clients > Does anyone know of a program where I can point it to a TEXT file and > have it play the telephone numbers over the modem? Basically just read > the numbers using DTMF tones over the modem line? Should be a fairly simple script to write if you have a real modem that understands the AT command set. You need to read the file line by line, send the number and then send the final "1". I can't find my AT command set guide at the moment, so can't be more specific right now. Julian Thomas: jt at jt-mj dot net http://jt-mj.net In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State! Boardmember of POSSI.org - Phoenix OS/2 Society, Inc http://www.possi.org There is no such thing as luck. 'Luck' is nothing but an absence of bad luck. ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: One Alternative, Peaceful Perspective Date: Tue, 07 Sep 2004 00:00:31 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Badnarik For President Committee wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This message has been supplied to > the Internet by Badnarik for President, 2004. Since neither Bush > nor Kerry will allow him to particpate in their debates and > discussions, many Internet news groups will try to help him. PAT] It is your newsgroup, and we all appreciate all the effort you have put into it for lo these many years, but that is really off topic. Since none of the minor party candidates have any chance of getting any electoral votes, it would seem a waste of insufficient debate air time to include them. Not that I think much of the electoral college. It denies equal voice to those who live in "safe" states. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Which came first, the lack of electoral votes or the lack of time for a debate? I suggest the Demopublican and the Republicratic candidates tend to 'gang up on' alternative voices to insure they won't be heard from. And there is no law against electors giving their vote to the candidate of their choice; if an overwhelming majority of the popular vote in some state went to Ralph Nader or Badnarik for example, then the electors should cast their vote that way also. Badnarik (and I think Nader for that matter) were entitled to be present at the debates because they represent legitimate political parties and did have candidates in some of the state primaries. But one person -- Ms. Brown of the National Presidential Debate Commission -- took it upon herself to exclude them as participants, no doubt at the beheast of Bush, who stands to lose the most votes if other voices are heard from. Ms. Brown caught much hell for her arbitrary decision on television Sunday morning when she was interviewed and took telephone calls and email from viewers, but she stuck to her guns on the issue. No outsiders to be heard from when the debates are broadcast, just the two we have chosen. for you. But the commission may get sued on that point, to force them to allow truely open debates between the legitimate candidates. Ms. Brown also expressed her dismay at the debate last week between Badnaric and Nader and others; (a) that they went ahead with the debate 'without clearing it with us' and that it was televised Monday on C-SPAN-2. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Gary Breuckman Subject: Re: The Soft Invasion Date: Mon, 06 Sep 2004 19:31:16 -0500 Organization: Puma's Lair - catbox.com In article , "Dan Lanciani" wrote: >> By WALTER S. MOSSBERG >> WHAT IF A private company could legally break into your house and rig >> your television so that it would always start up on a special station >> the company had created that showed deceptive ads every minute, all >> day? And what if, when you tried to change the station, you could >> choose only among obscure and dubious channels selected by the invading >> company? > Why exactly is it any more legal for companies to install unauthorized > software on my machine than it is for a virus writer to do so? Usually, because they ask! Ever visited a web site, and had a window pop up with something like "would you like to install our super-duper-find-anything search bar?" What most of these programs do is monitor what web sites you visit, and then pop up ads that relate to those sites. Of course some sites don't ask, or they bundle it with some other item that you are installing. What makes it 'more legal' is that YOU went THERE and got it. Also many don't report any data back, they just annoy you locally with related ads. Microsoft needs to make it easier to monitor and remove all the Internet Explorer add-ons. Many are really hard to get rid of. -- Gary Breuckman ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Book Review: The Sinking of the Eastland Date: 6 Sep 2004 17:57:45 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com TELECOM Digest Editor wrote > survivors of the July 24, 1915 accident which claimed the lives of > more than 800 workers at the Western Electric Hawthorne Works plant > in Cicero, Illinois. The book reconstructs the tragic event of that > Saturday morning in great detail. It is important that such tragedies be remembered. I don't know why some are remembered over others. I believe in that time frame an excursion boat out of New York City had a bad accident with a high loss of life as well. I know a lot of people have gripes about our present day economic situation. But on this Labor Day, we can look back and see how far society overall has come in terms of working conditions and standard of living. I've heard enough stories from my parents and grandparents about how hard and dangerous working life was back in those days. We also have to come to terms with our future, for better or worse. The former Bell System after the Depression was noted for job security. You didn't get rich working for the phone company and some jobs were terribly montonous, but the job security was important for many people. There was also a career path. In the 1950s working for the telephone company, especially in a smaller city or in the plant dept was a pretty good job (though not the best paying one). When functions were automated, the business was growing fast enough to find other jobs for people. With divesture, that job security is utterly gone. Both AT&T and the baby Bells have let go people with over 20 years of service as departments get realigned. Are the workers better off without the Bell System? Many once big and solid American companies are shrinking and abandoning no-layoff policies or their once high regard for their people. IBM is vastly different. Banks used to be very stable, but no more. FWIW, a history of MCI describes many boom and bust cycles. Then MCI had a very nasty bankruptcy of questionable accounting. Are we better off with a business world like that? It was stylish in the 1960s to knock the big corporations (especially the Bell System). But in hindsight many of the companies treated their workers much better than workers are treated today in "lean and mean" organizations when allowing for differences in the times. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In 1915 at the time of the Eastland disaster, there were no labor unions either. People working for Western Electric were typical in working 10 hours per day, five or six days per week. 'Closed on Saturdays' had not yet been started either. On that particular weekend, having Saturday as an 'extra day off from work' had been granted by management to some two thousand of the workers so they could attend the event (provided they had purchased a ticket [75 cents for each adult, 50 cents for children] in advance.) Much of the machinery there was very large and dangerous; accidents were not uncommon. Not only did workers not have any unions, they did not have any hospital insurance either. On Sunday, the day following the disaster, Western Electric management sent out a memo to everyone announcing that the next morning, Monday, the plant would open at the usual 7 AM starting time, even though in some cases, entire families had been killed in the event and there was not a single department which did not lose at least two or three workers; in a couple cases, every single worker in a department had been killed. The only thing that even slightly resembled it in more modern times was the brokerage company on an upper floor of the World Trade Center which lost several hundred employees on September 11, 2001. Western Electric was *that* decimated by the Eastland disaster in 1915. The entire book "Sinking of the Eastland" was a terribly sad and very depressing look at an event now largely forgotten in America. I hope everyone will read it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dave@compata.com (Dave Close) Subject: Re: China Threatens Internet Porn Merchants with Life Date: 6 Sep 2004 20:47:32 -0700 Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California Lisa Minter quotes Reuters: > "Depending on the seriousness of the cases, the sentences range from > living under compulsory surveillance, detainmen t, taking into custody > by the police, to various terms of imprisonment and life > imprisonment," Xinhua said. Makes the "Internet death penalty" seem mild ... I note they are not applying those rules to spam. Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA "If I seem unduly clear to you, dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 you must have misunderstood dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu what I said." -- Alan Greenspan ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2004 15:02:23 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: HDTV Forum a Big Hit By Ultimate AV Staff September 06, 2004 - Overshadowed by the Athens Olympic Games and the start of the Republican National Convention, the second annual HDTV Forum 2004 was a resounding success. Held the last week of August at the Westin Century Plaza in Los Angeles, the event was completely sold out, according to organizing companies DisplaySearch of Austin, TX and Insight Media of Norwalk, CT. The three-day event hosted 338 attendees from 12 different countries and featured 11 corporate sponsors, 14 exhibitors, 10 media sponsors, two audio/visual sponsors, and 15 media organizations-a diverse group from across the TV food chain, including representatives from TV and cable networks, content creators, government agencies, satellite and cable providers, retailers, distributors, TV brands, TV OEMs, panel/tube/engine manufacturers, and IC manufacturers. The HDTV format has made great strides in the past year, participants agreed, although noted that consumers need more education about the format and all involved in delivering it-manufacturers, cable and satellite providers, retailers, TV networks, local broadcasters, and independent production companies-need to pull together to really make HDTV succeed. The driving force for this success is and will be HD sports, according to the first day's keynote speaker, Bryan Burns, vice president of strategic business planning and development for ESPN HD. Among key drivers for the growing demand of HDTV will be ESPN HD's 6000 hours of HD programming in 2004, Burns told attendees. http://www.guidetohometheater.com/news/090604hdtvforum/ ------------------------------ 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 #419 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Sep 7 16:53:31 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i87KrUv13005; Tue, 7 Sep 2004 16:53:31 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 16:53:31 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409072053.i87KrUv13005@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 #420 TELECOM Digest Tue, 7 Sep 2004 16:53:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 420 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #447, September 7, 2004 (Angus TeleManagement) Ultra-Wideband-enabled miniPCI module (Monty Solomon) Ultra-Wideband 1394 Module (Monty Solomon) XM Radio Pulls PC Hardware Amid Piracy Concerns (Monty Solomon) Digital Music's Next Big Battle (Monty Solomon) Re: Spam Makes Up Half of All Emails in China - Expert (Rich Greenberg) Re: Spam Makes Up Half of All Emails in China - Expert (SELLCOM Tech) Re: Spam Makes Up Half of All Emails in China - Expert (Hudson Leighton) Re: HDTV Forum a Big Hit (Tim@Backhome.org) Re: Congress Hangs Up on VoIP for 2004 (Lisa Hancock)) Re: Telephone Vocabulary -- "Straight Line" (Tom Lager) Re: The Soft Invasion (jmeissen@aracnet.com) Re: Show Me the Convention (Lisa Hancock) Re: Book Review: The Sinking of the Eastland (Dave Close) RCA Camden Plant - All Gone - Good or Bad? (Lisa Hancock)) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 07 Sep 2004 11:37:31 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #447, September 7, 2004 ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 447: September 7, 2004 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: ** ALLSTREAM: www.allstream.com ** AVAYA: www.avaya.ca/en/ ** BELL CANADA: www.bell.ca ** CISCO SYSTEMS CANADA: www.cisco.com/ca/ ** ERICSSON: www.ericsson.ca ** MITEL NETWORKS: www.mitel.com/ ** SPRINT CANADA: www.sprint.ca ** UTC CANADA: www.canada.utc.org/ ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** Aliant and Unions Reach Tentative Agreement ** Rogers Considers Bid for Microcell ** Nortel Postpones Results... Again ** Wireless Fuels Telecom Revenue Growth ** Telus Says New Rules Won't Affect Microcell Bid ** Telus Files Tariffs for IP Centrex ** CMA Asks Cabinet to Stay Telemarketing Rules ** Telemarketer Opposes National Registry ** CRTC Deregulates Northern WAN Services ** Telus Wants CRTC to Reopen CDNA Proceeding ** Bell Adopts Treo Smartphone ** Wireless Age Joins in Disposable Cellphone Project ** Telebec Builds Fibre to Iles-de-la-Madelaine ** Sierra Wireless Reshuffles Executive Suite ** IP-Centrex Comes of Age ============================================================ ALIANT AND UNIONS REACH TENTATIVE AGREEMENT: Five days after a federal mediator restarted negotiations, Aliant and the Council of Atlantic Telecommunications Unions announced a tentative contract agreement. The unions will recommend acceptance to their 4,300 striking members, who will vote on Wednesday. ** The CRTC has received over 2,700 customer complaints about Aliant's service since the strike began in April. ROGERS CONSIDERS BID FOR MICROCELL: Rogers Communications and Rogers Wireless say they are "reviewing current wireless industry developments and consolidation activities," including the possibility of trying to buy shares or assets of Microcell Telecommunications. ** On Friday, Rogers Communications announced that it has agreed to help AT&T Wireless sell its 34% share of Rogers Wireless. Rogers will have the right to buy all the shares if the eventual selling price is $36/share or less. NORTEL POSTPONES RESULTS... AGAIN: Nortel Networks now says that it will file recent financial statements by the end of October, a month later than previously projected. Nortel has been working on its accounting restatement since July 2003; it has 650 employees plus outside consultants involved in the project. (See Telecom Update #445) WIRELESS FUELS TELECOM REVENUE GROWTH: Statistics Canada reports that in the first three months of 2004, total Canadian telecom revenues increased modestly (1.1%, to $8.3B), reversing three consecutive quarterly declines. Compared to the same quarter in 2003, wireless revenues grew 18.5% (to $2.2B) while wireline revenues fell 4.1% (to $5.8B), continuing the trends reported in 2002 and 2003 (see Telecom Update #379, 429). http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/040901/d040901b.htm http://www.statcan.ca:8096/bsolc/english/bsolc?catno=56-002-XIE TELUS SAYS NEW RULES WON'T AFFECT MICROCELL BID: Telus CFO Robert McFarlane says his company won't raise its bid for Microcell as a result of Ottawa's removal of the wireless spectrum cap. He says the decision was "largely anticipated and was factored into our valuation analysis." TELUS FILES TARIFFS FOR IP CENTREX: Telus has asked the CRTC to approve tariffs for IP-Evolution, described as similar to Telus's current Centrex service and to Bell Canada's Managed IP Telephony service, which received tariff approval in July. (See Telecom Update #442) Telus has also filed a tariff proposal that would allow Centrex customers to include IP-Evolution locals when determining which per-line rate applies. www.crtc.gc.ca/8740/eng/2004/t42/tn534.zip www.crtc.gc.ca/8740/eng/2004/t42/tn535.doc CMA ASKS CABINET TO STAY TELEMARKETING RULES: Supplementing the application to the CRTC we reported last week, the Canadian Marketing Association has asked Cabinet to halt implementation of the new telemarketing rules and to facilitate creation of a national do-not-call registry, through legislation or direction to the CRTC. (See Telecom Update #445) ** Various parties have filed comments with the CRTC on the CMA's request to stay the new rules and to create a national do-not-call list. www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2004/8662/c131_200408543.htm TELEMARKETER OPPOSES NATIONAL REGISTRY: One telemarketing company, Beautyrock, opposes a national do-not-call registry. It has told the CRTC that "millions and millions of Canadian consumers like telemarketing," but also says that more than half of Canadian households would join a do-not-call list, reducing telemarketing revenues and jobs. www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2004/8662/beautyrock/040901.doc ** Beautyrock has asked the Commission to change aspects of the new telemarketing rules that it says are confusing and irritating to consumers. www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2004/8662/beautyrock/040826.doc CRTC DEREGULATES NORTHERN WAN SERVICES: The CRTC has forborne from regulating retail wide area network services in the territories of NorthernTel, Ontera, and Telebec. These telcos must file tariffs for the underlying Ethernet service components for competitors' use. www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2004/dt2004-57.htm TELUS WANTS CRTC TO REOPEN CDNA PROCEEDING: Telus has asked the CRTC to "update and supplement" the record of the Competitor DNA proceeding before it reaches a decision. In particular, Telus wants electrical utilities to file information on where they offer dark fibre. Competitors say this will simply add more delay to a long-awaited ruling. www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2004/8661/t66_200408791.htm BELL ADOPTS TREO SMARTPHONE: Bell Mobility is now selling a CDMA version of palmOne's Treo 600 Smartphone for $549-$699, depending on contract length. (See Telecom Update #446) WIRELESS AGE JOINS IN DISPOSABLE CELLPHONE PROJECT: Wireless Age, a Toronto-based cellular retailer and phonecard distributor, has invested about $9 million in Azonic Corp. of New York, which plans to develop a disposable analog cellphone. TELEBEC BUILDS FIBRE TO ILES-DE-LA-MADELAINE: Telebec has begun construction of a submarine fibre cable from the Gaspe Peninsula to the Iles-de-la-Madelaine, a $6 million project funded in part by the federal and provincial governments. SIERRA WIRELESS RESHUFFLES EXECUTIVE SUITE: Vancouver-based Sierra Wireless has named Jason Cohenour as COO, Jim Kirkpatrick as CTO, and Bill Dodson as Sr VP Operations. Andrew Harries, Sr VP Marketing, will soon resign. IP-CENTREX COMES OF AGE: A new generation of IP-based hosted communications services is challenging the role of PBXs in enterprise telecommunications. In this month's Telemanagement, John Riddell examines the pros and cons of IP-Centrex, and profiles offerings now available from Bell Canada, Telus, and OneConnect. Also in this issue: ** Designing Converged Networks for Manageability ** A Buyer's Guide to Broadband-IP Phone Services Telemanagement is available by subscription only. To become a Telemanagement subscriber -- including unlimited access to Telemanagement's extensive online content -- visit www.angustel.ca/teleman/tm-sub-online.html or call 800-263-4415 ext 500. ============================================================ HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-MAIL: editors@angustel.ca FAX: 905-686-2655 MAIL: TELECOM UPDATE Angus TeleManagement Group 8 Old Kingston Road Ajax, Ontario Canada L1T 2Z7 =========================================================== HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR UNSUBSCRIBE) TELECOM UPDATE is provided in electronic form only. There are two formats available: 1. The fully-formatted edition is posted on the World Wide Web on the first business day of the week at www.angustel.ca 2. The e-mail edition is distributed free of charge. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to: join-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.com To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to: leave-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.com Sending e-mail to these addresses will automatically add or remove the sender's e-mail address from the list. Leave subject line and message area blank. We do not give Telecom Update subscribers' e-mail addresses to any third party. For more information, see www.angustel.ca/update/privacy.html. =========================================================== COPYRIGHT AND CONDITIONS OF USE: All contents copyright 2004 Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. All rights reserved. For further information, including permission to reprint or reproduce, please e-mail rosita@angustel.ca or phone 905-686-5050 ext 500. The information and data included has been obtained from sources which we believe to be reliable, but Angus TeleManagement makes no warranties or representations whatsoever regarding accuracy, completeness, or adequacy. Opinions expressed are based on interpretation of available information, and are subject to change. If expert advice on the subject matter is required, the services of a competent professional should be obtained. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 08:51:14 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Ultra-Wideband-Enabled MiniPCI Module GlobalSun and Freescale Semiconductor bring Ultra-Wideband to miniPCI modules; Home entertainment and mobile devices now able to leverage UWB AUSTIN, Texas & TAIPEI, Taiwan--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 6, 2004--The development and availability of miniPCI modules is the next step needed in delivering Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology to the consumer market. This step was met today by Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. (NYSE:FSL) and GlobalSun Technology who collaborated on an Ultra-Wideband-enabled miniPCI module. This module is designed to allow users to leverage the wireless benefits of UWB for various video and data streaming applications, including flat panel displays and media servers, and enables rapid transfer of data using a portable hard drive. The module is expected to be sold by GlobalSun to leading consumer electronic manufacturers for immediate integration into wireless applications. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43517704 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 08:52:26 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Ultra-Wideband 1394 Module Universal Scientific Industrial Co. and Freescale Semiconductor Bring Ultra-Wideband to Market AUSTIN, Texas & NAN TOU, Taiwan--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 6, 2004-- Industry's First UWB 1394 Module Enables High Speed, Wireless Streaming for Consumer Electronic Products Consumers soon will be able to leverage the wireless benefits of Ultra-Wideband (UWB) for various video and data streaming applications in home connectivity and wireless access applications. Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. (NYSE:FSL) and Universal Scientific Industrial Co., Ltd. (USI) have collaborated on an Ultra-Wideband-enabled 1394 module and are the first to leverage the wireless benefits of UWB and the IEEE(R) 1394 standard. The module is expected to be sold by USI to leading consumer electronic manufacturers for integration into wireless applications, such as wireless LCD televisions and home media servers. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43517707 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 08:57:42 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: XM Radio Pulls PC Hardware Amid Piracy Concerns By Paul Festa Staff Writer, CNET News.com Owners of a controversial PC radio receiver are making a killing selling their units on eBay following the unit's discontinuation over music piracy concerns. Before being quietly discontinued this month, the XM PCR was one of several hardware devices sold by XM Satellite Radio to give its more than 2 million subscribers satellite radio reception. In conjunction with a third-party software title called TimeTrax, however, the PCR let listeners download songs to their personal computers. Since XM discontinued the PCR, units have fetched steep premiums on eBay. The device, which retailed for about $50, is getting bids of more than $350 in recent auctions, with sellers advertising the unit as "discontinued" and "rare." http://news.com.com/2100-1026-5330698.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 15:11:38 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Digital Music's Next Big Battle The arrival of software that lets you search for and record digital music off the airwaves could raise legal issues that will make the P2P skirmishes look quaint by comparison. By Eric Hellweg If you follow technology long enough, every once in awhile you'll get a jolt -- the sudden This Is Big realization -- when you see something new and grasp its potential to change the way you go about your life. I've received these jolts when first hearing of voice over IP (VoIP), when I first set up a home wireless network, and when I used Napster and Gnutella for the first time. Last week, I received another jolt. This time, the shock of realizing amazing promise came when I checked out a new piece of software called TimeTrax. Created by 35-year-old Canadian programmer Scott MacLean, TimeTrax allows subscribers of XM Radio's satellite radio service to record music off the radio, appending track title and artist information to each song. Fans of indie rock could, for example, cue their satellite radio receivers to an indie rock station, click on Record in the TimeTrax software, go to sleep, and wake up the next day with eight hours' worth of music by the likes of The Fiery Furnaces and Spoon. What's more, users can schedule the software to record a certain channel at a certain time, much the same way people can program a VCR or a TiVo to record a TV show while they're on vacation or at work. Right now the service only works with XM Radio on a device called the PCR, which the company sold so users could listen to satellite radio in their homes instead of just in their cars. Since TimeTrax came out, XM Radio discontinued the device, creating a lucrative market on eBay where the $49 retail units are selling for more than $350. MacLean says that the program has been downloaded about 7,000 times in the two weeks that it has been available. TimeTrax is on the forefront of what will likely be the music and technology industry's next world war: the recording of broadcast digital audio. "We're at the beginning of the next P2P," says Jim Griffin, CEO of Cherry Lane Digital, a music and technology consultancy. "Peer-to-peer is small by comparison." What has Griffin and others interested is the concept that when radios all broadcast digital music signals, programs such as TimeTrax will allow users to search for and capture songs similar to how they do it today with programs such as Kazaa. Instead of grabbing a song from someone's hard drive, users will pluck it from the air via a digital radio signal. It's a new situation, which in part is what makes TimeTrax such an interesting case. http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/09/wo_hellweg090704.asp ------------------------------ From: richgr@panix.com (Rich Greenberg) Subject: Re: Spam Makes Up Half of All Emails in China - Expert Date: 7 Sep 2004 09:36:47 -0400 Organization: Organized? Me? In article , Geoffrey Welsh wrote: >> The term spam originally comes from "spiced ham" made by U.S. canned >> food giant Hormel Foods Corp. > Well, that really explains the connection well. It actually comes from a Monty Python sketch of a lunch counter where every dish was spam and something else, spam and eggs, spam and cheese etc, etc. Rich Greenberg N6LRT Marietta, GA USA richgr atsign panix.com 1 770 321 6507 Eastern time zone. I speak for myself & my dogs only. VM'er since CP-67 Canines:Val, Red & Shasta (RIP),Red, husky Owner:Chinook-L Atlanta Siberian Husky Rescue. www.panix.com/~richgr/ Asst Owner:Sibernet-L ------------------------------ From: SELLCOM Tech support Subject: Re: Spam Makes Up Half of All Emails in China - Expert Organization: www.sellcom.com Reply-To: support@sellcom.com Date: Tue, 07 Sep 2004 16:49:48 GMT Geoffrey Welsh posted on that vast internet thingie: > You don't have to be an expert to blame China for being a part of the > spam problem Blame ISPs like level3.net, sprintlink.net, savvis.net etc. who are providing connectivity when they KNOW that spam businesses are hosted there. If a website in Bumbuck Iowa (apologies, had to pick a state) was being spamvertised and the ISP refused to cut them off would the bigger ISPs sigh and claim "oh we're just a wire" and continue to enable the spam websites? Now, US ISPs are being raped by spam pointing to Chinese websites and I don't believe it will stop until our government holds people like level3.net responsible. (I know great idea, more government!) ... BUT, we know that people like level3.net have no intention of cleaning up their act on their own so it is people like level3.net who DEMAND government intervention. Hold these trash ISPs in the USA responsible for what they knowingly import (after receiving notice) and watch the spam stop. It is the US ISPs who are providing the profit to the spammers. Hold the US enablers responsible! Steve at SELLCOM http://www.sellcom.com Discount multihandset cordless phones by Siemens, AT&T, Panasonic, Motorola Vtech 5.8Ghz; TMC ET4000 4line Epic phone, OnHoldPlus, Beamer, Watchguard! Brick wall "non MOV" surge protection. Uniden 2line 5.8GHz cordless If you sit at a desk www.ergochair.biz you owe it to yourself. ------------------------------ From: hudsonl@skypoint.com (Hudson Leighton) Subject: Re: Spam Makes Up Half of All Emails in China - Expert Date: Tue, 07 Sep 2004 09:31:23 -0500 Organization: MRRP >> The term spam originally comes from "spiced ham" made by U.S. canned >> food giant Hormel Foods Corp. In Austin, MN where SPAM is made and there is a SPAM Museum, the locals wags refer to it as Spare Parts Animal Meat. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And even Hormel in their advertising has had much fun with the word 'SPAM', always involving huge truck loads of the stuff, and always deliberatly pronouncing the word *SPAM* with the camera focusing on the mouth of the speaker as (s)he speaks the word. As an example, a family is sitting down for dinner, and one of them is discussing the delicious casserole being served, and explains to the others, 'I made it using scrambled eggs, cheese and sliced pieces of *SPAM*' Someone says 'it sure was good, but its all gone; I want more!' The man who cooked the dinner casserole replies 'oh no problem if you want more.' He turns to face the family computer which is sitting nearby, claps his hands and orders it "More *SPAM*!" The computer magically turns into a semi-trailer truck from Hormel with the corporate logo on the side of it for Spam, opens its doors and dumps out several thousand cans of the stuff all over the table. Another ad has someone working at a computer who looks up at the camera, her face contorted with anger and hate as she snarls, "MORE SPAM!" and with her saying that in anger, the same semi-trailer truck comes crashing through the wall and totally buries the little computer in thousands of cans of Spam. Even locally its double meaning causes laughs. An ad in the local newspaper (Independence Reporter) last Tuesday (the grocery store coupon ads are always in the paper on Tuesday) invited us to stop in at Marvins (our grocery store) to 'sign up for the mailing list and get Spam.' At the Marvins store they explained that if you signed up for the mailing list to get coupons direct from Hormel Meat Company they would give you a free can of Spam (processed meat) for doing so. I did sign up, and true to their word, a week or two later came a coupon in the mail good for (one can of) *SPAM*, just redeem this at Marvins when you check out. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tim@Backhome.org Subject: Re: HDTV Forum a Big Hit Date: Tue, 07 Sep 2004 06:34:53 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications Monty Solomon wrote: > The HDTV format has made great strides in the past year, participants > agreed, although noted that consumers need more education about the > format and all involved in delivering it-manufacturers, cable and > satellite providers, retailers, TV networks, local broadcasters, and > independent production companies-need to pull together to really make > HDTV succeed. They also have to understand there are only so many "Malibu Beautiful People" with lotsa bucks. When you can buy a beautiful Sony NTSC TV for $600, why pay 4 to 5 times as much for HDTV? Color television didn't go anywhere until the price differential was perhaps 1.5 to 1. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: Congress Hangs Up on VoIP for 2004 Date: 7 Sep 2004 07:32:37 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Jack Decker wrote > By Roy Mark > Federal legislation to exempt Internet telephony from state > regulations and tariffs has all but failed in the 108th Congress, > ending an ambitious effort to carve out and protect Internet-related > issues from looming, and highly uncertain, telecom reform. > The idea was simple enough. Because IP-enabled networks are inherently > interstate in nature, they should fall solely under the jurisdiction > of the federal government and its appointed agent, the Federal > Communications Commission (FCC). To the subscriber, a telephone is a telephone. It doesn't matter to the subscriber who is carrying the signal, by what method the signal is being carried, or who mails out the bill. No single medium is more or less "inherently interstate in nature". At the present time telephone service is state regulated. All parties offering telephone service must meet the same regulatory obligations as all the other companies, otherwise exempt companies have a most unfair cost advantage. You can't have it both ways. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Telephone Vocabulary -- "Straight Line" From: lagertyourpanties@ptd.net (Tom Lager) Organization: Disorganized Date: Tue, 07 Sep 2004 15:37:20 GMT mcharryj@bellsouth.net (John McHarry) wrote in : >Carl Navarro wrote: > >> We used the term "straight line" in reference to the ringer. A >> straight line ringer would ring on frequencies of 16 2/3 to about 33 >> Hz, as opposed to a party line ringer that would only ring on the >> frequency it was tuned to. > >That would be an independent phone company. I don't think the Bells ever >used tuned ringers, except as an interim in companies they acquired. > >> For Central Offices, private line ring generator was either was either >> 20 or 30 Hz. Other frequencies were different, depending on whether >> the ring scheme was Harmonic or Decimonic. No, I don't remember what >> party was what, except that party 2 was 50Hz in Harmonic. I suppose I >> could look it up if it's important. > >There was also Synchromonic ringing. Seems to me there may have been >another, but it may have been a variation of one of the other schemes. > >My favorite was GURF ringing. You could have full selective ringing on >eight or ten party lines by putting half the ringers tip to ground and >the other half ring to ground. > >Four party ANI was also possible using diodes. Tip to ring, ring to >tip, tip to ground, and ring to ground. There may have been six party, >but I don't recall. Maybe there is a problem with that. > >If you want to go beyond that, or don't use frequency selective >ringing, there is coded ringing, or divided coded ringing, using tip >and ring groupings. > >Old magneto phones were mostly coded ringing, and you could ring other >parties on your line without going through "Central". There was an >alarm code that could be use to summon the neighbors if you had a fire >or something. > > In the days of ten-party lines my company used five frequencies, 20,30,42,54 and 66Hz grounded ringing to provide service. Toll identification was also unique. We used North Electric "Autollizer" equipment that had a punched paper tape output. Digits 0,1,2,4 and 7 were identified using a jumper run from the sleeve lead through a set of rings. It worked like this: 0+1=1 0+2=2 1+2=3 ....7+ 4=0. This was done for the four digits of the station number. Obviously there had to be multiple sets of ring fields if more than one NXX was in use in the particular C.O. The rings, which had coils of wire in them,picked up a pulse that ran from the sleeve lead through a diode connected to ground. When the party line customer wanted to make a toll call he/she dialed 1+ an identifier digit (0 - 9) which triggered the pulse. The register-sender in the toll ticketing equipment read the output of the ring field and set up billing for the proper customer. You always knew when someone hung up from a toll call since you could hear the crash of a bunch of relays dropping out followed by the tape punch running. ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@aracnet.com Subject: Re: The Soft Invasion Date: 7 Sep 2004 18:43:47 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com In article , Gary Breuckman wrote: >In article , "Dan Lanciani" > wrote: > >> Why exactly is it any more legal for companies to install unauthorized >> software on my machine than it is for a virus writer to do so? > >Usually, because they ask! > For an interesting analysis of one scenario, check out "Follow the Bouncing Malware" Parts I and II: http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?date=2004-07-23 http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?date=2004-08-23 I haven't had time to check for Part III yet, although I'm eager to see it. -- John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: Show Me the Convention Date: 7 Sep 2004 07:18:39 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Monty Solomon wrote > By MICHAEL J. COPPS > Let's remember that American citizens own the public airwaves, not TV > executives. We give broadcasters the right to use these airwaves for > free in exchange for their agreement to broadcast in the public > interest. ... > What do we get in return for granting TV stations free use of our > airwaves? I get nervous when a govt official (such as this FCC Commissioner) reminds us of a wonderful gift from the govt (such as using public airwaves) and how the recipient "owes" something back. The problem is that everybody will have a very diverse idea of what exactly is "owed", and people will use it to push their traditional agenda. According to Oslin's Story of Telecommunications, the FCC wasn't very fair to Western Union over the years, forcing it to accept many burdens in the name of being "in the public interest". While not the only factor, it was a contributor toward the company's poor fiscal health in later years. The govt mandate to carry money-losing commuter and long distance passenger trains, as well as isolated locale freight service forced many railroads into bankruptcy. Taxpayers ended up paying far more to rescue such operations than if things were handled reasonably and rationally from the start. > Coverage of the 2000 > presidential election on the network evening news dropped by a third > compared to reporting on the 1996 election. In contrast to earlier years, the candidates and platforms were already decided. In the past, conventions were where the candidates and the platforms were hammered out by the delegates, both in public floor fights and in back room discussions. The conventions this year were merely a giant political commercial and funfest. In reality, other than tradition, there was no point to having them since the outcome was known in advance. Today the candidates are chosen by the results of primary elections. Do we want to go back to picking candidates in "smoke filled back rooms"? The television coverage this year--just the most important speeches-- was approrpriate under the circumstances. ------------------------------ From: dave@compata.com (Dave Close) Subject: Re: Book Review: The Sinking of the Eastland Date: 7 Sep 2004 00:03:20 -0700 Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) writes: >I know a lot of people have gripes about our present day economic >situation. But on this Labor Day, we can look back and see how far >society overall has come in terms of working conditions and standard >of living. I've heard enough stories from my parents and grandparents >about how hard and dangerous working life was back in those days. ... >It was stylish in the 1960s to knock the big corporations (especially >the Bell System). But in hindsight many of the companies treated >their workers much better than workers are treated today in "lean and >mean" organizations when allowing for differences in the times. An interesting disconnect between those two paragraphs. In earlier times, it was helpful that employees had job security. If you quit, you would find it very difficult to find a different job. Today, most of us think nothing of changing jobs every few years or more often. We may stay at an unpleasant place a bit longer during a recession, but we'll jump at the first chance we get. As a result, most employers do treat their workers fairly well, as you note in the first paragraph. And there is little doubt that almost everyone is better off today than in 1915, or even 1960. >[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In 1915 at the time of the Eastland >disaster, there were no labor unions either. Maybe not at WE, but there certainly were labor unions at that time. And while they certainly helped worked workers back then, most workers don't seem to find them very helpful today. Membership has dropped to nearly nothing outside government agencies. -- Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA "If I seem unduly clear to you, dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 you must have misunderstood dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu what I said." -- Alan Greenspan -- Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA "Politics is the business of getting dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 power and privilege without dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu possessing merit." - P. J. O'Rourke ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: RCA Camden plant--all gone--good or bad? Date: 7 Sep 2004 11:46:34 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com We think of _electronics_ as being something 'new and exciting' with electronics companies to be modern and around for a long time. Not always true. We think of electronic communications as everywhere, and companies involved to be everywhere. Here's a blurb about one once very famous communications company now just a memory. RCA once had a huge manufacturing plant in Camden NJ and it is all gone. (Camden is an economically depressed town). Back around 1900 Elbridge Johnson began the Victor Talking Machine company and made records and phonographs (the Victrola). His business flourished and from a little machine grew a major industrial complex, complete with coal wharf, internal railroad, powerhouse, and various factory buildings. About 30,000 people worked in Camden, and thousands more elsewhere. In 1930 RCA (Radio Corporation of American, now independent of GE) bought out Victor and it became RCA Victor. Radio was a big business home receivers and commercial broadcasting equipment, and communication radios), later television. In the postwar era, defense business took over most of the business and consumer lines fell away. Around 1990 RCA was taken back by GE, and later parts sold to Lockheed. The modern consumer label belongs to Thomson in France and the old Victor/Nipper belongs to a German record company. One building at Camden, the famous Nipper Tower, is now an apt house. The others were demolished or used for other purposes. By modern standards, multi-story factory buildings of the 1920s, no matter how well constructed with conveyor systems, are obsolete. Indeed, RCA didn't expand in Camden after 1930, rather it built new factories in nearby suburbs and all over the country. It still seems like a waste to have a once busy factory complex now reduced to mostly rubble in a now desolate city. But I can't help but wonder if we've lost something valuable. when we've torn down such a factory complex and the base company no longer exists. Yes, the technology itself used at RCA is mostly all obsolete today, there is no market for inexpensive home phonographs, and audio/video equipment is far more sophisticated than anything RCA built in its heydey. But every company has a soul. Some are better than others; some are better off gone for good. Company souls outlast technology, be they vacuum tubes or high density ICs. Frankly I don't know enough about the various business lines to know how this affects the communication business. Is the music world better or worse off with the German company searching out the next Caruso and Elvis? Is the NBC TV network better or worse under big GE? Are everyday consumers buying a modest electronics unit better off with it being made overseas by a company that hides its name? Is the govt better served by huge Lockheed Martin serving it rather than a smaller RCA? P.S. RCA made a lot of telephone equipment, apparently for defense purposes (ie phones for ships, scrambler phones), and don't know how they competed with Western Electric in terms of markets, price, and quality. Some RCA phones appear to be exact copies of W/E units, I presume they were licensed. P.S.S. RCA made an attempt in computers; it scared the heck out of IBM because RCA had far more electronics skills than IBM did in the early 1950s. However, RCA did not have the customer support skills of IBM and eventually RCA--after losing big money-- sold its businss to Univac. RCA literature of the 1960s had a model of the atom on it (a dot with orbiting electrons swirls), a common image on high tech packages of that era. [public replies please] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #420 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Sep 8 15:33:08 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i88JX8m23124; Wed, 8 Sep 2004 15:33:08 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 15:33:08 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409081933.i88JX8m23124@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 #421 TELECOM Digest Wed, 8 Sep 2004 15:32:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 421 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Senators Introduce Bill Implementing 9/11 Commission Report (M Solomon) FCC Second Digital TV Periodic Review (Monty Solomon) Verizon 3 Mbps/768 Kbps DSL Service (Monty Solomon) Leitch Announces High-Definition NEXIO(TM) Server System (Monty Solomon) WiFi Gaining (George Hernando) Re: Digital Music's Next Big Battle (John McHarry) Re: One Alternative, Peaceful Perspective (John McHarry) Re: Congress Hangs Up on VoIP for 2004 (Jack Decker) Re: Considering VoIP For Home? Think Twice About CallVantage (charlie3) Re: My New DVR From Cable One (DevilsPGD) Re: Vonage (Brett Forejt) Re: The Soft Invasion (Dan Lanciani) Re: Play DTMF Tones Over a Modem (Destined) White Paper: XERT Your Data, Refocus Your Efforts (Holmespundit) History of AUTOVON (Jim Haynes) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 17:44:14 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Senators Introduce Bill Implementing 9/11 Commission Report A bipartisan group of Senators introduced a 281-page bill to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Report. The bill creates a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, Privacy and Civil Liberties Officers for key government agencies, and an Inspector General for a newly created National Intelligence Authority. It also implemented an information sharing network to promote sharing of terrorism-related information consistent with guidelines to protect civil liberties. September 07, 2004 9/11 Commission Report Implementation Act of 2004 [PDF], September 07 2004: http://www.cdt.org/security/usapatriot/20040907implement.pdf 9/11 Commission web site [offsite]: http://9-11commission.gov/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 17:56:31 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FCC Second Digital TV Periodic Review Excerpt from: http://www.fcc.gov/headlines.html 9/7/04 FCC Second Digital TV Periodic Review. News Release (8/4/04): Word | Acrobat http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-250542A1.doc http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-250542A1.pdf Order: Word | Acrobat http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-04-192A1.doc http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-04-192A1.pdf Attached Forms: 381 | 382 | 383 | 384 | 385 | 386 http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-04-192A2.pdf http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-04-192A3.pdf http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-04-192A4.pdf http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-04-192A5.pdf http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-04-192A6.pdf http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-04-192A7.pdf Powell Statement: Word | Acrobat http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-250542A2.doc http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-250542A2.pdf Copps Statement: Word | Acrobat http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-250542A3.doc http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-250542A3.pdf Martin Statement: Word | Acrobat http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-250542A4.doc http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-250542A4.pdf Adelstein Statement: Word | Acrobat http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-250542A5.doc http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-250542A5.pdf ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 18:13:45 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon 3 Mbps/768 Kbps DSL Service New DSL Service With Maximum Connection Speed of 3 Mbps/768 Kbps Now Available in 12 States and the District of Columbia Media contacts: Briana Gowing, 972-718-6202 Catherine Hogan Lewis, 703-974-5547 NEW YORK - Verizon Online continues creating the best value in broadband by introducing a new DSL (digital subscriber line) speed option for consumers and businesses. The new DSL service offers a maximum connection speed of 3 Mbps (megabits per second) downstream and 768 Kbps (kilobits per second) upstream and is available today in 12 New England and mid-Atlantic states and in the District of Columbia. The company plans to offer 3Mbps DSL service later this year in the remaining 11 states where it now offers up to 1.5 Mbps DSL service. http://newscenter.verizon.com/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=86793 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 18:24:12 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Leitch Announces High-Definition NEXIO(TM) Server System Company pioneers technology that could change the way broadcasters build facilities TORONTO, Sept. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Leitch Technology Corporation (TSX:LTV) continues its server technology leadership with the introduction of the NEXIO HD server, which brings to market the first software-based agile codec for high-definition video. Based on a new high-performance, true 64-bit dual processor platform, this new technology allows the integration of baseband high-definition record and playback directly into the NEXIO(TM) server system. The move to software codec technology has been part of Leitch's ongoing server strategy to increase customer value by moving away from dependence on hardware-specific functionality toward more general-purpose, high-performance computing platforms and adding value in software expertise. Leitch began to head in this direction several years ago with its patented RAIDSoft(TM) technology, an entirely software-based RAID controller that allowed for more reliable, scalable video servers at dramatically reduced cost. http://finance.lycos.com/qc/news/story.aspx?story=200409031337_PRN__TO199 ------------------------------ From: georgehernando@hotmail.com (George Hernando) Subject: WiFi Gaining Date: 8 Sep 2004 12:19:57 -0700 I see in the archives at www.wififyi.com that WiFi seems to be capturing the US by storm -- all of Walla Walla county, the city of Philadelphia ... Sounds like the potential to obsolete a lot of wires. Is the US starting to catch up to totally wired places like South Korea? ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Digital Music's Next Big Battle Date: Tue, 07 Sep 2004 22:29:47 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Monty Solomon wrote: > The arrival of software that lets you search for and record digital > music off the airwaves could raise legal issues that will make the P2P > skirmishes look quaint by comparison. > By Eric Hellweg > If you follow technology long enough, every once in awhile you'll get > a jolt -- the sudden This Is Big realization -- when you see something > new and grasp its potential to change the way you go about your life. That is somewhat overblown. All that program did was re-digitize and record the analog output of the digital radio with a notation of the sound title it picked up off the feed that normally goes to a display. The only real advances over simply recording off FM or whatever is the automatic partitioning by selection and automatic labeling. This is pretty clearly fair use as it has been known for a long time. I think somebody else had a scheme for picking up and recording the digital output of the receiver, but it is still a rendering of the compressed stream. People will differ on how much the compression scheme degrades the audio, but it isn't full CD quality. For many people, however, it is still good enough. Even if the satellite receiver goes away, you can still record Internet streams off the likes of Shoutcast, and some of them are pretty good band rate, and include what is playing. I haven't seen anything to grab the what's playing and marry it to the copy, but that shouldn't be too hard. You can record the raw stream with off the shelf software that has been around for years. ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: One Alternative, Peaceful Perspective Date: Tue, 07 Sep 2004 23:43:15 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It is an interesting debate topic, but it isn't telecom. I regret having posted my second paragraph here, although not its content. I would probably enjoy debating the subject in an appropriate forum. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Then I suggest you go to an 'appropriate forum' to continue the discussion such as my very own discussion group on the forthcoming election: http://kerry-or-bush-2004.us.tt where there are two hot topics waiting for you now (1) the forthcoming election and (2) the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) also a/k/a in street vernacular, 'gay marriage'. Both discussion topics (indeed, any new discussions which spring from those two are totally unmoderated. Just go to http://kerry-or-bush-2004.us.tt and make your thoughts known. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Sep 2004 20:59:17 -0400 From: Jack Decker Subject: Re: Congress Hangs Up on VoIP for 2004 Pat, please conceal my e-mail address as usual. On 7 Sep 2004 07:32:37 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote: > Jack Decker wrote >> By Roy Mark >> Federal legislation to exempt Internet telephony from state >> regulations and tariffs has all but failed in the 108th Congress, >> ending an ambitious effort to carve out and protect Internet-related >> issues from looming, and highly uncertain, telecom reform. >> The idea was simple enough. Because IP-enabled networks are inherently >> interstate in nature, they should fall solely under the jurisdiction >> of the federal government and its appointed agent, the Federal >> Communications Commission (FCC). > To the subscriber, a telephone is a telephone. It doesn't matter > to the subscriber who is carrying the signal, by what method > the signal is being carried, or who mails out the bill. No > single medium is more or less "inherently interstate in nature". > At the present time telephone service is state regulated. All > parties offering telephone service must meet the same regulatory > obligations as all the other companies, otherwise exempt companies > have a most unfair cost advantage. > You can't have it both ways. There you go again, Lisa. Does your memory only retain information for a month or so, causing you to occasionally pounce upon some random post about VoIP (usually one of mine) and attempt to make the same old tired point that you've failed to make *every* *other* *time* you've posted it? Your whole argument is based on a ridiculous premise, encapsulated by this paragraph: > To the subscriber, a telephone is a telephone. It doesn't matter > to the subscriber who is carrying the signal, by what method > the signal is being carried, or who mails out the bill. No > single medium is more or less "inherently interstate in nature". The problem is that one could make the exact same argument about cell phones, but no one does, because it would be silly. Cell phones are not regulated by the states, they are regulated by the federal government, and possibly for the same reason that VoIP should not be regulated by the states: Since the device originating the call is portable, a call between any two given numbers could be intrastate or interstate. In fact, the nature of a call could change during the call (if, for example, you are talking on your cell phone, or on a VoIP phone connected through a wireless ISP, while you are a passenger in a car that crosses a state line) (Note how I state that in such as way as to not get the "don't drive while talking on the phone" crowd up in arms!). I have stated before, and I will state again, that VoIP is in many ways more like cell phone service than traditional wireline telephony. And in particular, with a traditional landline phone, you have a pretty good idea of where the caller is (usually within a few hundred feet, if they are using a cordless phone). If you are using a cell phone, even then it is becoming possible to know roughly where the caller is, at least for 911 purposes. But with VoIP, the caller could be anywhere in the world where there is a broadband connection. A person could have their billing address in one place, their phone number ratecenter in a different area, and when they actually place a call they may well be in neither of those places. That is not at all like traditional phone service. So, since your argument is based upon a faulty logic, your conclusion cannot be justified. Or, to put it another way, you can indeed have it both ways when you're talking about two different things. If landline phones and cell phones can be treated entirely differently by regulators, then here is absolutely no reason why VoIP, which is neither landline nor cell, should not be treated differently from either of those. Now, Lisa, why don't you print this out and post it next to your computer, so the NEXT time you are tempted to follow up one of my posts with what for you seems to pass for logic, you'll know that there's a pretty good chance that I am going to follow up with yet another post that makes your arguments look foolish. Heck, I could write a canned "form" response and probably use it each time you post, with very little modification. We all know by now that you have some axe to grind against VoIP, but for crying out loud, at least please find a new argument! Simply restating an argument that never made sense to begin with does NOT increase its credibility. ------------------------------ From: charlie@cdsdetroit.com (charlie3) Subject: Re: Considering VoIP For Home? Think Twice About AT&T CallVantage Date: 7 Sep 2004 12:23:38 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I have things set up so cell phone voice mail never takes messages unless the vonage servers were down and unable to take calls from the phone network. ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: My New DVR From Cable One Reply-To: bond-jamesbond@crazyhat.net Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 01:52:15 GMT In message Barry Margolin wrote: >>> At a typical charge of $0.20 (20 cents) per kw-hr, that's a bit over >>> $4/month in electricity. Add another buck or two if you're using air >>> conditining and have to dump out that heat. Usually worth it, but >>> worth a thought or two. >> OTOH, since the majority of the energy used gets converted into heat, >> it comes straight off your heating bill if you're in an area which >> gets cold. > But during the summer it increases your electric bill for air > conditioning, so over the long run they probably cancel out. I don't use an air conditioner here at all, so it can't possibly cost more money for air conditioning :) >>> (And the "off" switch, if it has one, is only for show). >> Weird. My Bell ExpressVu PVR does shut off the hard drive when not in >> use (Although not immediately, it will update the guide and whatever >> other housekeeping needs to be done first) > ReplayTV used to do this, although there was an undocumented way to > disable it. Starting with the 4000 series, they keep the disk > spinning all the time. The problem was that when you turned the > device on, it took 5-10 seconds for the disk to spin up. Also, it has > to spin up every hour to check the guide to see if something needs to > be recorded; in quiet rooms (like bedrooms), this periodic startup > noise was annoying. Weird. My BEV PVR maintains 48-52 hours of guide in memory so it only needs to spin up once every day or two to keep up to date. There is some time involved to power up, 3-5 seconds, but it's less then my 32" TV, and the picture starts right away, just the PVR and guide features aren't available until the drive is ready. The heat benefits alone are worth having it spin down when not in use though, in my opinion. Never try to extort more than it would cost to have you killed. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: On my unit the off/on switch seems to work (and of course) so does unplugging it from the wall. But if it gets unplugged it winds up taking a long time (maybe thirty minutes) to rebuild the TV Guide listings and the details about the channels. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: RE: Vonage Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 21:01:42 -0500 From: Brett Forejt Do you know if online gaming (Xbox) and VOIP are compatible? Regards, Brett Forejt Texas Instruments Incorporated Member Group 12500 TI Blvd., MS 8729 Technical Staff Dallas, TX 75243 Phone: (214) 480-3898 Office Coordinates: J2-1183 FAX: (214) 480 - 3807 Email: bforejt@ti.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 02:38:31 -0400 (EDT) From: Dan Lanciani Subject: Re: The Soft Invasion puma@catbox.com (Gary Breuckman) wrote: > In article , "Dan Lanciani" > wrote: >>> By WALTER S. MOSSBERG >>> WHAT IF A private company could legally break into your house and rig >>> your television so that it would always start up on a special station >>> the company had created that showed deceptive ads every minute, all >>> day? And what if, when you tried to change the station, you could >>> choose only among obscure and dubious channels selected by the invading >>> company? >> Why exactly is it any more legal for companies to install unauthorized >> software on my machine than it is for a virus writer to do so? > Usually, because they ask! Part of the article to which I replied was snipped. It included the characterization of the installation as surreptitious, so I would assume that they don't ask about the particular piece(s) of code in question. > Ever visited a web site, and had a window pop up with something like > "would you like to install our super-duper-find-anything search bar?" Actually, no, but I probably don't visit the right kinds of web sites. In any case, it isn't obvious to me that even answering "yes" to such a question authorizes the installation of any other arbitrary code that the asker desires. > What most of these programs do is monitor what web sites you visit, > and then pop up ads that relate to those sites. So are we assuming that it is legal to install additional functionality as long as it kind-of, sort-of relates to the advertised functionality? > Of course some sites don't ask, or they bundle it with some other item > that you are installing. > What makes it 'more legal' is that YOU went THERE and got it. The same is usually true of a virus: it is bundled with some other item that you downloaded and are installing. A possible distinction is that the virus may not have been put there intentionally by the distributor of the other item. > Also many don't report any data back, they just annoy you locally > with related ads. I'm not clear on how this is a distinguishing characteristic. Either way they are executing software on my machine without my permission. Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Interesting that you mention it. Just a few days ago I 'inherited' some awful piece of trash which caused one of my computers to slow down to a crawl, and caused it to stall to a complete halt every ten or fifteen seconds. I also happened to notice that the same computer had 'inherited' a new search bar thing which would NOT go away with rebooting. I was not even able to get the latest version of Spybot to update itself or search for any bugs. I had to take another machine on the network which was not infected, load the latest Spybot S&D version 1.3 on it, *then* use the network to bring it across to the infected machine. Several hours of work to rid myself of an unwanted search tool bar and an unwanted virus which came with it. Who was it on here who at one point had a .signature file which said "When you are given a file and asked to send it around to all your friends, forget that I am a friend of yours." Very good advice, indeed. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Destined Subject: Re: Play DTMF Tones Over a Modem Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 01:41:14 -0700 Prospecting Sucks wrote: > I use a voiceblast system which allows me to keep up to date with > customers and clients. The problem I have is that I have to call into > a toll-free number and then using my telephone keypad I need to key in > the telephone numbers (with area-code) of the people I want to receive > my voiceblast. After I input each telephone number I have to input the > number "1" to confirm the telephone number. > The problem I have is that I have hundreds of customers and it is very > time consuming to have to key these numbers in each time. > Does anyone know of a program where I can point it to a TEXT file and > have it play the telephone numbers over the modem? Basically just read > the numbers using DTMF tones over the modem line? > Thanks > J.R. > http://www.freebusinesscards.com How about writing a text file with AT modem commands, then load into hyperterminal buffer (Microsoft OS only) and hit return. OR using any type of terminal program (Hyperterminal for Windows works) type ATDT (Phone # here?). Jeremy <> ------------------------------ From: Holmespundit Organization: Holmespun Solutions, LLC Subject: White Paper: XERT Your Data, Refocus Your Efforts Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 11:23:03 -0400 Monty's Groupies ... The paper "XERT Your Data, Refocus Your Efforts" was recently added to the Technical Briefcase section of the Holmespun Solutions web site: http://www.holmespun.biz/briefcase/ The paper describes the advantages of using an XML encoding (called XERT) to manipulate data that is usually only worked with in binary form. The paper is aimed at those who work with protocols defined using ASN.1 and encoded in BER format (e.g. X.509, SNMP, LDAP, TAP3, CDR). The paper uses the GSM/UMTS MAP protocol to form illustrations. The paper also promotes the Berasno Library and Utilities, which are capable of translating BER data to XERT format, and back again, without loss of data or format. ...Holmespundit Holmespun Solutions, LLC http://www.holmespun.biz ------------------------------ Subject: History of AUTOVON Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 16:08:11 GMT (copied from the Yahoo group coldwarcomms) From: "Albert LaFrance" Date: Tue Sep 7, 2004 9:56 pm Subject: AUTOVON history A history of AUTOVON, focusing on the "Circuit Switched Network Design and Analysis Model": http://www.mitretek.org/pubs/telecom/review00/article8.doc jhhaynes at earthlink dot net ------------------------------ 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. 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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 #421 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Sep 9 18:59:58 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i89MxvM04656; Thu, 9 Sep 2004 18:59:58 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 18:59:58 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409092259.i89MxvM04656@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 #422 TELECOM Digest Thu, 9 Sep 2004 19:00:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 422 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson NAB Argues for Free OTA TV (Monty Solomon) DISH Loses Must Carry Battle at FCC (Monty Solomon) DIRECTV Announces Plan to Launch Next Generation Satellites (M Solomon) For BlackBerry Users, a New Way to Write (Monty Solomon) Verizon, DSL and Tariffs (jmeissen@aracnet.com) AT&T - What a Bad Company Are You! (Critica Todo) Conferencing Parties on the Mitel SX2000 (Benm) C|net and VoIP (Tom Keating) More Thoughts About RCA (Julian Thomas) Re: Spam Makes Up Half of All Emails in China - Expert (Geoffrey Welsh) Re: My New DVR From Cable One (Barry Margolin) Re: Vonage (Dmitri) Re: Congress Hangs Up on VoIP for 2004 (Lisa Hancock) FCC Probe Pops Primus (Jack Decker - VOIP News) 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: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 17:09:44 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: NAB Argues for Free OTA TV The National Association of Broadcasters continued to argue for over-the-air free TV at the Federal Communications Commission Tuesday, saying in a filing that no TV viewers should be left behind during the switch to digital TV. The NAB warned against any potential disruption for households that get only over-the-air TV and for cable and satellite TV subscribers who have OTA-only analog sets when analog broadcasting is turned off and TV goes digital. "While we recognize the important demands for the broadcast spectrum to be reclaimed after the transition, we emphasize here the caution that the commission must employ in advancing the conversion to digital and ceasing analog broadcasting," the NAB said. In its second set of comments on the issue, NAB said a large portion of the 18.9 percent of U.S. households that receive television over the air do so by choice, not because economics dictates it. http://www.skyreport.com/viewskyreport.cfm?ReleaseID=1479#Story1 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 17:10:46 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: DISH Loses Must Carry Battle at FCC EchoStar lost a must-carry battle involving a broadcaster serving the Albuquerque area at the Federal Communications Commission, a move that will force the satellite TV company to carry's the station's signal. http://www.skyreport.com/viewskyreport.cfm?ReleaseID=1479#Story3 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 17:18:30 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: DIRECTV Announces Plan to Launch Next Generation Satellites It Will Provide Dramatic Expansion of High-Definition and Advanced Programming Services EL SEGUNDO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 8, 2004--DIRECTV, Inc., provider of the nation's leading digital multichannel television service, announced today a historic expansion of programming capacity with the planned launch of four new next-generation satellites. These satellites will provide DIRECTV with a massive expansion in local and national high-definition (HD) channels, as well as capacity for new interactive and enhanced services and standard-definition programming. DIRECTV will have the capacity to bring these new services to every household in America. http://finance.lycos.com/qc/news/story.aspx?story=200409082002_BWR__BW5955 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 03:44:36 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: For BlackBerry Users, a New Way to Write STATE OF THE ART By DAVID POGUE IN the annals of consumer electronics, certain devices have proven so compelling, they've created consumer cults. You know, Mac heads. Palm freaks. TiVoholics. Among the white-collar crowd, though, one particular gizmo has earned a street nickname all its own: CrackBerry. That's a reference to the RIM BlackBerry, an addictive wireless palmtop that displays your e-mail in real time, as it arrives. The airports and commuter trains on both coasts are filled with BlackBerry fanatics, hunched over, eyes glazed, flailing at its microscopic alphabet keyboard with their thumbs callused in funny places. But for all its popularity among executives and financial-industry types, the BlackBerry is practically unknown to everyone else. RIM hopes to change all that with the BlackBerry 7100t, which it unveiled yesterday. (The device, with phone service from T-Mobile, will go on sale next month.) RIM believed that everyday consumers avoided the original BlackBerry for two reasons. First, the price was way too high: $500 for the BlackBerry, plus about $30 a month for Internet service on top of a voice plan. That one was easy to fix; the 7100t costs only $200, plus $60 a month for both unlimited Internet and 1,000 anytime phone minutes. The second reason is that the BlackBerry's Thumbelina keyboard is nearly three inches wide. Recent BlackBerry models are also cellphones, and three inches is awfully wide for a phone. As you walk down the street, you feel as if you're talking into a frozen waffle. The new 7100t is, therefore, much narrower (2.3 inches). In fact, it's nearly the same size and shape as a standard non-folding cellphone. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/09/technology/circuits/09stat.html ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@aracnet.com Subject: Verizon, DSL and Tariffs Date: 9 Sep 2004 18:43:37 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com OK, I need a little enlightenment. According to Verizon, their DSL circuit business is tariffed, and based on those tariffs they charge $44/mo for a 1.5M/384K DSL circuit. https://www22.verizon.com/dslmembersonly/ispmanual/ISP_manual3.jsp However, they charge $30/mo for the circuit AND the ISP charges. http://www22.verizon.com/ForHomeDSL/Channels/DSL/ForHomeDSL.asp Can someone explain the "new math" that applies to that paradox? John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com ------------------------------ From: critica_todo@yahoo.com (Critica Todo) Subject: AT&T - What a Bad Company Are You! Date: 8 Sep 2004 13:05:51 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com AT&T what a bad company are you! You are but a blood sucker. Yes, that's what you are. First, those $25.00 reactivation fees is really adding to your button line. No good faith earnings: just your bad customer services is what keeping you alive. But not to worry. Your bad faith will catch up to you. I know what you do. You purposely let people to forget about their bills and then charge them $25.00 for activation. I know it is purposely because you have the technology to send us a text message or an automatic phone call of what you are about to do. If this behavior is not legally improper at least should be morally improper. I wonder how many people have you killed when in an emergency customers reach for their phones and find out, maybe too late, that you want to make an extra $25.00 locking their phones. Second, your customer services is a joke. After many many minutes of waiting, finally you get to talk to a representative. No soon enough, the phone call goes dead. You might think customer services will call you to continue where you left it. NO. Why not? They got your phone. That it's the first thing they asked you. No. You have to call back, wait again your 20 or so minutes and start all over. And maybe finish your business with them. If not this process could repeat at least three or four times. AT&T; I hope you die. ------------------------------ From: ben77m2000@yahoo.com (Benm) Subject: Conferencing parties on the Mitel SX2000 Date: 9 Sep 2004 03:02:34 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Can anyone explain why I am unable to add international mobiles to a conference when I call them, but why it works when they call me? I have a Tellabs 10 port conference bridge connected to my Mitel SX2000 with LS/GS trunks. I am able to add any kind of party to the conference bridge (tie trunk, PRI, internal) when I call them or they call me, but when I call an international mobile (I only tried Israel and the USA), I cannot connect them. The call rings back the station that tried to put them on after release. However, if the mobile calls ME, I can put them on! I am in the UK and this problem does not occur with UK mobiles. ------------------------------ Subject: C|net and VoIP Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 14:22:36 -0400 From: Tom Keating I agree that C|Net got it totally wrong! You should check out my VoIP blog. I discuss the current trends in VoIP and the future of VoIP. It's located here: http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/ Sincerely, Tom Keating - TMC Labs - VP & CTO & Executive Technology Editor Take a look at my blog, covering VoIP news, telecom, gadgets, science, and general techology: http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/ Also take a look at the popular VoIP forums: http://voip-forum.tmcnet.com/voip-forum/forum/ 203-852-6800 x149 1 Technology Plaza Norwalk, CT 06854 ------------------------------ From: Julian Thomas Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 20:43:30 -0400 Subject: More Thoughts About RCA (again, please mung my address - thanks) In <1094679831.188.71669.m12@yahoogroups.com>, on 09/08/04 at 09:43 PM, telecom-news@yahoogroups.com typed: > P.S.S. RCA made an attempt in computers; it scared the heck out of > IBM because RCA had far more electronics skills than IBM did in the > early 1950s. However, RCA did not have the customer support skills > of IBM and eventually RCA -- after losing big money -- sold its > businss to Univac. Nor did they have the mechanical skills that IBM had from their earlier EAM business. Peripherals -- especially tape drives -- suffered as a consequence. Julian Thomas: jt at jt-mj dot net http://jt-mj.net In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State! Boardmember of POSSI.org - Phoenix OS/2 Society, Inc http://www.possi.org -- -- The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard. ------------------------------ From: Geoffrey Welsh Subject: Re: Spam Makes Up Half of All Emails in China - Expert Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 17:04:03 -0400 SELLCOM Tech support wrote: > Blame ISPs like level3.net, sprintlink.net, savvis.net etc. who are > providing connectivity when they KNOW that spam businesses are > hosted there. I can't disagree with you. Unfortunately, the world -- and, in particular, the Congress of the United States of America -- does not yet recognize that spam is theft, and commercial interests would prefer to keep it that way because it provides them with a cheap advertising media. Therefore, in legislation such as the CAN SPAM act, spam is judged bad not because it is spam and therefore theft, but because SOME spam contains offensive material or fraud. Well, you can't regulate a language on the basis that some people swear in it, and you can't effectively regulate spam - or even get a grip on the problem -- on the basis of what SOME spammers do because there will always be the possibility -- if not an example -- of someone not spamming with offensive material or fraud and therefore spam is a legitimate tool as long as we trust the users to remove anyone who asks politely to be removed. (Language specifically chosen to hint at the Betamax case.) Getting back to your point, until there are laws that recognize spam itself -- and not the contents of SOME spam -- as a crime, you're not going to get any traction on punishing companies that support it and/or make money from it. Once we get there, though, we can see if there is any chance (personally I doubt it but IANAL) of charging networks that provide spammers with transit with being an accomplice after the fact if they fail to act after they have been informed of their participation. > BUT, we know that people like level3.net have no intention of cleaning > up their act on their own so it is people like level3.net who DEMAND > government intervention. I've been toying with the idea of invoicing 'tier 1' ISPs for a share of the revenue they get for selling transit to companies that host web sites for spammers who advertise via mailboxes that I (or my employer) pay for. Maybe if enough people spent some extra money (which is the real pity) on postage it might get the ISPs to notice. > Bumbuck Iowa (apologies, had to pick a state) I always thought that town was in Idaho, not Iowa. Maybe I'm confusing it with a similarly named town. Geoffrey Welsh If anything worth doing is worth doing right, then surely anything not worth doing right is not worth doing at all. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't think if you disallow the porn and fraud aspects of spam and try, as Geoffrey suggests, to pass a law simply against spam, in its own right, on its own merits you are ever going to get anywhere. What, Geoffrey, do you define as 'spam'? Is it the *quality* of the material being circulated, or the *quantity* of material being circulated the factor? If it is 'worthless' should it be considered spam? If umpty-million copies of some poorly written and poorly edited computer-generated thing are dumped in the email stream each day, should they be considered spam? What about 'pass this around to all your friends' jokes, pictures and newsletters and the like? What about TELECOM Digest, or newsletters from places like EFF? Regretably, my valued email is your 'spam' and the other way around. One hundred years ago, snail mail itself was such a novelty; very few folks recieved anything close to the volume of (snail) mail they get today. Letters from friends, some business dealings now and then, and newspapers and magazines. Most people got *two or three* pieces of mail in a week's time. And the cost was a really great deal. Two or three cents per letter to go all the way around the country in a reasonably short time. Then business places discovered the use of snail mail as a bargain for themselves also. Now most folks get *two or three* pieces of 'junk mail' each day. And twenty years ago, when email was still a novelty to most people, most of us got two or three important (to us) pieces of email in a week's time. Now business places -- never mind what you or I may think of those business places -- have discovered what a bargain email is also. Just as snail mail volume has increased expotentially over the years, so is email starting to grow in volume also (oh really? I never would have guessed !), and I don't think you can ever outlaw spam totally just because it happens to be 'spam' by our definition of same. About all we will be able to do is attempt to increase the sophistication of our filters and try to remember, as patiently as we can, that in general computers and email are no longer the novelties they once were. And heck, we have only been at this for a quarter-century or so; wait for another hundred years and see what it is like, as our knowledge of things electronic grows even more expotentially. Guttenberg had a dream, and he invented the printing press using some wine skins. His dream was to make it easier to circulate the Word of God; 'to bring glory to God and Mother Church'. The ease with which he was able to compile the entire scriptures in a single printed volume in German amazed everyone. Within a period of a few years, there were printing presses all over Europe, millions of Bibles and other printed books. *That* -- Guttenberg's invention -- was the start of the information explosion which continues unabated to this day. I can't help but wonder if the 'inventors of email' (or the concept of computers talking to other computers) back in the 1960-70's had any such fanciful ideas or dreams about what they were doing. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: My New DVR From Cable One Organization: Symantec Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 20:25:04 -0400 In article , DevilsPGD wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: On my unit the off/on switch seems to > work (and of course) so does unplugging it from the wall. But if it > gets unplugged it winds up taking a long time (maybe thirty minutes) > to rebuild the TV Guide listings and the details about the > channels. PAT] On ReplayTV, the on-off switch just controls the output to the TV and the live buffering. It continues to perform scheduled recordings when it's off. When you pull the plug it doesn't lose the guide, because it's kept on the disk. It takes about a minute for the system to boot up, and if it was in the middle of recording something when the power went out, it will resume recording it. This confirms a suspicion I had -- the DVRs that the cable companies are supplying don't have all the features that ReplayTV and TiVo have. But since you're not paying anything upfront, and the maximum monthly charge I've heard about is half what ReplayTV and TiVo charge, I guess you shouldn't expect the same level of quality. Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to From *** [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No, we do not have nearly the features found on TiVo or ReplayTV nor the costs involved for same, nor, for that matter, the channel lockouts (against recording) found on TiVo, etc. CableOne doesn't care what you record or do. PAT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: Dmitri From: Dmitri@info@REMOVE_NO_SPAM_cabling-design.com Subject: Re: Vonage Organization: Cabling-Design.com Date: Thu, 09 Sep 2004 22:26:41 GMT Brett Forejt wrote in message news:telecom23.421.11@telecom-digest.org: > Do you know if online gaming (Xbox) and VOIP are compatible? > Regards, > Brett Forejt Texas Instruments Incorporated > Member Group 12500 TI Blvd., MS 8729 > Technical Staff Dallas, TX 75243 > Phone: (214) 480-3898 Office Coordinates: J2-1183 > FAX: (214) 480 - 3807 Email: bforejt@ti.com Yes. Provided by your Internet connection has enough bandwidth and both devices are connected behind a router without monopolizing the cable/DSL modem. Dmitri Abaimov, RCDD http://www.cabling-design.com Cabling Forum, color codes, pinouts and other useful online resources for premises wiring users and professionals http://www.cabling-design.com/homewiring Downloadable Residential Cabling Guide ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Congress Hangs Up on VoIP for 2004 Date: 9 Sep 2004 09:28:25 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Jack Decker wrote in message: > There you go again, Lisa. Does your memory only retain information > for a month or so When a poster resorts to rude comments like this, it means they have no rational argument. Whether you like it or not, the fact is that VOIP is getting a free ride by avoiding the taxes and regulatory burdens other telephone carriers have to make. Either eliminate all obligations from everyone, or make everyone bear there. Now understand I am most certainly NOT saying you represent sleazy businesses. What I am saying is that if we had you and someone who WAS being paid to advocate sleazy businessess standing side by side, it would be hard to tell the difference between them, at least from what they were advocating re: VoIP. It's that whole duck test thing -- at a distance something could look like a duck and appear to waddle like a duck, but the possibility exists that it might be a goose or some other duck-like bird. [I hope you don't mind I borrowed your prose from your 8/5/04 note--it seems to work well in this context.] ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Thu, 09 Sep 2004 12:50:52 -0400 Subject: FCC Probe Pops Primus Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?site=lightreading&doc_id=58987 Primus Telecommunications Group Inc., an up-and-coming player in the VOIP market, is blaming its telemarketing troubles on an Indian company it hired to handle telephone sales. Yesterday the carrier agreed to pay $400,000 to the U.S. government to end an investigation into its telemarketing practices. The investigation centered around whether the McLean, Va.-based telephone and data services provider illegally called consumers who were registered in the national do-not-call database. The FCC began to investigate Primus, a division of Primus Telecommunications Group, on December 17 after receiving dozens of consumer complaints. The FCC probe revolved around Primus division International Consumer Marketing, which used telemarketing to sign up 40 percent of its long-distance customers. Spokeswoman Gerry Simone says these sales represent only about 2 percent of Primus' total revenues. She blames the alleged violations of the do-not-call rules on Spanco Telesystems & Solutions Ltd. in India, a company Primus hired last year to solicit prospective customers for its long-distance telephone service. She says Primus severed its contract with Spanco the following day and no longer uses telemarketing in the United States. In its consent decree released Tuesday, the FCC said Primus would make a voluntary payment of $400,000 to the U.S. Treasury and adopt tougher training policies for its customer representatives. Primus, like other long-distance telephone providers, is leaning on VOIP to stay afloat in an increasingly competitive market. A big chunk of Primus' revenues has come from selling cheap long-distance services, especially for international calling. Full story at: http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?site=lightreading&doc_id=58987 How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ 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! 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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 #422 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Sep 10 14:09:57 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8AI9vm12842; Fri, 10 Sep 2004 14:09:57 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 14:09:57 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409101809.i8AI9vm12842@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 #423 TELECOM Digest Fri, 10 Sep 2004 14:09:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 423 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Wargames, Wardialing, Wardriving, Emerging Market (Monty Solomon) The FCC's Broadband over Power Line Inquiry: Considering (Monty Solomon) TXU to Link Customers' Rates to Scores (Monty Solomon) Intel Outlines Strategy for Making Internet Smarter, Safer (M Solomon) VeriSign Implements Rapid Updates to Domain Name System Files (Solomon) FCC Bolsters Children's TV Requirements (Monty Solomon) Powell Pitches 2009 DTV Date (Monty Solomon) TiVo, ReplayTV Agree to Limits (Monty Solomon) DISH Fights Calls for HD Must-Carry (Monty Solomon) Re: AT&T - What a Bad Company Are You! (Steve Sobol) Re: AT&T - What a Bad Company Are You! (Joseph) Re: AT&T - What a Bad Company Are You! (Gene S. Berkowitz) Re: My New DVR From Cable One (DevilsPGD) Re: My New DVR From Cable One (Paul Vader) Re: More Thoughts About RCA (Lisa Hancock) Cellphone That Doesn't Work at the Hotel (Marcus Didius Falco) 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: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 21:55:30 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Wargames, Wardialing, Wardriving, and the Emerging Market for Wargames, Wardialing, Wardriving, and the Emerging Market for Hacker Ethics by Patrick S. Ryan 9 Va. J.L. & Tech. 7 (2004). A wardriver gets in her car and drives around a given area. Using her laptop, freely available software, a standard Wi-Fi card, and a GPS device, she logs the status and location of wireless networks. The computer generates a file and records networks that are open and networks that are closed. Once the data is collected, the wardriver may denote an open network by using chalk to mark a sign on a building, called "warchalking," or she may record the location on a digital map and publish it on the Internet. This article will explain the roots of the term "wardriving," and the cultural phenomenon of the 1983 Hollywood movie WarGames that gave birth to the concept more than 20 years ago. Moreover, this article will show that the press has often confused wardriving with computer crimes involving trespass and illegal access. There are inconspicuous ethical shades to wardriving that are poorly understood, and to date, no academic literature has analyzed the legality of the activity. This article will argue that the act of wardriving itself is quite innocuous, legal, and can even be quite beneficial to society. It will also highlight the need for wardrivers-and for anyone accessing open networks-to help establish and adhere to strict ethical guidelines. Such guidelines are available in various proposal-stage forms, and this article will review these ethics within the context of a larger movement among hackers to develop a coherent ethical code. http://www.vjolt.net/vol9/issue3/v9i3_a07-Ryan.pdf ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 22:01:54 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The FCC's Broadband over Power Line Inquiry The FCC's Broadband over Power Line Inquiry: Considering Radio-Frequency Interference Rules of the Road for the Third High-Speed Communications Wire by David Tobenkin & Newton Howard 8 Va. J.L. & Tech. 10 (2003) This article examines the Federal Communications Commission's Broadband Over Power Line (BPL) Systems Notice of Inquiry proceeding, including the issues raised by the Commission with respect to the nature of this new high-speed Internet communications medium and the radio frequency interference and technical challenges it poses. Also analyzed are the filings of the numerous commenters in this proceeding. The article contends that more testing is needed to gauge precisely the degree of harmful interference posed by BPL, but that the Commission should allow deployment of BPL under the Commission's existing Part 15 rules for Carrier Current Systems operating on an unlicensed basis. Such BPL systems should, however, be subjected to careful interference monitoring and, if serious interference with licensed spectrum users results, the Commission should impose remedies such as confinement of BPL signals within certain ranges of the spectrum and notching of BPL signals within bands in which there are impacted licensed users. The Commission may also wish to segregate its regulatory treatment of BPL: The Commission may, on the one hand, wish to take actions to encourage deployment of the energy utility systems applications that are unique to BPL, while, on the other, choose not to provide advantages to BPL systems that merely provide consumer high-speed access to the Internet, given the robust competition for such high-speed access already present, or soon to develop, in many markets. http://www.vjolt.net/vol8/issue3/v8i3_a10-Tobenkin.pdf ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 22:12:19 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: TXU to Link Customers' Rates to Scores DALLAS (AP) -- TXU Energy, the largest electric utility in Texas, will peg some customers' rates to their credit scores, charging them more if they have fallen behind on telephone, power or cable television bills in the past. TXU Energy's new rates, which take effect Sept. 27, will affect customers outside of North Texas who switched to TXU to save money on their electricity bills. TXU, a unit of TXU Corp., would be the first major power provider in Texas to use the strategy. Consumer advocacy groups say the rate plans are misleading and violate rules for the state's three-year-old deregulated electricity market. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43600994 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 22:13:57 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Intel Outlines Strategy for Making the Internet Smarter, Safer Intel Outlines Strategy for Making the Internet Smarter, Safer, More Reliable and Useful - Sep 9, 2004 12:15 PM (BusinessWire) SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 9, 2004--Intel Corporation today described the significant changes that need to be made to the Internet's architecture to make it safer, more useful, reliable and accessible. In a speech today at the Intel Developer Forum, Intel Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Pat Gelsinger said that by adding an overlay network of computational services to the Internet -- made up of computing and storage resources -- the industry could bring greater intelligence into and across the network core. This would transform the Internet from a data transmission pipe into a vast platform for hosting a wide array of services available to the world's six billion inhabitants. Gelsinger referred to this approach as the ability to provide planetary-scale services. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43590452 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 22:18:36 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: VeriSign Implements Rapid Updates to Domain Name System Files .Com and .Net Domain Name Changes Now Functional for Viewing on the World Wide Web Within Minutes of New Registration or Modifications MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Sept. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- VeriSign, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRSN), the leading provider of intelligent infrastructure services for the Internet and telecommunications networks, today announced that it has implemented a major enhancement, called "rapid updates," to its .com and .net Domain Name System (DNS) servers. With rapid updates, it is now possible for domain registrants to launch Web sites more quickly and to experience greater continuity in service when changing hosting providers or modifying their domain name registrations. Previously, VeriSign updated DNS servers for .com and .net twice each day by generating a file from its .com and .net Registry database and globally distributing it to all 13 of the .com and .net DNS servers. With new, rapid updates, VeriSign distributes updates every few seconds accommodating all changes that affect any of the more than 35 million domain names for .com or .net. With the new update process, domain registrants are now able to add a new domain name, change their hosting provider or make other changes to their domain name, and see those changes reflected in the .com and .net DNS servers within a matter of minutes. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43582223 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 22:36:36 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FCC Bolsters Children's TV Requirements WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. television broadcasters that decide to offer more programming on over-the-air digital channels will also have to include some additional shows geared toward children, U.S. regulators ruled on Thursday. Broadcasters already have to offer three hours of educational and informational programming geared for children each week and are gearing up to add over-the-air channels with digital airwaves they received from the government. The Federal Communications Commission unanimously voted on Thursday to extend those requirements to any additional programming they send out using the digital airwaves, on a prorated basis, starting in a year. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=6197764 By JENNIFER C. KERR The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal regulators unanimously approved rules Thursday requiring television stations that air more than one digital channel to show additional children's programming -- in some cases up to 18 hours of kids' shows a week. Currently, the Federal Communications Commission requires a broadcaster to air three hours of children's shows each week on its main analog channel. Under the new rules, a broadcaster that multicasts a digital signal to air two or more channels will be obligated to show three extra hours of kids' TV a week for each 24-hour multicast channel. With digital signals, a broadcaster could have as many as six channels. http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/entertainment/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-3/1094763246286030.xml&storylist=entertainment ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 22:40:56 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Powell Pitches 2009 DTV Date By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 9/8/2004 6:24:00 PM Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell Wednesday pitched the Senate Commerce Committee on his digital-TV transition proposal to set 2009 as a hard date for return of the analog spectrum. He told the committee that would give all parties fair warning so that they could plan accordingly. The issue before the committee was the recommendation by the 9/11 Commission to speed the return of broadcast spectrum for public safety uses. A proposed bill would set the give-back date of spectrum for channels in the 700 Mhz band now used by 75 TV stations at Jan. 1, 2007. Powell argued that if Congress decided to make that a hard date, it should also set the 2009 hard date too in order to minimize the inequity of making one group of broadcasters give up their channels before the rest. http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA451695?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 22:45:51 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: TiVo, ReplayTV Agree to Limits TiVo, ReplayTV agree to limits PAY-PER-VIEW WOULD BE SUBJECT TO RESTRICTIONS By Dawn C. Chmielewski Mercury News The makers of TiVo and ReplayTV digital video recorders have agreed to limit how long consumers can keep pay-for-view movies stored on future versions of the VCR-like devices. The new technology also will allow Hollywood movie studios and broadcasters to regulate how often movies purchased through pay-for-view services can be watched. Digital video recorders that recognize these new copy restrictions will begin appearing in the spring of 2005. But it could be years before entertainment companies begin to take advantage of the technology, according to ReplayTV President Bernie Sepaniak. Max Ochoa, associate general counsel of San Jose-based TiVo, said consumers won't be ambushed by the copy restrictions. Their television screen will display warnings that a pay-per-view movie a viewer is about to rent comes with certain restrictions. The limitations are the trade-off for advanced services, such as video-on-demand, he said. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/9616558.htm?1c ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 23:03:21 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: DISH Fights Calls for HD Must-Carry In comments filed this week, EchoStar urged the Federal Communications Commission to reject the idea of imposing HDTV must-carry obligations on pay-TV distributors as a way to speed the switch to digital television. The satellite TV company told the FCC that any high-def must-carry regime is infeasible for DBS services, could be unconstitutional and is irrelevant to the proceeding in which the suggestion surfaced. EchoStar's comments are part of the FCC's look into how to best serve consumers after the digital TV transition takes place. http://www.skyreport.com/viewskyreport.cfm?ReleaseID=1480#Story2 ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: AT&T - What a Bad Company Are You! Date: Thu, 09 Sep 2004 16:58:35 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Critica Todo wrote: > I know what you do. You purposely let people to forget about their > bills and then charge them $25.00 for activation. I know it is > purposely because you have the technology to send us a text message or > an automatic phone call of what you are about to do. If this behavior > is not legally improper at least should be morally improper. If you can't remember on your own when your bills are due then you probably shouldn't use luxury items like cell phones. I know AT&T Wireless has had a lot of problems with their systems in the past year, but getting upset because they didn't send you a bunch of reminders that your bill is due is silly. Heaven forbid you should actually take responsibility for remembering when your bills are due. > Second, your customer services is a joke. After many many minutes of > waiting, finally you get to talk to a representative. No soon enough, > the phone call goes dead. Then perhaps you shouldn't be calling from your cell phone. 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. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: AT&T - What a Bad Company Are You! Date: Thu, 09 Sep 2004 19:53:04 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On 8 Sep 2004 13:05:51 -0700, critica_todo@yahoo.com (Critica Todo) wrote: > AT&T what a bad company are you! Are you talking about AT&T or AT&T Wireless? If you're talking about AT&T Wireless they're not even officially part of AT&T any longer and just have license to use the brand AT&T. > You are but a blood sucker. Yes, that's what you are. > First, those $25.00 reactivation fees is really adding to your button > line. No good faith earnings: just your bad customer services is what > keeping you alive. But not to worry. Your bad faith will catch up to > you. > I know what you do. You purposely let people to forget about their > bills and then charge them $25.00 for activation. I know it is > purposely because you have the technology to send us a text message or > an automatic phone call of what you are about to do. If this behavior > is not legally improper at least should be morally improper. Oh puhleez! Since when is it a company's responsibility to remind you that you owe money for your service. Be a responsible person and keep track of what bills you pay. If you have had any service for any length of time you already know that by a certain date the bill will come due for charges. If you cannot manage that perhaps you need to have someone manage your bills and pay them for you so you don't get behind on your bills and possibly ruin your credit standing. > I wonder how many people have you killed when in an emergency > customers reach for their phones and find out, maybe too late, that > you want to make an extra $25.00 locking their phones. If you have an emergency you can still call 911 (if you're talking about AT&T Wireless.) You evidently do not know the difference between AT&T Wireless and AT&T. If you need something like a doctor you should pay your bill and you'll have service with which to call a doctor. ------------------------------ From: Gene S. Berkowitz Subject: Re: AT&T - What a Bad Company Are You! Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 00:01:27 -0400 In article , critica_todo@yahoo.com says: > AT&T what a bad company are you! > You are but a blood sucker. Yes, that's what you are. > First, those $25.00 reactivation fees is really adding to your button > line. No good faith earnings: just your bad customer services is what > keeping you alive. But not to worry. Your bad faith will catch up to > you. > I know what you do. You purposely let people to forget about their > bills and then charge them $25.00 for activation. I know it is > purposely because you have the technology to send us a text message or > an automatic phone call of what you are about to do. If this behavior > is not legally improper at least should be morally improper. ... and somehow NOT paying your bills on time, i.e. being a deadbeat, is a morally superior position? > I wonder how many people have you killed when in an emergency > customers reach for their phones and find out, maybe too late, that > you want to make an extra $25.00 locking their phones. ... any working mobile phone can make a 911 call, whether it is paid up or not. > Second, your customer services is a joke. After many many minutes of > waiting, finally you get to talk to a representative. No soon enough, > the phone call goes dead. You might think customer services will call > you to continue where you left it. NO. Why not? They got your > phone. That it's the first thing they asked you. No. You have to > call back, wait again your 20 or so minutes and start all over. And > maybe finish your business with them. If not this process could > repeat at least three or four times. > AT&T; I hope you die. ... and I'm sure they hope you'll find another phone company. --Gene ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: My New DVR From Cable One Reply-To: bond-jamesbond@crazyhat.net Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 09:53:26 GMT In message Barry Margolin wrote: > In article , DevilsPGD > wrote: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: On my unit the off/on switch seems to >> work (and of course) so does unplugging it from the wall. But if it >> gets unplugged it winds up taking a long time (maybe thirty minutes) >> to rebuild the TV Guide listings and the details about the >> channels. PAT] > On ReplayTV, the on-off switch just controls the output to the TV and > the live buffering. It continues to perform scheduled recordings when > it's off. My PVR turns off the output and the live buffering immediately, and the drive shortly thereafter (once it finishes some housekeeping) when you turn it off. FWIW, it's a BEV 5100, similar/identical to a DISH 501 I believe. It will still power up for recordings, it's not a hard "off" switch, it still receives and processes the satellite signal (Which is necessary because it takes anywhere from 60 to 300 seconds to synchronize up to the satellite signal again) Microsoft: Putting the PR into proprietary. ------------------------------ From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) Subject: Re: My New DVR From Cable One Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 15:16:54 -0000 Organization: Inline Software Creations > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No, we do not have nearly the features > found on TiVo or ReplayTV nor the costs involved for same, nor, for > that matter, the channel lockouts (against recording) found on TiVo, What in hades are you talking about? Tivo has no 'channel lockouts' on recording. The only thing vaguely in that category is the inability to push the 'record' button to immediately start recording a music channel, but that's because the music channels never end, and tivo wouldn't know when to stop recording. You can set up a manual recording on one just fine. * * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I was told by CableOne (and perhaps I should have questioned them further, but it didn't really matter to me) that most or all 'conventional, over the cable recording systems such as TiVo' would not allow recording of many or most movies which had restrictions on them.' Now I know from my own limited experience in making 'shows' using 'Real Producer' (one of the products from Helix and the Real Player people in Seattle) that if I (as a producer of sorts) do not want someone to have the ability to copy some audio-visual thing I had put on the internet I can trip a certain flag prior to starting the recording which would have the effect of never allowing it to be copied by anyone else, by 'greying out' the 'record' button on their screen and making it unresponsive. I *assumed* (apparently incorrectly) that the CableOne representative's statement was correct. My first thought on learning how to use the remote control unit was to record classical music I wanted for my own library. And *you* made an incorrect assumption in saying the 'music channels cannot be recorded'. It can be recorded via the box, at least the CableOne box, at least on the 'temporary' or 'scratch pad' recording which is done automatic- ally each time you punch in a channel, at least mine works that way. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: More Thoughts About RCA Date: 10 Sep 2004 06:46:58 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Julian Thomas wrote: >> P.S.S. RCA made an attempt in computers; it scared the heck out of >> IBM because RCA had far more electronics skills than IBM did in the >> early 1950s. However, RCA did not have the customer support skills >> of IBM and eventually RCA -- after losing big money -- sold its >> businss to Univac. > Nor did they have the mechanical skills that IBM had from their earlier > EAM business. Peripherals -- especially tape drives -- suffered as a > consequence. The Campbell-Kelly book "Computer" says that IBM's very popular 1401 was popular because of its excellent printer -- a mechanical device -- rather than the CPU electronics. It took a heck of a long time for other manufacturers to come up with a line printer that matched the IBM 1403 printer's quality. In the Watson autobiography, he says Sarnoff came to IBM to get patents (that the govornment ordered IBM to release). So, RCA used IBM know-how. Also, RCA's Spectra was a copy of S/360. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 01:05:46 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Cellphone That Doesn't Work at the Hotel There are also some passive ways of blocking cell phone signals. Window screening in the walls, grounded to the building frame, is supposed to work. There are also specially designed wall panels to block signals. But many modern buildings have so much electrical and electronic equipment that cell phones and even radios won't work. I have often had very bad reception on my Walkman when in a hospital, sometimes even on upper floors. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/07/business/07jamming.html http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/07/business/07jamming.html?pagewanted=print&position= By CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT As a frequent guest at a Salt Lake City Hampton Inn, Murray Trepel often finds himself powering down his cellphone and picking up the house phone. "My cellphone seldom works anywhere near the hotel," said Mr. Trepel, the senior manager for a call-center service provider in Logan, Utah. "Not just in my room, but in the parking lot as well." What is going on? Mr. Trepel, like many business travelers who depend on uninterrupted service from their wireless company, has a long list of probable culprits -- including the building's architecture, the area's geography and the cellphone industry's erratic coverage. But another theory is starting to gain traction among business travelers: hotels are blocking the signals. They would certainly have the motive. Cellphones have taken a huge bite out of their earnings. Thanks largely to the preponderance of portables, the profits from in-room phones dropped 76 percent in four years, sliding from $644 an available room in 2000 to $152 last year, according to the hotel consulting firm PKF in San Francisco. Analysts say the high fixed cost of maintaining in-room phones increased the losses. The downturn accounted for 10 percentage points of the hotel industry's 36 percent decline in profits during the same period. "Hotels are unhappy about that lost profit," said Robert Mandelbaum, PKF's director of research. But are they so unhappy that they are biting back? No way, say hotel representatives. For starters, they point out, cellphone-blocking devices are illegal in the United States. "It would also hurt our customers, and it's something we would never do," said Courtnie Widerburg, the general manager of the Salt Lake City Hampton Inn. Besides, her property already offers free local calls and high-speed Internet access, and its franchise agreement limits how much it can bill for long-distance service, she said. Not only that, but hard evidence is scant that hotels are using jammers -- at least in the United States. Last year, a Scottish newspaper reported that phone jammers were being sold to hotels in the United Kingdom as tools for increasing revenue from in-room phones. "Harassed by mobile phones or hotel phone system not being used?" asked one of the promotional leaflets distributed to the properties. "Then look no further. Purchase a mobile phone jammer for your hotel, restaurant and bar. Small and discreet." A reporter from the newspaper, The Record, posed as a bed-and- breakfast owner and bought a jammer and a battery pack for about $135. The man who sold the gadget to him, the reporter said, told him, "I've sold quite a few to hotels and bed and breakfasts." Loreen Haim-Cayzer, the director of marketing and sales for Netline Communications Technologies in Tel Aviv, acknowledged that her company had sold hundreds of cellphone jammers to hotels around the world. But asked if any of them were in the United States, Ms. Haim-Cayzer said she could not disclose the identity of clients. Still, suspicions persist. Joseph Palermo, a corporate pilot for a home-improvement company, spent almost a month at a Courtyard property in Secaucus, N.J., recently, and he wondered whether it might be using a jammer. "While I was there, my cellphone worked terribly," he said. "Sometimes I would have to dial three or four times to place a call. Then I would have to hold my head just right to hear who I was talking to. You would think that being across the river from one of the biggest cities in the world, the phone would work well." Melissa Thompson, a spokeswoman for Interstate Hotels & Resorts, the hotel-management company that runs the Courtyard, said the hotel was not blocking wireless calls. "We would never infringe on anyone's rights to use a cellphone for the sake of making a few extra dollars," she said. But she acknowledged that cellphones did not always work on the property, particularly in hard-to-reach areas like the elevator. "I can understand that some guests would be frustrated," she said. "I can understand that they would be suspicious." The doubts are not limited to guests. When a recent Pricewaterhouse- Coopers survey showed the number of calls made from hotel room phones had fallen by 40 percent in the last four years, the firm's lodging consultants wondered whether hotels were fighting back by investing in wireless jamming technology. An investigation, however, turned up nothing. "It's possible that there are hotels using cellphone jammers," said Bjorn Hanson, a PricewaterhouseCoopers hotel analyst. "But we couldn't find them." Then again, it is nearly impossible to prove that jamming technology is being used. "If you turn your phone on and it says 'no service,' then that's the only hint that you're being jammed," said Barry Zellen, editor of Technologyinnovator.com, a Web site that covers wireless security issues. "If you're in an area that has good coverage and you pull into a hotel driveway, and suddenly there's a dead zone, then you can probably speculate that there's something unnatural going on." Adding to the intrigue is the fact that the Federal Communications Commission, which could easily sniff out a blocker with its direction-finding equipment, has never issued a fine for the use of a cellphone jammer, according to an agency spokesman. Not everyone sees that as proof that the devices are not in use. "The F.C.C. rule prohibiting cellphone jammers is unenforced," said Howard Melamed, the chief executive of the CellAntenna Corporation, a cellular-communications technology company in Coral Springs, Fla. At the same time, consumer complaints to the F.C.C. about telecommunications service quality, a catch-all category that includes possible cellular-blocking devices, busy signals and roaming service, surged to 704 in the fourth quarter of last year, the latest period for which numbers were available, from 450 in the first quarter. "If you do the math, if you connect the dots, it's obvious that these cellphone jammers are catching on," said Mr. Zellen of Technologyinnovator. "Especially in the hotel industry." The companies that sell the devices are understandably tight-lipped about their clients. Mike Menage, the chief executive of Global Gadget, a Worthing, England, seller of jamming equipment, insists he has no idea whether any hotels have bought his devices. But he admits the motive is there. "Hotels want them to either cut down on disturbance to the other guests or, more likely, to increase hotel revenue by forcing the guests to use the in-house hotel telephones for external calls," he said. Practically speaking, jamming an entire hotel would not be easy. Mr. Melamed of CellAntenna, which sells legal jamming devices to the government, says that the cheap hand-held jammers sold by mail order have too short a range to do the trick. He estimates that a small hotel would have to spend at least $25,000 to block all cellphone transmissions, while a larger operation, like a conference center or a big chain hotel, might be looking at a bill of $35,000 to $50,000. Instead of intentionally interfering with transmissions, Mr. Melamed said, he believes hotels remain conveniently neutral. "The hotel doesn't have to go to extremes to stop people's calls from going through, because there's already interference caused by the building or there's just a weak signal," he said. Properties could easily install so-called repeater systems to help a cellular signal penetrate every room in a hotel. But why spend money on something that is going to reduce your revenues? In the end, most hotel guests shrug off their suspicions and find someone else to blame. Mr. Trepel, the Utah senior manager who could not connect from the Hampton Inn, said he ultimately faulted his wireless carriers. "I walked up and down the street, and I had the same problems," he said. Whether they think a hotel is tinkering with their wireless transmissions or not, experienced business travelers usually have a contingency plan. "Anybody smarter than a pineapple knows that cellphones do not and never have worked everywhere, and that hotel long-distance charges have always been outrageous," said Ed Barrett, a software upgrade specialist in Flanders, N.J. "So you just go out and buy a phone card, and you carry it everywhere you go. And then you use it when your cellphone doesn't work.'' Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company *** 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, New York Times Company. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ 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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #423 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Sep 11 04:50:03 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8B8o3D19169; Sat, 11 Sep 2004 04:50:03 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 04:50:03 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409110850.i8B8o3D19169@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 #424 TELECOM Digest Sat, 11 Sep 2004 04:48:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 424 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Web Data Transfer to Handsets Made Easier (Monty Solomon) Web Sites Keep Tabs on Campaign Giving (Monty Solomon) Microsoft Technology Powers Leading Broadcast Tools; IPTV (M Solomon) CDT Urges Caution on Wiretap Mandates for Internet (Monty Solomon) CDT Policy Post 10.14: Federal Court Strikes Down PA Law (Monty Solomon) Spammers Hijack Sender ID (Monty Solomon) EPIC Alert 11.17 (Monty Solomon) EFFector 17.33: Misguided Copyright Bill Moving Thru Congress (Solomon) Re: TXU to Link Customers' Rates to Scores (Stanley Cline) Re: Congress Hangs Up on VoIP for 2004 (Jack Decker) Re: My New DVR From Cable One (Paul Vader) AT&T CallVantage VOIP Service - Area Code Choices (burgerwars) Re: AT&T - What a Bad Company Are You! (Bill Turlok) Re: Intel Outlines Strategy for Making Net Smarter, Safer (baracooda) Re: More Thoughts About RCA (Julian Thomas) For Sale: Panasonic KXTG4000B Phone System w/ Cordless (Joe Bartoldus) PayPal to Levy Fines for Gambling, Porn (Lisa Minter) U.S. Judge Rejects Law to Block Child Porn on Web (Lisa Minter) 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: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 23:16:00 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Web Data Transfer to Handsets Made Easier By MAY WONG AP Technology Writer PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) -- Have you ever gone online to get driving directions, only to leave the printout behind? Have you made movie plans, but forgot to jot down the show times? Or do you simply need an easy way to feed phone numbers to your cell phone? A trio of entrepreneurs believe they have a solution. With cell phones becoming more like computers and people carrying them wherever they go, the founders of Vazu Inc. have developed what they consider an easy way to transfer phone numbers and other data from PCs and the Internet onto handsets. They quietly released their first product earlier this year for users to transfer contact information from desktop address books without any special cables or software. With little publicity, "Vazu Contacts" won rave reviews and garnered thousands of users in 40 countries. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43626984 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 23:29:49 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Web Sites Keep Tabs on Campaign Giving By ANICK JESDANUN AP Internet Writer NEW YORK (AP) -- As a Washington journalist during the 90s, I made frequent treks to the Federal Election Commission to inspect cabinets full of campaign-finance reports to find out who was giving to whom. Though some data were available through a proprietary online system, those $20-per-hour access fees added up. Candidates, meanwhile, had to be cajoled into providing data on disc _ many flatly refused, while one responded to a colleague's request with ancient 8-inch floppies that fit no modern computer. Times have changed. I'm jealous of all the information available over the Internet _ most of it for free. Even President Bush's campaign site has a searchable database of his contributors. That doesn't make finding data easy. But what's out there is a welcome start. There's no matching the FEC's own site for completeness _ and confusion. In most cases, you get multiple ways to view data on contributors to House, Senate and presidential campaigns, political parties and special-interest groups. You can view PDF files or scanned images of paper reports, going as far back as 1993. Or you can view data as data _ on-screen, or downloaded for viewing in a spreadsheet program like Excel. This is great for serious analysis. But for the merely curious, the FEC site can be daunting. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43614613 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 23:32:08 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Microsoft Technology Powers Leading Broadcast Tools; IPTV Microsoft Technology Powers Leading Broadcast Tools and IPTV Solutions at IBC2004 Microsoft Demonstrates First Set-Top Boxes for IPTV Platform; Windows Media 9 Series Showcases Advanced End-to-End High-Definition Encoding and Playback Solutions; Broad Microsoft Involvement in Industry Standards Initiatives AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, Sept. 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Today at IBC2004, the International Broadcasters Convention, Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) is highlighting a range of new broadcast technologies and delivery solutions built for the Microsoft(R) TV Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), Windows Media(R) 9 Series and Windows(R) CE platforms. Microsoft announced significant progress in its IPTV-based initiatives, unveiling the first set-top boxes to support its IPTV platform from Thomson. In addition, Microsoft's Mobile and Embedded Devices Division announced eight additional original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that will use Windows CE to power their IP set-top boxes. Microsoft's Windows Digital Media Division announced that leading product vendors will demonstrate end-to-end, high-definition (HD) encoding and playback solutions using Microsoft Windows Media 9 Series, showcasing real-time software- and hardware-based HD encoding solutions, as well as Microsoft's gaining momentum in standards development organizations. IPTV Gains Momentum, Powered by Microsoft TV and Windows CE The Microsoft TV Division has developed an end-to-end IPTV software platform that enables broadband network operators to deliver better TV services and connected experiences across devices in the home using their existing and next-generation networks. Leading network operators worldwide, including Bell Canada, Reliance Infocomm Ltd., SBC Communications Inc. and Swisscom/Bluewin, plan to test and deploy next-generation pay-TV services based on the Microsoft TV IPTV platform. At IBC2004, Microsoft is showcasing its leadership in the growing IPTV industry with announcements of partner deployment progress and demonstrations of the platform integrated with technology from leading vendors that are working to make IPTV a reality. In addition, Microsoft and Thomson are announcing availability of the first IPTV-enabled set-top boxes for Microsoft's current IPTV customers, and TANDBERG Television is unveiling the first demonstration of its EN5920 real-time hardware encoder integrated with the Microsoft TV IPTV platform. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43610567 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 00:16:21 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CDT Urges Caution on Wiretap Mandates for Internet Testifying before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, CDT executive Director Jim Dempsey warned that the FBI is the wrong agency to put in charge of technology design for the broadband Internet, and that the 1994 CALEA statute is the wrong framework for addressing law enforcement concerns about tapping communications over the Internet. September 08, 2004 CDT Testimony, September 08, 2004: http://www.cdt.org/testimony/20040908dempsey.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 00:18:23 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CDT Policy Post 10.14: Federal Court Strikes Down Pennsylvania A Briefing On Public Policy Issues Affecting Civil Liberties Online from The Center For Democracy and Technology (1) Federal Court Strikes Down Pennsylvania Law That Blocks Innocent Web Sites (2) Court Decision Issued in Legal Challenge Filed by CDT, ACLU (3) Pennsylvania Child Pornography Statute Raised Legal and Technical Problems (4) Child Pornography Deserves More Effective and Focused Law Enforcement Efforts http://www.cdt.org/publications/pp_10.14.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 00:34:09 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Spammers Hijack Sender ID Microsoft's E-mail-filter technology, Sender ID, is unpopular with open-source advocates but popular with spammers, who are using it to bypass other filters. By Thomas Claburn On the heels of the repudiation of Microsoft's Sender ID E-mail-authentication scheme last week by two major open-source software groups, spammers are doing the opposite: They're embracing the very standard intended to curb their abuses. According to E-mail security vendor MX Logic Inc., spammers are trying to make their messages appear more legitimate by adopting the Sender Policy Framework (SPF), which recently became part of Microsoft's Sender ID proposal. To comply with Sender ID, companies publish a list of authorized E-mail servers for the domains they control. That list is used by those receiving E-mail to make sure the purported server of origin matches the one listed in the message header. Because spammers may forge header information to disguise the origin of their messages, their spam would fail this test. But since spamming is legal, those spammers not engaged in phishing or other fraud may choose to accurately identify their mail servers to avoid filtering based on Sender ID compliance. And that seems to be what's happening. Based on a sample of 400,000 spam messages, MX Logic found that 16% had published SPF records. http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=47102042 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 00:41:27 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EPIC Alert 11.17 ======================================================================= E P I C A l e r t ======================================================================= Volume 11.17 September 10, 2004 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Published by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) Washington, D.C. http://www.epic.org/alert/EPIC_Alert_11.17.html ====================================================================== Table of Contents ====================================================================== [1] EPIC Files Briefs in Support of Driver and Financial Privacy [2] Bill Introduced to Make 9/11 Commission Recommendations Law [3] Census Bureau Revamps Policy on Data Sharing [4] EPIC Files Comments on Use of Voter Social Security Numbers [5] Bush Establishes Civil Liberties Board [6] News in Brief [7] EPIC Bookstore: Your Evil Twin [8] Upcoming Conferences and Events http://www.epic.org/alert/EPIC_Alert_11.17.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 00:43:14 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 17.33: Misguided Copyright Bill Moving Through Congress EFFector Vol. 17, No. 33 September 10, 2004 donna@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 305th Issue of EFFector: * Misguided Copyright Bill Moving Through Congress * EFF Files Brief in Email Privacy Case: Councilman Case Should Be Heard Before Full Court * Log Not, Subpoena Not: No-Logging Policy Helps Indymedia Protect Free Speech * Maryland E-voting Update - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly * Only 54 Days Until the Election - Register to Vote Now! * MiniLinks (14): Save Betamax by Calling Out the Induce Act * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/17/33.php ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: TXU to Link Customers' Rates to Scores Organization: Roamer1 Communications Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 03:43:40 GMT On Thu, 9 Sep 2004 22:12:19 -0400, Monty Solomon wrote: > DALLAS (AP) -- TXU Energy, the largest electric utility in Texas, will > peg some customers' rates to their credit scores, charging them more > if they have fallen behind on telephone, power or cable television > bills in the past. The thing is -- for the most part, utilities don't report regular payment histories to credit reporting agencies; they typically only report charged-off accounts. No electric, natural gas, cable TV, satellite TV, local telephone, long distance, or wireless phone provider I've ever used has reported anything, with one exception: AT&T does report payment history for stand-alone calling card accounts (i.e., those not associated with a 1+ long distance account.) Here in Georgia, where natural gas service was deregulated in Atlanta Gas Light service areas, some natural gas marketers -- including the one I use -- impose a higher "customer service charge" (one of the three elements of most natural gas bills here, the other two being pass-through "base charges" from AGL for use of AGL's pipes and charges from the marketer for actual gas consumption) on those with poor credit, but don't charge a higher per-therm rate on "standard" plans. Some special rate plans designed for high-usage customers are limited to those with good credit, though. As for telecom: most CLECs are a lot more picky than ILECs when it comes to credit, and wireless carriers have widely differing standards -- it isn't at all uncommon for one carrier to require a large deposit ($300 up to $1000) from a prospective customer while another carrier will require a smaller deposit or none at all from the same person. A lot of "discount" LD resellers say they check credit history, but I've seen only one or two that actually have. Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time." -/usr/games/fortune [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Some CLECs, like our own Prairie Stream Commnications here in Independence have a different approach. Duane, the owner of Prairie Stream said to me he 'lets' SBC run his credit checks for him (!). He hates to bother with that effort and expense himself, so he no longer takes 'walk in, off the street' customers. All he accepts are people who already have SBC on their home or office phones who wish to be converted to Prairie Stream (at a much lower rate, of course.) He says that as long as SBC had the phone turned on for the party he accepts them as transfers in. I asked him if that did not mean he still would get occassional 'marginal customers' of people who were slow paying SBC but had not yet been cut off by SBC. He said not usually, since SBC refuses his conversion requests when the party owes SBC more than a month past due, which SBC claims is their right. He said that suits him okay anyway, and said "its like a win-win situation. The subscriber gets a good deal from me at a cheaper rate and can keep his 620-331 number (under portability rules); I am assured of getting my money; and SBC gets to keep the deadbeats." So in essence SBC does his credit checks for him. Oh, and I *still* get 'we want you back' letters from SBC every couple months or so, each deal they offer to get me back is more outrageous (in my favor) than their previous offers. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 23:37:07 -0400 From: Jack Decker Subject: Re: Congress Hangs Up on VoIP for 2004 Pat, please withhold my e-mail address as usual. By the way, for some reason I did not receive two consecutive issues of the Digest in e-mail, and had to go to your web site to read them, which is the reason my response to this post is a bit delayed. On 9 Sep 2004 09:28:25 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote: > Jack Decker wrote in message: >> There you go again, Lisa. Does your memory only retain information >> for a month or so > When a poster resorts to rude comments like this, it means they have > no rational argument. No, Lisa, it does not mean that at all. It means that the poster is getting frustrated that you choose to use my messages as a springboard to promulgate your faulty logic. It was not my intent to be deliberately rude, only to point out that ever so often you come forth with your nonsense, I rebut it, and a month later you're back saying the same thing (and AGAIN replying to one of my posts). In any case, I feel I have made a very rational argument, the "rude comments" were just a free extra. > Whether you like it or not, the fact is that VOIP is getting a free > ride by avoiding the taxes and regulatory burdens other telephone > carriers have to make. Either eliminate all obligations from > everyone, or make everyone bear there. That is NOT a fact. It is your opinion, and it is based on faulty logic. In the first place, even cell phone companies do not have the same regulatory burdens as are imposed on landline phone companies. In fact, even among wireline companies, large ILEC's, small ILEC's, and CLEC's all have somewhat different regulatory burdens. In attempting to make your point, you keep trying to gloss over the fact that "other telephone carriers" (and there is still a very open question of whether a VoIP company should even be considered a "telephone carrier") do not share one unified set of regulatory burdens. > Now understand I am most certainly NOT saying you represent sleazy > businesses. What I am saying is that if we had you and someone who > WAS being paid to advocate sleazy businessess standing side by side, > it would be hard to tell the difference between them, at least from > what they were advocating re: VoIP. It's that whole duck test thing > -- at a distance something could look like a duck and appear to waddle > like a duck, but the possibility exists that it might be a goose or > some other duck-like bird. [I hope you don't mind I borrowed your > prose from your 8/5/04 note--it seems to work well in this context.] Well if you are going to reference that message, let's quote what was said in context. You wrote: > I am not connected with the phone company nor do I consider myself > a "shill" for them. And I replied: > Lisa, you may not consider yourself a shill for them, but if one were > to apply the "duck test"... well, let's just say that sometimes it > would be awfully hard to discern the difference between what you write > and what a shill for the phone company might write . Note that I did NOT infer that you were involved in anything "sleazy." So when you refer to "sleazy businesses", I assume that's your opinion of VoIP companies and you are saying that I sound like I'm being paid to represent them, which of course I am not. But you see, that's the basic difference between you and I. Because if I were to look at the history of VoIP and the history of the ILEC's, I'll bet I could find a lot more reasons to apply the label "sleazy businesses" to the large incumbent phone companies. Just here in Michigan there have been a number of cases where one of the incumbents has outright lied to customers or potential customers. "Sleazy businesses" that also happen to be monopolies need to be regulated because without regulation, they would gouge their customers, for example by adding on services that the customer didn't order and doesn't want (know of any companies that have ever done that?). Now I am NOT saying that every VoIP company is sleaze free, in fact I'm aware of one or two that in my PERSONAL opinion are more sleazy than even any of the ILEC's (these are small companies that relatively few people have heard of - wonder why?). But the difference is that there is active and vigorous competition in the VoIP marketplace, and when one company does wrong by their customers, those customers have the option to switch to another provider, and to warn others about their bad experiences (as often happens in the VoIP forum on BroadbandReports.com). It is not my intent to have this discussion degrade into personal attacks, so I apologize if you felt my comments were rude. However I would ask that you have the courtesy to not keep responding to my posts as a way of making the same old tired arguments. I get no joy from responding to your tirades, but I just feel as though I can't let your assertions go unchallenged, especially when you attempt to present them as fact rather than your opinion, and especially when you're following up to one of my posts. ------------------------------ From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) Subject: Re: My New DVR From Cable One Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 18:32:15 -0000 Organization: Inline Software Creations > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I was told by CableOne (and perhaps I > should have questioned them further, but it didn't really matter to me) > that most or all 'conventional, over the cable recording systems such > as TiVo' would not allow recording of many or most movies which had > restrictions on them.' I figured it was something like that. You were lied to. * * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. ------------------------------ From: burgerwars@yahoo.com (burgerwars) Subject: AT&T CallVantage VOIP Service - Area Code Choices Date: 10 Sep 2004 11:36:49 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I just signed up for CallVantage. $19.95 a month for six months, plus an early termination fee ($59.95). Reason why I signed up with them instead of Vonage was just because they were able to supply me with a 212 area code number. Vonage could not, and would not. Anyone think I could transfer the CallVantage number to another VOIP service (like back to Vonage or Lingo) or a cell phone, after my $19.95 six month offer is up? ------------------------------ From: Withheld on Request (BillTurlok) Date: 11 Sep 2004 00:24:12 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: AT&T - What a Bad Company Are You! [ Patrick-- PLEASE DO NOT USE ANY PART OF MY E-MAIL ADDRESS WHEN POSTING THIS MESSAGE TO THE DIGEST & NEWSGROUP. The last time I posted, you left my address vulnerable and I had to change ISPs go get away from the spam. Thank you. Bill] > In article , > critica_todo@yahoo.com says: >> AT&T what a bad company are you! Friend of mine has AT&T WorldNet dial-up 'Net access. $19.95 for 150 hours/mo. So, one day about two years ago, he dials in and gets a log-in failure. Well, since this has happened before ... He was in IT in a major hospital chain and worked directly for Dilbert's boss. He got so fed up, was losing his hair and having stomach problems, one day he just went into the boss's office and laid a resignation letter on him. And walked out. Without a parachute. Of any color. Herein lies the problem -- you don't wanna be in your mid 50's looking for a job in any field, let alone IT in the middle of a dot-com bust and recession. So, from time to time, he gets just a little behind with some of his bills, but this was not one of them. So, he calls in to see WTF. After the usual run-around in Voice Jail, he gets someone who tells him he's got an unpaid long distance bill with ATT. But, says he, I don't have AT&T long distance, and haven't had for some time. Well, she says, this one's from 2-3 years ago. He says he doesn't remember leaving anything unpaid from that era, but they're insistent. He must pay the $1.65 (One U.S. Dollar and 65 cents) before they'll turn his internet back on. OK, he says, send me a bill. Well, they say, we can't because you're not an AT&T (LD) customer. But you can pay it with a credit card ... He laffs -- he's shredded all his plastic a long time ago. Catch-22. Well, too bad, they say. But ... they allow, if you'd sign up for AT&T long distance, we could put it on your bill and send it to you, and turn you back on right now. OK, says he, what kinda' plan you got where there's _no_ monthly charge for anything? Well we do have one like that, but it's 35 cents/min. That's ok, he says, I'm not planning on making any calls anyway. So, they sign him up, and in _that_ process, he gets shuttled to another "customer service representative". She says, now that you're an AT&T LD customer, would you like to sign up for our internet access? Ummmmm ... ok ... how much would that be? Just $15.95/mo for unlimited access. Ohhhh Kaaay. You know and I know that they just pulled this "bill" out of their butts -- they're making it all up. It's cheesy and it's sleazy and it's illegal and it's immoral and it's just plain wrong and they all ought to go to jail. But at least they managed to shoot themselves in the foot with this one. They're going to lose any advantage in the first month's bill. Assuming they don't screw up the billing. Again. Fat chance. Oh, one little ray of sunshine. Things had got so bad for him he had to cash in all of his investments just to pay his living expenses and mortgage. A couple of years ago he was pissin' and moanin' about having to bail out of all his WorldCom. At $99.00/share. Ya' gotta' love it. :::::::::::::::::::::: I wrote that when it was current, a few years ago. Update: They did it again!! This time as well as making up phony LD charges, they (contrary to his instructions and his understanding) put him in a plan _with_ a monthly charge, then failed to bill him, then cut off his 'net access, let his (now unserviced) net account get in arrears. And they won't let him pay with a check number 'cause he "doesn't have an account with them", or "it's not the right kind of account". Surely you remember that ATT wants out of the residential business -- they're going to dump it via "attrition". See above for example of ATTrition. Bill [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Its just incredible how bad AT&T has gotten in the past few years in their customer service. Maybe a year ago they had commercials on television talking about unlimited local and long distance service, but no prices were given. I called up to inquire what unlimited service would cost me. They refused to tell me! A very sassy young lady first wanted to know where I lived. I told her, that's a logical question. Then she kept insisting "you are with SBC." I told her I was not. She insisted I was, that *her* records showed I was a customer of SBC. I told her "well, obviously I am just a dumb customer who does not even know who his phone service comes through." Then she starts quoting the rates from SBC and how her rates will be so much better (but still no mention of what those rates actually will be.) Then here was the real kicker: she said that in order to 'be considered as a customer' for AT&T service, 'she would need a one hundred dollar cash deposit *in advance*. Not a credit card, not a check, but cash or a money order only mailed to their office (with some long, drawn out, sixteen digit number written on the money order). I said no thanks, and hung up the phone. I heard nothing further for about *four months* until one day I got in the US Mail a letter thanking me for my 'recent inquiry for residential service' and to send them the hundred dollar money order with the reference number 'you were given by our representative'. Those people are nuts. To get my Vonage phone (cheaper and as reliable) all I had to do was go to their web page, produce a credit card and sign up (and the adapter box was here three days later.) PAT] ------------------------------ From: wayne.chiang@gmail.com (baracooda) Subject: Re: Intel Outlines Strategy for Making the Internet Smarter, Safer Date: 10 Sep 2004 18:14:17 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Monty Solomon wrote in message news:: > Intel Outlines Strategy for Making the Internet Smarter, Safer, > More Reliable and Useful > - Sep 9, 2004 12:15 PM (BusinessWire) > SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 9, 2004--Intel Corporation today > described the significant changes that need to be made to the > Internet's architecture to make it safer, more useful, reliable and > accessible. > In a speech today at the Intel Developer Forum, Intel Senior Vice > President and Chief Technology Officer Pat Gelsinger said that by > adding an overlay network of computational services to the Internet -- > made up of computing and storage resources -- the industry could bring > greater intelligence into and across the network core. This would > transform the Internet from a data transmission pipe into a vast > platform for hosting a wide array of services available to the world's > six billion inhabitants. Gelsinger referred to this approach as the > ability to provide planetary-scale services. > - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43590452 If Planetlab is the new and improved version of the Internet, maybe this is the new and improved platform for the PC. http://funkycoldamoeba.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------ From: Julian Thomas Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 22:09:09 -0400 Subject: Re: More Thoughts About RCA [Pat - please obscure my email again, thanks]. I tried to send this to Lisa (or is it Jeff??) at hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com but it failed. In <1094853728.162.14846.m12@yahoogroups.com>, on 09/10/04 at 10:02 PM, telecom-news@yahoogroups.com typed: > Subject: Re: More Thoughts About RCA > Date: 10 Sep 2004 06:46:58 -0700 > Organization: http://groups.google.com > Julian Thomas wrote: >>> P.S.S. RCA made an attempt in computers; it scared the heck out of >>> IBM because RCA had far more electronics skills than IBM did in the >>> early 1950s. However, RCA did not have the customer support skills >>> of IBM and eventually RCA -- after losing big money -- sold its >>> businss to Univac. >> Nor did they have the mechanical skills that IBM had from their earlier >> EAM business. Peripherals -- especially tape drives -- suffered as a >> consequence. > The Campbell-Kelly book "Computer" says that IBM's very popular 1401 was > popular because of its excellent printer -- a mechanical device -- > rather than the CPU electronics. > It took a heck of a long time for other manufacturers to come up with a > line printer that matched the IBM 1403 printer's quality. > In the Watson autobiography, he says Sarnoff came to IBM to get patents > (that the govornment ordered IBM to release). So, RCA used IBM know-how. > Also, RCA's Spectra was a copy of S/360. I was referring more to the Bizmac series of the 1950's. I'm sure that by Spectra time frame they had either cross-licensed (as you suggest), improved their own capabilities, or just plain bought other equipment (such as the 1403). And, for my $0.02 worth, Honeywell had tape drives on the H800 that were far superior to the IBM 727/729 models. I admit some bias; I worked on the D1000 and the H800 before joining IBM in 1962. http://www.cs.clemson.edu/~mark/h800.html http://www.cs.clemson.edu/~mark/d1000.html As far as the 1401 was concerned, in addition to the excellent quality (and speed) of the 1403, there was also a good card handling machine (1402), it was easy to program, and was alphanumeric across the board (unlike the 650, which had a late-in-life kludge for handling alpha stuff). Electronics were SMS solid state, also a distinct improvement over the previous tube machines. (Further disclosure -- I have programmed the 1401, and was project coordinator for the 1410/7010 emulator on the 360 mod 50). For my email, use the sig. Julian Thomas: jt at jt-mj dot net http://jt-mj.net In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State! Boardmember of POSSI.org - Phoenix OS/2 Society, Inc http://www.possi.org -- -- Silence is evidence of a superb command of the language ------------------------------ From: phoephus@hotmail.com (Joe Bartoldus) Subject: For Sale: Panasonic KXTG4000B Phone System w/ cordless $300.00 Mint Date: 10 Sep 2004 21:42:39 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Poster is not the seller, please reply to: Email info@planetvinc.com with questions, or call 212-253-1788, ext.4# Planet V Closing Sale: http://www.planetvinc.com/sale ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: PayPal to Levy Fines for Gambling, Porn Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 01:21:14 EDT The new policy, which takes effect Sept. 24 and applies to both buyers and sellers, marks the first time PayPal has imposed fines for violations of its use policy, spokeswoman Amanda Pires said. In addition to fines that could be applied to each violation, PayPal may take legal action to recover losses in excess of the fines, Pires said in an interview. PayPal processes transactions on the Net and at one time had received almost 10 percent of its revenue from online gambling. But it halted the practice under regulatory pressure after its acquisition by eBay in 2002 and now prohibits the processing of gambling and adult transactions. Now it has decided to enforce that policy with fines. "What you're seeing here is an evolution of our program. We're trying to deter people who would offer PayPal as a way to pay for anything in these categories," said Pires in an interview. Under the new policy, prescription drug sellers who do not have Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites certification from the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, and the people who buy from them, also face fines and possible legal action if they do business using PayPal. Pires said the changes were not in response to any sort of pressure from regulators. Eric Jackson, a former PayPal executive and author of the new book "The PayPal Wars," had a different view. He called the new policy "draconian" and said it was likely a two-fold strategy to discourage certain behavior while heading off regulators. "I can only surmise that PayPal is coming under increasing regulatory pressure and has no choice at this point but to take an aggressive posture," Jackson said. "I think they're making an emphatic statement that they're making a clean break from gambling in particular," he said. *** 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 Yahoo News and Reuters News.. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: U.S. Judge Rejects Law to Block Child Porn on Web Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 01:25:50 EDT Judge Jan Dubois, of the U.S. court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, found that the law was unconstitutional because technology used to block the sites would also prevent users from accessing sites that had nothing to do with child pornography. "With the current state of technology, the act cannot be implemented without excessive blocking of innocent speech in violation of the First Amendment," the judge wrote. The decision could set a national precedent on Internet regulation, said John Morris, staff counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington-based advocacy group that brought the suit against Pennsylvania Attorney General Jerry Pappert. The other plaintiff was the American Civil Liberties Union. "This will send a strong message across to other states that were looking at this case," Morris said. Maryland, New Jersey and Oklahoma have been considering similar laws, he said. Federal courts including the U.S. Supreme Court have several times rejected efforts to curb online pornography, as violations of constitutional free-speech protections. Morris said the attorney general's office secretly issued orders during 2002 and 2003 that told Internet providers to block access to Web server computers that hosted about 400 child porn sites. In the course of implementing the Internet Child Pornography Act, passed in 2002, the providers were forced to deny access to over 1 million other sites that were legitimate, he said. "It's as if the U.S. Postal Service would stop delivering mail to an entire apartment building because one of the residents was accused of doing something illegal," Morris said. But Sean Connolly, a spokesman for Pappert, argued that the technology existed to block access to individual Web sites, and that if legitimate sites were also blocked during the state's enforcement action, it was because the Internet providers were not using the technology properly. "We're disappointed," Connolly said. "We believe the law works well and we're now reviewing the judge's decision before deciding whether to ask the court to reconsider or to appeal." The court ruling is unlikely to make child pornography any more available, Morris argued, because the law was largely ineffective in preventing it. Such sites often move between different server computers, and users employ software that disguises their identity, a technique that makes the blocking technology ineffective, he said. Most of the legitimate U.S.-based Web sites overcame the blocking by moving to other servers, although an estimated half-million foreign based sites that were blocked by the law are still inaccessible, Morris said. *** 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 Yahoo News and Reuters News.. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ 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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #424 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Sep 12 01:34:37 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8C5Yb426599; Sun, 12 Sep 2004 01:34:37 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 01:34:37 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409120534.i8C5Yb426599@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 #425 TELECOM Digest Sun, 12 Sep 2004 01:33:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 425 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Weapons of Mass Delusion: America's Real National Emergency (M Solomon) Is That a Hard Drive in Your Pocket? (Monty Solomon) New Cellphone Headset Cuts Background Noise, Improves Voice (M Solomon) New BlackBerry Combo Takes on Treo (Monty Solomon) "Broadcast Flag", was Re: My New DVR From Cable One (Danny Burstein) Re: More Thoughts About RCA (Scott Dorsey) Re: More Thoughts About RCA (Lisa Hancock) Re: Microsoft Technology Powers Leading Broadcast Tools (Mark Atwood) Last Laugh! Start the Day Right! (Lisa Minter) 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: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 17:45:53 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: "Weapons of Mass Delusion: America's Real National Emergency" UPDATE: 11 SEP 04: An Adobe PDF version of the book is now available for free and released under the Creative Commons License. Accordingly, any proceeds from sales of the hard-copy editions will be donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation Popular technology commentator and author Richard Forno's witty but realistic examination of American culture, particularly since September 11. He acknowledges -- and challenges where necessary - many of the critical issues Americans are afraid (or incapable) of confronting themselves. He concludes that the national emergency facing America today isn't terrorism or rogue nations, but the daily illusions and mass delusions that make up what passes for reality in American society -- in other words, the real danger facing America is what we're allowing ourselves to become. http://www.infowarrior.org/wmd/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 17:55:06 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Is That a Hard Drive in Your Pocket? The next big thing in cell phones has arrived. Now you'll just have to figure out what to do with a 1.5-gigabyte handheld. By Eric Hellweg Where were you on Tuesday, September 7? Struggling to get back to work mode after a three-day weekend? If so, then it's understandable if you missed the small announcement issued by Samsung on that date. The two-paragraph press release seemed innocuous enough, but its ramifications will likely be felt around the world. The company proclaimed that it was releasing the world's first cell phone with a hard drive. The SPH-V5400 model phone, which will debut in Korea next week, comes equipped with a postage-stamp-sized hard drive storing 1.5 gigabytes. That's a massive increase in capacity over the flash memory that most cell phones ship with today. The new phone also features a one-megapixel digital camera, a high-resolution, 5.6-centimeter liquid crystal display, a software-based MP3 player, e-book software, and Korean-English dictionary software. The device will sell for the equivalent of $800. So what's the big deal? The technology industry works under the maxim, build it and they will come. Build faster processors, and the applications taking advantage of the speed will arrive. Build more storage and the industry will find ways to fill it. Up until now, cell phones have made do with storage capacities that are tiny by today's standards. Most cell phones max out around 100 megabytes, while home computers ship with 40, 60, 80, or 100 gigabyte drives. A cell phone sporting 1.5 gigabytes suddenly opens itself up to more data possibilities, and begins encroaching even more into the domain of portable music player and PDAs. http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/09/wo_hellweg091004.asp ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 18:11:00 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: New Cellphone Headset Cuts Background Noise, Improves Voice By WALTER S. MOSSBERG One of the benefits of cellphones is that they allow you to make calls from anywhere you can get a signal. One of the downsides of that freedom is that you often find yourself calling from noisy environments -- sidewalks bathed in traffic sounds, airports bombarded with crowd noises and public announcements -- that can make the call nearly inaudible. Now, a small Silicon Valley start-up company called Aliph has come up with a solution: a new cellphone headset that suppresses background noise dramatically so that your voice comes through loud and clear even in the most clamorous settings. This new "adaptive" headset, called Jawbone, goes on sale for $150 starting today at the company's Web site, www.jawbone.com. In its first incarnation, it works with many, but not all, phones from Motorola, Nokia and Sony Ericsson. Versions for other phones are in the works. Aliph's Jawbone technology, which grew out of research the company did for the Pentagon, relies on two kinds of microphones. Standard microphones transmit your speech and detect background noise. A special contact microphone, which rests against your cheek, uses vibrations in your bones to determine exactly when you are speaking. This latter mike, which Aliph calls a "voice activity sensor," allows the Jawbone headset to distinguish your voice from background noises much more accurately than a normal cellphone headset can. http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20040909.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 18:52:45 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: New BlackBerry Combo Takes on Treo By WALTER S. MOSSBERG In a quest to invent the perfect combination of a cellphone, pocket e-mail device and organizer, most companies have failed. Either their products were so big and bulky they didn't look or work like phones, or they were so small and phone-like they had no room for the keyboards needed to create lots of e-mail messages. Or, the hardware was creative, but they had lousy e-mail or phone software. Only the palmOne Treo 600 has succeeded so far. It looks and feels like a phone, and yet it has a full keyboard and excellent e-mail and phone software. By contrast, Research In Motion, makers of the BlackBerry e-mail device popular in corporate circles, has failed to meld the phone with e-mail very well. Its BlackBerry models with built-in phones have been bulky, with a clumsy interface for phone calls. But the Treo 600 finally has a worthy competitor, and, surprisingly, it's a BlackBerry -- a radically different BlackBerry that looks like a phone, not like the squat models that have so far borne the BlackBerry name. Not only that, but this BlackBerry is inexpensive for a smart phone and is aimed as much at consumers and small businesses as it is at corporations. The new gadget is called the BlackBerry 7100t, and it will be available starting early next month from T-Mobile USA. It looks and works like a phone, but includes standard BlackBerry e-mail and a very cleverly designed keyboard. It's smaller and lighter than the Treo 600, and costs just $199. Service plans start at $59.99 a month, including 1,000 anytime minutes of voice calling and unlimited e-mail, Web browsing, instant messages and text messages. The 7100t works on the GSM and GPRS standards and can be used in both the U.S. and Europe. http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/solution-20040908.html ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: "Broadcast Flag", was Re: My New DVR From Cable One Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 10:05:36 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) writes: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I was told by CableOne (and perhaps I >> should have questioned them further, but it didn't really matter to me) >> that most or all 'conventional, over the cable recording systems such >> as TiVo' would not allow recording of many or most movies which had >> restrictions on them.' > I figured it was something like that. You were lied to. * Nope. He was just given given advance warning. New recording equipment is supposed to recognize a "do not record" flag that gets sent over-the-air along with the signal. Periodically a couple of the networks "accidentally" activate it nowadays and a hefty number of folk discover they can't time shift the program they wanted. It's going to get a lot worse Real Soon Now. Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: More Thoughts About RCA Date: 11 Sep 2004 09:48:26 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Lisa Hancock wrote: > The Campbell-Kelly book "Computer" says that IBM's very popular 1401 > was popular because of its excellent printer -- a mechanical device -- > rather than the CPU electronics. > It took a heck of a long time for other manufacturers to come up with > a line printer that matched the IBM 1403 printer's quality. I'm not sure they ever did. As of around 1995, a local business was still running a whole line of 1403 printers and they were chugging along solidly. It's hard to beat a record like that. They have since replaced them, though, with some far less reliable laser printers. > In the Watson autobiography, he says Sarnoff came to IBM to get > patents (that the govornment ordered IBM to release). So, RCA used > IBM know-how. Also, RCA's Spectra was a copy of S/360. The Spectra/70 wasn't really an S/360 copy. They copied much of the instruction set with the intention of making it a compatible machine, but they didn't copy any of the actual architecture. (At the time, the whole notion of microcode making the architecture and instruction set independant was fabulously innovative, and this was one of the huge wins of the 360 concept: a whole line of different machines that could run the same code). Anyway, when they did this, they guessed wrong and implemented only the ASCII support, not any of the EBCDIC support for peripherals. IBM later discontinued all the ASCII stuff. So effectively compatibility was out the wall, although the similarities made it easier for assembler programmers to go between the two machines. Sperry turned the Spectra/70 into the Series/70, and it was actually a very solid machine. I think that Georgia State University was using one as late as 1988 or so. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: More Thoughts About RCA Date: 11 Sep 2004 09:51:56 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Julian Thomas wrote: > I tried to send this to Lisa (or is it Jeff??) at > hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com but it failed. Public responses that can be shared by all are respectfully requested. > And, for my $0.02 worth, Honeywell had tape drives on the H800 that > were far superior to the IBM 727/729 models. I admit some bias; I > worked on the D1000 and the H800 before joining IBM in 1962. They were better, Watson admits so. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, IBM was concentrating on other areas, and didn't do too much with its tape periperhals. This allowed other mfrs to get ahead of IBM. While the CPUs of IBM's System/360 were new, the tape drives were basically warmed over models from the prior generation. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Microsoft Technology Powers Leading Broadcast Tools; IPTV From: Mark Atwood Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 19:40:27 GMT Monty Solomon writes: > Microsoft Demonstrates First Set-Top Boxes for IPTV Platform "First" my ass. There are several IPTV STBs available already, just not from Microsoft. FerEx, the Amino IPTV STBs, at http://www.aminocom.com/ (I don't work for Amino. I just hate it when Microsoft spins their press releases to make it sound like when it's the first time *they* did something, it's the first time anyone did.) Mark Atwood | When you do things right, people won't be sure mra@pobox.com | you've done anything at all. http://www.pobox.com/~mra | http://www.livejournal.com/users/fallenpegasus ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Last Laugh! Start the Day Right! Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 23:44:37 -0500 With thanks to Kathy and Ken (the other one.) One can substitute many, many people/things/ideas for "John Kerry." How to start each day with a positive outlook ... 1. Open a new file in your PC. 2. Name it "John Kerry." 3. Send it to the trash. 4. Empty the trash. 5. Your PC will ask you, "Do you really want to get rid of John Kerry?" 6. Answer calmly, "yes," and press the mouse button firmly. 7. Feel better ... ?? Cheers. ------------------------------ 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 #425 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Sep 13 07:55:18 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8DBtIu09245; Mon, 13 Sep 2004 07:55:18 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 07:55:18 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409131155.i8DBtIu09245@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 #426 TELECOM Digest Mon, 13 Sep 2004 07:54:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 426 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson McAfee's Trojan Horse Error Gets Developer's Goat (Monty Solomon) Blog Interrupted (Monty Solomon) The End of 'Network News' (Monty Solomon) My Gripe With the Hype Around Skype and Five Good Reasons (M Solomon) Government Hungry for TV's Airwaves (Monty Solomon) Bloggers Find Clicks Don't Mean Cash (Monty Solomon) Sudbury Officials Balk at Giving T-Mobile Antenna Attachment (M Solomon) New and Improved Ways to Rot Your Kid's Brain! (Monty Solomon) Japan Mobile Developer Welcome (Docomo, VodaFone, AU) (akh) FTC Settles wth AT&T, Sprint, Re: Credit Report Issues (Danny Burstein) Sprint, AT&T Handed Large Fines (Lisa Minter) ISDN Phone System With DECT Terminals (meATprivacyDOTnet) Re: Last Laugh! Start the Day Right! (Gary Novosielski) Last Laugh! Obtaining New Phone Service (Lisa Minter) 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, 13 Sep 2004 03:42:35 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: McAfee's Trojan Horse Error Gets Developer's Goat By Kristyn Maslog-Levis Special to CNET News.com An Australian software developer is considering suing McAfee after the antivirus company wrongly identified his Internet setup program as a Trojan horse in a recent virus definition update. Mark Griffiths of Brisbane said he is "not ruling out" filing a lawsuit against McAfee even after the antivirus company released on Thursday an update to its DAT virus definition file that fixes the false positive. Griffiths sells the Internet setup program, ISPWizard , to Internet service providers in more than 20 countries. McAfee antivirus software on ISP customers' computers labeled ISPWizard as the BackDoor-AKZ Trojan horse. Because the McAfee software automatically eliminates the program from the users' system, many were not able to connect to their ISP. Griffiths said he was first notified about the mistake on Sept. 2 by ISPs in the United States. They had been alerted by their customers, who had not been able to access their Internet services. Immediately after being notified, Griffiths sent an e-mail to McAfee but did not hear back from the antivirus vendor until Monday. Griffiths estimated a loss in revenue of at least 50 percent for this month because the program was labeled a Trojan. He added that one of his customers lost $3,000 after the provider's customers shifted to another ISP as a result of the McAfee difficulties. Allan Bell, McAfee marketing director for the Asia-Pacific region, said the company released a new DAT file on Thursday including changes that addressed Griffiths' problem. Bell explained that the software identifies Trojan horses based on a signature or a pattern. Because of this, he said, "there is always a danger of a false positive," meaning the DAT file matches a program that is not a virus. http://news.com.com/2100-7350-5361660.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 02:15:29 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Blog Interrupted When Jessica Cutler put her dirty secrets on the Web, she lost her job, signed a book deal, posed for Playboy -- and raised a ton of questions about where America is headed. By April Witt The instant message blinked on the computer at Jessica Cutler's desk in the Russell Senate Office Building. "Oh my God, you're famous." Before she could form the thought -- "famous, cool" -- or puzzle how she, a lowly mail clerk, had escaped obscurity, a second instant message popped up on her screen. Startled, Jessica recalls, she began to curse. "Your blog is on Wonkette," the message said. Jessica's blog (short for "Web log") was the online diary she had been posting anonymously to amuse herself and her closest girlfriends. In it, she detailed the peccadilloes of the men she said were her six current sexual partners, including a married Bush administration official who met her in hotel rooms and gave her envelopes of cash; a senator's staff member who helped hire her, then later bedded her; and another man who liked to spank and be spanked. Wonkette is a popular online gossip column that was read by lots of Jessica's friends and Capitol Hill co-workers, including some of the men in her blog. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54736-2004Aug10.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 02:26:44 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The End of 'Network News' By Tom Rosenstiel Regardless of who wins the election, the campaign of 2004 has already made history. For the first time, a cable news channel -- Fox -- attracted more viewers than a broadcast network when they were competing head to head, covering the Republican National Convention. Was this a watershed for a new partisan journalism in America? I think the real meaning is something else. What happened this summer, and particularly last week, is likely to be recalled as the end of the era of network news. At the very least, mark this as the moment when the networks abdicated their authority with the American public. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13017-2004Sep10 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 23:46:02 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: My Gripe With the Hype Around Skype and Five Good Reasons My gripe with the hype around Skype and five good reasons why you shouldn't cancel your other phone services just yet. I've been giving a lot of thought to all the hype that Skype has been getting as of late. So much has been said about the great aspects of Skype, of which there are a few, that in the interest of balancing this with a bit of perspective on the downsides, I thought I'd throw a few of my own opinions into the ring for you all to chew on. http://apple.weblogsinc.com/entry/7391864753130518/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 01:37:01 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Government Hungry for TV's Airwaves By Christopher Stern Washington Post Staff Writer Federal regulators are stepping up their pressure on television stations to give up billions of dollars worth of airwaves in major markets around the country, saying the spectrum is urgently needed by local public safety officials. Seizing on a conclusion of the 9/11 Commission Report, Congress and the Federal Communications Commission are using the limits of the nation's emergency communications system to try to kick-start the process of converting television broadcasters from analog signals to digital ones. The conversion would free large segments of the broadcast spectrum for emergency services in major metropolitan areas. The 9/11 Commission concluded that emergency communications were crippled by the sudden spike in cell phone calls in the hours immediately after the terrorist attacks, and it called on Congress to pass legislation that would take some of the spectrum back from broadcasters. The conversion from analog to digital is supposed to be well underway already. In 1996, Congress granted television stations second channels for digital service in return for their promise to surrender the portion of the broadcast spectrum on which analog signals operate. That would allow the government to turn parts of the spectrum over to local emergency authorities and auction the rest to wireless companies or other investors. The analog spectrum is worth an estimated $70 billion. The process has been slowed, however, by consumers not replacing their old analog sets with expensive new digital televisions as quickly as had been hoped. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9785-2004Sep9.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 01:42:37 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Bloggers Find Clicks Don't Mean Cash By ELLEN SIMON The Associated Press NEW YORK - Bloggers at this summer's political conventions brought heightened visibility to blogging, but the money, for most bloggers, is still missing. If you think those Web journals of opinions and obsessions are a way to get rich, consider Jeff Soyer, a self-described "gay gun nut" in Vermont. Soyer, who runs the journal Alphecca.com, pleaded for donations last month alongside an image of a tip jar topped by gun-toting cartoon character Yosemite Sam. "Ten bucks buys a box of bullets or feeds my cats for a week," he wrote on the blog. Days passed and he received nothing. "By next week this domain could belong to a porno site," he subsequently posted. "Maybe you folks think that would be a better thing. I'm starting to think so, too." Only after other bloggers linked to his request did he receive enough donations to pay the $117 for a domain name and a year of Web hosting fees. He's not the only blogger not getting rich. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16805-2004Sep12.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That's for sure. I have received at least a few emails from an employee at Google asking me to *please* add the java script to http://telecom-digest.org which would have the effect of providing *lots* of advertising -- albiet not terribly offensive ads -- around the telecom web site. The fellow who writes me -- I think his name is Jonah -- keeps telling me I will make tons of money from those ads. I just don't think so. I think it will do more harm to this site than any possible good which could come from it. Even though TELECOM Digest and our web site has long since passed the point of being a part time 'hobby' for me and gotten to the point where it must have several hours per day of maintainence, ergo, I have to get paid, I still get some -- not much these days -- bitching and moaning about my casual, once per month, request for donations. I know the older guys around here remember when *any* advertising on the net or solicitation for money (in wheverever) was unheard of on the net, and maybe there are even some younger guys who know when that was a no-no. Google said to me, when people click on one of the ads we would put on your site (because of the javascript you put there for us) we would pay you. Maybe so; I don't doubt that they are honest people, but I cannot see the clicks adding up all that well. If anything, people are more offended by those ads than anything else, IMO. Some people obviously want to turn the net into a commercial venture. I am not one of those people. The once per month more or less messages I run here asking for donations generate about as much (or little) money as the checks I used to get now and then when the Christian Science Monitor bought my submissions for their Home Forum page: it kept me in beer and cigarette money, not much else. There simply is no 'cash for clicks' on the net, unless you are running some sort of sex site. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 16:32:13 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Sudbury Officials Balk at Giving T-Mobile an Antenna Attachment By Stacey Hart / News Staff Writer SUDBURY -- T-Mobile has proposed attaching an antenna to an existing cell tower to improve coverage for its customers, but town officials are not ready to give the OK. T-Mobile representative Michael Almada presented a map of Sudbury and surrounding towns to selectmen, showing where the company's cell phone coverage is wanting. The tower, on North Road, would provide "a substantial fill along what is a fairly important commuter route," Almada said. Although the area is not densely settled, he said T-Mobile has obligations under federal communication requirements to provide emergency service in this area through E-911. The wireless company has looked at attaching its antenna to existing cell towers because the town's bylaw encourages them to do so, Almada said. http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=77780 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 17:23:17 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: New and Improved Ways to Rot Your Kid's Brain! A new study shows that kids who watch lots of TV ads are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, stomachaches and other problems. By Corrie Pikul Sept. 8, 2004 | It will come as no surprise to parents that kids who watch an excessive amount of TV will want Mom and Dad to buy them an excessive amount of stuff. But can heavy media consumption also cause kids to be depressed and anxious, and exhibit low self-esteem? Could it make your child's stomach ache or her head hurt? Juliet B. Schor, a professor of sociology at Boston College and recognized expert on consumerism, economics and family studies, says yes. According to a study Schor conducted from 2001 to 2003, consumer involvement affects psychological outcomes -- often in negative ways. Schor spent over four years studying the impact of marketing on children. She trailed marketers and researchers who focus specifically on kids, shadowing them at conventions, paging through their client presentations, and talking to them about the ethics of their profession. The results make up her chilling new book, "Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture." "Psychologically healthy children will be made worse off if they become more enmeshed in the culture of getting and spending," she writes. "Children with emotional problems will be helped if they disengage from the worlds that corporations are constructing for them." Schor talked to Salon on the phone from her home in Newton, Mass., about the pervasiveness of marketing in children's lives -- and why it makes some marketers feel like they're going to "burn in hell." http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2004/09/08/born_buy/ ------------------------------ From: ak.hlaing@gmail.com (akh) Subject: Japan Mobile Developer Welcome (Docomo, VodaFone, AU) Date: 12 Sep 2004 22:49:25 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hi, Just got an idea that we should have a group on those who target Japan Mobile phones. (Mainly the three big vendors - Docomo, VodaFone, AU) Any suggestion or there is a group already? ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: FTC Settles With AT&T, Sprint, re: Credit Report Issues Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 17:16:31 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC "Sprint Corporation and AT&T Corp. will pay $1.125 million and $365,000, respectively, to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that they failed to notify certain applicants for telephone service of their rights under federal credit laws. The FTC charges that Sprint used consumers credit reports to deny them telephone service, and that both AT&T and Sprint placed conditions or restrictions on consumers service, without disclosing information required by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The disclosures must include that consumers have the right to obtain a free copy of the credit report and to dispute errors in it. [ snippety snip ] http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/09/sprintatt.htm _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 15:24:12 EDT From: Lisa Minter Subject: Sprint, AT&T Handed Large Fines Story from Business News Briefs,Independence, KS Reporter, Sunday edition, September 12: Sprint Corp. and AT&T Corp will pay $1.5 million in civil penalties to settle government claims that the companies violated federal credit laws for customers seeking telephone service, the Federal Trade Commission announced Friday. Under the agreement, Sprint, based in Overland Park, Kansas will pay $1.1 million, and AT&T will pay $365,000. The Commission said the two companies either denied service to applicants or placed otherwise unrealistic condtitions on the service they were given because of the applicants' credit reports. When companies deny credit to someone based on that person's 'poor' credit standing (as given in a credit bureau report), the companies are required to notify the person of their rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act; to notify the person they have a right to a free copy of their credit report. The FTC said those notifications were either inaccurate or not sent at all. The FTC said that making a telephone call (for which you will be billed at a later time) is 'essentially' an extension of credit and that if a customer is permitted to make some calls, but not other calls on 'credit', the customer has a right to be given the notifications required by law when (for example) he is permitted to make a long distance call one place but not another, etc, **if that decision to deny some service is based on the person's credit.** The Sprint case involved 550,000 customers; the AT&T case involved 175,000 customers. Lisa Minter *** 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 and Independence Reporter. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: meATprivacyDOTnet Subject: ISDN Phone System With DECT Terminals Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 18:41:52 +0200 Hi all, I have to install a phone system to handle the calls for a small office with an ISDN line in Italy. I would like to get cordless DECT terminals for the office workers, 3 in total. I found the Simens Gigaset ISDN products and it looks like they could do the job of a traditional ISDN PBX sytem for a small office at a fraction of the price. Here are the Siemens ISDN base systems that I am considering: Gigaset SX353isdn Gigaset SX255isdn I am not sure if I should go for the Gigaset SX353isdn or the Gigaset SX255isdn. Both base systems will allow up to 3 simultaneous calls (2 external and 1 internal) and up to 8 DECT handsets. I noticed the following differences: the SX353isdn includes a corded phone and support Bluetooth, the SX255isdn has 2 analogue inputs (instead of 1). Did I miss any other difference? The price is the same (176 euro). About the cordless terminals, I am considering the Gigaset SL1 colour or the Gigaset S1: They are standard DECT phones, they are around 100 euro (it depends on the model). What do you think about this phone setup? Will it work fine for a small office? Should I go directly for a traditional ISDN PBX system (that of course is much more expensive)? I don't anticipate any expansion in the office anytime soon. Do you recommend any other product/brand to setup such phone system? Thanks! ------------------------------ From: Gary Novosielski Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Start the Day Right! Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 00:26:22 GMT Lisa Minter wrote: > With thanks to Kathy and Ken (the other one.) > One can substitute many, many people/things/ideas for "John Kerry." I suggest substituting Lisa Minter. By the way, as a political joke it's not funny, and what's MUCH worse, as a technical joke, it doesn't work. PC's do not verify, by name, files deleted from the recycle bin, and do not use the phrase "get rid of" anyway. > How to start each day with a positive outlook ... > 1. Open a new file in your PC. > 2. Name it "John Kerry." > 3. Send it to the trash. > 4. Empty the trash. > 5. Your PC will ask you, "Do you really want to get rid of John Kerry?" > 6. Answer calmly, "yes," and press the mouse button firmly. > 7. Feel better ... ?? > Cheers. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That's not how my Windows 2000 or Windows 98 operates. If there is *but one* file in the recycle bin when you dump the trash atempts to dump the trash get a response of "Are you sure you wish to get rid of '(file name)'? If there is more than one file in the recycle bin then it says "Are you sure you wish to get rid of these (number) files?". But for one file only, it asks you by the name of the file. Anyway, what do you have against Lisa Minter? If anyone should have a complaint it would be me, but she is gradually shaping up and learning what to do. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 15:38:25 EDT From: Lisa Minter Subject: Last Laugh! Obtaining New Phone Service "Better Half" Sunday comics, September 12, Independence Reporter: Scene: Man and his wife sitting at the desk of cellular phone service rep, who is explaining the different plans available to them: "Our $20.00 per month plan costs $47.50 per month. Our $30.00 per month plan is $56.95; our $40.00 per month plan is $72.25; and our $50.00 plan will cost $99 per month." The customer and his wife's eyes bulge out of their head as the service rep (with a straight face) explains the rates per month for their new phone service. Lisa Minter *** 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 King Features Syndicate and Independence Reorter.. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ 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 #426 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Sep 13 14:23:21 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8DINKL12043; Mon, 13 Sep 2004 14:23:21 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 14:23:21 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409131823.i8DINKL12043@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 #427 TELECOM Digest Mon, 13 Sep 2004 14:24:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 427 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #448, September 13, 2004 (Angus TeleManagement) Hurdles For Digital TV's Global Reach (Monty Solomon) Honey, Did You Remember to Call the DVD Recorder? (Monty Solomon) Qualcomm Has Eyes For Displays (Eric Friedebach) Re: "Broadcast Flag", was Re: My New DVR From Cable One (Paul Vader) Panasonic FDH332 (Doron) Justice Department: VOIP Providers Avoiding CALEA (J. Decker-VOIP News) 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, 13 Sep 2004 10:41:01 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #448, September 13, 2004 ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 448: September 13, 2004 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: ** ALLSTREAM: www.allstream.com ** AVAYA: www.avaya.ca/en/ ** BELL CANADA: www.bell.ca ** CISCO SYSTEMS CANADA: www.cisco.com/ca/ ** ERICSSON: www.ericsson.ca ** MITEL NETWORKS: www.mitel.com/ ** SPRINT CANADA: www.sprint.ca ** UTC CANADA: www.canada.utc.org/ ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** Rogers to Buy AT&T Wireless Shares ** Fido Offers Unlimited Calling Plan ** Banks Want Telemarketing Exemption ** Telehop and Yak Roll Out VoIP Services ** Provinces Want 3-1-1 as Health Triage Code ** Nortel Prepares Layoff List ** UNBC Students Get Bell Bundle ** Primus Pays to End U.S. Do-Not-Call Action ** RIM Unveils Consumer Blackberry Phone ** 2,900 Attend Call Centre Conference ** Bain Buys Canadian Directory Company ** Correction: Iles-de-la-Madeleine Cable ** Ian Angus to Keynote Telecom Conference ============================================================ ROGERS TO BUY AT&T WIRELESS SHARES: AT&T Wireless Services has agreed to sell its 34% stake in Rogers Wireless to Rogers Communications for just under $1.8 billion ($36.37 per share) in cash. The deal is subject to Board and other approvals. FIDO OFFERS UNLIMITED CALLING PLAN: "Unlimited Local Calls Anywhere in Canada," unveiled by Microcell last week, offers Fido mobile users unlimited local calling, no LD charges on incoming calls within Fido's digital coverage area, and 850 minutes of outgoing LD within Canada and to the U.S., for $70 a month. BANKS WANT TELEMARKETING EXEMPTION: The Canadian Bankers' Association has asked the federal Cabinet to direct the CRTC to exempt banks and their financial affiliates from the telemarketing restrictions established in CRTC Telecom Decision 2004-35. (See Telecom Update #445) ** If the Cabinet decides not to exempt them, the banks want it to "rescind or vary" the decision, or to instruct the CRTC to delay implementation until it has consulted with businesses affected by the new rules. TELEHOP AND YAK ROLL OUT VoIP SERVICES: Telehop Communications and Yak Communications both announced broadband IP telephone services last week. ** Telehop says its BroadTalk service is being offered to consumers and small businesses across Canada, with packages starting at C$21.99 a month. ** Yak's WorldCity VoIP is being offered in Canada and the United States, with a Basic Plan starting at US$19.95 a month. PROVINCES WANT 3-1-1 AS HEALTH TRIAGE CODE: Alberta Health and Wellness, on behalf of the Provincial/Territorial Ministers of Health, has asked the CRTC to assign a national phone code, 3-1-1, for access to non-urgent health triage and information services. www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2004/8665/a83_200409492.htm ** The CRTC is already considering an application by a group of municipalities to use 3-1-1 for non-emergency access to municipal services. (See Telecom Update #408) www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2003/8665/c126_200315699.htm NORTEL PREPARES LAYOFF LIST: Speaking in Ottawa on Thursday, Nortel CEO William Owens said the company will complete its list of 3,500 employees to be laid off within two weeks. About half of the cuts will be in R&D, particularly in areas that support legacy systems. ** Nortel has retained Accenture to help "transform its financial organization's structure, processes and systems." UNBC STUDENTS GET BELL BUNDLE: Bell Canada has received a five-year contract from the University of Northern B.C. to provide telephone, Internet, and satellite TV to students living in residence. The students will receive the bundle as part of their residential rental fees. Installation and service will be provided by Prince George-based ABC Communications. ** Bell is also donating nearly $200,000 worth of Tandberg videoconferencing equipment to UNBC's Northern Health Sciences Centre. PRIMUS PAYS TO END U.S. DO-NOT-CALL ACTION: Primus Telecommunications, the parent of Primus Canada, has agreed to pay US$400,000 to halt an investigation into alleged violations of the USA's National Do-Not-Call registry rules. The calls were made by a telemarketing service bureau acting on Primus's behalf. RIM UNVEILS CONSUMER BLACKBERRY PHONE: Research in Motion's BlackBerry 7100t combines a mobile phone, e-mail, messaging, and Web browsing. The device, which uses a new keyboard design, will be available in the U.S. from T-Mobile USA in October; Canadian availability was not announced. 2,900 ATTEND CALL CENTRE CONFERENCE: Advanstar Technology reports that the ICCM 2004 Conference & Exposition, held August 9-10 in Chicago, was attended by more than 2,900 industry professionals from 37 countries. The program for the call centre management event was developed by Angus Dortmans Associates. BAIN BUYS CANADIAN DIRECTORY COMPANY: Verizon Communications has agreed to sell its SuperPages Canada directory publishing operation to Bain Capital for C$2 billion. Verizon bought the business from Telus in 2001 for $670 million. ** SuperPages publishes Telus phone books and business directories in several Ontario and Quebec cities. CORRECTION: ILES-DE-LA-MADELEINE CABLE: Last week's Telecom Update said that Telebec is building a submarine fibre cable from the Gaspe Peninsula to Iles-de-la-Madeleine. In fact the cable will be installed by International Telecom, and the facilities will be owned by le Reseau Integre de Communications Electroniques des Iles-de-la-Madeleine (RICIEM), a local non-profit organization. Telebec is operating partner in the project. IAN ANGUS TO KEYNOTE TELECOM CONFERENCE: Ian Angus, chairman of Angus Dortmans Associates, will be the kickoff speaker at Telemanagement Live! scheduled for October 20-21 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. His topic: Enterprise Telecom in 2005: What's Hot, What's Not, and What You Must Know to Succeed. ** Other featured speakers include senior executives from Allstream, Avaya, Bell Canada, Cisco, Mitel, Nortel, OneConnect, Siemens, Sprint Canada, Telus, UTC Canada... and many more. ** For a full program and registration information, go to www.telemanagementlive.com or call 1-866-309-2227. ============================================================ HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-MAIL: editors@angustel.ca FAX: 905-686-2655 MAIL: TELECOM UPDATE Angus TeleManagement Group 8 Old Kingston Road Ajax, Ontario Canada L1T 2Z7 =========================================================== HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR UNSUBSCRIBE) TELECOM UPDATE is provided in electronic form only. There are two formats available: 1. The fully-formatted edition is posted on the World Wide Web on the first business day of the week at www.angustel.ca 2. The e-mail edition is distributed free of charge. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to: join-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.com To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to: leave-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.com Sending e-mail to these addresses will automatically add or remove the sender's e-mail address from the list. Leave subject line and message area blank. We do not give Telecom Update subscribers' e-mail addresses to any third party. For more information, see www.angustel.ca/update/privacy.html. =========================================================== COPYRIGHT AND CONDITIONS OF USE: All contents copyright 2004 Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. All rights reserved. For further information, including permission to reprint or reproduce, please e-mail rosita@angustel.ca or phone 905-686-5050 ext 500. The information and data included has been obtained from sources which we believe to be reliable, but Angus TeleManagement makes no warranties or representations whatsoever regarding accuracy, completeness, or adequacy. Opinions expressed are based on interpretation of available information, and are subject to change. If expert advice on the subject matter is required, the services of a competent professional should be obtained. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 08:42:16 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Hurdles For Digital TV's Global Reach By Chris Mac BBC Monitoring in Amsterdam Heat, dust, erratic electricity supplies and insufficient training are the biggest problems to be overcome to get digital TV into developing countries, a broadcasting conference has been told. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3651402.stm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 10:17:47 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Honey, Did You Remember to Call the DVD Recorder? By Ed Frauenheim Staff Writer, CNET News.com Panasonic announced on Wednesday a DVD recorder that takes requests from the road. The machine has a 400GB hard disk drive, is capable of zapping video elsewhere in a home, and is designed to let consumers program recording remotely over the Internet -- including via cell phones. The new product, dubbed the DMR-E500H, and related devices with smaller hard drives, are slated to be available in Japan beginning Sept. 21. The DMR-E500H, billed as allowing for more than 700 hours of recorded video, demonstrates the growing capabilities of devices combining DVD recording with hard drives. A hybrid between traditional DVD recorders and so-called digital video recorders , such machines allow users to begin watching a show from an earlier moment in a live broadcast. These types of products are battling against a new generation of personal computers to be kings of the digital living room. http://news.com.com/2100-1041-5357834.html ------------------------------ From: friedebach@yahoo.com (Eric Friedebach) Subject: Qualcomm Has Eyes For Displays Date: 13 Sep 2004 07:56:45 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Arik Hesseldahl, 09.09.04, Forbes.com NEW YORK - Why would wireless chip company Qualcomm want to get into the display business? To do what it does best: license technology to mobile phone manufacturers everywhere. That's the plan behind Qualcomm's $170 million buy of startup Iridigm Display of San Francisco. Qualcomm already held a 14% equity stake in Iridigm, and today announced the deal for the remaining 86%. The investment arms of Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing; Steamboat Ventures, the venture capital arm of The Walt Disney Co.; and the influential industrial design firm IDEO also were investors in Iridigm. "We're in the business of finding technologies that are fairly disruptive, and they have some fundamental intellectual property, which is a good thing for us," says Paul Jacobs, president of Qualcomm's wireless and Internet business group and third son of Chief Executive Irwin Jacobs. http://www.forbes.com/2004/09/09/cx_ah_0909qcom.html Eric Friedebach /Favorite OnStar commercial: crying woman drops keys in toilet/ ------------------------------ From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) Subject: Re: "Broadcast Flag", was Re: My New DVR From Cable One Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 15:35:53 -0000 Organization: Inline Software Creations Danny Burstein writes: > Nope. He was just given given advance warning. New recording equipment > is supposed to recognize a "do not record" flag that gets sent > over-the-air along with the signal. Periodically a couple of the Except that it isn't sent over the air, and the flag is part of their licensing agreement with macrovision. Cable one was just passing along FUD. * * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. ------------------------------ From: faroutdom@yahoo.com (Doron) Subject: Panasonic FDH332 Date: 13 Sep 2004 08:39:47 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hi, There are two versions to this FAX, one with voice mail and the other without. It seems though that they are both the exact same box. Anyone know how to upgrade the firmware to support voice mail? Thanks, FOD ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 12:56:12 -0400 Subject: DoJ: VoIP Providers Avoiding CALEA Mandate Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.americasnetwork.com/americasnetwork/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=121788 Source: Warren Publishing, Inc. COMMUNICATIONS DAILY via NewsEdge Corporation : FBI and Justice Dept. officials told the House Telecom Subcommittee Wed. that there have been difficulties establishing wiretaps through some VoIP carriers. While members emphasized the importance of law enforcement having access to VoIP communications, some had questions about DoJ's and FBI's problems with access and if updates to the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) were needed. While the DoJ and FBI said they were trying to "work with" VoIP providers, they also said many products were introduced without thought to CALEA, though they declined to provide any specifics. Some members wanted more information about the problems FBI and DoJ officials face from VoIP providers when trying to obtain a wiretap. Laura Parsky, DoJ deputy asst. attorney general, said the information about specific problems was too sensitive. "We don't want terrorists migrating to these networks," she said. Marcus Thomas, FBI deputy asst. director, said it didn't appear to be "disingenuous effort" that prevented law enforcement access to networks. Rather, he said, many have deployed networks without giving much thought to law enforcement access. Thomas said CALEA was supposed to create an atmosphere where innovators factored CALEA standards into its development, but that atmosphere never developed. Rep. Buyer (R-Ind.) told law enforcement witnesses that they should do a better job of articulating their concerns, since they appeared to be rather vague. Parsky said more information could be given in a classified forum. Full story at: http://www.americasnetwork.com/americasnetwork/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=121788 How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ 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. 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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 #427 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Sep 14 15:25:13 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8EJPDc22486; Tue, 14 Sep 2004 15:25:13 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 15:25:13 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409141925.i8EJPDc22486@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 #428 TELECOM Digest Tue, 14 Sep 2004 15:25:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 428 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Weir & Partners Launches Norvergence Litigation (David O. Rodriguez) What Do You Mean No One is Getting Sued? (Deborah - ISP WEST INC.) Re: My Gripe With the Hype Around Skype and Five Good Reasons (Solomon) Is There Something Odd Going on Here? (Charles B. Wilber) Cox Decides VoIP is Ready for Prime Time (Jack Decker - VOIP News) Penns. Communications & Technology Committee to Hold (Decker-VOIP News) Re: ISDN Phone System With DECT Terminals (meATprivacyDOTnet) Phantom Extension Groups (Larry) VeriSign Issues Quarterly Domain Name Report; Total Domain (M Solomon) Re: Last Laugh! Start the Day Right! (Destined) Re: Last Laugh! Start the Day Right! (Carl Zwanzig) Last Laugh! And no Graphic Illustrations Either (Lisa Minter) 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: David O. Rodriguez Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 11:36:25 -0500 Subject: Weir & Partners Launches Norvergence Litigation From: Habib Abdul To: dor@writeme.com To: csx130mph@yahoo.com Subject: Weir & Partners Launches Norvergence Litigation! From: "Norvergence News" Reply-To: "Norvergence News" Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 15:42:03 -0400 (EDT) The firm of Weir & Partners LLP announced this morning that it has obtained committed fee payments exceeding its required minimum of $1,200,000.00 for the http://www.norvergencelitigation.com Norvergence Litigation and wants to thank the many Norvergence customers who signed up as clients. The firm agrees to represent those ex-Norvergence customers who responded in accordance with the terms of its Engagement Letter (which can be viewed by http://www.norvergencelitigation.com/Weir_Engagement_5.pdf clicking here) In fact, the firm had tallied $1,265,000.00 or so in committed fees as of this morning and had about 200 applications yet to be processed. If you signed and returned the Engagement Letter but did not receive an acknowledgement of receipt from the firm, you should be receiving an e-mail from the firm no later than 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, September 15, 2004 indicating that you are a client of the firm in the Norvergence Litigation; you should also receive a username and password for the web site at http://www.NorvergenceLitigation.com from the firm no later than this Friday. The firm is still inputting information regarding its new clients into its systems and will be reviewing those records to determine if any new clients inadvertently paid too much (for example, by paying for three Matrix devices when it had only one) and to assure that it does not inadvertently double or even triple charge those clients who, in an exercise of caution, faxed, e-mailed and overnighted their signed Engagement Letter. The firm will be proceeding with the Norvergence Litigation even if such adjustments cause it to reduce its committed prepaid fees to less than the required $1,200,000.00. This is the last notice you will be receiving from Weir & Partners LLP through the TAA's "Norvergence News" email list. Future email communications to you will originate from Weir & Partners. If you do not receive an e-mail from Weir & Partners by 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, confirming that you are being represented in the Norvergence Litigation, please communicate directly with the firm by e-mail addressed to norvergencelitigation@weirpartners.com We wish you the best of luck! ------------------------------ From: Deborah - ISP WEST INC Subject: What Do You Mean No One is Getting Sued? Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 11:56:10 -0700 Hi, I just got a call from a former Norvergence customer in California who said he was 3 months behind on his lease and had just received a letter from the leasing agency that if he does not pay the entire lease amount IN FULL by 9/13/04 he will be sued ... That gave him less than a week to pay in full. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I meant just what I said, Deborah, no one (*that I know of or have heard from*) is getting sued. I do not know any or all Norvergence customers, but I do know (per the other message in this issue) that many Norvergence customers have united in a lawsuit as plaintiffs against the evil people who put the Norvergence scheme together, and the dimwitted banks/leasing companies they used as their tools, to continue enforcing it even after they went out of business. If you wish to help the 'former Norvergence customers' who contact you, my suggestion would be you (a) have them obtain the correct name and telephone number and address of the person or entity which is purporting to 'sue' them, and (b) have these 'former Norvergence customers' get in contact with their own attorney and/or Weir Partners *immediatly*. Ask these 'former Norvergence customers' to identify the person who calls them: unless the caller is in fact an attorney or employed by an attorney he *cannot* file suit; all he can do is continue to bluster about same. Oh, to be certain, he could 'recommend' that his employer or client (if the caller is an agency) file suit. But tell your person not to be too worried. If your person is represented by Weir or another attorney then it is highly unethical for the collection agency or the leasing agency, etc to continue with direct phone calls to the debtor. (And it may be illegal for the phone calls to continue in many cases or to notate credit bureau records with disparaging information under those circumstances.) And Deborah, continue to advise these 'former Norvergence customers' who contact you to **keep a freeze on all accounts payable to Nor- vergence or its agents until these attornies (Weir or others) advise them to the contrary. And remember also, it is a *big* no-no for collection efforts to continue once the debtor is represented by counsel. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 08:48:10 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: My Gripe With the Hype Around Skype and Five Good Reasons [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This submission from Monty Solomon was printed here a couple days ago with the proper attribution eliminated in error. The authorship line ('by Greg Scher') was incorrectly omitted. It is being reprinted correctly here. PAT] My gripe with the hype around Skype and five good reasons why you shouldn't cancel your other phone services just yet Posted Sep 9, 2004, 1:05 PM ET by Greg Scher I've been giving a lot of thought to all the hype that Skype has been getting as of late. So much has been said about the great aspects nof Skype, of which there are a few, that in the interest of balancing this with a bit of perspective on the downsides, I thought I'd throw a few of my own opinions into the ring for you all to chew on. http://apple.weblogsinc.com/entry/7391864753130518/ ------------------------------ Date: 13 Sep 2004 16:49:58 EDT From: Charles.B.Wilber@Dartmouth.EDU (Charles B. Wilber) Subject: Is There Something Odd Going on Here? > FBI and Justice Dept. officials told the House Telecom Subcommittee > Wed. that there have been difficulties establishing wiretaps through > some VoIP carriers. > Some members wanted more information about the problems FBI and DoJ > officials face from VoIP providers when trying to obtain a > wiretap. Laura Parsky, DoJ deputy asst. attorney general, said the > information about specific problems was too sensitive. "We don't > want terrorists migrating to these networks," she said. > Parsky said more information could be given in a classified forum. Does anyone else think it odd that our government is undergoing major reorganization with substantial power and oversight being granted to the Dept. of Homeland Security while FBI and other DoJ officials refuse to provide "sensitive details" to members of Congress? Charlie Wilber Dartmouth College [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What is so odd about our government milking the events of 9/11/01 to the hilt; working them for all they are worth? Where 99.999 percent of similar crimes would be treated as 'mass murder' and the perpetrators dealt with accordingly, in this case 'they' (and I think you know who 'they' is) decided to define it as 'terrorism'. So what makes mass murder different than 'terrorism'? Only how the government and various federal agencies choose to define it, for their own agenda I guess. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 21:21:59 -0400 Subject: Cox Decides VoIP is Ready for Prime Time Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.americasnetwork.com/americasnetwork/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=122134 By: Al Senia America's Network Enews Cox Communications, a cable MSO that has been highly successful providing wired telephone service to more than 1 million customers in more than 13 markets, has decided to bring VoIP into the mainstream of its telephone product portfolio. Cox is preparing to extend its first VoIP service offering in Roanoke, Va. to four additional markets within the next few weeks, with an official announcement expected at the U.S. Telecom Association (USTA) show early next month in Las Vegas. Full story at: http://www.americasnetwork.com/americasnetwork/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=122134 How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 12:01:47 -0400 Subject: Pennsylvania Communications & Technology Committee to Hold Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/09-13-2004/0002249240&STORY&EDATE= Holding Public Hearing on Voice Over the Internet Protocol (VoIP) HARRISBURG, Pa., Sept. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Senate Communications & Technology Committee Chairman Sen. Jake Corman (R-34) and committee Vice Chairman Sen. John Rafferty (R-44) announced that the committee will be holding a public hearing on Wednesday, September 15, 2004 at 10:00 AM. Corman and Rafferty have scheduled a public hearing to be held at the Montgomery County Community College - West Campus in Pottstown. Corman and Rafferty said the committee hearing will focus on Voice Over the Internet Protocol, or VoIP technology. receive phone calls using the Internet. ------------------------------ From: meATprivacyDOTnet Subject: Re: ISDN Phone System With DECT Terminals Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 12:26:51 +0200 On 9/12/04 6:41 PM, meATprivacyDOTnet wrote: > Gigaset SX353isdn > > Gigaset SX255isdn > > I am not sure if I should go for the Gigaset SX353isdn or the Gigaset > SX255isdn. > Both base systems will allow up to 3 simultaneous calls (2 external > and 1 internal) and up to 8 DECT handsets. > I noticed the following differences: the SX353isdn includes a corded > phone and support Bluetooth, the SX255isdn has 2 analogue inputs > (instead of 1). > Did I miss any other difference? > The price is the same (176 euro). I think I am going to buy the Siemens Gigaset SX353isdn basestation and some Siemens Gigaset SL1 Colour handsets from an online German store. Do you think it is a good setup? Will the Gigaset SX353isdn basestation work in Italy? I am not sure if the ISDN standards used in Italy and Germany are the same (or compatible). Thanks. ------------------------------ From: larro18@hotmail.com (Larry) Subject: Phantom Extension Groups Date: 14 Sep 2004 08:07:15 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello All, I have two Panasonic TD1232 and a TVS120. I have an automated attendant that points to a phantom group when a customer dials 1. Now here's my dilemma when 1 is dialed every phone in the building that is programmed to the phantom extension rings. Is there a setup that will only ring on the phones that are available depending whether or not the person is on a phone call or search for extension according to how long they have been available? Maybe a flex button I can program to make the phone available or not? I know I can turn the ringers off on phones that are not occupied but I would like to avoid that. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Larry ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 11:28:07 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: VeriSign Issues Quarterly Domain Name Report; Total Domain Name Third Report of Series Reveals Continued Increase in Domain Name Registration; ccTLDs Remain Fastest Growing Domain Group Comprising 39 Percent of All Registrations MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Sept. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- VeriSign, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRSN), the leading provider of intelligent infrastructure services for the Internet and telecommunications networks, today released the VeriSign(R) Domain Report for the second quarter, 2004, highlighting key industry data for domain name activity around the world. According to the report, 4.6 million new domain names were registered in the second quarter of 2004, representing a 2.5 percent growth over the first quarter, 2004. In all, worldwide domain name registrations reached a peak of 64.5 million domain names, a 7 percent increase over end of year 2003. The report reveals that growth statistics for domain name registrations have reached levels previously seen during the height of domain registrations in the late 1990s. For example, while .com remains the leader for all domains registered, country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) now account for 39 percent of all domain registrations. A handful of ccTLDs demonstrated significant growth during the second quarter of 2004 such as .de, which now represents 90 percent of the total domain name market in Germany. Key factors for the growth in domain registrations and renewals include the increasing utilization of the Internet among consumers and small business owners who are seeking to connect with the growing number of global Internet users, and the increasing availability of domain names in markets previously underserved by domain name resellers. Furthermore, while .net is ranked fourth in terms of the number of domain names registered, it remains an integral part of the Internet's current functionality and operational efficiency. For example, .net is the largest TLD by number of hosts, or machines connected to the Internet. More than 44 percent of hosts use .net. Additional .net key facts include: - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43677142 ------------------------------ From: Destined Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Start the Day Right! Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 12:40:18 -0700 Gary Novosielski wrote: > Lisa Minter wrote: >> With thanks to Kathy and Ken (the other one.) >> One can substitute many, many people/things/ideas for "John Kerry." > I suggest substituting Lisa Minter. > By the way, as a political joke it's not funny, and what's MUCH worse, > as a technical joke, it doesn't work. PC's do not verify, by name, > files deleted from the recycle bin, and do not use the phrase "get rid > of" anyway. >> How to start each day with a positive outlook ... >> 1. Open a new file in your PC. >> 2. Name it "John Kerry." >> 3. Send it to the trash. >> 4. Empty the trash. >> 5. Your PC will ask you, "Do you really want to get rid of John Kerry?" >> 6. Answer calmly, "yes," and press the mouse button firmly. >> 7. Feel better ... ?? >> Cheers. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That's not how my Windows 2000 or > Windows 98 operates. If there is *but one* file in the recycle bin > when you dump the trash atempts to dump the trash get a response of > "Are you sure you wish to get rid of '(file name)'? If there is more > than one file in the recycle bin then it says "Are you sure you wish > to get rid of these (number) files?". But for one file only, it asks > you by the name of the file. Anyway, what do you have against Lisa > Minter? If anyone should have a complaint it would be me, but she is > gradually shaping up and learning what to do. PAT] From my little understanding of Windows and the file allocation table/NTFS system, when a file get's deleted off the hard drive, it just adds a bit to a file pointer when a file has been delted from the trash/recycle bin but the data still resides on the drive and the name of the file? Jeremy <> ------------------------------ From: zbang@radix.net (Carl Zwanzig) Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Start the Day Right! Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 22:01:00 -0000 Organization: RadixNet Internet Services In article , Lisa Minter wrote: > With thanks to Kathy and Ken (the other one.) > One can substitute many, many people/things/ideas for "John Kerry." I saw that three weeks ago with George Bush. Neither one is funny, or telecom related. z! ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: And no Graphic Illustrations Either! Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 14:26:28 -0500 A sex education class was about to begin for sophomores at Alexandria HS, and each student had to bring in a permission slip in order to take it. A bashful Lutheran choir boy handed in his slip and explained to the teacher, "My mom says I can take the course as long as there's no homework." ------------------------------ 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! 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #428 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Sep 14 22:02:07 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8F227M26100; Tue, 14 Sep 2004 22:02:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 22:02:07 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409150202.i8F227M26100@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 #429 TELECOM Digest Tue, 14 Sep 2004 21:02:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 429 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Bluetooth Enabled Motorcycle Helmet From Motorola & Momodesign (Solomon) Best Phone to Use For Radio Telephone Interviews? (JayKay) Re: "Broadcast Flag", was Re: My New DVR From Cable One (J Kelly) Re: Weir & Partners Launches Norvergence Litigation (Scott Dorsey) Web Site Killings Raise Dilemmas for Media (Lisa Minter) Microsoft Issues Patch; E-Mail ID Plan Rejected (Lisa Minter) On Fed Payroll, Hackers Seek to Save America (Lisa Minter) A Proposal of Interest (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 are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 18:03:34 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Bluetooth Enabled Motorcycle Helmet From Motorola and MOMODESIGN Talk'n'Ride With the First Bluetooth(R) Enabled Motorcycle Helmet From Motorola and MOMODESIGN Motorola / MOMODESIGN Bluetooth(R) Enabled Motorcycle Helmet Extends Wireless Communications to Highly Mobile Individuals on the Motorcycle MUNICH, Germany, Sept. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Motorola (NYSE:MOT) and MOMODESIGN today announced their first Bluetooth enabled motorcycle helmet that will make it possible for motorcycle riders to scoot around town and stay connected. Built on the award-winning design of Motorola's popular HS810, the wireless helmet headset is the latest addition to Motorola's leading portfolio of stylish and innovative Bluetooth products. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43684619 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't know for sure, but isn't it rather dangerous for a person riding a motorcycle to try and be connected to the internet at the same time? I know I would not feel good doing it, even if I did know how to ride a motorcycle. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jkarevoll@yahoo.com (JayKay) Subject: Best Phone to Use For Radio Telephone Interviews? Date: 14 Sep 2004 13:58:15 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I get called fairly often by radio stations for commentary. My current phone, AT&T 2-line 962, apparently doesn't cut it and I often find myself calling the studios back from the fax phone (a little better) or (after hooking it up) from a 25-year old rotary phone for call clarity (even better). But I'd like to get a new office phone that would be OK for these talk/news people. Any suggestions? ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Re: "Broadcast Flag", was Re: My New DVR From Cable One Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 16:17:29 -0500 Organization: http://newsguy.com Reply-To: jkelly@newsguy.com On Mon, 13 Sep 2004 15:35:53 -0000, pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) wrote: > Danny Burstein writes: >> Nope. He was just given given advance warning. New recording equipment >> is supposed to recognize a "do not record" flag that gets sent >> over-the-air along with the signal. Periodically a couple of the > Except that it isn't sent over the air, and the flag is part of their > licensing agreement with macrovision. Cable one was just passing along > FUD. Not FUD. The flag is sent over the air, and it has nothing to do with Macrovision. Unfortunately, Hollywood pulled a hold-up. It threatened to derail the DTV transition by withholding "high-value content" from over-the-air DTV, unless the FCC imposed "content protection" (aka DRM) on all future televisions and related devices. The idea was that content owners would implant a "broadcast flag" into DTV programming. When devices detect the flag, they have to "protect" (i.e., lock up in DRM jail) the programming. Sadly, the FCC bought it. Thanks to an FCC ruling, as of July 2005, it will be illegal to manufacture or import DTV tuners unless they include DRM technologies mandated by the FCC. See more at: http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/HDTV/ ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Weir & Partners Launches Norvergence Litigation Date: 14 Sep 2004 15:55:16 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) David O. Rodriguez wrote: > The firm of Weir & Partners LLP announced this morning that it has > obtained committed fee payments exceeding its required minimum of > $1,200,000.00 for the http://www.norvergencelitigation.com Norvergence > Litigation and wants to thank the many Norvergence customers who > signed up as clients. What is the point? The money is gone. It's not there. You can't get juice out of a stone. Maybe it's in some offshore bank somewhere, but if you can't find it, litigation isn't very useful. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think one of their efforts is going to be to get the court to void the 'leases' the business people had to sign in order to get the worthless Matrix boxes installed; to help get these people out of the onerous alleged 'debts' owed to the banks and leasing companies; and to demonstrate where possible any acts of collusion between Norvergence and those same leasing companies and banks, etc. And, they may well petition the court to allow the same clients to have a representative on the creditor's committee in the hopes of recovering some small portion of the money (back) they paid, although hopes of recovering any of the money are slim at best. But, it is better to be out a litle money paid than be on the hook for several more years of monthly payments. I think the Weir Partners attornies hope to be able to put the screws on the leasing companies and banks to defend their positions in purchasing that paper from Norvergence to begin with. Norvergence is not the first example of that sort of thing: The encyclopedia door-to-door sales people in the 1960's wound up getting sued and going bankrupt when the people who were pressured into buying the worthless sets of encyclopedias (thousands of them) with twenty year contracts to pay for worthless 'updates' found out they had been tricked also. Same kind of high pressure sales tactics, etc: you will be allowed to get this set of books for free if you agree to pay for annual updates for twenty years; better agree now, we won't be back in town, you will lose your chances, etc. The various 'loan companies' which had 'loaned' the money to the debtors (by in fact actually forwarding the money to the encyclopedia company) all screamed and squalled that they were innocent parties, just 'holders in due course' who wanted their money back. The court did not see it that way; it felt the loan companies could better absorb the losses than the little people who were tricked into buying the crappy books on contract. And I sort of think something like that may happen in this case: the court will rule that unsophisticted small business people were tricked by this, and instruct the banks and leasing companies to eat the losses themselves, or if they wish, file claims in bankruptcy court against Norvergence. And with this thought in mind, that the attornies may well try to turn the screws on the leasing companies and the banks (since, as you point out it would be fruitless to try and get money out of Norvergence), may God be merciful on those collection agencies who try to twist debtor's arms on this, because the court sure won't be. And is it indeed, a futile thing to try and get money out of the Norvergence principals? Maybe not ... more than once, people have been about to get sued (as Norvergence was in its latter days), somehow all the money disappeared, then they got sued (as happened with Norvergence due to the creditor's committee (of telephone companies) and when the creditor's committee then slapped service on every bank in the world looking to seize the remaining assets (it is like a 'discovery of assets' motion) and couldn't find any assets, the creditor's committee then *returned to court* with a new request: "In an effort to avoid the judgment of the court, defendant (in this case the encyclopedia company) secreted their assets on its persons where we could not find the money." If that is what happened in this case, that Solzano illegally converted some of the money for himself, then indeed, God will need to have mercy on Solzano. This case is going to go on for a long, long time (why do you think Weir Partners asked for such a large retainer?) so while you are waiting for a resolution, in the meantime, you should *freeze your own accounts payable to Norvergence*. Don't just give up your money to a collection agency. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Web Site Killings Raise Dilemmas for Media Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 18:47:28 EDT DUBAI (Reuters) - A terrified-looking man, rocking back and forth in his chair with his hands tied behind his back, appeals to the United States to leave Iraq and spare him death. Then a hand with a knife appears to slice off his head. "If we don't (leave Iraq), everyone is gonna be killed in this way ... I have been offered for exchange for prisoners here in Iraq," said the man, who identified himself as Benjamin Vanderford, 22. One news organization after another filed the story, only to find out later from the mother of the "computer savvy" man that it was a hoax. It showed how almost anyone can use the Internet to manipulate and frighten people and added to growing uncertainty over the credibility of Web sites or their use by Islamist groups as a terror platform. The video of this apparently staged killing used the graphic format and same logo seen in previous tapes of beheadings released by al Qaeda-linked militant groups. Vanderford, an American from San Francisco, said he staged the beheading using fake blood and began distributing the videotape on the Internet months ago. "It was part of a stunt, but no one noticed up until now," he said. Web sites which appear to be regularly used by Islamist militants often post videos of kidnappers with foreign hostages at gunpoint. Statements by shadowy groups pop up. Style and format is imitated from site to site and news organizations face the hard choice of authenticating them or at least judging what credibility if any to give them. The most problematic to authenticate are the grisly beheadings of hostages, such as the execution last month of 12 Nepalese workers kidnapped in Iraq. The perpetrators proudly displayed on an Islamist Web site a video accompanied with photos of their victims taken from all angles, splattered with blood, with bullet wounds in the head and back. One gunman held the severed head of one hostage aloft. MEDIA FRENZY Some observers accuse the media of unwillingly feeding this frenzy of brutal terror by reporting their gruesome acts. "Nobody needs to watch this. This is not human. By reporting these beheadings the media are giving kidnappers a chance to show their terror movies, but if they boycott such footage they would deny them this opportunity," Saudi Internet expert Fares bin Hazem told Reuters. Some analysts say Web sites, Arab satellite television channels and even news agencies have become tools playing into the hands of Islamists by allowing them to instill fear and set the news agenda with their threats and ultimatums. "Media all over the world hang on the kidnappers' every word, amplifying their message and handing them a victory far greater than the direct impact of their brutal acts," said Richard Eisendorf, president of International Media, Development, Peacebuilding Consulting in Washington. "Whether their objectives of turning people and governments against their involvement in Iraq are furthered or not through this attention, the terrorists feel that they have achieved a victory. Thus, the coverage reinforces the continued use of their murderous tactics," he wrote in Lebanon's Daily Star. Some believe media organizations need to draw up a new code of ethics to counter the goals of Islamist groups and deny them the publicity to threaten and terrorize. "Feeding a tape based on the brutal sacrifice of a human being is beyond irresponsible. It abets the murders. It clearly leads to more kidnappings and brutal deaths," Eisendorf added. "If since the start of the kidnapping campaign in Iraq the media banned airing any of the captor's videos and statements they would have been discouraged and given up. But with this media mobilization they see the strong reactions and they think that they are succeeding," Hazem added. PUBLIC BRUTALITY A French journalist taken hostage earlier this year in Iraq said his kidnappers were perplexed when they failed to get publicity for their action. "They kept asking me why I wasn't (appearing) on television," he was quoted as saying. While news organizations depend on witness accounts, reporters in the field and their own sources for news, analysts agree the Internet, which does not filter information, poses new challenges for media organizations to use their judgment. "The Internet has opened up the media to new sources of news, including terrorists," Professor William Dutton, Director of Oxford Internet Institute, said. "It is good news and bad news. I don't see a practical way of blocking that coverage." Some experts argue that censorship would breach the democratic values of journalism and that accounts and photographs of brutality of war were centuries-old. "They (Islamists) know that the Western media cannot censor news so they are using these values of journalism against us. They are intelligently using the media in ways we have not anticipated to serve their interests," Dutton said. Like many, Dutton believes that such brutal publicity would backfire. "They may get coverage but they are shooting themselves in the foot. People see their brutal means and the evil of what is being done. It may capture public attention but it will backfire on them because it creates public revulsion," he said. *** 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 and Yahoo News. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Microsoft Issues Patch; E-Mail ID Plan Rejected Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 18:51:05 EDT Separately, the world's largest software maker was dealt a setback on Tuesday after the Internet Engineering Task Force decided not to adopt Microsoft's e-mail sender ID standard that would make it easier for Internet providers to block unwanted junk e-mail. Microsoft, which now releases security bulletins and updates on a monthly cycle, said that its latest software flaw stems from the way its software processes images in the JPEG image format. Users opening a file or viewing a specific image could be at risk if a hacker exploits the flaw and tries to gain access to a personal computer. "The vulnerability could only be exploited by an attacker who persuaded a user to open a specially crafted file or to view a directory that contains the specially crafted image," Microsoft said in a statement, "There is no way for an attacker to force a user to open a malicious file." Microsoft launched a campaign in early 2002 to boost the security and reliability of its software, and has released a major update to Windows XP next month aimed at improving the security of the company's flagship operating system. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft urged users to download and install the patch to prevent any risk that the vulnerability may be exploited. The patch can be found at www.microsoft.com/security. The patch affects Microsoft's Windows XP, Office 2003, Project, Visio, Visual Studio, and other programs that handle JPEG images. "The one thing that makes this a bit different is that it affects so many applications," said Craig Schmugar, a virus research manager at McAfee Inc. The large number of Microsoft programs affected by the vulnerability could make it a tempting target for malicious code writers, Schmugar said. "Home users should definitely roll this (patch) out as soon as possible," Schmugar said. Microsoft also released another patch on Tuesday rated "important," affecting software used to convert WordPerfect files within Microsoft Office. ANTI-SPAM IDEA NIXED Microsoft combined its Caller ID for e-mail and Pobox.com co-founder Meng Wong's Sender Policy Framework last month for submission to the standards-setting Internet Engineering Task Force. But a working group within the task force led by Andrew Newton raised issues with Microsoft's patent claims on the technology behind its proposal, saying that license restrictions could make the standard difficult to adopt widely, according a memo posted online by the standards group. E-mail authentication proposals have been floating around since at least 1998, but experts have given the concept more attention over the past year as spam has exploded to account for up to 83 percent of all Internet traffic. Microsoft and Wong's proposals were aimed at making it difficult for spammers and scam artists to appropriate the e-mail addresses of others in order to slip through content filters, a tactic known as "spoofing." But the IETF, citing potential issues of compatibility between Microsoft's patent-protected technology and freely licensed protocols, rejected Microsoft's proposals. *** 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 and Yahoo News. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: On Fed Payroll, Hackers Seek to Save America Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 18:59:28 EDT IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (Reuters) - Jason Larsen types in a few lines of computer code to hack into the controls of a nearby chemical plant. Then he finds an online video camera inside and confirms that he has pumped up a pressure value. "It's the challenge. It's you finding the flaws," he said when asked about his motivation. "It's you against the defenders. It comes from a deep-seeded need to find out how things work." Larsen, 31, who wears his hair long and has braces on his teeth, is a computer hacker with a twist. His goal is not to wreak havoc, but to boost security for America's pipelines, railroads, utilities and other infrastructure, part of a project backed by the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Idaho lab last month launched a new cyber security center where expert hackers such as Larsen test computing vulnerabilities. Spread across 890 square miles in a remote area of eastern Idaho, INEEL gives experts access to an entire isolated infrastructure such as the one Larsen hacked into. "I don't think people have an understanding of what could be the impact of cyber attacks," Paul Kearns, director of INEEL, told Reuters. "They don't understand the threat." In recent months, U.S. security officials have warned that the nation is not prepared against cyber terrorism. "I am confident that there is no system connected to the Internet, either by modem or fixed connection, that can't be hacked into," said Laurin Dodd, who oversees INEEL's national security programs. He added that only a computing system totally isolated from the outside, such as that used by the Central Intelligence Agency would be immune to hacking. Another problem is that many once-isolated systems used to run railroads, pipelines and utilities are now also accessible via the Internet and thus susceptible to sabotage. "More and more of these things are being connected to the Internet, so they can be monitored at corporate headquarters," said Dodd, INEEL's associate lab director. "It is generally accepted that the August blackout last year could have been caused by that kind of activity." "Most people think risk in this area is not going to result in thousands of deaths," he continued. "If somebody could wreak havoc in the financial system by getting into computers and as a result people lost confidence in the financial system, that could be pretty consequential." Added lab director Kearns: "That's what al Qaeda is all about." PUZZLING OUT THE CODE Steve Schaeffer in INEEL's cyber security lab was recently asked to decode a General Electric designed system. "My test was to subvert that guy's system in some manner," he said. "It only took about two months before we had enough information to affect the protocol to affect operations." "If they can dial into the system, guess what, so can I." Lab officials emphasize that such hacking occurs within INEEL's own facilities rather than at real-life entities outside. The Swiss engineering group ABB (ABB.ST) recently signed an agreement to become INEEL's first cybersecurity customer to test their actual vulnerabilities. INEEL officials tell of a recent visit by an Idaho utility executive who declared his system had no problems. By the end of their demonstration, the shaken executive was asking for a comprehensive review of his firm. In another incident, INEEL's Larsen entered a U.S. agency in Washington D.C. and hacked into its computer system with a simple hand-held computing device, much to the surprise of officials there, a lab official said. Larsen declined to discuss the episode. When it comes to Larsen's background, there is a fair amount that he and his superiors prefer not to discuss. To gain the skills he has, one must have experience in the nebulous world of hacking. "This is one of the few places where it is legal to give people those kind of challenges," said Robert Hoffman, head of INEEL cyber security who hired Larsen. He said he was impressed that Larsen had written his first computer code at age 13. "I learned my hacking back when it was a cool thing," said Larsen as he spoke of computing in the pre-Internet days. He wore a black T shirt with the inscription "Stop laughing, computers are cool now." INEEL officials say the lab would not hire anyone who had committed criminal acts and added they must obtain security clearances. "How do you know that your wife is not going to clean our your bank account?" Schaeffer said. "You just trust people and you do background checks." The Idaho cyber security effort is part of the Department of Homeland Security's efforts to boost defenses against possible attacks of all kinds. INEEL seeks a delicate balance between encouraging key parts of the U.S. economy to boost their cyber security without inspiring any nefarious acts. "What you don't want to do is increase the threat by advertising what you can do. I think dirty bombs is one example," INEEL's national security head Dodd said. *** 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. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: A Proposal of Some Interest Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 21:00:00 EDT You may have noticed recently a number of articles submitted to the Digest by Lisa Minter, who tends to scour the net daily, especially Yahoo, looking for news items of interest. I've been printing the interesting ones, but taking care to include the *Fair Use Notice* with each of them. In the past I have never been able to afford on my own to subscribe to any news services for the Digest, and depend on correspondents like Monty Solomon, Jack Decker and others for press releases of interest. But I have been approached repeatedly by Google to begin using their 'ad-sense' program to raise money for the Digest. So earlier today I made application to Google to be included in that program. I am not sure if TELECOM Digest will be accepted or not, or if this meets their criteria of what is acceptable content or not. **Assuming it does meet their criteria** I will start including their javascript to produce ads on the web site version of the Digest only. According to a reader/contributor here in the Digest who has been on the Google Ad-Sense program for several months, they are honest, they do pay for clicks, etc and I can assume if all goes well to make a few hundred dollars per month from it. It will only affect the pages at http://telecom-digest.org, and will only remain while *I* decide how well it does here. Neither Usenet nor the mailing list will be involved in any way. **If it is successful** then I propose doing a couple things with the money: (1) I will subscribe to a news service or two so that I can use thier things here in the Digest without having to appeal to Fair Use each time I run something from them; and (2) I will pay Lisa Minter a small stipend each month to deliberatly find telecom-related stuff around the net to use here. All that assumes that the Digest gets accepted and that Google does not flood me with offensive ads, and that if the ads (and resulting payment for same) does not force me to compromise my own editorial integrity. Those are a lot of 'ifs' and I will keep you posted as I go along. 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 #429 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Sep 15 23:07:33 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8G37W607139; Wed, 15 Sep 2004 23:07:33 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 23:07:33 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409160307.i8G37W607139@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 #430 TELECOM Digest Wed, 15 Sep 2004 23:07:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 430 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Seeking Micro-PBX Info (William Warren) Motorola C350e Drivers (Ashish Thakkar) Conference Call with Four Parties? Programming (rd) Identity Theft //news.findlaw.com (ptownson@cableone.net) Google Alert - Norvergence (David O. Rodriguez) Re: Microsoft Issues Patch; E-Mail ID Plan Rejected (Ed Clarke) Re: Bluetooth Enabled Motorcycle Helmet From Motorola (Weintz) Re: Bluetooth Enabled Motorcycle Helmet From Motorola (Thor L. Simon) Re: Best Phone to Use For Radio Telephone Interviews? (Justin Time) Re: Best Phone to Use For Radio Telephone Interviews? (Scott Dorsey) Mercury Companies Licenses SageLogic Software TCM Solution (eworldwire) Canada: Commission to Decide How VoIP Can Be Sold (Decker - VOIP News) 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: William Warren Subject: Seeking Micro-PBX Info Organization: Comcast Online Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 04:27:23 GMT Hi, I have a client who wants a micro-PBX with these features: First, the "Gotta Have" features: 1. Supports standard "2500" sets - _*NO*_ special phones allowed. This is for a summer camp with _very_ limited AC. 2. About 10 stations. 3. Two outside lines, both used for incoming and outgoing calls Some features they would like, but are willing to do without: 1. Automatic night-service with direct ring-through to a specified extension 2. Ability to restrict which lines can dial out. 3. 911 dial-through without need for outside line access code, from all phones. Of course, they want to spend very little. C'est la vie. All suggestions welcome. TIA. William Warren (Filter noise from my return address for direct replies) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you can find one, the Melco PBX does almost all the above. They were seven hundred some dollars when they were being manufactured: 2 lines, 12 extensions, incoming calls always rang to extension 21 (which was a/k/a 0, zero, operator; it had no operator console or position), *super easy to install*, various features. You could allow or disallow 9-level for outside calls, etc. I think the Melco people went out of the telephone business entirely, but you can still see them around now and then on E-Bay. PAT] ------------------------------ From: romancingwithlife@fastmail.fm (Ashish Thakkar) Subject: Motorola C350e Drivers Date: 14 Sep 2004 22:54:35 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hi, Does anyone have Motorola c350e USB drivers? The drivers of c350 doesn't work with c350e. I would highly appreciate if someone could help. Regards, Ashish T. ------------------------------ From: rdaryani@aurigacorp.com (rd) Subject: Conference Call With Four Parties? Programming Date: 15 Sep 2004 13:03:25 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Wondering how we can program the Nortel system to have ourselves and 3 other parties connected. We have programmed for 3 outgoing lines but cannot connect the 3rd party. Getting a message saying only 3 three partes are allowed to be on conference call. Any help will be greatly appreciated. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 20:00:22 -0700 From: Lisa Minter Subject: Identity Thief Pleads Guilty I saw this on FindLaw and thought you might be interested. The best I could get was a link to it. Man Pleads Guilty in ID Theft Case http://news.findlaw.com/ap_stories/high_tech/1700/9-14-2004/20040914104502_52.html ------------------------------ From: David O. Rodriguez Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 01:42:16 -0500 Subject: Google Alert - Norvergence PLAINTIFFS Move For Injunction in Class Action against Norvergence ... Business Wire (press release) - San Francisco , CA , USA ... were assignees of leases and equipment rental agreements entered into between individuals and businesses and the telecommunications company, Norvergence, Inc. ... [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One of the attornies at Weir Partners said they are advising their clients (in the Norvergence matter) to resume making payments to the lease companies *on a limited, restricted basis*. He said they are going to try and get all the leases voided, but that one defense the leasing companies may use is that **prior to** any such order by the court the debtors were 'behind in their payments' (naturally!). You can do as you please, but if Weir is your attorney in this case, you may wish to follow their advice. PAT]n ------------------------------ From: Ed Clarke Subject: Re: Microsoft Issues Patch; E-Mail ID Plan Rejected Date: 15 Sep 2004 12:24:55 GMT Organization: Ciliophora Associates, Inc. Reply-To: clarke@cilia.org In article , Lisa Minter wrote: > Microsoft, which now releases security bulletins and updates on a > monthly cycle, said that its latest software flaw stems from the way > its software processes images in the JPEG image format. > Users opening a file or viewing a specific image could be at risk if a > hacker exploits the flaw and tries to gain access to a personal > computer. > "The vulnerability could only be exploited by an attacker who > persuaded a user to open a specially crafted file or to view a > directory that contains the specially crafted image," Microsoft said > in a statement, "There is no way for an attacker to force a user to > open a malicious file." WTF??? Ok folks, everyone out there who uses MS Internet Explorer with "show pictures" turned off please raise your hand. Anyone? It sounds like all I have to do is open the wrong web page. And if I really wanted to do something like that, I'd use a throw-away ebay userid and sell something guaranteed to get lots of hits on my picture - "Britney Spears and Paris Hilton Uncensored video!!! $0.99". [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I've said the same thing myself now and then. An easy way to get almost any guy to unwittingly accept a virus is by luring him into looking at some very hot, spicy sex picture, of which the internet is not lacking. Label the picture in some sort of very provocative way, and deliver your virus or spy cookie therein. PAT] ------------------------------ From: T. Sean Weintz Subject: Re: Bluetooth Enabled Motorcycle Helmet From Motorola, MOMODESIGN Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 15:33:39 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't know for sure, but isn't it > rather dangerous for a person riding a motorcycle to try and be > connected to the internet at the same time? I know I would not feel > good doing it, even if I did know how to ride a motorcycle. PAT] I think it's intended for connecting to a bluetooth enabled cellphone - it's essentially a wireless headset built into a motorcycle helmet. Given the fact that bluetooth has a range of only a few feet, ya can't use it for intenet. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Even so, when you ride a motorcycle you should be paying attention to that exclusively, IMO. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: Bluetooth Enabled Motorcycle Helmet From Motorola, MOMODESIGN Date: 14 Sep 2004 22:27:20 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to an article from Monty Solomon : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't know for sure, but isn't it > rather dangerous for a person riding a motorcycle to try and be > connected to the internet at the same time? I know I would not feel > good doing it, even if I did know how to ride a motorcycle. PAT] It is negligent -- in exactly the same way that driving a car while talking on the phone (since study after study has shown that it's the distraction that's the issue, *not* the use of hands, making "hands free kits" a well-known red herring) is negligent, only at the same time more and less so. When you're riding a bike, you're very unlikely to be endangering anyone other than yourself (few people _regularly_ ride with passengers). So perhaps it's not as negligent as driving while distracted; because, after all, you endanger only yourself. But at the same time, when you're riding, you need to continually be paying much more attention than you do when driving. Riding is very much like skiing, to draw an analogy to a more popular sport: it is always somewhat dangerous, and _usually_ requires a lot of concentration -- times when it doesn't are the exception, not the rule, and if you push yourself while riding, just as if you push yourself while skiing, even momentary distraction is one of the things that's most likely to get you killed. So maybe you could say it's more negligent. As someone who commutes every day on a motorcycle in heavy traffic, you can count me as positively dismayed that a helmet manufacturer would get involved in helping people talk on the phone while riding. This will get new riders killed and give all of us an even worse name, while experienced riders continue to know better. At the same time, getting killed in traffic is, I suppose, their right; but it is not something I have to be happy about, and I'm not. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com But as he knew no bad language, he had called him all the names of common objects that he could think of, and had screamed: "You lamp! You towel! You plate!" and so on. --Sigmund Freud ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: Best Phone to Use For Radio Telephone Interviews? Date: 15 Sep 2004 06:05:01 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com jkarevoll@yahoo.com (JayKay) wrote in message news: I get called fairly often by radio stations for commentary. My current > phone, AT&T 2-line 962, apparently doesn't cut it and I often find > myself calling the studios back from the fax phone (a little better) > or (after hooking it up) from a 25-year old rotary phone for call > clarity (even better). > But I'd like to get a new office phone that would be OK for these > talk/news people. > Any suggestions? If the radio stations are that interested in using you as an unpaid "expert and consultant" then have them put in a digital line. A 2B+D ISDN line, using NS-1 signalling is pretty much the standard for all the talk shows and remote broadcasts done in our area. ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Best Phone to Use For Radio Telephone Interviews? Date: 15 Sep 2004 15:48:52 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) JayKay wrote: > I get called fairly often by radio stations for commentary. My current > phone, AT&T 2-line 962, apparently doesn't cut it and I often find > myself calling the studios back from the fax phone (a little better) > or (after hooking it up) from a 25-year old rotary phone for call > clarity (even better). > But I'd like to get a new office phone that would be OK for these > talk/news people. > Any suggestions? As far as audio quality goes, I honestly have not used anything that sounds better than an old 500-set on the other end. Your next step up is probably a hybrid and dedicated mike. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 15:31:21 -0400 Subject: Mercury Companies Licenses SageLogic Software TCM Solution From: distribution@eworldwire.com Mercury Companies Inc. Licenses SageLogic Software Inc.'s TCM Solution For Complete Telecommunications Management And Control For Immediate Release DENVER & SAN FRANCISCO/EWORLDWIRE/Sep. 15, 2004 --- Mercury Companies, a leader in real estate financial services, and SageLogic Software Inc. a technology leader in providing comprehensive enterprise telecom software management solutions, announced today that they have completed an agreement whereby Mercury has licensed SageLogic's TCM enterprise software technology to manage and control all operational, financial, and network engineering activities of its nationwide telecommunication network servicing 350 branch offices. SageLogic's robust, enterprise-class software, based on state-of-the-art technology best suited for large- and mid-size companies, delivers full return on investment within six months for most enterprises. SageLogic's Telecommunication Cost Management (TCM) is the industry-leading enterprise-class telecommunications management software. TCM provides a complete end-to-end telecom industry ERP-caliber software designed to deliver significant reduction and optimization to the total function of telecom management and overall cost. With TCM, the Mercury Companies will capitalize on opportunities to reduce telecommunications voice and data costs, drive growth and improve overall profitability. "We chose SageLogic's TCM solution based upon the number of highly advanced modules. TCM is the most comprehensive package we were able to find in today's marketplace. An equally important factor in our decision was the quality of the people at SageLogic. SageLogic represents an understanding of business not commonly found in today's software providers," said Debra L. Niesen, Vice President of Communication Solutions. "We are delighted that the Mercury Companies chose SageLogic as the recommended telecom management solution for its nationwide business operations. We are particularly excited about partnering with the Mercury team and leader Debra Niesen to deliver major savings and benefits with our proven technology. During the evaluation the Mercury team has demonstrated solid understanding of complex issues, expertise and innovation, but above all a clear business and technology vision of telecom strategy at Mercury," said Roy Daheb, CEO at SageLogic Software Inc. About Mercury Companies Mercury Companies subsidiaries provide services to the real estate community. Services include settlement services, title insurance, real estate broker services, mortgage lending, software, and document preparation. Services are provided on a national level. About SageLogic Software Inc. SageLogic Software is the market leader in total Telecom Cost Management solutions. The company provides a complete software products suite directly and through partner delivery channels to enterprises to manage and control the entire telecom environment. SageLogic's enterprise suite of products is designed to help large and mid-size companies implement an intuitive and easy-to-use, comprehensive, integrated TCM solution. SageLogic enables companies to better manage voice and data communications services and supporting labor, resulting in dramatic cost reductions that contribute directly to the bottom line. SageLogic Software is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area in Burlingame, Calif. Additional information about SageLogic's products and services can be found at www.SageLogicSoftware.com, or it can be requested directly via email at sales@SageLogicSoftware.com or by calling (650)-579-0881. HTML: http://newsroom.eworldwire.com/wr/091504/10605.htm PDF: http://newsroom.eworldwire.com/pdf/091504/10605.pdf ONLINE NEWSROOM: http://newsroom.eworldwire.com/2838.htm LOGO: http://newsroom.eworldwire.com/2838.htm CONTACT: Peter Daheb SageLogic Software, Inc. 111 Anza Blvd. Suite 420 Burlingame, CA 94010 PHONE. 6505790881 FAX. 6505790883 EMAIL: pdaheb@sagelogicsoftware.com http://www.sagelogicsoftware.com SOURCE: SageLogic Software, Inc. Copyright 2004 Eworldwire, All rights reserved. Press Relase Distribution By EWORLDWIRE http://www.eworldwire.com (973)252-6800. For Media Questions: http://www.eworldwire.com/forthemedia.php ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 11:00:39 -0400 Subject: Canada: Commission to Decide How VoIP Can Be Sold Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1095199810656&call_pageid=968350072197&col=969048863851 Commission to decide how VoIP can be sold Telephone watchdog CRTC begins hearing next week. Established phone companies like Bell fear disadvantage. TYLER HAMILTON TECHNOLOGY REPORTER Is it possible to change a regulator's mind in 30 minutes? That's roughly how long Bell Canada will have next week to convince the nation's telephone watchdog that the emerging world of "VoIP" -- that is, phone service based on Internet protocol -- is so disruptive and fast-moving that it wouldn't be fair to slap regulatory shackles on Ma Bell. Next Tuesday, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission will begin a three-day hearing in Ottawa to determine how such an industry-transforming technology can and can't be sold to Canadians. Full story at: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1095199810656&call_pageid=968350072197&col=969048863851 How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ 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 #430 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Sep 16 19:02:06 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8GN26B16076; Thu, 16 Sep 2004 19:02:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 19:02:06 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409162302.i8GN26B16076@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 #431 TELECOM Digest Thu, 16 Sep 2004 19:02:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 431 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Reopening the Door to Product Placement (Monty Solomon) Microsoft Flip-Flop May Signal Blog Clog (Monty Solomon) Powell: Bells' Broadband Lines in TV's Future (Monty Solomon) Net Virus Turf War Resumes After Rival's Arrest (Lisa Minter) Re: Seeking Micro-PBX Info (Carl Navarro) Re: My New DVR From Cable One (Kosta) WiFi Hotspot Directory Includes Over 12,000 Listings (Riverwalk Mobile) Re: My Gripe With the Hype Around Skype and Five Good Reasons (Leo) Re: Last Laugh! Start the Day Right! (Gary Novosielski) 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: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 00:12:46 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Reopening the Door to Product Placement http://www.tvweek.com/article.cms?articleId=26008 Reopening the Door to Product Placement For the first time, Sony Pictures Television is going to re-edit an existing series episode to add a product placement that will air only in syndication, not during the regular network run. The new scene for "The King of Queens," which enters its second year of syndication this week, will incorporate a plug for Dr. Scholl's Massaging Gel Insoles. It is part of a sponsorship deal between SPT and Dr. Scholl's parent Schering-Plough that involves a sweepstakes offering as a prize: a behind-the-scenes tour of Sony Pictures Studios in Los Angeles. Schering will back the promotion with "millions of dollars" in advertising, including television, radio and print. Of course, what made us Blink was the idea that any current or past series where the actors are still alive could in theory be re-edited to add other placements in the future. How about some new Jockey shorts for "Raymond" or a Trojan condom placement in "Will & Grace," or maybe they can go back and have Halliburton sell lunch to the patients as they come off the battlefield on "M*A*S*H." -JON LAFAYETTE http://www.tvweek.com/article.cms?articleId=26008 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 10:16:48 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Microsoft Flip-Flop May Signal Blog Clog By Paul Festa Staff Writer, CNET News.com As Web logs gain in popularity, critics warn that they are increasingly becoming the Internet's new bandwidth hog. The issue has been in the spotlight for much of this month, following a decision by Microsoft to abbreviate developer blogs both on its Web site and in syndication, citing a bandwidth crunch. The Redmond, Wash., software giant stopped delivering the full text of postings on the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) to blog subscribers, requiring them instead to follow a link to read the postings in their entirety. Facing a clamor of criticism from its own developers, Microsoft on Tuesday backtracked on that decision. Microsoft's flip-flop is a red flag for large enterprises and other groups that host and syndicate bloggers. As the practice gains popularity, network administrators could face tough choices in meeting a demand that promises to put new strains on server resources. The developments at MSDN have also raised questions about fundamental Internet and blogging protocols and practices, with the "blogosphere" erupting in debates over everything from obscure extensions to HTTP to the wisdom of group blogs and the resurrection of push technology. http://news.com.com/2100-1032-5368454.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 11:28:15 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Powell: Bells' Broadband Lines in TV's Future By Reuters U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell on Wednesday said technology and telecommunications companies are racing to develop ways to pipe television shows into consumers' homes via high-speed Internet lines. Telephone companies like SBC Communications are trying to fend off mounting competition from cable television companies that are able to offer consumers a bundled package of products, including phone and Internet service. http://news.com.com/2100-1037-5368429.html ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Net Virus Turf War Resumes After Rival's Arrest Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 16:05:38 EDT LONDON (Reuters) A new virus outbreak emerged on Thursday that packs a baffling message: a photograph of accused German virus author Sven Jaschan that security officials believe to be a geeky taunt from a rival gang of computer programmers. Last week, German authorities charged 18-year-old Jaschan with sabotage for allegedly creating the destructive Sasser computer worm and Netsky computer viruses, some of the most potent digital outbreaks to ever hit the Internet. Following his arrest in May, the teenage computer wizard admitted to police he wrote the code for Sasser and more than two dozen Netsky viruses that wreaked havoc across the Internet during the first few months of 2004. Now, it appears, rival programmers are exulting in his downfall and using their favorite calling card -- a tenacious computer virus dubbed MyDoom -- to mock their vanquished foe. "I think the MyDoom group wants to rub it in that they won, Jaschan lost," said Mikko Hypponen, manager of anti-virus research at Finnish security firm F-Secure. In the past week, a volley of new MyDoom viruses have hit the Internet, including the most recent MyDoom.Y, which carries a file attachment with a mugshot of Jaschan. The viruses are relatively benign and have done little more than communicate to the world that their authors are still free to program new outbreaks. "The really bad guys are still out there," Hypponen said. BAD BLOOD RUNS DEEP The rivalry between Jaschan and the MyDoom gang became clear to anti-virus experts earlier in the year when Jaschan's Netsky virus was unleashed on the Net designed to hunt out and destroy MyDoom and another pesky virus, Bagel. Bagel and MyDoom contagions had been programmed to take control of vulnerable PCs and turn them into spam machines that spit out streams of junk e-mail. Netsky, at least in its earliest forms, was designed to defuse them. The real damage to computer users began when a programming war of sorts erupted with both sides devising new strains to eliminate the others' handiwork. Such rivalries between programming groups is nothing new. Security officials point to disputes between Indian and Pakistani hacking groups in 2002 and 2003. At one stage, a group calling themselves Indian Snakes unleashed a worm called Yaha that sought to knock out a series of Pakistani government Web sites. Oddly, the tussle between Jaschan and the MyDoom group may have its roots in a noble cause: the eradication of outbreaks capable of turning PCs into spam engines. "Jaschan probably thought of himself as a modern-day Robin Hood," Hypponen said. Other anti-virus experts are less sympathetic, pointing to Jaschan's final creation -- the Sasser worm -- that is blamed for knocking out an estimated 1 million computer systems of home users and companies around the world. Sasser victims range from the British Coastguard to the European Commission, web sites Goldman Sachs and Australia's Westpac Bank. Some security firms called it the most destructive worm ever. "Writing a virus to disable another virus is like fighting a war to win the peace. There's always going to be casualties," said Paul Wood, information security analyst with Britain's MessageLabs. ===================== *** FAIR USE NOTICE. 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For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Carl Navarro Subject: Re: Seeking Micro-PBX Info Reply-To: cnavarro@wcnet.org Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 05:41:22 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 04:27:23 GMT, William Warren wrote: > Hi, > I have a client who wants a micro-PBX with these features: > First, the "Gotta Have" features: > 1. Supports standard "2500" sets - _*NO*_ special phones allowed. This is > for a summer camp with _very_ limited AC. > 2. About 10 stations. > 3. Two outside lines, both used for incoming and outgoing calls yes,yes,yes > Some features they would like, but are willing to do without: > 1. Automatic night-service with direct ring-through to a specified > extension > 2. Ability to restrict which lines can dial out. >3. 911 > dial-through without need for outside line access code, from all > phones. yes,yes,no My choice would be a Panasonic KXT-61610 or KXT-A624, both for the ability to have SMDR (a printout) and the Call Management Products Call-Extend 2 port autoattendant. > Of course, they want to spend very little. C'est la vie. Little is about $1600 for the common equipment and $25 per phone. Installation extra. > All suggestions welcome. TIA. > William Warren > (Filter noise from my return address for direct replies) > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you can find one, the Melco PBX does > almost all the above. They were seven hundred some dollars when they > were being manufactured: 2 lines, 12 extensions, incoming calls always > rang to extension 21 (which was a/k/a 0, zero, operator; it had no > operator console or position), *super easy to install*, various features. > You could allow or disallow 9-level for outside calls, etc. I think > the Melco people went out of the telephone business entirely, but you > can still see them around now and then on E-Bay. PAT] Mercifully,, the Max-212 is harder and harder to come by. The 12 was also the operating voltage of the stations IIRC. A totally annoying system. Carl Navarro ------------------------------ From: peterb@nycap.rr.com (Kosta) Subject: Re: My New DVR From Cable One Date: 16 Sep 2004 07:01:51 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My television is a TV/VCR combination, > and I do now and then watch movies I get from the Blockbuster store > here in town, but I think only one time I recorded to it from the > television set. I have found one interesting thing about the new > DVR unit: I have a wireless cam in my back yard which focuses on a > bird sanctuary area which has a feeder, water and a couple nests. By > fiddling with the switches on the back of the DVR (and feeding the > wireless cam into it [instead of to the video AUX input on the TV as > I had been doing]) I can still watch over the birds from the comfort > of my house but I can switch between a small picture inside the larger > picture (what Cable One calls PIP or 'picture in picture') to a full > screen picture of the birds, as the cat torments them, or a picture > of what I had been watching or a little picture of one or the other > superimposed on the other picture (the PIP feature). PAT] Can you elaborate on how did you manage to do that? I have been trying to do the exact same thing with my DVR, but Time Warner said that it will not be possible. - Kosta [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You have to have *two* video sources on the cable, and an 'A/B' type switch which responds to remote control is useful as well. I have two units, one for the television in my parlor, and one for the television in my bedroom. Cable One said to me they are going to soon have available a 'new' DVR (although the current one is rather new) that has two distinct input/outputs on it, but for now, just make do with two cable converters and have the one DVR feed its output to the 'auxiliary input' of the other unit. Since the wireless camera I have on the combination bird sanctuary/ insect zoo/cat hiding place is not featured on our local cable system (!?) but it *does* put out an RF signal, with a bit of magic which I doubt that Cable One would approve of, I fed that RD signal into the RF converter on the DVR which turns RF into whatever the cable converter can deal with; so as far as the DVR is concerned it has its two 'television programs' coming to it from *two* video sources. Since the wireless cam has an audio lead as well, I could hook up audio as well, but I have not, since either the main picture or the PIP can be heard, but not both. Since the wireless cam also has infrared lights on it (which turn on or off based on a light sensor built in it), I can see the birds or the cat or various night crawling insects at any time, even midnight. The problem with that is that absent natural sun- light or artificial light (in other words, late night/early morning outside in a residential neighborhood), the resulting picture is a sort of greenish, 'bright gray' color in the invisible, infrared light. (My thanks to Mike Sandman for that infrared wireless cam; what he uses on his own cage-full of baby parakeets which you can see on his webcast of them as they sleep in their cage during the night.) But to answer your question, if you experiment with a second cable video source plugged into the main DVR unit, you should (admittedly after some grief) be able to get PIP working. I imagine that when Cable One gets their 'two source' DVR models available, Time Warner will have them also. I'm always getting into things I should not touch, which (for me) is amazing, since everything I touch, unlike King Midas, does NOT turn into gold, but rather into poo-poo. If you are interested, remind me to tell you how I (as of yesterday) took a mostly broken, busted up, very ancient IBM ThinkPad model 770 which had problems, no working CD Rom, no working floppy either, to run with Win 98 on it, upgraded from Win 95. *That* was a challenge, and I am very proud of my work, even though it is only 233 megs, *very slow*, but I got it working. PAT] ------------------------------ From: asnicholasjr@comcast.net (Riverwalk Mobile) Subject: WiFi Hotspot Directory Includes Over 12,000 Sites Including Intl! Date: 16 Sep 2004 07:44:36 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Greetings: Through our latest cooperation with Boingo, Wayport, FatPort, Telus and others we've dramatically increased the number of sites in our Directory. The directory can be accessed on your PC,Mac, Laptop, PDA or even an iPod! It's free and updated monthly so please go to www.riverwalkmobile.com to subscribe ------------------------------ From: laporte_leo@yahoo.com (Leo) Subject: Re: My Gripe With the Hype Around Skype and Five Good Reasons Date: 16 Sep 2004 11:32:58 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Monty Solomon wrote in message news:: > My gripe with the hype around Skype and five good reasons why you > shouldn't cancel your other phone services just yet. > I've been giving a lot of thought to all the hype that Skype has been > getting as of late. So much has been said about the great aspects of > Skype, of which there are a few, that in the interest of balancing > this with a bit of perspective on the downsides, I thought I'd throw a > few of my own opinions into the ring for you all to chew on. > http://apple.weblogsinc.com/entry/7391864753130518/ I think Skype is goin to see competition in the market in near future ... new competitors like dingotel.com will make the these VOIP based services improved better. ------------------------------ From: Gary Novosielski Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Start the Day Right! Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 19:17:49 GMT TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > That's not how my Windows 2000 or Windows 98 operates. [...] If > there is more than one file in the recycle bin then it says "Are you > sure you wish to get rid of these (number) files?". Must be some pirate version. My Win2KPro says "Are you sure you wish to delete all of the items in the recycle bin?" No {number of items} unless you only select some of them rather than empty the entire bin. Particularly no use of the words "get rid of", without which the joke isn't even a joke. Look again PAT, does it really say "get rid of" or "delete"? The original joke was to "get rid of" George W. Bush, which at least makes sense since he's the incumbent. Somebody changed it without keeping the humor intact. It's like a few weeks back, after the Dem convention in Boston, someone circulated a list of Kerryisms that were really recycled Bushisms, half of which were actually Dan Quayleisms. Besides, if you cause your computer to ask "Do you want to delete George W. Bush" then under the Patriot Act, you can be arrested, thrown in a cage down in Gitmo, and sodomized with a Cheyney bobblehead doll. So, my advice is don't try that at home. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are right, it must be a pirate copy of Win-2000; I'd rather take my chances with Microsoft any day than Bush when it came to offending one or the other. As to which one is *worst* -- who presumably the original joke was written for -- Kerry or Bush, in the past I would have said vote for Kerry to help deny another term for Bush, but that's like voting for the lesser of two evils. I have decided to do the *right* thing this time, and vote my conscience rather than for expedience, so I will vote for Badnarik and hope enough other people feel the same way to make a real difference. All of you are invited to 'cast your votes' for whomever by going to my web site http://kerry-or-bush-2004.us.tt to read and write what you think should happen. 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! 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #431 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Sep 17 20:17:11 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8I0HBS28200; Fri, 17 Sep 2004 20:17:11 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 20:17:11 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409180017.i8I0HBS28200@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 #432 TELECOM Digest Fri, 17 Sep 2004 20:17:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 432 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Amazon to Take Searches on Web to a New Depth (Monty Solomon) How to Protect Yourself From Vandals, Viruses Using Windows (M Solomon) iBasis to Offer Free Calls (Monty Solomon) The Pen Is Mightier Than the Lock (Monty Solomon) Intuit Pits Its Customers Against Its Partners (Monty Solomon) Why Jobs Should Heed VoIP's Call (Monty Solomon) A Great Phone, Tied Down (Monty Solomon) Interfacing With Telephone Ring + Tip?? (Zerang Shah) International Phone Numbers (ed) Re: Conference Call With Four Parties? Programming (John McHarry) Super Easy WIFI Hot Spot Kits - Indoor/Outdoor (Arthur Tyde) Re: Conference Call With Four Parties? Programming (Marise A Klapka) FTC Proposes (Tax Supported) Rewards for Spam Stoolies (Danny Burstein) Spammer 'Bounty Hunters' Will Need Cash, FTC Says (Lisa Minter) Internet Cafes Shut in Vietnam for Porn, Politics (Lisa Minter) Long-Distance Takes Local Route (Jack Decker - VOIP News) Packet 8 Share and Score (Jack Decker - VOIP News) 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: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 23:10:00 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Amazon to Take Searches on Web to a New Depth By JOHN MARKOFF PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 14 - Amazon.com , the e-commerce giant, plans to take aim at the Internet search king Google with an advanced technology that the company says will take searches beyond mere retrieval of Web pages to let users more fully manage the information they find. A9.com, a start-up owned by Amazon, said in a briefing here on Tuesday that it planned to make the new version of its search service, named A9.com, available Tuesday evening. The service will offer users the ability to store and edit bookmarks on an A9.com central server computer, keep track of each link clicked on previous visits to a Web page, and even make personal "diary" notes on those pages for viewing on subsequent visits. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/technology/15search.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 23:55:55 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: How to Protect Yourself From Vandals, Viruses If You Use Windows By WALTER S. MOSSBERG If you use a Windows personal computer to access the Internet, your personal files, your privacy and your security are all in jeopardy. An international criminal class of virus writers, hackers, digital vandals and sleazy businesspeople wakes up every day planning to attack your PC. And the company that controls the Windows platform, Microsoft, has made this too easy to do by carelessly opening numerous security holes in the operating system and its Web browser. Even if you install the recent Service Pack 2 update to Windows XP, you will still be vulnerable. As I have said before, I believe Microsoft and the computer makers should be taking care of all these problems with a unified, managed approach that would free users from having to learn about all the threats and constantly manage security. They should take responsibility for shielding users from hackers, spammers, viruses and spyware -- the malicious software that hijacks your browsing and searching, pushes ads into your face, and secretly logs your activities. But until that happens, you will have to fend for yourself. So here's a quick, rudimentary guide to protecting yourself in the digital world. http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20040916.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 00:29:32 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: iBasis to Offer Free Calls Carrier launches consumer service By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff iBasis Inc. , a Burlington company that has become a major behind-the-scenes wholesale carrier of international phone calls over the Internet for big phone companies like AT&T Corp. and Sprint , is launching its first direct consumer service with a splashy promotion: 1 million minutes of free phone calls for the first customers who sign up. The promotion, equivalent to 50,000 free 20-minute calls, covers free calls to most destinations in Western Europe and east Asia, as well as other big cities, including Buenos Aires, Lagos, Nigeria, Moscow, and Warsaw. Free calls, which may also be placed within the United States, are limited to two hours in duration. Any individual call made right before the 1 million minutes get used up will remain free until callers hang up. To market the consumer service, iBasis has set up a new website called Pingo.com, similar to other so-called "virtual calling card" sites. Using a credit card, people can buy prepaid minutes online that they can use to make international calls by entering a personal identification code, as if they had bought a prepaid calling card with a printed number at a store. Users are charged a 98-cent-a-month service fee, in addition to the cost of calls, and surcharges for calls made from payphones. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2004/09/15/ibasis_to_offer_free_calls/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 11:24:47 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Pen Is Mightier Than the Lock By LYDIA POLGREEN The cunning bicycle thieves of New York City always seem to be one step ahead of lockmakers. Design a more sophisticated lock and the thieves make a better pick. Make a sturdier chain and they get bigger bolt cutters. And if all else fails, they just dig up the parking meter or stop sign to unshackle the bike from it. But to open some of the toughest locks on the market, a thief needs only to flick his Bic pen. Many cyclists erupted in disbelief and anger this week after videos were posted on the Internet showing how a few seconds of work could pick many of the most expensive and common U-shaped locks, including several models made by Kryptonite, the most recognized brand. Mashing the empty barrel of a ballpoint pen into the cylindrical keyhole and turning it clockwise does the trick that has struck fear into the hearts of bicycle owners, especially those in New York, where thousands of bikes are stolen each year. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/17/nyregion/17lock.html Cyclists: Bike locks easy prey for thieves Kryptonite promises more secure product By Ross Kerber, Globe Staff Kryptonite, the large bicycle-lock maker, said yesterday it will speed the delivery of new versions of its burly locks following complaints that current versions can be picked open with flimsy ballpoint pens. This week cycling enthusiasts have deluged the Canton business with concerns over the security of the locks. The apparent vulnerability is related to broader concerns that have arisen lately against makers of locks used to secure everything from laptop computers to coin-operated laundry machines. Kryptonite is best known for its "U-lock" designs that consist of heavy U-shaped pieces of steel meant to be much harder to saw or pry apart compared with a traditional padlock and chain. Some of the U-locks use an "axial pin tumbler" in which a tubular key is inserted into a circular keyhole. But at least since the summer, security specialists have raised concerns that pens inserted into the keyhole can jimmy the lock apart. Lately some specialists have become quite vocal and begun posting videos of themselves at the task. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2004/09/16/cyclists_bike_locks_easy_prey_for_thieves/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 11:29:39 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Intuit Pits Its Customers Against Its Partners By Ed Foster , Section Columns In a way, you have to give Intuit credit. Who else could figure out how to "sunset" both their customers and their financial institution partners at the same time? Intuit's decision to disable its older technology for importing most types of bank account information in Quicken 2005 for Windows is causing quite a stir. "I remembered reading your story about Intuit no longer supporting on-line banking with older versions of Quicken, so I thought I should bite the bullet this year and upgrade to Quicken 2005 when it came out," a reader wrote. "So guess what -- with the new Quicken I can no longer download checking account info from my bank, something I could do perfectly well with Quicken 2002." The reader's bank informed her it had refused to pay Intuit's fees for implementing the OFX (Open Financial Exchange) download technology that is now mandatory for most online banking in Quicken 2005. "If I want to access my accounts, I have to revert to an older version of Quicken that still uses the .QIF file format," the reader wrote. "It's either that or type my data in by hand. Otherwise, my bank would have to charge an astronomical monthly fee to make up for extortion payments they'd be making to Intuit. What incredible greed!" http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2004/9/17/82751/2423 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 12:18:26 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Why Jobs Should Heed VoIP's Call BYTE OF THE APPLE By Alex Salkever Apple has what it would need -- including its ongoing transition to a services outfit -- to make a "Macphone" network work The hype surrounding the Aug. 31 launch of the third-generation iMac stole the thunder from another launch of great interest to Mac users. I'm referring to the public release -- also on Aug. 31 -- by free Internet telephony company Skype of a long-awaited beta version of its software for Apple ( AAPL ) OS X. Apparently I wasn't the only Machead jonesing for Skype. According to the company, 105,000 people have downloaded its Mac software since its launch. And bear in mind that this is a true beta version -- definitely not ready for prime time and lacking some of the key features of the full version available to Microsoft ( MSFT ) Windows and Linux users. http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2004/tc20040916_1040_tc056.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 12:59:52 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: A Great Phone, Tied Down Ten O'Clock Tech by Arik Hesseldahl But a week ago I swerved in new direction and dropped about $300 for an upgrade to the v710, which appears to be Motorola's highest-end phone that works on Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) networks, namely that of Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon and Vodafone. But then I learned that the phone can't do this via Bluetooth. I've been syncing my PalmOne Tungsten T handheld with my Mac for about year now using Bluetooth without difficulty. Exactly why this phone couldn't do the same thing seemed ridiculous. It turns out Verizon has had certain features in the phone disabled. Full Bluetooth support is one of them. This rules out the phone connecting to any Bluetooth devices other than a headset, such as a wireless keyboard or a printer or indeed another Bluetooth-enabled phone. Another missing feature is the ability to move a photo from the phone directly to a computer via Bluetooth or a data cable. When you take pictures on this phone, the only way to save them on a computer is to send them by e-mail over Verizon's wireless network, for which there is a charge. The network works just fine and sending pictures in this way is more or less flawless. But it's irritating to know that when you just want to take a picture and save it for yourself, you can't just move it directly from the phone to a computer. And Verizon operates a Web service called Pix Place, where you can send pictures and then download them to a PC. But why add an extra step to a process that should be simple? A Verizon Wireless spokeswoman tells me this is standard operating procedure across its camera phone lines. Verizon's product is not the phone, she says, but rather the network itself. Indeed. http://www.forbes.com/personaltech/2004/09/13/cx_ah_0913tentech.html ------------------------------ From: ninjak@gmx.de (zerang shah) Subject: Interfacing With Telephone Ring + Tip?? Date: 16 Sep 2004 18:06:37 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I have a design with a MT8880C DTMF transceiver ready to go. Right now it's outputing tones using a speaker, but I now need to output them across a telephone line to dial. I need to know a few things -- 1) How can I use the ring + tip to take the phone "off the hook" so that I can dial? 2) How can I take my DTMF frequency wire and interface it with the ring and tip of the telephone wire to dial out? Thanks for the help. ------------------------------ From: ed Subject: International Phone Numbers Organization: ed Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 23:08:01 +1000 Hi, I'm writing a parser for a project and have been looking for a web page or other source that lists the country codes alongside area code and the number of digitals in the local number. Could anybody suggest a web site or an alternative source? Thanks. ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Conference Call With Four Parties? Programming Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 23:59:33 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net rd wrote: > Wondering how we can program the Nortel system to have ourselves and 3 > other parties connected. We have programmed for 3 outgoing lines but > cannot connect the 3rd party. Getting a message saying only 3 three > partes are allowed to be on conference call. Any help will be greatly > appreciated. You didn't say what Nortel system. Anyway, going above three parties requires a more sophisticated bridge. Unless you have payed a premium for such, you are probably at your limit. ------------------------------ From: aftyde@tyde.net (Arthur Tyde) Subject: Super Easy WIFI Hot Spot Kits - Indoor/Outdoor Date: 17 Sep 2004 14:26:59 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Briefly, Sputnik http://www.sputnik.com, provides a fully integrated Wi-Fi hardware and software solution that centralizes all of the wireless network and subscriber management functions. Sputnik's plug-n-play provisioning allows customers to deploy in multiple locations with no on-site technical expertise, yet immediately manage and administer their wireless networks from any web browser. Sputnik's software architecture consists of intelligent embedded software running on Sputnik-powered Access Points (APs) at the edge of the network that communicates with Sputnik Control Center Server software, running in a data center, enables deployment, monitoring and control of the wireless network from any Web browser. In addition, our open, standards-based platform is designed for rapid application delivery and flexible integration with other back-end systems such as billing, prepaid cards, credit card payment options, rogue AP detection, and network management. At the present, over 1000 hotspot locations had successfully deployed Sputnik's Wi-Fi technology solution, including the UK. *Equally important, our Sputnik-Powered network has several advanced features:* Centralized Management * Provides a centralized interface for remotely monitoring, configuring and updating one or thousands of access points through a web browser. Reporting and Data Mining * Real time and historical reporting and statistics on subscribers, bandwidth usage, location, and usage patterns. Security * Handles all AAA (Access, Authentication, and Authorization) or plugs in to external AAA systems. * Support SSL-encrypted HTTP traffic, Corporate VPN, WEP and WAP. Customized Content * Customizable captive portals and location specific content which can be tailored to individual APs. Scalability * Sputnik Control Center manages hundreds to thousands of locations and APs. Start with a small network and add more locations and APs as the network expands. Plug-n-play Provisioning * Enables rapid, organic deployment of a wireless network-simply plug in Sputnik-Powered access points wherever needed. They initiate authenticated communications over the internet with Sputnik Control Center, automatically configured, and ready to go under remote management and control. For additional information, please visit our website at: www.sputnik.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Conference Call With Four Parties From: Marise A Klapka Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 11:32:08 -0500 Please Withhold My E-Mail Address. In response to: From: rdaryani@aurigacorp.com (rd) Subject: Conference Call With Four Parties? Programming Date: 15 Sep 2004 13:03:25 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com > Wondering how we can program the Nortel system to have ourselves and 3 > other parties connected. We have programmed for 3 outgoing lines but > cannot connect the 3rd party. Getting a message saying only 3 three > parties are allowed to be on conference call. Any help will be greatly > appreciated. If you're programming for 3 parties, that's the problem - you, the user, make 4. Not knowing the system model or software release, I'm not sure if these programming instructions will help, but .... LD 11 req: PRT type: TNB tn: WWW X YY ZZ (phone set's terminal number, or TN) Look for the phone's Key ## that is assigned "AOx" (AO3 = 3 parties, AO6 = 6 parties, etc.) If you don't know the TN, then: req: PRT type: DNB (phone set's extension) dn: enter extension # To change the number of parties allowed in a conference: LD 11 req: CHG type: enter the phone model/type here, i.e,. 2006, 2008, 2616, 3904, etc. tn: WWW X YY ZZ echg: YES item: Key ## AOx (## being the key number, x being the number of users that can be conferenced) Hope this helps. Marise ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: FTC Proposes (Tax Supported) Rewards For Spam Stoolies Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 23:23:21 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC The FTC today issued a report assessing whether and how a system that rewards members of the public for tracking down spammers would or could help improve enforcement of the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2002 (CAN-SPAM Act.)... http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/09/bounty.htm _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In this same issue of the Digest, Lisa Minter brings a detailed account of this FTC proposal. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Spammer 'Bounty Hunters' Will Need Cash, FTC Says Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 12:27:20 EDT Rewards of up to $250,000 will be needed to encourage people to turn over friends or associates who send out millions of deceptive e-mail pitches in violation of the law, the FTC said. And that cash will have to come out of the federal budget, rather than settlements collected from spammers, the FTC said. While millions of Internet users may be annoyed by spam, only a handful of insiders are likely to have enough information to form the basis of a case, the agency said. "The commission does not believe that the vast majority of consumers who are now forwarding 300,000 pieces of spam daily to the FTC spam database are likely to be a good source for such information," the FTC said in a report to Congress. Lawmakers asked the FTC to assess whether the government should encourage "cybersleuths" to help track down marketers who break the law by sending out deceptive pitches for herbal Viagra, pornography or other forms of spam. California Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren and other advocates have said such an approach would encourage technologically savvy citizens to help government investigators track down illicit marketers who often hide behind a trail of false online identities. The FTC didn't say whether it thought such a system was a good idea, but outlined conditions needed to make it work. To encourage insiders to come forward, they should be granted immunity and given the reward even if the FTC doesn't collect fines from the guilty party, the agency said. Even then, insiders might prove unwilling to cooperate as the FTC cannot grant immunity, the report said. "To the extent an insider has 'unclean hands' and faces potential legal liability, it is questionable whether such a person would be willing to assume the significant personal risk of coming forward," the report said. New Jersey Democratic Sen. Jon Corzine praised the report and said it would serve as a sound basis for a bounty-hunter program. "There is no single magic bullet in the battle against spam. But we've made so little progress to date that we can't afford to leave any reasonable approach untried," Corzine said in a statement. *** 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. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Internet Cafes Shut in Vietnam for Porn, Politics Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 12:28:38 EDT HANOI (Reuters) - Authorities in southern Vietnam have shut down 65 Internet cafes and kiosks after finding hundreds of addresses of pornographic and anti-government Web sites on their computers, a newspaper reported on Friday. The communist government recently intensified efforts to control use of the Internet by requiring customers of Internet cafes to register their identities and making cafe owners monitor the sites customers visit. Last month, authorities set up a special police unit to investigate online crime and curb the distribution of banned material in cyberspace. The 65 Internet outlets were shut down over the past two weeks in the bustling commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City, the city-run Phap Luat (Laws) newspaper said. Inspectors were continuing to scour computers in Internet outlets to see what sites customers had been visiting, the newspaper quoted the deputy head of the city's science and technology department, Hoang Le Minh, as saying. While the number of Internet users in Vietnam has been rising quickly, hitting 5.34 million at the end of July, the government curbs access to the global network through firewalls that block sites deemed inappropriate. All media in Vietnam are state controlled. *** 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. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 12:10:57 -0400 Subject: Long-Distance Takes Local Route Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0409170230sep17,1,7145420.story?coll=chi-business-hed Got friends or family in L.A.? New York? Miami? New Internet-based phone service from AT&T charges local rates for their calls to your home. By Jon Van Tribune staff reporter What's your local calling area? For AT&T customers, it can be across the country and all points in between. On Thursday AT&T Corp. rolled out a new product called Simple Reach to provide as many as 10 different phone numbers -- each from a different area code, such as New York City's 212 and San Francisco's 415 -- to customers using its Internet-based phone service. And all of those numbers can be answered by the customer's phone in Chicago using voice over Internet protocol technology, with the caller in those distant cities billed only a local charge. For a customer with out-of-town numbers in New York or San Francisco, it means that friends or relatives who live in those cities can dial a local number and avoid paying long-distance fees. Also Thursday, Vonage -- the company that pioneered VoIP -- said its customers can get phone numbers from Mexico City. Both firms charge about $5 a month for each virtual number. Although the quality of Internet-based calls sounds much like regular phone calls, the underlying technology is more closely related to sending an e-mail than traditional circuit-based phone service. As with Internet technology generally, VoIP has little connection to geography. But there could be a chaotic downside to having 10 phone numbers besides trying to keep track of them. Full story at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0409170230sep17,1,7145420.story?coll=chi-business-hed How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 13:43:36 -0400 Subject: Packet 8 Share and Score Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com Andy Abramson, in his VoIP watch blog at http://andyabramson.blogs.com/voipwatch/ notes that Packet8 seems to be the latest VoIP company to implement a customer referral program: [Begin quote:] Keith of VoIPNuke, who has resold Packet8 longer than anyone I know, pointed me to the new P8 referral program . This is taking a page out of both Vonage and AT&T's playbook. There is nothing more than one happy customer telling others about the service. Word of Mouth is the most valuable, next to word of mouse of course! ------------------------------ 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! 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #432 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Sep 18 14:44:27 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8IIiQi10869; Sat, 18 Sep 2004 14:44:27 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 14:44:27 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409181844.i8IIiQi10869@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 #433 TELECOM Digest Sat, 18 Sep 2004 14:45:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 433 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Google Ad Sense Installed (TELECOM Digest Editor) Internet Telephones: BCE, Telus Wary of Consumer Shift (Decker -- VOIP) USB to Serial Convertor as COM1 (Leander Vanhulle) Mitel SX-20 and SX-50 - Where to Sell; Where to Get Manual? (Robt Krten) Siemens Gigaset SL1 Colour (meATprivacyDOTnet) Re: International Phone Numbers (Joseph) Re: International Phone Numbers (Owain) Re: Interfacing With Telephone Ring + Tip?? (Gordon S. Hlavenka) Re: Intuit Pits Its Customers Against Its Partners (Thomas A. Horsley) EFFector 17.34: 9/11 Commission Recs Carry Hidden Threat (Monty Solomon) CTA Stops Trains to Conduct Terror Threat Searches (lisa_minter2001) 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: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 14:10:14 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Google Ad Sense Installed On Friday night, working with an experienced and savvy tech friend (actually he did the work, I sat and supervised), we got the long-awaited Google AdSense installed on our web site, http://telecom-digest.org . I have ads on the main entry page, (a single top banner), and ads on the latest-issue page (onr top-banner and three or four ads on the left side of the page.) We were unable to go strictly by the Google formula (they provide a patch of java script to be installed on your page) since the latest-issue.html page is constructed 'on the fly' as each new issue of the Digest is published. And since the code used 'on the fly' for each issue is stored here on massis, but output to telecom-digest.org using 'echo (whatever)' >> latest- issue.html the Google javascript had to be echoed also into the page as it was being constructed. And of course, the old browser truism, "this page looks best when viewed on IE (or Netscape or Mozilla, or Opera, etc)" was appropriate in my case also. Actually, this page looks best when you come here to my house, sit at my terminal and view it. I think we got it more or less adequate for the majority of browsers. You folks who use Proximotron or other advertising-erasers naturally won't get the 'benefit' of our work at all. The real proof of the effectiveness of Google AdSense will be in whether or not it makes money for the Digest, which is to say enough money to make it worthwhile without at the same time (or instead) being an affront to the sensibilities of most readers. I am going to watch the scorecard closely on this. Google provides a counter showing how many impressions or hits are made on a page, how many clicks are made on the advertisments, and a few other details. Your comments are welcome as we go along. The only readers affected are those folks who who read the Digest via the web site. Usenet comp.dcom.telecom is not affected, neither are the people on the mailing list. Usenet and mailing list people are getting what they always did. But since the big thing these days is to commercialize the web I may as well get in on the action also. As of today, I am still uncertain if this will pay off or not. I do think Google is honest about clicks and all that, but how many people will click or be influenced to buy stuff as a result is another matter. Let me have your ideas. Have *you* ever bought anything off the net by clicking on an advertisement? PAT ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 09:22:16 -0400 Subject: Internet telephones: BCE, Telus Wary of Consumer Shift Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=d492a4dd-ffcf-44f5-9f4e-6fc5e0781e73 New tech threat to telcos; Internet telephones: BCE, Telus wary of consumer shift to upstarts' systems Kevin Restivo Financial Post Andy Church is part of a new breed of phone users. The 39-year-old Ottawa resident happily makes calls from his home computer using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology, which allows him to route calls through his computer and avoid paying bills to Canada's largest phone companies. "I wasn't getting any value for the $50 a month I was paying Bell [for local phone service]," said Mr. Church, a self-described technology enthusiast who eight months ago swapped his Bell Canada service for Primus Telecommunications Canada Inc.'s TalkBroadband service. Mr. Church, who pays about $60 a month with Primus, said the allure of 10 calling features and unlimited local and long-distance calls made the decision to cut his Bell service an easy choice. He is one of about 15,000 Canadians who have switched to VoIP services, or Internet telephony, according to the Seaboard Group research firm. Upstarts such as Primus sell it for less than the traditional phone lines offered by incumbents Bell Canada or Telus Inc., the two largest telcos in Canada. Internet telephony moves voice calls over networks much like e-mails or Web page data are transmitted over computers. Users need only a computer with Internet access, a microphone or handset and the appropriate software. Internet phone service typically costs $14.95 to $19.95 a month from a range of providers with names such as Vonage Holdings Corp. and Call-Net Enterprises Inc. By comparison, Bell's traditional service costs consumers $40 to $60 a month. The rise of VoIP threatens the stranglehold held by BCE Inc., Bell Canada's parent, on Canada's residential and business phone lines. "They're in trouble and they know it," said Brian Sharwood, an analyst with the Seaboard Group in Toronto. "It's not hyperbole to say Internet telephony is the biggest threat Bell has ever faced." Full story at: http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=d492a4dd-ffcf-44f5-9f4e-6fc5e0781e73 How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: LeanderVanhulle@hotmail.com (Leander Vanhulle) Subject: USB to Serial Convertor as COM1 Date: 18 Sep 2004 06:53:48 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I have an external serial port connected with usb on my computer. My original port is broken. How do you let it work under DOS as COM1, with Windows its no problem but it doesn't work under DOS. ------------------------------ From: rk@parse.com (Robert Krten) Subject: Mitel SX-20 and SX-50 -- Where to Sell; Where to Get Manual? Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 20:28:01 -0500 Hi folks, I have a Mitel SX-50 for sale that's pretty much loaded, but I have a few questions first. Obviously, I'd like to test it out as much as possible, and to that end I'm looking for an SX-50 manual. The software generic is "MS54-MR1-UR3". Can anyone help? I'd need connector pinouts and programming information. Next up, once I get it running, I'd like to sell it -- is this an appropriate forum in which to do that? Or is eBay going to be a better place to maximize the cash I can get for it? It has the following: 4 x 9104-020-001-SA "ONS Line Card" 1 x 9104-020-001 "ONS Line Card" 1 x 9104-030-110-SA "DID Trunk Card" 2 x 9104-021-001-SA "COV Line Card" 1 x 9104-030-101-SA "LS/GS Trunk Card" 1 x 9104-060-001-NA "SX-50 Console" 1 x 9104-011-105-SA "SX-50 Generic Module" (MS54; rev D) 1 x 9104-010-100 "Main Control Card" It does *not* have the "utility card" -- is that required, or is it optional? I also have a bunch of Mitel SX-20s with CPU II's and generic 503-07 installed; I may be convinced to part with one -- but I need to play with them first. Same question about location for resale (but I have manuals, thanks :-)). Cheers, -RK [If replying via email, you'll need to click on the URL that's emailed to you afterwards to forward the email to me -- spam filters and all that] Robert Krten, PDP minicomputer collector http://www.parse.com/~pdp8/ ------------------------------ From: meATprivacyDOTnet Subject: Siemens Gigaset SL1 Colour Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 11:02:17 +0200 Hi all, It looks like that Siemens is going to discontinue the Gigaset SL1 Colour DECT handset. Do you know if it will be replaced by a new model? What is the current best DECT handset from Siemens? I plan to buy a few handsets to connect to a Gigaset SX353isdn base station. Thanks. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: International Phone Numbers Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 18:51:08 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 23:08:01 +1000, ed wrote: > Hi, I'm writing a parser for a project and have been looking for a web > page or other source that lists the country codes alongside area code > and the number of digitals in the local number. Could anybody suggest > a web site or an alternative source? http://www.wtng.info/ ------------------------------ From: spuorgelgoog@gowanhill.com (Owain) Subject: Re: International Phone Numbers Date: 18 Sep 2004 04:43:04 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com ed wrote: > Hi, I'm writing a parser for a project and have been looking for > a web page or other source that lists the country codes alongside > area code and the number of digitals in the local number. > Could anybody suggest a web site or an alternative source? You can find some information here: http://kropla.com/dialcode.htm (summary) http://www.wtng.info/index.html (comprehensive) http://www.numberingplans.com/index.php?goto=guide&topic=E123 Owain ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 01:24:30 -0500 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Reply-To: nospam@crashelex.com Organization: Crash Electronics Subject: Re: Interfacing With Telephone Ring + Tip?? zerang shah wrote: > 1) How can I use the ring + tip to take the phone "off the hook" so > that I can dial? > 2) How can I take my DTMF frequency wire and interface it with the > ring and tip of the telephone wire to dial out? A quick poke at Google brought this site up: http://www.hut.fi/Misc/Electronics/circuits/teleinterface.html Gordon S. Hlavenka http://www.crashelectronics.com "If we imagined he could _find_ the car, we could pretend it might be fixed." - Calvin ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Intuit Pits Its Customers Against Its Partners From: tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 02:54:21 GMT Intuit became only the 2nd entry in my lifetime, it doesn't matter how much (or if) they improve, boycott when they added activation to turbo tax, and it decided on the 2nd day after I installed and activated that it wasn't actually activated after all (of course subsequent attempts to activate it again errored out because it was already activated). Intuit seems to be going down the "new Coke" self destruction path, only without the realization that they screwed up (which Coke finally acknowledged :-). I expect Quicken 2006 to charge you a nickel for each line item you add and stop working if you don't send in payment every month. >>==>> The *Best* political site >>==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL | Free Software and Politics <<==+ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 23:22:20 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 17.34: 9/11 Commission Recs Carry Hidden Threat EFFector Vol. 17, No. 34 September 17, 2004 donna@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 306th Issue of EFFector: * 9/11 Commission Recommendations Carry Hidden Threat to Privacy, Freedom * Betamax Under Siege - Again * EFF Supports Yahoo! in French Censorship Case * Publish Globally, Censor Locally? * BayFF Event - Join Us for "E-voting and the Upcoming Election" on Tuesday, October 12 * Only 46 Days Until the Election - Register to Vote Now! * MiniLinks (16): TiVo, ReplayTV Agree to "Limits" on Relationship with Public * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/17/34.php ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 10:55:52 PDT From: Lisa Minter Subject: CTA Stops Trains to Conduct Terror Threat Searches The Associated Press Anti-terrorism patrols have begun security sweeps of Chicago Transit Authority trains to look for suspicious packages and passengers. Chicago Police and CTA security said they wanted to protect the city's elevated train system against terrorism similar to a deadly March train bombing in Spain. Islamic militants with possible links to al-Qaida are blamed for planting 10 backpack bombs on four commuter trains in the attack that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,600. While there have been no threats specifically targeting Chicago or the CTA, officials said Monday they wanted to reassure passengers the city will be proactive to prevent an attack. "It lets riders know we are out there trying to harden the target, so their commute will be safe," said Cmdr. Ed Gross, who heads the Police Department's public transportation division. The sweeps began Aug. 30, officials said. Four eight-member security teams, including K-9 units, target randomly selected stations, stopping every train to search every car. The average search takes three to five minutes. "We use the coordinated effort to reduce delays to a very minimum," Gross said. "And the only time you'll have a long delay is if we find something that doesn't belong there." The sweeps were originally planned to last until the Nov. 5 presidential election, but will likely continue past that date, Gross said. "This will be part of our normal procedure of policing the CTA," Gross said. "Random searches will not stop." Copyright (c) 2004, The Associated Press *** 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 owners, in this instance Associated Press, and Chicago Tribune. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ 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 #433 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Sep 19 19:17:47 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8JNHlZ22313; Sun, 19 Sep 2004 19:17:47 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 19:17:47 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409192317.i8JNHlZ22313@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 #434 TELECOM Digest Sun, 19 Sep 2004 19:18:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 434 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator (Monty Solomon) Attack of the Radio Clones (Monty Solomon) Cannot Switch Local Telco Without Disconnecting Comcast Broadband (Alex) Are USOC and SORD Telecom Standard? (Matt) Catch 22: Security Clearances (Fedmarket.com) Telephone Information - Good and Bad Examples (Lisa Hancock) AAA Battery Pack For StarTac telephone? (Doug Faunt N6TQS) Telephone to PC Messaging (Huntley Meadows) Cordless Phone (Alex T.) Re: USB to Serial Convertor as COM1 (John Dearing) Re: USB to Serial Convertor as COM1 (Gary Breuckman) Re: Intuit Pits Its Customers Against Its Partners (AES/newspost) Re: Best Phone to Use For Radio Telephone Interviews? (JayKay) Re: Conference Call With Four Parties? Programming (Al Gillis) Re: Google Ad Sense Installed (Dave Garland) Re: Packet 8 Share and Score (Isaiah Beard) 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: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 12:45:23 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator Hughes Network Systems Introduces Satellite-based Virtual Private Network Solution DIRECWAY(R) VPN Accelerator Answers Growing Demand for Teleworking in Both Urban and Rural Locations GERMANTOWN, Md., Sept. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Hughes Network Systems, Inc. (HNS), the world's leading provider of satellite broadband solutions, which it markets under the DIRECWAY(R) brand, today introduced a satellite-based virtual private network (VPN) acceleration technology. Based on the IPsec standard, DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator enables enterprises and government agencies to implement uniformly efficient and secure, wide area broadband networks, reaching teleworker employees at any location, urban or rural. There are approximately 24 million teleworkers in both the private and public sectors throughout the United States today. In order to satisfy the remote networking demands unleashed by this fast growing trend, organizations are increasingly moving from conventional leased lines or frame relay technology to broadband satellite-based solutions. DIRECWAY's continent-wide service now offers an advanced VPN acceleration technology to connect teleworkers located at branch offices or homes, anywhere, to their private intranets. DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator has been designed to interoperate seamlessly with industry standard Nortel IPsec VPN solutions, and in later releases, with Check Point and Cisco systems. It enables the implementation of uniformly secure and responsive VPNs, eliminating the latency constraints of prior satellite-based VPNs. http://finance.lycos.com/qc/news/story.aspx?story=200409141203_PRN__DCTU013 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 22:34:50 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Attack of the Radio Clones by Randy Dotinga Generic mouthwashes claim to be just as good as Listerine, and store-brand paper towels invite consumers to compare them to Bounty. This kind of marketing doesn't raise many eyebrows. But what if an online radio station says it's just "like" New York City's Z100 or L.A.'s KROQ, and manages to sound pretty much the same? Good question. Soon, the world's largest software company, a staunch defender of its own copyrights, may have to answer it in court. Earlier this month, Microsoft began charging users to listen to online clones of 978 U.S. and Canadian radio stations with '"fewer ads, no DJ chatter and less repetition." And no, Bill Gates didn't ask the stations for permission to copy their playlists. Irony, anyone? "Microsoft is going to be on the side of 'You don't own information.' Isn't that interesting," says Doris Estelle Long , professor of internet law at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago. "They're usually sticking up signs saying, 'Mine, mine, mine.' This is a situation where they'll be on the other side of the fence." The broadcasting industry, surprised by the debut of Microsoft's Radio Plus service, hasn't reached full freak-out mode yet. But no one is thrilled, either. "It's more of an annoyance at this point, because webcasting doesn't have anything like an audience size that's going to threaten radio right now," said Brida Connolly, technology editor at trade journal Radio & Records . "But radio people are not happy about it." Not least of their gripes is the fact that Microsoft is dipping into a database of radio station playlists without kicking back any of the $30 Radio Plus yearly access fee to broadcasters. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,64984,00.html ------------------------------ From: tetromino@gmail.com (Alex Rostovtsev) Subject: Cannot Switch Local Telco Without Disconnecting Comcast Broadband Date: 18 Sep 2004 12:03:29 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I live in Maryland, US. Currently I use Verizon local phone line and Comcast high-speed internet (cable modem). I decided to switch to Cavalier Telephone for local phone service to save something like $13 per month (Verizon's prices are quite high). Cavalier techs tell me that they can't switch me because Verizon won't release my number until I disconnect from Comcast HSI. Is Cavalier lying? Can a cable / cable internet subscription affect whether I can switch local telephone providers? Is there some sort of a deal between Comcast and Verizon for preserving their monolopolies? I am a newbie with regards to telephone service, so I have no idea what to believe. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Telephone companies can and do play games all the time regards DSL service ("must take our phone service to keep your broadband", etc.) Only here and there, rarely, has that requirement been eliminated when telco found that in their best interest instead. That *never* applies when you are (or become) served by cable broadband instead of DSL. You really should double check to make certain their is no miscommunication here between Cavalier and Verizon. Example of miscommunication: You tell Cavalier "I want to subscribe to your service and oh, by the way I also have 'broadband internet' (or 'high speed internet'). In other words, phraseology like that; casual conversation with rep. In other words, you did not specifically say 'Comcast Cable', you said (or were misunderstood to say) 'broadband' or 'high speed'. Cavalier rep notes on the order to start service somewhere the phrase 'DSL' or 'highspeed internet' or similar. Does Cavalier also sell or broker DSL type service from telco, as Duane does at TerraWorld/Prairie Stream? I suspect that *someone* got their order instructions and telephone terminology confused here. The Cavalier tech (who may or may not have known what he was talking about) was talking to the Verizon tech (who likewise may or may not have known what he was talking about); one or the other of them (probably Cavalier) said the word 'DSL' or 'highspeed' causing the other tech (probably the Verizon one) to lock out his brain and ears to the rest of the conversation or order. After all, every Verizon (or any generic Bell) tech 'knows' to 'just say no' to any attempt to take away a line which has always been theirs 'if the customer has broadband'. So then the tech (or some know nothing service rep from Cavalier calls you back and tells you Verizon won't let of the line because of your internet. Do you rememeber the game called 'chinese telephone' where people sit in a circle; the one who starts it whispers some nonsense to the person next to him; each person in turn keeps whispering once relaying the same nonsense to the next person; eventually it works its way back to the originator and some distorted answer gets repeated back for the group? That's what I suspect happened to you. *Someone* in the inner circle at Cavalier, their techs, the Verizon techs, and the Verizon policy makers got the facts incorrect. No one at Verizon bothered to check your line for (their version of) high speed internet, nor did anyone at Cavalier step in to clarify the response. They all tossed around words like 'Comcast', 'high speed', 'broadband' and 'DSL' as though they actually knew what they were talking about. So I would put the order in again, and keep my mouth shut about any Internet, period. See if that helps, if you, the customer, do not confuse or overload their tiny, one-volt brains. Don't confuse the typical rep by talking about those things; doesn't matter in your case anyway. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jrefactors@hotmail.com (Matt) ubject: Are USOC and SORD Telecom Standard? Date: 18 Sep 2004 15:58:53 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I want to know if USOC and SORD are telecom standard? I tried to search for useful pointers but I can't. Is USOC to identify the product? For example, usage, orientation, and slot attributes? I want to learn more about that. Can anyone gives me some good URLs on that? Please advise. Thanks!! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 18:20:01 -0700 From: Fedmarket.com Subject: Catch 22: Security Clearances Reply-To: Fedmarket.com Catch 22 - The Security Clearance Process; your company can't get critical security clearances for its personnel until it has a contract requiring clearances and your business can't get a contract requiring clearances until your people and facility are fully cleared. The federal government might not want to admit this but requiring clearances restricts competition and gives those companies holding security clearances a formidable edge in closing a sale. As you can well imagine, the large prime contractors are best positioned when it comes to having security clearances. We therefore suggest that your company get started immediately with trying to obtain security clearances. Although the process can often be somewhat frustrating and painful, obtaining clearances has become increasingly critical in the post-9/11 federal market. The security clearance process can be a significant investment to any company and it is important that companies who are considering this route have a clear understanding of the process. Before investing significant dollars to obtain a security clearance, attend Fedmarket's 1-day seminar on the "Introduction to the Security Clearance Process" and get a layman's definition of what it is all about. This 1-day seminar is an introduction that will give you a high-level understanding of what is required. More importantly, you will have the opportunity to ask specific questions and get it straight from the expert who has conducted and managed many clearances for the National Security Agency. "An Introduction to the Security Clearance Process" provides you with a basis of information on the complexities of obtaining a security clearance in order to make informed decisions. This 1-day seminar provides basic information on the overall security clearance process, which is critical to the overall understanding of the security requirement. Dates and Location: September 27 and October 20 Holiday Inn Select in Bethesda, MD Cost $500 per person, $50 discount for each additional attendee from your company. This 1-day seminar will provide attendees the following information: * A base of knowledge of the entire Security Process, which is critical to the overall understanding of Security. * An understanding of the differences between security requirements of different agencies. * Highlights of the personnel and physical security process. * Guidelines on Information Security. TIME & TOPICS 8:30 - 9:00 Registration and Continental Breakfast 9:00 - 10:30 Security Clearance Overview: Why do I need it and how do I get it? 10:30 - 11:00 Break 11:00 - 12:30 Understanding the Clearance Criteria and Foreign National Issues 12:30 - 2:00 Lunch Break 2:00 - 3:30 Understanding the Different Clearance Levels and their Requirements 3:30 - 4:00 Break 4:00 - 4:30 Questions & Answers (One-on-one discussions with speakers) For more information visit: http://www.fedmarket.com/productTour/seminar/introSecurity.php To register, please print and complete the following form and fax to 208.726.5590. To pay by check, please print and mail form and check to: Fedmarket.com P.O. Box 6639 Ketchum, ID 83340 To register on-line visit our website http://www.fedmarket.com/ or call 888.661.4094 ext 14. Name: ________________________________________ Title: _______________________________________ Company: _____________________________________ Address: ____________________________________ City: ________________________________________ State: _______________________________________ Zip: _________________________________________ Phone: _______________________________________ Fax: _________________________________________ Email: _______________________________________ Credit Card #: _______________________________ Expiration Date: _____________________________ Cardholder Name: _____________________________ (please print) Please check the seminar you would like to attend: (Sept. 27) ______ (Oct. 20) _______ If you have any questions at all, please call or write me. Regards, Shelly Gluck Seminar Coordinator Fedmarket.com sgluck@fedmarket.com (888)661.4094 X14 ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Telephone Information - Good and Bad Examples Date: 18 Sep 2004 18:18:49 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I had the occassion to call two different passenger carriers for service information. One was NJ Transit, the other was Metro-North Railroad. Both serve the NYC metro area. NJT was horrible. They had a 15 minute wait the first time I called (1pm weekday), then 10 minute wait (2pm weekday). I can't sit on the phone and wait that long. I then sent them an email -- telling them I couldn't get through on the phone -- and after a few days they wrote back and said to use the phone. So much for common sense. [The information I wanted was not on their webpage]. Metro North RR was great. They had a very simple voice mail menu -- press 1 for automated, simply stay on the line for a person. I waited and virtually immediately a knowledgeable person answered and quickly answered my questions. I asked for schedules to be mailed to me and they came promptly. In today's world of automated systems with no escape, it was nice that at least provider offers good and easy telephone information service. It's too bad most companies and government can't do this. ------------------------------ From: Doug Faunt N6TQS Subject: AAA Battery Pack For StarTac Telephone? Date: 18 Sep 2004 22:55:26 -0400 Organization: at home, in Oakland, California Back when I was using a StarTac telephone I bought a battery case from Radio Shack, their number 23-1481. It's turned out to be most useful when using the StarTac as a backup or loaner 'phone with prepaid service. My wife has also got one of these 'phones and would like to locate another such a battery case. Any pointers? 73, doug ------------------------------ From: ckm1955@gmail.com (Huntley Meadows) Subject: Telephone to PC Messaging Date: 18 Sep 2004 22:02:59 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I often find I am surfing the net on a dial-up modem when my daughter is trying to reach me. She finds me hogging the only telephone at home, and is unable to reach me. Short of my getting a second phone or broadband, is there a cheaper solution? I was wondering specifically as to whether there is a way for my daughter to send a message using some service whereby the message would show up on my PC in real-time (a la IM), so as to allow me to get off the phone to receive her call. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Do you have a cell phone? Call-forward or (have telco) hunt to your cell phone. Does your telco also offer voicemail? Have your inbound calls (when line is busy) go to voice mail. Also I should mention that America OnLine has a service of their own referred to as 'call waiting' where your phone is call-forwarded to some 800 number of theirs; when AOL sees an incoming call for your number, if you are on line (with them, naturally) they will send a flash message to your screen saying "(caller ID of caller) is trying to get through to you" or some words like that. PAT] ------------------------------ From: alex_s_42@yahoo.com (Alex T.) Subject: Cordless Phone Date: 19 Sep 2004 00:47:07 -0700 I'm shopping for a cordless phone. It appears that I have a number of options: 1. 900MHz, 2.4GHz or 5.8Gz 2. analog or DSS It seems to me that 900MHz DSS (spread spectrum) should be a better option, since it won't interfere with my WLAN network and has lower power, both because it's spread spectrum and also because it has lower frequency. The problem is, there are seems to be no more new models in 900MHz range, all the new ones are 5.8GHz. One thing that adds to confuision is the fact that sometimes they write on the box "digital", instead of DSS, whatever that means. Anyway, what would you recommend? Advice on specific model would be appriciated. I'm not looking for anything too fancy, just good sound quality, no interference with WLAN, DSS and answering machine. ------------------------------ From: John Dearing Subject: Re: USB to Serial Convertor as COM1 Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 19:07:36 GMT Leander Vanhulle wrote: > I have an external serial port connected with usb on my computer. My > original port is broken. How do you let it work under DOS as COM1, > with Windows its no problem but it doesn't work under DOS. And it probably won't since DOS has no built-in support for USB. You'd need to get USB drivers for DSO from the manufacturer of the USB to serial adapter. Good luck, many pretend as if DOS never existed. 8-( John Dearing A+, Network+ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, they do, and 'tis a pity, because there are simply some things which I can do better/easier under DOS than under Windows. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Gary Breuckman Subject: Re: USB to Serial Convertor as COM1 Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 14:17:11 -0500 Organization: Puma's Lair - catbox.com In article , "Leander Vanhulle" wrote: > I have an external serial port connected with usb on my computer. My > original port is broken. How do you let it work under DOS as COM1, with > Windows its no problem but it doesn't work under DOS. USB support is part of Windows, it won't work under DOS, but might work with a DOS window inside Windows. A serial card that installs in the expansion area and is recognized at boot might be better. That's one of the problem with USB mice and keyboards, they won't work in the bios setup of your system, or if there's a hardware error on startup (press F1 to continue ... good luck). They only work once Windows has booted. -- Gary Breuckman ------------------------------ From: AES/newspost Subject: Re: Intuit Pits Its Customers Against Its Partners Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 15:37:57 -0700 In article , tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) wrote: > I expect Quicken 2006 to charge you a nickel for each line item you > add and stop working if you don't send in payment every month. You've written this in "hyperbole mode" (I believe), but it also seems to me it's the direction that Microsoft, Adobe, Intuit, and most every other big software provider would probably like to take, if they can get away with it -- and I guess all I can say is that, for myself at least, any time anything like this comes along, all I can do is bail out to open software as fast as I can, for any of the many software tools I currently use. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But all those software providers -- in particular Microsoft -- are getting eaten alive by professional cheats, aren't they? What else should they do if they are going to remain in business? PAT] ------------------------------ From: jkarevoll@yahoo.com (JayKay) Subject: Re: Best Phone to Use For Radio Telephone Interviews? Date: 18 Sep 2004 16:05:45 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) wrote in message news:: > jkarevoll@yahoo.com (JayKay) wrote in message > news:> I get called fairly often by radio stations for commentary. My current >> phone, AT&T 2-line 962, apparently doesn't cut it and I often find >> myself calling the studios back from the fax phone (a little better) >> or (after hooking it up) from a 25-year old rotary phone for call >> clarity (even better). >> But I'd like to get a new office phone that would be OK for these >> talk/news people. >> Any suggestions? > If the radio stations are that interested in using you as an unpaid > "expert and consultant" then have them put in a digital line. A 2B+D > ISDN line, using NS-1 signalling is pretty much the standard for all > the talk shows and remote broadcasts done in our area. Thanks, I'll look into it! kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote in message news:: > sounds better than an old 500-set on the other end. Your next step > up as far as audio quality goes ... > --scott What's an old 500-set? Thanks. JK [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: 'an old 500 set' is a Genuine Bell System standard home telephone instrument from the 1960-70's era. 500's were rotary dial sets; 2500's were the touch tone variety of the same thing. Real faithful work horses; many millions of them still in service around the USA. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Al Gillis Subject: Re: Conference Call With Four Parties? Programming Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 17:14:29 -0700 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com John McHarry wrote in message news:telecom23.432.10@telecom-digest.org: > rd wrote: >> Wondering how we can program the Nortel system to have ourselves and 3 >> other parties connected. We have programmed for 3 outgoing lines but >> cannot connect the 3rd party. Getting a message saying only 3 three >> partes are allowed to be on conference call. Any help will be greatly >> appreciated. > You didn't say what Nortel system. > Anyway, going above three parties requires a more sophisticated > bridge. Unless you have payed a premium for such, you are probably at > your limit. In the Nortel Meridian-1 product line (Option 11 through Option 81) There is a class of service parameter, "A06" in older software and C6A on newer software will allow six-party conferences. Six sound Ok when all are internal -- when some conference participants are on trunks the transmission levels get a little low. Oh, you're talking about a NorStar? Sorry -- I don't know how or if six party conferences apply to NorStars. Al ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: Google Ad Sense Installed Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 20:14:13 -0500 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > Actually, this page looks best when you come here to my house, sit > at my terminal and view it. Damn, that's the most honest self-appraisal of a website that I've seen in a long time! If it comes to that, I'll bring pizza. :) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Way, way back, in the middle 1990's, in the pre-BA (Brain Aneurysm) days, I used to have a love affair with javascript and web pages. You show me some javascript which would put a clock on a web page or do something equally fancy and I was all for installing it; sounds, visual images, klutzy midi files, you name it; I did it. Some of the javascripts even had provisions built in them to *first examine the computer, get the working browser to answer back with its type/model, then modify the javascript itself as needed to give the best presentation of the page to the viewer.* Some of it was absolutely crazy. Then following two heart attacks I had my brain aneurysm (which is basically a serious stroke), was in the hospital for three months, and rehabilitative therapy for a year following. Never a very good web page writer, my brain disease caused me to forget most of what code I had written and keep me (even today) still too tired and frustrated to try and figure out what I had written. In the process of putting the Google Adsense thing up (which coincidentally has already earned me five dollars/eighty cents if the stats page on Google is to be believed) I managed to *totally jazz up* the latest-issue.html page so it would not run at all. One of my heros -- a guy living in Madison, WI who says he wants no mention in the Digest, so we will let it go at that -- took my whining, tearful phone call Friday night, moved in on that page on massis, and brought it around to even looking a wee bit better than I had it earlier. Thank you, Mrs. Kalabash, or whoever you are, but *you* know who you are and *I* know who you are. Actually the whole damn http://telecom-digest.org web site needs **much cleaning up** to get back to its original purpose which was to be a web-based archive of back issues, etc, and my hassle is my brain disease keeps me from giving it the attention it needs. If anyone wants to put together an index.html page and three or four other inside pages to point at the files, etc, they're welcome to do it for me. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard Subject: Re: Packet 8 Share and Score Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 01:58:18 -0400 Jack Decker wrote: > Andy Abramson, in his VoIP watch blog at > http://andyabramson.blogs.com/voipwatch/ notes that Packet8 seems to > be the latest VoIP company to implement a customer referral program: > [Begin quote:] > Keith of VoIPNuke, who has resold Packet8 longer than anyone I know, > pointed me to the new P8 referral program > . > This is taking a page out of both Vonage and AT&T's playbook. Packet8 has actually been doing this in a different for for quite a while. Anyone with a Packet8 account could sign up to be an "affiliate," a program which as far as I can tell is still in existence. When you did this, you would get a referral code (in my case, referral code 'scrdpoet') that you could pass out to anyone, and they'd get from $5 to $20 off their activation when they place an order on the packet8 website and use the code. You would also get a credit for the referral. Best of all, it does have the advantage over share and score that you don't need to get a person's e-mail address to refer them ... they just enter the referral code and get the credit. Any number of people can use the same code. E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. ------------------------------ 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 #434 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Sep 20 00:58:10 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8K4wA925238; Mon, 20 Sep 2004 00:58:10 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 00:58:10 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409200458.i8K4wA925238@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 #435 TELECOM Digest Mon, 20 Sep 2004 00:58:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 435 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Telephone to PC Messaging (Carl Navarro) Re: Telephone to PC Messaging (Scott Summers) Re: Telephone to PC Messaging (Dave Garland) Re: Telephone to PC Messaging (Kenneth P. Stox) Re: DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: Intuit Pits Its Customers Against Its Partners (Thomas A. Horsley) Re: Attack of the Radio Clones (Michael A. Covington) Re: USB to Serial Convertor as COM1 (Michael A. Covington) Re: Best Phone to Use For Radio Telephone Interviews? (Joseph) Re: Cordless Phone (Dave Garland) What is # Called? How Did # Get its Name? (TELECOM Archives Reprint) 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: Carl Navarro Subject: Re: Telephone to PC Messaging Reply-To: cnavarro@wcnet.org Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 23:44:35 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com On 18 Sep 2004 22:02:59 -0700, ckm1955@gmail.com (Huntley Meadows) wrote: > I often find I am surfing the net on a dial-up modem when my daughter > is trying to reach me. She finds me hogging the only telephone at > home, and is unable to reach me. Short of my getting a second phone > or broadband, is there a cheaper solution? > I was wondering specifically as to whether there is a way for my > daughter to send a message using some service whereby the message > would show up on my PC in real-time (a la IM), so as to allow me to > get off the phone to receive her call. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Do you have a cell phone? > Call-forward or (have telco) hunt to your cell phone. Does your > telco also offer voicemail? Have your inbound calls (when line is > busy) go to voice mail. Also I should mention that America OnLine > has a service of their own referred to as 'call waiting' where your > phone is call-forwarded to some 800 number of theirs; when AOL sees > an incoming call for your number, if you are on line (with them, > naturally) they will send a flash message to your screen saying > "(caller ID of caller) is trying to get through to you" or some > words like that. PAT] I use MaxEmail. It's a Chicago area number that accepts voice and faxes. You can have her call the number or use CF to get your number to it. Cost is about $15/year or $50 if you want to use CID. Carl Navarro ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 19:03:09 -0700 From: Scott Summers Reply-To: Scott Summers Subject: Telephone to PC Messaging http://www.callwave.com/landing/CORP_Main.asp CallWave's easy-to-install software helps consumers and businesses get more out of their wireless phone, home phone, and Internet-connected PC by 'bridging' calls between these devices My elderly parents used it for a while -- because they didn't like the idea of their modem preventing people from calling them. Happy Surfing! Scott Summers ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: Telephone to PC Messaging Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 20:31:25 -0500 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when ckm1955@gmail.com (Huntley Meadows) wrote: > I was wondering specifically as to whether there is a way for my > daughter to send a message using some service whereby the message > would show up on my PC in real-time (a la IM), so as to allow me to > get off the phone to receive her call. Yes. If you use a service like Callwave, AOLCallerAlert, Internet Call Manager, etc. Google for "internet answering machine" (include the quotes) for vendors and urls. The one I am most familiar with is Callwave, which requires you to have "forward on busy" on your phone line. You run a small program on your computer, and when you are online (dialup) callers get a message that says something like "That number is busy at the moment, but has been notified of your call." A popup on the computer meanwhile displays Caller ID info from your call. The version I am familiar (the cheapest) with requires you (the computer owner) to go offline and call them back, but for a bit extra you can hear them leave a message, take their call, etc. Cost range is $18/year for the cheapest service (as described), $8/month for the most features. I think for additional money it can also receive faxes. The other brands of service seem to provide similar capabilities. ------------------------------ From: Kenneth P. Stox Organization: Imaginary Landscape, LLC. Subject: Re: Telephone to PC Messaging Huntley Meadows wrote: > I often find I am surfing the net on a dial-up modem when my daughter > is trying to reach me. She finds me hogging the only telephone at > home, and is unable to reach me. Short of my getting a second phone > or broadband, is there a cheaper solution? > I was wondering specifically as to whether there is a way for my > daughter to send a message using some service whereby the message > would show up on my PC in real-time (a la IM), so as to allow me to > get off the phone to receive her call. In theory, V.92 modems would allow you to get caller-id information, while still online. Does your provider support V.92? ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator Date: 19 Sep 2004 19:27:38 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > offices or homes, anywhere, to their private intranets. DIRECWAY VPN > Accelerator has been designed to interoperate seamlessly with industry > standard Nortel IPsec VPN solutions, and in later releases, with Check > Point and Cisco systems. Except that there is no such thing as an "industry standard Nortel IPsec VPN solution", because Nortel has been among the very worst offenders in its "embrace and extend" approach to the actual IPsec standard. Nortel VPN hardware and software uses protocols that are _somewhat_ like the standard IPsec protocols -- except when they aren't like them at all, curiously enough in just enough ways to make it prohibitively expensive to switch away from Nortel VPN headend gear were you to get a better price from some other vendor. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com But as he knew no bad language, he had called him all the names of common objects that he could think of, and had screamed: "You lamp! You towel! You plate!" and so on. --Sigmund Freud ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Intuit Pits Its Customers Against Its Partners From: tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 00:24:18 GMT > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But all those software providers -- in > particular Microsoft -- are getting eaten alive by professional > cheats, aren't they? What else should they do if they are going to > remain in business? PAT] Yea, and the baseball owners have lost a total of $16,000,000,000,000 in the last 2 decades, and no movie ever made by any Hollywood studio ever made a profit :-). >>==>> The *Best* political site >>==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL | Free Software and Politics <<==+ ------------------------------ From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Re: Attack of the Radio Clones Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 21:04:17 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) > Earlier this month, Microsoft began charging users to listen to online > clones of 978 U.S. and Canadian radio stations with '"fewer ads, no DJ > chatter and less repetition." And no, Bill Gates didn't ask the > stations for permission to copy their playlists. Compilations, as compilations, are copyrightable even if the works within them are not (and in this case they are). It should be straightforward for a station to copyright its playlist and sue infringers. However, back in the heyday of Top 40 radio, didn't all stations *try* to have the same playlist? ------------------------------ From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Re: USB to Serial Convertor as COM1 Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 21:06:21 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) If there's a solution, it's probably at www.lvr.com (Jan Axelson's site devoted to serial, parallel, and USB ports). ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Best Phone to Use For Radio Telephone Interviews? Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 18:38:20 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On 18 Sep 2004 16:05:45 -0700, jkarevoll@yahoo.com (JayKay) wrote: > What's an old 500-set? http://www.bellsystemmemorial.com/telephones-500.html ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: Cordless Phone Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 20:56:09 -0500 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when alex_s_42@yahoo.com (Alex T.) wrote: > One thing that adds to confusion is the fact that sometimes they > write on the box "digital", instead of DSS, whatever that means. "Digital" does NOT mean "DSS". Spread spectrum/frequency hopping is an additional feature, and you can be sure they'll tell you about it if present. I've had good luck with the Panasonics. I have an older KX-TG200 Gigarange 2.4GHz, which I think uses split 900MHz/2.4GHz, and had better range (about half a city block) and lasted far longer (5 years? Maybe longer, I bought it when they first came out) than any other cordless I have owned. At this point the (second) battery pack needs to be replaced, and the mic doesn't work very well (perhaps due to being dropped one too many times to the asphalt) although still it works ok with headset. The keypad still works perfectly. (In researching its replacement, it appears that the "DSS" that it has does not frequency hop, which resulted in charges of false advertising.) So I replaced it a month or so ago with a KX-TG2312, a 2.4GMHz phone that they specifically say DOES frequency hop DSS. It's got more features (CID, speakerphone), but the base unit has only one antenna instead of two, and the range is slightly (maybe 100') less. They've got models that I suspect are the same basic phone with answering machine (I didn't want the answering machine), sold at the usual stores (Best Buy, Target, etc.) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 23:30:47 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Julian Macassey wrote to the Digest fifteen years ago and asked about the ' # ' key on telephones. There were several messages on it at the time, then about nine years ago, in 1995 we had a more or less definitive answer. For those of you who have wondered about this key which is located directly below the 9 on telephone keypads, here are the answers we printed at the time, as per our archives. Subject: Octothorpe source Date: 19 Nov 88 15:25:08 PST (Sat) From: ucla-an!bongo!julian@ee.UCLA.EDU (julian macassey) I am looking for an authoritative reference for the term OCTOTHORPE. An octothorpe is an # , which is what is usually referred to as "the pound sign" or "the hash mark", sometimes as "the number symbol". I know the correct term is octothorpe, I have seen references to it in some Bell docs, I have even seen a news clipping years ago that mentioned it. My problem is that every now and again, some smart Alec asks me where it comes from. I have even been accused of making it up. No dictionary I have seen has ever given me a definition. Yes I have looked it up in the 24 Volume Oxford English Dictionary. I have checked the encyc Brit and alleged Telecommunications Dictionaries. I do know that Octo means eight and Thorpe means beam. So the word has some roots. There is a good term paper here for someone. Julian Macassey, n6are julian@bongo voice (213) 653-4495 To: comp-dcom-telecom@ncar.ucar.edu From: aem@ibiza.Miami.Edu (a.e.mossberg) Subject: Re: Octothorpe source Date: 21 Nov 88 14:52:27 GMT In , wrote: > An octothorpe is an # , which is what is usually referred to > as "the pound sign" or "the hash mark", sometimes as "the number > symbol". I know the correct term is octothorpe, I have seen > references to it in some Bell docs, I have even seen a news > clipping years ago that mentioned it. Indeed, that's the same place I learned the term, but usually have to revert to 'number sign' or 'pound sign'. > My problem is that every now and again, some smart Alec asks > me where it comes from. I have even been accused of making it > up. No dictionary I have seen has ever given me a definition. Yep, same here. I've never been able to find it in a dictionary, nor have I been able to find the original reference from where I learned it. I was beginning to think I made it up in some frenzied nightmare. Perhaps Bell invented it, and then changed their collective mind. a.e.mossberg - aem@mthvax.miami.edu - aem@mthvax.span (3.91) Man is here for the sake of other men. - Albert Einstein Date: Mon, 21 Nov 88 09:19:28 PST From: HECTOR MYERSTON Subject: Octothorpe source To: telecom@bu-cs.bu.edu All my Bell System references call # The Number Sign (or Pound). The only times I see it called an Octothrope is in Northern Telecom Inc publications talking about Digipulse Dialing, "their name" for DTMF. The Japanese routinely call it a "Sharp". Obscure to me, logical to the musically inclined. +HECTOR+ To: telecom@bu-cs.bu.edu From: westmark!dave@rutgers.edu (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: Octothorpe source Date: 24 Nov 88 00:52:41 GMT In article ,(julian macassey) writes: > I am looking for an authoritative reference for the term > OCTOTHORPE. > I do know that Octo means eight and Thorpe means beam. So the > word has some roots. # # # # ####### # # ####### # # # # Can't you see the eight beams here? Dave Levenson Westmark, Inc. The Man in the Mooney Warren, NJ USA {rutgers | att}!westmark!dave TELECOM Digest Tue, 29 Nov 88 0:23:56 EST Volume 8 : Issue 187 Today's Topics: Octothorpe re: Octothorpe source Re: Octothorpe source From: 8b@cup.portal.com To: telecom-request@xx.lcs.mit.edu Subject: Octothorpe Date: Sat, 26-Nov-88 09:52:20 PST But ... a # doesn't have eight beams ... only 4 ... two really if you define beam as being horizontal ... just call it a pound sign ... which, I suppose, refers to some typewriter which have the British pound sign over the 3 ... I just call it the number sign ... I've also heard it referred to as a ticktacktoe ... -8b@cup.portal.com From: minow%thundr.DEC@decwrl.dec.com Date: 28 Nov 88 14:17 To: telecom@bu-cs.bu.edu, MINOW%thundr.DEC@decwrl.dec.com Subject: re: Octothorpe source According to legend, "octothorpe" is a name that the Bell people made up for the # on the telephone keypad. I suspect that they couldn't agree as to whether it was a "pound sign", "sharp", or "number sign" and eventually compromised (making everyone equally miserable). Martin Minow minow%thundr.dec@decwrl.dec.com [Moderator's question: I am wondering if our correspondent is related to Newton Minow, well known FCC executive. Just curious. P. Townson] To: telecom@bu-cs.bu.edu From: Henry Troup Subject: Re: Octothorpe source Date: 22 Nov 88 15:57:48 GMT In article ucla-an!bongo!julian@ee.UCLA.EDU (julian macassey) writes: > I am looking for an authoritative reference for the term > OCTOTHORPE. > Julian Macassey, n6are julian@bongo voice (213) 653-4495 I believe AT&T named the little beastie. Anyone at AT&T wanted to claim responsibility? Henry Troup utgpu!bnr-vpa!bnr-fos!hwt%bnr-public | BNR is not Bell-Northern Reseach hwt@bnr (BITNET/NETNORTH) | responsible for Ottawa, Canada (613) 765-2337 (Voice) | my opinions Date: Thu, 1 Dec 88 21:05:28 EST From: The Moderator Reply-To: TELECOM@bu-cs.BU.EDU Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #190 To: TELECOM@bu-cs.bu.edu TELECOM Digest Thu, 1 Dec 88 21:05:28 EST Volume 8 : Issue 190 Today's Topics: All You Ever Wanted To Know About Octothorpes [Moderator's Note: This is a just-for-fun special issue of the Digest with a random sampling of the mail received pertaining to your favorite touch-pad key and mine, the lowly octothorpe, or #. As is our custom, we have even provided a rebuttal message from someone who says the # is not known as an octothorpe at all .... Now can we get this out of our systems once and for all please? Let's call it quits on the subject of #, by whatever name. P. Townson] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: larryl@nvuxr.UUCP (L Lang) Subject: Re: Octothorpe source Date: 22 Nov 88 15:36:53 GMT Organization: Bell Communications Research Lines: 24 In article , ucla-an!bongo!julian@ee.UCLA.EDU (julian macassey) writes: > I am looking for an authoritative reference for the term > OCTOTHORPE. > An octothorpe is an # , which is what is usually referred to > as "the pound sign" or "the hash mark", sometimes as "the number > symbol". I know the correct term is octothorpe, I have seen > I do know that Octo means eight and Thorpe means beam. So the > word has some roots. > Julian Macassey, n6are julian@bongo voice (213) 653-4495 When I count "thorpes" (the beams or lines), I only see four, two vertical and two horizontal. Perhaps it should be called the QUADROTHORPE. And does that make the * a TRITHORPE? Cheers, Larry Lang To: comp-dcom-telecom@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU From: desnoyer@Apple.COM (Peter Desnoyers) Subject: Re: Octothorpe source Date: 30 Nov 88 23:20:40 GMT Just to provide another point of view: from CCITT recommendation E.161 (Arrangement of Figures, Letters and Symbols of Telephones and other Devices that can be used for Gaining Access to a Telephone Network) as revised for the Blue Book: 3.2.2 Symbols ... [drawings, with angle between horiz. and vert. strokes, length of strokes, and length of protruding nubbies labelled alpha, b, and a respectively] in Europe alpha = 90 degrees with a/b = 0.08 (looks funny to a N.American) in North America alpha = 80 deg. with a/b = 0.18 ... The symbol will be known as the square or the most commonly used equivalent term in other languages.* *... alternate term (e.g. "number sign") may be necessary... I suppose it's useful to have a translatable term. That approach worked for "star", but it seems to have failed here. Does anyone refer to '#' as a "square"? Anywhere? Enquiring minds want to know... Peter Desnoyers To: telecom@bu-cs.bu.edurom: erik@Morgan.COM (Erik T. Mueller) Subject: Re: Octothorpe source Date: 1 Dec 88 19:28:06 GMT The term "octothorpe" appears in issues of the journal -Telesis- from the mid to late 1970's published by Bell Northern Research. (Sorry, I don't have the actual issue numbers handy right now...) I don't know its origin, but vaguely recall reading somewhere that it was a Canadian telephony term. As far as I know, the term is/was never used by AT&T. -Erik To: comp-dcom-telecom@decwrl.dec.com From: avsd!childers (Richard Childers) Subject: Re: Octothorpe source Date: 25 Nov 88 21:25:03 GMT In article ucla-an!bongo!julian@ee.UCLA.EDU (julian macassey) writes: > I am looking for an authoritative reference for the term > OCTOTHORPE. ... ( An octothorpe is an # ... ) Well, this isn't authoritative, it's intuitive, but I _think_ it refers to the symbol as used on a complex organ's key, for a particular mode. > Julian Macassey, n6are julian@bongo voice (213) 653-4495 -- richard -- * Any excuse will serve a tyrant. -- Aesop * * * * ..{amdahl|decwrl|octopus|pyramid|ucbvax}!avsd.UUCP!childers@tycho * * AMPEX Corporation - Audio-Visual Systems Division, R & D * To: comp-dcom-telecom From: seeger@beach.cis.ufl.edu (F. L. Charles Seeger III) Subject: Re: Octothorpe source Date: 1 Dec 88 15:42:09 GMT In article MYERSTON@KL.SRI.COM (HECTOR MYERSTON) writes: | All my Bell System references call # The Number Sign (or Pound). |The only times I see it called an Octothrope is in Northern Telecom Inc |publications talking about Digipulse Dialing, "their name" for DTMF. | The Japanese routinely call it a "Sharp". Obscure to me, logical |to the musically inclined. I usually refer to as "sharp", but may change to octothorpe -- I sometimes like to tilt at windmills. What are the names of the other ASCII special symbols? For instance, "&" is an ampersand and "*" an asterisk. Are there any fancy (preferrably single word) names for the others? I.e names not of the form "* [sign|mark|symbol]". Does anyone have a reference on these things, probably a typography reference? The terms that I use, about which I'm fairly confident: ~ tilde () [left|right|open|close] parenthesis [] [left|right|open|close] bracket {} [left|right|open|close] brace <> [left|right|open|close] carat ^ circumflex _ underscore . period , comma ; semi-colon : colon What about the following: ? ! @ $ % / \ | + = - ` ' " If I get responses by Email, I'll summarize in a couple of weeks. Also, feel free to suggest a more appropriate newsgroup. Charles Seeger 216 Larsen Hall Electrical Engineering University of Florida seeger@iec.ufl.edu Gainesville, FL 32611 [Moderator's inane comment: PUH-LEASE! write direct to Charlie on this; not to me. I do not give an iota what those things are called! And now, here is that rebuttal message...] To: comp-dcom-telecom@rutgers.edu From: ron@ron.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) Subject: Re: Octothorpe Date: 1 Dec 88 22:15:50 GMT Nope, # is called pound because it is used as a symbol for pounds (weight). I really expect the brits would put the Pound Sterling where the $ is on a typewriter keyboards. -Ron [And there you have it. All the questions you were embarrassed to ask your Mother Company all nicely summarized for you by the Octothorpe Digest people in simple, easy to read format you would not be reluctant to share with your own children when they are old enough to ask the name of that 'funny looking key below the nine.' In issue 191, distributed early Friday morning, news of the increase in network access fees which took effect 12-1-88, and the correspondending decrease in rates by AT&T, Sprint, and MCI.] End of TELECOM Digest ********************* [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: (From 2004). The above conversations took place here in the Digest in December, 1988. But then, seven years later, in November, 1995 it started again. This seems to be the most definitive answer of all, and probably the real story. PAT] From: carlsen@hotair.att.com (Ralph Carlsen) Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 16:21:55 -0500 Subject: Octothorpe (The Answer) Pat, The following explains where "octothorpe" really came from. I am sending this to you because, as you will see, there are very few people who could know this story. The reason I am writing at this time is because I volunteered for the AT&T Lay Off package after 34 years of service at Bell Labs so I may not be around much longer. During the past year I have enjoyed reading your news group, and I have used your archives a couple of times (once to get "octothorpe"). Your comments and notes on the postings suggest you and I would agree on lots of things related to our telecom industry. Ralph Carlsen THE REAL SOURCE OF THE WORD "OCTOTHORPE" First, where did the symbols * and # come from? In about 1961 when DTMF dials were still in development, two Bell Labs guys in data communications engineering (Link Rice and Jack Soderberg) toured the USA talking to people who were thinking about telephone access to computers. They asked about possible applications, and what symbols should be used on two keys that would be used exclusively for data applications. The primary result was that the symbols should be something available on all standard typewriter keyboards. The * and # were selected as a result of this study, and people did not expect to use those keys for voice services. The Bell System in those days did not look internationally to see if this was a good choice for foreign countries. Then in the early 1960s Bell Labs developed the 101 ESS which was the first stored program controlled switching system (it was a PBX). One of the first installations was at the Mayo Clinic. This PBX had lots of modern features (Call Forwarding, Speed Calling, Directed Call Pickup, etc.), some of which were activated by using the # sign. A Bell Labs supervisor DON MACPHERSON went to the Mayo Clinic just before cut over to train the doctors and staff on how to use the new features on this state of the art switching system. During one of his lectures he felt the need to come up with a word to describe the # symbol. Don also liked to add humor to his work. His thought process which took place while at the Mayo Clinic doing lectures was as follows: - There are eight points on the symbol so "OCTO" should be part of the name. - We need a few more letters or another syllable to make a noun, so what should that be? (Don MacPherson at this point in his life was active in a group that was trying to get JIM THORPE's Olympic medals returned from Sweden) The phrase THORPE would be unique, and people would not suspect he was making the word up if he called it an "OCTOTHORPE". So Don Macpherson began using the term Octothorpe to describe the # symbol in his lectures. When he returned to Bell Labs in Holmdel NJ, he told us what he had done, and began using the term Octothorpe in memos and letters. The term was picked up by other Bell Labs people and used mostly for the fun of it. Some of the documents which used the term Octothorpe found their way to Bell Operating Companies and other public places. Over the years, Don and I have enjoyed seeing the term Octothorpe appear in documents from many different sources. Don MacPherson retired about eight years ago, and I will be retiring in about six weeks. Ralph Carlsen These are, of course, my remembrances and are not any official statement of AT&T or the subsequent 3 companies. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note in 1995: Thank you very much for sharing. This is indeed an interesting report. Do you think you could get Don MacPherson to join us here among the Digest readership? PAT] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: (in 2004) It occurs to me that so much of what we dealt with in the past was always 80 columns wide (as a computer monitor is today) and 12 rows deep (as IBM punchcards were designed), but twice that, or 24 rows for computer terminals today. So if we inserted an IBM punchcard in a computer to dial a phone number, (and in fact, early 'speed dial' phones used cards you stuck in a slot in top of them did they not?), then our modern day telephone symbol '*' would be the equivilent of the 'high punch' on the old IBM punchcards would it not, or the 'eleventh row' and the modern day telephone symbol '#' would be the 'X' punch or 'twelveth row' on the old IBM punchcards. I thought maybe there was some hexadecimal numbering thoughts involved in this thing about 12 rows, but in that case, how do you get 80 columns wide? Maybe 80 decimal is some number we would recognize in hexadecimal, but now I am confused and best quit for the night. Can anyone write to us and explain the signficance and history of 80 columns wide by 12 (or 24) rows deep? 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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #435 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Sep 20 17:45:51 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8KLjoW04005; Mon, 20 Sep 2004 17:45:51 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 17:45:51 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409202145.i8KLjoW04005@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 #436 TELECOM Digest Mon, 20 Sep 2004 17:46:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 436 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #449, September 20, 2004 (Angus TeleManagement) More SPAM About VoIP (Justin Time) Packet8 Users -- Curious About the Service (Joe) Net Calls Put Regulators in a Quandary (Jack Decker) The Voice Over IP Insurrection (Jack Decker) A Backup Battery For Cell Phones (Eric Friedebach) The Wal-Mart Supremacy (Monty Solomon) Re: USB to Serial Convertor as COM1 (Scott Dorsey) Re: DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator (T. Sean Weintz) Re: Cannot Switch Local Telco Without Disconnecting Broadband (Sullivan) TouchTone Patent (John Centralia) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Dave Close) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Dave Garland) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (burris) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Michael Covington) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Robert Bonomi) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (JP) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Lisa Hancock) 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, 20 Sep 2004 11:03:14 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #449, September 20, 2004 ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 449: September 20, 2004 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: ** ALLSTREAM: www.allstream.com ** AVAYA: www.avaya.ca/en/ ** BELL CANADA: www.bell.ca ** CISCO SYSTEMS CANADA: www.cisco.com/ca/ ** ERICSSON: www.ericsson.ca ** MITEL NETWORKS: www.mitel.com/ ** SPRINT CANADA: www.sprint.ca ** UTC CANADA: www.canada.utc.org/ ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** Rogers Buys Microcell ** Aliant Strikers Accept Contract ** 26 Applicants Seek New Spectrum ** CRTC VoIP Hearing Starts Tomorrow ** Area Code 250 Filling Up Fast ** Peel Police Issue VoIP 9-1-1 Warning ** Nortel Upgrades PBX Software ** Bell to Outsource Repair Call Centres ** Nortel Lowers Revenue Forecast ** Ex-Schooley Mitchell Consultants Reorganize ** Yak Doubles Sales ** Total Telcom Upgrades Fibre ** A Buyer's Guide to VoIP Services ============================================================ ROGERS BUYS MICROCELL: Microcell Communications has agreed to be acquired by Rogers Wireless in an all-cash deal totaling $1.4 billion. Microcell's Board will recommend to shareholders that they accept the $35/share offer. When the acquisition is complete, Rogers will be Canada's largest wireless carrier, with 5.1 million customers. ** Microcell CEO Andre Tremblay says the deal includes "the continuation of the Fido brand in the marketplace." ALIANT STRIKERS ACCEPT CONTRACT: 76% of the 4,300 members of the Council of Atlantic Telecommunications Unions have voted to end their five-month strike and accept a new three-year contract. (see Telecom Update #447) ** Published reports say that a majority of union members in Newfoundland voted against the deal, because it does not provide wage parity with the other three provinces. 26 APPLICANTS SEEK NEW SPECTRUM: Twenty-six applicants have qualified to bid for the 2300/3500 MHz spectrum licences that weren't sold in last February's auction (see Telecom Update #445). ** Over half of the available licences received multiple bids, and so will be auctioned. Another 30% received only one bid and will be sold at the opening price, unless the bid is withdrawn this week. ** Bidders had to submit deposits that set the maximum each may bid. The biggest deposits came from Bell Canada, Distributel, Mipps, Rogers Wireless, Tele-Mobile (Telus), UBS Wireless, and 4253311 Canada Inc. http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/insmt-gst.nsf/en/sf02026e.html http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/insmt-gst.nsf/en/sf02009e.html CRTC VoIP HEARING STARTS TOMORROW: The CRTC's public hearing on VoIP Telephony (Public Notice 2004-2) is being held from Tuesday to Thursday this week in Gatineau, Quebec. (See Telecom Update #428, 438) An audio feed of the hearing will be webcast from the CRTC site. www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/process/2004/sep21_t.htm AREA CODE 250 FILLING UP FAST: The latest numbering resources survey indicates that British Columbia Area Code 250 will run out of prefixes in June 2009, three years earlier than previously forecast. The Canadian Numbering Administrator will hold a Relief Planning Meeting on October 21-22, in Kelowna, B.C. www.cnac.ca/npa_data.htm#NPA250 PEEL POLICE ISSUE VoIP 9-1-1 WARNING: A press release issued by the Peel Regional Police Service warns that 9-1-1 calls made from broadband-IP phones may not reach the appropriate 9-1-1 call centre or transmit caller location information. It cites a recent case of a 9-1-1 call made from London, Ontario, that went to Toronto and appeared to the 9-1-1 operator to be a call from Toronto. ** The police recommend that 9-1-1 callers use a conventional phone, or ensure that their VoIP provider provides access to the local 9-1-1 centre and provides the correct number and address. NORTEL UPGRADES PBX SOFTWARE: On September 13, Nortel introduced new releases of its Communications Server 1000 IP-PBX and Multimedia CS 5100. It also launched a new large-enterprise product, CS 2100, and new IP telephones. ** Nortel has retired the Succession, Optera, and Shasta brand names. Most products will now be identified purely by function. BELL TO OUTSOURCE REPAIR CALL CENTRES: Bell Canada is outsourcing 300 jobs in its repair (6-1-1) operation to Expertel in Quebec and Minacs in Ontario. The Canadian Telephone Employees Association has previously filed grievances against Bell for sending work to those companies. NORTEL LOWERS REVENUE FORECAST: Nortel Networks says that its third quarter revenues will be lower than those of the previous quarter and that revenue growth this year will trail the industry as a whole. (See Telecom Update #445, 448) EX-SCHOOLEY MITCHELL CONSULTANTS REORGANIZE: A group of former franchisees of the Schooley Mitchell agency, which went bankrupt in March, have organized themselves as Abilita Inc, with head offices in Dallas and Oakville, Ontario. (See Telecom Update #427) YAK DOUBLES SALES: Yak Communications says its sales for the year ended June 30 were US$80.0 million, double those of the preceding year. Net income per share rose 63%. TOTAL TELCOM UPGRADES FIBRE: Total Telcom Fibre says it has begun installing new switches and routers to double the capacity of its fibre network between Edmonton, Alberta, and Fort St. John, British Columbia. A BUYER'S GUIDE TO VoIP SERVICES: In the new issue of Telemanagement, Ian Angus compares Canadian broadband-IP telephone services from nine suppliers, and John Riddell compares IP-Centrex offerings available from three Canadian carriers. ** Also in this issue: Designing Converged Networks for Manageability, including a checklist for troubleshooting converged nets. ** To receive Telemanagement every month--including unlimited access to Telemanagement's extensive online content--visit www.angustel.ca/teleman/tm-sub.html or phone 800-263-4415 ext 500. ============================================================ HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-MAIL: editors@angustel.ca FAX: 905-686-2655 MAIL: TELECOM UPDATE Angus TeleManagement Group 8 Old Kingston Road Ajax, Ontario Canada L1T 2Z7 =========================================================== HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR UNSUBSCRIBE) TELECOM UPDATE is provided in electronic form only. There are two formats available: 1. The fully-formatted edition is posted on the World Wide Web on the first business day of the week at www.angustel.ca 2. The e-mail edition is distributed free of charge. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to: join-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.com To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to: leave-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.com Sending e-mail to these addresses will automatically add or remove the sender's e-mail address from the list. Leave subject line and message area blank. We do not give Telecom Update subscribers' e-mail addresses to any third party. For more information, see www.angustel.ca/update/privacy.html. =========================================================== COPYRIGHT AND CONDITIONS OF USE: All contents copyright 2004 Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. All rights reserved. For further information, including permission to reprint or reproduce, please e-mail rosita@angustel.ca or phone 905-686-5050 ext 500. The information and data included has been obtained from sources which we believe to be reliable, but Angus TeleManagement makes no warranties or representations whatsoever regarding accuracy, completeness, or adequacy. Opinions expressed are based on interpretation of available information, and are subject to change. If expert advice on the subject matter is required, the services of a competent professional should be obtained. ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: More SPAM About VoIP Date: 20 Sep 2004 07:11:35 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Press Release Source: 8x8, Inc. Internet Telephone Service Offers Added Measure of Security for Residents of Hurricane Prone Regions Monday September 20, 8:15 am ET SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- While thousands of south Florida residents lost telephone service in the aftermath of Hurricane Frances, at least one Boca Raton resident was grateful that he had decided to switch to a VoIP (voice over internet protocol) internet phone service which, despite the severity of the storm, continued to function when other phone services went down. ****** What the article doesn't state is the phone only works when there is electrical power for the converter/interface and the broadband connection is still up. In some of the areas nonessential service was limited to better serve the public safety and public healthcare groups. Now, I have friends in Pensacola, they survived the storm with little damage to their house, but their electricity is out and they are running a generator for essential items like a refrigerator and microwave. Their phone service is out - as well as their broadband connection. So, VoIP telephone service doesn't continue to function in their instance, but the cell phone works. So, the cellular phone company could write a press release telling the world how "traditional telephone service, including VoIP" failed and the day was saved by AT&T/Nextel/Sprint/T-Mobile/Verizon or whatever carrier happened to write the blurb. Rodgers Platt ------------------------------ From: valleyview@mail2world.com (Joe) Subject: Packet8 Users - Curious About the Service Date: 20 Sep 2004 06:39:17 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Any packet8 users out there - - Curious about what Packet8 is REALLY charging. I emailed them and get NO REPLY to my questions. From their terms and conditions I see: ... "Such charges shall include activation fees, monthly service fees, shipping charges, disconnection fees, equipment charges, toll charges, taxes and any other applicable charges" ... I'm curious what "activation fee", shipping fee and what fee they charge for the black box (hardware) is ? Also, what taxes and junk fees appear on each bill. I'm not comfortable giving my credit card company to any company who is not totally upfront and posts ALL their fees and charges UPFRONT in bold on their homepage. Packet8 doesn't seem to do this. Joe please cc me any answer to email below, thanks valleyview mail2world.com ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 14:05:23 -0400 Subject: Net Calls Put Regulators in a Quandary Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.nj.com/business/ledger/index.ssf?/base/business-0/1095573106271750.xml FCC considers whether they are telecom or information service BY JOELLE TESSLER Star-Ledger Staff Internet phone calls could be the biggest thing to hit telecommunications since Congress began deregulating the industry in 1996. Rock-bottom prices and features such as the ability to check voicemail online and make local phone calls from anywhere in the country promise to draw millions of callers onto the Internet. But one big question mark is hanging over this booming market: how to regulate it. Should Internet phone ventures, like traditional phone companies, be forced to offer 911 service and accommodations for the disabled? Should they be required to build wiretapping capabilities into their networks? What taxes and consumer protections should apply? The Federal Communications Commission, state utilities regulators and Congress are walking a fine line as they sort out these thorny issues. They don't want to compromise public safety or allow the Internet to become a hiding place for criminals and terrorists. But they also seek to avoid costly regulatory burdens that would unduly hinder the market's growth. "It's clear that neither legislators or regulators want to see the technology handcuffed because it's good for consumers," said Stephen Greenberg, chief executive of Net2Phone, a Newark company that provides cable companies with technology to offer their customers Internet telephone service. "It's a quality product at a cheap price." Full story at: http://www.nj.com/business/ledger/index.ssf?/base/business-0/1095573106271750.xml How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 14:57:42 -0400 Subject: The Voice Over IP Insurrection Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.gigaom.com/2004/09/the_voice_over_i.php [Om Malik writes:] The Voice over IP Insurrection Daniel Berninger, an old friend, a seriously smart guy and VoIP guru of sorts, and more recently senior analyst, for Tier1 Research, has been a great man to bounce ideas off. He and I have chatted about many things, and each time I come away learning something new. So last week he argued, "in the battle between Bellheads and Netheads, we're all Netheads now." Could not agree more. Here is his long missive on the VoIP insurrection, the best and most definitive essay you will ever read on this technology, where it is headed and why it is important. This is the second of my guest columns series where I bring the experts who know a thing or two about their respective areas of expertise. What just happened? The $3 billion dollar budget at Bell Laboratories did not include a single project addressing the use of data networks to transport voice when VocalTec Communications released InternetPhone in February 1995. As of 2004, every project at the post-divestiture AT&T Labs and Lucent Technologies Bell Labs reflects the reality of voice over Internet Protocol. Every major incumbent carrier, and the largest cable television providers, in the United States has announced a VoIP program. And even as some upstart carriers have used VoIP to lower telephony prices dramatically, even more radical innovators threaten to lower the cost of a phone call to zero—to make it free. The VoIP insurrection over the last decade marks a milestone in communication history no less dramatic than the arrival of the telephone in 1876. We know data networks and packetized voice will displace the long standing pre-1995 world rooted in Alexander Graham Bell's invention. It remains uncertain whether telecom's incumbent carriers and equipment makers will continue to dominate or even survive as the information technology industry absorbs voice as a simple application of the Internet. The roots of the VoIP insurrection trace back to four synchronistic events in 1968. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled MCI could compete with AT&T using microwave transport on the Chicago to St. Louis route. The same year, the FCC's Carterfone decision forced AT&T to allow customers to attach non-Western Electric equipment, such as new telephones, and modems, to the telephone network. The Department of Defense's Advanced Research Project Agency issued a contract to Bolt Beranek and Newman for a precursor to the Internet. And in July 1968, Andrew Grove and Gordon Moore founded Intel. Innovation in the communication sector remained the proprietary right of AT&T for most the 20th century, but events in 1968 breached the barriers that kept the telecom and information technology industries apart. For the first two-thirds of the 20th century, AT&T had manned Berlin Wall separating telecommunications and computing, but eventually, these two enormous technology tracks would be unified. Full story at: http://www.gigaom.com/2004/09/the_voice_over_i.php ------------------------------ From: friedebach@yahoo.com (Eric Friedebach) Subject: A Backup Battery For Cell Phones Date: 20 Sep 2004 12:48:50 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Arik Hesseldahl, 09.20.04, Forbes.com NEW YORK - A mobile phone is useless when its battery runs out, and as luck would often have it, there's rarely a convenient AC power outlet or even a car cigarette lighter handy when it does. A convenient little product called Cellboost was created for moments like this. It looks a bit like a Zippo lighter, but is slightly smaller, and if you plug one into your wireless phone, it can charge the battery long enough to talk for up to an hour or so. http://www.forbes.com/2004/09/20/cx_ah_0920tentech.html Eric Friedebach /"Andrew Blew Me" restroom graffiti, Miami, September 1992/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 02:27:18 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Wal-Mart Supremacy The giant retailer's introduction of RFID technology is forcing other supermarket chains to catch up. But fiddling with data may not be the best survival strategy in the Wal-Mart future. By Sam Williams Sept. 20, 2004 | What do you call it when a company announces a multibillion-dollar technology initiative with no preexisting infrastructure, no software code and an 18-month deadline to delivery? In most cases you'd call it a recipe for disaster. In the case of Wal-Mart, a company with the power to force others to follow its technology agenda, you'd simply call it "tough love." That two-word description, according to a January article in Computerworld Magazine, is exactly how Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott summed up his company's philosophy on radio frequency identification (RFID) in a speech to suppliers last winter. For those who missed it, the company sent out letters to top suppliers last June requesting that all pallets and boxes come equipped with RFID tags by Jan. 1, 2005, a request designed to facilitate better warehouse tracking. Suppliers so far seem to have gotten the message. This June, a year after the initial letter campaign requesting 100 participants, Wal-Mart reported that 137 companies had climbed aboard. http://salon.com/tech/feature/2004/09/20/walmart/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: All I know is that Walmart has generally wreaked havoc with the existing businesses in almost every small town where they have located. Here in Independence, KS where I am located, Walmart came to town in the year 2000, built a new, very large supercenter west of town. They started building from scratch, and got the place open late in the year of 2000. The first thing they did was get in a big discussion with City of Independence over getting utilities there (the property was formerly *not* in the city, on the north side of Main Street that far west. The city agreed to annex the area. If you do downtown to shop these days, the stores are mostly empty of customers; but the parking lot at Walmart is full and running over all the time. They originally had been working along with the Chamber of Commerce here in town by honoring our 'Main Street Independence' gift certificates. All the stores downtown sell and honor those gift certificates (which are processed through the Chamber of Commerce offices); its a promotion to help build up business downtown. One day Walmart said they were not going to honor those certificates any longer. One hope for our little downtown area is that Walgreens is going to open a store here, and it will be located more or less downtown, at 10th and Maple Streets. I *never* go to Walmart unless there is no other place *downtown* to get what I need, then I go to Walmart, get what I want and leave. We used to have *three* major grocery stores in town, (Safeway, Dillons, and Country Mart.) One by one, Walmart chased them out of business here. I woke up one day and the *one remaining grocery store* had closed (Country Mart), so then even the Walmart haters had to go to Walmart to get their groceries until a few months later when the Oklahoma chain of stores called 'Marvins' decided to take on Walmart and opened their store in the old Country Mart/Safeway location. Every store downtown offers delivery service and charge accounts, except for guess who? Walmart, which does neither. PAT] ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: USB to Serial Convertor as COM1 Date: 20 Sep 2004 10:11:47 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) In article , Leander Vanhulle wrote: > I have an external serial port connected with usb on my computer. My > original port is broken. How do you let it work under DOS as COM1, > with Windows its no problem but it doesn't work under DOS. You will need to find MS-DOS drivers for your USB card. I would be very, very surprised if they exist. When MS-DOS was last being updated regularly, USB did not exist. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: T. Sean Weintz Subject: Re: DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 12:08:57 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Monty Solomon wrote: > Hughes Network Systems Introduces Satellite-based Virtual Private > Network Solution > DIRECWAY(R) VPN Accelerator Answers Growing Demand for > Teleworking in Both Urban and Rural Locations > GERMANTOWN, Md., Sept. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Hughes Network Systems, > Inc. (HNS), the world's leading provider of satellite broadband > solutions, which it markets under the DIRECWAY(R) brand, today > introduced a satellite-based virtual private network (VPN) > acceleration technology. Based on the IPsec standard, DIRECWAY VPN > Accelerator enables enterprises and government agencies to implement > uniformly efficient and secure, wide area broadband networks, reaching > teleworker employees at any location, urban or rural. LOL. No amount of acceleration will get over Satellites latencey problems, which makes satellite almost useless for VPN deployments. Duh. My condolences to any/all who decide to try this service. ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Cannot Switch Local Telco Without Disconnecting Comcast Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 06:45:18 GMT In article , tetromino@gmail.com says: > I live in Maryland, US. Currently I use Verizon local phone line and > Comcast high-speed internet (cable modem). I decided to switch to > Cavalier Telephone for local phone service to save something like $13 > per month (Verizon's prices are quite high). Cavalier techs tell me > that they can't switch me because Verizon won't release my number > until I disconnect from Comcast HSI. Is Cavalier lying? Can a cable / > cable internet subscription affect whether I can switch local > telephone providers? Is there some sort of a deal between Comcast and > Verizon for preserving their monolopolies? It sounds like Comcast, in your area, may be reselling Verizon DSL, carried on your phone line, under the name of Comcast high speed internet. I have no idea whether Comcast actually does this, but if they do, it would explain the issue. If your phone line has DSL on it, you will generally not be able to port your number. If you could, the DSL would come to a crashing halt upon porting. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD, USA Delete nospam from my address and it won't work. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But, Mr. Sullivan, if what you say is true, then couldn't he let the Comcast 'high speed' be disconnected, transfer his service to Cavalier as desired, *then* get the Comcast 'high speed' service reconnected via Cavalier? Maybe not; I do know that TerraWorld resells SBC DSL service, under the TerraWorld name, but if an SBC customer jumps ship and goes with Prairie Steam, SBC flatly refuses to allow TerraWorld to contine the arrangement with that customer. PAT] ------------------------------ From: John Centralia Subject: TouchTone Patent Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 14:48:55 -0500 Would like to find the patent number for DTMF / TouchTone, probably issued in the 1940-50 time frame. Thanks. John B. Mow CENTRALIA SYSTEMS INC. 3415 Custer Rd - Ste 132 Plano, TX 75023 214-550-6060 214-550-5959 Fax ------------------------------ From: dave@compata.com (Dave Close) Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: 19 Sep 2004 23:48:54 -0700 Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California TELECOM Digest Editor writes: > Maybe 80 decimal is some number we would recognize in hexadecimal... Well, it's 0x50. You do know that Christmas and Halloween fall on the same day? (25/dec == 31/oct) The Julian calendar, developed by and named for Julius Caesar, started numbering months with what we now call March. That's why the last four months of our modern calendar have names when are associated with the Latin prefices for seven through ten. That's also why February, the last month for Julius, is the one with the odd number of days. Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA +1 714 434 7359 dave@compata.com dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu "Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you." - Pericles Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA "Politics is the business of getting dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 power and privilege without dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu possessing merit." - P. J. O'Rourke [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well I do recall reading/discussing how New Year's Eve/Day occured on March 21/22. That is to say, March 21 some year was followed by March 22 the next year. Their idea was that our new beginnings should occur with the start of the new growing season rather than in the dead of winter as we do it now. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 02:22:14 -0500 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > I thought maybe there was some hexadecimal numbering thoughts > involved in this thing about 12 rows, but in that case, how do you > get 80 columns wide? Maybe 80 decimal is some number we would > recognize in hexadecimal, but now I am confused and best quit for > the night. Can anyone write to us and explain the signficance and > history of 80 columns wide by 12 (or 24) rows deep? It surely goes back to the days when hexadecimal was the last thought in anyone's mind. It was in 1928 that IBM increased the number of columns on a card to 80. The original (1890) cards from Herman Hollerith's Tabulating Machine Company (which would later become IBM) had 20 columns x 12 rows (providing enough rows for the 10 decimal digits plus two additional rows to indicate "minus", and in combination with a second punch to allow coding alphabetic information). The number of columns increased several times through the years, ending at 80 in 1928. Early IBM computers used 36-bit words, and could only accept 72 columns of data; the remaining 8 were often used for card sequence, so if the deck of cards was dropped it could be mechanically sorted back into order. http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/oldpunch.html and other pages on that fine website. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I thought that the grandfather of William Burroughs (a prominent author), who founded the Burroughs Adding Machine Company (you know, punch the buttons, yank the crank lever back and forth) was the founder (or one of them) of IBM. That's what William Burroughs claims in his book 'Naked Lunch' when he casually mentions his grandfather. William Burroughs said he was still living off the largesse in his grandfather's trust fund. PAT] ------------------------------ From: burris Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 06:21:39 -0400 TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > Julian Macassey wrote to the Digest fifteen years ago and asked about > the ' # ' key on telephones. There were several messages on it at > the time, then about nine years ago, in 1995 we had a more or less > definitive answer. For those of you who have wondered about this key > which is located directly below the 9 on telephone keypads, here are > the answers we printed at the time, as per our archives. > Subject: Octothorpe source > Date: 19 Nov 88 15:25:08 PST (Sat) > From: ucla-an!bongo!julian@ee.UCLA.EDU (julian macassey) > I am looking for an authoritative reference for the term > OCTOTHORPE. > An octothorpe is an # , which is what is usually referred to as > "the pound sign" or "the hash mark", sometimes as "the number > symbol". I know the correct term is octothorpe, I have seen references > to it in some Bell docs, I have even seen a news clipping years ago > that mentioned it. > My problem is that every now and again, some smart Alec asks me > where it comes from. I have even been accused of making it up. No > dictionary I have seen has ever given me a definition. Yes I have > looked it up in the 24 Volume Oxford English Dictionary. I have > checked the encyc Brit and alleged Telecommunications Dictionaries. > I do know that Octo means eight and Thorpe means beam. So the word > has some roots. > There is a good term paper here for someone. > Julian Macassey, n6are julian@bongo voice (213) 653-4495 This site gives good iformation on the topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octothorpe burris ------------------------------ From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 09:39:09 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) The Don McPherson story sounds too good to be true, unless Mr. McPherson can confirm it himself. (I'm a linguist and have studied a lot of etymologies; elaborate stories like that are almost invariably false. An analogous one is the story that attributes the name "ham radio" to the initials of 3 people or 3 ships.) So I would urge further investigation. I had heard -- but can no longer trace the source -- that an "octothorpe" is a mapmaker's symbol for 8 fields around a village common. "Thorpe" means "village," not "beam." Despite being well known to us, the word "octothorpe" seems to be extremely obscure; it is in neither the OED (online edition) nor the Jargon File. I can, however, clear up one other detail. # is called "pound sign" not because of any connection with British pounds, but because, in industrial use 75 or so years ago, it denoted pounds of weight. To this day "24#" means 24-pound paper, for instance. The poundage of paper, in turn, is the weight of some specified quantity - I don't recall at the moment exactly how much. Michael Covington Associate Director, Artificial Intelligence Center The University of Georgia - www.ai.uga.edu/mc ------------------------------ Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 13:51:34 +0000 In article , TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: (in 2004) It occurs to me that so much > of what we dealt with in the past was always 80 columns wide (as a > computer monitor is today) and 12 rows deep (as IBM punchcards were > designed), but twice that, or 24 rows for computer terminals today. So > if we inserted an IBM punchcard in a computer to dial a phone number, > (and in fact, early 'speed dial' phones used cards you stuck in a slot > in top of them did they not?), then our modern day telephone symbol > '*' would be the equivilent of the 'high punch' on the old IBM > punchcards would it not, or the 'eleventh row' and the modern day > telephone symbol '#' would be the 'X' punch or 'twelveth row' on the > old IBM punchcards. I thought maybe there was some hexadecimal > numbering thoughts involved in this thing about 12 rows, but in that > case, how do you get 80 columns wide? Maybe 80 decimal is some > number we would recognize in hexadecimal, but now I am confused and > best quit for the night. Can anyone write to us and explain the > signficance and history of 80 columns wide by 12 (or 24) rows deep? > PAT] The 80-columns wide 'standard' for a video display is simply a reflection of the 80-column width of a standard punch-card. Because, in the 'commercial' environment, 'input' software *was* standardized at 80 columns -- directly attributable to the punch-card antecedents. Many early 'budget' video terminals for home/hobby use did *not* show 80 columns -- it was difficult to achieve that many characters across a standard TV receiver display -- even with a 'video' input (separate from the 'RF' antenna input). The 'better' devices did manage to show 64 characters. often with only 16 lines of text though -- a trade-off to match the display data to the _exact_ size of available memory chips -- you could to 16x64 in a 1kbyte memory; with -simple- addressing logic. 24x80 required an absolute minimum of a 2kbyte memory, and it took a full 3kbytes if you had to have every 'line' of text start on a 'power-of-two' bound. As to 'why punch cards were 80 columns', the answer is probably similar to "why railroad tracks are 4' 8-1/2" apart." Standard lettering for a _lot_ of business applications is 10 characters/inch. A punch-card is 8-1/2" wide. between the cut corner, and the rounded edge, you have just over 8" available for the printing on the top. 0.1" spacing was also a common unit for a lot of kinds of electro-mechanical production. I suspect that 'ease of manufacture' to that unit of measure played into the decision. 80 cols was *not* universal, though. Burroughs used a 96-column card, that was less than 1/2 the size, side-to-side, of the Hollerith card. They would _completely_ fit in a shirt-pocket. The 24 rows of text, on the other hand, is directly traceable to the timing standards employed in a standard (TV set type ) video display. Of the nominal 525 lines in the raster, only 484 are 'visible'. The remainder are consumed by the 'retrace' and vertical blanking. The standard TV signal is 'interlaced', with adjacent scan-lines occurring in alternate 'fields' of the frame. A 'one scan-line' height "dot" is 'almost too thin' to see clearly, and has a potential 'flicker' issue. So, the dot 'height' was set at two scan lines. So, you have a maximum of 242 'visible' dots vertically on the display. The minimum cell for a character-generator capable of clearly displaying upper _and_lower_ case letters is a 7x9 cell. Add one 'dot space' between lines, and it takes 10 dots vertically, per line of text. With an 'available' space of 242 dots to work with, Guess how many lines you can fit in? To display _more_ than 24 lines of text would require designing a complete set of driver circuitry to produce the required "non-standard" scan rate. Doable, but _expensive_ to implement. Displaying _less_ than 24 lines was relatively easy. you just added more 'white space' between the lines. Of course, this *didn't* make the characters any bigger, or any easier to read, so it was a 'why bother' kind of thing. You could go 'upper-case only' -- requiring a 5x7 character cell, using 4 scan-lines per 'double dot' (effectively doubling the vertical size of a dot), and get 16 of those lines on a screen. (each line occupying 15 single- dots of height; 7 double-dots plus 1 single dot between lines). Trying to do something like 20 lines of text, with only minimal spacing between lines, made for a _raft_ of difficulties. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My very first computer, an Ohio Scientific C-1-P had upper case only. Then one day the OSI people came out with a chip we had to install in our keypad which would 'toggle' between lower/upper case. PAT] ------------------------------ From: JP Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 15:01:33 GMT > Yep, same here. I've never been able to find it in a dictionary, nor http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=octothorpe ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: 20 Sep 2004 10:22:52 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com > The 80 column width of computer monitors in character mode is based > on the 80 character width of the punched card. However, a great many > computers today are operated in Windows mode where the character size > and spacing can be whatever the designer wants. Indeed, modern screen > characters are variable width, not fixed width. The "modern" IBM punch card (as last used by mainframe computers) was designed in 1928 and was a patented improvement. Before then, punched cards used round holes and contained less characters. The use of rectangular allowed more characters and 80 fit on the card. 80 is also a nice number easily divisible into various field sizes. As an aside, Remington Rand, IBM's competitor, continued to use round holes. It developed a two-tier hole design that allowed 90 characters per card, but IBM was by far the market leader. Also, the size of the punch card was based on the size of US currency at the time, which was larger than is now. Punched cards for information processing were invented by Herman Hollerith in 1890 and his outfit eventually was purchased by the C-T-R company which evolved into IBM in the early 1900s. The early company hired Thomas J. Watsor Sr to be its manager. He was not the "founder" of IBM, though he took the ragtag little outfit and turned into a worldwide organization. Originally the holes were used to store numbers only, 0 through 9, one punch representing a number. The upper section "12 and 11" punch was used for control information and later extra holes for alphabetic characters in the 1930s. By the 1930s IBM's tab machines were quite sophisticated and could do many things that today's spreadsheet programs do (obviously a lot slower). In the late 1940s IBM developed its final generation of tab machines. Punch cards were the input and storage mechanism of tab machines (also known as EAM -- electric accounting machines). Punched cards had nothing to do with hex or computers. When computers came out, keypunch machines and cards were an easy way to enter information into the new computers, so they found a new life. See "IBM's Early Computers" by Bashe et al for additional information. Excellent book. IBM also developed a mini punch card with 96 holes for its System/36 line. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: (in 2004) It occurs to me that so much > of what we dealt with in the past was always 80 columns wide (as a > computer monitor is today) and 12 rows deep (as IBM punchcards were > designed), but twice that, or 24 rows for computer terminals today. So > if we inserted an IBM punchcard in a computer to dial a phone number, > (and in fact, early 'speed dial' phones used cards you stuck in a slot > in top of them did they not?), then our modern day telephone symbol > '*' would be the equivilent of the 'high punch' on the old IBM > punchcards would it not, or the 'eleventh row' and the modern day > telephone symbol '#' would be the 'X' punch or 'twelveth row' on the > old IBM punchcards. I thought maybe there was some hexadecimal > numbering thoughts involved in this thing about 12 rows, but in that > case, how do you get 80 columns wide? Maybe 80 decimal is some > number we would recognize in hexadecimal, but now I am confused and > best quit for the night. Can anyone write to us and explain the > signficance and history of 80 columns wide by 12 (or 24) rows deep? > PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #436 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Sep 21 12:49:47 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8LGnl513055; Tue, 21 Sep 2004 12:49:47 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 12:49:47 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409211649.i8LGnl513055@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 #437 TELECOM Digest Tue, 21 Sep 2004 12:48:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 437 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Worst Sex Offenders to be Tracked by Satellite (Monty Solomon) Digital Age 'May Mean no TV For Poor' [UK] (Monty Solomon) Broadcasters Object to Planned Digital TV Bill (Monty Solomon) Best Buy Ready to Feast at Digital TV Sweet Spot (Monty Solomon) Comcast Blocking Suspected Spammers For 48 Hours (Monty Solomon) Symantec Internet Security Threat Report (Monty Solomon) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Dave Garland) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Robert Bonomi) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Steve Kl.) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Lisa Hancock) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Michael Covington) Paper, was: What is the Name of #? How did # Get Name? (Danny Burstein) Seen This Tekelec Article Yet? (switch hitter) Re: DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator (dold@XReXXDIREC.usenet.us.com) Re: A Backup Battery For Cell Phones (Michael A. Covington) 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, 20 Sep 2004 23:31:37 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Worst Sex Offenders to be Tracked by Satellite By Karen Testa, Associated Press BOSTON (AP) The state's most dangerous sexual predators will soon be forced to wear electronic monitoring devices and be tracked by satellite 24 hours a day, a move supporters say rightly sacrifices the privacy of offenders for public safety. The new rules for monitoring apply only to so-called Level 3 sex offenders who are on probation or parole. There are currently about 1,000 Level 3 offenders in Massachusetts, and 219 of those qualify for electronic monitoring. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/09/20/worst_sex_offenders_to_be_tracked_by_satellite ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 23:43:54 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Digital Age 'May Mean no TV For Poor' [UK] WILLIAM CHISHOLM MANY low-income families across the south of Scotland will be without television three years from now as the cost of converting sets from analogue to digital reception will be beyond their financial reach, it has been claimed. A consultation document published by Ofcom, the media regulator, has confirmed that the Border ITV area is in line to become the first region in the UK to lose analogue signals in 2007 as broadcasters and the government embark on a four-year programme to switch to an all-digital system. http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1095472004 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 23:55:14 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Broadcasters Object to Planned Digital TV Bill By Jeremy Pelofsky WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. television broadcasters on Monday labeled as inadequate planned legislation to ensure millions of consumers can still watch television once broadcasters begin airing only in digital. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain plans to offer a bill on Tuesday that would require broadcasters to only air the new, crisp digital television signals by 2009 and would subsidize the cost for those consumers who rely on traditional television to see those signals. His measure would provide up to $1 billion for consumers, particularly lower-income households, to either buy a device that would convert the digital signals back into a format that they could watch or to install cable or satellite service. The National Association of Broadcasters, which represents scores of local television stations, said it would oppose the bill because it would not cover all the traditional television sets in American households, estimated at over 70 million. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=6284773 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 23:59:13 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Best Buy Ready to Feast at Digital TV Sweet Spot By Nat Worden TheStreet.com Staff Reporter Solid earnings guidance Wednesday from Best Buy (BBY :NYSE - news - research ) could mark the beginning of a trend several analysts believe will finally awaken its sleepy shares: high-definition television for the masses. http://www.thestreet.com/markets/natworden/10182980.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 01:34:57 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Comcast Blocking Suspected Spammers For 48 Hours Excerpt from: The error message reads as follows: 550 IP blocked by ldap:ou=rbl,dc=comcast,dc=net -> 550 Message sending error. Please go to http://faq.comcast.net/faq/answer.jsp?name=17867&cat=Security&subcategory=Spam Comcast has made it a priority to thwart these attacks -- and as part of our ongoing efforts to protect our customers and our network, we are temporarily (for a period of 48 hours) suspending e-mail accounts on any infected customers generating abnormally high outbound e-mail traffic. Doing so will give our customers notification about the situation, so they can adequately protect and repair their computers. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 02:10:08 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Symantec Internet Security Threat Report News Release Symantec Internet Security Threat Report Identifies More Attacks Now Targeting e-Commerce, Web Applications Short Vulnerability-to-Exploit Window, Rise in Bot Networks, Increase in Severe/Easy-to-Exploit Vulnerabilities CUPERTINO, Calif. - Sept. 20, 2004 - Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC), the global leader in information security, today released its newest Internet Security Threat Report. The sixth bi-annual report provides analysis and discussion of trends in Internet attacks, vulnerabilities, and malicious code activity for the period of Jan. 1, 2004 to June 30, 2004. http://www.symantec.com/press/2004/n040920b.html Internet Security Threat Report http://ses.symantec.com/ITR https://ses.symantec.com/content.cfm?articleid=1539&EID=0 Internet Security Threat Report Webcast Presented by: Dean Turner, Manager, Early Warning Solutions Date: Thursday, September 23, 2004 Time: 8 a.m. (PDT) http://ses.symantec.com/GLX597KZAL ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 01:29:43 -0500 Organization: Wizard Information FWIW, I have one friend who calls "#" a "plaid", probably just to annoy me. She tells me that in Finnish the word for "#" is the same word as "picket fence". ------------------------------ Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 10:00:17 +0000 In article , Michael A. Covington wrote: > The Don McPherson story sounds too good to be true, unless > Mr. McPherson can confirm it himself. (I'm a linguist and have > studied a lot of etymologies; elaborate stories like that are almost > invariably false. An analogous one is the story that attributes the > name "ham radio" to the initials of 3 people or 3 ships.) So I would > urge further investigation. > I had heard -- but can no longer trace the source -- that an > "octothorpe" is a mapmaker's symbol for 8 fields around a village > common. "Thorpe" means "village," not "beam." > Despite being well known to us, the word "octothorpe" seems to be > extremely obscure; it is in neither the OED (online edition) nor the > Jargon File. > I can, however, clear up one other detail. # is called "pound sign" > not because of any connection with British pounds, but because, in > industrial use 75 or so years ago, it denoted pounds of weight. To > this day "24#" means 24-pound paper, for instance. The poundage of > paper, in turn, is the weight of some specified quantity - I don't > recall at the moment exactly how much. *THAT* I can answer. it is one ream -- 500 sheets -- of whatever the 'basis size' for that stock is. For regular writing paper, the basis size is 17"x22", 4 times the size of 'normal' 8.5x11 paper. Thus, a 500-sheet ream of 8.5x11 24# stock will weigh in at exactly 6 lbs. ------------------------------ From: stevekl@panix.com (Steve Kl.) Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: 21 Sep 2004 10:02:14 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. In article , JP wrote: >> Yep, same here. I've never been able to find it in a dictionary, nor > http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=octothorpe You have me to thank for that. :) (Really.) Steve Kl. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: 21 Sep 2004 08:13:40 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I thought that the grandfather of > William Burroughs (a prominent author), who founded the Burroughs > Adding Machine Company (you know, punch the buttons, yank the crank > lever back and forth) was the founder (or one of them) of IBM. That's > what William Burroughs claims in his book 'Naked Lunch' when he > casually mentions his grandfather. William Burroughs said he was still > living off the largesse in his grandfather's trust fund. PAT] AFAIK, Burroughs was not involved in founding IBM, but I don't know the details of the early investors; he may have played a part. It's hard to pinpoint an exact date and person as the "founding" of IBM because different things happened at different times. Originally, there were three independent companies, one was Hollerith's punched card machines, one was a timeclock company, and one was grocery scales. Investors (IIRC headed by a man named Flint) bought the three companies and put them under the name "Computer Tabulating Recording" company. The combined company was struggling and the investors set out to find a manager. Thomas J. Watson Sr was available (having been fired from NCR by its tempermental boss Patterson) and was hired as General Manager. Watson whipped the ragtag outfit into shape. He eventually renamed it IBM. Some histories date IBM to when they hired Watson, but he was neither the founder nor its first president. By the way, Hollerith purchased some early components from the fledging Western Electric company. Although Watson was fired by Patterson, he always gave him and his NCR experiences full credit for teaching him salesmanship and how to run a business. Watson sold off the scale division to Hobart in the 1920s. The time division remained until the late 1950s when Watson Jr sold that off. My elementary and junior high schools had IBM clocks. Central clock systems were common in schools and industry as well of course timeclocks and IBM sold them. To this day, stationers still sell timeclock cards speced for "IBM models" even though they've been out of the business for years. In the 1930s, Watson Sr bought an electric typewriter company which later produced the famous line of IBM Selectric typewriters. The corporate HQ was in NYC, but the mfr plants were in Endicott NY, also home of Endicott Johnson shoes. At one time IBM had a huge presence in Endicott as well as Hudson valley towns like Poughkeepsie, but this has shrunk a great deal. In the 1930s Watson built an impressive research building and school building in Endicott. In the 1930s the passage of the New Deal gave IBM its big break. The new govt regulations required substantial information processing equipment in both govt and industry to comply with the regulations (Social Security alone was a big purchaser.) IBM's biggest seller by that point was Hollerith's tabulating machines. As mentioned, in 1928 they developed the modern card. Punched card tabulating machines worked by encoding data in various fields on a card, just like various columns on a spreadsheet. The card could then be sorted in numerous ways by any fields or collection of fields. The beauty of this system was that information had to be entered only once, then the card data be passed down the line as a transaction was processed. Once the card was sorted, it could be selected out of a file or matched against other similar cards. Arithmetic information could be tabulated and printed on a report including subtotals and totals and literal information. Thus a sales transaction card could be used for a purchase order, sales report, inventory report, invoice generation, and general ledger feed all by sorting the card and grouping it in different ways. This capability existed by the mid 1930s. IBM expanded its machines in the late 1940s. They were quite sophisticated by that time and could even transmit data over telegraph lines. A large company could do much of its accounting work on IBM machines. IBM salesmen were trained to develop systems for customers and had industry specialists available. IBM didn't simply deliver boxes to a customer, it helped them design and operate their machines with extensive customer support and training -- this was IBM's style from the beginning and is what set IBM apart. Although much has been written about the IBM method, I think many copiers over the years have taken on the "letters" of the method but not the "spirit". In my own experience over the years IBM people were far better trained and competent than others. When the Bell System was a monopoly, it too provided considerable training and support to its business customers. It sent people out to schools to teach kids the proper way to use the telephone. My elementary school saw countless educational films on all sorts of science subjects made as a freebie by Bell Labs. Bell System people weren't quite as sales aggressive as IBMers, but good service was important. In the early 1950s real computers were still extremely rare and extremely expensive. But there was a strong demand for number crunching by postwar engineering efforts (such as building missiles and jets and big bridges). IBM offered an electronic card calculator in which data punched in a card would be numerically processed with the result punched in the card. While obviously not a computer, this calculator was a big and relatively inexpensive boon to industry. IBM's "CPC" and "604" machines sold by the thousands in the late 1940s and early 1950s as "poor man computers". It wasn't until IBM introduced its (relatively) inexpensive small scale computer, the 650, that the price of true electronic computing came down; this was in the later 1950s. A lot of colleges got one (thanks to a big discount to encourage computer classes). Even the 650 required tab machines for input and output. It should be noted that IBM didn't begin to make more money from electronic computers than punched cards until 1962. We forgot today that electronics were extremely expensive and mechanical devices driven by relays were cheaper. I've seen several sites still using pure punch card processing into the early 1980s, until then it was still more cost efficient to use the old machines rather than buy and program and electronic computer. Also, punch card machines supported big computers by doing utility functions offline such as pre-sorting and detail listing. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In elementary school we had IBM clocks also, but in high school the clocks were called 'pneumatic clocks' which is to say they operated by air pressure; a short, powerful burst of air sent through the lines once per minute would advance the hand on the clock one minute, and there was a master clock in the principal's office. I never did know (or have forgotten if I did know) who made those clocks. Does anyone remember them? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 18:29:33 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) In fact, at http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Octothorpe we have several unsubstantiated etymologies and no evidence to substantiate any of them. At least this particular site collects the stories all in one place. One thing that linguists know -- and many others don't realize -- is that the mere existence of an etymology does not make it true. People seem to have a remarkable compulsion to make up myths to explain words. Some of them do not seem to realize that etymologies are questions of fact. "Octothorpe" may indeed be one person's whimsical coinage. The jury still seems to be out as to the exact circumstances. BTW, who has heard + referred to as a "quadthorpe"? I have, somewhere, but don't remember where. Obviously this is a back formation on "octothorpe" intended to denote half as much. ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: Paper, was: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 21:58:22 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In Michael A. Covington writes: > I can, however, clear up one other detail. # is called "pound sign" > not because of any connection with British pounds, but because, in > industrial use 75 or so years ago, it denoted pounds of weight. To > this day "24#" means 24-pound paper, for instance. The poundage of > paper, in turn, is the weight of some specified quantity - I don't > recall at the moment exactly how much. One ream (500 sheets) of "size C" (17 x 22 inches), which could be more commonly thought of as four reams (2,000 sheets) of 8.5 x 11 inch stuff. _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: chip.howard@comcast.net (switch hitter) Subject: Seen This Tekelec Article Yet? Date: 20 Sep 2004 13:27:06 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I just saw this article (on Telephony's web site). Very interesting ... http://telephonyonline.com/ar/telecom_tekelec_acquires_vocaldata/index.htm ------------------------------ From: dold@XReXXDIREC.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 22:19:32 UTC Organization: a2i network T. Sean Weintz wrote: > LOL. No amount of acceleration will get over Satellites latencey > problems, which makes satellite almost useless for VPN deployments. There are three elements to this. One is that the latencies would prevent VPN from working. Another is that it makes VPN available to someone who does not otherwise have a VPN infrastructure. > Duh. My condolences to any/all who decide to try this service. The third is the impact of latency on the appearance of overall performance. That depends on what you are going to be doing. I have not seen the satellite service in use, but a friend who has it transfers files and uses Outlook. Latency is not an issue there, as there is no interactive typing. It probably isn't an issue for most web surfing or client server applications. Gaming, interactive terminal shells, and Remote Desktop are applications that would be annoying with long latency. Thor Lancelot Simon wrote: > Except that there is no such thing as an "industry standard Nortel > IPsec VPN solution", because Nortel has been among the very worst > offenders in its "embrace and extend" approach to the actual IPsec Isn't that exactly what it says, with marketing fluff added? It works with Nortel VPN. As I recall when I investigated this earlier, they would provide you with a VPN connection to their headend that was a Nortel solution. Your employer could be another Nortel VPN endpoint. I think they are now accomodating Nortel VPN that they don't provide. Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8-122.5 ------------------------------ From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Re: A Backup Battery For Cell Phones Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 18:32:32 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) > A convenient little product called Cellboost was created for moments > like this. It looks a bit like a Zippo lighter, but is slightly > smaller, and if you plug one into your wireless phone, it can charge > the battery long enough to talk for up to an hour or so. > http://www.forbes.com/2004/09/20/cx_ah_0920tentech.html There's a better one called Cell Rescue that takes AAA cells which you can replace, and also has a flashlight built in. I got mine at a CompUSA but it is no longer on their web site. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You can also build these from scrap parts without a lot of hassle. Radio Shack used to have a three or four way adapter (from power transformer terminating on three or four different styles of plugs. From a dip-switch on the transformer you sat the amount of power out you wanted (several choices such as 1.5 volts, 3 volts all the way up to 9 volts). Then the other end (the various styles of outputs) went to the device you wished to operate, according to whatever size/shape fit your device. One day when the power supply (or transformer) part burned out/blew up, my response was to cut the head off the thing, toss out the now useless burned out power supply but retain the other end of the connector (the various endings). I have done exactly this kind of thing now and then: used a nine-volt battery (rectangular battery with two stubby ends) to power some 7.5 or 9 volt device which used a tube shaped connector. Obviously, the smaller the amount of voltage used to run some device, the less lee-way you have in the amount of input. But for 'higher voltage' applications 7-12 volts you can play around with it a little. 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 #437 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Sep 21 14:19:52 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8LIJqO14195; Tue, 21 Sep 2004 14:19:52 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 14:19:52 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409211819.i8LIJqO14195@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 #438 TELECOM Digest Tue, 21 Sep 2004 14:20:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 438 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: Switch Local Telco Without Disconnecting Comcast (Michael Sullivan) Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? (vu huong) Re: The Wal-Mart Supremacy (Steve Sobol) Re: Telephone to PC Messaging (Ray Normandeau) Vonage and SIP (Steve Sobol) Vonage (David Vogel) VOIP How is it Done? (Shabam) Canada Sizes Up VOIP Regulation (Jack Decker) 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: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator Date: 21 Sep 2004 13:55:01 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. In article , wrote: > Thor Lancelot Simon wrote: >> Except that there is no such thing as an "industry standard Nortel >> IPsec VPN solution", because Nortel has been among the very worst >> offenders in its "embrace and extend" approach to the actual IPsec > Isn't that exactly what it says, with marketing fluff added? It works No, it very much is *not*. It says "IPsec" and it's not IPsec, much less "standard IPsec" (and no, putting the word "industry" in front does not in any meaningful way to dilute the claims that it is "IPsec" and "standard IPsec"). Unfortunately, the FTC et al are not technically savvy enough to crack down on this sort of false advertising -- and the VPN vendors are among the worst in pushing the envelope as far as they can. If it were "standard IPsec", it'd talk to _any_ vendor's head-end gear. But the entire _point_ of the Cisco and Nortel "IPsec" VPNs is to get you to turn off the actual standard IPsec installation that's built in to your operating system and install in its place one that will only talk to their own head-end gear, so that if you ever try to migrate to some other brand of head-end gear the installed base of nonstandard software will make it prohibitively expensive to do so. This is one area in which the Bell standards folks are, and always have been, miles ahead of the IETF. If you claim to implement MTP level 3, nobody in the voice telecom business will buy your product unless you can show them test results certifying that it is in fact standard MTP level 3 and will interoperate with other MTP3 implementations that conform to the standard. And _still_ there are all sorts of minor glitches when people plug the stuff together in the real world. What you've got on the part of the VPN vendors is *deliberate* incompatibility used *deliberately* as a means of preventing customers from exercising free choice in the marketplace: a churn-reducer, if you will; false advertising used for a flagrantly anticompetitive purpose. Nice, huh? Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com But as he knew no bad language, he had called him all the names of common objects that he could think of, and had screamed: "You lamp! You towel! You plate!" and so on. --Sigmund Freud ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Cannot Switch Local Telco Without Disconnecting Comcast Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 01:24:50 GMT > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But, Mr. Sullivan, if what you say is > true, then couldn't he let the Comcast 'high speed' be disconnected, > transfer his service to Cavalier as desired, *then* get the Comcast > 'high speed' service reconnected via Cavalier? Maybe not; I do know > that TerraWorld resells SBC DSL service, under the TerraWorld name, > but if an SBC customer jumps ship and goes with Prairie Steam, SBC > flatly refuses to allow TerraWorld to contine the arrangement with > that customer. PAT] Yes he could, if Cavalier offers DSL and has a deal with Comcast. My guess is that Cavalier is either reselling Verizon service or using Verizon UNE-P; it's possible, but less likely, that they have their own switch. In either any of these scenarios Cavalier would be capable of offering DSL, but they may or may not be capable of offering it jointly with Comcast. For example, if they are reselling Verizon service, they can probably resell the phone service with or without Verizon DSL internet access, under their contract with Verizon, but the fact that Verizon also sells the high-frequency part of its own loops to other DSL ISPs does not mean that Verizon can sell the high-frequency part of loops that are resold through Cavalier; nor does it mean that a DSL ISP would be willing to deal with Cavalier. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD, USA Delete nospam from my address and it won't work. ------------------------------ From: psychoshredder@yahoo.com (vu huong) Subject: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? Date: 20 Sep 2004 19:57:09 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello, Does anyone know of any old telephone systems still in use in the US (i.e. SxS, etc.) If so, is it possible to post any phone numbers so I could "hear" them in action? Thanks, Vu ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: The Wal-Mart Supremacy Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 18:18:14 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Monty Solomon wrote: > In most cases you'd call it a recipe for disaster. In the case of > Wal-Mart, a company with the power to force others to follow its > technology agenda, you'd simply call it "tough love." I have such a dilemma about Wal-Mart. On the one hand, they pull crap like this. All the time. On the other hand, I want to support them because they opened up a distribution center five minutes from my house, creating at least 1200 jobs here in Apple Valley. *groan* 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. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Same thing here, Steve. I find some of Walmart's tactics just generally offensive; the way they put down women in their work force (lower pay, inability to advance to higher paying jobs); the fact that many of their employees seem to almost be robots with their smiles, their 'all-American' attitudes, etc; there are many facets about the corporation that I just feel uneasy about, including what I believe is their predatory pricing techniques, and, the fact that although they *claim* to work with the community they are in, that is only true if *they* want to work along. They do not belong to the various chambers of commerce in the small towns for example. And yet, Steve, just as you pointed out, they brought 1200 new jobs to Apple Valley. Ditto here, proportionatly. We here are in a very economically depressed area. Southeast Kansas *used to be* the oil capitol of the world, along with our nearest big city, Tulsa, eighty miles south. Mr. Harry Sinclair, founder of Sinclair Oil Company (later known as Atlantic Richfield, then as Arco) lived here, in a house a few blocks down the street from my own. Almost everything of enduring significance we have in our little town dates back to the 1920-30's, when oil was king. Everything of any real value we have here came from the same period and was largely provided for us by the oil barons, Sinclair and others. Our town's population went from a peak high point of twenty thousand (in the 1920-30's) down to its present eight thousand people, none of whom are of the stature and prominence of Bill Kurtis (news, documentaries, A&E Network) who in those days owned and managed our radio station KIND (he still owns it); Vivian Vance (I Love Lucy), Harry Sinclair, or William Inge (playright and author and one of the founders of our college). Slowly things are dying here with occassional burst of energy such as Walmart building a super center (the complex is really huge, one of their largest stores in this area I am told), and when they said they would be hiring 400 people to work in this new store, people went wild. I just don't know what to think. I know we needed the jobs, badly. Maybe those of us who prefer the older ways of doing things are the villians. Like you, Steve, I have very mixed emotions. I know about five or six of the people in town who work at Walmart; they love their jobs; I see no reason to speak negatively to them about their work although personally I *hate* Walmart. PAT] ------------------------------ From: rayta@msn.com (Ray Normandeau) Subject: Re: Telephone to PC Messaging Date: 21 Sep 2004 07:25:28 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com ckm1955@gmail.com (Huntley Meadows) wrote in message news:: > I was wondering specifically as to whether there is a way for my > daughter to send a message using some service whereby the message > would show up on my PC in real-time (a la IM), so as to allow me to > get off the phone to receive her call. If she is on line, she can send you an Email Wife and I use Virgin phones from which you can send a text msg to Email for ten cents. Virgin uses SPCS network. ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Vonage and SIP Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 18:18:51 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Does Vonage work with IAX or SIP devices? Specifically, does the service work with the Asterisk PBX system? 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. ------------------------------ From: David Vogel Subject: Vonage Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 10:46:20 -0400 Massis, I saw your old post on Vonage. Do you still have info on their free trial? David Vogel P.S. My best friend from childhood is named Massis. JVA-Legov Realty 36 East 12th Street New York, NY 10003 tel: 212-677-2632 fax: 212-677-4346 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, David, I still have the Vonage 'free trial coupons'. The way it works is you *must* use the e-coupon I will send you, and you *must* get your Vonage telephone adapter though my offer. In other words you cannot go to Best Buy, get a Vonage TA from them which includes a free month, and then use my coupon for a second free month, unless you are in the market for *two* TA's; one from me and one from Best Buy. You use my e-coupon to purchase the TA (on your credit card but delivered by Vonage) and to get your number assignment. You pay for a month's service, then the e-coupon kicks in whatever kind of service you chose to buy, you get the second month of same for free. The e-coupon will be in email to you later today. Be sure to white list my name or otherwise watch your spam bucket. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Shabam Subject: VOIP: How is it Done? Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 08:08:46 -0700 In order for VOIP to work, there must be a PBX switch at most locations around the country, in order to convert the data packets back into analog and be routed through the local phone lines. That way VOIP customers can call analog phone customers. Ok, so there are many providers out there, and I know they don't all own such switches around the country. They must be either renting/leasing those switches, or are just reselling. How does this work and which companies handle this? Second question. For internal routing, such as when VOIP user A calls VOIP user B, the signal is obviously not being converted back into analog and passed through the local phone company. My question is, how is the signal able to find its way to user B? By IP address? What if user B's IP is dynamic or he moves his IP phone to another network connection? I'm guessing that whenever the phone is plugged in, it's sending a signal back to the company telling it its IP address. ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 21:27:43 -0400 Subject: Canada Sizes Up VOIP Regulation Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://wwjack-yahoogroups@workbench.net> w.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1648291,00.asp By Ellen Muraskin The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on Tuesday begins a three-day hearing on the regulation of VOIP (voice over IP) services, finding itself at a crossroads familiar to the parallel organizations of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and the European Commission. A total of 33 parties, including major, incumbent Canadian telcos Bell Canada Enterprises Inc. and Telus Corp., will present their positions, hoping to sway the CRTC from a preliminary opinion. CRTC chairman Charles Dalfen said in an April public notice that VOIP should be treated like any other local phone service, meaning that those incumbents in a position to bundle VOIP with broadband would have to file tariffs and wait for CRTC approval. New entrants, however, would be free of such regulation. Applying current regulation to VOIP services would act as a brake on the incumbent telcos, VOIP challengers say. If left unregulated, incumbents could kill off the VOIP threat by aggressively bundling an artificially low-priced phone service with broadband Internet access and wireless service. Full story at: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1648291,00.asp How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ 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 #438 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Sep 21 22:00:01 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8M201f17859; Tue, 21 Sep 2004 22:00:01 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 22:00:01 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409220200.i8M201f17859@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 #439 TELECOM Digest Tue, 21 Sep 2004 22:00:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 439 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Speakeasy Launches VOIP Solution for Broadband Consumers (Jack Decker) Sipura Technology Accelerates the Voice Over IP Market (Jack Decker) Re: VOIP: How is it Done? (Clark W. Griswold, Jr.) New VOIP Product.... (Monte) Out of Area Calls (gladyretired@yahoo.com) Free Resources - VOIP, LAN, WAN, ROUTING - PDF, Whitepapers (TekJockey) Re: Vonage and SIP (John R. Covert) Re: Vonage and SIP (Stanley Cline) Re: Vonage and SIP (T. Sean Weintz) Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US (Frank@Nospam) Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US (Anthony Bellanga) Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US (Diamond Dave) Re: TouchTone Patent (Lisa Hancock) Re: Telephone to PC Messaging (Joseph) Teltone TLS-3 (OLD version) (Truth) Re: DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator (Clarence Dold) Re: The Wal-Mart Supremacy (Joseph) Re: The Wal-Mart Supremacy (Lisa Hancock) Secure Flight Scales Back Air Passenger Screening (Monty Solomon) 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: Jack Decker Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 12:04:56 -0400 Subject: Speakeasy Launches VOIP Solution for Broadband Consumers Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com COMMENT: This isn't the least expensive VoIP offering, but it may appeal to those who live in an area where Speakeasy offers service, because Speakeasy is one of the few DSL providers that has been able to offer independent DSL (that is, DSL service that is not "bundled" with the incumbent phone company's dial tone). So you may be able to get Speakeasy DSL and their VoIP service under one bill, and not pay for any lines of traditional phone service - something not possible in many areas when you obtain DSL from the local telephone company. Of course, you could probably also obtain Speakeasy DSL and use another VoIP provider, possibly for a lower overall rate and/or with more features for your money, but without some of the advantages outlined in this press release. And, some people really do like the convenience of a single bill. http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/09-21-2004/0002255319&STORY&EDATE= New Speakeasy Voice Offers Superior Quality and Reliability SEATTLE, Sept. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Speakeasy (http://www.speakeasy.net), the nation's largest independent broadband services provider, is launching Speakeasy Voice, which will provide the most reliable, highest quality Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) service available anywhere today. The service will be available to existing and new Speakeasy broadband subscribers. Speakeasy is now the only provider to offer a simple and streamlined "broadband + voice" service nationwide. Customers who sign up for the service by the end of the year will receive three months of free unlimited calling anywhere in the United States and Canada. After the three-month period, the basic service price will be just $29.95 per month. Speakeasy Voice is designed to work seamlessly with the company's range of connectivity packages, especially the recently introduced OneLink(TM), which provides nationwide dedicated loop ADSL (or "naked" DSL) without the hassle of a phone line. "We asked our customers what was most important to them in a VOIP solution. The overwhelming answer was quality and reliability," said Bruce Chatterley, Speakeasy president and CEO. "We listened and developed the first VOIP service in the nation with VQ Technology. With other VOIP services, your call quality deteriorates significantly when you are downloading a file or even surfing the web. VQ Technology enables Speakeasy to prioritize voice traffic over data traffic, so call quality is never affected by your online activities." From a base of almost zero at the end of 2003, VOIP telephony services are predicted to grow to about 400,000 households by the end of 2004, and to 12.1 million by 2009 (Source: Jupiter Research, August 2004). VOIP enables voice communication to be digitized and transmitted in digital packets rather than by traditional, circuit-committed protocols. New Speakeasy Voice customers will receive a telephone adaptor and quick-start instructions and from there, they simply plug their phone and DSL modem into the adaptor and then are ready to make and receive calls. Speakeasy Voice provides local, long distance and international calling, as well as many of the popular features such as caller ID, call waiting, last call return, voice mail, directory assistance and more. Additionally, Speakeasy Voice's 911 service is fully integrated with local Public Safety Answering Points from day one and will provide name, address and phone number information for proper emergency dispatch -- unlike other providers who rely on cellular or analog backup 911 trunks. Speakeasy Voice is available to Speakeasy broadband subscribers for a $40 installation fee; unlimited calling to the U.S. and Canada is free for the first three months to those customers who sign up for Speakeasy Voice by December 31, 2004. Thereafter, the service is $29.95 per month. The service is ideal when combined with OneLink(TM) the first nationwide "naked" DSL service. Speakeasy Voice can also be added to any other Speakeasy broadband connection, with VQ Technology included in all Speakeasy Voice packages. Customers interested in Speakeasy Voice may obtain more information by visiting http://www.speakeasy.net/residential/voice or by calling 800-890-5214. About Speakeasy Founded in 1994, Speakeasy is the nation's largest independent broadband service provider. Combining a nationwide network, intelligent customer service along with pioneering technologies and product offerings, Speakeasy delivers a superior online experience for demanding broadband users. Speakeasy broadband is available in most metropolitan areas within the 48 contiguous states. Tho se interested in Speakeasy's broadband service can visit http://www.speakeasy.net or call customer service at 800-556-5829. SOURCE Speakeasy Web Site: http://www.speakeasy.net How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 12:17:40 -0400 Subject: Sipura Technology Accelerates the Voice Over IP (VoIP) Market Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=72919 Broadband Phone Company Vonage Is the First Service Provider to Deploy the Products to Subscribers SAN JOSE, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 09/21/2004 -- In a move certain to advance the availability and acceptance of its state-of-the-art technology, Sipura Technology announced today that it has licensed internally developed hardware and software technology to Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems, Inc. to be incorporated in consumer and SOHO networking gear. United States-based broadband phone company Vonage is immediately supporting the Linksys devices for their residential and business subscribers. The first devices to hit the market are a standalone analog telephone adapter (ATA) and two broadband routers with integrated voice capability. Linksys is marketing these devices under the names PAP2, RT31P2 and WRT54GP2, respectively. Regular analog telephones and fax machines can be connected to the devices that, when provisioned with service, will be able to place and receive phone calls over a DSL or cable broadband Internet connection providing call savings along with advanced telephony services like three party conferencing, call waiting, caller ID and distinctive ringing. Sipura currently provides ATAs to the majority of the new entrant VoIP service providers including; BroadVoice, EconoPhone (Switzerland), SIPMedia, Telio (Norway), VoicePulse and ZipGlobal. "Sipura branded products are used in many different residential and business applications by VoIP service providers the world over," said Jan Fandrianto, Sipura president and CEO. "By using our technology in their products, Linksys is able to deliver an instant winner to Vonage, with their subscribers the ultimate beneficiaries," Fandrianto said. He went on to say, "We will continue to develop innovative VoIP solutions for our customers so that they can provide differentiated, high-quality services to their subscribers." With its own product line of programmable, mass deployable VoIP ATA solutions, Sipura Technology has established itself as a leading vendor in the highly competitive market for VoIP customer premise equipment (CPE). Three Sipura branded ATA products are shipping today, with more to come in the near future. Sipura products available today are the SPA-1000, a one port ATA, the SPA-2000, a two port ATA and the SPA-3000, a combined one port ATA plus one port VoIP gateway. Sipura VoIP CPE stands out as the most advanced product in the marketplace based on the hundreds of configurable features, international applicability and dedicated customer support. Sipura's innovative implementation of the popular worldwide IP telephony standard Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is used in addition to their secure and sophisticated provisioning and firmware update technology. Sipura incorporates technologies like SIP, HTTPS, XML and multiple toll-quality voice coding algorithms to deliver CPE solutions to service providers and system integrators. Through licensing this powerful and proven technology, Sipura licensees like Linksys, are able to provide products that can be brought to market quickly and deployed with immediate interoperability in most broadband VoIP service provider networks. About Sipura Technology: Sipura Technology, Inc., located in San Jose, California, delivers VoIP endpoint products that are economically and functionally designed for large-scale global Voice over IP deployments. By providing exceptional value, Sipura Technology offers customers high quality products that support rapid service adoption with secure and sustainable growth. Web address: http://www.sipura.com Linksys is a registered trademark or trademark of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the US and certain other countries. Vonage is a registered trademark of Vonage Holdings Corporation. The names BroadVoice, EconoPhone, SIPMedia, Telio, VoicePulse and ZipGlobal are property of their respective owners. VoicePulse is a trademark of VoicePulse, Inc. Copyright 2004 Sipura Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: Name: Sherman Scholten Company: Sipura Technology Phone: (408) 572-5670 E-mail: sherman@sipura.com SOURCE: Sipura Technology, Inc. ------------------------------ From: Clark W. Griswold, Jr. Subject: Re: VOIP: How is it Done? Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 12:29:02 -0600 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Shabam wrote: > In order for VOIP to work, there must be a PBX switch at most > locations around the country, in order to convert the data packets > back into analog and be routed through the local phone lines. That > way VOIP customers can call analog phone customers. No. There only needs to be one switch. Bulk minutes from long distance providers are so cheap these days that all you need to do is bring your IP calls to a single point and offload them to the long distance provider at that point. Now what that says about single point failures and overall reliability is another thing. For competitive reasons most VOIP providers won't discuss the specifics of their network, or at least not the ones I've spoken with. That should give you pause for thought. > Second question. For internal routing, such as when VOIP user A calls > VOIP user B, the signal is obviously not being converted back into > analog and passed through the local phone company. My question is, > how is the signal able to find its way to user B? By IP address? > What if user B's IP is dynamic or he moves his IP phone to another > network connection? I'm guessing that whenever the phone is plugged > in, it's sending a signal back to the company telling it its IP > address. Yep. ------------------------------ From: madman_monte@yahoo.com (Monte) Subject: New VOIP Product Date: 21 Sep 2004 14:22:14 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello everyone, We are just testing a new VOIP product called DingoTel. It has 3 kinds of services. 1. DingoTel 2Way. 2. DingoTel Anywhere. 3. DingoTel PC. Please feel free to download any of them and let us know what you think about the product. The URL is www.dingotel.com Thank you. ------------------------------ From: gladyretired@yahoo.com Subject: Out of Area Calls Date: 21 Sep 2004 13:32:33 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello: This is a very frustrating problem. I am on both the federal and my state do-not-call lists. These, for the most part, have worked great, cutting my unwanted telemarketing calls down by 90+%. However, once in a while, I get calls that are "out of area" with no phone number shown. Sometimes, I will get these every 20 minitues and it will last all day! Of course -- when you pick up the phone to attempt to ID the caller -- you get -- surprise -- nothing (a lawbreaker, is what you get). So, you cannot report such a "person" to the state or federal govt. (so much for do not call lists). I know I am dealing with computers when this happens; My question is -- is there a way to block these from ever getting to the phone unless the caller IDs themselves? MY phone Co. (Comcast) is no help. I know the technology is there to do this, but, for some reason, my company will not get involved (their excuses are too much bull to show here). Are there any after market devices that would help? Any other way to ID these idiots so they can be sued? I figure someone herein has had and solved such a problem. Anyway, thx and peace to you all! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does your telco (Comcast) offer either *60 service (block last caller) or block unidentified callers? The first of these two (*60 block last caller) is probably better since telco would probably claim (regards the latter offering) that the caller is not really 'unidentified', just that they (telco) are not in a position right now to tell you who was calling. It seems if the caller does not specifically do *67 at the start of their dialing, they are not, technically, 'unidentified'. But with *60 reject or block last caller, whenever you get one of those, telco does enforce the 'no more calls' rule. Dial *60 and a recorded message will tell you "to block the last call you received *whether you know the number or not, press 01", and after you press 01 telco responds that the last number which called you has been blocked. You can also block *known* numbers by just dialing the number to be added, if you know it. Your limit to the number of callers you can block is ten, to add more you have to take an older one off the list. I guess telco figures that no one is going to have more than ten such callers (computers, tele- mrketing sales agents, bill collectors) after them at any given time. *60 is not the cheapest of the custom calling features, actually it is sort of expensive. I think I pay $4.95 per month for it. But that feature plus 'block unidentified callers' (another two or three dollars per month), has really quieted down my phone a lot. You might ask your telco if they offer 'block last caller' and/or 'block unidentified caller' as custom calling features. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tekjockey@yahoo.com (TekJockey) Subject: Free Resources - VOIP, LAN, WAN, ROUTING, PDF's, Whitepapers. Date: 21 Sep 2004 14:34:33 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com All, Learn VOIP (H.323, SIP, MGCP, RTP) LAN, WAN, ROUTING http://www.compointsolutions.com Updated Daily - Tutorials, news, resource links and pdf's on learning voip. Great for: Businesses looking to implement VOIP and networking in their companies professionals seeking knowledge. Fresh content - updated daily! Vist the links and feed your appetite for knowledge! http://www.compointsolutions.com Check it out... :-) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 14:51:08 EDT From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: Vonage and SIP Steve Sobol asked: > Does Vonage work with SIP or IAX The main Vonage line will work only with the Vonage-supplied ATA. However, once you have a Vonage main line, you may order (for $10 plus the $1.50 regulatory fee) additional "Softphone" numbers (each has its own number) with 500 minutes/month each. The Softphone will work with Asterisk PBX, and allows multiple simultaneous incoming and outgoing calls. Each one may only be registered to one softphone client (or PBX) at any one point in time, at least for incoming calls. I assume the 800 virtual numbers have the same options, but not having one, could be wrong. /john ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: Vonage and SIP Organization: Roamer1 Communications Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 00:31:48 GMT On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 18:18:51 -0700, Steve Sobol wrote: > Does Vonage work with IAX or SIP devices? Specifically, does the > service work with the Asterisk PBX system? Like pretty much all other consumer VoIP services, Vonage uses SIP -- but Vonage only allows use of hardware devices and softphones that they provide. :( As for Asterisk: the answer is no, unless you consider connecting the POTS output from a Vonage-provided ATA or MTA to an FXO card "working with Asterisk" -- which I don't, since it's an utterly ridiculous kludge. Other VoIP providers, such as VoicePulse and BroadVoice, are much more friendly to Asterisk users. Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time." -/usr/games/fortune ------------------------------ From: T. Sean Weintz Subject: Re: Vonage and SIP Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 15:06:03 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Steve Sobol wrote: > Does Vonage work with IAX or SIP devices? Specifically, does the > service work with the Asterisk PBX system? > 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. Uses sip. Never tried it with Asterix, but if you have the parameters you need to set it up, don't see why not ... ------------------------------ From: Frank@Nospam.com Subject: Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 18:32:55 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net vu huong wrote: > Hello, > Does anyone know of any old telephone systems still in use in the US > (i.e. SxS, etc.) If so, is it possible to post any phone numbers so I > could "hear" them in action? > Thanks, > Vu They are all gone, thank goodness. ;-) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 12:56:27 -0600 From: Anthony Bellanga Subject: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in US? Reply-To: anthonybellanga@withheld at request Pat, to prevent spam, please do NOT display my email address. Do NOT dispaly the "from" address nor the "reply-to" address. On 20 September 2004, Vu Huong wrote: > Does anyone know of any old telephone systems still in use > in the US (i.e. SxS, etc.) If so, is it possible to post > any phone numbers so I could "hear" them in action? There are no more Step nor Crossbar switching systems anywhere in North America (US, Canada, etc), at least not as far as the "official" public switched telephone network is concerned. I don't know when the last SXS or XB system in the US was retired, replaced with Digital, but the last "known" SXS system in Canada was in Nantes in Quebec. It was replaced with a Nortel Digital office in June 2002, just over two years ago. However, there might still be some "hobbyist" SXS systems around, which you "could" dial into, but your rotary dial pulses or hook flashing are not passed from your (digital) central office to the called end. You will also have to pay toll charges to call the person's "hobby" or "museum" SXS switch if such toll would apply to call to that destination (unless they had it hooked up to an 800 type number). I doubt that any working Step or Crossbar PBX systems are still in any actual "real" use, other than "hobby" or "museum" set-ups. There are some actual telephone equipment museums (the most famous one in Seattle), which have working examples of Step, Panel, and Crossbar, but I don't think that these are reachable via the "real" public switched network though. These are working but "standalone" museum central office switching systems. - Anthony ------------------------------ From: Diamond Dave Subject: Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? Organization: The BBS Corner / Diamond Mine On-Line Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 21:08:42 -0400 On 20 Sep 2004 19:57:09 -0700, psychoshredder@yahoo.com (vu huong) wrote: > Hello, > Does anyone know of any old telephone systems still in use in the US > (i.e. SxS, etc.) If so, is it possible to post any phone numbers so I > could "hear" them in action? As far as I know, there are no more step or crossbar offices in the US or Canada. The last one that I'm aware of was Nates, Quebec in Canada, which was converted to digital in June 2002. If you want to hear recordings of old step and crossbar offices, visit these two websites: Phone Trips: http://www.wideweb.com/phonetrips Telephone World: http://www.dmine.com/phworld Dave ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: TouchTone Patent Date: 21 Sep 2004 13:57:24 -0700 John Centralia wrote: > Would like to find the patent number for DTMF / TouchTone, probably > issued in the 1940-50 time frame. I would recommend the Bell Labs history series, Vol II Switching 1925-1975. I don't know if the book will have the actual patent number (assuming there is one), but may refer you to another source. Another source might be the Bell Laboratories records, especially 1948-1951. The early pushbutton dialing experiment was held in Media PA along with a new #5 crossbar switch. The system used then is different than today, and I'm not sure could be accurately called DTMF or the trademarked "Touch Tone". I saw a 1959 Bell System ad "for the future" and one of the phones was a Touch Tone set. It used a 500 base, with a round unit fitting through the dial hole that contained the keypad (10 button). I think that design looks more attractive than the bigger squared off flat front actually used for the 2500 set, but I guess that is a subjective matter of opinion. GTE had an ad in the same magazine, showing their red rotary sets of their distinctive design. I think the 500 set had better lines. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Telephone to PC Messaging Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 17:37:03 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On 21 Sep 2004 07:25:28 -0700, rayta@msn.com (Ray Normandeau) wrote: > ckm1955@gmail.com (Huntley Meadows) wrote in message > news:: >> I was wondering specifically as to whether there is a way for my >> daughter to send a message using some service whereby the message >> would show up on my PC in real-time (a la IM), so as to allow me to >> get off the phone to receive her call. > If she is on line, she can send you an Email > Wife and I use Virgin phones from which you can send a text msg to > Email for ten cents. > Virgin uses SPCS network. Pretty much all North American mobile providers have the ability to send email. A universal access can be had by sending your email to 10digits@teleflip.com e.g. 2063549999@teleflip.com ------------------------------ From: Truth Organization: http://www.lp.org Subject: Teltone TLS-3 (OLD version) Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 18:47:36 GMT Have a TLS-3, but no manual. I figured out dialing the station numbers on the front panel would ring each phone, but dialing 1234 on one caused a steady alarm type ring on the other phone. I think hitting the star button caused a normal ring as well. Are there any other numbers that cause special features on this unit? Checking the Teltone website, they picture a completely different unit as the TLS-3, so they must have updated it, and kept the same model number which was extremely stupid. They could have made it the TLS-4 or TLS-500 or something else. Plus, no manual or info on this unit on their site at all. All I need to know, is any other special number codes for features or operations that I don't know because I don't have a manual for it. Figuring out how it works otherwise, did not require much brain power at all. Thanks in advance for any help. ------------------------------ From: dold@XReXXDIREC.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 18:43:39 +0000 (UTC) Organization: a2i network Thor Lancelot Simon wrote: > No, it very much is *not*. It says "IPsec" and it's not IPsec, much > less "standard IPsec" (and no, putting the word "industry" in front > does not in any meaningful way to dilute the claims that it is "IPsec" > and "standard IPsec"). I don't see "standard IPsec" in their blurb. I see "standard Nortel IPsec". Looks like standard marketspeak to me. Who says that they should be compatible with someone else's security package? Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8-122.5 ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: The Wal-Mart Supremacy Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 11:31:27 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 02:27:18 -0400, Telecom Digest editor opined: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: All I know is that Walmart has > generally wreaked havoc with the existing businesses in almost every > small town where they have located. Here in Independence, KS where > I am located, Walmart came to town in the year 2000, built a new, > very large supercenter west of town. This is a well known result of Walmart moving in. However, it doesn't have anything to do with RFID which was the topic of the article. You make no comment on that, but go off on WM's other attributes. What gives with that? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I took the point of the article to be in the first couple lines: 'Walmart forces others to go along' and 'tough love'. RFID is just one by-product of Walmart's corporate strategy. In other words, when we move into town the purpose was not to force RFID on all the merchants/vendors, the purpose was to get rid of any/all competition in that town. As a matter of fact, they have forced several businesses out of business here, including a major competitor, K-Mart, three grocery stores, etc. They probably won't quit that strategy until Independence downtown is completely deserted; no more stores, etc. When we get to that point, *then* watch and see how long they still have their low, everyday prices. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: The Wal-Mart Supremacy Date: 21 Sep 2004 14:13:22 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I too try to patronize independent merchants rather than big chains. But the picture isn't always so simple. We had an independent town drugstore that was competing with CVS. He was hurting and eventually closed. But some things were his own fault: 1) Selection: CVS had far more variety of sundry items and of better quality. 2) Hours: CVS usually operated per posted hours. He would close early if he felt like it. Generally, CVS was open later. 3) Speed: Often he had to order stuff for my prescription, delaying its filling for a day or so; CVS usually has it in stock. 4) Community relations: CVS worked hard when it rehabbed the building so it'd fit in the town's 'historic district'. The pvt owner would not cooperate with the town in several ways and ruffled some feathers. The pvt guy did do a few things better -- he personally filled prescriptions and would personally discuss any precautions with you. The CVS is done on an assembly line and their pharmacists -- who would often change -- aren't as knowledgeable. The pvt guy hired intelligent kids to help him. They were very courteous and helpful when you came in. The CVS hires airheads that turnover frequently and are of no help at all. The only decent kids are the ones who worked for the pvt guy and went to CVS when he closed day. As to big stores vs. little stores, the fact is that shoppers are voting with their feet and patronizing the big stores (usually). It may be prices, convenience or selection, but Walmart is doing something better to attract customers, otherwise they'd stick with the old stores. Being a chain is no guarantee of success, plenty of once big retail chains over the years have shut down. I must admit that now that I use CVS, it has some benefits for me I didn't have in the other pvt store. Everybody on this newsgroup keeps telling me that the new modern companies are better for the customers than the old Bell System. That would apply to retailing as well -- the Walmart appears to be a better deal for customers than the old mom 'n pop stores. Let's face it -- chains competing with small stores is nothing new -- it dates back to the formation of chain stores 100 years ago. I would however prefer Walmart stuck to its former stores and stayed out of the grocery business just to avoid concentrating too much economic power in small hands. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: All I know is that Walmart has > generally wreaked havoc with the existing businesses in almost every > small town where they have located. Here in Independence, KS where > I am located, Walmart came to town in the year 2000, built a new, > very large supercenter west of town. They started building from > scratch, and got the place open late in the year of 2000. The first > thing they did was get in a big discussion with City of Independence > over getting utilities there (the property was formerly *not* in > the city, on the north side of Main Street that far west. The city > agreed to annex the area. If you do downtown to shop these days, > the stores are mostly empty of customers; but the parking lot at > Walmart is full and running over all the time. They originally had > been working along with the Chamber of Commerce here in town by > honoring our 'Main Street Independence' gift certificates. All the > stores downtown sell and honor those gift certificates (which are > processed through the Chamber of Commerce offices); its a promotion > to help build up business downtown. One day Walmart said they were > not going to honor those certificates any longer. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Lisa is quite correct; if we wish to be consistent in our viewpoints; what was good for Traditional Bell (getting ripped asunder, parts scattered everywhere) should be good also for Traditional Small Town downtown. To put it another way, why should Traditional Bell be fair game for competition but small town grocery stores and pharmacies not be fair game? Maybe its because so many of us hated the Bell after we studied the dirty tricks it played on the farmer's telephone cooperatives everywhere around the start of the 20th century, but now we love *our own small town drug stores and grocery stores*. Maybe the Telephone Company was just to large, to distant, to remote for us in any of our memories to relate to it, yet when we go downtown and see all those vacant store fronts it brings tears to our eyes. Might that be the reason? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 16:47:41 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CDT Headline: "Secure Flight" Scales Back Air Passenger Screening From: info@cdt.org Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 16:34:47 -0400 (EDT) "Secure Flight" Scales Back Air Passenger Screening The Transportation Security Administration released a series of documents announcing the test phase of an airline passenger screening system known as "Secure Flight." The program, which focuses on matching passengers against a watch list of suspected terrorists, supercedes the much-criticized CAPPS II - the Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System. The new program puts an increased premium on the reliability of watch list entries. September 21, 2004 Privacy Impact Assessment for the test phase only [PDF], September 21, 2004: http://www.cdt.org/security/usapatriot/20040920tsa1.pdf Privacy Act System of Records Notice for the test phase only [PDF], September 21, 2004: http://www.cdt.org/security/usapatriot/20040920tsa2.pdf Paperwork Reduction Act Information Collection Request and Draft Order for the test phase only [PDF], September 21, 2004: http://www.cdt.org/security/usapatriot/20040920tsa3.pdf ------------------------------ 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 #439 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Sep 22 01:32:52 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8M5WpJ19929; Wed, 22 Sep 2004 01:32:52 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 01:32:52 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409220532.i8M5WpJ19929@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 #440 TELECOM Digest Wed, 22 Sep 2004 01:33:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 440 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson LNP For a Move (Tony P.) Telephone Museums (was: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still) (Al Gillis) Re: Vonage and SIP (DevilsPGD) Re: Vonage and SIP (Steve Sobol) Re: Paper, was: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name (R Bonomi) Re: Cannot Switch Local Telco Without Disconnecting Comcast (J Levine) Re: VOIP: How is it Done? (John McHarry) Re: Digital Age 'May Mean no TV For Poor' [UK] (Gene S. Berkowitz) Re: DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator (John McHarry) Re: DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator (Thor Lancelot Simon) 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: Tony P. Subject: LNP For a Move Organization: ATCC Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 01:18:09 GMT I'll be moving from a true Providence rate center in Providence, to a Providence rate center in Cranston. (401-621 to 401-46x or 401-94x). Here is my question. Since they're both the same rate center could I request to keep my current numbers under LNP? It'd work the same as real LNP that being when someone dials a number it looks at a database to see what switch the call should be passed to. In essence it makes Foreign Exchange service a thing of the past but I'll be it's still tarrifed that way. ------------------------------ From: Al Gillis Subject: Telephone Museums (was: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in US?) Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 19:41:18 -0700 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Anthony Bellanga wrote in message news:telecom23.439.11@telecom-digest.org: (Much snippage...) > There are some actual telephone equipment museums (the most famous one > in Seattle), which have working examples of Step, Panel, and Crossbar, > but I don't think that these are reachable via the "real" public > switched network though. These are working but "standalone" museum > central office switching systems. Another nice telephone museum is on the Netherlands Antilles island of Curacao. It's run by Cable & Wireless as I recall (I was there about 6 or 7 years ago). While the museum is nice and has many interesting exhibits it's small. The really nice thing about going to that museum is that you're in the Caribbean! (Possibly, now that Ivan passed by the place it's not as charming as when I was there!) Al ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Vonage and SIP Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 03:33:11 GMT In message Steve Sobol wrote: > Does Vonage work with IAX or SIP devices? Specifically, does the > service work with the Asterisk PBX system? No. Well, at least not officially. Rumour has it that if you purchase a softphone (in addition to your hardware ATA) you can use Asterisk or other IP phone software (or hardware) if you want. Americans couldn't be any more self-absorbed if they were made from equal parts water and papertowel. -- Dennis Miller ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Vonage and SIP Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 21:10:36 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Stanley Cline wrote: > Like pretty much all other consumer VoIP services, Vonage uses SIP -- > but Vonage only allows use of hardware devices and softphones that > they provide. :( Vonage sucks, then. Unfortunately, they are the one and only VoIP provider that offers local numbers in the Victor Valley region of California. Unless someone else can tell me of a service that has local numbers available in the Victorville/Apple Valley rate center, that is. > kludge. Other VoIP providers, such as VoicePulse and BroadVoice, are > much more friendly to Asterisk users. Broadvoice offers area-code 760 prefixes, but from what I can tell they're all closer to San Diego than here. 760 is a weird area code that includes suburbs of San Diego and runs north up the eastern edge of California. I chose 760-217 (Victorville prefix), and was told by VoicePulse that the available rate centers are Vista, Oceanside and (coming soon) Escondido. Those are all greater San Diego rate centers. But nothing in the rate center 760-217 is in. 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. John R. Covert wrote: > The main Vonage line will work only with the Vonage-supplied ATA. > However, once you have a Vonage main line, you may order (for $10 plus > the $1.50 regulatory fee) additional "Softphone" numbers (each has its > own number) with 500 minutes/month each. The Softphone will work with > Asterisk PBX, and allows multiple simultaneous incoming and outgoing > calls. Each one may only be registered to one softphone client (or > PBX) at any one point in time, at least for incoming calls. That may be an option, then! Thanks 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. ------------------------------ Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting Subject: Re: Paper, was: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 04:44:11 +0000 In article , Danny Burstein wrote: > In Michael A. Covington > writes: >> I can, however, clear up one other detail. # is called "pound sign" >> not because of any connection with British pounds, but because, in >> industrial use 75 or so years ago, it denoted pounds of weight. To >> this day "24#" means 24-pound paper, for instance. The poundage of >> paper, in turn, is the weight of some specified quantity - I don't >> recall at the moment exactly how much. > One ream (500 sheets) of "size C" (17 x 22 inches), which could be > more commonly thought of as four reams (2,000 sheets) of 8.5 x 11 inch > stuff. That is *NOT* necessarily correct. The 'basis size' for for the weight calculation depends on the type of paper involved. Example: 'cover' stock has a much larger sheet size. I don't have access to the actual dimensions at the moment, but it is more than twice the size of the 17x22 sheet. '65#' cover stock is about the same weight as 28# writing paper. There are a _bunch_ of different 'basis' sizes in 'relatively common' use. I don't, off-hand, recall anything smaller than 17x22. 22x28 is another common size, as is 28x34. Also, sizes like 23x35, which is basically a 22x34 (8.5x11, 8-up) plus 'margins'. The European community has a *MUCH* more sensible method. They rate _everything_ in 'grams per square meter', for _one_ sheet. ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Cannot Switch Local Telco Without Disconnecting Comcast Date: 22 Sep 2004 01:00:46 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA Michael Sullivan responded to the original question in part: >> per month (Verizon's prices are quite high). Cavalier techs tell me >> that they can't switch me because Verizon won't release my number >> until I disconnect from Comcast HSI. Is Cavalier lying? > It sounds like Comcast, in your area, may be reselling Verizon DSL, > carried on your phone line, under the name of Comcast high speed > internet. Considering that Comcast is the largest CATV company and the largest cable ISP in the world, it's a wee bit unlikely that they're reselling DSL. I'd encourage the original person to call Cavalier back and make sure they understand that he wants their normal phone service, not the VoIP thing. Maybe he can ask them what their connection with (or aversion to) Comcast is. ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: VOIP: How is it Done? Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 02:04:54 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Shabam wrote: > In order for VOIP to work, there must be a PBX switch at most > locations around the country, in order to convert the data packets > back into analog and be routed through the local phone lines. That > way VOIP customers can call analog phone customers. Disclaimer: I am not an expert on this. I think it is not a PBX, which is a private phone system, but an interconnect with a CLEC or ILEC. There has to be one of these in each LATA, or a deal with a carrier who has such connections. It could be a mixture. > Second question. For internal routing, such as when VOIP user A calls > VOIP user B, the signal is obviously not being converted back into > analog and passed through the local phone company. My question is, > how is the signal able to find its way to user B? By IP address? > What if user B's IP is dynamic or he moves his IP phone to another > network connection? I'm guessing that whenever the phone is plugged > in, it's sending a signal back to the company telling it its IP > address. Well, it could be, but you are probably correct. In that case, the VoIP company must be translating phone numbers to IP addresses and letting the end users do their thing. That would require that the end user equipment recognize when its IP has changed and tell the VoIP company. It has to do that to receive incoming calls anyway. That should elicit any necessary corrections, for which I thank the posters. ------------------------------ From: Gene S. Berkowitz Subject: Re: Digital Age 'May Mean no TV For Poor' [UK] Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 20:53:18 -0400 In article , monty@roscom.com says: > WILLIAM CHISHOLM > MANY low-income families across the south of Scotland will be without > television three years from now as the cost of converting sets from > analogue to digital reception will be beyond their financial reach, it > has been claimed. > A consultation document published by Ofcom, the media regulator, has > confirmed that the Border ITV area is in line to become the first > region in the UK to lose analogue signals in 2007 as broadcasters and > the government embark on a four-year programme to switch to an > all-digital system. > http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1095472004 Oh, please. In three years, a digital->analog set top converter box will cost less than a Colour TV license. --Gene ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 01:37:09 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Thor Lancelot Simon wrote: > If it were "standard IPsec", it'd talk to _any_ vendor's head-end gear. > But the entire _point_ of the Cisco and Nortel "IPsec" VPNs is to get > you to turn off the actual standard IPsec installation that's built in > to your operating system and install in its place one that will only > talk to their own head-end gear, so that if you ever try to migrate to > some other brand of head-end gear the installed base of nonstandard > software will make it prohibitively expensive to do so. > This is one area in which the Bell standards folks are, and always have > been, miles ahead of the IETF. Not always, I am afraid. For quite some time there was an "AT&T standard" ISDN that was not compatible with National ISDN. That, of course, had some differences from ITU-T ISDN, and the ETSI implementation. While I am on it, the US "standards" adopted by the BOCs are mostly non standard by ITU-T and ETSI interpretations. SS7 is different from C7, although there are a lot of national variants of C7 as well; cell phones are not world standard GSM; the NANP makes standard trunk dialing unimplementable and variable length international numbers a complete kludge; the digital hierarchy is heterodox below a certain level; I am sure the list goes on. I have fallen into inveighing, but there is a reason for this, and not just in telephony. If you have enough market power to lock customers into your kit by being non standard, or by "embrace and extend", or by claiming something is standard that isn't, you have a responsibility to your stockholders to do so. ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator Date: 21 Sep 2004 23:57:12 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , wrote: > Thor Lancelot Simon wrote: >> No, it very much is *not*. It says "IPsec" and it's not IPsec, much >> less "standard IPsec" (and no, putting the word "industry" in front >> does not in any meaningful way to dilute the claims that it is "IPsec" >> and "standard IPsec"). > I don't see "standard IPsec" in their blurb. I see "standard Nortel > IPsec". Looks like standard marketspeak to me. Who says that they > should be compatible with someone else's security package? "IPsec" is not "someone else's security package". It is the name of a particular set of standards from the IETF. Nortel's VPN products do _not_ conform to those standards; they "embrace and extend" them in a way that makes it, in fact, impossible to cleanly interoperate products that _do_ conform to the IPsec standards -- actual "IPsec" implementations -- with them. In other words, "Who says?" The obvious answer is "Nortel does, or they have no right to call what they're selling `IPsec'; because false advertising is quite justifiably illegal." Not, mind you, that they haven't managed to get away with it thus far; and I expect that they will continue to get away with it in the future. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com But as he knew no bad language, he had called him all the names of common objects that he could think of, and had screamed: "You lamp! You towel! You plate!" and so on. --Sigmund Freud ------------------------------ 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 #440 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Sep 22 15:38:17 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8MJcHu26862; Wed, 22 Sep 2004 15:38:17 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 15:38:17 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409221938.i8MJcHu26862@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 #441 TELECOM Digest Wed, 22 Sep 2004 15:39:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 441 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson CBS Storm Washes Over Viacom (Monty Solomon) Internet Deprivation Study (Monty Solomon) Public Interest Groups Decry Shortcomings of "Save Lives" (M Solomon) Lucent Max TNT Out of Memory During Memory Allocation (Sabine Jordan) Re: TouchTone Patent (Dave Garland) Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? (vu huong) Re: Digital Age 'May Mean no TV For Poor' [UK] (Peter R Cook) Re: Vonage and SIP (Carl Navarro) Re: DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: LNP For a Move (John Levine) Re: Out of Area Calls (John R. Covert) Re: Out of Area Calls (Truth) Re: The Wal-Mart Supremacy (Lisa Hancock) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Lisa Hancock) Filipino VOIP Solution Released: Libreng Tawag Gamit Ang Internet (VOIP) Jobs at Risk if CRTC Regulates VoIP, Hearing told (Decker - VOIP News) 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: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 11:12:07 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CBS Storm Washes Over Viacom By GERALDINE FABRIKANT As CBS News faces one of the worst public embarrassments in its history, experts say that the damage to the network's news division could be significant -- and costly. But CBS's parent company, Viacom, is not expected to suffer much of a blow from the scandal over the National Guard documents that CBS News now concedes cannot be authenticated. Viacom, which grew out of a small chain of movie theaters that Sumner M. Redstone, its chairman, acquired from his father in the 1950's, stretches far beyond CBS, and the fate of its other businesses is not closely tied to the reputation of its news operation. Viacom owns cable networks, including MTV, Nickelodeon and Showtime. The company also operates the Paramount Pictures movie studio; Simon & Schuster, the book publisher; and Infinity Broadcasting, the nation's second-largest chain of radio stations behind Clear Channel Communications. It has a controlling stake in Blockbuster Video, which it is planning to spin off soon. The television division accounted for $1.2 billion in profit, or one-third of Viacom's $3.6 billion operating income last year, but most of that profit came from the local TV stations it owns and from advertising generated by its prime-time entertainment and other programs. The national news division, whose evening news program remains stuck in third place in the ratings behind NBC and ABC, generated no more than $100 million to $300 million in operating profit, according to one person close to the company. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/22/business/media/22viacom.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 11:12:20 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Internet Deprivation Study Yahoo! and OMD Reveal Study Depicting Life Without the Internet; Study Participants Suffered Withdrawal Symptoms, Feelings of Loss When Deprived of Web Access for Two Weeks NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 22, 2004--Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company, and OMD, the world's leading media agency(1), today unveiled the findings of an Internet Deprivation Study examining consumers' media habits and their emotional connection towards the Internet. All participants in the qualitative portion of the study found living without the Internet more difficult than they expected, and in some cases impossible, because the tools and services the Internet offers were firmly ingrained in their daily lives. Participants found that many daily activities were impacted and impaired, including booking travel, checking sports scores, communicating with friends and family, and paying bills. Nearly half the respondents in a complementary quantitative study indicated they could not go without the Internet for more than two weeks and the median time respondents could go without being online is five days. The detailed findings of this Internet Deprivation Study will be discussed in-depth today at a Yahoo!/OMD joint event for marketers at The Harvard Club as part of New York's Advertising Week. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43779465 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 11:12:07 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Public Interest Groups Decry Shortcomings of "Save Lives" Digital Contact: Ben Scott, FP (202) 265-1490 x1 or Mark Cooper CFA, (301) 384-2204 Bill expected for markup Sept. 22 [Open Letter Submitted to Members of Senate Commerce Committee from Free Press and Consumer Federation of America] Dear Senator, We are writing to express our deep concerns about the Spectrum Availability for Emergency-Response and Law Enforcement To Improve Vital Emergency Services Act (the Save Lives Act). This bill finally admits that, in spite of a multibillion dollar give-away to broadcasters, the transition to digital television will take decades if the broadcasters are left to their own devices. It sets a much-needed, hard deadline for the return of some of the most valuable airwaves to the public. We support the provisions that seek to enhance public safety by devoting a part of the newly freed airwaves to use by public safety organizations. Unfortunately, the provisions that claim to protect consumers and promote the public interest in other uses of the airwaves are a disaster. After the needs of public safety users are taken care of, the Save Lives Act misallocates the airwaves between licensed and unlicensed uses, misappropriates the funds that would be raised through auction of the airwaves, and fails to adequately protect consumers from the burden of a forced transition to digital broadcasting. http://www.freepress.net/news/release.php?id=26 ------------------------------ From: jordan@rate-one.de (Sabine Jordan) Subject: Lucent Max TNT Out of Memory During Memory Allocation Date: 22 Sep 2004 02:54:54 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello, We have 4 Lucent TNTs -- of which 2 at a time are connected to a compound (shelf master and slave). We are experiencing an increase of problems during the last weeks. The machines worked very well until a few weeks ago -- we have got error-messages like these: LOG critical, Shelf 1, Slot 17, Time: 13:51:10-- FATAL ERROR Index: 2 Revision: 8.0.5 Slot 2/10 (tntcsmx) Location: e0110e58 e0162578 e00226c8 e0025c5c e00ffa78 e0097384 LOG error, Shelf 1, Slot 17, Time: 13:51:13-- lost control messaging link to slot 2/10 LOG error, Shelf 1, Slot 17, Time: 15:38:34-- WARNING Index: 179 Revision: 8.0.5 Slot 1/13 (tntcsmx) Location: e00e02fc e00229fc e0025c5c e00ffa78 e0097384 00000000 LOG alert, Shelf 1, Slot 13, Time: 15:38:34-- Protection violation: ind.prot = 0 ind.det = 1, addrType = 00001000 at 00000008 e000e108 e00e02e0 e00229fc e0025c5c e00ffa78 e0097384 We get these error messages constantly, a few times a day. The TNTs are working anyway, but sometimes, due to these error messages the machines refuse to accept connections from dial-in users. After rebooting the machines everything will be fine again, for some time. I have already found out that "FATAL ERROR Index: 2" points to an "out of memory during memory allocation"- error. Therefore I have checked the utilization of memory on the TNTs. On both of the compounds the number of "memallco failures" is conspicuously high and everytime after FATAL ERROR Index: 2 occured the number obviously increases again. The utiliziation of memory on our TNTs fluctuates between 80% and 90%. I am not sure whether we have not enough memory for our TNTs, or if there are any known issues with the software version (Revision 8.0.5) we are using, or if the problem is somewhere else. I have attached a summary of the memory utilization-output. It would be very nice, if I could get some information on how to solve the problem. Thanks in advance and best regards, Sabine Jordan Rate One GmbH Schleussnerstrasse 90 63263 Neu-Isenburg Tel: 06102/8829-312 Fax:06102/8829-399 ------- my findings ------- Maschinenverbund Standort 1/Compound Location 1: total pools: 292 total buffers in use: 137482 total memalloc: 799532401 total memfree: 799525572 memalloc in use: 6831 memalloc failures: 3307047 memfree failures: 0 memalloc high water: 11521 Histogram of memalloc'd memory block sizes: 3444 buffers in range [64,127] 1482 buffers in range [128,255] 140 buffers in range [256,511] 4 buffers in range [512,1023] 4 buffers in range [1024,2047] 2128 buffers in range [2048,4095] 2 buffers in range [4096,8191] 13 buffers in range [8192,16383] 3 buffers in range [16384,32767] 1 buffers in range [32768,65535] 1 buffers in range [65536,131071] 1 buffers in range [131072,262143] 2 buffers in range [262144,524287] 2 buffers in range [524288,1048575] Total memory in use: 7648896 bytes in 7227 buffers Histogram of free memory block sizes: 17024 buffers in range [64,127] 7 buffers in range [128,255] 115 buffers in range [256,511] 3 buffers in range [512,1023] 24 buffers in range [1024,2047] 35 buffers in range [2048,4095] 33 buffers in range [4096,8191] 27 buffers in range [8192,16383] 12 buffers in range [16384,32767] Total free memory: 2034304 bytes in 17280 buffers total segments free: 31948 total segments on free lists: 195 Maschinenverbund Standort 2/Compound Location 2: total pools: 280 total buffers in use: 25752 total memalloc: 115199326 total memfree: 115190278 memalloc in use: 9050 memalloc failures: 1106543 memfree failures: 0 memalloc high water: 17843 Histogram of memalloc'd memory block sizes: 3718 buffers in range [64,127] 1736 buffers in range [128,255] 97 buffers in range [256,511] 4 buffers in range [512,1023] 4 buffers in range [1024,2047] 3850 buffers in range [2048,4095] 2 buffers in range [4096,8191] 13 buffers in range [8192,16383] 3 buffers in range [16384,32767] 1 buffers in range [32768,65535] 1 buffers in range [65536,131071] 1 buffers in range [131072,262143] 2 buffers in range [262144,524287] 2 buffers in range [524288,1048575] Total memory in use: 11321216 bytes in 9434 buffers Histogram of free memory block sizes: 135 buffers in range [64,127] 25 buffers in range [128,255] 20 buffers in range [256,511] 291 buffers in range [512,1023] 1122 buffers in range [1024,2047] 444 buffers in range [2048,4095] 365 buffers in range [4096,8191] 268 buffers in range [8192,16383] 73 buffers in range [16384,32767] 8 buffers in range [32768,65535] Total free memory: 10510976 bytes in 2751 buffers total segments free: 165330 total segments on free lists: 1132 ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: TouchTone Patent Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 02:05:48 -0500 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote: > I saw a 1959 Bell System ad "for the future" and one of the > phones was a Touch Tone set. It used a 500 base, with a round > unit fitting through the dial hole that contained the keypad (10 button). > I think that design looks more attractive than the bigger squared off > flat front actually used for the 2500 set, but I guess that is a > subjective matter of opinion. Sort of off-topic, but the 500 set was designed by Henry Dreyfuss, a superstar industrial designer of the era who also was involved in designing the 302 set (which set the style of telephones for the next 60 years) and the Trimline, as well as the "Big Ben" alarm clock, locomotives, and the circular Honeywell thermostat. ------------------------------ From: psychoshredder@yahoo.com (vu huong) Subject: Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? Date: 22 Sep 2004 01:14:25 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Diamond Dave wrote in message news:: > On 20 Sep 2004 19:57:09 -0700, psychoshredder@yahoo.com (vu huong) > wrote: >> Hello, >> Does anyone know of any old telephone systems still in use in the US >> (i.e. SxS, etc.) If so, is it possible to post any phone numbers so I >> could "hear" them in action? > As far as I know, there are no more step or crossbar offices in the US > or Canada. The last one that I'm aware of was Nates, Quebec in Canada, > which was converted to digital in June 2002. > If you want to hear recordings of old step and crossbar offices, visit > these two websites: > Phone Trips: > http://www.wideweb.com/phonetrips WHOA!! that is an awesome site! I'm currently burning all those awesome recordings onto CDs so I can listen to em at work and in my car. Yes, I'm a vintage phone sounds dork ;) Those Evan Doorbell narratives are great! THANK YOU!!!!!!!! Vu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 10:51:08 +0100 From: Peter R Cook Subject: Re: Digital Age 'May Mean no TV For Poor' [UK] Organization: Personal In message , Gene S. Berkowitz writes: > In article , monty@roscom.com > says: >> WILLIAM CHISHOLM >> MANY low-income families across the south of Scotland will be without >> television three years from now as the cost of converting sets from >> analogue to digital reception will be beyond their financial reach, it >> has been claimed. >> A consultation document published by Ofcom, the media regulator, has >> confirmed that the Border ITV area is in line to become the first >> region in the UK to lose analogue signals in 2007 as broadcasters and >> the government embark on a four-year programme to switch to an >> all-digital system. >> http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1095472004 > Oh, please. > In three years, a digital->analog set top converter box will cost less > than a Colour TV license. > --Gene Already does. Digital Set-top box UKP50-75. Colour TV Licence UKP 116.00 But they do have to sell newspapers!! Since when did reality get in the way of a good story? Regards Peter R Cook ------------------------------ From: Carl Navarro Subject: Re: Vonage and SIP Reply-To: cnavarro@wcnet.org Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 10:06:58 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 21:10:36 -0700, Steve Sobol wrote: > Stanley Cline wrote: >> Like pretty much all other consumer VoIP services, Vonage uses SIP -- >> but Vonage only allows use of hardware devices and softphones that >> they provide. :( > Vonage sucks, then. > Unfortunately, they are the one and only VoIP provider that offers > local numbers in the Victor Valley region of California. > Unless someone else can tell me of a service that has local numbers > available in the Victorville/Apple Valley rate center, that is. Packet8 lists Victorville as a rate center. www.packet8.net Carl >> kludge. Other VoIP providers, such as VoicePulse and BroadVoice, are >> much more friendly to Asterisk users. > Broadvoice offers area-code 760 prefixes, but from what I can tell > they're all closer to San Diego than here. 760 is a weird area code > that includes suburbs of San Diego and runs north up the eastern edge > of California. > I chose 760-217 (Victorville prefix), and was told by VoicePulse that > the available rate centers are Vista, Oceanside and (coming soon) > Escondido. Those are all greater San Diego rate centers. But nothing > in the rate center 760-217 is in. ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: DIRECWAY VPN Accelerator Date: 22 Sep 2004 09:35:53 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , John McHarry wrote: > Not always, I am afraid. For quite some time there was an "AT&T > standard" ISDN that was not compatible with National ISDN. That, of > course, had some differences from ITU-T ISDN, and the ETSI > implementation. While I am on it, the US "standards" adopted by the > BOCs are mostly non standard by ITU-T and ETSI interpretations. SS7 is > different from C7, although there are a lot of national variants of C7 > as well; cell phones are not world standard GSM; the NANP makes > standard trunk dialing unimplementable and variable length > international numbers a complete kludge; the digital hierarchy is heterodox below a certain level; I am sure the list goes on. Indeed, it goes on -- but you're very much proving my point with your list of supposed counterexamples. SS7 has a bit in every signal frame which identifies whether the wire protocol is pure ITU-T or a national variant. The ITU standard, like most in this area, explicitly contemplates a world of "gateway switches" that speak the international variant to one another, and local switches that speak a national variant. This protocol is _designed_ so that the ITU member nations can build local variants, while the protocol actually interoperates correctly at the international level. This is something, of course, that anyone in the market for a central office switch _knows_: "SS7", "CCIS7", "C7" are not precise specifiers of a suite of protocols; one buys equipment that is certified to meet a particular set of requirements and advertised as such. ISDN predates the Bell System breakup and was explicitly an AT&T project for a long time (it was also one of the first standards efforts led by Bellcore, and they screwed it up royally). Nonetheless, there is no deliberate failure to interoperate here that _I_ can see; everyone's switches, now, speak to pretty much everyone's ISDN gear, and again, this is a protocol with national variants, on purpose. GSM is a fascinating case, itself, the standards body (dominated by representatives of European governments) having oddly enough selected frequencies that it knew quite well wouldn't ever be available for use in the United States (where the largest manufacturer of cell phones and cell switches happened to be) thus splitting the world into "standard" GSM deployments and the U.S.. It seems to have worked, too; one didn't see Nokia selling many handsets nor Ericsson selling many cell sites a couple of decades ago. In any event, all of these cases are very, very different from the case of IPsec and other IETF protocols. There is _one_ suite of IPsec protocols; the IETF doesn't do national variants, and there aren't any radio frequencies involved. It is patently dishonest to claim that your product is an "IPsec" product if in fact it doesn't speak IPsec; what you say about corporations having a "responsibility to their shareholders" to engage in unethical behaviour aside, claiming that one's product is an "IPsec" product when it will not interoperate with actual standard implementations. As I said before: false advertising is illegal. The relevant authorities are not smart enough to do anything about this example of it, but that does not mean that those of us who are should not recognize it for what it is. FWIW, Nortel seems to have lost quite a bit of share in the VPN marketplace in the past few years. One might suspect that some other vendors (notably Microsoft)'s widespread deployment of actual conformant implementations that talk to one another might have something to do with this. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com But as he knew no bad language, he had called him all the names of common objects that he could think of, and had screamed: "You lamp! You towel! You plate!" and so on. --Sigmund Freud ------------------------------ Date: 22 Sep 2004 15:07:36 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: LNP For a Move Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Here is my question. Since they're both the same rate center could I > request to keep my current numbers under LNP? You can ask, but I doubt that VZ would do it since I doubt that they have any procedure to port a number to and from themselves. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711 johnl@iecc.com, Mayor, http://johnlevine.com, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 10:00:05 EDT From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls gladyretired wrote: > I get calls that are "out of area" with no phone number shown These actually do mean that EVEN THE PHONE COMPANY (at your end of the connection) has no idea about the originating phone number. Patrick wrote: > *60 service (block last caller) or block unidentified callers? The > first of these two (*60 block last caller) is probably better No. *60 will be totally ineffective against "out of area" calls. It works only for calls where either the number or "BLOCKED/PRIVATE" are shown. Nor will "anonymous call rejection" work, since these are not considered anonymous calls. However, the service which prompts the caller for his number whenever the call is EITHER blocked OR out of area, called by various names such as "Call Manager" or "Call Intercept" depending on the company. /john ------------------------------ From: Truth Organization: http://www.x.com Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 15:53:13 GMT > This is a very frustrating problem. I am on both the federal and my > state do-not-call lists. These, for the most part, have worked great, > cutting my unwanted telemarketing calls down by 90+%. So you think. This is nothing more than coincidence. The biggest telemarketers (such as long distance phone companies) are EXEMPT from these lists. This means many telemarketers can still call you if you are on these lists. This is why the do not call list is such a huge ridiculous joke. The other problem is, because the few telemarketers that are not exempt do not want to pay the high costs of determining how to not call people on these lists, they take the phone number of every person that does business with their companies, every time you buy something from a store, at check out they ask your phone number, because if you do business with a company (impossible to avoid) then that company is ALSO exempt from the do not call lists! And many people who do not want to give out their phone number, just make up a fake one, and many times across the country, YOURS is the one they are going to make up at random, and YOU will be getting that person's telemarketing calls. > However, once in a while, I get calls that are "out of area" with no > phone number shown. Sometimes, I will get these every 20 minitues and > it will last all day! The law changed recently making it illegal for telemarketers to hide their numbers from caller ID anymore, so all of them are lawbreakers, but then again, laws are ridiculous as only law abiding citizens follow them. NEVER has anyone I told not to call again and to put me on their do not call list ever done so, even so the law required them to. And since it reads "Out of area" you don't know who to report to the authorities to get them fined. Your best bet is to get a device that picks up all "out of area" calls automatically and plays a message that the number is out of service, or plays fax tones. This is the only thing that works. You can find such devices on the internet. > Of course -- when you pick up the phone to attempt to ID the > caller -- you get -- surprise -- nothing (a lawbreaker, is what you > get). So, you cannot report such a "person" to the state or > federal govt. (so much for do not call lists). Exactly. As soon as I read the PROPOSED do not call list rules while they were just deciding on the law, I saw all the telemarketers that bothered me over the years ALL appearing on the EXEMPT list. Meaning why bother to put myself on that list at all. Laws only protect the criminals, they NEVER protect the innocent law abiding citizens. If we got rid of laws, THEN we could go after these people and hurt them. But since we follow the laws and do not physically hurt or kill them, they have nothing to fear from us and can continue to harass us, thanks to laws, since they don't obey laws. > MY phone Co. (Comcast) is no help. Of course not! They are a telemarketer themselves! Now they have your phone number, and are allowed to call you since you do business with them, and will give your number out to "other businesses they feel have products and services you might be interested in" and using the "opt out" deal is too late, because your number has already been given out, opting out AFTER the fact is ridiculous. > I figure someone herein has had and solved such a problem. Don't EVER pick up or answer any call marked "out of area" Get a digital recorded message device from Radio Shack for around $9 or $19 that you connect to your phone, then call a fax machine and record the fax noises on the chip. Now when you get an "out of area" call, press the button and it plays the fax tones. (Or if you have a fax machine, just turn it on and hit answer) After 3 or 4 times, they will get tired of calling the fax machine. This is the only thing that works. The other thing would be to talk to them, pretend you are interested in their offer, so you can get the company name and address, then go there and make sure they never bother anyone ever again. Those are the only two options you have. Laws only protect the criminals. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I've tried your idea of sending all 'out of area' calls to fax or wherever, but that still requires me to stop what I was doing, get up, go find a caller ID box on my line somewhere, read it and then react to it. Is the Privcode machine still being manufactured/sold? Can you get one from E-Bay or similar? Those machines were really great. They were manufactured by International Mobile Machines in Bala Cynwyd, PA . Plugged into any phone line, they sat there quietly until there was the slightest hint of an incoming call (change in voltage, etc) then they immediatly pounced, picked up the phone line and announced to the caller, 'please enter your privcode number' (pronounced 'Pr-eye-ve Code'). Privcode numbers were three digits in length. If the caller punched in the correct number, his call was passed along, the Privcode machine would make a warble sound to tell you to answer your phone. If an incorrect code was entered, the caller was prompted a second time, then a third time, then passed to your answering machine if you had one, or just disconnected. There were special codes which allowed for callers to be automatically transferred to the answering machine and special codes to do other jobs. But *you* never heard a single sound, not a peep, until privcode had gotten the correct authorization code to ring your phone. Telemarketers and bill collectors hated the device. They worked so quickly and effeciently that only rarely did a single partial ring get through on the line before Privcode would answer. I had one of them about twenty years ago; maybe I will look around on the net and see if they are still available somewhere. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: The Wal-Mart Supremacy Date: 22 Sep 2004 07:53:25 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Lisa is quite correct; if we wish to > be consistent in our viewpoints; what was good for Traditional Bell > (getting ripped asunder, parts scattered everywhere) should be good > also for Traditional Small Town downtown. To put it another way, > why should Traditional Bell be fair game for competition but small > town grocery stores and pharmacies not be fair game? Maybe its because > so many of us hated the Bell after we studied the dirty tricks it > played on the farmer's telephone cooperatives everywhere around the > start of the 20th century, but now we love *our own small town drug > stores and grocery stores*. Maybe the Telephone Company was just to > large, to distant, to remote for us in any of our memories to relate > to it, yet when we go downtown and see all those vacant store fronts > it brings tears to our eyes. Might that be the reason? PAT] Pat, you've touched a raw nerve with your observations about the vacant store fronts and what people "love". Creating "historic districts" and historic preservation is a big thing these days in towns and cities. People want to preserve those old drugstores and buildings. But people don't want to pay the cost of that preservation. They expect old "Doc Smith" to stay around forever and run his little drugstore -- without change -- even though everyone shops at the CVS/Walgreen/Eckerd whatever. They expect old Mrs. Jones to keep her quaint old farmhouse as is even though she needs to modernize it and sell it to get money to living in a nursing home. In my town, the pvt drugstore had an old abandoned stone structure on the rear of his property. He wanted to tear it down to make more parking spaces which he needed. The town freaked out at the idea of tearing down the structure even though they didn't know what it was and it was in terrible shape. So the druggist had to pay insurance and shore up the structure and do without parking. He eventually closed. Oh -- he also had a real soda fountain/snack bar in his drugstore that the town "loved" but again didn't patronize adequately to justify its cost of operation. With divesture of the Bell System, many people thought they'd get their cake and eat it too. That is, they'd continue to get all of the support and services from the Bell System, only pay someone else less money. There is no such thing as a free lunch. What people failed to understand is that the competitive marketplace brings in all sorts of players. Sure, you could pay less, but you could also pay more, too. We've seen that in the ridiculous high cost of calling card calls from pay phones. We've also seen troubled carriers come into the picture like the infamous Norvergence. We've seen people get stuck with poor cellular phones and their provider refusing to make good and holding the customer to his year long obligation. So when a carrier like Norvergence goes belly up and customers are screwed people are surprised? They shouldn't be. What troubles me in this newsgroup is that many of the posters do not realize how everyday consumers get screwed by all this stuff. A basic tenent of true competition is that all players have equal knowledge so they can make education choices. But the reality is that consumers have very little knowledge because they companies don't want them too. Plans are very confusing and constantly changing, so even diligent consumers who study these things simply can't keep up. Many posters are in telecommunications as a living or make such extensive use that they are able to keep up with the latest deals. Some participants may be part of the new wave of business and making money from modern marketing techniques. The rest of us mere mortals are unable to do so. For myself, I got a calling card but still got screwed with $25 payphone calls (after I yelled and screamed the company cancelled the charges). Having 5c a minute LD service sounds great until you add in the $5 monthly charge, then it's not so great. Further on down the road they'll be some microfine print announcing changes to your plan that most people don't have the time or ability to study and read. (I just cancelled my Sears charge card after getting a booklet with their "new terms and conditions" that was so complex and undecipherable I just won't bother with it). [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Lisa, I think all of us suffer from these 'blind spots' in our logic and thinking. I used to be a great Bell System fan, and more than once I damned Judge Greene for facilitating the breakup; just ask any pre-1985 reader here in the Digest about my earlier attitudes on Bell System divestiture (and there are a few of them still around.) And prior to about 1990 or so, I was really rather intelligent on the workings of Bell; I mean the 'back office technical functions', etc. Then as telecom got to be more and more complex it began to slip away bit by bit. My beloved brain disease not withstanding (anyway, that was still a decade distant) I got to the point it was harder and harder to keep up with this topic and do much more than just editorial maintainence work on the telecom newsgroup, which is sort of where I am at today. When we have a relatively 'technical' message here, I am at a loss to understand most of it either, I just edit it for appearance and publish it; not try to understand it. After my brain aneurysm I moved back here to s.e. Kansas, where I was born in 1942 (the anniversary of which is two days from now, [hint! hint!]) because I could no longer deal with 'big city' problems and lifestyles. I loved our old fashioned soda fountain syle drugstore, our quaint downtown stores, etc. The first hint however, that things were not as I remembered them (think now if you will about Thomas Wolfe's novel "You Can't Go Home Again" -- remember it?) came when our sister city to the south, Coffeyville, announced that taxes had remained unpaid for several years on about *500 vacant houses*; that the city had had them for sale for many years, until they became mostly uninhabitable and run down, therefore the city was going to tear them down. Block after block after block in areas on the edge of town. Now you go for block after block on the south side of Coffeyville with nothing there but sidewalks and street signs, then a large empty field for an entire city block. Even the street signs are mostly rusted away. 18 thousand population in 1942, now slightly less than 10 thousand in 2004. Picture a fat man, with size 48 trousers who loses much weight, becomes skinny but tries to wear his same old pants. Cities never give away, or de-annex land they had taken on from the 'good old days', even though fat men who lose weight usually buy new trousers at the right size rather than walk around holding up the old pair. My grandparents house, at 815 Minnesota Street has long since been torn down, now its just one of many vacant lots along there. Here in Independence, where my mother would bring me as a four year old child on the electric trolley train from Coffeyville (when they had those things) to the Riverside Park and Zoo (still one of our remaining crown jewels today) to see the exotic birds and animals and ride the five cent carousel (still the same five cent admission price today, per the terms of the gift to the city) things are also a bit different. I walk from my house to downtown (five or six blocks) and pass at least four or five 'for sale' signs on houses along the way, some of which have been for sale as long as I have been here this time around, and if I walk five or six blocks the other direction going to the southeastern outskirts of town, I see where Independence had the same dillema as Coffeyville but several years earlier; many vacant lots, sometimes entire city blocks with only one house left, occupied, the rest of the block full of weeds, busted up sidwalks, etc. I asked the lady at the City Clerk's office in City Hall one day, "how much longer do you *realistically* expect the city to be around?" She said the official answer is forever; between you and I, I think perhaps twenty to thirty years before the town is gone totally. Maybe by that time I will be dead. And she pointed out, that three or four hundred acre plot of (former) farm land the city annexed when Walmart came to town brought us as much in tax revenue last year as the entire downtown did last year. So Lisa, maybe we better all begin to accept the Walmart Supremacy. Or are you like me and wish we could go back to 1950 to live while retaining our 2004 level of sophistication? What is the saying, 'old too soon, wise too late? PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: 22 Sep 2004 10:12:02 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) responded to TELECOM Digest Editor: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In elementary school we had IBM clocks > also, but in high school the clocks were called 'pneumatic clocks' > which is to say they operated by air pressure; a short, powerful burst > of air sent through the lines once per minute would advance the hand > on the clock one minute, and there was a master clock in the > principal's office. I never did know (or have forgotten if I did know) > who made those clocks. Does anyone remember them? PAT] I'm not familiar with air clocks. But this illustrates how much we take electric devices for granted. Way back, it wasn't necessarily cost effective or technologically possible to use electric control or propulsion. It's important to point this out because many critics of the Bell System or IBM (or other long established companies) complain that such companies were "technologically behind" and that wasn't really true. Those critics think just because something is available in lab or being marketed for the first time cost-justifies converting over an entire nationwide physical plant of still good equipment. [I see that with advocates of VOIP. Newsweek recently ran a piece on that and pointed out various problems awaiting resolution with VOIP; that technology simply has not advanced to the point advocates like to claim it has.] Some general examples: Railroad air brakes. Trains to this day are stopped by air pressure using a complicated system. In many passenger trains, the brake controls are supplemented by electric signals for faster response. Auto windshield wipers, other accessories. Years ago many "power" appliances on a car were powered by vacuum from the engine, not electricity. I believe power brakes still are. Jackhammers, tire bolt removers. AFAIK, they still use air pressure for power. Elevator readouts: The external floor indicator used to be powered by wires connecting to the elevator cable. A dial swung around indicating the floor the elevator was on. Today they use lights. I last saw this in actual use in the old Bamberger's store in Newark NJ in the 1980s. Railroad signals: In various places air pressure was used to control equipment. An example is a cab signal, which gives the engineer a readout. A noise is sounded to warn of conditions. Into the 1970s, that noise signal was created by air going through an harmonica-like unit. Today it is electronic beeps. Also, door closing signals on psgr trains (if even present) used mechanical bells, today they use electronic beeps. Today even the big bells at gradecrossings are electronic. In the early half of the 20th century, lots of control devices were powered by air pressure, not electricity. Usually by then the air compressor was driven by an electric motor, but many times the equipment was based on power from a steam engine. Indeed, downtown areas had "steam loops" in which a utility (sometimes the electric company or railroad) sold high pressure steam for heating and power. Likewise with electronics vs. electro-mechanical. In 1974, when the microprocessor was invented, the vast bulk of the Bell System plant was still step-by-step, the oldest type. Electronic boxes were extremely expensive, today we take that stuff for granted. It wasn't until the 1980s that electronic computers (and their support) became cheap enough to retire the last pure punched card tabulating machines that used all-relay technology. Also, it wasn't until the 1980s that punched cards and keypunch machines themselves were retired as input media because electronic data entry was very expensive and the keypunch machine and card reader remained cheaper. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And I have heard that one reason the old style Western Union clockswere so popular was because (at the time) electricity was delivered mostly as direct current. Alternating current at sixty cycles was not yet very common. PAT] ------------------------------ From: lr_rvr Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 06:17:08 -0000 Subject: Filipino VOIP Solution Released: Libreng Tawag Gamit Ang Internet Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com Union City, California (BUZZFON) July 8, 2004 - A small but emerging Filipino VoIP company, Bonusfon, answers to the clamor of the market today by launching, BuzzfonP2P , a free, compact and convenient soft phone that allow users makes clear pc to pc calls possible without the choppiness, echoes or the static noises; just crystal-clear voice even in low bandwidth environments. VoIP? VoIP - Voice Over Internet Protocol. It may sound alien to you now, but this is tomorrow's technology here today, VoIP is the hottest growth area and one of the most debated topic on the world wide web today! It's major advantage is to be able to make free or low cost digital calls using the internet thereby lowering communications costs and improving relations whether for personal, business or network use. At one time or another, you may have already tried it using free popular chat clients like Yahoo or MSN, though free, these applications does have it's disadvantages, like crackling sounds, choppiness, echoes and etc... This is whereVoIP softclients or webphones comes in. VoIP Softclients or VoIP softphones are software that runs on your computer, it converts your voice into digital formats, converts it to IP and uses the internet as medium to transfer data calls from one PC to another, worldwide. Using the latest communication protocols for transmission, Session Initiated Protocols (SIP) secure voice communications are possible and call set-up is much more precise. Using the latest in compression and decompression technologies (codec) calls are much clearer, no breaking up of voices and sometimes the quality is better than traditional telephones. Buzzfonp2p, a beta voip solution developed by US Based Filipino company, Buzzfon will enable you to make free and crystal clear calls from your pc to another pc. Buzzfon will be releasing their pc to phone version shortly providing the best quality international voice calls at the lowest cost. The VoIP market is presently dominated by US based broadband communications services such as net2phone, Vonage, and Yahoo. BUZZFONP2P You can download it for free at http://www.buzzfon.com. It's so easy to use, no configuration necessary, Buzzfon p2p will traverse NATs and firewalls. All you need is a headset with a microphone. Moreover, it promises to uphold the "no spyware installed" regulation. Bonusfon, a broadband VoIP service provider just launched "BuzzfonP2P " through Buzzfon.com, along side with Skype who has listed 11 million downloads and 170,000 concurrent users, Tamerlane Sanchez says "Our products and services are better than any VoIP product and service provider in the market today. " Tough words for the competition. Buzzfon says that the market is clamoring for a better VoIP softphone able to make high quality calls even in low bandwidth environments, thus the emergence of Buzzfon.com FROM PINOYS TO THE WORLD Buzzfon is set to release a next generation voip solution by October 2004. The new release will have premium features enabling users to make crystal-clear pc to pc, pc to phone, phone to pc, and phone to phone calls worldwide on the lowest rates. Rumors have been going around that users from anywhere in the world will be able to call the US for only 1 cent per minute, just hold on till you see the rest of their international calling rates. Buzzfon is poised to redefine telephony as we know of it today, from 24x7 Customer Service, crystal-clear voice calls, premium services like Addressbook, Call Redial, Do not disturb, Speed Dial, Call Waiting, Call Mute, Call Hold, Music on Hold, Call Hunting, NAT Traversal, Stun Firewall implementation, Silence Suppression, Comfort Noise; IPBX services and probably the most exciting of all is its most aggressive pricing for international voice calls. They made it clear that one of it's biggest markets will be the Philippines, with special focus on the millions of overseas Filipino workers and their relatives. This is indeed another mark made by Filipinos globally making the world a smaller place to live in through advanced technology. Kaya tawag na! Buzzfon is copyrighted and distributed by Bonusfon. CONTACT INFORMATION: Maida M. Barrientos Buzzfon.com 1 866 263 0710 Toll Free (63) 920-2570992 Philippines Direct Buzz# : 818801062 http://www.buzzfon.com ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 11:45:30 -0400 Subject: Jobs at Risk if CRTC Regulates VoIP, Hearing Told Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040921.wcvoip0921/BNStory/Technology/ By SIMON TUCK From Wednesday's Globe and Mail Gatineau, Que. Canada will face a loss of jobs and investment if it attempts to regulate Internet-based telephony services, one of the industry's U.S.-based startups warned the federal regulator Tuesday as it kicked off a review that could largely shape the future of Canada's telephone services industry. Brooke Schulz, vice-president of corporate communications for Edison, N.J.-based Vonage Holdings Corp., told the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission that geography and borders are irrelevant when it comes to voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) services. They can be launched to any market in the world from anywhere, she told the regulators at a hearing in Gatineau, Que., while consumers can use VoIP telephone services from anywhere they have access to the Internet. "I think we're in a new place that requires new thinking," said Ms. Schulz, whose company is one of a horde of startups challenging the incumbents with aggressive pricing strategies. Industry analysts have also questioned whether the commission or any other regulator is even capable of regulating VoIP and other Internet-based services. Full story at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040921.wcvoip0921/BNStory/Technology/ How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ 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 URL information: http://telecom-digest.org ************************************************************************* * 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. Copyright 2004 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 #441 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Sep 23 02:12:22 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8N6CMJ02566; Thu, 23 Sep 2004 02:12:22 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 02:12:22 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409230612.i8N6CMJ02566@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 #442 TELECOM Digest Thu, 23 Sep 2004 02:11:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 442 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Verizon Wireless High-Speed Broadband Service in FL (Monty Solomon) Swann Calls Senate Panel 'Cowardly' on Digital TV (Monty Solomon) Did A.G. Bell Say This? (John Wang) RFID tags and The Wal-Mart Supremacy (Jim Haynes) BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains. (jdj) Vonage Voice Terminal Affects Broadband Speed (Suma) Tap for V.90 Modem Line? (Zorpetus) Re: TouchTone Patent (Steve) Re: TouchTone Patent (Jim Haynes) Re: TouchTone Patent (Joseph) Re: TouchTone Patent (Tony P.) Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in US? (Bob Vaughan) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (George Mitchell) Re: Out of Area Calls (Joseph) Re: Out of Area Calls (Wolfgang S. Rupprecht) Re: Out of Area Calls (John Levine) Re: Packet8 Users - Curious About the Service (Ian) Re: Vonage and SIP (Steve Sobol) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Lisa Hancock) Re: Cannot Switch Local Telco Without Disconnecting Comcast (Sullivan) 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: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 18:12:06 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon Wireless High-Speed Broadband Service in FL Verizon Wireless Launches High-Speed Broadband Service; Broadband Access First Rolls Out To South Florida, Tampa Bay Customers - Sep 22, 2004 03:34 PM (BusinessWire) TAMPA, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 22, 2004--Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest wireless company, announced today the launch of BroadbandAccess, a high-speed wireless broadband service, in select national markets including South Florida and the Tampa Bay area. Powered by an Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) third generation (3G) wide-area network, BroadbandAccess is the fastest commercially available high-speed wide-area network in the nation, with typical user speeds of 300-500 kilobits per second (kbps), and capable of reaching speeds in excess of 2.0 mbps. BroadbandAccess provides mobile workers full access to their corporate information, just as if they were attached via a high-speed wired connection, but with the freedom of true mobility. Developed with a range of users in mind, BroadbandAccess allows large enterprises, small-medium businesses and mobile professionals to conduct business anytime, anywhere in the BroadbandAccess coverage area via a secure, reliable, true high-speed data connection. In South Florida, Verizon Wireless has an initial Broadband Access footprint that stretches from North Palm Beach south to Coral Gables in Miami, and west along the State Road 441 corridor. Broadband Access also will be available in Key West. In Tampa Bay, the service now covers north to Land O'Lakes and east to Brandon, with coverage to the west and south throughout most of Pinellas County, including Clearwater, downtown St. Petersburg and the beaches. The company expects to expand its BroadbandAccess network across Florida in coming months. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43793323 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:34:04 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Swann Calls Senate Panel 'Cowardly' on Digital TV Phillip Swann, president of TVPredictions.com, says today's Senate Commerce Committee vote on John McCain's Digital TV bill was "cowardly and ineffective." Swann is available for media interviews. Washington (Sept. 22) -- The Senate Commerce Committee today voted to approve $1 billion in subsidies for consumers to buy devices that would convert digital signals into analog so they could be viewed on current TVs. However, the panel rejected Sen. John McCain's proposal to set a hard deadline that would require local broadcasters to switch their TV signals from analog to digital by 2009. Phillip Swann, president of TVPredictions.com, and a nationally known authority on TV technology issues, released this statement upon hearing the news: http://www.tvpredictions.com/swann092204.html ------------------------------ From: John Wang Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 14:45:38 -0400 Subject: Did A.G. Bell Say This? (To the Editor: please remove my email address from distribution. Thank you.) I once read in a magazine about this, but I cannot find the original quote. Alexander Graham Bell was supposedly asked in the early days about the possible uses of the telephone. I'll paraphrase his response: "a subscriber can be reached at home to inform that a new telegraph is waiting to be picked up". Has anyone seen an original quote of this? Where may I find it? Thank you all in advance. ------------------------------ Subject: RFID Tags and The Wal-Mart Supremacy Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 20:19:00 GMT Lots more could be said about changes in demographics and retail business in the past 50 years that is off-topic for this group. Here's something that is closer to being on-topic. I read a while back that when you buy a stock item, such as a man's dress shirt, at Penneys, the information from the bar code and the store location goes straight to a factory in China where they immediately make another shirt in the same size and add it to a pile of things to be shipped to that store. jhhaynes at earthlink dot net ------------------------------ From: jdj Subject: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 14:43:32 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com A BART cop ordered riders to turn off their FRS radios while in the station and on trains to keep the trains from crashing. This reminds me when they ordered people to turn off receivers or face jail years earlier. At the time they claimed their own radios were "special" and so could be used on trains. I later verified with their own radio shop that there was nothing special about their radios. Of course, the above is fallacious but it occurs to me that similar threats could be made against anyone in possession of a radio while boarding a plane. Eight years ago I was not allowed to board with a general coverage receiver because "it could make the plane crash". They let me keep my Casio stereo radio and a scanner. Has anyone faced a situation where security or police have threatened people with radios? Are there any hams who have boarded planes with radios? I wonder what makes them think that even an unpowered radio is such a threat? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Security and police are often times very heavy-handed, often times just to make up for their personal feelings of inadequacy. Have you ever been told *as a passenger, not the driver* in an automobile not to use your cellular phone because it 'might distract the driver'? I can sort of see why they do not want drivers to use cell phones in cars, but before they enforce that too strongly, they should look at their own radio use in the car: driving a hundred miles an hour chasing someone, while talking on the radio, yet a citizen is not supposed to obey traffic rules and speed limits and talk on a cell phone? PAT] ------------------------------ From: suma702003@yahoo.com (Suma) Subject: Vonage Voice Terminal Bypass Affects my Broadband Line Speed Date: 22 Sep 2004 21:26:57 -0700 I hooked up my fibre optic line from the wall (CAT 5 port )to the Motorola Voice Terminal and connected from VT to my computer's network card The line speed goes down to 392 KBPS with the voice terminal in the middle. While the line speed if I connect from the wall directly to my Network card is 1138 KBPS. Is this a known issue? Why would this happen? Suma [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: All I can tell you is that when I followed Vonage instructions to put the TA at the head of the line then from there to my own routers, etc I had nothign but trouble. When I moved the TA back to being one of the holes on my router box instead, as I had done it originally, my service got better. Vonage keeps talking about their QOS (Quality of Service) issues and *their* phone does sound better at the head of the line, but you can't seem to get Vonage QOS *and* general QOS for your other equipment at the same time. PAT] ------------------------------ From: zorpetus@yahoo.com (Zorpetus) Subject: Tap For V.90 Modem Line? Date: 22 Sep 2004 12:11:51 -0700 Is there any modem connection sniffer hardware/software? I mean a device (tap) that could be connected to a phone line, and to record network traffic made over dial-up connection over that telephone line (for V.90 protocol for example). I am not reffering to those "com port sniffer" or "modem sniffers" that have to be installed on the "target" PC, but something that would be used outside the house, by tapping the telephone lines. Any hint and/or link is more than welcome! ------------------------------ From: steve@ttiorg.com (Steve) Subject: Re: TouchTone Patent Date: 22 Sep 2004 19:20:26 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote in message news:: > John Centralia wrote: >> Would like to find the patent number for DTMF / TouchTone, probably >> issued in the 1940-50 time frame. > I would recommend the Bell Labs history series, Vol II Switching > 1925-1975. I don't know if the book will have the actual patent > number (assuming there is one), but may refer you to another source. > Another source might be the Bell Laboratories records, especially > 1948-1951. The early pushbutton dialing experiment was held in > Media PA along with a new #5 crossbar switch. > The system used then is different than today, and I'm not sure > could be accurately called DTMF or the trademarked "Touch Tone". > I saw a 1959 Bell System ad "for the future" and one of the > phones was a Touch Tone set. It used a 500 base, with a round > unit fitting through the dial hole that contained the keypad (10 button). > I think that design looks more attractive than the bigger squared off > flat front actually used for the 2500 set, but I guess that is a > subjective matter of opinion. > GTE had an ad in the same magazine, showing their red rotary sets > of their distinctive design. I think the 500 set had better lines. Let me know if this helps: http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html ------------------------------ Subject: Re: TouchTone Patent Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 20:09:13 GMT In article , Dave Garland wrote: > Sort of off-topic, but the 500 set was designed by Henry Dreyfuss, a > superstar industrial designer of the era who also was involved in > designing the 302 set (which set the style of telephones for the next > 60 years) and the Trimline, as well as the "Big Ben" alarm clock, > locomotives, and the circular Honeywell thermostat. And since Teletype was part of the Bell System, the Dreyfuss firm also did their industrial design. So you'll notice the resemblance in profile between the 500 type phone and the Teletype Model 32/33/35 equipment. Which IMHO looked pretty awful compared to the Charles Eames stuff that IBM was producing at the time. jhhaynes at earthlink dot net ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: TouchTone Patent Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 12:14:15 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On 21 Sep 2004 13:57:24 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote: > I saw a 1959 Bell System ad "for the future" and one of the > phones was a Touch Tone set. It used a 500 base, with a round > unit fitting through the dial hole that contained the keypad (10 button). > I think that design looks more attractive than the bigger squared off > flat front actually used for the 2500 set, but I guess that is a > subjective matter of opinion. That retrofit design was used for a good while in Canada and not just for the 10 button touch-tone but for the 12 button as well. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: TouchTone Patent Organization: ATCC Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 22:43:39 GMT In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com says: > John Centralia wrote: >> Would like to find the patent number for DTMF / TouchTone, probably >> issued in the 1940-50 time frame. > I would recommend the Bell Labs history series, Vol II Switching > 1925-1975. I don't know if the book will have the actual patent > number (assuming there is one), but may refer you to another source. > Another source might be the Bell Laboratories records, especially > 1948-1951. The early pushbutton dialing experiment was held in > Media PA along with a new #5 crossbar switch. > The system used then is different than today, and I'm not sure > could be accurately called DTMF or the trademarked "Touch Tone". MF preceded DTMF and was used mostly on trunks by operators to route calls. It was also used in some DDD systems too. Early versions used metal reeds that vibrated at a specific frequency. I've seen the key assemblies go on Ebay occasionally. > I saw a 1959 Bell System ad "for the future" and one of the > phones was a Touch Tone set. It used a 500 base, with a round > unit fitting through the dial hole that contained the keypad (10 button). > I think that design looks more attractive than the bigger squared off > flat front actually used for the 2500 set, but I guess that is a > subjective matter of opinion. > GTE had an ad in the same magazine, showing their red rotary sets > of their distinctive design. I think the 500 set had better lines. Yes, the early idea was to just retrofit the 500 with a new dial plate and put the keypad in. It would have been cheaper for Bell in the long run but they elected to give the units more space with the 2500 design. ------------------------------ From: techie@tantivy.stanford.edu (Bob Vaughan) Subject: Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in US? Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 03:08:41 UTC Organization: Tantivy Associates In article , Anthony Bellanga wrote: > However, there might still be some "hobbyist" SXS systems around, > which you "could" dial into, but your rotary dial pulses or hook > flashing are not passed from your (digital) central office to the > called end. You will also have to pay toll charges to call the > person's "hobby" or "museum" SXS switch if such toll would apply to > call to that destination (unless they had it hooked up to an 800 type > number). > I doubt that any working Step or Crossbar PBX systems are still in any > actual "real" use, other than "hobby" or "museum" set-ups. KZSU-FM at Stanford University has a working SxS PBX in regular service. It has about 100 extensions, and 4 outside trunks, and serves the studios, and most of the remote locations on campus where KZSU has circuits. -- Welcome My Son, Welcome To The Machine -- Bob Vaughan | techie@{w6yx|tantivy}.stanford.edu | kc6sxc@w6yx.ampr.org | P.O. Box 19792, Stanford, Ca 94309 -- I am Me, I am only Me, And no one else is Me, What could be simpler? -- ------------------------------ From: George Mitchell Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 15:39:31 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Lisa Hancock wrote: > Railroad signals: In various places air pressure was used to control > equipment. An example is a cab signal, which gives the engineer a > readout. A noise is sounded to warn of conditions. Into the 1970s, > that noise signal was created by air going through an harmonica-like > unit. Today it is electronic beeps. Also, door closing signals on > psgr trains (if even present) used mechanical bells, today they use > electronic beeps. Today even the big bells at gradecrossings are > electronic. However, the receiver which received the cab signal indication from the tracks represented the first industrial deployment of the vacuum tube. http://www.wws.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/byteserv.prl/~ota/disk3/1976/7614/761414.PDF (Look at the 1923 entry.) -- George Mitchell (obfuscated email address) ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 12:12:06 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On 21 Sep 2004 13:32:33 -0700, gladyretired@yahoo.com wrote: > I know I am dealing with computers when this happens; My question > is -- is there a way to block these from ever getting to the phone > unless the caller IDs themselves? > MY phone Co. (Comcast) is no help. I know the technology is there to > do this, but, for some reason, my company will not get involved (their > excuses are too much bull to show here). Since your phone company is Comcast I couldn't say for certain whether they offer this service, but AFAIK most of the ILECs offer a call screening service that is in addition to caller ID. When a call comes in your number is answered and you get an announcement something on the order of "if you are a solicitor please hang up and put this number on your do not call list. Other callers please press 1 to complete this call." I've called other numbers where my number was not presented and it made me enter my number before it would process the call. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls From: wolfgang+gnus20040922T131858@dailyplanet.dontspam.wsrcc.com Organization: W S Rupprecht Computer Consulting, Fremont CA Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 20:42:26 GMT Pat writes: > Plugged into any phone line, they sat there quietly until there was > the slightest hint of an incoming call (change in voltage, etc) then > they immediatly pounced, picked up the phone line and announced to the > caller, 'please enter your privcode number' (pronounced 'Pr-eye-ve > Code'). Privcode numbers were three digits in length. If the caller > punched in the correct number, his call was passed along, the Privcode > machine would make a warble sound to tell you to answer your phone. One of the joys of running an Asterisk PBX at home is that I can effectively do the same thing with calls that come in on the POTS line. Callers are prompted to either dial 6001 or 6002 depending on which one of two desk phone they are trying to reach. Predictive dialers fail this Turing test and get unceremoniously dropped after failing to dial a number in the alloted 60 seconds. I did have a bit of apprehension of leaving the two desk phone's extension numbers on the greeting msg. After all it would be an even better telemarketer block if I kept the extensions a secret from them. It turns out that it wasn't a problem and no phone-spammer has bothered to jump through that hoop yet. For the curious, I use a Sipura-3000 ATA to digitize and grab the DTMF from the POTS line and send the vitals to Asterisk running on an Openbsd system. The two desk phones are Grandstream Budgetone-101 VOIP/SIP phones. Not only does Asterisk screen the incoming calls, but it also takes care of recording the voicemail and lighting the voicemail leds on the desk phones. Next on the agenda is add a "Calls may be monitored for quality assurance purposes" to the greeting and then record all the calls to disk. Disk space is cheap. -wolfgang ------------------------------ Date: 22 Sep 2004 21:31:10 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> state do-not-call lists. These, for the most part, have worked great, >> cutting my unwanted telemarketing calls down by 90+%. > So you think. This is nothing more than coincidence. The biggest > telemarketers (such as long distance phone companies) are EXEMPT from > these lists. Could you point to the section of the law or FTC regulations that provides the exemptions? Because there is no such exemption, and you're just wrong. If you are getting calls from companies with which you are not currently doing business (or with whom you are doing business and have told them to stop), you can sue them under the TCPA. The only significant exemptions are for established business relationship and non-profits. FYI, I haven't gotten a call from a long distance company in years, even though I'm the sort of high-volume caller you'd think they'd love to have. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I've tried your idea of sending all > 'out of area' calls to fax or wherever, I guess you don't get many calls from COCOTs or outside the country. There's a lot more reasons than telemarketers for a call to come up out of area. Regards, John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of The Internet for Dummies, Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, Mayor "I shook hands with Senators Dole and Inouye," said Tom, disarmingly. ------------------------------ From: ian@jardine.net (Ian) Subject: Re: Packet8 Users - Curious About the Service Date: 22 Sep 2004 12:46:15 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com This site is a good place to buy into a P8 service and the text should answer all your questions. http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=3988241 FYI my monthly Bill comes to $20.50 that's 19.95 plus 55 Cents Tax. ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Vonage and SIP Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 12:56:17 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Carl Navarro wrote: > Packet8 lists Victorville as a rate center. www.packet8.net Missed that. Thanks. 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. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: 22 Sep 2004 20:25:34 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And I have heard that one reason the > old style Western Union clockswere so popular was because (at the > time) electricity was delivered mostly as direct current. Alternating > current at sixty cycles was not yet very common. PAT] Commercial direct current is an important part of our technological history. I'm far from an expert on that aspect, but I can say this: Early in the electric era there was a debate between advocates of AC and DC commercial supplies. I believe Edison pushed DC while Westinghouse pushed AC. AC eventually won out. However, many power companies and buildings used DC current for many years until eventually converted to AC. (AC has the advtg of easy voltage change. I believe DC was better for basic motors of the early days.) Also, some large buildings and industrial sites generated their own power rather than buy it commercially. It took some years (1920s-1930s) until it was cheaper to buy commercial power rather than generate it yourself for large users. Perhaps someone here can expand on this history. The history of the power industry has many players -- small companies merging into big ones, companies building networks and large scale power stations. In the 1930s there were holding company scandals. One major man, named Insull, ended up charged as a common criminal for his exploits, though he built substantial power and interurban complexes; he may have been acquitted. (Pat, are you familiar with him? Your old bus station in Skokie was once part of his wonderful North Shore Line.) IBM component catalogs of the 1930s show that equipment may be ordered for either DC or AC operation. Perhaps if we had a better understanding of the good and the bad of the history of the power industry, we may have prevented the California power shortages and last year's power blackout from a screwed up Ohio utility. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Samuel Insull *was* a very major player, and a major crook also, as you point out. He was one of the founders of Commonwealth Edison Company (electric supplier) in Chicago. Back in the 1930's in the heart of the great depression, the Chicago Rapid Transit Company (one of several transit companies which merged in 1947 to become Chicago Transit Authority) which was also owned by Samuel Insull was about to go bankrupt. It could not pay its electric bill to Edison to run the trains. Samuel Insull got the bright idea to pay transit's indebtedness by issuing fifty year bonds (which would mature in the 'distant future' in 1984). Insull's other company, Commonwealth Edison wound up buying most of the bonds. Chicago Rapid Transit Company, Loop Elevated Railroad Company, Chicago Surface Lines and a couple others were all 'municipalized' (a very fancy and elegant name for robbery, when a city does it to privately owned businesses in town) in 1947 by the Chicago City Council and placed in a new quasi-government agency called 'Chicago Transit Authority', which is technically a government in its own right, with the power to tax, etc. just as 'Chicago Park District' is also a government in its own right. Not a *government agency*, but a *government*. Sam Insull died around the 1940's sometime, and all those bonds issued to bail Rapid Transit Company out of bankruptcy wound up in Edison's hands. Finally the fifty years goes by, it is now 1984. The CTA -- always a very poorly managed, politically driven outfit -- is having one of its periodic cash crunches. Just like NYTA in New York City, the corrupted workers stole so much of the fare money, CTA was rock bottom poor again. Enters now the Edison Company, waving those bonds around and saying "we want our money. Pay us our money. We gave you fifty years to raise it earlier." CTA responded, 'well, we had planned to raise the fares by ten cents a ride in order to break even. How are we going to pay you as well?' Edison said "we don't care if you have to raise the fares to ten dollars a ride! we want our money, or you will get sued for reneging on and repudiating your earlier debts." Frightened by the real possibility the Chicago Tribune and others would dig into this mess and discover how the workers had ripped off CTA so badly, CTA managed to cover it up, smooth it over and provide Chicago area transit riders with the biggest fare increase they had ever seen; I think the fare went up from one dollar per ride to $1.50 (that, from an organization which started out in 1947 with rides for two cent fares on the street cars, etc. Needless to say, the real bosses in City Hall were furious about it. The Chicago Transit Atrocity has been a long running joke in Chicago for many years. CTA is the landlord of Skokie Greyhound Bus Station by virtue of their take over of all Insull's properties many years earlier, including the North Shore Railroad. The once gorgeous, crown jewel railroad station was partioned into store fronts, one for Greyhound, one for a hot dog stand, and the other part for a dry cleaning store. Then the slumlord CTA did absolutely *nothing for the next thirty years to repair or keep up the place*. Finally when some smart alec got the entire property put on the National Historic Register, and the federal government told CTA to start taking care of their own property a little better, and forbade them to tear the whole place down which is what CTA had planned to do. Please don't get me started on CTA, Commonwealth Edison and Samuel Insull's legacy with both of them. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Cannot Switch Local Telco Without Disconnecting Comcast Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 03:59:26 GMT In article , johnl@iecc.com says: > Considering that Comcast is the largest CATV company and the largest > cable ISP in the world, it's a wee bit unlikely that they're reselling > DSL. I agree that it is entirely counterintuitive. However, it is the only explanation, how ever unlikely, that seems to fit the facts: namely, that Verizon told Cavalier that the number port for the original poster's voice line can't take place until "Comcast HSI" is cancelled. Verizon would have no reason to refuse a port if the broadband service were provided over a cable modem -- it wouldn't even know whether the customer took cable modem service from Comcast or anyone else. And a bit of "googling" reveals that Comcast does indeed sell DSL-based broadband service in some areas under the "Comcast HSI" label, although this is apparently through resellers, at least in the US. See and . Perhaps they do this where they don't yet have their cable networks upgraded or where they don't have cable. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But, Mr. Sullivan, if what you say is > true, then couldn't he let the Comcast 'high speed' be disconnected, > transfer his service to Cavalier as desired, *then* get the Comcast > 'high speed' service reconnected via Cavalier? Maybe not; I do know > that TerraWorld resells SBC DSL service, under the TerraWorld name, > but if an SBC customer jumps ship and goes with Prairie Steam, SBC > flatly refuses to allow TerraWorld to contine the arrangement with > that customer. PAT] Yes he could, if Cavalier offers DSL and has a deal with Comcast. My guess is that Cavalier is either reselling Verizon service or using Verizon UNE-P; it's possible, but less likely, that they have their own switch. In either any of these scenarios Cavalier would be capable of offering DSL, but they may or may not be capable of offering it jointly with Comcast. For example, if they are reselling Verizon service, they can probably resell the phone service with or without Verizon DSL internet access, under their contract with Verizon, but the fact that Verizon also sells the high-frequency part of its own loops to other DSL ISPs does not mean that Verizon can sell the high-frequency part of loops that are resold through Cavalier; nor does it mean that a DSL ISP would be willing to deal with Cavalier. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD, USA Delete nospam from my address and it won't work. ------------------------------ 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! 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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 #442 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Sep 23 20:08:04 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8O084P10796; Thu, 23 Sep 2004 20:08:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 20:08:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409240008.i8O084P10796@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 #443 TELECOM Digest Thu, 23 Sep 2004 20:08:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 443 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Verizon Wireless BroadbandAccess (Monty Solomon) CDT Headline: Senate Committee Approves Spyware Bill (Monty Solomon) AT&T Wireless, MercuryMD Give Healthcare Professionals Fast (M Solomon) Re: Out of Area Calls (Tom Smith) Re: Out of Area Calls (Truth) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Justin Time) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (John McHarry) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Charles Wilber) Re: Tap For V.90 Modem Line? (Robert Bonomi) BUSH Leaked Documents to CBS (Truth) Re: LNP For a Move (Valerie in FL) Re: The Wal-Mart Supremacy (John David Galt) Free VOIP and Data Networking Resources (tekjockey) SIPZOO Offers Free No Obligation Trial of Global Broadband (VOIP News) Canada: Ingram: CRTC Should Butt Out (Jack Decker - VOIP News) 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: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 08:51:19 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon Wireless BroadbandAccess Verizon Wireless, Nortel Networks Launch EV-DO BroadbandAccess 3G Network in Additional U.S. Markets BEDMINSTER, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 23, 2004--With Monday's upcoming launch of Verizon Wireless' third generation (3G) wide-area BroadbandAccess network in 14 major metropolitan areas and 24 airports in the United States, Verizon Wireless is offering large enterprises, small-medium businesses and mobile professionals the fastest commercially-available wide-area fully mobile data experience in the nation. BroadbandAccess allows customers to conduct business anywhere in the BroadbandAccess coverage area via a secure, true high-speed data connection with typical user download speeds of 300-500 kilobits per second (kbps). BroadbandAccess is powered in part by CDMA2000 1xEV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimized) 3G wireless equipment from Nortel Networks (NYSE:NT) (TSX:NT). As part of the network build nationwide, Nortel Networks upgraded Verizon Wireless' existing base stations and modules and provided associated services. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43806738 Verizon Wireless and Lucent Technologies Launch EV-DO Data Services in Additional U.S. Markets - Sep 23, 2004 08:01 AM (BusinessWire) BEDMINSTER, N.J. & MURRAY HILL, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 23, 2004--With Monday's upcoming expansion of Verizon Wireless' third-generation (3G) wide-area BroadbandAccess network to include 14 major metropolitan areas and 24 airports across the United States, Verizon Wireless is offering its enterprise customers mobile high-speed data services that are changing the way people do business. Developed with a range of users in mind, the BroadbandAccess network allows large enterprises, small-medium businesses and mobile professionals to conduct business anytime, anywhere in the BroadbandAccess coverage area via a secure, true high-speed data connection with typical user download speeds of 300-500 kilobits per second (kbps). The BroadbandAccess network is based on CDMA2000 1xEV-DO equipment, software and services provided in part by Lucent Technologies (NYSE:LU) Beginning Monday, the BroadbandAccess network will be available in Atlanta; Austin, TX; Baltimore; Kansas City, KS/MO; Los Angeles; Miami/Fort Lauderdale, FL; Milwaukee; New York; Philadelphia; Tampa, FL and West Palm Beach, FL., in addition to Washington, DC, San Diego and Las Vegas and 24 airports from coast to coast. Lucent, one of Verizon Wireless's primary network infrastructure suppliers, said it is pleased to support the launch in a significant number of the new markets with equipment, software and services, as well as data and research that is part of Lucent's Market Advantage Program. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43806821 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 13:52:25 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CDT Headline: Senate Committee Approves Spyware Bill From: info@cdt.org Senate Committee Approves Spyware Bill The Senate Commerce Committee approved a revised version of the Burns-Wyden "SPYBLOCK" Act on September 22. The bill would give the FTC authority over a variety of spyware-related activities, and would make covert installation of software illegal. Anti-spyware legislation has now been approved by Committees in both the House and Senate, and is awaiting consideration by the full membership in both houses. September 23, 2004 Text of S 2145 [offsite]: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:s.02145: CDT's Spyware Page: http://www.cdt.org/privacy/spyware/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 15:35:16 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AT&T Wireless, MercuryMD Give Healthcare Professionals Fast Give Healthcare Professionals Fast Access to Patient Data - Sep 23, 2004 01:30 PM (BusinessWire) REDMOND, Wash. & DURHAM, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 23, 2004--AT&T Wireless and MercuryMD, Inc. are teaming to provide medical professionals with wireless access to critical patient information on PDAs and PocketPCs while on-the-go, the companies announced today at MercuryMD's Second Annual Customer Summit. Through this relationship, the MData(R) Enterprise System from MercuryMD has been enabled for the AT&T Wireless nationwide GSM(TM)/GPRS wireless data network for use with popular handheld devices. Beginning today, physicians and other healthcare professionals now can use a palmOne(TM) Treo(TM) 600 or an Audiovox PPC 4100 to wirelessly and securely access real-time patient information such as demographics, lab results, medication lists, and other reports in any of 7,500 cities and towns in the U.S. in which AT&T Wireless has coverage. The AT&T Wireless-MercuryMD solution, which features MData's SyncEverywhere(TM) technology, is being demonstrated at MercuryMD's Customer Summit. AT&T services are being offered for sale at the MercuryMD event and will be available through the AT&T Wireless enterprise sales organization afterwards. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43815832 ------------------------------ From: Tom Smith Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 08:13:26 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet gladyretired@yahoo.com wrote: > However, once in a while, I get calls that are "out of area" with no > phone number shown. > My question is -- is there a way to block these from ever getting to > the phone unless the caller IDs themselves? Yes, if your phone company offers "call intercept." Such callers hear a message that their call has been intercepted and they must identify themselves. They are put on hold and you hear a distinctive ring as well as see "call intercept" on your CID. If you choose to answer the phone, you hear the playback of the caller's reply to the request for identity. You are then given a menu of options: Accept the call. Decline the call. Send it to voice mail. Have the caller told to put you on their do not call list. If you just decline the call, the caller is told their is no one available to take the call. If you have known callers whose calls, for whatever reason, show up on your CID as "out of area," you can provide them a pin that permits them to bypass the call intercept drill. It cost me $4.95 a month. It was great. But for whatever, reason I no longer get "out of area" calls, so I recently decided to drop the call intercept and save the $4.95 a month. Of course you can choose to just ignore "out of area" calls. But I had some such calls that I wanted to answer. I tried to decide which ones to answer and which to decline by time of day. I had first hand information about my failures for answering calls I wished I had not. But obviously I had no information on how many calls I would have answered if I had only known the identity. Then one day I did not answer an "out of area" call, and to this day, I regret it. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Someone, I think John Levine, answered me on this point a couple days ago. I said I had tried sending 'out of area' to fax, etc. His response was "you must not get many 'out of area calls from COCOTS (and a few other types of systems)' ..." Yes, I do, and that is one reason I quit doing that manual diversion method on 'out of area'. I used that 'call intercept' feature when I had Southwestern Bell (SBC) and it worked exactly as you described it. I should have remembered that as one option when responding to the original writer but somehow neglected to do so. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Truth Organization: http://www.x.com Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 19:29:15 GMT >> So you think. This is nothing more than coincidence. The biggest >> telemarketers (such as long distance phone companies) are EXEMPT from >> these lists. > Could you point to the section of the law or FTC regulations that > provides the exemptions? Because there is no such exemption, and > you're just wrong. People like you, who don't even bother to do research or CHECK before they call someone wrong never cease to amaze me. Next time, go to google.com and CHECK before you call someone a liar. "There are some exemptions, for example, as you might expect, telephone companies can still call you to solicit you and so can banks and credit card companies," Cohen said. Also still allowed to call are: charities, insurance companies and politicians." Then, keep in mind MOST telemarketers don't abide by laws or do not call lists ANYWAY! By keeping their number from showing on caller ID (which is also against the law now, but they continue to do) or using a fake number like 111-111-1111 (which I have seen many times myself) you don't know what company to report for violating Federal Law anyway. > If you are getting calls from companies with which you are not > currently doing business (or with whom you are doing business and > have told them to stop), you can sue them under the TCPA. THINK before you start typing! You have to know WHO they are before you can sue someone! ASKING them who they are doesn't work. You have to play long games with them pretending to be interested in what they are selling so you can figure out who they are, but then you have no caller ID to prove they called either, the laws only protect them, not the victims. Anyone with half a brain can figure out that a law making telemarketing ILLEGAL would have made more sense than a DO NOT CALL LIST. Or having a DO CALL LIST in which the 2 or 3 people in the world that like to get telelmarketing calls could sign up on a permission list, rather than make millions of people sign up saying they don't want to be harassed. THINK! > The only significant exemptions are for established business > relationship and non-profits. Bullshit. Check the FCC or FTC websites for the complete law and read through all the exemptions as I did a long time ago when I was active in promoting to the public what a farce this stupid law was, and how MOST of the telemarketers we get calls from are EXEMPT for the do not call list. Doesn't matter if you have an established relationship with them or not. > FYI, I haven't gotten a call from a long distance company in years, Because you are probably one of the stupid people that HAS a long distance company connected to your phone line so that you can pay hundreds of dollars a year even if you never make one single long distance phone call. Intelligent people have NO long distance company connected with their home phone lines at all, and use one of the THOUSANDS of 10-10 numbers that have NO MONTHLY FEES or charges and you can change companies for each call made, just by using a different 10-10 number. If you canceled the long distance company you have now, you will indeed get several calls a day for MONTHS from that company trying to get you back. This is a FACT that I, and everyone I know has gone through. If you try to say this is not true, then you can only be one of their employees or a telemarketer yourself. > I guess you don't get many calls from COCOTs or outside the country. Sure do, and they all show up on caller ID, even when from outside the country. In fact, MANY telemarketers are calling from India and Canada now, and they show up just fine on caller ID if they are not breaking the law and preventing their number from showing up. > There's a lot more reasons than telemarketers for a call to come > up out of area. The only reason you get that anymore is from telemarketers, and one other exception with calling cards or using some 10-10 numbers which don't pass your number through. ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: 23 Sep 2004 06:46:27 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com jdj wrote in message news:: > A BART cop ordered riders to turn off their FRS radios while in the > station and on trains to keep the trains from crashing. > This reminds me when they ordered people to turn off receivers or face > jail years earlier. At the time they claimed their own radios were > "special" and so could be used on trains. I later verified with their > own radio shop that there was nothing special about their radios. > Of course, the above is fallacious but it occurs to me that similar > threats could be made against anyone in possession of a radio while > boarding a plane. > Eight years ago I was not allowed to board with a general coverage > receiver because "it could make the plane crash". They let me keep my > Casio stereo radio and a scanner. > Has anyone faced a situation where security or police have threatened > people with radios? > Are there any hams who have boarded planes with radios? > I wonder what makes them think that even an unpowered radio is such a > threat? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Security and police are often times > very heavy-handed, often times just to make up for their personal > feelings of inadequacy. Have you ever been told *as a passenger, not > the driver* in an automobile not to use your cellular phone because > it 'might distract the driver'? I can sort of see why they do not want > drivers to use cell phones in cars, but before they enforce that too > strongly, they should look at their own radio use in the car: driving > a hundred miles an hour chasing someone, while talking on the radio, > yet a citizen is not supposed to obey traffic rules and speed limits > and talk on a cell phone? PAT] Ahh, but Pat the police just enforce the laws they don't have to obey them. In Washington DC, it is now illegal to operate a cell phone without a hands-free device. Violators of the "Distracted Driver Law" as it is known can be fined $100 for the first infraction. But what about the police officers driving around town, especially near police headquarters at 3rd and Indiana avenues NW or the District Courthouse at 5th and Indiana who pull out into traffic, make illegal u-turns in the middle of the block, double and triple park, block fire hydrants, park in handicapped spaces while working at desk jobs in police hq with a "court tag" in the window and a myriad of other things they turn around and write tickets to ordinary schmucks for doing the exact same things? If the police department wants to enforce the law, then they need to clean up their act and begin to obey the same laws they are enforcing. But then, who is going to give a cop a ticket? Rodgers Platt ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 21:58:05 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net jdj wrote: > Are there any hams who have boarded planes with radios? > I wonder what makes them think that even an unpowered radio is such a > threat? I was challenged once in Canada when I had a handy talky in my carry on. I had to go back to the Air Canada desk and get a permission slip. They just want to make sure you know not to operate it in the air. I have used it while flying a light plane with no problems, but I can see where they don't want to be flying a sewer pipe full of operating unknown rf devices down the glideslope on a messy night. It probably wouldn't mess anything up, but it might. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Sep 2004 08:28:13 EDT From: Charles.B.Wilber@Dartmouth.EDU (Charles B. Wilber) Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains > Are there any hams who have boarded planes with radios? I've never had any problem boarding planes with my handheld amateur radios. I've done it many times. Charlie Wilber (N1AOK) Dartmouth College Hanover, New Hampshire ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Tap For V.90 Modem Line? Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 17:42:23 +0000 In article , Zorpetus wrote: > Is there any modem connection sniffer hardware/software? > I mean a device (tap) that could be connected to a phone line, > and to record network traffic made over dial-up connection over > that telephone line (for V.90 protocol for example). I am not > reffering to those "com port sniffer" or "modem sniffers" that > have to be installed on the "target" PC, but something that would > be used outside the house, by tapping the telephone lines. > Any hint and/or link is more than welcome! For the Bell 103, Bell 113 and or the various Bell 202 protocols, such a device is fairly easy to accomplish. Its even practical for Bell 212 signalling, and friends. At speeds above 2400 bps, it _is_ 'theoretically' possible, but, shall we say, 'cost prohibitive'. As in the 'if you have to ask, you can't afford it' range. PLUS it has to be re-calibrated, by a skilled tech, for _each_ call. ------------------------------ From: Truth Organization: http://www.x.com Subject: Re: BUSH Leaked Documents to CBS Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 19:35:29 GMT > As CBS News faces one of the worst public embarrassments in its > history, experts say that the damage to the network's news division > could be significant -- and costly. BUSH "leaked" the fake documents to Viacom/CBS because Bush has been after them for a long time. Then he "leaked" that the documents were fake, and now instead of the attention being on BUSH for lying about serving in the military, the attention is on DAN RATHER. Just this week, Bush, under his appointed FCC officials, placed a record fine on Viacom/CBS for the Janet Jackson Breast incident during the Super Bowl. NOTE (VERY IMPORTANT!) that ONLY the CBS owned television stations will be fined, all the other stations that carried the exact same incident will NOT be fined! Bush is angry over Viacom/CBS for not firing Howard Stern (who started anti-Bush speech this year) and for releasing the photos of his military torturing prisoners in Iraq on CBS 60 minutes. Note these fake documents were not "leaked" to FOX NEWS or CLEAR CHANNEL, but to CBS/VIACOM. Red Flag anyone? ------------------------------ From: Valerie in FL Subject: Re: LNP For a Move Organization: BellSouth Internet Group Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 16:15:03 -0400 It can be done. BellSouth will do it, for businesses at least. I don't know about Verizon. Good luck finding a service rep who will know what you're talking about, and how to do it. What you're actually talking about is Foreign Central Office, where the original CO and the new CO are in the same rate center. In Foreign Exchange, the new CO is in a different rate center. LNP does make FCO obsolete, but not FX. Valerie in FL Tony P. wrote in message news:telecom23.440.1@telecom-digest.org... > I'll be moving from a true Providence rate center in Providence, to a > Providence rate center in Cranston. (401-621 to 401-46x or 401-94x). > Here is my question. Since they're both the same rate center could I > request to keep my current numbers under LNP? > It'd work the same as real LNP that being when someone dials a number > it looks at a database to see what switch the call should be passed > to. In essence it makes Foreign Exchange service a thing of the past > but I'll be it's still tarrifed that way. ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Subject: Re: The Wal-Mart Supremacy Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 15:22:18 -0700 Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society Lisa Hancock wrote: > Pat, you've touched a raw nerve with your observations about the > vacant store fronts and what people "love". > Creating "historic districts" and historic preservation is a big thing > these days in towns and cities. People want to preserve those old > drugstores and buildings. But people don't want to pay the cost of > that preservation. They expect old "Doc Smith" to stay around forever > and run his little drugstore -- without change -- even though everyone > shops at the CVS/Walgreen/Eckerd whatever. They expect old Mrs. Jones > to keep her quaint old farmhouse as is even though she needs to > modernize it and sell it to get money to living in a nursing home. You've inspired me to share with c.d.t a letter I recently wrote to my regional planning agency in response to their latest grandiose "smart growth" 20-year plan for the area. > To: blueprint@sacog.org > Subject: Comments on the blueprint at www.sacregionblueprint.org Your so-called blueprint is the worst combination of wishful thinking, misguided pop ecology, and sheer presumptuous paternalism I've seen in many years. Let's start with your "Growth Principles". > 1. Transportation Choices: Developments should be designed to encourage > people to sometimes walk, ride bicycles, ride the bus, ride light rail, > take the train or carpool. Use of Blueprint growth concepts for land use > and right-of-way design will encourage use of these modes of travel and > the remaining auto trips will be, on average, shorter. First off, it is a well established fact that most people prefer the freedom and convenience-they've-already-paid-for of driving, and always will drive, even if you force them into "transit oriented developments" and make driving as big a pain as you possibly can. Portland proves this. Moreover, the alleged science behind demanding that people reduce their automobile use is bogus. Public transit, because it must run mostly empty in order to provide even minimal convenience to its riders, uses more energy and produces more pollution than driving solo. See, for example, http://home.earthlink.net/~saveportland/Car_Vs_Tri-Met/TriMet_vs_Car4.htm Because "smart growth" keeps a lot of existing unbuilt land out of the housing market, it also results in greatly increased housing prices, as shown at http://www.rppi.org/urban/102199.html In my view, this is not an accident. All "urban planning" bureaucracies are basically an OPEC-like cartel operated by and for the owners of existing homes for the purpose of keeping their prices ridiculously, astronomically high at the expense of two other equally deserving groups: the owners of unbuilt land and all other residents or potential residents of the area the bureaucrats control. If there were justice in the world, federal antitrust police would come in and shut down your agency permanently. But most of all, it is simply wrong for any government body to have an agenda about how individuals choose to travel. It's our time and money to spend the way we want, and you have no business standing in the way. I say, cut back RT to serve only those who are unable to drive, and use the rest of our gas tax and car registration money on what we paid it for -- to BUILD MORE FREEWAYS and expand (widen and speed up) our arterial and through streets as well. > 2. Mixed-Use Developments: Buildings homes and shops, > entertainment, office and even light industrial uses near each other > can create active, vital neighborhoods. This mixture of uses can be > either in a vertical arrangement (mixed in one building) or > horizontal (with a combination of uses in close proximity). These > types of projects function as local activity centers, contributing > to a sense of community, where people tend to walk or bike to > destinations and interact more with each other. Separated land uses, > on the other hand, lead to the need to travel more by auto because > of the distance between uses. Mixed land uses can occur at many > scales. Examples include: a housing project located near an > employment center, a small shopping center located within a > residential neighborhood, and a building with ground floor retail > and apartments or condominiums on the upper floor(s). Aside from its presumption, this agenda presents a serious problem. It is important, both for crime prevention and to avoid nuisances such as noise, for a resident to be able to know who belongs near his home at night, so he can challenge (and if necessary, have the police remove) anyone who doesn't belong there. Mixed use developments (and to a lesser extent, all multi-family dwelling places) take this power away from residents. A British police study proves that this increases crime: it can be viewed at http://www.operationscorpion.org.uk/design_out_crime/policing_urbanism.htm > 3. Compact Development: Creating environments that are more > compactly built and use space in an efficient but aesthetic manner > can encourage more walking, biking, and public transit use, and > shorten auto trips. Even if these were acceptable goals, Portland shows that they don't happen. The only efficiency that really matters is people's ability to save time and personal energy by parking within a few feet of their front doors, and it is monstrous to want to deny people that ability and talk as if doing so were a public service. When I have to park four blocks away, are you going to show up and volunteer to carry my groceries in? I didn't think so. > 4. Housing Choice and Diversity: Providing a variety of places > where people can live apartments, condominiums, townhouses, and > single-family detached homes on trying lot sizes creates > opportunities for the variety of people who need them: families, > singles, seniors, and people with special needs. This issue is of > special concern for the people with very low-, low-, and > moderate-income, often our teachers, other public employees and > professionals, as well as retail employees, service workers and other > people for whom finding housing close to work is challenging. By > providing a diversity of housing options, more people have a choice. That much is true. But it's presumptuous of you to claim to be giving people that choice when in reality, your "smart growth" regulations are all about taking it away from people in the name of preserving open space (what for?), bogus ecology, and the paternalistic view that we all ought to exercise more. You planners are not the ones giving us these choices. We had them until you set up shop and started robbing us of them. Now we have practically none. > 5. Use of Existing Assets: In urbanized areas, development on > infill or vacant lands, intensification of the use of underutilized > parcels (for example, more development on the site of a low-density > retail strip shopping center), or redevelopment can make better use > of existing public infrastructure. This can also include > rehabilitation and reuse of historic buildings, denser clustering of > buildings in suburban office parks, and joint use of existing public > facilities such as schools and parking garages. Again, this is a bogus argument in two ways: you're not giving building users any opportunities they didn't already have, and to the extent that efficiency matters, people are already choosing that efficiency when they spend their money. Most of the so-called historical buildings in this area have little to no historic value, and are inefficient to use because they were built in the horse-and-buggy era and have too little parking around them. Many are also the biggest impediments to widening of the streets they're on. Please stop wasting the money of their owners (forced by law to preserve them against their will) and taxpayers, and let the needed "wrecking ball therapy" occur so that we can have large, modern, sensible places to shop, and wide streets on which to drive to those places. > 6. Quality Design: The design details of any land use development - > such as the relationship to the street, setbacks, placement of > garages, sidewalks, landscaping, the aesthetics of building design, > and the design of the public right-of-way (the sidewalks, connected > streets and paths, bike lanes, the width of streets) - are all > factors that can influence the attractiveness of living in a compact > development and facilitate the ease of walking and biking to work or > neighborhood services. Good site and architectural design is an > important factor in creating a sense of community and a sense of > place. A "community" or "sense of place", where it exists, does not happen because government forced developers to build in certain ways. It happens when the residents feel comfortable with their neighbors. That's not going to happen because of architecture, especially the kind you advocate, where homes are moved closer to public walks, reducing privacy and quiet, and car access is made more difficult deliberately. Do those things to a resident and you've shown him that you, "the community", are his enemy (a deliberate impediment to the comfort he's paid for in his home) and often his neighbors become so too. A home is not a home unless the resident is allowed to use it all without sacrificing his comfort or his privacy. > 7. Natural Resources Conservation: This principle encourages the > incorporation of public use open space (such as parks, town squares, > trails, and greenbelts) within development projects, over and above > state requirements; along with wildlife and plant habitat > preservation, agricultural preservation Again, what is the space being saved for? This principle does nothing to help preserve humanity's life support system (which is the only sensible purpose of environmental concerns). The things it does accomplish are mostly bad: * It subsidizes the sports of recreational hiking and bicycling (mostly the pursuits of upper-income leisure classes who ought to be paying for their own pleasures); * It provides easy routes for burglars to get to, and escape from, your home unseen (see the British police study cited above); * It provides habitats, and access into cities, for all sorts of creatures which are dangerous to man and therefore have no business being allowed to exist outside of zoos (for example mountain lions); * It takes away a resident's right and ability to challenge people who don't belong near his home at night. > and promotion of environment-friendly practices such as energy efficient > design, water conservation and stormwater management, and shade trees to > reduce the ground temperatures in the summer. All these things are already being done, and not because you said to do them. > In addition to conserving resources and protecting species, this > principle improves overall quality of life by providing places for > everyone to enjoy the outdoors with family outings and by creating > a sense of open space. One person's quality of life is another's noisy public nuisance. I'd just as soon those families go somewhere farther away. We have more parks now than anybody chooses to use; I frequently drive by empty ones, even on weekends. With all due respect, I believe the best thing your agency could do for our county and our region would be to disband, and return all decisions about development to the individual property owners to whom they rightfully belong. Sincerely, John David Galt [address and phone] ------------------------------ From: terrence.wong@gmail.com (tekjockey) Subject: Free VOIP and Data Networking Resources Date: 23 Sep 2004 10:37:57 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com ###Learn VOIP (H323, MGCP, SIP), LAN (ethernet, fiber, copper), WAN (T1/ T3) , ROUTING (BGP, OSPF, EIGRP)### http://www.compointsolutions.com ##Great for TECH PROFESSIONALS AND BUSINESS OWNERS WHO NEED TO KNOW MORE## Updated Daily - Tutorials, news, resource links and pdf's on learning voip. Fresh content - updated daily! Vist the links and feed your appetite for knowledge! http://www.compointsolutions.com Stop By, Learn Stuff, Tell a Friend!... :-) ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 12:02:07 -0400 Subject: SIPZOO offers Free No Obligation Trial of its Global Broadband Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://208.187.226.208:8080/sipzoo/newsdetail.jsp?newsid=13 SIPZOO offers Free No Obligation Trial of its Global Broadband Telephone Service. PORTLAND, OR--(MARKET WIRE) September 22, 2004 Nettel Holdings Inc. (OTC BB:NTTL.OB - News), Berlin and Frankfurt Stock Exchanges (NT7, WKN 727487) SIPZOO offers Free No Obligation Trial of its Global Broadband Telephone Service. After the Free Trial is over, customer can continue using the service for only $9 per month thereafter. During the free trial, no credit card is needed. For $9 per month customers receive up to 2,500 local and long distance calls to any where in the U.S. High usage customers can upgrade their account to the $29.95 per month plan and will be able to make Unlimited Calls to anywhere in the U.S. or Canada. In addition, the $29.95 per month plan includes a choice of a phone number from over 220 US area codes. SIPZOO allows our customers to pick their own phone number and it does not have to be in the same area code as where you live. The telephone number provided by SIPZOO has the same features and options that are currently available with any local telephone company. This includes Call Forwarding, Caller ID, Three-way calling, Call Transfer, Call Waiting, Call Return, Speed Dial, Anonymous Call Rejection, Hunt group, Voicemail, And many more choices. In certain areas, SIPZOO offers Local Number Portability so customers have the option to transfer of their current phone number including their cellular number from their traditional telephone provider to SIPZOO. For an extra monthly fee, customer can choose to have their phone number in over 28 countries worldwide. The complete list of countries and cities available at this time are on the website at http://www.sipzoo.com. SIPZOO Broadband Telephone service uses a technology called Voice-over-IP to allow consumers to make and receive calls. However with SIPZOO, a computer is not required to make or receive the calls, so it makes calling as easy as picking up the regular phone, even cordless phone and dialing the number. The only requirement to use the service is a DSL or Cable Internet connection and any ATA (Analog Terminal Adapter). An ATA adapter can be provided by SIPZOO if the customer does not have one. To starting using the service you plug one end of the device into any telephone, the other end into your broadband service, and you have immediately got a regular dial tone just like your traditional telephone company. We hope you enjoy our newest offer, by giving it a try! For additional information on SIPZOO Broadband Telephone service, please visit our website at http://www.sipzoo.com. [Comment: This is from this company's availability page at http://208.187.226.208:8080/sipzoo/availability.htm] AVAILABILITY SIPZOO currently offers local telephone number in over 14 countries: Asia * Hong Kong * Japan * Korea , South * Taiwan * Additional locations will be added in the near future Australia * Sydney * Melbourne Europe * Austria * Belgium * Bulgaria * France * Germany * Ireland * Italy * Netherlands * Poland * Spain * Sweden * Switzerland * United Kingdom , London * Additional locations will be added in the near future Central America * Mexico * Guatemala * Additional locations will be added in the near future South America * Brazil * Additional locations will be added in the near future United States * California * New York * Oregon * Texas * Washington * We are currently adding additional locations in the U.S. So * don't worry if SIPZOO is not currently in your city. Canada * Vancouver , BC * Calgary , Alberta * Toronto , Ontario * Montreal , Quebec Additional locations will be added in the near future [Comment: This is the first I've heard of this company, but I don't think any other company offers local access numbers in as many countries outside North America. If you look into this, please use all the normal caution when dealing with a new/unknown company.] How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 12:55:56 -0400 Subject: Canada: Ingram: CRTC should butt out Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/ArticleNews/story/RTGAM/20040922/wmathlater0922 Breaking News from The Globe and Mail Ingram: CRTC should butt out MATHEW INGRAM The federal regulator with a name almost as large as its mandate, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, is holding hearings into Internet telephone service, also known as 'voice over Internet protocol' or VOIP. Everyone has something at stake in this game, from incumbent telcos such as Bell Canada and Telus to cable providers such as Rogers and Shaw and small startups such as U.S.-based Vonage. And, as usual, the CRTC's instinctive response is to exercise its regulatory muscles -- in other words, precisely the opposite of what it should be doing. Although it has a complicated-sounding name, VoIP simply turns telephone calls into digital ones and zeroes and then streams them out over the Internet along with all the other digital flotsam and jetsam. Regular telephone service creates a dedicated connection between two people using the old copper phone-line network. While Internet phone service is not quite as reliable, it is substantially cheaper, and in most cases the quality of a phone call is virtually identical. VoIP can also be integrated with other Internet services such as e-mail. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that the broadcast and telecom regulator wants to regulate Internet phone calls. After all, the CRTC is a regulator, and what are regulators for if they can't find new things to regulate? Like any business, the commission is looking to expand its reach, and the Internet is a perfect candidate. It's new, it's potentially revolutionary, but at the same time it's also a lot like the stuff they already regulate. It comes over a cable or phone wire, after all, and now you can make phone calls on it -- it's a slam dunk. Of course, the CRTC hasn't actually said that it will regulate Internet telephone service. That's what the hearings are for, so the commission can gauge the mood of the various interest groups, etc. before doing what it had more or less decided to do already anyway. And it's pretty clear what the regulator wants to do, thanks to a public notice of its "preliminary view" on the subject, which came out in April. In it, the CRTC said that it felt its "existing regulatory framework should apply to VoIP services" and that Internet phone providers "should be treated for regulatory purposes as local exchange services." Contrast this with the approach taken by the Federal Communications Commission in the United States, which is the rough equivalent of the CRTC. The FCC is also looking at how it should deal with the rapid growth of Internet telephone services, and is holding hearings with various interested groups, but FCC chairman Michael Powell and other senior members of the commission have said that they favour a hands-off approach to the issue. "We should take non-regulation of the Internet as a regulatory imperative," he said, which is a fairly unusual thing for a regulator to say. Full story at: http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/ArticleNews/story/RTGAM/20040922/wmathlater0922 ------------------------------ 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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #443 ******************************* From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Sep 24 14:55:42 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8OItgI19946; Fri, 24 Sep 2004 14:55:42 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 14:55:42 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409241855.i8OItgI19946@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 #444 TELECOM Digest Fri, 24 Sep 2004 14:55:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 444 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Is DTV Reception Problem Solved? (Monty Solomon) DTV Interference Could Be Mitigated by Receivers (Monty Solomon) Global Positioning to Track Sex Offenders (Monty Solomon) Re: Global Positioning to Track Sex Offenders (Monty Solomon) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Doug Faunt) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Mark Atwood) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Fred Atkinson) Re: BUSH Leaked Documents to CBS (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: BUSH Leaked Documents to CBS (Fred Atkinson) LNP, FCO, FX, RCF, RACF (Anthony Bellanga) Re: LNP For a Move (Tony P.) Re: LNP For a Move (Fred Goldstein) Need Advice Regarding Communications / Networking Problem (Jonathan) Rotary Phone Props in New TV Shows (Lisa Hancock) Re: FTC Do-Not-Call Registry; was Out of Area Calls (John Levine) Re: Out of Area Calls (Michael D. Sullivan) No Call Ref ID in SS7/C7; Why? (Ariel Burbaickij) 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: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 02:22:16 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Is DTV Reception Problem Solved? News: by Bob Kovacs Zenith's receiver draws kudos WASHINGTON The scramble to switch television broadcasting to digital sometimes overlooked what occurred at the final link in the over-the-air broadcast chain: the viewer. Although megabucks have been spent to upgrade stations and simultaneously transmit analog and digital signals, stable and reliable over-the-air DTV reception has been a crapshoot. However, the latest generation of DTV receiver technology from LG/Zenith seems to have solved the worst of the problems and is receiving praise from both broadcasters and other interested parties. Dubbed the "fifth-generation" receiver, the new technology has converted some early DTV skeptics into believers. http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/news/N_Zenith.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 02:36:31 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: DTV Interference Could Be Mitigated by Receivers Digital TV: Charles W. Rhodes My previous column introduced readers to a new parameter, third-order intermodulation (IM3), which is the sideband splatter from a DTV transmitter into both adjacent channels. This splatter is limited by the DTV RF mask required of all DTV transmitters. What the RF mask filter cannot remove is the splatter close to the DTV signal channel. This splatter is what causes interference into adjacent channels, not poor selectivity of the victim receiver. The maximum IM3, radiated in each adjacent channel, is 44.5 dB below the power radiated in the DTV channel. I define this as the co-channel noise afflicting reception of an adjacent channel, calling it (I): I = U -46.5 dB. Did I just contradict myself? No. The maximum power radiated by a DTV transmitter is U -44.5 dB, but a DTV receiver tuned to either adjacent channel has some selectivity that discriminates against noise just inside the desired channel; hence, the bottom line is I = U -46.5 dB. I'll try to pick up a dB of interference rejection anywhere I can find it. Suppose the D/U ratio at your home is -30 dB. The co-channel noise due to IM3 radiated by one adjacent DTV channel transmitter is D -16.5 dB. This means that a 1.3 dB fade or a little echo will put your signal-to-noise + interference (S/N+I) at threshold, 15.2 dB. If two DTV adjacent-channel signals are at the same level, I = U -43.5 dB, so your S/(N+I) falls to 13.5 dB, and reception fails. Why? But that was just the first part of the story. Even at a moderate U signal level, there may be additional IM3 generated in your DTV tuner. The ATTC tests demonstrated this at a U level of -25 dBm. Receiver-generated IM3 adds directly to the IM3 that accompanies the adjacent-channel DTV signal into your tuner; receiver-generated IM3 attacks your desired signal, unattenuated. You might have had reliable reception until a DTV transmitter signed on at its maximum authorized power. Fortunately, if you put a 3 dB attenuator in the downlead right at the receiver, you will attenuate the receiver-generated IM3 by 9 dB! With only a 3 dB loss in desired signal power, that may take care of the problem. Suitable 75-ohm, 3 dB attenuators are readily available and inexpensive. That simple remedy may fix your reception problem, but what will happen when your viewers encounter such problems? Perhaps broadcasters should make a brochure available to help viewers with DTV reception problems. They might look to the NAB for such help. http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/digital_tv/f_DTV_interference.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 22:56:22 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Global Positioning to Track Sex Offenders By Elise Castelli, Globe Correspondent | September 21, 2004 Global positioning systems and electronic bracelets will be used to track more than 200 of the state's most serious sex offenders on probation or parole starting early next year, Governor Mitt Romney and state lawmakers announced yesterday. Under a $1 million pilot program Romney signed into law on Friday, the tracking system would alert probation officers when offenders violate conditions of their release by entering an ''exclusion zone," such as a school, a playground, or the home of a prior victim. Using cellular technology, the system records and sends a record of the exact date, time, and location of the violation via text message or e-mail to the officer handling the case. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/09/21/global_positioning_to_track_sex_offenders/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 22:59:36 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Re: Global Positioning to Track Sex Offenders Hosted by: Dick Gordon Show Originally Aired: 9/23/2004 CALL 1 800-423-TALK Following Sex Offenders Global positioning system technology was invented to pin point bomb targets. Now its increasingly part of the surveillance system for sex offenders. Forty states have programs that require convicted offenders to wear an ankle bracelet. If the parolee strays into a no-go zone like a playground or school -- police are supposed to swoop in and pick them up. Proponents agree these bracelets smack of big brother, but argue that because they prevent crime, they're a wise investment. Others say the GPS leash is a high tech hoax that does little to protect society, while unfairly targeting society's least popular offenders. Guests Justin Jones, Deputy of Director of Community Corrections in Oklahoma Barbara Fedders, Clinical Instructor at the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School Richard Nimer, Director of business development for Pro Tech Monitoring, the biggest company producing offender tracking technology in the U.S. http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2004/09/20040923_a_main.asp http://realserver.bu.edu:8080/ramgen/w/b/wbur/connection/audio/2004/09/con_0923a.rm ------------------------------ From: Doug Faunt N6TQS +1-510-655-8604 Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: 23 Sep 2004 20:26:34 -0400 Organization: at home, in Oakland, California jdj writes: > A BART cop ordered riders to turn off their FRS radios while in the > station and on trains to keep the trains from crashing. That's so much BS. Where and when did this happen? Go to a BART board meeting and ask the board to get an explanation. > Of course, the above is fallacious but it occurs to me that similar > threats could be made against anyone in possession of a radio while > boarding a plane. I carry many radio transmitters on commercial aircraft. I do make a point of making sure they can't be accidently, or easily, turned on. For HT's a bit of paper between the battery pack and radio proper works well. I do that to cell phones in my baggage, too. > Eight years ago I was not allowed to board with a general coverage > receiver because "it could make the plane crash". They let me keep my > Casio stereo radio and a scanner. > Has anyone faced a situation where security or police have threatened > people with radios? Some amusement parks have banned personal 2 way radios at times, since they say that gangs use them to avoid security. And they've have been banned at the Olympics in the US and in France, IIRC. > Are there any hams who have boarded planes with radios? > I wonder what makes them think that even an unpowered radio is such a > threat? Mostly ignorance and fear. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Security and police are often times > very heavy-handed, often times just to make up for their personal > feelings of inadequacy. Have you ever been told *as a passenger, not > the driver* in an automobile not to use your cellular phone because > it 'might distract the driver'? I can sort of see why they do not want > drivers to use cell phones in cars, but before they enforce that too > strongly, they should look at their own radio use in the car: driving > a hundred miles an hour chasing someone, while talking on the radio, > yet a citizen is not supposed to obey traffic rules and speed limits > and talk on a cell phone? PAT] There's some legitimacy to this. They've had some training on doing this, and tend to maintain the proper priority, which is drive first, then talk. Too many people using cell phones have reversed that priority, so even people who have their priorities straight are paying the price. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains From: Mark Atwood Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 02:08:31 GMT Charles.B.Wilber@Dartmouth.EDU (Charles B. Wilber) writes: >> Are there any hams who have boarded planes with radios? > I've never had any problem boarding planes with my handheld amateur > radios. I've done it many times. I noticed in Alaska Air's safety brochure that, along with AM/FM radios and cellphones, they ban in inflight operation of GPS receivers. Does anyone have any idea why? It certainly doesnt radiate any more than a PDA or laptop does. Mark Atwood | When you do things right, people won't be sure mra@pobox.com | you've done anything at all. http://www.pobox.com/~mra | http://www.livejournal.com/users/fallenpegasus ------------------------------ From: Fred Atkinson, WB4AEJ Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 22:34:54 -0400 I have boarded planes with an amateur radio walkie-talkie. In fact, in 1991 I carried one with me all the way from Washington to Australia and back with no problem whatsoever. As long as you can power it up to prove it's a working radio (and presumably not some sort of dangerous item in disguise) when you get on, there's no problem. You're just not allowed to use it in the plane. In fact, I understand that using it in a *commercial* aircraft is strictly illegal (as are using cellphones in flight). I once tried to board with my mobile ham radio set in my carry on. Because it ran on twelve volts DC through a cigarette lighter plug (and not 110 volts AC), I couldn't power it up for them at the gate. To that end, they wouldn't let me past security. I had to get them to retrieve my checked bag and put it in there. No problem with carrying it in a checked bag. BWI was more liberal years ago. They would just X-ray it. They didn't require you to power it up. However, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the policy has changed in view of recent events. Ciau for now. Fred, WB4AEJ ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: BUSH Leaked Documents to CBS Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 04:48:40 GMT In article , yenc@sucks.com says... >> As CBS News faces one of the worst public embarrassments in its >> history, experts say that the damage to the network's news division >> could be significant -- and costly. > BUSH "leaked" the fake documents to Viacom/CBS because Bush has been > after them for a long time. Then he "leaked" that the documents were > fake, and now instead of the attention being on BUSH for lying about > serving in the military, the attention is on DAN RATHER. While it is entirely possible (and likely, in my mind) that Republican dirty tricks were involved in this caper, you seem to be quite certain. Do you have any sources, or are you expecting us to trust that you are right? Are you presenting opinion or fact? If the former, you might consider prefacing it by "In my opinion" or "It would appear" or the like. If fact, please provide some support. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD, USA Delete nospam from my address and it won't work. ------------------------------ From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Re: BUSH Leaked Documents to CBS Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 22:34:53 -0400 Do I detect a liberal here? Fred ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 22:57:50 -0600 From: Anthony Bellanga Subject: LNP, FCO, FX, RCF, RACF Reply-To: anthonybellanga@withheld on request PAT, to prevent $pam, please do NOT display my email address, neither in the "from" line, nor in the "reply to" line. Tony P wrote: >> I'll be moving from a true Providence rate center in Providence, >> to a Providence rate center in Cranston. (401-621 to 401-46x or >> 401-94x). >> Here is my question. Since they're both the same rate center could >> I request to keep my current numbers under LNP? >> It'd work the same as real LNP that being when someone dials a >> number it looks at a database to see what switch the call should >> be passed to. In essence it makes Foreign Exchange service a thing >> of the past but I'll be it's still tarrifed that way. John Levine replied: > You can ask, but I doubt that VZ would do it since I doubt that they > have any procedure to port a number to and from themselves. Not all incumbent local telcos will allow any porting of your number from one co switch to another when you physically between co switches within the same ratecenter. Even though this is "essentially" no different than porting your number from one service provier to another, since in most cases, you will be served from a different dialtone co switch. One reason is that the incumbent local telco might want to try to sell you expensive FCO service. Another reason is because the FCC/CRTC and possibly state reg doesn't REQUIRE them to -- all they are "required" to do at this point in time is to allow you to port your number to/from them and a CLEC. But some incumbent LECs (Sprint, United and Centel, for example) do allow porting your number between two different co switches of theirs in the same ratecenter if you physically move. Valerie in Florida also replied: > It can be done. BellSouth will do it, for businesses at least. I don't > know about Verizon. Good luck finding a service rep who will know what > you're talking about, and how to do it. > What you're actually talking about is Foreign Central Office, where > the original CO and the new CO are in the same rate center. In Foreign > Exchange, the new CO is in a different rate center. LNP does make FCO > obsolete, but not FX. FCO and FX are "essentially" the same service in a technological sense. However, in some states or telco service areas, they are tariffed differently. FX means you get full dialtone for outgoing (and incoming) calls from a co switch not your own "default" one, and also the co switch is a different ratecenter. Many businesses need this for appearing to have a "presence" in a distant city, and they need it for "local" calls in BOTH directions. RCF (Remote Call Forwarding) allows one to have a number assigned to them associated with a different city, but without having to have a physical presence in that different location -- not even a "closet" for a telepohne with *72 Call Forwarding turned on. The local telco in that distant city simply has your assigned number always set at the co for call forwarding turned on, to the different co switch and usually ratecenter. This is ONLY for incoming calls, not outbound calls to a different ratecenter. To include the second (outbound calls) you would need "real" FX. FCO and LNP are not really the same thing. With FCO, you get dialtone from a co switch different than the "default" one you "should" be getting dialtone from. Usually you would have a number with an NPA+ co code "traditionally" associated with the distant co switch you are getting dialtone from. You do NOT "port" that number to a "new" co switch, at least not for dialtone. You will still be "wired" to the incumbent local telco's neighborhood co switch BUILDING that you "should" be getting dialtone from, but only wired to that building and not into the switch itself. Instead you go out over a dedicated line or trunk to the co switch you would probably have moved away from for your dialtone. But the two co switches are supposed to be in the same ratecenter. LNP means you actually port your number to a different local telco or service provider AND/or different co switch, but within the same ratecenter. In the "long run", true implementation of LNP makes FCO "obsolete", but there may be instances where the customer might still want to get their dialtone from a co switch (of the incumbent local telco) that is DIFFERENT from their neighborhood co switch of that same (incumbent) lcoal telco. Some businesses might have ISDN arrangements which can't be modified by "porting" to a different co switch, and need to keep their current switch providing them without ANY interruption and/or modification. That (ISDN arrangements) could still be a reason for (usually a business) to get FCO in a physical move rather than LNP. Also, if Verizon refuses to allow you to port your number within the Providence RI ratecenter, between two different Verizon neighborhood co switches if you physically move, you might want to try porting your number before your move, over to a CLEC. They most likely have a single co switch serving the entire state, but with dedicated 401-NXX co codes per ratecenter they choose to provide tariffed service within. Thus after you have ported to the CLEC, you then make your physical move across town (within the ratecenter), but since they don't have to change your dialtone-providing switch (since the CLEC most likely has just that one co switch at least in the metro area), you would have no problems keeping your once-NETel number. Then after you have settled in, and if there are no "cancellation" penalties with the CLEC, port your same telephone number BACK to Verizon! And they would most probably would HAVE to honor the port this time, under federal guidelines! It's a "roundabout" way of doing it, but in the long run, it achieves the same effect as if Verizon would have ported you in the first place, assuming they don't usually allow such intra-ratecenter intra-Verizon inter co switch ports of the number! One more thing -- I'd mentioned RCF, Remote Call Forwarding. This is NOT to be confused with RACF, Remote ACCESS to Call Forwarding. RACF (Remote Access to Call Forwarding) is an additional optional service offered by many local telcos where a subscriber who also has the traditional *72 All Calls Variable Call Forwarding can activate or deactivate the "*72" type of forwarding associated with their "base" or "home" line, but from any other telephone. They must first dial a "POTS" number usually associated with their "home" central office (which would incur toll, coin, airtime or roaming charges if applicable -- some telcos might also offer a toll-free access number for an added monthly or per-use charge?), then key in their home or "base" number which has *72 Forwarding as well as RACF, then a passcode or PIN, and finally the telephone number where they want their calls forwarded from that home/base number, to. Or they dial in to the platform and after keying in the validation and indentification information (according to a menu), they can remotely deactivate any forwarding already turned on. Of course, if the forward-to number is toll with respect to the home or base number, that customer and NOT any calling customers, would be responsible for any (added) toll charges for calls forwarded from their home/base number to the forward-to number. RCF (Remote Call Forwarding) is something that is "transparent" and always turned on, and sort of a "halfway" version of FX (Foreign Exchange) or FCO (Foreign Central Office) since it would be for incoming calls ONLY. - anthony ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: LNP For a Move Organization: ATCC Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 02:00:12 GMT In article , vjkahler@bellsouth.net says: > It can be done. BellSouth will do it, for businesses at least. I don't > know about Verizon. Good luck finding a service rep who will know what > you're talking about, and how to do it. > What you're actually talking about is Foreign Central Office, where > the original CO and the new CO are in the same rate center. In Foreign > Exchange, the new CO is in a different rate center. LNP does make FCO > obsolete, but not FX. > Valerie in FL The concept of LNP has shown FX service to be intentionally erroneous. Same rate center means just that, the only technical difference is the switch it lives on. LNP does database dips. What else do you think the LNP fee on your phone bill pays for? FX is still used when you cross rate centers. But then unlimited packages have pretty much killed that too. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 07:59:20 -0400 From: Fred R. Goldstein Subject: Re: LNP For a Move Hi Pat, I accidentally sent you a message last night -- a reply to Tony P's question about local number portability -- and didn't mask the From field. Can you please mask the address (leave the name) so the spambots don't devour me? Just turn my real address into something false. On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 01:18:09 GMT, Tony P. wrote, > I'll be moving from a true Providence rate center in Providence, to a > Providence rate center in Cranston. (401-621 to 401-46x or 401-94x). > Here is my question. Since they're both the same rate center could I > request to keep my current numbers under LNP? > It'd work the same as real LNP that being when someone dials a number > it looks at a database to see what switch the call should be passed > to. In essence it makes Foreign Exchange service a thing of the past > but I'll be it's still tarrifed that way. Before LNP, Verizon could only provision a number that way via Foreign Central Office service, running a leased line from the old CO to the new one. It was costly, but sometimes worthwhile to a business. With LNP, it's a matter of entering a simple entry into a database, and telling the old switch that the number was ported out. Which means that Verizon's as likely to do that for you as the Queen of England is likely to come to tea with you. They don't do rational, nice things like that for residential subscribers. For a large Centrex customer, sure. But you don't deserve it. They have nine ways to hell of saying that the tariff doesn't allow it, their procedures don't allow it, their systems don't allow it. They're lying, of course, but then at Verizon, telling the truth is the firing offense. On the other hand, any CLEC can do what you want. Even Cox, if they offer phone service, can take your old Providence number and install it at your new Providence (rate center) location. Verizon's wire center boundaries are meaningless to a CLEC, since CLECs have one switch serving a wider area, and most will do LNP to the customer's spec if that's what it takes to make a sale. I expect that there are other CLECs who can take over the number too. ------------------------------ From: jfklein@shaw.ca (Jonathan) Subject: Need Advice Regarding Communications / Networking Problem Date: 24 Sep 2004 08:14:05 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I am looking for some advice about accessing internet service and making it available on a network using minimal resources. Here is the situation. I work for most of the year in a third world country. When I am here I stay in a small compound consisting of two buildings each with 35 rooms (ie: 70 rooms total. They are like two small hotels). The buildings are separated by about 15 meters. There are about 30 to 40 people here at any given time. We have no internet access at the compound. There are only two telephone lines coming into the compound and the company which runs the compound is unwilling to rent more lines and a switchboard system for the rooms due to the high expense. Therefore, dial-up internet access is not a possibility. However, the company does have an office about 18 km away (11 miles) at which they have high speed internet service. There are technical problems as I see it, these are: 1) How do we connect a server at the compound to high speed internet service, at minimal cost? 2) How do we make the internet accessible to the people living here from the server? I have little knowledge about communications technology but I have got a few ideas from talking with a few people. Possible Solutions to Problem 1): a) It seems like it may be possible to connect a server at the compound with the server at the office. But I don't know how to do this. I have thought of a "leased line" using one of the two telephone lines to the compound and connecting it to the server at the office. To me it seems like this might be the most feasible solution. However, I am concerned that this may not give us enough bandwidth for say, 15 people using it at once. b) Perhaps another possibility is a radio frequency communications system between the office and the compound (ie: wireless over a long distance). However, this sounds like it might be expensive. c) I am aware that there are satellite systems to connect to the internet. But again I am concerned that, with only one satellite receiver, the bandwidth wouldn't be high enough. Possible Solutions to Problem 2): As I see it there are four possible solutions to this problem. a) We could use a wireless system for the two buildings from a single server. The people living here would then simply need to have wireless capability on computers in their rooms to connect to the server. However, the buildings are made of concrete. So I am concerned that the signals may not penetrate into the rooms. Also, I am wondering if these systems can transmit far enough to cover two separate buildings with only one server. b) All the rooms are wired with telephone lines (although they aren't connected to external lines). So it seems possible that these could be connected to a single server for both buildings. But the questions I have are, will the bandwidth be high enough through telephone lines? Also, how do we get the lines from the building without the server over to the other building? Do the lines need to be run individually or should we install a router or something in one building and a single cable from the router to the server in the other building? The buildings are a bit old also (about 35 years), so how do we know if the lines are still in good condition. c) All of the rooms are wired with coaxial cable television lines (also not used). So, as with the telephone lines it seems possible that these could be used to connect to a single server for both buildings. My questions are the same as with the using the telephone lines but also, do we need some special hardware to transmit to each room using a coaxial line? d) Last possible solution, probably the most expensive, is to wire each room with new cabling. With this possible solution I wonder, as with the telephone lines and coaxial cable, if we can do this with a single server in one building or if we should be installing a router in the other building and a single cable from the router to the server. Any advice on this problem and the possible solutions I have mentioned would be greatly appreciated by the 100 or so people who stay here and the staff that work here. -Jonathan Klein ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Rotary Phone Props in New TV Shows Date: 24 Sep 2004 10:17:04 -0700 I've noticed a number of TV shows (set in the present) have had rotary dial telephone sets in the background. Examples are listed below. In all of the cases the characters did not use the rotary phone but had access to and used modern phones. I wonder what is the percentage of U.S. subscribers who still have solely rotary telephones? In shows like this background props often change, even from scene to scene (what we see as continuous are often shot are different days and edited together). A new TV show, "Veronica Mars" debuted this week on UPN. It's about a father-daughter private detective team. Anyway, in the premier episode there was a very quick shot of a wall black rotary phone (plastic dial, apparently modular cord) in the office. It was not used as a telephone, the characters used modern desk phones to make and receive calls. It was curious why it was there because the office, while in an old building, wasn't that old fashioned. (Don't let the "teenage girl" or UPN focus steer you away from this new show. It's quite edgy and good.) Earlier this year, "What I like about you" (WB) had a scene in a hospital and a payphone in the background was rotary dial. Curiously, other background payphones seen and used in the show (such as the airport) were TT. Not too long ago "Angel" (WB) had a 302 set with modern multi-line keyset (lighted small square line buttons) added to the bottom. While 302s did have multi line versions, the buttons were black and tiny, and the early 500 keysets had round line buttons; square ones came later. Obviously such a set never existed, I don't know if they shoved a keyset onto an old phone or added it in the special effects room. The phone was not used by the characters, they had modern desk sets. One exception where old phones were sometimes used was a related show (B/VS). The girls had a blue Princess rotary phone in their dorm room. It rang with a modern electronic sound. IIRC they used it, but I never saw them dial. The school library _on occassion_ had a rotary set and the librarian was seen speaking on it, but on most other occassions it had a modern phone. I remember the old "All in the Family" show had a 302 set in their living room at a time (1971) they were becomming pretty rare in service. I believe the older style was purposely chosen to give the home a poorer look to it. At some point in the show or its successor the house got a 2500 TT phone. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Sep 2004 01:01:30 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: FTC Do-Not-Call Registry, was Out of Area Calls Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> Could you point to the section of the law or FTC regulations that >> provides the exemptions? Because there is no such exemption, and >> you're just wrong. > People like you, who don't even bother to do research or CHECK before > they call someone wrong never cease to amaze me. > Next time, go to google.com and CHECK before you call someone a liar. Sigh. You saw it on the Internet, so it must be true, huh? > "There are some exemptions, for example, as you might expect, > telephone companies can still call you to solicit you and so can banks > and credit card companies," Cohen said. Also still allowed to call > are: charities, insurance companies and politicians." In the page that Google found with that quote, "Cohen" was some self-appointed expert quoted on a local TV show in Chicago a year ago. I don't think he counts either as a law or as an FTC regulation. On the other hand, if you visit the FTC's www.donotcall.gov web site, and visit their FAQ page, you can find the actual exception list at https://www.donotcall.gov/FAQ/FAQConsumers.aspx#Exceptions You will note it does not contain telephone companies, banks, credit card companies, or insurance companies, unless they have an existing business relationship with you and you haven't told them to stop. Charities and politicians are indeed exempt, but two out of six is a pretty poor score for an alleged expert. >> If you are getting calls from companies with which you are not >> currently doing business (or with whom you are doing business and >> have told them to stop), you can sue them under the TCPA. > THINK before you start typing! You have to know WHO they are before > you can sue someone! Well, duh. The people who sue under the same law for junk faxes have gotten pretty good at teasing out the junkers' identities. >> The only significant exemptions are for established business >> relationship and non-profits. > Bullshit. Check the FCC or FTC websites for the complete law I did. I suppose the law is too hard for some people to understand, but let me give you a hint: just because it calls out banks and telcos as regulated by different agencies doesn't mean they're exempt. >> FYI, I haven't gotten a call from a long distance company in years, > Because you are probably one of the stupid people that HAS a long > distance company connected to your phone line so that you can pay > hundreds of dollars a year even if you never make one single long > distance phone call. Intelligent people have NO long distance company > connected with their home phone lines at all, and use one of the > THOUSANDS of 10-10 numbers that have NO MONTHLY FEES or charges and > you can change companies for each call made, just by using a different > 10-10 number. A most interesting guess, but not surprisingly, it's wrong. There are plenty of LD companies with no monthly fee, no monthly minimum, and rates lower than the 1010 dialaround companies. I pay 4.9 cpm since I'm in a high cost NECA area. For people in Bell areas, it's not hard to find 3 cpm or less. They've gotten plenty of mention in the digest so I won't belabor the details again. R's, John ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 04:34:45 GMT In article , yenc@sucks.com says: >>> So you think. This is nothing more than coincidence. The biggest >>> telemarketers (such as long distance phone companies) are EXEMPT from >>> these lists. >> Could you point to the section of the law or FTC regulations that >> provides the exemptions? Because there is no such exemption, and >> you're just wrong. > People like you, who don't even bother to do research or CHECK before > they call someone wrong never cease to amaze me. > Next time, go to google.com and CHECK before you call someone a liar. > "There are some exemptions, for example, as you might expect, > telephone companies can still call you to solicit you and so can banks > and credit card companies," Cohen said. Also still allowed to call > are: charities, insurance companies and politicians." WRONG, except for politicians and charities. As the FCC's web site explains: The Do-Not-Call registry will not prevent all unwanted calls. It will not cover the following: * calls from organizations with which you have established a business relationship; * calls for which you have given prior written consent; * calls which are not commercial or do not include unsolicited advertisements; * calls by or on behalf of tax-exempt non-profit organizations. Check it out at Noncommercial calls, such as political and charitable solicitors, can call. Commercial solicitors with whom you have no existing relationship and to whom have not given written consent cannot call. There is no exception for telephone companies, insurance companies, banks, or credit card companies, except those who have an existing business relationship. If you have an MBNA credit card, MBNA can call you to ask you to upgrade to platinum or to take out a home equity line, but Bank One cannot call you, if your number is on the do-not-call list. > Then, keep in mind MOST telemarketers don't abide by laws or do not > call lists ANYWAY! By keeping their number from showing on caller ID > (which is also against the law now, but they continue to do) or using > a fake number like 111-111-1111 (which I have seen many times myself) > you don't know what company to report for violating Federal Law > anyway. MOST telemarketers who want to stay in business do abide by laws and the do-not-call list. MOST of those telemarketers also show a dialable number in the Caller ID. I have received virtually no telemarketing calls after a reasonable transition period from the beginning of the do- not-call list. It has been almost completely successful. Now we're down to politicians and charities calling in the evening. >> If you are getting calls from companies with which you are not >> currently doing business (or with whom you are doing business and >> have told them to stop), you can sue them under the TCPA. > THINK before you start typing! You have to know WHO they are before > you can sue someone! ASKING them who they are doesn't work. You have > to play long games with them pretending to be interested in what they > are selling so you can figure out who they are, but then you have no > caller ID to prove they called either, the laws only protect them, not > the victims. They don't call any more. And when I get a marketing call, it has invariably had caller ID showing. > Anyone with half a brain can figure out that a law making > telemarketing ILLEGAL would have made more sense than a DO NOT CALL > LIST. Or having a DO CALL LIST in which the 2 or 3 people in the > world that like to get telelmarketing calls could sign up on a > permission list, rather than make millions of people sign up saying > they don't want to be harassed. > THINK! So you have half a brain. If you had a whole brain, you would realize that making telemarketing illegal would (a) probably be unconstitutional, (b) be politically impossible, and (c) prevent perfectly legitimate calls that you want from people you do business with. Do you want your lawyer to be precluded from calling you to tell you that Congress or the State Legislature has passed a law affecting your business? Do you want your broker to be precluded from calling you to tell you that one of your stocks has tanked? Do you want your travel agent to be precluded from calling you to tell you that the airline you have booked with has cancelled your flight and you need to rebook? There is no way in h*ll the average person wants to prevent all commercial calls from persons with whom he does business. And there is no way in h*ll Congress, the FCC, or the FTC will bar such calls. >> The only significant exemptions are for established business >> relationship and non-profits. > Bullshit. Check the FCC or FTC websites for the complete law and read > through all the exemptions as I did a long time ago in promoting to the > public what a farce this stupid law was, and how MOST of the telemarketers > we get calls from are EXEMPT for the do not call list. Doesn't matter > if you have an established relationship with them or not. Maybe you should read through all the exemptions now. I've quoted the FCC's summary above. It's actually a reasonable summary of the rules. Your conception of the rules bears no resemblance to what they say. An established business relationship is in the statute itself. >> FYI, I haven't gotten a call from a long distance company in years, > Because you are probably one of the stupid people that HAS a long > distance company connected to your phone line so that you can pay > hundreds of dollars a year even if you never make one single long > distance phone call. Intelligent people have NO long distance company > connected with their home phone lines at all, and use one of the > THOUSANDS of 10-10 numbers that have NO MONTHLY FEES or charges and > you can change companies for each call made, just by using a different > 10-10 number. > If you cancelled the long distance company you have now, you will > indeed get several calls a day for MONTHS from that company trying to > get you back. This is a FACT that I, and everyone I know has gone > through. If you try to say this is not true, then you can only be one > of their employees or a telemarketer yourself. I cancelled MCI a few years ago, before the do-not-call list. I got a single call from their retention group. I told them the rate I was getting from a reseller, they said there was no way they would match that rate, and I never got another call. I am certainly not an MCI employee or a telemarketer. And before the do-not-call list went into effect, I got calls from AT&T very frequently. Since then, I have gotten none. Nor any from other telephone companies, local or long-distance. In all, the do-not-call list and associated FCC/FTC rules have been very successful from my perspective. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD, USA Delete nospam from my address and it won't work. ------------------------------ From: ariel.burbaickij@gmail.com (Ariel Burbaickij) Subject: No Call Ref ID in SS7/C7 Why? Date: 24 Sep 2004 04:07:58 -0700 Hello dear newsgroup participants, Could someone explain to me why it was decided not to have call reference ID in at least plain ISUP (i.e. not B-ISUP where it could be present)? There is call ref id in DSS1, in SIP and again transaction id in SCCP/TCAP (with transaction being defined as series of queries and responses), so why no call ref ids in ISUP? With Best Regards, Ariel Burbaickij 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! 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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 #444 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Sep 25 03:04:43 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8P74gi25022; Sat, 25 Sep 2004 03:04:43 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 03:04:43 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409250704.i8P74gi25022@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 #445 TELECOM Digest Sat, 25 Sep 2004 03:03:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 445 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AT&T Vies for VoIP (Jack Decker - VOIP News) State Utility Commissioners Listening to VoIP (Jack Decker - VOIP News) Re: Verizon bundles DSL and VoIP (Aswath Rao) Re: The Wal-Mart Supremacy (Lisa Hancock) International Long Distance Termination Buyers (Frank Kathleen Erickson) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (jmayson@nyx.net) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Mark Atwood) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Clarence Dold) Re: BUSH Leaked Documents to CBS (Michael A. Covington) Re: BUSH Leaked Documents to CBS (Thomas A. Horsley) Re: BUSH Leaked Documents to CBS (Dave Close) Re: No Call Ref ID in SS7/C7 Why? (Phil Anderton) Re: Out of Area Calls (jmayson@nyx.net) Re: Out of Area Calls (John R. Covert) Re: Out of Area Calls (Robert Bonomi) Re: LNP For a Move (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: LNP For a Move (Tony P.) Re: Rotary Phones in TV Shows (Michael Muderick) Re: Rotary Phone Props in New TV Shows (Joseph) 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: Jack Decker Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 13:33:29 -0400 Subject: AT&T Vies for VoIP Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,117896,00.asp Better tools for telecommuters and travelers are in the works, company says. Laura Rohde, IDG News Service AT&T is announcing a number of voice over Internet Protocol initiatives, such as a program to develop common standards for the technology and an expansion of its international VoIP remote worker pilot project. But as the company tries to draw more users to VoIP, its own research shows that concerns about the quality of service continue to dog the market as a whole. "We are trying to answer some of the questions as to 'so what?', accelerate what can be brought in from the future, and bring forward initiatives that can be wrapped around VoIP," said Jeff Ace, vice president for global business development at AT&T, in a press briefing in London. Full story at: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,117896,00.asp How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 13:27:37 -0400 Subject: State Utility Commissioners Listening to VoIP Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com This article is slightly dated, but I just came across it and figured it might be of interest to some readers. http://www.newtelephony.com/news/818.html Sept. 1, 2004 Vol. 3, No. 19 By Mary Glass The voice-over-IP community extended an olive branch to state utility regulators at the recent Winter Meeting March 7-10 of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) in Washington, D.C., trying to build bridges with that group and increase its understanding of VoIP. A panel representing the VoIP industry and the Federal Communication Commission (FCC), as well as local telephone companies, addressed the NARUC Telecommunications Committee to discuss voice over IP technology and regulation. Although the presentation was specifically for that committee of NARUC, the room was packed with about 200 participants, including many commissioners not on the committee. The panel discussion brought together two groups that have sometimes been at odds over VoIP regulation. The session, however, had a collaborative tone that represents a shift from previous meetings and seems to indicate growing understanding of VoIP applications, not to mention the larger regulatory issue that the states have limited ability to establish rules on Internet service, because of federal preemption. Understanding and Collaboration Although state regulators have been cut out of the VoIP regulatory process by FCC actions and a federal court decision last fall, panel speakers emphasized, the VoIP industry wishes to reach out to the states and understand the concerns of state governments about the new technology. The meeting began with background on the capabilities and potential of voice over IP. Jeff Pulver, president and CEO of Pulver.com, explained the recent, rapid expansion of voice over IP, emphasizing the differences from traditional telephony to the more than 100 state commissioners in attendance. [.....] Spanning the Credibility Gap Adding credibility to the panel for the state regulators was Dave Svanda, a former state utility commissioner in Michigan who now represents the recently reformulated VON Coalition. He emphasized that members of the VoIP industry are sensitive to the states' concerns regarding consumer protection and other social policy issues. The VON Coalition, he says, wants to "look at policy approaches that facilitate rather than inhibit market development." These would include "meeting in the middle" on social policy, even if the industry is not legally required to do so. He said, it would not include acceptance of the "old" switched-network regulation for VoIP, which is considered a completely different world of communication. Full story at: http://www.newtelephony.com/news/818.html ------------------------------ From: Aswath Rao Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 17:15:04 -0400 Subject: Re: Verizon Bundles DSL and VoIP Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com I also wonder about the idea behind virtual numbers. Since most of the traffic will be incoming to these virtual numbers, I suspect that access charges is the motivation. But I could be wrong on this one. Aswath ----Original Message Follows---- To: MI-Telecom Mailing List Subject: Verizon Bundles DSL and VoIP Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 12:46:39 -0400 What I find interesting about this is that Verizon's VoIP service seems to be offering numbers (for incoming calls) in areas served by other ILEC's first, at least in Michigan. If you Check Area Code Availability at Verizon's web site , in Michigan they show numbers in the Ann Arbor-Wayne Area, Detroit Area, Flint-Port Huron Area, Lansing Area, Pontiac-Troy Area, and Sterling Heights-Warren Area. But these are all SBC exchanges, and they show nothing in their own exchanges such as Muskegon (Muskegon is the largest Verizon exchange in Michigan, and Verizon has a relatively high number of exchanges in the Grand Rapids LATA). One has to wonder why Verizon would not offer their VoIP service with numbers in their own exchanges, but will offer it with numbers primarily in another ILEC's exchanges, particularly since they can't offer DSL in those exchanges. Something about this doesn't quite make sense to me. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: The Wal-Mart Supremacy Date: 24 Sep 2004 08:37:50 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Lisa, I think all of us suffer from > these 'blind spots' in our logic and thinking. While some people feel what happened in the past is not relevent to today, it really is. Many times new technologies (whatever they may be) bring bad things as well as good. The speed and convenience of the automobile has dramatically improved our standard of living and countless saved many lives through quick transport. But the automobile also kills 40,000 people a year and spews out tons of air pollution. It took years after the auto got popular for pollution control and safety to catch up. Geez, I saw an ad in the mid 1950s for seatbelts for cars, yet it took another decade until they were mandated, and decades more before most people used them regularly. > I used to be a great Bell System fan, and more than once I damned > Judge Greene for facilitating the breakup; just ask any pre-1985 > reader here in the Digest about my earlier attitudes on Bell System > divestiture (and there are a few of them still around.) Because -- at the time -- the level of technology was such that it was not a good idea and many telephone subscribers (not to mention Bell System employees and suppliers) ended up paying more for less. I also remember what people had to say, and the loudest cheers for the breakup were from people who gonna personally make money off of it. That's fine for them, but ignores the rest of us. > After my brain aneurysm I moved back here to s.e. Kansas, where I was > born in 1942 (the anniversary of which is two days from now, [hint! > hint!]) because I could no longer deal with 'big city' problems and > lifestyles. I loved our old fashioned soda fountain syle drugstore, > our quaint downtown stores, etc. The first hint however, that things > were not as I remembered them (think now if you will about Thomas > Wolfe's novel "You Can't Go Home Again" -- remember it?) came when > our sister city to the south, Coffeyville, announced that taxes had > remained unpaid for several years on about *500 vacant houses*; [snip] This is not a new problem and it applies to telecom as well as society at large. I had interviewed the former telephone operator of my town. In her day, the exchange was in the house and she was a teenager. Later on (mid 1950s) they built a new building and put in dial and she, as an adult, was transferred to a nearby city to continue working as an operator. It was a vast change for her. We've all read about the informality of the small town exchanges and ours was no different. Lesser known is city exchanges where operators were under quasi-military discipline under strict supervision. She said every response to a caller was structured; it was a totally different world and a big change for her. This was back in the 1950s, and small towns all over the country were changing as well. You mention Independence MO, and much has been written about that through biographies of Harry Truman. Truman, as a young politician in the 1920s, championed the construction of public roads to get his farmer neighbors out of the mud. He built a good system for Jackson County, and he loved his cars and to take drives. Yet after he retired from the presidency and retired back to Independence he had problems from the very same roads and motoring he supported. Even in the 1950s traffic noise past his house became a problem, and he had to go out every morning and pick up litter thrown on his lawn. This shows that disrepect and carelessness are not new problems. > So Lisa, maybe we better all begin to accept the Walmart Supremacy. Or > are you like me and wish we could go back to 1950 to live while > retaining our 2004 level of sophistication? What is the saying, 'old > too soon, wise too late? PAT] I often point out the problems of new technology (see my posts on VOIP, for example). Advocates of new technology get upset (see the responses). I have no objections to new technology in itself, what I want is it to be a true benefit to me, not just something that ends up costing me more and giving me less. I like the convenience of my car, but I don't like traffic jams or crazy drivers. I also find using _good_ mass transit systems easier than drivers and that they take up far less land than highways do. We don't need a telephone operator to connect each and every call, not even to places overseas. But we always should have a well-trained operator promptly available to us in case we have questions on rates or technical difficulties. I don't mind using automated systems IF they do the job, but far too many do not. (See my post on NJT and MNRR information centers). Unfortunately, too many technology advocates--both the engineers and marketers -- see things from only their perspective and not enough from the customers. For example, I've tried out VIOP several times and the quality stinks. Maybe down the road they'll get it better, but TODAY it's not there, but they refuse to accept it. Maybe some of the business people know it but still want to sell the product anyway. There are advantages of chain stores, as mentioned, the CVS gives me greater selection and is open much longer hours than the pvt drugstore. But on the other hand there are disadvantages, too. CVS runs lots of TV ads proclaiming their personal customer service and pharmacist-patient support and in reality they don't come anywhere close to what I had before. (Maybe if they kept the same pharmacists working in one store instead of constantly rotating them and if they had more pharmacists instead of high school airheads things would be better.) I just wish we didn't have to give up so much for new technology and I wish technology advocates were more honest about it. ------------------------------ From: Frank and Kathleen Erickson Subject: International Long Distance Termination Buyers Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 11:30:31 -0700 Patrick, What a great site! I ws browsing through, but have run out of time, it is so large. I am trying to locate who at AT&T buys the international long distance termination minutes to and from India, the Philippines, Afghanistan and Mexico. Any ideas on how I can ID that person, or persons? Frank Erickson frankerickson@msn.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for your kind message about the Digest. After being around for so many years, the web site is bound to be huge. Maybe a reader here, possibly someone from AT&T, will be able to answer your question. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jmayson@nyx.net Reply-To: jmayson@nyx.net Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 22:41:29 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com >> This reminds me when they ordered people to turn off receivers or face >> jail years earlier. At the time they claimed their own radios were >> "special" and so could be used on trains. I later verified with their >> own radio shop that there was nothing special about their radios. I had a similar experience at the hospital where my son was born. There were signs up all over the hospital notifying us that cell phones could not be used in the building due to the possibility of interfering with medical equipment. Okay, I didn't want to kill anyone because I *HAD* to check my stock prices. But two things bothered me: 1. The county uses a 800 MHz radio system. Those handhelds are more powerful than a cell phone. Paramedics and police roamed the halls of the hospital. Why didn't their radios interfere? 2. The doctors and nurses used their cell phones in the building. It became clear to me what was probably going on. There was a 75 cent surcharge on all out-going calls using the hospital's phone system. I really believe the cell phone prohibition had more to do with revenue than safety. I seriously doubt the doctors had "special" cell phones that could be used in a hospital environment. John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains From: Mark Atwood Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 20:35:52 GMT Doug Faunt N6TQS +1-510-655-8604 writes: > Some amusement parks have banned personal 2 way radios at times, since > they say that gangs use them to avoid security. That's not going to fly very well, I know a fair number of parents that give all their kids FRSs (especially the ones with GPS receivers with locators) when they go on family outings. Do said parks try to ban cellphones too? They do the same thing, especially the ones with PTT. Are their any FCC rules (or other national equivalents) about preempting rules against possession of radios, similar to the ones preempting local laws and homeowner rules about ham radios? Mark Atwood | When you do things right, people won't be sure mra@pobox.com | you've done anything at all. http://www.pobox.com/~mra | http://www.livejournal.com/users/fallenpegasus ------------------------------ From: dold@XReXXBARTX.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 20:46:34 UTC Organization: a2i network Doug Faunt N6TQS +1-510-655-8604 wrote: > Some amusement parks have banned personal 2 way radios at times, since > they say that gangs use them to avoid security. And they've have been > banned at the Olympics in the US and in France, IIRC. At Yosemite Park in California, climbers camping for the night on the sides of mountains with a view of the valley floor talk to lots of people they don't know via FRS. You'll see people on the floor with FRS and binoculars, trying to locate the person they're chatting with. Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8-122.5 ------------------------------ From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Re: BUSH Leaked Documents to CBS Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 17:40:13 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) Michael D. Sullivan wrote in message news:telecom23.444.8@telecom-digest.org: > In article , yenc@sucks.com says: >>> As CBS News faces one of the worst public embarrassments in its >>> history, experts say that the damage to the network's news division >>> could be significant -- and costly. >> BUSH "leaked" the fake documents to Viacom/CBS because Bush has been >> after them for a long time. Then he "leaked" that the documents were >> fake, and now instead of the attention being on BUSH for lying about >> serving in the military, the attention is on DAN RATHER. (1) Any evidence? (2) Nobody "leaked that they were fake" - nobody needed to. They were very inept fakes, on the level of what a high-school student might do. They had centered proportional type at the top -- impossible on 1970s office machines -- and have been shown to match Microsoft Word + Times New Roman extremely well, while they don't resemble any 1970s office machine very closely (not even the Selectric Composer). I would bet they were faked by someone who had not been using office machines more than a very few years and was simply unaware that before Windows 95, they were quite different! More at: http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/michael/blog/index.html#040911 and one of the more recent entries. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: BUSH Leaked Documents to CBS From: tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 22:44:47 GMT > BUSH "leaked" the fake documents to Viacom/CBS because Bush has been > after them for a long time. Then he "leaked" that the documents were > fake, and now instead of the attention being on BUSH for lying about > serving in the military, the attention is on DAN RATHER. Even if true (though I don't think even Karl Rove is that smart) it still comes down to CBS not paying attention to their own experts. Over on ABC, they had a veritable parade of document experts saying they had been hired by CBS, informed CBS they documents were at best unverifiable, and at worst fakes, then were amazed to see them show up on the air anyway. Apparently CBS just kept hiring experts until they found one who would tell them what they wanted to hear (there's a thought -- maybe Dan Rather should resign so he can take over as head of the CIA, he certainly seems to be highly qualified for that position :-). >>==>> The *Best* political site >>==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL | Free Software and Politics <<==+ ------------------------------ From: dave@compata.com (Dave Close) Subject: Re: BUSH Leaked Documents to CBS Date: 24 Sep 2004 20:15:58 -0700 Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California Truth writes: > BUSH "leaked" the fake documents to Viacom/CBS because ... I'm a bit confused. I thought I was supposed to believe that W is an idiot, a moron, too ignorant to manage his own affairs let alone those of our country. Yet you seem to imply that he was capable of a brilliant dirty trick which, aside from your suspicions, has not been detected by anyone yet. Please clarify. Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA +1 714 434 7359 dave@compata.com dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu "Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you." - Pericles ------------------------------ From: Phil Anderton Subject: Re: No Call Ref ID in SS7/C7 Why? Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 22:41:16 +0200 Organization: Peoples' Front of Judaea Ariel Burbaickij wrote: > Could someone explain to me why it was decided not to have call > reference ID in at least plain ISUP (i.e. not B-ISUP where it could be > present)? There is call ref id in DSS1, in SIP and again transaction > id in SCCP/TCAP (with transaction being defined as series of queries > and responses), so why no call ref ids in ISUP? I don't think this was *decided*. The thing about ISUP is, it doesn't handle calls, at least not in the end to end sense. It deals with connections between switches, and such a connection is uniquely identified by the signalling point codes (SPCs) of the two switches, plus a circuit identification code (CIC). A call between two parties might consist of several such connections. ISUP does have mechanisms for end to end signalling, but in normal use it's almost exclusively link by link signalling, and for that all you need is OPC+DPC+CIC. Phil ------------------------------ From: jmayson@nyx.net Reply-To: jmayson@nyx.net Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 22:41:08 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com > "There are some exemptions, for example, as you might expect, > telephone companies can still call you to solicit you and so can banks > and credit card companies," Cohen said. Also still allowed to call > are: charities, insurance companies and politicians." What does the law say about when you ask a charity to stop calling and they refuse? The Texas Paralyzed Veterans keeps calling asking for donations. I have called their office, spoken to a supervisor, and explcitly asked that my number be removed from their call list. They always promise, but three or four times a week I continue to receive calls from them. I had the campaign of a major party presidential candidate (the one I support over the other) continue to call asking for a $75 donation. I kindly asked they remove me but I kept getting calls. I finally told them, "If you call me one more time I will donate $75 to your opponent and vote for him in November." The calls immediately stopped. I would've done it too. John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 17:02:03 -0400 (EDT) From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls A newbie calling himself "Truth" doubted the esteemed telecoms expert John Levine and flamed: > People like you, who don't even bother to do research or CHECK > before they call someone wrong never cease to amaze me. Then the provided an unattributed and erroneous quote. Mr Truth (may I call you Falsehood for short?), please check out https://www.donotcall.gov/FAQ/FAQConsumers.aspx#Exceptions which states: > Placing your number on the National Do Not Call Registry will stop > most, but not all, telemarketing calls. You may still receive calls > from political organizations, charities, telephone surveyors or > companies with which you have an existing business relationship. And there, Mr Falsehood, you have the ONLY exceptions. /john ------------------------------ Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 07:59:52 +0000 In article , Truth wrote: >>> So you think. This is nothing more than coincidence. The biggest >>> telemarketers (such as long distance phone companies) are EXEMPT from >>> these lists. >> Could you point to the section of the law or FTC regulations that >> provides the exemptions? Because there is no such exemption, and >> you're just wrong. > People like you, who don't even bother to do research or CHECK before > they call someone wrong never cease to amaze me. > Next time, go to google.com and CHECK before you call someone a liar. OK. I _did_ go check. You really should take you own advice, before posting. Because, you see, you *are* a liar. (note: your assertation _was_ correct at one time, but is false-to-fact, in today's world.) The presently-implemented DNC list is a _joint_ operation of the FTC and the FCC. The list of activities proscribed by each agency is _not_ identical. If *either* agency proscribes a kind of call, you cannot legally make that call. Here is the status of telemarketing calls by telephone companies: Exempt under FTC rules but included under FCC rules: * Long-distance phone companies are exempt under FTC rules but FCC rules will not exempt these calls Good write-up at: > "There are some exemptions, for example, as you might expect, > telephone companies can still call you to solicit you and so can banks > and credit card companies," Cohen said. Also still allowed to call > are: charities, insurance companies and politicians." FALSE TO FACT, for nearly a year now. Charities, political calls, and legitimate survey calls, and 'existing business relationship' calls, are the _only_ exemptions, =now=. >> The only significant exemptions are for established business >> relationship and non-profits. > Bullshit. Not Bullshit. Factually Accurate. > Check the FCC or FTC websites for the complete law and read > through all the exemptions as I did a long time ago when I was active > in promoting to the public what a farce this stupid law was, and how > MOST of the telemarketers we get calls from are EXEMPT for the do not > call list. Doesn't matter if you have an established relationship > with them or not. "Sorry, Charlie." Your 'knowledge' is out-of-date, and obsolete. There have been _significant_ changes to the rules, _as_implemented_ vs. what was originally proposed. >> FYI, I haven't gotten a call from a long distance company in years, > Because you are probably one of the stupid people that HAS a long > distance company connected to your phone line so that you can pay > hundreds of dollars a year even if you never make one single long > distance phone call. Intelligent people have NO long distance company > connected with their home phone lines at all, and use one of the > THOUSANDS of 10-10 numbers that have NO MONTHLY FEES or charges and > you can change companies for each call made, just by using a different > 10-10 number. > If you canceled the long distance company you have now, you will > indeed get several calls a day for MONTHS from that company trying to > get you back. This is a FACT that I, and everyone I know has gone > through. If you try to say this is not true, then you can only be one > of their employees or a telemarketer yourself. When I cancelled my long-distance carrier, I got exactly *two* 'we want you back' calls. The *second* call cost them $500, which I _did_ collect. You see, I told the first caller to add my number to do-not-call call list that the company itself must maintain. Any express request to the company to be placed on their internally-maintained do-not-call list, supersedes any 'implicit' permission _to_ call that is generated by a 'prior business relationship'. They told me that they would do so, but that it would take something like 30 days to take effect. I pointed out that the law made *no* such provision for delay on an -internally-maintained- list, and required that they update my _customer_record_ with a note that 'customer has ordered us -never- to make marketing calls to him', and the date/time. Three days later, somebody "didn't read" the notes, and called me. I promptly demanded a supervisor, had them read the account 'notes', and asked if they wanted to pay the statutory $500 minimum, or if I needed to go to court, in which case I would allege 'knowing and wilful' violation, and award of the legally allowed 'treble damages'. The $500 check was _in_my_hand_ within a week. >> There's a lot more reasons than telemarketers for a call to come >> up out of area. > The only reason you get that anymore is from telemarketers, and one > other exception with calling cards or using some 10-10 numbers which > don't pass your number through. Or people in _very_ rural areas, serviced by _old_ switching gear that doesn't understand SS7, and *doesn't* pass caller information out to the outside world. There _is_ a fair amount of such gear still in service, even in the U.S. ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: LNP For a Move Date: 24 Sep 2004 15:30:57 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , Fred R. Goldstein wrote: > Before LNP, Verizon could only provision a number that way via Foreign > Central Office service, running a leased line from the old CO to the > new one. That's not strictly true, either -- pre-LNP Intelligent Network feature sets could easily do this sort of thing, too, with a trigger either in the tandem switch (and remember, Verizon North has a much "deeper" switch network than the other RBOCs retained in the breakup) or in the called party's end-office switch. Even in the called-party's-switch implementation it's far more efficient that actually running a leased line from one CO to another; indeed, this kind of "virtual FCO" service was an _example_ in some early documents on IN of what could easily be done even with existing pre-standard switch functionality, many years before LNP was something anyone had ever thought about. It's always, in other words, been something they _could_ do but didn't want to. Why, when they could charge customers for FCO? I wouldn't be surprised to hear that some RBOCs had cut costs by doing virtual FCO internally using IN triggers but retained the old tarrif pricing to customers; from their point of view, cutting costs on existing services was _precisely_ the point of all this expensive intelligent switch technology (and indeed, AT&T's original plans for it went well beyond anything the baby bells ever did, all justified by cost reduction). The problem now of course is that the existence of LNP has woken people up to the idea that this sort of thing can be done in the telephone network, and they're starting to ask why it can't be done _for them_ unless they jump through hoops like switching telcos. I spent several years of my life in the IN trenches, trying to build exactly those kinds of slightly-variant services and arrange to get them deployed, at a nice profit to the telco, too; let me tell you, it's a path to a great deal of frustration. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com But as he knew no bad language, he had called him all the names of common objects that he could think of, and had screamed: "You lamp! You towel! You plate!" and so on. --Sigmund Freud ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: LNP For a Move Organization: ATCC Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 21:43:43 GMT In article , fgoldstein@withheld says: > Hi Pat, > I accidentally sent you a message last night -- a reply to Tony P's > question about local number portability -- and didn't mask the From > field. Can you please mask the address (leave the name) so the spambots > don't devour me? Just turn my real address into something false. > On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 01:18:09 GMT, Tony P. wrote, >> I'll be moving from a true Providence rate center in Providence, to a >> Providence rate center in Cranston. (401-621 to 401-46x or 401-94x). >> Here is my question. Since they're both the same rate center could I >> request to keep my current numbers under LNP? >> It'd work the same as real LNP that being when someone dials a number >> it looks at a database to see what switch the call should be passed >> to. In essence it makes Foreign Exchange service a thing of the past >> but I'll be it's still tarrifed that way. > Before LNP, Verizon could only provision a number that way via Foreign > Central Office service, running a leased line from the old CO to the > new one. It was costly, but sometimes worthwhile to a business. With > LNP, it's a matter of entering a simple entry into a database, and > telling the old switch that the number was ported out. > Which means that Verizon's as likely to do that for you as the Queen > of England is likely to come to tea with you. > They don't do rational, nice things like that for residential > subscribers. For a large Centrex customer, sure. But you don't > deserve it. They have nine ways to hell of saying that the tariff > doesn't allow it, their procedures don't allow it, their systems don't > allow it. They're lying, of course, but then at Verizon, telling the > truth is the firing offense. I find it interesting that the service rep was eager to sell a second phone line which I specifically did not want and told her so several times. Clearly it is technically possible - I pay that little LNP fee every month. But their damned tariff is a nice little obstacle. Like I said, I know PUC people and I might follow it up through them. > On the other hand, any CLEC can do what you want. Even Cox, if they > offer phone service, can take your old Providence number and install > it at your new Providence (rate center) location. Verizon's wire > center boundaries are meaningless to a CLEC, since CLECs have one > switch serving a wider area, and most will do LNP to the customer's > spec if that's what it takes to make a sale. I expect that there are > other CLECs who can take over the number too. I do not want Cox for my phone service. I just don't trust them to do that. ------------------------------ From: Michael Muderick Subject: Re: Rotary Phones in TV Shows Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 16:08:51 -0400 Correction: The 302 sets in multi-line version ( not sure of the model number) had black buttons in the earlier style. Later they had clear buttons that had lights in them. I have a few in my collection. Michael Muderick ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Rotary Phone Props in New TV Shows Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 15:09:26 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On 24 Sep 2004 10:17:04 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote: > Earlier this year, "What I like about you" (WB) had a scene in > a hospital and a payphone in the background was rotary dial. > Curiously, other background payphones seen and used in the show > (such as the airport) were TT. > Not too long ago "Angel" (WB) had a 302 set with modern multi-line > keyset (lighted small square line buttons) added to the bottom. While > 302s did have multi line versions, the buttons were black and tiny, Some of the early multi line 300 series did indeed have clear buttons that could be lit (sometimes they weren't.) > One exception where old phones were sometimes used was a related show > (B/VS). The girls had a blue Princess rotary phone in their dorm > room. It rang with a modern electronic sound. IIRC they used it, but > I never saw them dial. The school library _on occassion_ had a rotary > set and the librarian was seen speaking on it, but on most other > occassions it had a modern phone. Well, I think it's assumed that most people don't know the difference between what something is "supposed" to sound like. It's a fairly common practice that when they'd show a Trimline phone "ringing" you'd hear the double-gong ring of a 500/2500 type phone. Or if you see someone making a call from a single slot pay phone you'd see them insert money and hear the "ding-ding" which single slot pay phones never had and the ding or ding-ding or bong was only on the triple slot pay phones. Or having a candlestick phone ring with modern dual gong ringers which were in the 500/2500 series phones. When you hear a phone ring on a series it's an almost 100% surety that the phone isn't actually ringing and that they've got a sound effect filling in for a real phone ringing. Depending on how serious the people are on the series about making something authentic will determine whether it's "realistic" and face it other than phone nerds like you'll find here will be the only ones to notice that something's not authentic. > I remember the old "All in the Family" show had a 302 set in their > living room at a time (1971) they were becomming pretty rare in > service. I believe the older style was purposely chosen to give the > home a poorer look to it. At some point in the show or its successor > the house got a 2500 TT phone. ------------------------------ 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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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 #445 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Sep 25 16:19:20 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8PKJJG01352; Sat, 25 Sep 2004 16:19:20 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 16:19:20 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409252019.i8PKJJG01352@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 #446 TELECOM Digest Sat, 25 Sep 2004 16:19:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 446 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson The March of New Technology (was Re: Wal-Mart Supremacy) (Jack Decker) Movies/Documentaries That Feature Crossbar, Panel, or SxS? (Vu Huong) How to Identify/Replace/Recondition/Clean Old Uniselector? (Mike Deblis) Re: Out of Area Calls (AES/newspost) Re: Out of Area Calls (Stanley Cline) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (W. Rupprecht) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Stanley Cline) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (DevilsPGD) 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: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 14:02:37 -0400 From: Jack Decker Subject: The March of New Technology (was Re: The Wal-Mart Supremacy) Pat, please conceal my e-mail address as usual. On 24 Sep 2004 08:37:50 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote: > While some people feel what happened in the past is not relevent to > today, it really is. Many times new technologies (whatever they may > be) bring bad things as well as good. Lisa, you may be under the impression that you are one of only a handful of people to have figured this out, but that's not the case ... I think we all realize that technology brings bad things as well as good. And sometimes it's hard to figure out what's good and what's bad. For example, medical technology can prolong lives, but at what cost to the patient and his/her family? I don't think anyone would argue that it's a bad thing that some diseases have been almost eradicated, but when we look at the greedy pharmaceutical industry and how they particularly attempt to rip off the people of the United States, I have to say that sometimes I wonder if I would really want my life to be prolonged. [.....snip.....] >> I used to be a great Bell System fan, and more than once I damned >> Judge Greene for facilitating the breakup; just ask any pre-1985 >> reader here in the Digest about my earlier attitudes on Bell System >> divestiture (and there are a few of them still around.) > Because -- at the time -- the level of technology was such that it was > not a good idea and many telephone subscribers (not to mention Bell > System employees and suppliers) ended up paying more for less. I also > remember what people had to say, and the loudest cheers for the > breakup were from people who gonna personally make money off of it. > That's fine for them, but ignores the rest of us. Well, actually, I was one of the people cheering the loudest, but maybe that's because I lived in Michigan and Michigan Bell had raped the people of Michigan with high toll charges and minuscule local calling areas (compared to much of the rest of the country) for years. I think that Pat could confirm that the Ameritech region was for some reason a part of the country that really got screwed by Bell System, since he lived in Chicago and Chicago was one of the few major cities where you could incur toll charges (Ma Bell called them "zone" charges) for making a call within the city itself! I think I realized what a lot of other people refused to admit - that toll charges were going to go WAY down as a result of the breakup. I did not envision that local charges would rise as much as they did, but you have to remember that this happened only because there was still no competition at the local service level, and because government regulation policies in the United States were nuts. All these additional taxes and fees and such should never have been added to wireline service, it's a big ripoff of the telephone customer and creates an "unholy alliance" between government and phone company, where both participate in picking the customer's pocket. Had the government not decided to throw in their lot with the thieves, and allow all sorts of mischief as a long as they got a cut of the action, I don't think any of us would have much nostalgia for the old Bell System. Canada took a much different path and while I don't agree with everything they do up here, I suspect that people overall are getting a much fairer shake from their local phone companies (which is probably one reason SBC/Ameritech dumped their interest in Bell Canada). > I had interviewed the former telephone operator of my town. In her > day, the exchange was in the house and she was a teenager. Later on > (mid 1950s) they built a new building and put in dial and she, as an > adult, was transferred to a nearby city to continue working as an > operator. It was a vast change for her. We've all read about the > informality of the small town exchanges and ours was no different. > Lesser known is city exchanges where operators were under > quasi-military discipline under strict supervision. She said every > response to a caller was structured; it was a totally different world > and a big change for her. This was back in the 1950s, and small towns > all over the country were changing as well. So you admit that there were some negatives about the old Bell System. Certainly, many of the things being said today about Wal-Mart and how they treat their employees (in some parts of the country) could have been said about the Bell System in the post-WW II era. > I often point out the problems of new technology (see my posts on > VOIP, for example). Advocates of new technology get upset (see the > responses). I have no objections to new technology in itself, what I > want is it to be a true benefit to me, not just something that ends up > costing me more and giving me less. Has it ever occurred to you that many of the people who think that VoIP is a good thing think that it is a true benefit to THEM, and not because they are making any money from the company, but because as customers they are saving a pile of money? > I like the convenience of my car, > but I don't like traffic jams or crazy drivers. I also find using > _good_ mass transit systems easier than drivers and that they take up > far less land than highways do. But you see, there is a difference between making that choice for yourself and trying to make it for everyone else. It's the old mental fallacy: "Right-thinking people believe as I do; everyone else is either crazy, or not as informed on the issue as I am." Nobody consciously puts it quite that way, but I think that from time to time we all lapse into believing essentially that way, if only for a few moments now and then. Much of what we believe is based on our own experiences. For example, I might argue that I've never seen a _good_ mass transit system. But I would doubtless be using different personal criteria than you are. It might be something as simple as not wanting to be among crowds of people vs. enjoying being among the throngs of strangers (in the same way that one person might enjoy being in Times Square on New Years' Eve, while another person might want to be almost anywhere else). I can empathize with your comments about traffic -- I hate traffic jams and I hate waiting at red lights, and if I had to live in a large city there's a good chance I'd "go postal" within a short time. But I love the country and the wide open spaces, and it probably wouldn't bother me to take a walk in the woods on a moonlit night. Other people are just the opposite, they'd be scared to death to be in the woods, but would thrive in a large city. My point, in case it's not obvious, is that you can't define what's "good" or "bad" for everyone based only on your own values. Others may have their reasons for reaching a totally different conclusion than you do. > We don't need a telephone operator to connect each and every call, > not even to places overseas. But we always should have a > well-trained operator promptly available to us in case we have > questions on rates or technical difficulties. I don't mind using > automated systems IF they do the job, but far too many do not. (See > my post on NJT and MNRR information centers). Now, this is a good example of different values -- I haven't had occasion to use an operator in years, and further, I have discovered that operators don't always give out accurate information with regard to rates or local calling areas. You did qualify your comment by saying a "well trained" operator, but do such even exist anymore? > Unfortunately, too many technology advocates -- both the engineers > and marketers -- see things from only their perspective and not > enough from the customers. That's an assumption on your part that can't be proven. I'm sure it's true in some cases; I'm equally sure that some really do consider the perspective of the customer when designing a product or service. The latter are usually more successful than the former, all else being equal (that is, as long as the former doesn't have some sort of defacto monopoly, or some other unfair way to twist the arm of customers to buy their service). > For example, I've tried out VIOP several > times and the quality stinks. Maybe down the road they'll get it > better, but TODAY it's not there, but they refuse to accept it. Again, you're projecting your experience as universal. I know people who have VoIP service and have had the opportunity to try various services, and in my opinion VoIP quality is at the very least FAR better than cell phone quality. In one case, using the service of a company called VoicePulse, I thought the quality exceeded that of any wireline connection I've ever had (the frequency range seemed much greater, although that could partially have been the phone itself). But I have not tried every VoIP service out there, so it doesn't surprise me that some offer a poorer quality service. In fact, if you read the BroadbandReports.com VoIP forum for a while, you begin to notice certain patterns, where some companies get consistently low marks on customer service, while a couple are very bad with regard to quality (even then it's often not voice quality so much as dropped calls, or calls that don't go through, etc.). The companies that are having problems and can't clean up their act will probably not be around after a while. There was an East German company that made cars using glorified lawn mower engines. They were so bad that when the Berlin Wall fell, East Germans drove them across the border and into the nearest river. Do you think those people swore off automobiles, choosing to only take the bus from then on? Some may have, but I'll bet a lot more decided to try to obtain a better car. There are good and bad products and services in any industry, and in a competitive marketplace the bad ones don't survive, but that doesn't mean they are all bad. > Maybe some of the business people know it but still want to sell > the product anyway. > There are advantages of chain stores, as mentioned, the CVS gives > me greater selection and is open much longer hours than the pvt > drugstore. But on the other hand there are disadvantages, too. > CVS runs lots of TV ads proclaiming their personal customer service > and pharmacist-patient support and in reality they don't come anywhere > close to what I had before. (Maybe if they kept the same pharmacists > working in one store instead of constantly rotating them and if they > had more pharmacists instead of high school airheads things would > be better.) I have to mention my experience with a local drugstore here. One time, when I lived in a fairly small town, I went to a particular pharmacy to get a prescription filled because it was near my doctor's office and I didn't really want to drive out to the Revco I usually went to. The owner of the pharmacy felt it was perfectly acceptable to count out pills on a piece of dirty cardboard (actually the back of a pad of forms where there had been carbon paper pressed against the cardboard). The minute I saw that, I demanded my prescription back and wasted no time going to the Revco, where they at least used a plastic pill counter that they assured me was washed periodically. Now, that may not have bothered some other people at all, but it bothered me, and left me with about the same feeling toward local pharmacies that you seem to feel about VoIP. > I just wish we didn't have to give up so much for new technology > and I wish technology advocates were more honest about it. I think that many technology advocates ARE being honest about it. Just because they don't see things the same way you do, or reach the same conclusions you do, does not necessarily mean that they are being dishonest. Nor should you just assume that their comments are motivated by some kind of personal profit motive. They have probably simply had different experiences than you have, which has caused them to reach what in their minds are conclusions equally valid to yours, though they may differ significantly from yours. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: To respond to Jack about Ameritech and zone charging on calls, Illinois Bell had gone for years with a 'local area calls for free' system across northern Illinois. 'Local' was de- fined as your geographic/political town. That meant people who lived in Chicago could call for literally miles in any direction as a local toll-free call; as an extreme, all the way from Howard and Western, at the northern edge to as far south as 145th Street and Avenue 'O' in the other direction, about thirty miles away. The fact that there were a dozen central office buildings along the way, and that (from a 'community of interest' perspective, almost no one that far south (or north) had any real areas of common interest. But they could call each other for 'free' as part of the 'Chicago Exchange', did not matter. Now if you were to go out to some of the suburbs, each with their own telephone exchange, you could easily cross a street and be in a different town, but doing things the same way, a subscriber had to pay 'units' or toll, to call someone a very short distance away who very likely was a friend they chatted with on the phone each day. For example, when I worked in an office at Howard Street and Artesian Avenue (Chicago), I would go across the street to eat at the McDonald's Restaurant, which was in Evanston. I could make those proverbial phone calls thirty miles *south of me* for 'free; and talk as long as desired, but to call across the street to Evanston was a timed, toll-charged call, under the old system. So when Ameritech took over from Illinois Bell, they established an eight mile 'zone' system. Eight miles around you was your local (or free) calling area, but outside that area, the tolls started kicking in. And it was not just Chicago, but the suburbs as well, meaning usually that most suburbs wound up getting clustered with two or three other nearby towns as local free-area calls (good for them) and Chicago by virtue of its size had a bunch of eight mile areas (generally okay for most people.) I no longer had to pay 'units' or toll charges to call across the street (where I was more likely to know people in my 'community' but I did have to pay toll for that thirty mile call to the other side of town. They further amended the system so that every call you made, local or not, you paid a couple cents per minute, except that in your newly defined 'local area' (eight miles) the calls were untimed, so you paid only a flat rate of one or two cents for each of those calls. It was not a bad deal, and certainly more fair to everyone, except perhaps those folks who lived on the east side of town (on the lake- front) whose 'eight mile local call area' went partially out into the lake! But no system will ever work perfectly. PAT] ------------------------------ From: psychoshredder@yahoo.com (vu huong) Subject: Movies/Documentaries That Feature Crossbar, Panel, or SxS? Date: 24 Sep 2004 23:14:25 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello, Does anyone know of any movies or documentaries that show footage of old telco technology? I remember a horror movie that came out in 1974 called "Black Christmas". It featured a couple of cool -but short- scenes of SxS in action. In the movie a faceless psychopathic killer hides out in the attic of a sorority house and makes obscene and threatening phone calls to another line in the house...all on beautiful rotary sets, of course. :) IIRC, the movie was shot on location in Bedford, Pennsylvania and also in the vicinity of the University of Toronto, Canada. The police and local CO attempt to trace the calls. The telco guy explains how the girls need to keep the harasser on the line as long as possible because "our phone system is mechanical and it takes a long time for us to complete a trace." In the movie, the telco dude is seen working on the phones at the sorority house for a "trace setup". I also remember that a line at the police dept was setup to ring whenever the line at the sorority house rang. The police officer could then pick up his handset and listen-and-talk to whomever was on the sorority's line. There's some neat scenes of the telco man running back and forth among different racks of SxS with a lineman's phone, attempting the trace before the connection is broken. I have no idea how accurate all this was; might of been just bs for the movie. Also, I don't remember any particular telco or identifying logos shot in this movie. But this brings up another newbie question. When did the capability to trace calls come into existence? Was this a nightmare job to attempt on SxS or other older systems? Thanks! Vu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One movie that come to mind (of several) was 'Tandem Rush'. And yes, tracing phone calls was a very difficult job, usually. One or two people had to walk in the frames, go to the telephone line on which a trace was to be done, then follow the switch train backward to its starting point. Maybe they discovered that the trace back led to another central office on the other side of town. So then they had to call the distant office, get someone interested in their problem, and get that person (in the distant office) to walk into the frames, pick up their connection and in essence start all over from that point. A very well-coordinated, executed, planned ahead of time trace could be done in maybe 20 minutes, or one that was an 'emergency'. More routine, less coordinated traces could easily take 30-45 minutes depending on the number of offices involved. As often as not, the person being traced knew enough to hang up the phone before that much time had passed. The most sickening sound in the world, to a telephone technician in those days assigned to 'trace that call' was the crashing sound (and yes, they were noisy) of the tandems collapsing or coming down on being released. An ancient movie I saw once (of police and the unknown person they were chasing) had the villian calling police to taunt them every day. Police told the guy "we are tracing your call". The bad guy says, "You go ahead and do just that. I know (all the steps involved) so I figure I will sit here and talk to you for another ten or fifteen minutes if I want to." Police look at each other and one comments "Well, it appears the guy knows how the system works." When ESS was installed, all that went away. Now the technician just sits at a terminal and types a few things on the keyboard to get all the data needed. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Mike Deblis Subject: How to Identify/Replace/Recondition/Clean Old Uniselector? Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 07:14:08 UTC Organization: Somewhere Hi, I have an old set of uniselectors that are part of a clock I'm restoring. I would like to know more about the uniselectors and where I might get spare ones of this type. Indeed, how to restore/clean them would be a help too (they're rather grotty)! The markings on them are as follows: on the coil: "1/DCO/240 T30338A 250ohm" on the rotor: "1/DW1/14" on the back: "2203A 4/30A S61/1" There are 3 sets of contacts, each with 12 different contacts. They are stiff and dirty, but will click round with a bit of help... Thanks for any help you can provide. Mike ------------------------------ From: AES/newspost Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 11:44:52 -0700 In article , jmayson@nyx.net wrote: >> "There are some exemptions, for example, as you might expect, >> telephone companies can still call you to solicit you and so can banks >> and credit card companies," Cohen said. Also still allowed to call >> are: charities, insurance companies and politicians." > What does the law say about when you ask a charity to stop calling and > they refuse? The Texas Paralyzed Veterans keeps calling asking for > donations. I have called their office, spoken to a supervisor, and > explcitly asked that my number be removed from their call list. They > always promise, but three or four times a week I continue to receive > calls from them. Said it early on, will say it again: The intelligent and effective way to handle telemarketing would have been legislation requiring that any and all telemarketing calls be made using Caller ID with a distinctive and national standardized Area Code, e.g. 311 or something similar, so that recipients who didn't want to receive such calls could easily filter and reject them. Would have been cheap and easy to implement (for callers and recipients); no DNC lists to be endlessly maintained and updated, more or less self-enforcing (at least as easily as DNC lists); and no First Amendment concerns (callers are free to call anyone; you're free not to answer). Only one insoluble difficulty -- it would have been effective, and was therefore unacceptable. ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Organization: Roamer1 Communications Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 07:35:47 GMT On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 07:59:52 +0000, bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote: > Or people in _very_ rural areas, serviced by _old_ switching gear that > doesn't understand SS7, and *doesn't* pass caller information out to > the outside world. There _is_ a fair amount of such gear still in > service, even in the U.S. Non-SS7-capable gear is getting less and less common in rural areas, largely because number pooling, wireless LNP, and CALEA compliance issues are leading to a lot of older and often EOL'd switch gear (older DMS-10s and DCOs, Harris 20/20s, Mitel GX-5000s, etc.) being thrown out and replaced with more modern equipment, in some cases equipment that's even more modern than the typical Baby Bell gear. In many cases the problem isn't so much that a rural ILEC's *switch* can't do SS7, but more often that the rural ILEC's *trunking* to at least some of the rest of the world isn't SS7-capable for whatever reason. (For instance, I know of one case with an ILEC in northwest Georgia where caller ID went out on local calls both within the ILEC's tiny service area and to adjacent BellSouth service areas but not on LD calls; that was because the ILEC in question hadn't gone equal access[!!!] and was still using Fg.C trunks to AT&T. This particular ILEC went EA in 2001 or so and so switched to Fg.D trunks for LD, and caller ID started going out on LD calls at that time.) On 22 Sep 2004 21:31:10 -0000, John Levine wrote: > I guess you don't get many calls from COCOTs or outside the country. What does a phone being a COCOT (privately owned payphone) have to do with caller ID or lack thereof? There's no difference in caller ID between a payphone line and any other POTS line as far as caller ID go; there *are* differences in ANI II, but ANI II has nothing to do with caller ID. You're as likely to run into issues with caller ID getting dropped on 0+/0- calls from dumb (CO-controlled) payphones, especially if the LEC or IXC the phone is presubscribed to uses Nortel's TOPS platform, than from smart (instrument-controlled) payphones, which could be local-LEC-owned phones -- especially now that AT&T no longer offers sent-paid coin LD to dumb phones -- as well as independently-owned phones. (Independently-owned dumb phones do exist, but they are extremely rare.) Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time." -/usr/games/fortune ------------------------------ Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains From: wolfgang+gnus20040924T232812@dailyplanet.dontspam.wsrcc.com Organization: W S Rupprecht Computer Consulting, Fremont CA Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 06:44:23 GMT Mark Atwood writes: > I noticed in Alaska Air's safety brochure that, along with AM/FM > radios and cellphones, they ban in inflight operation of GPS > receivers. There was much discussion of this in sci.geo.satellite-nav a few years back. The two most memorable suggestions were: 1) The pilots didn't want the passengers to have better navigation equipment in the cabin than they had in the cockpit. Planes back then were 100% INS (inertial navigation system) which is basically an integrating accelerometer. Errors build up as a function of time and 3 miles of error at the end of a transatlantic flight was not unheard of. 2) The pilots didn't want the passengers to have a tracklog with velocity records if they came in hot and/or high and blew a landing. As for real technical reasons, it doesn't make much sense. The GPS's are lower power and cleaner than just about all the other electronics folks are allowed to use on board. Heck, the GPS satellites are 12,000 - 18,000 miles from the receiver and only have a 20 watt transmitter and a footprint that covers half the globe. If the GPS receivers weren't ultra-clean they'd never be able to hear anything. Wolfgang S. Rupprecht http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/ ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Organization: Roamer1 Communications Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 07:53:22 GMT On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 02:08:31 GMT, Mark Atwood wrote: > I noticed in Alaska Air's safety brochure that, along with AM/FM > radios and cellphones, they ban in inflight operation of GPS > receivers. > Does anyone have any idea why? It certainly doesnt radiate any > more than a PDA or laptop does. I'm not familiar with the design of GPS receivers, but most radio receivers (particularly AM/FM, shortwave, and TV-band receivers) can cause problems with airnav because of harmonics, etc. from heterodyne circuits. That said, Alaska's policy seems a bit out of line since other airlines -- namely Delta -- *allow* use of GPS receivers whenever laptops and the like are allowed. http://www.delta.com/travel/plan/baggage_info/allowances_onflight/electronic_devices/index.jsp Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time." -/usr/games/fortune ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 11:02:33 GMT In message Mark Atwood wrote: >>> Are there any hams who have boarded planes with radios? >> I've never had any problem boarding planes with my handheld amateur >> radios. I've done it many times. > I noticed in Alaska Air's safety brochure that, along with AM/FM > radios and cellphones, they ban in inflight operation of GPS > receivers. > Does anyone have any idea why? It certainly doesnt radiate any > more than a PDA or laptop does. I inquired, but was informed that the reason was because it would be easy for a terrorist to use a GPS as a trigger for a bomb. Then I asked why said terrorist wouldn't just trigger the bomb themselves. They said maybe the terrorist would drop the GPS into somebody's bag. Then I asked what good a rule to turn off GPSes would do if the individual carrying it doesn't know they have a GPS in their bag. I was met with a mostly blank stare. And no, I wasn't flying that day :D 1989 - The movie "Batman," notches $100 million in 10 days, proving once and for all that the public can't get enough of men in tights. ------------------------------ 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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #446 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Sep 25 18:17:19 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8PMHJM02828; Sat, 25 Sep 2004 18:17:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 18:17:19 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409252217.i8PMHJM02828@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 #447 TELECOM Digest Sat, 25 Sep 2004 18:17:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 447 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Macronix Vomax 2000 (Filpen@aol.com) Re: Rotary Phone Props in New TV Shows (Neal McLain) Re: Rotary Phone Props in New TV Shows (Paul Coxwell) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Paul Coxwell) Re: BUSH Leaked Documents to CBS (AES/newspost) Re: Telemarketing, was Out of Area Calls (John Levine) Re: FTC Do-Not-Call Registry, was Out of Area Calls (Michael Covington) Re: Need Advice Regarding Communications / Networking Problem (AES) Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? (Stanley Cline) Re: Vonage Voice Terminal Bypass Affects Broadband Line Speed (S Cline) Re: No Call Ref ID in SS7/C7 Why? (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Al Gillis Re: Out of Area Calls (Garrett Wollman) Share Day, September, 2004 (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 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: Filpen@aol.com Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 15:34:44 EDT Subject: Macronix Vomax 2000 Hi there, I am researching fax machines that allow remote retrieval. I came across the above mentioned and your site showed up but it is pages long and I can't find your referral to this machine. We have had a Charp FO 512 that has this feature but it is on its last legs and apparently isn't made by Sharp any more. We are looking for an alternative. Can you give me your input on this machine? Thanks, PJ > from ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Sep 19 23:16:24 1996 > ... ... Greetings, I have a Vomax 2000 system (which is an > external modem that can receiveand store faxes and voice messages) > which I bought from Macronix a few years ... > massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/ > archives/back.issues/1996.volume.16/vol16.iss501-550 - 101k [TELECOM Moderator's Note: I am putting your inquiry here in the Digest in the hopes someone may be able to answer you. What you have to do with the older archives is when a search engine finds your phrase in a *cluster of fifty back issues* capture the entire file to your system then use an editor of your choice to go through the entire file (of fifty issues [several hundred messages]) and possibly use a tool like Unix's 'grep' to search further for the word or phrase you want. Then use what 'grep' found to focus in on the issue in particular (out of the fifty issues in the cluster.) An alternative approach is after the search engine found the reference as shown above (Volume 16 issues 501-550 of 1996), go to the accelerated index of subject titles and search that. The accelerated indexes begin in 1989 and run through last year. Volume 16 would be in book 3 of these accelerated indexes: 1989-90-91 = Book 1; 1992-93-94 = Book 2; 1995-96-97 = Book 3, etc. You would capture Book 3 of the subject lines, which covers 1995 though 1997, then grep the desired subject of the message if known, or the author name, if known, or the voliss number (volume/issues) to get a list of all the topics in that particular part of the book. In either event, now with the file you captured earlier (which you rightfully described as 'pages long') you skip right down to the issue your subject (author) was in and you can read it. Two notes of caution: the accelerated index of subject lines did not begin until 1989 and can be a little bit unreliable that far back. Also, not all search engines can 'worm' or dig deep enough into those huge files (of fifty issues each) to always capture all possible references. Starting a couple years ago, I began keeping each issue of the Digest in a file of its own in addition to the older, original fifty issues to a 'file' scheme. But if I kept going forever that way, or even tried to convert the old issues into individual files per issue, Unix would soon run out of slots or places for files. Someone please remind me what is the finite number of files which can be kept in a Unix directory ... two or three issues per day, on average, over close to a quarter-century begins to add up. But starting this year, I have been doing it that way (retaining issues as files). Anyway, maybe someone has your answer. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 09:44:02 -0500 From: Neal McLain Subject: Re: Rotary Phone Props in New TV Shows Joseph wrote: > Well, I think it's assumed that most people don't know the > difference between what something is "supposed" to sound like. > It's a fairly common practice that when they'd show a Trimline > phone "ringing" you'd hear the double-gong ring of a 500/2500 > type phone. And not just TV shows. Ann Arbor Civic Theater's 1959-60 production "The Diary of Anne Frank" comes to mind. Toward the end of the play, when the telephone in the office downstairs rings persistently, we hear a tape recording of a modern Bell System 500 set. Neal McLain ------------------------------ From: Paul Coxwell Subject: Re: Rotary Phone Props in New TV Shows Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 18:21:15 +0100 > Well, I think it's assumed that most people don't know the difference > between what something is "supposed" to sound like. It's a fairly > common practice that when they'd show a Trimline phone "ringing" you'd > hear the double-gong ring of a 500/2500 type phone. Or if you see > someone making a call from a single slot pay phone you'd see them > insert money and hear the "ding-ding" which single slot pay phones > never had and the ding or ding-ding or bong was only on the triple > slot pay phones. Or having a candlestick phone ring with modern dual It happens in British shows as well. For many years one of our commonest VF signaling systems was a type known as AC9, with its characteristic "cheep" sounds on a clear which you would hear when the calling party hung up. AC9 is long gone in the domestic long-distance network, yet people had obviously become so accustomed to hearing those "cheeps" that some producers still seem to think it necessary to include them as effects in what is clearly a modern setting. The only time I've heard AC9 signaling recently was on an overseas call to Belize. I used to be involved with the lighting and sound for amateur theater during the 1980s and early 1990s, and quite often found little technical details which were incorrect for "historical" plays. One case where I remember commenting to the producer was a play set back in the 1950s in a small English seaside town. They'd managed to get the right style of phone (thanks to yours truly) and I made certain the ringing was applied in the correct cadence too. At several points in the play somebody makes a long-distance call to London. They'd remembered that STD wasn't around then and that calls had to be placed via the operator, but everybody started picking up the phone and dialing 100. I had to remind them that the 100 code was introduced later to allow 0 as the STD prefix. It was only after I pointed out that dialing just a single zero would be more appropriate that a couple of older members of the cast remembered that they did indeed used to dial 0 for operator themselves. Maybe I was being pedantic, but if I noticed it, chances are somebody else in the audience would. Little details all add up to an overall air of authenticity. By the way, on the subject of ringing cadences this seems to be one area where producers really take liberties with the timings, both on U.S. and U.K. productions. Paul Coxwell Norfolk, England [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And consistency, even in the same dramatic production is not always present either. The other day on television in re-runs of "Three's Company", Jack Tripper makes two telephone calls. He dials *five* digits for one call, and *six* digits for the other call. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Paul Coxwell Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 18:28:05 +0100 > I had heard -- but can no longer trace the source -- that an > "octothorpe" is a mapmaker's symbol for 8 fields around a village > common. "Thorpe" means "village," not "beam." Indeed. There are many village names in England which end in -thorpe, especially in the north and east of the country. Quite a few others include it at the beginning of the name as well, for example a few miles from where I live there is a place called "Thorpe End" and another named "Thorpe St. Andrew", at one time separate villages but now almost swallowed up by the urban sprawl of the neighboring big city, Norwich. ------------------------------ From: AES/newspost Subject: Re: BUSH Leaked Documents to CBS Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 11:46:15 -0700 In article , dave@compata.com (Dave Close) wrote: >> BUSH "leaked" the fake documents to Viacom/CBS because ... > I'm a bit confused. I thought I was supposed to believe that W is an > idiot, a moron, too ignorant to manage his own affairs let alone those > of our country. Yet you seem to imply that he was capable of a > brilliant dirty trick which, aside from your suspicions, has not been > detected by anyone yet. Please clarify. I guess we're thinking back to Valerie Pflame (sp?). ------------------------------ Date: 25 Sep 2004 14:51:35 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: telemarketing, was Out of Area Calls Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > What does the law say about when you ask a charity to stop calling and > they refuse? The Texas Paralyzed Veterans keeps calling asking for > donations. I have called their office, spoken to a supervisor, and > explcitly asked that my number be removed from their call list. They > always promise, but three or four times a week I continue to receive > calls from them. They're breaking the law. Solicitors for charities don't have to use the do-not-call list, but if you explicitly tell them to stop, they have to stop. This is due to, of all things, the USA PATRIOT act which modified the definition of telemarketing to include solicitations for charities. (Presumably to help shut down all those nasty Islamic ones.) You can read all about it in the Federal Register announcement of the final telemarketing sales rule: http://www.ftc.gov/os/2003/01/tsrfrn.pdf As far as what to do about it, I suppose you could record a few of them, including your reminder to them that you've told them never to call you again, then find a lawyer to help you sue. Since these should be slam dunks for $1500 per call, in a week or two it would add up to some serious money. Regards, John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of The Internet for Dummies Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, Mayor "More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly. ------------------------------ From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Re: FTC Do-Not-Call Registry, was Out of Area Calls Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 17:42:11 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) John Levine wrote in message news:telecom23.444.15@telecom-digest.org: >> THINK before you start typing! You have to know WHO they are before >> you can sue someone! > Well, duh. The people who sue under the same law for junk faxes have > gotten pretty good at teasing out the junkers' identities. Well said. The thing that makes it possible to punish junk faxing, junk calling, and spam is that invariably, the sender of the message wants to collect money from the public, and they have to identify themselves well enough for money to reach them. ------------------------------ From: AES/newspost Subject: Re: Need Advice Regarding Communications / Networking Problem Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 18:36:09 -0700 In article , jfklein@shaw.ca (Jonathan) wrote: > Here is the situation. I work for most of the year in a third world > country. When I am here I stay in a small compound consisting of two > buildings each with 35 rooms (ie: 70 rooms total. They are like two > small hotels). The buildings are separated by about 15 meters. There > are about 30 to 40 people here at any given time. > We have no internet access at the compound. There are only two > telephone lines coming into the compound and the company which runs > the compound is unwilling to rent more lines and a switchboard system > for the rooms due to the high expense. Therefore, dial-up internet > access is not a possibility. > However, the company does have an office about 18 km away (11 miles) > at which they have high speed internet service. If there is a clear line of sight from the office to the compound, there are commercially available free-space optical or laser communications links that could easily bring broadband to the compound -- this would be a classic situation for using this technology, in fact. One of the major companies in the field is TeraBeam: A Google search should bring up numerous others (and there's some funny business about an unrelated Terabeam company that has the domain name www.terabeam.com). Sorry, don't know prices -- not cheap, probably, but not impossibly expensive either. Maybe you could pluck some heartstrings about the needs of your group, or the merits of putting in a demo unit for other potential sales in the country. Capacities are in the 100 MB range or higher. ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? Organization: Roamer1 Communications Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 07:15:53 GMT On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 21:08:42 -0400, Diamond Dave wrote: > As far as I know, there are no more step or crossbar offices in the US > or Canada. The last one that I'm aware of was Nates, Quebec in Canada, > which was converted to digital in June 2002. *Nantes*. :) As far as the US goes, it seems that the last steps were in GTE (now Verizon) territory in downstate Illinois and in Sprint and Benton Ridge Telephone territories in Ohio, and were converted to digital (mostly remotes of existing digital switches) in 1999. The places where one would expect to find the last steps (Alaska bush country, small independents in general, etc.) actually went digital quite early on, largely because of things like environmental concerns (Redcom's MDX series switches, popular in extremely remote areas, are specifically built with harsh environments in mind) and human resource needs and in part because small independents' generally higher USF receipts compared to Bells and large indeps allowed for earlier conversion to digital. Last I checked, the LERG still shows a small number of switches with "step" equipment types, but all of the ones I've found are in error; most of them are really Nortel DMS remotes or new next-gen switches like Tekelec's 7000. Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time." -/usr/games/fortune ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: Vonage Voice Terminal Bypass Affects my Broadband Line Speed Organization: Roamer1 Communications Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 07:16:03 GMT On 22 Sep 2004 21:26:57 -0700, suma702003@yahoo.com (Suma) wrote: > I hooked up my fibre optic line from the wall (CAT 5 port) to the I'm going to assume here "Ethernet from your fiber optic line"... :) > Motorola Voice Terminal and connected from VT to my computer's network > card The line speed goes down to 392 KBPS with the voice terminal in > the middle. While the line speed if I connect from the wall directly to > my Network card is 1138 KBPS. Is this a known issue? Why would this > happen? Putting the VT1005 in front of your network shouldn't affect your "line speed" (DSL sync speed, cable modem link rate, the speed between your ONU and telco in the case of fiber, etc.), unless there's a speed/duplex mismatch between the VT's Ethernet port and the Ethernet port on your DSL modem/cable modem/fiber ONU/etc., but could very well affect throughput, as the VT1005's QoS isn't all that great. I do QoS with a Linux box running iptables and have very good results. (I don't use Vonage, though.) Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time." -/usr/games/fortune ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: No Call Ref ID in SS7/C7 Why? Date: 24 Sep 2004 15:15:42 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , Ariel Burbaickij wrote: > Hello dear newsgroup participants, > Could someone explain to me why it was decided not to have call > reference ID in at least plain ISUP (i.e. not B-ISUP where it could be > present)? There is call ref id in DSS1, in SIP and again transaction > id in SCCP/TCAP (with transaction being defined as series of queries > and responses), so why no call ref ids in ISUP? SIP and TCAP are end-to-end. What purpose would you expect a "call reference ID" to serve in ISUP, which is hop-by-hop? ISUP signaling messages are associated with trunks between a pair of switches. Until the state machine for the call ends, all messages for a given call can be the TCIC field, which includes the trunk between the pair of switches for a given hop. Furthermore, most national variants specify a use of the Signaling Link Selection (SLS) field that will cause all messages for a given call to flow over the same path through the SS7 network, allowing them to be monitored from a debugging tap at a single location. In article , Phil Anderton wrote: > ISUP does have mechanisms for end to end signalling, but in normal use > it's almost exclusively link by link signalling, and for that all you > need is OPC+DPC+CIC. You know, I hear that from time to time. But aside from the PAM (Pass-Along-Message) which is so loosely defined by the standard that it is unclear whether or not it could actually be used, I'm at a loss as to just what these "mechanisms for end to end signaling" are. I had occasion to try to generate and send PAM messages in a test environment a few years ago. It is difficult, to say the least, to understand exactly what should be in them: one reading of the standard suggests that it should be a complete encapsulated ISUP message, with addresses and all. Now, _that_ begs the question "how do I know what address to put in the inner message, since I don't know the address of the terminating-end switch?" There are many similar issues. The Nortel DMS switch documentation describes one very obscure DMS-only feature that is evidently implemented using PAMs; but as of the time I last studied this, if that feature actually works at all, that's the only environment in which it would. Can you give me better examples of end-to-end signaling in ISUP? I'd love to have some. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com But as he knew no bad language, he had called him all the names of common objects that he could think of, and had screamed: "You lamp! You towel! You plate!" and so on. --Sigmund Freud ------------------------------ From: Al Gillis Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 13:37:25 -0700 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Stanley Cline wrote in message news:telecom23.446.7@telecom-digest.org: > On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 02:08:31 GMT, Mark Atwood wrote: (Much snippage...) > That said, Alaska's policy seems a bit out of line since other > airlines -- namely Delta -- *allow* use of GPS receivers whenever > laptops and the like are allowed. Keep in mind that the airline policies and practices are likely developed by managers who have little sense of how the technologies work and how that might interact with one another. ------------------------------ From: wollman@lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 20:50:51 UTC Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science In article , AES/newspost wrote: > or less self-enforcing (at least as easily as DNC lists); and no First > Amendment concerns (callers are free to call anyone; you're free not to > answer). What First Amendment concerns are there in me telling other people (with the assistance of the government) how they may or may not use my property to annoy me? My phone was not installed for their benefit; free speech belongs to those who hire their own hall. -- Garrett A. Wollman | As the Constitution endures, persons in every wollman@lcs.mit.edu | generation can invoke its principles in their own Opinions not those of| search for greater freedom. MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| - A. Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. ___ (2003) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 16:35:29 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Share Day For October Instead of changing the Digest over to an advertising supported forum, I have always elected to keep it as a user supported forum, and for the most part keep it spam and virus free. I am *only* able to do this because of financial support from readers here, and if you would rather not see these messages every month, then please pitch in and help now and then! Consider it sort of like public radio, which goes on for days at a time trying to raise money ... and maybe I should adopt the same system. Turn over the entire Digest once or twice a year to fund raising (entire issues, etc) and stop doing it when the budget for the year has been raised. But for now, I will stick with the present system of devoting a few messages at the end of each month to raising money for the Digest publication expenses. Out of 400-500 messages per month, in a spam, virus free environment, two or three (only) devoted to fund raising. You know who you are; please provide some help here financially. You can use Pay Pal to donate with a credit/debit card by going to our web site http://telecom-digest.org and at the bottom of the home page look for the PayPal 'donate' button. Or if you prefer, send a check or money order to Patrick Townson/TELECOM, Post Office Box 50, Independence, Kansas 67301-0050. The amount you send is entirely up to you. You know best how much you can afford and whether or not this Digest has any value for you. Thank you very much. Patrick Townson, Editor/Publisher TELECOM Digest ------------------------------ 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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #447 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Sep 25 19:25:04 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8PNP4e03833; Sat, 25 Sep 2004 19:25:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 19:25:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409252325.i8PNP4e03833@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 #448 TELECOM Digest Sat, 25 Sep 2004 19:25:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 448 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Informing Ourselves to Death (TELECOM Archives Reprint) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Rick Merrill) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Tony P.) Re: Movies/Documentaries That Feature Crossbar, Panel, SxS (B Margolin) Re: Need Advice Regarding Communications / Networking Problem (Tony P.) Share Day, September 2004 (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 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: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 18:30:50 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Informing Ourselves to Death (Digest Reprint) In the past week we had a message entitled 'Walmart Supremacy' which reminded us that technology (be it computers or storefronts and merchandising move onward all the time at a very fast pace. This article, reprinted from the Digest ten years ago, is a good reminder of what technology hath wrought: And even since then, it moves onward at a steady pace. When this piece was written and presented in 1990, Windows 95 was still but a dream. Now today, 2004, we look back at Windows 95 in a sort of nostalgic way. Microsoft does not even support such an 'obsolete' product any longer. PAT Date: Wed, 26 Jan 94 12:27:57 CST From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu Subject: Informing Ourselves to Death Awhile back, I sent out a transcript of a speech made by Vice-President Gore discussing the 'superhighway' concept going around these days. A response was received from Bill Pfeiffer, passing along an interesting alternative viewpoint to that of the White House, and I thought you would be interested in seeing it. PAT From: rrb@deja-vu.aiss.uiuc.edu (Bill Pfeiffer) Subject: Rebuttle (of sorts) to Gore's Speech Date: Tue, 18 Jan 1994 18:12:41 -0600 (CST) Dear TELECOM: Here is a file of a speech by Neil Postman who has a slightly different perspective on the Information Superhighway. Bill Pfeiffer Editor AIRWAVES RADIO JOURNAL (info@airwaves.chi.il.us) Source: Neil Postman, German Informatics Society, 11 Oct 90, Stuttgart Following speech was given at a meeting of the German Informatics Society (Gesellschaft fuer Informatik) on October 11, 1990 in Stuttgart, sponsored by IBM-Germany. INFORMING OURSELVES TO DEATH ____________________________ by Neil Postman The great English playwright and social philosopher George Bernard Shaw once remarked that all professions are conspiracies against the common folk. He meant that those who belong to elite trades - physicians, lawyers, teachers, and scientists - protect their special status by creating vocabularies that are incomprehensible to the general public. This process prevents outsiders from understanding what the profession is doing and why - and protects the insiders from close examination and criticism. Professions, in other words, build forbidding walls of technical gobbledegook over which the prying and alien eye cannot see. Unlike George Bernard Shaw, I raise no complaint against this, for I consider myself a professional teacher and appreciate technical gobbledegook as much as anyone. But I do not object if occasionally someone who does not know the secrets of my trade is allowed entry to the inner halls to express an untutored point of view. Such a person may sometimes give a refreshing opinion or, even better, see something in a way that the professionals have overlooked. I believe I have been invited to speak at this conference for just such a purpose. I do not know very much more about computer technology than the average person - which isn't very much. I have little understanding of what excites a computer programmer or scientist, and in examining the descriptions of the presentations at this conference, I found each one more mysterious than the next. So, I clearly qualify as an outsider. But I think that what you want here is not merely an outsider but an outsider who has a point of view that might be useful to the insiders. And that is why I accepted the invitation to speak. I believe I know something about what technologies do to culture, and I know even more about what technologies undo in a culture. In fact, I might say, at the start, that what a technology undoes is a subject that computer experts apparently know very little about. I have heard many experts in computer technology speak about the advantages that computers will bring. With one exception - namely, Joseph Weizenbaum - I have never heard anyone speak seriously and comprehensively about the disadvantages of computer technology, which strikes me as odd, and makes me wonder if the profession is hiding something important. That is to say, what seems to be lacking among computer experts is a sense of technological modesty. After all, anyone who has studied the history of technology knows that technological change is always a Faustian bargain: Technology giveth and technology taketh away, and not always in equal measure. A new technology sometimes creates more than it destroys. Sometimes, it destroys more than it creates. But it is never one-sided. The invention of the printing press is an excellent example. Printing fostered the modern idea of individuality but it destroyed the medieval sense of community and social integration. Printing created prose but made poetry into an exotic and elitist form of expression. Printing made modern science possible but transformed religious sensibility into an exercise in superstition. Printing assisted in the growth of the nation-state but, in so doing, made patriotism into a sordid if not a murderous emotion. Another way of saying this is that a new technology tends to favor some groups of people and harms other groups. School teachers, for example, will, in the long run, probably be made obsolete by television, as blacksmiths were made obsolete by the automobile, as balladeers were made obsolete by the printing press. Technological change, in other words, always results in winners and losers. In the case of computer technology, there can be no disputing that the computer has increased the power of large-scale organizations like military establishments or airline companies or banks or tax collecting agencies. And it is equally clear that the computer is now indispensable to high-level researchers in physics and other natural sciences. But to what extent has computer technology been an advantage to the masses of people? To steel workers, vegetable store owners, teachers, automobile mechanics, musicians, bakers, brick layers, dentists and most of the rest into whose lives the computer now intrudes? These people have had their private matters made more accessible to powerful institutions. They are more easily tracked and controlled; they are subjected to more examinations, and are increasingly mystified by the decisions made about them. They are more often reduced to mere numerical objects. They are being buried by junk mail. They are easy targets for advertising agencies and political organizations. The schools teach their children to operate computerized systems instead of teaching things that are more valuable to children. In a word, almost nothing happens to the losers that they need, which is why they are losers. It is to be expected that the winners - for example, most of the speakers at this conference - will encourage the losers to be enthusiastic about computer technology. That is the way of winners, and so they sometimes tell the losers that with personal computers the average person can balance a checkbook more neatly, keep better track of recipes, and make more logical shopping lists. They also tell them that they can vote at home, shop at home, get all the information they wish at home, and thus make community life unnecessary. They tell them that their lives will be conducted more efficiently, discreetly neglecting to say from whose point of view or what might be the costs of such efficiency. Should the losers grow skeptical, the winners dazzle them with the wondrous feats of computers, many of which have only marginal relevance to the quality of the losers' lives but which are nonetheless impressive. Eventually, the losers succumb, in part because they believe that the specialized knowledge of the masters of a computer technology is a form of wisdom. The masters, of course, come to believe this as well. The result is that certain questions do not arise, such as, to whom will the computer give greater power and freedom, and whose power and freedom will be reduced? Now, I have perhaps made all of this sound like a wellplanned conspiracy, as if the winners know all too well what is being won and what lost. But this is not quite how it happens, for the winners do not always know what they are doing, and where it will all lead. The Benedictine monks who invented the mechanical clock in the 12th and 13th centuries believed that such a clock would provide a precise regularity to the seven periods of devotion they were required to observe during the course of the day. As a matter of fact, it did. But what the monks did not realize is that the clock is not merely a means of keeping track of the hours but also of synchronizing and controlling the actions of men. And so, by the middle of the 14th century, the clock had moved outside the walls of the monastery, and brought a new and precise regularity to the life of the workman and the merchant. The mechanical clock made possible the idea of regular production, regular working hours, and a standardized product. Without the clock, capitalism would have been quite impossible. And so, here is a great paradox: the clock was invented by men who wanted to devote themselves more rigorously to God; and it ended as the technology of greatest use to men who wished to devote themselves to the accumulat- ion of money. Technology always has unforeseen consequences, and it is not always clear, at the beginning, who or what will win, and who or what will lose. I might add, by way of another historical example, that Johann Gutenberg was by all accounts a devoted Christian who would have been horrified to hear Martin Luther, the accursed heretic, declare that printing is "God's highest act of grace, whereby the business of the Gospel is driven forward." Gutenberg thought his invention would advance the cause of the Holy Roman See, whereas in fact, it turned out to bring a revolution which destroyed the monopoly of the Church. We may well ask ourselves, then, is there something that the masters of computer technology think they are doing for us which they and we may have reason to regret? I believe there is, and it is suggested by the title of my talk, "Informing Ourselves to Death". In the time remaining, I will try to explain what is dangerous about the computer, and why. And I trust you will be open enough to consider what I have to say. Now, I think I can begin to get at this by telling you of a small experiment I have been conducting, on and off, for the past several years. There are some people who describe the experiment as an exercise in deceit and exploitation but I will rely on your sense of humor to pull me through. Here's how it works: It is best done in the morning when I see a colleague who appears not to be in possession of a copy of {The New York Times}. "Did you read The Times this morning?," I ask. If the colleague says yes, there is no experiment that day. But if the answer is no, the experiment can proceed. "You ought to look at Page 23," I say. "There's a fascinating article about a study done at Harvard University." "Really? What's it about?" is the usual reply. My choices at this point are limited only by my imagination. But I might say something like this: "Well, they did this study to find out what foods are best to eat for losing weight, and it turns out that a normal diet supplemented by chocolate eclairs, eaten six times a day, is the best approach. It seems that there's some special nutrient in the eclairs - encomial dioxin - that actually uses up calories at an incredible rate." Another possibility, which I like to use with colleagues who are known to be health conscious is this one: "I think you'll want to know about this," I say. "The neuro-physiologists at the University of Stuttgart have uncovered a connection between jogging and reduced intelligence. They tested more than 1200 people over a period of five years, and found that as the number of hours people jogged increased, there was a corresponding decrease in their intelligence. They don't know exactly why but there it is." I'm sure, by now, you understand what my role is in the experiment: to report something that is quite ridiculous - one might say, beyond belief. Let me tell you, then, some of my results: Unless this is the second or third time I've tried this on the same person, most people will believe or at least not disbelieve what I have told them. Some- times they say: "Really? Is that possible?" Sometimes they do a double-take, and reply, "Where'd you say that study was done?" And sometimes they say, "You know, I've heard something like that." Now, there are several conclusions that might be drawn from these results, one of which was expressed by H. L. Mencken fifty years ago when he said, there is no idea so stupid that you can't find a professor who will believe it. This is more of an accusation than an explanation but in any case I have tried this experiment on non- professors and get roughly the same results. Another possible con- clusion is one expressed by George Orwell - also about 50 years ago - when he remarked that the average person today is about as naive as was the average person in the Middle Ages. In the Middle Ages people believed in the authority of their religion, no matter what. Today, we believe in the authority of our science, no matter what. But I think there is still another and more important conclusion to be drawn, related to Orwell's point but rather off at a right angle to it. I am referring to the fact that the world in which we live is very nearly incomprehensible to most of us. There is almost no fact - whether actual or imagined - that will surprise us for very long, since we have no comprehensive and consistent picture of the world which would make the fact appear as an unacceptable contradiction. We believe because there is no reason not to believe. No social, political, historical, metaphysical, logical or spiritual reason. We live in a world that, for the most part, makes no sense to us. Not even technical sense. I don't mean to try my experiment on this audience, especially after having told you about it, but if I informed you that the seats you are presently occupying were actually made by a special process which uses the skin of a Bismark herring, on what grounds would you dispute me? For all you know - indeed, for all I know - the skin of a Bismark herring could have made the seats on which you sit. And if I could get an industrial chemist to confirm this fact by describing some incomprehensible process by which it was done, you would probably tell someone tomorrow that you spent the evening sitting on a Bismark herring. Perhaps I can get a bit closer to the point I wish to make with an analogy: If you opened a brand-new deck of cards, and started turning the cards over, one by one, you would have a pretty good idea of what their order is. After you had gone from the ace of spades through the nine of spades, you would expect a ten of spades to come up next. And if a three of diamonds showed up instead, you would be surprised and wonder what kind of deck of cards this is. But if I gave you a deck that had been shuffled twenty times, and then asked you to turn the cards over, you would not expect any card in particular - a three of diamonds would be just as likely as a ten of spades. Having no basis for assuming a given order, you would have no reason to react with disbelief or even surprise to whatever card turns up. The point is that, in a world without spiritual or intellectual order, nothing is unbelievable; nothing is predictable, and therefore, nothing comes as a particular surprise. In fact, George Orwell was more than a little unfair to the average person in the Middle Ages. The belief system of the Middle Ages was rather like my brand-new deck of cards. There existed an ordered, comprehensible world-view, beginning with the idea that all knowledge and goodness come from God. What the priests had to say about the world was derived from the logic of their theology. There was nothing arbitrary about the things people were asked to believe, including the fact that the world itself was created at 9 AM on October 23 in the year 4004 B. C. That could be explained, and was, quite lucidly, to the satisfaction of anyone. So could the fact that 10,000 angels could dance on the head of a pin. It made quite good sense, if you believed that the Bible is the revealed word of God and that the universe is populated with angels. The medieval world was, to be sure, mysterious and filled with wonder, but it was not without a sense of order. Ordinary men and women might not clearly grasp how the harsh realities of their lives fit into the grand and benevolent design, but they had no doubt that there was such a design, and their priests were well able, by deduction from a handful of principles, to make it, if not rational, at least coherent. The situation we are presently in is much different. And I should say, sadder and more confusing and certainly more mysterious. It is rather like the shuffled deck of cards I referred to. There is no consistent, integrated conception of the world which serves as the foundation on which our edifice of belief rests. And therefore, in a sense, we are more naive than those of the Middle Ages, and more frightened, for we can be made to believe almost anything. The skin of a Bismark herring makes about as much sense as a vinyl alloy or encomial dioxin. Now, in a way, none of this is our fault. If I may turn the wisdom of Cassius on its head: the fault is not in ourselves but almost literally in the stars. When Galileo turned his telescope toward the heavens, and allowed Kepler to look as well, they found no enchantment or authoriza- tion in the stars, only geometric patterns and equations. God, it seemed, was less of a moral philosopher than a master mathematician. This discovery helped to give impetus to the development of physics but did nothing but harm to theology. Before Galileo and Kepler, it was possible to believe that the Earth was the stable center of the uni- verse, and that God took a special interest in our affairs. Afterward, the Earth became a lonely wanderer in an obscure galaxy in a hidden corner of the universe, and we were left to wonder if God had any interest in us at all. The ordered, comprehensible world of the Middle Ages began to unravel because people no longer saw in the stars the face of a friend. And something else, which once was our friend, turned against us, as well. I refer to information. There was a time when information was a resource that helped human beings to solve specific and urgent problems of their environment. It is true enough that in the Middle Ages, there was a scarcity of information but its very scarcity made it both important and usable. This began to change, as everyone knows, in the late 15th century when a goldsmith named Gutenberg, from Mainz, converted an old wine press into a printing machine, and in so doing, created what we now call an information explosion. Forty years after the invention of the press, there were printing machines in 110 cities in six different countries; 50 years after, more than eight million books had been printed, almost all of them filled with information that had previously not been available to the average person. Nothing could be more misleading than the idea that computer technology introduced the age of information. The printing press began that age, and we have not been free of it since. But what started out as a liberating stream has turned into a deluge of chaos. If I may take my own country as an example, here is what we are faced with: In America, there are 260,000 billboards; 11,520 newspapers; 11,556 periodicals; 27,000 video outlets for renting tapes; 362 million tv sets; and over 400 million radios. There are 40,000 new book titles published every year (300,000 world-wide) and every day in America 41 million photographs are taken, and just for the record, over 60 billion pieces of advertising junk mail come into our mail boxes every year. Everything from telegraphy and photography in the 19th century to the silicon chip in the twentieth has amplified the din of information, until matters have reached such proportions today that for the average person, information no longer has any relation to the solution of problems. The tie between information and action has been severed. Information is now a commodity that can be bought and sold, or used as a form of entertainment, or worn like a garment to enhance one's status. It comes indiscriminately, directed at no one in particular, disconnected from usefulness; we are glutted with information, drowning in information, have no control over it, don't know what to do with it. And there are two reasons we do not know what to do with it. First, as I have said, we no longer have a coherent conception of ourselves, and our universe, and our relation to one another and our world. We no longer know, as the Middle Ages did, where we come from, and where we are going, or why. That is, we don't know what information is relevant, and what information is irrelevant to our lives. Second, we have directed all of our energies and intelligence to inventing machinery that does nothing but increase the supply of information. As a consequence, our defenses against information glut have broken down; our information immune system is inoperable. We don't know how to filter it out; we don't know how to reduce it; we don't know to use it. We suffer from a kind of cultural AIDS. Now, into this situation comes the computer. The computer, as we know, has a quality of universality, not only because its uses are almost infinitely various but also because computers are commonly integrated into the structure of other machines. Therefore it would be fatuous of me to warn against every conceivable use of a computer. But there is no denying that the most prominent uses of computers have to do with information. When people talk about "information sciences," they are talking about computers - how to store information, how to retrieve information, how to organize information. The computer is an answer to the questions, how can I get more information, faster, and in a more usable form? These would appear to be reasonable questions. But now I should like to put some other questions to you that seem to me more reasonable. Did Iraq invade Kuwait because of a lack of information? If a hideous war should ensue between Iraq and the U. S., will it happen because of a lack of information? If children die of starvation in Ethiopia, does it occur because of a lack of information? Does racism in South Africa exist because of a lack of information? If criminals roam the streets of New York City, do they do so because of a lack of information? Or, let us come down to a more personal level: If you and your spouse are unhappy together, and end your marriage in divorce, will it happen because of a lack of information? If your children misbehave and bring shame to your family, does it happen because of a lack of information? If someone in your family has a mental breakdown, will it happen because of a lack of information? I believe you will have to concede that what ails us, what causes us the most misery and pain - at both cultural and personal levels - has nothing to do with the sort of information made accessible by computers. The computer and its information cannot answer any of the fundamental quest- ions we need to address to make our lives more meaningful and humane. The computer cannot provide an organizing moral framework. It cannot tell us what questions are worth asking. It cannot provide a means of understanding why we are here or why we fight each other or why decency eludes us so often, especially when we need it the most. The computer is, in a sense, a magnificent toy that distracts us from facing what we most needed to confront - spiritual emptiness, knowledge of ourselves, usable conceptions of the past and future. Does one blame the computer for this? Of course not. It is, after all, only a machine. But it is presented to us, with trumpets blaring, as at this conference, as a technological messiah. Through the computer, the heralds say, we will make education better, religion better, politics better, our minds better - best of all, ourselves better. This is, of course, nonsense, and only the young or the ignorant or the foolish could believe it. I said a moment ago that computers are not to blame for this. And that is true, at least in the sense that we do not blame an elephant for its huge appetite or a stone for being hard or a cloud for hiding the sun. That is their nature, and we expect nothing different from them. But the computer has a nature, as well. True, it is only a machine but a machine designed to manipulate and generate information. That is what computers do, and therefore they have an agenda and an unmistakable message. The message is that through more and more information, more conveniently packaged, more swiftly delivered, we will find solutions to our problems. And so all the brilliant young men and women, believing this, create ingenious things for the computer to do, hoping that in this way, we will become wiser and more decent and more noble. And who can blame them? By becoming masters of this wondrous technology, they will acquire prestige and power and some will even become famous. In a world populated by people who believe that through more and more information, paradise is attainable, the computer scientist is king. But I maintain that all of this is a monumental and dangerous waste of human talent and energy. Imagine what might be accomplished if this talent and energy were turned to philosophy, to theology, to the arts, to imaginative literature or to education? Who knows what we could learn from such people - perhaps why there are wars, and hunger, and homelessness and mental illness and anger. As things stand now, the geniuses of computer technology will give us Star Wars, and tell us that is the answer to nuclear war. They will give us artificial intelligence, and tell us that this is the way to self-knowledge. They will give us instantaneous global communicat- ion, and tell us this is the way to mutual understanding. They will give us Virtual Reality and tell us this is the answer to spiritual poverty. But that is only the way of the technician, the fact-mongerer, the information junkie, and the technological idiot. Here is what Henry David Thoreau told us: "All our inventions are but improved means to an unimproved end." Here is what Goethe told us: "One should, each day, try to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it is possible, speak a few reasonable words." And here is what Socrates told us: "The unexamined life is not worth living." And here is what the prophet Micah told us: "What does the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God?" And I can tell you - if I had the time (although you all know it well enough) - what Confucius, Isaiah, Jesus, Mohammed, the Buddha, Spinoza and Shakespeare told us. It is all the same: There is no escaping from ourselves. The human dilemma is as it has always been, and we solve nothing fundamental by cloaking ourselves in technological glory. Even the humblest cartoon character knows this, and I shall close by quoting the wise old possum named Pogo, created by the cartoonist, Walt Kelley. I commend his words to all the technological utopians and messiahs present. "We have met the enemy," Pogo said, "and he is us." ------------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's 1994 Note: My sincere thanks to Bill for passing along this article to us. It certainly does give us something to meditate upon as we travel down the 'information superhighway' so highly touted by the present occupant of the White House and his staff. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Organization: Comcast Online Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 21:06:28 GMT > As for real technical reasons, it doesn't make much sense. The GPS's > are lower power and cleaner than just about all the other electronics > folks are allowed to use on board. Heck, the GPS satellites are > 12,000 - 18,000 miles from the receiver and only have a 20 watt > transmitter and a footprint that covers half the globe. If the GPS > receivers weren't ultra-clean ... "Clean" has nothing to do with it: the receiver must have a resonating circuit to find the incoming frequencies. That resonator is a really low power transmitter up to 18 inches - so if it is NEAR the wall and the wrong wires are in that wall, it could interfere with the control and navigation of the plane. Simple, rare, but possible. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Organization: ATCC Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 21:25:04 GMT In article , jmayson@nyx.net says... > I had a similar experience at the hospital where my son was born. > There were signs up all over the hospital notifying us that cell > phones could not be used in the building due to the possibility of > interfering with medical equipment. Okay, I didn't want to kill > anyone because I *HAD* to check my stock prices. But two things > bothered me: > 1. The county uses a 800 MHz radio system. Those handhelds are more > powerful than a cell phone. Paramedics and police roamed the halls of > the hospital. Why didn't their radios interfere? > 2. The doctors and nurses used their cell phones in the building. > It became clear to me what was probably going on. There was a 75 cent > surcharge on all out-going calls using the hospital's phone system. I > really believe the cell phone prohibition had more to do with revenue > than safety. I seriously doubt the doctors had "special" cell phones > that could be used in a hospital environment. > John Mayson > Austin, Texas, USA You are absolutely correct.I recall a recent article that may have appeared here that stated college campuses were now starting to make deals with cell carrier to re-capture the revenue stream they once had with their wired phone systems. In article , sc1-news@roamer1.org says: > On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 02:08:31 GMT, Mark Atwood wrote: >> I noticed in Alaska Air's safety brochure that, along with AM/FM >> radios and cellphones, they ban in inflight operation of GPS >> receivers. >> Does anyone have any idea why? It certainly doesnt radiate any >> more than a PDA or laptop does. > I'm not familiar with the design of GPS receivers, but most radio > receivers (particularly AM/FM, shortwave, and TV-band receivers) can > cause problems with airnav because of harmonics, etc. from heterodyne > circuits. It's the intermediate frequency or IF oscillator that causes problems in some cases. The IF can be found in most receivers. Matter of fact, several years ago the police-speeder competition took advantage of the IF in both cases. The police could detect radar detectors by their IF, and people could detect the police radios by their IF. The game continues to this day. ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Movies/Documentaries That Feature Crossbar, Panel, or SxS? Organization: Symantec Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 17:47:14 -0400 In article , psychoshredder@yahoo.com (vu huong) wrote: > Does anyone know of any movies or documentaries that show footage of > old telco technology? The Slender Thread, from 1965. Sidney Poitier stars as a volunteer at a college crisis hotline, who gets a suicide call. There are a number of scenes of telco people trying to trace the call using the SxS switches. Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Need Advice Regarding Communications / Networking Problem Organization: ATCC Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 22:15:07 GMT In article , siegman@stanford.edu says: > In article , jfklein@shaw.ca > (Jonathan) wrote: >> Here is the situation. I work for most of the year in a third world >> country. When I am here I stay in a small compound consisting of two >> buildings each with 35 rooms (ie: 70 rooms total. They are like two >> small hotels). The buildings are separated by about 15 meters. There >> are about 30 to 40 people here at any given time. >> We have no internet access at the compound. There are only two >> telephone lines coming into the compound and the company which runs >> the compound is unwilling to rent more lines and a switchboard system >> for the rooms due to the high expense. Therefore, dial-up internet >> access is not a possibility. >> However, the company does have an office about 18 km away (11 miles) >> at which they have high speed internet service. > If there is a clear line of sight from the office to the compound, > there are commercially available free-space optical or laser > communications links that could easily bring broadband to the compound > -- this would be a classic situation for using this technology, in > fact. > One of the major companies in the field is TeraBeam: > > A Google search should bring up numerous others (and there's some funny > business about an unrelated Terabeam company that has the domain name > www.terabeam.com). > Sorry, don't know prices -- not cheap, probably, but not impossibly > expensive either. Maybe you could pluck some heartstrings about the > needs of your group, or the merits of putting in a demo unit for other > potential sales in the country. > Capacities are in the 100 MB range or higher. 11 miles is well within the range of 802.11 devices if you use a well tuned Yagi antenna. Uses the same LOS that laser does. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 18:33:01 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Share Day For September Instead of changing the Digest over to an advertising supported forum, I have always elected to keep it as a user supported forum, and for the most part keep it spam and virus free. I am *only* able to do this because of financial support from readers here, and if you would rather not see these messages every month, then please pitch in and help now and then! Consider it sort of like public radio, which goes on for days at a time trying to raise money ... and maybe I should adopt the same system. Turn over the entire Digest once or twice a year to fund raising (entire issues, etc) and stop doing it when the budget for the year has been raised. But for now, I will stick with the present system of devoting a few messages at the end of each month to raising money for the Digest publication expenses. Out of 400-500 messages per month, in a spam, virus free environment, two or three (only) devoted to fund raising. You know who you are; please provide some help here financially. You can use Pay Pal to donate with a credit/debit card by going to our web site http://telecom-digest.org and at the bottom of the home page look for the PayPal 'donate' button. Or if you prefer, send a check or money order to Patrick Townson/TELECOM, Post Office Box 50, Independence, Kansas 67301-0050. The amount you send is entirely up to you. You know best how much you can afford and whether or not this Digest has any value for you. Thank you very much. Patrick Townson, Editor/Publisher TELECOM Digest ------------------------------ 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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #448 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Sep 26 18:29:51 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8QMTph13276; Sun, 26 Sep 2004 18:29:51 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 18:29:51 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409262229.i8QMTph13276@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 #449 TELECOM Digest Sun, 26 Sep 2004 18:30:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 449 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson EPIC Alert 11.18 (Monty Solomon) EFFector 17.35: Govt. to Demand Airline Records (Monty Solomon) HBO: The Tough Act TV Tries to Follow (Monty Solomon) Scam Involving Cashier's Checks is Gaining Steam (Monty Solomon) Verizon Wireless to Expand Data Service (Monty Solomon) Re: Telemarketing, was re: Out of Area Calls (Fred Atkinson) Re: Out of Area Calls (John Levine) Magic Telemarketer Bullets, was Re: Out of Area Calls (John Levine) Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone Used (Chris Eilersen) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Lisa Hancock) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (jdj) Re: Need Advice Regarding Communications / Networking Problem (jmeissen) Re: Need Advice Regarding Communications / Networking Problem (Jonathan) Re: Movies/Documentaries That Feature Crossbar, Panel, or SxS? (jdj) Help Wanted With Wireless 802.11 Router Range (Patrick Townson) 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: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 22:52:37 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EPIC Alert 11.18 ======================================================================= E P I C A l e r t ======================================================================= Volume 11.18 September 24, 2004 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Published by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) Washington, D.C. http://www.epic.org/alert/EPIC_Alert_11.18.html ====================================================================== Table of Contents ====================================================================== [1] Poland Conference Examines Privacy in a New Era [2] Gov't Details Secure Flight; Documents Show CAPPS II Mission Creep [3] Wireless Privacy Bill Moves Forward in Senate [4] EPIC Challenges Dismissal of Privacy Claim Against Northwest [5] EPIC Testifies on Voting and Privacy [6] News in Brief [7] EPIC Bookstore: Litigation Under the Federal Open Government Laws [8] Upcoming Conferences and Events http://www.epic.org/alert/EPIC_Alert_11.18.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 22:52:37 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 17.35: Govt. to Demand Airline Records EFFector Vol. 17, No. 35 September 24, 2004 donna@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 308th Issue of EFFector: * Government to Demand Passenger Records for "Secure Flight" * A New Hope for Patent Reform: Consumer and Public Interest Groups Ask Court to Take a Narrow View of Ambiguous Patents * EFF Releases Quick Reference Guides to E-voting Machines * Let the Sun Set on PATRIOT - Section 214: "Pen Register and Trap and Trace Authority Under FISA" * EcoPhone: Recycle Your Cell Phone, Support EFF! * BayFF Event - "E-voting and the Upcoming Election," Tuesday, October 12 * MiniLinks (16): WIPO 2.0 * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/17/35.php ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 23:35:44 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: HBO: The Tough Act TV Tries to Follow By BERNARD WEINRAUB Despite this cable channel's extraordinary dominance at the Emmy Awards on Sunday night, HBO executives insist that the best is yet to come. Rival television executives, perhaps thinking wishfully, say they are not so sure. They note that HBO's most prestigious and popular drama series, "The Sopranos," will not be eligible for Emmys next year because it will not be shown again until 2006. HBO's most popular comedy series, "Sex and the City," has completed its run. And other cable channels, notably Showtime, have begun to play on the same creative turf as HBO.But Chris Albrecht, HBO's chairman and chief executive, said he was confident that the channel would maintain its leadership. "Everyone is always saying, 'What next?' " Mr. Albrecht said in an interview. "We've been answering that 'what next?' question for a long time." On Sunday HBO won 32 Emmys, far more than any other nominee, and almost double the number it won last year. "Angels in America," the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama by Tony Kushner, which HBO turned into a two-part mini-series, won 11 Emmys, breaking the mini-series record (nine) set by ABC's "Roots" in 1977. At the same time, after consistently losing to NBC's "West Wing," "The Sopranos" finally won as best drama series. Among the HBO series returning this season are the acclaimed dramas "The Wire" and "Six Feet Under," as well as "Deadwood" and "Carnivale," which have had mixed receptions. Its comedies include "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "Entourage." None of these shows have yet gained the audiences of "The Sopranos" or "Sex and the City." http://nytimes.com/2004/09/25/arts/television/25hbo.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 13:45:54 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Scam Involving Cashier's Checks is Gaining Steam By Bruce Mohl, Globe Staff Abigail R. Safran was taken for more than $5,000 earlier this year in what appears to be a burgeoning scam involving counterfeit cashier's checks, but the Northeastern University student is balking at paying back the money because she says her bank bears some of the responsibility. Safran deposited a $7,230 cashier's check at FleetBoston last June and the next day withdrew more than $5,100 and wired it to what she thought was a company preparing to ship furniture to a woman who was going to sublet her apartment. It turned out to be an elaborate scam. The woman never showed up to sublet the apartment, the money disappeared, the cashier's check turned out to be counterfeit, and Fleet is now demanding that Safran reimburse it for the $5,100 she withdrew from her account. "At this point, they can totally ruin my credit," Safran said. "I honestly don't know what to do." Safran is the latest victim in a scam that seems to be snowballing in size and sophistication. Banking industry officials say millions of dollars are being sucked out of consumer bank accounts and out of the country by scam artists operating largely from abroad. http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2004/09/26/scam_involving_cashiers_checks_is_gaining_steam/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 14:07:05 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon Wireless to Expand Data Service BroadbandAccess plan not expected in Hub till winter By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff Verizon Wireless will expand its fastest wireless data service to New York City and 13 other markets Monday, but Boston will probably have to wait until winter. Verizon's BroadbandAccess service, which it markets only to businesses, not individuals, offers Internet downloads at average speeds of 300 to 500 kilobits per second, and occasional peak speeds over 1 megabit, for $80 a month. The average download rates are about 10 times as fast as a dial-up modem. Subscribers whose employer has signed up for the service use an antenna card inserted in their laptop computer for access, which includes secured access to workplace e-mail and stored documents. When the faster service is unavailable, subscribers automatically revert to coverage from Verizon's NationalAccess service, which operates at 60 to 80 kilobits per second nationwide. So far, Verizon has launched the faster broadband version in Washington, D.C., San Diego, and Las Vegas. Starting Monday, it will add Atlanta; Austin, Texas; Baltimore; Kansas City; Los Angeles; Miami; Milwaukee; Philadelphia; and Tampa and West Palm Beach, Fla. The New York service zone extends from Central Park to Wall Street and several communities around Newark, including the Newark airport. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2004/09/23/verizon_wireless_to_expand_data_service/ ------------------------------ From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Re: Telemarketing, was Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 21:21:22 -0400 His problem is that he is not saying the magic sentence: 'Put me on your do not call list'. It's not taking you off their list that you should be requesting. You should be asking to be added to the list of numbers they are not supposed to call. The above sentence is industry recognized. There is not ambiguity if you say it to them. They know what they are supposed to do. But if you just tell them to stop calling, they don't do anything about it. Also, have you listed your number in the National Do Not Call Registry? If not, do so. Three months from now you should have them stop calling. If they persist beyond that, file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. Fred ------------------------------ Date: 26 Sep 2004 19:29:05 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > What does a phone being a COCOT (privately owned payphone) have to do > with caller ID or lack thereof? My impression is COCOT calls are still often splashed (reoriginated from someplace other than the location of the phone) by junky equipment that doesn't provide CLID. I get a few out of area calls, none from telemarketers, but I haven't kept track of where they're from. Calls from outside North America mostly show up as out of area. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711 johnl@iecc.com, Mayor, http://johnlevine.com, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ Date: 26 Sep 2004 19:55:10 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Magic Telemarketer Bullets, was Re: Out of Area Calls Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Said it early on, will say it again: The intelligent and effective way > to handle telemarketing would have been legislation requiring that any > and all telemarketing calls be made using Caller ID with a distinctive > and national standardized Area Code, e.g. 311 or something similar, so > that recipients who didn't want to receive such calls could easily > filter and reject them. > Would have been cheap and easy to implement (for callers and > recipients); Well, let's see. Cost to telcos to implement the overlay area code in your plan, several billion dollars. (Every tandem switch in the country would have to be upgraded, since there's no such thing as a national overlay now.) Cost of network upgrades in the current system, zero, since none are needed. Service cost to users who'd have to buy CLID service to hide from telemarketers but don't want CLID otherwise, three bucks a month or so times something like 30 million people who don't have CLID now, about a billion dollars a year. Monthly cost of current system, zero since no special service is required. Hardware cost to phone users who'd all have to buy special CLID boxes that recognize the magic area code and don't ring, say $20 each times a hundred million phone lines, again several billion dollars. Hardware cost of the current scheme, zero, since no new hardware is needed. Likelihood that telemarketers who disobey the current law would all obediently sign up for special service with their 311 "bad neigborhood" area code, about zero. Get real. In case you haven't been paying attention, the cost of the do-not-call list is paid for by telemarketers in subscription fees. Cost to recipients, zero. Your scheme only strikes me as "cheap and easy" in comparison to fighting a land war in Asia. R's, John PS: Every time you make this silly proposal, someone writes in to point out how impractical it is. In the future, could you save us all time by sending the response along with the proposal? ------------------------------ From: Chris Eilersen Subject: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone is Used Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 16:04:27 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com I have a Linksys wireless-G router which is connected to one main computer. I have 3 other computers in remote locations throughout my house which with NIC cards and I share my internet bandwidth with these machines through the Linksys router. I recently got Voicepulse phone service and it works fine except I just noticed that my network connection on the remote machines only is lost when I use the phone. (I have a GE 2.4 GHz phone with a cordless "satellite" handset). If I use the cordless handset, the connection returns when I hang up. If I use the corded phone, I have to reboot the remote machines and wait until the connection is restored. The computer that is directly connected to the router is unaffected when using the phone. Does anyone have any ideas why this is happening and what I can do to fix it? Thanks. Chris Eilersen eilerc51@chartermi.net ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: 25 Sep 2004 19:39:25 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com jdj wrote in message news:: > A BART cop ordered riders to turn off their FRS radios while in the > station and on trains to keep the trains from crashing. Would you have a newspaper or other citation for this? We need a lot more information to reach any conclusion and what and why happened. > This reminds me when they ordered people to turn off receivers or face > jail years earlier. At the time they claimed their own radios were > "special" and so could be used on trains. I later verified with their > own radio shop that there was nothing special about their radios. I have never heard of BART placing any restrictions on radios, other then perhaps asking people with radios to keep them off to avoid disturbing other passengers. Before lightweight "Walkman" headphones came out. some rude people carried "boom boxes" which were big portable radios with big speakers, and played them very loudly. Years ago airlines wouldn't allow psgrs to use their transistor radios onboard because it interfered with their navigation equipment. I never understood how just listening to a radio could interfere with other equipment, but this was a common standard restriction. I don't know if it still applies today. As to the claim BART radios were "special" years ago, there is definitely truth to that. BART's original train control system had many problems, including a train that ignored a stop signal and flew off at a terminal into the parking lot. Whether silencing radio receivers would make a difference I don't know, but it is a fact BART had serious system problems and may have been very sensitive about any perceived risk of interference, justified or not. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Security and police are often times > very heavy-handed, often times just to make up for their personal > feelings of inadequacy. It is important to distinguish invidual officer actions from department policy, and also take into account the circumstances present. When someone is bearing safety responsibility, it is natural to err on the side of caution; and people without any of that responsibility might not understand that reasoning. Also, like it or not, some citizen complaints against cops are simply unfounded. In my old city cops had a bad reputation among young people and I tried to research it out. It turned out nobody personally had a bad experience, indeed several people had been helped by cops going out of their way for them. It was that everybody "had heard" something. Lots of rumors, no facts. I have personally seen incidents where cops took a lot of abuse yet were blamed for the incident. Cops and prosecutors are human and do make mistakes, but it is important to get all the facts before reaching a conclusion. > Have you ever been told *as a passenger, not > the driver* in an automobile not to use your cellular phone because > it 'might distract the driver'? Never heard that. But I've heard to turn off cell phones while refueling the car, and I wonder if that's really necessary. > I can sort of see why they do not want > drivers to use cell phones in cars, but before they enforce that too > strongly, they should look at their own radio use in the car: driving > a hundred miles an hour chasing someone, while talking on the radio, > yet a citizen is not supposed to obey traffic rules and speed limits > and talk on a cell phone? PAT] You have a point, cops driving at high speed do get into some nasty accidents, although many times it's the person their chasing that plows into an innocent person, or a motorist ignores the siren and flashing lights and drives out in front of the cop (which I've seen). I will note that cops get a very vigorous driver training program and their radio calls are generally quite terse and to the point. In contrast, I've seen uncountable cell phone drivers get so distracted as to just stop dead in the middle of an intersection or street, to concentrate on the conversation, get in the wrong lane and be oblvious about it, etc. If someone's cell phone call was simply "I'm running late, be there in 15 minutes" it wouldn't be so bad, but people have extended detailed conversations which distracts them from their driving. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are correct that police and prose- cutors are human beings (or human beans as Mayor Daley once said after the nasty riots in April, 1968 when MLK was assassinated.) And, people do get very angry when they discover their supermen and super- heros are just as human as they themselves. That being said, however, because police officers are routinely given so much more trust than the rest of us, the trade off should be they are *very careful, almost exceptionally well behaved and honest* -- at least that's how it should be. Police officers are often times fond of saying, 'we have our civil liberties and free speech rights also.' Yes, they do, but IMO some of their 'free speech rights' and 'civil rights' should be an agreed on trade off in exchange for their jobs. An officer who lies or otherwise misbehaves should be dealt with very sternly, not just a slap on the wrist as they often times get if they get caught. I mean, if you cannot depend on *them* to tell the truth and behave themselves, then exactly who are we supposed to be able to trust? PAT] ------------------------------ From: jdj Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 12:33:02 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Security and police are often times very > heavy-handed, often times just to make up for their personal feelings of > inadequacy. Have you ever been told *as a passenger, not the driver* in > an automobile not to use your cellular phone because it 'might distract > the driver'? I can sort of see why they do not want drivers to use cell > phones in cars, but before they enforce that too strongly, they should > look at their own radio use in the car: driving a hundred miles an hour > chasing someone, while talking on the radio, yet a citizen is not > supposed to obey traffic rules and speed limits and talk on a cell > phone? PAT] A lot of people in law enforcement are truly ignorant of everything they did not pick up in the academy or on TV. That is why some agencies require applicants to hold at least a 2-year degree. Then we have other agencies like the Secret Service running around spreading their own wrong opinion of the law. It seems as if they have learned little from the Steve Jackson Games fiasco. It was once illegal for any driver in California to do anything that was not directly related to operating a motor vehicle, which included tuning the radio, adjusting the heater, rolling down the window, scratching one's nose, etc., adn. Now it is illegal for everyone except law enforcement. But operating a radio during a pursuit is not as dangerous as it seems. It has a lot to do with training on keeping from focusing on any one thing. And copcars are generally very easy to drive even in a pursuit, unlike many others. MDT's and PC's are a greater distraction and have led to fatal crashes. chitchatting on MDT's makes cops look like they're driving drunk. It seems that a lot of people concentrate so much on their phone call that they cannot hear anything else or even see. It seems a few people actually go blind when on the phone, unable to talk and drive at the same time. Perhaps because the sound quality is so poor or because the sound is in one ear and they're concentrating on that voice in their ear and excluding ambient noise. On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 02:08:31 +0000, Mark Atwood wrote: > Charles.B.Wilber@Dartmouth.EDU (Charles B. Wilber) writes: >>> Are there any hams who have boarded planes with radios? >> I've never had any problem boarding planes with my handheld amateur >> radios. I've done it many times. > I noticed in Alaska Air's safety brochure that, along with AM/FM radios > and cellphones, they ban in inflight operation of GPS receivers. > Does anyone have any idea why? It certainly doesnt radiate any more > than a PDA or laptop does. IIRC, a personal GPS should not operate above a specified speed and altitude. It's supposed to be a DOD restriction. I've seen it in product specs but I have not had occasion to test it. It is probably unsafe to operate any device, particularly in a fly-by-wire craft. Electronics tend to be too vulnerable. Most radios have far lower and generally far narrower emissions than do PC's. So I think the rules prohibiting receivers while allowing PC's arise more from business considerations and some degree of technical ignorance. An airline that does not allow inflight PC use is going to lose customers to one that does. It is "acceptable risk" if it means staying in business. ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@aracnet.com Subject: Re: Need Advice Regarding Communications / Networking Problem Date: 26 Sep 2004 00:34:06 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com In article , Tony P. wrote: > In article , siegman@stanford.edu > says: >>> However, the company does have an office about 18 km away (11 miles) >>> at which they have high speed internet service. >> If there is a clear line of sight from the office to the compound, >> there are commercially available free-space optical or laser >> communications links that could easily bring broadband to the compound > 11 miles is well within the range of 802.11 devices if you use a well > tuned Yagi antenna. > Uses the same LOS that laser does. If cost is an issue, there are lots of inexpensive 802.11 approaches. Check this out... http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/has.html A quote from one of the sites referenced: "Over a clear line of sight, with short antenna cable runs, a 12db to 12db can-to-can shot should be able to carry an 11Mbps link well over ten miles." John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com ------------------------------ From: jfklein@shaw.ca (Jonathan) Subject: Re: Need Advice Regarding Communications / Networking Problem Date: 26 Sep 2004 08:54:10 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com AES/newspost wrote in message news:: > In article , jfklein@shaw.ca > (Jonathan) wrote: >> Here is the situation. I work for most of the year in a third world >> country. When I am here I stay in a small compound consisting of two >> buildings each with 35 rooms (ie: 70 rooms total. They are like two >> small hotels). The buildings are separated by about 15 meters. There >> are about 30 to 40 people here at any given time. >> We have no internet access at the compound. There are only two >> telephone lines coming into the compound and the company which runs >> the compound is unwilling to rent more lines and a switchboard system >> for the rooms due to the high expense. Therefore, dial-up internet >> access is not a possibility. >> However, the company does have an office about 18 km away (11 miles) >> at which they have high speed internet service. > If there is a clear line of sight from the office to the compound, > there are commercially available free-space optical or laser > communications links that could easily bring broadband to the compound > -- this would be a classic situation for using this technology, in > fact. > One of the major companies in the field is TeraBeam: > > A Google search should bring up numerous others (and there's some funny > business about an unrelated Terabeam company that has the domain name > www.terabeam.com). > Sorry, don't know prices -- not cheap, probably, but not impossibly > expensive either. Maybe you could pluck some heartstrings about the > needs of your group, or the merits of putting in a demo unit for other > potential sales in the country. > Capacities are in the 100 MB range or higher. I believe there are no geographic obstructions (ie: hills) between the office and the compound. However, there is a lot of haze and find sand in the air. Because of this I don't think it is possible to see one location when at the other. I am guessing the laser won't work in these conditions. You might be wondering where this is. It is in Libya. The office is in an office building in downtown Tripoli and the compound is about 18km east along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It might very well be a good opportunity for a communications company to make some connections here (accidental pun). The US and EU sanctions were just dropped against Libya so the country could really see a flood of development in the next 5 to 10 years. There is a huge need for development here also, as US sanctions lasted almost 20 eyars and EU sanctions 10 years. They have basically missed the internet revolution. -Jonathan ------------------------------ From: jdj Subject: Re: Movies/Documentaries That Feature Crossbar, Panel, or SxS? Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 13:26:30 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 23:14:25 -0700, vu huong wrote: > Hello, > Does anyone know of any movies or documentaries that show footage of old > telco technology? "Three Days of the Condor" with Robert Redford. The Condor enters a switch to call up the CIA and diddles the switch to keep his call from being traced. The CIA scene shows automated tracing in use. There are some espionage-thriller B movies from the 1950's with footage where the G-men enter switches and get the techs to trace calls. Nothing but loud background music can be heard in those scenes. ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: Help Needed With Wireless NetGear 802.11b Device Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 17:00:00 CDT I have a four port Netgear Router with wireless 802.11 capability. My problem is the range of the wireless part seems rather skimpy. I can get out in my (relatively small) back yard and use the computer, but a few steps away and it konks out. My thinking is when I am standing right on top of the main unit, I should easily get signal strength of about one hundred percent or close to it. But I get a few feet away and the signal strength drops to 70-75 percent. I get out the door and into the back yard (but by the door, maybe 20 feet away and my signal strengh is 50 percent at best. The chair and table where I like to sit in the backyard is all of maybe 50 feet from the base, yet signal strength is almost non-existent. It sometimes comes in okay, other times not. This unit has a little 'rubber ducky' two inch long antenna on the back of the router, with no place to attach the 'pringles can' type solution at all. If I pull out the rubber ducky thing I see a thin wire running up into it from the base. I was hoping there might be a way to 'peak up' the output power a little bit, maybe with a diode inside it, all the way up to some fractional part of a watt *of course without blowing up the unit*. Or is there any way I can make it sort of directional using the rubber ducky thing? I don't care if it gets ten miles down the road or not, but I would like to be able to get around my house entirely or in the front yard (impossible now.) Any suggestions or ideas? PAT ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #449 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Sep 27 12:54:55 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8RGstK20827; Mon, 27 Sep 2004 12:54:55 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 12:54:55 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409271654.i8RGstK20827@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 #450 TELECOM Digest Mon, 27 Sep 2004 12:53:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 450 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson New Microsoft Set-Top Box Ready to Roll (Monty Solomon) Software That Knows Your Every Move (Monty Solomon) What's Lurking In Your PC? (Monty Solomon) 'Wikis' Offer Knowledge-Sharing Online (Monty Solomon) RIM To Enable Aftermarket Solution For BlackBerry Connect (M Solomon) Virgin to Launch Commercial Space Flights (Monty Solomon) AT&T Wireless Unleashes Ogo (Monty Solomon) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Mark Atwood) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Brian Inglis) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (George Mitchell) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (jdj) Re: Magic Telemarketer Bullets, was Re: Out of Area Calls (AES/newspost) Re: Magic Telemarketer Bullets, was Re: Out of Area Calls (John McHarry) Re: Magic Telemarketer Bullets, was Re: Out of Area Calls (Justin Time) 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 Sep 2004 02:52:14 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: New Microsoft Set-Top Box Ready to Roll By Ina Fried Staff Writer, CNET News.com MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Microsoft plans to start shipping a new set-top box next week, and it's not your grandmother's WebTV. Though MSN TV2 is the successor to the original WebTV devices, the new box is a vast departure from its predecessors . On the outside, it's slick, with new video-playback and photo-viewing programs, and a custom version of Internet Explorer 6 designed to make Web browsing on the television a far less painful process. On the inside, it's a Windows CE-based product with a 733MHz Celeron -- slow by PC standards but downright zippy in the world of set-top boxes. Microsoft will sell the $199 device in two ways--as a dial-up product for technology newbies with $21.95 monthly service; and as an additional way for broadband homes to view the Web for $9.95 using the existing Internet connection. Newbies, who have historically been the bulk of MSN TV subscribers, are likely to be the majority of initial customers, said MSN TV General Manager Sam Klepper. http://news.com.com/2100-1041-5381459.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 02:55:33 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Software That Knows Your Every Move By Burt Helm It's called Worklenz, and it can be a powerful management tool for tracking projects and people -- or a scary Big Brother Look busy -- Worklenz is watching. Designed by privately held information-technology company Matier in Washington, D.C., Worklenz is software designed to help companies manage large projects and maximize efficiency. But unlike an enterprise resource program, which tracks a company's inventory, invoices, and assets, Worklenz tracks workers -- what they do, when they do it, and how long it takes. And it's spreading fast. Matier says it has been profitable for just over two years and has won contracts with Lockheed Martin ( LMT ), BMW, Northrop Grumman ( NOC ), and the U.S. Agriculture Dept. In the next week, BusinessWeek Online has learned, Matier will announce a contract with the FBI to manage all of the bureau's IT-related projects. In its essence, Worklenz uses an extreme form of micromanagement to help a company make broad decisions. The program can sync with each employee's Microsoft Outlook e-mail account, Microsoft Project scheduling software, and his or her PeopleSoft timesheet, to let a boss see everyone's schedules, what tasks they're working on, and how soon each employee will complete his or her work. http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2004/tc20040923_0520_tc024= ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 03:00:39 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: What's Lurking In Your PC? What's Lurking In Your PC? How to keep spyware from tracking your habits -- or hijacking your computer. At first I was just mildly irritated when my Internet browser opened up to a strange Web site rather than to my regular home page. I figured I must have inadvertently hit a wrong key. When I tried to reset it, nothing happened. Again, I thought I must be doing something wrong. But since the problem didn't prevent me from using my computer, I decided to deal with it later. Big mistake. Just weeks after my home page was hijacked, I got hit with an onslaught of pop-up ads. Then I was unable to complete a Web search. Despite typing an address dozens of times, I always ended up somewhere else. Time to call a computer expert. His diagnosis? Spyware. As it turns out, one-third of Internet users have been similarly afflicted, according to a recent survey by Consumer Reports . "Spyware, without question, is on an exponential rise over the last six months," says Alfred Huger, senior director of engineering with Symantec Security Response ( SYMC ), the maker of Norton security software. Microsoft ( MSFT ) reports that spyware was the cause of one-third of all computer crashes in the past year. Because it's so new and still evolving, many computer users don't understand spyware. Here's a quick tutorial to bring you up to date on this insidious problem. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_40/b3902115_mz070.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 10:19:01 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: 'Wikis' Offer Knowledge-Sharing Online By ANICK JESDANUN AP Internet Writer NEW YORK (AP) -- Taran Rampersad didn't complain when he failed to find anything on his hometown in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Instead, he simply wrote his own entry for San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago. Wikipedia is unique for an encyclopedia because anybody can add, edit and even erase. And the Wikipedia is just one _ albeit the best known _ of a growing breed of Internet knowledge-sharing communities called Wikis. There are Wiki cookbooks, a compendium of quotations and a repository on guitar players. College professors use Wikis to spur discussion. Software developers create online manuals. Small teams within businesses track projects, exchange ideas and list good places for lunch. Though their openness can encourage mischief _ spammers have been known to add porn links, Wikis have the power to change how we live and work, replacing e-mail as a tool of collaboration and spanning hierarchies. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43857421 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 10:20:02 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: RIM To Enable Aftermarket Solution For BlackBerry Connect Software MUNICH, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE) Customers Will Be Able To Download BlackBerry Connect Software for their existing Palm OS Device and Subscribe to BlackBerry Wireless Services Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM) (TSX: RIM) today announced plans to offer an aftermarket BlackBerry Connect(TM) software download for the Palm OS from PalmSource, Inc. (NASDAQ:PSRC). With the BlackBerry Connect software download, customers with existing Palm OS-based wireless devices will be able to sign up for BlackBerry(R) wireless services. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43862154 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 10:22:17 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Virgin to Launch Commercial Space Flights LONDON (AP) -- British entrepreneur Richard Branson said Monday that his company plans to launch commercial space flights over the next few years. Branson's Virgin transport, entertainment and communications group has signed an agreement with pioneering aviation designer Burt Rutan to build an aircraft based on Rutan's SpaceShipOne vessel, Branson said. SpaceShipOne cracked the barrier to manned commercial space flight in June by flying 328,491 feet, or about 62 miles, above Earth _ about 400 feet above the distance scientists widely consider to be the boundary of space. The flight lasted 90 minutes. SpaceShipOne's effort was bankrolled by billionaire Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen. Virgin said its agreement to license technology from Allen's company, Mohave Aerospace Ventures, could be worth up to $25 million over the next 15 years, depending on the number of spaceships built by Virgin. The company said it planned to begin construction of the first vessel, VSS Enterprise, next year, and would invest about $108 million in spaceships and ground infrastructure for the venture. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43866757 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 10:23:58 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AT&T Wireless Unleashes Ogo Company Introduces Country's First Affordable, Comprehensive Messaging Device and Service Only Mobile Device Under $100 to Offer IM and e-mail From AOL(R), MSN(R), Yahoo!(R), and More REDMOND, Wash., Sept. 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- All of those messages typically confined to the desktop are about to be unleashed with Ogo(TM) -- a radically new, hip, and affordable mobile messaging device for the masses, particularly teens and young adults. Introduced today and available exclusively from AT&T Wireless (NYSE:AWE), Ogo is the first and only wireless messaging device to provide unlimited instant messaging (IM) and email from all three leading providers -- AOL, MSN, and Yahoo! -- plus text messaging, all in a sleek, simple-to-use device. At an affordable device price of $99 (after $30 mail-in rebate) with unlimited messaging plans starting at only $17.99 per month, Ogo provides customers with a wireless messaging device priced for the typical consumer. Ogo-ers will be able to experience instant messaging and email services in a dramatically different way than most Americans do today. Ogo gives customers the freedom to stay connected to their online communities while on-the-go. Ogo's design requirements and all other elements of its service experience were created and directed by AT&T Wireless. While designed specifically for multiple messaging applications, the company expects instant messaging users to be among Ogo's earliest adopters, since the device offers a near desktop- like IM experience. According to figures released by the Pew Internet and Life Project earlier this month, there are currently more than 53 million IM users in the US today, and 24% of them send more instant messages than email messages.* - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43867195 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains From: Mark Atwood Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 00:31:04 GMT hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) writes: > It is important to distinguish invidual officer actions from > department policy, and also take into account the circumstances > present. When some pinhead cop is being, well, a pinhead, the difference is immaterial to the person being pinned. > When someone is bearing safety responsibility, it is natural > to err on the side of caution; and people without any of that > responsibility might not understand that reasoning. Ah, the plea of "necessity", mixed with the "precautionary principle". Too bad things that work worse together. > Also, like it or not, some citizen complaints against cops are > simply unfounded. In my old city cops had a bad reputation among > young people and I tried to research it out. It turned out nobody > personally had a bad experience, indeed several people had been helped > by cops going out of their way for them. It was that everybody "had > heard" something. Lots of rumors, no facts. I have personally seen > incidents where cops took a lot of abuse yet were blamed for the > incident. If cops would do a better job of cleaning out instead of covering up for their own bad apples, they wouldn't suffer the stink of said bad apples. They insist on the collective "blue wall" to protect each other. They have no right to complain about sufferening the flip side of collective support, collective responsibility. > Cops and prosecutors are human and do make mistakes, but it is > important to get all the facts before reaching a conclusion. That they make mistakes, that's understandable. That they then invariably and with each other's support use the powers of the state to hide from the fallout of those mistakes, that is what pisses people off. Mark Atwood | When you do things right, people won't be sure mra@pobox.com | you've done anything at all. http://www.pobox.com/~mra | http://www.livejournal.com/users/fallenpegasus ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 02:55:18 +0000 (GMT) From: Brian Inglis Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Reply-To: Brian.Inglis@SystematicSW.ab.ca Organization: Systematic Software fOn 25 Sep 2004 19:39:25 -0700 in comp.dcom.telecom, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote: > Never heard that. But I've heard to turn off cell phones while > refueling the car, and I wonder if that's really necessary. According to MythBusters, it's not; but opening the car door (e.g. to get at a ringing cell phone) has caused incidents, either from static electricity or the lighting circuit (haven't seen a definitive cause). Thanks. Take care, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada Brian.Inglis@CSi.com (Brian[dot]Inglis{at}SystematicSW[dot]ab[dot]ca) fake address use address above to reply ------------------------------ From: George Mitchell Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 23:06:46 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Lisa Hancock wrote: > As to the claim BART radios were "special" years ago, there is > definitely truth to that. BART's original train control system > had many problems, including a train that ignored a stop signal > and flew off at a terminal into the parking lot. This had nothing to do with radios. The lead car of the train was receiving a 27-mph signal from the track. The system for trans- mitting the speed command from the lead car to the rest of the train was to transmit one of a specified set of audio frequency signals over a wire bus. However, the crystal in the 27-mph oscillator was cracked and oscillated at the 72-mph frequency, causing the train to speed up instead of slow down. The operator was not able to apply the brakes in time to stop before reaching the end of the track. http://www.wws.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/byteserv.prl/~ota/disk3/1976/7614/761406.PDF -- George Mitchell (obfuscated email address) ------------------------------ From: jdj Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 01:19:52 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com There may be another edition of this reply. That one disappeared while I was writing it and I have no idea where it went. On Sat, 25 Sep 2004 19:39:25 -0700, Lisa Hancock wrote: > jdj wrote in message > news:: >> A BART cop ordered riders to turn off their FRS radios while in the >> station and on trains to keep the trains from crashing. > Would you have a newspaper or other citation for this? We need a lot > more information to reach any conclusion and what and why happened. Sorry. I was not asking for conclusions. I was really interested in others' experiences, particularly with airlines. I was ordered by BART police on three occasions, at three different times to turn off my radios. THe first was a tunable VHF receiver, the second was when I had a pocket scanner and the third was when the officer who threatened me with jail for the scanner demanded I turn off the radio he said I had. (I had no radios at all at the time, not even a pager.) >> This reminds me when they ordered people to turn off receivers or face >> jail years earlier. At the time they claimed their own radios were >> "special" and so could be used on trains. I later verified with their >> own radio shop that there was nothing special about their radios. [snip] > I have never heard of BART placing any restrictions on radios, other > then perhaps asking people with radios to keep them off to avoid > disturbing other passengers. Before lightweight "Walkman" headphones > came out. some rude people carried "boom boxes" which were big portable > radios with big speakers, and played them very loudly. From inauguration to at least 1977 there were signs requesting that transmitters be turned off in stations and on trains. I did not see those signs again after talking to the radio shop. > As to the claim BART radios were "special" years ago, there is > definitely truth to that. BART's original train control system had many > problems, including a train that ignored a stop signal and flew off at a > terminal into the parking lot. Whether silencing radio receivers would > make a difference I don't know, but it is a fact BART had serious system > problems and may have been very sensitive about any perceived risk of > interference, justified or not. No, there is no truth to it. Per BART's own tech's the radios were ordinary Motorolas like those found in use everywhere else. The same models were used for operations, maintenance, roads, fire and police on three or four VHF and UHF bands. There was nothing "special" about them at any time. I remember the incident where the train hit the barrier at the Fremont station. As I recall, radio interference was not a consideration. Hasn't there been discussion of BART and radios here before? Seem to be catching a little whiff of dejavu here. [snip] >> Have you ever been told *as a passenger, not the driver* in an >> automobile not to use your cellular phone because it 'might distract >> the driver'? > Never heard that. But I've heard to turn off cell phones while > refueling the car, and I wonder if that's really necessary. It has happened before where transmitters have caused explosions. Whether this has specifically happened during refueling a car, I have not been able to find out. I am not inclined to find out for myself. I do know that it is possible for any transmitter to induce an explosion of fuel vapour under the right conditions, which are pretty much fulfilled at the gas pump. I'll turn off the phone and try hard not to blow myself up, thank you very much. [TEELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wonder if it has ever occurred to the federal government, in its never ending fight against 'terrorism' to ban cell phones entirely, since they are used in cars and cars have to get gasoline from time to time, and since terrorists like to commit suicide while taking 'x' number of people along with them, that a Al-Quaida terrorist could drive a car into a gas station and while he was filling up, a confederate could call him on his cell phone, causing the gas station, its attendant, other customers in line, maybe half a city block and last, but not least, the terrorist to be dispatched to wherever it is people go when they die. For the American devils of course, straight to hell; to the terrorist his reward with all those virgins in heaven, etc. True Patriots would gladly sacrifice their cell phones in the war on terrorism if it meant one life would be saved. PAT] ------------------------------ From: AES/newspost Subject: Re: Magic Telemarketer Bullets, was Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 19:29:44 -0700 I wrote a short while ago: >> Said it early on, will say it again: The intelligent and effective way >> to handle telemarketing would have been legislation requiring that any >> and all telemarketing calls be made using Caller ID with a distinctive >> and national standardized Area Code, e.g. 311 or something similar, so >> that recipients who didn't want to receive such calls could easily >> filter and reject them. >> Would have been cheap and easy to implement (for callers and >> recipients); and John Levine -- whose postings to this group I regularly read, and whose technical knowledge in these areas I respect -- replied: > Well, let's see. and I'm responding to his arguments below. > Cost to telcos to implement the overlay area code in your plan, > several billion dollars. (Every tandem switch in the country would > have to be upgraded, since there's no such thing as a national overlay > now.) Cost of network upgrades in the current system, zero, since > none are needed. My understanding (glad to be corrected if I'm wrong) is that Caller ID can be easily "faked" purely locally (i.e., by the caller, at the caller's location), and that doing this requires only modest equipment and no telco involvement -- certainly not any nationwide equipment changes (and that this sort of Caller ID modification by callers happens fairly frequently; is not necessarily even illegal; and even if it is, could be made legal for this purpose). I'm just suggesting that a prefix number for telemarketers be legislatively standardized, not that some national system be set up (or that Caller IDs with this prefix be required to accept return calls from those called by telemarketers. Callback numbers, if desired by the telemarketer, can be given in their pitch) > Service cost to users who'd have to buy CLID service to hide from > telemarketers but don't want CLID otherwise, three bucks a month or so > times something like 30 million people who don't have CLID now, about > a billion dollars a year. Monthly cost of current system, zero since > no special service is required. A red herring, I think. More and more people are getting CLID, one way or another, and usage is likely to grow toward saturation, as new services and systems emerge, and as a result of competition among these new services. My cell phone service already has CLID built in. Providing CLID really doesn't cost the telco three bucks a month, it's just another way to grab a little more revenue, and this charge could easily go away in the longer run. > Hardware cost to phone users who'd all have to buy special CLID boxes > that recognize the magic area code and don't ring, say $20 each times > a hundred million phone lines, again several billion dollars. > Hardware cost of the current scheme, zero, since no new hardware is > needed. Sounds dramatic -- but for most people, cost of a 20 buck gadget from Radio Shack, if it did this job, would be in the noise level compared to their total phone costs. And, some telcos (or VOIP services) might start including it as a free option in their regular service. > Likelihood that telemarketers who disobey the current law would all > obediently sign up for special service with their 311 "bad neigborhood" > area code, about zero. Get real. Agreed, there could still be problems like this, and fighting (or even identifying) those violators would still be messy -- but maybe there'd be a little more chance of catching some of the most egregious violators. And, the telemarketers' current excuses that "Oh, we must have been given an old list" or "Oh, there must have been a glitch in your getting your number on the list" would be eliminated. > In case you haven't been paying attention, the cost of the do-not-call > list is paid for by telemarketers in subscription fees. Cost to > recipients, zero. Not so -- cost to recipients of present system comes in having to get your number (or multiple numbers) on the list; having to remember to change or add numbers every time you change your service; and difficulties in confirming that you've even been added (is there any formal way to confirm that your number has been added?) -- along with having to maintain the bureaucracy to manage the system in perpetuity (who really does this job, by the way?). Would you want to bet the system is really well run? Or really pays its own way? >> Your scheme only strikes me as "cheap and easy" in comparison to >> fighting a land war in Asia. > PS: Every time you make this silly proposal, someone writes in to > point out how impractical it is. In the future, could you save us all > time by sending the response along with the proposal? Sorry, but I don't think it's that impractical, and might have very significant advantages in efficiency and efficacy. Its core concepts include freedom, transparency, simplicity, automation, and self reliance, all concepts I generally believe in: Any telemarketer is free to call, he's just required to be transparent as to why he's calling, and I can accept or block his call as I choose, using a simple and automated technology that requires no permanent bureaucracy to maintain. Unless you can come up with some more realistic objections that those above, I'm likely to continue pushing it (though I'll use restraint on this NG). Anyone else want to weigh in on this? ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Magic Telemarketer Bullets, was Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 15:08:10 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net John Levine wrote: > Cost to telcos to implement the overlay area code in your plan, > several billion dollars. (Every tandem switch in the country would > have to be upgraded, since there's no such thing as a national overlay > now.) Cost of network upgrades in the current system, zero, since > none are needed. There are a number of incoming overlays, so making such numbers dialable would be close to de minimus. All that would be needed to make the outgoing part work would be to frame the 311 number into the CLID, a burden which might be foisted onto the telescum themselves. > Service cost to users who'd have to buy CLID service to hide from > telemarketers but don't want CLID otherwise, three bucks a month or so > times something like 30 million people who don't have CLID now, about > a billion dollars a year. Monthly cost of current system, zero since > no special service is required. Many, if not all, telcos that offer CLID will throw in anonymous call reject for free to subscribers to CLID. The FCC could simply mandate that this option be universal, much as they forced the IXCs to transport CLID for free several years ago. Or it could be bundled on to the charge for a 311 line, although that would create some settlement issues. > Hardware cost to phone users who'd all have to buy special CLID boxes > that recognize the magic area code and don't ring, say $20 each times > a hundred million phone lines, again several billion dollars. Not with anonymous call reject. > Likelihood that telemarketers who disobey the current law would all > obediently sign up for special service with their 311 "bad neigborhood" > area code, about zero. Get real. That is true, unless the penalties were draconian, not that many would object to that. ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: Magic Telemarketer Bullets, was Re: Out of Area Calls Date: 27 Sep 2004 06:36:23 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com John Levine wrote in message news:: >> Said it early on, will say it again: The intelligent and effective way >> to handle telemarketing would have been legislation requiring that any >> and all telemarketing calls be made using Caller ID with a distinctive >> and national standardized Area Code, e.g. 311 or something similar, so >> that recipients who didn't want to receive such calls could easily >> filter and reject them. >> Would have been cheap and easy to implement (for callers and >> recipients); > Well, let's see. > Cost to telcos to implement the overlay area code in your plan, > several billion dollars. (Every tandem switch in the country would > have to be upgraded, since there's no such thing as a national overlay > now.) Cost of network upgrades in the current system, zero, since > none are needed. > Service cost to users who'd have to buy CLID service to hide from > telemarketers but don't want CLID otherwise, three bucks a month or so > times something like 30 million people who don't have CLID now, about > a billion dollars a year. Monthly cost of current system, zero since > no special service is required. > Hardware cost to phone users who'd all have to buy special CLID boxes > that recognize the magic area code and don't ring, say $20 each times > a hundred million phone lines, again several billion dollars. > Hardware cost of the current scheme, zero, since no new hardware is > needed. > Likelihood that telemarketers who disobey the current law would all > obediently sign up for special service with their 311 "bad neigborhood" > area code, about zero. Get real. > In case you haven't been paying attention, the cost of the do-not-call > list is paid for by telemarketers in subscription fees. Cost to > recipients, zero. > Your scheme only strikes me as "cheap and easy" in comparison to > fighting a land war in Asia. > R's, > John > PS: Every time you make this silly proposal, someone writes in to > point out how impractical it is. In the future, could you save us all > time by sending the response along with the proposal? But John, It's only a few bucks for EVERY person, and that's not much of a stretch is it? At least that seems to be the thinking of most politicians when they want to fund a new social program with added fees and taxes. Reality bites -- but only in small nibbles. Rodgers Platt ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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