From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Sep 27 14:45:41 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8RIjfr22458; Mon, 27 Sep 2004 14:45:41 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 14:45:41 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409271845.i8RIjfr22458@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 #451 TELECOM Digest Mon, 27 Sep 2004 14:45:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 451 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson JPEG/GDIplus Vulnerability (Rob Slade) Get an Unlocked Motorola V220 Camera Phone Almost Free (John R Levine) Realtime Keyword Voice Recognition; Not Just For NSA (Danny Burstein) XandMail SMS Access Solution Give Access to Personal Data (PressRelease) Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone Used (C Griswold) Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone Used (jmeissen) Re: No Call Ref ID in SS7/C7 Why? (Ariel Burbaickij) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Dave Thompson) Re: Out of Area Calls (John McHarry) Re: Movies/Documentaries That Feature Crossbar, Panel, SxS? (L Hancock) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Lisa Hancock) Re: Help Needed With Wireless NetGear 802.11b Device (jmeissen@aracnet) Re: Help Needed With Wireless NetGear 802.11b Device (jdj) Don't Let Rules Shackle Internet Phone Service (Jack Decker - VOIP News) Canada: A Eureka Moment at the CRTC (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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rob Slade Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 15:03:54 -0800 Subject: JPEG/GDIplus Vulnerability Reply-To: rslade@sprint.ca If you have not been living under a rock (in security terms), you will likely have heard something about the GDI+ vulnerability in the past few days. JPEGs and other files that may be handled in the same way are now potentially "dangerous" data files. In 1994 a graphics file was spread via Usenet that contained oddities in the header, and at about the same time a virus warning hoax was created that warned of a viral JPEG file. Neither of these was, in fact, related to actual malicious software, but I did some study on the subject and found header structures in both formats that could, potentially, have been used as malware vectors, under certain conditions. The specifics of the current JPEG/GDI+ vulnerability are very difficult to obtain, even when you have copies of the various "exploits" that have been released. However, it does seem to be simply your common or garden buffer overflow. As I write I am not aware of any specific exploits that have been released with the intent to use them maliciously. However, given the number of "exploit" samples that have been released I dare say that it will not be long before we see the real ones come out. It is unlikely that viruses will be created using this vulnerability, but it is quite probable that viruses will be created that carry graphics files (likely pornographic) that will use the vulnerability to open links to malware on Web sites, or simply open backdoors on machines for exploitation and amalgamation into botnets of various types. Microsoft security bulletin MS04-028 (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms04-028.mspx) has some links that, if you manage to follow them all the way through, will lead you to a patch. The Windows and Office Update sites will also provide you with the patches, but not always easily. (For example, Windows Update seems to insist that you install SP2 first, although there is a way around this.) Affected systems use certain versions of the gdiplus.dll file. The most widespread of the affected versions of the file come with Microsoft Windows and Office, 2003 and XP versions. Other Microsoft (and other vendors) products also have vulnerable versions of the file. The file is fairly ubiquitous. I've got eleven copies (and two compressed copies) of five different versions of gdiplus.dll on my machine. (Versions of it also exist with different file names.) The Microsoft site does provide details of which version numbers are vulnerable or not -- but no information about file sizes or dates that might allow you to determine which versions are which. If you follow links through from that page there is also a "detection" tool -- but it only tells you that you *are* vulnerable, rather than identifying specific instances. SANS also has provided a scanning tool, at http://isc.sans.org/gdiscan.php. (Actually two, a GUI version and a command line version. The GUI version, as provided, seems to want a disk in drive F:, but if you tell it to continue seems to function.) This tool identifies which versions are vulnerable and which are not, and also scans other filenames which are, in fact, renamed copies of the gdiplus.dll file, such as: C:\I386\ASMS\1000\MSFT\WINDOWS\GDIPLUS\GDIPLUS.DLL Version: 5.1.3097.0 <-- Vulnerable version C:\Program Files\ArcSoft\Software Suite\PhotoImpression 5\Share\gdiplus.dll Version: 5.1.3097.0 <-- Vulnerable version C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE11\MSO.DLL Version: 11.0.6360.0 C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VGX\vgx.dll Version: 6.0.2800.1106 <-- Possibly vulnerable (Win2K SP2 and SP3 w/IE6 SP1 only) C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\GDIPLUS.DLL Version: 6.0.3264.0 Banning JPEGs is unlikely to be effective as a security measure. Untrained users will probably not know how to turn off the relevant functions, or be willing to so "cripple" their Web browsing. In any case, graphics files of various types can be renamed, and Windows will still identify them from internal structures, and run them through GDI+. Using firewalls to block .jpeg, .jpg, and the various other normal file extensions would therefore also probably be ineffective in some cases. Microsoft has provided some new patches (patches for Office and Windows apparently have to be installed separately), and others will possibly do so as well. It may be difficult to find the appropriate patches for all applications. One would assume that all versions of gdiplus.dll could simply be replaced by the latest (safe) version, but, knowing the industry, one would probably be wrong. ====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer) rslade@vcn.bc.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca rslade@sun.soci.niu.edu Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. - Booker T. Washington http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev or http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 2004 00:54:01 -0400 From: John R Levine Subject: Get an Unlocked Motorola V220 Camera Phone Almost Free My wife decided that she needs a cell phone, so we dropped by the local Cingular store to get one and add it to my account. (Cingular has excellent coverage here due to the antenna that I lease them space for on my water tower.) So after the nice sales lady told me that most of the free phones were far crummier than my Nokia 6340i (no longer available because it's GSM/TDMA and now they only sell GSM), we looked at a Moto V220 camera phone for $50. As we set up the account, I asked her to turn on international roaming since it's a triband phone, and she said "if you use it in Europe much, you can get a local SIM and use that." "Isn't it locked?" "Naah, they don't usually bother." I happened to have a Swiss SIM here and whaddaya know, she's right, it's unlocked. Not a bad deal. Unfortunately the phone is 850/900/1900 and the SIM is from Orange Switzerland which is 1800 only, but it's easy enough to get a different SIM next time. Regards, John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of The Internet for Dummies, Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Mayor "I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly. ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: Realtime Keyword Voice Recognition; Not Just for the NSA Anymore Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 12:59:52 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC "Phone a call centre and you are likely to spend ages on hold listening to canned music -- and then find the operator cannot find the information you need. But an artificial intelligence system that hunts down the required information is aiming to slash the time people waste this way. "Using a mixture of speech recognition and search engine technology, the system, being developed by IBM, will trawl a call centre's databanks for the information a customer wants and present it to the operator before the caller has finished explaining what they want. By giving operators rapid access to the right information, calls will be dealt with faster. "The system works by listening in to the conversation and identifying keywords spoken by the customer." http://www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns99996430 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 17:31:58 +0400 From: Editor Subject: New XandMail SMS Access Solution Gives Access to Personal Data PRESS RELEASE NETWORK http://www.pressreleasenetwork.com New XandMail SMS Access Solution gives access to personal data -- from emails to photos -- via SMS XandMail, the digital communication solutions provider released its SMS Access Solution, a service enabling mobile telephony subscribers to manage their emails, address books, calendars and pictures by SMS. Paris, France - Sep 27, 2004 (PRN): XandMail, the digital communication solutions provider announces the availability of XandMail SMS Access Solution (SAS), a comprehensive and carrier-grade solution providing access to personal data - Mail, Address Book, Calendar and Photo - from any mobile phone using simple SMS commands. SAS enables subscribers to store messages from any personal or external email account directly on their mobile phones by sending an SMS to a dedicated short number given by the operator. Users can also query and manage their address books and calendars, or turn personal pictures into logos for their mobiles. XandMail SMS Access Solution is designed for mobile operators who want to provide their subscribers with premium mobile data services. It is composed of an SMSC Connector that ensures compatibility with multiple standards (e.g. SMPP, UCP, CMID2, OIS), middleware that transforms the SMS into a server query (LDAP, POP, IMAP, SMTP) and sends back the result to the Connector, which converts the answer into an SMS. With SAS, the subscriber is only one SMS away from obtaining his inbox status, viewing, forwarding and replying to messages, and even sending out new messages. With a limited number of SMS, he can also view some or all of the contacts stored in his personal address book, add new contacts with details such as name, alias, phone number and email address, or search his address book for a specific contact. As for the calendar management, the user can add an event and indicate its title, the date on which it will take place, and duration. Similarly he can choose to access the details of a defined event or all the events registered for one given day. Moreover, SAS also makes it possible to transform a personal picture the user has stored online -- in a photo album for example -- into a logo for his mobile. "Our SMS Access Solution addresses two needs: that of the operators who want to offer profitable and attractive new services based on SMS, and that of the users who want to manage their personal data, anytime, anywhere from their mobile, thanks to SMS, a tool they are familiar with," declares Ky-Ming Jen, Chief Operating Officer, XandMail. Based on the robust EMS architecture and products, SMS Access Solution is an ideal complement to XandMail Mobile Communication Solution, a value-added mobile personal information solution. About XandMail Founded in 1990, XandMail conceived and developed Income Generating Services, a market-proven range of multi-channel services enabling fixed and wireless Telcos, xSPs, Portals and UM Providers to generate additional revenue while leveraging previous investments. Thanks to its integrated product range and support services, XandMail has already deployed licenses for 65 million mailboxes throughout the world. http://www.xandmail.com About Income Generating Services Income Generating Services (IGS) are online services provided by Telecommunication companies, ISPs and Portals at a cost. IGS help these companies increase their revenue and improve their bottom line. IGS are well-targeted, value-added services designed to address the special needs of specific user segments. While most standard communication and email services are provided for free, IGS are easy to invoice because they bring real value to end-users. For more information, contact: Pamela Corbin XandMail, SA Tel: +33 (0) 148-368-903 Email: corbin@xandmail.com Website: http://www.xandmail.com Information from Press Release Network may be freely distributed to any publication. Wherever applicable, please cite Press Release Network as the news source. Editor & CEO Press Release Network editor@pressreleasenetwork.com http://www.pressreleasenetwork.com ------------------------------ From: Clark W. Griswold, Jr. Subject: Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone is Used Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 20:33:17 -0600 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Chris Eilersen wrote: > Does anyone have any ideas why this is happening and what I can do to > fix it? Doesn't ring a bell, but I would start by making sure your router has the latest firmware from the Linksys web site. You are using stock firmware and not one of the hacked versions, right? ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@aracnet.com Subject: Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone is Used Date: 27 Sep 2004 17:07:28 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com In article , Chris Eilersen wrote: > 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. [...] > Does anyone have any ideas why this is happening and what I can do to > fix it? Get a different cordless phone? Since they operate on the same frequencies, a big issue with 802.11g, which also applies to 802.11b, is considerable RF interference from other 2.4 GHz devices, such as cordless phones. Try a 900mhz phone instead. The problem with the corded phone is not so obvious, and will be difficult to explain without knowing more about how your network is configured. John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com ------------------------------ From: ariel.burbaickij@gmail.com (Ariel Burbaickij) Subject: Re: No Call Ref ID in SS7/C7 Why? Date: 26 Sep 2004 15:41:15 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) wrote in message news:... > 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? Excuse me but I do not see hop by hop nature as the main hurdle for defining unique call id. One obvious solution would be to include some number unique to the originating switch (its pointcode?) plus gmt plus some random value. Not always ISUP is actually hop-by-hop as you surely know. ISUP over SCCP will give you end-to-end nature. > 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. Sure, for one link. What about debbuging which involves several switches. How are you going to guess which messages belong toghether in such an environment? > 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. Again, I would say ISUP over ISUP. This is surely not ISUP mechanism but it gives you this end-to-end possibility. > Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com With Best Regards, Ariel Burbaickij ------------------------------ From: Dave Thompson Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 05:10:01 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 13:51:34 +0000, bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote: > 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 -- Right; see below. (Except they were mostly used locally and called displays not terminals.) > 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. Although it was entirely possible, and not that rare, to use cards without printing on them. And for that matter to get cards without the top-left corner cut -- either none, or a different one -- or with a colored band across the top, for visual markers or sorting, which incidentally made printing illegible. > 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. So did IBM, later, around the S/34 or S/36 IIRC, not too long before punch cards passed out of mainstream usage altogether. > 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'. > [and only half distinguishable due to interlace = 242] Maybe somewhat less depending on how well the set was built and maintained, especially in the analog days of yore. (I don't know if that's why you used the scare quotes.) > 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? > You could go 'upper-case only' -- requiring a > 5x7 character cell, [perhaps doubled] But this is anachronistic (mythtaken?). The first "textual" video displays used in any number were IBM 3270 series, which were either 12x40 (model 1, cheaper) or 24x80 (model 2). They clearly got the 80 from cards, but I have no idea where they got the 24 -- possibly so that, as you also noted, the screen buffer is < 2KC. By "textual" I mean a raster chargen display as opposed to some earlier vector or "graphic" displays which could build a few characters out of line segments, but would flicker unusably for more than a few full lines of text; and Tektronix storage tubes which solved the flicker problem at the cost of taking a minute or several to draw each page, up to about 80x120 (squarish) IIRC, which then could not be edited. IBM was followed, closely in time, and I believe in numbers, by DEC's VT50, VT52, and later VT100, which were also 24x80 standard; some models had options for different sizes. (I think VT05 also but don't recall for sure.) A number of third-party manufacturers also followed 24x80 -- LearSiegler, Beehive, and PerkinElmer spring to mind, but I know there were more I've forgotten. (In addition to the third-party clones of IBM which of course had to.) All of these were custom designed and built video circuitry which could use whatever lines and dots they chose, and never (AFAIK) used interlace. In particular some of the later IBMs (3276/8) that I used fairly extensively had really beautiful video, much crisper than you could get on a normal TV and looking more like a good (and expensive!) laboratory oscilloscope -- or a good computer (digital) or HD monitor of today. (Although the systems those terminals connected to might be a different story. ) In many cases they were actually 25 lines -- 24 data and one reserved for terminal status, operation, and configuration. It was over a decade later when hobbyist computers like Apple, Altair, Imsai, Cromemco, Ohio Scientific wanted to use cheaply available consumer TVs that the NTSC limits of about 240 lines usable per field and 400-some dots usable per line in the standard video bandwidth of ~4MHz became an issue, and yes 24x80 was pushing it and often less and often only uppercase 5x7 or 5x9 was used. - David.Thompson1 at worldnet.att.net ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 15:16:13 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net John Levine wrote: > 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. It should be noted there are two CLID codes involved here, one for calling number restricted and one for calling number not available. Overseas calls tend to be in the latter category. Some CLID boxes will present them differently. Oddly, I got a call from Germany a few years ago that presented the whole number, in violation of German privacy law. I think I was behind an ISDN connected PBX, so it may not have been set up to honor the privacy bit, or it may have been presenting ANI. Both I and the caller found it rather amusing. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Movies/Documentaries That Feature Crossbar, Panel, or SxS? Date: 27 Sep 2004 09:30:20 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com jdj wrote: > "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. Was the automated tracing depicted in the movie actually available in city switchgear in use (either panel or crossbar) in the mid 1970s? "Three Days of the Condor" is a good movie, even if a bit implausible in parts. Especially interesting nowadays with the debates over the role of the intelligence community. Also some of the film was filmed in the World Trade Center. I recommend it. [Personal opinion: The film didn't paint the CIA or some of its "game playing" in the best light. This was a common attitude in the U.S. at the time as a result of the 60s anti-establishment revolution, Nixon's attempt to use the agency, and Hoover's FBI abuses that were coming to light. Laws were passed that restricted information sharing and operations. I can't help but wonder that if the CIA/FBI had a greater free hand in conducting intelligence and sharing information than perhaps they may be in a better position to fight terrorism today than they are.] One of the key actors, Cliff Robertson, was later a spokesman for AT&T. There was some other telephone tidbits in the film, such as Redford tape recording someone's TT dialing and calling an agency computer to translate the tones into human numbers; then him finding out the name/address belong to that number. I don't know if it's said in the film, but in the book version they tell us the character spent time working for the phone company. Another implausible scene was his departure from NYC, where Faye Dunaway dropped him off at the Erie-Lackawanna terminal in Hoboken for him to catch a train to Washington. No trains at the E-L terminal went to Washington, only the suburbs. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: 27 Sep 2004 09:52:19 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I agree with all of the good points you make below. But the criminal justice/public safety system is more complex than just the cops. There is also the district attorneys/prosecutors who play a big role, the town and city councils, and the courts. We don't hear about them as often, but some DAs make some huge mistakes and a lot of innocent people suffer. My area just had a big case that fortunately made the newspaper about very weak and unsubstantiated accusations of child beating against a school principal. Parents were outraged when they found their own kids -- who had suffered no abuse -- were listed in court papers as being victims. I don't know the criminal court system very well, but I suspect DA's have a lot of leeway on who they want to pursue and who they let go; and if they decide to go after you and use all their resources, you're in big trouble. For instance, if they decide to wiretap your phone or search your house and take away your computer, is it really that hard for them to get a warrant to do so? Police and city councils are also under a lot of pressure from various parts of the public. In my own town, citizens demand the town council have the police be super zealous in going after speeders in the town. At one meeting, town residents asked the cops to try all sorts of things that were illegal or even unconstitutional and were upset when the police chief tried to explain all that. But on the flipside, the business community wanted to cops to ease up on traffic tickets since it upset customers coming into town to do shopping. So which tact should the cops do -- aggressive enforcement or light enforcement? FWIW, I watched them do a speed trap. The speed limit is 25 mph on a residential narrow street. The cops set the detector at 40 mph, that is, only people going 40 or faster would get pulled over. Speed limit signs were prominently posted all along the street. But even at 40 they still pulled over plenty of people. Said motorists were pretty angry, and I heard some young women use some language that would make a sailor blush. Some motorists were intimidating and threatening, though none of them got into any more trouble. > [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: jmeissen@aracnet.com Subject: Re: Help Needed With Wireless NetGear 802.11b Device Date: 27 Sep 2004 17:18:00 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com In article , Patrick Townson wrote: > 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. [....] > Any suggestions or ideas? I used to research this a lot in alt.internet.wireless back when I was trying to set up a point-to-point link. What I found was that the equipment you use makes a big difference. A lot of the consumer stuff is crap. In my personal experience I was using a Linksys WAP-11 access point and a US Robotics PCMCIA card on my laptop. I have an older house that uses wire mesh for lath in walls, so I have serious reception problems. On the basis of repeated suggestions in a.i.wireless to try Orinoco equipment I replaced my laptop card with an Orinoco Silver card. The difference is like night and day. Where I couldn't even get a signal before I can now access the Linksys without any problems. John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: With what I say next, I mean to give no offense, nor take any: What is the group's general impression of the NetGear four port wireless router and its companion 'PCMCIA-like' card to go in the laptop? Good? Bad? Total Crap? I am lucky to get about 50-75 feet *reliably*. I just remembered, I do have *two* cordless phones also plugged in which are 900 mhz units, and they get me about a half block away from home with no trouble. Might *they* be causing interference with the wireless router? PAT] ------------------------------ From: jdj Subject: Re: Help Needed With Wireless NetGear 802.11b Device Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 00:35:45 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 17:00:00 -0500, Patrick Townson wrote: > 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 have a MR314 with same problem. The unit uses an MA401 card inside. It is the "non-US" model with a place for installing a jack. The antenna is connected via coax to this point within the plastic part of the MA401 case. The card has to be pulled out of the PCMCIA socket carefully, the case split open and the coax unsoldered. I have not had the opportunity to do the whole thing but I do plan on replacing that little stub antenna with a TNC or RP-TNC bulkhead mount jack with a "factory attached" pigtail and soldering that into the MA401. Then a gain antenna would be plugged in to the TNC jack. The MA401 is rather low-powered compared to other "real" access points. So it would help to use the best possible low-loss coax for the pigtail and the antenna, such as something from the Times Microwave LMR series. While waiting for a well-rounded tuit to do the MR314, I set up a Linksys AP with noticeably more power and added a gain antenna. With the price of 802.11b AP's coming down it may be less expensive and certainly easier to get another AP. If you are one of us hardcore hardware hackers, then the above will be the better way. There is somewhere a website which shows how easy it is to split the "non-US" MA401 open without damage. I thought I had a link filed away but it seems to have misplaced itself like filing tends to want to do. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I had not given much thought to taking the PCMCIA card apart, and I am not sure it can be disassembled. Now, the router box, with its rubber-ducky antenna is all plastic, and I *could* take it apart (but I have not dared to do so yet) and I was hoping maybe there was a little 'trimmer' of sorts in there somewhere I could barely tweak and make some sort of difference, hopefully for the good. As long as I stay in the same room (my office) my coverage is reasonable. Only when I leave the room does the transmission get very 'iffy'. Add that to the fact I have the PCMCIA card in an older IBM Think Pad model 770 (circa 1995-96) which was originally Win 95 but upgraded to Win 98, but still shows all the characteristics of a very slow older laptop (many freeze-ups and lockouts) and perhaps you see why I am pulling my hair out on account of it much of the time. One of our computer stores here in town (Computer Generation) is also the Radio Shack dealer, and he stocks 802.11b stuff. What would *you* suggest I do for replacement stuff if anything? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 06:50:20 -0400 Subject: Don't Let Rules Shackle Internet Phone Service Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/9770728.htm By Bruce Mehlman and Larry Irving A decade ago Congressman Ed Markey, then chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications, noted that there was good news and bad news about the Internet. The good news was that everyone in Washington supported it. The bad news was that no one there had the slightest idea what it was. Unfortunately, history is repeating itself with the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), a technology that turns telephone signals into digital information and delivers it over the Internet. This summer, VoIP has became a national phenomenon. Phone companies began nationwide promotions of this new service to an eager consumer and business base. [.....] Policy-makers need to be reminded that the Internet grew precisely because legislators resisted the urge to regulate. This was no accident: Politicians understood the public wrath that would come down on them if they tried to interfere. Now we are on the cusp of a second Internet revolution, a revolution driven by applications such as Internet calling that will drive broadband adoption. Full story at: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/9770728.htm (Free registration required) 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, 27 Sep 2004 06:43:14 -0400 Subject: Canada: A Eureka Moment at the CRTC Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1096236608086&call_pageid=968350072197&col=969048863851 TYLER HAMILTON There's no better cure for insomnia than slapping on computer headphones and listening to a CRTC hearing via Webcast. The jargon is mind-numbing and a new layer of glaze coats the eyes with each acronym spoken -- SIP, PSTN, NANP, ILEC, CLEC - to name just a few. Last week's hearing on VoIP, which stands for Voice over Internet Protocol, was no exception. The country's telecom watchdog is trying to figure out whether it should regulate VoIP "Internet phone" services, and if so, what's the best way to go about it. Full story at: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1096236608086&call_pageid=968350072197&col=969048863851 ------------------------------ 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 #451 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Sep 27 22:06:57 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8S26uD25522; Mon, 27 Sep 2004 22:06:57 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 22:06:57 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409280206.i8S26uD25522@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 #452 TELECOM Digest Mon, 27 Sep 2004 22:07:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 452 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Magic Telemarketer Bullets, was Re: Out of Area Calls (John Levine) Re: Magic Telemarketer Bullets, was Re: Out of Area Calls (Paul Vader) Re: Magic Telemarketer Bullets, was Re: Out of Area Calls (N Landsberg) Re: Out of Area Calls (Paul Vader) Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? (Lisa Hancock) Re: Help Needed With Wireless NetGear 802.11b Device (Clarence Dold) Re: Help Needed With Wireless NetGear 802.11b Device (jmeissen) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Paul Vader) Re: Realtime Keyword Voice Recognition; Not Just for NSA (M Covington) Re: Get an Unlocked Motorola V220 Camera Phone Almost Free (A User) Re: Get an Unlocked Motorola V220 Camera Phone Almost Free (John Covert) Re: Movies/Documentaries That Feature Crossbar, Panel, (Gene Berkowitz) Re: No Call Ref ID in SS7/C7 Why? (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: Informing Ourselves to Death (Digest Reprint) (Lisa Hancock) On Why the Mac's Small Population is Not Defense (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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Sep 2004 18:04:50 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Magic Telemarketer Bullets, was Re: Out of Area Calls Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> Cost to telcos to implement the overlay area code in your plan, >> several billion dollars. > There are a number of incoming overlays, so making such numbers > dialable would be close to de minimus. Huh? Do you mean 456 or something else? >> 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 ... > Many, if not all, telcos that offer CLID will throw in anonymous call > reject for free to subscribers to CLID. That's nice, but 311 calls would be different from CLID blocked calls so ACR wouldn't help. If you want a 311 reject, that's a switch upgrade. >> Cost to telcos to implement the overlay area code in your plan, >> several billion dollars. ... > 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 -- Only if the switch is misprogrammed. If a customer is on an ISDN line, he can provide CLID, but the CO switch is supposed to allow only numbers assigned to that line, typically a block of DID numbers assigned to a PBX. It's a security bug to permit numbers not assigned just like spammers fake other people's e-mail addresses. You could certainly adjust the switch programming to allow some customers to send 311 numbers unrelated to their inbound numbers, but that's a switch upgrade and it's not free. >> Service cost to users who'd have to buy CLID service to hide from >> telemarketers but don't want CLID otherwise, ... > A red herring, I think. More and more people are getting CLID, > one way or another, and usage is likely to grow toward > saturation, You're waving your hands. I would be surprised if as many as half of residential subs have CLID. I can easily believe that all of your friends do, but Palo Alto isn't typical. >> 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 .... > 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. Why should I pay anything for a system that won't work as well as the current do-not-call list? Either way, honest telemarketers will follow the rules and won't bother me, crooked ones won't follow the rules and will bother me, and it'll take legal sanctions to make the bad guys behave. To make the bad guys behave, if you're going to file a TCPA suit, it's a lot easier to establish that someone called you than both that they called you and that they sent a particular CLID. The do-not-call list is public info, no problem demonstrating that you're on it. > 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. Those excuses aren't valid now, either. If you're on the do-not-call list, they can't call you. >> 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?) I don't know about you, but my main phone number hasn't changed since 1994 and my cell number hasn't changed since 1996. I think that's more typical than the technogeeks who get new numbers every month. Why don't you spend two seconds and visit www.donotcall.gov so you know how the current system works, rather than speculating and guessing wrong? Yes, it's easy to confirm that you're on the list. R's, John ------------------------------ From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) Subject: Re: Magic Telemarketer Bullets, was Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 20:55:57 -0000 Organization: Inline Software Creations AES/newspost writes: > 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?) All of these things are free; they can be done via a toll-free call, or by using the website. And yes, you can verify that a listing exists. > to maintain the bureaucracy to manage the system in > perpetuity (who really does this job, by the way?). Would AT&T. It's not exactly a deep dark secret. > you want to bet the system is really well run? Or really > pays its own way? It sure seems to be well run. The only telemarketing calls I get these days are from people NOT using it. I report all of these on the website. * * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. ------------------------------ From: Nick Landsberg Reply-To: SPAMhukolautTRAP@SPAMattTRAP.net Subject: Re: Magic Telemarketer Bullets, was Re: Out of Area Calls Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 21:21:46 GMT AES/newspost wrote: > 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. [ SNIP ] > Anyone else want to weigh in on this? As a non-scientific sample of one (well, maybe two) I have two lines into my house. One is the residence (published) number and the other is an "office at home" number (non-pub). Both have caller ID and both have answering machines (either attached or built-in to the phones.) I put both numbers on the national DNC list last year. Observations: - There seem to be considerably fewer telemarketer calls since then. If it's important, and the call comes through as "anonymous," whoever is calling can leave a message on the machine. If we happen to pick up, for some reason, we either hang up on them after a few seconds or play mind games with them (depending on our mood). For example, for a while, we had a local newspaper (The Asbury Park Press) calling us to try to get us to subscribe. After a while, I started telling them that I worked for the Newark Star Ledger (which I don't). The calls stopped shortly thereafter :) Note: We answer anonymous calls just in case a daughter or granddaughter needs help and has to call from a pay phone or the equivalent. If it's not them, we just hang up or play mind games as in the above. - I always answer the "office" line with the company name rather than just "hello". This almost always causes a pause at the other end if it's a telemarketcritter who doesn't know what to do next because it's not in his script. (Note that several company locations seem to be behind PBX's which do not send CID, so I answer the "anonymous" calls again, just in case.) - Both of the above observations are based upon the fact that I have caller-id. Yes, I pay for that. Without the DNC list and the CID, I would probably be much more ticked-off at telemarketers than I am now. My opinion is that somehow, the national DNC list has done some good, and that additional measures aren't necessary. Your mileage may vary. NPL P.S. - Now, can we somehow do the same for SPAM Emails? But that's a subject which is being debated in other newsgroups. "It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious" - A. Bloch ------------------------------ From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 19:14:57 -0000 Organization: Inline Software Creations bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) writes: > 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, This is totally lovely. I'm going to use that trick from now on. * * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? Date: 27 Sep 2004 12:44:51 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Stanley Cline wrote: > 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. What I was told that the superior remote maintenance facility of ESS vs. electro mechanical was a big factor. AFAIK, when changing a number or services for a customer, an office visit by a craftsman is needed on electro mechanical to reroute wires from the distributing frame. However, on ESS, that is all done electronically. Also, SxS requires periodic maintenance since it is mechanical moving parts; ESS does not. When a craftsman has to drive a considerable distance to service something like that, the savings are significant. Some other rural areas may not be as rural anymore and facing growth. Going to ESS over SxS allows a bigger switch to fit in the same size building, saving expensive building expansion. ------------------------------ From: dold@XReXXHelpX.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: Help Needed With Wireless NetGear 802.11b Device Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 19:58:31 UTC Organization: a2i network Patrick Townson wrote: > 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 just threw the box for my two year old wireless router away. Emblazoned on the front of the box is the optimistic "up to 1000 feet" claim. Of course, I assumed that 1000 feet might be achievable on Lake Hosgol in the dead of winter, but I expected to get 50 feet or so at home. I didn't. The real range of 802.11b is pretty short in an urban environment. Walls hurt a lot. Exterior walls, with stucco and the reinforcing chicken wire, are very hard to penetrate. Most of the commodity consumer units are similar, with the same considerations you might apply to brand name and cost as any other product. Linksys-DLink-Netgear are going to be very similar. The first thing to do is to try a free reflector. I tried to form the "original" reflector without much success mechanically. The EZ-10 is less antenna gain, but sufficient for my needs, and very simple to make. The EZ-12 would be a tad better, but I haven't tried one of those. I am able to get good coverage anywhere in my house and on the decks in the front and back using the EZ-10. http://www.freeaantennas.com < http://www.rahul.net/dold/clarence/SMC/EZ10-strength.htm > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you for your *very realistic* appraisal. I am going to look at your page on EZ-10 tonight and see how I can make it apply to me. I'd be very pleased to get as far as my *front* yard or most of my back yard, or evem my rocking chair in my parlor. I just do not want to have to sit in the same room all the time. Do you think your 'reflector' device will work out okay with a rubber ducky type antenna built into the router? PAT] ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@aracnet.com Subject: Re: Help Needed With Wireless NetGear 802.11b Device Date: 27 Sep 2004 20:34:21 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: With what I say next, I mean to give > no offense, nor take any: What is the group's general impression of > the NetGear four port wireless router and its companion 'PCMCIA-like' > card to go in the laptop? Good? Bad? Total Crap? I am lucky to get > about 50-75 feet *reliably*. I just remembered, I do have *two* > cordless phones also plugged in which are 900 mhz units, and they > get me about a half block away from home with no trouble. Might *they* > be causing interference with the wireless router? PAT] It's unlikely that the 900mhz phone would interfere. Unfortunately, it's been a year or more since I read that newsgroup, so I wouldn't be able to tell you what the latest scuttle is regarding NetGear. All I know is that whenever someone complained about reception problems they were told to try an Orinoco card, and when they did they would invariably return with high praise. And that matches my own experience. I have heard a lot of negative talk about D-Link equipment lately, and know people who returned theirs for a different brand. So if you look around for an alternative I think I might stay away from them. What are the model numbers of the router and card? John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The router model number is MR814v2. The card model is MA521. They came as a set; one router and one accompaning card. PAT] ------------------------------ From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 20:37:18 -0000 Organization: Inline Software Creations wolfgang+gnus20040924T232812@dailyplanet.dontspam.wsrcc.com writes: > 1) The pilots didn't want the passengers to have better navigation > equipment in the cabin than they had in the cockpit. Planes back Snort. That's pretty funny, but I doubt that pilots even think about stuff like that. Since the passenger doesn't know (probably) the details of all the directions given during the flight by the air traffic controllers, you could hardly second-guess the pilots like that. Back when handheld GPSes were fairly new, I used one a bunch of times during flights ('cause I could -- it gave a fairly nice read how far into a long flight I was), and once plotted an entire trip from Chicago to St. Louis on a map just to pass the time. I made no secret of it -- you pretty much have to jam the receiver against the window to get a good reading. One thing that does occur to me -- security. Maybe I don't want someone on the flight being able to call in the plane's exact position to someone on the ground. I seem to remember that the maximum groundspeed that terrestrial GPSes would work at was reduced at some point (I can for a fact say that my old unit works beautifully up to at least 500mph); maybe this is the reason. * * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. ------------------------------ From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Re: Realtime Keyword Voice Recognition; Not Just the NSA Anymore Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 16:54:54 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) This is a good application for voice recognition because errors are (we hope!) inconsequential. The system will probably be designed to get lots of false positives. Let's just hope that in the hands of brain-dead human operators, it doesn't cause more frustration. Danny Burstein wrote in message news:telecom23.451.3@telecom-digest.org: > "Phone a call centre and you are likely to spend ages on hold > listening to canned music -- and then find the operator cannot find > the information you need. But an artificial intelligence system that > hunts down the required information is aiming to slash the time people > waste this way. > "Using a mixture of speech recognition and search engine technology, > the system, being developed by IBM, will trawl a call centre's > databanks for the information a customer wants and present it to the > operator before the caller has finished explaining what they want. By > giving operators rapid access to the right information, calls will be > dealt with faster. > "The system works by listening in to the conversation and identifying > keywords spoken by the customer." > http://www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns99996430 ------------------------------ From: A User Subject: Re: Get an Unlocked Motorola V220 Camera Phone Almost Free Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 08:26:14 +1000 Organization: Posted via Forte APN, http://www.forteinc.com/apn/index.php On 27 Sep 2004 00:54:01 -0400, John R Levine wrote: > My wife decided that she needs a cell phone, so we dropped by the > local Cingular store to get one and add it to my account. (Cingular > has excellent coverage here due to the antenna that I lease them space > for on my water tower.) So after the nice sales lady told me that > most of the free phones were far crummier than my Nokia 6340i (no > longer available because it's GSM/TDMA and now they only sell GSM), we > looked at a Moto V220 camera phone for $50. > As we set up the account, I asked her to turn on international roaming > since it's a triband phone, and she said "if you use it in Europe > much, you can get a local SIM and use that." "Isn't it locked?" > "Naah, they don't usually bother." > I happened to have a Swiss SIM here and whaddaya know, she's right, > it's unlocked. Not a bad deal. Unfortunately the phone is > 850/900/1900 and the SIM is from Orange Switzerland which is 1800 > only, but it's easy enough to get a different SIM next time. Since when do SIMS know about frequency? It's the phone. > Regards, > John Levine johnl@iecc.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 19:27:54 -0400 (EDT) From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: Get an Unlocked Motorola V220 Camera Phone Almost Free > Unfortunately the phone is 850/900/1900 Er, tri-band GSM phones are 900/1800/1900. The V220 is supposed to be a quad-band phone, 850/900/1800/1900. All the GSM there is. http://www.cellphones.ca/news/000607.cfm AFAIK, there is no such thing as a phone which does only 850/900/1900; there would be no good reason for such a product to even exist. If a phone can do 900 and 1900, then 850 (because it's a multiple of 1900) and 1800 (because it's a multiple of 900) is a no-cost additional option. Tri-band phones were tri-band because they came out before there was any 850 MHz GSM in operation. I have seen European pages claiming the V220 is tri-band 900/1800/1900. I believe those pages would be wrong. But then I might be wrong. They might have crippled it for Cingular. Why they would do that, since Cingular HAS roaming agreements with European carriers operating on 1800, I have no idea, and I find it unlikely (but not impossible) that they did. /john ------------------------------ From: Gene S. Berkowitz Subject: Re: Movies/Documentaries That Feature Crossbar, Panel, or SxS? Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 20:42:20 -0400 In article , jdj@now.here says: > 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. THX-1138, which is now in theatrical re-release, contains a scene with Robert Duvall wandering through a very large switch. --Gene ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: No Call Ref ID in SS7/C7 Why? Date: 27 Sep 2004 16:35:56 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , Ariel Burbaickij wrote: > tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) wrote in message news:: > Excuse me but I do not see hop by hop nature as the main hurdle for > defining unique call id. One obvious solution would be to include some > number unique to the originating switch (its pointcode?) plus gmt plus > some random value. It's not a "hurdle", it's the reason there's no _need for_ a unique call ID: because there is already a unique tuple identifying any call, for the duration of that call: OPC, DPC, TCIC. This tuple is different between any pair of switches in the call path, but because the standard makes very clear the ordering of the messages (and message reordering is severely restricted) and the transitions in the call state machine you can nonetheless follow a call from A to Z through the network, using OPC, DPC, TCIC for every pair of switches involved. Standard SS7 diagnostic tools, in fact, do exactly this. As I pointed out in my earlier message, the treatment of the SLS field in most national variants is intended, in point of fact, to make it easier to catch the right messages for any call even when debugging with an extremely simplistic protocol analyzer -- or even by hand (believe me, I've done it). > Not always ISUP is actually hop-by-hop as you surely know. ISUP over > SCCP will give you end-to-end nature. That depends what meaning, exactly, you put to "end-to-end". In practice, even when run over SCCP, ISUP signaling is necessarily logically hop-by-hop with the hops corresponding to the hops in the actual voice path -- as it has to be, because *the trunks must be allocated hop by hop* and that is exactly what ISUP does. Even if you are running ISUP over SCCP, except in extraordinarily simple networks (in other words, *not real world networks*) the calling party's end office switch cannot know _a priori_ the entire path the call will take through the network even if it could know the address of the called party's end-office switch; so trunk signalling _can only_ proceed hop-by-hop, which is what it does. > Sure, for one link. What about debbuging which involves several > switches. How are you going to guess which messages belong toghether > in such an environment? This is easy, and it's done all the time. You get into the links between the switches in the call path and you find the messages in ascending time order that have the right calling and called party ID and that are in the right state in the call state machine (for example, IAM and RLC will cascade through the network in an obvious way). There are a few -- very few -- corner cases where things can get a little tricky, but in practice the order of trunk allocation on all major-vendor switches guarantees that you don't see them. This is not rocket science. Telco personnel do it all the time, in busy networks. Students in Telcordia protocol classes do it _by hand_, which is tedious but entirely possible. Most good SS7 protocol analyzers do it automatically, for what it's worth. Even the old HP sets that are often used as teaching tools have features intended to help with this. I assure you, it works. In practice, one very quickly zeroes in on a particular hop in the call path when diagnosing SS7 or trunk troubles; so really, very little time is spent trying to chasx calls end-to-end anyway. You mention "ISUP over ISUP" as an example of end-to-end ISUP signalling. With the exception of the incompletely-specified pass-along message (PAM) that I referred to before, I'm not entirely sure I know what you mean. Can you give me more details? One thing that bears remembering about ISUP is that when it was designed, compact encoding of messages was a major concern -- there was serious grumbling already about the link upgrades that would be required in order to handle the increases in message size compared to the original CCIS that it replaced. Another thing to keep in mind is that later protocols in the same protocol suite have much more in common with computer data protocols of the mid 1980s (e.g. extensive use of ASN.1 encoding) than with ISUP, which is really best understood as a slight tweak of the rather ugly result of tearing CCIS apart into two (or did I mean three? ;-)) layers for standardization. So niceties that one expects from other protocols, e.g. an end-to-end transaction ID, aren't likely to be there unless they're really needed; and it's not tremendously surprising to me that in this case, the judgment was that that feature was 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: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Informing Ourselves to Death (Digest Reprint) Date: 27 Sep 2004 13:23:46 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > Date: Tue, 18 Jan 1994 18:12:41 -0600 (CST) > Bill Pfeiffer Editor AIRWAVES RADIO JOURNAL (info@airwaves.chi.il.us) > 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. This is so true. But I've very rarely heard anyone speak against a new technology. There are usually two separate forces that bring out new technology. One is the inventor/engineers who actually develop something new. The other is the business people who figure out ways to advertise, market, manufacture, distribute, and sell the technology to consumers in a mass market. Neither IBM nor Henry invented the personal computer or automobile, but their skills put those products in the hands of the masses. Bill Gates didn't invent the PC operating system, but knew where to find one and put it in the hands of IBM. Sometimes both the inventor and marketer are the same person, sometimes it involves a whole group of separate people. But normally there are least two separate people or groups involved. Each of those groups has a different agenda. We need both of them, and we get both the good and the bad of both of them. > 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. Also very true. The phone company used to claim it employed more operators than ever because higher calling volumes, despite automation, required more operators to serve the volume. The computer industry used to claim that clerical workers displaced by computers were offset by technical people who ran the computers, and also by more business requiring more clerks despite automation. Unfortunately, often times the displacement is not easily solved. The abandonment of streetcars for buses isn't too bad--a streetcar motorman can learn to drive a bus. But the transfer of travel from railroads to airplanes is harder. A railroad locomotive engineer can't be easily retrained to a commercial jet pilot, and locomotive mechanicals into jet technicians. Of course some predictions don't work out. It's been said for many years that schoolteachers would be displaced by television, yet it hasn't happened. > ... 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. I'm not sure I fully agree with that. Yes, computers have made privacy an issue, but that is also very much a social and political problem. Computers don't share data, it is people who make requests and answer those requests for personal information. Who are those people? Should they have that ability? Those are the tougher questions that need to be answered. Cars don't kill people, errant drivers do. As far as being reduced to "numerical objects", in some cases that's true, but in others computers have actually helped reduce that. In a big company using clerical procedures, the masses were nothing but the masses, there was simply no time for the clerks to accomodate any individuality. If you look at old payroll ledgers employees didn't even have a name, just a row number in the book and hours worked. > ... 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? This is not necessarily a binary question--social change does not require one group to give up _anything_ in order for another group to gain something, be it power or freedom, money, affluence, etc. At the end of WW II the GI Bill allowed thousands of men to go to college who otherwise never could. That greatly improved the standard of living of such men, but not at the cost of anyone else. The availability of a better skilled and educated labor force after WW II was a contributing factor to a higher standard of living for all. > ... Today, we believe in the authority of our science, no matter > what. I don't agree. First off, "we" is too inclusive, people have very varied levels of acceptance and belief. Second, people will question things. > 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. Again I don't agree. That is not how people think. If I tell you something new or strange, your belief in what I say isn't based on a reference point, but rather on what else is going on in your life. If my little factoid is irrelevent to your life, you won't care one way or another -- you're busy thinking about your kids, the squeak in the car, etc. If it is relevant, you won't accept it on fate, but rather think about and discuss it further. Sure there are some gullibles who will buy into anything, but not everyone is like that. While this guy's talk is interesting, the reality is that most people could care less about it. They're busy having a life. > 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. There was plenty information in the Middle Ages. Is gossip anything new? Is artwork anything new? Is superstition anything new? People heard all sorts of things and evaluated them as best they could. More significantly, their _actions_ on that information was based on their circumstances. I dare say for a heck of a lot of people, the lack or excess of information isn't the issue, but the lack of options to _act_ on that information is the limiting factor. Some starving peasant in the 1800s may have known full well conditions were better in America, but if they had no money to make the trip or was otherwise bound, it didn't help them. I think in the ten years since this was written, the lustre has won off of computers. But they also have become a standard utility box for the home and office and they've evolved from curiosity to commodity. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A 'peasant in the 1800s' did not live in the middle ages, which I believe is the period from about the year 800 through 1500. And people living around the year 1000 *were* very superstitious. Have you ever studied reports of how people who were alive at the end of the year 999 dealt with the fact that a new century -- in fact a new millenium -- was starting? Many folks in that time in the dark ages were absolutely convinced the world was going to come to an end. The panic which was so prevalent would have shamed the corresponding situation in the 1999 <-> 2000 rollover (or if you prefer, the 2000 <-> 2001 rollover.) About the only people in those days who could write were priests and monks (the scholars of the time.) Printing had not been invented, so there was nothing to read. Old and Middle English were *nothing* like we speak or write these days. The 'old English' we see around today dates back at most to the 1500-1600's, and much of it is difficult to understand. At least we (in the 21st century) are leaving much writing for the folks in the year 3000 to deal with, to know more about *our* heritage; that is, assuming by 3000 they are still using our style of speech, writing, etc. And yes, the luster of computers has worn off quite a lot in the 14 years since the speech was first given, and even the 'average' (meaning non-computer literate) person has matured in his thinking a lot. Just as when television sets first came into common usage (1950's) and many well meaning people thought they were an evil influence on children, so people felt the same way about computers in the 1980's. Most people now recognize the absurdity in forbidding their children to use the internet When the public library offers the same thing, but at a slower pace. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 18:09:57 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: On Why the Mac's Small Population is Not a Defense John Welch For a long time, the Mac community has believed that because the relative size of the Mac population is small, that this lack of size is a defense against an attack. The logic goes something like this: Since the overall Mac population is so small compared to the Windows population, Macs are not that interesting to virus writers. Well, as the Witty worm showed, a small population is no defense against a devastating attack. On March 8th, 2004, eEye Digital Security discovered a vulnerability in ISS's BlackICE/RealSecure products. On March 9th, ISS released a patch for the vulnerability. On March 18th, eEye published a high-level description of the vulnerability. 36 hours later, Witty was released into the wild. Within 45 minutes, every vulnerable machine was infected, about 12,000 machines in total. Witty is a scary story for a number of reason. http://www.bynkii.com/generic_mac_stuff/archives/2004_09.html#000120 ------------------------------ 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 #452 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Sep 28 02:13:19 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8S6DI627675; Tue, 28 Sep 2004 02:13:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 02:13:19 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409280613.i8S6DI627675@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 #453 TELECOM Digest Tue, 28 Sep 2004 02:13:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 453 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Help Needed With Wireless NetGear 802.11b Device (jdj) Re: Help Needed With Wireless NetGear 802.11b Device (Dave Garland) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (jdj) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Lisa Hancock) Re: Get an Unlocked Motorola V220 Camera Phone Almost Free (John Levine) Re: Out of Area Calls (Gary Novosielski) Palm OS Cobalt 6.1;Web Browser 3.0;Email API;Dev Suite 1.0 (M Solomon) Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? (jdj) Re: Need Advice Regarding Communications/Networking Problem (Wm Warren) VOIP Server Setup (Ted Nugent) 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: jdj Subject: Re: Help Needed With Wireless NetGear 802.11b Device Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 19:30:11 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: With what I say next, I mean to give no > offense, nor take any: What is the group's general impression of the > NetGear four port wireless router and its companion 'PCMCIA-like' card > to go in the laptop? Good? Bad? Total Crap? I am lucky to get about > 50-75 feet *reliably*. I just remembered, I do have *two* cordless > phones also plugged in which are 900 mhz units, and they get me about a > half block away from home with no trouble. Might *they* be causing > interference with the wireless router? PAT] I would say the combo is near-total crap. The router just does not have the power to reach downstairs. Not reliably. 802.11b is on 2400MHz. No interference problems. For inexpensive, you might try Linksys, except the BEWF11S4 model router, which dies if spoken to even a little crossly. The WRTG54 seems to be reliable. Customer support is not. I think they've done away with it but have not got round to removing it from their website. I have never, ever got a response from them--for anything at all. With the Linksys I have I get a good link from 1/4mile or so away even going 55. After encountering bad interference on 2400MHz, I dumped my really expensive cordless system and got an expensive 900MHz Engenius. The phone interference is gone but I'm afraid I'm now interfering with half the town.(evil grin) But fair is fair: There is a lot of wifi interference from the city, the cops, the Safeway's and all the wireless telecommuters in town. So we're even. Besides, it's all Part15. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One of our computer stores here in > town (Computer Generation) is also the Radio Shack dealer, and he > stocks 802.11b stuff. What would *you* suggest I do for replacement > stuff if anything? PAT] Personally, being miserly, I would go for a Linksys 802.11G router for B back-compatibility, such as a WRT54 with Linux. I have a BEFW11S4v4 and it has a habit of failing if spoken to crossly or if a broken windows client tries to connect. Linksys support is limited to whatever you can get from the website, though. I have never got a response from anyone there. Not even a salesperson. Add to that a gain antenna, such as a 6dB desktop stick, placed up high. This antenna would replace one of the two router antennae. I picked a $25.00 Hawking desktop blade and hung it from the ceiling. With this I can reach a PCMCIA card in the car the next street over through insulated (with foil) stucco walls on channel 11. Using the MA401 PC card in the car, that's around 150 feet. If that is not enough then using a PCMCIA card with a separate antenna will help. I remember Windows all too well (shudder). Since I got free of it's grip my hair has grown back. Mostly. ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: Help Needed With Wireless NetGear 802.11b Device Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 23:56:43 -0500 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when Patrick Townson wrote: > 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? http://www.techtastic.ca/articles/homemade-antenna.html http://www.freeantennas.com/ (various designs, including corner reflectors and cardboard/tinfoil parabolic reflectors). These homebrew antennas work with 2.4GHz cordless phone base stations, too. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I've been experimenting a little tonight with a tinfoil parabolic reflector. Not a lot of success thus far, but a little bit better. I will look at the other pages you mentioned also. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jdj Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 18:55:52 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 02:55:18 +0000, Brian Inglis wrote: > 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). MythBusters did not test this. Their test was something completely different: No vehicles or petrol pumps were involved. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: [snip snip] to the terrorist his > reward with all those virgins in heaven, etc. There are apocrypha -- both Christian and Muslim that suggest that those who make it to Heaven a virgin remain one. It seems if these heroes plan on getting their whoopee after death, they may be in for a little bit of a surprise. The Bible suggests it too but I have not had opportunity to find the same in the Q'ran. > True Patriots would gladly sacrifice their cell phones in the war on > terrorism if it meant one life would be saved. PAT] No big loss. These new phones are junk. Ok, take my (broken) cell phones but I'll keep the radios! ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: 27 Sep 2004 20:14:37 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Mark Atwood wrote >> 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. While I agree with your other points, I strongly disagree with this point. Like it or not, we live in a very blame oriented society. If something bad happens, people look for someone to blame, fairly or not. Lives are often unfairly destroyed by that. If by some outside chance, the signals from a modern walkie talkie did interfere with BART train control signals, the BART managers would be hung out to dry. They, like all public officials, are under tremendous pressure to err on the side of caution because any failure would be blamed on them, fairly or not. Further, it is a fact that BART's original train control system was notoriously fickle. I don't know what it is today, but there certainly is a realistic basis to be cautious about stray radio signals. Radio signals are a funny thing. When I use talk on a simple cassette tape recorder, which has no radio in it at all, the playback picks up a radio station on it. I don't know why, but I had a similar problem in another house 35 years ago on a different recorder. How did a tape recorder, without a radio in it, pick up and record radio broadcasts? Somehow it did. It is thus entirely possible that a stray radio transmission close- by could induce unwanted noise in BART's signal controls. Sure it's unlikely, but it would be nuisance or even dangerous if it happened. The radio user wouldn't get blamed, mgmt would. Now, you might argue BART's system should be immune from that and you're right. But BART was designed and built over 30 years ago, and that battle was fought long ago. If I were a BART manager, until I have absolute assurance that such walkie-talkies did not interfere with train control, I would bar them as well. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 2004 03:08:25 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Get an Unlocked Motorola V220 Camera Phone Almost Free Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> Unfortunately the phone is 850/900/1900 > Er, tri-band GSM phones are 900/1800/1900. The V220 is supposed to be > a quad-band phone, 850/900/1800/1900. All the GSM there is. I have the phone in my hand, and the Band menu gives me a choice of 850/1900 and 900. If you go to the Motorola web site, you find the Cingular V220 which is 850/900/1900 and the ATTWS V220 which is 850/900/1800/1900. > But then I might be wrong. They might have crippled it for Cingular. > Why they would do that, since Cingular HAS roaming agreements with > European carriers operating on 1800, I have no idea, and I find it > unlikely (but not impossible) that they did. It makes no sense to me, either. The Cingular version has software for AOL Instant Messenger, and the ATTWS has both AOLIM and Yahoo IM. That makes no sense either, since Cingular also has a deal with Yahoo's IM. Other than that they seem the same, same talk time, standby time, etc. To answer a question another user asked, my other SIM is from Orange Switzerland, which does indeed have roaming agreements with Cingular and operates only on 1800. So even though the SIM works in the phone, since the phone won't work on the SIM's home network, I'll need a SIM from a different network (Sunrise, probably) the next time I go to Switzerland. Regards, John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of The Internet for Dummies Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, Mayor "A book is a sneeze." - E.B. White, on the writing of Charlotte's Web ------------------------------ From: Gary Novosielski Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 05:04:44 GMT AES/newspost wrote: > 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. Say it all you want, it's a bad idea. It's much better to require the companies to provide their REAL phone number in the Caller ID than some fictitious number. You claim that it would be cheap and easy to filter the calls, but you ignore the fact that Caller ID is a rather expensive service. If everyone on the Do Not Call list was forced to subscribe to Caller ID that would be a nice multi-million-dollar windfall for the telcos, but what extra functionality does the customer get, other than paying money? Furthermore, none of the commonly available Caller ID boxes has any feature to filter or reject calls, based on the area code of the number or, for that matter, any other reason. They simply record the number, which is only transmitted AFTER the first ring, so calls can't be rejected even in theory. In contrast, the Do Not Call registry costs the customer nothing to install, has no monthly fees, requires no equipment, and it works. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 01:11:39 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Palm OS Cobalt 6.1 ; Web Browser 3.0 ; Email API ; Dev Suite 1.0 PalmSource and RIM Announce Release of Email API to Developers - Sep 28, 2004 12:01 AM (BusinessWire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43887990 PalmSource Releases Palm OS Developer Suite 1.0 - Sep 28, 2004 01:00 AM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43888221 PalmSource Introduces Palm OS Cobalt 6.1 - Sep 28, 2004 01:00 AM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43888227 PalmSource Introduces PalmSource Installer - Sep 28, 2004 01:00 AM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43888229 PalmSource Honors Leading Palm OS Developers With Euro Powered Up Awards - Sep 28, 2004 01:00 AM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43888237 PalmSource Adds Bitfone Corporation, DAT Group and Notify Technology Corporation to the Palm Powered Mobile World Program - Sep 28, 2004 01:00 AM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43888242 PalmSource Launches New Online Tools for Palm OS User Groups - Sep 28, 2004 01:00 AM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43888246 PalmSource Releases PalmSource Web Browser 3.0 - Sep 28, 2004 01:00 AM (PR Newswire) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43888262 ------------------------------ From: jdj Subject: Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 22:16:08 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 12:44:51 -0700, Lisa Hancock wrote: > Some other rural areas may not be as rural anymore and facing growth. > Going to ESS over SxS allows a bigger switch to fit in the same size > building, saving expensive building expansion. Another advantage of the modern ESS, such as a 5E, is that the switch can be spread around geographically. The first I saw of this was a 5E used as a PBX. Parts of the switch were in distant buildings. That increased line capacity enormously. In the outskirts of this town, Pa Bell did not lay new cable with the new housing. They just put the line and group cards in the field and used the old telephone pairs for trunks. But things grew beyond the normal capacity and instead of laying more cable or replacing copper with fiber, they took the cheap way out and started using pairgain. Very soon there will be too many new lines even for pairgain. Maybe they'll figure out how to do DS3 over a copper pair by then? The only fiber out here now belongs to ATT Long Lines (or whatever they call it now) and the cable company. Modern switches also can handle multiple exchanges. Where mechanical switches could handle only one exchange or prefix, the modern ESS can take many more. The single 5E in town, where there was once two xbars, handles eight LEC exchanges and at least three CLEC exchanges. A nearby independent had a SxS PBX-type switch up to about seven years ago then cut to an ESS when it became impossible to get parts. I used to call it just to listen to recordings and the translation as it completed the call. Another nearby GTE city had a SxS and I would call into just to hear it translate too. I would dial in with DTMF, which would be translated to pulse + MF, then to pulse. Then there was that Continental Telephone switch that let one hear it hunting for dialtone, translate to and from DTMF, translate a toll number to a routing code, etc. One could tell whether a called number was busy before the connection was completed. I used to wish I lived there. Don't get me started on old switches... ------------------------------ From: William Warren Subject: Re: Need Advice Regarding Communications / Networking Problem Organization: Comcast Online Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 01:40:08 GMT Jonathan wrote in message news:telecom23.449.13@telecom-digest.org: > 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. [snip] ...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: >> [snip] >> 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 fine 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. [snip] According to the Free Space Optics website - http://www.freespaceoptics.com/AirFiber-Physics-FSO.pdf, "The maximum range in realistic atmospheric attenuation situations is about 500 m." So, I suggest you concentrate on a non-optical solution for the distance you must cover. William Warren (Filter noise from my address for direct replies.) ------------------------------ From: nicholasbecker@gmail.com (Ted Nugent) Subject: VOIP Server Setup Date: 27 Sep 2004 18:37:55 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I would like to set up my home computer so it acts as a VOIP Server. I have a home phone line, voice modem, and a broadband connection. I would like to be able to make phone calls through the Internet via my home phone line. Is there any software out there that allows you to do this? ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #453 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Sep 28 17:40:55 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8SLeth05518; Tue, 28 Sep 2004 17:40:55 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 17:40:55 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409282140.i8SLeth05518@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 #454 TELECOM Digest Tue, 28 Sep 2004 17:40:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 454 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Miguel Fornie Named Chairman Of United Telecom Council (eworldwire.com) Auto Attendant Within PBX (omarello) Re: VOIP Server Setup (Kenneth P. Stox) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Robert Bonomi) Re: The Wal-Mart Supremacy (Lisa Hancock) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (DevilsPGD) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Brian Inglis) Re: No Call Ref ID in SS7/C7 Why? (Phil Anderton) Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? (John R. Levine) Re: Out of Area Calls (Truth) Re: Out of Area Calls (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: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 12:32:11 -0400 Subject: Iberdrola's Fornie Named First Chairman Of United Telecom Council From: distribution@eworldwire.com Iberdrola's Miguel Angel Sanchez Fornie Named First Chairman Of United Telecom Council European Board Of Directors MADRID, SPAIN/EWORLDWIRE/Sep. 28, 2004 --- Miguel Angel Sanchez Fornie, Director de Sistemas de Control y Telecomunicaciones at Iberdrola, headquartered in Madrid, Spain, has been appointed the first Chairman of the European Board of Directors of the United Telecom Council (UTC). UTC is the telecommunications and information technology trade association for electric and gas utilities, water companies, energy companies, and other critical infrastructure companies. Founded in 1948, and until recently known as the Utilities Telecommunications Council, UTC is now an international federation of direct business members and affiliated trade associations representing over 10,000 organizations worldwide. With technology rapidly changing the role of telecommunications in Europe's electric, gas and water utilities and energy companies, many UTC members are using their vast experience in building and managing sophisticated telecommunications networks to enter Europe's new competitive telecoms markets, while continuing to improve support for their core businesses. Many are also facing issues around the introduction of new wireless communications systems and managing internal telecoms businesses in a shared services environment. To meet this need, UTC has created a uniquely European program that will build on UTC's 60 years of experience that will be designed for Europeans, will be uniquely European in focus, and will be led by a European Board of Directors. "I have been actively involved with UTC for years," said Sanchez Fornie. "The information I have received and insights I have gained have proved to be invaluable. I am excited by the prospect of a new UTC program focused on our unique needs as Europeans. Now is the perfect time to do this," he added. "We are indeed fortunate to have someone of Miguel's caliber and commitment to assume the leadership of our European Board," said UTC President/CEO, William R. Moroney, in making the announcement. "At a time when so much is in flux in Europe," he added, "he will bring a needed level of experience and commitment to finding European solutions to the challenges of the day." In addition to announcing Sanchez Fornie's appointment as the Chairman of the UTC European Board of Directors, UTC also made the following announcements: * Peter Moray, formerly of Mason Communications, has been appointed UTC's Director of European Services. Moray is based in the United Kingdom, will work directly with the European Board, and provide a staff focal point for all European members. * UTC has entered into an arrangement with the London-based law firm of Simmons and Simmons to provide regular reports and guidance to the UTC European Board on energy, utility and telecom regulations impacting UTC members throughout Europe. * The full European Board of Directors will be introduced at UTC's Annual European Utility Telecom Conference (EUTC), November 7-10, 2004, in Dublin. For additional information please contact Peter Moray, UTC Director of European Services, at +44 (7710) 057-694 or peter.moray@utc.org. Web sites of special interest with more information are UTC's European web portal (www.europe.utc.org), where more information on Charter European Membership may be found, and the home page for the 2004 European Utility Telecom Conference (www.eutc.utc.org). For more information on Iberdrola, please visit the company web site at www.iberdrola.es. The 2004 European Utility Telecom Conference represents the largest gathering of telecommunications and technology executives from Europe's electric, gas, and water utilities and their technology partners who are focused on exploring the latest telecommunications and data networking business solutions and business opportunities. EUTC 2004 is the only conference devoted to utility telecom issues in Europe that is created by and for European utilities and their technology partners. Session topics will include in-depth case studies, regulatory updates, technology overviews, competitive telecom opportunities, standards updates, and an overview of the European Commission's PLC project, OPERA. Utility CEOs are increasingly asking questions about the telecom service delivery models, how to select and run competitive telecom ventures, how to apply new technologies to increase revenues, and how to secure telecom systems. EUTC 2004 will give answers to all of these questions. About United Telecom Council The United Telecom Council (UTC), formerly known as the Utilities Telecommunications Council is an international trade association whose members own, manage or provide critical telecommunications systems in support of their core business. Founded in 1948 to advocate for the allocation of additional radio spectrum for power utilities, UTC now represents over 10,000 electric, gas, and water utilities, natural gas pipelines and critical infrastructure companies who serve all corners of the world and virtually every community in North America. HTML: http://newsroom.eworldwire.com/wr/092804/10643.htm PDF: http://newsroom.eworldwire.com/pdf/092804/10643.pdf ONLINE NEWSROOM: http://newsroom.eworldwire.com/2880.htm LOGO: http://newsroom.eworldwire.com/2880.htm CONTACT: Peter Moray United Telecom Council Washington, DC 20006 PHONE. 44 (7710) 057-694 EMAIL: peter.moray@utc.org http://www.utc.org Copyright 2004 Eworldwire, All rights reserved. Press Relase Distribution By EWORLDWIRE http://www.eworldwire.com (973)252-6800. ------------------------------ From: omarello1@hotmail.com (omarello) Subject: Auto Attendant Within PBX Date: 27 Sep 2004 23:37:41 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello all, I am trying to write an auto attendant application for the office I am working at. I was wondering what hardware I need, noting that the PBX my company uses is a Sigma DP 50. I thought I could just use a voice modem to do the job but it appears that the PBX is a digital pbx and I cannot do the job with a modem. We are trying to invest in a dialogic card, but I wasn't sure which one satisfies the need, we need one that could work on both a digital and an analog PBX. Any ideas?? Also I know that some pbx's have the auto attendant built in but I don't have access to the pbx and well, we need to have a computer do the job cause we are trying to build another CT application afterwards. Thanks a lot for the help. Omarello ------------------------------ From: Kenneth P. Stox Organization: Imaginary Landscape, LLC. Subject: Re: VOIP Server Setup Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 15:08:30 GMT Ted Nugent wrote: > I would like to set up my home computer so it acts as a VOIP Server. > I have a home phone line, voice modem, and a broadband connection. I > would like to be able to make phone calls through the Internet via my > home phone line. Is there any software out there that allows you to > do this? http://www.asteriskpbx.com, Free/Open Source. ------------------------------ 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, 28 Sep 2004 07:02:35 GMT In article , Dave Thompson wrote: > On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 13:51:34 +0000, bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com > (Robert Bonomi) wrote: >> 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 -- > Right; see below. (Except they were mostly used locally and called > displays not terminals.) Sorry, there is use that predates the personal computer -- with a modem on a dial-up to a mainframe time-sharing service. 'Terminal' is the correct word. Yeah, it got more common with the 1st generation hobby computers, like SWTPC, and MITS. But there was prior art. :) >> 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. > Although it was entirely possible, and not that rare, to use cards > without printing on them. And for that matter to get cards without the > top-left corner cut -- either none, or a different one -- or with a > colored band across the top, for visual markers or sorting, which > incidentally made printing illegible. The point being that the cards were _designed_ to accommodate that printing, One of the early IBM 'interpreters' (an O49 or was that a sorter?) could only print 40 columns in a pass; had to change the program on the plugboard to get the other 40 columns. And change where the printing fell on the card, so it didn't write over the first 40 characters. :) >> 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. > So did IBM, later, around the S/34 or S/36 IIRC, not too long before > punch cards passed out of mainstream usage altogether. >> 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'. >> [and only half distinguishable due to interlace = 242] > Maybe somewhat less depending on how well the set was built and > maintained, especially in the analog days of yore. (I don't know if > that's why you used the scare quotes.) 484 lines is the 'theoretical maximum' displayable. The video signal is =blanked= for the other 41 line-intervals that make up the frame. One can _never_ see anything on those lines. One may see even less, if the set is configured to 'over-scan' -- then some of the 'visible' lines are lost behind the faceplate of the display. 'Display' type units were usually set to _under-scan_, so the user saw a black border around the entire raster area. This meant that everything possible was visible, even if not at the largest possible size. >> 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? >> You could go 'upper-case only' -- requiring a >> 5x7 character cell, [perhaps doubled] > But this is anachronistic (mythtaken?). The first "textual" video > displays used in any number were IBM 3270 series, which were either > 12x40 (model 1, cheaper) or 24x80 (model 2). They clearly got the 80 > from cards, but I have no idea where they got the 24 -- possibly so > that, as you also noted, the screen buffer is < 2KC. By "textual" I > mean a raster chargen display as opposed to some earlier vector or > "graphic" displays which could build a few characters out of line > segments, but would flicker unusably for more than a few full lines of > text; and Tektronix storage tubes which solved the flicker problem at > the cost of taking a minute or several to draw each page, up to about > 80x120 (squarish) IIRC, which then could not be edited. A TEK 4019, with the high-res option, had an addressable matrix of 3072x4096 points. It was -not- a 'raster' device, but rather, a pure -vector- one. You didn't turn 'dots' on/off to make lines, you could connect _any_ pair of arbitrary points with an actual straight line. It also had hardware to draw actual circles (or arcs), given a center-point and a radius. In the smallest rendering from the on-board character generator, you got two columns of 80-column text. With about 60 (66?) lines in each column. Makes the quality of today's 'high resolution' 1280x1600 displays look like sh*t. At least when doing technical graphics, like architectural plans, or electronics schematics. The 3270 used "standard TV" video circuitry. Slightly tweaked. instead of 525 lines/frame interlaced, it used 262/field lines non-interlaced (equivalent to 524 lines/frame), 60 fields/sec. Of those 262 lines,242 were 'visible', giving a max vertical resolution of 242 dots. This allowed the use of 'commodity' components for the CRT and the sweep circuitry. As well as allowing for maintenance with 'standard' diagnostic and troubleshooting gear. The 3270 was a 'smart' terminal -- necessitated by IBM's "block mode" architecture -- and used 16 bits per displayed character. 1 byte for the character itself, and one byte for the 'attributes'. things like 'bright', 'blank', 'input', 'protected', etc. Thus 12x80 was all you could get with _one_ 2k RAM for video memory. The 3270 was engineered from day one to be a 24x80 display. The model 1 displayed a (manufactured) blank line between each line of 'real' text. > IBM was followed, closely in time, and I believe in numbers, by DEC's > VT50, VT52, and later VT100, which were also 24x80 standard; some > models had options for different sizes. (I think VT05 also but don't > recall for sure.) A number of third-party manufacturers also followed > 24x80 -- LearSiegler, Beehive, and PerkinElmer spring to mind, but I > know there were more I've forgotten. *LOTS* of em. Look in the 'termcap' file on any UNIX box -- the stock file includes entries for well over 100 types of terminals. Hazeltine, and Televideo were a couple of the other 'big boys'. > In addition to the third-party > clones of IBM which of course had to.) All of these were custom > designed and built video circuitry which could use whatever lines and > dots they chose, and never (AFAIK) used interlace. In particular some > of the later IBMs (3276/8) that I used fairly extensively had really > beautiful video, much crisper than you could get on a normal TV and > looking more like a good (and expensive!) laboratory oscilloscope -- > or a good computer (digital) or HD monitor of today. (Although the > systems those terminals connected to might be a different story. ) > In many cases they were actually 25 lines -- 24 data and one reserved > for terminal status, operation, and configuration. Virtually _everything_ up to the 'MDA' for the IBM PC used standard TV-type video raster circuitry. Tweaked slightly to eliminate the interlace, resulting in 242 visible lines out of 262 intervals. 60 Hz refresh. The video _signal_ circuit was nearly universally a higher bandwidth than a stock TV. Necessary to get 'crisp' rendering of 80 characters across the display. 40 characters was 'iffy' in TV video bandwidth. The 3276/8 was a VGA-class display. > It was over a decade later when hobbyist computers like Apple, Altair, > Imsai, Cromemco, Ohio Scientific wanted to use cheaply available > consumer TVs that the NTSC limits of about 240 lines usable per field Yes, and no. *Manufacturing* (including maintenance/repair/calibration) economies dictated the use of standard tubes and sweep-circuit componentry. > and 400-some dots usable per line in the standard video bandwidth of > ~4MHz became an issue, and yes 24x80 was pushing it and often less and > often only uppercase 5x7 or 5x9 was used. Building higher-bandwidth (well, within reason :) video amps is relatively cheap. which is all that is necessary to get crisp 80 col (or even 132 col) display, even at 'standard' sweep rates. 'TV video bandwidth' was an issue only when trying to use a 'consumer grade' TV device as the display output. even back in the 60's-70's, 'commercial grade' video monitors had response bandwidths well above 10mhz. more than sufficient for 'crisp' 80-col upper-lower display. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: The Wal-Mart Supremacy Date: 28 Sep 2004 08:23:24 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com John David Galt wrote > 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. Something to think about: Newsradio 1010wins.com reported (AP) a study by the Rand Corp that people who live in suburban sprawl are more likely to report chronic health problems like high blood pressure, arthitis, headaches, and breathing difficulties than residents of more compact cities. This was because people in cities walk more than people in sprawling suburbs. For the full story see: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SPRAWL_HEALTH?SITE=1010WINS&SECTION=HEALTH&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT Another issue of low density spread-out housing and commerce is the lower efficiency of running utility lines, since individual lines must be run in separate ducts or poles to each separate building. Years ago, the phone company charged suburban customers 20% more of the basic service charge because of this. To this day, there is still a price differential, but it represents a much lower percentage. Our suburban water rates -- for which we get very hard water -- are several times as high as the nearby big city water rates; despite the city govt having constant problems with corruption and incompetence. Despite all that, the big city manages to deliver water and take sewage much more cheaply than suburban private and municipal facilities are able to do. Perhaps economies of scale play a role -- the city water plants, tanks, and resevoirs are huge facilities. There certainly may be some attractive aspects to low density development, but there are just as certainly many costs to go along with it. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Instead of debating the merits or demerits of an urban versus a (sub)urban lifestyle, where in fact much of the suburban lifestyle is dictated by its big city neighbor, give some thought to an (ex)urban lifestyle. Independence is one such example. People have often times asked me 'what big city are you part of?' and the answer, frankly is 'none'. Tulsa, Oklahoma is the nearest 'big city', and it is 80 miles south of us. For cellular phone purposes and some other commercial enterprises, we are part of the 'Tulsa Market'. Wichita, KS is 110 miles northwest of us; Topeka, KS, our state capitol is a hundred plus miles north of us, and the KCMO metro area (which we tend to think of as sort of a foreign place) is 250 miles north of us. Southeast Kansas is a *very* rural area. With our population of eight thousand people, we are considered 'big town' to the tiny villages around us, who seem to be defined as 'Independence rural'. All those places get their water from us, their fire protection and (what little they need of it) their police services. So what 'big cities' get, or demand in the way of services, we have to make do for ourselves. But we do pretty well, minus the big city government corruption and politics. PAT] ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 06:10:40 GMT In message pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) wrote: > One thing that does occur to me -- security. Maybe I don't want someone > on the flight being able to call in the plane's exact position to > someone on the ground. I seem to remember that the maximum groundspeed > that terrestrial GPSes would work at was reduced at some point (I can > for a fact say that my old unit works beautifully up to at least > 500mph); maybe this is the reason. * Maybe ... But you are allowed to have a GPS, just not to use it -- I doubt terrorists on the plane are going to forget about their plans and leave their GPS turned off. To the book depository! -- Homer ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 18:22:36 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 On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 18:55:52 -0700 in comp.dcom.telecom, jdj wrote: > On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 02:55:18 +0000, Brian Inglis wrote: >> 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). > MythBusters did not test this. Their test was something completely > different: No vehicles or petrol pumps were involved. They attempted to cause ignition/explosion of gasoline vapour by calling a cell phone. 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: Phil Anderton Subject: Re: No Call Ref ID in SS7/C7 Why? Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 21:05:57 +0200 Organization: Peoples' Front of Judaea Thor Lancelot Simon wrote: > 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. It's been many years since I last looked at the specs, but I was thinking of the end-to-end method indicator which can be used to inform the other end which mechanisms (pass along and/or SCCP) are available. > 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. Well I've never seen the pass along method used in anger, but I'm pretty sure the PAM doesn't contain an MTP envelope, just the ISUP message itself. > 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. How about CCBS? That uses a TCAP/SCCP connection, so clearly the end switches must somehow exchange addresses and yes, some kind of call reference. I'm afraid I don't know/remember the details, but I have seen CCBS working successfully across network boundaries (GSM to ISDN). Phil It's perfectly ordinary banter, Squiffy. Bally Jerry...pranged his kite right in the how's yer father...hairy blighter, dicky-birdied, feathered back on his Sammy, took a waspy, flipped over on his Betty Harper's and caught his can in the Bertie. ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? Date: 28 Sep 2004 16:04:17 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > The single 5E in town, where there was once two xbars, handles eight > LEC exchanges and at least three CLEC exchanges. Really? I've heard of Bell handling switching for tiny independents (VZ North for Naushon Island, for example), but I've never heard of a LEC selling switching to a CLEC. ------------------------------ From: Truth Organization: http://www.truthaboutwar.com Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 15:45:53 GMT >> 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. This no longer works. Telemarketers display numbers like 555-555-5555 and then they get through, or they just say "this is an urgent message, please pick up" and then your phone rings anyway. What this service does, is make it difficult for friends and family trying to get through to you many times. If you can't see how wrong it is for the phone company to sell phone lines to telemarketers, then sell you some service that is supposed to block their calls, then you need to stand back and take a look at the whole picture. How can you even have a service like this, and national do not call lists unless the majority of people don't like to get telemarketing calls? So why not just make telemarketing ILLEGAL instead of allowing the problem, then trying to use duct tape to fix the problem you allowed to happen? Why not make murder legal, then just sell bullet proof windows and clothes to everyone? Because it makes more sense to make murder illegal, and not have everyone else have to wear bullet proof clothes all the time. THINK ... it causes many questions to be answered. >> "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? They say YOU go and get all sorts of information, like charity name, place of business address, and all sorts of things these telemarketers refuse to give you when you ask, so you are screwed. You are supposed to take all this info and sue the company. Not something most people are willing to take the time and effort to do. And the telemarketers know this. Laws only protect the criminals, never the victims. > 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. Of course. The other funny part is how Veterans of a superpower country need to ask and beg for donations because the government doesn't take care of them. You can always tell how good a country is by how well they take care of their veterans! > 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. They don't need any money. They get FREE publicity every single day on the news media. They don't have to spend one penny and they would still be the top two recognized candidates. The ONLY ones that need money, are the other parties that the press refuse to mention at all. > 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. You know how this works. You say they stopped, then after you say that, they start calling again. This doesn't work. The type of people that can live with themselves calling and bothering people in their homes, are the type of people that get enjoyment in calling people who beg for you to stop calling them. The more you beg for them to stop, the more they will call you over other people. This is their whole life. The only way to deal with law breakers is to play them on their own level. >> 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. You don't even realize you just helped prove my point, do you? Of course not. What good is the do not call list if all these thousands of companies can still call you? Go sit down and think about that for a while. THEN, add all the companies that don't care about the law or the do not call list. You know, the ones when you tell to stop calling you, continue to call you even more? Go put your head back in the sand and keep repeating to yourself everything your government preaches to you. > 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. No, again that is like allowing people to break into your house and steal stuff, so long as they have to wear a bright orange suit when doing so. The ONLY way to solve the problem of telemarketing, is to make telemarketing illegal and not allowed under any situation. > 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. Funny thing is, when a telemarketer calls, you are not even allowed free speech in your own home, because if you use offensive language, they will get outraged and demand you not use that language when speaking to them. They entered YOUR home and are telling you that you can't say what you want in your OWN HOME! Free speech only applies to the criminal, not to the victim. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: However, teleco is required as a common carrier to provide service to every qualified applicant. 'Qualified applicant' is defined under the tariff as any person or organzation who has demonstrated an ability and willingness to pay for the service. What do you want telco to do, ask you upon your application for service what you intend to talk about on the phone? Then if you state that you intend to sell things, refuse to give you the service? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 09:23:23 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) Gary Novosielski wrote in message news:telecom23.453.6@telecom-digest.org: > It's much better to require the companies to provide their REAL phone > number in the Caller ID than some fictitious number. Agreed. What's wrong with honesty? But it would be better yet to ban telemarketing altogether. The telephone is not a broadcast medium. Does *anybody* actually *want* to receive telemarketing calls? The do-not-call list is based on the fiction that not everybody wants telemarketers blocked. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Apparently some people *do* wish to recieve those phone calls. Apparently enough money is made from tele- marketing phone calls that an entire science has been developed around it, as to location (telemarketers prefer a 'bland' midwestern English speaker, preferably a white person so that the telemarketer's speech and accent patterns do not get them off 'on the wrong foot' to start with.) No southern accents, no east-coast accents, no 'black speech patterns' allowed. The telemarketers feel their job is to work with and make sales regardless of the prejudice possible in the person they are speaking with. A telemarketer, to be successful, does not have five seconds to waste on a person who is (even more than usual) unlikely to purchase from them because a (name your ethnic prejudice) called them. And you cannot ban telemarketing totally, even if everyone wanted to be listed on the 'do not call list'. Any qualified applicant for a phone is entitled to have one and you cannot ask what the person intends to talk about on the telephone before allowing them to have an instrument. 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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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #454 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Sep 29 11:57:42 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8TFvg213594; Wed, 29 Sep 2004 11:57:42 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 11:57:42 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409291557.i8TFvg213594@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 #455 TELECOM Digest Wed, 29 Sep 2004 11:56:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 455 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson 3Com Unveils New Wireless Switch Products; Large-Scale, Secure (Solomon) Hackers Target Microsoft's JPEG Flaw (Monty Solomon) Calls to 711 (Deaf Message Service) Are Being Blocked (Jim Willis) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (jdj) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Al Gillis) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Scott Dorsey) Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? (Tony P.) Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? (Fred Goldstein) Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? (jdj) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Wesrock@aol.com) Re: No Call Ref ID in SS7/C7 Why? (Ariel Burbaickij) Re: What's Lurking In Your PC? (Scott Dorsey) 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, 28 Sep 2004 23:59:35 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: 3Com Unveils New Wireless Switch Products for Large-Scale, Secure 3Com Unveils New Wireless Switch Products for Large-Scale, Secure Enterprise Wireless Deployments MARLBOROUGH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 28, 2004-- 3Com Provides More Details on Blueprint for Integrating Wired and Wireless Networks; Interoperability Allows Enterprise Customers to Choose Best-of-Breed Wireless Deployments 3Com Corporation (Nasdaq: COMS) today announced product details of its new wireless switch solutions for enterprise customers. As part of 3Com's enterprise wireless "blueprint" and forming a complete enterprise wireless offering, the new 3Com(R) wireless switch solutions include an enterprise-class wireless switch, a large enterprise wireless controller, mobility system software, mobility management software and new managed access points (APs). These products combine together to provide higher levels of wireless security and mobility, simplified and centralized management of complex wireless LAN environments, higher network availability, fast roaming with quality of service (QoS) and class of service (CoS), standards-based deployment flexibility, and "pay as you grow" network scalability. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43898916 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 00:03:06 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Hackers Target Microsoft's JPEG Flaw NEW YORK (AP) -- In a harbinger of security threats to come, hackers have exploited a newly announced flaw in Microsoft Corp. programs and begun circulating malicious code hidden in images that use the popular JPEG format. Software tools to create the malicious images began appearing last month, and this week security experts saw images employing them posted on adult-oriented Usenet newsgroups. To get the malicious code, a visitor must download the image and view it using Microsoft's Windows Explorer software, said Oliver Friedrichs, senior manager with Symantec Security Response. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43917559 ------------------------------ Reply-To: Jim Willis From: Jim Willis Subject: Calls to 711 (Deaf Message Service) Are Being Blocked Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 23:56:40 -0400 I have read the digest off and on over the years and I have searched the archives and don't see this question right off. A deaf person moved into a care facility and they asked me to see what was up when they could not get the relay service. They pay $20.00 monthly for phone service that goes through a PBX/CENTREX -- (Dial 9 before number you are calling) Long distance is ok -- you will be billed for it as an incidental on your bill. If you dial 9-711 the call does not complete. All other long distance and local calls and toll free calls complete. Is this a common programming bug on PBX/CENTREX ? Has anyone run into this kind of thing before in the USA or CANADA ? Kind regards, Jim Willis - jwillis@drlogick.com ------------------------------ From: jdj Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 16:52:55 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 18:22:36 +0000, Brian Inglis wrote: > On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 18:55:52 -0700 in comp.dcom.telecom, jdj > wrote: >> On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 02:55:18 +0000, Brian Inglis wrote: >>> 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). >> MythBusters did not test this. Their test was something completely >> different: No vehicles or petrol pumps were involved. > They attempted to cause ignition/explosion of gasoline vapour by calling > a cell phone. Exactly. ------------------------------ From: Al Gillis Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 18:23:27 -0700 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com > [TEELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Much snippage, then...) > to the terrorist his reward with all those virgins in heaven, etc. Oh! I thought it was lots of Virginians in heaven! I feel a lot better about it now! ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: 29 Sep 2004 10:00:26 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Lisa Hancock wrote: > 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. It does. With FM radios it is a particularly serious problem, because of the way the superhet design works. The radio's front end has a local oscillator which operates either 10.7 MHz above or below the FM band. It mixes the adjustable local oscillator with the radio signal to form a difference frequency at 10.7 MHz which then goes into an intermediate frequency fixed receiver chain at 10.7 MHz. This means you get a lot of junk slightly above and slightly below the FM band floating around. And right above the FM band are the aircraft navigation frequencies, and then slightly farther up the VHF aircraft comm frequencies. Even a slight possibility of interference with these is a serious issue. Older cheap radios would leak a lot of LO signal and trash. Newer radios tend to use an IC front end that has somewhat less leakage just because the power level of the LO and mixer stage is so much less. > 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. BART had enough serious control system problems that radios were the least of their possible worries. But it's possible they may at one time have forbidden the use of two-way radios on board while they were trying to figure the problems out. It sounds to me just like a police officer who was trying to do his job but without any real understanding of the actual policy or the risks involved. But to be honest, I don't know the policy either. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? Organization: ATCC Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 21:40:10 GMT In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com says: > Stanley Cline wrote: >> 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. > What I was told that the superior remote maintenance facility of ESS > vs. electro mechanical was a big factor. AFAIK, when changing a > number or services for a customer, an office visit by a craftsman is > needed on electro mechanical to reroute wires from the distributing > frame. However, on ESS, that is all done electronically. Also, SxS > requires periodic maintenance since it is mechanical moving parts; ESS > does not. When a craftsman has to drive a considerable distance to > service something like that, the savings are significant. > Some other rural areas may not be as rural anymore and facing growth. > Going to ESS over SxS allows a bigger switch to fit in the same size > building, saving expensive building expansion. I wonder -- how often do the reed relays on the #1ESS need to be replaced? They are technically a mechanical device. We didn't get true digital until the #4ESS tandem and then the #5ESS gave us pure digital switch fabric for POTS services. Interestingly a properly configured #5ESS can also be a tandem too, as can the DMS switches by Nortel. In article , jdj@now.here says... > On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 12:44:51 -0700, Lisa Hancock wrote: >> Some other rural areas may not be as rural anymore and facing growth. >> Going to ESS over SxS allows a bigger switch to fit in the same size >> building, saving expensive building expansion. > Another advantage of the modern ESS, such as a 5E, is that the switch can > be spread around geographically. > The first I saw of this was a 5E used as a PBX. Parts of the switch were > in distant buildings. That increased line capacity enormously. > In the outskirts of this town, Pa Bell did not lay new cable with the > new housing. They just put the line and group cards in the field and > used the old telephone pairs for trunks. But things grew beyond the > normal capacity and instead of laying more cable or replacing copper > with fiber, they took the cheap way out and started using > pairgain. Very soon there will be too many new lines even for > pairgain. Maybe they'll figure out how to do DS3 over a copper pair by > then? > The only fiber out here now belongs to ATT Long Lines (or whatever > they call it now) and the cable company. > Modern switches also can handle multiple exchanges. Where mechanical > switches could handle only one exchange or prefix, the modern ESS can > take many more. The single 5E in town, where there was once two xbars, > handles eight LEC exchanges and at least three CLEC exchanges. Right now PRVDRIWADS2, a Northern Telecom DMS-100 here in Providence has 51 exchanges that it handles. It is also the access tandem for most of the surrounding communities. > Another nearby GTE city had a SxS and I would call into just to hear > it translate too. I would dial in with DTMF, which would be translated > to pulse + MF, then to pulse. Then there was that Continental > Telephone switch that let one hear it hunting for dialtone, translate > to and from DTMF, translate a toll number to a routing code, etc. One > could tell whether a called number was busy before the connection was > completed. I used to wish I lived there. > Don't get me started on old switches ... I remember when the Pawtucket, RI CO was on #5Xbar. That was a noisy beast. You could hear it doing everything. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 18:43:27 -0400 From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? At 9/28/2004 05:40 PM, John Levine wrote: aside: John's picture ran large in today's Boston Globe! >> The single 5E in town, where there was once two xbars, handles eight >> LEC exchanges and at least three CLEC exchanges. > Really? I've heard of Bell handling switching for tiny independents > (VZ North for Naushon Island, for example), but I've never heard of a > LEC selling switching to a CLEC. I suppose this aspect of local competition isn't that well known, but indeed the way many competitive programs, including MCI's The Neighborhood, work is by using ILEC switching. This is called UNE Platform, when the ILEC provides the CLEC with all of the basic telephone service, at cost-based wholesale rates. Because the CLEC, not the ILEC, is the carrier of record (they're merely outsourcing components to the ILEC, albeit all of them), the CLEC gets the Switched Access revenue from the long distance providers. That's why it's so critical to nationwide long distance plans! And because local usage is on a cost, not tariff, basis, high "zone" and local charges don't apply -- so a UNE-P CLEC can afford to sell flat-rate local service in New York City, with no zone charges to the suburbs. UNE Platform began when the Democratic-majority FCC that first implemented the Telecom Act interpreted it to require incumbents to provide, as unbundled network elements, all of the elements used to provide Plain Old Telephone Service, as well as Centrex service. (Voice mail and DSL were not included.) This was challenged in court but the Supreme Court in 1998 upheld it. Thus the network elements included the local loop, the local switch, "shared" interoffice transport between the local switch and other switches in the local calling area, tandem switching, signaling, and operator service. So a lot of CLECs have set up shop to sell this. It has both good and bad aspects, depending perhaps on how you view them! UNEs are priced at a cost-based rate (a complex formula called Total Element Long Run Incremental Cost), without regard to ILEC tariff rates. So where ILEC margins are highest, the CLEC can sell UNE-P at a good margin and still undercut the ILEC. This annoys the ILECs to no end, though I think it potentially has the benefit of forcing the ILECs -- and their regulators -- to set their own prices closer to cost. UNE-P also lets a small CLEC sell service in places where they have too few customers to install any facilities of their own. (Without UNE-P, you can't break even as a facilities-based CLEC without a lot of lines in a give wire center. Too much common cost per CO.) So it brings competition to the sticks. But it isn't "true" competition, in the sense of using separate capital plant. It's physically a form of resale, and the ILECs don't like it. The current FCC chairman, Michael Powell considers that latter detail to be absolutely determinative, and he has resolved to kill UNE-P. It's still being fought out. Already, unbundled local switching is being limited to "retail", rather than "enterprise", in many areas, with a maximum of four lines per end user. That kills the UNE-P Centrex and PBX trunk (ISDN PRI and other T1) business. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This system -- UNE-P -- is what our local telco, Prairie Stream Communications does. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jdj Subject: Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 16:57:42 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 16:04:17 -0400, John R. Levine wrote: >> The single 5E in town, where there was once two xbars, handles eight >> LEC exchanges and at least three CLEC exchanges. > Really? I've heard of Bell handling switching for tiny independents (VZ > North for Naushon Island, for example), but I've never heard of a LEC > selling switching to a CLEC. Sorry, I should have clarified that it only handles routing for CLEC customers. No Bell wants a CLEC to use their switch. ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 20:36:50 EDT Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? In a message dated Mon, 27 Sep 2004 05:10:01 GMT Dave Thompson writes: > On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 13:51:34 +0000, bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com > (Robert Bonomi) wrote: >> 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 -- > Right; see below. (Except they were mostly used locally and called > displays not terminals.) >> 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. Those who remember teletypewriter circuits, including TWX and Telex, will no doubt recognize: A QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPED OVER THE LAZY DOG'S BACK 1234567890 XX SENDING which among, other things, tested whether the TTY was correctly set for 80 columns and that the 80th column was not jammed. (Note that THE and A can be interchanged, but one must be THE and the other A.) (This test also determined that all characters of the alphabet were printing and that the shift-unshift function was working correctly.) The teletypewriter was in existence for several decades before computers, and its punched-tape technology was also well established. It was an ideal input-output device before punched cards and CRT displays took over. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com ------------------------------ From: ariel.burbaickij@gmail.com (Ariel Burbaickij) Subject: Re: No Call Ref ID in SS7/C7 Why? Date: 29 Sep 2004 01:33:01 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) wrote in message news:: > In article , Ariel Burbaickij > wrote: > > tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) wrote in message > news:: >> Excuse me but I do not see hop by hop nature as the main hurdle for >> defining unique call id. One obvious solution would be to include some >> number unique to the originating switch (its pointcode?) plus gmt plus >> some random value. > It's not a "hurdle", it's the reason there's no _need for_ a unique > call ID: because there is already a unique tuple identifying any call, > for the duration of that call: OPC, DPC, TCIC. Between any pair of switchs (on one leg) -- sure. How about the whole path? OPC/DPC can be reused in the national plane and CIC surely also. So unfortunately I would say even so they do identify one leg of call setup pretty unambigiously, this is not a replacement for end-to-end unique identifier. > This tuple is different between any pair of switches in the call > path, but because the standard makes very clear the ordering of the > messages (and message reordering is severely restricted) and the > transitions in the call state machine you can nonetheless follow a > call from A to Z through the network, using OPC, DPC, TCIC for every > pair of switches involved. Yes. You can do it without any doubt and standard SS7 diagnostic tools can do it also. But in my opinion they out of necessity utilize some kind oh heuristic that maybe gives you 99.9% of calls right but what about 0.01% one does care about most? I do not see any mecahnism in current ISUP that is 100% relaible replacement for call ref id. > I said current because it is present in B-ISUP very well. > Standard SS7 diagnostic tools, in fact, do exactly this. As I pointed > out in my earlier message, the treatment of the SLS field in most > national variants is intended, in point of fact, to make it easier to > catch the right messages for any call even when debugging with an > extremely simplistic protocol analyzer -- or even by hand (believe me, > I've done it). >> Not always ISUP is actually hop-by-hop as you surely know. ISUP over >> SCCP will give you end-to-end nature. > That depends what meaning, exactly, you put to "end-to-end". In > practice, even when run over SCCP, ISUP signaling is necessarily > logically hop-by-hop with the hops corresponding to the hops in the > actual voice path -- as it has to be, because *the trunks must be > allocated hop by hop* and that is exactly what ISUP does. Even if you > are running ISUP over SCCP, except in extraordinarily simple networks > (in other words, *not real world networks*) the calling party's end > office switch cannot know _a priori_ the entire path the call will > take through the network even if it could know the address of the > called party's end-office switch; so trunk signalling _can only_ > proceed hop-by-hop, which is what it does. Terribly sorry about it but I do not see the fact that path must be set hop-by-hop (as it must be set almost everywhere) as the reason for preclusion of call ref id tag in the setup message. >> Sure, for one link. What about debbuging which involves several >> switches. How are you going to guess which messages belong toghether >> in such an environment? > This is easy, and it's done all the time. You get into the links > between the switches in the call path and you find the messages in > ascending time order that have the right calling and called party ID > and that are in the right state in the call state machine (for > example, IAM and RLC will cascade through the network in an obvious > way). There are a few -- very few -- corner cases where things can > get a little tricky, but in practice the order of trunk allocation on > all major-vendor switches guarantees that you don't see them. > This is not rocket science. Telco personnel do it all the time, in > busy networks. Students in Telcordia protocol classes do it _by > hand_, which is tedious but entirely possible. Yes, I have done it myself and know that it works in the majority of the cases. Once again, are you sure that this mechanism always works relaibly? By reliable I mean something you can present in the court as the evidence should it be necessary. > Most good SS7 protocol analyzers do it automatically, for what it's > worth. Even the old HP sets that are often used as teaching tools > have features intended to help with this. I assure you, it works. > In practice, one very quickly zeroes in on a particular hop in the > call path when diagnosing SS7 or trunk troubles; so really, very > little time is spent trying to chasx calls end-to-end anyway. > You mention "ISUP over ISUP" as an example of end-to-end ISUP > signalling. With the exception of the incompletely-specified > pass-along message (PAM) that I referred to before, I'm not entirely > sure I know what you mean. Can you give me more details? It was not me, it was Phil ;-). I have never worked with PAM so I cannot say anything about it. I told about ISUP-over-SCCP only. > One thing that bears remembering about ISUP is that when it was > designed, compact encoding of messages was a major concern -- there > was serious grumbling already about the link upgrades that would be > required in order to handle the increases in message size compared to > the original CCIS that it replaced. Another thing to keep in mind is > that later protocols in the same protocol suite have much more in > common with computer data protocols of the mid 1980s (e.g. extensive > use of ASN.1 encoding) than with ISUP, which is really best understood > as a slight tweak of the rather ugly result of tearing CCIS apart into > two (or did I mean three? ;-)) layers for standardization. So > niceties that one expects from other protocols, e.g. an end-to-end > transaction ID, aren't likely to be there unless they're really > needed; and it's not tremendously surprising to me that in this case, > the judgment was that that feature was not. Well, the question is: was ISUP something like gap stopper or was it designed for years to come. If it was decided to upgrade despite all the grumbling I would try to do it right the first time (actually it was not first time at all), so that further upgrades are at least less painful. So to summarize: I still find the fact that ISUP does not have call ref id at least as very pity let us hope that this will not become essential short-coming under some circumstances. With Best Regards, Ariel Burbaickij > Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: What's Lurking In Your PC? Date: 29 Sep 2004 10:16:23 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Monty Solomon wrote: > 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 Although this article does briefly mention the advantage of going to a less popular browser, it neglects to mention that this is almost exclusively a problem related to IE, and it has entirely to do with hooks built into IE to allow remote execution. From Microsoft's standpoint, this is a feature and not a bug. Eliminating IE eliminates the problem. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ 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 #455 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Sep 29 22:05:50 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8U25o818476; Wed, 29 Sep 2004 22:05:50 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 22:05:50 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409300205.i8U25o818476@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 #456 TELECOM Digest Wed, 29 Sep 2004 21:57:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 456 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Judge Rules Against Patriot Act Provision (Lisa Minter) Paper Tape Technology was What is the Name of #? (AES/newspost) Re: No Call Ref ID in SS7/C7 Why? (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Lisa Hancock) Re: Help Needed With Wireless NetGear 802.11b Device (jdj) Re: Movies/Documentaries That Feature Crossbar, Panel, SxS (S Dorsey) Re: Out of Area Calls (Truth) Terminals and 80 Column Cards (Julian Thomas) Re: Out of Area Calls (T. Sean Weintz) Touch Tone Decoders, Cell Phone Detectors, Jammers, More (007) Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? (John McHarry) Cheap Prepaid Online Phone Cards For Sale (IDPCphonecards) 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: Judge Rules Against Patriot Act Provision Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 20:35:57 EDT U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero, in the first decision against a surveillance portion of the act, ruled for the American Civil Liberties Union in its challenge against what it called "unchecked power" by the FBI to demand confidential customer records from communication companies, such as Internet service providers or telephone companies. Marrero, stating that "democracy abhors undue secrecy," found that the law violates constitutional prohibitions against unreasonable searches. He said it also violated free speech rights by barring those who received FBI demands from disclosing they had to turn over records. Because of this gag order, the ACLU initially had to file its suit against the Department of Justice under seal to avoid penalties for violation of the surveillance laws. Although the ACLU's suit was filed on behalf of AOL, TerraWorld and other internet service providers the ruling could apply to other entities that have received FBI secretive subpoenas, known as national security letters. The ACLU said that the Patriot Act provision was worded so broadly that it could effectively be used to obtain the names of customers of Web sites such as Amazon.com or eBay, or a political organization's membership list, or even the names of sources that a journalist has contacted by e-mail. "This is a landmark victory against the Ashcroft Justice Department's misguided attempt to intrude into the lives of innocent Americans in the name of national security," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero. "Even now, some in Congress are trying to pass additional intrusive law enforcement powers. This decision should put a halt to those efforts," he said. PATRIOT ACT He said the suit was one of the ACLU's legal battles to block certain sections of the Patriot Act that went "too far, too fast." The FBI has had power to issue national security letters demanding customers records from communication companies since 1986. These letters do not require court supervision, but the FBI could at first only seek such private information if the subject was suspected of being a foreign spy. In 1993, Congress expanded the powers further to include people who communicated with suspected spies or terrorists. But a section of the Patriot Act -- a controversial law the Bush administration pushed through Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to help it battle terrorism -- gave the FBI even more power to obtain information through these letters. In his ruling, Marrero prohibited the Department of Justice and the FBI from issuing the national security letters, but delayed enforcement of his judgment pending an expected appeal by the government. The Department of Justice said it was reviewing the ruling. The decision is the latest blow to the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that terror suspects being held in U.S. facilities like Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, can use the American judicial system to challenge their confinement. That ruling was a defeat for the president's assertion of sweeping powers to hold "enemy combatants" indefinitely after the Sept. 11 attacks. *** 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: AES/newspost Subject: Paper Tape Technology Was: What is the Name of #? Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 10:07:17 -0700 In article , Wesrock@aol.com wrote: > The teletypewriter was in existence for several decades before > computers, and its punched-tape technology was also well established. > It was an ideal input-output device before punched cards and CRT > displays took over. Very similar punched tape technology was also used -- probably still is widely used -- in those traffic counting units that use a rubber hose tacked down across the roadway and a box by the side of the road. A classic clockwork mechanism inside the box (spring-wound or battery powered? -- I don't know, but I'd guess the former) slowly winds a paper tape from one reel to another. Each time a car runs over the hose the resulting pneumatic impulse pushes an arm which punches a hole in the paper. As an undergrad at Harvard, Bill Gates wrote software to read and count these punched holes (a task complicated slightly by the fact that they are randomly spaced along the paper tape) and set up a company ("Traf-O-Data", I believe) located in his dorm room which received these tapes, read them using bootlegged time on Aiken's early Harvard University computer facility, and sent back printed reports to traffic engineers all over the company. (Above is written from memory, so take cum grano salid, but I think it's basically a correct story -- corrections welcome.) ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: No Call Ref ID in SS7/C7 Why? Date: 29 Sep 2004 13:18:52 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , Ariel Burbaickij wrote: >> This is not rocket science. Telco personnel do it all the time, in >> busy networks. Students in Telcordia protocol classes do it _by >> hand_, which is tedious but entirely possible. > Yes, I have done it myself and know that it works in the majority > of the cases. Once again, are you sure that this mechanism always > works relaibly? By reliable I mean something you can present in the > court as the evidence should it be necessary. Given that time in telco networks is extremely tightly controlled, and that the order of trunk allocation on the switches at each hop is also known _a priori_ I think the answer is "yes". But that does not mean that it is necessarily _easy_. > Well, the question is: was ISUP something like gap stopper > or was it designed for years to come. If it was decided > to upgrade despite all the grumbling I would try to do > it right the first time (actually it was not first time > at all), so that further upgrades are at least less > painful. What I think we disagree about here is whether or not your definition of "right" was the one in use by the people who designed the protocol. In fact, I think their definition of "right" had a lot more to do with conserving link bandwidth than it did to do with the ease of following a call end-to-end through the network using diagnostic tools; and by _that_ definition, I think it is entirely understandable that they omitted the feature that by your definition is necessary in order to "do it right". 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: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: 29 Sep 2004 10:54:10 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote > Sorry, there is use that predates the personal computer -- with a > modem on a dial-up to a mainframe time-sharing service. 'Terminal' is > the correct word. Correct, they were called terminals, a word that included Teletypes that were used in the early days. > The point being that the cards were _designed_ to accommodate that > printing, One of the early IBM 'interpreters' (an O49 or was that a > sorter?) could only print 40 columns in a pass; had to change the > program on the plugboard to get the other 40 columns. And change > where the printing fell on the card, so it didn't write over the first > 40 characters. :) I'm not certain, but back in 1928 when the modern punch card was invented by IBM, I don't think there was any kind of printing mechanism for cards. Remember, initially the cards were numeric only and the upper field (the "zone") was used only for control characters. I suspect the uppermost space was just a margin to give a punched card strength or a place for handwritten notes. In the 1930s IBM developed a more sophisticated line of tab machines. Included was an printing alpha key punch. The 1948 line of interpreters were NOT intended to print one character per column -- the width of the printed character was slightly wider than a column. Only 60 characters would fit on the top and 20 would have to go on the next line. In practice, the interpreters were programmed by the plug panel to print selected fields in certain places, and could do so all over the card. They could also print a big number sideways on the side edge so the card could be filed vertically. Also, most IBM lines of keypunches included printing and non printing models, and the non-printers were cheaper. BTW, one advtg of the punched card system was that it was easy and cheap to have "on-line" file access. They'd just punch out and interpret and sort a deck of cards containing key data. Clerks would receive phone requests and pull up the cards in a tube file. Changes would be processed through the tab system. It should be noted that until the 1980s, the above was cheaper and faster than developing a "modern" CICS solution on a real computer. >> So did IBM, later, around the S/34 or S/36 IIRC, not too long before >> punch cards passed out of mainstream usage altogether. IBM's System/32,34,36 did not use cards at all. The mini cards were used on the IBM System/3. As an aside, the language used on IBM's System/3x through the present day AS/400 is RPG, which dates back to 1960 and the IBM 1401. The language was intended to mimic the wiring of a tab machine control panel so tab operators could make the transition to programming. > The 3270 was a 'smart' terminal -- necessitated by IBM's "block mode" > architecture -- and used 16 bits per displayed character. 1 byte for > the character itself, and one byte for the 'attributes'. things like > 'bright', 'blank', 'input', 'protected', etc. It's funny how today we call 3270-type terminals (still in very wide use) "dumb terminals" when in fact they were not. A Teletype was more "dumb" since it basically transmitted or received upon a keystroke, while the 3270 network had buffers, could erase and insert characters, and as mentioned had different appearances. [There were advanced Teletypes that could do some fancy stuff. Some 3270 functions were handled by the controller unit that was required and supported a group of terminals.] The Bell System had a heck of a lot of private lines serving business data communications. A big difference was that IBM liked synchornous transmission while many other computers, including common PC transmissions used asynchronous transmission. I don't know which is superior. We had 3rd party imitation IBM 3270 units but IMHO they weren't as good as real IBM units. However, they were a lot cheaper. I don't see any "dumb terminals" anymore, it seems almost everyone now has a PC with an emulation program/card imitating a 3270 terminal. In the early days of PCs, I refused to use a PC with a CGA screen as a 3270 terminal since it was so fuzzy compared to a real terminal. (Actually, I shied away from CGA PCs altogether.) Over time, the cost of 3270-type units and controllers dropped quite a bit in price while modem speed increased. ------------------------------ From: jdj Subject: Re: Help Needed With Wireless NetGear 802.11b Device Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 11:56:37 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com I found the link for opening the MA401: http://www.nodomainname.co.uk/ma401/ma401.htm The Intersil link at the bottom is dead. Another page with interesting wireless links: http://www.nodomainname.co.uk/cantenna/cantenna.htm They filed themselves with the MSDS collection somehow. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: While that link is very good, and quite illustrative, it involves something I do not do these days; use solder and microscopic parts. I just get too nervous and likely botch things up. For me, its *not* like before my brain aneurysm. However I did see something I want to ask the experts about: When you first 'set up' the base unit (combination router and wireless stuff) you are asked "what country will this be used in?" and you get a drop down menu of choices including USA, Canada, a few countries in Europe, Asia, etc. Then whichever choice you make, you are warned it had better be the right choice. I wondered why NetGear is so picky about your choice of countries. Surely it would not have to do with the frequency the base was operating on, would it? More than likely it would be the *power you were permitted to use* while on the same frequencies, wouldn't it? So if I moved to Asia I would be entitled legally to use that setting on the 'set up' menu of the router. To test it, and see what I could expect when I move to Asia, I tried setting the base on that spot and it did seem to have a wee, little bit more reliability when I sat in my parlor rocking chair or went out in the back yard. That 'Asia setting' along with the tin foil reflector I built *seems to* make it less cranky and contrary. Advice from the experts, please? PAT] ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Movies/Documentaries That Feature Crossbar, Panel, or SxS? Date: 29 Sep 2004 15:59:30 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Gene S. Berkowitz wrote: >In article , jdj@now.here says: >> 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. > THX-1138, which is now in theatrical re-release, contains a scene with > Robert Duvall wandering through a very large switch. As well as a nice video post suite. Can anyone tell me what the scenes of the computer Alpha, in the film Alphaville really are? They look like the remains of a half-destroyed switch. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: Truth Organization: http://www.xxx.com Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 21:00:00 GMT >> It's much better to require the companies to provide their REAL phone >> number in the Caller ID than some fictitious number. > Agreed. What's wrong with honesty? Look, up to recently, all telemarketers came in as "out of area" or "unknown caller" (same thing depending on your caller ID box manufacturer). You could purchase caller ID boxes or phones that would not allow any calls with this marker through, could forward them to digital messages telling them not to call back, divert them to fax noises, SIT tones, whatever. Now that the government makes them identify with numbers, all telemarketers come through differently and you can't block them before they call, because you don't know what number they will be using. At least making a new caller ID code (private, out of area, TELEMARKETER) that all phone companies would be forced to have telemarketers lines send out, would make them again easy to intercept with home caller ID equipment. > But it would be better yet to ban telemarketing altogether. NOW you got it! > The telephone is not a broadcast medium. Correct. I can chose not to listen to any broadcasts I find offensive or don't want to listen to, yet the government is more concerned with getting Howard Stern off the air, then stopping telemarketers, which just makes no sense at all. Howard Stern doesn't bother you in your home when you are eating, can't wake you up when you are sleeping by ringing your phone, he can only enter your home if you take the time to tune him in on a radio and choose to hear him. Telemarketers can invade your home without your permission, without you WANTING to hear them and they are hundreds of times more offensive. Yet which does the government try to stop? > Does *anybody* actually *want* to receive telemarketing calls? Of course not. The record amount of people registering on the DO NOT CALL lists proved this. Yet instead of having a list in which the one or two people who like to receive calls could be put on for telemarketers to have permission to call, the government does it backwards and makes the majority of people have to register, then after all that, makes most telemarketers EXEMPT from the DO NOT CALL law anyway, making the entire thing a big joke and enormous waste of time and tax dollars. > The do-not-call list is based on the fiction that not everybody > wants telemarketers blocked. Let's make a DO NOT MURDER list so that everyone that doesn't want to be murdered could register for, then allow murderers to go ahead and kill anyone that is not on the list. What we do, is just make murder illegal, and forget about a ridiculous list. Let's do the same for telemarketing. ------------------------------ From: Julian Thomas Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 17:24:11 -0400 Subject: Terminals and 80 Column Cards Pat - please obscure my email address as usual - thanks. Robert Bonomi wrote about Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? on Tue, 28 Sep 2004 07:02:35 GMT > The point being that the cards were _designed_ to accommodate that > printing, One of the early IBM 'interpreters' (an O49 or was that a > sorter?) could only print 40 columns in a pass; had to change the > program on the plugboard to get the other 40 columns. And change where > the printing fell on the card, so it didn't write over the first 40 > characters. :) Close (I'm not sure about the machine model number), but it actually printed 60 columns in a pass. Only machine that fed 12 edge first face up. Julian Thomas: 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 "I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam!" - C. Babbage ------------------------------ From: T. Sean Weintz Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 17:54:45 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: However, teleco is required as a common > carrier to provide service to every qualified applicant. 'Qualified > applicant' is defined under the tariff as any person or organization > who has demonstrated an ability and willingness to pay for the service. > What do you want telco to do, ask you upon your application for > service what you intend to talk about on the phone? Then if you state > that you intend to sell things, refuse to give you the service? PAT] If they pass a law making telemarketing illegal, of course they must: Simply change the tariff definition of 'qualified applicant" from those who have demonstrated an ability to pay to those who can pay and will not use the service for illegal purposes. And yes, have the person who takes the new service orders ask if they intend to use the line for telemarketing, and deny service if they answer "yes". Better yet, make them sign an acceptable use policy as ISP's do. ------------------------------ From: info@infopro.tv (007) Subject: Touch Tone Decoders, Cell Phone Detectors, Jammers, etc. Date: 29 Sep 2004 15:20:06 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Portable Touch-Tone Decorder. Decodes And Displays Telephone Number From Tape Recorded Calls. The new hand-held 16 digit touch-tone Decorder with built-in microphone, decodes touch-tones from any on-air source, scanner or cassette tape. The resulting tape from your Telephone Recording System has many touch-tones that sometimes need to be identified. With the Portable Decorder, simply play the tape ... and the numbers will immediately appear on the LCD. What makes this decoder unique is the built-in microphone. Any "on- the-air" tone will be immediately decoded and displayed on the LCD. No connections are necessary! Should you need to decode via patch cord, an input is provided. Powered by a 9-volt battery. (not included). Dimensions: 6" x 2 1/4" x 1". We accept paypal, Money Gram and United States postal money orders. Free shipping in USA. Contact me by email if you want a free price quote. You don't have to be 007 to own what I have to offer. To see everything I offer please visit both of my web stores. The Pros Investigative Information Service And Spy Gadgets. http://www.ioffer.com/selling/infopros The Pros Spy Gadgets Shop. http://www.ioffer.com/selling/infopro ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 23:09:16 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Tony P. wrote: > I wonder -- how often do the reed relays on the #1ESS need to be > replaced? They are technically a mechanical device. Yes. It is architecturaly a computer driven crossbar, although the reed switches replace the traditional crosspoints. > We didn't get true digital until the #4ESS tandem and then the #5ESS > gave us pure digital switch fabric for POTS services. Interestingly a > properly configured #5ESS can also be a tandem too, as can the DMS > switches by Nortel. The Nortel DMS-10 and DMS-100 preceded at least the 5ESS. I think the DMS-200, the tandem, preceded the 4ESS, but I am not certain. ------------------------------ From: IDPCphonecards@hotmail.com (IDPCphonecards) Subject: Cheap Prepaid Online Phone Cards For Sale Date: 29 Sep 2004 17:41:27 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com We have Cheap Prepaid Phone cards for sale $4.6 for $5 phone cards: www.idpcphonecards.com ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #456 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Sep 30 15:26:10 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8UJQAj26794; Thu, 30 Sep 2004 15:26:10 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 15:26:10 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409301926.i8UJQAj26794@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 #457 TELECOM Digest Thu, 30 Sep 2004 15:26:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 457 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson U.S. Secret Search Ruling Appeal Likely (Lisa Minter) Federal Judge Strikes Down Part of PATRIOT Act (Monty Solomon) CDT Urges FCC to Stand By Approval of TiVo (Monty Solomon) RadioSHARK - AM/FM Radio with Time Shift Recording (Monty Solomon) Fireman Claims Radio Failure Nearly Killed Him (Lisa Hancock) Can Anyone Recommend a "Pay As You Go" Economy Cell Phone? (Ava Cohen) Need Help With External Port (Leander Vanhulle) Lucent DSL MAX 20 Packet Loss (Daniel Eyholzer) Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest (Michael Quinn) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Lisa Hancock) Re: Paper Tape Technology Was: What is the Name of #? (John Levine) Re: Calls to 711 (Deaf Message Service) Are Being Blocked (Steve Sobol) Re: Calls to 711 (Deaf Message Service) Are Being Blocked (Al Gillis) Is CDT Now Open to All Sales Pitches? (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: Lisa Minter Subject: U.S. Secret Search Ruling Appeal Likely Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 11:07:33 EDT By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer NEW YORK - In a blow to the Justice Department's post-Sept. 11 powers, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero on Wednesday struck down the provision that let the FBI gather phone and Web customer records but barred service providers from ever disclosing the search took place. Ashcroft, in the Netherlands to meet with European Union officials, said he would study the decision upon returning to Washington, but "it's almost a certainty it will be appealed." "We believe the act to be completely consistent with the United States Constitution," he told reporters. While Marrero called national security of "paramount value" and said the government "must be empowered to respond promptly and effectively" to threats, he also called personal security equal in importance and "especially prized in our system of justice." The decision is the second time a judge has ruled unconstitutional part of the Patriot Act, a package of prosecution and surveillance tools passed shortly after the terrorism of Sept. 11, 2001. In January, a federal judge in Los Angeles struck down a section of the act that made it a crime to give "expert advice or assistance" to groups designated foreign terrorist organizations. The judge said the language was too vague, threatening First and Fifth Amendment rights. American Civil Liberties Union attorney Jameel Jaffer called the latest ruling a "landmark victory, and "a wholesale refutation of excessive government secrecy and unchecked executive power." Marrero said his ruling blocks the government from issuing new requests for phone and Internet records "in this or any other case," but delayed the injunction by 90 days to allow time for an appeal. The judge said the law violates the Fourth Amendment because it bars or deters any judicial challenge to the government searches, and violates the First Amendment because its permanent ban on disclosure is a prior restraint on speech. He noted that the Supreme Court recently said that a "state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens." "Sometimes a right, once extinguished, may be gone for good," Marrero wrote. Marrero issued his decision in favor of an Internet access firm identified in his 120-page ruling simply as "John Doe." He had agreed to keep the firm's identity secret to protect the FBI probe that led to the search request. President Bush has been pushing Congress to renew all of the Patriot Act before it expires next year, arguing that it is one of law enforcement's best tools in preventing another catastrophic terrorist attack. The law has become a symbol to civil libertarians who say the Bush administration has gone too far in expanding security powers at the expense of privacy rights and individual freedom. In a footnote to his ruling, Marrero cited words he had written two years ago in another case to warn that courts must apply "particular vigilance to safeguard against excess committed in the name of expediency." "The Sept. 11 cases will challenge the judiciary to do Sept. 11 justice, to rise to the moment with wisdom equal to the task, its judgments worthy of the large dimensions that define the best Sept. 11 brought out of the rest of American society." Doe v. Ashcroft ruling at: http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/RulingsOfInterest.htm Justice Department: http://www.usdoj.gov *** 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 Yahoo News. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 00:36:06 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Federal Judge Strikes Down Part of PATRIOT Act From: info@cdt.org List-Archive: Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:42:47 -0400 (EDT) A federal judge today found unconstitutional a part of the USA PATRIOT Act that allows federal law enforcement officials to obtain confidential financial records without a court order or other safeguards. The lawsuit, brought by the ACLU, challenged the use of so-called "National Security Letters," a type of administrative subpoena power that was expanded by the USA PATRIOT Act. September 29, 2004 For more on the USA PATRIOT Act: http://www.cdt.org/security/010911response.shtml For more information on the ACLU lawsuit [offsite]: http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=15543&c=262 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 12:42:23 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CDT Urges FCC to Stand By Approval of TiVo http://www.cdt.org/headlines/headline.php?hid=189 In a test of the flexibility of new copy protections for digital television, CDT has filed in support of the FCC's decision to approve TiVo and other Internet-based technologies under its "broadcast flag" rules. Those rules require DTV receivers sold after July 2005 to include FCC-approved technologies to protect broadcasts from broad redistribution online. The TiVo decision, now being challenged, is a test of the FCC's commitment to allow secure uses of DTV over the Internet under the new rules. September 29, 2004 * CDT Opposition to Petition for Reconsideration on TiVo, SmartRight [PDF] , September 28, 2004 http://www.cdt.org/copyright/20040928tivo-reply.pdf ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 13:33:01 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: RadioSHARK - AM/FM Radio With Time Shift Recording radioSHARK AM/FM Radio with Time Shift Recording http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/radioshark/ ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Fireman Claims Radio Failure Nearly Killed Him Date: 30 Sep 2004 09:16:41 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com The Phila Inqr (www.philly.com) reported 9/30/04 that a city fireman with 23 years of service says his new digital radio failed leaving him trapped in a burning building and severely injured. The city spent $54 million on a new public safety radio system that has more channels and allows all agencies to talk on the same frequency during emergencies. Firefighters have filed steady complaints about the system, which operates on 800 Mhz band. The city is investigating with Motorola. One concern being checked is if cellphones interfere. Motorola did say one emergency feature (that the fireman used) might not always work. They also said they may have been confusion between the encrypted and clear modes. Other news reports said the batteries in police hand held units don't hold a charge and fail during service. Other cities had a similar problem. Suburban public safety departments have also upgraded to digital radios at tremendous cost since all radios, both on vehicles and hand held, must be replaced. Suburban officials have found numerous dead spots. One can't help but wonder if the digital technology being used in new public safety radios is not mature enough for the demanding applications. From news reports, it seems the digital systems are much more likely to have deadspots (just like digital cell phones) than the prior analog systems. Has anyone heard reports from other municipalities about problems with digital radios? ------------------------------ From: avacohen100@yahoo.com (ava cohen) Subject: Can Anyone Recommend a "Pay as You Go" Economy Cell Phone? Date: 29 Sep 2004 21:32:48 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I am thinking of getting my 12 year old daughter a pay as you go cell phone in California. Can anyone recommend a "pay as you go" economy cell phone? (like prepaid cards?) I do not want to subscribe to any plans. Which company? How much does the phone and the calls cost? Where is the best place to buy it from? Any help would be highly appreciated. Thanks. Ava ------------------------------ From: LeanderVanhulle@hotmail.com (Leander Vanhulle) Subject: Need Help With External Port Date: 30 Sep 2004 06:24:39 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com My serial port of my laptop is broken and I bought an external serial port on USB. I would like to use this in DOS but all the software only lets you select COM1 to COM4. It works fine under WinXP but not under Dos. Pleas help me ... ------------------------------ From: Daniel Eyholzer Subject: Lucent DSL MAX 20 packet loss Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 16:31:39 +0200 Hi there, We have three Lucent DSL MAX 20 connected to a Cisco switch. There are also some other network devices and a linux box connected to the same switch. If I am pinging to or from one of the three Lucent devices I have packet loss. Pinging from and to the other devices connected to the switch works without any packet loss. The switch and cables have already been replaced. On the switch I see that on the fastethernet interfaces on which these three Lucents are connected, the number of CRCs is constantly increasing. I also noticed, that if there are more active DSL connections on the Lucent DSL device there is more packet loss and more CRCs. There are two SDSL-16 cards in each of the three DSL MAX 20 which allow 32 SDSL connections per device. On one device we have 28 active connections and there is about 4% packet loss. On the second Lucent there are 20 connections and there is about 1% packet loss. On the third Lucent there is no active connection but still 1% packet loss. I have looked at all config options on the Lucents but did not find anything that could solve this packet loss problem. Is there any known hardware problem with this Lucent DSL MAX 20 devices? Could it be a wrong setting on the device configuration? Or what else could cause this problem? Thanks, Daniel ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 09:12:07 -0400 From: Michael Quinn Subject: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest Apropos of the discussion about the BART officer who reportedly ordered a radio turned off, this report has a somewhat different twist: Between Metro and Cell User, a Disconnect By Lyndsey Layton Washington Post Staff Writer Sakinah Aaron was walking into the bus area at the Wheaton Metro station several weeks ago, talking loudly on her Motorola cell phone. A little too loudly for Officer George Saoutis of the Metro Transit Police. The police officer told Aaron, who is five months pregnant, to lower her voice. She told the officer he had no right to tell her how to speak into her cell phone. Their verbal dispute quickly escalated, and Saoutis grabbed Aaron by the arm and pushed her to the ground. He handcuffed the 23-year-old woman, called for backup and took her to a cell where she was held for three hours before being released to her aunt. She was charged with two misdemeanors: "disorderly manner that disturbed the public peace" and resisting arrest. Those are the facts on which both sides agree. They interpret the events of Sept. 9 very differently. Transit Police and some Metro officials say Saoutis was protecting the peace by removing a woman who had overstepped the boundaries of civil behavior because she was loudly cursing into her phone. They say that cell phones have become just another instrument of loutish behavior in the public space and that they are fighting a dramatic deterioration of manners in the transit system. "We need better enforcement to allow people to know we are serious and want to maintain the high-quality level of the system," said Robert J. Smith, chairman of the Metro board, adding that "ranting youth" have become a plague on the subway. "This isn't Montana. We live in a very dense region, and people are on top of each other all the time." Smith, who refuses to carry a cell phone, said he thinks Metro riders need to use the devices with care. "We wouldn't allow someone to come into the U.S. Capitol Rotunda and shout obscenities into a cell phone," he said. But Aaron and some defenders of free speech say the Transit Police are the ones who overstepped boundaries by making a crime out of conversation and pushing a pregnant woman to her knees. The incident took place out of doors and not in the confines of a rail car or bus, they note. And they point to a string of other incidents, including the July arrest of a 45-year-old woman for chewing a PayDay candy bar and the 2000 arrest of a 12-year-old girl for eating a french fry, that are earning the Transit Police a national reputation as an agency itching to lock up riders. "Technically, the police officer is right, but the result is wrong," said D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who represents the city on the Metro board. "How do we prevent minor transgressions escalating into major problems? It's not what any of us want. We don't want pregnant women booked for loud cell phone conversations. We don't want 12-year-old girls in handcuffs for eating a single french fry. Whether it's training or guidance to our officers, we have to do something." Johnny Barnes, executive director of the Washington area chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, called Aaron's arrest "troubling." "There seems to be an unusual attention paid to activities of patrons," Barnes said. "One should be able to ride the Metro and exercise a range of rights without fear of intervention from Metro police." Aaron, who lives in Silver Spring and works as a clerk at the Food and Drug Administration, said she was talking to her fiance on her cell phone as she walked toward the bus bay about 4:45 p.m. Sept. 9 to catch the Route C4 Metrobus. "Our phone conversation had ended," she said. "I'm walking down the stairs and the transit cop said, 'You have to lower your voice, ma'am.' I said, 'You can't tell me how loud I can talk.' He said, 'I can arrest you,' and he grabbed my arm. I said, 'What are you doing? I'm pregnant! Oh, so you want to flex some muscle today?' He grabbed my hand, and we struggled." Aaron acknowledged that she was loud on the phone but said she wasn't cursing and lobbed a profanity only after Saoutis grabbed her. After her release that night, Aaron went to Holy Cross Hospital and was treated in the emergency room for a bruise she said was a result of Saoutis's pushing her to the ground and placing his knee on her upper back. Saoutis, who is about to complete his first year on the job with the Transit Police, was not available for an interview yesterday, according to Deputy Chief Tim Gronau. Gronau said his officer properly enforced the law and arrested Aaron because it was clear she wasn't taking his warning seriously. "We're not either pro or negative cell phones," he said. "The issue is [that] the volume of her conversation, coupled with the language, is not conducive to socially accepted standards of behavior." *** 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 Washington Post. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: 30 Sep 2004 08:35:14 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com George Mitchell wrote > 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. Let me clarify the above paragraph. By 'radios' I meant the train control system, not the audio communication system. BART uses automated train operation and protection. The speed and stopping of trains is controlled by signals sent to the train from wayside transmitters. A second and critical component of this system is train protection so that one train does not collide with another. BART was an early modern automated train system. The rest of my paragraph is correct. The original BART system had pushed the state of the art and had many problems in practice. [GW continues] > 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.PD My point is that BART depends on wireless communications to transmit speed commands from wayside onto the train AND that BART had many problems with this system. The above example is just one of many problems they had to deal with. Concerning the above problem, I'm surprised that a broken crystal (do crystals even break that easily?) would just so happen to send out a different valid signal. In Bell System signalling, they were very careful to avoid harmonic frequencies or any frequencies as well as pulse coding that could be misinterpreted as something else. Note that Touch Tone signals use two-tones, not just one. This kind of safety design goes back to the 1940s. Likewise, in more traditional railroad signalling, the pulse codes were carefully designed and implemented with very rugged gear to avoid misinterpretation. If a failure occurs, it is interpreted as a stop signal. (BART chose to not use traditional railroad technology.) Anyway, a stray or errant signal could and did cause a BART train wreck. Naturally BART mgmt would be interested in preventing such problems. On other automated rail systems, a positive read of a specific signal is required to proceed, the failure to receive that signal stops the train. As someone else explained, superhet radio receivers retransmit a signal, and this signal happens to interfere with navigation. Well, a radio that is actually transmitting could send out similar signal interference. As to the current issue, walkie-talkies are transmitters, and as such, send out signals obviously stronger than within a receiver's superhet circuits. It is possible that such signals either directly or through distortion/harmonics could interfere with normal train control. While a wreck is unlikely, it could force a train into an emergency stop between stations, which is obviously undesirable. Until such time that modern walkie-talkies would be tested to ensure their signals do not and cannot interfere with train control and train protection, they should not be permitted to be used on BART. The other question about whether this was a single cop's own interpretation or mgmt policy is significant as well. If it is just one cop, that one cop needs to be disciplined and retrained, but mgmt policy need not be changed. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Sep 2004 02:13:33 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Paper Tape Technology Was: What is the Name of #? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > As an undergrad at Harvard, Bill Gates wrote software to read and > count these punched holes (a task complicated slightly by the fact > that they are randomly spaced along the paper tape) and set up a > company ("Traf-O-Data", I believe) located in his dorm room which > received these tapes, read them using bootlegged time on Aiken's early > Harvard University computer facility, and sent back printed reports to > traffic engineers all over the company. Gates and Allen did run Traf-O-Data, but the rest is wrong. Since Bill is 48 years old, when would he have been at Harvard? When was Aiken doing the Mark I through Mark IV? Sheesh. ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Calls to 711 (Deaf Message Service) Are Being Blocked Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 20:06:33 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Jim Willis wrote: > I have read the digest off and on over the years and I have searched the > archives and don't see this question right off. > A deaf person moved into a care facility and they asked me to see what > was up when they could not get the relay service. They pay $20.00 > monthly for phone service that goes through a PBX/CENTREX -- (Dial 9 > before number you are calling) Long distance is ok -- you will be > billed for it as an incidental on your bill. > If you dial 9-711 the call does not complete. All other long distance > and local calls and toll free calls complete. Try 711. If that doesn't work, the managed-care staff needs to get it working. If not ... well, you could possibly file a complaint with the government regarding ADA violations. Maybe. (Just pulling that idea out of my butt; not sure whether or not it'd work.) > Is this a common programming bug on PBX/CENTREX ? Has anyone run into > this kind of thing before in the USA or CANADA ? You can generally program a PBX any way you want to (which is why, for example, on one system you dial 9 to get an outside line and on another you might dial 8, etc). If it's Centrex through a phone company, there is no reason they shouldn't allow 711 and if they don't, they need to be reported to your state's regulatory board/PUC. I'm pretty sure 711 is a requirement these days (though I could definitely be wrong). 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: Al Gillis Subject: Re: Calls to 711 (Deaf Message Service) Are Being Blocked Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 21:07:31 -0700 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Hi Jim, Failure to complete calls to the 711 Relay service in that area is more than likely a routing problem in the PBX serving the care facility. I find it a little odd, however, that such a place would allow access to 711 services to go for long before they complained bitterly to their maintenance provider (or maybe they don't have one?). The PBX systems I manage all allow access to the 711 and 511 (road conditions in Oregon) services. It's a simple matter of programming! Make 'em fix it! Another (unlikely) possibility is that the care facility may be located where no hard of hearing relay service is available. Al ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Is CDT Now Open to All Sales Pitches? Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 19:12:23 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com Is comp.dcom.telecom now open to anyone who wants to hawk any wares they want? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No indeed, it is not. There are commercial-oriented telecom groups which allow that, such as Yahoo News Groups (some of them) and various alt newsgroups. The only casual commercial messages allowed in comp.dcom.telecom are those which have a direct relevance to a recent question posed here (for example, how can I find cheap calling cards, or [like the one in this issue] on prepaid cellular service), and my preference on publishing what little I do of those is given to regular participants in c.d.t. who happen to own that type of business or shop, and not just 'anyone' coming along with that type of advertisement. 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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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #457 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Sep 30 18:12:52 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8UMCpt28482; Thu, 30 Sep 2004 18:12:52 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 18:12:52 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409302212.i8UMCpt28482@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 #458 TELECOM Digest Thu, 30 Sep 2004 18:12:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 458 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AT&T Lowers Price on Internet Calling Service (Lisa Minter) 8x8 Announces Availability of Virtual and Toll Free Numbers (VOIP News) AT&T Lowers Price of its Residential VoIP Service (Decker - VOIP News) Wrong Address for 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal (Jack Decker - VOIP News) Net Firms: Don't Tax Internet Calling (Jack Decker - VOIP News) Horribly Inefficent Fixed Line Phone (Sam) Taxing the Tax (Ron Giteck) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Lisa Hancock) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Nick Landsberg) Re: Touch Tone Decoders, Cell Phone Detectors, Jammers (R Normandeau) Re: Cheap Prepaid Online Phone Cards For Sale (Ray Normandeau) Re: Lucent DSL MAX 20 Packet Loss (Walt Howard) 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: AT&T Lowers Price on Internet Calling Service Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 12:00:00 EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - AT&T Corp on Thursday on Thursday said it was lowering the price on its CallVantage Internetcalling service by $5 per month, matching the price from several other suppliers. AT&T, which made Internet calling services a priority after announcing its retreat from traditional residential telephone services in July, said the price cut to $29.99 per month was meant to spur demand in advance of the holiday season. Current subscribers will also get the price cut. More than a dozen companies currently offer voice over Internet Protocol, or VOIP, services to U.S. residential customers. Most offer unlimited calling for $30 per month or less, with some as low as $19.95, although their fees do not include the broadband Internet connection that VOIP requires. Comparable plans for traditional service from the dominant U.S. telephone carriers typically cost $60 to $70 per month. While industry experts estimate the current residential VOIP market has less than 1 million subscribers, they expect sharp growth starting in 2005 as large cable companies roll out their VOIP services. The Yankee Group forecasts VOIP services will have 17.5 million residential users by 2008. The growing number of entrants into the VOIP market has some analysts predicting a price war for VOIP services. AT&T had already lowered the price of CallVantage once, and said it will offer the first month free to some new subscribers. Other providers offer free months or limited calling plans for as little as $10 per month. *** 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: Jack Decker Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 11:32:11 -0400 Subject: 8x8 Announces Availability of Virtual and Toll Free Numbers Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/09-30-2004/0002261941&EDATE= SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- 8x8, Inc. (Nasdaq: EGHT) the Packet8 broadband voice over internet protocol (VoIP) and videophone communications service provider, today announced the availability of several new optional features for its Virtual Office internet-based PBX service for small to medium sized businesses. Effective immediately, Packet8 Virtual Office users can now choose various new services including Virtual Phone Numbers, Toll Free Numbers, and Switchboard Operator Console. Virtual Phone Numbers allow Virtual Office subscribers to provide local inbound telephone numbers from areas outside of their main number or extension DIDs. Subscribers can select Virtual Numbers from all United States area codes Packet8 supports for a small monthly fee of $4.95 per number and a one-time activation fee of $9.95. Adding Virtual Numbers offers benefits such as enabling an enterprise to show a local presence in a geographic area without physically residing there and facilitating a cost-savings local calling capability for an organization's customers or colleagues. The second new Virtual Office service is Toll Free Numbers, an inexpensive way for Virtual Office subscribers to offer clients the ability to contact them at no charge regardless of their location inside the United States or the company's location worldwide. Packet8's Toll Free Service Plan involves a flat monthly fee of $4.95 including 100 minutes of inbound toll-free calls and an industry low of 3.9 cents a minute thereafter for inbound calls. A one time $9.95 activation fee per number applies. Finally, Virtual Office users can now expand the functionality of their system with Switchboard, Virtual Office's Operator Software Console Application, available for $19.95 per month with a $9.95 activation fee. Switchboard improves the efficiency of an operator's call management by providing a receptionist with a graphical overview of the users on the virtual office service and a simple way to manage an organization's telecommunication activity. Switchboard works on a PC in conjunction with the Internet and the Virtual Office telephones. Additionally, Switchboard enables operators to have: -- Direct status view of extension's status: DND, On-line, idle -- Click to call, click to transfer call control -- Direct transfer to extension and voice mail -- Supervised transfers The Packet8 Virtual Office service costs just $39.95 per extension, per month. For initial set-up costs, subscribers pay only $99 for the equipment (special business telephone and broadband adapter), $14.95 for shipping and $39.95 for activation. Full press release at: http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/09-30-2004/0002261941&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: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 12:05:09 -0400 Subject: AT&T Lowers Price of its Residential VoIP Service Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com Comment: I wonder if this means that anyone who orders today (September 30) would still get the introductory price of $19.99 for the first six months, but after that would only have to pay the new rate of $29.99/month (rather than the $34.99 still shown on their web site). Personally I think there are better deals out there than AT&T, for example several VoIP companies offer their "unlimited" service at about $20 or $25 per month. The company I think will be hurt most by this is Vonage, because they presently charge $29.99 per month (plus a $1.50 "regulatory recovery fee" per phone number, making the "real" price $31.49 per month) for their equivalent level of service, so either they will have to lower their price to stay competitive, or risk losing potential customers to AT&T. http://www.att.com/news/item/0,1847,13258,00.html News Release FOR RELEASE THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2004 AT&T Lowers Price of its Residential VoIP Service BEDMINSTER, N.J. -- As part of its continuing efforts to spur growth in emerging technologies, AT&T today announced it is lowering the price of AT&T CallVantageSM Service, its popular residential broadband phone service, from $34.99 to $29.99 per month beginning October 1. In addition, under some offers AT&T will provide the first month of service free to new subscribers who sign up before January 31, 2005. The new $29.99 pricing will be effective for all existing subscribers beginning October 1 and includes unlimited local and long distance calling in the U.S. and to Canada. This offer replaces the well-received introductory promotional offer in the market for the past six months. "Having completed the initial market build-out to support AT&T CallVantage Service, we're now concentrating on expanding our distribution channels through retail and online sales," said Cathy Martine, AT&T senior vice president for Internet Telephony. "Pricing the service for the holiday shopping season fits our expansion strategy and makes AT&T CallVantage Service even more affordable, which is great news for consumers as we give them more of what they want for less. "In fact, we believe that once those consumers evaluate VoIP and compare it to their existing telephone service, they will recognize AT&T CallVantage Service provides more features and savings making it a compelling offer." AT&T CallVantage Service is available to any U.S. consumer and provides a local footprint to 62 percent of the households in America due to its broad penetration in more than 170 markets coast-to-coast. Upon signing up, all that's required to use AT&T CallVantage is a telephone adapter provided by AT&T or its valued retailers, and a broadband connection, which lets consumers talk over high-speed Internet connections instead of traditional circuit-switched phone networks. AT&T CallVantage Service is different than traditional phone services because, through the use of IP-based networks, it can offer customers typical features such as call waiting, three-way calling, and call forwarding, and far more advanced ones as well. Indeed, consumers will get unprecedented convenience, cost savings and control with innovative features including: * "Call Logs," to track incoming and outgoing; "Do Not Disturb," * to receive calls only when wanted; "Locate Me," which rings up * to five phones, all at once, or sequentially; "Voicemail with * eFeatures," to listen to messages from any phone or PC and * forward them to anyone on the Web; "Simple Reach(SM) Number, * which enables AT&T CallVantage Service customers to add up to * nine telephone numbers with area codes anywhere in the country * where AT&T offers residential VoIP service; and "Personal * Conferencing," to set up meetings with up to nine additional * callers. AT&T also recently began shipping a "Home Wiring Do-It-Yourself Guide" with each self-install kit that provides customers step-by-step instructions for connecting the service to multiple home phones to replicate the traditional home calling environment and make the most efficient use of their existing telephone equipment. For those homeowners who prefer that a trained technician perform the work, AT&T has a fee-based inside wiring service to reconfigure existing lines and telephone jacks, install additional jacks if required, and provide limited assistance with service set-up. Continuing its market momentum, AT&T has expanded its distribution channel by adding leading retailers Amazon.com, Best Buy and Circuit City to its sales team. To learn more about AT&T CallVantage Service, consumers can visit http://www.CallVantage.com, call 1-866-816-3815, extension 70339, or visit one of these retailers. Full press release at: http://www.att.com/news/item/0,1847,13258,00.html ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 14:17:00 -0400 Subject: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2435843,00.html By John Ingold Denver Post Staff Writer When her infant son started having trouble breathing, a worried Krista Staats rushed to the phone and called 911. A dispatch center in Castle Rock, nearly 40 miles from her Adams County house, took the call, thinking she was calling from a business in Parker. As Staats bounced from dispatch center to dispatch center, trying to find the right people to help her, her baby boy's condition grew worse, and Staats grew more frantic. Finally, 5-month-old Christopher Vasquez stopped breathing, and Staats let out a piercing, terror-filled scream. He died moments later, shortly after an ambulance was dispatched -- a little over four minutes after Staats made her call. Now, Staats has sued her telephone company, Comcast, and two other companies, claiming that because they put the wrong address for her phone number into the 911 system, her son died that day in the spring of 2003. "Because Comcast had my address wrong in the system, I had to watch my son die," she said Wednesday at a news conference. Staats may not be alone in having the 911 problem. Full story at: http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2435843,00.html Additional commentary at BroadbandReports.com: http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/54996 ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 14:11:00 -0400 Subject: Net Firms: Don't Tax Internet Calling Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://news.com.com/Net+firms+Dont+tax+VoIP/2100-7352_3-5389880.html By Declan McCullagh Staff Writer, CNET News.com The largest U.S. Internet phone companies are asking the Internal Revenue Service not to slam them with a "temporary" tax created more than 100 years ago to pay for the Spanish-American War. In a six-page letter to the IRS sent late Wednesday, the companies stressed that fledgling voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services should not be subject to the excise tax that President William McKinley signed into law in 1898. "VoIP is having a profound and beneficial impact on the United States and the world in a way unimaginable in 1898," the letter said, urging the IRS to "refrain from any attempt to extend the excise tax to VoIP services." The letter was sent by the VON Coalition, which represents AT&T, Covad, Intel, Level3, MCI, Microsoft, Pulver.com, Skype and Texas Instruments. Full story at: http://news.com.com/Net+firms+Dont+tax+VoIP/2100-7352_3-5389880.html ------------------------------ From: ymailus@yahoo.com (Sam) Subject: Horribly Inefficent Fixed Line Phone Date: 30 Sep 2004 12:10:49 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello all, My caller ID phone LCD blanks out when the phone recieves a call, i.e. right when I need it most to determine if i want to take the call or not. Off hook the LCD text is sharp. Through pulling out the phone jack I determined that the LCD & LED are powered from the 4 AAA batteries whilst the ringer and speaker is powered by the phone line. Elsewhere on this group I read that on hook the phone can only take limited power from the line to operate itself, whilst off hook it can take a lot more power. Any ideas what I can do? Turning off the ringer made no difference. I tried putting a switch in line with the batteries so I can enable them only when I go to read the caller ID number but the phone's "brain" needs to have been booted with the help of the batteries prior to the initiation of the call. Any suggestions appreciated (even if to implement them I need to spend more than the phone is worth). Sam [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Have you tried testing or replacing the batteries? Even sometimes batteries claimed to be 'fresh' will not be any good. Try with an entirely new set of four AAA batteries, then allow the phone's "brain" to settle down, and intialize itself, and see what results. I'll bet if you were to test those four AAA batteries in the phone now, you'd find one (or more) of them either dead or very weak. That's happened with me: I got a pack of a dozen AAA batteries from Radio Shack and later on found one of them (supposedly a new, fresh battery) to be totally dead. It did not have the obvious signs of 'leaking' (acid on the side of it), nor was it past the expiration date. It was just dead is all. Since I do not make a habit of testing supposedly 'new' batteries before putting them in the device, I found it out only when the four batteries needed device struggled for a short time to keep up, then went dead. PAT] ------------------------------ From: ron.giteck@state.mn.us (Ron Giteck) Subject: Taxing the Tax Date: 30 Sep 2004 11:07:27 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Can anyone provide more information on the following thread? I am particularly interested in the Illinois Bell case referred to. Where can I find it? From: Tom Saylor (tom.saylor@spam.free) Subject: Questionable Universal Service Fund Practices This is the only article in this thread View: Original Format Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Date: 2003-07-19 10:17:13 PST RCN is charging the Universal Service Fund (USF) fee not only on state-to-state long distance, but also on the Federal Subscriber Line Charge, the Local Number Portability Charge, and port charges. This amounts to 'taxing the tax'. I have never seen this done before, even by Verizon. USF itself has always been questionable to me do to the fact that it is not clear how much the USF fee goes to the FCC and how much the phone company keeps it for itself, under the guise of another federal charge. But RCN is taking this to another level here by also applying the USF tax to other mandated charges, and local charges at that, not long distance. It was my understanding that USF was to be applied to long distance fees only. In our area, RCN is a CLEC that resells Verizon telephone lines. It also is a competitive cable provider, offering cable TV and high speed Internet via its own cable plant. Unlike former AT&T Cable/Comcast, its telephone service is not via the cable lines, but via reselled Verizon lines. Is taxing the tax for USF permissible? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's (July, 2003) Note: This was happening for > many, many years in Chicago. The old Illinois Bell was putting > 'service charges' on taxes and a state tax on the federal tax. When > they finally got called on the carpet for it and lost it in a court > battle, Illinois Bell wound up having to refund to each customer > something like *two cents* per line for *each month of service* > going back several years. The way they effectively resolved it was > by giving most customers of any long standing credit for a month of > telephone service. PAT] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: (new, present time) Whether or not 'taxing the tax' is permissible depends on who you ask (which lawyer), and whether it is known as a 'tax' or a 'service charge', and how the court chooses to define it. On account of the very miniscule amounts of money involved and the length of time to calculate each damage (if indeed it is found to be unlawful) it is only resolved satisfactorily as a class action lawsuit, i.e. a million or more subscribers times a large number of occurances times some miniscule fraction of a dollar each time, etc. Telco/cableco has attornies they pay for to deal with those things full time. You do not stand a chance in hell of getting any customer service rep (who are the only people at telco/cableco whose job it is to talk to you) to understand what you want or making any changes in policy. You need to find an attorney who specializes in (a) tax laws and (b) communication laws, and advance that person a huge sum of money to take your side on the issue and *possibly* get some changes made. In the Illinois Bell case, telco lost after four or five months in court, but the reason they lost was due to some obscure provision in Illinois law. Administering the class action settlement took another year or so. A similar case involved McDonald's Restaurants in the Chicago area. Chicago (and each of a hundred different suburbs) has its own rate of 'sales tax' as it pertains to food. The several hundred McDonald's establishments in the 'metro Chicago area' -- despite their individual ownership (McDonald's owns *nothing*, you understand, each place is a separate corporation) -- go through an area-wide facility which is in existence to program and maintain the various cash registers in each restaurant. Cash registers programmed for 'Chicago sales tax' are supposed to be used only in Chicago, and cash registers programmed for 'Evanston sales tax' are only supposed to be used in Evanston, or those suburbs which use the same sales tax formula. That's because the clerks, with their educational level are supposed to be able to touch a button with a picture of a Big Mac and announce the total amount of money demanded from the customer. No thinking involved. That's why a McDonald's hamburger in Chicago costs 75 cents, but in Evanston costs 69 cents, because the politicians in Chicago are pirates when it comes to getting taxes, but I digress. So a cash register in one McD goes out of order; the manager calls the local maintainence office and gets a replacement register. The maintainence truck comes around, hauls away the broken down register and installs a refurbished one in its place. But the refurbished one came from Chicago, so when the clerk rings up a hamburger, all he knows is he wants his 75 cents, and with his level of education he does not intend to listen to you arguing about how the same hamburger he sold you yesterday only cost you 69 cents. That's not his problem, despite the fact that you may be a tax lawyer and know the rules backwards and forwards. "All I can tell you is what it says here on the register when I push the buttons with the pictures and numbers for the special meals, etc." So when indeed, a lawyer in the north suburbs tracked down the owners of the '4950 West Dempster Street Corporation' d/b/a 'McDonalds' and sued them over this incorrect tax formula, it wasn't just for the six cents he overpaid on his hamburger, it was a class action suit (the only way to go, actually) with *everyone* who had ever eaten in any McD *anytime* in the Chicago area in the past year named as part of the class. After *his* lawyer (all smart attornies are also represented by counsel) got all the money, everyone else in the class got a free small soft drink who clipped a coupon out of the Chicago Tribune and handed it to the cashier, *before they placed their order*. The people who collected Tribunes out of the garbage cans around town got three or four free small soft drinks, in full and complete settlement against McD. And that is how class action suits go against telco and cableco. If teleco/cableco loses the suit or otherwise gets bored and decides to give up, then the lawyers who started and maintained the class action collect all the money and you get a coupon for a free month of HBO or Showtime or maybe a few long distance calls, **if you were willing to work at it and pursue it from the beginning and find an attorney willing to work along withn you on it.** PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: 30 Sep 2004 09:56:56 -0700 Wesrock@aol.com wrote: > The teletypewriter was in existence for several decades before > computers, and its punched-tape technology was also well established. > It was an ideal input-output device before punched cards and CRT > displays took over. Punched cards as tabulating machine input date from 1890, 15 yrs before the Teletype were invented. Printing tabulating machines date from the 1930s (before that results were read off of dials). From the beginning, computers had two operating styles: one was "on-line" where a person communicated back and forth directly with the computer while it was running. The other was "batch" in which information was 'batched' together and fed in, processed, and the person waited for the output to be printed out in its entirety. Because computers, especially the early ones, were so enormously expensive, on-line access was rarely used since the computer was not doing anything while waiting for the person to enter data. One exception was an early (1939?) Bell Labs relay computer. Many early computers did have limited on-line access, but it was for limited control use only. The ENIAC used IBM punched cards for its I/O. For on-line work, Teletypes, either the actual brand or other electric typewriters, were used. Paper tape had the advtg of preparing data off-line then reading it in at higher speeds. For batch work, punched cards and tabulating machine printers were best suited since they could run at relatively higher speed. IIRC, the Teletypes of the 1950s operated at 7 characters per second. The early IBM tab machines used for I/O back then read at 100 cards or printed lines a minute, 80 columns per card (parallel mode). The parallel mode of card reading and printing gave the tab machines far more speed and throughput. Also, the keypunch machine of the 1950s (the IBM 026) had some programmable features to speed keying productivity and verification to improve accuracy. (A TTY would have to constantly shift between LTRS and FIGS while the 026 would do that automatically). (IBM tab machines of the later 1950s read/printed at 150 lines per minute.) In the early 1960s, "time-sharing" and multi-tasking was developed so that a computer could serve several people at the same time. At that point Teletypes as computer terminals became more common. But until time sharing was developed, Teletypes were not an efficient input- output mechanism for computers. A notable pioneer system was SABRE, the reservation system for American Airlines that used electric typewriters. While conceived in the 1950s, I don't think it entered real service until the early 1960s. A notable early "on-line" system was an IBM/Miltary aircraft tracking system that combined radar and console inputs. It should be noted that this system was extremely expensive and not practical for civilian applications of its time (1950s). In the 1960s, many new mfrs of mini computers chose Teletypes (the brand) as their input/output terminal and designed their systems to work in on-line mode. Around that time Teletype introduced a new line of machines that ran faster at 10 cps and also had a much bigger character set (ASCII instead of Baudot). The mini-computer mfrs used ASCII. Notable mfrs included General Electric (Dartmouth's pioneer BASIC system), Hewlett- Packard, Digital PDP, Data General, and others. While users of these machines tended to really love them, they were limited in their ability to handle high volumes of data. At some point, batch processing on a traditional mainframe was more efficient. The IBM System/360, introduced in the 1960s, was originally oriented toward extremely high volume and fast batch processing, although its original architecture provided for on-line processing, too. IBM on-line applications tended to use IBM's own machines which were modified Selectrics. Early IBM computers and tab machines support Teletypes, but through batch mode. Data sent over a phone or telegraph line would be punched out on paper tape, then read by a translating machine that would punch out cards. In reverse, cards would be copied to paper tape and then transmitted. ------------------------------ From: Nick Landsberg Reply-To: SPAMhukolautTRAP@SPAMattTRAP.net Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 17:07:07 GMT Lisa Hancock wrote: > bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote >> Sorry, there is use that predates the personal computer -- with a >> modem on a dial-up to a mainframe time-sharing service. 'Terminal' is >> the correct word. > Correct, they were called terminals, a word that included Teletypes > that were used in the early days. >> The point being that the cards were _designed_ to accommodate that >> printing, One of the early IBM 'interpreters' (an O49 or was that a >> sorter?) could only print 40 columns in a pass; had to change the >> program on the plugboard to get the other 40 columns. And change >> where the printing fell on the card, so it didn't write over the first >> 40 characters. :) > I'm not certain, but back in 1928 when the modern punch card was > invented by IBM, I don't think there was any kind of printing > mechanism for cards. Remember, initially the cards were numeric only > and the upper field (the "zone") was used only for control characters. > I suspect the uppermost space was just a margin to give a punched > card strength or a place for handwritten notes. > In the 1930s IBM developed a more sophisticated line of tab machines. > Included was an printing alpha key punch. > The 1948 line of interpreters were NOT intended to print one character > per column -- the width of the printed character was slightly wider > than a column. Only 60 characters would fit on the top and 20 would > have to go on the next line. In practice, the interpreters were > programmed by the plug panel to print selected fields in certain > places, and could do so all over the card. They could also print a > big number sideways on the side edge so the card could be filed > vertically. > Also, most IBM lines of keypunches included printing and non printing > models, and the non-printers were cheaper. > BTW, one advtg of the punched card system was that it was easy and > cheap to have "on-line" file access. They'd just punch out and > interpret and sort a deck of cards containing key data. Clerks would > receive phone requests and pull up the cards in a tube file. Changes > would be processed through the tab system. > It should be noted that until the 1980s, the above was cheaper and > faster than developing a "modern" CICS solution on a real computer. >>> So did IBM, later, around the S/34 or S/36 IIRC, not too long before >>> punch cards passed out of mainstream usage altogether. > IBM's System/32,34,36 did not use cards at all. The mini cards were > used on the IBM System/3. > As an aside, the language used on IBM's System/3x through the present > day AS/400 is RPG, which dates back to 1960 and the IBM 1401. The > language was intended to mimic the wiring of a tab machine control > panel so tab operators could make the transition to programming. >> The 3270 was a 'smart' terminal -- necessitated by IBM's "block mode" >> architecture -- and used 16 bits per displayed character. 1 byte for >> the character itself, and one byte for the 'attributes', things like >> 'bright', 'blank', 'input', 'protected', etc. IIRC, the "attribute byte" only had to get transmitted when the attribute properties changed or when you wanted to jump to a different portion of the screen. The sequence, as I recall was : SBA (Set Buffer Address) ROW, COL, ABYTE, data bytes The ABYTE subset which I recall is displayed/non-displayed, returned/non-returned, alpha, numeric (not mutually exlusive, 2 bits), protected/unprotected, "bright" (or highlighted). Now that's only 6 bits ... what am I missing? You could also get very creative with these fields. At least one implementation that I am aware of used "protected, non-displayed, returned" fields to "hide" data from the user but make it easier on the server machine. For example, a transaction which retrieved a Telephone Co. customer's record would retrieve all the data at once, but use the 3270 as a kind of storage device, hiding the data which didn't need to appear on "page 1" as "protected, non-displayed, returned" so that when the clerk asked for "page 2" all that had to be done on the far end was echo back the data in a different format without taking the hit of a database access. (There was no scroll capability on the 3270's that I recall, so this was a "neat trick" to flip between "pages".) > It's funny how today we call 3270-type terminals (still in very wide > use) "dumb terminals" when in fact they were not. A Teletype was more > "dumb" since it basically transmitted or received upon a keystroke, > while the 3270 network had buffers, could erase and insert characters, > and as mentioned had different appearances. [There were advanced > Teletypes that could do some fancy stuff. Some 3270 functions were > handled by the controller unit that was required and supported a group > of terminals.] Actually, as I recall, the controller was necessary. The 3270's didn't transmit anything until the operator hit the "send" key, and this would be buffered in the "cluster controller." The controller, in turn, would be polled at roughly 2 second intervals by the far end, at which time it would send the data. A controller was theoretically limited to 32 terminals, but we found that 16 was a practical limit for our applications. I never encountered an installation where there was an isolated 3270 without a cluster controller, although I presume this was theoretically possible. > The Bell System had a heck of a lot of private lines serving business > data communications. > A big difference was that IBM liked synchornous transmission while > many other computers, including common PC transmissions used > asynchronous transmission. I don't know which is superior. I don't know either, but from the perspective of private lines (which you mentioned above), the "cluster controller" saved on private-line costs. PL's were expensive, and having only one to handle 16 clerks, rather than 16 PL's or 16 dial-ups, was seen as a cost savings by many customers. Even though the cluster controllers communicated with the host at either 4.8 or 9.6 Kbps, the probability of all 16 clerks hitting send during the same 2-second interval was pretty small. (Interaction with the customer was on the order of 2 minutes). One 9.6 PL made a lot more business sense than 16 300 baud PL's or dial-ups. (At least in those days.) > We had 3rd party imitation IBM 3270 units but IMHO they weren't as > good as real IBM units. However, they were a lot cheaper. I don't > see any "dumb terminals" anymore, it seems almost everyone now has a > PC with an emulation program/card imitating a 3270 terminal. In the > early days of PCs, I refused to use a PC with a CGA screen as a 3270 > terminal since it was so fuzzy compared to a real terminal. > (Actually, I shied away from CGA PCs altogether.) > Over time, the cost of 3270-type units and controllers dropped quite a > bit in price while modem speed increased. Obligatory rant: Ain't it amazing how much *useful* data can be transitted over a 9.6 line when you don't have all those graphics and animations to deal with? "It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious" - A. Bloch ------------------------------ From: FrazNor@gmail.com (rNormandeau) Subject: Re: Touch Tone Decoders, Cell Phone Detectors, Jammers, etc. Date: 30 Sep 2004 10:35:52 -0700 info@infopro.tv (007) wrote in message news:: > Portable Touch-Tone Decorder. Decodes And Displays Telephone Number > From Tape Recorded Calls. The new hand-held 16 digit touch-tone > Decorder with built-in microphone, decodes touch-tones from any > on-air source, scanner or cassette tape. The resulting tape from your > Telephone Recording System has many touch-tones that sometimes need > to be identified. With the Portable Decorder, simply play the tape > ... and the numbers will immediately appear on the LCD. > What makes this decoder unique is the built-in microphone. Any "on- > the-air" tone will be immediately decoded and displayed on the LCD. No > connections are necessary! Should you need to decode via patch cord, > an input is provided. Powered by a 9-volt battery. (not > included). Dimensions: 6" x 2 1/4" x 1". We accept paypal, Money Gram > and United States postal money orders. Free shipping in USA. Contact > me by email if you want a free price quote. Techtoyz had these in a beeper case for $99.00 ------------------------------ From: FrazNor@gmail.com (rNormandeau) Subject: Re: Cheap Prepaid Online Phone Cards For Sale Date: 30 Sep 2004 10:43:34 -0700 IDPCphonecards@hotmail.com (IDPCphonecards) wrote in message news:: > We have Cheap Prepaid Phone cards for sale > $4.6 for $5 phone cards: > www.idpcphonecards.com Long distance at MAXIMUM 2.9 Cents Per Minute for intra-USA calls. USA-Canada for 3.5CPM. If you don't use the 800# access, rate is even cheaper; E.G.:USA-Canada 1.9CPM! OneSuite is now available for calls FROM Canada. See https://www.onesuite.com/ See their rates for all other destinations from USA or Canada. Use toll free 800 number to call from payphones [with payphone surcharge]. It is basically a prepaid phone card but you can do away with the PIN for calls from home. Program it as a speed dial, you don't even have to remember their access number. No monthly fee or minimum. There is a surchage for calls from payphones. You can create additional PIN #s for other people and track those calls separately as a "sub-account". If you use the promotion code "034720367" we both get some free minutes. We have it programmed into our cell phones for international calls. ------------------------------ From: whoward@piv27.cns.ualberta.ca (Walt Howard) Subject: Re: Lucent DSL MAX 20 Packet Loss Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 19:40:04 UTC Organization: University of Alberta In article , Daniel Eyholzer wrote: > We have three Lucent DSL MAX 20 connected to a Cisco switch. There are > also some other network devices and a linux box connected to the same > switch. If I am pinging to or from one of the three Lucent devices I > have packet loss. Pinging from and to the other devices connected to > the switch works without any packet loss. .... > Could it be a wrong setting on the device configuration? Or what else > could cause this problem? Are you sure that both the switch and the DSL box agree on the duplex-ness of the connection between them? Having one believe the connection is full-duplex and the other believe that it is half-duplex can cause the symptom you report. ------------------------------ 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. 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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 #458 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Sep 30 19:53:35 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8UNrZa29612; Thu, 30 Sep 2004 19:53:35 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 19:53:35 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409302353.i8UNrZa29612@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 #459 TELECOM Digest Thu, 30 Sep 2004 19:53:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 459 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson WWW is Ten Years Old in 2004 (Karl Pospisek) Our Inexpensive Directory Assistance Program (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Scott Dorsey) Re: Paper Tape Technology was Re: What is Name of # (SunGard BSR) Re: Can Anyone Recommend a "Pay as You Go" Economy Cell Phone? (Glowing) Re: Can Anyone Recommend a "Pay as You Go" Economy Cell Phone? (Joseph) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Justin Time) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Paul Vader) Lawsuit in Colorado Over Rerouted 911 (Carl Moore) Re: Fireman Claims Radio Failure Nearly Killed Him (Tony P.) 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: kpospisek@yahoo.com (Karl Pospisek) Subject: WWW is Ten Years Old in 2004 Date: 30 Sep 2004 13:10:38 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Commercial WWW is about 10 years old this year What a vivid experience it was when I installed a beta release of Netscape 0.9 and entered a URL. WOW - It had colour pictures and was better than a terminal or BBS window. At that stage Yahoo was my homepage of choice, one could even keep up with the "New sites" added daily back then. Since then, life and work has not been the same. I'm surprised I haven't seen a world party arranged by some of the founding geeks -- their efforts are now *well* appreciated by all. Karl Pospisek Telecom Product Designer [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Indeed, it does seem like a long time ago, that what is now informally known, in street parlance, as the 'Web' got started, but it was about ten years ago, in the late summer or early fall of 1994 that the mode of transport on the Internet we refer to as the web -- essentially the only thing many or most of the younger users know about -- got started. Prior to this 'web', of course we had gopher (anyone remember that?) and telnet (still in use a little) and similar, but truly, the modern internet pretty much took off with the invention of the World Wide Web. We have come a long way in the past decade, and these 'old fashioned' styles of transmission such as straight ASCII text (as used here in the Digest) are getting more and more rare. I am trying now to think of the name of the one person who did most of the work creating the Web, but his name off hand escapes me. I know he has been (or still is) involved with MIT and he also has an office (or perhaps lives) in Switzerland. Please remind me who I am (trying to) thinking about. I do know he never took a nickle for his work in developing the Web, which I guess would be the 'killer application' of all time. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 18:30:51 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > In the early 1960s, "time-sharing" and multi-tasking was developed so > that a computer could serve several people at the same time. At that > point Teletypes as computer terminals became more common. But until > time sharing was developed, Teletypes were not an efficient input- > output mechanism for computers. A notable pioneer system was SABRE, > the reservation system for American Airlines that used electric > typewriters. While conceived in the 1950s, I don't think it entered > real service until the early 1960s. SAABRE originally used pushbutton terminals with individual city and time buttons. These were then replaced with IBM printing terminals, and then with the 3270-type terminals that you will see in airports today. Sad to say, the original SAABRE kernal has been hacked over pretty well but is still running in most airline machine rooms on modernized 360 ison. > In the 1960s, many new mfrs of mini computers chose Teletypes (the > brand) as their input/output terminal and designed their systems to > work in on-line mode. Around that time Teletype introduced a new line > of machines that ran faster at 10 cps and also had a much bigger > character set (ASCII instead of Baudot). The mini-computer mfrs used > ASCII. Notable mfrs included General Electric (Dartmouth's pioneer > BASIC system), Hewlett- Packard, Digital PDP, Data General, and > others. While users of these machines tended to really love them, > they were limited in their ability to handle high volumes of data. At > some point, batch processing on a traditional mainframe was more > efficient. There were lots of alternatives, from the Friden Flexowriter to the GE Terminet, to the IBM typeball thing. Most of them were much faster and much more expensive than the 33ASR. The reason the 33ASR wound up being shipped as a console with so many computer systems was because it was cheap. It was also very poorly made compared with the higher grade offerings from Teletype and the other firms, and it was a bloody pain. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Paper Tape Technology was Re: What is Name of #? Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 18:24:41 -0400 From: J Carpenter (SunGard BSR) >> As an undergrad at Harvard, Bill Gates wrote software to read >> and=20 count these punched holes (a task complicated slightly by >> the fact=20 that they are randomly spaced along the paper tape) and >> set up a=20 company ("Traf-O-Data", I believe) located in his dorm >> room which=20 received these tapes, read them using bootlegged time >> on Aiken's early Harvard University computer facility, and sent >> back printed reports to traffic engineers all over the company. > Gates and Allen did run Traf-O-Data, but the rest is wrong. Since > Bill is 48 years old, when would he have > been at Harvard? When was Aiken doing the Mark I through Mark IV? > Sheesh. Actually, it was before Bill Gates went to Harvard, when he was still in high school, that Bill Gates and Paul Allen built their own computer to measure traffic data, and they made about $20,000. Search the web on "bill gates" and "traf-o-data" for the details. ------------------------------ From: GlowingBlueMist Subject: Re: Can Anyone Recommend a "Pay as You Go" Economy Cell Phone? Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 17:28:35 -0500 ava cohen wrote in message news:telecom23.457.6@telecom-digest.org: > I am thinking of getting my 12 year old daughter a pay as you go cell > phone in California. > Can anyone recommend a "pay as you go" economy cell phone? (like > prepaid cards?) > I do not want to subscribe to any plans. > Which company? > How much does the phone and the calls cost? > Where is the best place to buy it from? > Any help would be highly appreciated. > Thanks. > Ava I presently use a TracFone that I purchased at Wal-Mart. The cards to feed the phone can be found at a large number of stores. Their web page displays many companies where you can get both the phones and the refill cards. With the large number of locations handling their phones you should not have problems accessing service. You get assigned a telephone number based on available numbers in the zip code area you register it for use in. You can change the registered zip code (local calling area) a few times a year (with corresponding phone number changes) in case you spend half the year in one location and the other half in another. I'll let you view the web offerings for phone models and prices but I think the cheapest phone is around $30. I believe you have to process a phone card refill at a minimum of every 3 months unless you purchase one of the yearly cards. So for someone of the younger set you might stay with the smaller phone refill cards and get one every couple of months. Unused time gets added to the refill if you renew it before the refill date shown on the phone. Their web page is www.tracfone.com As for myself, I just relocated from a different state and still looking for a new job. With that in mind it was foolish to lock myself into a phone plan until I know exactly what state/city I'll be working and living in. So far the only thing I don't like is that my outbound calls do not show my personal caller ID info. Instead people get just the name of the local phone carrier along with my phone number. Many people won't answer thinking it's one of those dreaded sales calls from the said carrier unless they know my number. I'm sure other areas serviced by a different cellular company might even display the owners name as well as number. What ever cellular company you wind up with make sure that the refill cards are available from multiple major merchandisers. I know of friends that had purchased phones from other companies only to find out that they could no longer purchase refill cards for those phones in the state where they lived, not something I have heard about with TracFone. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A very popuar pre-paid phone around here is Trac Phone (available from Walmart) but another widely used phone is Alltel (also available at Walmart from the Alltel corporate kiosk there and also available from the Radio Shack store here.) In Alltel's case at least, they do not require 'cards' to be purchased; you just refill the phone time by dialing *369 on the phone and using a credit card. Alltel also has a 'monthly prepaid plan' where you can pay about $35 per month and get all the features you normally would have on a 'regular' cell phone (such as caller ID, roaming, and other things) and the first $35 they find on your account each month goes to pay for another month of that 'pay as you go' service. If you get on the monthly prepaid plan, (I think they call it 'smart pay') then you *must* tell the agent you want off if you no longer wish to keep it on a certain month. For example, you have (let's say) thirty dollars in credit on your phone; they want $35 or whatever for a month of prepaid service; when they cannot confiscate it all entirely on the first of a month they cut the phone off; they do not revert you to a call-by-call (much more expensive) basis. So with Alltel, you do get some flexibilty, paying for a month at a time (better rates and more features) or 'call by call' (few if any features, no roaming, etc) if that is what you prefer and you pay over the phone itself for additional time. AT&T is similar. Pay with your credit card in various increments for calls (it gets cheaper when you buy more) and you can pay with a credit card over the phone itself, and you get caller ID as well. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Can Anyone Recommend a "Pay as You Go" Economy Cell Phone? Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 16:21:27 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On 29 Sep 2004 21:32:48 -0700, avacohen100@yahoo.com (ava cohen) wrote: > I am thinking of getting my 12 year old daughter a pay as you go cell > phone in California. Where in California would help. > Can anyone recommend a "pay as you go" economy cell phone? (like > prepaid cards?) The cheapest one I've found is an AT&T Wireless reseller called JusTalk marketed by phoneshark. This plan will require that you have a deactivated AT&T TDMA phone (which you can often find at yard sales and the like.) This plan is 25 cents/minute at the $10 refill level and as cheap as 20 cents/minute at the $250 level. Just using the minimum level which is 40 minutes of calling for $10 comes out to ~$1.67 per month. This plan also comes with a dedicated toll-free 866 number so people can call you as a local call wherever you are partly because you may not be able to get a number that's local to you. I was issued a New York City 917 number. It also comes with free calling to many locations including all of western Europe and some other countries. You have to refill with more minutes at least every 180 days or the account will be deactivated. This plan requires that you have your own phone to activate service. If you're not in an area served by AT&T Wireless though there may be higher charges to use the service through roaming minutes. Another alternative is to get AT&T Free2Go service. I've seen full packages for as little as $20 including a phone. Depending on card value you can get airtime as cheap as 15 cent/minute. Another alternative that just started to be marketed by 7-11 stores is a prepaid service that costs 20 cents/minute and uses the Cingular network. http://www.howardforums.com has a pretty active discussion board about prepaid. Check out http://howardforums.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=249 It has several areas that you may wish to look at including an overview as well as discussion of many prepaid plans both in North America as well as elsewhere. And just as a note in case you don't know already it's called prepaid generally in North America and Pay As You Go (PAYG) or Pay As You Talk (PAYT) in other parts of the world such as in the UK. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: AT&T 'Free to Go' is what I have. At one point (when I lived around the Chicago, Illinois area) I used 'regular' AT&T Wireless service. But here around Independence, I started out with AT&T but the service was not so good, and I switched to Cingular Wireless (when AT&T sold their storefront and their agent to Cingular and split town.) I was unable to get the Nokia 6100 phone to work on Cingular so I got a Cingular phone had had my older AT&T cut over to the 'Free to Go' plan. PAT] ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: 30 Sep 2004 13:31:04 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote in message news:: > bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote > <> > As an aside, the language used on IBM's System/3x through the present > day AS/400 is RPG, which dates back to 1960 and the IBM 1401. The > language was intended to mimic the wiring of a tab machine control > panel so tab operators could make the transition to programming. >> The 3270 was a 'smart' terminal -- necessitated by IBM's "block mode" >> architecture -- and used 16 bits per displayed character. 1 byte for >> the character itself, and one byte for the 'attributes'. things like >> 'bright', 'blank', 'input', 'protected', etc. > It's funny how today we call 3270-type terminals (still in very wide > use) "dumb terminals" when in fact they were not. A Teletype was more > "dumb" since it basically transmitted or received upon a keystroke, > while the 3270 network had buffers, could erase and insert characters, > and as mentioned had different appearances. [There were advanced > Teletypes that could do some fancy stuff. Some 3270 functions were > handled by the controller unit that was required and supported a group > of terminals.] The term "dumb" and "smart" when applied to terminals really applies to their ability to process information. The 3270 terminal is a "dumb" terminal in the fact that no processing is done at the terminal and it only echoes back what is received from its intelligent source. According to the original definition of a dumb or smart terminal, a terminal connected through a PC or other device that was capable of doing processing, or in the case of mainframes, preprocessing would be considered a "smart" terminal. Before the days of the 3270 there were thousands upon thousands of 2260 terminals around. These also were dumb terminals as the only thing they did was provide a video interface into a system and displayed only the information sent to them. Keystrokes from the keyboard did nothing to modify the displayed information or change any attributes of the data without processing by the mainframe computer. The cable for a 2260 terminal was about a half inch in diameter with about 6 pair of 18 ga.(IIRC) wires to control the display and receive keystroke information. Video was over a small coax in the center of the cable. The last 2260 style terminals I installed was almost 30 years ago, in the mid 70's. OBTW, the common screen width for a 2260 was 48 characters and early 3270 terminals did both 48 and 80 characters. The maximum number of charcters displayed on a full screen 3270 was 1920 (24 x 80). It was the high cost of a terminal from IBM that gave birth to the low cost dumb termial market that spawned the ADM-3 (Adam) 3, 3A, the Televideo, Lear Siegler, TI, DEC and so many others. IBM did a major price cut on the 3270 terminals in 1978 that drove most of the replacement terminal manufacturers under or into consolidation. 3270 displays went from several 1000 dollars to around 1000 or so and effectively killed the key to disk market at the same time. Some of you may remember names of companies like Mohawk that just disappeared by the early 80's after doing several hundred million dollars of business just 2 or 3 years earlier. Once the equipment leases ran out. > The Bell System had a heck of a lot of private lines serving business > data communications. Yep, computer rooms always had a bank of "Dataphone" modems. Usually 2400, 4800 and wow -- 9600 Baud Syncronous. Async ran at 300 baud and was good for only low speed stuff -- like teletypes at 100 WPM and an occasional terminal. > A big difference was that IBM liked synchornous transmission while > many other computers, including common PC transmissions used > asynchronous transmission. I don't know which is superior. > We had 3rd party imitation IBM 3270 units but IMHO they weren't as > good as real IBM units. However, they were a lot cheaper. I don't > see any "dumb terminals" anymore, it seems almost everyone now has a > PC with an emulation program/card imitating a 3270 terminal. In the > early days of PCs, I refused to use a PC with a CGA screen as a 3270 > terminal since it was so fuzzy compared to a real terminal. > (Actually, I shied away from CGA PCs altogether.) > Over time, the cost of 3270-type units and controllers dropped quite a > bit in price while modem speed increased. Asynch modem speed didn't increase until the Hayes modems started coming out around 1980 or a little later. The first jump was to quadruple the speed to 1200 baud, but the big jump was to 2400 baud about a year or so later. 9600 baud became fairly common around 1989 -- 90 with 14.4 around 91. 56K modems have been around the longest, since the mid 90's or almost 10 years. It was the introduction of the 2400 baud modem that did the most to increase the number of computers in individual use than any other improvement. The 2400 baud modem paved the way for the acceptance of the computer as a home computer rather than a scientic tool or hobbyist toy giving birth to the need for software and spawning companies such as Microsoft, Word Perfect Corp., Norton, Wordstar, Lotus and others. Datapoint developed a split speed modem for use with their timesharing/ data entry terminals. They had a 300/1200 baud modem, 300 transmit because it was keystrokes and 1200 receive to handle the display character input. This meant you could "paint" a full 1920 character screen in about 1 1/2 seconds - and that was pretty darn fast for those days. But then computers had cycle times - one trip through the main timing chain to process a single instruction - measured in multiples of whole microseconds. The venerable Four Phase system IV-70 (dating from around 1970) took 2.04 microseconds to process a single 24 bit computer word, and it was one of the fastest "mini" computers available at the time. I think the original Altairs were around 8 microseconds for a cycle. It wasn't until later that people started measuring clock speed in order to "boost the speed" without any engineering changes. The original IBM PC ran at 4 MHz, the AT at 6. Now we measure clock speeds in the billions of cycles per second rather than millions. ------------------------------ From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 22:56:32 -0000 Organization: Inline Software Creations SPAMhukolautTRAP@SPAMattTRAP.net writes: > IIRC, the "attribute byte" only had to get transmitted when the > attribute properties changed or when you wanted to jump to a different > portion of the screen. Correct. > You could also get very creative with these fields. At least one > implementation that I am aware of used "protected, non-displayed, > returned" fields to "hide" data from the user but make it easier on > the server machine. This still is standard practice in just about any system using 3270 screens. You set the hidden, protected, and modified data flags on data you're sending out to make sure you get it back. It's a way of storing "state" without using a user spool area. > Actually, as I recall, the controller was necessary. The 3270's > didn't transmit anything until the operator hit the "send" key, and > this would be buffered in the "cluster controller." Right, at least until the tn3270 protocol pretty much destroyed the cluster controller business. Lots and lots of aps still use 3270 protocols, but you don't see hardwired 3270 terminals around anymore. > The controller, in turn, would be polled at roughly 2 second intervals > by the far end, at which time it would send the data. A controller > was theoretically limited to 32 terminals, but we found that 16 was a > practical limit for our applications. None of that was true for the last two decades of cluster controllers. I strongly doubt that cluster controllers EVER polled at 2 second intervals, because that would set the minimum response time to one second, and NOBODY would tolerate that. Maybe 30 years ago I suppose. > I never encountered an installation where there was an isolated 3270 > without a cluster controller, although I presume this was > theoretically possible. Nope. There were devices you could hang on a leased line which gave you only a terminal or two, but they were still controllers. > customers. Even though the cluster controllers communicated with the > host at either 4.8 or 9.6 Kbps, the probability of all 16 clerks > hitting send during the same 2-second interval was pretty small. The standard leased-line speed for a cluster controller was 56k. And late in their life, they could go a LOT faster, which they needed to do if you had one controlling 128 terminals. I still shudder remembering all the coax running to the last-generation controllers we had at a warehouse. A bundle of cables three feet across going in, and one token ring cable going out. * * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 16:31:30 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Lawsuit in Colorado Over Rerouted 911 There are other readers more knowledgeable than I on this, but I have learned of a lawsuit (by a woman in the Denver area) over a wrong address for home telephone number. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: We printed something on this story in the previous issue of the Digest today. As sad as it was to read of the little guy dying because the ambulance was delayed in getting there due to the dispatcher's failure to *stay with the call and find the proper agency to make the referral to* it was sort of refreshing to note that for a change, the blame was not put on VOIP, nor did the story even say if the mother was using a VOIP or a 'landline' phone. I am sure if it had been VOIP we would have heard all about it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Fireman Claims Radio Failure Nearly Killed Him Organization: ATCC Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 21:46:03 GMT In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com says: > The Phila Inqr (www.philly.com) reported 9/30/04 that a city fireman > with 23 years of service says his new digital radio failed leaving him > trapped in a burning building and severely injured. > The city spent $54 million on a new public safety radio system that > has more channels and allows all agencies to talk on the same > frequency during emergencies. Firefighters have filed steady > complaints about the system, which operates on 800 Mhz band. > The city is investigating with Motorola. One concern being > checked is if cellphones interfere. > Motorola did say one emergency feature (that the fireman used) > might not always work. They also said they may have been confusion > between the encrypted and clear modes. > Other news reports said the batteries in police hand held units don't > hold a charge and fail during service. Other cities had a similar > problem. > Suburban public safety departments have also upgraded to digital > radios at tremendous cost since all radios, both on vehicles and hand > held, must be replaced. Suburban officials have found numerous dead > spots. > One can't help but wonder if the digital technology being used in new > public safety radios is not mature enough for the demanding > applications. From news reports, it seems the digital systems are > much more likely to have deadspots (just like digital cell phones) > than the prior analog systems. > Has anyone heard reports from other municipalities about problems with > digital radios? Oho! Motorola is famous for pushing communities to buy new gear even though their 20 to 40 year old Motorola gear works just fine. I'm so happy my city hasn't bitten the deadly trunking bullet. It's an accident that was waiting to happen and I'm happy that it did, but my condolences go out to the firefighter who was nearly killed because of Motorola's funky emergency system. I hope he sues the ever loving crap out of Motorola and wins. ------------------------------ 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. 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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 #459 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Oct 1 01:48:07 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i915m6k03010; Fri, 1 Oct 2004 01:48:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 01:48:07 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410010548.i915m6k03010@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 #460 TELECOM Digest Fri, 1 Oct 2004 01:48:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 460 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Santa Cruz Pirate Radio Station Unplugged (Robert Weller) Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal (Rick Merrill) Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal (Tony P.) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Gordon Hlavenka) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (jdj) WWW Founder, was: WWW is Ten Years Old in 2004 (Danny Burstein) Re: Can Anyone Recommend a "Pay as You Go" Economy Cell Phone? (jdj) Re: Paper Tape Technology Was: What is the Name of #? (Gene Berkowitz) Re: Paper Tape Technology Was: What is the Name of #? (AES/newspost) Re: Paper Tape Technology was Re: What is Name of #? (Bob Goudreau) Re: Fireman Claims Radio Failure Nearly Killed Him (Steve Sobol) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Rich Greenberg) Re: AT&T Lowers Price of its Residential VoIP Service (Rick Merrill) Re: Net Firms: Don't Tax Internet Calling (Rick Merrill) Re: Our Inexpensive Directory Assistance Program (Fred Atkinson) 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: Robert Weller Subject: Santa Cruz Pirate Radio Station Unplugged Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 15:32:06 -0700 http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2004/September/30/local/=20 stories/01local.htm By CATHY REDFERN Sentinel staff writer SANTA CRUZ Federal agents armed with weapons and a court order seized the broadcasting equipment of Free Radio Santa Cruz on Wednesday morning, silencing the pirate radio station. Residents of two buildings on the property said agents knocked on the door with guns drawn about 8:45 a.m. The tense operation concluded about five hours later, with the towing of three of the agents disabled vehicles. [submitted by Bob Weller] ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal Organization: Comcast Online Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 23:02:42 GMT Jack Decker wrote: > http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2435843,00.html > By John Ingold > Denver Post Staff Writer > When her infant son started having trouble breathing, a worried Krista > Staats rushed to the phone and called 911. > A dispatch center in Castle Rock, nearly 40 miles from her Adams > County house, took the call, thinking she was calling from a business > in Parker. AS VoIP begins to spread (as did Cellphones) we must all re-learn how to give 911 our location AND TOWN. In our town we had a house burn down because they called frantically from a cell phone and it took 15 minutes to find out where they were! My Dlink documentation specificly states that 911 will not work the same as E911. The town dispatcher says that the number coming in is something [screwy] and will not operate their computer: in other words they have to ASK you where you are! How long will it take for that to be fixed? - RM ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal Organization: ATCC Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 00:22:54 GMT In article , Jack Decker says: > http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2435843,00.html > By John Ingold > Denver Post Staff Writer > When her infant son started having trouble breathing, a worried Krista > Staats rushed to the phone and called 911. > A dispatch center in Castle Rock, nearly 40 miles from her Adams > County house, took the call, thinking she was calling from a business > in Parker. As Staats bounced from dispatch center to dispatch center, > trying to find the right people to help her, her baby boy's condition > grew worse, and Staats grew more frantic. > Finally, 5-month-old Christopher Vasquez stopped breathing, and Staats > let out a piercing, terror-filled scream. He died moments later, > shortly after an ambulance was dispatched -- a little over four minutes > after Staats made her call. > Now, Staats has sued her telephone company, Comcast, and two other > companies, claiming that because they put the wrong address for her > phone number into the 911 system, her son died that day in the spring > of 2003. > "Because Comcast had my address wrong in the system, I had to watch my > son die," she said Wednesday at a news conference. > Staats may not be alone in having the 911 problem. > Full story at: > http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2435843,00.html > Additional commentary at BroadbandReports.com: > http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/54996 This is going to force VoIP carriers to figure out how to deal with 911 routing in a big old hurry. For the life of me, I cannot understand why they just can't use GPS and then do a database dip to route to the correct entity. If anything the U.S. is getting more tightly mapped via The Help America Vote Act (Hereby referred to as HAVA). The state of Rhode Island recently got close to $10 million to implement a Central Voter Registration System (CVRS) and that requires us to map EVERY address down to the house number. We're also going to be coordinating with the state DMV though they're still using COBOL flat files. Eeeew. So I can't see why we wouldn't share it with the E-911 folks around here. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But if this incident happened in the 'spring of 2003' as stated, we are now in the fall of 2004, a year and a half later. Who do *you* see rushing around to fix things, in a big hurry? And how do you know, based on the newspaper report, that the lady attempted to use a VOIP phone, or that the fault is anything to do with VOIP? And *if* it was a VOIP phone, those very seldom -- if ever -- go into the 911 system as such, usually winding up ringing on a seven digit administrative number instead. So why wouldn't the call (if it was a VOIP phone) have rung into one or more dispatcher's positions in the local emergency call answering facility? Because here in Independence, Kansas we are more rural and backward in our way of doing things, our dispatchers have a wall phone which is answered 24/7 and known to be for 'alternate answering'; a '911-like' phone but without 911-abilities in all ways. When Vonage, a major player in VOIP service recieves a request from a customer to turn on 911 service -- your choice if you want to have it or not -- Vonage sends email to the PSAP, and paper mail, advising them of this. When the PSAP acknowledges the email and adjusts the database accordingly, then Vonage tells the customer it is okay to begin using it. Here in Independence, the Police Department, whose dispatcher also responds to calls on the Sheriff's emergency line, also sends paper mail to the address **exactly as received from the VOIP carrier** to confirm it is a 'good address' in an envelope marked 'deliver to addressee only' asking the person to confirm their use of VOIP phone service and explaining how it is different than 'normal 911 service'. The police department asks the subscriber to respond to the mailing, and that response confirms what the VOIP carrier had originally said. Although as I said earlier, we are a small, rural community considered backward and I suspect ignorant in many areas, our dispatchers have been well trained, and our telephones are answered 24 hours per day, seven days per week, unlike New York City where we were advised here in a message a couple months ago, the police quit answering the phones at 10 PM, and rather than responding effeciently and courteously to every call are likely as not to put the caller through the wringer if he did not choose to place his call on the phone line the police happened to consider more appropriate. Why is that so difficult for other police/sheriff/emergency answering points to handle? Why is the VOIP carrier expected to do all the required contortions? And I am not yet convinced the phone company -- whichever one it was -- had anything to do with this fiasco. Why can't all police agencies have a phone line (which makes one or more appearances around the room as needed) to deal with the exceptions like we do here in Independence? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 21:39:56 -0500 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Reply-To: nospam@crashelex.com Organization: Crash Electronics Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Lisa Hancock wrote: > Concerning the above problem, I'm surprised that a broken crystal (do > crystals even break that easily?) would just so happen to send out a > different valid signal. I don't know the details of how the BART system works, but if there's an analog correspondence between the frequency coming out of a divider and the train speed, then a change in the frequency going into the divider (e.g. from a failed crystal oscillator) would produce a different frequency. Depending on how the frequency is scaled, the crystal could be far off frequency yet the new frequency could still be within the range of valid values. Just wrong. I'm just handwaving here, but suppose there's an 8051 microcontroller running on an 8MHz clock. It's running something similar to this air code: output_speed: MOV A,#speed CPL speed_bit timing: INC A JNZ A,timing CPL speed_bit JMP output_speed Now, the higher the value passed in with #timing, the faster speed_bit oscillates. If speed_bit has been defined as an output pin, you can feed it to a transmitter and send it to the train. The train would have a receiver hooked to an F-V converter attached to the motor speed controller that takes a voltage for input. If your 8MHz crystal begins oscillating at 24MHz for some reason (crystal fails, loading cap fails, onchip 8051 driver fails, etc.) then the code continues to run without error but speed_bit toggles at 3X the desired rate. So, passing the appropriate number in #speed to command 24mph would run the train at 72mph ... Not saying this is how they do it, but it's one way. I'd rather send coded digital data over the air, so I could error-check it before using it. But the whole F-V scenario might still be used onboard the train with a PCM feeding into it; the resulting voltage then sent to a COTS motor speed controller. > Note that Touch Tone signals use two-tones, not just one. Except that most touchtone _generators_ operate off of a single oscillator. So, if that oscillator goes bad both tones slide. I worked on a telephone system that used a TP5088 hardwired to generate "*", but fed a 2MHz input instead of 3.58, to generate a dialtone. The result was pretty close to The Real Thing. Gordon S. Hlavenka http://www.crashelectronics.com "If we imagined he could _find_ the car, we could pretend it might be fixed." - Calvin ------------------------------ From: jdj Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 17:03:51 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com On Thu, 30 Sep 2004 08:35:14 -0700, Jeff nor Lisa wrote: > George Mitchell wrote >> 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. > Let me clarify the above paragraph. By 'radios' I meant the train > control system, not the audio communication system. Strictly speaking, BART did not use radios to control trains. Only in an extremely broad sense would the system be considered "radio". The little white fins atop the cars were/are antennae for voice comms. > BART uses automated train operation and protection. The speed and > stopping of trains is controlled by signals sent to the train from > wayside transmitters. A second and critical component of this system is > train protection so that one train does not collide with another. BART > was an early modern automated train system. > The rest of my paragraph is correct. The original BART system had > pushed the state of the art and had many problems in practice. > [GW continues] >> 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.PD That link is invalid. Returns 404. > My point is that BART depends on wireless communications to transmit > speed commands from wayside onto the train AND that BART had many > problems with this system. The above example is just one of many > problems they had to deal with. Strictly speaking, it is wireless. The car's shielded pickup is very close to a device alongside or just above the third rail. This is the data communications link. I know that the signalling does not occur above 1MHz -- I did check! (Very surreptitiously.) The system is similar in function to a tape recorder: In a tape recorder the tape head detects changes in magnetic flux from the moving tape and is designed not to pick up stray magnetic fields. The tape head also produces a magnetic flux which is concentrated on the tape to record sounds. The BART control system is designed the same way, except the "tape" carries a magnetic signal that changes continuously. The train pickup is designed to only pick up signals from the "tape" and to "record" signals to the "tape". There is a detailed layman's description of the magnetic pickup in a periodical somewhere. It was published sometime around 1975. Also published were details of the control system, complete with lots of pictures of the IBM mainframe and ops center. If I recall correctly, there was also extensive coverage of BART in IBM's internal publication, "Think". > Concerning the above problem, I'm surprised that a broken crystal (do > crystals even break that easily?) would just so happen to send out a > different valid signal. In Bell System signalling, they were very > careful to avoid harmonic frequencies or any frequencies as well as > pulse coding that could be misinterpreted as something else. Note that > Touch Tone signals use two-tones, not just one. This kind of safety > design goes back to the 1940s. Likewise, in more traditional railroad > signalling, the pulse codes were carefully designed and implemented with > very rugged gear to avoid misinterpretation. If a failure occurs, it is > interpreted as a stop signal. (BART chose to not use traditional > railroad technology.) Yes, crystals do break while in use. They are not perfect. When they break, they can and do produce output at higher frequencies. A crystal's resonant frequency is a function of it's dimensions as well as composition. > Anyway, a stray or errant signal could and did cause a BART train wreck. > Naturally BART mgmt would be interested in preventing such problems. > On other automated rail systems, a positive read of a specific signal is > required to proceed, the failure to receive that signal stops the train. No, a stray signal did not cause the crash. A faulty signalling device, as has been described, caused it. The train was commanded to accelerate. Even emergency braking could not have stopped the train before the crash. There was not enough track left. This was pointed out in the report and in the media. The end of track is only about a car-length or two past the end of the platform. > As someone else explained, superhet radio receivers retransmit a signal, > and this signal happens to interfere with navigation. Well, a radio > that is actually transmitting could send out similar signal > interference. The problem with FM band superhets is that the local oscillator frequency is traditionally set above the band of interest, in this case, within the air-nav band of 108 to 118MHz. The interference is of such a nature that it would be discernible as interference and not a navigation signal. I suspect that modern airnav systems would not be fooled. > As to the current issue, walkie-talkies are transmitters, and as such, > send out signals obviously stronger than within a receiver's superhet > circuits. It is possible that such signals either directly or through > distortion/harmonics could interfere with normal train control. While a > wreck is unlikely, it could force a train into an emergency stop between > stations, which is obviously undesirable. Not possible when the control signal band is below the bands in use by radios, as in the case of BART. Harmonics do not appear below the fundamental. > Until such time that modern walkie-talkies would be tested to ensure > their signals do not and cannot interfere with train control and train > protection, they should not be permitted to be used on BART. Then all transmitters should have been banned on those grounds. Yet cell phones were allowed, as well as untested radios from other agencies. And again, nearby transmitters, including high-powered transmitters, adjacent to the track, caused no problems. It is not a current issue as there is no longer a policy banning transmitters in stations or on trains. There is no evidence that any radios interfere with train operation. The longer this goes on, the more I remember from my "VIP" tour of BART all those years ago ... ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: WWW Founder, was: WWW is Ten Years Old in 2004 Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 00:08:06 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC TELECOM Digest Editor queried in response to kpospisek@yahoo.com (Karl Pospisek): > Please remind me who I am (trying to) thinking about. I do know he > never took a nickle for his work in developing the Web, which I guess > would be the 'killer application' of all time. PAT] Tim Berners-Lee. (not to be confused with Bernard Lee, aka M, James Bond's boss) _____________________________________________________ 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: Ah yes, Tim Berners-Lee, thank you for jogging my memory. I wish Mr. Berners-Lee would come around here now and then, I would love to give him a piece of my mind, as disease- riddled and useless as it has become since the aneurysm. I would ask him why in the hell he did not slap a copyright on everything to do with the web back in 1994 so as to prevent so much of the foolish nonsense and charlatanism we see all over the place now days. Ah well, too late now to worry about it I guess. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jdj Subject: Re: Can Anyone Recommend a "Pay as You Go" Economy Cell Phone? Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 17:15:36 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 21:32:48 -0700, ava cohen wrote: > I am thinking of getting my 12 year old daughter a pay as you go cell > phone in California. It is likely going to cost you far more than a contract plan. Kids and phones are like kids and candy. Both are gone as fast they can consume them. I'll bet you will soon tire of buying more time every day. > Can anyone recommend a "pay as you go" economy cell phone? (like > prepaid cards?) I suggest looking at each company's offering. Target has brochures on many of the available services. Seems almost every single company has a prepaid plan, now. > I do not want to subscribe to any plans. For which you will pay dearly. Not that you wouldn't under a contract ... > Which company? They're all pretty bad. > How much does the phone and the calls cost? Between $40 and $200, depending on company and model of phone. They do not allow you to use a phone you already have -- unless you bought it specifically for their prepaid service. Call costs vary between companies. > Where is the best place to buy it from? Safeway's, Target, KMart, Socket Circus -- I mean Circuit City -- :) etc. They're spreading like a plague. :) > Any help would be highly appreciated. > Thanks. > Ava ------------------------------ From: Gene S. Berkowitz Subject: Re: Paper Tape Technology Was: What is the Name of #? Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 22:46:33 -0400 In article , johnl@iecc.com says... >> As an undergrad at Harvard, Bill Gates wrote software to read and >> count these punched holes (a task complicated slightly by the fact >> that they are randomly spaced along the paper tape) and set up a >> company ("Traf-O-Data", I believe) located in his dorm room which >> received these tapes, read them using bootlegged time on Aiken's early >> Harvard University computer facility, and sent back printed reports to >> traffic engineers all over the company. > Gates and Allen did run Traf-O-Data, but the rest is wrong. Since > Bill is 48 years old, when would he have been at Harvard? When was > Aiken doing the Mark I through Mark IV? Sheesh. Gates was Class of '77 at Harvard. Most students at that time used the Harvard-Radcliffe Student Time Sharing System (HRSTS), which was a Unix variant running on DEC PDP-11s. --Gene ------------------------------ From: AES/newspost Subject: Re: Paper Tape Technology Was: What is the Name of #? Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 20:02:28 -0700 A recent posting from me said: > Very similar punched tape technology was also used -- probably still > is widely used -- in those traffic counting units that use a rubber > hose tacked down across the roadway and a box by the side of the road. > A classic clockwork mechanism inside the box (spring-wound or battery > powered? -- I don't know, but I'd guess the former) slowly winds a > paper tape from one reel to another. Each time a car runs over the > hose the resulting pneumatic impulse pushes an arm which punches a > hole in the paper. > As an undergrad at Harvard, Bill Gates wrote software to read and > count these punched holes (a task complicated slightly by the fact > that they are randomly spaced along the paper tape) and set up a > company ("Traf-O-Data", I believe) located in his dorm room which > received these tapes, read them using bootlegged time on Aiken's early > Harvard University computer facility, and sent back printed reports to > traffic engineers all over the company. > (Above is written from memory, so take cum grano salis, but I think it's > basically a correct story -- corrections welcome.) A response from John Levine quoted my third paragraph and said: > Gates and Allen did run Traf-O-Data, but the rest is wrong. > Since Bill is 48 years old, when would he have been at Harvard? > When was Aiken doing the Mark I through Mark IV? Sheesh. And this is a reply from me to those statements: The rest is wrong? Really? 1) Gates, born in 1955, was an undergrad at Harvard (though I believe he never finished the degree). This would have been around 1972-73 since I think he started Microsoft around 1973 or 1974. 2) The story of his involvement in Traf-O-Data was told me by a physics colleague who was a fellow undergrad living in the same entry as Gates in the same student residence at Harvard. He recalled in particular the large number of packages containing paper tapes from traffic engineers that Gates received in the dorm, and his processing these on Harvard computer facilities at night. 3) I assume Gates wrote the software that processed the tapes -- does JL know otherwise? 4) Howard Aiken was at Harvard from the 1940s (or earlier?) through 1961. He founded the Harvard Computation Laboratory around 1944 to 1947 (accounts vary). The Laboratory staff and facilities occupied a building at 33 Oxford street which was also called the Harvard Computation Laboratory, although I don't know exactly when this building was built. The organization and the building were both renamed as the Aiken Computation Laboratory in 1964 (before Gates arrived). The Laboratory was still operating, or at least issuing technical reports over that name, at least as late as 1981; the building remained under that name, and I believe housed Harvard's computer facilities, or many of them anyway, until it was torn down in 1998. 5) I guess I don't know for sure that Gates used the computer hardware in this building for his Traf-O-Data operations -- perhaps he used some other computer facility at Harvard -- but it certainly seems a very reasonable supposition, Does JL have any knowledge otherwise? If so, referring to these facilities as "Aiken's early Harvard University computer facility" seems fully accurate to me. (And entirely as an aside, might Gates in 1971 even have used some surviving paper tape reader that had been connected to one of Aiken's early Mark xxx computers? I have no idea, and no knowledge of how long that kind of paper tape hardware can last; but I believe Aiken's Mark IV operated until some time in the late 1950s.) 6) Finally, does anyone see any reference to Aiken's Mark xxx computers in my original post? J Carpenter (SunGard BSR) has also posted a reply which says: > Actually, it was before Bill Gates went to Harvard, when he was still > in high school, that Bill Gates and Paul Allen built their own > computer to measure traffic data, and they made about $20,000. > Search the web on "bill gates" and "traf-o-data" for the details. I've subsequently looked at several of those web sites, and they indeed all agree that Gates and Allen were interested in the traffic counting problem and together founded Traf-O-Data before Gates went off to Harvard, while both were still in high school. Few of the sites are very explicit about details, however, or present much documentation, and some of them contradict each other on specific details. Several of them also seem to agree that neither the hardware nor the software aspects of the traffic counting problem had been fully worked out by the time Gates went off to Harvard. I certainly have no first-hand knowledge of these events myself, but I'd attach considerable reliability to the first-hand report from Gates' fellow Harvard student. Perhaps this has not become part of the Gates legend because it's not quite as appealing or newsworthy as the "brilliant young high-school entrepreneur" human interest aspects of the stories on these other websites. ------------------------------ From: Bob Goudreau Subject: Re: Paper Tape Technology was Re: What is Name of #? Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 23:10:32 -0400 [PAT, please eliminate my email address from the message. Thanks.] J Carpenter (SunGard BSR) wrote: >>> As an undergrad at Harvard, Bill Gates wrote software to read >>> and count these punched holes (a task complicated slightly by >>> the fact that they are randomly spaced along the paper tape) and >>> set up acompany ("Traf-O-Data", I believe) located in his dorm >>> room which received these tapes, read them using bootlegged time >>> on Aiken's early Harvard University computer facility, and sent >>> back printed reports to traffic engineers all over the company. >> Gates and Allen did run Traf-O-Data, but the rest is wrong. Since >> Bill is 48 years old, when would he have >> been at Harvard? When was Aiken doing the Mark I through Mark IV? >> Sheesh. > Actually, it was before Bill Gates went to Harvard, when he was still > in high school, that Bill Gates and Paul Allen built their own > computer to measure traffic data, and they made about $20,000. I think the original poster confused two details of the true story: 1) As pointed out above, Traf-O-Data came before Gates's brief stint in college. What he *did* work on while at Harvard was a BASIC interpreter for the MITS Altair (an early personal computer) that became the first product sold by the new "MicroSoft" company Gates and Allen founded. 2) The Aiken "facility" in question was not one of Howard Aiken's 1940s-era electromechanical computers (the Mark I was obviously the first model), but the university's Aiken Computation Laboratory, a building a bit north of Harvard Yard. This structure was the home of the DEC PDP-10 that Gates used to develop his BASIC interpreter. As recently as the mid-1980s, the public areas of this building still contained a display of some of the pieces of Aiken's original Mark I computer. As I mentioned above, this computer was electromechanical, not electronic, and the sections on display reminded me of nothing so much as an old electromechanical phone switch! The ironic coda to the story is that a few years ago, the Aiken lab was razed. What stands in its place now? The new home of the Harvard CS department, Maxwell-Dworkin Hall, built with money donated by none other than Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer and named in honor of their mothers. Hopefully, the new facility still displays the remnants of Aiken's Mark I machine, but since I haven't visited it yet, I can't say for sure. Bob Goudreau Cary, NC ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Fireman Claims Radio Failure Nearly Killed Him Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 20:13:37 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Tony P. wrote: > It's an accident that was waiting to happen and I'm happy that it did, > but my condolences go out to the firefighter who was nearly killed > because of Motorola's funky emergency system. I hope he sues the ever > loving crap out of Motorola and wins. The ironic thing is that in the cellular world, although I consider Motorola phones to be overpriced junk because the fit and finish is often terrible, they seem to have very few equals in terms of being able to deal with weak signals. I know that they were the only choice for quite some time if you used a CDMA carrier and wanted a phone that held onto calls almost anywhere (though other manufacturers are doing well these days, too) 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: richgr@panix.com (Rich Greenberg) Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: 30 Sep 2004 19:50:38 -0400 Organization: Organized? Me? In article , Nick Landsberg wrote: > Actually, as I recall, the controller was necessary. The 3270's > didn't transmit anything until the operator hit the "send" key, and > this would be buffered in the "cluster controller." > The controller, in turn, would be polled at roughly 2 second intervals > by the far end, at which time it would send the data. A controller > was theoretically limited to 32 terminals, but we found that 16 was a > practical limit for our applications. The polling, which could be set to various intervals, was only on the "remote" controllers, i.e. connected by a communications line, either bisync or (more recently) SNA/VTAM. There were also "local" controllers which were channel attached. On these, pressing an "attention" key (enter, clear, pf1-pf24 & a few others) caused the controller to signal an i/o interrupt to the processor which would cause the processor to read the controller to find out what was wanted. IBM channels on early machines transferred 1.5 megabytes/sec, newer ones went considerably faster. > I never encountered an installation where there was an isolated 3270 > without a cluster controller, although I presume this was > theoretically possible. This is correct with 2 sort-of exceptions. There was a model 3276 which was a display and a controller in one case. Not sure, but I think the controller could handle a few additional displays. Also, the later 360s and all 370s and later processors used a built in 3270 like display which served as an operator console and a service console to control the functions that used to be in lights, switches and buttons on the console. Part of the CPU microcode served as the controller for this display. Rich Greenberg N6LRT Marietta, GA, USA richgr atsign panix.com 770 321 6507 Eastern time zone. I speak for myself & my dogs only. M'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: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: AT&T Lowers Price of its Residential VoIP Service Organization: Comcast Online Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 23:05:17 GMT Jack Decker wrote: > Comment: I wonder if this means that anyone who orders today > (September 30) would still get the introductory price of $19.99 for > the first six months, but after that would only have to pay the new > rate of $29.99/month (rather than the $34.99 still shown on their web > site). That is my expectation! My Dlink just arrived: it'll take a day or two to get the number ported. > Personally I think there are better deals out there than AT&T, > for example several VoIP companies offer their "unlimited" service at > about $20 or $25 per month. Glad to hear competition is back. > To learn more about AT&T CallVantage Service, consumers can visit > http://www.CallVantage.com, call 1-866-816-3815, extension 70339, or > visit one of these retailers. > Full press release at: > http://www.att.com/news/item/0,1847,13258,00.html ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Net Firms: Don't Tax Internet Calling Organization: Comcast Online Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 23:07:21 GMT Jack Decker wrote: > http://news.com.com/Net+firms+Dont+tax+VoIP/2100-7352_3-5389880.html > By Declan McCullagh > Staff Writer, CNET News.com > The largest U.S. Internet phone companies are asking the Internal > Revenue Service not to slam them with a "temporary" tax created more > than 100 years ago to pay for the Spanish-American War. > In a six-page letter to the IRS sent late Wednesday, the companies > stressed that fledgling voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services > should not be subject to the excise tax that President William > McKinley signed into law in 1898. > "VoIP is having a profound and beneficial impact on the United States > and the world in a way unimaginable in 1898," the letter said, urging > the IRS to "refrain from any attempt to extend the excise tax to VoIP > services." > The letter was sent by the VON Coalition, which represents AT&T, > Covad, Intel, Level3, MCI, Microsoft, Pulver.com, Skype and Texas > Instruments. > Full story at: > http://news.com.com/Net+firms+Dont+tax+VoIP/2100-7352_3-5389880.html VoIP is also independent of other rules: for example, they can bill to a credit card and cut off service if you card goes belly up. Whereas with POTS they cannot cut off phone service because the legal system has deemed phone an essential service that can only be cut off after due process. - RM ------------------------------ From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Re: Our Inexpensive Directory Assistance Program Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 20:02:34 -0400 Pat, Can this be used in conjunction with Vonage service? Fred [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I guess you are referring to the service at http://www.easy411.com/telecomdigest where you enroll your telephone number(s), provide your credit card number then get billed 65 cents for each use of directory assistance in real time, instead of the $1.25 or $1.50 your own telco charges you. The answer is yes, you can. Vonage itself takes calls to '411' and defaults them to *their carrier [for DA] of choice* but they charge you 99 cents per (up to) two inquiries. But the one I am associated with uses an 800 number instead, and bills you 65 cents each. The ANI provided is used to match your account with the system. If you have some method of your own to dial 411 and re-direct it to the 800 number that's fine or otherwise make a speed dial button for directory assist- ance. They do not literally go to your credit/debit card for 65 cents each time you inquire; they tally up your calls and charge you every month or so for just what you used, no service charges and no minimum usage requirements. If you have a company for example, with a dozen phone lines each with a number, enroll all the numbers, redirect 411 however you please (or tell your people to dial the 800 number) and calculate the savings, at 65 cents per call versus whatever you pay now for directory. 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 #460 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Oct 1 14:40:54 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i91IesL09243; Fri, 1 Oct 2004 14:40:54 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 14:40:54 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410011840.i91IesL09243@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 #461 TELECOM Digest Fri, 1 Oct 2004 14:40:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 461 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson U.S. Cybersecurity Chief Abruptly Resigns (Monty Solomon) Re: WWW is Ten Years Old in 2004 (jdj) Re: WWW Founder, was: WWW is Ten Years Old in 2004 (John Levine) Re: Can Anyone Recommend a Pay as You Go Cell Phone? (Ray Normandeau) Re: Can Anyone Recommend a Pay as You Go Cell Phone? (Dave Garland) Re: Can Anyone Recommend a Pay as You Go Economy Cell Phone? (Joseph) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (George Mitchell) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Robert Bonomi) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? - Part 2 (Bonomi) Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest (Justin Time) Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal (John Levine) Re: Paper Tape Technology Was: What is the Name of #? (John Levine) 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, 1 Oct 2004 13:00:17 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: U.S. Cybersecurity Chief Abruptly Resigns By TED BRIDIS AP Technology Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government's cybersecurity chief has abruptly resigned after one year with the Department of Homeland Security, confiding to industry colleagues his frustration over what he considers a lack of attention paid to computer security issues within the agency. Amit Yoran, a former software executive from Symantec Corp., informed the White House about his plans to quit as director of the National Cyber Security Division and made his resignation effective at the end of Thursday, effectively giving a single's day notice of his intentions to leave. Yoran said Friday he "felt the timing was right to pursue other opportunities." It was unclear immediately who might succeed him even temporarily. Yoran's deputy is Donald "Andy" Purdy, a former senior adviser to the White House on cybersecurity issues. Yoran has privately described frustrations in recent months to colleagues in the technology industry, according to lobbyists who recounted these conversations on condition they not be identified because the talks were personal. As cybersecurity chief, Yoran and his division _ with an $80 million budget and 60 employees _ were responsible for carrying out dozens of recommendations in the Bush administration's "National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace," a set of proposals to better protect computer networks. Yoran's position as a director _ at least three steps beneath Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge _ has irritated the technology industry and even some lawmakers. They have pressed unsuccessfully in recent months to elevate Yoran's role to that of an assistant secretary, which could mean broader authority and more money for cybersecurity issues. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=43989040 ------------------------------ From: jdj Subject: Re: WWW is Ten Years Old in 2004 Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 23:33:03 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: [snip] I am trying > now to think of the name of the one person who did most of the work > creating the Web, but his name off hand escapes me. I know he has been > (or still is) involved with MIT and he also has an office (or perhaps > lives) in Switzerland. Please remind me who I am (trying to) thinking > about. I do know he never took a nickle for his work in developing the > Web, which I guess would be the 'killer application' of all time. PAT] He is Tim Berners-Lee, of MIT and CERN fame. CERN took most of the credit for the WWW. A history/timeline of the WorldWide Web is at: http://www.w3.org/History.html I still have the all the versions of Mosaic I ever used. Someone sent the first one to me by uucp around 1991, just before I got arpanet access. Used to get a lot more without the web. Just used {Gopher, Archie, Veronica, Jughead}, telnet, ftp, ftpmail and dialups. Now there is too much noise and obfuscation (mostly adverts) to wade through. It's as if they have deliberately made it harder to find things. Kind of like AOL: For every useful minute, ten more are wasted. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Readers may also wish to check out a site I started several years ago: http://internet-history.org or http://internet-pioneers.org . PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 1 Oct 2004 15:22:55 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: WWW Founder, was: WWW is Ten Years Old in 2004 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA That would be Sir Tim Berners-Lee. He was made Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire earlier this year. This summer his wife told me some amusing stories of trying to fit a trip back home to get the award into Tim's overcrammed schedule. R's, John [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I believe Queen Elizabeth awarded him the Knighthood on January 1, did she not? PAT] ------------------------------ From: rayta@msn.com (Ray Normandeau) Subject: Re: Can Anyone Recommend a "Pay as You Go" Economy Cell Phone? Date: 30 Sep 2004 22:51:02 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com avacohen100@yahoo.com (ava cohen) wrote in message news:: > I am thinking of getting my 12 year old daughter a pay as you go cell > phone in California. > Can anyone recommend a "pay as you go" economy cell phone? (like > prepaid cards?) > I do not want to subscribe to any plans. > Which company? > How much does the phone and the calls cost? > Where is the best place to buy it from? > Any help would be highly appreciated. > Thanks. > Ava After using SPCS since 1998 with two phones sharing an acct, we switched in August to prepaid Virgin Mobile. We are incredibly happy. It is a prepaid service. The minimum is $20.00 every 90 days. Since we are now semi-retired, this is ideal. Instead of spending a total of OVER $80.00 with all the $%&** charges added on, we are now averaging a TOTAL of c. $12.00 for a month. In November we have to add $20.00 to each phone to keep the number. Go to Virgin.com, they use the SPCS network. We bought a couple of $60.00 Keyocera Rave 7 phone. One [out of the 2] of the Manhattan NYC stores was giving an instant $20.00 rebate on each phone. THEN VM PAYS YOU $10.00 in usage/time when you activate. At that rate we could THROW AWAY our phones at the end of evey month if we only used the $10.00 time that they gave us and come out ahead. P.S.: we have also use a Gmail addy to post here, but it is a REAL spam magnate. This address is NG, so spammers, don't bother. ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: Can Anyone Recommend a "Pay as You Go" Economy Cell Phone? Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 12:18:24 -0500 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when avacohen100@yahoo.com (ava cohen) wrote: > Can anyone recommend a "pay as you go" economy cell phone? (like > prepaid cards?) It's pretty competitive, in the sense that most of the companies charge about the same (0.25/min to/from anywhere in the USA, in some cases less if you buy a very large amount of time in advance), you need to add more time periodically to keep the minutes from expiring. Make sure the company has on-network coverage in the area you're concerned about, roaming charges tend to be 2X the base rate. As with other cell companies, all vendors seem to be widely hated by users. If you don't plan to use the phone much at all, ATTW's "Free2Go" may be a slightly better deal (no monthly fee or minimum, you can buy time in $10 increments, and the expiration is 3 mo., some of the others have larger increments and/or shorter expirations). (This is NOT the same as their "2Go" service.) But if your kid is using it, I doubt that unused minutes reaching their expiration date is going to be much of a problem. Periodically the various vendors may have sales where the price of a phone drops. Occasionally one will have a deal online at their website that involves reconditioned phones. Check around, check the websites to find where the best deal is at the moment. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Can Anyone Recommend a "Pay as You Go" Economy Cell Phone? Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 07:41:20 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Thu, 30 Sep 2004 17:15:36 -0700, jdj wrote: > Between $40 and $200, depending on company and model of phone. They do > not allow you to use a phone you already have -- unless you bought it > specifically for their prepaid service. Not true in most cases. For GSM phones if they are unlocked you can use any card provided it uses the technology that particular phone uses. For others if the phone was previously activated with that carrier generally you can use a deactivated phone on that network. This is true for AT&T Wireless TDMA service, Sprint PCS, Verizon, Qwest and others. The phone's ESN (serial number) has to be in their database of originally being on their system. And for the most part it doesn't matter whether the phone was used for that company's prepaid or monthly service. ------------------------------ From: George Mitchell Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 23:18:08 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com >> http://www.wws.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/byteserv.prl/~ota/disk3/1976/7614/761406.PD > That link is invalid. Returns 404. Sorry -- it's missing an "F" at the end: http://www.wws.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/byteserv.prl/~ota/disk3/1976/7614/761406.PDF -- George Mitchell (obfuscated email address) ------------------------------ 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: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 11:55:35 +0000 In article , Nick Landsberg wrote: > Lisa Hancock wrote: >> bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote >>> Sorry, there is use that predates the personal computer -- with a >>> modem on a dial-up to a mainframe time-sharing service. 'Terminal' is >>> the correct word. >> Correct, they were called terminals, a word that included Teletypes >> that were used in the early days. >>> The point being that the cards were _designed_ to accommodate that >>> printing, One of the early IBM 'interpreters' (an O49 or was that a >>> sorter?) could only print 40 columns in a pass; had to change the >>> program on the plugboard to get the other 40 columns. And change >>> where the printing fell on the card, so it didn't write over the first >>> 40 characters. :) >> I'm not certain, but back in 1928 when the modern punch card was >> invented by IBM, I don't think there was any kind of printing >> mechanism for cards. Remember, initially the cards were numeric only >> and the upper field (the "zone") was used only for control characters. >> I suspect the uppermost space was just a margin to give a punched >> card strength or a place for handwritten notes. >> In the 1930s IBM developed a more sophisticated line of tab machines. >> Included was an printing alpha key punch. >> The 1948 line of interpreters were NOT intended to print one character >> per column -- the width of the printed character was slightly wider >> than a column. Only 60 characters would fit on the top and 20 would >> have to go on the next line. In practice, the interpreters were >> programmed by the plug panel to print selected fields in certain >> places, and could do so all over the card. They could also print a >> big number sideways on the side edge so the card could be filed >> vertically. >> Also, most IBM lines of keypunches included printing and non printing >> models, and the non-printers were cheaper. >> BTW, one advtg of the punched card system was that it was easy and >> cheap to have "on-line" file access. They'd just punch out and >> interpret and sort a deck of cards containing key data. Clerks would >> receive phone requests and pull up the cards in a tube file. Changes >> would be processed through the tab system. >> So did IBM, later, around the S/34 or S/36 IIRC, not too long before >> It should be noted that until the 1980s, the above was cheaper and >> faster than developing a "modern" CICS solution on a real computer. >>>> punch cards passed out of mainstream usage altogether. >> IBM's System/32,34,36 did not use cards at all. The mini cards were >> used on the IBM System/3. >> As an aside, the language used on IBM's System/3x through the present >> day AS/400 is RPG, which dates back to 1960 and the IBM 1401. The >> language was intended to mimic the wiring of a tab machine control >> panel so tab operators could make the transition to programming. >>> The 3270 was a 'smart' terminal -- necessitated by IBM's "block mode" >>> architecture -- and used 16 bits per displayed character. 1 byte for >>> the character itself, and one byte for the 'attributes', things like >>> 'bright', 'blank', 'input', 'protected', etc. > IIRC, the "attribute byte" only had to get transmitted when the > attribute properties changed or when you wanted to jump to a different > portion of the screen. Correct as far as -transmission- went. However, the 'in-terminal' memory had to have one 'attribute' byte for each character displayed. The only alternative, as used on some 'cheap' ASCII terminals, was to use any single memory location as _either_ a displayable character, or an attribute byte. This had the drawback of having the attribute byte consume a character-position on the display -- resulting in a blank space at every point the attributes changed. > The sequence, as I recall was : > SBA (Set Buffer Address) ROW, COL, ABYTE, data bytes > The ABYTE subset which I recall is > displayed/non-displayed, > returned/non-returned, > alpha, numeric (not mutually exlusive, 2 bits), > protected/unprotected, > "bright" (or highlighted). > Now that's only 6 bits ... what am I missing? > You could also get very creative with these fields. At least one > implementation that I am aware of used "protected, non-displayed, > returned" fields to "hide" data from the user but make it easier on > the server machine. For example, a transaction which retrieved a > Telephone Co. customer's record would retrieve all the data at once, > but use the 3270 as a kind of storage device, hiding the data which > didn't need to appear on "page 1" as "protected, non-displayed, > returned" so that when the clerk asked for "page 2" all that had to be > done on the far end was echo back the data in a different format > without taking the hit of a database access. > (There was no scroll capability on the 3270's that I recall, so this > was a "neat trick" to flip between "pages".) Correct. they were 'page based' displays. everything was written to fixed (absolute row,col) addresses, and everything _stayed_ where it was originally written. >> It's funny how today we call 3270-type terminals (still in very wide >> use) "dumb terminals" when in fact they were not. A Teletype was more >> "dumb" since it basically transmitted or received upon a keystroke, >> while the 3270 network had buffers, could erase and insert characters, >> and as mentioned had different appearances. [There were advanced >> Teletypes that could do some fancy stuff. Some 3270 functions were >> handled by the controller unit that was required and supported a group >> of terminals.] > Actually, as I recall, the controller was necessary. The 3270's > didn't transmit anything until the operator hit the "send" key, and > this would be buffered in the "cluster controller." Yup. controller _absolutely_ necessary. > The controller, in turn, would be polled at roughly 2 second intervals > by the far end, at which time it would send the data. A controller > was theoretically limited to 32 terminals, but we found that 16 was a > practical limit for our applications. > I never encountered an installation where there was an isolated 3270 > without a cluster controller, although I presume this was > theoretically possible. _Not_ possible. There had to be a controller _somewhere_ in the path. Generally, with 'remote' terminals, the cluster-controller was located at the remote site, with hard-wire (coax) to each terminal, and some sort of a 'modem-based' link back to the mainframe. In situations where there were a *very* small number of remote terminals at a given location, one _might_ have a terminal w/o a controller, directly connected to a modem-type device, communicating back to a modem at the head-end, which was hung off a cluster-controller _there_. this was a _very_rare_ set-up, due to the cost of the equipment at each end to mediate between the coax-based communications out of the 3270 and/or cluster-controller and the modem. A '7171'-type front-end -- supporting conventional modems, and allowing use of simple 'ASCII' terminals in the field -- was much more cost- effective if you were supporting more than a very few such locations. >> The Bell System had a heck of a lot of private lines serving business >> data communications. >> A big difference was that IBM liked synchornous transmission while >> many other computers, including common PC transmissions used >> asynchronous transmission. I don't know which is superior. > I don't know either, but from the perspective of private lines (which > you mentioned above), the "cluster controller" saved on private-line > costs. PL's were expensive, and having only one to handle 16 clerks, > rather than 16 PL's or 16 dial-ups, was seen as a cost savings by many > customers. Even though the cluster controllers communicated with the > host at either 4.8 or 9.6 Kbps, the probability of all 16 clerks > hitting send during the same 2-second interval was pretty small. > (Interaction with the customer was on the order of 2 minutes). One > 9.6 PL made a lot more business sense than 16 300 baud PL's or > dial-ups. (At least in those days.) "Synchronous" is notably more 'efficient'. about 20% more efficient. Simply because it does _not_ send the 'start' and 'stop' bits that are part of every asynchronous character transmission. Synchronous has a down-side in that that 'efficiency' results in difficulties in detecting _where_ the boundary between characters is. There are protocol- layer means for dealing with this, but it requires considerable additional 'smarts' in the terminal hardware at each end. If you've already got a lot of smarts in the devices, for other purposes, the additional 'load' on the processor is relatively trivial. If the rest of the hardware is 'dumb', then the cost of the required 'smarts' is definitely non-trivial. A 'noise' hit on a sync comm line will likely cause a much longer disruption of data "readability" than a similar hit on an async line. The async line will re-sync properly within 1 character-time after the end of the noise. The sync line could -- *theoretically* -- run for an indefinite period, spewing out 'mis-aligned' data; in practice, it will usually re-sync within a few tens of characters, to a few hundreds of characters. sync lines _generally_ run some sort of 'error checking protocol' encapsulation of the data for _precisely_ that reason. :) >> We had 3rd party imitation IBM 3270 units but IMHO they weren't as >> good as real IBM units. However, they were a lot cheaper. I don't >> see any "dumb terminals" anymore, it seems almost everyone now has a >> PC with an emulation program/card imitating a 3270 terminal. In the >> early days of PCs, I refused to use a PC with a CGA screen as a 3270 >> terminal since it was so fuzzy compared to a real terminal. >> (Actually, I shied away from CGA PCs altogether.) >> Over time, the cost of 3270-type units and controllers dropped quite a >> bit in price while modem speed increased. > Obligatory rant: Ain't it amazing how much *useful* data can be > transitted over a 9.6 line when you don't have all those graphics and > animations to deal with? Some of us remember when *300*baud* was considered high-speed. Few people can actually _read_ at the 300 word-per-minute speed that such a connection can put data in front of you. 110 baud (100 word/minute) was frustrating, because many/most people _do_ read faster than that. 1200 baud straight text, and you are -well- above the comprehension rates of virtually all humans. On the other hand, I learned to recognize the _sound_ of many of the system messages as printed on a 120CPS dot-matrix printer (DEC LA-120, hooked to a DECsystem 20), something I never managed with a slower (30cps, DEC LA-36) console device. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That 110/300/1200 baud argument about being able to read/type at that speed was one I used a lot in 1979/1980 when I was the sysop (system operator) for a couple of BBS arrangements. At one point I was the volunteer sysop for the bulletin board system operated by the Chicago Public Library, which I believe was the first public library in the USA to operate a BBS for patrons. I used Bill Blue's 'Peoples Message System' (or PMS) software. The user could automatically switch the baud rate from 110 to 300 by banging on the carriage return or enter key a few times. I remember telling the supervising librarian that I saw no reason to install a 1200 baud modem: "No one can type that fast or read that fast. A good typist can type at 110 and after some practice your eyes can adjust to read at 300. Since most users of the BBS simply sit on line and type their entries and read what others have written, 110/300 should be good enough for anyone. A 1200 baud modem might be a good idea if we were going to move a new text file into place is all." We ran that BBS on an Apple ][+ and I ran a BBS from my home on the same kind of machine. When Jerry Ablan started the 'Think' BBS (based on the IBM slogan) in 1981, he installed a 1200 baud modem which would drop as needed to 300 baud, and he was using a Tandy/Radio Shack Model 1 machine. PAT] ------------------------------ 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: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 13:05:16 +0000 In article , Justin Time wrote: > hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote in message > news:: >> bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote >> <> >> As an aside, the language used on IBM's System/3x through the present >> day AS/400 is RPG, which dates back to 1960 and the IBM 1401. The >> language was intended to mimic the wiring of a tab machine control >> panel so tab operators could make the transition to programming. >>> The 3270 was a 'smart' terminal -- necessitated by IBM's "block mode" >>> architecture -- and used 16 bits per displayed character. 1 byte for >>> the character itself, and one byte for the 'attributes'. things like >>> 'bright', 'blank', 'input', 'protected', etc. >> It's funny how today we call 3270-type terminals (still in very wide >> use) "dumb terminals" when in fact they were not. A Teletype was more >> "dumb" since it basically transmitted or received upon a keystroke, >> while the 3270 network had buffers, could erase and insert characters, >> and as mentioned had different appearances. [There were advanced >> Teletypes that could do some fancy stuff. Some 3270 functions were >> handled by the controller unit that was required and supported a group >> of terminals.] > The term "dumb" and "smart" when applied to terminals really applies > to their ability to process information. The 3270 terminal is a > "dumb" terminal in the fact that no processing is done at the terminal > and it only echoes back what is received from its intelligent source. > According to the original definition of a dumb or smart terminal, a > terminal connected through a PC or other device that was capable of > doing processing, or in the case of mainframes, preprocessing would be > considered a "smart" terminal. By _early_ definitions, a 3270 *IS* a minimal smart terminal. The block-mode nature of the beast allowed for purely *local* editing of data, before transmission. (Not to mention the embedded 'smarts' that transmitted _only_ the input parts of the data displayed on the screen.) Everything you did on the 3270 was purely local processing, until you hit the 'TRANSMIT' (SEND?? -- *not the one with the 'down-left' arrow on it, which simply advanced the cursor to the next input field) key. This stuff wasn't considered anything 'special', because it was an implicit part of the definition of _being_ an "IBM 3270 compatible" device. Compared to something like a Lear-Siegler ADM-3, however, there was _no_doubt_ that the 3270 had considerable on-board intelligence, and was properly classified as a 'smart' device. [[.. munch ..]] > > It was the high cost of a terminal from IBM that gave birth to the low > cost dumb terminal market that spawned the ADM-3 (Adam) 3, 3A, the > Televideo, Lear Siegler, TI, DEC and so many others. Strange, isn't it, that *none* of those manufacturers made block-mode EBCDIC devices compatible with IBM's computers? The growth of the _ASCII_ terminal market was driven by the explosive growth of the minicomputer industry. And, to a lesser degree, by the availability of time-sharing services on NON-IBM based mainframes (DECsystem10/20, XEROX Sigma7, CDC 6xxx, etc.) > IBM did a major>price cut on the 3270 terminals in 1978 that drove > most of the replacement terminal manufacturers under or into > consolidation. 3270 displays went from several 1000 dollars to > around 1000 or so and effectively killed the key to disk market at > the same time. Some of you may remember names of companies like > Mohawk that just disappeared by the early 80's after doing several > hundred million dollars of business just 2 or 3 years earlier. Once > the equipment leases ran out. >> The Bell System had a heck of a lot of private lines serving business >> data communications. > Yep, computer rooms always had a bank of "Dataphone" modems. > Usually 2400, 4800 and wow -- 9600 Baud Syncronous. Async ran at > 300 baud and was good for only low speed stuff -- like teletypes at > 100 WPM and an occasional terminal. >> A big difference was that IBM liked synchornous transmission while >> many other computers, >> including common PC transmissions used asynchronous transmission. >> I don't know which is superior. >> We had 3rd party imitation IBM >> 3270 units but >> IMHO they weren't as good as real IBM units. >> However, they were a lot cheaper. I don't >> see any "dumb >> terminals" anymore, it seems almost everyone now has a PC with an >> emulation program/card imitating a 3270 terminal. In the early >> days of PCs, I refused to use a PC with a CGA screen as a 3270 >> terminal since it was so fuzzy compared to a real terminal. >> (Actually, I shied away from CGA PCs altogether.) Over time, >> the cost of 3270-type units and controllers dropped quite a bit >> in price while modem speed increased. > Asynch modem speed didn't increase until the Hayes modems started > coming out around 1980 or a little later. REVISIONIST HISTORY AT WORK! The BELL 212 protocol (1200 baud full-duplex, async) and the Bell 202 protocol (1200 baud half-duplex [controlled carrier] async) were around _long_ before the Hayes modems hit the market. 1200 baud _dial-up_ was fairly-widely available in the mid 70s. *NOT* using the Bell 212 protocol, but the more robust 'RADIC 3400' protocol. The equipment was considerably more expensive than 'BELL 103' modems, but was fairly widely used in the business community. > The first jump was to > quadruple the speed to 1200 baud, but the big jump was to 2400 baud > about a year or so later. 9600 baud became fairly common around 1989 > -- 90 with 14.4 around 91. o Ignoring the Telebit Trailblazer+, which was available in 1986. supporting 19,200 baud. Ignoring the US Robotics Courier HST which was available in 1987, supporting 14,400 baud. > 56K modems have been around the longest, > since the mid 90's or almost 10 years. It was the introduction of the > 2400 baud modem that did the most to increase the number of computers > in individual use than any other improvement. The 2400 baud modem > paved the way for the acceptance of the computer as a home computer > rather than a scientic tool or hobbyist toy giving birth to the need > for software and spawning companies such as Microsoft, Word Perfect > Corp., Norton, Wordstar, Lotus and others. *LAUGH* WordPerfect, for example, *PREDATES* the development of the IBM PC. The WordPerfect word-processor originated on DATA GENERAL _mini-computers_. circa 1978. I used version **1.08** on a DG C-330, running AOS. > Datapoint developed a split speed modem for use with their timesharing/ > data entry terminals. They had a 300/1200 baud modem, 300 transmit > because it was keystrokes and 1200 receive to handle the display > character input. This meant you could "paint" a full 1920 character > screen in about 1 1/2 seconds Can you say "ILNUMERACY"? I thought you could. Getting 1920 characters across a 120 character/sec line in 1.5 seconds is a *NEAT* trick! It take 9600 baud to paint a 'reasonably full' 24x80 screen in less than 2 seconds. > and that was pretty darn fast for > those days. But then computers had cycle times - one trip through the > main timing chain to process a single instruction - measured in > multiples of whole microseconds. *Snicker* Control Data announced machines in the *mid-1960s* that could process at the rate of 10 million instructions/second. Operating on 60-bit numeric quantities. > The venerable Four Phase system IV-70 (dating from around 1970) took > 2.04 microseconds to process a single 24 bit computer word, and it was > one of the fastest "mini" computers available at the time. I think > the original Altairs were around 8 microseconds for a cycle. It > wasn't until later that people started measuring clock speed in order > to "boost the speed" without any engineering changes. The original > IBM PC ran at 4 MHz, the AT at 6. Now we measure clock speeds in the > billions of cycles per second rather than millions. And, despite 'clock speeds' being circa 800 times higher, the actual _throughput_ improvement is only around 100x. Memory access speeds have only improved by a factor of about 40x over an original 'IBM AT' machine, plus a 4x wider path to memory, less cache-miss penalties. 'Clock speed' should be regarded *exactly* the same way 'millions of instructions per second, executed' is -- as a "meaningless indicator of processor speed". ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest Date: 1 Oct 2004 06:42:27 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Michael Quinn wrote in message news:: > Apropos of the discussion about the BART officer who reportedly ordered > a radio turned off, this report has a somewhat different twist: > Between Metro and Cell User, a Disconnect > By Lyndsey Layton > Washington Post Staff Writer > Sakinah Aaron was walking into the bus area at the Wheaton Metro > station several weeks ago, talking loudly on her Motorola cell > phone. A little too loudly for Officer George Saoutis of the Metro > Transit Police. > The police officer told Aaron, who is five months pregnant, to lower > her voice. She told the officer he had no right to tell her how to > speak into her cell phone. > Their verbal dispute quickly escalated, and Saoutis grabbed Aaron by > the arm and pushed her to the ground. He handcuffed the 23-year-old > woman, called for backup and took her to a cell where she was held for > three hours before being released to her aunt. She was charged with > two misdemeanors: "disorderly manner that disturbed the public peace" > and resisting arrest. > Those are the facts on which both sides agree. > They interpret the events of Sept. 9 very differently. <> The point that is glossed over in all the discussions regarding this -- and it is a fairly hot topic in the Washington area -- is that in EACH case the officer approached the person who was arrested and politely informed them they were doing a prohibited action. It was the perpretrator that chose to escalate the warning and not the officer. In the case of the juvenile girl that was arrested for eating a french fry, that arose out of another District law. It is illegal in the District to issue a summons or citation to a minor. According to District law, a minor has to be taken into custody -- NO EXCEPTIONS. And in that particular case the girl did state she knew the regulation regarding consuming food or drink on Metro property but she chose to disregard the law because she had stopped at McDonalds on her way from school to the Metro and her ride home. The regulation prohibiting eating and drinking clearly states it is unlawful to eat or drink in any metro train OR station. The problem is that most people think the metro station doesn't begin until they pass the gates. The metro station begins as soon as the person crossed over onto the concrete pad at the entrance to the escalator or into the pedestrian tunnel well away from the fare gates. In most stations the parking facility and sidewalks are also part of the station, but normally the prohibitions against eating and drinking are not enforced, audio equipment may be -- and that is where the "oh pity me, the poor I'm being picked on victim" was located, on metro property where she was in flagrant violation of Metro Policy. Rodgers Platt ------------------------------ Date: 1 Oct 2004 15:04:46 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > For the life of me, I cannot understand why they just can't use GPS and > then do a database dip to route to the correct entity. GPS doesn't work worth squat unless the device has a clear view of the sky. Unless you expect people to be using VoIP predominantly at back yard campouts, that's not gonna work. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Oct 2004 15:17:17 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Paper Tape Technology Was: What is the Name of #? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> As an undergrad at Harvard, Bill Gates wrote software to read and >> count these punched holes (a task complicated slightly by the fact >> that they are randomly spaced along the paper tape) and set up a >> company ("Traf-O-Data", I believe) located in his dorm room which >> received these tapes, read them using bootlegged time on Aiken's early >> Harvard University computer facility, and sent back printed reports to >> traffic engineers all over the company. ... >> Gates and Allen did run Traf-O-Data, but the rest is wrong. >> Since Bill is 48 years old, when would he have been at Harvard? >> When was Aiken doing the Mark I through Mark IV? Sheesh. > And this is a reply from me to those statements: > The rest is wrong? Really? Yeah, really. Gates' year at Harvard was in the early 1970s when, as someone else noted, Harvard undergrads did most of their computing on a PDP-11 Unix system in the Harvard Science Center. (I visited Harvard for some early usenix meetings and played with it myself.) Aiken's early Harvard University computer facility was in the 1940s and 1950s. By the 1970s, Aiken was long since retired, his computers were in the Smithsonian, Harvard had named the comp sci building after him, and the CS department was using a PDP-10. As others have noted, Traf-O-Data was back home in Seattle, not at Harvard. R's, John PS: I hear that the paper tape thing was just a cover story, and Traf-O-Data was really planning to make a fortune from selling specialized Caller ID boxes that blocked area code 311 calls. ------------------------------ 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. 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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 #461 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Oct 1 18:04:37 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i91M4b011274; Fri, 1 Oct 2004 18:04:37 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 18:04:37 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410012204.i91M4b011274@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 #462 TELECOM Digest Fri, 1 Oct 2004 18:05:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 462 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Mount St. Helens Erupts After 18 Years (Lisa Minter) Book Review: "Biometrics for Network Security", Paul Reid (Rob Slade) Vonage(R) Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium (Decker-VOIP) Re: Lawsuit in Colorado Over Rerouted 911 (Rick Merrill) Re: Wrong Address for Caller a Tragic Ordeal (Isaiah Beard) Re: Can Anyone Recommend a Pay as You Go Cell Phone? (Ed Fortmiller) Re: WWW Founder was Re: WWW Ten Years Old in 2004 (Graeme Thomas) Re: Lucent DSL 20 Packet Loss (Daniel Eyholzer) Re: Paper Tape Technology (AES) Recording Industry Sues 762 for Net Music Swaps (Lisa Minter) Iraq Mobile Network Brings Benefits and Bombs (Lisa Minter) Patton Adds FXO to SmartNode(TM) VoIP Solutions (Chris) 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: Mount St. Helens Erupts After 18 Years Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 16:11:57 EDT [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As this issue of the Digest was being edited and getting ready for release, the thing everyone has been expecting for several days finally happened: Mount St. Helens blew her stack, spewing ashes and hot lava everywhere in the vicinity of Vancouver, WA. The seismic activity in California over the past few days was a good indicator something was about to happen. Officially, I guess, the eruption started at 12:45 PM Pacific time, and lasted about 30 minutes before she quieted down. But ashes were still floating around in the air a few minutes ago. My thanks to Lisa for capturing this report from Yahoo for us. PAT] MOUNT ST. HELENS, Wash. - Mount St. Helens, the volcano that blew its top with cataclysmic force in 1980, erupted for the first time in 18 years Friday, belching a huge column of white steam and ash after days of rumblings. "This is exactly the kind of event we've been predicting," said U.S. Geological Survey scientist Cynthia Gardner. Still, the eruption was nowhere near what happened 24 years ago, when 57 people were killed and towns 250 miles away were coated with ash. About 20 minutes after Friday's eruption, the mountain calmed and the plume began to dissipate. The National Weather Service notified the Federal Aviation Administration in case planes needed to be rerouted. The steam cloud poured from the southern edge of a 1,000-foot-tall lava dome in the volcano's crater. Steam frequently rises from the crater, but the 8,364-foot peak had not erupted since 1986. For the past week, scientists have detected thousands of earthquakes of increasing strength as high as magnitude 3.3 suggesting another eruption was on the way. Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. 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, Associated Press and Yahoo News. . For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Rob Slade Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 10:19:06 -0800 Subject: Book Review: "Biometrics for Network Security", Paul Reid Reply-To: rslade@sprint.ca BKBIOMNS.RVW 20040527 "Biometrics for Network Security", Paul Reid, 2004, 0-13-101549-4, U$44.99/C$67.99 %A Paul Reid %C One Lake St., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 %D 2004 %G 0-13-101549-4 %I Prentice Hall %O U$44.99/C$67.99 +1-201-236-7139 fax: +1-201-236-7131 %O http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0131015494/robsladesinterne http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0131015494/robsladesinte-21 %O http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0131015494/robsladesin03-20 %P 252 p. %T "Biometrics for Network Security" In the preface, Reid presents biometrics as the cure for all network security ills. Given his employment, with a company that sells biometric systems, this enthusiasm is understandable, if not totally compelling. Part one deals with introduction and background. Chapter one is the introduction -- mostly to the book. The definition of biometrics itself is very terse. Authentication technologies are promised in chapter two -- which starts out by repeating the all-too-common error of confusing authentication with identification. Reid then pooh-poohs passwords and tokens and praises biometrics as strong authentication, without dealing with the fact that a biometric is the ultimate static password, or addressing the technologies (and associated error rates) needed to make biometrics a viable authentication factor. Privacy is confused with intellectual property, access control, and improper employee monitoring in chapter three. Part two lists biometric technologies. Chapter four is a disorganized amalgam of factors generally involved in biometric use and applications. Fingerprint features are reviewed in chapter five with incomprehensible explanations and unclear illustrations. Attacks against fingerprint technologies and systems are raised--but are usually dismissed in a fairly cavalier manner. Similar examinations are made of face (chapter six), voice (seven), and iris (eight) systems. Part three looks at implementing the technologies for network applications. Chapter nine compares the four biometrics from part two, in general terms, and states measures that are rather at odds with other biometric literature. Reid makes a big deal out of simple error rate metrics in chapter ten. Most of chapter eleven talks about hardening biometric devices and hardware. Unconvincing fictional "straw man" case studies and some general project planning topics are in chapter twelve, with more of the same in thirteen and fourteen. Part five, which is only chapter fifteen, casts a rosy-spectacled look at the future when all of security will be made perfect through the use of biometrics -- essentially returning us to the preface. Basically, this appears to be a promotional pamphlet padded out to book length: it isn't even as good as Richards' article in the "Information Security Management Handbook" (cf. BKINSCMH.RVW). The material will not help you with a realistic assessment of what biometrics can (and cannot) do, or how to implement it. The "Biometrics" text by Woodward, Orlans and Higgins (cf. BKBIOMTC.RVW) is far superior. copyright Robert M. Slade, 2004 BKBIOMNS.RVW 20040527 ====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer) rslade@vcn.bc.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca rslade@sun.soci.niu.edu Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. - Rich Cook http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev or http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 12:49:19 -0400 Subject: Vonage(R) Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/10-01-2004/0002262771&STORY&EDATE= EDISON, N.J., Oct. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Vonage, the leading provider of broadband phone service in North America, announced today it will upgrade all customers on its Local Unlimited Plan, to Premium Unlimited, reducing the cost of unlimited calling throughout the US and Canada to $24.99 per month. "Over the past five months, we've noticed a trend in the industry away from calling certain minutes local and others long distance -- in an IP world distance is irrelevant, so we have changed our calling plans to reflect that," said Jeffrey A. Citron, Chairman and CEO of Vonage Holdings Corporation. "Instead of giving this great new upgrade to a small set of people, we decided to make it available to all of our customers and automatically upgrade those to the new price even if they're on the unlimited package already." In favor of a simplified pricing model, Vonage will now only offer two residential calling plans with the same great features for free: * $14.99/month -- Residential Basic Plan -- 500 minutes of local, toll and long distance calling throughout the United States and Canada. * $24.99/month -- Residential Premium Unlimited Plan -- unlimited calling throughout the 50 United States and Canada anytime, anywhere. * Services and hardware included for free on any of the above plans: * Voicemail * Call hunt * Caller ID * Call transfer * Call waiting * Repeat dialing * Call forwarding * Bandwidth saver * Call return (*69) * Area code selection * Caller ID block (*67) * International call block * Web-based account management * Motorola VT1005v device -- Real-time billing activity * Great international calling rates: -- Online voicemail retrieval -- Tel Aviv 4 cents per minute -- Real-time inbound/outbound -- London 3 cents per minute call record details -- Sydney 4 cents per minute "We don't call ourselves a phone company, because phone companies often treat their customers unfairly when it comes to new offerings, giving new customers the advantage over loyal ones," added Mr. Citron. "Vonage believes in rewarding our existing customers first, then making the plans available to new ones." Full press release at: http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/10-01-2004/0002262771&STORY&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/ 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/ ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Lawsuit in Colorado Over Rerouted 911 Organization: Comcast Online Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 19:08:18 GMT Carl Moore wrote: > There are other readers more knowledgeable than I on this, but I have > learned of a lawsuit (by a woman in the Denver area) over a wrong > address for home telephone number. My local E911 dispatcher acknowledges that CallVantage will not give them the info needed to work with their equipment. In other words, although the land lines have E911, and cell phones are supposed to soon, VoIP does not have the capability and it is not on the horizon. Tony P. wrote: >> A dispatch center in Castle Rock, nearly 40 miles from her Adams >> County house, took the call, thinking she was calling from a business >> in Parker. As Staats bounced from dispatch center to dispatch center, >> trying to find the right people to help her, her baby boy's condition >> grew worse, and Staats grew more frantic. >> Finally, 5-month-old Christopher Vasquez stopped breathing, and Staats >> let out a piercing, terror-filled scream. He died moments later, >> shortly after an ambulance was dispatched -- a little over four minutes >> after Staats made her call. >> Now, Staats has sued her telephone company, Comcast, and two other >> companies, claiming that because they put the wrong address for her >> phone number into the 911 system, her son died that day in the spring >> of 2003. >> "Because Comcast had my address wrong in the system, I had to watch my >> son die," she said Wednesday at a news conference. > This is going to force VoIP carriers to figure out how to deal with 911 > routing in a big old hurry. > For the life of me, I cannot understand why they just can't use GPS and > then do a database dip to route to the correct entity. You must be thinking cellphone. But a telephone adapter (TA) for VoIP can be moved to another location, even across country, plugged into broadband and it should work. THe USER must access the company database and change their address. Even then it will not work the same way that cell phones work (or will work). But I certain agree that this problem needs to be solved and soon. - RM ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard Subject: Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 15:56:24 -0400 Tony P. wrote: > This is going to force VoIP carriers to figure out how to deal with 911 > routing in a big old hurry. > For the life of me, I cannot understand why they just can't use GPS and > then do a database dip to route to the correct entity. How would you propose installing a GPS device that works in determining the specific location of phone using Voice Over IP? With wireless you have a transceiver that is either outdoors and can 'see' GPS satellites, or is indoors but can be triangulated (we hope) from cellular base stations with known fixed locations. With VoIP on the other hand, I can plug the terminal into any number of ethernet ports, but most are indoors where GPS signals can't reach. E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. ------------------------------ From: Ed Fortmiller Subject: Re: Can Anyone Recommend a "Pay as You Go" Economy Cell Phone? Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 16:06:50 -0400 I don't know if Verizon covers California, if so they have a prepaid plan. First minute is 35 cents and each additional is 10 cents/min. Minimum purchase is $15. http://www.verizonwireless.com - under "plans" select PrePay. Ed Fortmiller | RUBBISHef24u@fortmiller.us | Hudson MA * To avoid getting a lot of SPAM junk mail, I have altered my REPLY-TO * address. PLEASE remove the leading "RUBBISH" from my REPLY address. * Any Email sent to the address without removing "RUBBISH" will * automatically be discarded without me even seeing it. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 21:06:54 +0100 From: Graeme Thomas Subject: Re: WWW Founder, was: WWW is Ten Years Old in 2004 In article , John Levine writes: > That would be Sir Tim Berners-Lee. He was made Knight Commander of > the Order of the British Empire earlier this year. This summer his > wife told me some amusing stories of trying to fit a trip back home to > get the award into Tim's overcrammed schedule. > R's, > John > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I believe Queen Elizabeth awarded him > the Knighthood on January 1, did she not? PAT] [ PAT: Please remove my address, in the unlikely event you want to publish this. It's a bit off-topic for telecomms. ] Awards and titles are announced twice a year: once on New Year's Day, and again on the Queen's (official) birthday. Those people awarded the honours can pick them up whenever convenient. I'm not sure when Sir Tim managed to find the time. I believe that people are not supposed to use the title until it has been awarded, but this nicety is often overlooked by the media. In practice people are informed, in confidence, about the award a few weeks before it happens. That gives them time to turn it down, without any publicity. Graeme Thomas ------------------------------ From: Daniel Eyholzer Subject: Re: Lucent DSL MAX 20 Packet Loss Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 22:41:09 +0200 whoward@piv27.cns.ualberta.ca (Walt Howard) wrote: > Are you sure that both the switch and the DSL box agree on the > duplex-ness of the connection between them? Having one believe the > connection is full-duplex and the other believe that it is > half-duplex can cause the symptom you report. Thanks a lot for your reply, Walt! After setting the switch ports on which the DSL boxes are connected to half duplex, it seems that the packet loss does not occur anymore, but the CRCs on the Cisco switch are still constantly increasing. It would be nice if I could find the cause for this CRCs too. Any idea what it could be? Daniel ------------------------------ From: AES/newspost Subject: Re: Paper Tape Technology Was: What is the Name of #? Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 13:40:17 -0700 In article , John Levine wrote: > Yeah, really. Gates' year at Harvard was in the early 1970s when, as > someone else noted, Harvard undergrads did most of their computing on > a PDP-11 Unix system in the Harvard Science Center. (I visited > Harvard for some early usenix meetings and played with it myself.) > Aiken's early Harvard University computer facility was in the 1940s > and 1950s. By the 1970s, Aiken was long since retired, his computers > were in the Smithsonian, Harvard had named the comp sci building after > him, and the CS department was using a PDP-10. > As others have noted, Traf-O-Data was back home in Seattle, not at > Harvard. There are clearly a few significant differences between the statements in this message and in John's earlier message, and those in my original post and the longer reply message I recently posted. I tend to believe that the various details I posted about the Gates/Traf-O-Data/Harvard relationship, as told to me by the fellow undergraduate who was there at the time, are probably correct. Neither John Levine nor I seem to be know for certain whether Gates processed traffic counter tapes using computer facilities in the Aiken Computation Laboratory (which was definitely still functioning when Gates was there), or in the much newer Harvard Science Center (or perhaps even not at all). Perhaps others will know. Over and out on this topic ... ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Recording Industry Sues 762 for Net Music Swaps Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 15:36:04 EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A recording-industry trade group said on Thursday it had filed a new round of lawsuits against 762 people it suspects of distributing its songs for free over Internet "peer to peer" networks like Kazaa and eDonkey. The Recording Industry Association of America has now sued roughly 5,400 people over the past year in an effort to discourage the online song copying that it believes has cut into CD sales. "We want music fans to enjoy music online, but in a fashion that compensates everyone who worked to create that music," RIAA said. Among those sued were students at 26 different colleges and universities, where the prevalence of high-speed networks and cash-poor music fans has led to an explosion of peer-to-peer traffic. Under pressure from the RIAA, many schools have taken steps to limit file sharing and at least 20 schools give students free access to industry-sanctioned download services like Roxio Inc.'s web site. The RIAA does not yet know the names of those it has sued, only the numerical addresses used by their computers. The trade group typically finds out suspects' identities from their Internet service providers during the legal proceedings. In addition to those sued anonymously, the RIAA said it had sued 68 defendants whose identities had been discovered and who had declined offers to settle. The RIAA typically settles copyright-infringement suits for around $5,000 each. Though the recording industry has successfully sued thousands of individuals, it has had less luck with the peer-to-peer networks themselves. Courts so far have held that networks cannot be held liable because, like VCR makers, they do not commit copyright infringement but merely make it possible. The RIAA has pushed Congress to lower that standard. A bill currently being considered in the Senate would hold liable anyone who "induces" others to reproduce copyrighted material. Objections by librarians, conservative groups and the technology industry have prevented the bill from advancing so far, but Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch said earlier Thursday that he would take it up again next week. The RIAA represents the world's largest record labels, such as Warner Music, EMI Group Plc, Bertelsmann AG Universal, others. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, Reuters News Service and Yahoo News.. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You know what is really scary about this demand by the RIAA is its intent to go after the folks who 'induce' or 'encourage' illegal copying, and if that provision is resurrected (it was shot down once) then anyone who publishes anything which *possibly could be illegal* can get in trouble also if they do not make sure everything in their collection is not absolutely legal. Reasoning is they 'encouraged' it or 'facilitated' it. If I have a copy machine here which is not monitored constantly (and what library does that?) then did the librarian 'induce' someone to make an illegal copy? Am I supposed to carefully inspect and evaluate everything published here in the Digest, lest I be put on trial for 'inducing' and 'faciliting' a copyright infringment? That would seem to be what RIAA is saying. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Iraq Mobile Network Brings Benefits and Bombs Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 15:39:18 EDT [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Here is another example of how technology gives, and technology takes away, as per the essay printed here last weekend from the 1991 conference. PAT] BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqis hail their mobile phone network as one of the few achievements in the country's reconstruction, but the technology is also being used to detonate bombs that cause daily death and destruction. Copying techniques employed by the attackers in the Madrid train bombings, the Bali bombings and recent blasts in Saudi Arabia, insurgents in Iraq are using mobile phones to set off car bombs and other explosions, U.S. officials and experts say. It is far from the only method being used, but since licenses were awarded to set up the mobile network a year ago, and mobile phones became ubiquitous accessories in Iraqi cities, the technique has become common and reliable. "There's definitely evidence that mobile phones are being used to detonate roadside bombs and car bombs," said David Claridge, a security specialist with the Risk Advisory Group who has worked in Iraq in recent months. "I wouldn't say it's the single biggest contributor to the bombings, but it's a technique that they're employing." Setting off a bomb using a mobile phone is fairly simple. A call to the phone generates an electronic pulse that sets off the detonator or closes a circuit, triggering the bomb. "It's not rocket science," John Pike of Globalsecurity.org, a Washington think-tank, was quoted as saying in a recent report by the U.S.-based Homeland Security Group. "Cellphone detonators are pretty straightforward tradecraft." DIFFICULT TO TRACE Not only are they straightforward, reliable and relatively cheap, but conditions in Iraq make them particularly attractive. Since the goal of the network was to provide service as quickly as possible, and make it accessible to as many people as possible, most subscribers use pay-as-you-go facilities, which make the individuals very difficult to trace. Even if a call was made from one mobile phone to another to set off a bomb, telecoms experts question whether Iraqi operators would be capable of tracking the call quickly enough to help U.S. troops and Iraqi police hunt down the perpetrators. "With most Western mobile networks, it would be possible for intelligence agents to trace the call, or at least identify all calls made to that number at that time," said a London-based forensic security expert who asked not to be named. "I'm not familiar with Iraq, but I can imagine that it would be more difficult to do such a thing there given the security situation and other limitations." While Iraqis may face greater danger now that they have a mobile phone network, security consultants say that's just a fact of life -- the technology brings benefits as well as risks and everyone in the world is potentially threatened. "To deny access to mobile telecommunications at this stage would be counterproductive," said Claridge. "If insurgents in Iraq can't use mobile phones, they'll find something else." Still, U.S. troops have clamped down on mobile phone use at bomb sites to prevent follow-up blasts, the sort of attack that may have been used to kill 34 children in Baghdad on Thursday. *** 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, Reuters News Service and Yahoo News.. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Chris Subject: atton Adds FXO to SmartNode(TM) VoIP Solutions Date: 1 Oct 2004 12:44:53 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com New FXO Analog Telephony Interfaces for Patton SmartNodes Enable True VoIP-to-PSTN Access While Eliminating Telephone Charges GAITHERSBURG, Maryland - Patton Electronics--an industry leader in access, connectivity and VoIP--announces new additions to their SmartNode(TM) family of VoIP Gateways and Routers. The new SmartNode models feature FXO and FXS/FXO telephony interface combinations that enable direct connection to a PBX or PSTN. "Our customers are asking for solutions that integrate seamlessly with their existing communications infrastructure to deliver end-to-end voice services over an IP network," said Scott Whittle, Director of Product Management at Patton." With SmartNode and FXO, network administrators can preserve their existing legacy telephone equipment and services while leveraging VoIP to lower operating costs and achieve voice-data convergence." Any enterprise with a legacy analog PBX can connect SmartNode FXO ports to their PBX and the local PSTN, thus reaping the benefits of VoIP without costly PBX replacement or upgrades. The PBX can then securely route calls through the Internet or corporate IP network to any analog phone or fax. Routing voice and data through a single network enables companies to consolidate communications infrastructures, thereby reducing equipment, cabling, and network administration costs. Meanwhile, employees working at remote IP endpoints (for instance, those teleworking from home) can take advantage of all the PBX features (voice-mail, 3-digit dialing, conference calls, etc.) provided at the corporate headquarters. FXO, FXS, and FXS/FXO interface combinations are now available on a wide range of models within the SmartNode 4520 Series. All SmartNode ToIP Gateway Routers support SIP and H.323 VoIP signaling, T.38 Fax-over-IP, a full set of codecs, IP routing with NAT, Firewall, PPP, PPPoE, VLAN, Frame-Relay, DHCP and DynDNS, plus a full suite of upstream and downstream QoS (Quality of Service) features to prioritize traffic for enhanced voice quality. Available software options offer IPSec DES/3DES/AES) VPN and Q.SIG support. About the SmartNode Family of VoIP Gateway Routers The SmartNode family of VoIP gateways and routers offer compact-desktop and modular-chassis solutions for provider and enterprise voice and data applications. The SmartNode 1000 and 4520 series SOHO and branch office IADs support one or two ISDN BRI So ports or 2-8 analog ports as well as a full-featured QoS VPN Router. The modular 19" SmartNode 2300 series are designed for medium and large enterprise applications featuring on-board LAN and WAN interfaces and a range of PMC based voice interface cards/expansion modules. Interface cards provide flexible port configurations for ISDN, T1, E1, PRI, BRI and FXS. The SmartNode 2400 series supports up to 96/120 Voice-over-IP connections in a single 1U 19" chassis. About Patton Patton Electronics Company is a US manufacturer and marketer of data communications products, including VoIP/ToIP gateways & routers, Remote Access (V.92, V.90, K56Flex, V.34+, and ISDN dial-in), Last Mile/Local Loop Access (T1, E1, and xDSL modems, NTUs and CSU/DSUs), Multi-Service Access (voice, intranet, extranet, and Frame Relay access), and Connectivity (interface converters, short range modems, multiplexers, and surge protectors). Patton Electronics Company 7622 Rickenbacker Drive Gaithersburg, MD 20879 USA Tel: (301) 975-1000 Fax: (301) 869-9293 Email: marketing@patton.com http://patton.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V23 #462 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Oct 1 23:28:46 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i923SkD13531; Fri, 1 Oct 2004 23:28:46 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 23:28:46 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410020328.i923SkD13531@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 #463 TELECOM Digest Fri, 1 Oct 2004 23:28:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 463 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Microsoft Vows Fight on Patent Rejection (Lisa Minter) Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone is Used (jdj) Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal (Tony P.) Re: Mount St. Helens Erupts After 18 Years (Clarence Dold) Re: Mount St. Helens Erupts After 18 Years (Marcus Jervis) Re: Lawsuit in Colorado Over Rerouted 911 (David) FCC Nears Cingular, AT&T Decision (Lisa Minter) Red Hat Buys Technology From Netscape (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: Lisa Minter Subject: Microsoft Vows Fight on Patent Rejection Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 15:41:41 EDT By ALLISON LINN, AP Business Writer SEATTLE - In a preliminary ruling, the government rejected Microsoft Corp.'s 1996 patent on technology for saving files on computers using easy-to-remember names. Microsoft vowed Thursday to appeal the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's decision, setting the stage for what could be long-running negotiations. The office could eventually decide to reject it outright, let it stand or change its scope. The patent covers technology widely used on computers running Microsoft's Windows operating system. In more recent years, it has also been used for naming files from devices that work with Windows, like digital cameras and portable music players. The patent is part of what Microsoft says is its implementation of a broader system used to store computer files, called File Allocation Table, or FAT. But Microsoft does not claim control over the entire FAT system. "We have some rights, but no one person has firm, strong control over all aspects of FAT," said David Kaefer, director of business development for Microsoft's intellectual property and licensing unit. Late last year, Microsoft began asking companies to buy licenses to use its implementations of the FAT system, including licensing the patent that was preliminarily rejected. The move raised concerns that the company would discriminate against those who develop open-source technology, restricting their ability to compete on the widely used Windows platform, said Daniel Ravicher, head of the Public Patent Foundation. His organization, backed by the open-source movement, asked that the patent be re-examined. Kaefer said Microsoft would grant the licenses to those who use open-source technology, albeit with slightly different terms. Greg Aharonian, a patent critic who runs the Internet Patent News Service, believes the patent will likely end up rejected given so much evidence the technology in question is widely used. "It's like getting a patent on cheesecake," he said. But he doesn't believe a rejection would have any major business or financial impact on the company because it doesn't pose a serious threat to cash cows like Windows or the Office business software. Nonetheless, in cases like this, where an outside group initiates the re-examination request, the most common outcome is that the patent is ultimately changed but not rejected outright, patent office spokeswoman Brigid Quinn 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: jdj Subject: Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone is Used Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 16:48:02 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 16:04:27 -0400, Chris Eilersen wrote: > Does anyone have any ideas why this is happening and what I can do to > fix it? Seems your phone may be hogging all the network bandwidth. It also sounds like a router firmware and/or a windows driver problem. It may also be a router config problem. Linksys may have updated the router firmware and windows drivers since you got your system. Linksys may also have FAQ or knowledgebase info on this. You might also ask Voicepulse whether they have heard of this before. Don't expect to talk to anyone at Linksys. Seems no one is home any more. If you do get someone there, then you will be one of the luckiest people around. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal Organization: ATCC Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 23:56:37 GMT In article , sacredpoet@sacredpoet.com says: > Tony P. wrote: >> This is going to force VoIP carriers to figure out how to deal with 911 >> routing in a big old hurry. >> For the life of me, I cannot understand why they just can't use GPS and >> then do a database dip to route to the correct entity. > How would you propose installing a GPS device that works in > determining the specific location of phone using Voice Over IP? With > wireless you have a transceiver that is either outdoors and can 'see' > GPS satellites, or is indoors but can be triangulated (we hope) from > cellular base stations with known fixed locations. With VoIP on the > other hand, I can plug the terminal into any number of ethernet ports, > but most are indoors where GPS signals can't reach. > E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. > Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. Suction cup mounted antenna in the nearest southwest facing window. Put solar cells on the thing to keep it charged and hell, use bluetooth or 802.11 for it to transmit it's location. Not hard at all. ------------------------------ From: dold@XReXXMount.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: Mount St. Helens Erupts After 18 Years Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 22:40:00 UTC Organization: a2i network Lisa Minter wrote: > Mount St. Helens, the volcano that blew its top with cataclysmic force > in 1980, erupted for the first time in 18 years Friday, belching a > huge column of white steam and ash after days of rumblings. I drove to Mt. St. Helens in 1989. As you drive in last few miles, you see the mountain now and then, and then lose sight of it on the windy road.But you don't lose your sense of direction. Thousands of trees, like toothpicks, all point toward (or away from) the crater. Acres and acres of that was more impressive than the crater itself, where we weren't allowed to get very close. GPS: 46.19, -122.2 http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsUS/Quakes/uw10010614.htm Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8-122.5 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For people who wish to see an absolutely breathtaking view of Mount St. Helens, I recommend taking a look at http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh which operates 24 hours per day snapping new pictures at five minute intervals. Very unfortunatly, during the Friday afternoon action, the servers were so overloaded it was very difficult to get through. After the immmediate action was over it was easier to reach the page. Be sure to clean your cache at least every five minutes unless your computer will do that automatically. For those of us who have been more provincial in recent years -- seldom getting more than a mile or two from our homes -- *good* web cams are the next best thing to being there in person. Oh, 35-40 years ago I traveled everywhere; would fly to New York City for a weekend of shopping, touring, etc, then a month or so later I'd be in San Francisco for several days at a time. I still remember quite well one trip I made (via San Franciso to Seattle, then onward to Vancouver and Victoria, BC, winding up in northern BC for a few days and riding in a rented car with a friend from northern BC back to Chicago traveling across southern Canada to Windsor, Ontario then dropping back into the USA at Detroit. Those good times are long over for me; now I must content myself with looking at the three thousand or so constantly changing images in the Web Cam Watcher software program. :( PAT] ------------------------------ From: Marcus Jervis Subject: Re: Mount St. Helens Erupts After 18 Years Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 23:05:51 +0000 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As this issue of the Digest was being > edited and getting ready for release, the thing everyone has been > expecting for several days finally happened: Mount St. Helens blew her > stack, spewing ashes and hot lava everywhere in the vicinity of > Vancouver, WA. The seismic activity in California over the past few > days was a good indicator something was about to happen. Officially, > I guess, the eruption started at 12:45 PM Pacific time, and lasted No, no no. There is no lava. Vancouver, WA, across the river from Portland, Oregon, is not covered with ash. The mountain shot off some steam for about 25 minutes. The mountain did not blow her stack. There was no lava flow during the big eruption in 1980, but lots of ash spread over downwind communities. At that time the bulk of the airborn ash landed to the southeast. University of Washington geophysicists have also said that there is no connection between the volcano activity and the seismic activity in California. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My note quoted the Associated Press article which Lisa Minter printed in full. Some of the related articles (which we did not print here) had geophysicists stating that much of the seismic activity *was* due to the volcano planning to erupt. The AP article used the phrase 'she blew her stack' and 'although mostly hot boiling water and steam, a little debris also shot out.' It was quite an exciting afternoon, if the amount of network congestion at volcanocams was any indicator. A local newspaper in the area talked about it some also today, and you may wish to read it: http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20040929/topstories/445.shtml PAT] ------------------------------ From: David Reply-To: FlyLikeAnEagle@United.Com Subject: Re: Lawsuit in Colorado Over Rerouted 911 Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2004 02:34:00 GMT Hello everyone, My comments are inline. On Fri, 1 Oct 2004 19:08:18 UTC, Rick Merrill wrote: > Carl Moore wrote: >> There are other readers more knowledgeable than I on this, but I have >> learned of a lawsuit (by a woman in the Denver area) over a wrong >> address for home telephone number. > My local E911 dispatcher acknowledges that CallVantage will not give > them the info needed to work with their equipment. In other words, > although the land lines have E911, and cell phones are supposed to > soon, VoIP does not have the capability and it is not on the > horizon. > Tony P. wrote: >>> >> This is going to force VoIP carriers to figure out how to deal with 911 >> routing in a big old hurry. I work on parts of the "911 problem". The VOIP Systems are not part of the PTSN (Public Telephone System) and claim they should not be regulated as phone companies. A few are growing up, but slowly. It's not a hard problem to solve. I've seen several good solutions and came up with another after reading this post. I'm not sure why CallVantage didn't know where the caller was; they did. It's always sad when the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Even in the cellular world, the problem wasn't that hard. Phones are starting to get GPS locations. It's a start. Even with GPS Phones, sometimes the 911 center has to call the cell company to get your location. The sad part of the 911 system is that it was built on incomplete and partial standards. That left the dozens of telephone providers to create their own solutions. Making a change to your landline's location during a move across town may take your provider a few minutes, days, or longer to actually make it to the 911 center. There isn't much agreement on what is an important update period. The Canadian system is a bit more reliable and requires an update period of a few hours nation wide. I've not heard how they handle the move request though, perhaps it still take a while to hit their national update system. >> For the life of me, I cannot understand why they just can't use GPS and >> then do a database dip to route to the correct entity. > You must be thinking cellphone. But a telephone adapter (TA) for VoIP > can be moved to another location, even across country, plugged into > broadband and it should work. THe USER must access the company > database and change their address. Even then it will not work the > same way that cell phones work (or will work). True, but there are ways to handle that most of the time. The networking people just need to get with the phone people and get a solution made. I don't think they are trying. I also read fairly often that those 911 Surcharges you pay on your monthly cell and landlines don't always get into funding the 911 system. I've never been thrilled with lawmakers creating taxes and then mis-spending the money. > But I certain agree that this problem needs to be solved and soon. - RM I agree. There are so many problems with the 911 system. At least it is there. Many countries are not working that hard, though a few may be doing better. David ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: FCC Nears Cingular, AT&T Decision Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 15:40:27 EDT by Ron Orol in Washington Federal Communications Commission member Kathleen Abernathy said Thursday, Sept. 30, that the agency will rule on Cingular Wireless LLC $41 billion acquisition of AT&T Wireless Services Inc. in the next few weeks. Speaking to reporters, Abernathy said that while agency staff have yet to circulate a draft order among the commissioners, it would be "weeks, not months, before the FCC completes action on the merger. That suggests the companies remain on track to close the deal in October. Abernathy said FCC commissioners expect to receive a formal recommendation from the agency's wireless telecom bureau in the next few days, which they will then begin reviewing. "It's a very complex merger," she said. "We will need to take time to understand how the analysis was developed and what the conditions are." Observers do not expect the FCC to require Cingular to divest significant amounts of wireless spectrum or customers to win approval for the transaction. Separately, sources said Thursday that Cingular remains close to securing clearance of the transaction from the Department of Justice. All substantive disputes have been resolved, and the consent decree clearing the deal should be completed within days, they said At her FCC press conference, Abernathy said agency economists and lawyers are debating whether wireless and wire-line phones are becoming interchangeable, which would suggest that there is a broader telecommunications market rather than distinct wireless and wire line markets. But she did not say that the FCC intends to find a broader telecommunications market in its Cingular review. Most observers expect it will be several years before the agency makes this leap, which would widen the door to telecom industry consolidation. *** 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. . For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Red Hat Buys Technology From Netscape Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 15:40:49 EDT SEATTLE (Reuters) - Linux said on Thursday that it had bought Netscape's computer user identification and management technology from America Online Inc., a unit of Time Warner Inc. Raleigh, North Carolina-based Red Hat, which provides update and support services for the Linux operating system, said it will integrate the assets from Netscape Security Solutions into its products in the next 6 to 12 months. The technology purchased by Red Hat for an undisclosed amount is used to manage user profiles in large corporate networks. Red Hat is focusing its efforts on selling more of its update and support services to large companies that are using Linux, a software operating system that can be copied and modified freely, unlike proprietary software such as Microsoft Corp.'s Windows. Netscape was bought by AOL which later merged with Time Warner. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance Reuters News Service and Yahoo 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 #463 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Oct 2 15:15:29 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i92JFSV19932; Sat, 2 Oct 2004 15:15:29 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 15:15:29 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410021915.i92JFSV19932@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 #464 TELECOM Digest Sat, 2 Oct 2004 15:15:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 464 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Magna Carta For the Knowledge Age (TELECOM Archives Reprint) Re: WWW Founder was Re: WWW is Ten Years Old in 1994 (David Heyman) 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, 2 Oct 2004 13:37:45 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Magna Carta For the Knowledge Age This appeared in the Computer Underground Digest on January 31, 1995. CuD is now a defunct publication. CuD began in 1989/90 as an offshoot of TELECOM Digest. Around that time, there was a huge stench on the net as the result of some activities the federal government categorized as 'crime', resulting in many arrests, computer seizures, etc. The sheer volume of messages coming into the Digest prevented publishing even close to the total, despite the fact that daily there were six or eight -- even ten, one day -- issues of the Digest. Jim Thomas suggested starting a new digest, on the theme of the 'computer under- ground' to discuss it all. So, the Computer Underground Digest was started. At the time, Jim Thomas was a professor at Northern Illinois University. I have since lost track of him. CuD was published on a regular basis for six or seven years. Starting last week, as we began observing the tenth anniversry of the WWW -- World Wide Web -- we have published various short notes on the topic, and we began last weekend with an essay (actually written a few years before the WWW became a reality) on how to handle all the information we have been given. This weekend, a 'Magna Carta' for netizens which was written about the time WWW was beginning to take a firm grasp on our reality. Date: Tue, 31 Jan 95 23:14 CST To: cudigest@UIUCVMD.BitNet From: Cu Digest (tk0jut2@mvs.cso.niu.edu) Sender: owner-cudigest@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu Computer underground Digest Tue Jan 31, 1995 Volume 7 : Issue 07 ISSN 1004-042X Editors: Jim Thomas and Gordon Meyer (TK0JUT2@NIU.BITNET) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 14:14:52 +0000 From: rkmoore@IOL.IE(Richard K. Moore) Subject: File 1--"Magna Carta" digest: A Commentary Digest of PFF's Magna Carta - Part 1 of 2 By: Richard K. Moore 17 January, 1995 I reviewed the Magna Carta in a previous message. This document is a condensed version of the Magna Carta itself, with commentary. Some sections, especially the introductory material, are quoted in entirety. Some sections are summarized by me, with representative passages cited. Other sections are simply boiled down with ellipses to their meat. You will find editorial comments scattered throughout. These couldn't go in the review, because they need to be adjacent to the material to make sense. -Richard ---------------------------------------------------- From-- Phil Are To-- rre@weber.ucsd.edu Subject-- "Magna Carta" This is the so-called "Magna Carta" from Newt Gingrich's "Progress and Freedom Foundation" that I discussed in TNO 1(12). It is formatted precisely as I received it from PFF. Date-- 9 Jan 95 17:25:21 EDT From--Kevin Lacobie Subject--Your request for "Cyberspace and the American Dream" ... Below is a copy of the Magna Carta paper. A listserv-based discussion group will be formed soon for this paper, and the Progress and Freedom Foundation *promise further activities* in this area. If you have any more questions about PFF, please direct them to PFF@aol.com. If you have questions about the MagnaCarta discussion group, please direct them to info@bionomics.org. Kevin Lacobie postmaster for @bionomics.org [*emphasis* added throughout - rkm] ___________________________________________________ Cyberspace and the American Dream: A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age Release 1.2 // August 22, 1994 ---------------------------------------- This statement represents the cumulative wisdom and innovation of many dozens of people. It is based primarily on the thoughts of four "co-authors": Ms. Esther Dyson; Mr. George Gilder; Dr. George Keyworth; and Dr. Alvin Toffler. This release 1.2 has the final "imprimatur" of no one. In the spirit of the age: It is copyrighted solely for the purpose of preventing someone else from doing so. If you have it, you can use it any way you want. However, major passages are from works copyrighted individually by the authors, used here by permission; these will be duly acknowledged in release 2.0. It is a living document. Release 2.0 will be released in October 1994. We hope you'll use it is to tell us how to make it better. Do so by: - Sending E-Mail to PFF@AOL.COM - Faxing 202/484-9326 or calling 202/484-2312 - Sending POM (plain old mail) to 1250 H. St. NW, Suite 550 Washington, DC 20005 (The Progress & Freedom Foundation is a not-for-profit research and educational organization dedicated to creating a positive vision of the future founded in the historic principles of the American idea.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As of today, October 2, 2004, I have *not* been able to find a 'version 2.0' or any later version of this document than the 'version 1.2' noted above. The occassional [] notes as they are inserted below are those of Mr. Are when he first sent this document in to CuD. PAT] ----------------------------- PREAMBLE The central event of the 20th century is the overthrow of matter. In technology, economics, and the politics of nations, wealth -- in the form of physical resources -- has been losing value and significance. The powers of mind are everywhere ascendant over the brute force of things. In a First Wave economy, land and farm labor are the main "factors of production." In a Second Wave economy, the land remains valuable while the "labor" becomes massified around machines and larger industries. In a Third Wave economy, the central resource -- a single word broadly encompassing data, information, images, symbols, culture, ideology, and values -- is _actionable_ knowledge. The industrial age is not fully over. In fact, classic Second Wave sectors (oil, steel, auto-production) have learned how to benefit from Third Wave technological breakthroughs -- just as the First Wave's agricultural productivity benefited exponentially from the Second Wave's farm-mechanization. But the Third Wave, and the _Knowledge Age_ it has opened, will not deliver on its potential unless it adds social and political dominance to its accelerating technological and economic strength. This means repealing Second Wave laws and retiring Second Wave attitudes. It also gives to leaders of the advanced democracies a special responsibility -- to facilitate, hasten, and explain the transition. As humankind explores this new "electronic frontier" of knowledge, it must confront again the most profound questions of how to organize itself for the common good. The meaning of freedom, structures of self-government, definition of *property*, nature of *competition*, conditions for *cooperation*, sense of community and nature of *progress* will each be redefined for the Knowledge Age -- just as they were redefined for a new age of industry some 250 years ago. What our 20th-century countrymen came to think of as the "American dream," and what resonant thinkers referred to as "the promise of American life" or "the American Idea," emerged from the turmoil of 19th-century industrialization. Now it's our turn: The knowledge revolution, and the Third Wave of historical change it powers, summon us to renew the dream and enhance the promise. THE NATURE OF CYBERSPACE The Internet -- the huge (2.2 million computers), global (135 countries), rapidly growing (10-15% a month) network that has captured the American imagination -- is only a tiny part of cyberspace. So just what is cyberspace? More ecosystem than machine, cyberspace is a bioelectronic environment that is literally universal: It exists everywhere there are telephone wires, coaxial cables, fiber-optic lines or electromagnetic waves. This environment is "inhabited" by *knowledge*, including incorrect ideas, existing in electronic form. It is connected to the physical environment by portals which *allow people to see what's inside*, to put knowledge in, to alter it, and to take knowledge out. Some of these portals are one-way (e.g. television receivers and television transmitters); others are two-way (e.g. telephones, computer modems). [ Hey! I though *we* were the residents of [ cyberspace, not the the electrons! [ [ Here's where the condensation starts. [ [ They continue building the model that cyberspace is [ a big data world that people can access. No [ perception of cyberspace *embodying* communities of [ people. People are to participate as individual [ consumer/navigator of cyberspace's resources. [ [ Here's a representative sample of the slogan- [ coating that colors their presentation: ... Cyberspace is the land of knowledge, and the exploration of that land can be a civilization's truest, highest calling. The opportunity is now before us to empower every person to pursue that calling in his or her own way. The challenge is as daunting as the opportunity is great. The Third Wave has profound implications for the nature and meaning of property, of the marketplace, of community and of individual freedom. As it emerges, it shapes new codes of behavior that move each organism and institution -- family, neighborhood, church group, company, government, nation -- inexorably beyond standardization and centralization, as well as beyond the materialist's obsession with energy, money and control. [ Next comes the first entry of the leit-motiv: [ "government" as the villain of the story. It also spells the death of the central institutional paradigm of modern life, the bureaucratic organization. (Governments, including the American government, are the last great redoubt of bureaucratic power on the face of the planet, and for them the coming change will be profound and probably traumatic.)... [ Corporations, as a seat of bureaucratic power, [ manage to escape notice here. Ah well, so many [ details, so little time... [ [ Next, they show how hip they are by pointing out [ the narrowness of the "superhighway" metaphor, and [ the aptness of the "cyberspace" [ metaphor. They break the 2nd-wave bounds of linear [ ASCII messaging to give us a brilliant two- [ dimensional table with which to compare the [ metaphors in a futuristic light: _Information Superhighway_ / _Cyberspace_ Limited Matter / Unlimited Knowledge Centralized / Decentralized Moving on a grid / Moving in space Government ownership / A vast array of ownerships Bureaucracy / Empowerment Efficient but not hospitable / Hospitable if you customize it Withstand the elements / Flow, float and fine-tune Unions and contractors / Associations and volunteers Liberation from First Wave / Liberation from Second Wave Culmination of Second Wave / Riding the Third Wave ... [ Well, OK, I buy it. I bought it ten years ago. [ [ --- [ [ The first major character in the story now makes an [ appearance. He is brother "private property", [ endowed by his creator with inalienable rights. [ Those rights are to be the very [ cornerstone of the cyberspace frontier: THE NATURE AND OWNERSHIP OF PROPERTY Clear and enforceable property rights are essential for markets to work. Defining them is a central function of government. Most of us have "known" that for a long time. But to create the new cyberspace environment is to create _new_ property -- that is, new means of creating goods (including ideas) that serve people. The property that makes up cyberspace comes in several forms: Wires, coaxial cable, computers and other "hardware"; the electromagnetic spectrum; and "intellectual property" -- the knowledge that dwells in and defines cyberspace. [ [ Cyberspace is clearly defined as being a repository [ for "knowledge property". This definition is [ summarized in their phrases: [ [ "the knowledge that dwells in and defines [ cyberspace" [ [ " to create...cyberspace...is to create _new_ [ property" [ [ They next set out a dichotomy -- we are to decide [ between two options for cyber-property ownership, [ private & public: In each of these areas, two questions that must be answered. First, what does "ownership" _mean_? What is the nature of the property itself, and what does it mean to own it? Second, once we understand what ownership means, _who_ is the owner? At the level of first principles, should ownership be public (i.e. government) or private (i.e. individuals)? ... [ Brother "private property" is asking to be accepted [ as "everyman", to be the character the reader [ identifies with. He claims to represent the [ "individual". Well... OK so far. But methinks [ Plato is entrapping me... [ [ Is it true that "public" includes no other options [ than direct government ownership? [ [ And is it true that "private" means ownership by [ individuals? [ And if so, is that all individuals, or a few [ individuals? [ The unfolding story will make this clear. [ [ --- [ [ They make one really ominous statement in this [ section: If this analysis is correct, copyright and patent protection of knowledge (or at least many forms of it) may no longer be unnecessary... [ That word "knowledge" is scary in this context. Do [ they mean that ideas and facts are to be [ patentable? We see such a trend [ in genetic engineering already. [ [ In the cyberspace context, are they proposing that [ intellectual concepts themselves will be [ patentable? If so, then presumably it will happen [ on a wholesale basis. [ Will schools pay knowledge royalties to teach the [ three R's? [ [ --- [ [ Their next section is entitled "THE NATURE OF THE [ MARKETPLACE". I'll pass most of it along, trimmed [ by a few ellipses and punctuated by asterisks: THE NATURE OF THE MARKETPLACE Inexpensive knowledge destroys economies-of-scale. Customized knowledge permits"just in time" production for an ever rising number of *goods*. Technological progress creates new means of serving old markets, turning *one-time monopolies* into *competitive battlegrounds*. These phenomena are altering the nature of the marketplace, ...transformed by technological progress from a "*natural monopoly*" to one in which competition is the rule. Three recent examples: * The market for "mail" has been made competitive by the development of fax machines and overnight delivery ...During the past 20 years, the market for television has been transformed from ... a few broadcast TV stations to one in which consumers can choose among broadcast, cable and satellite services. * The market for local telephone services, until recently a monopoly..., is rapidly being made competitive by the advent of wireless service and the entry of cable television into voice communication... The advent of new technology and new products creates the potential for _dynamic competition...Dynamic competition is better, because it allows competing technologies and new products to challenge the old ones and, if they really are better, to replace them. Static competition might lead to faster and stronger horses. Dynamic competition gives us the automobile... Then the personal-computing industry exploded, leaving older-style big-business-focused computing with a stagnant, piece of a burgeoning total market. As IBM lost market-share, many people became convinced that America had lost the ability to compete. By the mid-1980s, such alarmism had reached from Washington all the way into the heart of Silicon Valley. But the real story was the renaissance of American business and technological leadership. In the transition from mainframes to PCs, a vast new market was created. This market was characterized by *dynamic competition* consisting of easy access and low barriers to entry. Start-ups by the dozens took on the larger established companies -- and won. ...The reason for America's victory in the computer wars of the 1980s is that dynamic competition was allowed to occur, in an area so breakneck and pell-mell that government would've had a hard time controlling it _even had it been paying attention_. The challenge for policy in the 1990s is to permit, even encourage, dynamic competition in every aspect of the cyberspace marketplace. [ The meat of the story is now unfolding. Cyberspace [ is simply a new mass communications marketplace. [ The players are telcos, fiber operators, wireless [ providers, and entrepreneurs of all flavors. [ [ Consumers play no role in this drama, their benefit [ comes when they get to choose among the commercial [ services being arranged for them. [ [ Brother "private property" who was "the [ individual" in scene one, has now become a typical [ corporate board member, dealing with mergers, [ acquisitions, new-product planning, and new forms [ of competition. [ [ Notice the explicit call for *dynamic competition* [ as being central to a good cyberspace. Watch later [ how they switch sides on this issue several times. [ [ --- [ [ Now on to the next section: THE NATURE OF FREEDOM Overseas friends of America sometimes point out that the U.S. Constitution is unique -- because it states explicitly that power resides with the people, who delegate it to the government, rather than the other way around... This idea -- central to our free society -- was the result of more than 150 years of intellectual and political ferment, from the Mayflower Compact to the U.S. Constitution, as explorers struggled to establish the terms under which they would tame a new frontier. And as America continued to explore new frontiers --from the Northwest Territory to the Oklahoma land-rush -- it consistently returned to this fundamental principle of rights, reaffirming, time after time, that power resides with the people. [ [ Those of you with color screens probably noticed [ the red-white-and-blue background on this [ stationery. [ [ The argument has touched deep ground here. Our [ American heritage, our very duty as American [ citizens, demands that we agree that power in [ cyberspace should we reside with "the people". [ [ Fine, until you find out who "the people" [ are. Stay tuned. Cyberspace is the latest American frontier. As this and other societies make ever deeper forays into it, the proposition that ownership of this frontier resides first _with the people_ is central to achieving its true potential... [ I'm skipping four long paragraphs of fluff, to the [ effect that the struggle for freedom never ends, [ and that this generation must do its part. [ [ Next comes the second appearance of the leit-motif. [ The "evil government" character broadens out to [ represent the entire "2nd Wave" mentality. [ [ Government itself is possibly one of the 2nd Wave [ anachronisms to be left behind. [ * In a Second Wave world, it might make sense for government to insist on the right to peer into every computer by requiring that each contain a special "clipper chip." * In a Second Wave world, it might make sense for government to assume ownership over the broadcast spectrum and demand massive payments from citizens for the right to use it. * In a Second Wave world, it might make sense for government to prohibit entrepreneurs from entering new markets and providing new services. * And, in a Second Wave world, dominated by a few old-fashioned, one-way media "networks," it might even make sense for government to influence which political viewpoints would be carried over the airwaves... [ [ I just heard about the 3rd Wave last month, and [ already we're seeing a revisionist history of the [ 2nd Wave. [ [ What America have these guys been living in? We've [ encouraged entrepreneurs to enter new markets [ throughout our history, from railroad building, [ to mining, to Thomas Edison, John D. Rockefeller, [ Henry Ford, the aircraft industry, ad infinitum. [ [ I never made massive payments to the government to [ watch TV. Which planet are these guys from? [ [ But they *do* make sense if you accept the [ equation: [ "citizen" == "communications company" [ because communication companies do pay license [ fees. But those fees are nominal for corporations, [ though they might seem large to an individual. [ [ Thus they skate from one meaning of "individual" to [ the other, even in mid thought. [ [ --- [ [ The next section is called THE ESSENCE OF THE [ COMMUNITY. I'll skip most of it -- it's really [ vacuous. I'll just give you the last two paragraphs [ to illustrate the flavor of this idling segment of [ the storyline: "...But unlike the private property of today," Salin continued, "the potential variations on design and prevailing customs will explode, because many variations can be implemented cheaply in software. And the 'externalities' associated with variations can drop; what happens in one cyberspace can be kept from affecting other cyberspaces." "Cyberspaces" is a wonderful _pluralistic_ word to open more minds to the Third Wave's civilizing potential. Rather than being a centrifugal force helping to tear society apart, cyberspace can be one of the main forms of glue holding together an increasingly free and diverse society. [ This next section is the heart of the story. [ Evil "government" is to be vanquished by brother [ "private property" -- watch as the two masks [ ("individual" and "communications provider") [ switch back and forth faster than the mind can see. THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT The current Administration has identified the right goal: Reinventing government for the 21st Century....This said, it is essential that we understand what it really means to create a Third Wave government and begin the process of transformation. ...The most pressing need...is to revamp the policies and programs that are slowing the creation of cyberspace...if there is to be an "industrial policy for the knowledge age," it should focus on removing barriers to competition and massively deregulating the fast-growing telecommunications and computing industries... ...the transition from the Second Wave to the Third Wave will require a level of government _activity_ not seen since the New Deal.... [ A nice-sounding vision for cyberspace is pulled in [ from the New York Times: "The amount of electronic material the superhighway can carry is dizzying, compared to the relatively narrow range of broadcast TV and the limited number of cable channels. Properly constructed and regulated, it could be open to all who wish to speak, publish and communicate. None of the interactive services will be possible, however, if we have an eight-lane data superhighway rushing into every home and only a narrow footpath coming back out. Instead of settling for a multimedia version of the same entertainment that is increasingly dissatisfying on today's TV, we need a superhighway that encourages the production and distribution of a broader, more diverse range of programming" (New York Times 11/24/93 p. A25). [ [ The individualist aspects of this vision play no [ further part in our story. The sole item adopted [ by PFF seems to be the requirement for [ symmetric bandwidth. Could this be establishing a [ pecking order between telcos and cable-operators, [ giving the edge to the telcos with their more [ symmetric architectures? ... an open question. [ [ We now come to an amazing shift of ground in our [ story. Its almost Khafka'esque or even [ Ionesco'esque in its blatant reversal of [ established story line. [ [ What they're going to do is passionately espouse [ the creation of a gigantic monopoly among the [ telcos and cable operators to build and operate [ cyberspace. Even though "dynamic competition" was [ the rallying cry up to this point, we're now to [ learn that "contrived competition between phone [ companies and cable operators" "will not deliver [ the two-way, multimedia and more civilized tele- [ society Kapor and Berman sketch." ...reducing barriers to entry and innovation [is] the only effective near-term path to Universal Access. In fact, it can be argued that a near-term national interactive multimedia network is impossible unless regulators permit much greater **collaboration** between the cable industry and phone companies. The latter's huge fiber resources...could be joined with the huge asset of 57 million broadband links...to produce a new kind of national network -- multimedia, interactive and (as costs fall) increasingly accessible to Americans of modest means. That is why obstructing such collaboration -- in the cause of forcing a competition between the cable and phone industries -- is *socially elitist*. To the extent it prevents collaboration between the cable industry and the phone companies, present federal policy actually thwarts the Administration's own goals of access and empowerment... ...If Washington forces the phone companies and cable operators to develop supplementary and duplicative networks, most other advanced industrial countries will attain cyberspace democracy -- via an interactive multimedia "open platform" -- before America does, despite this nation's technological dominance. ...A contrived competition between phone companies and cable operators will not deliver the two-way, multimedia and more civilized tele-society Kapor and Berman sketch. Nor is it enough to simply "get the government out of the way." Real issues of antitrust must be addressed, and no sensible framework exists today for addressing them. Creating the conditions for universal access to interactive multimedia will require a fundamental rethinking of government policy. [ How orwellian can you get? Those of us who bought [ into the glory of dynamic competition earlier on [ have now become "socially elitist" -- unless we [ have a mind which can switch identities and change [ positions as adroitly as our illustrious authors. [ [ Their cyberspace manifesto now reads: [ (1) strong private property rights [ (2) infrastructure to be owned by a [ private monopoly [ --- [ [ The pace of doublespeak picks up now. In the [ next section we're back in the "competition" camp, [ finding out why regulation must be eliminated from [ the communications game, to be replaced by [ an anti-trust model. [ ...Promoting Dynamic Competition Technological progress is turning the telecommunications marketplace from one characterized by "economies of scale" and "natural monopolies" into a prototypical competitive market. The challenge for government is to encourage this shift -- to create the circumstances under which new competitors and new technologies will challenge the natural monopolies of the past. Price-and-entry regulation makes sense for natural monopolies. The tradeoff is a straightforward one: The monopolist submits to price regulation by the state, in return for an exclusive franchise on the market. But what happens when it becomes economically desirable to have more than one provider in a market? The continuation of regulation under these circumstances stops progress in its tracks. It prevents new entrants from introducing new technologies and new products, while depriving the regulated monopolist of any incentive to do so on its own. Price-and-entry regulation, in short, is the antithesis of dynamic competition. The alternative to regulation is antitrust. Antitrust law is designed to prevent the acts and practices that can lead to the creation of new monopolies, or harm consumers by forcing up prices, limiting access to competing products or reducing service quality. Antitrust law is the means by which America has, for over 120 years, fostered competition in markets where many providers can and should compete. The market for telecommunications services --telephone, cable, satellite, wireless -- is now such a market...price/entry regulation of telecommunications services...should therefore be replaced by antitrust law as rapidly as possible. ...there should be no half steps. Moving from a regulated environment to a competitive one is -- to borrow a cliche -- like changing from driving on the left side of the road to driving on the right: You can't do it gradually. [ [ Though the "justification" arguments illogically [ contradict one another, the "conclusions" of those [ arguments add up to a coherent proposal. [ [ What the authors are proposing is an [ *unregulated monopoly* [ [ It is not surprising that they had to twist [ logic several times to pack both words into a [ manifesto, and make it seem like both are [ natural and consistent consequences of [ "competitive spirit" and the "American Dream". [ [ Their cyberspace manifesto now reads: [ (1) strong private property rights [ (2) infrastructure to be owned by a [ unregulated private monopoly [ --- [ [ Next they double-click on property rights: [ ...Defining and Assigning Property Rights ...Defining property rights in cyberspace is perhaps the single most urgent and important task for government information policy. Doing so will be a complex task, and each key area -- the electromagnetic spectrum, intellectual property, cyberspace itself (including the right to privacy) -- involves unique challenges. The important points here are: First, this is a "central" task of government... Secondly, the key principle of ownership by the people -- private ownership -- should govern every deliberation. *Government does not own cyberspace, the people do.*... [ [ Here's where the doublespeak pays off. They can [ make a statement like "the people own cyberspace" [ and manage to imply they are empowering [ the individual, when they've already stated clearly [ that ownership is to be vested in a large monopoly [ conglomerate. I must tip my hat to their skill. [ [ In an earlier review, I described this document as [ grossly rambling and inconsistent. I now have more [ respect for it. It's masterfully deceitful, and [ manages to marshall contradictory arguments in [ support of a coherent business proposal. [ [ --- [ [ We now move to another corporate business concern. [ Such concerns are clearly the domain of serious [ discourse addressed in the Magna Carta. The rest of [ the verbiage is a meaningless, crowd-pleasing [ smokescreen. [ [ Here we have a plea for rapid capital depreciation. [ That would be quite a windfall for a conglomerate [ investing billions in an infrastructure. [ [ Once again the taxpayer is asked to subsidize the [ R&D bill for new technology, but the ownership [ benefit is to go exclusively to the private [ operator. This has been the pattern since the New [ Deal. ...Creating Pro-Third-Wave Tax and Accounting Rules We need a whole set of new ways of accounting, both at the level of the enterprise, and of the economy. ...At the level of the enterprise, obsolete accounting procedures cause us to systematically _overvalue_ physical assets (i.e. property) and _undervalue_ human-resource assets and intellectual assets. So, if you are an inspired young entrepreneur looking to start a software company, or a service company of some kind, and it is heavily information-intensive, you will have a harder time raising capital than the guy next door who wants to put in a set of beat-up old machines to participate in a topped-out industry. On the tax side, the same thing is true... It is vital that accounting and tax policies -- both those promulgated by private-sector regulators like the Financial Accounting Standards Board and those promulgated by the government at the IRS and elsewhere -- start to reflect the shortened capital life-cycles of the Knowledge Age, and the increasing role of _intangible_ capital as "wealth." [ Their cyberspace manifesto now reads: [ (1) strong private property rights [ (2) infrastructure to be owned by a [ unregulated private monopoly [ (3) investment to be written off rapidly [ --- [ [ Next they get into a discussion of transforming [ government. I'm not sure why they're departing [ from their focused agenda of launching cyberspace [ as a private monopoly. Perhaps they think they're [ on a roll, and might as well go for the whole [ enchilada -- a corporate state. ...Creating a Third Wave Government Going beyond cyberspace policy per se, government must remake itself and redefine its relationship to the society at large...there are some yardsticks we can apply to policy proposals...[vacuous ones omitted] _Does it centralize control_? Second Wave policies centralize power in bureaucratic institutions; Third Wave policies work to spread power -- to empower those closest to the decision... A serious effort to apply these tests to every area of government activity -- from the defense and intelligence community to health care and education -- would ultimately produce a complete transformation of government as we know it. Since that is what's needed, let's start applying. [ With their usual twists of logic, we'd probably [ learn that other constellations of private [ interests, perhaps including additional unregulated [ monopolies, should be running all these other [ areas of public life as well. [ [ The closing section is vacuous but for [ background smoke. I'll cite a few representative [ paragraphs... [ GRASPING THE FUTURE The conflict between Second Wave and Third Wave groupings is the central political tension cutting through our society today. The more basic political question is not who controls the last days of industrial society, but who shapes the new civilization rapidly rising to replace it. Who, in other words, will shape the nature of cyberspace and its impact on our lives and institutions?... The Third Wave sector includes not only high-flying computer and electronics firms and biotech start-ups. It embraces advanced, information-driven manufacturing in every industry... For the time being, the entrenched powers of the Second Wave dominate Washington and the statehouses... ...a "mass movement" for cyberspace is still hard to see. Unlike the "masses" during the industrial age, this rising Third Wave constituency is highly diverse...This very heterogeneity contributes to its lack of political awareness. It is far harder to unify than the masses of the past. [ I guess the Magna Carta is to bring about this [ unity. Perhaps they seek to form an "internet cult" [ and the Magna Carta is the "mind-programming" [ formula being trial-posted. I think they'll find [ most of us not that easily programmed. We're too [ professionally familiar with the technology of [ programming, and are equipped to judge the internal [ consistency of models. Yet there are key themes on which this constituency-to-come can agree. To start with, liberation -- from Second Wave rules, regulations, taxes and laws laid in place to serve the smokestack barons and bureaucrats of the past. Next, of course, must come the creation -- creation of a new civilization, founded in the eternal truths of the American Idea. It is time to embrace these challenges, to grasp the future and pull ourselves forward. If we do so, we will indeed renew the American Dream and enhance the promise of American life. [ [ There you have it. The American Dream and frontier [ competitiveness lead us inevitably to the following [ mandate for cyberspace: [ (1) strong private property rights [ (2) infrastructure to be owned by an [ unregulated private monopoly [ (3) investment to be written off rapidly [ [ Buying into this vision upholds the honor of [ our forefathers, fights big government, empowers [ the individual, and ushers in the American [ millennium. [ [ Simple, succinct...and packed full of lies. [ [ My only question is: why did the document have to [ be so long? Richard K. Moore - rkmoore@iol.ie - Wexford, Ireland - fax +353 53 23970 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And there you have a rather good summary of the death of the 'old internet' in 1994 and birth of the 'new internet' about the same time as the World Wide Web -- that's what the 'www' seen on the start of so many network addresses these days stands for -- was started. Esther Dyson, George Gilder, and Alvin Toffler; what a hot team that is! And don't forget Vint Cerf, another well known netizen. PAT] ------------------------------ From: David Heyman Subject: Re: WWW Founder, was: WWW is Ten Years Old in 2004 Date: 2 Oct 2004 02:43:01 -0700 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Ah yes, Tim Berners-Lee, thank you for > jogging my memory. I wish Mr. Berners-Lee would come around here now > and then, I would love to give him a piece of my mind, as disease- > riddled and useless as it has become since the aneurysm. I would > ask him why in the hell he did not slap a copyright on everything to > do with the web back in 1994 so as to prevent so much of the foolish > nonsense and charlatanism we see all over the place now days. Ah well, > too late now to worry about it I guess. PAT] He couldn't because there was prior art. British Telecom attempted to invoke patent rights on Hyperlinks and Gopher systems were already around. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/798475.stm Remember that Sir TBL also didn't include graphics in the web, that was done at NCSA with Mosaic by some of the folks that would go on to found Netscape. http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/history/fbrowser.html David Heyman NOTE: Please remove my email address when posting. ------------------------------ 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 #464 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Oct 3 21:11:09 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i941B9V02433; Sun, 3 Oct 2004 21:11:09 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 21:11:09 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410040111.i941B9V02433@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 #465 TELECOM Digest Sun, 3 Oct 2004 21:10:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 465 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? (hiker@h.com) Ma Bell's Internal Network (jdj) Toll Free Number Registry? (CrowT) Call Accounting Project (Mike) Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? (Lisa Hancock) Tuned Amplifier Which Works at 20HZ Only (Faris Alahmad) Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium (Dave Close) Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal (Dave VanHorn) Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal (Allen McIntosh) Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? (TouchTone Tommy) Free VOIP Tutorials Resources: Whitepapers Links News PDFs (TekJockey) Re: WWW Founder, was: WWW is Ten Years Old in 2004 (telecomdigest) A Comparison of the Cell Phone Driver and the Drunk Driver (M Solomon) Re: No Call Ref ID in SS7/C7 Why? (Ariel Burbaickij) Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone Used (R Merrill) Re: Magna Carta For the Knowledge Age (Michael A. Covington) Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest (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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? From: hiker@h.com Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2004 04:12:50 GMT What do people think about this? http://www.hotelcorsaro.it/ On 15th September a lightning killed a person while in excursion at high altitude on Etna. He was our guest and he worked for a French travel agency. He was a mountain expert but this time he has been unlucky. Mobile telephone could be reason he was hit by a lightning. His phone, in fact, exploded while his body and all other affairs didn't show visible signs of what happened. We feel close to Nicoladze family. He leaves his wife and two sons. ------------------------------ From: jdj Subject: Ma Bell's internal network Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2004 00:22:27 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com I misdialed a number once and found myself inside Ma Bell's own private phone network. (Is it safe yet to ask about it?) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Perhaps you are referring to Cornet, which was one of their networks. For the most part, if I recall corr- ectly, Cornet was the name of their internal network. Since there is no longer any Ma Bell -- just a carcass with a few parts scattered around, I would guess it would be safe to talk about, if you wish. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dcs@mail.myacc.net (CrowT) Subject: Toll Free Number Registry? Date: 2 Oct 2004 06:42:14 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I'm being hounded by my boss to get a 800|888|877|866 number to correspond with our company's current slogan (something like 1-800-MYCOMPANY, for example). I tried dialing every combination possible but they're all taken. Is there a better way to do this kind of research? Is there a central registry where I can find out who owns certain 800 number and possibly be put on a waiting list? Thanks for your help! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I would suggest you ask our 800 number advisor here on our staff at the Digest. Judith Oppenheimer knows all about those things and may be able to find a good number for you. You can reach her at http://www.icbtollfree.com and if i am not mistaken also at http://whosells800.com. She is *very experienced* at finding and maintaining toll free numbers. PAT] ------------------------------ From: wuzzybunny@yahoo.com (Mike) Subject: Call Accounting Project Date: 2 Oct 2004 09:05:07 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hi, I'm upgrading my existing PBX to a nex neax 2400 ipx later this year. After installation I'm intending on writing call accounting software and GPLing it. What I am wondering if any one would be able to provide me with a sample (a few thousand lines) of the text output from a neax 1400 ipx system, or if anyone happens to know where I can find samples prior to the system being installed. Thanks in advance, Mike ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? Date: 2 Oct 2004 14:45:59 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Many years ago the Pennsylvania Railroad installed a wireless transmission system between locomotives, cabooses, and wayside towers to expedite the movement of trains. Would anyone accurately know details about this sytem? It is my understanding that this system was not "radio" but rather an internal "inductive"(?) system using the rails as a carrier. Pictures of PRR rolling stock show long pipes attached to the roof which were the antenna. By being an internal system they did not need FCC permission or assigned frequencies, apparently. One source says RCA developed the system; another says the system remained in use until as late as 1969. I don't know if true. I understand the PATCO rapid transit system initally used a similar closed system for crew communication, but switched over to more conventional radios. Any additional information would be appreciated (public posts, please). Thanks! [As an aside, the 1968 PRR Metroliners hosted a modern psgr train phone, using two-way Touch Tone pay telephones that directly dialed all calls, an innovation in mobile communications for that time. There was a little phone booth on the club cars. IIRC, calls cost $3 anywhere for 3 minutes which was a little pricey but not outrageous for the time. Other psgr trainphones used radios. Many old nice trains had phones on board that were plugged in at major stations to the local city system; this of course was easy to do. On nice trains, crews would send and receive telegrams from passengers while en route.] ------------------------------ From: Faris Alahmad Subject: Tuned Amplifier Which Works at 20HZ Only Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 23:45:43 +0200 I need a tuned amplifier which works at 20HZ only. How can I get that? ------------------------------ From: dave@compata.com (Dave Close) Subject: Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium Date: 1 Oct 2004 20:23:54 -0700 Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California Jack Decker writes: > "Over the past five months, we've noticed a trend in the industry > away from calling certain minutes local and others long distance -- in > an IP world distance is irrelevant, so we have changed our calling > plans to reflect that," said Jeffrey A. Citron, Chairman and CEO of > Vonage Holdings Corporation. Are there any proponents of 1+ toll-alerting still on this list? If so, isn't it time to admit that it's time to end that vacuousness? 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 ------------------------------ From: Dave VanHorn Subject: Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 03:02:16 -0500 Given that houses don't often move, why not go with a fixed IP, and tie the IP to the address (as it probably already is, in the billing records). KC6ETE Dave's Engineering Page, www.dvanhorn.org Microcontroller Consultant, specializing in Atmel AVR ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2004 23:06:29 GMT From: mcintosh@nospam.com (Allen McIntosh) Subject: Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal Reply-To: nospam@mouse-potato.com (nospam) Organization: mouse-potato.com In article , Tony P. wrote: > Suction cup mounted antenna in the nearest southwest facing > window. Put solar cells on the thing to keep it charged and hell, use > bluetooth or 802.11 for it to transmit it's location. Doesn't work on my office windows. I've tried it. They're narrow, and recessed. I suspect steel bars in the concrete. Doesn't work well on the south side of my house, either. It's at the bottom of a hill that apparently gets in the way. ------------------------------ From: Touch Tone Tommy Subject: Re: Any Old Mechanical Systems Still in Use in the US? Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2004 16:50:01 -0700 Organization: Acme Telephone Works Reply-To: touch_tone_tommyNOSPAM@yahoo.com 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? > Thanks, > Vu There is at least one "switcher" who has set up SxS and crossbars in his basement and has invited callers to call into his set-up. I don't have the numbers anymore, but if you went to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/singingwires and join, you can search the archives or post a query there. ------------------------------ From: tekjockey@yahoo.com (TekJockey) Subject: Free VOIP Tutorials Resources - Whitepapers, Links, News, PDFs Date: 2 Oct 2004 17:13:00 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hi, we've just started a new site on VOIP Technologies Learn VOIP H.323, SIP, MGCP, RTP & IP NETWORKING RESOURCES: http://www.compointsolutions.com We recently added VOIP IP PBX PAGE Tutorials, news, resource links and pdf's on learning voip. Great for: People looking to implement VOIP in their companies Technology professionals seeking knowledge. Fresh content - news, tutorials, links - updated daily! Stop by, Learn Stuff and tell a friend! :-) http://www.compointsolutions.com ------------------------------ From: telecomdigest@mail.zgnews.com Subject: Re: WWW Founder, was: WWW is Ten Years Old in 2004 Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2004 19:20:28 -0500 Reply-To: telecomdigest@mail.zgnews.com David Heyman wrote in comp.dcom.telecom: > Remember that Sir TBL also didn't include graphics in the web, that > was done at NCSA with Mosaic by some of the folks that would go on to > found Netscape. > http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/history/fbrowser.html Your rephrasing of the Web page you cited mischaracterizes history. While very important in promoting the Web, Mosaic was not the entity that brought graphics to the Web. TBL's original browser supported graphics, but not inline with text. Mosaic, according to TBL as well as the page you cite, was the first browser to successfully implement inline graphics. More than one graphics-capable Web browser existed prior to the release of Mosaic, e.g., Viola, written at Berkeley for X Windows. TBL's version of WWW history can be found at W3C's site: http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/FAQ.html. I hope I correctly paraphrased TBL's words. > David Heyman Bob ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 02:00:16 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: A Comparison of the Cell Phone Driver and the Drunk Driver DAVID L. STRAYER University of Utah DENNIS J. CROUCH University of Utah FRANK A. DREWS University of Utah July 2004 AEI-Brookings Joint Center Working Paper No. 04-13 Abstract: We used a high-fidelity driving simulator to compare the performance of cell-phone drivers with drivers who were legally intoxicated from ethanol. When drivers were conversing on either a hand-held or hands-free cell-phone, their braking reactions were delayed and they were involved in more traffic accidents than when they were not conversing on the cell phone. By contrast, when drivers were legally intoxicated they exhibited a more aggressive driving style, following closer to the vehicle immediately in front of them and applying more force while braking. When controlling for driving conditions and time on task, cell-phone drivers exhibited greater impairment than intoxicated drivers. The results have implications for legislation addressing driver distraction caused by cell phone conversations. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=570222 ------------------------------ From: ariel.burbaickij@gmail.com (Ariel Burbaickij) Subject: Re: No Call Ref ID in SS7/C7 Why? Date: 3 Oct 2004 14:08:28 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com > What I think we disagree about here is whether or not your definition > of "right" was the one in use by the people who designed the protocol. > In fact, I think their definition of "right" had a lot more to do with > conserving link bandwidth than it did to do with the ease of following > a call end-to-end through the network using diagnostic tools; and by > _that_ definition, I think it is entirely understandable that they > omitted the feature that by your definition is necessary in order to > "do it right". Sorry for late response; somehow my original response did not get through, so here basically the re-post. Well, what should I say -- let us do a bit of math. Let us assume average ISUP message is on average 40 octets. Now let us spend 8 octets for call ref id (I guess this should be enough for everyone :-) huge variety of timers in ISUP will surely easily tackle stale messages and prevent the situation where two messages in network bear equal call ref id. Now, the question is encrease of the average message length by 20% in your opinion worth the advantages it brings with it or not? ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone is Used Organization: Comcast Online Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2004 12:58:40 GMT Chris Eilersen wrote: > 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. You should have modem <==> VoicePulse <==> router <==> PCs this way QoS (quality of service) can be maintained by the voicepulse so that when it requires bandwidth to maintain voice quality it can slow down the computer connections. -- RM [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I tried the above set up with my Vonage phone since I had Quality of Service issues with my Vonage phone and the rest of my network. After I made that change, the Vonage phone mostly worked fine. But ... a big problem (at least, I thought it was). The Vonage TA (a Motorola box and firewall) sat there looking at the router (and its firewall). The two firewalls staring at each other were *always* causing me hassles. I never could get them to 'play nicely' with each other. Yes, they would work, a little, but I had to spend more time rebooting the firewalls than working on line it seemed. The NetGear router did *not* appreciate having its connection to the WAN or wide area network being another firewall (Motorola). And forget about the idea of getting any file transfers in from people over networks such as AOL, or Yahoo, or Microsoft Instant Messenger. Time and again the whole system would freeze up and have to be rebooted. I went back to my old way of doing things, which was having the Vonage telephone adapter just being a port on the router, and living with the occassional drop outs in voice quality when one of the computers wanted to do something. I am not in a position to buy a wide enough pipe to the net to fix it so it does not matter. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Re: Magna Carta For the Knowledge Age Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 16:50:42 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) Back in the mid-1990s, I led the team that created a computer acceptable-use policy for The University of Georgia and -- the hard part -- persuaded the people to take it seriously. This "Magna Carta" seems to contain some of the same misconceptions that we had to argue with when promulgating our AUP. Specifically: - That "cyberspace" is a radically new place to which existing society does not extend. (In our experience, the word "cyberspace" was often used by people who were having trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality, and who thought malice and petty treachery could be justified "in cyberspace" that would obviously not be acceptable in the real world.) - That intellectual property works differently on the computer than elsewhere. (More commonly, rather than wanting to copyright knowledge, our people wanted to ignore all intellectual property rights "in cyberspace." But it works both ways. People would say things in public and then complain that the public could read them, quote them, discuss them, and imitate them. Some people [cf. CBS recently] really object to their critics being able to communicate freely.) - That we have a new "frontier" and this is a good thing. (On the frontier, only the strong are safe. I do not believe in an electronic frontier. I prefer civilization, where *everybody* has rights, not just the strong!) - That government is somehow unnecessary on this "frontier" or must take a radically different form. (We emphasize that the Internet is built out of social contracts of a very familiar kind. John Locke would have understood Usenet.) The policy we developed is at www.uga.edu/compsec/use.html and has been cloned by other universities, a practice that we encourage. Michael Covington Associate Director, Artificial Intelligence Center The University of Georgia - www.ai.uga.edu/mc [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That 'Magna Carta' I printed here over the weekend largely was put together by Esther Dyson and the folks at ICANN, and you know how widely esteemed *they* are with most of the net community. (Note I said the above with a perfectly straight face.) ICANN has always had its own agenda which only sometimes comes in line with what many netizens want. Like Haley's Comet, perhaps once in 79 years, by coincidence the net community agrees with them when there is some mutual problem to be solved. It is not a 'misconception' Michael, it is their goal for the net. The rest of us are the ones who are confused. Ask Esther or Vint Cerf if you don't believe me. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest Date: 2 Oct 2004 14:28:30 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Michael Quinn wrote > Sakinah Aaron was walking into the bus area at the Wheaton Metro > station several weeks ago, talking loudly on her Motorola cell > phone. A little too loudly for Officer George Saoutis of the Metro > Transit Police. > The police officer told Aaron, who is five months pregnant, to lower > her voice. She told the officer he had no right to tell her how to > speak into her cell phone. I think the police were correct and the woman was wrong. It would've been quite easy for her to simply lower her voice, but she chose to make a big deal out of it. As another poster pointed out, recent incidents in the DC Metro came about because the psgr CHOSE to CONTINUE violating the rules even after being advised not to. I have no sympathy for those violators who obviously have no respect for the public. Most transit systems have a reminder on their schedules asking their patrons to keep their voices low while using their cell phones. Unfortunately, too many cell phone users are rude and speak loudly and are a nuisance to other people. I was on the train recently trying to relax after a long tiring day and some guy was talking in a very loud voice making call after call in his cell phone. I wish I had my own phone to call him (I heard him give his name and number while discussing business) and tell him to shut up. Somewhere on Usenet someone mentioned of making use of overheard business information to embarass loud talkers though I wouldn't go that far. In the old days -- when I was a kid in public school -- part of our education was good manners that we were expected to display at all times. I guess today it's somehow a violation of personal expression to teach and expect good manners. Somehow too many people today _erroneously_ think they have all sorts of "rights" that include being obnoxious and a nuisance to other people. So, today enforcing manners becomes a law enforcement issue, complete with arrests, citations, and fines. It's a shame it has come to that. I'd like to point out that some years ago the NYC subway system was a mess from deviant behavior. The police were unable to do anything because social activists successfully sued the police claiming the disruptive behaviors were actually constituionally protected free speech or the police efforts were discriminatory. The NYC subway mgmt put together a psgr rule book that meets the constitutional muster and discourages disruptive behavior and is now enforceable. The bad thing is that they removed any kind of discretion and had to make the rules they were allowed to enforce very strict. Bottom line -- the social activists who claim they are protecting our rights get so extremely and end up taking rights away from us. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe so, Lisa. I will suggest however, that 'disorderly conduct' and other such open-ended, define them as you go along laws are a police officer's best friend, because there is not a person in the world who cannot be guilty of 'disorderly conduct' if an officer decides to make them so. I say thank god for 'social activists' (as you called them) who look out for the rights of the rest of us. 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 #465 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Oct 4 14:15:27 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i94IFRr10408; Mon, 4 Oct 2004 14:15:27 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 14:15:27 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410041815.i94IFRr10408@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 #466 TELECOM Digest Mon, 4 Oct 2004 14:15:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 466 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson IBM Unveils First Biometric ThinkPad, Offering Security (Monty Solomon) The Technologist Who Has Michael Powell's Ear (Monty Solomon) Glitch Opens Access to Kids' Records (Monty Solomon) Three Million Scans Uncover 83 Million Cases of Spyware (Monty Solomon) Re: Magna Carta For the Knowledge Age (Lisa Hancock) Re: Magna Carta For the Knowledge Age (Michael A. Covington) Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? (Wesrock@aol.com) Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? (Howard Wharton) Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone Used (R Merrill) Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone Used (C Griswold) Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest (Fred Atkinson) Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest (Henry) Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest (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, 4 Oct 2004 08:48:12 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: IBM Unveils First Biometric ThinkPad, Offering Security IBM Unveils First Biometric ThinkPad, Offering Security at Your Fingertips RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 4, 2004-- IBM Integrates Fingerprint Reader with Embedded Security Subsystem; Tougher ThinkVantage Technology Strengthens IBM Security Architecture IBM is taking computing security and data protection to the next level today with the introduction of the first ThinkPad with an integrated fingerprint reader. ThinkPad, already the industry's most secure notebook PC (1), now features a model that delivers simplified access to password-protected personal and financial information, web sites, documents and e-mail while offering an unmatched level of data protection through its new biometric capability and embedded security subsystem. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44022512 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 00:43:28 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Technologist Who Has Michael Powell's Ear By Declan McCullagh Staff Writer, CNET News.com The Federal Communications Commission is, for better or worse, at the heart of some of the most important technology disputes of our era. How strictly the FCC decides to regulate emerging technology promises to have a lasting impact on areas as disparate as voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), fiber to the home, instant messaging and even digital video recorders. Robert Pepper is the FCC's chief of policy development, which requires him to be a kind of government futurist, advising Chairman Michael Powell on which regulations are wise and which would be harmful. He's also co-chairman of the FCC's Internet Policy Working Group. Previously, Pepper directed the Annenberg Washington Program in Communications Policy Studies. CNET News.com spoke with Pepper about topics, including VoIP, broadband over power lines, wiretapping Internet phone calls and what would happen if John Kerry is elected. http://news.com.com/2008-1033-5388746.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 00:51:48 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Glitch Opens Access to Kids' Records Officials say the problem has been fixed, but the error made thousands of confidential child-abuse and foster care files available to anyone on the Web. By COLLEEN JENKINS, Times Staff Writer A Miami Herald reporter alerted local child welfare authorities this week to a software glitch that made available thousands of confidential child-abuse and foster care records to anyone with Internet access. Those files contained detailed information about the 3,966 children under the watch of Kids Central, the private consortium that handles foster care and related services for at-risk children in the Department of Children and Families' District 13, which includes Citrus, Hernando, Marion, Lake and Sumter counties. Names of foster children, birth dates, Social Security numbers, photographs, case histories and even directions to children's foster homes were accessible with a password that had been published on Kids Central's Web site, the Herald reported. DCF officials, who monitor the competitively bid contract with Kids Central, immediately ordered that the site be shut down after the reporter informed them of the security breach Wednesday morning. http://www.sptimes.com/2004/10/01/Hernando/Glitch_opens_access_t.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 08:50:53 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Three Million Scans Uncover Over 83 Million Instances of Spyware EarthLink and Webroot Release Fourth SpyAudit Report ATLANTA and BOULDER, Colo., Oct. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Today EarthLink (Nasdaq: ELNK), one of the nation's leading Internet service providers, and Webroot Software, a producer of award-winning privacy, protection and performance software, released their fourth SpyAudit Report, which has tracked the growth of spyware on consumer PCs since the report's inception on January 1, 2004. For the year to date, more than three million scans have been performed. The scans discovered approximately 83.4 million instances of spyware, for an average of 26 traces per SpyAudit scan. Scans nearly doubled from the first to the second quarter and remained steady through the third quarter. While the instances of adware increased month-over-month through the first half of 2004, the third quarter began to show a slight decrease in the instances of each adware category. The complete report is available at http://www.earthlink.net/spyaudit/press . - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44024131 ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Magna Carta For the Knowledge Age Date: 3 Oct 2004 18:50:51 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com This document, like so many "social statements of the new era" contains basic misstatements of fact and misunderstandings of the business and industrial world. > Inexpensive knowledge destroys economies-of-scale. Customized > knowledge permits"just in time" production for an ever rising number > of *goods*. Technological progress creates new means of serving old > markets, turning *one-time monopolies* into *competitive > battlegrounds*. This is wrong. Economies of scale are as important as ever, indeed, cheap information _helps_ scale because it enables manufacturers to serve a larger market more efficiently. Look at Wal-Mart. While some old monopolies are becomming competitive, once competitive markets are becomming concentrated. This in itself is nothing new -- but always part of the business evolution. Actually, the so-called "Information Revolution" is more an _evolution_. These writers look at only the Internet and forget that cheap fast communication and data processing existed long before the Internet. The telegraph, the telephone, and the computer have been changing business for hundreds of years; this is nothing new. > *Government does not own cyberspace, the people do.*... The writer frequently wraps himself around the flag with "the people" clauses. But _by itself_ the clause is meaningless and foolish. "The people" act through their governments -- municipal, county, state, federal, international. "The people" can't act by themselves. > ...At the level of the enterprise, obsolete accounting procedures > cause us to systematically _overvalue_ physical assets (i.e. property) > and _undervalue_ human-resource assets and intellectual assets. Nonsense for several reasons. Properly followed accounting procedures either fairly value or undervalue physical assets. Standard accounting for years has required assets be valued at "lower of cost or market". Secondly, accounting is a measure of _past_ performance, not a prediction of the future. Accounting tells you what money the company spent for its capital and expense needs in the past. If a company bought someone's patent, accouting tells you what the company paid for that patent. But accounting does not tell you what that patent will be worth in the future, anymore than it tells you the value of the lathe or factory building in the future. Human resource and intellectual assets have always been considered by investors for estimating the investment potential of a company; it's nothing new. > So, if you are an inspired young entrepreneur looking to start a > software company, or a service company of some kind, and it is > heavily information-intensive, you will have a harder time raising > capital than the guy next door who wants to put in a set of beat-up > old machines to participate in a topped-out industry. Again, nonsense. Accounting statements are not the issue at all. Investors look at the future earnings capability of a business. If some beat up machine shop has a solid steady source of customers it may attract some investors while some start-up with no customers might not. In hindsight we know of plenty of start-ups that failed. > _Does it centralize control_? Second Wave policies centralize power in > bureaucratic institutions; Third Wave policies work to spread power -- > to empower those closest to the decision... Power has become centralized simply because that's where the money is. The Feds are the ones with the big money to build highways and other major infrastructure. The Feds are the ones big enough to set national standards so there is compatibility. In other ways, power remains quite local, indeed even more so than in the past. Many people today live in community associations where they have extremely local govt and where it is easy for anyone to get elected to those boards. As to the 'industrial society', just because we have fancy computers and communications, we still need hard material goods like automobiles, houses, clothes, and food. These things still must be made, shipped, and sold. Computers have increased the efficiency of this, but has not eliminated them. The guy's "[" comments were quite good. Let's never forget GIGO -- garbage in, garbage out. In other words, no matter how good or sophisticated an information system is, putting garbage in yields only garbage output. ------------------------------ From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Re: Magna Carta For the Knowledge Age Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 21:52:08 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That 'Magna Carta' I printed here over > the weekend largely was put together by Esther Dyson and the folks at > ICANN, and you know how widely esteemed *they* are with most of the > net community. (Note I said the above with a perfectly straight face.) > ICANN has always had its own agenda which only sometimes comes in > line with what many netizens want. Like Haley's Comet, perhaps once > in 79 years, by coincidence the net community agrees with them when > there is some mutual problem to be solved. It is not a 'misconception' > Michael, it is their goal for the net. The rest of us are the ones > who are confused. Ask Esther or Vint Cerf if you don't believe me. PAT] Well, the Net doesn't have to behave the way its planners foresee, does it! :) :) ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 09:27:53 EDT Subject: Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? In a message dated 2 Oct 2004 14:45:59 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) writes: > Many years ago the Pennsylvania Railroad installed a wireless > transmission system between locomotives, cabooses, and wayside > towers to expedite the movement of trains. > Would anyone accurately know details about this sytem? > It is my understanding that this system was not "radio" but rather an > internal "inductive"(?) system using the rails as a carrier. Pictures > of PRR rolling stock show long pipes attached to the roof which were > the antenna. By being an internal system they did not need FCC > permission or assigned frequencies, apparently. > One source says RCA developed the system; another says the system > remained in use until as late as 1969. I don't know if true. > I understand the PATCO rapid transit system initally used a similar > closed system for crew communication, but switched over to more > conventional radios. > Any additional information would be appreciated (public posts, > please). > Thanks! The October 2004 issue of "Trains" magazine shows a photo of a caboose equipped with the antenna you describe. The accompanying text basically agrees with what your description. The text says the FCC did not allocate frequencies for such uses in the 1930s and early 1940s, so the Union Switch & Signal Company developed this system (which as you note relied on inductive coupling and was not radio) and it was first put into use by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1944. The FCC did finally allocate radio frequencies in 1945 but the PRR continued its system is use until 1967. The system was also used by the Kansas City Southern; Bessemer & Lake Erie, Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range; Chicago, Burlington and Quincy ("Burlington"); and Atlantic Coast Line railroads. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: Howard S. Wharton Subject: Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 13:00:55 -0400 Organization: The University at Buffalo The system used by the Pennsy was called the trainphone. It only worked on RR property and crew could talk head end to rear end of train, train to train, train to tower or tower to train. It operated on low band VHF and operated by air core transformer coupling rather then radiation. That is why aon the engines the antenna looked like a handrail and a drum style on the caboose (called a cabin car by the PRR). Wayside transceivers were located in the towers and rather then a antenna, the signal was coupled to and from the wayside wires that ran along side of the right of way. These wires also carried signal circuits plus the railroad phone systems as well as the dispatchers line allowing the towers to speak to the dispatcher as well as other towers. Since the signal did not propagte much off the right of way, the signal was somewhat private. The system lasted between 1963-65 when it converted over to radios. There was even a "walkie talkie" for the brakeman with an antenna that looked like a "hula hoop". It was FM. Howard S. Wharton Fire Safety Technician Occupational and Environmental Safety Services State University of New York at Buffalo [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: FYI, anyone interested, for many years, the Chicago Transit Authority handled their train to control tower commuications using 'telephones' which transmitted using the third rail of electrical power (I think third rail is 440 volts DC). I don't know if they still do, or not. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone is Used Organization: Comcast Online Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 01:19:08 GMT Rick Merrill wrote: > Chris Eilersen wrote: >> 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. > You should have modem <==> VoicePulse <==> router <==> PCs > this way QoS (quality of service) can be maintained by the voicepulse so > that when it requires bandwidth to maintain voice quality it can slow > down the computer connections. > -- RM > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I tried the above set up with my Vonage > phone since I had Quality of Service issues with my Vonage phone and > the rest of my network. After I made that change, the Vonage phone > mostly worked fine. But ... a big problem (at least, I thought it > was). The Vonage TA (a Motorola box and firewall) sat there looking at > the router (and its firewall). The two firewalls staring at each other > were *always* causing me hassles. I never could get them to 'play > nicely' with each other. Yes, they would work, a little, but I had to > spend more time rebooting the firewalls than working on line it > seemed. The NetGear router did *not* appreciate having its connection > to the WAN or wide area network being another firewall (Motorola). And > forget about the idea of getting any file transfers in from people > over networks such as AOL, or Yahoo, or Microsoft Instant Messenger. > Time and again the whole system would freeze up and have to be rebooted. > I went back to my old way of doing things, which was having the Vonage > telephone adapter just being a port on the router, and living with the > occassional drop outs in voice quality when one of the computers > wanted to do something. I am not in a position to buy a wide enough > pipe to the net to fix it so it does not matter. PAT] I have Dlink DVG1120M and IT has both NAT and DHCP so it assigns an IP to the router (using 192.168.15.xxx) and router (having NAT and DHCP) assigns an IP to the PC(s) (using 192.168.0/1.xxx) - so everybody is happy as a clam. The SECRET is the 2 minute drill: power all off, power modem, wait 2 min; power TA, wait 2 min; power router; wait 2 min; power PC and you're in like flint. - RM [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah, that's what NetGear and Motorola both told me about my setup. It does not sound like 'two minutes' to me, it sounds more like 8-10 minutes out of service by the time you give every device on the line its own two minutes. And what happens when I wake up tomorrow morning and find it all crashed overnight? Anther 2 plus 2 plus 2 plus 2 plus hope I got it right? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Clark W. Griswold, Jr. Subject: Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone is Used Date: Sun, 03 Oct 2004 20:29:49 -0600 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Rick Merrill wrote: > You should have modem <==> VoicePulse <==> router <==> PCs > this way QoS (quality of service) can be maintained by the voicepulse so > that when it requires bandwidth to maintain voice quality it can slow > down the computer connections. Voicepulse uses the Sipura 2000 VOIP adapter, which does not do ethernet passthrough or provide any router functions. That said, I have not noticed any problems just hanging it off a spare port on my Linksys WRTG54G. They do provide a means of configuring the Sipura box to control the amount of bandwidth it uses, but since the max is 64Kbps, I never saw the need. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does anyone know how to patch two routers together if four holes is not enough? Or is that even possible? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 22:40:11 -0400 I lived in DC for almost tweny-five years, though not consecutively. While I was working for SkyTel, one of our transmitters in Florida took a lightning strike and the antenna was wiped out. I was asked to get a [rather long] antenna to Reagan National Airport ASAP and air freight it to our field technician so he could get service restored as quickly as possible. So, I took the Washington Metrorail. I got on at McPherson Square and transfered to the Yellow line at L'Enfant Plaza. After exiting the one train and en route to get on the other one, I was stopped by a female Metro police officer. She was very polite and asked me what was in the very long box I was carrying. I informed her that it was an antenna and explained the nature of the emergency. She told me she was surprised that they didn't stop me where I got on (because the box was longer than they normally allowed passengers to carry on the Metrorail). A second officer came running up. He seemed to be in a minor panic about my box. She immediately told him that it was just a radio antenna and he was satisfied with that. She told me to continue to Reagan National Airport since I'd already come that far. But she also told me that if they saw me on the system with something that large again they'd have to ask me to immediately exit the system. So, I was allowed to proceed to Reagan National Airport without further incident. I took it to the counter and air freighted it to the technician in Florida, went to the nearest pay phone, and used my company calling card to notify the technician what flight I would be coming in on. I then returned to the office via the Metrorail. I saw the officer again when I did the reverse transfer at L'Enfant Plaza. She was dealing with someone else and again was very polite and professional with them. I would have spoken to her, but she was a little bit busy. My experience is that the Metro police are a fairly cordial bunch. All the years I lived in DC [and I rode the Metro a lot] I never had any problems with those folks. They did a good job and had good manners when they did speak to you for any reason (from giving directions to asking you to stand a little further back from the edge of the platform). One New Year's Eve, I was riding the Metrorail home. There was a drunk in the car. He had a beer in his hand (eating and drinking on the Metro is strictly forbidden) and was loud as a public address system at maximum gain. Suddenly, an undercover Metro police officer jumped up, showed his badge, and ordered the man to quiet down, sit down, and put the beer in his pocket. He did not arrest the man (though he could have) because they were trying to encourage those who were drinking to take the public transportation home rather than drive. But the rest of the ride was a lot more pleasant because of the Metro officer's action. And I am not always so generous in my opinion of police officers. I had a run in with a DC City officer who ticketed me in a company vehicle for expired tags (not a SkyTel vehicle, I was working for another company when this happened). He was rude and very obnoxious almost to the point of abusiveness. I wasn't going to say anything about it until one of my co-workers showed up at work and showed me a traffic ticket (issued within fifteen minutes of my ticket with the same signature and badge number on it as my ticket because my co-worker had allegedly run a red light). One of the supervisors was carpooling with him when he was stopped. The officer was black and both of the men in this sports car were white. The officer said that if he wasn't a white man in a sports car that he probably wouldn't have bothered with writing him the ticket. The supervisor who was with him said that it was such a close call as to whether or not my co-worker had run the red light that it could go either way in court. Until then, I wasn't going to make any trouble. But when I heard that, I contacted his Seargent and told him what happened when he stopped *me*. His Seargent agreed with me that the officer was out of line and he assured me he would speak to him about it. I gave my co-worker the Seargent's name and phone number. My co-worker declined to call him. I pointed out that the officer could be dealt with before the problem escalated further and someone was hurt. But my co-worker was too much of a pacifist to call and complain. I went to court on the ticket and the judge dismissed it, by the way. As the renewal notice had been sent to a wrong address, she decided it wasn't my fault. She was quite pregnant when she tried my case, by the way (nothing adverse meant by that, it's just something I still remember). She was very nice and very professional. Just to show you I was being objective with the Metro police. Fred ------------------------------ From: henry999@eircom.net (Henry) Subject: Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 06:33:53 +0300 Organization: Elisa Internet customer Lisa Hancock wrote: > Unfortunately, too many cell phone users are rude and speak loudly and > are a nuisance to other people. I was on the train recently trying to > relax after a long tiring day and some guy was talking in a very loud > voice making call after call in his cell phone. How is this different, really, from (a) the lovers who quarrel all the way; (b) the out-of-control child that whines, screams and kicks all the way; (c) the bore who holds forth with his self-proclaimed great stories all the way; etc., etc.? It is different in that the cell phone user is alone, while in the other situations there are (at least) two human beings physically present -- but as far as annoyance caused to other members of the public goes, I'd say the cell phone user is no worse. Cheers, Henry (who does not own or use a mobile phone) ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest Date: 4 Oct 2004 08:26:56 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com (Some telco related issues are discussed further down in my response). > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe so, Lisa. I will suggest however, > that 'disorderly conduct' and other such open-ended, define them as > you go along laws are a police officer's best friend, because there is > not a person in the world who cannot be guilty of 'disorderly conduct' > if an officer decides to make them so. Having had some negative experiences of my own in that regard, I can't disagree. Cops have some discretion and so do local judges (who sometimes throw out such charges, sometimes impose the maximum fine). Generally, I've seen too much and it's the hothead/jerk who insists on making trouble and keeps on making trouble who gets cited. It is important to point out that cops are employees and do what their bosses tell them. Most people do not attend their town council meetings, if they even know what specific municipality they live in. At such meetings often citizens stand up and demand strict, even zealous quality of life enforcement of laws. The business community doesn't want their customers turned away by ruffians or troublemakers causing disturbances and they support such efforts too. Obviously this attitude varies significantly by town. Some towns will not tolerate a fistfight, others look at it as part of life and not of concern. (Some towns tolerate a junked car on blocks on the lawn, others do not). Those people who find 'quality of life' law enforcement too strict need to understand the town they're living in. It should be pointed out that both BART and DC-METRO opened in the 1970s when there was a lot of trouble on older urban subway systems, and BART/METRO pledged to their riders a clean safe environment. Strict enforcement of rules from day one is a long tradition of both systems, and generally respected and appreciated by riders. > I say thank god for 'social activists' (as you called them) who look > out for the rights of the rest of us. PAT] I've spoken to lots of activists and read their writings. The fact is that a great many are uninformed malcontents interested in disrupting for the sake of disruption, not to honestly make things better for people; the social justice is just an excuse, cover, and rallying point. Others are closet socialists/Marxists who have no respect for, indeed even a hatred of private property and business, and could care less the harm their activities are doing or would do to the rights of others people. When the telephone company raises its rates--is it always some evil capitalist exploiting the people or is it legitimate business requirements? For the activists, the facts don't matter, it is always evil. One damaging thing they've done is make it very difficult for the telephone company -- as a basic utility -- to collect its money from deadbeats. They got the PUC to force the phone companies to offer phone service and maintain service even when the company loses money and never collects. The rest of the customers have to make it up. One major city owned utility was forced by the social activists to virtually never shut off service for lack of payment. The word got out and the deadbeat rate skyrocketed. Obviously the money had to come from somewhere so rates for those who actually paid their bills went up steeply. Needless to say this caused a major scandal, but the social activists had their grips in and insisted on protecting the deadbeats. The end result -- it made the city look bad and people who could afford to move out (those who paid taxes and the bills) moved out, making the city worse off. I don't want to go back to the days where the cops ruled their beat by their nightstick. Way, way back, cops had little backup (walked, no car, no radio) so if there was a problem they handled it themselves. Sometimes cops offered basic common sense and help that saved a lot of kids from serious trouble. Sometimes cops whacked them. But, in my time I've seen activists do an awful lot of harm in their zealous and weird interpretation of laws and equality. Disruptive and disgusting behavior by homeless people in the subways was championed by them as "free speech" and they pushed for it to be constitutionally protected. In the end the homeless and the poor had it worse than ever, thanks to the social activists. Fortunately society has recognized much of this and realizes that everyday people have a right to not to have some homeless person throw up on them while commuting work on the subway. ------------------------------ 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 #466 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Oct 4 15:25:44 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i94JPih11298; Mon, 4 Oct 2004 15:25:44 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 15:25:44 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410041925.i94JPih11298@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 #467 TELECOM Digest Mon, 4 Oct 2004 15:26:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 467 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #451, October 4, 2004 (Angus TeleManagement) 1+ Toll Alerting (was Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited (Jack Decker) More on "Social Activists" and Public Utilities (Lisa Hancock) Fire Dept Radio System Fails Again (Lisa Hancock) More Problems With E-Rate Slush Fund (NYTimes article) (Danny Burstein) County Disregards President's Initiatives For Safe Communication (Porth) Oklahoma State University Simplified Admission Requirements (Chas Gray) 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, 04 Oct 2004 13:45:15 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #451, October 4, 2004 ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 451: October 4, 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: ** CRTC Stays New Telemarketing Rules ** Call-Net Reorganizes, Cuts Execs ** Nortel Cuts Include 950 Canadian Jobs ** Rogers Files Details of Microcell Offer ** CRTC Imposes Contract on Shaw, Cybersurf ** 1,000 Union Members Take Bell Retirement Package ** Bell to Close Toronto Operator Services ** Two-Thirds of Companies Have Broadband ** Girish Pathak Leaves Telus ** 10-Digit Dialing Plans Set For 514, 519 ** B.C. Cableco Expands VoIP Service ** Directory Scammers Jailed and Fined ** RIM Sales Jump 147% ** Yak Doubles Annual Revenues ** MTS Buys Back 18.6 Million Shares ** Inside the VoIP Debate ============================================================ SPECIAL OFFER FOR TELECOM UPDATE READERS: Save $100 when you register for Telemanagement Live!, Canada's premier conference on business telecom and networking, Toronto, October 20-21. Space is limited: Register now at www.telemanagementlive.com/ ============================================================ CRTC STAYS NEW TELEMARKETING RULES: CRTC Telecom Decision 2004-63 stays most aspects of the new telemarketing rules ordered in Telecom Decision 2004-35, until the Commission deals with the Canadian Marketing Association's review and vary application. (See Telecom Update #445) ** This means that the previous telemarketing rules remain in effect. The CRTC says that some telemarketers may not understand those rules, and points out that they apply to business-to-business calls and to calls to existing customers. www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2004/dt2004-63.htm CALL-NET REORGANIZES, CUTS EXECS: Call-Net has consolidated its corporate, operations, marketing, and provisioning functions, and has eliminated the positions of chief operating officer, chief legal counsel and business unit presidents. COO Duncan McEwan has been named EVP and Chief Strategy Officer. ** Senior VP and Chief Legal Counsel George Malysheff and Business Solutions President Greg McCamus will leave Call- Net by year-end. NORTEL CUTS INCLUDE 950 CANADIAN JOBS: Nortel Networks says its 3,250 worldwide "workforce reductions" will include 950 Canadian employees, and 750 of the cuts will be in Ottawa. Two-thirds of those being laid off will be notified by December 31, and the rest by June 30, 2005. ** In the executive suite, Greg Mumford has resigned as Nortel's Chief Technology Officer, replaced by former optical networks head Brian McFadden, and Clent Richardson has been named Chief Marketing Officer. ROGERS FILES DETAILS OF MICROCELL OFFER: Rogers Wireless filed details of its offer to buy Microcell shares on Thursday. Shareholders have until November 5 to accept the offer, and Rogers hopes to close the deal by December 31. CRTC IMPOSES CONTRACT ON SHAW, CYBERSURF: Following many months of unsuccessful negotiation, CRTC Telecom Order 2004-331 requires Shaw Communications and Cybersurf to sign a CRTC-written agreement to govern Cybersurf's resale of Shaw's high-speed Internet service. The contract will remain in effect until the companies agree to amend or replace it. (See Telecom Update #414, 419, 423, 427) www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Orders/2004/o2004-331.htm 1,000 UNION MEMBERS TAKE BELL RETIREMENT PACKAGE: The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union says that about 1,000 of its members have accepted Bell Canada's latest early retirement package, offered to employees who are over 60 or who have been at BCE for 30 or more years. BELL TO CLOSE TORONTO OPERATOR SERVICES: The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union says that Bell Canada plans to close its Toronto Operator Services facility next June, putting 35 women out of work. The union complains that the decision was made "unilaterally and with no consultation with CEP." TWO-THIRDS OF COMPANIES HAVE BROADBAND: A new Statistics Canada study says that 66% of Canadian companies had broadband Internet access in 2003, up from 48% in 2001. The broadband users accounted for 97% of online sales in Canada. GIRISH PATHAK LEAVES TELUS: Telus's Chief Customer Strategist, Dr. Girish Pathak, has resigned "in pursuit of his own interests." As Chief Technology Officer, Pathak led the development of Telus's IP-based Next Generation Network. 10-DIGIT DIALING PLANS SET FOR 514, 519: CRTC Decisions 2004-61 and 2004-62 approve plans to introduce 10-digit local dialing in 514 (Montreal) and 519 (southwestern Ontario). In both areas the conversion will begin on June 17, 2006; use of ten digits will become mandatory in the week of October 28 in 514 and the week of October 14 in 519. ** The Commission has rejected a proposal for 10-digit dialing in 450 (Montreal region) pending a more general public proceeding on expanding 10-digit local dialing. www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2004/dt2004-61.htm www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2004/dt2004-62.htm B.C. CABLECO EXPANDS VoIP SERVICE: Sun Country Cablevision says it is now offering Galaxy Telecom's NetCall Voice over IP service to high-speed Internet customers throughout its entire operating area in central British Columbia. DIRECTORY SCAMMERS JAILED AND FINED: Two Toronto men who ran a directory scam have been sentenced to three years in federal penitentiary and fined $400,000 each. Two others received shorter sentences and smaller fines. ** In 2000, the four took in over $1 million by sending out mail pieces that looked like Yellow Pages invoices but were actually for "Yellow Business Pages.com" and "Yellow Business Directory.com." RIM SALES JUMP 147%: Research In Motion says that its second quarter sales were US$310.2 million, compared to $126 million a year ago. Net earnings for the three months ended August 31 were $70.6 million, up from $2.15 million. RIM added 317,000 subscribers in the quarter, reaching 1,657,000. YAK DOUBLES ANNUAL REVENUES: LD reseller and VoIP-provider Yak Communications reports sales of US$80.8 million in the year ended June 30, double the previous year. Net income was $5.6 million, compared to $3.5 million in 2003. MTS BUYS BACK 18.6 MILLION SHARES: Manitoba Telecom Services has taken up and paid for 18,604,645 common shares at $43 each, under its substantial issuer bid. (See Telecom Update #450) INSIDE THE VoIP DEBATE: In the new issue of Telemanagement, Lis Angus provides an exclusive report on the CRTC's hearing on regulation of Voice over IP -- who said what, and which arguments will most affect the Commission's final decisions. ** Also in this issue: How to control corporate wireless bills, and an interview with the chair of the Coalition for Competitive Telecommunications Pricing. Subscribers to Telemanagement Online can read the new issue on our website tomorrow. To receive Telemanagement every month -- including unlimited access to Telemanagement's extensive online content -- visit the Telemanagement website 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. 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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, 04 Oct 2004 00:34:36 -0400 From: Jack Decker Subject: 1+ toll alerting (was Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Pat, please conceal my e-mail address. On 1 Oct 2004 20:23:54 -0700, dave@compata.com (Dave Close) wrote: > Jack Decker writes: >> "Over the past five months, we've noticed a trend in the industry >> away from calling certain minutes local and others long distance -- in >> an IP world distance is irrelevant, so we have changed our calling >> plans to reflect that," said Jeffrey A. Citron, Chairman and CEO of >> Vonage Holdings Corporation. You know, when Pat put "VoIP News" in the "From:" line of messages that originated on the VoIP News list, a few people complained because there was no real name given. So Pat started using my name on these items, probably to shut the complainers up, and now I find I'm being attributed with having written a Vonage press release (of course, nothing could be further from the truth)! Just because a particular piece of news or a press release appears on the VoIP news list does not mean that I necessarily endorse it or agree with it, just that I felt that some people might consider it newsworthy. > Are there any proponents of 1+ toll-alerting still on this list? Funny you should ask. Yes, there are. Me, for one. > If so, isn't it time to admit that it's time to end that vacuousness? Sure, when (and ONLY when) there is no such thing as additional per-minute charges on calls anywhere in the NANP that are outside of the caller's local calling area! In other words, when toll charges completely disappear and we are all paying a flat rate for unlimited minutes of talk anywhere in the areas that are part of country code "1" (whatever that may consist of at the time), then I will be more than happy to see toll alerting go away. And not ONE SINGLE SECOND before. Let me give you just one example of how the lack of toll alerting leaves people in doubt about what the local calling situation is. Here in Michigan, there was a law passed over four years ago (in the summer of 2000) that in effect stated that any call made to an adjacent calling area was to be billed and considered as a local call. However, the law was placed in a section of the Michigan Telecommunications Act that only applies to companies with over 250,000 lines in the state (i.e., Ameritech, now SBC, and Verizon). Other, smaller companies were considered exempt UNLESS they raised their rates for basic phone service (or failed to comply with a couple other provisions of the act), and how the Michigan Public Service Commission handled the situation with the small companies is another whole can of rotting worms I won't address right now, except to say that I've lost a LOT of respect for the M.P.S.C. over the last four years. Anyway, the law was given "immediate effect" (remember, this was in the summer of 2000) and both SBC and Verizon had their intraLATA adjacent exchange calling implemented by November of 2001 (in fact, if I recall correctly, SBC's first cutovers were on a very ill-fated day -- September 11, 2001!). Verizon followed up by having their interLATA adjacent exchange routes (that is, routes that crossed LATA boundaries) completed by late summer of 2002. However, SBC initially claimed that federal law prohibited them from carrying local calls across LATA boundaries, except in the case of routes that had existed prior to the AT&T breakup. When I and others pointed out to the M.P.S.C. that SBC had in fact successfully petitioned the Federal Communications Commission for waivers to do that very thing in other states (including Ohio), the M.P.S.C. ordered SBC to apply for a waiver. SBC's first waiver request contained several errors and omissions, and when I pointed those out nothing was done to attempt to correct them for many months. So the FCC, which moves at glacial speed anyway, first issued a waiver for the routes SBC initially requested, then had to issue another order adding the routes that had been omitted the first time around. For anyone interested, the two FCC orders are here (in PDF format): http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-03-1379A1.pdf http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-04-1033A1.pdf Given how long this has dragged on, it almost appears that only at some point after the second FCC order was issued (on April 16 of this year) did SBC begin to think seriously about actually implementing any of these routes. Anyway, earlier this summer, SBC told an M.P.S.C. staff person that the interLATA adjacent exchange routes should be implemented by September 1. Well, September 1 came and went, and no implementation! Now you're probably starting to wonder what all this has to do with toll alerting. Well, up until sometime around November of 2001 -- which is to say, up until sometime around the time that the intraLATA adjacent exchange routes were implemented -- Michigan was strictly a toll-alerting state, and it still is IF you are served by any ILEC other than SBC. If a call is toll it cannot be placed by dialing just seven or ten digits; you MUST dial eleven digits. However, a local call could always be placed by dialing seven digits (if in your same area code and no overlay exists) or ten digits (if to another area code or there is an area code overlay in effect). Where SBC screwed up the system in 2001 was by suddenly requiring that ALL calls placed to another area code MUST be dialed using a full eleven digits. So, if you're an SBC Michigan customer and your call is to another area code, you must dial a full eleven digits, no matter whether the call is local or toll. If someone asks you to call a number in another area code and they claim it's a local call, there's no way to tell for sure from the manner in which you dial the call. Flash forward to last month. SBC, where apparently its left hand doesn't know what its right hand is doing, starts to update the "Find Your Local Calling Area" part of its web site, at http://localcalling.sbc.com/ , to include some of the new intraLATA adjacent exchange routes, even though at least some of these have not actually been implemented yet. I was told late last week that implementation would actually occur by October 6, however, late last night someone in the Portland, Michigan exchange reported that the implementation may have occurred there. And how did they know that? I quote from the message that this person posted to the MI-Telecom mailing list: [Begin quote:] I was able to determine this, because my long distance service is set up to require entry of an "accounting code" (pin number) whenever a call is routed to my long-distance carrier. I just made test calls from Portland (which is in the 517 area code) to Ionia and Lake Odessa in the 616 area code and to Fowler-Pewamo, Muir, and Westphalia in the 989 area code. These calls are now being completed without my being prompted to enter my pin number, which indicates to me that they are no longer being routed to my long-distance carrier! As was feared, they are requiring that a "1" be dialed before the area-code and phone number, however. [End quote.] Now, please note where this leaves everyone else in this exchange, and those in every other SBC Michigan exchange that is adjacent to a LATA boundary (at least those who have not made similar accounting code arrangements with their local telephone company). There is no reliable way for them to tell whether their calls to adjacent interLATA exchanges are being routed as local or toll. Sure, they could check SBC's web site, but that's been giving some incorrect information for at least a few weeks now, and the site itself carries this disclaimer: "This local calling area information is subject to change without notice. SBC makes no representation as to the ongoing accuracy of this information." Now, I realize that some who read this will say, "So what?" There are people who, for whatever reason, will just call whomever they wish, talk as long as they want, and not worry about the bill. And some of those people seem to think that having a convenient dialing pattern for themselves is far more important than giving others the ability to control costs and to know in advance whether a given call will be local or toll. I really don't know how to respond to such people; perhaps in another lifetime they'll come back as a poor person and will thereby gain an understanding of why some people feel that they need to know in advance what calls to a particular number are going to cost. Otherwise, it's like trying to explain to Paris Hilton why some people feel the need to shop at Wal-Mart, or a dollar store. If you don't get it now, you'll probably never get it. What I wonder is whether any SBC Michigan customer relied on incorrect information on SBC's "Find Your Local Calling Area" page, and placed calls that were local according to the site but were actually toll, and if that did happen, whether SBC will issue refunds should any customers complain. Remember, though, that the calls would have been routed to the customer's selected interLATA long distance company, which in many cases would be someone other than SBC. Somehow I doubt that SBC is going to willingly issue refunds or credits in such cases (if any such cases actually exist), but I might be wrong. So, even though the Michigan Public Service Commission no longer seems to think that toll alerting is all that important, I still think it's a very important protection for phone customers who cannot yet afford to subscribe to an unlimited calling plan. And also, it's games like this by SBC (there's NO good reason I can see for them to have changed the dialing pattern, since Verizon still allows local calls to go through across area codes when dialed using ten digits only) and by other incumbent wireline companies that make me wish that a lot more people would migrate to VoIP or cell phone service. If our Public Service Commissions no longer see consumer protection as a big part of their role, then it seems that only if enough customers "vote with their feet" will the incumbents perhaps get the message to start treating customers fairly. By the way, just to make it clear, I have nothing against PERMISSIVE eleven digit dialing (that is, allowing a call to be dialed using a full eleven digits whether local or toll). What I object to is companies that disallow seven or ten digit dialing on some or all local calls, so that a customer cannot in effect say (from the way they dial) that, "I want to place this call, but only if it's a local call." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Here in southeast Kansas -- the 620 area code -- the same SBC, which calls all the shots on landlines at least, demands eleven digits for any exchange not in your own community. Of course, they also charge toll for all those calls as well, regard- less of how little the toll has become. So while calling someone here in Independence, 331-xxxx is sufficient (or 330 or 332 if it is a cell phone or City of Independence government centrex) to call our friends and relatives in Coffeyville we must do 1-620-251-xxxx and we must do 1-620-289-xxxx if an 'Independence rural' number. Now, with my Cingular Wireless cell phone I can just do seven digits anywhere in 620 (which is now-days anywhere in southern Kansas except Wichita). I just remember if the place I am calling is not 620/330-331-332 to use my cell phone after the hundred minutes per month Prairie Stream gives for free each month are used up. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: More on "Social Activists" and Public Utilities Date: 4 Oct 2004 09:48:27 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock): > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I say thank god for 'social > activists' (as you called them) who look out for the rights of the > rest of us. PAT] I touched on this issue in my other post today (see earlier issue on Monday), but there is more that needs to be said. As mentioned, my experiences with social activists left a very unpleasant impression with me. In short, they are incompetent, have hidden agendas, and do more harm than good for the people. Another problem is that many social issues have their roots in basic accounting, but everyone thinks accounting is boring and no one wants to spend time on that. To expand: There of course are greedy business people out to milk as much money as possible from their company, customers, and suppliers. Society has set up various govt regulatory commissions to control that sort of thing. I do not believe such commissions have been as aggressive at curbing abuses as they could be and this has a left a void. Unfortunately, too many populist legislators and social activists do not help, indeed even hurt, the situation. It's easy to call some industrialist "greedy" and "decadent" as he/she lives a super luxury lifestyle. That in itself is not illegal nor helps the issue. In Pennsylvania, the zeal for electric power competition resulted in welcoming Enron to the state, even forcing random power customers against their will to be switched to them. The activists said this would be a "good thing". The truth is that many activists had a dislike for the existing power company because it built nuclear power plants; deep down inside they wanted to hurt the company, not help consumers. Obviously they never checked out Enron before welcoming it into the state. We know what happened to Enron. The activists failed or refused to understand that many companies were satisfied with the existing power company and felt no need or desire to change; the activists thought they knew better than the consumers. Some years ago I was involved in transit issues. The city's transit agency sought a fare increase and the social activists fought against it. As a daily transit rider and supporter naturally I didn't want to pay more. But, I had been behind the scenes and studied the finances of the agency and concluded a fare increaes was necessary to maintain quality of service. The activists I dealt with had no interest in the facts. They called the transit agency -- a public non-profit organiza- tion --"greedy" and out to enrich itself, which was obviously nonsense. They claimed the agency could be "more efficient" but they offered no substantiation. The claimed it "would hurt the people", but they ignored what worse service would do to the people who had to stand on a corner and wait longer for an overcrowded bus. To this day activists hammer at transit agencies but in the end don't help things for the daily rider. If the social activists wanted to truly help the people, they would've done the necessary homework to understand the agency, it's problems, and the political environment that funded the agency. But that kind of homework isn't much fun, it means sitting in a library going through lots of financial reports, walking through dirty shops, etc. Looking at this issue from a national perspective: A few years ago First Lady Clinton took up the issue of Health Care. I had hoped she'd do a serious accounting study to understand just where the heck all our health care dollars are going. But we never learned that, only that many people can't afford health insurance at all and that was the problem to be solved. I thought the First Lady handled that badly. To this day I still don't know where our health care dollars go, I don't think anyone does. It's real easy to make cheap unsubstantiated accusations "the greedy drug companies", "the greedy doctors", "the greedy hospitals", "the greedy lawyers", but no one seems to know for sure -- no one wants to do the boring legwork and study. The health care issue remains unresolved to this day. It appears that prescription drugs are cheaper in Canada, but no one knows _truly_ why they are cheaper. Are the drug companies really greedy and overcharging us? Or, is the research (including all the dead-ends that don't result in a product), lawsuits, and mandated FDA testing truly adding steeply to the cost of drugs? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You use the phrase 'populist politicians' as though it were a bad thing. I always thought politicians -- indeed all government employees -- were supposed to be public servants; that the government (whatever form it takes, from transit systems to utilities to workers in the courthouse or city hall) were supposed to reflect the will of the people; not assume the task of telling us what is best for us. Far, far too often, so-called 'public servants' are really the public masters. Government employees should understand they are to be our agents; to do our bidding; not the other way around. Why do you suppose more people do not bother going to vote at elections? Because it really does not matter *who* the president is or *who* the governor or the mayor is; all that matters for many people is how long they have to wait for a bus to show up in the morning with no seats available or how long they have to wait in a government office to get served (a long time) or if the bus driver or other person who eventually serves them has any empathy at all for them (rarely). The people who really matter to us in life don't get elected, they just show up in office and do their own thing, so why bother to vote most of the time? PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Fire Dept Radio System Fails Again Date: 4 Oct 2004 09:54:45 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com KYW newsradio reported that city officials discovered bad circuit cards that caused intermittent failures of the public safety radio system. It was the fourth breakdown of the year. Officials are concerned. See: http://www.kyw1060.com/news_story_detail.cfm?newsitemid=40833 ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: More Problems With E-rate Slush Fund (NYTimes article) Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 11:52:51 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC "Public libraries and schools around the nation have suddenly stopped receiving any new grants from a federal program that is wrestling with new rules on how it spends $2.25 billion each year to provide high-speed Internet and telephone service. "The moratorium at what is known as the E-Rate program began two months ago, with no notice, and may last for months, causing significant hardships at schools and libraries, say state officials and executives at the company that runs the program [ snip ] "The tighter spending rules also forced the Universal Service Administrative Company, the nonprofit group that runs the program under the commission's oversight, to hastily liquidate more than $3 billion in investments last week..." [ snip. And, for good measure: ] "And the changes are expected to lead to higher charges imposed on telephone companies - and passed on to consumers -- later this year or early next year. The increase may be necessary, senior officials at the universal service company said, because of a cash squeeze created by the tighter spending rules and an F.C.C. decision over the last nine months to reduce the phone companies' contributions to the E-rate program. [ snippety snip, rest at: ] http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/04/business/media/04fcc.html (free subscription) Comment: aside from Big Issues about the entire concept here, I find it fascinating and shocking, SHOCKING, that a supposed "pay as you go" taxpayer and ratepayer supported pass-through program has (or had prior to last week) substantally "more than $3 billion in investments". In other words, they've ALREADY taken billions more out of tax/ratepayer pockets than called for. At least as I see it. And ... could someone explain to me how "tighter spending rules" means there will be higher costs? ------------------------------ From: nilesjonco@aol.com (Lyle Porth) Subject: County Disregards President's Initiatives for Safe Communications Date: 4 Oct 2004 07:01:10 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com June 3, 2004 David P. Bobzien County Attorney County of Fairfax 12000 Government Center Parkway Fairfax, Virginia 22035-0013 Subject: 800 MHz Mobile, Portable and Control Station Radio Equipment for Public Service Radio System Solicitation County Attorney Bobzien: EF Johnson is becoming exhausted with our continual unanswered plea for responsible and legal intervention in the above referenced matter. There have been countless points of concern distributed among county contract officers, legal officers and public safety officials that have been blatantly ignored. Furthermore, it appears your staff makes judgments in haste and fails to read what is written and what is submitted, as matter of public record. One instance of the egregious actions is that the EF Johnson Company, along with four independent businesses, all notified your contracting officer that a particular radio communication device was no longer in production. For five months this has been the call. However, your staff once again is requesting this radio and using this radio as the product of choice and the product of comparison in what is a very critical county communications project. This is irresponsible and without precedent. The line item sum on this disposable item reigns in at over 8 million dollars of tax payer money. E. F. Johnson once again calls for an immediate review of all matters regarding the solicitation. Furthermore, serious antics are transpiring between other bidders and companies that are currently holding county contracts. These acts are intolerable, unethical and at a minimum are worthy of a legal review. Please find time to call me on Friday June 4th. Very truly yours, E F JOHNSON www.efjohnson.com ------------------------------ Subject: Oklahoma State University Simplified Admission Requirements From: Charles G Gray Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 10:38:20 -0500 Pat, we would appreciate it if you would post the following update on the MSTM Program. In an effort to simplify the admission requirements, Oklahoma State University has made the following revisions in requirements for candidates for the Master of Science in Telecommunications Management (MSTM) Program. The requirement for GRE or GMAT examination is waived for part-time student applicants who meet the following criteria: - Two or more years experience in telecommunications - Have a technically-oriented undergraduate degree with a 3.2 (out of 4.0) or higher GPA. Details may be obtained at: http://www.mstm.okstate.edu/prospective_stu/admission_requirements.htm. See also the MSTM sponsorship note toward the end of each issue of the Digest. The purpose of these changes is to attract more working professionals into the MSTM program. The MSTM degree program requires 35 credit hours, all of which may be obtained via distance learning. All class materials are posted to the respective class web sites, and lectures are delivered via streaming video, DVD or VCR tape. Currently, students are enrolled from Virginia to California, and recent students have completed internships (the "Practicum" requirement) in Germany, Guatemala, and Botswana -- as well as in Tulsa and Oklahoma City. Regards, Charles G. Gray Senior Lecturer, Telecommunications Oklahoma State University - Tulsa (918)594-8433 ------------------------------ 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 #467 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Oct 4 19:01:46 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i94N1ks13738; Mon, 4 Oct 2004 19:01:46 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 19:01:46 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410042301.i94N1ks13738@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 #468 TELECOM Digest Mon, 4 Oct 2004 17:01:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 468 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium (D Garland) Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium (S Sobol) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Dave Thompson) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Scott Dorsey) Re: Call Accounting Project (David Clayton) Re: Call Accounting Project (Justin Time) Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal (Rick Merrill) Re: Toll Free Number Registry? (Clarence Dold) Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? (Gene S. Berkowitz) Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? (Justin Time) Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? (Rick Merrill) Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone Used (R Merrill) Punch Card Machines (was What is the Name of #?) (Julian Thomas) Re: Need Help With External Port (Julian Thomas) Paper Tape; Gates at Harvard (Julian Thomas) Re: Three Million Scans Uncover 83 Million Spywares (Rick Merrill) Last Laugh! Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Arrest (SELLCOM Tech) 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: Dave Garland Subject: Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium Date: Sun, 03 Oct 2004 22:20:37 -0500 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when dave@compata.com (Dave Close) wrote: > Are there any proponents of 1+ toll-alerting still on this list? Yep. > If so, isn't it time to admit that it's time to end that vacuousness? So long as *all* telcos stop charging extra for LD (I suppose this will mean we won't need to subscribe to a LD company any more, because the local telco will handle it at no additional charge), without raising local rates at all. Then there's no toll, so no need for an alert. Let us know when all numbers within the NANP can be dialed without any charge other than that for local phone service. ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium Date: Sun, 03 Oct 2004 23:24:44 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Dave Close wrote: > Are there any proponents of 1+ toll-alerting still on this list? If > so, isn't it time to admit that it's time to end that vacuousness? I didn't care up until I moved here, but now that I'm in an area where I can dial even long distance calls using seven digits (as long as they're in my area code), I'd prefer to have 1+. :) 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: Dave Thompson Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 07:27:54 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 07:02:35 GMT, bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote: > In article , > Dave Thompson wrote: > Sorry, there is use that predates the personal computer -- with a > modem on a dial-up to a mainframe time-sharing service. 'Terminal' is > the correct word. > Yeah, it got more common with the 1st generation hobby computers, like > SWTPC, and MITS. But there was prior art. :) Yes I know about terminals -- they're exactly what I described. I think the problem is that I took "standard TV receiver display" to mean a receiver, i.e. a complete set, used as a display, and disagreed with that; but you meant any display using a raster CRT in the same fashion as TV, i.e. receiver less tuner, audio, and later color. And as long as we're nitpicking for 3270s in particular it was almost certainly a leased line, and for other video terminals well might be . In fact a terminal could be hardwired to the next room to a normal comms port and still be a terminal, but the same display and keyboard handled by special logic (or microcode) was a console. And there were plenty of applications other than timesharing. >> But this is anachronistic (mythtaken?). The first "textual" video >> displays used in any number were IBM 3270 series, which were either >> 12x40 (model 1, cheaper) or 24x80 (model 2). They clearly got the 80 >> from cards, but I have no idea where they got the 24 -- possibly so >> that, as you also noted, the screen buffer is < 2KC. By "textual" I >> mean a raster chargen display as opposed to some earlier vector or >> "graphic" displays which could build a few characters out of line >> segments, but would flicker unusably for more than a few full lines of >> text; and Tektronix storage tubes which solved the flicker problem at >> the cost of taking a minute or several to draw each page, up to about >> 80x120 (squarish) IIRC, which then could not be edited. > A TEK 4019, with the high-res option, had an addressable matrix of > 3072x4096 points. It was -not- a 'raster' device, but rather, a pure > -vector- one. You didn't turn 'dots' on/off to make lines, you could > connect _any_ pair of arbitrary points with an actual straight line. Right. That's why I described it "as opposed to [raster]". > It also had hardware to draw actual circles (or arcs), given a > center-point and a radius. In the smallest rendering from the > on-board character generator, you got two columns of 80-column text. > With about 60 (66?) lines in each column. I do remember two columns, but I'm not certain you could get 80 chars in each without overlap. Even so your result 60?x160 is not that different from my vague recollection of 80x120. > Makes the quality of today's 'high resolution' 1280x1600 displays look > like sh*t. At least when doing technical graphics, like architectural > plans, or electronics schematics. For resolution absolutely. Contrast wasn't so oustanding under even moderate lighting -- I found myself holding a file folder or something to shadow the display a fair bit. (And AIUI this was a fundamental limitation; the "flood" electron energy had to be significantly less than the writing beam, which was itself constrained by the usual power and shielding/EMI considerations.) Actually the ones I used were IIRC 4021 and 4025; as I recall the model differences were minor, the dominant characteristics always being point-addressable and storage. And as I noted, not good for _editing_ or other interaction. > The 3270 used "standard TV" video circuitry. Slightly tweaked. > instead of 525 lines/frame interlaced, it used 262/field lines > non-interlaced (equivalent to 524 lines/frame), 60 fields/sec. Of > those 262 lines,242 were 'visible', giving a max vertical resolution > of 242 dots. > This allowed the use of 'commodity' components for the CRT and the > sweep circuitry. As well as allowing for maintenance with 'standard' > diagnostic and troubleshooting gear. I'm willing to believe the amp and H/V drives, although I wouldn't have thought that was a big deal considering the amount of additional (unsharable) digital circuitry for comms (or host interface), storage, and chargen. I didn't hear 15.75kHz tone from them -- in those days I could -- which might be just better manufacture and maintenance, but see below. The CRTs couldn't be; for years 3270s were green-only, and TVs weren't. Though I'm sure they were made by the same manufacturers, in almost the same process (modulo phosphor, and that same as 'scopes). > The 3270 was a 'smart' terminal -- necessitated by IBM's "block mode" > architecture -- and used 16 bits per displayed character. 1 byte for > the character itself, and one byte for the 'attributes'. things like > 'bright', 'blank', 'input', 'protected', etc. > Thus 12x80 was all you could get with _one_ 2k RAM for video memory. Not initially. "Basic" 3270s had only field attributes occupying a separate buffer position -- the "attribute byte". And only uppercase -- thus you only needed 6+1bits (although I believe they did 8 for parity) * 24*80. It was in the '70s sometime that "extended" character attributes and some additional field attributes were added, necessitating 16bits per cell. And optional RGB color. In a slight correction to Nick Landsberg elsethread: Yes you (the host program/mer) only need to store a field attribute byte at the beginning of each field, defined as when basic attributes changed or you need to separate input data. You might already be at the correct buffer position following previous data or start; (only) if not you position with SBA (Set Buffer Address) plus two bytes which together encode row*width+col. In either case you then do SF (Start Field) followed by the attribute byte, and then data if any. On normal input (not "read all" and not "unformatted") you get back SBA pos pos SF attr data for each field marked "modified", which as several people have indicated meant _either_ that the user typed into or edited it, _or_ it was initially marked that way by the program and could be hidden (blanked) and/or protected as well. Most(?) other terminals did direct positioning, if at all, with separate row and column bytes, and later with escape sequences having separate row and column number strings, but not 3270. > The 3270 was engineered from day one to be a 24x80 display. The model 1 > displayed a (manufactured) blank line between each line of 'real' > text. And column similarly? I admit I never saw an actual m1, the places I worked had m2's for programming, although there were still some apps designed to handle 12x40 _datastreams_ to and from (user) m1's which were used because they were reportedly cheaper. Although it wouldn't be the only time IBM hit a price point by overdesigning and hobbling. > Virtually _everything_ up to the 'MDA' for the IBM PC used standard > TV-type video raster circuitry. Tweaked slightly to eliminate the > interlace, resulting in 242 visible lines out of 262 intervals. 60 > Hz refresh. A great many of the DEC and other terminals -- which > were almost all white display and so could be stock CRTs -- were as > I said 24+1 lines, which for 5x9 or 7x9 +1 on each side is 250 > lines. That would require 12/262 < 5% retrace, which is pushing it > but I would believe possible. I do believe pretty much everyone did > use 60Hz for the same reason (US) TVs did, to avoid interference (or > worse beat) from AC power. But I see no reason a modestly different > horiz freq couldn't be used. And some of the non-IBM (&clone) terminals did have per-any-character attributes from their beginning, hence ~16bits memory per character. >> It was over a decade later when hobbyist computers like Apple, Altair, >> Imsai, Cromemco, Ohio Scientific wanted to use cheaply available >> consumer TVs that the NTSC limits of about 240 lines usable per field > Yes, and no. *Manufacturing* (including maintenance/repair/cali- > bration) economies dictated the use of standard tubes and > sweep-circuit componentry. See above about CRTs; I can't believe sweeps were that significant, and anyway should have been usable over at least a 10 or 20% range. Heck, IIRC "standard" commercial electronic components were only sold to 5% tolerance in the first place. >> and 400-some dots usable per line in the standard video bandwidth of >> ~4MHz became an issue, and yes 24x80 was pushing it and often less and >> often only uppercase 5x7 or 5x9 was used. > Building higher-bandwidth (well, within reason :) video amps is > relatively cheap. which is all that is necessary to get crisp 80 col > (or even 132 col) display, even at 'standard' sweep rates. Right. In fact even on consumer TVs I think you could get more than 4MHz from the (baseband) video circuitry, if you braved the HV and connected inside the set; the biggest problem was the intentionally and necessarily band-limited RF tuner. > 'TV video bandwidth' was an issue only when trying to use a 'consumer > grade' TV device as the display output. even back in the 60's-70's, > 'commercial grade' video monitors had response bandwidths well above > 10mhz. more than sufficient for 'crisp' 80-col upper-lower display. And I'm pretty sure I saw marketing (e.g. brochures) claiming at least some had nonstandard horiz freqs giving line count higher than 262 -- usable only for closed-circuit or maybe instrumentation, not from (or to) broadcast. But would not be affordable for a (typical) hobbyist. - David.Thompson1 at worldnet.att.net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In the real old days -- when I had my OSI-C1P computer with upper case only and a television set as the display monitor I found the only way I could get clear, sharp, easy- to-read characters was by turning the knobs on the back of the TV set; the knobs used for horizonal and vertical hold; by 'squaring up' the picture a little and lowering the brightness a little bit while increasing the contrast. In summary, fixing it so it could never again be used as a satisfactory television set. PAT] ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: 4 Oct 2004 10:51:26 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Justin Time wrote: > Datapoint developed a split speed modem for use with their timesharing/ > data entry terminals. They had a 300/1200 baud modem, 300 transmit > because it was keystrokes and 1200 receive to handle the display > character input. This meant you could "paint" a full 1920 character > screen in about 1 1/2 seconds -- and that was pretty darn fast for > those days. But then computers had cycle times -- one trip through the > main timing chain to process a single instruction -- measured in > multiples of whole microseconds. This sounds to me like the old Bell 201 standard, which gave you 1200 bps forward and 110 bps return. Worked very well (and is still in some use on packet radio networks). Does anyone, by the way, have any specs on the proprietary Datapoint programming languages? I keep meaning to look for manuals to torture my students with. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: David Clayton Subject: Re: Call Accounting Project Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 16:25:02 +1000 wuzzybunny@yahoo.com (Mike) contributed the following: > Hi, I'm upgrading my existing PBX to a nex neax 2400 ipx later this > year. After installation I'm intending on writing call accounting > software and GPLing it. What I am wondering if any one would be able to > provide me with a sample (a few thousand lines) of the text output > from a neax 1400 ipx system, or if anyone happens to know where I can > find samples prior to the system being installed. You need more than samples of data, you need the specification document explaining all the various record types and how they are to be used. Commercial Call Accounting vendors can take many, many man-hours to fully analyse and get right the CDR stream from a particular PBX -- and this also doesn't take into account the various versions and variations depending on what software is running in the PBX! Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@XYZ.myrealbox.com Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. (Remove the "XYZ." to reply) Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: Call Accounting Project Date: 4 Oct 2004 08:36:36 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com wuzzybunny@yahoo.com (Mike) wrote in message news:: > Hi, I'm upgrading my existing PBX to a nex neax 2400 ipx later this > year. After installation I'm intending on writing call accounting > software and GPLing it. What I am wondering if any one would be able to > provide me with a sample (a few thousand lines) of the text output > from a neax 1400 ipx system, or if anyone happens to know where I can > find samples prior to the system being installed. > Thanks in advance, > Mike Try the NEAX User Group. neaxug.org. ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal Organization: Comcast Online Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 01:22:18 GMT Dave VanHorn wrote: > Given that houses don't often move, why not go with a fixed IP, and > tie the IP to the address (as it probably already is, in the billing > records). Someday. But for now it's unregulated. At the moment it is the user's responsibility to update the records via the VoIP provider's web site. ------------------------------ From: dold@XReXXTollX.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: Toll Free Number Registry? Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 01:41:28 UTC Organization: a2i network TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to CrowT : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I would suggest you ask our 800 number > advisor here on our staff at the Digest. Judith Oppenheimer knows all > about those things and may be able to find a good number for you. You > can reach her at http://www.icbtollfree.com and if i am not mistaken > also at http://whosells800.com. She is *very experienced* at finding > and maintaining toll free numbers. PAT] I would have said that as well. Although I've never done business with her, I have corresponded with her, and in some ways considered myself a competitor. Judith has been around long enough that there is no concern over her business abilities, and she seems not to do the self-agrandizing posts to this group that made me think she was a fly-by-night when she started. Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8-122.5 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For a long time, Judith was submitting news stories here on a regular basis, then she got angry -- I suspect -- at someone here while I was in the nursing home recovering from my aneurysm, and she essentially quit writing news reports here. Now I rarely here from her any longer. Ditto Lisa Minter; she started off here with a bang and much enthusiasm, then a former reader/writer here trashed her so badly she more or less quit entirely. Now Lisa is back helping me with feature articles on the weekends mostly (she did get married a short time ago however), and I wish Judith Oppenheimer was still sending in her news reports as well. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Gene S. Berkowitz Subject: Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 23:04:54 -0400 In article , hiker@h.com says: > What do people think about this? > http://www.hotelcorsaro.it/ > On 15th September a lightning killed a person while in excursion at > high altitude on Etna. He was our guest and he worked for a French > travel agency. He was a mountain expert but this time he has been > unlucky. Mobile telephone could be reason he was hit by a > lightning. His phone, in fact, exploded while his body and all other > affairs didn't show visible signs of what happened. We feel close to > Nicoladze family. He leaves his wife and two sons. ... well, it doesn't explain all the people worldwide struck by lighting who WERE NOT carrying a cell phone ... --Gene ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? Date: 4 Oct 2004 08:41:04 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com hiker@h.com wrote in message news:: > What do people think about this? > http://www.hotelcorsaro.it/ > On 15th September a lightning killed a person while in excursion at > high altitude on Etna. He was our guest and he worked for a French > travel agency. He was a mountain expert but this time he has been > unlucky. Mobile telephone could be reason he was hit by a > lightning. His phone, in fact, exploded while his body and all other > affairs didn't show visible signs of what happened. We feel close to > Nicoladze family. He leaves his wife and two sons. It wasn't the cell phone that attracted the lightning but the person acting as an antenna. The battery of the cell phone just showed the effects. I bet the results of an autopsy would show the entry/exit point of the strike and the burn from the cell phone battery are all different points on the body. ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? Organization: Comcast Online Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 19:20:26 GMT hiker@h.com wrote: > What do people think about this? > http://www.hotelcorsaro.it/ > On 15th September a lightning killed a person while in excursion at > high altitude on Etna. He was our guest and he worked for a French > travel agency. He was a mountain expert but this time he has been > unlucky. Mobile telephone could be reason he was hit by a > lightning. His phone, in fact, exploded while his body and all other > affairs didn't show visible signs of what happened. We feel close to > Nicoladze family. He leaves his wife and two sons. Perfectly reasonable: the antenna was the highest point and the cell phone was the path of least resistance, which is all it takes. ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone is Used Organization: Comcast Online Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 19:09:29 GMT Rick Merrill wrote: > Rick Merrill wrote: >> Chris Eilersen wrote: >>> 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. >> You should have modem <==> VoicePulse <==> router <==> PCs >> this way QoS (quality of service) can be maintained by the voicepulse so >> that when it requires bandwidth to maintain voice quality it can slow >> down the computer connections. >> -- RM >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I tried the above set up with my Vonage >> phone since I had Quality of Service issues with my Vonage phone and >> the rest of my network. After I made that change, the Vonage phone >> mostly worked fine. But ... a big problem (at least, I thought it >> was). The Vonage TA (a Motorola box and firewall) sat there looking at >> the router (and its firewall). The two firewalls staring at each other >> were *always* causing me hassles. I never could get them to 'play >> nicely' with each other. Yes, they would work, a little, but I had to >> spend more time rebooting the firewalls than working on line it >> seemed. The NetGear router did *not* appreciate having its connection >> to the WAN or wide area network being another firewall (Motorola). And >> forget about the idea of getting any file transfers in from people >> over networks such as AOL, or Yahoo, or Microsoft Instant Messenger. >> Time and again the whole system would freeze up and have to be rebooted. >> I went back to my old way of doing things, which was having the Vonage >> telephone adapter just being a port on the router, and living with the >> occassional drop outs in voice quality when one of the computers >> wanted to do something. I am not in a position to buy a wide enough >> pipe to the net to fix it so it does not matter. PAT] > I have Dlink DVG1120M and IT has both NAT and DHCP so it assigns an IP > to the router (using 192.168.15.xxx) and router (having NAT and DHCP) > assigns an IP to the PC(s) (using 192.168.0/1.xxx) - so everybody is > happy as a clam. The SECRET is the 2 minute drill: power all off, > power modem, wait 2 min; power TA, wait 2 min; power router; wait 2 > min; power PC and you're in like flint. - RM > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah, that's what NetGear and Motorola > both told me about my setup. It does not sound like 'two minutes' to > me, It is called "2 min. drill" but as Alice said, "that's not really what it is." > it sounds more like 8-10 minutes out of service by the time you give > every device on the line its own two minutes. Most modern devices only need 20 seconds. > And what happens when I wake up tomorrow morning and find it all > crashed overnight? Anther 2 plus 2 plus 2 plus 2 plus hope I got it > right? PAT] 'Twon't happen: it'll just look like a power failure ; - ) Clark W. Griswold wrote: > Rick Merrill wrote: >> You should have modem <==> VoicePulse <==> router <==> PCs >> this way QoS (quality of service) can be maintained by the voicepulse so >> that when it requires bandwidth to maintain voice quality it can slow >> down the computer connections. > Voicepulse uses the Sipura 2000 VOIP adapter, which does not do > ethernet passthrough or provide any router functions. That said, I > have not noticed any problems just hanging it off a spare port on my > Linksys WRTG54G. No "ethernet passthrough" == No QoS. i.e. if you're doing a Long Web Download, what happens to the voice part of the bandwidth? > They do provide a means of configuring the Sipura box to control the > amount of bandwidth it uses, but since the max is 64Kbps, I never saw > the need. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does anyone know how to patch two > routers together if four holes is not enough? Or is that even > possible? PAT] It is possible with limits: make sure the LAN has only 1 DHCP (turn off DHCP in one router ); make sure no more than 4 hub/routers between any two nodes, OR you can just use all switches. - RM ------------------------------ From: Julian Thomas Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 12:17:13 -0400 Subject: Punch Card Machines (was What is the Name of #? (please obscure my email address as usual - tnx). > The 1948 line of interpreters were NOT intended to print one character > per column -- the width of the printed character was slightly wider than > a column. Only 60 characters would fit on the top and 20 would have to > go on the next line. In practice, the interpreters were programmed by > the plug panel to print selected fields in certain places, and could do > so all over the card. This is correct. > Also, most IBM lines of keypunches included printing and non printing > models, and the non-printers were cheaper. Also correct (I'm not sure there was a non-printing 12x model -- these were the ones with a nicer keyboard introduced around 1960?). Duplication of binary cards with the printing turned on was strongly discourages, since it wrecked the printing mechanism (a matrix printer with a Rube Goldberg mechanical character generation mechanism). > They could also print a big number sideways on > the side edge so the card could be filed vertically. No. That was not the interpreter, but a function incorporated into the 519 (for example) reproducing/gang punch in the punch feed. Julian Thomas: 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 To whom the gods destroy, they first teach Windows ... ------------------------------ From: Julian Thomas My serial port of my laptop is broken and I bought an external serial > port on USB. I would like to use this in DOS but all the software only > lets you select COM1 to COM4. It works fine under WinXP but not under > Dos. Pleas help me ... There is not a lot of hope for USB support under DOS, but this site may help: http://www.stefan2000.com/darkehorse/PC/DOS/Drivers/USB/ Julian Thomas: 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 An aquarium is just interactive television for cats. ------------------------------ From: Julian Thomas Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 13:45:13 -0400 Subject: Paper Tape; Gates at Harvard (as usual, please hide my email - tnx) > (And entirely as an aside, might Gates in 1971 even have used > some surviving paper tape reader that had been connected to > one of Aiken's early Mark xxx computers? I have no idea, and > no knowledge of how long that kind of paper tape hardware can > last; but I believe Aiken's Mark IV operated until some time in the > late 1950s.) Only the Mark I and Mark 4 were at Harvard, and only the Mark 1 used a very specialized paper tape for program control. The Mark 4 (MKIV) was still in place when a Univac 1 (complete with highspeed printer, card to tape and tape to card) was installed around 1957 or 58. Remington at that time had to make a backup machine available in the area for John Hancock, and gave the Univac to Harvard with the arrangement that it could be preempted as the backup if needed. Julian Thomas: jt@jt-mj.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 In toto . . . does NOT mean "Dorothy's dog ate it!" ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Three Million Scans Uncover Over 83 Mill Instances of Spyware Organization: Comcast Online Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 18:30:27 GMT Oh, I thought it said THREE MILLION SCAMS ! Silly me. ------------------------------ From: SELLCOM Tech support Subject: Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest Organization: www.sellcom.com Reply-To: support@sellcom.com Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 19:43:55 GMT My name is Steve and I have a cellphone. Sometimes when I am going into a place where others are, I take out my cellphone and talk into it. Sometimes in restaurants I do that too and pretend to be real upset talking to my broker and say things like, "Man, sell everything quick". Sometimes when it is a wrong number I answer, "Wrong number how may I help you." (in a very professional business like manner). One time the lady called back and I did it again in a cheery professional voice. She sounded frustrated and shouted "What kind of company is this?". I replied calmly and professionally, "This is the wrong number. We are the ones you get when you push the wrong buttons." That was in a grocery store checkout line. Most of the time I just answer and talk to whoever is calling me. Steve at SELLCOM Statements here do not necessarily reflect the official doctrine or opinions of anyone or anything else for that matter. No warranty express or implied, at least I don't think there is ... 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. ------------------------------ 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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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 #468 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Oct 4 20:39:47 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i950dlZ14800; Mon, 4 Oct 2004 20:39:47 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 20:39:47 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410050039.i950dlZ14800@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 #469 TELECOM Digest Mon, 4 Oct 2004 20:38:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 469 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson SBC Has One-Stop Message Service (Jack Decker - VOIP News) Broadvox Lowers Monthly Subscription Fee (Jack Decker - VOIP News) Cascading Hubs (Gordon S. Hlavanka) Voice PRI T1 vs CAS (jaarons) Switching to Lingo as VOIP Provider, Chapter 2 (Ted Koppel) Re: Toll Free Number Registry? (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone Used (D Garland) Re: More on "Social Activists" and Public Utilities (Paul Vader) Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? (Truth) Re: The Technologist Who Has Michael Powell's Ear (Truth) Oklahoma State University Changes Requirements for Telecom (Chas Gray) 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, 04 Oct 2004 09:09:40 -0400 Subject: SBC Has One-Stop Message Service Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.freep.com/money/business/sbc4e_20041004.htm Mailbox holds faxes, e-mail, voice mail BY ALEJANDRO BODIPO-MEMBA FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER Residential and small business customers of SBC Communications Inc. in Flint, Ann Arbor and metro Detroit can now access their home and wireless voice mail as well as e-mail accounts and faxes from one point with a new Internet product. Starting today, San Antonio-based SBC plans to offer the Unified Communications package to some Michigan customers. The new service brings together voice messages, faxes and e-mails into one mailbox, which is accessible through the phone or online. The technology uses Internet Protocol, which allows voice data to be sent from one computer to another. Full story at: http://www.freep.com/money/business/sbc4e_20041004.htm 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, 04 Oct 2004 12:20:55 -0400 Subject: Broadvox Lowers Monthly Subscription of Unlimited Residential Reply-To: VoIPnews@yahoogroups.com http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/10-04-2004/0002264941&EDATE= Broadvox Lowers Monthly Subscription of Unlimited Residential Plus Plan by Thirty Percent Plan Offers Subscribers Superior Service and Reliability, Unlimited Calling and Advanced Features for Just $19.95 per Month CLEVELAND, Oct. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Broadvox Direct announced today that it has lowered the price of its Unlimited Residential Plus calling plan to $19.95 per month from $29.95 per month. The new pricing became effective on September 30th at midnight. "We are very conscious of the great confusion in the marketplace about calling plans -- and Broadvox wants to take the lead in combating this problem by streamlining its offerings. This new strategy is designed to make things as clear and simple as possible for our subscribers," said Jeffery Williams, Chief Information Officer at Broadvox. "The Unlimited Residential Plus Plan is designed to give callers unlimited local, regional and domestic long-distance calls, as well as a broad variety of convenience and productivity features, at one low and affordable price." The Unlimited Residential Plus plan includes a number of popular features that enhance the usability and efficiency of the system. The company's unique Friends and Family program allows plan subscribers to receive a phone number in a specified calling area that will ring on their primary Broadvox line. The number can be used by a friend or family member without any usage charge to either the calling party or the subscriber. Meanwhile, the Find Me Follow Me option lets subscribers create multiple specialized call forwarding instructions, which are specific to each pre-established call-group. The call forwarding feature will automatically try up to four different phone numbers before sending the caller to voicemail. Subscribers can also us the Click to Call feature to make calls through Broadvox Direct's online portal while they are way from home in order to avoid expensive pay phone charges and to take advantage of the service's low rates at any time. Subscribers also have the option of automatically forwarding voice messages to their email account as a sound (.wav) file for easy access while on the road. In addition, faxes may be sent to the subscriber's phone and then automatically forwarded to email as a graphic (.tif) to allow for quick access to the documents without a fax machine. Broadvox Direct offers more than 25 standard features such as call waiting, caller ID, call forwarding, voicemail and three-way calling, all free of charge with any service plan. The company is the only carrier of its kind that runs entirely over its own facilities-based network for superior voice quality and service continuity. Broadvox services are delivered over the subscriber's cable or DSL Internet connection, and can be accessed using a corded or cordless analog phone fitted with the supplied adapter that converts digital voice packets into an analog signal. The adapter, which is supplied by Broadvox at no charge to the subscriber, can be used for all the phones in the home or office, and for up to two distinct lines. The company has also eliminated its Regional Plan, which offered users unlimited local and regional calls and 300 minutes of non-regional long distance calls for $19.99. Current subscribers to the Regional Plan have been migrated to the Unlimited Plan, in order to provide them with extended services for the same price. The new rates will be reflected on the invoices of current subscribers immediately. About Broadvox Direct Broadvox Direct provides residential and small office/home office telecommunications services over broadband Internet connections. The company is a subsidiary of Broadvox, llc, the market's largest privately held Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) carrier, which has been providing broadband Internet phone service to enterprise and carrier customers since early 2002. The privately held company is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio; which locations throughout the United States and Canada. For more information, visit http://www.BroadvoxDirect.com . SOURCE Broadvox Direct Web Site: http://www.BroadvoxDirect.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 18:21:39 -0500 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Reply-To: nospam@crashelex.com Organization: Crash Electronics Subject: Cascading Hubs (was Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers) > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does anyone know how to patch two > routers together if four holes is not enough? Or is that even > possible? PAT] You don't need two routers, all you need is one router plus a hub or switch. Plug one of the four "holes" in the router into one of the holes on the hub, then plug additional devices in the other holes. Read the little booklet that comes with the hub as there are some caveats about which holes you should use ("uplink," for instance) and these may vary somewhat depending on whose hub you buy. There are also limits on how deep you can cascade hubs. Note that most routers incorporate "switches" which are different. You can cascade switches without getting into trouble, although latency accumulates as you stack them deeper. In a SOHO environment you won't have anything to worry about, though. A hub works at the most basic level of connection (OSI layer 1) and so it is fast but usually less efficient. A hub takes any data received on any port and immediately transmits it to all ports. Whereas a switch operates on a higher level (OSI layer 2 or 3) and examines the data passing through it. Switches connect ports on-the-fly based on MAC or IP addresses, and so they can allow much more efficient use of your LAN wiring. But since they have to look at every packet to see where it goes, they can't transmit the packet until they've received and parsed a good chunk of it -- thus the latency. Gamers generally prefer hubs (better ping times). Gordon S. Hlavenka http://www.crashelectronics.com "If we imagined he could _find_ the car, we could pretend it might be fixed." - Calvin ------------------------------ From: jaarons@hotmail.com (jaarons) Subject: Voice PRI T1 vs CAS Date: 4 Oct 2004 15:20:34 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Is there a price difference between a Voice PRI T1 (ESF/B8ZS/23 channels) and a Voice PRI CAS (24 channels D4/AMI, Wink). About 8-10 years ago a telco voice PRI was billed at a higher rate. I don't think PRIs are charged premium rates anymore. Can anyone attest to this? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 18:12:56 -0400 From: Ted Koppel Subject: Switching to Lingo as VOIP Provider, Chapter 2 Some may remember that I described my early experiment with switching to Lingo for VOIP back in late July. I have now had the service for a little over 2 months. Here's what I have to report. - I originally asked for my local number to be ported from Verizon to Lingo. I filled out the form, faxed it to Lingo, who sent it to Verizon around August. And I waited. and waited. and waited. Lingo has been excellent (customer service wise) in trying to pursue the porting, but it is clear to me that Verizon is stalling. There is no earthly reason why it should take 2 months (40 business days) to handle a simple request. - So, today I called Verizon to disconnect (i.e. forget about porting, it's not that major a problem for me). Attendant's first question was "why are you disconnecting" -- and I told her it is because Verizon was screwing me on the porting and I was tired of doing business with that type of company. She didn't even try to talk me out of it. - Lingo assigned me a permanent number, which will take effect in 4-5 days, at which time the temporary number they assigned in July will cease to be operative. - Service and pricing have been consistently high. Can't beat the price, quality has been excellent under normal use; occasionally some warbling when I have a voice conversation at the same time as a serious download. But that's not really an issue. - Lingo appears to be phasing out their English speaking Indian support staff -- the last two calls I made (related to the porting) I spoke to (a) Reston, VA, and (b) Winnipeg, Canada. This by itself is a *major* improvement. So far, so good. Ted ------------------------------ Reply-To: From: Subject: Re: Toll Free Number Registry? Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 15:57:43 -0400 Organization: ICB Inc./WhoSells800.com dcs@mail.myacc.net (CrowT) wrote to ask about Toll Free Number Registry? on 2 Oct 2004 06:42:14 -0700: > Is there a central registry where I can find out who owns > certain 800 number? No, there isn't. Feel free to contact me. Judith Oppenheimer joppenheimer@icbtollfree.com 212 684-7210 ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone is Used Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 15:29:12 -0500 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when PAT wrote: > Does anyone know how to patch two routers together if four holes is > not enough? Or is that even possible? You don't want another router, you want either a hub or a switch (in your usage, it doesn't really matter which, you can get a cheap switch for $20, a hub, which is less sophisticated, should be even less). Your router apparently has a 4-port one built in. The new one will need either a crossover cable to connect it to the router, or often the last port is (or can be set to be) a crossover port, in which case you can use a regular patch cord. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is the second suggestion. The first suggestion, in the last issue of the Digest, was to make sure the DHCP on one of the routers was turned off. I will ask at Radio Shack when I go downtown tomorrow about hubs and switches. I am not sure what the difference is between a 'hub' and a 'switch' and why one of those would be better than using another router but 'with the DHCP turned off on it'. Still a third suggestion which was made to me in a conversation a few minutes ago was to get one or two more wireless cards and use those instead, making certain of course to have them on separate channels and telling the NetGear router to only respond to instructions from the (names of those PCMCIA wireless cards). After all, the wireless router I have now can handle DHCP assignments from .2 through .51 (.1 is the gateway, the router itself) and I am only using at present .2 through .6 (.2 through .5 are the four ports or holes on the back of the box and .6 is my sole existing wireless card.) And speaking of wireless routers and cards: I was priding myself on probably being the only person in my immediate neighborhood with such a card, thus not to worry about people driving down the street deciding they wanted to stop and 'check their email'. And Hotwire and other directory services of public wi-fi has nothing listed for zip code 67301 which is all of Independence. The nearest *public* wi-fi is in Wichita (110 miles northwest) or Tulsa (80 miles south). So yesterday, Sunday, I was out and about on my block, in front of my house sitting on the cement ledge there when I finally lost my signal (I think I mentioned how a couple of mods got me up to speed: I put up a little tin foil reflector behind my single rubber ducky antenna, and I re-installed the router software and told it I was in *Asia* instead of in the USA, presto I can now get over all my house and into my back yard.) But I tried it yesterday in front of my house on the street and the sidewalk out there. I finally lost my own signal, but when I looked at 'site survey' I found a neighbor listed! hahahahaha, and giving almost as much of a push power-wise as mine started giving once I moved to *Asia* and constructed my flimsy little EZ-10 tin foil and cardboard reflector. I tracked the signal down to being right across the street from me (because *he* had not told his base unit to 'not broadcast your name' but he had told his base unit to encrypt everything). *His* unit uses the name '2WIRE895' which sounded very much to me like a default name or phrase, and like cockroaches, where you find one default, chances are there are other defaults hanging around. I tried to connect with '2WIRE895' and kept getting told 'if you want to join, then turn on your encryption'. I lost 2WIRE895 when I got back on the sidewalk on my side of the street, and my router took over once again. I came back inside and tried Googling 2WIRE895 and found it one place only, a list of statistics on someone's Earthlink site but no where in this part of the country. I was hoping I would find it as some router's brand name or something, but no such luck. However I did learn an important lesson: don't ever assume no one is not close enough to spy on you. I also told *my* base unit to use encryption and to only respond to my MAC address and to not broadcast its name. So even my one-volt, frequently overloaded and burned out deseased brain is capable of grasping some new facts each day or three. Like the cartoon which illustrates 'this is your brain on drugs' my brain is much the same way post-aneurysm. PAT] ------------------------------ From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) Subject: Re: More on "Social Activists" and Public Utilities Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 20:48:08 -0000 Organization: Inline Software Creations hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) writes: > As mentioned, my experiences with social activists left a very > unpleasant impression with me. In short, they are incompetent, have > hidden agendas, and do more harm than good for the people. This is called a 'sweeping generalization', and should be avoided. * * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. ------------------------------ From: Truth Organization: http://www.x.com Subject: Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 21:27:51 GMT > What do people think about this? Forget what people "think" about it. It doesn't work like that, it did not happen like that. > On 15th September a lightning killed a person while in excursion at > high altitude on Etna. HIGH ALTITUDE is the key here. Also, the person being the highest point in relation to everything around him. The cellphone had nothing to do with it. Go in your basement and hold a cellphone during a lightning storm and you will not get hit. > He was a mountain expert He was an IDIOT. > Mobile telephone could be reason he was hit by a lightning. Nonsense! If he was holding a carrot, the same thing would have happened. ------------------------------ From: Truth Organization: http://www.x.com Subject: Re: The Technologist Who Has Michael Powell's Ear Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 21:30:46 GMT Mike Powell is Colin Powell's son. Thus, when Bush wants BPL so that US citizens can no longer listen to unbiased news via international shortwave that will be jammed via BPL, Mike Powell does as commanded and approves BPL no matter how much the ARRL shows and proves of the disaster in interference BPL causes every time it is tested. ------------------------------ Subject: Oklahoma State University Simplified Admission Requirements From: Charles G Gray Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 10:38:20 -0500 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is a repeat of a message here from earlier Monday telling about changes in admission policy at Oklahoma State University Telecom program. OSU is a regular sponsor of TELECOM Digest. PAT] Pat, we would appreciate it if you would post the following update on the MSTM Program. In an effort to simplify the admission requirements, Oklahoma State University has made the following revisions in requirements for candidates for the Master of Science in Telecommunications Management (MSTM) Program. The requirement for GRE or GMAT examination is waived for part-time student applicants who meet the following criteria: - Two or more years experience in telecommunications - Have a technically-oriented undergraduate degree with a 3.2 (out of 4.0) or higher GPA. Details may be obtained at http://www.mstm.okstate.edu/prospective_stu/admission_requirements.htm. See also the MSTM sponsorship note toward the end of each issue of the Digest. The purpose of these changes is to attract more working professionals into the MSTM program. The MSTM degree program requires 35 credit hours, all of which may be obtained via distance learning. All class materials are posted to the respective class web sites, and lectures are delivered via streaming video, DVD or VCR tape. Currently, students are enrolled from Virginia to California, and recent students have completed internships (the "Practicum" requirement) in Germany, Guatemala, and Botswana - as well as in Tulsa and Oklahoma City. Regards. Charles G. Gray Senior Lecturer, Telecommunications Oklahoma State University - Tulsa (918)594-8433 ------------------------------ 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 #469 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Oct 5 13:21:13 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i95HLD522900; Tue, 5 Oct 2004 13:21:13 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 13:21:13 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410051721.i95HLD522900@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 #470 TELECOM Digest Tue, 5 Oct 2004 13:20:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 470 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson BlackBerry, Beloved Gadget, Continues to Thrive (Monty Solomon) AT&T Wireless Launching Music Service (Monty Solomon) AT&T Wireless Debuts First-Ever Mobile Music Store in US (Monty Solomon) The Broad Reach of Satellite Radio (Monty Solomon) A New Phone and Techie Controversy at Verizon (Monty Solomon) Policy Post 10.16: Senate Amendments Threaten Civil Liberties (Solomon) To the Patio and Beyond: Speakers Without Wires (Monty Solomon) Almost Here: Cellphones at 37,000 Feet (Monty Solomon) Bank of America Gets 180,000 VOIP Phones (Rick Merrill) Vonage Price Increase (Joe Hearn) How to Lower Volume on Panasonic KX-T7453 ASAP Help!! (Oscar) Boston: VoIP Technical Presentation (Boston Network Users Group) Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? (Robert Bonomi) Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? (Lisa Hancock) Re: Cascading Hubs (was Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Computer) (Landsberg) Re: Adding Ports to a Router (John Levine) Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal (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: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 01:07:26 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: BlackBerry, Beloved Gadget, Continues to Thrive By IAN AUSTEN ABOUT a year ago, PalmOne was poised to challenge the dominance of the BlackBerry, the wireless e-mail device made by Research in Motion that has become the gadget of choice among celebrities and politicians. PalmOne seemed to have all the advantages. It had a customer base in the millions while BlackBerry users numbered in the hundreds of thousands. When it acquired Handspring, PalmOne acquired the Treo, a device that combined a BlackBerry-like e-mail device with a Palm-based hand-held computer, giving it all the extras that the Blackberry lacked, like games, cameras and music players. But somehow, the message did not make it through to BlackBerry's loyal fan base. Not only have sales of PalmOne's Treo lagged behind those of the BlackBerry, things have never been better for R.I.M. Last week R.I.M., based in Waterloo, Ontario, reported a 147 percent in second-quarter revenues, compared with the same period last year. After reaching a million BlackBerry subscribers in February, R.I.M. anticipates having two million by the end of the year. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/04/technology/04newcon.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 01:23:31 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AT&T Wireless Launching Music Service By ALEX VEIGA AP Business Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) -- In the first foray by a U.S. wireless carrier into the online music market, AT&T Wireless is launching a service that lets subscribers buy songs using their cell phones and later download them to a computer. Until now, mobile music sales have centered on ringtones, the song snippets used to customize ringer and other sounds on mobile phones. At Tuesday's launch, mMode Music Store will offer roughly 750,000 tracks priced at 99 cents each. Full albums will start at $9.99. To buy songs on the service, an AT&T Wireless customer would use their phone's browser screen to search for tracks and, on some phones, listen to 30-second song samples. The mMode store will also sell ringtones. Purchases would be billed to users' monthly wireless phone bill, with customers downloading songs over the Internet from a Web site in the Windows Media Player format. The files and could then be burned onto CDs or transferred to portable digital players. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44056747 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 01:24:40 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AT&T Wireless Debuts First-Ever Mobile Music Store in the U.S. Service Turns the Mobile Phone Into a 'Remote Control' for PC Downloads Of Digital Music Tracks Millions of Customers Can Now Discover and Buy Their Favorite Music Right from Their Mobile Phone, and Have Purchases Billed Automatically to Their Monthly Statement or Credit Card SEATTLE, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Building on the success of the company's Music ID service, AT&T Wireless (NYSE:AWE) today announced the premier of the mMode(TM) Music Store, making the entire music discovery, sampling, and purchase process mobile for the first time in U.S. history. With the AT&T Wireless mMode(TM) Music Store, customers can discover, browse, listen to(*) and purchase digital music tracks from a library of approximately 750,000 songs -- all right from the handset. Built in cooperation with Loudeye and Microsoft, the mobile music store is seamlessly integrated with the PC, so digital music tracks are downloaded to users' Windows PCs and billed automatically to their monthly AT&T Wireless statement or credit card. For years, AT&T Wireless' mMode service has informed and entertained customers with some of the best-in-class applications available, from news and sports to gaming and dating. Today, the company turns up the volume on mobile music and significantly expands the functionality of the mobile phone to meet the insatiable demand for digital music. By tying to the company's popular Music ID service, when customers receive a text message with the name and artist of a song they've discovered while mobile, they can now click on a link to go straight to the AT&T Wireless mMode Music Store to buy that digital music track. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44056583 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 00:18:06 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Broad Reach of Satellite Radio By SABRINA TAVERNISE The personalities could not be more different. Bob Edwards, the radio host whose silky voice meant morning to millions of listeners across the country, was scheduled to begin broadcasting again this morning from a Washington, D.C., studio located an eighth of a mile from his former employer, National Public Radio. Just hours before, in a New York studio, the irreverent radio duo, Opie and Anthony, were due to start a new show, their first since 2002, when they were forced from their WNEW-FM program in New York City, after they broadcast a producer's live account, delivered via cellphone, of a couple who were purported to be having sex in St. Patrick's Cathedral. The new shows have one thing in common: They are being broadcast only on satellite radio, a new medium that became broadly available in the United States just three years ago. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/04/technology/04radio.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 23:12:24 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: A New Phone and Techie Controversy at Verizon FROM THE DESK OF DAVID POGUE Last week on "The Amazing Race for the Perfect Phone," Verizon Wireless announced that it was emerging from its cocoon of technological backwardness. At long last, the carrier with the best signal coverage began offering a full-featured flip phone with camera, voice dialing, speakerphone, memory card and Bluetooth: the new Motorola v710. Best coverage, great phone--what more could a gadget freak want? Unfortunately, Web sites and blogs are teeming with complaints about one particular aspect of the v710: it's crippled Bluetooth features. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/30/technology/circuits/30POGUE-EMAIL.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 23:32:23 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Policy Post 10.16: Senate Amendments Threaten Civil Liberties CDT POLICY POST Volume 10, Number 16, October 4, 2004 A Briefing On Public Policy Issues Affecting Civil Liberties Online from The Center For Democracy and Technology (1) Senate Amendments Propose PATRIOT 2, Threaten Civil Liberties (2) Background: 9/11 Commission Legislation Has Serious Implications for Privacy and Civil Liberties (3) What Should -- and Should Not -- Be Part of the Intelligence Reform Legislation http://www.cdt.org/publications/pp_10.16.shtml. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 23:38:35 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: To the Patio and Beyond: Speakers Without Wires By DAVID POGUE FALL is in the air! Actually, fall isn't all. Along with the usual stuff (love, excitement, politics), the air is increasingly filled with wireless signals. The radio spectrum bursts with invisible waves from cellphones, cordless phones, computer networks, satellite dishes, radios and so on. There's so much wireless traffic in the air these days, it's a wonder you can even breathe. But electronics companies haven't finished going wireless just yet. They're still looking for other wires to eliminate, like the ones that connect to your stereo to your speakers. As it turns out, four companies - Sony, RCA, Advent and Acoustic Research -- make at least five different wireless speaker kits. (All right, Advent and Acoustic Research are only brand names marketed by RCA, whose parent, Thomson Electronics, inherited these product lines from Recoton, which went bankrupt this year -- don't worry, none of this will be on the final exam. The point is that in fact, these speaker sets actually come from only two companies, not four. But play along, will you?) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/30/technology/circuits/30stat.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 23:52:53 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Almost Here: Cellphones at 37,000 Feet By JOE SHARKEY http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/05/business/05road.html ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Bank of America Gets 180,000 VOIP Phones Organization: Comcast Online Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 10:34:58 GMT http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1661700,00.asp ------------------------------ From: Joe Hearn Subject: Vonage Price Increase Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 03:58:42 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net A copy of the following email was sent to Vonage Customer Care. To: Vonage Customer Care [billing@vonage.com] From: J H Hearn [ccis4sofi@spamfree.net] Subject: I have questions concerning a Rate Plan Change Telephone: XXX XXX XXXX Account Number: XXXXXXX Billing Invoice: invoice not yet recieved Hey, this isn't fair. You are charging me $10 to keep my same service level. I am a satisfied customer but I have been on the 500 minute plan for a year and a half. I have been paying $25 per month. I think that's great. But you shouldn't charge me an extra $10 to keep the same plan. You waived the charge to upgrade, reduced the charge for unlimited but charge me $10 to stay the same? That must have been a product management decision not one coming from sales department or customer support folks. Your company does a great job. Your service serves me particularly well. Most of my calls are local and only 200-300 minutes are out of my local area each month. Why would you penalize your 500 minute customers for keeping the same service. I hope you will re-think this policy. If we were not fee conscious why would we would we buy the 500 minute service in the first place? I'm not saying I am going to change VoIP providers over $10 but it sure irritates me and I'm not going to talk good about you for a long time. [Sender's Note] If they don't charge me the $10, I'll sent it + to the Digest. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Would you *please* send me whatever you received *from Vonage* which stated you would be billed this ten dollar fee? I am on most -- I think -- Vonage mailing lists and I have not seen or heard of such an increase (or single time fee) to users. If this in fact came from Vonage -- and that company is victimized by game players just as E-Bay and Pay Pal are, someone always wanting a response from netizens with card numbers, etc -- then I will be in touch with Mr. Citron about the matter. But I do not believe it is true. PAT] ------------------------------ From: ocarmona@orasysit.com (Oscar) Subject: How to Lower Volume on Panasonic KX-T7453 ASAP Help!! Date: 5 Oct 2004 06:36:38 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com HELP!! All I need is to know how to turn off the ringing or lower it and turn it on and raise it for the Panasonic KX-T7453 phone system. I don't want to spend so much money getting this done, please help!! We need this ASAP. ------------------------------ From: info@bnug.org (Boston Network Users Group) Subject: Boston: VoIP Technical Presentation Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 09:56:19 -0500 Organization: BNUG - http://www.bnug.org Of possible interest to those of you located in the greater Boston area: BNUG: BOSTON NETWORK USERS GROUP ------------------------------------ OCTOBER MONTHLY MEETING VOICE OVER I.P. (VoIP) NETWORKS THE TECHNOLOGY OF INTERNET TELEPHONY Join BNUG on Tuesday October 12 as we discuss the state-of-the-art Voice over IP (VoIP) technologies and practices. Our discussion will begin with a brief overview of the current state of telephony, then cover network transformation, concentrating on the latest technology available to enable Voice over IP. We'll cover technical considerations when implementing VoIP solutions, including transport protocols supporting VoIP today, data network preparedness, and voice quality considerations. The session will wrap up with a Q-and-A session and live demonstrations of VoIP using Nortel Networks VoIP equipment. Whether you're new to this VoIP thing and want to learn what it's all about, or you're an experienced VoIPer, you'll find this meeting informative, exciting, and very useful. VoIP is here to stay; come learn about and see for yourself the state of the industry. The meeting will be held starting at 6:30pm (for munchies/networking; meeting at 7pm) on October 12, 2004 at Nortel Networks' 600 Technology Park Drive, Billerica, MA office. For directions, visit http://www.bnug.org/nortel.htm. The meeting is free and reservations not necessary. Join us at Nortel Networks' office in at 600 Technology Park Drive in Billerica, Massachusetts, just off Concord Road near the intersection of Concord Road and Route 3. Beginning at 6:30 PM, meet old friends and make new ones over refreshments. The meeting will start at 7:00 PM and run no later than 9:00pm. For detailed directions, visit http://www.bnug.org/nortel.htm The meeting is free and reservations not necessary. BNUG meets the second Tuesday of every month. Our motto is "Free Stuff!" And in that sprit, our meetings and our membership dues are free -- and refreshments are served. If you wish to join, are interested in more information, or need directions to our meeting place, please visit our web site at: http://www.bnug.org/ The Greater Boston Network Users Group is a 501c(3) non profit corporation run entirely by volunteers. BNUG is dedicated to helping members understand, use, and manage computer networks, large and small. BNUG has been serving network users and administrators in Boston and New England for over 16 years. Membership is and has always been free. ------------------------------ Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting Subject: Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 12:36:04 +0000 TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response in article : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: FYI, anyone interested, for many years, > the Chicago Transit Authority handled their train to control tower > commuications using 'telephones' which transmitted using the third rail > of electrical power (I think third rail is 440 volts DC). I don't know > if they still do, or not. PAT] It's all done on UHF now. Motorola handi-talkies on the belt, with the speaker-mike-antenna clipped at the shoulder, just like the cops use. The change-over was 10-15 years ago. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? Date: 4 Oct 2004 18:43:23 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Howard S. Wharton wrote > It operated on low band VHF and operated by air core transformer > coupling rather then radiation. Could someone elaborate what "air core transformer coupling" is and how it differs from normal radio? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: FYI, anyone interested, for many years, > the Chicago Transit Authority handled their train to control tower > commuications using 'telephones' which transmitted using the third rail > of electrical power (I think third rail is 440 volts DC). I don't know > if they still do, or not. PAT] Rapid transit systems typically use 600 volts DC and I'm pretty sure the CTA did as well. The CTA was unusual in that some of its L cars had trolley poles on some branches (Skokie, Evanston?) though they're converting to all third rail. While I'm not familiar with the CTA communiation system, I suspect it used the same basic principle "closed circuit" that the PRR did. The CTA used the third rail as a conductor for a carrier frequency, sort of like how some college radio stations use building wiring as antenna. Someone can explain this better. The CTA was also unusual in that many of its lines did not have any signal protection -- the motorman just made sure he could stop short before the next train. Over the years signals were added. Despite the presence of signals and safety auto-train stop, a train ran a signal and hit the next train, causing them to fall off the L in a devastating wreck. Apparently the motorman overrode the auto stop signal _and_ applied power for some unknown reason. Other traditional subway-el lines use a "trip stop" which is a little arm that sticks up next to the tracks. If a train runs a red signal, the arm catches a lever on the train cutting propulsion and applying emergency brakes. This is an old system but has worked extremely well over the years. Stops are also used as speed controls, keeping a signal at red for a preset time to ensure a train isn't going too fast. The signals also test for a broken rail. These old relay operated system are extremely safe--they are designed to be fail safe so that any component failure results in a stop. Even the trip arms are spring mounted so they spring upward but need power to hold them down. The disadvtg of the relay systems is that they are expensive and labor intensive to maintain. An ice storm is rough on them causing lots of false red signals, and trains must creep along to be sure they don't hit anything or a broken rail. The early computer systems, such as BART discussed elsewhere, had lots of problems. Finally computers are reliable enough to operate safely in the rugged railroad world and newer technologies are coming out. The industry trade magazine "Railway Age" used to be full of hardware articles and ads; now it has lots of software articles and ads. Times change. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not know what CTA is doing now, but when they ran with a combination of third-rail (most of the system) and catenary (or overhead) wires (the Evanston branch and the Skokie branch) the trains would pause just north (Evanston) of Howard Street (or northwest of Howard on the Skokie line) and while one of the two persons on duty left the train to raise (lower) the catenary the other person on the train would announce the fare differential and go passenger by passenger to collect the five cents due to continue the trip. If the passenger had paid the full fare upon first boarding the train, he would have a slip of paper called 'receipt for fare paid' and he would hold it in the air as the collector came around, otherwise he was expected to produce the five cents to give the collector. By the time the collector had worked his way through the entire train, the other guy had the catenary up or down and they were ready to continue the trip. The overhead wire portion of the trip came from prior to CTA taking over that section of the track, which they had inherited from the North Shore Railroad. North Shore, although it did travel all the way to downtown Chicago, only owned the tracks (or right of way) from Wilson Avenue north. South of Wilson Avenue, the right of way was owned by Chicago Rapid Transit Company. Although CTA mostly used third-rail power, there were large areas on the west/northwest side where the trains ran at ground level, and crossed streets with gates and flashing lights, etc. Third-rail had to be stopped at the street crossings; trains were expected to pick up speed as necessary, then slow down and coast across the places where there was no third-rail. Ordinarily, at least *some part* of the train (first or last car of several cars) would be in contact with third-rail somewhere until the train got past the street cross- ing and could be *entirely* once again on third rail. Periodically, the entire train would be out of contact with third rail if the motorman had incorrectly set his speed. The train would come to a complete halt in a station and (for lack of third rail contact could not be started back up. The conductor had to get off the train and take an insulated stick (essentially a pole that otherwise was used to restablish the catenary) and touch it against the third rail next to the car closest to the third rail, then the motorman would pull the train forward a couple feet as needed to establish contact with third rail again, wait for the conductor to get back on and then leave the station. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Nick Landsberg Reply-To: SPAMhukolautTRAP@SPAMattTRAP.net Subject: Re: Cascading Hubs (was Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Computers) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 01:39:55 GMT Gordon S. Hlavenka wrote: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does anyone know how to patch two >> routers together if four holes is not enough? Or is that even >> possible? PAT] > You don't need two routers, all you need is one router plus a hub or > switch. Plug one of the four "holes" in the router into one of the > holes on the hub, then plug additional devices in the other holes. > Read the little booklet that comes with the hub as there are some > caveats about which holes you should use ("uplink," for instance) and > these may vary somewhat depending on whose hub you buy. There are also > limits on how deep you can cascade hubs. > Note that most routers incorporate "switches" which are different. > You can cascade switches without getting into trouble, although > latency accumulates as you stack them deeper. In a SOHO environment > you won't have anything to worry about, though. > A hub works at the most basic level of connection (OSI layer 1) and so > it is fast but usually less efficient. A hub takes any data received > on any port and immediately transmits it to all ports. Whereas a > switch operates on a higher level (OSI layer 2 or 3) and examines the > data passing through it. Switches connect ports on-the-fly based on > MAC or IP addresses, and so they can allow much more efficient use of > your LAN wiring. But since they have to look at every packet to see > where it goes, they can't transmit the packet until they've received > and parsed a good chunk of it -- thus the latency. Gamers generally > prefer hubs (better ping times). Yeah, what he said! :) I have my primary machine plugged into the router and the other machines plugged into a hub which is plugged into the router. These others don't do much internet duty (a couple of old iMacs and an ancient Win95 box). I got the hub back about 5-6 years ago to wire up two of the Mac's and the Win95 box together, and, as I recall, it was about 40 USD back then. If you are patient, you can shop around on the internet to see who's having the latest sale and get a really good price, Pat. > Gordon S. Hlavenka http://www.crashelectronics.com > "If we imagined he could _find_ the car, > we could pretend it might be fixed." - Calvin "It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious" - A. Bloch ------------------------------ Date: 5 Oct 2004 02:14:12 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Adding Ports to a Router Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does anyone know how to patch two > routers together if four holes is not enough? Or is that even > possible? PAT] To add more ports you don't need another router, you need a hub or a switch. They're also cheap and available at the same place you get routers. They come in sizes anywhere from 4 to 16 ports. Switches have more total throughput than hubs but for your purposes the difference is unlikely to matter. Plug a short ethernet cable from one of the ports on the router into the "uplink" port on the hub or switch and you're all set. R's, John ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard Subject: Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 11:20:44 -0400 Tony P. wrote: > Suction cup mounted antenna in the nearest southwest facing > window. Put solar cells on the thing to keep it charged and hell, use > bluetooth or 802.11 for it to transmit it's location. > Not hard at all. I guess "hard" and "practical" don't go hand in hand. Not every office has a southwest facing window ... some larger office buildings have interior offices and cubicle areas with no nearby windows at all. And quite a few people will migrate from one location to another, taking the VoIP phone with them (part of the allure of VoIP is that the phone will work anywhere it can get internet connectivity of a decent speed). Will the average end user want to dismantle and relocate a GPS unit with the phone? Dave VanHorn wrote: > Given that houses don't often move, why not go with a fixed IP, and > tie the IP to the address (as it probably already is, in the billing > records). I'd have to say this is going to be unlikely for a number of reasons. Some broadband providers like the idea of being able to recycle unused IP addresses on short notice (DSL with PPPoE is a notorious example). And some carriers, such as Patriot Media, decided to build out their networks the quick-and-dirty way, using what amounts to NAT gateways for streets and whole city blocks and allocating private address space within that subnet. It also runs counter to current trends, where even standard phone numbers are starting to get divorced from their geographical regions. The New York Times did a piece on this recently: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/01/nyregion/01code.html?oref=login 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! 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #470 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Oct 5 14:49:30 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i95InU323906; Tue, 5 Oct 2004 14:49:30 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 14:49:30 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410051849.i95InU323906@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 #471 TELECOM Digest Tue, 5 Oct 2004 14:50:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 471 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson T-Mobile HotSpot 802.1x Security Standard (Monty Solomon) Software Disasters Often People Problems (Monty Solomon) Re: Toll Free Number Registry? (CrowT) Re: Paper Tape; Gates at Harvard (W Randolph Franklin) Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest (Tony P.) Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan (Dave Close) Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? (Gary Novosielski) Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Punch Card Machines (was What is the Name of #? (Doug Faunt N6TQS) Re: Voice PRI T1 vs CAS (Henry Cabot Henhouse III) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Paul Sawyer) Re: More on "Social Activists" and Public Utilities (Henry) Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? (Paul Vader) Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? (SELLCOM Tech support) Re: AT&T Lowers Price on Internet Calling Service (Truth) Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal (Lisa Hancock) Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal (Dave VanHorn) 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, 5 Oct 2004 13:03:29 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: T-Mobile HotSpot 802.1x Security Standard T-Mobile HotSpot Customers Get More Security as Wi-Fi Leader Rolls Out 802.1x Across Nationwide HotSpot Network Enhanced Security Expected to be Tipping Point for Corporate Adoption of Wi-Fi T-Mobile USA announced today that it is the only US wireless carrier to provide both Wi-Fi users and corporate IT managers additional peace-of-mind for wireless broadband data security due to the implementation of the 802.1x security standard across the nationwide T-Mobile HotSpot wireless network.(a) With this enhancement to its existing security practices, T-Mobile not only reinforces that it is the premium brand for Wi-Fi, but again delivers an industry first to the US market -- being the first national wireless carrier to deploy 802.1x. The 802.1x standard provides one of the highest degrees of Wi-Fi security commercially available by encrypting and helping protect the wireless broadband signal between a laptop and/or PDA and the network's wireless access point or antennae. Customers will enjoy a higher degree of security at more than 4,700 T-Mobile HotSpot locations and, in turn, will have more opportunities to access their corporate information, or what matters most, all while wireless. This enhanced security is just one more layer of reliability to a Wi-Fi offering that already includes: - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44058490 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 13:00:33 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Software Disasters Often People Problems By MATTHEW FORDAHL AP Technology Writer SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- New software at Hewlett-Packard Co. was supposed to get orders in and out the door faster at the computer giant. Instead, a botched deployment cut into earnings in a big way in August and executives got fired. Last month, a system that controls communications between commercial jets and air traffic controllers in southern California shut off because some maintenance had not been performed. A backup also failed, triggering potential peril. Computer code foul-ups also recently held Tacoma, Wash.'s budget hostage, delayed financial aid to university students in Indiana and caused retailer Ross Stores Inc.'s profits to plummet 40 percent after a merchandise-tracking system failed. Such disasters are often blamed on bad software, but the cause is rarely bad programming. As systems grow more complicated, failures instead have far less technical explanations: bad management, communication or training. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44061405 ------------------------------ From: dcs@mail.myacc.net (CrowT) Subject: Re: Toll Free Number Registry? Date: 4 Oct 2004 20:29:49 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Thank you both for your responses! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I assume you got in touch with Judith and she either found you an appropriate word phrase for your existing 800 number -- or she is otherwise helping you sort it all out. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Paper Tape; Gates at Harvard From: W Randolph Franklin Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 00:33:06 GMT I was there. Harvard did not have a CS Dept. The CS program, called, IIRC, the Center for Research in Computing Technology, was a little piece of the Division of Engineering and Applied Physics, which, despite its name, did little Engineering. The CRTC, like most good CS programs, used DEC HW. In the mid 1970s, the machine room had some obsolete PDP-1s, a PDP-KA-10, and some PDP-11s. There were also some PDP-8s around. The PDP-10 was paid by DARPA, and was on the original ARPANET. DEC equipment, including all those machines, used paper tapes, not punch cards. IIRC, Gates used the PDP-10 (and maybe other machines), and so could have used its paper tape reader. In 1973, Harvard students also had accounts on a commercial timesharing PDP-10. The I/O was a teletype with paper tape. Even then, the Aiken machine was obsolete and nonfunctional. How to use paper tape on a bare machine: 0. Turn machine on. 1. Toggle in the bootstrap loader using front panel switches. 2. Read the paper tape containing the text editor. 3. Read the paper tape with your program. 4. Edit it using the TECO editor on the teletype. 5. Punch out the new version of your program. 6. Read in the tape containing the assembler. 7. Read in your program, perhaps twice for a 2-pass assembler. 8. Punch out your assembled program. 9. Read in your assembled program. 10. Execute. 11. Debug with the front panel switches. 12. Go to step 2. W. Randolph Franklin ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest Organization: ATCC Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 02:01:08 GMT In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com says: > Michael Quinn wrote >> Sakinah Aaron was walking into the bus area at the Wheaton Metro >> station several weeks ago, talking loudly on her Motorola cell >> phone. A little too loudly for Officer George Saoutis of the Metro >> Transit Police. >> The police officer told Aaron, who is five months pregnant, to lower >> her voice. She told the officer he had no right to tell her how to >> speak into her cell phone. > I think the police were correct and the woman was wrong. It would've > been quite easy for her to simply lower her voice, but she chose to > make a big deal out of it. Instead of placing the blame on the woman, place it on the crappy cell phones we have. The side tone is nearly absent on almost every cell phone I've used over the years. > In the old days -- when I was a kid in public school -- part of our > education was good manners that we were expected to display at all > times. I guess today it's somehow a violation of personal expression > to teach and expect good manners. Somehow too many people today > _erroneously_ think they have all sorts of "rights" that include being > obnoxious and a nuisance to other people. Interesting. I started elementary school in 1970 and even then you could see social skills breaking down. Fortunately I wasn't in a public school so it was a bit different. > So, today enforcing manners becomes a law enforcement issue, complete > with arrests, citations, and fines. It's a shame it has come to that. Indeed it does. Part of it is taking away the parents power to discipline. > I'd like to point out that some years ago the NYC subway system was a > mess from deviant behavior. The police were unable to do anything > because social activists successfully sued the police claiming the > disruptive behaviors were actually constituionally protected free > speech or the police efforts were discriminatory. The NYC subway mgmt > put together a psgr rule book that meets the constitutional muster and > discourages disruptive behavior and is now enforceable. The bad thing > is that they removed any kind of discretion and had to make the rules > they were allowed to enforce very strict. Bottom line -- the social > activists who claim they are protecting our rights get so extremely > and end up taking rights away from us. A rule BOOK? Wow -- who knew there were that many rules. RIPTA has very few rules but they're violated every day. What ever happened to the common courtesy of offering the elderly or those who are pregnant, etc. a seat on a bus? I've seen a few old folks speak up about it and I so want to cheer them on when they do. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe so, Lisa. I will suggest however, > that 'disorderly conduct' and other such open-ended, define them as > you go along laws are a police officer's best friend, because there is > not a person in the world who cannot be guilty of 'disorderly conduct' > if an officer decides to make them so. I say thank god for 'social > activists' (as you called them) who look out for the rights of the > rest of us. PAT] Sort of like the Failure to Move statute we have here in Providence. It can be applied to all sorts of situations. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Chicago Police have a good one for you, where any gathering of individuals (except those the police approve of, of course) can be defined as a 'mob action', and police can order an immediate dispersal or the 'mob' is subject to arrest, etc. So if police tell you to 'move along' you best do so. Trouble is, it was found to be unconstitutional, since the way the law was written it could apply to church groups, sports groups, political assemblies, etc. Mayor Daley was quite indignant: "well, I didn't mean a church group, or people at Wrigley Field or the Republican convention." ACLU told him "yeah, we know what you meant; you were talking about groups of young black men standing on street corners, so say what you meant." Well of course, Daley and his racist police would not dare to say what they really meant. City Council has tried to pass that 'no loitering' ordinance now five or six times (rephrasing it slightly each time) and it has gotten shot down each time by ACLU and others. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 20:52:20 -0700 From: Dave Close Subject: Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium Date: 4 Oct 2004 20:48:33 -0700 Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California Dave Garland writes: > Let us know when all numbers within the NANP can be dialed without any > charge other than that for local phone service. /I/ can dial all calls to anywhere in the US or Canada without extra charge. The Caribbean is extra. I dial all of them as 11 digits, both on my Sprint PCS and my Vonage lines. I could dial them the same way on my SBC wireline, but I do get dinged extra for most so I don't. This pricing scheme is still leading edge, from VOIP and cell companies primarily. But does anyone here doubt that it will become the standard way to price phone calls soon? The only extra expense for the telco in providing long-distance is the cost of keeping track so they can bill. (Yes, I know about call termination charges. I contend that they are essentially a wash for most large companies, and wouldn't even exist without regulatory and tax imperatives. Like the Internet, telcos should charge each other for connections and maximum usage, not per minute.) Some might respond that, sure, the calls don't cost extra but the monthly rate is higher. With most cell plans, that may be true. But except for nominally means-tested rates, the lowest unlimited local wireline rate offered by SBC in my area comes in at about $16.70 per month (including taxes which seem to change every month). I believe the lowest rate from Verizon is about $15 higher. The Vonage rate is $16.94 per month, everything included. That's not much of a difference from SBC, and it's a lot lower than Verizon. Use three minutes of local toll calls per month on SBC and you'd exceed the Vonage charge. I think it's time to get the state regulators out of the business of setting pricing and dialing plans. There is no reason why every wireline company should have to use the same calling areas. And if they didn't, there would be no rational excuse for mandating a dialing plan, either. The market should decide the appropriate dialing plans. Now that we have real choice for local service -- including cell and VOIP companies -- if you don't like the dialing plan enough, you can change providers. But the fact is that most of us use more than one dialing plan now. The only reliable method that should work on all of them is 11 digits. And except for places like Texas, which stupidly won't allow 11 for a wireline "local" call, it does work for nearly all companies and plans. Some of you may worry about using a phone not your own. But if you think that mandating a uniform dialing plan will protect you or the phone's owner, consider that the phone may well be subscribed to a VOIP account. You can't depend on state dialing plan regulation right now. Note, I didn't say the regulators should not control actual prices, just pricing plans. I'd rather the agencies didn't even exist, but we do need some transition plan to get to that point. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any regulator with a plan to phase itself out of existence. Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA "You can't go to Windows Update dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 and get a patch for stupidity." dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu -- Kevin Mitnick ------------------------------ From: Gary Novosielski Subject: Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 04:27:54 GMT Truth wrote: > Nonsense! > If he was holding a carrot, the same thing would have happened. It's also quite likely that the carrot would have exploded. ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone is Used Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 04:50:04 GMT In article , dave.garland@wizinfo.com says: > It was a dark and stormy night when PAT wrote: >> Does anyone know how to patch two routers together if four holes is >> not enough? Or is that even possible? > You don't want another router, you want either a hub or a switch (in > your usage, it doesn't really matter which, you can get a cheap switch > for $20, a hub, which is less sophisticated, should be even less). Your > router apparently has a 4-port one built in. The new one will need > either a crossover cable to connect it to the router, or often the last > port is (or can be set to be) a crossover port, in which case you can > use a regular patch cord. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is the second suggestion. The > first suggestion, in the last issue of the Digest, was to make sure > the DHCP on one of the routers was turned off. I will ask at Radio > Shack when I go downtown tomorrow about hubs and switches. I am not > sure what the difference is between a 'hub' and a 'switch' and why > one of those would be better than using another router but 'with the > DHCP turned off on it'. If you would like everything to operate on a single network, without separate subnets, you don't want another router, you want a hub or, preferably, a switch. If you use a hub or switch, all of your devices will be on a single subnet, and you will be able to use file and printer sharing without undue difficulty. All of the devices will use addresses from the same IP subnet, such as 192.168.168.xxx, assigned by the single router via DHCP if you choose. There is only one router doing NAT. If you daisy-chain routers, even if one has DCHP turned off, you will still most likely be doing NAT twice, and you may not to use file and printer sharing between devices on router #1 and those on router #2 (unless there are some work-arounds). If you can turn NAT off on the additional router, as well as DHCP, you will have turned a $50 router into a $20 switch, at best. The difference between a hub and a switch is that a hub sends all traffic from any port to all other ports, while a switch sends traffic only to the port that the traffic that has the relevant IP address. For the most part, this is not a big deal, but its primary significance for the home user is that if you have a couple of devices that have fast ethernet NICs, they can transfer data between them at 100 MB/s even if there are other devices communicating at 10 MB/s because they only have standard ethernet cards. With a hub, if there is slow traffic, all other traffic slows down, too. At least that's my understanding of it; engineers can feel free to correct the details. > Still a third suggestion which was made to me in a conversation a > few minutes ago was to get one or two more wireless cards and use > those instead, making certain of course to have them on separate > channels and telling the NetGear router to only respond to > instructions from the (names of those PCMCIA wireless cards). After > all, the wireless router I have now can handle DHCP assignments from > .2 through .51 (.1 is the gateway, the router itself) and I am only > using at present .2 through .6 (.2 through .5 are the four ports or > holes on the back of the box and .6 is my sole existing wireless > card.) I find it difficult to believe that a router would assign separate IP addresses to its own ports. The way DHCP works is that a device (e.g., computer, router, etc.) asks the server (i.e., the router) for assignment of an IP address. The ports on the back of the router are actually connected to a hub or switch inside the box, which in turn is connected to the router. These should not need or be assigned IP addresses. If you had four devices connected to the four ports that use DHCP, when these devices are booted up they will ask for IP address "leases." IP addresses will be assigned from the pool of DHCP dynamic addresses (unless you have told the router to associate "static" DHCP addresses with particular MAC addresses) in the order in which they make their requests. So if the device connected to port 4 boots up first, it will get address .2, then if the device connected to port 1 boots up, it will get address .3, etc. > And speaking of wireless routers and cards: I was priding myself on > probably being the only person in my immediate neighborhood with such > a card, thus not to worry about people driving down the street deciding > they wanted to stop and 'check their email'. And Hotwire and other > directory services of public wi-fi has nothing listed for zip code > 67301 which is all of Independence. The nearest *public* wi-fi is in > Wichita (110 miles northwest) or Tulsa (80 miles south). So yesterday, > Sunday, I was out and about on my block, in front of my house sitting > on the cement ledge there when I finally lost my signal (I think I > mentioned how a couple of mods got me up to speed: I put up a little > tin foil reflector behind my single rubber ducky antenna, and I > re-installed the router software and told it I was in *Asia* instead > of in the USA, presto I can now get over all my house and into my back > yard.) But I tried it yesterday in front of my house on the street > and the sidewalk out there. I finally lost my own signal, but when I > looked at 'site survey' I found a neighbor listed! hahahahaha, and > giving almost as much of a push power-wise as mine started giving once > I moved to *Asia* and constructed my flimsy little EZ-10 tin foil and > cardboard reflector. > I tracked the signal down to being right across the street from me Amazing how Asia is just across the street from Independence, KS, USA. It's a small world, after all. It's a small world after all. It's a small world after all. It's a small, small world. (Now you won't be able to get that Disney tune out of your head, haha!) Of course, Pat, I assume you were just kidding about setting your wireless router to Asia and using channels that are forbidden in the U.S., which would be illegal. Just like going 70 in a 55 zone. Nobody would advocate that. ß^:)> Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD, USA Delete nospam from my address and it won't work. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is all just theoretical of course. No, I would never advocate driving 70 in a 55 mile per hour zone, nor configuring some radio device to think it was is Asia when it really was in Kansas, and per chance put out a hundred milliwatts of RF were it was not allowed. So just speaking theoretically *why* does NetGear warn users to be careful about selecting their country when setting up the wireless router? The two variables seem to be the *frequency* and the *output power*? Am I overlooking some other variable? I assumed 802.11 always meant 802.11 on frequency, therefore the only other variable was power and where one country allowed 3/10ths of a hundred milliwatts output another place allowed a full hundred milliwatts. What am I overlooking here? Otherwise why would NetGear bother to splash a screen at you asking "are you sure you are living in that place?" and warning you severely not to get mixed up. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Doug Faunt N6TQS +1-510-655-8604 Subject: Re: Punch Card Machines (was What is the Name of #? Date: 05 Oct 2004 01:07:54 -0400 Organization: at home, in Oakland, California Julian Thomas writes: > This is correct. >> Also, most IBM lines of keypunches included printing and non printing >> models, and the non-printers were cheaper. > Also correct (I'm not sure there was a non-printing 12x model -- these > were the ones with a nicer keyboard introduced around 1960?). > Duplication of binary cards with the printing turned on was strongly > discourages, since it wrecked the printing mechanism (a matrix printer > with a Rube Goldberg mechanical character generation mechanism). We certainly kept an 024 around for duping column binary cards. And the IBM FE's hated it. 73, doug ------------------------------ From: Henry Cabot Henhouse III Subject: Re: Voice PRI T1 vs CAS Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 05:24:26 -0700 The prices we pay for channelized T1 and PRI from a local CLEC are very similar, where you get dinged is on a channelized T1 you pay 24x the EUCL... on a PRI, it's 5 or 7x. Dave jaarons wrote in message news:telecom23.469.4@telecom-digest.org: > Is there a price difference between a Voice PRI T1 (ESF/B8ZS/23 > channels) and a Voice PRI CAS (24 channels D4/AMI, Wink). About 8-10 > years ago a telco voice PRI was billed at a higher rate. I don't > think PRIs are charged premium rates anymore. Can anyone attest to > this? ------------------------------ From: Paul Sawyer Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 12:42:59 UTC Organization: Me kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote in news:telecom23.468.4@telecom- digest.org: > [...] > Does anyone, by the way, have any specs on the proprietary Datapoint > programming languages? I keep meaning to look for manuals to torture > my students with. How evil! I may have some of the original books somewhere (that was almost 30 years ago!) The DATABUS language started out proprietary to Datapoint, but seems to have evolved into PL/B, which is an ANSI standard. One source: http://www.mmcctech.com/pl-b/plb-0100.htm Good luck! ------------------------------ From: henry999@eircom.net (Henry) Subject: Re: More on "Social Activists" and Public Utilities Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 16:02:59 +0300 Organization: Elisa Internet customer Lisa Hancock wrote: > social activists ... are incompetent, have hidden agendas, and do > more harm than good for the people. Aside from the fact, as another respondent noted, that this is an overgeneralisation, it is an extremely naive one at that. How do you think the world ever gets better? Here is a little story you would do well to read, about one day in the life of "Mr. & Mrs. Conservative". http://www.e-thepeople.org/article/35475/view?viewtype= quote: Get up at 6:AM to prepare morning coffee. The water they fill the pot with is cleaner because liberals fought for minimum clean water standards. They take daily medication with the first swallow of coffee. Presumably medications are safer to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised. All but $10.00 of their medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Mr. & Mrs. Conservative enjoy those benefits too. They take their morning showers reaching for the shampoo. Today the bottle is better labeled with ingredients because some liberal fought for the right to know what they are putting on their bodies. After Mr. & Mrs. dress they walk outside and take a deep breath. The air is cleaner because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. They walk to the subway station for the government-subsidized ride to work; it saves them considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public transportation. They start the workday; they have good jobs with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. If Mr. or Mrs. Conservative is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed they will get workers' compensation or an unemployment check because some Liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune. It's noon, Mr. Conservative needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills. His deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some liberal wanted to protect people's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the depression. Mr. & Mrs. Conservative have to pay the Fannie Mae underwritten mortgage and a below market federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided people and the government would be better off if they were educated and earned more money over his life-time. Mr. Conservative is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to Dad's; his car is among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification. (Those rural conservatives would still be sitting in the dark!) He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Mr. Conservative wouldn't have to. After his visit with Dad he gets back in his car for the ride home. He turns on a radio talk show, the host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. (He doesn't say that his beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Mr. Conservative enjoys throughout his day) Mr. & Mrs. Conservative agree. We don't need those big government liberals ruining our lives; after all, we are self made and believe that everyone should take care of themselves, just like we have. ------------------------------ From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) Subject: Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 15:05:25 -0000 Organization: Inline Software Creations Rick Merrill writes: > Perfectly reasonable: the antenna was the highest point and the cell > phone was the path of least resistance, which is all it takes. *Perhaps* a cellphone in a hand might be a path of least resistance - thought I doubt it - most of them are made of plastic. But I can't say I've seen any cellphone made in the last decade where the antenna would be the highest point on a person - they're little stubby things. Maybe if it was a satphone ... More likely, the cellphone was IN the path that the strike took, and the battery blew up because of that. * * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. ------------------------------ From: SELLCOM Tech support Subject: Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? Organization: www.sellcom.com Reply-To: support@sellcom.com Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 16:09:51 GMT Truth posted on that vast internet thingie: > If he was holding a carrot, the same thing would have happened. I think we can put this to bed with a sound piece of advice to anyone concerned. Can we find agreement here? Do not stand out in lightning storms whether or not you are holding any object. (Note to students: The guy holding the kite string is dead, that's right DEAD! as is his photographer!) Steve at SELLCOM [Please insert your favorite dislclaimer here and agree to all terms and conditions and EULA for reading this post. ] 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: Truth Organization: http://www.x.com Subject: Re: AT&T Lowers Price on Internet Calling Service Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 17:02:51 GMT > AT&T Corp on Thursday on Thursday said it was lowering the price on > its CallVantage Internetcalling service by $5 per month, matching > the price from several other suppliers. I remember about 10 years ago talking to people around the world over the internet for free with shareware programs in which you just enter in the other person's ip address and you could talk through the microphone and speakers for free for hours while putting up pictures on your monitors and pointing to things with the mouse for the other person to see. Why would anyone pay when we have the ability to talk over the internet for free? ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal Date: 5 Oct 2004 10:35:52 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Jack Decker wrote > Finally, 5-month-old Christopher Vasquez stopped breathing, and Staats > let out a piercing, terror-filled scream. He died moments later, > shortly after an ambulance was dispatched -- a little over four minutes > after Staats made her call. In a situation like this, I'm not sure anything could've been done to save the baby. Even in ideal situations, 911 has to take down information, then dispatch an ambulance. The ambulance crews must get their things and drive over, all of which takes a few minutes depending on traffic and how far the home is from the ambulance garage. One of the articles mentioned the person lives in an "unincorproated area". Perhaps that is a limitation on services at her particular location. I am not familiar with the geography out there. > Now, Staats has sued her telephone company, Comcast, and two other > companies, claiming that because they put the wrong address for her > phone number into the 911 system, her son died that day in the spring > of 2003. I don't understand why her address wasn't correct in the system. Doesn't the phone company need an address for billing purposes, and wouldn't it use that by default (unless told otherwise)? I'm unclear on why it took so long to transfer the call to the proper 911 center. When I call 911 on my cell phone, it usually goes across the state line since that is the nearest tower. But the other state can quickly transfer me to the right place. Many people have moved to the suburbs expecting the same public safety services they had in the city or old suburb. In some cases they are actually better, but in others they may be worse. In places where there's a lot of new housing, fire and rescue may lag behind to meet the new demand. The article mentioned Colorado, and I understand there has been tremendous growth in once wide-open rural areas. > Staats may not be alone in having the 911 problem. There are a lot of problems with 911 nationwide for a variety of reasons. First off, is "911" even universal nationwide? Secondly, is enhanced 911 that shows the caller's address universal nationwide? Another problem with rapid nomadic suburban growth is that people actually don't know where they specifically live. That is, their region may have a general name or post office, but it may not be the same of their specific munipality that provides rescue service. Addresses may be repeated throughout a county. Our county had a person's house burn down pre-E911 because the resident didn't know this information. Recall years ago suburban/rural telephone directories had charts in the front for fire/rescue/police numbers specific to municipalities, and those residents would note such numbers prominently near their phone. The articles weren't clear whether the woman had VOIP or landline service, but I don't think it should matter since she was at home; unless VOIP isn't providing that information to E911 officials. ------------------------------ From: Dave VanHorn Subject: Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 12:48:29 -0500 > Dave VanHorn wrote: >> Given that houses don't often move, why not go with a fixed IP, and >> tie the IP to the address (as it probably already is, in the billing >> records). > I'd have to say this is going to be unlikely for a number of reasons. > Some broadband providers like the idea of being able to recycle unused > IP addresses on short notice (DSL with PPPoE is a notorious example). > And some carriers, such as Patriot Media, decided to build out their > networks the quick-and-dirty way, using what amounts to NAT gateways for > streets and whole city blocks and allocating private address space > within that subnet. > It also runs counter to current trends, where even standard phone > numbers are starting to get divorced from their geographical regions. > The New York Times did a piece on this recently: > http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/01/nyregion/01code.html?oref=login Isn't that what databases are for? As you point out, GPS is somewhat broken for this, and somewhat overkill as well. I don't see a fundamental reason that IPs can't be tied to the service address in a database. ------------------------------ 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 #471 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Oct 6 02:52:30 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i966qUX29513; Wed, 6 Oct 2004 02:52:30 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 02:52:30 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410060652.i966qUX29513@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 #472 TELECOM Digest Wed, 6 Oct 2004 02:51:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 472 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Microsoft Unveils News Version of MSN TV (Monty Solomon) Microsoft Announces New MSN TV 2 Internet & Media Player (Monty Solomon) Internet Time and the Reliability of Search Engines (Monty Solomon) Grey Tuesday, Online Cultural Activism, Mash-up of Music (Monty Solomon) Norvergence & the "Matrix Box" (John J. Suarez, III) Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? (Robert Bonomi) Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? (Paul Coxwell) Re: Pennsylvania Railroad'a Crew Communication System? (David Clayton) Re: AT&T Wireless Launching Music Service (Truth) Re: AT&T Lowers Price on Internet Calling Service (Rick Merrill) Re: A New Phone and Techie Controversy at Verizon (Truth) Freelance ASP Developer / Programmer (John Leo) Re: Cascading Hubs (was Re: Voicepulse Disconnects) (T. Sean Weintz) Re: Paper Tape; Gates at Harvard (AES/newspost) Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? (Truth) Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest (Joseph) Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest (Name Not Given) Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone Used (D Wilson) Re: More on "Social Activists" and Public Utilities (AES/newspost) 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, 5 Oct 2004 18:44:20 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Microsoft Unveils News Version of MSN TV By GARY GENTILE AP Business Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. introduced on Tuesday a new version of its Internet TV service, seeking to broaden its appeal beyond a relatively small base of older, computer-phobic users. The set-top hardware it uses, the MSN TV Internet and Media Player, is a strange hybrid for an increasingly networked world. Essentially a media receiver, the player lets people surf the Web, display digital photos, watch downloaded video clips and do e-mail _ all the time using their television as a monitor. The new version, called MSN TV 2, adds a port for people with high-speed Internet connections and home networks. Made by Thomson under the RCA brand, it has more processing power than its predecessor but contains no hard drive. The box has 128 megabytes of RAM and 64 MB of flash memory. It sells for $199.95 plus a subscription fee, depending on whether it is used with broadband Internet access or dial-up. The box also includes Wi-Fi connectivity for wireless home networks and slots for memory cards from digital cameras. A wireless keyboard and remote are also included. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44085804 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 18:50:10 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Microsoft Announces the New MSN TV 2 Internet & Media Player Broadband-Home-Network-Enabled Living-Room Device Offers Exciting New Entertainment, Information and Communications Options for the Television REDMOND, Wash., Oct. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The MSN(R) TV unit ( http://www.msntv.com ) of Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT), a group that has pioneered delivery of interactive services to the TV, has announced the debut of the new MSN TV 2 Internet & Media Player, shipping now and due to arrive at major consumer electronic retailers across the country by mid-October. MSN TV 2 is the only product that brings premium MSN content, PC-stored digital media and e-mail to TV for a truly integrated Internet and media experience. MSN TV 2 is a broadband-home-network-enabled device manufactured by Thomson under the RCA brand. It includes a wireless keyboard and remote control and tas an MSRP of $199.95 plus a subscription fee.(1) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44072281 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 00:27:24 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Internet Time and the Reliability of Search Engines Internet time and the reliability of search engines by Paul Wouters, Iina Hellsten, and Loet Leydesdorff http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_10/wouters/ Abstract: Search engines are unreliable tools for data collection for research that aims to reconstruct the historical record. This unreliability is not caused by sudden instabilities of search engines. On the contrary, their operational stability in systematically updating the Internet is the cause. We show how both Google and Altavista systematically relocate the time stamp of Web documents in their databases from the more distant past into the present and the very recent past. They also delete documents. We show how this erodes the quality of information. The search engines continuously reconstruct competing presents that also extend to their perspectives on the past. This has major consequences for the use of search engine results in scholarly research, but gives us a view on the various presents and pasts living side by side in the Internet. http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_10/wouters/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 00:30:35 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Grey Tuesday, Online Cultural Activism and Mash-up of Music by Sam Howard-Spink http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_10/howard/ Abstract: In 2003, a little-known DJ by the name of Danger Mouse created a "mash-up" album that remixed the music of the Beatles' White Album and hiphop star Jay-Z's Black Album to produce a new record called The Grey Album. The swift and draconian legal reaction to the online dissemination of this technically illegal but culturally fascinating artifact gave rise to a "day of digital civil disobedience," organized by music activism group Downhill Battle. Grey Tuesday, as the day of action was known, marks a potentially new site for a blend of online political and cultural activism in the highly charged realm of intellectual property expansionism. This paper examines emergent examples of musical and Internet activism including a detailed look at Grey Tuesday itself; considers the cultural significance of the mash-up genre and the value of the musical "amateur;" and concludes with a brief consideration of "semiotic democracy" and the new mix - or, if you will, mash-up - of culture and politics that has emerged as a consequence of the rise of digital networks. http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_10/howard/ ------------------------------ From: John J. Suarez, III Subject: Norvergence & the "Matrix Box" Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 21:08:32 -0400 Are you aware of the 11000 small businesses going through the re-leasing nightmare concerning Norvergence & the Matrix box? If not you should check out the following articles: http://www.tampabaylive.com/stories/2004/09/040922norvergence.shtml http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheAberdeenKid/ http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3D5724172500&category=3D= 80226 We need all the help that we can get. John Suarez "a victim" 800 616-9876=20 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: We have been covering the Norergence fraud for many months here. Just Google through our archives looking for 'Norvergence', particularly articles in the past six or eight months. Before any of the victims agree to 're-lease' their Norvergnce matrix boxes, they should be aware that a firm of attornies -- the attorney firm name is 'Weir' -- is starting the essence of a class action lawsuit seeking to void all outstanding lease arrangements, so the victims you know may wish to (a) put a total freeze on any payments to Norvergence and (b) have their own attornies get in touch with Weir and see what is being done. PAT] ------------------------------ Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting Subject: Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 03:09:00 +0000 In article , Lisa Hancock wrote: > Howard S. Wharton wrote: >> It operated on low band VHF and operated by air core transformer >> coupling rather then radiation. > Could someone elaborate what "air core transformer coupling" is > and how it differs from normal radio? It is an induction loop pick-up. Pure magnetic coupling between the two 'coils' (which, in this case aren't really coils, just two long wires laid side-by-side). If you've ever experienced 'cross-talk' on your POTS phone, where you can hear somebody else's conversation, you have seen the principle in action. It is a _very_ short-range system. like maybe a few hundred feet, _maximum_. >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: FYI, anyone interested, for many years, >> the Chicago Transit Authority handled their train to control tower >> commuications using 'telephones' which transmitted using the third rail >> of electrical power (I think third rail is 440 volts DC). I don't know >> if they still do, or not. PAT] > Rapid transit systems typically use 600 volts DC and I'm pretty sure > the CTA did as well. The CTA was unusual in that some of its L cars > had trolley poles on some branches (Skokie, Evanston?) though they're > converting to all third rail. Skokie had catenary, until relatively recently -- it's all 3rd rail now. The Evanston run was completely converted to 3rd rail on Nov. 8, 1973. > While I'm not familiar with the CTA communiation system, I suspect > it used the same basic principle "closed circuit" that the PRR > did. The CTA used the third rail as a conductor for a carrier > frequency, sort of like how some college radio stations use > building wiring as antenna. Someone can explain this better. Not quite. it was 'wired wireless'. Same mechanism as the 'wireless' intercoms you can buy in the store. low-power RF, with a direct electrical connection all the way between the transmitter and receiver. PRR, etc. did _not_ have electrical continuity between the radio and the rail, or the 'stationary antenna' at track-side. > The CTA was also unusual in that many of its lines did not have any > signal protection -- the motorman just made sure he could stop short > before the next train. Over the years signals were added. Despite > the presence of signals and safety auto-train stop, a train ran a > signal and hit the next train, causing them to fall off the L in a > devastating wreck. Apparently the motorman overrode the auto stop > signal _and_ applied power for some unknown reason. > Other traditional subway-el lines use a "trip stop" which is a little > arm that sticks up next to the tracks. CTA has had trip stops at the signals for at least 15-20 years, now. > If a train runs a red signal, > the arm catches a lever on the train cutting propulsion and applying > emergency brakes. This is an old system but has worked extremely well > over the years. Stops are also used as speed controls, keeping a > signal at red for a preset time to ensure a train isn't going too > fast. The signals also test for a broken rail. > These old relay operated system are extremely safe--they are designed > to be fail safe so that any component failure results in a stop. Even > the trip arms are spring mounted so they spring upward but need power > to hold them down. > The disadvtg of the relay systems is that they are expensive and labor > intensive to maintain. An ice storm is rough on them causing lots of > false red signals, and trains must creep along to be sure they don't > hit anything or a broken rail. The early computer systems, such as > BART discussed elsewhere, had lots of problems. Finally computers are > reliable enough to operate safely in the rugged railroad world and > newer technologies are coming out. > The industry trade magazine "Railway Age" used to be full of hardware > articles and ads; now it has lots of software articles and ads. Times > change. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not know what CTA is doing now, > but when they ran with a combination of third-rail (most of the > system) and catenary (or overhead) wires (the Evanston branch and the > Skokie branch) the trains would pause just north (Evanston) of Howard > Street (or northwest of Howard on the Skokie line) and while one of > the other person on the train would announce the fare differential and > go passenger by passenger to collect the five cents due to continue > the trip. As of at least the mid-70s, on the Skokie line, the pantograph was raised or lowered by a rope pull from _inside_ the train. it just took a tug to release it, and was done 'on the fly'. As the Skokie swift was a one-man crew operation from it's inception in 1964, and ran non-stop between Howard and Dempster -- I have to assume that the same method of operation was employed in the earlier years. When Evanston was overhead powered, trolley-poles were raised/lowered at the South Blvd. Sta. See: for detailed history. > If the passenger had paid the full fare upon first boarding > the train, he would have a slip of paper called 'receipt for fare > paid' and he would hold it in the air as the collector came around, > otherwise he was expected to produce the five cents to give the > collector. By the time the collector had worked his way through the > entire train, the other guy had the catenary up or down and they were > ready to continue the trip. Note: the 'catenary' is the overhead wiring. Either a 'trolley pole' (like an overgrown fishing-rod with a pulley on the end) or a 'pantograph' (a wide bar) was the gizmo that went from the train car to the overhead wires. The pantograph is the newer design, and a whole lot less finicky. The 'Evanston' route, for years, had a 'local' fare for travel within Evanston, only. Going south into the City, you had to pay the surcharge, which was the difference between the 'local' fare, and the full CTA fare. Going northbound there was no surcharge -- you'd already paid the full CTA fare. ------------------------------ From: Paul Coxwell Subject: Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 22:00:31 +0100 > Other traditional subway-el lines use a "trip stop" which is a little > arm that sticks up next to the tracks. If a train runs a red signal, > the arm catches a lever on the train cutting propulsion and applying > emergency brakes. This is an old system but has worked extremely well > over the years. Stops are also used as speed controls, keeping a These have also been employed for many years on the London Underground (subway system), with similar fail-safe arrangements. The motorman could override the trips, but a panel with several red lights would be illuminated as a warning (at least that's how it was on the older stock). > before the next train. Over the years signals were added. Despite > the presence of signals and safety auto-train stop, a train ran a > signal and hit the next train, causing them to fall off the L in a > devastating wreck. Apparently the motorman overrode the auto stop > signal _and_ applied power for some unknown reason. There was a similar devastating accident in London at Moorgate station in 1975 when despite all the safeguards a train ran past the platform and smashed into a dead-end tunnel. The cause of what was then the worst ever accident on the London Underground was never discovered: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/28/newsid_2515000/ 2515033.stm There is a lot of interesting information about signaling and other aspects of the London system at this site: http://www.trainweb.org/tubeprune/ The signaling section contains details of the coded automatic system which was employed for the new Victoria line, opened in the late 1960s. Paul ------------------------------ From: David Clayton Subject: Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 16:39:10 +1000 hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) contributed the following: > Other traditional subway-el lines use a "trip stop" which is a little > arm that sticks up next to the tracks. If a train runs a red signal, > the arm catches a lever on the train cutting propulsion and applying > emergency brakes. This is an old system but has worked extremely well > over the years. Stops are also used as speed controls, keeping a > signal at red for a preset time to ensure a train isn't going too > fast. The signals also test for a broken rail. The train system in my city uses the "trip stop" system, but a few months ago at the end of a line a driver got out of his cabin (for a "pit stop") but left both trip stops up and the brakes off. The train rolled out of the station and about 17KM down the track to the city (picking up speed on the downhill gradient all the way) where it finally smashed into another train at the other end of the line! The train system controllers knew all about it but apparently letting it crunch into another train (with people in the stationary train) was the "least worst" option in the circumstances!! Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@XYZ.myrealbox.com Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. (Remove the "XYZ." to reply) Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. ------------------------------ From: Truth Organization: http://www.x.com Subject: Re: AT&T Wireless Launching Music Service Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 18:30:47 GMT > LOS ANGELES (AP) -- In the first foray by a U.S. wireless carrier into > the online music market, AT&T Wireless is launching a service that > lets subscribers buy songs using their cell phones and later download > them to a computer. Too complicated and stupid. Why not make a cellphone that takes pictures too? ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: AT&T Lowers Price on Internet Calling Service Organization: Comcast Online Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 20:07:29 GMT Truth wrote: > I remember about 10 years ago talking to people around the world over > the internet for free with shareware programs in which you just enter > in the other person's ip address and you could talk through the > microphone and speakers for free for hours while putting up pictures > on your monitors and pointing to things with the mouse for the other > person to see. > Why would anyone pay when we have the ability to talk over the > internet for free? I think the big difference is that AT&T system will drive your home phone system and the phones all over the house. - RM ------------------------------ From: Truth Organization: http://www.x.com Subject: Re: A New Phone and Techie Controversy at Verizon Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 18:34:14 GMT > At long last, the carrier with the best signal coverage began offering > a full-featured flip phone with camera, voice dialing, speakerphone, > memory card and Bluetooth: the new Motorola v710. Best coverage, great > phone -- what more could a gadget freak want? > Unfortunately, Web sites and blogs are teeming with complaints about > one particular aspect of the v710: it's crippled Bluetooth features. And one can only imagine how long the battery life is with all this crap and backlit screens on these stupid phones today. A phone is for making and taking calls, we have cameras, TVs, walkmans and video game systems to do those things. Next these phones will have power draining mini fridges to keep your cans of pop cool in. Idiots. And all the morons who buy these things and support these companies to make and come up with more of this crap are the biggest idiots of all. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 00:07:35 +0530 From: john leo Reply-To: john leo Subject: Seeking Employment: Freelance ASP Developer / Programmer Hello, I am a software developer looking for freelance work, do you have any work that need to done? Buzz me at johnleox @ gmail.com My skill sets: VB, ASP (VBScript & Javascript), SQL Server, Access (VBA), Excel (VBA), .NET(ASP.NET / C#) Oracle, Informatica, Crystal Reports & Congos. Designer Skills PhotoShop, Flash & Dreamweaver. I can work on migration projects, supporting exsiting project and looking out for new project. If location or place of work is not important for you then buzz. Waiting for your work. I am not a expert ... but I might just have solution for your problem. johnleox @ gmail.com ------------------------------ From: T. Sean Weintz Subject: Re: Cascading Hubs (was Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Computers) Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 14:42:43 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Gordon S. Hlavenka wrote: > A hub works at the most basic level of connection (OSI layer 1) and so > it is fast but usually less efficient. A hub takes any data received > on any port and immediately transmits it to all ports. Whereas a > switch operates on a higher level (OSI layer 2 or 3) and examines the > data passing through it. Switches connect ports on-the-fly based on > MAC or IP addresses, and so they can allow much more efficient use of > your LAN wiring. But since they have to look at every packet to see > where it goes, they can't transmit the packet until they've received > and parsed a good chunk of it -- thus the latency. Gamers generally > prefer hubs (better ping times). Bull doo doo. Switch latencey is low enough that it is often times not measureable at all from a workstation -- in other words a latenecy of less than 1 millisecond. Using a switch actually IMPROVES ping times, since it does away with the big nasty drawback of using a hub, which is COLLISIONS. One should NEVER, ever, EVER use a hub with VOIP if call quality is important. ALWAYS use a switch. ------------------------------ From: AES/newspost Subject: Re: Paper Tape; Gates at Harvard Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 13:02:31 -0700 In article , W Randolph Franklin wrote: > I was there. > Harvard did not have a CS Dept. The CS program, called, IIRC, the > Center for Research in Computing Technology, was a little piece of the > Division of Engineering and Applied Physics, which, despite its name, > did little Engineering. Thanks much for this info. Just to clarify (NOT to quarrel with anything in this -- I have no real stake in the answers): 1) Did the Aiken Computational Laboratory also continue to exist at that same time, as a building and/or an organization? (I've seen references to tech reports under the ACL name dated as late as 1981, and I understand the building stood until 1998.) 2) Where was the CRCT program and its DEC machines housed? Thanks, AES '53 (AB in ESAP, predecessor to DEAP, awarded '52) ------------------------------ From: Truth Organization: http://www.x.com Subject: Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 20:14:44 GMT >> Perfectly reasonable: the antenna was the highest point and the cell >> phone was the path of least resistance, which is all it takes. > *Perhaps* a cellphone in a hand might be a path of least resistance - > thought I doubt it - most of them are made of plastic. People are not made of metal either, yet they are the path of least resistance to the ground too. The few INCHES a cellphone makes up, has no bearing what so ever on anyone getting hit by lighting. If the phone was not in the person's hand, they STILL would have gotten struck being where they were. In NO WAY did the cellphone have any effect what so ever. In NO WAY can a cellphone being used at a gas station cause an explosion. In NO WAY can a cellphone being used on an airplane cause the plane to crash. All bullshit fantasy urban legends that have been repeated so many times, that gas stations and airlines actually believe the bullshit now! If using a cellphone or walkman on a plane could cause it to crash, then all the terrorists would have to do is get on a bunch of planes, and at the same time, turn on their walkmans and cellphones and have hundreds of planes fall out of the sky and make 9/11 look like the staged demolition that it was. http://www.freedomunderground.org/memoryhole/pentagon.php#Main See if you can spot the plane anywhere in this presentation. > But I can't say I've seen any cellphone made in the last decade > where the antenna would be the highest point on a person - they're > little stubby things. You are seriously arguing over a tiny cellphone antenna that is 2 or 3 inches long, when talking about a lightning bolt reaching from the ground to the clouds? You people are insane. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 14:45:07 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 02:01:08 GMT, Tony P. wrote: > Instead of placing the blame on the woman, place it on the crappy cell > phones we have. The side tone is nearly absent on almost every cell > phone I've used over the years. There's a lack of sidetone on mobile phones because if there was an appreciable amount you'd get feedback. Plenty of people know how to use a mobile phone without shouting. The blame should be placed squarely on the shoulders of the woman who didn't have the social skills needed to realize that she needs to be considerate of those people around her and that it's not always about me me me. People make a big deal out of her being pregnant, but how is the transit officer supposed to know that she's pregnant? Being pregnant does not excuse boorish behaviour. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 19:19:06 -0400 From: Name Not Given Subject: Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest Pat, please withhold my name AND my e-mail address from publication. Normally I'd let you use my name, but this reveals some slightly personal information that I think I'd rather not have forever archived under my name (since you never know who might read it). On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 02:01:08 GMT, Tony P. wrote: > A rule BOOK? Wow -- who knew there were that many rules. RIPTA has > very few rules but they're violated every day. What ever happened to > the common courtesy of offering the elderly or those who are pregnant, > etc. a seat on a bus? I've seen a few old folks speak up about it and > I so want to cheer them on when they do. I have a thought on that which may not be popular, but I'll throw it out anyway. I think that defining certain actions as "good manners" and "proper etiquette" can have a hidden negative effect. The reason is that there are many people, and I will admit to being one of them, who are more than happy to perform some small act of kindness *when it is a completely voluntary action.* But what we don't like is being told that these things are expected of us. To me, this takes all the joy out of these acts of kindness, and turns them into mere expectations. I still remember when, as a small boy, I was walking with my mother to my grandmother's house. It was what I then considered quite a distance, probably about two or three miles, and since my parents did have a car, I wasn't accustomed to walking that far -- in fact I only remember making this walk once. But, the worst of it was that most of the trip was along a busy highway (not a limited-access highway, though) with no sidewalks -- it was a new highway; I don't think the sidewalks had been built yet. And the thing I most remember about this trip, besides the fact that it seemed like an incredibly long walk (which leads me to think I was probably only about four or five at the time) was that my mother said I should walk along side of her on the side closest to the cars that were whizzing by. When asked her why, she said that it was considered good manners for the man to walk on the side closest to traffic and the woman to walk on the inside. When I asked "why" to that, she replied, "Because if a car comes off the road the man will get killed first." Seriously, that's approximately what she said -- obviously I can't remember her exact words after all these years. Now to an adult, especially to a pair of lovers walking together, that might somehow make perfect sense, but as a child I thought that was about the meanest thing I'd ever heard (and it certainly let me know how valuable I was in my mother's mind -- yes, I did have a strange upbringing). Anyway, this happened in the early 50's which, as anyone who's ever watched "Leave it to Beaver" or "Ozzie and Harriet" knows, was a time in which good manners were almost given the weight of laws, especially insofar as children were concerned. The problem was that parents were real good about communicating "the rules", but not the reasons for the rules, and indeed, as in the case I mentioned above, the rules were often applied in situations where they made no sense. Parents often taught their kids to do certain things "because I said so" -- not every parent was Ward Cleaver! -- which is a great way to obtain compliance while the children are in their pre-teens, but not such a great way to teach life values. When good manners and etiquette are only rules, and there's no real penalty in adult life for not following the rules, people tend to shake them off. Maybe some of your bus riders were told by their parents to stand while their mother, and perhaps one or more siblings sat, and now that they are adults they have decided it's their turn to sit and they aren't going to give up their seat for anyone. But the other problem is that when people are in that mindset, no one will be the first to act. You occasionally hear stories where someone is in danger, and even though there are a bunch of perfectly healthy people watching, no one will take any action to help the person. Each individual is thinking, "There are all these other people here, let one of them do it -- why should I be the one?" By the way, if you are ever the person needing help in such a situation, and no one is helping, the trick is to pick out one person that looks like they could help and ask them directly for assistance. Don't address the crowd -- each person will think that someone else should do it. Pick out one individual and ask them for help directly, and if they turn away, then pick out another individual to ask for help. So you have a bus full of people, some of whom may be thinking, "I had to give up my seat as a kid, I'm not going to do it anymore", and others who are thinking, "There are a lot of other people on this bus, let one of them give up their seat." Then you have the final straw, which is that some people think it's an affront to their pride to be offered help, so they insult the offerer -- for example, if you've ever held open a door for a feminist and been chewed out for it, you may decide to never hold a door for a woman that you don't know personally again. Perhaps one or more of your bus riders did in fact offer their seat to someone on another day, only to be chewed out by that person because they didn't think they were "that old" and didn't appreciate the gesture. And then there are the people who won't even notice the situation. For whatever reason, the other riders on the bus are nearly invisible to them. That could be just poor manners, or it could be a mental condition (read up on Asperger's Syndrome sometime; it may help explain some of the people you've met that seem to have no social skills whatsoever). And I haven't even touched on the people that may have physical ailments you can't see -- maybe one or two of your bus riders have had back injuries that make it very painful to stand on a moving vehicle. Should they wear some sort of identification badge so you don't look down on them? I'm certainly not saying that a person should not do an act of kindness when it is warranted, regardless of upbringing or whatever. But I think it should be remembered that every individual has their own baggage. All you can really do is do your own acts of kindness when you can, because your example may inspire others to follow your lead. But if you get an attitude toward those who do not live up to your expectations, they won't even know it, but it may make you bitter and less likely to do your own acts of kindness -- you may become one of the people who has the attitude, "If no one else does it, why should I?" Now, go brighten someone's day with a random act of kindness -- not because it's expected of you or because there's some rule that says you have to, but because the world would be a much better place if everyone were just a little kinder to each other. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone is Used From: David Wilson Date: 6 Oct 2004 11:00:34 +1000 Organization: University of Wollongong > Why does NetGear warn users to be careful about selecting their country > when setting up the wireless router? The two variables seem to be > the *frequency* and the *output power*? Am I overlooking some other > variable? I assumed 802.11 always meant 802.11 on frequency, 802.11b can use up to 14 channels. The legal channels are (AFAIK): USA 1-11 Europe 1-13 Japan 1-14 France 10-13 Spain 10-11 So if you select the wrong country you may be transmitting in an unlicensed manner. David Wilson School of IT & CS, Uni of Wollongong, Australia ------------------------------ From: AES/newspost Subject: Re: More on "Social Activists" and Public Utilities Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 12:49:55 -0700 On topic or off (and top posting on my part or not), the following was an incredibly good and incredibly pointed posting. Thanks!!! In article , henry999@eircom.net (Henry) wrote: > Here is a little story you would do well to read, about one day in the > life of "Mr. & Mrs. Conservative". > http://www.e-thepeople.org/article/35475/view?viewtype= > quote: > Get up at 6:AM to prepare morning coffee. The water they fill the pot > with is cleaner because liberals fought for minimum clean water > standards. > They take daily medication with the first swallow of > coffee. Presumably medications are safer to take because some liberal > fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised. All > but $10.00 of their medications are paid for by his employers medical > plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for > paid medical insurance, now Mr. & Mrs. Conservative enjoy those > benefits too. > They take their morning showers reaching for the shampoo. Today the > bottle is better labeled with ingredients because some liberal fought > for the right to know what they are putting on their bodies. > After Mr. & Mrs. dress they walk outside and take a deep breath. The > air is cleaner because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to > stop industries from polluting our air. > They walk to the subway station for the government-subsidized ride to > work; it saves them considerable money in parking and transportation > fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public > transportation. > They start the workday; they have good jobs with excellent pay, > medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some > liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. > If Mr. or Mrs. Conservative is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed > they will get workers' compensation or an unemployment check because > some Liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his > temporary misfortune. > It's noon, Mr. Conservative needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay > some bills. His deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some > liberal wanted to protect people's money from unscrupulous bankers who > ruined the banking system before the depression. > Mr. & Mrs. Conservative have to pay the Fannie Mae underwritten > mortgage and a below market federal student loan because some stupid > liberal decided people and the government would be better off if they > were educated and earned more money over his life-time. > Mr. Conservative is home from work. He plans to visit his father this > evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the > drive to Dad's; his car is among the safest in the world because some > liberal fought for car safety standards. > He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in > the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers > didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity > until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't > belong and demanded rural electrification. (Those rural conservatives > would still be sitting in the dark!) > He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social > Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could > take care of himself so Mr. Conservative wouldn't have to. > After his visit with Dad he gets back in his car for the ride home. He > turns on a radio talk show, the host keeps saying that liberals are > bad and conservatives are good. (He doesn't say that his beloved > Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Mr. > Conservative enjoys throughout his day) Mr. & Mrs. Conservative > agree. We don't need those big government liberals ruining our lives; > after all, we are self made and believe that everyone should take care > of themselves, just like we have. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This was a good piece, and I want to thank the original poster for sending it in to us. And I think it is worth noting that if it were not for labor unions -- the people we have said in the past were so greedy and lazy, the lot of most office workers these days would be a lot worse than it is ... 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 #472 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Oct 6 15:31:41 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i96JVe006058; Wed, 6 Oct 2004 15:31:41 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 15:31:41 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410061931.i96JVe006058@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 #473 TELECOM Digest Wed, 6 Oct 2004 15:31:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 473 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Internet Grants Cut, and F.C.C. Scolded (John Stahl) Cingular Wireless New England Adds 100th Cell Site of 2004 (M Solomon) CDT Headline: Federal Court to Rehear Email Privacy Case (Monty Solomon) CDT Headline: Spyware Bills See Flurry of Action (Monty Solomon) Flood of Spam Continues, Despite Ban (Lisa Minter) Net Giants Adopt Anti-Spam System (Lisa Minter) Re: A New Phone and Techie Controversy at Verizon (Joseph) Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest (Lisa Hancock) Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest (Mark Atwood) Re: More on "Social Activists" and Public Utilities (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: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 06:16:40 -0400 From: John Stahl Subject: Internet Grants Cut, and F.C.C. Scolded Universal Fee paid by everyone each month on their phone bills intended to fund Internet services at schools, libraries, etc., being held back due (according to FCC and others connected with the fund) to new government accounting standards gets Congress ire. According to a previous article from October 4, this fund shut down "has led state administrators to either take money from other educational programs or postpone paying their phone and Internet companies." This all could further add to higher costs of education as many schools throughout the nation have wired up for Internet services. Obviously, the "search" for money to pay for these services could require school districts to increase taxes to pay for the loss of Federal funds. Internet Grants Cut, and F.C.C. Scolded By STEPHEN LABATON - NY TIMES WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 - The Federal Communications Commission came under sharp criticism in Congress on Tuesday over a series of decisions that have led to the suspension of a $2.25 billion program that pays for telephone and Internet services at public schools and libraries. The suspension, which began without notice two months ago, has caused hardships in many school districts and communities, which have had to postpone paying bills or take money from other projects. By one estimate, as much as $1 billion in expected grants could be suspended by the end of the year. The company that administers the program issued a suspension on new grants as it wrestled with new accounting standards and tighter spending limits imposed on it by the F.C.C. A hearing Tuesday before the Senate Commerce Committee had originally been called to examine waste at the so-called E-Rate program, which administers telephone and Internet services for schools and libraries. But three of the four senators present focused instead on the F.C.C.'s decision to impose tighter spending restrictions. The fourth senator, John McCain of Arizona, the Republican chairman of the committee, pressed the witnesses about what steps were being undertaken to monitor the program in light of a series of fraud cases involving telephone companies and equipment makers over the last few years. He expressed irritation that Congress had not been notified about the suspension of the program ... Complete article (needs free sign-up): http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/06/technology/06net.html?th ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 12:26:47 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cingular Wireless New England Adds 100th Cell Site of 2004 Network Enhancement Initiatives Pay Off in New England; Cingular affirms customer commitment to "best in class" wireless experience WESTWOOD, Mass, Oct. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Cingular Wireless today announced the activation of their 100th cell site in New England so far this year. The site, located in Upton, MA, represents a major milestone in the market's 2004 build plan, which is almost double the size of last year and only marks two-thirds of Cingular's planned network build in New England this year. The 100 cell sites are part of a $109 million investment in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and southern New Hampshire designed to enhance service and expand coverage in the region. By the end of this year the company plans to add 170 total cell sites -- 49 in Connecticut, 78 in Massachusetts, 23 in Rhode Island and 20 in southern New Hampshire. These new sites are intended to improve service quality and extend coverage for Cingular Wireless customers traveling in New England. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44098251 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 12:22:03 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CDT Headline: Federal Court to Rehear Email Privacy Case From: info@cdt.org Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 16:47:33 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Federal Court to Rehear Email Privacy Case A federal court of appeals has announced it will rehear its earlier decision that the wiretap laws do not apply to real-time interception of email. CDT and three other organizations had urged the court to reconsider its ruling in an amicus brief arguing that the original appeals court decision potentially created a loophole for law enforcement and ISP access to email. October 05, 2004 Rehearing Order by Court of Appeals for the First Circuit [offsite], October 05, 2004: http://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/getopn.pl?OPINION=03-1383ORD.01A Amicus Brief of Center for Democracy & Technology, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Electronic Privacy Information Center and American Library Association [PDF], September 02, 2004: http://www.cdt.org/wiretap/20040902cdt.pdf Justice Department's Petition for Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc [PDF], August 27, 2004: http://www.cdt.org/wiretap/20040827doj.pdf Policy Post 10.13: Email Privacy Protection Called into Question by Federal Appeals Court Decision, July 30, 2004: http://www.cdt.org/publications/pp_10.13.shtml United States v. Councilman Decision [PDF], June 30, 2004: http://www.cdt.org/wiretap/20040630decision.pdf More on wiretap laws: http://www.cdt.org/wiretap/wiretap_overview.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 12:22:45 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CDT Headline: Spyware Bills See Flurry of Action Subject: CDT Headline: Spyware Bills See Flurry of Action From: info@cdt.org Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 11:56:58 -0400 (EDT) The House passed an anti-spyware bill on October 5 that would give the Federal Trade Commission explicit authority over a variety of deceptive practices and require information collection software to provide notice before installation. A second bill, creating criminal penalties for the worst forms of spyware, is scheduled for consideration by the House today and is expected to pass easily. Additionally, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a spyware bill on September 28, prohibiting several deceptive spyware related practices in California. October 06, 2004 CDT Letter to Senate Commerce Committee on HR 2929, The SPY ACT [PDF], September 24, 2004: http://www.cdt.org/privacy/spyware/20040924cdtcommerce.pdf CDT Letter to Senate Judiciary Committee on HR 4661, The I-SPY Act [PDF], September 24, 2004: http://www.cdt.org/privacy/spyware/20040924cdtjudiciary.pdf Text of HR 2929, Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass Act [offsite]: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:H.R.2929: Text of HR 4661, Internet Spyware Prevention Act [offsite]: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:H.R.4661: Text of California SB 1436 [offsite]: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=sb_1436&sess=CUR&house=B&author=murray ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Flood of Spam Continues, Despite Ban Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 10:50:48 -0400 (EDT) Your inbox is probably flooded with spam, despite a federal anti-junk e-mail law that went into effect Jan. 1. Spam still accounts for about 75 percent of all e-mail, according to Postini, a California-based e-mail filtering company. Postini's Chris Smith says the overall volume of Spam is holding steady; but X-rated spam has dropped by about half since January. Smith says porno spam is now less than 1 percent of junk e-mail. Smith says spam remains a problem because junk e-mail works. He says e-mail is so cheap to send, a spammer just needs a few people to respond to make the effort profitable. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Net Giants Adopt Anti-Spam System Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 14:48:21 +0000 Some of the net's biggest players such as AOL, Hotmail and Yahoo are stepping up efforts to combat spam. http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/technology/3706828.stm ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: A New Phone and Techie Controversy at Verizon Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 07:39:59 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 18:34:14 GMT, Truth wrote: > And one can only imagine how long the battery life is with all this > crap and backlit screens on these stupid phones today. And how would you propose to have a screen show up at night? Moonlight? And FYI I have a newer phone with Bluetooth and the battery life on my phone is excellent even with the addition of Bluetooth. I can get almost two weeks of standby on my phone. Part of it is engineering as to how well a phone will be economical. > A phone is for making and taking calls, we have cameras, TVs, walkmans > and video game systems to do those things. For you all a mobile phone is for is to make and receive phone calls. Other people want other functionality. The mobile carriers realize that if they are to grow their business they have to do *something* extra to encourage their old and new subscribers to use services that will generate more revenue. Without revenue a company dies! Some of the new advances are window dressing, but others are genuinely useful or at least useful to a segment of the intended market. > Next these phones will have power draining mini fridges to keep your > cans of pop cool in. Instead of making a rational argument you instead decide to be silly! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well that is basically how I feel about cell phones as well. I *never* play the built in games; I rarely use the directory; I only rarely use the text messaging or email functions built in it. As far as I am concerned, my cell phone has two functions only: When I am not at home, my landline phone rings 3-4 times then transfers calls to my cell phone. When I am not at home, my cell phone is useful to call the cab when I want to get picked up and taken somewhere else (mostly back home) or make other incidental calls as needed. I like the fact that I only have to charge it every couple days most of the time. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest Date: 6 Oct 2004 08:45:29 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Chicago Police have a good one for you, > where any gathering of individuals (except those the police approve > of, of course) can be defined as a 'mob action', and police can order > an immediate dispersal or the 'mob' is subject to arrest, etc. So if > police tell you to 'move along' you best do so. Trouble is, it was > found to be unconstitutional, since the way the law was written it > could apply to church groups, sports groups, political assemblies, > etc. Mayor Daley was quite indignant: "well, I didn't mean a church > group, or people at Wrigley Field or the Republican convention." ACLU > told him "yeah, we know what you meant; you were talking about groups > of young black men standing on street corners, so say what you meant." Playing devil's advocate here ... How did the ACLU know with certainty that's what the mayor meant? Maybe, just maybe, what the mayor meant was young male _hoodlums_ (of any race) looking for trouble on the street corner? Groups of white kids hanging out have been known to murder black people who were merely passing by. > Well of course, Daley and his racist police would not dare to say > what they really meant. City Council has tried to pass that 'no > loitering' ordinance now five or six times (rephrasing it slightly > each time) and it has gotten shot down each time by ACLU and others. PAT] To give another point of view on urban issues: Phila once had a controversial mayor, Frank Rizzo, who was hated by liberals and African Americans. Some years after he left office he ran again. Only this time many African American communities were so disgusted with the decay of drugs and crime he was welcomed in them as the person who could clean them up. His image of "tough law and order" which years ago was seen as racist was now seen as desirable and necessary. Interesting how times and attitudes change. He died suddenly during the campaign. At his funeral there was a massive outpouring from the citizens from all walks of life. To the surprise of the liberal community and news media, a great many African Americans--some poor, some well connected -- came out and spoke of help Rizzo had done for them (things from him stopping his limo and picking up a black woman waiting for a bus in the rain to take her home, to helping black businesspeople get a loan/grants and get started). It turned out the perception of him weren't as true as people thought. The point here is that some people are quick to assume that an anti-crime attitude or law is something _more_ than that -- an attack on civil liberties, an attack on race, a "repression", etc. Maybe the strict policy on loud cellphone conversations is just that -- a policy on loud cellphone conversations and nothing more. I really think people who label such rules as "repression" cause more trouble than they solve and in the end actually make things worse for all of rest. I point to the NYC subway book of rules as an example. They weren't allowed to "pick on" homeless people disturbing others, so they had to come up with a convoluted set of rules that adversely impacts on everyone. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Regards the comparison between Rizzo and Daley, we had two Daleys, Daley I and Daley II, separated in their reigns by our one and only woman mayor (Byrne), our one and only black mayor (that was really an accident!) and another guy for a short time (Bilandic). While Daley I was reigning (4 terms, about 20 some years) Daley II, his son, was the prosecuting attorney. Daley I made no secret of his racist feelings. While Daley II was prosecutor, he set a record for having Cook County Jail filled to brimful and over- flowing with young black guys on various drug charges. How full was the Jail? So full it maxxed out at around *eight thousand* inmates, 97 percent of whom were young and black. Daley II resigned his position as Prosecutor, got elected (no problem!) as Mayor on a law-and-order platform, and continued ordering police to lock 'them' up as fast as possible. There may be some confusion in *your* mind as to what Daley meant when police were told to 'break up people who stand in groups on street corners' but no one else was confused by it. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest From: Mark Atwood Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 07:06:47 GMT Joseph writes: > There's a lack of sidetone on mobile phones because if there was an > appreciable amount you'd get feedback. That's what digital signal processors are *for*. > Plenty of people know how to use a mobile phone without shouting. Having decent mikes in them, and placing them properly would make a positive difference as well. Who is the *moron* that thought that using the smallest cheapest possible mike, placing it behind a single 1/32" hole, and designing the phone so said hole is against your cheek, would be a good idea? 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 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have one earpiece/microphone combin- ation for my cell phone, made by Plantronics, which so far as I can tell has no microphone at all, just a little plug which fits in your ear. It works great. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: More on "Social Activists" and Public Utilities Date: 6 Oct 2004 11:08:12 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com [Note--While this primarily concerns social issues, I have tried to include some connection to telecom issues where practical.] henry999@eircom.net (Henry) wrote >> social activists ... are incompetent, have hidden agendas, and do >> more harm than good for the people. > Aside from the fact, as another respondent noted, that this is an > overgeneralisation, it is an extremely naive one at that. How do you > think the world ever gets better? The prior post gave specific examples. In this newsgroup focusing on communications and public utilities, I submited examples where their actions, however well intentioned, have cost consumers more money. I believe, for example, that deadbeats are not entitled to receive utility service for free, esp when other customers have to make up the difference. As to liberalism in general, I call your attention to a memoir by Eleanor Roosevelt, "This I remember". During her time as First Lady of the nation as well as the State of NY, she championed many social changes and experiments. She reflected back on them and recognized that some of them were simply failures. It's too bad many of today's activists are unfamiliar with _all_ of her experiences and fail to take into account human nature and other issues. During the LaGuardia years as mayor of NYC, his people believed modern housing would cure social ills of the slums. They learned the hard way that having a modern kitchen and plumbing in itself does not uplift people to higher behavior standards. I am not saying we don't need social legislation, or that the New Deal was bad. We definitely have social issues that need to be addressed. What I am saying is that social activists fail to look at the hard facts of the situation and that includes looking at the numbers and respecting human nature. I don't mind my taxes paying someone genuinely unemployed, but I do expect that person to be honestly looking for new work; too many are not. Some states now have an automated phone-in system to report in each week, with little to verify that the claimant is honestly looking for new work. When one state did an audit and found people like prison inmates fraudulently collecting, social activists criticized the audit as being unfair to the poor. As to your specifics: > Get up at 6:AM to prepare morning coffee. The water they fill the pot > with is cleaner because liberals fought for minimum clean water > standards. Was it just "liberals" who fought for that? What about the conservative town fathers of 100 years who recognized that need and set up central water and sewage systems and public sanitation? > They take daily medication with the first swallow of > coffee. Presumably medications are safer to take because some > liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as > advertised. All but $10.00 of their medications are paid for by his > employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought > their employers for paid medical insurance, now Mr. & > Mrs. Conservative enjoy those benefits too. You ignore that the very high price of those medications and health care is hurting the American economy. Where is that money going? The activists don't care, but they should because everyone ends up paying, one way or another. My point remains that the activists don't like to get into the nitty gritty accounting to study and understand the real underlying issues. > After Mr. & Mrs. dress they walk outside and take a deep breath. The > air is cleaner because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to > stop industries from polluting our air. Except our planet remains very polluted. The stiff air pollution laws contributed to closing down some dirty industries -- it was cheaper to buy foreign products than pay for expensive pollution controls. So we lost jobs and commerce. Further, overseas producers have virtually no pollution controls at all and are ruining their own countries. It's gonna come back and haunt us. Further, social advocates are against nuclear power, but that doesn't kick out the air pollution or require dangerous coal mining and transport. > They walk to the subway station for the government-subsidized ride to > work; it saves them considerable money in parking and transportation > fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public > transportation. The vast majority of people drive their own car to work. In my other post I described the damage social activists do to transit. They hold down fares too low and the carrier is unable to provide decent service. Your couple will wait a long time for an overcrowded decrepit train as a result. This happened in my own city -- the transit agency needed more money but the social activists took them to court. The agency promptly cut service. The poor riders on the street saved a nickel or two for the honor of standing longer in the rain. > They start the workday; they have good jobs with excellent pay, > medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some > liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. This is partly true, it is also true that American industry did so well that it could afford to pay its workers so well. Of course, of late many jobs are losing said benefits by outsourcing. The Bell System (when it existed) provided its people with good benefits. But that has been replaced by other telephone companies who have no unions whatsoever and pay their employees far, far less. Other telecom work has been "outsourced" to people who have no job security or benefits. > It's noon, Mr. Conservative needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay > some bills. His deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some > liberal wanted to protect people's money from unscrupulous bankers who > ruined the banking system before the depression. Not too long ago unscrupulous and incompetent bankers looted the Savings & Loan system. We taxpayers paid for the bailout. How many of those bankers ended up in jail as a result? Where was the public outrage? It was only a whisper because this was an accounting problem, and social activists don't want to work with numbers. > He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social > Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could > take care of himself so Mr. Conservative wouldn't have to. The Social Security system will be broke in a few years -- they are telling the public that. As the baby boomers retire there won't be enough workers to pay for them. Social Security has had lots of programs added on to the core program over the years and some have them are unnecessary, paying nice benefits to people who really don't need them but are entitled by the law. > We don't need those big government liberals ruining our lives; > after all, we are self made and believe that everyone should take care > of themselves, just like we have. It is a fact that one outgrowth of liberalism is big govt. In the 1960s, tons of Great Society and Model Cities money flowed into cities. The cities didn't get any better, indeed, they got worse. That money created bureacracies staffed by the suburban middle class. Great opportunity for those people and business (lots of well paid consultants), but didn't help the poor or the cities. The factories still left, the middle class still left. I grew up in a big city and saw this first hand. Now society is spending millions of dollars to build new utility infrastructure in the suburbs and far-out suburbs. I wonder how many inner-city telephone customers have the same choices of competing carriers as does subscribers in nice suburbs? I wonder how many inner city houses will get the opportunity to be wired direct with fibre-optic? ------------------------------ 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. 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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 #473 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Oct 7 15:43:44 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i97JhhV17126; Thu, 7 Oct 2004 15:43:44 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 15:43:44 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410071943.i97JhhV17126@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 #474 TELECOM Digest Thu, 7 Oct 2004 15:43:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 474 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Net Song-Swappers Face New Anti-Piracy Push (Lisa Minter) Cheney Blunder Lauded Anti-Bush Web Site (Lisa Minter) SBC Ties Broadband Build to FCC Sharing Rules (Lisa Minter) 'TiVo' for Your Radio (Monty Solomon) EFFector 17.36: Don't Let "Intelligence Reforms" Take Away (M Solomon) CDT Says Copyright 'Inducement' Bill Still Overbroad (Monty Solomon) ECH With Informix Database of Avaya Definity (Jens Marder) Where is it Possible to Get List of International Pointocodes (Ariel) Re: Paper Tape; Gates at Harvard (W. Randolph Franklin) Power Device Via UTP? (Crimson_M) Avaya ACS R6.0/Lucent Anymedia/Adtran TA/Caller ID or ICLID (FDL) VOIP Home Connection (Andy G.) Free VOIP Tutorials & Whitepapers (tekjockey) Can Skype Cash In On Free? (Eric Friedebach) SX-2000 External System Speed Dial (Eric Wikman) Nortel Meridian 9516cw (Rob) Re: Cascading Hub (was Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Computers) (Hank Karl) Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? (Lisa Hancock) Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? (Thomas A. Horsley) Re: More on "Social Activists" and Public Utilities (Henry) Make Red Light Cameras Ineffective (Rodney 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: Lisa Minter Subject: Net Song-Swappers Face New Anti-Piracy Push Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 11:18:47 EDT By Bernhard Warner, European Internet Correspondent LONDON (Reuters) - A new round of lawsuits aimed at prolific Internet song-swappers could be announced as early as Thursday as music officials meet in London to discuss the next step in their global war on Internet piracy. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and British Phonographic Industry scheduled a news conference in the city for Thursday to announce "further measures in the fight against Internet piracy." IFPI and BPI officials declined on Wednesday to say whether that meant new legal action. To date, more than 3,000 people have been sued in the United States, Denmark, Germany, Italy and Canada and there has been speculation that more Internet file-sharers will be sued. Music industry officials in Britain and France, the world's third and fourth largest music markets, have said they will join the legal fight if music fans continue to download free songs from Internet file-sharing networks and share them with others. Music sales have been showing some sign of recovery, but the piracy-battered industry is still keen to use legal threats to limit usage of popular file-sharing networks such as Kazaa and eDonkey to stifle a rampant online trade in free music. BPI officials had said they would not sue in Britain until paid download services such as Apple Computer's iTunes and Napster had established themselves and campaigns to make consumers aware of the law had been run. "Lawsuits would not surprise me at all. The BPI has been saying for a long time they would do this. They just haven't said when. I would suspect the BPI would feel that by now anyone sharing songs online should know better," said Struan Robertson, a Glasgow-based technology lawyer for law firm Masons. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance Reuters News Service and Yahoo News. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Cheney Blunder Lauded Anti-Bush Web Site Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 11:35:53 EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney probably did not intend to direct millions of television viewers to a Web site calling for President Bush's defeat but that's what a slip of the domain achieved. Anyone who heeded Cheney's advice and clicked on "factcheck.com" on Wednesday morning was redirected to the site of anti-Bush billionaire investor George Soros that had a banner message saying "Why we must not reelect President Bush." The GeorgeSoros.com site later put up a notice saying that it does not own factcheck.com and was not responsible for directing readers from that site to the Soros message. "We are as surprised as anyone by this turn of events," it said. A lawyer for the factcheck.com site was not available for comment. Defending his record as Halliburton's chief executive, Cheney said in the Tuesday night debate that Democratic vice-presidential challenger John Edwards was trying to use Halliburton as a smokescreen. Any voter who wanted the facts, Cheney said, should check out factcheck.com -- which led to the Soros site. The Web site Cheney had in mind, factcheck.org, was not amused when the vice president proved that he was not master of the factcheckers' domain. Factcheck.org, run by the Annenberg Center of the University of Pennsylvania, said on its site on Wednesday that Cheney not only got the domain name confused, he had mischaracterized its fact-finding. "Cheney ... wrongly implied that we had rebutted allegations Edwards was making about what Cheney had done as chief executive officer of Halliburton," the site said on Wednesday. "In fact we did post an article pointing out that Cheney hasn't profited personally while in office from Halliburton's Iraq contracts, as falsely implied by a Kerry TV ad. But Edwards was talking about Cheney's responsibility for earlier Halliburton troubles. And in fact, Edwards was mostly right." The White House Web site annotated the debate transcript, parenthetically noting that Cheney meant factcheck.org, not factcheck.com. It linked the transcript to factcheck.org. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance Reuters News Service and Yahoo News. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: SBC Ties Broadband Build to FCC Sharing Rules Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 11:38:56 EDT By Justin Hyde NEW YORK (Reuters) - SBC Communications Inc. will speed its rollout of a fiber-optic network to consumers if federal regulators don't force the company to share those connections with competitors, its chairman said on Wednesday. SBC, the second-largest U.S. telephone company, has said it plans to spend $4 billion to $6 billion to run fiber-optic lines to neighborhoods and new homes over the next five years, offering video and high-speed data to half of the customers in its 13-state territory. But the company has recently been pressuring the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to clarify that it does not have to let competitors resell much of the upgraded network. SBC Chairman and Chief Executive Ed Whitacre told a Goldman Sachs conference that SBC could easily accelerate the five-year schedule depending on how the FCC rules. "I believe we could beat that by three years or two and a half years, and would with the proper decisions coming out of Washington," Whitacre said. "We've got the shovel in the ground. We just haven't lifted the dirt yet.

"I really need to know about the sharing arrangements on broadband, and what I have to do or don't have to do, and of course I don't want to share it," Whitacre added. FCC Chairman Michael Powell is backing a proposal that would allow SBC and other dominant local carriers to share at most only a small voice line if they run fiber-optic connections within 500 feet to homes. A vote on the proposal will likely occur Oct. 14. Whitacre said SBC's upgrade would allow it to provide customers with a connection speed of 25 megabits per second, enough for four video channels, voice service and fast Internet access. SBC plans a trial of a video service later this year, and eventually aims to sell its own television service rather than resell satellite television service from EchoStar Communications Corp. When asked about potential competition with EchoStar, Whitacre said that EchoStar would provide some of the programming to SBC's own video services, and that as part of their resell agreement SBC had control of the DISH network subscriptions that it sold. "That's our customer we get on DISH," Whitacre said. "It is our plan to migrate that over time to the terrestrial network." *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance Reuters News Service and Yahoo News. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 13:13:01 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: 'TiVo' for Your Radio By WALTER S. MOSSBERG TiVo, the digital recorder for television, has become such a cult item that folks use it as a verb -- "I'll have to TiVo the Red Sox game on Tuesday." Its fans predict it will replace the VCR as a way to do video "time-shifting" -- to record a TV show so you can watch it at a more convenient time. But what about radio? Is there a way to time-shift radio? This week, my assistant Katie Boehret and I reviewed a new device that aims to do just that. It's the radioShark, from Griffin Technology, and it acts as a sort of TiVo for radio. The $70 radioShark, so named because it looks like a shark's fin, attaches to your PC or Mac via the USB port and enables your computer to play live AM or FM radio using radioShark software. Like a TiVo, radioShark allows you to pause, rewind or fast-forward live programming. But the best part is that you can record songs or talk radio from this live feed. You can play your recordings back within the radioShark software, or send those recordings straight to a play list on Apple's iTunes music software. From there, you can even transfer the recordings to an iPod. http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/solution-20041006.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 13:32:10 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 17.36: Don't Let "Intelligence Reforms" Take Away EFFector Vol. 17, No. 36 September 30, 2004 donna@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 308th Issue of EFFector: * Action Alert: Don't Let "Intelligence Reforms" Take Away Your Rights! * EFF Wins in Diebold Copyright Abuse Case * Dangerous Ruling Menaces Rights of Free Software Programmers * Court Strikes Down Key USA PATRIOT Provision * E-voting Victory - California Gets a Paper Trail! * Court of Appeals Revives Florida E-voting Lawsuit * Op-ed: The Induce Act - A Tax on Innovators * BayFF Event - "E-voting and the Upcoming Election," Tuesday, October 12 * MiniLinks (13): The Senate's Taste for RIAA Kool-Aid * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/17/36.php ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 13:45:28 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CDT Says Copyright "Inducement" Bill Still Overbroad From: info@cdt.org Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 17:35:36 -0400 (EDT) CDT Says Copyright "Inducement" Bill Still Overbroad CDT today urged the Senate Judiciary Committee not to pass S.2560, the "Inducing Infringements of Copyright Act." Though intended to combat widespread copyright infringement on peer-to-peer networks, as drafted the bill would threaten a range valuable consumer technologies. October 06, 2004 CDT letter to Senate Judiciary Committee [PDF], October 06, 2004: http://www.cdt.org/copyright/20041006cdt.pdf ------------------------------ From: Jens Marder Subject: ECH With Informix Database of Avaya Definity ? Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 20:00:31 +0200 Organization: T-Online Hi, can anybody help me to create an external History with data from informix Database of Avaya Definity ? I have try to create an ECH based of call_rec and ag_actv table, but the result can't be able to seen ... Does someone have similar experiences, and can possibly help me? Greetz ------------------------------ From: ariel.burbaickij@gmail.com (Ariel Burbaickij) Subject: Where is it Possible to Get List of International Pointocdes Date: 7 Oct 2004 10:57:19 -0700 Hello dear newsgroup participants, Where and under what conditions is it possible to get the list of mappings of the form: International pointocde (14 bit one) ==> carier to whom the pointcode is assigned? I guess it is something similar to IIRIC /etc/names file in pre-DNS era. With Best Regards, Ariel Burbaickij ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Paper Tape; Gates at Harvard From: W Randolph Franklin Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 19:11:39 GMT According to AES/newspost : > 1) Did the Aiken Computational Laboratory also continue to > exist at that same time, as a building and/or an > organization? (I've seen references to tech reports under > the ACL name dated as late as 1981, and I understand the > building stood until 1998.) > 2) Where was the CRCT program and its DEC machines housed? SFAIK, the ACL was the name of the building. It housed CRCT (CS) HW and people on the basement and ground floor; Applied Math and more CS faculty were on the 2nd floor. However, I was only a lowly grad student, 73-78, and would have been unaware if ACL also was an organizational name at some point. The tech reports I saw were labeled, e.g, TR-12-78 (my thesis). IIRC, the Science Center didn't open until about 75. That's why Harvard students had to use a commercial timeshare company for awhile. The ACL was demolished to make way for the, very nice, new CS building, paid by Gates. The new building displays a copy of a portion of a listing of one of Gates's programs. You mightn't know it from looking at Windows, but he was technically quite good. BTW, I never talked to him. How many grad students talk to undergrads who wander in and out? There may be a lesson here. The HW has certainly improved from the days of 10cps i/o (plus a line printer), core memories with well under 1 MB, disks with 10MB, etc. However, I can't say that the SW is much better today. Harvard researchers had developed an object oriented language, EL/1, which had comparable power to C++ (lacked a few features, but had a few other features). Defining new classes in EL/1, including their interactions with other classes, was just as hard as it is in C++. All this is unrelated to Harvard's rather small main computer center, which tended to rent time on MIT machines. In contrast to many universities, Harvard's computer facilities were quite decentralized, as was Harvard. /W. Randolph Franklin ------------------------------ From: crimson_m@hotmail.com (Crimson_M) Subject: Power Device Via UTP? Date: 7 Oct 2004 08:12:59 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I know very little about the 802.3 standard and transmission lines, in general as I'm a hardware guy. But, I'm curious if you suppose it is possible to power a simple, low power device via 100/10BaseT? Consider a setup such as, Gateway/Router/etc. ========== UTP ========== Device Where the device would contain some simple hardware, just enough to communicate via TCP/IP and perform some other simple functions. I'm just thinking abstractly here and don't have any ideas on specs at all ... What do you think? ------------------------------ From: FDL Subject: Avaya ACS R6.0 / Lucent Anymedia / Adtran TA / Caller ID or ICLID Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 05:13:20 -0500 Anyone have any idea on why Caller ID would Intermittently Show up on Avaya ACS systems. The original configuration of the system was this: Lucent 5ESS Switch GR-303 to Anymedia (Co-Location) 4 Analog Loop (Loop Start) POTS Lines. Terminated at Customer Prem into Avaya ACS R6.0. Calls would Intermittently show caller ID. Caller ID boxes work 100% of the time. If you wait 30 seconds and try it it works everytime. However, if you place the calls one right after another the caller ID only shows about 70% of the time. We have since had the loop changed to a T1 with an Adtran TA system (IAD/Channel Bank) to drop off the Pots because we can manipulate the characteristics of the line(Add Impedance to the line). We have the same issue (But think there may be a problem between Adtran and Avaya ACS Also). We seem to be having multiple issues of caller ID throughout our network, all involving the AnyMedia Remote Terminals and Avaya ACS Systems. I am sure this has something to do with the FSK signal itself, rise or fall of sign wave, time of frequency shift.. something. I am pretty sure the caller ID boxes work as they probably are more tolerant of ranges. Has anyone else ran into these problems? ------------------------------ From: andyg2@verizon.net (Andy G.) Subject: VOIP Home Connection Date: 6 Oct 2004 13:05:07 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I am considering signing up for VOIP service and have been reading websites of the various providers to try to figure out how to wire my whole house. According to Vonage, you can run a wire from the adapter to a phone jack and (as long as the line is disconnected totally from the phone co. and there is no curerent) all jacks would work. I asked Verizon about this, they said that it's not supported. ATT says that they'll send out a wiring tech for a fee to hook up the whole house. What is the science here? I would sign up with Vonage, but they do not have available the area code that I want. Thanks. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is no science here. Vonage is correct, Verizon is ignorant and AT&T are charlatans. Do the job yourself in a few minutes. As Vonage notes, **keep the existing live telephone wires away from the Vonage (or other) telephone adapter.** After you have made certain there is *no dial tone* from telco (just split the pair(s) at the demarc for example) and also make certain you do not hear the battery or any 'side tone' on the remaining pairs, then attach the output of your telephone adapter to the nearest modular box in your house. You should get dial tone from the telephone adapter box (assuming your internet connection is up and running correctly) at every modular terminal in common, every modular terminal which shares wire pairs with (the former) telephone line. If you have a two line phone (or similar), the wiring gets a wee bit more complex but you can run Vonage through the second pair (typically the black and yellow wires, leaving telco to use the first pair (typically the red and green wires). If you do that, Vonage and telco sharing the same cable run, each on pairs of their own, **be absolutely positive** the unused pair you are taking over for Vonage is totally disconnected at the demarc, the pole, the basement head end, or wherever, since telco has a bad habit of taking over unused pairs for other customers and forgetting to open any multiples along the way. Wouldn't it be a kick in your posterior to find out telco had installed a second line for some neighbor of yours, and had grabbed your supposedly unused pair to do the job? You might want to review the schematics Jack Decker has on line on his VOIP News to make sure you get it right. In any event, don't pay AT&T to do this, and don't listen to Verizon. PAT] ------------------------------ From: terrence.wong@gmail.com (tekjockey) Subject: Free VOIP Tutorials and Whitepapers Date: 6 Oct 2004 22:03:18 -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: friedebach@yahoo.com (Eric Friedebach) Subject: Can Skype Cash In On Free? Date: 7 Oct 2004 08:58:42 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com David M. Ewalt, 10.06.04, Forbes.com NEW YORK - Skype Technologies made a name for itself providing a free Internet telephone program to users around the world. Now it's time to cash in. The company announced today it's planning to launch a paid service for businesses and expand its premium offerings. "We will be making a special offering towards business users sometime next year in order to better serve their specific needs," says Chief Executive Niklas Zennstrom. Changes to the software will include the ability to integrate Skype's software into corporate intranets or calling directories, allowing users to click on a co-worker's name and automatically initiate a call, as well as simplified group billing for its existing SkypeOut service. Zennstrom said a price has not yet been set. http://www.forbes.com/2004/10/06/cx_de_1006telecom.html Eric Friedebach /Favorite OnStar commercial: crying woman drops keys in toilet/ ------------------------------ From: eric.wikman@gmail.com (Eric Wikman) Subject: SX-2000 External System Speed Dial Date: 7 Oct 2004 09:14:55 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I am trying to setup a system speed dial to point to an external number and am having a problem with it. It works fine if you dial the external number from within the building, but if you call in from outside the office and type the extension in from the automated attendant it puts you on hold for about 3 seconds and then hangs up. If I set the Interflow on an ACD path to the new system speed dial it works fine if you reached the ACD number from within the building, but if you dial into the ACD path from an external source it plays the automated attendant message when the path interflows instead of forwarding the call to the external number. My true goal is the interflow. When the in-house call center is backed up, we want to send the calls to an external call center that is not on a compatible phone system. I have it setup at the moment to interflow to an extension in the building that is set to call forward always to the external number and it works as expected if there is an interflow timeout, but not when there is an interflow because no agents are logged in. I don't really want to waste an extension for this purpose, but if I could get that working when the path is unavailable I would be happy. Does anyone know what I am doing wrong or what else I can try? Eric ------------------------------ From: Rob Subject: Nortel Meridian 9516cw Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 16:17:02 GMT I was thinking of buying one of these because I need an answering machine that can deal with multiple outgoing messages based on distinctive ring. This phone gives me that plus a LOT more. Then I saw the nortel 9617, this is pretty slick with the USB interface and PC software, but it doesn't appear to do the thing I need most. So I started thinking, these phones are pretty old, is there someone making a phone that will do what I want with the distinctive ring that also has a PC interface with a lot of cool features? I like the 9516 calling you after you get a call to let you know someone left a message, I'm thinking with a PC based phone, you could maybe have an email or SMS sent instead. Any thoughts on products I should look at? Thanks! ------------------------------ From: Hank Karl Subject: Re: Cascading Hubs (was Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Computers) Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 14:55:24 -0400 Organization: NETPLEX Internet Services - http://www.ntplx.net/ On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 01:39:55 GMT, Nick Landsberg wrote: > I have my primary machine plugged into the router and the other > machines plugged into a hub which is plugged into the router. These > onthers don't do much internet duty (a couple of old iMacs and an > ancient Win95 box). I got the hub back about 5-6 years ago to wire up > two of the Mac's and the Win95 box together, and, as I recall, it was > about 40 USD back then. If you are patient, you can shop around on > the internet to see who's having the latest sale and get a really good > price, Pat. Don't forget the local stores. Office Max wants $20 for a five port switch. The shipping charge may be much more expensive than the discount you get on-line. >> Gordon S. Hlavenka http://www.crashelectronics.com >> "If we imagined he could _find_ the car, >> we could pretend it might be fixed." - Calvin > "It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so > ingenious" - A. Bloch ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? Date: 6 Oct 2004 13:33:38 -0700 David Clayton wrote: > The train system in my city uses the "trip stop" system, but a few > months ago at the end of a line a driver got out of his cabin (for a > "pit stop") but left both trip stops up and the brakes off. I think there is a misunderstanding. The train motorman has no control over the trip stops, they are a trackside mechanism controlled by the signals. In North America, if the brakes were left off and the train rolled, it would hit a red signal and be "tripped" before hitting another train. But a word about manual overrides: Subway systems typically allow the motorman to override the tripstop so he can proceed through a red signal -- under certain circumstances. The rules are quite strict that when doing so the motorman must be prepared to stop well short of any obstruction, another train, or broken rail -- in essence, to only creep along. In practice this was used to follow closer behind a departing train into a station to save a little time. Unfortunately, motorman error in such cases has resulted in accidents, and some systems have outlawed bypassing the tripstop. It is also a tradeoff between convenience and safety and an ongoing debate. A word about railroad signals: Tripstops are normally only used on subway-elevated rapid transit systems. The mainline railroads used other techniques. It is not desirable to force an emergency stop on a freight train or a high speed passenger train since it can derail and cause other problems, though various forms of machine protection have been installed, especially where passengers are carried. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? From: tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 22:40:09 GMT > In NO WAY can a cellphone being used at a gas station cause an > explosion. I bet I could use some metal part on the cellphone to strike a spark to light gas fumes to ignite a fuse to set off dynamite at a gas station :-). Of course, I'd need to have the flint and the dynamite as well as the cell phone ... (The MythBusters TV show did an episode on cell phones and gas stations. Turns out that people getting in and out of the car sliding on the seat often generate a static charge, and that is the primary cause of most gas station fires, but even then there is no explosion, just a fire). >>==>> The *Best* political site >>==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL | Free Software and Politics <<==+ ------------------------------ From: henry999@eircom.net (Henry) Subject: Re: More on "Social Activists" and Public Utilities Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 07:21:51 +0300 Organization: Elisa Internet customer Lisa Hancock wrote: >> social activists ... are incompetent, have hidden agendas, and do >> more harm than good for the people. You are obviously very firm in your beliefs and I can see that I'm not going to sway you with mere logic. Therefore, I would just like to clarify a couple of points and then I'm going to let this matter go. You say: > henry999@eircom.net (Henry) wrote and > As to your specifics: It was perfectly clear that I was quoting a published source, for which I gave a proper citation. These are not _my_ specifics. > ... In my other > post I described the damage social activists do to transit. They hold > down fares too low and the carrier is unable to provide decent > service. Your couple will wait a long time for an overcrowded > decrepit train as a result. Again, they are not _my_ couple. Anyway, it seems to me that the nature of your wrong-headedness is best exemplified in claims such as this: > It is a fact that one outgrowth of liberalism is big govt. "It is a fact," you say. You are so _sure_ of yourself. Do you consider George W. Bush a liberal? If not, how then do you explain _his_ astronomical expansion of "big govt."? Writing about a year ago, the (conservative) columnist Andrew Sullivan quoted a study by the (conservative) Brookings Institution which noted: "the Bush administration has also ramped up the numbers of people working for the federal government to a 13-year high." http://www.andrewsullivan.com/main_article.php?artnum=20030905 Oh, well -- don't let little things like this get in the way of your certainties, such as 'liberalism = big govt.'. Cheers, Henry ------------------------------ From: rodneysmith Subject: Make Red Light Cameras Ineffective Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 19:16:55 EDT [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I fished this out of my spam bucket yesterday. I am NOT interested in selling this sort of crap but I would be interested in knowing how it is done. I thought anything the human eye could see/discern, a camera lense could do the same thing, and likewise, to deliberatly obliterate a license plate (remove it, cover it up, etc) to keep a *human eye* from being able to see/discern is definitly illegal. So how does this spray, or vapor or whatever it is work? Anyone? PAT] ========================== Have You Been Caught By A New Traffic Camera Yet? Render them completely ineffective with the amazing PHOTO BLOCKER SPRAY! As seen on T*V, reported 100% effective by Fox and CBS news and many other stations. Visit our website for more information and see actual tv news videos and what actual police had to say. Don't let them take your cash in a flash. Make your LICENSE PLATE INVISIBLE. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Somehow I accidentally deleted the part of the message with his URL for inquiries. PAT] Regards, Photo Blocker Customer Service PS: This revolutionary product makes your license plate COMPLETELY INVISIBLE to ALL FORMS of photo enforcement! You will NEVER BE CAUGHT by red light cameras or speed enforcement cameras, or your money back. NBC NEWS: The product works ... state law makes outlawed plate covers, but the statute doesn't address sprays. ------------------------------ 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 #474 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Oct 7 22:49:34 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i982nYF20634; Thu, 7 Oct 2004 22:49:34 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 22:49:34 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410080249.i982nYF20634@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 #475 TELECOM Digest Thu, 7 Oct 2004 22:49:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 475 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telephone Numbers to Words Program (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: Power Device Via UTP? (T. Sean Weintz) Re: Power Device Via UTP? (Rick Merrill) Re: Power Device Via UTP? (Bob Vaughan) Re: VOIP Home Connection (Frank@Nospam.com) Anybody Used DCI Telecom Long Distance in Canada? (Darko) Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? (David Clayton) Re: Phishing: Latest Spam/Scam; Very Dangerous (jdj) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (jdj) 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. =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 16:45:04 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subect: Telephone Numbers to Words Program A few days ago, someone wrote to the Digest expressing his difficulty and frustration at finding words/phrases appropriate to his business and toll free telephone numbers which would work with those words/phrases. We referred him to Judith Oppenheimer of New York City who has considerable experience with toll-free 800 numbers, both obtaining them and keeping them. What I didn't do, however was refer him to our own archives where we have a program originally written for Unix computers which does what he was asking about. So I am going to reprint it here today for him, or any other reader who wishes to play with it. From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Mar 19 09:10:57 1997 Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 09:10:57 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Word/Number Program Subject: Number/Word Program Date: Tue, 18 Mar 97 12:52:09 PDT From: rweller@h-e.com Organization: Hammett & Edison, Inc. Pat, I am re-sending separately the number/word program in binhex form. In case you have problems with it, I am sending the source code in two parts as plain text. Regards, Bob /*------------------------------------------------------------------- number2word.c Program to find word equivalents to telephone numbers, or convert letter strings to numbers. In number-to-word mode, a search is made for valid words based on a list read from a dictionary file. Optionally, the word search may be turned off to print out all possible letter iterations. Command-line options: -r Reverse mode, convert letter strings to numbers (numbers to words is the default mode). -a In number to word mode, suppress the dictionary check for valid words and print out all possible letter combinations. -d file Use the named file as the word dictionary, it must contain a list of words one per line in alphabetical order. If not specified, "words" in the current directory is the default. -s Rudimentary pluralization of words, if the last letter of a word being checked is 's' and there is no match for the whole word, drop the 's' and try again. Normally the word must match a dictionary word exactly. -q Include 'q' and 'z' in the conversions, with 'q' on the 7 key and 'z' on the 9. Normally these letters are not used when converting numbers to words, and are illegal when converting strings to numbers. -0 0-o and 1-i mode. With this option, 'o' is removed from its normal position on the 6 and made equivalent to 0, similarily 'i' is moved from the 4 to the 1. Without this, 0 and 1 are illegal when converting numbers to words, and are not used when converting strings to numbers. Following any options on the command line are numbers or strings to be converted. Number arguments may contain letters in number to word mode, and strings may contain numbers in reverse mode. In the first case, any letters will first be converted back to numbers, so all iterations of other letters on the same number key will be checked. In the second case, the numbers are simply passed through unchanged. In either mode, the arguments may contain separator characters, anything that is not [0-9A-Za-z] is a separator. Separators are passed through unchanged, but in either mode a separator cannot be the first or last character of an argument, and no two separators may be sequential within the argument. As indicated above, arguments for number to word conversion must not contain digits 0 or 1 unless the option "-0" appears, and arguments for reverse conversion must not contain 'q' or 'z' unless "-q" appears. In number to word mode, the arguments must not contain more than a maximum number of digits, not counting separators. The limit is defined below as MAXNUM. The number of letter iterations to check will increase geometrically with the number of digits, so setting MAXNUM very large might make this take a very long time. 10 is the recommended value. In number to word mode, separators are viewed as breaking the number into sub-strings. During the word search, two approaches are used. First a search is made for a word match to the entire number, ignoring separators, then a search is made for words that match each sub-string. For example, "223-6636" will yield both "abdomen" and "bad-omen". "Release notes": The word search is only as good as the dictionary file, a very basic one with words up to 10 characters ought to be used along with this source file, but it can undoubtedly be improved. This is left as an exercise for the interested student. This was written for a Unix environment, and tested under a couple of flavors (ULTRIX 3.1, Linux 2.0.28), but that's as far as it goes. I did this as a favor for a friend and not primarily for distribution, and I don't have the time to deal with support for other platforms. You're welcome to do whatever you want with it to make it work on your favorite OS/machine, but frankly I don't want to hear about it, hence the lack of anything here like my name/e-mail address. Good luck! */ /*-------------------------------------------------------------------- Header files. */ #include #include #include /*-------------------------------------------------------------------- Constants and parameters. */ #define MAXNUM 10 /* Max number of digits in a number for word conversion. */ #define DICTNAME "words" /* Default dictionary file name. */ #define WORDALLOC 2500 /* Allocation increment for word storage. */ /*-------------------------------------------------------------------- Function prototypes. */ void loadwords(FILE *, int *); void tonumbers(char *); void toletters(char *, int); void findwords(char *); int checkword(char *, int); /*------------------------------------------------------------------- Globals. */ struct { /* Dictionary word lists, one for each word length. */ int nword[26]; /* Number of words for each first letter. */ char *index[26]; /* Pointers to first word for each letter. */ char *block; /* Word storage. */ } Words[MAXNUM]; int Mode = 1; /* True for numbers to words, false for letters to numbers. */ int Nosearch = 0; /* True to suppress word search and show all iterations. */ int Plurals = 0; /* True to allow 's' at the end of any matching word. */ int Qmode = 0; /* True to include 'q'<->7 and 'z'<->9. */ int Zeromode = 0; /* True to make 'o'<->0 and 'i'<->1. */ int Nsub; /* Substring info - number, length, and start of all */ int Slen[MAXNUM]; /* substrings in a number being converted to words, */ char *Subs[MAXNUM]; /* global to avoid duplication in recursion. */ /*-------------------------------------------------------------------- Main routine. */ main( int argc, char **argv) { FILE *dict; int n, i, s, iopt, istart, subl, lenflag[MAXNUM]; char *p, *dname, str[(2 * MAXNUM) + 1]; /* Set the default dictionary file name. */ dname = DICTNAME; /* Begin parsing command line, look for options. This supports "-a -b -c" or "-abc" forms, or any mixture. */ iopt = 1; while (iopt < argc) { p = argv[iopt]; if (*p != '-') { break; } for (p++; *p; p++) { switch (*p) { case 'r': /* Switch to letter to number mode. */ Mode = 0; break; case 'a': /* Turn off word-search mode. */ Nosearch = 1; break; case 'd': /* Next arg has name for dictionary file. */ if (++iopt >= argc) { break; } dname = argv[iopt]; break; case 's': /* Set flag to check for pluralized words. */ Plurals = 1; break; case 'q': /* Include 'q' and 'z'. */ Qmode = 1; break; case '0': /* Make 0 be 'o' and 1 be 'i'. */ Zeromode = 1; break; default: /* What? */ iopt = argc; break; } if (iopt >= argc) { break; } } iopt++; } /* Done with options, there must be some more arguments to process. Also iopt >= argc if an error occurred above. */ if (iopt >= argc) { fprintf(stderr, "usage: %s [-radsq0] arg ...\n", argv[0]); fputs(" -r convert strings to numbers\n", stderr); fputs(" -a print all letter iterations\n", stderr); fputs(" -d use next arg as name of dictionary file\n", stderr); fputs(" -s append 's' to every word in dictionary\n", stderr); fputs(" -q include 'q' <-> 7 and 'z' <-> 9\n", stderr); fputs(" -0 make 'o' <-> 0 and 'i' <-> 1\n", stderr); exit(1); } /* Scan the arguments and check for errors. In number to word mode, check the number of digits against the max, check for 0 and 1 unless Zeromode is true, also track the possible sub-string lengths so that words of all required lengths can be loaded into the dictionary later. In letter to number mode, check for 'q' and 'z' unless Qmode is true. In either mode, check for a separator as the first/last character or two separators in a row. Also, all the arguments get converted to lower-case in place. */ istart = iopt; for (n = 0; n < MAXNUM; n++) { lenflag[n] = 0; } for (; iopt < argc; iopt++) { n = 0; subl = 0; s = -1; for (p = argv[iopt]; *p; p++) { *p = tolower(*p); if (isalnum(*p)) { s = 0; if (Mode) { if (!Zeromode) { if ((*p == '0') || (*p == '1')) { fprintf(stderr, "%s: in '%s': '0' or '1' not allowed\n", argv[0], argv[iopt]); exit(1); } } n++; subl++; } else { if (!Qmode) { if ((*p == 'q') || (*p == 'z')) { fprintf(stderr, "%s: in '%s': 'q' or 'z' not allowed\n", argv[0], argv[iopt]); exit(1); } } } } else { if (s) { if (s < 0) { fprintf(stderr, "%s: in '%s': illegal leading separator\n", argv[0], argv[iopt]); } else { fprintf(stderr, "%s: in '%s': illegal repeated separator\n", argv[0], argv[iopt]); } exit(1); } s = 1; if (Mode) { lenflag[subl - 1] = 1; if (Plurals && (subl > 1)) { lenflag[subl - 2] = 1; } subl = 0; } } } if (s) { fprintf(stderr, "%s: in '%s': illegal trailing separator\n", argv[0], argv[iopt]); exit(1); } if (Mode) { if ((n < 1) || (n > MAXNUM)) { fprintf(stderr, "%s: in '%s': illegal digit count\n", argv[0], argv[iopt]); exit(1); } lenflag[subl - 1] = 1; if (Plurals && (subl > 1)) { lenflag[subl - 2] = 1; } lenflag[n - 1] = 1; if (Plurals && (n > 1)) { lenflag[n - 2] = 1; } } } /* Load the dictionary file, if needed. Only words of lengths equal to possible word lengths in the actual arguments are loaded. */ if (Mode && !Nosearch) { if ((dict = fopen(dname, "r")) == NULL) { fprintf(stderr, "%s: unable to open dictionary file '%s'\n", argv[0], dname); exit(1); } loadwords(dict, lenflag); fclose(dict); } /* Main loop over arguments. First make a copy of the argument. In number to word mode, run the arg through tonumbers() in case it contains any letters, then print it out. Then build the substring locations in globals so this doesn't need to be done repeatedly on every letter iteration (the separators are not going to move around or change). Finally call toletters(), which recursively handles number to letter conversions and calls the routine findwords() at the bottom to search for word matches. In letter to number mode, simply echo the argument, call tonumbers(), and print the result. */ for (iopt = istart; iopt < argc; iopt++) { strcpy(str, argv[iopt]); if (Mode) { tonumbers(str); putchar('\n'); puts(str); Nsub = 0; Slen[0] = 0; Subs[0] = str; for (p = str; *p; p++) { if (isdigit(*p)) { Slen[Nsub]++; } else { Slen[++Nsub] = 0; Subs[Nsub] = p + 1; } } Nsub++; toletters(str, 0); } else { putchar('\n'); puts(str); tonumbers(str); puts(str); } } putchar('\n'); exit(0); } /*--------------------------------------------------------------------- Routine reads in the word dictionary. */ void loadwords( FILE *in, /* Input stream. */ int *lenflg) /* Flags indicate which word lengths to load. */ { int i, n, ilet[MAXNUM], count[MAXNUM], max[MAXNUM]; char *p, word[50], letter[MAXNUM], *nextword[MAXNUM]; /* Initialize, zero out all the word lists. */ for (n = 0; n < MAXNUM; n++) { letter[n] = 'a' - (char)1; ilet[n] = -1; count[n] = 0; max[n] = 0; Words[n].block = NULL; for (i = 0; i < 26; i++) { Words[n].nword[i] = 0; Words[n].index[i] = NULL; } } /* Read and store words. A word with any non-letter in it is ignored, as are words more than MAXNUM letters long. All words are converted to lower- case also. This assumes the input list is already in alphabetical order. The words are stored without null termination, since the length of all the words in one structure is the same. Allocation is in chunks of WORDALLOC words for all lengths. */ while (fgets(word, 50, in)) { n = 0; for (p = word; *p; p++) { if (*p == '\n') { *p = '\0'; break; } if (!isalpha(*p)) { n = 0; break; } *p = tolower(*p); n++; } if ((n < 1) || (n > MAXNUM)) { continue; } if (!lenflg[--n]) { continue; } if (max[n] == 0) { Words[n].block = (char *)malloc(WORDALLOC * (n + 1)); nextword[n] = Words[n].block; max[n] = WORDALLOC; } else { if (count[n] == max[n]) { Words[n].block = (char *)realloc(Words[n].block, (max[n] + WORDALLOC) * (n + 1)); nextword[n] = Words[n].block + (max[n] * (n + 1)); max[n] += WORDALLOC; } } if (*word != letter[n]) { if (*word < letter[n]) { fputs("**dictionary file is not sorted, exiting\n", stderr); exit(1); } ilet[n] += (int)(*word - letter[n]); letter[n] = *word; } strncpy(nextword[n], word, (n + 1)); Words[n].nword[ilet[n]]++; count[n]++; nextword[n] += n + 1; } /* Compute all the word index pointers in the structures, these couldn't be done on the fly because they all break if realloc() moves the block. */ for (n = 0; n < MAXNUM; n++) { if (count[n] == 0) { continue; } p = Words[n].block; for (i = 0; i < 26; i++) { if (Words[n].nword[i] == 0) { continue; } Words[n].index[i] = p; p += Words[n].nword[i] * (n + 1); } } } /*------------------------------------------------------------------------ Routine converts letters to numbers in string. */ void tonumbers( char *str) /* String to convert. */ { char *p; /* Do it. */ for (p = str; *p; p++) { switch (*p) { case 'a': case 'b': case 'c': *p = '2'; break; case 'd': case 'e': case 'f': *p = '3'; break; case 'g': case 'h': *p = '4'; break; case 'i': if (Zeromode) { *p = '1'; } else { *p = '4'; } break; case 'j': case 'k': case 'l': *p = '5'; break; case 'm': case 'n': *p = '6'; break; case 'o': if (Zeromode) { *p = '0'; } else { *p = '6'; } break; case 'p': case 'q': case 'r': case 's': *p = '7'; break; case 't': case 'u': case 'v': *p = '8'; break; case 'w': case 'x': case 'y': case 'z': *p = '9'; break; } } } /*--------------------------------------------------------------------- Routine to convert numbers to letters. This is recursive, the main call is for the first digit, each recursive call for a subsequent digit. Digits are replaced by letters in place in the passed string. At the deepest level, findwords() is called to check the converted string for words. Each digit is restored for the next recursive pass. */ void toletters( char *str, /* String being converted. */ int p) /* Digit to work on. */ { char *l, savenum; int q; /* Skip past a separator, earlier checks make it safe to assume there are never two separators in a row nor a separator at the very end. */ if (!isalnum(str[p])) { p++; } /* Set possible letter string for the digit. If '0' or '1' appear it is save to assume Zeromode is true due to earlier checks. */ switch (str[p]) { case '0': l = "o"; break; case '1': l = "i"; break; case '2': l = "abc"; break; case '3': l = "def"; break; case '4': if (Zeromode) { l = "gh"; } else { l = "ghi"; } break; case '5': l = "jkl"; break; case '6': if (Zeromode) { l = "mn"; } else { l = "mno"; } break; case '7': if (Qmode) { l = "pqrs"; } else { l = "prs"; } break; case '8': l = "tuv"; break; case '9': if (Qmode) { l = "wxyz"; } else { l = "wxy"; } break; } /* Loop over letters, recurse. If at the bottom, if Nosearch is true just print out the string, otherwise call findwords(), it will print out the string if a match is found. */ q = p + 1; savenum = str[p]; while (*l) { str[p] = *l; if (str[q]) { toletters(str, q); } else { if (Nosearch) { puts(str); } else { findwords(str); } } l++; } str[p] = savenum; } /*---------------------------------------------------------------------- Routine to take a number converted to a letter string and search it for words that match the dictionary list. */ void findwords( char *str) /* Converted string to search for words. */ { int i, wlen; char *p, whole[MAXNUM + 1]; /* Make a copy of the string with separators stripped and check for a whole string word match. Skip this if there is only one substring, in that case the substring is the whole string and this is redundant. */ if (Nsub > 1) { wlen = 0; for (i = 0; i < Nsub; i++) { strncpy((whole + wlen), Subs[i], Slen[i]); wlen += Slen[i]; } whole[wlen] = '\0'; if (checkword(whole, wlen)) { puts(whole); } } /* Check for substring matches, all must match for success. */ for (i = 0; i < Nsub; i++) { if (!checkword(Subs[i], Slen[i])) { return; } } puts(str); } /*---------------------------------------------------------------------- Routine to compare a string of known length to dictionary, return true or false for match. */ int checkword( char *w, /* Word string, is *not* null terminated. */ int n) /* Length. */ { int i, j, l; char *c; /* Do it. */ j = (int)(*w - 'a'); if ((l = Words[n - 1].nword[j]) > 0) { for (i = 0, c = Words[n - 1].index[j]; i < l; i++, c += n) { if (strncmp(w, c, n) == 0) { return(1); } } } /* No match, if Plurals flag is true and the last letter is an 's', check again for words one letter shorter. */ if (Plurals && (n > 1) && (w[n - 1] == 's')) { n--; if ((l = Words[n - 1].nword[j]) > 0) { for (i = 0, c = Words[n - 1].index[j]; i < l; i++, c += n) { if (strncmp(w, c, n) == 0) { return(1); } } } } return(0); } --------- cut here ----------- This is an interesting program. Yes, it could be put on a web page, and that page could allow conversions in either direction (numbers to words, words to numbers), in fact it has been. But, before an effort you go to an effor on this, check these sites: Both ways: http://www.dialabc.com/ <-- very interesting and comprehensive! http://www.phonespelling.com/ http://www22.verizon.com/Vanity/ Number to words: http://www.phonespell.org/ http://labrocca.com/phone/ Words to numbers: http://www.phonetic.com/ (I found those with a Google search: phone number to word.) Unix is still a good OS, but so any folks are using Windows these days. If you feel like it, make the changes needed for Windows or the OS of your choice from the script above. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ From: T. Sean Weintz Subject: Re: Power Device Via UTP? Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 16:21:13 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Crimson_M wrote: > I know very little about the 802.3 standard and transmission lines, in > general as I'm a hardware guy. But, I'm curious if you suppose it is > possible to power a simple, low power device via 100/10BaseT? Consider > a setup such as, > Gateway/Router/etc. ========== UTP ========== Device > Where the device would contain some simple hardware, just enough to > communicate via TCP/IP and perform some other simple functions. > I'm just thinking abstractly here and don't have any ideas on specs at > all ... What do you think? YES! It is possible. There is in fact a standard for doing exactly that - the 802.3af "power over ethernet"or PoE standard. Many devices are supporting this now -- especially IP phones for PBX systems, wireless access points, and 3com even makes mini ethernet switches that draw their power from a central switch using PoE. Lemme know if you want more info. ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Power Device Via UTP? Organization: Comcast Online Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 20:33:57 GMT Crimson_M wrote: > I know very little about the 802.3 standard and transmission lines, in > general as I'm a hardware guy. But, I'm curious if you suppose it is > possible to power a simple, low power device via 100/10BaseT? No, but CAT5 yes. ------------------------------ From: techie@tantivy.stanford.edu (Bob Vaughan) Subject: Re: Power Device Via UTP? Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 23:29:08 UTC Organization: Tantivy Associates In article , Crimson_M wrote: > I know very little about the 802.3 standard and transmission lines, in > general as I'm a hardware guy. But, I'm curious if you suppose it is > possible to power a simple, low power device via 100/10BaseT? Consider > a setup such as, > Gateway/Router/etc. ========== UTP ========== Device > Where the device would contain some simple hardware, just enough to > communicate via TCP/IP and perform some other simple functions. > I'm just thinking abstractly here and don't have any ideas on specs at > all ... What do you think? Certainly ... It's called Power_Over_Ethernet, and is commonly used to power wireless access points, and similar devices. See http://www.nycwireless.net/poe for a tutorial on building your own POE adaptors. -- 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: Frank@Nospam.com Subject: Re: VOIP Home Connection Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 22:50:48 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net > the way. Wouldn't it be a kick in your posterior to find out telco had > installed a second line for some neighbor of yours, and had grabbed > your supposedly unused pair to do the job? And, that could happen any time after you connect the inside wiring to your Vonage adapter. Moral: Don't use the inside wire for Vonage unless you disconnect the telco side at the Network Interface Device. > In any event, don't pay AT&T to do this, and don't listen to > Verizon. PAT] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh, you are absolutely correct! Especially so in larger inner city older neighborhoods where telco tends to run short on cable pairs a lot of times anyway. Here is a real life example: A long-time friend of mine who lived in Chicago many years ago as I did lived with his parents on the west side. The parents had their own phone lines; my friend had a private phone of his own in his bedroom, not connected in any way or associated with his parent's line. A separate pair coming in from the pole. One day in his experiments, he got into the modular jack in his bedroom, saw his own phone there, of course, and there was the other pair tied on there as well. As neat as could be, phone-man style, not just some spaghetti mound of wires as you might find in a do-it-yourself kind of wiring. He listened on that pair and heard dial tone. This got him quite curious: it was not his parent's phone pair, so who was it? Back in those days, you got ring-back by dialing '571-6' in Chicago. So he dialed the ring-back code and waited for an answer, which came soon enough. A lady who answered told him she was across the alley and down the street a block or so, and she told him her phone had just been installed a day or two earlier. *Someone* -- some outside plant tech guy had put in that lady's phone but had failed to go down the alley and open up any multiples on the line. In phone jargon, a 'multiple' is any place on a cable run where a pair (of wires) makes an appearance. Its very common in older outside plant (dating back, lets say to the 1940-50 era) in dense inner city areas, to do it that way: string one cable with maybe 500 pairs therein down the alley, open each pair at each possible location or house, and attach it to the demarc. In the 1940-50 era, things were 'different' than they are today in terms of people, communities, and telephony. In those days, as people moved around (not very often, I might add), when someone moved in somewhere, the pair (within that cable) was given to them (like today), but other dwelling places on that block or within the reach of that cable had that pair lifted off *their* demarc. A very effecient and very inexpensive way of doing things. But, things were 'different' in those times. In the last building I lived in while I was in Chicago, the *big* demarc in the building basement had several hundred pairs all terminated there, and two very distinct memories I have were of a large cluster of wires with a string tag on them saying "this fifty pairs serves the switchboard at (address)", which was across the street and down the block; an ancient old building where the lobby switchboard had been removed entirely a dozen years earlier! And the string-tag was dated *April, 1922* by a long-forgotten, long-dead phone man. And I recall that I was on 'Rogers Cable 2712, pair 83'. (Rogers Park was the name of the central office.) If people in large cities only knew how they are getting ripped off by Illinois Bell, New York Telephone and other telcos who sell them a 'private line' but never bother to mention how in fact the cable bringing them their phone line has at least a dozen multiples or splices on each pair along the way, most of which terminate in *other people's homes* and an unscrupulous, dishonest person could easily tap their line and listen to them or place calls on their line. (You know the old service rep gag, when they are trying to get you to pay your bill: "but sir, it was a direct dialed call, *you had to have made the call*.") And when you raise enough hell with them and defy them to cut off your phone for non-payment then maybe they will send a guy out to check the wires and see what you claimed was really true. So, by all means, Frank, if you are planning to dump Bell entirely -- and who wouldn't if they had a practical solution to it -- then yes, cut them off at the demarc totally. But, as an expedient solution, if you plan to keep at least one backup line from Bell in your house, as most of us do, then make *very certain* that at least the pair you are going to use for Vonage does not reach the demarc, cause chances are likely, if Bell needs it they will just take it anyway. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dv_temp-01@yahoo.com (Darko) Subject: Anybody used DCI Telecom Long Distance in Canada? Date: 7 Oct 2004 14:33:51 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com DCI Telecom have post-paid dial arround plans with good rates and no setup or monthly fees. Is anybody aware of any problems with them? Darko ------------------------------ From: David Clayton Subject: Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 08:09:47 +1000 hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) contributed the following: > David Clayton wrote: >> The train system in my city uses the "trip stop" system, but a few >> months ago at the end of a line a driver got out of his cabin (for a >> "pit stop") but left both trip stops up and the brakes off. > I think there is a misunderstanding. The train motorman has no > control over the trip stops, they are a trackside mechanism controlled > by the signals. In North America, if the brakes were left off and the > train rolled, it would hit a red signal and be "tripped" before > hitting another train. Possibly, on the trains here the leading bogie has a lever which if it hits a raised arm on the track at a "Stop" signal applies the emergency brakes on the train. When these trains change direction at a terminus, the driver has to manually raise the lever at one end and also lower it at the other end -- in the case I mentioned he raised one but forgot to lower the other so it wasn't there to stop the train when it rolled away! > But a word about manual overrides: > Subway systems typically allow the motorman to override the tripstop > so he can proceed through a red signal -- under certain circumstances. > The rules are quite strict that when doing so the motorman must be > prepared to stop well short of any obstruction, another train, or > broken rail -- in essence, to only creep along. In practice this was > used to follow closer behind a departing train into a station to save > a little time. > Unfortunately, motorman error in such cases has resulted in accidents, > and some systems have outlawed bypassing the tripstop. It is also a > tradeoff between convenience and safety and an ongoing debate. That issue also came up here last year, an empty train returning to the yards went through a stop, but instead of slowly proceeding (as he was supposed to) he went too fast, came around a bend and slammed into another train at a station. Of course, I won't mention that a lot of these things seemed to have happened since the state privatised the train system about 10 years ago. Two companies took over about half the system each, one finally walked away from the contract last year and it cost the state pay big money to the remaining one to take over and run the whole system. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@XYZ.myrealbox.com Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. (Remove the "XYZ." to reply) Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. ------------------------------ From: jdj Subject: Re: Phishing: Latest Spam/Scam; Very Dangerous Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 16:44:43 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com It's not only crackers, spyware and trojans collecting your info from your computer, etc., trashers and divers are also reselling whatever personal and account info they find in the trash instead of using it themselves. And don't think you're safe just because the info you discovered was stolen from you has not been used in the past few years. "It hasn't been used yet" means just that and not "therefore it will never be used". ------------------------------ From: jdj Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 16:44:35 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com 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 think I did not ask for any conclusions. I was curious about others' experiences most particularly with airlines. >> 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. From inauguration through at least 1976, as I recall, signs were posted requesting that no transmitters be used in stations and on trains. But BART police demanded that receivers be turned off as well. It was not very long after I talked to the senior radio tech that those signs disappeared. > 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. No, there is no truth to it. BART did not use any special radios. They used ordinary Motorola radios for admin, maintenance, road and public safety on three bands. As I mentioned, the radio shop said they had no "special" radios. I remember the Fremont Station incident where the train ran past the end of the platform. I do not recall the details but I do recall it was not related to radio interference. >> [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. Yes it is. Transmitters set up RF eddy currents in nearby metal objects and at certain points there is high enough voltage to produce sparks if other conditions are met. Ths can occur even with a milliwatt transmitter. Even though the odds are against it, the risk remains. There was a Discovery Channel MythBusters episode set up to test the theory that a cell phone could cause petrol to explode. The test was apparently set up to see if a transmitting cell phone, all by itself, could cause a container of petrol to explode. It did not in any way resemble the scenario of refueling a vehicle while talking on the cell phone. >> 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] > George Mitchell wrote >> 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. > Let me clarify the above paragraph. By 'radios' I meant the train > control system, not the audio communication system. Strictly speaking, BART did not use radios to control trains. Only in an extremely broad sense would the system be considered "radio". The little white fins atop the cars were/are antennae for voice comms. > BART uses automated train operation and protection. The speed and > stopping of trains is controlled by signals sent to the train from > wayside transmitters. A second and critical component of this system is > train protection so that one train does not collide with another. BART > was an early modern automated train system. > The rest of my paragraph is correct. The original BART system had > pushed the state of the art and had many problems in practice. > [GW continues] >> 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.PD > That link is invalid. Returns 404. > My point is that BART depends on wireless communications to transmit > speed commands from wayside onto the train AND that BART had many > problems with this system. The above example is just one of many > problems they had to deal with. Strictly speaking, it is wireless. The car's shielded pickup is very close to a device alongside or just above the third rail. This is the data communications link. I know that the signalling does not occur above 1MHz -- I did check! (Very surreptitiously.) The system is similar in function to a tape recorder: In a tape recorder the tape head detects changes in magnetic flux from the moving tape and is designed not to pick up stray magnetic fields. The tape head also produces a magnetic flux which is concentrated on the tape to record sounds. The BART control system is designed the same way, except the "tape" carries a magnetic signal that changes continuously. The train pickup is designed to only pick up signals from the "tape" and to "record" signals to the "tape". There is a detailed layman's description of the magnetic pickup in a periodical somewhere. It was published sometime around 1975. Also published were details of the control system, complete with lots of pictures of the IBM mainframe and ops center. If I recall correctly, there was also extensive coverage of BART in IBM's internal publication, "Think". > Concerning the above problem, I'm surprised that a broken crystal (do > crystals even break that easily?) would just so happen to send out a > different valid signal. In Bell System signalling, they were very > careful to avoid harmonic frequencies or any frequencies as well as > pulse coding that could be misinterpreted as something else. Note that > Touch Tone signals use two-tones, not just one. This kind of safety > design goes back to the 1940s. Likewise, in more traditional railroad > signalling, the pulse codes were carefully designed and implemented with > very rugged gear to avoid misinterpretation. If a failure occurs, it is > interpreted as a stop signal. (BART chose to not use traditional > railroad technology.) Yes, crystals do break while in use. They are not perfect. When they break, they can and do produce output at higher frequencies. A crystal's resonant frequency is a function of it's dimensions as well as composition. > Anyway, a stray or errant signal could and did cause a BART train wreck. > Naturally BART mgmt would be interested in preventing such problems. > On other automated rail systems, a positive read of a specific signal is > required to proceed, the failure to receive that signal stops the train. No, a stray signal did not cause the crash. A faulty signalling device, as has been described, caused it. The train was commanded to accelerate. Even emergency braking could not have stopped the train before the crash. There was not enough track left. This was pointed out in the report and in the media. The end of track is only about a car-length or two past the end of the platform. > As someone else explained, superhet radio receivers retransmit a signal, > and this signal happens to interfere with navigation. Well, a radio > that is actually transmitting could send out similar signal > interference. The problem with FM band superhets is that the local oscillator frequency is traditionally set above the band of interest, in this case, within the air-nav band of 108 to 118MHz. The interference is of such a nature that it would be discernible as interference and not a navigation signal. I suspect that modern airnav systems would not be fooled. > As to the current issue, walkie-talkies are transmitters, and as such, > send out signals obviously stronger than within a receiver's superhet > circuits. It is possible that such signals either directly or through > distortion/harmonics could interfere with normal train control. While a > wreck is unlikely, it could force a train into an emergency stop between > stations, which is obviously undesirable. Not possible when the control signal band is below the bands in use by radios, as in the case of BART. Harmonics do not appear below the fundamental. > Until such time that modern walkie-talkies would be tested to ensure > their signals do not and cannot interfere with train control and train > protection, they should not be permitted to be used on BART. Then all transmitters should have been banned on those grounds. Yet cell phones were allowed, as well as untested radios from other agencies. And again, nearby transmitters, including high-powered transmitters, adjacent to the track, caused no problems. It is not a current issue as there is no longer a policy banning transmitters in stations or on trains. There is no evidence that any radios interfere with train operation. The longer this goes on, the more I remember from my "VIP" tour of BART all those years ago ... ------------------------------ 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 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 #475 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Oct 8 15:12:23 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i98JCNB28883; Fri, 8 Oct 2004 15:12:23 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 15:12:23 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410081912.i98JCNB28883@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 #476 TELECOM Digest Fri, 8 Oct 2004 15:11:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 476 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson U.S. Names Cyber Chief, House Eyes More Clout for Job (Lisa Minter) Cyber-Security Imperative (Lisa Minter) EFFector 17.37: Help Keep CALEA Off the Net (Monty Solomon) Who Can Beat Down Microsoft in the Embedded Systems Market? (Robert) Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? (Lisa Hancock) Re: Phishing: Latest Spam/Scam; Very Dangerous (Rick Merrill) Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? (Truth) Re: A New Phone and Techie Controversy at Verizon (Truth) Search Technology | Phone Books (Day Bird Loft) Wanted: I Will Pay You Up To $150 For Your Used Cell Phone! (Charles) Re: VOIP Home Connection (Rick Merrill) Multipled Pairs: (was: VOIP Home Connection) (Nick Landsberg) Re: Power Device via UTP (Chris Hills) 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: U.S. Names Cyber Chief, House Eyes More Clout for Job Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 10:31:56 EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Department of Homeland Security named an acting U.S. cybersecurity chief on Thursday as Congress weighed whether to give the position greater clout to fight hackers, viruses and other online threats. Andy Purdy was named interim U.S. cybersecurity director one week after Amit Yoran suddenly resigned from the post amid reports that he was frustrated with his lack of authority. Purdy was Yoran's deputy and had advised the White House on cybersecurity issues. The House of Representatives was expected later Thursday to vote to elevate Purdy's position within the department, a move backed by tech-industry officials who say the government is not devoting enough attention to online threats. "We need a full-time government official ... with the clout to take America's information infrastructure off the table for terrorists," said Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America. "Amit Yoran's decision to leave after one year suggests that the current post of national cybersecurity director does not carry enough weight to get the job done," Miller said. The promotion of the post was added this week to a massive bill that reorganizes the government's intelligence efforts. That bill would also require government agencies to show they have taken security into account when they put in requests for new technology systems. "I think most honest observers would say that there's been very little attention paid, certainly insufficient attention paid, to cybersecurity," said California Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren. Under the bill, the 60-person-strong cybersecurity office would no longer be subordinate to the division that oversees efforts to protect power plants, water-treatment systems and other "critical infrastructure." The cybersecurity director would instead report directly to the undersecretary for information analysis and infrastructure protection, one step below Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. In the Senate, a similar measure was stripped out of that chamber's intelligence reorganization bill on Wednesday, but lawmakers could insert it back into the final version that heads to the president's desk to be signed into law. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Cyber-Security Imperative Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 10:34:15 EDT It's a lamentable state of affairs, but it will probably take years more of identity theft on a massive scale and security breaches of increasing severity to spur common-sense actions that should be taken today. What other explanation seems plausible, in the face of the apparent indifference to a growing list of well-considered recommendations on the issue? In April, the National Cyber Security Partnership issued several reports outlining steps that should be taken to protect personal and property rights on the Internet. The partnership was formed in response to the White House National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace "to develop shared strategies and programs to better secure and enhance America's critical information infrastructure." The laudable work of the partnership is in danger of suffering the fate of so many committee and task force reports: collecting dust. The policies have yet to be broadly embraced and implemented, even by the Department of Homeland Security, despite their clear merit. One of the most important reports issued by the partnership deals with adopting rigorous cyber-security practices as part of corporate governance. "It is the fiduciary responsibility of senior management in organizations to take reasonable steps to secure their information systems," said Art Coviello, president and CEO of RSA Security and co-chair of the Corporate Governance Task Force, in a statement issued with the report. Still, many businesses that should get with the program are hanging back. This is leading U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla., chairman of the House subcommittee on technology and information policy, to threaten introducing regulatory legislation, the Corporate Information Security Accountability Act, that would require publicly traded companies to form information security plans. With regulations ranging from HIPAA to Sarbanes-Oxley already on the books, corporations hardly need another compliance headache. And yet that's just what they'll get and what they'll deserve if they don't take action on their own. Some corporate lawyers fear that if security commitments become part of governance procedures, information security failures may constitute negligence. This concern, however, is trivial when compared with the damage that can be done to the nation if the businesses that make up the fabric of the national economy are paralyzed by coordinated cyber-security attacks. Effective tools are available. One is DomainKeys, a mail authentication system that can blunt phishing scams. Developed by Yahoo and under consideration as a standard by the Internet Engineering Task Force, DomainKeys is implemented in the latest versions of Sendmail's MTA (mail transfer agent) software and will be implemented in Yahoo Mail by year's end. Business and government must overcome an evil as daunting as cybercrime denial and get on with securing their IT infrastructures. We're interested in your Opinion. Send your comments to eWEEK@ziffdavis.com *** 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, Ziff-Davis. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 00:01:38 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 17.37: Help Keep CALEA Off the Net EFFector Vol. 17, No. 37 October 7, 2004 donna@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 309th Issue of EFFector: * Calling All Broadband Providers and VoIP Experts - Help Keep CALEA off the Internet! * BayFF Event - "E-voting and the Upcoming Election" * Court to Rehear Email Privacy Case * Help EFF Fight for the Freedom to Innovate - Give to the BnetD Defense Fund! * FCC out of Our Digital Television Recorders! * WIPO to Support Public Domain, Open Source * Join EFF for "Resisting Government Secrecy in a Time of Terrorism," October 8-9 * MiniLinks (9): Kodak Knocks Sun's Lights Out * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/17/37.php ------------------------------ From: robertwlkao@pchome.com.tw (Robert) Subject: Who Can Beat Down Microsoft in the Embedded Systems Market? Date: 8 Oct 2004 01:18:34 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=8488 ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? Date: 8 Oct 2004 07:34:12 -0700 David Clayton wrote > Of course, I won't mention that a lot of these things seemed to have > happened since the state privatised the train system about 10 years > ago. > Two companies took over about half the system each, one finally walked > away from the contract last year and it cost the state pay big money > to the remaining one to take over and run the whole system. There are elements in the U.S. in think privitizing Amtrak will be more efficient. They ignore the many experiences of the above in the United Kingdom and other countries, and they also forget how bad psgr train service was before Amk such as provided by the Penn Central. In the U.S. the circumstances today are such that public ownership of psgr transit -- both local and intercity -- works better than private ownership. Not all systems are perfect, but it is generally better than pvt run systems in today's world. We may end up with govt owned airlines given how so many are bankrupt. Over the years, some people talked of nationalizing the Bell System on the grounds that as a public utility it ought to be publicly owned. In the case of the Bell System, it generally provided very good service at fair prices. Despite being a very large organization, it generally managed to escape the bureacratic inertia and unresponsiveness of big govt agencies. One reason IMHO was that the Bell System was terrified of being taken over by the govt or split up, so it was motivated to run a tight ship and generally it did. (I know some people disagree, but the Bell System just before divesture was a good company. Too many people apply 2003 or 1953 technology levels to 1983 -- they think Bell should've been at 2003 levels but provided 1953 levels and that is wrong.) Overall, the concept of a regulated monopoly is a good one as long as the regulation is fair. In the case of the Bell System, use was growing and regulation was fair. In the case of the railroads (both freight and passenger), use was declining and regulation was not fair. The railroads were forced to provide very unprofitable services "in the public interest"; I think the Bell System overall escaped that burden or it was so small the rest of the company could carry it. Technology and social life are not constant. A business model of the past will not work today without modification. The tough trick is know what to change and what to keep. Both the private sector and public regulators need to do this. IBM, after getting a good scare, succesfully reinvented itself but in the model of its past. IBM started out as a manufacturer with very strong customer support. Manufacturing hardware isn't that special anymore and today IBM is in customer support (very big in service bureau work now) with manufacturing playing a somwhat lesser role. It appears the "baby bell" companies have generally done well in the new world, while the parent AT&T has not. Unfortunately for AT&T, having a long distance network isn't that big a deal as it once was, just as manufacturing knowhow isn't as big a deal for IBM as it once was. It's a shame AT&T hasn't been able to parlay its core strength -- the long distance network -- into something "above and beyond". ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Phishing: Latest Spam/Scam; Very Dangerous Organization: Comcast Online Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 14:42:53 GMT jdj wrote: > It's not only crackers, spyware and trojans collecting your info ... Don't forget the 419 or identity theft that are now the dominate quantity of spam! - RM ------------------------------ From: Truth Organization: http://www.x.com Subject: Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 15:26:54 GMT >> In NO WAY can a cellphone being used at a gas station cause an >> explosion. > (The MythBusters TV show did an episode on cell phones and gas > stations. Turns out that people getting in and out of the car sliding > on the seat often generate a static charge, and that is the primary > cause of most gas station fires, Wrong. Even THAT theory is bullshit and they should have pointed that out as well on the program since they apparently didn't make it clear to ALL the viewers. I purposely allow a static shock between me and the car when filling up with gas just to show people with me how ridiculous and full of shit the urban legend is. ------------------------------ From: Truth Organization: http://www.x.com Subject: Re: A New Phone and Techie Controversy at Verizon Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 15:31:02 GMT >> And one can only imagine how long the battery life is with all this >> crap and backlit screens on these stupid phones today. > And how would you propose to have a screen show up at night? > Moonlight? My cellphone doesn't HAVE a screen at all, you don't NEED one. They didn't have them until recently for the addition of cameras and video games that are not needed to make or receive phone calls and only make the battery discharge faster. > And FYI I have a newer phone with Bluetooth and the battery life on my > phone is excellent even with the addition of Bluetooth. I can get > almost two weeks of standby on my phone. I would only have to charge my phone once a year, now after about 10 or 15 years, the lead acid battery finally needs to be replaced and is not holding a charge anymore. >> A phone is for making and taking calls, we have cameras, TVs, walkmans >> and video game systems to do those things. > For you all a mobile phone is for is to make and receive phone calls. > Other people want other functionality. So then buy cameras and video games and you have it. If I want to cool my beverage or heat my coffee, I don't buy a cellphone that can do those things. Why don't all cameras allow you to make phone calls???? Because that is not what a camera is for, get it? It amazes me how stupid humans really are. ------------------------------ From: loft@pigeons.ws (Day Bird Loft) Subject: Search Technology | Phone Books Date: 8 Oct 2004 10:06:48 -0700 Those in the Telcom industry should read http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2004/10/emw165619.htm as it is reported in this media release that Phone Books will become a thing of the past. With search engines receiving over 40% of the online advertising revenue -- Telcoms may want to consider joining with a wire service or content provider to enhance their online revenues. Search Technology | Phone Books http://www.iprwire.net ------------------------------ From: c.huckaby@gmail.com (Charles) Subject: Wanted: I Will Pay You Up To $150 For Your Used Cell Phone! Date: 7 Oct 2004 18:57:37 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I desperately need working, late model USED CELL PHONES! I will pay shipping and up to $150 per cell phone depending on make and model! Details: http://www.cell2cash.com Thanks. ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: VOIP Home Connection Organization: Comcast Online Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 14:41:38 GMT Andy G. wrote: > I am considering signing up for VOIP service and have been reading > websites of the various providers to try to figure out how to wire my > whole house. According to Vonage, you can run a wire from the adapter > to a phone jack and (as long as the line is disconnected totally from > the phone co. and there is no curerent) all jacks would work. I asked > Verizon about this, they said that it's not supported. They cannot "support it" because it involves your inside wiring and Because The Telephone Adapter (TA) can only drive 1 Ringer Equivalent. Some TA may be able to drive 3 RE, according to my research. So you have to add up all the RE in your house correctly or else you may blow the TA when your phone rings. Of course you have to make darn sure that your in-house wiring connects to NOTHING else: unplug all phones until there is No resistance whatsoever across the phone lines. Then plug in the TA and one (1) phone. I am in the process of doing just this right this minute. - RM (transliterate my email address for real one) ------------------------------ From: Nick Landsberg Reply-To: SPAMhukolautTRAP@SPAMattTRAP.net Subject: Multipled Pairs: (was: VOIP Home Connection) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 15:34:50 GMT Frank@Nospam.com wrote: >> the way. Wouldn't it be a kick in your posterior to find out telco had >> installed a second line for some neighbor of yours, and had grabbed >> your supposedly unused pair to do the job? [ SNIP ] > Back in those days, you got ring-back by dialing '571-6' in Chicago. > So he dialed the ring-back code and waited for an answer, which > came soon enough. A lady who answered told him she was across the > alley and down the street a block or so, and she told him her phone > had just been installed a day or two earlier. *Someone* -- some > outside plant tech guy had put in that lady's phone but had failed > to go down the alley and open up any multiples on the line. In phone > jargon, a 'multiple' is any place on a cable run where a pair (of > wires) makes an appearance. Its very common in older outside plant > (dating back, lets say to the 1940-50 era) in dense inner city areas, > to do it that way: string one cable with maybe 500 pairs therein > down the alley, open each pair at each possible location or house, > and attach it to the demarc. In the 1940-50 era, things were 'different' > than they are today in terms of people, communities, and telephony. In > those days, as people moved around (not very often, I might add), when > someone moved in somewhere, the pair (within that cable) was given to > them (like today), but other dwelling places on that block or within > the reach of that cable had that pair lifted off *their* demarc. A very > effecient and very inexpensive way of doing things. But, things were > 'different' in those times. Absolutely true, Pat! I worked OSP (OutSide Plant) in the late 60's early 70's in New York City, and what you describe was exactly the sitauation there. By that time, though, the organization had been split into "installation" "repair" and "OSP" (which included cable maintenance). The "repair" organization usually handled "inside wire" troubles and cable maintenance handled "outside wire." (Installation and repair later merged, but I don't recall when.) "Troubles" were categorized mostly as Code 3 (CO problem), Code 4 (Outside Plant), and Code 5 (Inside wiring, which included telephone sets, I think). Each organization was measured by the "Codes". (As you can imagine, there was lots of finger pointing between the organizations.) However, the installation department was measured by the "productivity" of installers, and there was no "incentive" for them to go down the alley and lift the multipled pair off the other demarcs (even though that is what they were supposed to do "by the book"). Meanwhile, back in cable maintenance, when a trouble was being traced (e.g. crosstalk, noise on the line, etc.), it became more and more time-consuming to walk the alley and find *all* the places the pair appeared. (And dangerous if you were in the wrong neighborhood.) [Aside: A classical case of robbing Peter to pay Paul.] As I recall, this situation went on until the phone company was ordered (by the Public Service Commission) to rebate substantial amounts of money to a large number of customers in Brooklyn because repairs were taking too long on average. I don't know what measures were taken to solve this problem, since I worked mainly Manhattan (and mostly with the cable pulling/splicing gangs for the main runs and not the alleys) and left the Plant Department around 1975. NPL "It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious" - A. Bloch ------------------------------ From: Chris Hills Subject: Re: Power Device Via UTP? Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 18:18:25 GMT T. Sean Weintz wrote: > Crimson_M wrote: >> I know very little about the 802.3 standard and transmission lines, in >> general as I'm a hardware guy. But, I'm curious if you suppose it is >> possible to power a simple, low power device via 100/10BaseT? Consider >> a setup such as, >> Gateway/Router/etc. ========== UTP ========== Device >> Where the device would contain some simple hardware, just enough to >> communicate via TCP/IP and perform some other simple functions. >> I'm just thinking abstractly here and don't have any ideas on specs at >> all ... What do you think? > YES! It is possible. There is in fact a standard for doing exactly > that - the 802.3af "power over ethernet"or PoE standard. > Many devices are supporting this now -- especially IP phones for PBX > systems, wireless access points, and 3com even makes mini ethernet > switches that draw their power from a central switch using PoE. > Lemme know if you want more info. Beware though, not all devices that are 802.3af compliant will work together. For example, a 3Com 4400 PWR will power only other 3Com devices. I found out the hard way. Regards, Chris ------------------------------ 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 #476 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Oct 9 04:47:31 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i998lV205452; Sat, 9 Oct 2004 04:47:31 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 04:47:31 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410090847.i998lV205452@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 #477 TELECOM Digest Sat, 9 Oct 2004 04:46:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 477 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson EPIC Alert 11.19 (Monty Solomon) VOIP on Cisco 2620 (carverk@hotmail.com) 911 Address Display Delays Police Response (Wesrock@aol.com) Classic Components Removes Representative (distribution@eworldwire.com) OSP Identifiers / Verizon Repair (Lincoln J. King-Cliby) VOIP on Cisco 2620 (carverk@hotmail.com) Re: VOIP Home Connection (Marcus Jervis) Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? (Rick Merrill) Re: Multipled Pairs: (was: VOIP Home Connection) (AES/newspost) Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium (M Roberts) Re: Paper Tape; Gates at Harvard (Craig Partridge) Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? (Bob Goudreau) Re: A New Phone and Techie Controversy at Verizon (Steve Sobol) 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, 8 Oct 2004 18:04:05 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EPIC Alert 11.19 ======================================================================= E P I C A l e r t ======================================================================= Volume 11.19 October 8, 2004 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Published by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) Washington, D.C. http://www.epic.org/alert/EPIC_Alert_11.19.html ====================================================================== Table of Contents ====================================================================== [1] Coalition Asks Congress to Deliberate 9-11 Comm. Recommendations [2] EPIC Urges Congress to Protect Social Security Numbers [3] Appeals Court Votes to Revisit E-Mail Interception Case [4] Business "Free Speech" Claims Fail to Block Do-Not-Call Registry [5] California Enacts New, Innovative Privacy Protections [6] News in Brief [7] EPIC Bookstore: Losing America [8] Upcoming Conferences and Events http://www.epic.org/alert/EPIC_Alert_11.19.html ------------------------------ From: carverk@hotmail.com Subject: VOIP on Cisco 2620 Date: 8 Oct 2004 15:14:58 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello All.. I got a 2620 with a NM1E2W in the NM Slot and a WIC1B-ST ISDN WIC in a WAN port. ISDN line is a normal Res. ISDN line from local Telecom (1D-2B Channels). What I would like to do is get a Cisco VOIP phone installed into the local network and use it to make/recieve local calls over the ISDN WIC and use my internet Conx. for US/Canada/Other Calls via Vonage or some other VOIP Provider. What I'm looking to know is will the 2620 support this? and what Cards or modules I will need to do this. Since this is a Res. ISDN Line there is no PBX, just straight to the PSTN.. I have all the current IOS images (12.3.10) for this router so this part is not a problem. Thanks. ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 18:33:43 EDT Subject: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response --- From The Daily Oklahoman, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for October 8, 2004-- Dispatch error leads police astray Officers were sent to the wrong place in response to a bank robbery Thursday when the system at the city's dispatch center displayed an incorrect address, a police spokesman said. About 3:45 p.m., an employee from the Bank of Oklahoma branch inside an Albertsons store on May Avenue near Britton Road called 911 to report a robbery, Oklahoma City Police Lt. Patrick Stewart said. Because of the bank's phone system and the way the call was routed, the address on the dispatcher's computer was for Bank of Oklahoma at 201 Robert S. Kerr, Stewart said. Nine minutes after the first call, officers were sent to the proper location, 9225 N May. The robber was described as a woman in her mid-30s, about 5 feet tall and 200 to 225 pounds, Stewart said. The woman was wearing a tan baseball cap, a black T-shirt with a U.S. flag on it and rubber gloves, Stewart said. [201 Robert S. Kerr is the address of the bank's headquarters for Oklahoma City. May and Britton Road (9225 N. May] is about 12 miles away.] Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is unfortunate, but not unusual, since it would appear the bank branch was on the *bank's* telephone system (sort of like a foreign exchange on the bank's centrex) instead of on the *Albertson's* phone system. Of course there is no guarentee that the Albertson's phone system was not part of some phone system at Albertson's headquarters instead of based out of that local store as well. So this should be a good lesson to the telecom adminstrators in our readership. Make certain all *critical* phones at locations other than your main, directory-listed business location are correctly listed in 911 databases, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 18:36:45 -0400 Subject: Classic Components Removes Representative From: distribution@eworldwire.com TORRANCE, Calif./EWORLDWIRE/Oct. 8, 2004 --- Effective August 24, 2004, Mario Schroder, is no longer a representitive of Classic Components Corp. or any of its subsidiaries. HTML: http://newsroom.eworldwire.com/wr/100804/10682.htm PDF: http://newsroom.eworldwire.com/pdf/100804/10682.pdf ONLINE NEWSROOM: http://newsroom.eworldwire.com/2923.htm LOGO: http://newsroom.eworldwire.com/2923.htm CONTACT: Michelle Dolbec Classic Components Corp. PHONE. 310-539-5500 http://www.class-ic.com Copyright 2004 Eworldwire, All rights reserved. Press Relase Distribution By EWORLDWIRE http://www.eworldwire.com (973)252-6800. ------------------------------ From: chsvideo@hotmail.com (Lincoln J. King-Cliby) Subject: OSP Identifiers / Verizon Repair Date: 8 Oct 2004 22:16:54 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hi All, Question I've pondered for a while: I live in Verizon (ex-GTE)'s service area in Southern California and for years I've noticed that the cross connect/terminal/whatever you want to call them boxes have a four character code down the sides and across the doors, in two groups of two characters, for example XT AI XT AT AA BA How is this code generated? The panel where I saw the AA code is a near by community served (almost positively) by a different CO. My other comment on the topic is Verizon is wonderful. Verizon repair sucks. In the 15 years we've lived here, we haven't had one problem with telephone service -- we've never called repair. About two weeks ago, I was driving by and I noticed that the doors on XT AI were _wide_ open -- like someone had been working on it and just decided to leave. I got home, called 611 and got the voice menu, roughly "Press 1 if this is billing, Press 2 if a problem with your phones, Press 3 if something else". I press 3 and get a human a short time later. I told her what I was calling to report, she says that she'll transfer me to repair. "I thought I called repair?" says I, "No, you called the call center." Voice-menu-hell later I get another human. "May I have the number of the line for which your reporting trouble?" "Actually I'm calling to report an outside plant issue, but I can give you this number if you like." "Uh, yeah, I'll take that one." "909-xxx-xxxx" "May I have your name" "Lincoln King-Cliby K i n g hyphen C l i b y" "Your name isn't on the account, can I speak with someone who is?" "No, they aren't available right now, but as I said, this is an OSP issue." "I won't be able to do anything to your line without speaking with the account holder" "That's fine. My line is fine. Your cross connect box at the intersection of and is wide open, and that's what I'm calling to report." (repeat this info four or five more times for him) "We'll get someone out to look at it. Thank you for calling Verizon." Four days later the box was still open. This time I find a 1-800 repair number on Verizon's website, hoping that would skip the call center detour. First call: "do dah dee. Thank you for calling Verizon. (silence)", hang up hit redial. Second call: "do dah dee. Thank you for calling Verizon Hawaii.", hang up hit redial. Third call: "do dah dee. Thank you for calling Verizon New York.", hang up hit redial. Fourth call: same as the first. Fifth call: do dah dee. Thank you for calling Verizon. (same menu as 611). [It's quite reassuring to know that Verizon -- the phone company -- can't even make sure that they give me the proper greeting. All were to the exact same number, using the redial button on my phone] This time, I choose the "trouble with phones" option and then 0'ed-out of the ensuing checklist menu, and I get a very plesant woman. Tell her what I'm calling to report. She asks for my phone number anyways, I give it to her, she also asks for my name." I give her all of the details I gave the original guy plus the ID# (XT AI) that I had confirmed in the meantime. While she's entering the details, I comment on how I had called it in earlier in the week and was concerned that it was still open due to the number of lines present [this is the ~5'x5'x2' size] and she agrees. She said that she would make sure it got fixed the next morning and asked "Would you like them to call you, or swing by your house or something when they're finished?" (!) I declined the offer saying that I'd know when I drove by and saw it closed up. The next morning it was, indeed, closed, and when I got home there was a voice mail from a Verizon lineman saying that it was closed and someone "probably just forgot to close it". Any ideas why Verizon would allow the thing to remain open for as long as they did? Do you supose I can now get a self-guided tour of my central office given their new plant security procedures? Lincoln [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The problem was you blew their customer service routine. Had you called the *right number* to start with -- and of course you could not, it is a non-published, secret number, to prevent telco from recieving 'crank calls' from cutomers who insist on 'speaking to someone who knows something about anything' -- the box would have been closed up within a few minutes of your first call. Telco has no provision for any subscriber to call them regards anything other than their personal phone line/number. Regards anything to do with any of their own infrastructure, you are only a customer, what would you know about any of that stuff ... This reminds me of a situation about 1970 or so: I called in to report that an inter-office trunk (between two central offices) was in trouble. I was making calls sort of regularly between my house and someone in another (local) C.O. Always very late at night. I would dial the number, not only would the call not go through, I always would get a hideous and loud 'rattling' noise in my ear. Now and again, rarely I would get through on the first try. This never happened on calls I would make to that (inter-C.O.) number during the day, only late at night. It took me a *long time* to get anyone at telco to listen to me or act on it. Finally I got a tech who called me back. I described the problem to him, he asked if I had a second line there (I did), and he said 'please do me a favor ... the next time that happens, *put that line on hold, keep it on hold* and call me on (private, internal number) from your other line. It happened a few hours later; I kept the troubled line on hold and called the guy. He went in the frames, found the line, and repaired it. Something to do with a loose contact. He came back on line with me, and said 'okay, drop that connection and I will tell you what I found.' It appears it was the 'first selected trunk' in a group of several circuits running from the central office I was in to the central office I was trying to reach. Since it was the 'first selection', during the day in busy hours, it was always being seized. One seizure after another. When a subscriber tried to make a call (to that central office from my central office) it was only rarely the subscriber would land on that first selected trunk. When he did, he would always get that same hassle I did, but he would hang up and dial again (and land on some other circuit in the process) and his call would go though okay. In the meantime, some third person making a call would get the bad line, hang up and try again, etc. But late at night, when there was no inter-office traffic to speak of, the same subscriber (myself) would get the same troubled trunk over and over. The tech fixed it so no one had the problem any further. I do not know if he actually repaired it, or just busied it out, but there was no further problems with it. The hassle I had was finding someone -- anyone -- willing to listen and take action on it until that technician took pity on me. I suspect, Lincoln, that was your problem also. It was only when some clerk or call-taker realized that your inquiry was not the usual crank call they so often receive and decided to pass it along to someone who could cure the problem that it got handled. PAT] ------------------------------ From: carverk@hotmail.com Subject: VOIP on Cisco 2620 Date: 8 Oct 2004 16:01:32 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello all, I got a 2620 with a NM1E2W in the NM Slot and a WIC1B-ST ISDN WIC in a WAN port. ISDN line is a normal Res. ISDN line from local Telecom (1D-2B Channels). What I would like to do is get a Cisco VOIP phone installed into the local network and use it to make/recieve local calls over the ISDN WIC and use my internet Conx. for US/Canada/Other Calls via Vonage or some other VOIP Provider. What I'm looking to know is will the 2620 support this? and what Cards or modules I will need to do this. Since this is a Res. ISDN Line there is no PBX, just straight to the PSTN.. I have all the current IOS images (12.3.10) for this router so this part is not a problem. Thanks. ------------------------------ From: Marcus Jervis Subject: Re: VOIP Home Connection Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 20:18:46 +0000 Rick Merrill wrote: >Andy G. wrote: >> I am considering signing up for VOIP service and have been reading >> websites of the various providers to try to figure out how to wire my >> whole house. According to Vonage, you can run a wire from the adapter >> to a phone jack and (as long as the line is disconnected totally from >> the phone co. and there is no curerent) all jacks would work. I asked >> Verizon about this, they said that it's not supported. > They cannot "support it" because it involves your inside wiring and > Because The Telephone Adapter (TA) can only drive 1 Ringer Equivalent. > Some TA may be able to drive 3 RE, according to my research. So you > have to add up all the RE in your house correctly or else you may blow > the TA when your phone rings. > Of course you have to make darn sure that your in-house wiring > connects to NOTHING else: unplug all phones until there is No > resistance whatsoever across the phone lines. Then plug in the TA and > one (1) phone. The solution to this is to use something like the Proctor Long Loop Adapter (46222 1 line or 46224 4 lines). Unfortunately, Proctor went out of business on 10/31/03. If you go to www.proctorinc.com you can look at details on those products, but I know they have none in the stock they may still be trying to sell off. Perhaps you can find one on a used equipment market. I've seen their stuff on Ebay occasionally. One of these will plug in to anyplace that supports a standard single-line phone and boost the DC current and AC ringing voltage up to standard telco line levels, so you can drive a standard 5 ringers over a 1900 ohm loop, if you wish. You might check Viking (http://www.vikingelectronics.com/) for a similar competetive product. Ohmygawsh! Just checked Viking's web site, and up front on their home page they are talking about replacements for Proctor products. I know in the past they had a "ringing amplifier" that would probably do the trick, as long as you weren't trying to extend the loop several miles off premises. It sounds like a new replacement will also have the standard 48vdc loop voltage, if you need it. ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? Organization: Comcast Online Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 20:52:14 GMT Truth wrote: >>> In NO WAY can a cellphone being used at a gas station cause an >>> explosion. >> (The MythBusters TV show did an episode on cell phones and gas >> stations. Turns out that people getting in and out of the car sliding >> on the seat often generate a static charge, and that is the primary >> cause of most gas station fires, > Wrong. Even THAT theory is bullshit and they should have pointed that > out as well on the program since they apparently didn't make it clear > to ALL the viewers. > I purposely allow a static shock between me and the car when filling > up with gas just to show people with me how ridiculous and full of > shit the urban legend is. Yeah, and you're using a vapor control gas pump! ------------------------------ From: AES/newspost Subject: Re: Multipled Pairs: (was: VOIP Home Connection) Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 15:51:25 -0700 In article , Nick Landsberg wrote: >> wires) makes an appearance. Its very common in older outside plant >> (dating back, lets say to the 1940-50 era) in dense inner city areas, >> to do it that way: string one cable with maybe 500 pairs therein >> down the alley, open each pair at each possible location or house, >> and attach it to the demarc. In the 1940-50 era, things were 'different' For those of us not familiar with the hardware, did these "demarcs" somehow come with all 500 pairs already pre-attached somehow? Or was there some quick and simple one-step process that made it easy to attach all 500 pairs to each demarc in one step? I'm having a hard time visualizing the situation where an installer would laboriously connect all 500 pairs, one at a time, to each and every demarc at each and every house, when only one or a few pairs were likely to be needed in that house . . . ??? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You need to go back to the early years of the twentieth century, the early 1900's when not only was the telephone a new thing, but so were 'highrise' apartment buildings. Until elevators were common-place, you did not see office or apartment buildings more than three or four stories tall. But in the 1920's, in Chicago, for example, there was a renaissance of office/apartment building highrise construction; many huge, very tall (for their time) buildings. This was because the buildings built in the the 1870's following the Great Fire were now themselves over fifty years old and getting sort of decrepit. This early twentieth century reneissance of building happened likewise in New York City and other major metropolitan (read, 'dense' population) areas. Telco tended to build and install very large wooden 'cabinets' (with doors which could be lifted off). Actually, I think Western Electric built them and did the initial wiring. All older 'highrise' buildings (fifty to eighty or a hundred years old) still have vestiges of Western Electric wooden cabinets in their basement somewhere which serve as the 'demarcs' for that location. I say this mainly as a tribute to how good the workman- ship was in those long-ago times. You will still see a lot of these older buildings in metropolitan 'inner city' areas, buildings which have been there for decades, with the 'permanent' demarc cabinets in the basement. I am *not* speaking now about the 'newer' (less than twenty or thirty year old) residential developments, etc. In a time when labor was cheap (and for many years, Bell did not have any unions either; people talk about Sprint being a non-union shop, but for its first half century, 1878 through the middle 1920's) Bell was very *anti-union* as well.) Remind me to tell you sometime about Myrtle Murphy, the very first union steward for telephone operators in the Chicago Franklin office, and how the company harrassed her and made her life miserable. So anyway, all the cabling was done many years ago, before any of us can remember. Now the outside plant tech is told Mrs. Smith wants a telephone, we have assigned her pair 87 on cable 2037 out of the Rogers Park central office, and pair 87 also shows up on cable 2037 at (address) and (address) and (address). So the tech goes and takes pair 87 and 'punches it down on the block' as needed where Mrs. Smith is located and removes it from the punch down block at the other locations as needed. All the hard, laborious and time consuming work was done many years ago mostly by non-union labor. PAT] ------------------------------ From: markrobt@comcast.net (Mark Roberts) Subject: Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 22:58:30 -0000 Organization: 1.94 meters Dave Close had written: > Dave Garland writes: >> Let us know when all numbers within the NANP can be dialed without any >> charge other than that for local phone service. > /I/ can dial all calls to anywhere in the US or Canada without extra > charge. The Caribbean is extra. I dial all of them as 11 digits, both > on my Sprint PCS and my Vonage lines. On your PCS, you should be able to dial them as 10 digits. On both SPCS and ATTWS, I am routinely able to dial all calls without the '1'. The local/zoned distinction is increasingly becoming irrelevant. It makes no sense on my Vonage service, and it increasingly makes less sense on the cellular services. On my SBC measured-unit service, there's a tangle between "local", "local toll" (provided by Sprint on one line, SBC on the other), and "long-distance". In fact, Vonage does make a local/long-distance distinction, but on most service plans, it doesn't make a difference. Strangely, Vonage does not consider "925" a local area code for me, even though it's about four blocks away from my home. I could have had an Oakland number for my Vonage service, but instead picked a Berkeley number for esthetic reasons. It mostly seems to matter with respect to who's "local toll" when calling me. I never thought I would advocate this, but the time may have come simply to require *all* calls to be dialed with 10 digits, thus dispensing with the '1'. Mark Roberts | "Money news, sponsored by Dame Edna." -- Oakland, Cal.| yes, that's really how KCBS "All-News 740" introduced NO HTML MAIL | its 6:55 am business report on September 15, 2004 ------------------------------ From: Craig Partridge Subject: Re: Paper Tape; Gates at Harvard Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 16:00:43 UTC Organization: The World : www.TheWorld.com : Since 1989 W Randolph Franklin writes: > BTW, I never talked to him. How many grad students talk to undergrads > who wander in and out? There may be a lesson here. But Gates was remembered. One of his faculty instructors remembered him as the guy who used to fall asleep in class, wake up, look at the blackboard and ask a cogent question. > The HW has certainly improved from the days of 10cps i/o (plus a line > printer), core memories with well under 1 MB, disks with 10MB, etc. > However, I can't say that the SW is much better today. Harvard > researchers had developed an object oriented language, EL/1, which had > comparable power to C++ (lacked a few features, but had a few other > features). Defining new classes in EL/1, including their interactions > with other classes, was just as hard as it is in C++. I think this is underselling EL/1's goals. As I recall it (along with PPL -- Polymorphic Programming Language) were attempts to create fully extensible languages -- such that you could (and in one class did) transform EL/1 into a programming language for a completely new computer language. (Very weird experience to morph a system that way). Craig Partridge AB '83 ------------------------------ From: Bob Goudreau Subject: Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 22:21:21 -0400 [Please withhold my email address as usual.] Lisa Hancock wrote: > David Clayton wrote: >> Of course, I won't mention that a lot of these things seemed to have >> happened since the state privatised the train system about 10 years ago. > There are elements in the U.S. in think privitizing Amtrak will be > more efficient. They ignore the many experiences of the above in the > United Kingdom and other countries... Actually, it is the persistent critics of such privatizations that tend to conveniently ignore what actually happened. For example, neither Britain nor Australia has seen a decline in rail safety since privatization of various elements of their railway systems, contrary to the statist party line. See http://www.cts.cv.imperial.ac.uk/documents/publications/iccts00410.pdf and http://www.atsb.gov.au/rail/pdf/fatalities_international.pdf, for instance. Similar safety scares preceded and accompanied other loosenings of government-imposed straitjackets, yet they too proved to be bogus. Contrary to the popular perception of the uninformed, the US airline industry did not become more dangerous after airline deregulation in the late 1970s; the fatality rate per passenger-mile continued (and still continues) to decline. Likewise, blood-covered highways were predicted by some of the more strident "safety Nazis" when the 55 mph national speed limit was loosened to 65 mph in the mid-1980s and then rescinded entirely a decade later (which let states return to setting their own limits, most of which have reverted to 70 or 75 mph). Yet the US fatality rate per vehicle-mile traveled has continued the long secular decline that began in the early part of the 20th century. > We may end up with govt owned airlines given how so many are bankrupt. Fortunately, such an "Amtrak in the sky" seems extremely unlikely. Some airlines have pledged assets as security for their emergency government loans, and some or all of them could eventually end up in full bankruptcy liquidation (i.e., Chapter 7, not Chapter 11). In that case, the federal government would indeed end up with those assets (aircraft, maintenance facilities, etc.). But such foreclosed assets are usually auctioned off by the government, not reconstituted as government-run agencies. There are successful airlines that would be happy to pick up such assets at bargain prices, after all. Bob Goudreau Cary, NC ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: A New Phone and Techie Controversy at Verizon Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 12:20:00 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Truth wrote: > My cellphone doesn't HAVE a screen at all, Now, this is funny. What 50-year-old piece of junk do you have that doesn't have a screen? Even the old analog Motorola MicroTACs have screens. > It amazes me how stupid humans really are. No comment. :) 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 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. 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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 #477 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Oct 9 16:13:55 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i99KDt710198; Sat, 9 Oct 2004 16:13:55 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 16:13:55 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410092013.i99KDt710198@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 #478 TELECOM Digest Sat, 9 Oct 2004 16:14:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 478 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: VOIP Home Connection (Jack Decker) Cogni?? (Michael Muderick) Why There's no DNS or Distributed Naming Service in SS7 (A. Burbaickij) Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response = T911 (Rick Merrill) Re: Multipled Pairs: (was: VOIP Home Connection) (Robert Bonomi) Re: OSP Identifiers / Verizon Repair (jared) Panasonic KX-TMC 98 Help Needed (PeterV.) Definity PBX Password Needed (Billy) Oklahoma State University Simplified Admission Requirements (Chas Gray) 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, 09 Oct 2004 06:33:10 -0400 From: Jack Decker

Subject: Re: VOIP Home Connection Pat, please conceal my e-mail address. On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 20:18:46 +0000, Marcus Jervis wrote: > You might check Viking (http://www.vikingelectronics.com/) for a > similar competetive product. Actually, my page on "How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home" at http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html specifically mentions one Viking product, the Ring Booster (Model: RG-10A). The description given for this device is as follows: Boost Ringing Power to Ring up to 15 Additional Phones The RG-10A ring generator is designed to increase ringing power of an existing telephone line, analog PABX extension, analog ISDN Terminal Adapter port, or any other telecom device which provides ringing. The RG-10A duplicates the incoming ring frequency and cadence allowing it to be compatible with custom ringing features. The RG-10A is capable of ringing fifteen standard (1 REN) telephone devices and does not affect the normal operation of the telephone line or features provided by the phone company such as "Caller ID" and "Call Waiting." (End of description) The only problem with this device is that, in my opinion, it costs about three or four times as much as it should. They could probably sell a boatload of these to VoIP users if they'd price them at under $50, but I can think of few people who'd pay over $150 for such a device (the lowest price I could find using Froogle is $155.34, see ). I have to think that someone could build a similar device and manufacture it for $10 or so (maybe not in the United States, but certainly somewhere in Asia) and retail it here in the $30-$40 range. Certainly there will be a growing need for such devices as residential VoIP catches on (unless the makers of the adapter devices decide to support more ringers on a line). Of course, another possibility would be retrofit signaling devices that create a loud ringing sound on very little current. For example, if you had the proper manufacturing facility, you could make an inline "barrel" device (similar to a DSL filter) that plugs into the phone (or a wall jack) and then itself has a jack to plug the normal line cord into. When ringing current comes down the line, this device could fire off a highly efficient noisemaker of some kind to let you know the phone is ringing (if you build this, please make it sound like an old-style two-gong mechanical ringer, as found on a 500/2500 style phone!) ;-) Then you just turn off the ringer on the phone and connect this thing (or I suppose if it were really well designed, the device could itself prevent ringing current from ever reaching the phone). (Also if you build this, may I suggest you include on the device a "hold" button and LED to indicate that the line is on hold, since so few of the cheapie phones you buy in stores seem to have one of these. Every time I see a phone with a "mute" button [which I NEVER use -- I can simply put a finger over the microphone!] but no "hold" button, I feel like hunting down the designer, "hold"ing him down and "mute"ing him permanently! :-) Just kidding, but too many phones have a bunch of buttons that are useless to the typical residential user, but a hold button would allow moving from one room to another without leaving the phone in the room you just came from off the hook). Anyway, mark my words, unless the VoIP adapter manufacturers wise up and start making their boxes power a normal complement of phones in a home (at least 5 REN), there's going to be a market for add-on ringing current boosters. I realize some people think we will all be talking into special IP phones (that connect directly to our computer networks) soon, but I don't believe that for a moment. Even many of the geeks among us wouldn't touch VoIP until they could use a regular telephone, and if there is any intent to "mainstream" VoIP, it has to look like something the end user is already familiar with. When a phone that plugs into the local network sells for $10, and can let you transfer a call within the home by simply letting another household member pick up another phone (with NO dialing of codes or anything like that, and no additional monthly charges for each additional phone) then regular people might accept them. A lot of residential users will never accept having to remember to flash, then dial an extension to transfer a call to another room, and they certainly won't accept paying for a separate account for each IP phone. So I personally think the VoIP adapter and the traditional analog phone (or something very much like it) are going to be with us for a very long time. ------------------------------ From: Michael Muderick Subject: Cogni?? Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 07:46:57 -0400 I am thinking of changing long distance provider. I currently have a toll free number which I rarely use, but want to keep and keep the same number. My usage is quite low. And I don't want to pay minimum fees. I've come across Cogni as seeming to fill all my requirements. Anyone have any experience with them? Thanks for your input. Michael Muderick ------------------------------ From: Ariel.Burbaickij@web.de Subject: Why There's no DNS or Comparable Distributed Naming Service in SS7 Date: 9 Oct 2004 04:48:41 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello dear newsgroup participants, Could someone explain to me why there is no such service as DNS/whois towards it in SS7 network? After all, we have exactly same concerns here (distributed and independent administration of different subsets of address space, mapping must be often provided between pointcodes (numerical address) and its current owner), so why it was decided not to do it this way but instead some arcane lists are distributed by ITU exclusively? With Best Regards, Ariel Burbaickij ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response = T911 Organization: Comcast Online Date: Sat, 09 Oct 2004 12:33:55 GMT Wesrock@aol.com wrote: > --- From The Daily Oklahoman, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for October 8, 2004 > Dispatch error leads police astray > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is unfortunate, but not unusual, > since it would appear the bank branch was on the *bank's* telephone > system (sort of like a foreign exchange on the bank's centrex) instead > of on the *Albertson's* phone system. Of course there is no guarentee > that the Albertson's phone system was not part of some phone system at > Albertson's headquarters instead of based out of that local store as > well. So this should be a good lesson to the telecom adminstrators in > our readership. Make certain all *critical* phones at locations other > than your main, directory-listed business location are correctly > listed in 911 databases, etc. PAT] Maybe what is needed is a T911 - TEST 911 - that would permit on-site verification that the location is correct! - RM ------------------------------ Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting Subject: Re: Multipled Pairs: (was: VOIP Home Connection) From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Sat, 09 Oct 2004 13:48:39 +0000 In article , AES/newspost wrote: > In article , TELECOM Digest > Editor noted in response to Nick Landsberg > : >>> wires) makes an appearance. Its very common in older outside plant >>> (dating back, lets say to the 1940-50 era) in dense inner city areas, >>> to do it that way: string one cable with maybe 500 pairs therein >>> down the alley, open each pair at each possible location or house, >>> and attach it to the demarc. In the 1940-50 era, things were 'different' > For those of us not familiar with the hardware, did these "demarcs" > somehow come with all 500 pairs already pre-attached somehow? Or was > there some quick and simple one-step process that made it easy to > attach all 500 pairs to each demarc in one step? > I'm having a hard time visualizing the situation where an installer > would laboriously connect all 500 pairs, one at a time, to each and > every demarc at each and every house, when only one or a few pairs > were likely to be needed in that house ... ??? There's a good reason you're having trouble visualizing it. They didn't do it that way. The reasoning behind the concept is that you need 'spare pairs' available "everywhere", in case something happens that renders an 'in use' pair un- usable. It is _dreadfully_ inefficient to bring 'unique' spares to each location, so you terminate multiple pairs at every location, with each pair terminated at multiple locations. This way you can get by with only a 'few' extra pairs for that entire group of locations. The trade-off between how many pairs you terminate at a given location, and (directly related) how many 'multiples' per cable group, vs. the cost of pulling a replacement cable, when you do not have enough 'operational' pairs for the customers in the locations served. is a *complex* question. Telcos put a lot of effort into finding the 'least cost' solution. For 'single-family house' territory, the 'feeder' cable ran down the right-of-way, either overhead, or in-ground. There were 'tap points', typically every 4 houses (2 on each side of the feeder cable location), from which drop cables ran to each house. The drop cable usually had 2 or 3 pairs in it -- so that a single failure did -not- require replacing the entire 'drop', and to accommodate those _rare_ cases where somebody needed a 2nd line in the house. (remember _when_) this wiring was originally installed) At the 'tap point', there was usually a 25-pair splice block. 'Big' telephone cables are made up in multiples of 25-pair groups. They would tap off -one- 25-pair group at each tap point. Now, you tap the -same- 25-pair, at 4 or 5 different locations. When you get into higher-density housing, the same idea still applies, although it gets tempered by the number of units in a single location. Broadly speaking, when you get past a 'handful' (4-6) apartments in a single structure, they will tap off a full 25-pair group for the building. *NOT* a _dedicated_ 25-pair -- it _will_ be 'multipled' at other locations, to ensure 'relatively' full usage of all the pairs in that group. For bigger properties, multiple 25-pair groups will be 'available' at that site. Which may, or may _not_, be tapped off at other locations. For truly =large= buildings (on the order of a couple of hundred units) you can justify 'dedicated' wiring to the building, including a limited number of dedicated 'spare pairs' for that building. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Just to elaborate a little on what Mr. Bonomi said, *no one*, in a residence setting in those days had two telephone lines in their homes. Extensions, yes, *additional lines*, no. In fact, during World War II, Bell went around and asked their subscribers to give up their extensions (voluntary, did not require it) in order that people who did not have any phone service at all could have an instrument, and service to go with it. Western Electric had been nationalized for the duration as part of the War Effort in 1942, through sometime in early 1946. No more manufacturing for Bell! Many or most large highrise apartment complexes had switchboards in their lobby as a courtesy to tenants, to provide the tenants with phone service. Just like a telco central office, those switchboards were designed according to Erlang formula to accomodate 'busy hour' and other periods of time. The building I lived in in Rogers Park had 200 apartments; the switchboard had about a dozen 'outside lines' coming in to it, plus three or four 'dedicated long distance trunks' which reached directly the long distance operator, plus a couple other specialized pairs; one was for the Western Union clock and one was for the telex machine, plus a few of the more important tenants such as the manager had 'private lines' of their own in addition to their switchboard line. Most tenants were not allowed to have their own private lines (or else their rent carried a surcharge for the same) since that cut the owner out of the commission he received for handling their calls over his switchboard. But times and circumstances changed: the war ended, Bell regained possession of Western Electric, the building owners finally got their mortgages paid off -- owned the building free and clear -- and probably for the first time ever began to see a profit on their buildings with no more debt service. The same original owners also grew older, more cranky and impatient, etc and sold their buildings to younger guys who wanted their big break as an apartment building owner. Many times the old owner even carried the paper on the building sale (often times he had to, the banks were not fools after all) so the end result was the old owner got all the money but none of the headaches of maintainence, etc. New owner got all the headaches and expenses of maintainence, which were now considerable in older high rise buildings. New owner looks over the mess he foolishly bought in a moment of optimistic thinking, and realizes he is going to have to make some serious cuts and changes in order to survive on his investment. First thing let's do, he decides, is let's cut out the maid service. (Yes, all those old high rise apartment buildings had *daily* maid service for each tenant. Where early on, custom had been they had *white* maids to clean the apartments, by the end of World War II, they couldn't get white ladies to work at that job any longer, so they had to 'relax their standards a little' and settle for black ladies who needed the work. The building I lived in had a *white* housekeeper [maid supervisor] and about 15 *black* maids.) All the buildings were the same way. Then comes 1968 and the assassination of MLK and the black ladies refused those jobs as well. So the new owner, already playing games with the utilities and payroll in order to meet the mortgage payment to the old owner who by now had retired and gone to live in senior citizen housing in Florida decided to ditch the maids. And while we are trimming our payroll, let's get rid of the front desk service also. (Front desk/switchboard operator was *always* white, as was the building manager; maids were *always* black; that's the way I grew up with it). The maintainence man or building engineer was usually a white guy also, but the janitor who worked under him was usually a black guy. Tenants of course were *always* white people. The new owners had begun to see the handwriting on the wall in the early 1960's, those who had not made the decision to convert the (name of place) Hotel into the (same name) Apartments by 1968 surely did so after MLK was killed and all the maids went on a two or three day sympathy strike that week, leaving their housekeeper supervisors to make all the beds and vacuum all the white people's carpets and clean their bathtubs and toilets. In our building alone, on one day the new owners dismissed 15 maids and the housekeeper, retaining only the building manager and the maintainence man. That was a major payroll burden lifted from his shoulders. He kept the four front desk people (grudgingly) since the switchboard had to be serviced until such time as Bell could make the necessary changes. But they were gone also a day or two after the phone conversion was finished. The last day or two, the clerk/operators sat there answering the phone telling people "if you want to speak with Mrs. Smith in 2309, she now has a direct number you need to dial, xxx-xxxx". And from a telecom perspective, that was a major hassle for Bell; they did it time and again in the 1960's and 1970's as building owners pulled out their old switchboards (which were, remember, installed originally on an Erlang formula regards usage) and demanded that all tenants get their own telephones as desired. Where a half dozen or a dozen pairs was quite adequate before, now telco had to scrounge around in the old pre-historic cables and find maybe two hundred pairs to be wired 'straight across' to the tenants. And today, thirty or forty years later, and at least one or two 'new owners' later you still see those monster wooden cabinets from Western Electric in the basement or back room where the switchboard used to be, usually full of cobwebs and string-tagged notes from long since departed OSP guys dated in the 1930-50's era telling interested parties 'this fifty pairs wired straight across to (address). PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 09 Oct 2004 07:49:26 -0600 From: jared@nospam.au (jared) Subject: Re: OSP Identifiers / Verizon Repair > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > This reminds me of a situation about 1970 or so: Something to do with a > loose contact. It appears it was the 'first selected trunk' in a group of > several circuits running from the central office. Since it was > the 'first selection', during the day in busy hours, it was always > being seized. One seizure after another. When a subscriber tried to > make a call (to that central office from my central office) it was > only rarely the subscriber would land on that first selected trunk. Here's a modern variant -- an ISP has banks of modems. There are likely a few 'bad' modems. Normally, if one gets such a modem, a redial will get a good one. Let the number of users approach the number of modems, say during the 9pm internet rush hour. The chance of getting a bad modem is quite high, because the pool of available modems is now the small number of bad modems. ------------------------------ From: pvava@yahoo.com (PeterV) Subject: Panasonic KX-TMC98-B Caller Id Problem Date: 9 Oct 2004 11:02:18 -0700 Hi, I have had a Panasonic KX-TMC98-B phone for several years now and have been very happy with it. I have not used the CallerID before since I din't really want to pay for it. I have justed switched to VONAGE and setup up my home wiring to accomodate it. Basically I removed the phone companies wiring from my internal wiring and then attaching my Vonage line. Everything works fine except on my KX-TMC98 when I receive calls the CallerID flashes and then resets the date and time. Now I am using just one line instead of two. All the wiring is just using two wires. Interestingly, when I attach my phone line to the Line1/2 connector on the TMC98 the CallerId registers it as a LINE2 CallerID, even though the call is coming in on Line1. When I attach the phone through LINE2, the call comes in on Line2 and it registers the CallerID as a Line2 ID. In both situations the time and date get reset, and not just to 0 but to some strange characters for Month and Day. I have another more recently bought single line phone that works fine CallerID. Any ideas? I have played with the line type and cpc to no avail. Thanks in advance, Peter ------------------------------ From: Billy Subject: Definity PBX Password G3 Date: Sat, 09 Oct 2004 15:16:04 -0400 Does anyone know the default password for the init login ID on a Definity G3V4 PBX. I tried initpw, but that did not work. This system is old. Possibly an old Avaya/Lucent or AT&T tech could help out here. This is the si model I believe. Any help is greatly appreciated. TIA, Bill ------------------------------ Subject: Oklahoma State University Simplified Admission Requirements From: Charles G Gray Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 10:38:20 -0500 Pat, we would appreciate it if you would post the following update on the MSTM Program. In an effort to simplify the admission requirements, Oklahoma State University has made the following revisions in requirements for candidates for the Master of Science in Telecommunications Management (MSTM) Program. The requirement for GRE or GMAT examination is waived for part-time student applicants who meet the following criteria: - Two or more years experience in telecommunications - Have a technically-oriented undergraduate degree with a 3.2 (out of 4.0) or higher GPA. Details may be obtained at http://www.mstm.okstate.edu/prospective_stu/admission_requirements.htm. See also the MSTM sponsorship note toward the end of each issue of the Digest. The purpose of these changes is to attract more working professionals into the MSTM program. The MSTM degree program requires 35 credit hours, all of which may be obtained via distance learning. All class materials are posted to the respective class web sites, and lectures are delivered via streaming video, DVD or VCR tape. Currently, students are enrolled from Virginia to California, and recent students have completed internships (the "Practicum" requirement) in Germany, Guatemala, and Botswana - as well as in Tulsa and Oklahoma City. Regards, Charles G. Gray Senior Lecturer, Telecommunications Oklahoma State University - Tulsa (918)594-8433 ------------------------------ 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 #478 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Oct 9 22:45:23 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9A2jNI13374; Sat, 9 Oct 2004 22:45:23 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 22:45:23 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410100245.i9A2jNI13374@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 #479 TELECOM Digest Sat, 9 Oct 2004 22:45:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 479 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Solar Eclipse to Start Thursday, End Wednesday! (Lisa Minter) Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response (Al Gillis) Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? (David Clayton) Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium (Dave Close) Re: VOIP Home Connection (Rick Merrill) Re: Multipled Pairs: (was: VOIP Home Connection) (Tony P.) 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: Solar Eclipse to Start Thursday, End Wednesday! Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 18:07:25 EDT Today, Joe Rao, tells us about an unusual event: A partial solar eclipse will take place next week, oddly ending the day before it begins. The eclipse will be visible, weather permitting, from northeastern portions of Asia, including all of Japan, northeastern Mongolia and China, and much of Siberia. Since these regions are located to the west of the International Date Line, the eclipse will take place Thursday, Oct. 14. To the east of the Date Line, however, the calendar date is Oct. 13. And it will be those lucky skywatchers who live in the western half of Alaska that will be able to see the final moments of the eclipse, when it reaches a spectacular peak just as the Sun sets beyond the west-southwest horizon late Wednesday afternoon. The eclipse will start on Oct. 14, but it will end on the *previous* day! It is the second partial solar eclipse of 2004. In the first one, on April 19, the lower-third of Africa saw the new Moon partially eclipse the Sun. What will happen? The dark shadow cone of the Moon is known as the umbra, and it is what can create the grand spectacle of a total eclipse. But this time, the umbra will completely miss the Earth, passing less than 140 miles (220 kilometers) above the North Pole and out into space. Meanwhile, the Moon's outer shadow (known as the penumbra), from where the Moon will appear to partially eclipse the Sun, will slice into a part of the Northern Hemisphere. Partial solar eclipses are usually shunned by professional astronomers because they lack the drama and beauty of a total solar eclipse. Yet the setup affords many people the opportunity to view firsthand the dark disk of the Moon crossing in front of the Sun. A partial eclipse, whether or not it leads to totality or annularity, offers a wonderful opportunity to experience the magic of astronomy," writes Philip Harrington in Eclipse!(John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1997). The details: The point of greatest eclipse lies near the town of Kenai (southwest of Anchorage). There, 92.7 percent of the Sun's diameter will be eclipsed at local sunset. Other Alaskan towns, including Kotzebue (91.2 percent), Nome (91.4 percent)and Bethel (92.4 percent) will also see the Sun disappear beyond the horizon while still deep into the eclipse. Because such a large fraction of the Sun will be covered by the Moon for these locations, an eerie 'counterfeit twilight' may appear to fall over the landscape just prior to sunset. Those living across the eastern half of Alaska (except the Southeast Coast) will see eclipse's opening stages up until local sunset. This eclipse will not be visible from virtually any part of Canada (save for a fleeting glimpse for that part of the Yukon Territory immediately bordering Alaska) or any part of the 48 contiguous United States. But for those living in Hawaii, the Moon will appear to obscure about half of the Sun's disk on Wednesday afternoon. The Moon's passage across the Sun will result in a large bite on the Sun's right-hand side, making for a most unusual looking tropical sunset! ** Be very, very careful ** about the precautions for eclipse viewing. ** Never ** look at even a tiny bit of the Sun's disc unless you are using a proper filtration device, such as #14 welder's glass or aluminized Mylar plastic to protect your eyes. Eclipse glasses from reputable astronomy-product dealers are also safe. And there are other safe methods for indirectly viewing an eclipse. The upcoming eclipse will be visible, weather permitting, from northeastern portions of Asia, including all of Japan, northeastern Mongolia and China, and much of Siberia. Since these regions are located to the west of the International Date Line, it is already Thursday when the eclipse begins. There is more in store later this month. A total eclipse of the Moon will be visible from most of the Americas and Western Europe on Oct. 27. The next solar eclipse will be an unusual "hybrid" eclipse -- annular, part total -- on April 8, 2005 chiefly over the Pacific Ocean. However, those living across portions of the southern and eastern U.S. will be able to see a partial solar eclipse. Local viewing circumstances: The table below provides local viewing circumstances of the eclipse for ten cities and has been calculated by astronomer Fred Espenak of the NASA Space Flight Center. For China, Japan and Korea, this is a late-morning to midday event occurring on Oct. 14. For Anchorage and Honolulu, however, this is a late-afternoon/early evening event on October 13. In addition, sunset will intervene at these two locations, so the end of the eclipse will not be visible because it will occur after the Sun has set. Magnitude refers to the percentage of the Sun's diameter that will be obscured at maximum eclipse. Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for Channel 12 Westchester, New York. ------------------------------ From: Al Gillis Subject: Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response = T911 Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 18:03:30 -0700 Rick Merrill wrote in message news:telecom23.478.4@telecom-digest.org: > Wesrock@aol.com wrote: >> --- From The Daily Oklahoman, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for October > 8, 2004 >> Dispatch error leads police astray >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is unfortunate, but not unusual, >> since it would appear the bank branch was on the *bank's* telephone >> system (sort of like a foreign exchange on the bank's centrex) instead >> of on the *Albertson's* phone system. Of course there is no guarentee >> that the Albertson's phone system was not part of some phone system at >> Albertson's headquarters instead of based out of that local store as >> well. So this should be a good lesson to the telecom adminstrators in >> our readership. Make certain all *critical* phones at locations other >> than your main, directory-listed business location are correctly >> listed in 911 databases, etc. PAT] > Maybe what is needed is a T911 - TEST 911 - that would permit on-site > verification that the location is correct! - RM Well, I test my E-911 accuracy about once a year. I've got about 12 buildings at different street addresses all dialing their 911 calls through set of one main PBX trunks (it's a Nortel 81c with numerous Carrier Remotes as well as some OPX locations). I used to call a pal of mine at the PSAP a day or so ahead of these tests just to warn them we'd be doing it. When she retired I couldn't find anyone else at the PSAP who seemed to care, so now we just start calling. On the first couple of calls each year we have to explain what we're doing -- after that it's just call, confirm that they have the correct street address on their screen and then say "Thank you!". Al [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: City of Independence seems to take it as a serious matter. Maybe that is because the PSAP for sheriff and police are in the same room (although on different phones as the 911 lines. Whenever they get an order to adjust their data base for same, they *always* follow up with a letter send *exactly to the address specified* asking 'is this correct? is this the address to which we are expected to respond?' Someone has to sign, date and return the letter to the PSAP agency, *then* it gets taken off of pending status in the data base. Later, in case of an emergency, although they do not get the full compliment of details they get with 911. a caller ID unit gives them something to go by. PAT] ------------------------------ From: David Clayton Subject: Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 08:49:35 +1000 Bob Goudreau contributed the following: > [Please withhold my email address as usual.] > Lisa Hancock wrote: >> David Clayton wrote: >>> Of course, I won't mention that a lot of these things seemed to have >>> happened since the state privatised the train system about 10 years ago. >> There are elements in the U.S. in think privitizing Amtrak will be >> more efficient. They ignore the many experiences of the above in the >> United Kingdom and other countries... > Actually, it is the persistent critics of such privatizations that > tend to conveniently ignore what actually happened. For example, > neither Britain nor Australia has seen a decline in rail safety since > privatization of various elements of their railway systems, contrary > to the statist party line. See > http://www.cts.cv.imperial.ac.uk/documents/publications/iccts00410.pdf > and http://www.atsb.gov.au/rail/pdf/fatalities_international.pdf, for > instance. And to quote a paragraph from the ATSB document: "The ATSB is currently unable to present rail fatality data from the OECD countries in terms of a rate that enables comparisons while taking account of the different levels of rail activity in each country. This is because reliable and internationally consistent activity data for rail transport in the OECD countries are not currently available." So in reality it's difficult to currently prove the argument one way or the other (at least in Australia). Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@XYZ.myrealbox.com Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. (Remove the "XYZ." to reply) Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. ------------------------------ From: dave@compata.com (Dave Close) Subject: Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium Date: 9 Oct 2004 13:51:47 -0700 Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California markrobt@comcast.net (Mark Roberts) writes: > On your PCS, you should be able to dial them as 10 digits. On both > SPCS and ATTWS, I am routinely able to dial all calls without the '1'. I know, but I /can/ dial them as 11 digits. Doing so makes the dialing plan common with all my other lines. > I never thought I would advocate this, but the time may have come > simply to require *all* calls to be dialed with 10 digits, thus > dispensing with the '1'. IMHO, that isn't thinking sufficiently far ahead. While most NANP telcos treat the leading 1 as a number format indicator (an area code follows), and some treat it as a toll indicator, it is also the international country code for North America. The trend toward making all NANP calls "local" is only a preview of the day when all calls, to any country in the world, will also be "local". When that day arrives, it will make no more sense to dial 011 before a country code that it does now to dial 1 before the area code. We should simply dial all calls with their full international number, country code + area code + local number. It may be convenient for those of us in the NANP to just continue to dial the 1 now in preparation for that day. Eliminating the 1 now only to have to reinstate it later would only be confusing. Of course, dialing calls with the full number would have some conflicts with special numbers. 411 would go to Switzerland, for example. (And 911 would go to India. Perhaps by then it will, if we outsource the call centers.) Maybe we should begin an effort to transition special numbers to *+ or #+. If the FCC can mandate the obsolescence of all analog television receivers, then why not also obsolete pulse dialing? Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA "You can't go to Windows Update dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 and get a patch for stupidity." dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu -- Kevin Mitnick ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: VOIP Home Connection Organization: Comcast Online Date: Sat, 09 Oct 2004 21:19:13 GMT ... unless the VoIP adapter manufacturers wise up > and start making their boxes power a normal complement of phones in a > home (at least 5 REN), there's going to be a market for add-on ringing > current boosters ... What is the REN of a DVG 1120M ? "They" "don't know." I think it is 3. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Multipled Pairs: (was: VOIP Home Connection) Organization: ATCC Date: Sat, 09 Oct 2004 21:39:43 GMT > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Just to elaborate a little on what > Mr. Bonomi said, *no one*, in a residence setting in those days had > two telephone lines in their homes. Extensions, yes, *additional > lines*, no. In fact, during World War II, Bell went around and asked > their subscribers to give up their extensions (voluntary, did not > require it) in order that people who did not have any phone service at > all could have an instrument, and service to go with it. Western > Electric had been nationalized for the duration as part of the War > Effort in 1942, through sometime in early 1946. No more manufacturing > for Bell! Being that Bell never manufactured a thing that part is hard to believe. When you consider that Western Electric was a captive manufacturing arm, then everything makes sense. Duing the war years Western Electric did lots of manufacturing of things like communications systems and radar systems. But the biggest detriment to residential service was the need for copper. Munitions manufacture used up lots of copper. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well what I meant to say was (in a longer form) the US Government took over Western Electric for its own needs during World War II, and used its output production totally and exclusively for the war effort. Its one 'customer' -- Bell -- was shut out of any production output. Bell was unable to obtain *any* phones or other telephone parts for the next 3.5 years. Everyone *knows* that Bell did not manufacture anything on its own; that about 99.9 percent of its 'products' came from Western Electric, but thanks for making the correction. 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 #479 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Oct 10 16:30:55 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9AKUs721541; Sun, 10 Oct 2004 16:30:55 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 16:30:55 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410102030.i9AKUs721541@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 #480 TELECOM Digest Sun, 10 Oct 2004 16:29:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 480 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Anti-Kerry Film Slated to Air on Eve of Election (Monty Solomon) Wireless and Wi-fi Definitions (Bob) B&K Precision Dynascan Corporation 1045 Telephone Tester (Fred Atkinson) FXS to FXO Idea (Alex Wright) Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? (Bob Goudreau) Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? (Lisa Hancock) Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response = T911 (Tim@Backhome.org) Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response = T911 (Rick Merrill) Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response (Lisa Hancock) Re: Wanted: I Will Pay Up To $150 For Used Cell Phone! (Ray Normandeau) Re: Why There's no DNS or Comparable Distributed Naming Service (Devils) Solar Eclipse to Start Thursday, But End on Wednesday! (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: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 14:20:51 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Anti-Kerry film slated to air on eve of election TV PROGRAM By Elizabeth Jensen, Los Angeles Times | October 10, 2004 NEW YORK -- The conservative-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group , whose television outlets reach nearly a quarter of the nation's homes with TV, is ordering its stations to preempt regular programming just days before the Nov. 2 election to air a film that attacks Senator John F. Kerry's activism against the Vietnam War, network and station executives familiar with the plan said Friday. Sinclair's programming plan, communicated to executives in recent days and coming in the thick of a close and intense presidential race, is highly unusual even in a political season that has been marked by media controversies. Sinclair has told its stations -- many of them in political swing states such as Ohio and Florida -- to air "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," sources said. The film, funded by Pennsylvania veterans and produced by a veteran and former Washington Times reporter, features former POWs accusing Kerry -- a decorated Navy veteran turned war protester -- of worsening their ordeal by prolonging the war. Sinclair will preempt regular prime-time programming from the networks to show the film, which may be classified as news programming, according to TV executives familiar with the plan. http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/kerry/articles/2004/10/10/anti_kerry_film_slated_to_air_on_eve_of_election/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: However they wish to classify it is their business, *however* they should recall the law which requires stations to grant equal time to opposing viewpoints. This is taken so seriously that back when Reagan was running for president most stations would not even play real old Ronald Reagan Hollywood movies during the month or so immediatly before the election, as silly as that may have seemed, since there was always the possibility of the other candidates -- the Democratic challenger -- insisting upon, and having to be given, under the law, equal time. And if there was that possibility, regards Reagan's old Hollywood stuff, what do you think the chances are for it in present time if the stations show a sort of one-sided documentary deliberatly opposing Kerry? PAT] ------------------------------ From: bob_peterson@rediffmail.com (Bob) Subject: Wireless and Wi-fi Definitions Date: 10 Oct 2004 10:44:39 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Do wi-fi and wireless technology mean the same thing? I referred to Google for the answers but almost all the sites explaining these terms use it synonymously and hence adding the confusion? Greetings, Bob ------------------------------ From: Fred Atkinson Subject: B&K Precision Dynascan Corporation 1045 Telephone Product Tester Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 09:20:32 -0400 Yesterday, I got my hands on a B&K Precision Dyanscan Corporation 1045 Telephone Product Tester. I fired it up and most of it is self explanatory, but there are a couple of features on it I can't seem to make work. I've looked on the Web site and am not able to find any documentation or other information on it. Is anyone here familiar with it? Does anyone know URLs where there is information about it? There are two features on it that I cannot make work. One is the 'Dialed Number Display, which always displays a zero. I plugged a telephone into the test jack and punched the touch tone pads, but the display still always shows a zero rather than shows the numbers I dialed. Another feature on it is the Ringer Levels. I pushed them while the phone was plugged into it, but the phone never rang. I assume it is supposed to send ring generator to the phone but I can't be sure. Ringer Levels has tow buttons on it marked Low and Normal. The the left of the low button there Reset is there in black lettering. I got it at a hamfest and the gentleman that sold it was getting rid of a couple of items from his workbench. He told me that as far as he knew it still worked though he hadn't used it in quite a while. Any information about this box would be appreciated. = Fred ------------------------------ From: alexwright321@altavista.com (Alex Wright) Subject: FXS to FXO Idea Date: 10 Oct 2004 01:56:32 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I have an idea of a VOIP gateway box. I guess you would call it that. I don't think this device exist yet. You could call from your cell phone or another local number to your VOIP line. It would pickup and give you a fake ring to enter an access code. After the correct access code, you would get get a simulated dial tone or beep. Then you would enter the long distance number you want to call. The voip line would then use three-way calling to call the number you just entered. When your done with the connected call you could punch a special tone sequency to disconnect all connections. This would be a way to make a free long distance call from a cell maybe that you can make free local calls on. Also, when you fist call in and don't enter the special security access code to use the device after so many seconds. The device would trigger the other house phones to ring like normal. Maybe this could be done with a modem and software? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, these devices do exist, and are marketed under various names such as 'Call Extenders' or 'WATS Extenders' ('WATS' = Wide Area Telephone Service, an early form of unlimited long distance calling.) A telephone line going in, and a telephone line going out the other direction, with a control box in the middle, which acts like a gate, requiring a passcode, supplying a bogus dialtone on answer to start with. They've been around for maybe thirty years, and were quite popular when cell phones had not yet been invented, or were quite high-priced, and when long distance calls were so expensive most business places had to have one or more WATS lines. The idea was you could go to a payphone, and for one thin dime be able to call your office (on a local number) then use the company's WATS line. A couple of different factors largely put the 'extender' (and WATS lines) out of business: The cost of long distance calls being so neglible now, and cell phones being so plentiful. No business person needs to go to the trouble of an intermediary (which is what the Call- or WATS-extenders were) in the line. I think you can still find them around, on E-Bay for example, or maybe a reader here has one they feel like parting with. So many features we used to need them for (three way calling, call waiting, other features) not present in the old crossbar system are now available in ESS. I think thats the main reason (plus very inexpensive long distance) you don't see them commonly available any longer. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Bob Goudreau Subject: Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 00:02:48 -0400 [Please withhold my email address as usual.] David Clayton wrote: > >>> Of course, I won't mention that a lot of these things seemed to have > >>> happened since the state privatised the train system about 10 years > ago. >>> There are elements in the U.S. in think privitizing Amtrak will be >>> more efficient. They ignore the many experiences of the above in the >>> United Kingdom and other countries... >> Actually, it is the persistent critics of such privatizations that >> tend to conveniently ignore what actually happened. For example, >> neither Britain nor Australia has seen a decline in rail safety since >> privatization of various elements of their railway systems, contrary >> to the statist party line. See >> http://www.cts.cv.imperial.ac.uk/documents/publications/iccts00410.pdf >> and http://www.atsb.gov.au/rail/pdf/fatalities_international.pdf, for >> instance. > And to quote a paragraph from the ATSB document: > "The ATSB is currently unable to present rail fatality data from the > OECD countries in terms of a rate that enables comparisons while > taking account of the different levels of rail activity in each > country. This is because reliable and internationally consistent > activity data for rail transport in the OECD countries are not > currently available." > So in reality it's difficult to currently prove the argument one way or > the other (at least in Australia). Er, no, it's not really that difficult. The caveat you quoted warns of the difficulty of comparing the fatality rates *between* one OECD country and another. But the topic under discussion is nothing of the sort. Rather, it's the comparison of the rate *within* one country (Australia, in this case) over a period of time that encompassed rail privatization. Just a bit further down the page, the report states: "In the period from 1980 to 1999 in Australia, the number of railway accident deaths per 100,000 population each year trended downwards - from 0.4 in 1980 to 0.2 in 1999." Cheers, Bob Goudreau Cary, NC ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? Date: 9 Oct 2004 21:32:54 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Bob Goudreau wrote: > Actually, it is the persistent critics of such privatizations that > tend to conveniently ignore what actually happened. For example, > neither Britain nor Australia has seen a decline in rail safety since > privatization of various elements of their railway systems, contrary > to the statist party line. I am not an expert on the British situation, and I don't know about safety statistics. However, I have several contacts in England and they consistently and emphatically report that train service quality had signficantly deteriorated under privitization. > Contrary to the popular perception of the uninformed, the US airline > industry did not become more dangerous after airline deregulation in > the late 1970s; the fatality rate per passenger-mile continued (and > still continues) to decline. I am not aware of any accusations that flying under deregulation (or the continuing FAA troubles) is less safe. What there _are_ many complaints is that flying is less convenient, reliabile, and uncomfortable. There are constant newspaper reports of airlines scheduling an impossible number of flights to leave in too small a window at major airports like Chicago O'Hare. The govt keeps pushing them to work out a better arrangement but nothing seems to get done. Before the traffic downturn of 9/11 airlines had to deal with riots at ticket gates from frustrated passengers. > Likewise, blood-covered highways were predicted by some of the more > strident "safety Nazis" when the 55 mph national speed limit was > loosened to 65 mph in the mid-1980s and then rescinded entirely a > decade later (which let states return to setting their own limits, > most of which have reverted to 70 or 75 mph). Yet the US fatality > rate per vehicle-mile traveled has continued the long secular > decline that began in the early part of the 20th century. The fatality rate is only one of several measures of highway danger. There is also an overall accident rate and an injury rate. In New Jersey, the state closely watched a highway where the speed limit went up. The fatality rate actually went down-- but from 1 to 0--obviously statistically insignificant. However, the accident severity (damages) and injuries did go up. There are multiple reasons for the decline in highway fatalities. One is aggressive enforcement of drunk driving which is a major cause. Another is aggressive demand for use of seat belts--lack of which is another major cause. Lastly, cars continue to get safer as more and more cars equipped with airbags and things like anti-lock brakes get on the roads. >> We may end up with govt owned airlines given how so many are bankrupt. > ... But such foreclosed assets are usually auctioned off by the > government, not reconstituted as government-run agencies. There are > successful airlines that would be happy to pick up such assets at > bargain prices, after all. Often the auction sale proceeds of a bankruptcy bring in far less than the book value of the collateral. Another loss the govt is facing is picking up the obligation of airline pension funds. According to Newsweek recently, it is at least $10 million from current problems, and may reach as high as $40 million if other troubled airlines don't clean up their act. Many people point to Southwest Air as the model other airlines should follow to be cost-efficient. I question whether that model would work for others. IMHO, SW does well because it flies in specific niche markets and focuses on low costs. If it grew too big or had to serve more expensive cities, its costs would grow steeply. Indeed, it already ran into labor problems when it introduced service in a new bigger city since the cost of living in that city was higher than its other bases and its employees there understandably needed more money. IMHO, the airline industry will only solve with either big govt subsidies (which I think are forthcoming, perhaps by "forgiven loans" or defaulted ground rents as US Air did in Pgh), or by sharply increased fares and reduced service. Getting a plane up in the air is not cheap no matter how tight an operation is. The psgr railroads suffered partly because airlines, benefiting from government built terminals and traffic control, took traffic away fro the railroads. But no competition* is taking traffic away from the airlines. (*There is some teleconferencing, but face-to-face is still needed to properly conduct business and supervise operations.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Whether or not privately owned businesses are more or less safe than government owned facilities is usually detirmined by *which* government entity operates the facility or *which* private enterprise owns it. Some people make the incorrect assumption that *all* government is by nature good, and *all* business is by nature bad. But let's consider Chicago as an example of 'good government': The city took over public housing (Chicago Housing Atrocity) in 1941 after several social workers insisted people needed decent *short term* housing to live in. Today, 2004 and for the past several years, the CHA has been under federal government 'receivership' because the corruption and political chicanary were so deep rooted no one could clear it out. Some residents of CHA have lived in public housing for *years*, and the crime rate on CHA property is astronomical. In 1945, political reformers said the transit system had to be taken over the same way instead of the several independent companies we had running our various busses and trains. From five cent fares, on-time busses and trains and street cars which had snow plows attached to the front of them in winter weather to clean the streets we evolved to the present system in place today, a chronically cash-starved, very corrupt system where all sorts of political hacks who can find no place else to work get jobs - The Chicago Transit Atrocity. (what are your job qualifications to work here? Well, my father is a friend of our local councilman.) Oh, and don't forget the degree of filth and decay the rapid transit stations and the level of crime. Our parks, always a place of beauty and relative safety, changed where the 'safe' part was concerned when the Chicago Park District Police Force was taken over by the Chicago Police in the 1940's. And I do not have to tell you how bad the public school system in Chicago has become. So a few years ago, when Mayor Daley got a chip on his shoulder and tried to 'municipalize' Edison electric facilities, people responded, "that's just great! The same bunch of politicans and crooks who run the transit system (CTA), the public housing system (CHA), the public schools, the parks, etc are now going to be taking over the nuclear power plant as well" ... Daley sat there with a straight look on his face (while the rest of us snickered) and said "But this time its going to be different". The Tribune said "yeah sure, it will be different this time (snicker)" and a couple of the **LARGE** companies and industries in Chicago said point blank "the day the city takes over Edison is the day we split town, period.". The Chicago Tribune said succinctly, "the very idea of city of Chicago taking over the nuke station for our power scares the beejeezus out of us." Maybe an honest and diligent government can run some of those things, but until I see an honest and diligent government I will stick with privitazation, thank you. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tim@Backhome.org Subject: Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response = T911 Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 03:19:09 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications > Maybe what is needed is a T911 - TEST 911 - that would permit on-site > verification that the location is correct! - RM Most E911 administrators will let you make a "real" call at a quiet time of the day provided you first call the center on their 7-digit number and set up a "test" call. ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response = T911 Organization: Comcast Online Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 12:32:19 GMT Al Gillis wrote: > Rick Merrill wrote in message > news:telecom23.478.4@telecom-digest.org: >> Wesrock@aol.com wrote: >>> --- From The Daily Oklahoman, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for October >> 8, 2004 >>> Dispatch error leads police astray >>> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is unfortunate, but not unusual, >>> since it would appear the bank branch was on the *bank's* telephone >>> system (sort of like a foreign exchange on the bank's centrex) instead >>> of on the *Albertson's* phone system. Of course there is no guarentee >>> that the Albertson's phone system was not part of some phone system at >>> Albertson's headquarters instead of based out of that local store as >>> well. So this should be a good lesson to the telecom adminstrators in >>> our readership. Make certain all *critical* phones at locations other >>> than your main, directory-listed business location are correctly >>> listed in 911 databases, etc. PAT] >> Maybe what is needed is a T911 - TEST 911 - that would permit on-site >> verification that the location is correct! - RM > Well, I test my E-911 accuracy about once a year. Dont' try that in Massachusetts: MA law requires that the police pay a visit to ANY 911 or E911 call no matter what! They can be mighty "testy" about it. - RM > I've got about 12 > buildings at different street addresses all dialing their 911 calls > through set of one main PBX trunks (it's a Nortel 81c with numerous > Carrier Remotes as well as some OPX locations). I used to call a pal > of mine at the PSAP a day or so ahead of these tests just to warn them > we'd be doing it. When she retired I couldn't find anyone else at the > PSAP who seemed to care, so now we just start calling. On the first > couple of calls each year we have to explain what we're doing -- after > that it's just call, confirm that they have the correct street address > on their screen and then say "Thank you!". > > Al > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: City of Independence seems to take it > as a serious matter. Maybe that is because the PSAP for sheriff and > police are in the same room (although on different phones as the 911 > lines. Whenever they get an order to adjust their data base for same, > they *always* follow up with a letter send *exactly to the address > specified* asking 'is this correct? is this the address to which we > are expected to respond?' Someone has to sign, date and return the > letter to the PSAP agency, *then* it gets taken off of pending status > in the data base. Later, in case of an emergency, although they do not > get the full compliment of details they get with 911. a caller ID > unit gives them something to go by. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response Date: 9 Oct 2004 20:37:18 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is unfortunate, but not unusual, > since it would appear the bank branch was on the *bank's* telephone > system (sort of like a foreign exchange on the bank's centrex) instead > of on the *Albertson's* phone system. Of course there is no guarentee > that the Albertson's phone system was not part of some phone system at > Albertson's headquarters instead of based out of that local store as > well. Yes, this is an increasing problem with more sophisticated telephone systems. Telephone administrators may be far, far away setting these things up and not even thinking about local needs. Also, sometimes outward lines are from a special battery of numbers. > So this should be a good lesson to the telecom adminstrators in > our readership. Make certain all *critical* phones at locations other > than your main, directory-listed business location are correctly > listed in 911 databases, etc. PAT] When our mgmt company went to a Centrex, I checked our office and pool phone to ensure they registered the right address on 911. They did and 911 was very helpful in checking. Of course, when we had a community president who felt the pool phone was being abused she had it taken out to save money. A great example of _literally_ 'penny smart dollar foolish'. Fortunately we had no emergencies while the phone was out. This president was proud of her no-fee-increase budget, but then she was thrown out of office by a community angry over deferred and neglected maintenance. The pool phone was restored. But at first it was in locked cabinet which would be bad if there was an emergency. Now it is open. The issue is kind of moot now since so many people have cell phones, but at least we have a phone. We used to get a lot of requests for a pay phone but Bell told us we wouldn't have enough use to pay for it and have to make up the difference. ------------------------------ From: rayta@msn.com (Ray Normandeau) Subject: Re: Wanted: I Will Pay You Up To $150 For Your Used Cell Phone! Date: 9 Oct 2004 23:23:23 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com c.huckaby@gmail.com (Charles) wrote in message news:: > I desperately need working, late model USED CELL PHONES! > I will pay shipping and up to $150 per cell phone depending on make > and model! > Details: http://www.cell2cash.com > Thanks. Too bad they don't have my SPCS phones listed. They are the original TouchPoints. I have three with chargers and batteries. Took out of service in August. Pix at http://nyc.smugmug.com/gallery/191830 a few other things there also. Good Email there. NYC delivery or PICK UP only. I am not a dealer. MSN addy no good. ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Why There's no DNS or Comparable Distributed Naming Service Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 01:51:34 -0600 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Ariel.Burbaickij@web.de wrote: > Could someone explain to me why there is no such service as DNS/whois > towards it in SS7 network? After all, we have exactly same concerns > here (distributed and independent administration of different subsets > of address space, mapping must be often provided between pointcodes > (numerical address) and its current owner), so why it was decided not > to do it this way but instead some arcane lists are distributed by ITU > exclusively? The internet didn't start out with DNS either -- Or BGP even, everybody distributed routing tables and changes manually. As neat as DNS on phones would be, it would be extremely difficult to implement at this stage, and with LNP becoming a reality in the US (and possibly elsewhere as time goes on) it's less important (from an end user point of view.) -- This signature was randomly selected ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Solar Eclipse to Start Thursday, End Wednesday! Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 18:07:25 EDT [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This message was intended to go out Saturday, and it did in the Digest, but it got very badly mangled up by premature release on Usenet, so it is being re-released today. PAT] Today, Joe Rao, tells us about an unusual event: A partial solar eclipse will take place next week, oddly ending the day before it begins. The eclipse will be visible, weather permitting, from northeastern portions of Asia, including all of Japan, northeastern Mongolia and China, and much of Siberia. Since these regions are located to the west of the International Date Line, the eclipse will take place Thursday, Oct. 14. To the east of the Date Line, however, the calendar date is Oct. 13. And it will be those lucky skywatchers who live in the western half of Alaska that will be able to see the final moments of the eclipse, when it reaches a spectacular peak just as the Sun sets beyond the west-southwest horizon late Wednesday afternoon. The eclipse will start on Oct. 14, but it will end on the *previous* day! It is the second partial solar eclipse of 2004. In the first one, on April 19, the lower-third of Africa saw the new Moon partially eclipse the Sun. What will happen? The dark shadow cone of the Moon is known as the umbra, and it is what can create the grand spectacle of a total eclipse. But this time, the umbra will completely miss the Earth, passing less than 140 miles (220 kilometers) above the North Pole and out into space. Meanwhile, the Moon's outer shadow (known as the penumbra), from where the Moon will appear to partially eclipse the Sun, will slice into a part of the Northern Hemisphere. Partial solar eclipses are usually shunned by professional astronomers because they lack the drama and beauty of a total solar eclipse. Yet the setup affords many people the opportunity to view firsthand the dark disk of the Moon crossing in front of the Sun. A partial eclipse, whether or not it leads to totality or annularity, offers a wonderful opportunity to experience the magic of astronomy," writes Philip Harrington in Eclipse!(John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1997). The details: The point of greatest eclipse lies near the town of Kenai (southwest of Anchorage). There, 92.7 percent of the Sun's diameter will be eclipsed at local sunset. Other Alaskan towns, including Kotzebue (91.2 percent), Nome (91.4 percent)and Bethel (92.4 percent) will also see the Sun disappear beyond the horizon while still deep into the eclipse. Because such a large fraction of the Sun will be covered by the Moon for these locations, an eerie 'counterfeit twilight' may appear to fall over the landscape just prior to sunset. Those living across the eastern half of Alaska (except the Southeast Coast) will see eclipse's opening stages up until local sunset. This eclipse will not be visible from virtually any part of Canada (save for a fleeting glimpse for that part of the Yukon Territory immediately bordering Alaska) or any part of the 48 contiguous United States. But for those living in Hawaii, the Moon will appear to obscure about half of the Sun's disk on Wednesday afternoon. The Moon's passage across the Sun will result in a large bite on the Sun's right-hand side, making for a most unusual looking tropical sunset! ** Be very, very careful ** about the precautions for eclipse viewing. ** Never ** look at even a tiny bit of the Sun's disc unless you are using a proper filtration device, such as #14 welder's glass or aluminized Mylar plastic to protect your eyes. Eclipse glasses from reputable astronomy-product dealers are also safe. And there are other safe methods for indirectly viewing an eclipse. The upcoming eclipse will be visible, weather permitting, from northeastern portions of Asia, including all of Japan, northeastern Mongolia and China, and much of Siberia. Since these regions are located to the west of the International Date Line, it is already Thursday when the eclipse begins. There is more in store later this month. A total eclipse of the Moon will be visible from most of the Americas and Western Europe on Oct. 27. The next solar eclipse will be an unusual "hybrid" eclipse -- annular, part total -- on April 8, 2005 chiefly over the Pacific Ocean. However, those living across portions of the southern and eastern U.S. will be able to see a partial solar eclipse. Local viewing circumstances: The table below provides local viewing circumstances of the eclipse for ten cities and has been calculated by astronomer Fred Espenak of the NASA Space Flight Center. For China, Japan and Korea, this is a late-morning to midday event occurring on Oct. 14. For Anchorage and Honolulu, however, this is a late-afternoon/early evening event on October 13. In addition, sunset will intervene at these two locations, so the end of the eclipse will not be visible because it will occur after the Sun has set. Magnitude refers to the percentage of the Sun's diameter that will be obscured at maximum eclipse. Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for Channel 12 Westchester, New York. ------------------------------ 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 #480 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Oct 10 23:48:20 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9B3mKf24916; Sun, 10 Oct 2004 23:48:20 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 23:48:20 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410110348.i9B3mKf24916@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 #481 TELECOM Digest Sun, 10 Oct 2004 23:48:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 481 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Anti-Kerry Film Slated to Air on Eve of Election (Michael Covington) Re: Anti-Kerry Film Slated to Air on Eve of Election (Robert Weller) Re: Anti-Kerry film slated to air on eve of election (Peter Dubuque) Fairness Doctrine (was Anti-Kerry Film Slated to Air ...) (Neal McLain) Monthly Bill Fatigue (Monty Solomon) Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response (Tony P.) Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? (David Clayton) Re: Solar Eclipse to Start Thursday, End Wednesday! (Michael Covington) Computer Users Face New Scourge/Hidden Adware Programs Hijack (Solomon) More Detail on Computer Users Face New Scourge (Lisa Minter) Internet Historical Society Being Re-opened (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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Re: Anti-Kerry Film Slated to Air on Eve of Election Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 19:55:40 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: However they wish to classify it is > their business, *however* they should recall the law which requires > stations to grant equal time to opposing viewpoints. This is taken so > seriously that back when Reagan was running for president most > stations would not even play real old Ronald Reagan Hollywood movies > during the month or so immediatly before the election, as silly as > that may have seemed, since there was always the possibility of the > other candidates -- the Democratic challenger -- insisting upon, and > having to be given, under the law, equal time. And if there was that > possibility, regards Reagan's old Hollywood stuff, what do you think > the chances are for it in present time if the stations show a sort of > one-sided documentary deliberatly opposing Kerry? PAT] The FCC abandoned the equal time rule in 1987 on the ground that it was unconstitutional, an infringement of freedom of the press. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh, indeed, 'Freedom of the Press'. Well we certainly don't want to step on the toes of the New York Times, do we ... or Fox or CBS or the other big shots in the press. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Robert Weller Subject: Re: Anti-Kerry Film Slated to Air on Eve of Election Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 14:26:06 -0700 Pat - I'm not an attorney, but I understand that the "equal access" rules apply only to programming paid for by the candidate. If Bush buys advertising time on a TV station, that station is obligated to provide equal time to Kerry. In this case, it is the station's owner that has decided to air the broadcast without the candidate's involvment. So, there may be no requirement to allow Mr. Kerry an opportunity to respond. The "Fairness Doctrine," which required stations to afford a reasonable opportunity for discussion of contrasting points of view on controversial issues of public importance, was dissolved during the Reagan administration. Further, a "documentary" program may be exempted from the political broadcasting rules, as noted below. Section 76.205 [47 CFR §76.205] Origination cablecasts by legally qualified candidates for public office; equal opportunities. (a) General requirements. No cable television system is required to permit the use of its facilities by any legally qualified candidate for public office, but if any system shall permit any such candidate to use its facilities, it shall afford equal opportunities to all other candidates for that office to use such facilities. Such system shall have no power of censorship over the material broadcast by any such candidate. Appearance by a legally qualified candidate on any: (1) Bona fide newscast; (2) Bona fide news interview; (3) Bona fide news documentary (if the appearance of the candidate is incidental to the presentation of the subject or subjects covered by the news documentary); ... Bob Weller > Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 14:20:51 -0400 > From: Monty Solomon > Subject: Anti-Kerry film slated to air on eve of election > TV PROGRAM > By Elizabeth Jensen, Los Angeles Times | October 10, > 2004 > NEW YORK -- The conservative-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group , > whose television outlets reach nearly a quarter of the nation's > homes with TV, is ordering its stations to preempt regular > programming just days before the Nov. 2 election to air a film that > attacks Senator John F. Kerry's activism against the Vietnam War, > network and station executives familiar with the plan said Friday. > Sinclair's programming plan, communicated to executives >in > recent days and coming in the thick of a close and intense > presidential race, is highly unusual even in a political season > that has been marked by media controversies. > Sinclair has told > its stations -- many of them in political swing states such as > Ohio and Florida -- to air "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," > sources said. The film, funded by Pennsylvania veterans and > produced by a veteran and former Washington Times reporter, > features former POWs accusing Kerry -- a decorated Navy veteran > turned war protester -- of worsening their ordeal by prolonging > the war. Sinclair will preempt regular prime-time programming > from the networks to show the film, which may be classified as > news programming, according to TV executives familiar with the > plan. > http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/kerry/articles/2004/10/10/anti_kerry_film_slated_to_air_on_eve_of_election/ >>[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: However they wish to classify > it is their business, *however* they should recall the law which > requires stations to grant equal time to opposing viewpoints. This > is taken so seriously that back when Reagan was running for > president most stations would not even play real old Ronald Reagan > Hollywood movies during the month or so immediatly before the > election, as silly as that may have seemed, since there was always > the possibility of the other candidates -- the Democratic > challenger -- insisting upon, and having to be given, under the > law, equal time. And if there was that possibility, regards > Reagan's old Hollywood stuff, what do you think the chances are > for it in present time if the stations show a sort of one-sided > documentary deliberatly opposing Kerry? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Peter Dubuque Subject: Re: Anti-Kerry film slated to air on eve of election Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 01:04:18 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Monty Solomon : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: However they wish to classify it is > their business, *however* they should recall the law which requires > stations to grant equal time to opposing viewpoints. This is taken so > seriously that back when Reagan was running for president most > stations would not even play real old Ronald Reagan Hollywood movies > during the month or so immediatly before the election, as silly as > that may have seemed, since there was always the possibility of the > other candidates -- the Democratic challenger -- insisting upon, and > having to be given, under the law, equal time. And if there was that > possibility, regards Reagan's old Hollywood stuff, what do you think > the chances are for it in present time if the stations show a sort of > one-sided documentary deliberatly opposing Kerry? PAT] It's not a law; it was an FCC policy known as the Fairness Doctrine. It went the way of the dodo in 1987, when anti-regulatory FCC commissioners saw that cable TV was beginning to address the scarcity of broadcast resources that had justified the policy. A last-ditch effort to save it by enacting it as law passed Congress in 1987, but Reagan vetoed it. So now instead of fair and balanced, we have Fair and Balanced(TM). Most broadcasters still pay lip service to the Fairness Doctrine. The journalistic standard of "objectivity" generally amounts to telling one side's story for exactly 50% of the time and the other side's for 50%, without passing judgment on the truth of any side's statements. Biased media outlets like FOX News still typically have an anemic milquetoast token liberal or two, and people like Rush Limbaugh, when called on anything they can't defend, will claim they're just entertainer and therefore not subject to journalistic standards. But these people's shows most likely would not even exist if the Fairness Doctrine were still in effect. If there are any grounds for stopping the broadcast, they'd be found in the Federal Election Commission's electioneering policies, not in FCC regulations. Peter F. Dubuque - peterd@panix.com - Enemy of Reason(TM) O- "If we're successful in Iraq ... we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11." -- Dick Cheney, 9/14/2003 "The senator has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11." -- Dick Cheney, 10/5/04 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 16:39:09 -0500 From: Neal McLain Subject: Fairness Doctrine (was Anti-Kerry Film Slated to Air ...) Pat wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: However they wish to classify it is > their business, *however* they should recall the law which requires > stations to grant equal time to opposing viewpoints. This is taken so > seriously that back when Reagan was running for president most > stations would not even play real old Ronald Reagan Hollywood movies > during the month or so immediatly before the election, as silly as > that may have seemed, since there was always the possibility of the > other candidates -- the Democratic challenger -- insisting upon, and > having to be given, under the law, equal time. And if there was that > possibility, regards Reagan's old Hollywood stuff, what do you think > the chances are for it in present time if the stations show a sort of > one-sided documentary deliberatly opposing Kerry? PAT] If by "the law," you're referring to the FCC's "Fairness Doctrine," the FCC dissolved it in 1987. Congress attempted to reinstate it as law, but the president -- Ronald Reagan -- vetoed, and Congress could not override. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/fairnessdoct/fairnessdoct.htm Neal McLain [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When I said 'the law' I meant anything if not the actual law still has the force and equivilent of the law, which is true of FCC regulations. But I had forgotten about President Ray Guns veto of that perfectly good, very impartial law. Why oh why do we always have to get such winners (see my tongue in cheek) in the highest office in the land? The *only decent* person we have had in that office in the past 25 years was Jimmy Carter. And lest some readers think I favor John Kerry, I *do not* and don't intend to vote for him either. I intend to vote my conscience this time around instead of just voting for the lesser of two evils: Kerry. I will vote for Mr. Badnarik. Oh, I know he won't win, but I am tired of playing the games they toss at us every four years. If Badnarik even *came close* to winning, the Secret Service or the FBI or someone would assassinate him. But he gets my vote, because I want to make a point. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 18:44:50 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Monthly Bill Fatigue Service Add-Ons Nibble at Incomes By Christopher Stern Washington Post Staff Writer Satellite radio. Cell phone. High-speed Internet service. Matt Botwin, a Washington consultant, has it all -- and the bills that go with his growing bundle of technology. With each new service, more of Botwin's monthly income is spoken for. A generation ago, mortgages, utilities and newspaper subscriptions made up a short list of payments due each month. Now Americans pay an average of 12 bills a month, including fees for a broad range of services such as television programming, home security-system monitoring and online gaming Web sites. And each individual bill may increase as consumers add incremental improvements such as Internet access to their cell phones and premium channels to their satellite radio service. Botwin figures that he spends at least $250 a month on his subscription services. "I'm not happy about it. It's a lot," Botwin said. But he also feels that his digital devices and services are necessities. The Sirius satellite radio is indispensable for his frequent drives to New York and Philadelphia. "It's like any luxury. I didn't think I needed a microwave [oven], but I'm sure glad I have it now." Economists and academics are beginning to grow concerned about Americans' willingness to cede a regular chunk of their monthly paychecks to new conveniences and services, saying it is taking a serious bite out of discretionary spending, a key driver of the nation's economy. They also worry that new services are contributing to a growing divide between consumers who have the means to secure special treatment, such as access to free-rolling highway lanes, while others are stuck in bumper-to-bumper standstills. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19377-2004Oct9.html ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response Organization: ATCC Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 22:49:01 GMT In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com says: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is unfortunate, but not unusual, >> since it would appear the bank branch was on the *bank's* telephone >> system (sort of like a foreign exchange on the bank's centrex) instead >> of on the *Albertson's* phone system. Of course there is no guarentee >> that the Albertson's phone system was not part of some phone system at >> Albertson's headquarters instead of based out of that local store as >> well. > Yes, this is an increasing problem with more sophisticated telephone > systems. Telephone administrators may be far, far away setting these > things up and not even thinking about local needs. > Also, sometimes outward lines are from a special battery of numbers. >> So this should be a good lesson to the telecom adminstrators in >> our readership. Make certain all *critical* phones at locations other >> than your main, directory-listed business location are correctly >> listed in 911 databases, etc. PAT] > When our mgmt company went to a Centrex, I checked our office and pool > phone to ensure they registered the right address on 911. They did > and 911 was very helpful in checking. > Of course, when we had a community president who felt the pool > phone was being abused she had it taken out to save money. A > great example of _literally_ 'penny smart dollar foolish'. Fortunately > we had no emergencies while the phone was out. This president was > proud of her no-fee-increase budget, but then she was thrown out of > office by a community angry over deferred and neglected maintenance. > The pool phone was restored. But at first it was in locked > cabinet which would be bad if there was an emergency. Now it is > open. > The issue is kind of moot now since so many people have cell phones, > but at least we have a phone. > We used to get a lot of requests for a pay phone but Bell told us we > wouldn't have enough use to pay for it and have to make up the > difference. Interestingly the State of Rhode Island is considering VoIP for all its offices. Somehow I suspect they have completely forgotten about E911 in this process. Add to the fact the several hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of AT&T/Lucent/Avaya G3i cabinets as well as other systems in place. The interesting thing is that the G3iV11 can do VoIP but we've already got all the wiring in place for the current station setup. Oh well. Yet another time the hype exceeds the reality. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe what will happen, if Rhode Island goes through with this plan, the end result will be to force the E-911 proponents to change *their* way of doing things. Why is it that E-911 (and by extension, conventional telephony) is so great and VOIP is such a bad deal? How did we get along for the first seventy years of the 20th century before there was any such thing as 911? The first instance of 911 was in the middle 1970's, and it was sometime in the 1980's before it was installed everywhere. Prior to 911, most Americans dialed either (exchange)-1313 or (exchange)-2121 or some other simple repetitive number. In Chicago, for example, we dialed POLice-5-1313 and got along quite fine. Why can't we still do that? Is 911 that great of a deal? PAT] ------------------------------ From: David Clayton Subject: Re: Pennsylvania Railroad's Crew Communication System? Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 08:32:50 +1000 Bob Goudreau contributed the following: >> So in reality it's difficult to currently prove the argument one way or >> the other (at least in Australia). > Er, no, it's not really that difficult. The caveat you quoted warns > of the difficulty of comparing the fatality rates *between* one OECD > country and another. But the topic under discussion is nothing of the > sort. Rather, it's the comparison of the rate *within* one country > (Australia, in this case) over a period of time that encompassed rail > privatization. Just a bit further down the page, the report states: > "In the period from 1980 to 1999 in Australia, the number of railway > accident deaths per 100,000 population each year trended downwards - > from 0.4 in 1980 to 0.2 in 1999." I acknowledge that, but what I should have made clear is that only parts of the Australian system have been privatised, my state being one of the pioneers in this area, most other states still have a system run by their respective governments if I remember correctly. So the statistics seem to show an overall downward trend, which is what you'd hope for as equipment and practices evolve to a better standard over time, but the perception in my particular state has been an increase in various incidents - but fortunately not too many (if any) fatalities recently (not counting level crossing collisions). Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@XYZ.myrealbox.com Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. (Remove the "XYZ." to reply) Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. ------------------------------ From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Re: Solar Eclipse to Start Thursday, End Wednesday! Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 19:52:45 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) Thanks, Lisa. For anybody who is still wondering exactly why we have an International Date Line, here's a simple way to understand it: The time zones go from 0 to +12 (hours) east of Greenwich, and 0 to -12 westward. Clearly, the place where +12 meets -12 has 2 zones 24 hours apart -- the International Date Line. But weirder things happen. When New Zealand goes on Daylight Saving Time every (southern hemisphere) summer, it becomes, to the best of my recollection, +13. And +14 occurs in Kiribati, an island that prefers to be on the same calendar date as Australia even though it is a considerable distance to the east. And Kiribati is pronounced Kiribas, just as Kiritimati is pronounced Kirismas (it's Christmas Island). How "ti" came to denote "s" in their language, I'm not sure! Clear skies, Michael A. Covington Author, Astrophotography for the Amateur www.covingtoninnovations.com/astromenu.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 18:00:44 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Computer Users Face New Scourge / Hidden Adware Programs Hijack By Ariana Eunjung Cha Washington Post Staff Writer SAN FRANCISCO -- Chuck Harris remembers when the Internet was fun and he'd spend hours reading his favorite news sites, checking the church calendar, browsing the shops. Then, a few weeks ago, he lost control of his computer. It turned into a giant electronic billboard. The Web browser was taken over by a company he didn't recognize. Pop-up windows tried to download stuff he didn't ask for. Strange icons kept appearing offering low home mortgage loans and sexual enhancement pills he didn't want. Harris spent days trying to fix the computer, but the programs had multiplied to the point where he couldn't run anything else and he decided to give up on the machine. Last week, the 68-year-old retired aerospace engineer from Yorktown, Va., shelled out $1,000 for a new computer, but now he and his wife, Dorothy, use it only when absolutely necessary. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20665-2004Oct9.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20665-2004Oct9 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 18:46:53 EDT From: Lisa Minter Subject: Computer Users Face New Scourge Computer Users Face New Scourge By Ariana Eunjung Cha SAN FRANCISCO -- Chuck Harris remembers when the Internet was fun and e'd spend hours reading his favorite news sites, checking the church calend ar, browsing the shops. Then, a few weeks ago, he lost control of his compu ter. It turned into a giant electronic billboard. The Web browser was taken over by a company he didn't recognize. Pop-up windows tried to download stuff he didn't ask for. Strange icons kept appearing offering low home mortgage loans and sexual enhancement pills he didn't want. Harris spent days trying to fix the computer, but the programs had multiplied to the point where he couldn't run anything else and he decided to give up on the machine. Last week, the 68-year-old retired aerospace engineer from Yorktown, Va., shelled out $1,000 for a new computer, but now he and his wife, Dorothy, use it only when absolutely necessary. "We have just about quit using the computer," he said. "It isn't worth the aggravation." As if computer users didn't have enough to worry about with hackers, viruses, spam, and other online menaces, now comes a new scourge. Millions of consumers like Harris have been struggling with a recent surge in what computer experts call spyware or adware. The terms apply to a broad range of programs that users download from the Internet, usually without intending to. Unlike the occasional pop-up ad, th ese electronic hitchhikers are hidden programs that stay on the computer's hard drive. They keep serving up advertisements, redirecting browsers to ce rtain Web pages or reporting the computer user's movements and personal inf ormation. Or all of the above. Some spyware comes attached to free, brand-name software that users want a nd install themselves -- instant-message, video-player and file-sharing programs, for example. A reference to the spyware may be included in the legal jargon of one of those on-screen installation agreements that computer use rs routinely accept with the casual click of a "yes" button. Others come unbidden as a side effect of browsing shady sites. Many appear on people's machines simply because they are connected to the Internet. Experts estimate that tens of thousands of spyware and adware programs cir culate on the Internet. For now, the problem of such unauthorized software almost exclusively affects Microsoft Windows users. It's by far the most po pular operating system and the same features that make it so versatile also make it easier for intruders to secretly run programs on it. Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, in a speech to Silicon Valley technol ogists this month, said that while he's never had a virus infect his comput er, he's been surprised to find many spyware and adware programs that he ne ver authorized on it. He said he has directed the company to launch a new p roject to create a "cure." The National Cyber Security Alliance, a partnership between the tech indus try and the Homeland Security Department, estimates that 90 percent of comp uters using high-speed Internet connections have collected at least one spy ware or adware program, causing a loss in productivity, extra customer supp ort, and repairs. Members of Congress say their offices are fielding an increasing number of constituent complaints about the problem. Two bills that aim to address th e problem passed the House last week. One, sponsored by Rep. Mary Bono (R-C alif.), who first became aware of the problem when her teenage children's c omputers were affected, calls for civil fines of up to $3 million for those who use spyware to defraud consumers. Her bill also would require companies to post more conspicuous notifi- cations that their software might come with adware. Another, introduced by Robert W. Goodlatte (R-Va.), Zoe Lofgren ( D-Calif.) and Lamar S. Smith (R-Tex.), would allocate $10 million for the Justice Department to fight spyware. "Spyware is a very real problem that is endangering consumers, damaging businesses, and creating millions of dollars of additional costs," Lofgren said after a spyware bill was passed on Thursday. A coalition of technology companies, many of which have resisted regulation in the past, have rallied behind a spyware bill. Colleen Ryan, a Dell Inc. spokeswoman, said the programs have done damage both in dollars and reputation to the technology industry. Since August 2003, she said, customer support calls to Dell related to spyware have gone fr om slightly more than 2 percent to between 10 to 15 percent. She said many customers assume that their problems are with the company's hardware rather than spyware. "We have to tell them: It's not your computer ." Using a computer was supposed to get easier, not harder. At the height of the dot-com boom, companies promised "plug and play" functionality so that even "dummies" could use the latest technologies to download music, create family videos and build blogs. But along the way something changed. The Internet got a lot more dangerous, forcing consumers to take on more responsibility for protecting their machines. If Internet users got grades for the effort they take to maintain their co mputers, Harris would be a straight-A student. He installed a firewall to protect against hackers, a virus protection program to stop online bugs. He made sure to use e-mail on the Web rather than a program that downloads it -- and possible spam and other annoying or nefarious agents -- to his computer. He avoided installing instant messenger and chat-room programs, many of which are known to be associated with adware. "All, apparently, to no avail," he said. Harris said he equates the problem to "someone breaking into your house an d someone saying you didn't have enough locks on your doors." He believes more responsibility should fall on companies to make sure the machines are protected. "I drive an 18-year-old car and a 12-year old truck and have a 10-year-old dishwasher. They are still functional. But not the computer." It is difficult for even the most technology-savvy to avoid the problem. In June, Philippe Ombredanne, a systems administrator and programmer from Menlo Park, Calif., bought a new computer. He said he was feeling lazy so he put off installing security software for a day. When he woke up, the computer was infected with one virus and about 30 spyware or adware programs, forcing him to erase data and programs from his hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch. "A vanilla computer with no protection has no chance on the Internet anymore," he said. The SANS Institute, a Bethesda-based computer security research center, has studied what it calls the "survival time" of an unprotected computer hooked up to the Internet. A year ago, the average time before it was compromised was about 55 minutes. Today it's 20 minutes. Johannes B. Ullrich, a technologist with the SANS Institute, said the challenge in controlling the adware and spyware programs is that they fall in a gray area between legitimate software and hacker-type programs designed to take over a computer. "It's sometimes hard to figure out where they originally got adware from, whether it was part of an attack or whether a person installed it themselves without really knowing," Ullrich said. The problem is prompting systems administrators like Ombredanne to recommend open-source alternatives. Open-source software is often developed collaboratively by volunteers and the code behind the programs is available for all to see. For years, technology wonks have argued about whether that makes the programs more or less secure than those with proprietary code. He said he tells clients to use Gaim instead of AOL Instant Messenger and Mozilla Firefox instead of Internet Explorer and that companies are much more open to that advice than they were several years ago, because of adware and spyware. Meanwhile, the problem of adware and spyware is creating a new type of Internet user -- one who is disenchanted with promises of technological bells and whistles and just wants the basics to work. Some are sticking to dial-up Internet service rather than upgrading to broadband because higher speeds on an "always on" connection create more opportunities for infection with nefarious programs. They are foregoing multimedia programs, basically using their computers as typewriters. Harris and his wife are in that group. At the height of his computer use a few years ago, Harris was so excited about it that he set up and maintained a Web site for his church and for some local charities. Now he dreads having to log on. "I used to feel that the Internet had tremendous potential for communication and was a wonderful tool to use," he said. "I don't anymore." *** 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 Washington Post Company. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: Internet Pioneers Getting Restarted Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 00:00:00 GMT Some of our older readers may recall Internet Pioneers and Internet Historical Society; a web site ( http://internet-pioneers.org ) started after a discussion about the Telephone Pioneers which occurred here in July, 1999. It got started and ran along okay for several months, until that black day in November, 1999 when I had the brain aneurysm. That was the end of Internet Pioneers, the Telecom Digest, and most other things in my life for about a year and a half. Now I am trying to get it started once again, and invite all 'old timers' on the net who wish to participate in this open ended discussion forum to do so by visiting http://internet-pioneers.org and/or sending email to pioneers@internet-pioneers.org , starting now. Regretfully, some squatter ripped off the name Internet Historical Society (at least that URL) and loaded it up with penis enlargement ads and other crap. I would very much appreciate any assistance from attorney readers who wish to help in getting back *my property* in the form of the URL internet-history.org Unfortunatly, many of the links which were on display there were absolutely referenced to internet-history pages; they now point at the ugly stuff the guy put up who ripped off my pages. Gradually, day after day, I am putting it all back together, as time and my limited brain processing power these days permits. But I would definitly appreciate an attorney who knows how to recover URLs to take care of this aspect of it for me. Write me for more details if you can help. For now, the alternate URL is still working: http://internet-pioneers.org Thanks. 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 #481 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Oct 11 13:40:49 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9BHem502403; Mon, 11 Oct 2004 13:40:49 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 13:40:49 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410111740.i9BHem502403@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 #482 TELECOM Digest Mon, 11 Oct 2004 13:41:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 482 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Deutsche Telekom AG Executives Reported To FBI For Abuse! (Freespeech) Congress Close to Establishing Rules for Driver's Licenses (M Solomon) Re: Wireless and Wi-fi Definitions (John Levine) Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response = T911 (Lisa Hancock) Re: Why There's no DNS or Comparable Distributed Naming Service (Ariel) Re: Anti-Kerry Film Slated to Air on Eve of Election (Michael Covington) Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue (Tony P.) Re: B&K Precision Dynascan Corporation 1045 Product Tester (D VanHorn) Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response (Tony P.) Two Way Radio Service (Geller) Re: My Gripe With the Hype Around Skype and Five Good Reasons (Geller) 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: freespeechstore@aol.com (Freespeechstore) Subject: Deutsche Telekom AG Executives Reported To FBI For Abuse! Date: 11 Oct 2004 07:33:47 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com freespeechstore@aol.com (Freespeechstore) wrote in message news:<20041008112744.01575.00002304@mb-m28.aol.com>: > It appears that this ISP has serious problems as posted here and at > http://freespeechstore.com > Cut & paste the URL below to get more on these abusers: http://freespeechstore.com/public/Sub_Public5/2205_Deutsche_Telekom_AG_Executives_Reported_To_FBI_For_Abuse!.htm http://freespeechstore.com/public/Sub_Public5/2208_Why_viruses_spread__and_why_you_could_be_sued_for_it.htm http://freespeechstore.com/public/Sub_Public5/2207_Listing_of_ISP_Server_Abuse_(LISA)..Probes__Viruses__Bogus_Inquiries__etc..htm ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 23:53:49 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Congress Close to Establishing Rules for Driver's Licenses By MATTHEW L. WALD WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 - Following a recommendation of the Sept. 11 commission, the House and Senate are moving toward setting rules for the states that would standardize the documentation required to obtain a driver's license, and the data the license would have to contain. Critics say the plan would create a national identification card. But advocates say it would make it harder for terrorists to operate, as well as reduce the highway death toll by helping states identify applicants whose licenses had been revoked in other states. The Senate version of the intelligence bill includes an amendment, passed by unanimous consent on Oct. 1, that would let the secretary of homeland security decide what documents a state would have to require before issuing a driver's license, and would also specify the data that the license would have to include for it to meet federal standards. The secretary could require the license to include fingerprints or eye prints. The provision would allow the Homeland Security Department to require use of the license, or an equivalent card issued by motor vehicle bureaus to nondrivers for identification purposes, for access to planes, trains and other modes of transportation. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/11/politics/11identity.html?ex=1255147200&en=e92e51cb9a7fe19e&ei=5090 ------------------------------ Date: 11 Oct 2004 03:15:02 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Wireless and Wi-fi Definitions Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Do wi-fi and wireless technology mean the same thing? Not really. WiFi is one popular wireless communication scheme known as 802.11b. (Some people also throw in its successor 802.11a.) Wireless is just what it sounds like, any communication scheme that doesn't use wires. Most people interpret it in the British sense to mean radio as opposed to other system like infrared that don't use wires. There is radio wireless computer communication that's not WiFi. Bluetooth, for example. 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. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response = T911 Date: 10 Oct 2004 21:13:00 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Rick Merrill wrote: > Dont' try that in Massachusetts: MA law requires that the police pay a > visit to ANY 911 or E911 call no matter what! They can be mighty > "testy" about it. - RM That surprises me. In my state they normally send someone out too, but not "no matter what". As soon as they answered I said it was to test the line and they were glad to cooperate, after all, they don't want mismatches. Their automatic dispatch rule is more if they get a call where there's no one responding on the other end, and that makes sense. ------------------------------ From: ariel.burbaickij@gmail.com (Ariel Burbaickij) Subject: Re: Why There's no DNS or Comparable Distributed Naming Service Date: 11 Oct 2004 02:19:00 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com DevilsPGD wrote in message news:: > Ariel.Burbaickij@web.de wrote: >> Could someone explain to me why there is no such service as DNS/whois >> towards it in SS7 network? After all, we have exactly same concerns >> here (distributed and independent administration of different subsets >> of address space, mapping must be often provided between pointcodes >> (numerical address) and its current owner), so why it was decided not >> to do it this way but instead some arcane lists are distributed by ITU >> exclusively? > The internet didn't start out with DNS either -- Or BGP even, > everybody distributed routing tables and changes manually. > As neat as DNS on phones would be, it would be extremely difficult to > implement at this stage, and with LNP becoming a reality in the US > (and possibly elsewhere as time goes on) it's less important (from an > end user point of view.) I know that Internet didn't have DNS from the very beginning -- it made fairly decent progress till today, though, if you noticed ;-). I am not talking abount DNS on phones (actually it does exist in the form of ENUM and related project and naming scheme for e164 set also exists for sure). I am talking about DNS for pointcodes, i.e. for switches (phone switches just to avoid any misunderstanding). There is no dns-like efforts for this and for reasons unknown to me, ITU standards that normally tend to foreseen each and everything scenarion and are so heavily packaged with required features do not even mention this possibility. With Best Regards, Ariel Burbaickij ------------------------------ From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Re: Anti-Kerry Film Slated to Air on Eve of Election Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 09:57:25 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) Michael A. Covington wrote in message news:telecom23.481.1@telecom-digest.org: > The FCC abandoned the equal time rule in 1987 on the ground that it > was unconstitutional, an infringement of freedom of the press. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh, indeed, 'Freedom of the Press'. Well > we certainly don't want to step on the toes of the New York Times, do > we ... or Fox or CBS or the other big shots in the press. PAT] On the other hand CBS would very much like to silence "the bloggers," one of whom is apparently me. (http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/michael/blog/0409/index.html#040911)! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, but you see, CBS is something special, something different. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue Organization: ATCC Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 14:27:49 GMT In article , monty@roscom.com says: > Service Add-Ons Nibble at Incomes > By Christopher Stern > Washington Post Staff Writer > Satellite radio. Cell phone. High-speed Internet service. Matt Botwin, > a Washington consultant, has it all -- and the bills that go with his > growing bundle of technology. > With each new service, more of Botwin's monthly income is spoken for. > A generation ago, mortgages, utilities and newspaper subscriptions > made up a short list of payments due each month. Now Americans pay an > average of 12 bills a month, including fees for a broad range of > services such as television programming, home security-system > monitoring and online gaming Web sites. And each individual bill may > increase as consumers add incremental improvements such as Internet > access to their cell phones and premium channels to their satellite > radio service. > Botwin figures that he spends at least $250 a month on his > subscription services. "I'm not happy about it. It's a lot," Botwin > said. But he also feels that his digital devices and services are > necessities. The Sirius satellite radio is indispensable for his > frequent drives to New York and Philadelphia. "It's like any luxury. > I didn't think I needed a microwave [oven], but I'm sure glad I have > it now." > Economists and academics are beginning to grow concerned about > Americans' willingness to cede a regular chunk of their monthly > paychecks to new conveniences and services, saying it is taking a > serious bite out of discretionary spending, a key driver of the > nation's economy. They also worry that new services are contributing > to a growing divide between consumers who have the means to secure > special treatment, such as access to free-rolling highway lanes, while > others are stuck in bumper-to-bumper standstills. > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19377-2004Oct9.html Interesting article. Friends and I discuss what we think the next big event in U.S. history will be and we all agree that it will be the war between those who have and those who have not. It won't be among racial lines although at the beginning it will appear that way because the most economically disenfranchised tend to be minorities. Right now I've got cable and phone+DSL, that's it. The cell phone is office provided and used only for official business. I've been resistant to Sirius and the like because I honestly don't need it. ------------------------------ From: Dave VanHorn Subject: Re: B&K Precision Dynascan Corporation 1045 Telephone Product Test Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 09:46:17 -0500 It should show the number that you dialed, and your phone ringer should respond at most if not all levels of the ringer output. Sounds like it's got a power supply failure. I used to use about 10 of those, to test incoming telco products from Taiwan. KC6ETE Dave's Engineering Page, www.dvanhorn.org Microcontroller Consultant, specializing in Atmel AVR ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response Organization: ATCC Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 14:30:50 GMT In article , kd1s@nospamplease.verizon.reallynospam.net says: > In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com > says: >>> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is unfortunate, but not unusual, >>> since it would appear the bank branch was on the *bank's* telephone >>> system (sort of like a foreign exchange on the bank's centrex) instead >>> of on the *Albertson's* phone system. Of course there is no guarentee >>> that the Albertson's phone system was not part of some phone system at >>> Albertson's headquarters instead of based out of that local store as >>> well. >> Yes, this is an increasing problem with more sophisticated telephone >> systems. Telephone administrators may be far, far away setting these >> things up and not even thinking about local needs. >> Also, sometimes outward lines are from a special battery of numbers. >>> So this should be a good lesson to the telecom adminstrators in >>> our readership. Make certain all *critical* phones at locations other >>> than your main, directory-listed business location are correctly >>> listed in 911 databases, etc. PAT] >> When our mgmt company went to a Centrex, I checked our office and pool >> phone to ensure they registered the right address on 911. They did >> and 911 was very helpful in checking. >> Of course, when we had a community president who felt the pool >> phone was being abused she had it taken out to save money. A >> great example of _literally_ 'penny smart dollar foolish'. Fortunately >> we had no emergencies while the phone was out. This president was >> proud of her no-fee-increase budget, but then she was thrown out of >> office by a community angry over deferred and neglected maintenance. >> The pool phone was restored. But at first it was in locked >> cabinet which would be bad if there was an emergency. Now it is >> open. >> The issue is kind of moot now since so many people have cell phones, >> but at least we have a phone. >> We used to get a lot of requests for a pay phone but Bell told us we >> wouldn't have enough use to pay for it and have to make up the >> difference. > Interestingly the State of Rhode Island is considering VoIP for all > its offices. Somehow I suspect they have completely forgotten about > E911 in this process. > Add to the fact the several hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of > AT&T/Lucent/Avaya G3i cabinets as well as other systems in place. The > interesting thing is that the G3iV11 can do VoIP but we've already got > all the wiring in place for the current station setup. > Oh well. Yet another time the hype exceeds the reality. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe what will happen, if Rhode Island > goes through with this plan, the end result will be to force the E-911 > proponents to change *their* way of doing things. Why is it that E-911 > (and by extension, conventional telephony) is so great and VOIP is > such a bad deal? How did we get along for the first seventy years of > the 20th century before there was any such thing as 911? The first > instance of 911 was in the middle 1970's, and it was sometime in > the 1980's before it was installed everywhere. Prior to 911, most > Americans dialed either (exchange)-1313 or (exchange)-2121 or some > other simple repetitive number. In Chicago, for example, we dialed > POLice-5-1313 and got along quite fine. Why can't we still do that? > Is 911 that great of a deal? PAT] It's because that requires you to know something beyond a simple 9-1-1. Providence police still have their 272-1111 and I think PFD is 272-3344. But ask me what the numbers are for Pawtucket, or Warwick and I have no idea. But I do know that E-911 is state wide so that is what I'll use. The only reason I malign VoIP for established environments is that you're basically throwing away infrastructure while at the same time increasing the up-front expense of beefing up your networks to handle the VoIP gear. The state isn't know for making smart decisions. This one is a definite groaner. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But the 'established environments' can use the 272-1111 number can't they, since I imagine most everyone knows it. And since most every police department, I think, still has those old numbers around, why don't they at least adjust their so- called PSAP to ring in on those old numbers, like Independence has done. So if a call to 911 goes to realtime newer E-911 or it goes to the older style number, the police get it either way. It seems to me police are playing politics with people's safety, by saying 'either you do it our way or your life will be in danger, etc'. It seems to me like another example of the public servants saying 'we will set the pace, you will do as we tell you.' And if they can toss in a few red-herrings about public safety on the way, so much the better. PAT] ------------------------------ From: munited@gmail.com (Geller) Subject: Two Way Radio Service Date: 11 Oct 2004 09:01:14 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hey guys ... Is there any two-way radio service provider.? Can any one give me the list of service providers.?? S.Geller [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can think of many 'two way radio service providers'. Why don't you begin by being a bit more precise as to your intended application. PAT] ------------------------------ From: munited@gmail.com (Geller) Subject: Re: My Gripe With the Hype Around Skype and Five Good Reasons Date: 11 Oct 2004 09:07:10 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com laporte_leo@yahoo.com (Leo) wrote in message news:: > 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. Yeah ... I heard this dingotel very useful. I like the phone product. Their site says that they have some walkie talkie stuff for push to talk over the net -- sounds cool. I think you can try it ... ------------------------------ 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 #482 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Oct 11 17:00:16 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9BL0GZ04054; Mon, 11 Oct 2004 17:00:16 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 17:00:16 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410112100.i9BL0GZ04054@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 #482 TELECOM Digest Mon, 11 Oct 2004 13:41:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 482 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Deutsche Telekom AG Executives Reported To FBI For Abuse! (Freespeech) Congress Close to Establishing Rules for Driver's Licenses (M Solomon) Re: Wireless and Wi-fi Definitions (John Levine) Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response = T911 (Lisa Hancock) Re: Why There's no DNS or Comparable Distributed Naming Service (Ariel) Re: Anti-Kerry Film Slated to Air on Eve of Election (Michael Covington) Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue (Tony P.) Re: B&K Precision Dynascan Corporation 1045 Product Tester (D VanHorn) Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response (Tony P.) Two Way Radio Service (Geller) Re: My Gripe With the Hype Around Skype and Five Good Reasons (Geller) 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: freespeechstore@aol.com (Freespeechstore) Subject: Deutsche Telekom AG Executives Reported To FBI For Abuse! Date: 11 Oct 2004 07:33:47 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com freespeechstore@aol.com (Freespeechstore) wrote in message news:<20041008112744.01575.00002304@mb-m28.aol.com>: > It appears that this ISP has serious problems as posted here and at > http://freespeechstore.com > Cut & paste the URL below to get more on these abusers: http://freespeechstore.com/public/Sub_Public5/2205_Deutsche_Telekom_AG_Executives_Reported_To_FBI_For_Abuse!.htm http://freespeechstore.com/public/Sub_Public5/2208_Why_viruses_spread__and_why_you_could_be_sued_for_it.htm http://freespeechstore.com/public/Sub_Public5/2207_Listing_of_ISP_Server_Abuse_(LISA)..Probes__Viruses__Bogus_Inquiries__etc..htm ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 23:53:49 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Congress Close to Establishing Rules for Driver's Licenses By MATTHEW L. WALD WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 - Following a recommendation of the Sept. 11 commission, the House and Senate are moving toward setting rules for the states that would standardize the documentation required to obtain a driver's license, and the data the license would have to contain. Critics say the plan would create a national identification card. But advocates say it would make it harder for terrorists to operate, as well as reduce the highway death toll by helping states identify applicants whose licenses had been revoked in other states. The Senate version of the intelligence bill includes an amendment, passed by unanimous consent on Oct. 1, that would let the secretary of homeland security decide what documents a state would have to require before issuing a driver's license, and would also specify the data that the license would have to include for it to meet federal standards. The secretary could require the license to include fingerprints or eye prints. The provision would allow the Homeland Security Department to require use of the license, or an equivalent card issued by motor vehicle bureaus to nondrivers for identification purposes, for access to planes, trains and other modes of transportation. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/11/politics/11identity.html?ex=1255147200&en=e92e51cb9a7fe19e&ei=5090 ------------------------------ Date: 11 Oct 2004 03:15:02 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Wireless and Wi-fi Definitions Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Do wi-fi and wireless technology mean the same thing? Not really. WiFi is one popular wireless communication scheme known as 802.11b. (Some people also throw in its successor 802.11a.) Wireless is just what it sounds like, any communication scheme that doesn't use wires. Most people interpret it in the British sense to mean radio as opposed to other system like infrared that don't use wires. There is radio wireless computer communication that's not WiFi. Bluetooth, for example. 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. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response = T911 Date: 10 Oct 2004 21:13:00 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Rick Merrill wrote: > Dont' try that in Massachusetts: MA law requires that the police pay a > visit to ANY 911 or E911 call no matter what! They can be mighty > "testy" about it. - RM That surprises me. In my state they normally send someone out too, but not "no matter what". As soon as they answered I said it was to test the line and they were glad to cooperate, after all, they don't want mismatches. Their automatic dispatch rule is more if they get a call where there's no one responding on the other end, and that makes sense. ------------------------------ From: ariel.burbaickij@gmail.com (Ariel Burbaickij) Subject: Re: Why There's no DNS or Comparable Distributed Naming Service Date: 11 Oct 2004 02:19:00 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com DevilsPGD wrote in message news:: > Ariel.Burbaickij@web.de wrote: >> Could someone explain to me why there is no such service as DNS/whois >> towards it in SS7 network? After all, we have exactly same concerns >> here (distributed and independent administration of different subsets >> of address space, mapping must be often provided between pointcodes >> (numerical address) and its current owner), so why it was decided not >> to do it this way but instead some arcane lists are distributed by ITU >> exclusively? > The internet didn't start out with DNS either -- Or BGP even, > everybody distributed routing tables and changes manually. > As neat as DNS on phones would be, it would be extremely difficult to > implement at this stage, and with LNP becoming a reality in the US > (and possibly elsewhere as time goes on) it's less important (from an > end user point of view.) I know that Internet didn't have DNS from the very beginning -- it made fairly decent progress till today, though, if you noticed ;-). I am not talking abount DNS on phones (actually it does exist in the form of ENUM and related project and naming scheme for e164 set also exists for sure). I am talking about DNS for pointcodes, i.e. for switches (phone switches just to avoid any misunderstanding). There is no dns-like efforts for this and for reasons unknown to me, ITU standards that normally tend to foreseen each and everything scenarion and are so heavily packaged with required features do not even mention this possibility. With Best Regards, Ariel Burbaickij ------------------------------ From: Michael A. Covington Subject: Re: Anti-Kerry Film Slated to Air on Eve of Election Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 09:57:25 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) Michael A. Covington wrote in message news:telecom23.481.1@telecom-digest.org: > The FCC abandoned the equal time rule in 1987 on the ground that it > was unconstitutional, an infringement of freedom of the press. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh, indeed, 'Freedom of the Press'. Well > we certainly don't want to step on the toes of the New York Times, do > we ... or Fox or CBS or the other big shots in the press. PAT] On the other hand CBS would very much like to silence "the bloggers," one of whom is apparently me. (http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/michael/blog/0409/index.html#040911)! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, but you see, CBS is something special, something different. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue Organization: ATCC Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 14:27:49 GMT In article , monty@roscom.com says: > Service Add-Ons Nibble at Incomes > By Christopher Stern > Washington Post Staff Writer > Satellite radio. Cell phone. High-speed Internet service. Matt Botwin, > a Washington consultant, has it all -- and the bills that go with his > growing bundle of technology. > With each new service, more of Botwin's monthly income is spoken for. > A generation ago, mortgages, utilities and newspaper subscriptions > made up a short list of payments due each month. Now Americans pay an > average of 12 bills a month, including fees for a broad range of > services such as television programming, home security-system > monitoring and online gaming Web sites. And each individual bill may > increase as consumers add incremental improvements such as Internet > access to their cell phones and premium channels to their satellite > radio service. > Botwin figures that he spends at least $250 a month on his > subscription services. "I'm not happy about it. It's a lot," Botwin > said. But he also feels that his digital devices and services are > necessities. The Sirius satellite radio is indispensable for his > frequent drives to New York and Philadelphia. "It's like any luxury. > I didn't think I needed a microwave [oven], but I'm sure glad I have > it now." > Economists and academics are beginning to grow concerned about > Americans' willingness to cede a regular chunk of their monthly > paychecks to new conveniences and services, saying it is taking a > serious bite out of discretionary spending, a key driver of the > nation's economy. They also worry that new services are contributing > to a growing divide between consumers who have the means to secure > special treatment, such as access to free-rolling highway lanes, while > others are stuck in bumper-to-bumper standstills. > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19377-2004Oct9.html Interesting article. Friends and I discuss what we think the next big event in U.S. history will be and we all agree that it will be the war between those who have and those who have not. It won't be among racial lines although at the beginning it will appear that way because the most economically disenfranchised tend to be minorities. Right now I've got cable and phone+DSL, that's it. The cell phone is office provided and used only for official business. I've been resistant to Sirius and the like because I honestly don't need it. ------------------------------ From: Dave VanHorn Subject: Re: B&K Precision Dynascan Corporation 1045 Telephone Product Test Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 09:46:17 -0500 It should show the number that you dialed, and your phone ringer should respond at most if not all levels of the ringer output. Sounds like it's got a power supply failure. I used to use about 10 of those, to test incoming telco products from Taiwan. KC6ETE Dave's Engineering Page, www.dvanhorn.org Microcontroller Consultant, specializing in Atmel AVR ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response Organization: ATCC Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 14:30:50 GMT In article , kd1s@nospamplease.verizon.reallynospam.net says: > In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com > says: >>> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is unfortunate, but not unusual, >>> since it would appear the bank branch was on the *bank's* telephone >>> system (sort of like a foreign exchange on the bank's centrex) instead >>> of on the *Albertson's* phone system. Of course there is no guarentee >>> that the Albertson's phone system was not part of some phone system at >>> Albertson's headquarters instead of based out of that local store as >>> well. >> Yes, this is an increasing problem with more sophisticated telephone >> systems. Telephone administrators may be far, far away setting these >> things up and not even thinking about local needs. >> Also, sometimes outward lines are from a special battery of numbers. >>> So this should be a good lesson to the telecom adminstrators in >>> our readership. Make certain all *critical* phones at locations other >>> than your main, directory-listed business location are correctly >>> listed in 911 databases, etc. PAT] >> When our mgmt company went to a Centrex, I checked our office and pool >> phone to ensure they registered the right address on 911. They did >> and 911 was very helpful in checking. >> Of course, when we had a community president who felt the pool >> phone was being abused she had it taken out to save money. A >> great example of _literally_ 'penny smart dollar foolish'. Fortunately >> we had no emergencies while the phone was out. This president was >> proud of her no-fee-increase budget, but then she was thrown out of >> office by a community angry over deferred and neglected maintenance. >> The pool phone was restored. But at first it was in locked >> cabinet which would be bad if there was an emergency. Now it is >> open. >> The issue is kind of moot now since so many people have cell phones, >> but at least we have a phone. >> We used to get a lot of requests for a pay phone but Bell told us we >> wouldn't have enough use to pay for it and have to make up the >> difference. > Interestingly the State of Rhode Island is considering VoIP for all > its offices. Somehow I suspect they have completely forgotten about > E911 in this process. > Add to the fact the several hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of > AT&T/Lucent/Avaya G3i cabinets as well as other systems in place. The > interesting thing is that the G3iV11 can do VoIP but we've already got > all the wiring in place for the current station setup. > Oh well. Yet another time the hype exceeds the reality. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe what will happen, if Rhode Island > goes through with this plan, the end result will be to force the E-911 > proponents to change *their* way of doing things. Why is it that E-911 > (and by extension, conventional telephony) is so great and VOIP is > such a bad deal? How did we get along for the first seventy years of > the 20th century before there was any such thing as 911? The first > instance of 911 was in the middle 1970's, and it was sometime in > the 1980's before it was installed everywhere. Prior to 911, most > Americans dialed either (exchange)-1313 or (exchange)-2121 or some > other simple repetitive number. In Chicago, for example, we dialed > POLice-5-1313 and got along quite fine. Why can't we still do that? > Is 911 that great of a deal? PAT] It's because that requires you to know something beyond a simple 9-1-1. Providence police still have their 272-1111 and I think PFD is 272-3344. But ask me what the numbers are for Pawtucket, or Warwick and I have no idea. But I do know that E-911 is state wide so that is what I'll use. The only reason I malign VoIP for established environments is that you're basically throwing away infrastructure while at the same time increasing the up-front expense of beefing up your networks to handle the VoIP gear. The state isn't know for making smart decisions. This one is a definite groaner. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But the 'established environments' can use the 272-1111 number can't they, since I imagine most everyone knows it. And since most every police department, I think, still has those old numbers around, why don't they at least adjust their so- called PSAP to ring in on those old numbers, like Independence has done. So if a call to 911 goes to realtime newer E-911 or it goes to the older style number, the police get it either way. It seems to me police are playing politics with people's safety, by saying 'either you do it our way or your life will be in danger, etc'. It seems to me like another example of the public servants saying 'we will set the pace, you will do as we tell you.' And if they can toss in a few red-herrings about public safety on the way, so much the better. PAT] ------------------------------ From: munited@gmail.com (Geller) Subject: Two Way Radio Service Date: 11 Oct 2004 09:01:14 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hey guys ... Is there any two-way radio service provider.? Can any one give me the list of service providers.?? S.Geller [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can think of many 'two way radio service providers'. Why don't you begin by being a bit more precise as to your intended application. PAT] ------------------------------ From: munited@gmail.com (Geller) Subject: Re: My Gripe With the Hype Around Skype and Five Good Reasons Date: 11 Oct 2004 09:07:10 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com laporte_leo@yahoo.com (Leo) wrote in message news:: > 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. Yeah ... I heard this dingotel very useful. I like the phone product. Their site says that they have some walkie talkie stuff for push to talk over the net -- sounds cool. I think you can try it ... ------------------------------ 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. 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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 #482 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Oct 12 01:45:33 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9C5jX908605; Tue, 12 Oct 2004 01:45:33 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 01:45:33 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410120545.i9C5jX908605@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 #483 TELECOM Digest Tue, 12 Oct 2004 01:45:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 483 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Cellphone Industry Turns to Unmined Territory: Seniors (Marcus D. Falco) Digital TV Effort Sends Wrong Signal, Group Says (Monty Solomon) Howard Stern and the Future of Media Censorship (Monty Solomon) Help Wanted in Dulles, Virginia - Telecom Unix Engineer (Paula Cao) REN Boosters from England? (Ted Koppel) Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response = T911 (Tony P.) Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response = T911 (Gary Novosielski) Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response (Wesrock@aol.com) Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response = T911 (Clarence Dold) Re: Fairness Doctrine (was Anti-Kerry Film Slated to Air) (John McHarry) Re: Why There's no DNS or Comparable Distributed Naming (Barry Margolin) Re: Why There's no DNS or Comparable Distributed Naming (William Warren) Re: Why There's no DNS or Comparable Distributed Naming (Tony P.) Re: Two Way Radio Service (jdj) Re: Two Way Radio Service (Gary Novosielski) Re: Wireless and Wi-fi Definitions (Tony P.) Re: Congress Close to Establishing Rules for Driver's Licenses (Tony P.) Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue (Amin) Re: Deutsche Telekom AG Executives Reported To FBI! (David B. Horvath) 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, 11 Oct 2004 21:02:19 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Cellphone Industry Turns to Unmined Territory: Seniors From the New York Times -- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/11/technology/11cell.html?oref=login By MATT RICHTEL Having equipped most adults and half of all teenagers with cellphones, the mobile phone industry is turning its attention to the last untapped demographic -- people over 65. But its dreams of collecting monthly subscription fees from grandparents talking to their grandchildren, retirees calling friends from their recreational vehicles or patients checking in with their doctors may exact a hefty and unexpected price. The mobile phone industry has roused the interest of AARP, the powerful lobby and advocacy group for older Americans. And AARP is not happy with what it has heard from its members: complaints about incomprehensible service contracts, confusing bills and dead zones that are not clearly marked on coverage maps. They are the same concerns that have been expressed for years by other consumer advocates, who now have a new champion in the 35-million-member AARP. We're hoping "to make the industry stand up and say, 'We've got to fix what's going on here,'" said Susan Weinstock, national coordinator, economic and utility issues, with AARP. The group has already prompted the introduction of legislation in New York State that would provide more flexibility in canceling cellphone contracts, and it plans similar efforts in other states. AARP's campaign, which includes lobbying Congress, the Federal Communications Commission and state legislatures, and talk of running its own cellphone service, has caught the cellphone industry off guard and ill tempered. Consumer advocates say AARP's aggressiveness also reflects its own internal dynamics, that AARP is focusing on such a universally and easily agreed upon position to unite a membership angered and torn by the turmoil of last year's divisive Medicare fight. The cellphone industry has argued that it has done a good job of serving the needs of older customers and that what is best for people on fixed incomes is an industry free from taxation and regulation and thus, theoretically, able to offer lower prices. Late in September, the two groups met for the first time to discuss common ground and their differences. "For whatever reason, the AARP has been coming after us," said Steve Largent, president and chief executive of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association. He is also a former congressman and a member of the National Football League Hall of Fame. "It is very troubling." In the middle of the debate are people like Silvio Scocca, 77, a retired import-export broker in San Francisco. Mr. Scocca and millions of other senior citizens are an alluring lot for the mobile phone industry, which has virtually tapped out the rest of the adult market. While about 80 percent of people 19 to 65 own mobile phones and more than 45 percent of those 10 to 18 do, only 39 percent of people 65 and older use them, according to the Yankee Group, a research firm. Moreover, older people who do use phones spend less money for fewer minutes each month than Americans under 65, the firm says. "There are only so many 18-year-olds to market to," said Jeff Nelson, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless. "The senior population is a clear opportunity for growth." But first marketers must overcome the concerns of Mr. Scocca and his peers, who say the phones are too small, too hard to hear and cost too much. Mr. Scocca ought to know. Two years ago, he bought service from AT&T Wireless. But he canceled it in May after the phone sat mostly unused on his kitchen table, though he spent $32 a month for service. "It shouldn't be so perplexing to use," Mr. Scocca said, as he waited for lunch to be served at a Y.M.C.A. in San Francisco recently. The feeling is not universal. Some customers, like Charles R. Temple, 77, said that they had adapted to the wireless era just fine. Mr. Temple, a retired book publisher who still writes and publishes newsletters in San Francisco, said he used his phone every day. Besides, he said, "It's good to have in case you faint, or stumble or get in trouble." To create more converts, analysts said, the big phone makers are developing phones that will be easier to see and hear -- and that will reverse the trend toward miniaturization. If so, they would be mimicking efforts in Korea and Japan, where the higher penetration among older people has led to development of more elderly-friendly gadgets, said Peggy Johnson, a division president for Qualcomm, a company that makes software and computer chips used in cellphones worldwide. In Korea, Ms. Johnson noted, the phone maker LG recently introduced a phone that allows people to measure their glucose levels. In Japan and Korea, she said, phone makers have added tracking features that let loved ones know their whereabouts. Carriers in the United States are putting pressure on phone makers to be sensitive to the needs of older users, said Alan D. Ferber, vice president for marketing for U.S. Cellular, which has 4.5 million subscribers. Last year, in the hope of attracting more older customers, the photos in U.S. Cellular brochures started to include older people using cellphones. So, too, did those at Sprint; one of its brochures, from November 2003, had a picture of a white-haired woman playing with a young girl. Mr. Ferber said the older demographic was not only growing, but becoming more technology savvy as baby boomers aged. "The senior of today is primarily a safety user," he said. "The senior of tomorrow has been a wireless user for 15 or 20 years." It also is a group with a powerful lobbying arm in AARP, which, Ms. Weinstock said, had begun letter and phone campaigns at the state legislative level. Its first significant effort prompted legislators to introduce a measure two months ago in New York State that would permit people to cancel their wireless phone contracts within 15 days after receiving the first bill. The idea, Ms. Weinstock said, is to permit older people to see the full cost of their bill after taxes and surcharges have been added. She would like to take the proposal next to Pennsylvania and Illinois. The group is also lobbying Congress to require the cellphone companies to ask consumers before including their names and phone numbers in a wireless telephone directory. The industry has said it plans to use such an "opt-in" process, but consumer groups want it to be required by law, not done voluntarily by cellphone carriers. AARP believes that if the opt-in process is not made law, the cellphone industry could ultimately decide unilaterally to put names in a cellphone directory, thus, AARP says, jeopardizing consumer privacy. In addition, Ms. Weinstock said AARP wanted companies to publish more precise maps of their coverage areas. That way, she said, people who use a phone infrequently or for emergencies only will not be surprised to find it does not work as expected. In each of the last five years, AARP has asked members what service or product they would most like AARP to provide, and cellphone service was the No. 1 answer. The organization is considering marketing its own branded plan, by reselling access to the network of a major phone carrier. In the meantime, AARP plans to try to make the existing companies more responsive to older customers' needs. "I don't see how the industry is not going to have to stand up and take notice," Ms. Weinstock said. Gene Kimmelman, executive director of Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, said AARP had another motive - getting its own membership to take notice. He said that the lobbying group angered a lot of its members last year during a brutal fight over the future of Medicare. AARP is taking on telecommunications issues in a way it hasn't in many years, he said. "AARP is trying to get more in tune with its members' day-to-day needs," Mr. Kimmelman said. "This is an obvious issue where they can tap into resentment and confusion over cellphones -- and score a lot of points with members." Ms. Weinstock disputed that the internal dynamics were driving the matter. She did say that the emphasis on telecommunications was not new on the state level, though the AARP was putting in new effort at the federal level. "We took up the wireless issue because it's a big issue and consumers are unhappy about it," she said. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use 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 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 18:54:01 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Digital TV Effort Sends Wrong Signal, Group Says Consumer advocates say the FCC shouldn't promote costly new sets. The agency says it's educating viewers. By Alex Pham Times Staff Writer Sofa spuds deserve better. So says a coalition of consumer advocates and academics that Thursday blasted a federal campaign that the group complained encouraged Americans to acquire an expensive breed of digital boob tubes. "Do you really believe that with all the troubles facing our nation, the federal government should be on a crusade to encourage people to buy costly new television sets?" the Commercial Alert coalition wrote to federal lawmakers. Portland, Ore.-based Commercial Alert charged that "television is a major public health problem" and called on Congress to pull funding for the Federal Communications Commission campaign, called "DTV: Get It!" http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-dtv8oct08,1,5124387.story ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 14:34:12 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Howard Stern and the Future of Media Censorship by Adam Thierer Radio "shock jock" Howard Stern is bolting to satellite radio, signing a five-year deal with SIRIUS beginning in 2006. His transition from broadcast to satellite radio signals a tectonic shift in the center of media power away from traditional providers to new types of outlets and technologies. That much everyone has probably already figured out. What's more interesting, however, is what all this means for the future of media regulation by Washington lawmakers. Consider for a moment just how bad this past year has been for media. http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/041011-tk.html ------------------------------ From: paula@coretechsinc.com (Paula Cao) Subject: Help Wanted in Dulles, Virginia - Telecom Unix Test Engineer Date: 11 Oct 2004 16:06:33 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I have a Senior Test Engineer position located in Dulles, VA with a very well known, and established organization. Below is the job description. This is a fulltime; contract position for 6 months and the client is looking for someone right away. If you feel you are a fit, or know someone who might be, please respond with the following: 1) Resume 2) Hourly rate (please be specific) 3) Availability to interview and start 4) Special circumstances If you have any questions or would like more info, please feel free to contact me. VOIP Senior Test Engineer The VOIP Senior Test Engineer (STE) will develop and implement test strategies, test plans/cases for Next Generation Telephony Network applications/infrastructure (e.g., routing, service brokering). Technical o Must have extensive test experience with expertise in SIP and other VOIP protocols such as H.323, MGCP, MEGACO. Preferred knowledge of TRIP, TGREP and other VOIP protocols. o SS7 testing knowledge and SS7 simulator tools is desirable o Experience with tools such as: MGTS, EAST/Hammer, SIP phones, Ethereal/TCP Dump, o Experience designing and performing interoperability test of VOIP protocols. Testing experience on Softswitch is a plus. o Network technologies - Must have in depth understanding and trouble shooting skills of TCP/IP networks (e.g., routing tables, host/network configuration issues) Cisco certification is a plus. o Must have UNIX/LINUX experience, including shell scripting o Relational database experience (Oracle preferred) Planning / Team Work / Communication o Excellent communication skills o Thorough understanding of test processes and ability to estimate task duration. o Ability to work as part of a team or lead a team following established guidelines o Excellent trouble-shooting skills is a MUST Education BS/MS in Computer Science/Electrical Engineering Paula Cao Sr. Technical Recruiter 916-442-6900 x12 toll free: 1-800-484-6022 (Access Code 4802) Office paula@coretechsinc.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 17:14:26 -0400 From: Ted Koppel Subject: REN Boosters From England? A quick browse through Google shows a number of sources selling REN Boosters (or REN amplifiers) for about a third of what Viking does, or around £38 (roughly $60). Granted, these contraptions take line current of 240 volts, but assuming that could be handled with a transformer, is the rest of the technology the same? That is, would a British REN amplifier function on a line in the US? ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response = T911 Organization: ATCC Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 02:28:02 GMT In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com says: > Rick Merrill wrote: >> Dont' try that in Massachusetts: MA law requires that the police pay a >> visit to ANY 911 or E911 call no matter what! They can be mighty >> "testy" about it. - RM > That surprises me. In my state they normally send someone out too, > but not "no matter what". As soon as they answered I said it was to > test the line and they were glad to cooperate, after all, they don't > want mismatches. > Their automatic dispatch rule is more if they get a call where there's > no one responding on the other end, and that makes sense. In Rhode Island E-911 dispatches emergency services if a call is received with no response or is a hang-up. I'll have to check the general laws regarding testing of E-911 data. ------------------------------ From: Gary Novosielski Subject: Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response = T911 Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 02:32:52 GMT Lisa Hancock wrote: > That surprises me. In my state they normally send someone out too, > but not "no matter what". As soon as they answered I said it was to > test the line and they were glad to cooperate, after all, they don't > want mismatches. I've done the same thing here in New Jersey. I dialed 911, and when the op answered, I said "This a test. There is no emergency, but if you're not busy I'd like to check the address you have on file for this line." They were very cooperative, and were happy to read back the address. And, I'm very glad I did this, because only one of my two lines had the correct address! The line that I've had since I moved here 20-some years ago was right, but a secondary line I bought for fax / business / overflow use, and which had been in operation for over a year, still had an incorrect address in the next town, presumably that of the former owner of that number. This was a few years ago, and I don't remember exactly how I got it fixed, but I remember that the 911 op knew what to do about it. I can't recall if they were able to take care of it themselves, or whether they advised me to contact my local telco to have it fixed. In any case, I did what they said, and it was fixed in a few days. I don't remember what gave me the idea to check it, but since that time I've heard some radio and print "advice column" authors recommend that everyone check their 911 address at least once if they have never done so, and after having any new line installed, changing carriers, or other Murphy's-Law windows of opportunity. Of course this should only be done during low-volume times, not during the regular meeting hours of the Saturday Night Knife and Gun Club, as the E.R. folks fondly call it. A calm Sunday morning during nice weather should be a good time. I can't imagine why any local authority would demand that the cops respond to every 911 call, unless the caller did not respond. After all, someone dialing 911 might be requesting a police officer, a fire truck, an ambulance, or some other specialized response. Let us hope that common sense is actually more common than such a thought-free policy would suggest. I'd like more verification before believing that this is actually the policy in Massachusetts. ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 20:16:26 EDT Subject: Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response In a message dated Mon, 11 Oct 2004 14:30:50 GMT, Pat Townson < ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu> writes in a footnote to a post by Tony P. < kd1s@nospamplease.verizon.reallynospam.net>: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But the 'established environments' can > use the 272-1111 number can't they, since I imagine most everyone > knows it. And since most every police department, I think, still has > those old numbers around, why don't they at least adjust their so- > called PSAP to ring in on those old numbers, like Independence has > done. I have lived in the same suburb of Oklahoma City for more than 40 years, and at my present address for 36 years, and I'm still not sure what the listed number (the only number before 911) for the police department is. I couldn't come up with the fire department number on a bet. And if I go three or four blocks to the north, or four or five blocks to the south, or west a couple of blocks to the freeway, I'm in Oklahoma City. I couldn't tell you those numbers either. The only time I have had occasion to call 911 from a cell phone it came in to the Oklahoma City PSAP, and I was in Oklahoma City at the time, so that was all right. The one time I called 911 from my home telephone the PSAP operator for my suburb (the Police Department dispatcher) verified my address (from the E-911 records) and asked if that was where the emergency was (My car was on fire in my driveway.) Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com ------------------------------ From: dold@XReXX911XA.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response = T911 Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 17:56:02 UTC Organization: a2i network Jeff nor Lisa wrote: > Rick Merrill wrote: >> Dont' try that in Massachusetts: MA law requires that the police pay a >> visit to ANY 911 or E911 call no matter what! They can be mighty >> "testy" about it. - RM > That surprises me. In my state they normally send someone out too, > but not "no matter what". As soon as they answered I said it was to > test the line and they were glad to cooperate, after all, they don't > want mismatches. When I ventured into the CLEC biz, one of the rules was that E-911 was required to be tested on every installation. The E-911 rules allow for one test call to establish proper routing and identification on each line. I think the techs just tested one line, since they were all mapped to the same location, but each installation was supposed to get a test call. Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8-122.5 ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Fairness Doctrine (was Anti-Kerry Film Slated to Air ...) Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 00:44:23 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net > Pat wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When I said 'the law' I meant anything > if not the actual law still has the force and equivilent of the law, > which is true of FCC regulations. But I had forgotten about President > Ray Guns veto of that perfectly good, very impartial law. Why oh why > do we always have to get such winners (see my tongue in cheek) in the > highest office in the land? The *only decent* person we have had in > that office in the past 25 years was Jimmy Carter. And lest some > readers think I favor John Kerry, I *do not* and don't intend to vote > for him either. I intend to vote my conscience this time around > instead of just voting for the lesser of two evils: Kerry. I will vote > for Mr. Badnarik. Oh, I know he won't win, but I am tired of playing > the games they toss at us every four years. If Badnarik even *came close* > to winning, the Secret Service or the FBI or someone would assassinate > him. But he gets my vote, because I want to make a point. PAT] You will do as you see fit, but I remember refusing to vote for Hubert Humphrey in 1968. (Dump the Hump!) So many of us sat out that election or voted for marginal candidates, Richard Nixon was elected, although not by much. Whatever point we made was not worth the cost, in my opinion. ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Why There's no DNS or Comparable Distributed Naming Service Organization: Symantec Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 17:08:44 -0400 In article , ariel.burbaickij@gmail.com (Ariel Burbaickij) wrote: > I know that Internet didn't have DNS from the very beginning -- it > made fairly decent progress till today, though, if you noticed ;-). I > am not talking abount DNS on phones (actually it does exist in the > form of ENUM and related project and naming scheme for e164 set also > exists for sure). I am talking about DNS for pointcodes, i.e. for > switches (phone switches just to avoid any misunderstanding). There > is no dns-like efforts for this and for reasons unknown to me, ITU > standards that normally tend to foreseen each and everything scenarion > and are so heavily packaged with required features do not even mention > this possibility. I think it's longstanding philosophical difference between the Internet designers and telcos. The design of the Internet has always been based on smart end-nodes using a dumb network infrastructure. Even so-called "thin clients" have mostly been full-fledged computers; the simplest ones are appliances with embedded computers. Furthermore, there's no central control; it's a "network of networks", with all of them potentially equal (although this has evolved into somewhat of a hierarchy), so databases like DNS needed to be distributed. The telephone network design, on the other hand, was based on a smart network with centralized control. This derives from the days of telephone monopolies like AT&T. Although the network has been opened up to competition, the techology has been slow to fully adapt to this model. Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Why There's no DNS or Comparable Distributed Naming Service From: William Warren Organization: Comcast Online Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 02:07:43 GMT On 11 Oct 2004 02:19:00 -0700, Ariel Burbaickij wrote: >>> Could someone explain to me why there is no such service as DNS/whois >>> towards it in SS7 network? After all, we have exactly same concerns >>> here (distributed and independent administration of different subsets >>> of address space, mapping must be often provided between pointcodes >>> (numerical address) and its current owner), so why it was decided not >>> to do it this way but instead some arcane lists are distributed by ITU >>> exclusively? [large snip] I don't think it's needed in the way the Internet uses the term: DNS is essential for the internet because the number of separate nodes has grown too large for any one node to handle, so there has to be a lookup mechanism to spread the workload, and that's DNS. Central Offices don't need a dns-like service because: A. STPs already perform an equivalent function: there are few enough exchanges that each one can keep a basic routing table in memory and pass off any unknown npa/nxx codes to an STP for resolution. The STP routes the original SS7 traffic on behalf of the CO, unlike a DNS which returns a routable (IP) address to the requesting node. B. They don't require human-friendly names C. Phone companies are very conservative and won't change a system that they're comfortable with. HTH. William -- (Filter noise from my address for direct replies) Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/ ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Why There's no DNS or Comparable Distributed Naming Service Organization: ATCC Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 02:30:33 GMT In article , ariel.burbaickij@gmail.com says: > DevilsPGD wrote in message > news:: >> Ariel.Burbaickij@web.de wrote: >>> Could someone explain to me why there is no such service as DNS/whois >>> towards it in SS7 network? After all, we have exactly same concerns >>> here (distributed and independent administration of different subsets >>> of address space, mapping must be often provided between pointcodes >>> (numerical address) and its current owner), so why it was decided not >>> to do it this way but instead some arcane lists are distributed by ITU >>> exclusively? >> The internet didn't start out with DNS either -- Or BGP even, >> everybody distributed routing tables and changes manually. >> As neat as DNS on phones would be, it would be extremely difficult to >> implement at this stage, and with LNP becoming a reality in the US >> (and possibly elsewhere as time goes on) it's less important (from an >> end user point of view.) > I know that Internet didn't have DNS from the very beginning -- it > made fairly decent progress till today, though, if you noticed ;-). I > am not talking abount DNS on phones (actually it does exist in the > form of ENUM and related project and naming scheme for e164 set also > exists for sure). I am talking about DNS for pointcodes, i.e. for > switches (phone switches just to avoid any misunderstanding). There > is no dns-like efforts for this and for reasons unknown to me, ITU > standards that normally tend to foreseen each and everything scenarion > and are so heavily packaged with required features do not even mention > this possibility. LNP is as close to DNS as the phone system gets. I've been around the net since the transfers of host files and I can tell you DNS was a god send. It also evolved fairly quickly. ------------------------------ From: jdj Subject: Re: Two Way Radio Service Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 16:06:45 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 09:01:14 -0700, Geller wrote: > Hey guys ... > Is there any two-way radio service provider.? > Can any one give me the list of service providers.?? > S.Geller > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can think of many 'two way radio > service providers'. Why don't you begin by being a bit more > precise as to your intended application. PAT] Indeed. Two way radio is not the same as cellular, telephone, etc. One does not pay a fee just to use two way radio. There is no subscription plan, no free minutes, no talk plan, etc., and you buy the radios you want, typically at full price. If someone is selling you a contract for "two way radio", I suggest you run. Fast. ------------------------------ From: Gary Novosielski Subject: Re: Two Way Radio Service Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 02:41:51 GMT Geller wrote: > Is there any two-way radio service provider.? > Can any one give me the list of service providers.?? I'm a little confused. If you have a pair of two-way radios, and are appropriately licensed where applicable, you just turn them on and use them. There's no "provider" involved. But you can send me money every month if you like. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Wireless and Wi-fi Definitions Organization: ATCC Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 02:19:58 GMT In article , johnl@iecc.com says: >> Do wi-fi and wireless technology mean the same thing? > Not really. WiFi is one popular wireless communication scheme known > as 802.11b. (Some people also throw in its successor 802.11a.) You forgot 802.11g and the upcoming 802.11f. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Congress Close to Establishing Rules for Driver's Licenses Organization: ATCC Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 02:25:30 GMT In article , monty@roscom.com says: > By MATTHEW L. WALD > WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 - Following a recommendation of the Sept. 11 > commission, the House and Senate are moving toward setting rules for > the states that would standardize the documentation required to obtain > a driver's license, and the data the license would have to contain. > Critics say the plan would create a national identification card. But > advocates say it would make it harder for terrorists to operate, as > well as reduce the highway death toll by helping states identify > applicants whose licenses had been revoked in other states. > The Senate version of the intelligence bill includes an amendment, > passed by unanimous consent on Oct. 1, that would let the secretary of > homeland security decide what documents a state would have to require > before issuing a driver's license, and would also specify the data > that the license would have to include for it to meet federal > standards. The secretary could require the license to include > fingerprints or eye prints. The provision would allow the Homeland > Security Department to require use of the license, or an equivalent > card issued by motor vehicle bureaus to nondrivers for identification > purposes, for access to planes, trains and other modes of > transportation. > http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/11/politics/11identity.html?ex=1255147200&en=e92e51cb9a7fe19e&ei=5090 The State of Rhode Island just recently upgraded it's licensing system but it's still based on flat text files. In any case, the folks at DMV chose face print ... while all of us then on the TAC told them they should be using ten-print or fingerprints. Ten-print is guaranteed to be one of the requirements, I can assure you of that. ------------------------------ From: Amin Subject: Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 03:39:02 GMT [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am not certain what Amin is trying to say. Perhaps a reader can interpret the message. PAT] I had been a country. Almost every business puts the telephone set in the front of the store. Everyone is able to make free local call everywhere. Why do they charge a lot only the local pay phone in the US? Monty Solomon wrote in message news:telecom23.481.5@telecom-digest.org: > Service Add-Ons Nibble at Incomes > By Christopher Stern > Washington Post Staff Writer > Satellite radio. Cell phone. High-speed Internet service. Matt Botwin, > a Washington consultant, has it all -- and the bills that go with his > growing bundle of technology. > With each new service, more of Botwin's monthly income is spoken for. > A generation ago, mortgages, utilities and newspaper subscriptions > made up a short list of payments due each month. Now Americans pay an > average of 12 bills a month, including fees for a broad range of > services such as television programming, home security-system > monitoring and online gaming Web sites. And each individual bill may > increase as consumers add incremental improvements such as Internet > access to their cell phones and premium channels to their satellite > radio service. > Botwin figures that he spends at least $250 a month on his > subscription services. "I'm not happy about it. It's a lot," Botwin > said. But he also feels that his digital devices and services are > necessities. The Sirius satellite radio is indispensable for his > frequent drives to New York and Philadelphia. "It's like any luxury. > I didn't think I needed a microwave [oven], but I'm sure glad I have > it now." > Economists and academics are beginning to grow concerned about > Americans' willingness to cede a regular chunk of their monthly > paychecks to new conveniences and services, saying it is taking a > serious bite out of discretionary spending, a key driver of the > nation's economy. They also worry that new services are contributing > to a growing divide between consumers who have the means to secure > special treatment, such as access to free-rolling highway lanes, while > others are stuck in bumper-to-bumper standstills. > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19377-2004Oct9.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 14:31:06 -0400 Subject: Re: Deutsche Telekom AG Executives Reported To FBI For Abuse! From: Name and email address withheld Please remove my email address *and* name before posting! On 11 Oct 2004 07:33:47 -0700, freespeechstore@aol.com (Freespeechstore) posted: > freespeechstore@aol.com (Freespeechstore) wrote in message > news:<20041008112744.01575.00002304@mb-m28.aol.com>: >> It appears that this ISP has serious problems as posted here and at >> http://freespeechstore.com >> Cut & paste the URL below to get more on these abusers: > http://freespeechstore.com/public/Sub_Public5/2205_Deutsche_Telekom_AG_E xecutives_Reported_To_FBI_For_Abuse!.htm > http://freespeechstore.com/public/Sub_Public5/2208_Why_viruses_spread__a nd_why_you_could_be_sued_for_it.htm > http://freespeechstore.com/public/Sub_Public5/2207_Listing_of_ISP_Server _Abuse_(LISA)..Probes__Viruses__Bogus_Inquiries__etc..htm Oh no, not *this* guy again! Freespeechstore requires you to pay to read this guy's rants. He had a bunch of nasty stuff to say about me one time: I got spam to several different accounts advertising the freespeechstore.com site. I checked it out and signed up with a disposable account. When I got more spam at other accounts (not the one signed up), I reported it via spamcop.net. In response, he complains to the ISP that hosts my domain, my employer (since I surfed his site from work and he logs IP addresses), and spamcop. In addition, he posted a rant "watch out for ... at domain ..." *and* spammed several of my accounts with an announcement about it. Fortunately, my employer threw his complaint in the bit bucket as did my ISP. Spamcop wrote back a nasty note to him because he spammed them and is well known on the abuse discussion groups. I later got a call from some company in the guy's home town that did a home inspection for a prospective buyer of the guy's house. They gave the house a bad grade (the buyer was paying them); the buyer used the report as a reason not to complete the sale. He attacked the company on the web page, police reports, etc., etc., etc. It seems that if you don't immediately agree with this guy's actions, you're committing abuse. Now, I believe in freedom of (truthful) expression. But when you have to pay to read that expression, any "invitation" is, by definition, SPAM. Normally, I sign these things and include my name in postings, but have asked PAT to exclude that information because I've already had seriously negative interaction with this guy. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As you requested, your identity was deleted. I've received various mails from this fellow before, but had not used his stuff; never even really looked at his site. But this time, after publishing his note, I decided to go look at the links he provided. I would have expected to get at least something to read, but all of his links shown above point to a page where (as you noted) he tries to sell the 'speeches' others have made. I was not all that impressed with his site. 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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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #483 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Oct 12 18:00:21 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9CM0Kq16200; Tue, 12 Oct 2004 18:00:21 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 18:00:21 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410122200.i9CM0Kq16200@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 #484 TELECOM Digest Tue, 12 Oct 2004 18:00:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 484 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #452, October 12, 2004 (Angus TeleManagement) Problem With Hotmail Premium Service (Marcus Jervis) Linksys Wireless A/G Media Center (Monty Solomon) Verizon Wins Critical Legal Battle to Protect Internet Users (M Solomon) TV Shows Uses Real Number -- Intentionally (Lisa Hancock) Basic Menu System Using VoIP? (James Bowery) Re: Deutsche Telekom AG Executives Reported To FBI! (Freespeechstore) Re: Two Way Radio Service (William Warren) Re: Two Way Radio Service (Amin) Re: Two Way Radio Service (NYC) Re: Two Way Radio Service (Rick Merrill) 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, 12 Oct 2004 11:12:06 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #452, October 12, 2004 ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 452: October 12, 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: ** Allstream Intros Wholesale VoIP ** Telus Offers IP Migration for Centrex ** Spectrum Auction to Begin in January ** AT&T Takes Huge Writedown, Cuts Staff ** Ottawa Details Changes to Spectrum Policy ** Planning Begins for Area Codes 250, 403, 780 ** Amtelecom to Deploy Fixed Wireless ** International Action Hits Telemarketing Fraud ** CRTC Rejects Shaw Complaint on Telus Pricing ** Axia and Bell West Settle Dispute ** Globalive Completes Payphone Acquisition ** CRTC Won't Ban "Junk Voice Mail" ** Sprint VoIP Uses Lucent & Alpha Technology ** U.S. Court Upholds Do-Not-Call List ** Anik F2 in Commercial Operation ** Couch Potato Report Released ** Key Issues in the VoIP Debate ============================================================ ENTERPRISE TELECOM IN 2005: WHAT'S HOT, WHAT'S NOT, AND WHAT YOU MUST KNOW TO SUCCEED. That's the topic of Ian Angus's Opening Keynote session at Telemanagement Live, October 20-21 in Toronto. And it's really the theme of the entire event, the premier Canadian conference and exhibition on business networking and telecommunications. ** Complete a two-minute survey and WIN A FREE "All ACCESS" PASS to Telemanagement Live: See www.telemanagementlive.com/telecomupdatesurvey.html for full details. Deadline: Wednesday October 13, 6 p.m. Eastern Time. Telecom Update subscribers save $100 on all registrations. Call 866-309-227 or go to www.telemanagementlive.com. ============================================================ ALLSTREAM INTROS WHOLESALE VoIP: Allstream last week announced availability of "Network Resident IP Telephony," a wholesale service for ISPs and other service providers. Hamilton-based Mountain Cablevision, the first company to use the new offering to offer IP telephony to its customers, plans to bundle it with video and broadband access services. TELUS OFFERS IP MIGRATION FOR CENTREX: Telus plans to launch IP-One Evolution, providing an IP migration path for Centrex customers. The company says it will be available by the end of this year in Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver; in the first quarter of 2005 in Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal; and by mid-2005 in other markets. ** Telus introduced a different service using the IP-One brand, targeted at small-to-medium sized PBX users, in Ontario last November. VP Tony Geheran said last week that they now expect to sell 1,800-2,000 lines of that service in the first year, one-tenth of the original forecast. SPECTRUM AUCTION TO BEGIN IN JANUARY: Industry Canada has announced that phase two of the 2300/3500 MHz spectrum auction will begin on January 10, to assign licences for which demand exceeds supply. (See Telecom Update #449) ** All phase-one bids are posted on the Department's website: uncontested licences (for which the opening bid is the final price), as well as licences for which two or more applicants placed opening bids. http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/insmt-gst.nsf/en/sf01187e.html http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/insmt-gst.nsf/en/sf02009e.html AT&T TAKES HUGE WRITEDOWN, CUTS STAFF: AT&T Corp, the largest U.S. long distance carrier, will write down US$11.4 billion in assets in the third quarter, and is laying off 7,900 people in addition to the 4,900 previously announced. In total, the company's headcount will be down 20% over the year. OTTAWA DETAILS CHANGES TO SPECTRUM POLICY: Industry Canada has outlined revisions to spectrum utilization policies for services in the 3-30 GHz range. Comment is requested by early January on a number of new proposals, including: ** Making 28 GHz (LMCS) spectrum available in rural areas on a first-come, first-served basis, in at least three "licensable packages." (A national licence for this band was previously held by MaxLink but was returned to the Department.) ** Eliminating the spectrum cap for broadband licences in the 24, 28, and 38 GH bands. http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/insmt-gst.nsf/en/sf08217e.html PLANNING BEGINS FOR AREA CODES 250, 403, 780: CRTC Public Notices 2004-4 and 2004-5 create ad hoc committees to examine options for dealing with Area Codes 250 and 403, which are expected to run out of prefixes in 2009, and with 780, which will last until 2011. To participate, notify the CRTC by October 18. ** First meetings: Area Code 250 October 21-22, Kamloops Area Code 403 November 22-23, Calgary Area Code 780 November 25-26, Edmonton www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Notices/2004/pt2004-4.htm www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Notices/2004/pt2004-5.htm AMTELECOM TO DEPLOY FIXED WIRELESS: Independent telco Amtelecom will use SR Telecom's Angel fixed wireless technology to provide high-speed Internet access in parts of Elgin County, in association with Elgin Connects, a non- profit community group that has received funding under Industry Canada's BRAND program. The telco expects to complete first-stage deployment in December. INTERNATIONAL ACTION HITS TELEMARKETING FRAUD: An international effort dubbed Operation Roaming Charge last week announced that 135 people in six countries, including 20 in Canada, have been arrested in "the most extensive multinational enforcement operation ever directed at telemarketing fraud schemes." CRTC REJECTS SHAW COMPLAINT ON TELUS PRICING: Ruling on Shaw's 2003 complaint that Telus was offering Internet access at below-cost rates (see Telecom Update #401), the CRTC says Telus is not dominant in the high-speed Internet market, so its promotional offers do not constitute undue preference. www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2004/dt2004-66.htm AXIA AND BELL WEST SETTLE DISPUTE: Axia NetMedia says it has settled the outstanding issues in its dispute with Bell West over construction of Alberta SuperNet. (See Telecom Update #372, 375) The terms of the settlement were not released. GLOBALIVE COMPLETES PAYPHONE ACQUISITION: Canada Payphone Corporation is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Globalive Communications, which says it will increase revenue per payphone and provide better customer service, including faster response time for trouble tickets. (See Telecom Update #430, 432, 445) CRTC WON'T BAN "JUNK VOICE MAIL": CRTC Telecom Decision 2004- 65 rejects Bell Canada's application to disconnect Infolink Technologies, a company that delivers advertising messages to voice mail boxes. The Commission says that the service has generated few customer complaints, and that it is not as intrusive as Automatic Dialing and Announcement Devices that place regular phone calls. www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2004/dt2004-65.htm SPRINT VoIP USES LUCENT & ALPHA TECHNOLOGY: Sprint Canada says that its recently announced Internet Phone Service (See Telecom Update #441) uses Lucent gateways in the network and Alpha Telecom routers on customers' premises. U.S. COURT UPHOLDS DO-NOT-CALL LIST: The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an appeal that claimed the government's nationwide Do Not Call list violates the constitutional rights of telemarketers. ANIK F2 IN COMMERCIAL OPERATION: Telesat says that it has begun delivering service using Anik F2, the world's largest commercial communications satellite. Anik F2, manufactured by Boeing, has 94 transponders: 38 Ka-band, 32 Ku-band, 24 C- band. COUCH POTATO REPORT RELEASED: The Convergence Consulting Group has released a new edition of The Battle for the North American Couch Potato: Bundling, Internet, TV, Telephone. www.convergenceonline.com KEY ISSUES IN THE VoIP DEBATE: After three very long days of CRTC hearings, there's still no consensus on how (or if) IP- based phone services should be regulated. The current issue of Telemanagement features an exclusive report and analysis by Lis Angus on the complex and critical issues the Commission must resolve. ** Also in this issue: John Riddell on open source alternatives for IP-PBXs and IP-Centrex, and Gerry Blackwell's report on how Canadian companies are implementing multimedia collaboration systems. Subscribers to Telemanagement Online can read the new issue online now. For a one-year subscription, including unlimited access to Telemanagement's extensive online content, visit www.angustel.ca/teleman/tm-sub-online.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: Marcus Jervis Subject: Problem With HotMail Premium Service Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 04:59:53 +0000 MSN doesn't talk about this, but it turns out if you upgrade to the paid Hotmail service from the free service, you lose the ability to sort your inbox. You can still do this with the free Hotmail service, either by date, reverse date, subject or sender. With the paid service, you are stuck with displaying the index in reverse date order, with the newest first. So there is no way to consecutively read your mail from oldest to newest. When you select a message to read, then delete it, you don't go to the next consecutive message, but any previous message. So to read the next consecutive message you have to exit the message, then select the next message from the inbox, read that, then exit, and so on. Not much fun. I verified this with MSN tech support after noticiing that only the paid accounts had this problem. Their answer was that in order to go to the new 2 GB service they had to make some changes. This is not a bug, but was done intentionally. Because the free accounts will soon offer 250 MB, I think it makes sense to close any paid accounts with Hotmail, unless you really need 8x as much space at 2 GB. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 09:39:17 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Linksys Wireless A/G Media Center Media Extender Provides Wireless Access to Movies, Music, and Photos Through Connected TVs and Stereo Systems From Windows Media Center PCs IRVINE, Calif., Oct. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Linksys(R), a division of Cisco Systems, Inc., the leading provider of broadband, wireless and networking hardware for the consumer, Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) and small business markets, today announced the new Wireless A/G Media Center Extender (WMCE54AG). The media extender enables users to wirelessly stream digital entertainment content such as music, videos or photos stored on a Microsoft Windows Media Center PC to their home entertainment center. Using a Wireless-A, Wireless-G, or wired Ethernet connection, the Media Center Extender streams homemade or downloaded premium movies and digital photos stored on a Windows Media Center PC to TVs around the home for the whole family to enjoy. A digital music collection or Internet radio station can play in full glory through a stereo system, freed from those little computer speakers. Users can also watch and pause live TV shows or record them digitally for viewing later. The Media Center Extender sits by a home stereo and television and connects to them using standard consumer electronic cables such as RCA connectors. It then communicates with the Media Center PC via a home network using Wireless-A or Wireless-G networking or if users prefer, it can be connected by use of 10/100 Ethernet cabling. Using the remote control and the user-friendly menus on your TV, users can quickly find the digital movies, TV shows, pictures or music on their Windows Media Center PC. Users can even chat with friends through Microsoft Windows Messenger while watching movies on the same screen. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44202369 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 17:13:30 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon Wins Critical Legal Battle to Protect Internet Users' Verizon Wins Critical Legal Battle to Protect Internet Users' Privacy, Free Speech Rights and Personal Safety - Oct 12, 2004 12:48 PM (PR Newswire) Supreme Court Declines to Review Unanimous D.C. Circuit Decision in Favor of Internet Users' Privacy Rights WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- As the result of a decision today by the United States Supreme Court, Verizon declared an important victory for the personal privacy, free expression rights and safety of the more than 100 million Internet users in the U. S. The court declined to review the unanimous decision of the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, which held that a wave of subpoenas seeking the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of thousands of Internet subscribers through a "rubber stamp" process was unlawful. The case is known as Recording Industry of America, Inc. (RIAA) v. Verizon Internet Services, Inc. (Verizon). The Court of Appeals decision, written by Chief Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg and handed down on Dec. 19, 2003, held that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA) did not authorize copyright holders and their agents to obtain a subpoena requiring the release of the name, address and telephone number of any Internet user based upon the filing of a one-page form with the clerk of the district court The D.C. Circuit's decision was hailed by legal scholars, the Internet community, and many consumer rights and public interest groups as a victory for consumer privacy and the First Amendment right to engage in anonymous speech on the Internet. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44212301 ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: TV Shows Use Real Number - Intentionally Date: 12 Oct 2004 09:54:20 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Normally, when a TV show has a phone number it is a generic "555" number so that some real person isn't bothered by calls. But a recent TV show actually put out a real number. If someone called the number, there were asked to give a donation to a charity. Some shows mention websites that they actually create for the fans' entertainment. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What TV show was that, perhaps a telethon for the charity involved? PAT] ------------------------------ From: jim_bowery@hotmail.com (James Bowery) Subject: Basic Menu System Using VoIP? Date: 12 Oct 2004 13:14:00 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I need a basic touch tone menuing system that receives (and places verification callback) calls via ethernet port using VoIP. No live humans are here at this end -- the live humans are calling not, fielding calls. Termination charges are presumed of course. The features: * Caller ID. * Call-back to purported Caller ID for spoofing prevention. * Touch tone recognition with call-out to customizable scripts (preferably perl) to store and provide canned voice file respones to data input. Oh, also I'd prefer it to run on an open source OS like Linux if at all possible. Thanks! ------------------------------ From: freespeechstore@aol.com (Freespeechstore) Subject: Re: Deutsche Telekom AG Executives Reported To FBI For Abuse! Date: 12 Oct 2004 06:59:30 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Name and email address withheld wrote in message news:: > Please remove my email address *and* name before posting! > On 11 Oct 2004 07:33:47 -0700, freespeechstore@aol.com > (Freespeechstore) posted: >> freespeechstore@aol.com (Freespeechstore) wrote in message >> news:<20041008112744.01575.00002304@mb-m28.aol.com>: >>> It appears that this ISP has serious problems as posted here and at >>> http://freespeechstore.com >>> Cut & paste the URL below to get more on these abusers: >> http://freespeechstore.com/public/Sub_Public5/2205_Deutsche_Telekom_AG_E xecutives_Reported_To_FBI_For_Abuse!.htm >> http://freespeechstore.com/public/Sub_Public5/2208_Why_viruses_spread__a nd_why_you_could_be_sued_for_it.htm >> http://freespeechstore.com/public/Sub_Public5/2207_Listing_of_ISP_Server _Abuse_(LISA)..Probes__Viruses__Bogus_Inquiries__etc..htm > Oh no, not *this* guy again! Freespeechstore requires you to pay to > read this guy's rants. He had a bunch of nasty stuff to say about me > one time: > I got spam to several different accounts advertising the > freespeechstore.com site. I checked it out and signed up with a > disposable account. When I got more spam at other accounts (not the > one signed up), I reported it via spamcop.net. In response, he > complains to the ISP that hosts my domain, my employer (since I surfed > his site from work and he logs IP addresses), and spamcop. In > addition, he posted a rant "watch out for ... at domain ..." *and* > spammed several of my accounts with an announcement about it. > Fortunately, my employer threw his complaint in the bit bucket as did > my ISP. Spamcop wrote back a nasty note to him because he spammed them > and is well known on the abuse discussion groups. > I later got a call from some company in the guy's home town that did a > home inspection for a prospective buyer of the guy's house. They gave > the house a bad grade (the buyer was paying them); the buyer used the > report as a reason not to complete the sale. He attacked the company > on the web page, police reports, etc., etc., etc. > It seems that if you don't immediately agree with this guy's actions, > you're committing abuse. > Now, I believe in freedom of (truthful) expression. But when you have > to pay to read that expression, any "invitation" is, by definition, > SPAM. > Normally, I sign these things and include my name in postings, but > have asked PAT to exclude that information because I've already had > seriously negative interaction with this guy. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As you requested, your identity was > deleted. I've received various mails from this fellow before, but > had not used his stuff; never even really looked at his site. But > this time, after publishing his note, I decided to go look at the > links he provided. I would have expected to get at least something > to read, but all of his links shown above point to a page where (as > you noted) he tries to sell the 'speeches' others have made. I was > not all that impressed with his site. PAT] A few points of clarification. Let's see if Pat publishes ... 1. The anonymous person posting his rebuttal appears to be ... http://freespeechstore.com/public/227_Complaints..Joey_Lindstrom__numan.co.uk__Gary_Numan__NuWorld__and_interocitor.net..Internet_Abuse!.htm 2. The inspection passed with flying colors, the inspector was incompetent. The person PAYING for the AmeriSpec Report (prospective buyer) made and offer and it was not accepted. The buyer was in love with the home. He gave the report to seller and the relationship was totally amicable! The inspection company left windows open, thermostats in energy deficient positions, lights on in crawl spaces, etc. Shoddy work and reported as such! http://freespeechstore.com/Qresults.asp?Search_Keyword=amerispec&btnSearch2=Find+Speech 3. FSS does not spam! Anybody can make a report to antispammers ... a well documented fact. The FSS email system works similar to the media, i.e. usatoday.com, but FSS has more controls, as well as instant and permanent opt-out! The site is not about negatively, but the speeches about such do get the most responses. Posting is FREE. Come on in and say something positive! Now, those are the facts ... FSS http://freespeechstore.com/ ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Two Way Radio Service From: William Warren Organization: Comcast Online Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 11:48:50 GMT On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 02:41:51 GMT, Gary Novosielski wrote: > Geller wrote: >> Is there any two-way radio service provider.? >> Can any one give me the list of service providers.?? > I'm a little confused. If you have a pair of two-way radios, and are > appropriately licensed where applicable, you just turn them on and use > them. There's no "provider" involved. > But you can send me money every month if you like. Some "trunked" systems, which utilize UHF repeaters with automatic frequency selection, require that the user be a member of the consortium which owns and operates the trunked repeaters and other infrastructure. Users also have the option of paying a commercial reseller, who is a member of the consortium and who aggregates usage from smaller shops. This applies, of course, only to trunked systems with a shared usage agreement. Radio owners with appropriate licenses may communicate directly via "simplex" (i.e., push-to-talk) operation, or might choose (again, with appropriate licensing) to erect and maintain their own repeater(s) for their exclusive use. Having an exclusive system means leasing tower space, erecting a shelter, and paying for a site survey, repeater radio(s), antennas, feedlines, technical help, electricity, and insurance. Trunked systems are less expensive: you buy your own radios, and the repeater group handles all the common equipment up on the hill. Trunked systems share a group of channels amoung all users, and _all_ the radios in a particular group automatically switch to an unused channel when any group user transmits. If this sounds a lot like Nextel, it is, but instead of a nationwide system where Nextel owns all the infrastructure, it's done on a much smaller scale. Trunked systems came first, and Nextel took it to the next level. Users of trunked systems have the advantage of _not_ being on common-carrier frequencies, so there's little chance of being out of service during a mass-calling event, and they're insulated from price hikes during the duration of their contract with the consortium or aggregator. OTOH, they must buy and maintain expensive radios, can't operate outside of their assigned area, and have no way to hook the system up to the PSTN. HTH. William (Filter noise from my address for direct replies) Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/ ------------------------------ From: Amin Subject: Re: Two Way Radio Service Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 16:06:58 GMT Nextel is one of the orginal provider of PUSH-TO-TALK PTT service. It is just like two-way radio with wide coverage area in TDMA. There are many CDMA providers can to in a similar way in PTT services now. You can check it out. Geller wrote in message news:telecom23.482.10@telecom-digest.org: > Hey guys ... > Is there any two-way radio service provider.? > Can any one give me the list of service providers.?? > S.Geller > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can think of many 'two way radio > service providers'. Why don't you begin by being a bit more > precise as to your intended application. PAT] ------------------------------ From: NOTvalid@surplus4actors.INFO (NYC) Subject: Re: Two Way Radio Service Date: 11 Oct 2004 22:23:16 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com munited@gmail.com (Geller) wrote in message news:: > Hey guys ... > Is there any two-way radio service provider.? > Can any one give me the list of service providers.?? > S.Geller > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can think of many 'two way radio > service providers'. Why don't you begin by being a bit more > precise as to your intended application. PAT] There are lots of 'em in the Yellow Pages. ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Two Way Radio Service Organization: Comcast Online Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 10:39:00 GMT Geller wrote: > Hey guys ... > Is there any two-way radio service provider.? > Can any one give me the list of service providers.?? > S.Geller > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can think of many 'two way radio > service providers'. Why don't you begin by being a bit more > precise as to your intended application. PAT] Some cell phones have a 'two-way radio'-like feature. I think the OP was asking if one could get that service without the cell phone bill. - RM ------------------------------ 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 #484 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Oct 12 19:11:25 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9CNBOA17192; Tue, 12 Oct 2004 19:11:25 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 19:11:25 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410122311.i9CNBOA17192@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 #485 TELECOM Digest Tue, 12 Oct 2004 19:10:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 485 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Law Hits Home (Lisa Minter) U.S. Funds Chat-Room Surveillance Study (Lisa Minter) FTC Versus Some Spyware, etc. Including Sanford Wallace (Danny Burstein) Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response (Lisa Hancock) Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response (SELLCOM Tech support) Re: Why There's no DNS or Comparable Distributed Naming (Thor L Simon) Re: Why There's no DNS or Comparable Distributed Naming (Phil Anderton) Re: Net Giants Adopt Anti-Spam System (Scott Dorsey) Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue (Marcus Didius Falco) Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue (NYC) Re: REN Boosters From England? (Paul Coxwell) 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: Law Hits Home Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 12:37:52 EDT by Anush Yegyazarian A recent court decision on a 5-year-old case highlights the failure of our laws to protect the privacy of personal e-mail. Everyone (or almost everyone) knows that the e-mail you send and receive at work, using your employer's computers and network, isn't really private: The company and your boss have the right to both monitor and read what you're sending and receiving. But if you're like me, you probably thought that the Internet service provider you use at home -- and by extension those who work there -- doesn't have the same right. We're wrong: They do. At least that's what a recent court ruling says. Apparently, a strict reading of the laws that supposedly protect our private communications -- principally 1968's Wiretap Act (Chapter 119 of Title 18) and one of the subsequent amendments to it, 1986's Electronic Communications Privacy Act -- in effect denies e-mail the kind of privacy protection from law enforcement agents that other forms of personal communication have. What's more, the laws give ISPs pretty much the same right to read and monitor your e-mail that you have. In Transit Versus Stored About a month ago, in United States v. Bradford C. Councilman the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an ISP wasn't covered by the Wiretap Act if it chose to snoop into its users' e-mail because the e-mail messages were stored on its servers. Councilman worked for a company called Interloc, a rare-book listing service that also provided Internet access (the company was subsequently bought by Alibris). He ordered a modification to the company's e-mail-handling program so that he could identify e-mail sent to its users from certain domains, such as Amazon.com, that were his competitors. He then read those e-mail messages in order to get a competitive advantage. However, according to the Wiretap Act, an ISP is not allowed to intercept your e-mail and read it or otherwise use its contents. So the federal government prosecuted. Councilman argued that he didn't intercept anything, as the e-mail messages were no longer in transit: They were stored in the RAM or the hard drive of his company's computers. Both the district and appellate courts in Massachusetts agreed. Why should the location matter? Well, it matters because the law treats stored e-mail messages differently from ones in transit. I kid you not. Stored e-mail messages fall under the guidelines set out in 1968's Stored Communications Act (Title 18, Chapter 121). Its restrictions on both ISPs and law enforcement agents are less stringent than the rules governing communications under the Wiretap Act. And while wiretap laws don't allow ISPs to read your e-mail, the Stored Communications Act does. Like so many other legal decisions, it all comes down to language and definitions -- in this case the definitions of transit, transmission, and interception. For the wiretap rules to apply, your e-mail has to be intercepted, which means it has to be in transit. If I were asked, I'd say an e-mail is in transit as long as it hasn't actually been downloaded to my inbox: It hasn't reached me, so it's still traveling. It's like a package: Those new CDs I've ordered from Amazon.com are still in transit until they're in my hands, although technically they may be stored at the local UPS depot awaiting rescheduled delivery because I wasn't home the first time. However, the laws are worded -- and have been interpreted by the courts -- to define transit as a very limited state for electronic communications. Transit is only that tiny portion of time it takes an e-mail message to pulse through telecom pipes between periods when it's stored on the servers that route e-mail traffic from sender to receiver. Storage is quite broadly defined in these laws. It includes all kinds of momentary storage, such as on a server or in a PC's RAM, or even its cache. So e-mail is considered to be "in storage" nearly all of the time. Welcome to the wacky world of law. Consistent Protection in the Works Although the decision in United States v. Councilman gives ISPs the right to snoop into users' e-mail practically anytime they want to -- and significantly eases access to private e-mail for law enforcement agents -- it's something of a red herring, says Kevin Bankston, an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The real problem, he says, is that the Stored Communications Act and the Wiretap Act treat e-mail so differently, when they should protect it in the same way. Voice mail, for example, is explicitly protected under wiretap laws even when it's stored. At least some congressional representatives think this discrepancy should be resolved, and a new bill (H.R. 4956) proposed in late July should help do just that. The E-Mail Privacy Act of 2004 would basically place e-mail, even while it's stored, under the interception rules for wiretaps, and would also help prevent ISPs from accessing users' e-mail messages beyond what's needed for the service to function. Not All Monitoring Is Bad There are certain kinds of e-mail scanning and filtering I want my ISP to perform. It can -- and should -- go to town on spam, and I'm grateful for any virus or worm scanning that goes on before my local protection kicks in. In my mind, that's part of the service I'm paying for. ISPs are allowed to perform functions like this because such actions are considered part of their normal course of business, or serve to protect their business or equipment. H.R. 4956 would have no effect on that. In case you're wondering, Google's controversial Gmail wouldn't be affected under the new bill either. Users know exactly what they're getting into when they sign up, so they have given consent to Gmail's computerized snooping. ISPs already enjoy a certain privileged position in the eyes of the law: They're exempt from responsibility and liability for what their users say in the e-mail the service handles. That privilege exists for good reason: They need that freedom to operate the service and consequently allow you and me to exercise our free speech on this medium. But the unrestricted right to scan, read, or copy the e-mail they process -- without user knowledge or consent -- serves no comparable good. It's time to close that loophole. Anush Yegyazarian is a PC World senior editor. *** 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 PC World. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: U.S. Funds Chat-Room Surveillance Study Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 12:45:39 EDT By MICHAEL HILL, Associated Press Writer TROY, N.Y. - Amid the torrent of jabber in Internet chat rooms; flirting by QTpie and BoogieBoy, arguments about politics and horror flicks; are terrorists plotting their next move? The government certainly isn't discounting the possibility. It's taking the idea seriously enough to fund a yearlong study on chat room surveillance under an anti-terrorism program. A Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute computer science professor hopes to develop mathematical models that can uncover structure within the scattershot traffic of online public forums. Chat rooms are the highly popular and freewheeling areas on the Internet where people with self-created nicknames discuss just about anything: teachers, Kafka, cute boys, politics, love, root canal. They are also places where malicious hackers have been known to trade software tools, stolen passwords and credit card numbers. The Pew Internet & American Life Project estimates that 28 million Americans have visited Internet chat rooms. Trying to monitor the sea of traffic on all the chat channels would be like assigning a police officer to listen in on every conversation on the sidewalk; virtually impossible. Instead of rummaging through megabytes of messages, RPI professor Bulent Yener will use mathematical models in search of patterns in the chatter. Downloading data from selected chat rooms, Yener will track the times that messages were sent, creating a statistical profile of the traffic. If, for instance, RatBoi and bowler1 consistently send messages within seconds of each other in a crowded chat room, you could infer that they were speaking to one another amid the "noise" of the chat room. "For us, the challenge is to be able to determine, without reading the messages, who is talking to whom," Yener said. In search of "hidden communities," Yener also wants to check messages for certain keywords that could reveal something about what's being discussed in groups. The $157,673 grant comes from the National Science Foundation. The NSF's Leland Jameson said the foundation judged the proposal strictly on its broader scientific merit, leaving it to the intelligence community to determine its national security value. Neither the CIA nor the FBI sites would comment on the grant, with a CIA spokeswoman citing the confidentiality of sources and methods. Security officials know al-Qaida and other terrorist groups use the Internet for everything from propaganda to offering tips on kidnapping. But it's not clear if terrorists rely much on chat rooms for planning and coordination. Michael Vatis, founding director of the National Infrastructure Protection Center and now a consultant, said he had heard of terrorists using chat rooms, which he said offer some security as long as code phrases are used. Other cybersecurity experts doubted chat rooms' usefulness to terrorists given the other current options, from Web mail to hiding messages on designated Web pages that can only be seen by those who know where to look. "In a world in which you can embed your message in a pixel on a picture on a home page about tea cozies, I don't know whether if you're any better if you think chat would be any particular magnet," Jonathan Zittrain, an Internet scholar at Harvard Law School. Since they are focusing on public chat rooms, authorities are not violating constitutional rights to privacy when they keep an eye on the traffic, experts said. Law enforcement agents have trolled chat rooms for years in search of pedophiles, sometimes adopting profiles making it look like they are young teens. But the idea of the government reviewing massive amounts of public communications still raises some concerns. Mark Rasch, a former head of the Justice Department computer crimes unit, said such a system would bring the country one step closer to the Pentagon's much-maligned Terrorism Information Awareness program. Research on that massive data-mining project was halted after an uproar over its impact on privacy. "It's the ability to gather and analyze massive amounts of data that creates the privacy problem," Rasch said, "even though no individual bit of data is particularly private." On the Net: Yener: http://www.cs.rpi.edu/yener/ NSF: http://www.nsf.gov/ Berkman Center: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/ Pew Project: http://www.pewinternet.org/ Electronic Privacy Information Center: http://www.epic.org/ *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, Associated Press. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: FTC Versus some spyware, etc. Including Sanford Wallace Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 18:02:06 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC "The FTC has asked a U.S. District Court to shut down a spyware operation that hijacks computers, secretly changes their settings, barrages them with pop-up ads, and installs adware and other software programs that spy on consumers' Web surfing. The spyware may cause computers to malfunction, slow down, or even crash. The FTC alleges the spyware operation violates federal law and will ask the court to bar the practices permanently and order the defendants to give up their ill-gotten gains. [ snip ] "Earlier this year, the FTC received a complaint from the Center for Democracy and Technology concerning pop-up ads for Spy Wiper and Spy Deleter. In response to this complaint and other information, the Commission commenced an investigation of Seismic Entertainment Productions, Inc., Smartbot.Net, and Sanford Wallace... rest at: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/10/spyware.htm Sigh. While it's nice to see the FTC doing something, I'd sure like to see something a bit more in the way of, say, criminal fraud charges ... _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response Date: 12 Oct 2004 10:12:02 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe what will happen, if Rhode Island > goes through with this plan, the end result will be to force the E-911 > proponents to change *their* way of doing things. Why is it that E-911 > (and by extension, conventional telephony) is so great and VOIP is > such a bad deal? For one thing, conventional phones are here now, the vast majority of people have them, and will continue to have them. VOIP is something new and slowly spreading. Thus, it makes sense for the emergency network -- which is in place _now_ -- to focus on conventional telephones. A recent Newsweek article on VOIP indicated a number of weaknesses with VOIP. A key one is the speed of the line between your PC-phone and your ISP/VOIP server, the server switching speed itself, and the speed of the Internet. If there is a delay in any of these things, conversation will be a problem. We all know there are intermittent delays when on the Internet. Sometimes it just takes an extra moment or two for something normally fast to come up. Newsweek noted that some cable-modem lines are fast now because they're new and traffic isn't loaded on them yet. However, as business picks up and the bandwidth fills up, VOIP won't work as well. > How did we get along for the first seventy years of > the 20th century before there was any such thing as 911? We can ask that question for just about anything. I look at the great buildings and bridges, all built without the benefits of fax, computers, email, CAD, etc., yet still magnificantly done. Somehow people enjoyed listening to music (classical or rock) on vinyl LPs on tube amplified stereos before fancy chips and CD players. > Is 911 that great of a deal? One would have to look up a Bell Labs Record magzine to see what the advantages were for a universal number. When I was a kid I had no idea of police numbers -- we were taught to dial operator and that's what we did. I presume the idea is to have a national universal number and certain special features. IIRC, even the original 911 came with special features that a normal terminating phone line would not have. When I visited a city fire dispatch center, they had plain Call Directors, but nothing special with the line buttons; they could not seize a line or trace a call. Remember, this was in electro-mech days, pre ESS and Caller ID type systems. Another issue is that social conditions have decayed so that citizens request police assistance much more than in the past. A small town whose population and crime rate was steady over the years none the less saw a considerable jump in police calls in the 1970s, esp for minor complaints. I remember quite vividly how life changed for us roughly around 1968 -- we once left our doors unlocked and got along well with everyone. Everyone on the block felt it was their duty to be considerate. There was an expression at one time "what will the neighbors think?" meaning people really cared about good relations and proper behavior. Newcomers to the neighborhood would let their dogs bark, throw very noisy and wild parties, break into people's houses, steal from stores, etc. Around this time national crime began its steep rise from which it never recovered. In New York City, where IIRC 911 began, street crime really took off. The social advocates offer various excuses for the decline including outright denial, but it is fact that life changed downhill. As a result, police depts call far more calls and had to expand, and 911 was part of that. ------------------------------ From: SELLCOM Tech support Subject: Re: 911 Address Display Delays Police Response Organization: www.sellcom.com Reply-To: support@sellcom.com Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 21:59:08 GMT One evening I was sitting in my dining room eating food. A policeman came to our door and I just said invite him in and he was invited in. We were all curious as to why he was there and he explained ... He said there had been a 911 call from this address and then no one there but background noise so they dispatched. It took a short while to figure out that a cordless phone on my belt had been pushed upon its redial button and the previous call (we mostly take incoming on that phone) had been to 911 about something a while back (we do the community watch thing). The policeman was very nice and then went away. I went ahead and finished dinner and went on about my business. Ya gotta sometimes stop and think and appreciate what these guys do for us. This guy I don't know and I don't think have ever met comes to my house fully prepared to risk his life on our behalf if necessary. We take so much for granted ... 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: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: Why There's no DNS or Comparable Distributed Naming Service Date: 12 Oct 2004 15:24:03 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , William Warren wrote: > On 11 Oct 2004 02:19:00 -0700, Ariel Burbaickij > wrote: >>>> Could someone explain to me why there is no such service as DNS/whois >>>> towards it in SS7 network? After all, we have exactly same concerns >>>> here (distributed and independent administration of different subsets >>>> of address space, mapping must be often provided between pointcodes >>>> (numerical address) and its current owner), so why it was decided not >>>> to do it this way but instead some arcane lists are distributed by ITU >>>> exclusively? > [large snip] > I don't think it's needed in the way the Internet uses the term: DNS > is essential for the internet because the number of separate nodes has > grown too large for any one node to handle, so there has to be a > lookup mechanism to spread the workload, and that's DNS. > Central Offices don't need a dns-like service because: >A. STPs already perform an equivalent function: there > are few enough exchanges that each one can keep a > basic routing table in memory and pass off any > unknown npa/nxx codes to an STP for resolution. The > STP routes the original SS7 traffic on behalf of the > CO, unlike a DNS which returns a routable (IP) address > to the requesting node. This is not really correct. I think you're conflating the functions of an STP and a tandem or gateway switch (which is an SSP, in the usual terminology, but which is not an EO ("End Office"); people often assume the terms are equivalent but they are not. An STP routes signalling messages -- only. The confusion arises because STPs do, in fact, include a somewhat DNS-like address lookup facility, Global Title Translation ("GTT"). It is correct to think of GTT as the analogue to DNS in the SS7 protocl suite. What GTT does is take a name for a service (a token that is of a type *other than* 'SS7 network address and subsystem number') and return a network address (which may be an alias for many hosts in the network, just as a DNS query may return multiple addresses or a single anycast address; SS7 had anycast long before IP did). There is no particular reason one could not implement GTT with DNS as a backend. (In fact, I designed a product that did this and have some related claims in one of my patents). In practice, GTT data is usually fully resident in each STP, downloaded there periodically by various centralized provisioning systems. But GTT is only used for end-to-end services; more precisely, it is only generally used for TCAP "queries" (which can also be thought about as remote procedure call over SS7). LNP is one such service, which is one reason people sometimes confuse GTT, which translates from data that is of one type (e.g. telephone number, trigger type, and some digits) to another (a destination point code and subsystem number) as DNS does, with LNP, which just uses remote procedure call to translate from one telephone number to another (approximately. I am well aware that it does not work quite this way!) ISUP call signaling does *not* use GTT. Instead, switches have static call-routing tables with, usually, a digit-at-a-time resolution starting at the left hand side of the called number. Just like in IP networks, there is sometimes a "default route" -- if there is not, the calling party switch itself will play you an error message. The output of these routing tables is a destination point code (an SS7 address) and a trunk group number. The ISUP messages will go via an STP (usually, in the absence of F-links) and may make several network hops but the actual voice path *must* be direct. This is a key point. STPs do not "route" voice; and they don't do translation on ISUP messages because the calling switch essentially can't require it -- it _has to_ know who the next hop in the voice path is, because it has to know which of its trunk groups is hooked up to it! (Things can work a little differently in the presence of internetwork gateways, but that is a very special case). Calls may hop across many switches, end-office to tandem to tandem to IXC gateway to IXC gateway to tandem to end-office, but at every hop the next neighbor is known -- has to be, or you couldn't hook up the voice path right. Again, LNP complicates things (the "translate this number to another number" RPC can be invoked *anywhere* in the call path) but it is still not right to think that normal call signalling involves anything like DNS, nor, really, that that would be very useful for that purpose, at least not in my opinion. 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: Phil Anderton Subject: Re: Why There's no DNS or Comparable Distributed Naming Service Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 21:46:11 +0200 Organization: Peoples' Front of Judaea Ariel Burbaickij wrote: > I know that Internet didn't have DNS from the very beginning -- it > made fairly decent progress till today, though, if you noticed ;-). I > am not talking abount DNS on phones (actually it does exist in the > form of ENUM and related project and naming scheme for e164 set also > exists for sure). I am talking about DNS for pointcodes, i.e. for > switches (phone switches just to avoid any misunderstanding). There > is no dns-like efforts for this and for reasons unknown to me, ITU > standards that normally tend to foreseen each and everything scenarion > and are so heavily packaged with required features do not even mention > this possibility. Well there is the concept of global titles -- these are usually E.164 or E.214 addresses -- and the SCCP does of course provide the option "route on global title", where you don't need to know the point code of the destination switch. Remember too, that point codes only have a meaning within their own MTP network -- the only way that switches in different networks can communicate is via global title routing. How else could GSM international roaming work? But what you seems to be looking for Ariel, is a reverse lookup function -- given a point code, how do I identify the switch? There's no standard answer to that one -- you need to ask the operator of the network in question. Phil Tschaikowsky. Was he the tortured soul who poured out his immortal longings into dignified passages of stately music, or was he just an old poof who wrote tunes? ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Net Giants Adopt Anti-Spam System Date: 12 Oct 2004 15:35:03 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) In article , Lisa Minter wrote: > Some of the net's biggest players such as AOL, Hotmail and Yahoo are > stepping up efforts to combat spam. > http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/technology/3706828.stm SPL sure doesn't sound like an effort to combat spam to me. If anything, it's one of those things that will get adopted by spammers and ignored by people sending legitimate mail. scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 12:59:43 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue > From: Amin > Subject: Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue > Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com > Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 03:39:02 GMT > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am not certain what Amin is trying > to say. Perhaps a reader can interpret the message. PAT] > I had been a country. Almost every business puts the telephone set > in the front of the store. Everyone is able to make free local call > everywhere. Why do they charge a lot only the local pay phone in the > US? I have been in Egypt. There are very few public telephones in Egypt, probably because there is very little coinage. Many small businesses do allow the general public to use their telephones. However, the Egyptian telephone company charges for usage beyond a small minimum. In some other developing countries (India and Bangladesh come to mind) people in villages will obtain a cell phone (mobile; portable), and use this as an informal pay telephone, for the other villagers to make and receive calls. In the US, Canada, and most other developed countries, either the telephone company provides public telephones (at some cost to the company) and charges for their use, or makes telephone available (at some cost to the telephone company) for a charge, so people (businesses) can install their own telephones. Businesses can only allow the general public to use their telephones for free in places where there is no charge for local usage. This might be the case in some countries, though I am not aware of any. In most countries the telephone company charges businesses for usage (even local usage), and businesses would have to pass on that charge. > Monty Solomon wrote in message > news:telecom23.481.5@telecom-digest.org: >> Service Add-Ons Nibble at Incomes >> By Christopher Stern >> Washington Post Staff Writer >> Satellite radio. Cell phone. High-speed Internet service. Matt Botwin, >> a Washington consultant, has it all -- and the bills that go with his >> growing bundle of technology. >> With each new service, more of Botwin's monthly income is spoken for. >> A generation ago, mortgages, utilities and newspaper subscriptions >> made up a short list of payments due each month. Now Americans pay an >> average of 12 bills a month, including fees for a broad range of >> services such as television programming, home security-system >> monitoring and online gaming Web sites. And each individual bill may >> increase as consumers add incremental improvements such as Internet >> access to their cell phones and premium channels to their satellite >> radio service. >> Botwin figures that he spends at least $250 a month on his >> subscription services. "I'm not happy about it. It's a lot," Botwin >> said. But he also feels that his digital devices and services are >> necessities. The Sirius satellite radio is indispensable for his >> frequent drives to New York and Philadelphia. "It's like any luxury. >> I didn't think I needed a microwave [oven], but I'm sure glad I have >> it now." >> Economists and academics are beginning to grow concerned about >> Americans' willingness to cede a regular chunk of their monthly >> paychecks to new conveniences and services, saying it is taking a >> serious bite out of discretionary spending, a key driver of the >> nation's economy. They also worry that new services are contributing >> to a growing divide between consumers who have the means to secure >> special treatment, such as access to free-rolling highway lanes, while >> others are stuck in bumper-to-bumper standstills. >> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19377-2004Oct9.html ------------------------------ From: NOTvalid@surplus4actors.INFO (NYC) Subject: Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue Date: 11 Oct 2004 22:28:26 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Tony P. wrote in message news:: > In article , monty@roscom.com > says: ... >> Botwin figures that he spends at least $250 a month on his >> subscription services. "I'm not happy about it. It's a lot," Botwin >> said. But he also feels that his digital devices and services are >> necessities. The Sirius satellite radio is indispensable for his >> frequent drives to New York and Philadelphia. "It's like any luxury. >> I didn't think I needed a microwave [oven], but I'm sure glad I have >> it now." ... > Right now I've got cable and phone+DSL, that's it. The cell phone is > office provided and used only for official business. I've been > resistant to Sirius and the like because I honestly don't need it. We now have Virgin mobile and are spending the minimum $7.00 a month. We had been spending $40.00+ monhly on SpCS. That two people, EACH phone. Long phone calls are made from home. You can be frugal. Ray Normandaeu here with new ".INFO" domain I bought for only one dollar form GoDaddy. I also get 100 disposable email addies. ------------------------------ From: Paul Coxwell Subject: Re: REN Boosters From England? Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 12:50:18 +0100 Ted Koppel wrote in message news:telecom23.483.5@telecom-digest.org: > A quick browse through Google shows a number of sources selling REN > Boosters (or REN amplifiers) for about a third of what Viking does, or > around 38 (roughly $60). Granted, these contraptions take line > current of 240 volts, but assuming that could be handled with a > transformer, is the rest of the technology the same? That is, would a > British REN amplifier function on a line in the US? Basic ringing voltage/frequency characteristics are close enough between our two systems, but there are a couple of other things to consider. First, we use our own peculiar telephone jacks rather than RJ11 configuration, so if you're buying a residential-type plug-in booster rather than a hardwired unit, you'd need adapter leads. Second, normal telephone extension wiring here uses a 3-wire system, with the bell feed on a separate wire. (The bell capacitor is actually located inside the main network interface and ringers are then connected between the third wire and the tip lead throughout the house.) I'm not familiar with the circuitry of these boosters. They may just work on a straight tip/ring input and feed their own ringing supply out on tip & ring with a capacitor coupling to the third wire on the output, or they may only output ringing between the 3rd line and tip (i.e. no ringing voltage would appear between across tip & ring). Depending upon the actual configuration you may have problems connecting to a normal 2-wire American system. At the current exchange rate 38 is about $68, plus postage, and you may get hit with import duty as well. Add the cost of a 240-120V transformer or running a dedicated 240V line to the booster, and I would have thought you could obtain a suitable unit within the U.S. at considerably lower cost.and without any connection issues. Oh, and the British units won't have FCC approval, of course! Paul Coxwell Norfolk, England. ------------------------------ 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 #485 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Oct 13 02:40:20 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9D6eJu20935; Wed, 13 Oct 2004 02:40:20 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 02:40:20 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410130640.i9D6eJu20935@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 #486 TELECOM Digest Wed, 13 Oct 2004 02:40:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 486 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson US Funds Study on Net Chat-Room Surveillance (Monty Solomon) Piracy Rule is Definition of Misguided (Monty Solomon) 169 Fox Stations Fined in Indecency Case (Monty Solomon) Moving Music Off Your PC? New Gadgets Abound (Monty Solomon) Yahoo Third Quarter Financial Results (Monty Solomon) Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue (Joseph) Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue (Garrett Wollman) Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue (Bob Goudreau) Re: Two Way Radio Service (Chris Farrar) Re: Two Way Radio Service (Tony P.) Re: Two Way Radio Service (Bruce L. Bergman) Re: A New Phone and Techie Controversy at Verizon (Joseph) Re: Law Hits Home (William Warren) Re: REN Boosters From England? (John McHarry) 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, 12 Oct 2004 21:57:00 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: US Funds Study on Net Chat-Room Surveillance Research may aid antiterrorism fight By Associated Press | October 12, 2004 TROY, N.Y. -- Amid the torrent of jabber in Internet chat rooms -- flirting by QTpie and BoogieBoy, arguments about politics and horror flicks -- are terrorists plotting their next move? The government certainly isn't discounting the possibility. It's taking the idea seriously enough to fund a yearlong study on chat room surveillance under an antiterrorism program. A Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute computer science professor hopes to develop mathematical models that can uncover structure within the scattershot traffic of online public forums. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2004/10/12/us_funds_study_on_net_chat_room_surveillance/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 22:22:02 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Piracy Rule is Definition of Misguided By Hiawatha Bray | October 11, 2004 If a shopkeeper tried to charge $1,000 for a broken computer, you'd probably be outraged. You might even complain to the government. Don't bother. These days, the government wants us to buy broken technology. Specifically, the Federal Communications Commission, which has somehow come to regard the public interest as identical with that of the movie industry's. Cast your minds back to spring 2002. Democratic US Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina horrified technologists when he proposed a law to require that PCs and other digital devices have built-in features to prevent illegal copying of music and video files. Hollings trained as an attorney, not an engineer. Yet he proposed to mandate design specs for practically every piece of digital technology sold. The outrage consigned the Hollings plan to an early grave -- or so it seemed. But like the lurching undead in a zombie flick, it's back. Only this time it's being served up by the FCC. It's all about high-definition television. Little by little, the technology is catching on, as the networks show more HDTV programs and consumers shell out $1,000 or more for compatible sets. But HDTV worries TV and movie producers. It's easy to copy HDTV shows, and the copies look just as good as the originals. Having witnessed how digital piracy has ravaged the music industry, the Hollywood moguls had no desire to go next. Enter the 'broadcast flag,' an antipiracy technology to be built into HDTV signals sent over the airwaves. The plan, fortunately, doesn't apply to HDTV shows moved by cable or satellite. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2004/10/11/piracy_rule_is_definition_of_misguided/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 01:24:35 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: 169 Fox Stations Fined in Indecency Case By STEPHEN LABATON WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 - The Federal Communications Commission said on Tuesday that it would fine 169 Fox television stations $7,000 each, or a total of $1.18 million, for violating indecency rules when it showed a particularly graphic episode of the show "Married by America'' last spring. The show, one of the reality' programs in Fox's lineup, features a group of single adults who agree to be engaged and marry, even though they had never previously met. The commission found an April episode of the show violated the indecency rules through a series of sexually suggestive and explicit scenes. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/13/business/media/13fox.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 21:05:40 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Moving Music Off Your PC? New Gadgets Abound By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff | October 12, 2004 As personal computers with broadband Internet connections become an increasingly popular way for Americans to acquire music, high-tech companies are rushing to offer systems for getting music out of the PC and onto the stereo. Four months after Apple Computer Inc. began selling a $129 Airport Express unit that wirelessly streams music from a PC to a stereo system, Microsoft Corp. is set to release details this week about its upgraded Windows Media Connect software. It is expected to enable playbacks of music and movies stored on a computer running Windows XP software on stereos, video players, and television sets. Microsoft also has a $200-range Internet & Media Player arriving in stores this month that radically reworks the former WebTV service, now owned by Microsoft. Besides music and video transfers, the device is expected to let people view digital photos on their TV sets and use the TV screen as a vehicle for e-mail, instant messaging, and Web surfing. Other high-technology giants like Intel Corp. ,Hewlett-Packard Development Co., and Sony Corp. also have devices and services coming to market soon. At the top end of the market, Sonos Inc., a 25-person start-up company in Cambridge and Santa Barbara, Calif., between now and Christmas will begin selling a digital music system that would let people play as many as 10 different songs from a computer on 10 different pairs of speakers in the house. Sonos charges $1,200 for two amplifiers and a portable remote control unit that selects songs from the computer hard drive; up to 10 amplifiers can be networked wirelessly. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2004/10/12/moving_music_off_your_pc_new_gadgets_abound/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 02:15:17 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Yahoo! Reports Third Quarter 2004 Financial Results SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 12, 2004-- Company Posts Revenues of $907 Million, Operating Income of $172 Million, Operating Income Before Depreciation and Amortization of $260 Million Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO) today reported results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2004. "Yahoo! began to demonstrate the next stage in the Company's evolution in the third quarter, and in doing so recorded its sixth consecutive quarter of record revenue," said Terry Semel, chairman and chief executive officer, Yahoo!. "We accelerated the pace at which new products and services were developed, which in-turn helped increase the level of user engagement across the Yahoo! network. Our engaged audience enables us to deliver an unmatched set of advertising opportunities, providing deeper value to our marketers, and supporting the mantra that great products are the key to a great business." -- Revenues were $907 million for the third quarter of 2004, a 154 percent increase compared to $357 million for the same period of 2003. -- Revenues excluding traffic acquisition costs ("TAC") were $655 million for the third quarter of 2004, an 84 percent increase compared to the $357 million for the same period of 2003. -- Gross profit for the third quarter of 2004 was $574 million, an 86 percent increase compared to $310 million for the same period of 2003. -- Operating income for the third quarter of 2004 was $172 million, an increase of 106 percent compared to $83 million for the same period of 2003. -- Operating income before depreciation and amortization for the third quarter of 2004 was $260 million, a 122 percent increase compared to $117 million for the same period of 2003. -- Cash flow from operating activities for the third quarter of 2004 was $267 million, an increase of 97 percent compared to $136 million for the same period of 2003. -- Free cash flow for the third quarter of 2004 was $202 million, a 108 percent increase over the $97 million reported for the same period of 2003. -- Net income for the third quarter of 2004 was $253 million or $0.17 per diluted share (including a net impact of $129 million, or $0.09 per share, related to the sale of an investment and the associated tax benefit resulting from fully reserved capital losses becoming realizable). Excluding this gain, net income for the third quarter was $124 million, or $0.09 per diluted share. This compares with net income of $65 million or $0.05 per diluted share for the same period of 2003. -- The provision for income taxes of $67 million yielded an effective tax rate of 21% for the third quarter of 2004 as a result of the previously described tax benefit associated with the capital loss carryforwards. The provision for income taxes in the same period of 2003 was $40 million, and yielded an effective tax rate of 38%. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44220121 ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 16:53:17 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 03:39:02 GMT, Amin wrote: > I had been a country. Almost every business puts the telephone set > in the front of the store. Everyone is able to make free local call > everywhere. Why do they charge a lot only the local pay phone in the > US? I'm not sure that I totally understand what you're trying to say. Yes, many businesses will put a phone as available for people to use for making local calls. As far as pay phones they charge more now sometimes because people have found pay phones out of favour because many people now have cell phones. So the payphone owners had to increase the rate to make up for less business. I know that doesn't make sense, but it's what they've done. ------------------------------ From: wollman@lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 02:04:01 UTC Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > The Sirius satellite radio is indispensable for his frequent drives > to New York and Philadelphia. "It's like any luxury. I didn't think > I needed a microwave [oven], but I'm sure glad I have it now." Wait a minute ... Is he driving from Washington to New York by way of Altoona or something? I can't fathom how subscription radio could possibly be "indispensable" for the normal route between those two cities; there are good free broadcast stations serving almost every listening niche, from Christian preaching to hard rock, in all four of those markets. 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) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Isn't it funny how a short time after we buy or otherwise obtain some new electronic toy, we discover that it is 'indispensible' for us to be without? In talking to my mother one hot day this past summer, I asked her, "how did you survive all during the 1930's (when she was growing up) without any air conditioning in your home?" Her response was, "well, we suffered but somehow survived. How did *you* (meaning me) get along in the 1970's without a computer, let alone five or six or them?" I dunno what I did ... now these days, even though I consider my cable connection an 'indispensible thing' with its 24/7 wall-to-wall classical music, I still sometimes prefer the 'older style' over the air KRPS, where ocassionally there are human announcers telling us things. And the last thing **absolutely last thing** in the world I need is that DVR that Cable One gave me, with assurance it would 'change my television viewing habits forever.' It really hasn't; I have not even watched television more than an hour or two in the past month, but you know I am never going to get rid of it. Does anyone ever give up a new toy even if they do not use it very often? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Bob Goudreau Subject: Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 22:32:46 -0400 Marcus Didius Falco wrote: > Businesses can only allow the general public to use their telephones > for free in places where there is no charge for local usage. This > might be the case in some countries, though I am not aware of any. The United States, for one. > In most countries the telephone company charges businesses for usage > (even local usage), and businesses would have to pass on that charge. It is true that in some states, unmeasured local service is available only to residential subscribers, but this is not universally true. For instance, BellSouth here in North Carolina offers flat-rate unlimited local calling packages for businesses as well as for residential accounts. The former have a higher monthly cost than the latter, but there are no incremental per-call or per-minute charges for local calls in either case. Bob Goudreau Cary, NC ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 22:16:01 -0400 From: Chris Farrar
Subject: Re: Two Way Radio Please withold my email address from publication. editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can think of many 'two way radio >> service providers'. Why don't you begin by being a bit more >> precise as to your intended application. PAT] > Indeed. > Two way radio is not the same as cellular, telephone, etc. > One does not pay a fee just to use two way radio. There is no > subscription plan, no free minutes, no talk plan, etc., and you buy > the radios you want, typically at full price. If someone is selling > you a contract for "two way radio", I suggest you run. Fast. > and: ------------------------------ > From: Gary Novosielski > Subject: Re: Two Way Radio Service > Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 02:41:51 GMT > Geller wrote: >> Is there any two-way radio service provider.? >> Can any one give me the list of service providers.?? > I'm a little confused. If you have a pair of two-way radios, and are > appropriately licensed where applicable, you just turn them on and use > them. There's no "provider" involved. > But you can send me money every month if you like. It depends if he is talking about Commercial two-way radios, involing repeaters or trunked service. If your geographic area is big enough two individual radios won't have the range needed and you contract with XYZ Ltd. to provide you with radios & service, either using dedicated frequencies, PL tone squelch on shared frequencies, or on a trunked radio service. Or you can go the Nextel route. All of the above will cost money, either as a flat monthly fee or airtime minutes. If someone is selling him a contract for 2 way radio, you need to know what is being provided, trunked service covering what area, or if on a dedicated frequency or using a shared frequency/PL Tone squelch, do they have enough repeaters to cover the area you expect to use the radio in. Chris VE3CFX ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Two Way Radio Service Organization: ATCC Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 02:31:15 GMT In article , jdj@now.here says: > On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 09:01:14 -0700, Geller wrote: >> Hey guys ... >> Is there any two-way radio service provider.? >> Can any one give me the list of service providers.?? >> S.Geller >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can think of many 'two way radio >> service providers'. Why don't you begin by being a bit more >> precise as to your intended application. PAT] > Indeed. > Two way radio is not the same as cellular, telephone, etc. > One does not pay a fee just to use two way radio. There is no > subscription plan, no free minutes, no talk plan, etc., and you buy > the radios you want, typically at full price. If someone is selling > you a contract for "two way radio", I suggest you run. Fast. But licensing is an issue. While at the state AG's office we had these nice little Kenwood 2-way radios. (Actually it's half duplex for obvious reasons.) One of the common complaints was that every now and then a very inappropriate conversation would be heard. Being the resident amateur and general radiotel guy of the office I got the tech specs. The radios were operating on the high 70cm band and had CTCSS capability. So I enabled the CTCSS (Aka PL or Private Line TM of Motorola) and that filtered out most of it. Until one day I get a call that we're interfering on a business frequency. Sure enough, that is what these radios are. I call the FCC and ask about licensing -- and they tell me we're using the wrong service that we should actually be on the public service bands. So we traded radios and got a public service frequency set up for us. ------------------------------ From: Bruce L. Bergman Subject: Re: Two Way Radio Service Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 05:47:16 GMT PAT: OK to post name, please leave the E-mail munged. c.d.t reader. On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 16:06:45 -0700, jdj wrote: > On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 09:01:14 -0700, Geller wrote: >> Hey guys ... >> Is there any two-way radio service provider.? >> Can any one give me the list of service providers.?? >> S.Geller >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can think of many 'two way radio >> service providers'. Why don't you begin by being a bit more >> precise as to your intended application. PAT] > Indeed. > Two way radio is not the same as cellular, telephone, etc. > One does not pay a fee just to use two way radio. There is no > subscription plan, no free minutes, no talk plan, etc., and you buy > the radios you want, typically at full price. If someone is selling > you a contract for "two way radio", I suggest you run. Fast. For normal two-way radio services where you are talking line-of-sight with another handheld or mobile radio, there is no such thing as a "Monthly Fee". You have to get an FCC license for the service you will use, and you might have a /maintenance/ contract to keep the equipment in proper repair and adjustment, but that's all. And with the excellent reliability of today's solid-state radio equipment a maintenance contract is a waste of money, just take each radio in every few years for a quick frequency adjustment checkup. Unless you are talking repeater services for Business Radio Service (or Remote Base Station links for your office dispatcher) to get a much larger effective coverage area, and the ability to easily talk to people using lower-powered handheld radios. Then you do need to subscribe with the repeater owner and pay a monthly fee to be allowed to use their mountaintop repeater, or repeaters if they have multiple hilltops linked together. To find a local Radio Common Carrier that runs repeater systems in your area, let your fingers do the walking to the "Radio Communication Equipment & Systems" category of your local phone book. (Unless you are in a major metropolitan area like New York City or Los Angeles, where you should be warned that the radio spectrum is practically at gridlock capacity.) Or there's the two-way radio function of Nextel, which really is a hybrid of Business Radio and Cellular Telephone -- you have to pay for an account to use their equipment also. --<< Bruce >>-- Bruce L. Bergman, Woodland Hills (Los Angeles) CA - Desktop Electrician for Westend Electric - CA726700 5737 Kanan Rd. #359, Agoura CA 91301 (818) 889-9545 Spamtrapped address: Remove the python and the invalid, and use a net. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: A New Phone and Techie Controversy at Verizon Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 16:43:12 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 15:31:02 GMT, Truth wrote: > So then buy cameras and video games and you have it. If I want to > cool my beverage or heat my coffee, I don't buy a cellphone that can > do those things. Here's a news flash! It's not always all about you! People get what they need. If all you need is two tin cans and a piece of string well ... good on ya. Other people use what *they* need. No one is forcing you to get anything you don't want to get. > It amazes me how stupid humans really are. It amazes me how some people think they can dictate what the rest of us want. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Law Hits Home From: William Warren Organization: Comcast Online Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 23:51:46 GMT On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 12:37:52 EDT, Lisa Minter wrote: > by Anush Yegyazarian > A recent court decision on a 5-year-old case highlights the failure of > our laws to protect the privacy of personal e-mail. > Everyone (or almost everyone) knows that the e-mail you send and > receive at work, using your employer's computers and network, isn't > really private: The company and your boss have the right to both > monitor and read what you're sending and receiving. But if you're like > me, you probably thought that the Internet service provider you use at > home -- and by extension those who work there -- doesn't have the same > right. We're wrong: They do. [snip] The safest approach to this problem is the same one the military uses: they assume that everything transmitted electronically is fully open to everyone in the world, and employ appropriate levels of cryptography to secure information while in transit. In other words, go to http://www.thawte.com/email/index.html and get a free encryption certificate, which will allow you to receive encrypted emails using most email clients. If your correspondents do the same, you'll be able to encrypt things you send to them as well. You may also use GPG, and encrypt emails offline for inclusion in an email (either inline or as an attachment). GPG is Open Source, and free: http://www.gnupg.org/. John Ashcroft will thank you. The NSA will thank you. HTH. William (Filter noise from my email for direct replies.) ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: REN Boosters From England? Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 01:24:31 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Paul Coxwell wrote: > Oh, and the British units won't have FCC approval, of course! Points well taken, but I don't think FCC approval is required for a ringing booster. I comment because it reminds me of being in the UK some years ago when modems required some sort of approval. Everybody I knew just built adaptors for US modems. When Brits came to visit us, we had a couple people who could cobble them the other way. You had to flip a couple wires around, much like wiring a 10 base T connector. When I visited the BT labs at Martlesham Heath, the first thing they did was present me with a prewired adaptor in a little plastic package. The rule was kind of a dead letter, even with them. In Holland the hotel had a few adaptors for loan at the front desk. I suspect it was much the same elsewhere. I think the Siemens training center south of Muenchen just used RJ11s. The Macs in the UK had an RJ11 jack on the machine with a cord that plugged into a UK socket. The cord wouldn't work with my modem -- they had rewired the RJ11 so the pinout didn't require a crossover in the cord. ------------------------------ 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 #486 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Oct 13 21:00:13 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9E10Cn29303; Wed, 13 Oct 2004 21:00:13 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 21:00:13 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410140100.i9E10Cn29303@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 #487 TELECOM Digest Wed, 13 Oct 2004 20:59:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 487 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson HomePlug AV Specification Enters Final Stage (Monty Solomon) CheckHD.com - DTV Education Site (Monty Solomon) Targeted TV Advertising Catches Interest (Monty Solomon) Mobile Use a Health Problem? (David Clayton) Re: Cellphone Industry Turns to Unmined Territory: Seniors (kansasman) Re: Two Way Radio Service (Scott Dorsey) Re: Two Way Radio (jdj) Re: Deutsche Telekom AG Executives Reported To FBI For Abuse! (S Dorsey) Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue (DevilsPGD) Re: Law Hits Home (GL Fowler) Re: Basic Menu System Using VoIP? (John R. Covert) 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, 13 Oct 2004 10:09:54 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: HomePlug AV Specification Enters Final Stage HomePlug AV Specification Enters Final Stage; The First Global Specification for a 200-Mbps-class Powerline-Networking Technology is Now Ready for Final Industry Input SAN RAMON, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 13, 2004--The HomePlug(R) Powerline Alliance, Inc. is entering the final stage of the specification development process for HomePlug AV, a technology poised to change the way that HDTV, Digital Audio, and Internet access are distributed around a home. The alliance has reached a significant milestone by completing the advanced preliminary specification for HomePlug AV, and is now inviting companies in the home networking, consumer electronics, computing, and communications industries to join the alliance and contribute to the final version of the specification. http://finance.lycos.com/qc/news/story.aspx?story=200410131201_BWR__BW5336 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 10:14:32 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CheckHD.com - DTV Education Site Decisionmark Announces CheckHD.com: Complete Digital TV Consumer Education Resource WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 4, 2004-- Powered by Decisionmark's Patented Technology, Free Site Helps Consumers Get Informed and into the DTV Retail Store Decisionmark Corp. announced today that a cross-industry supported digital television (DTV) education site, on the Internet at www.CheckHD.com , is now available for consumer use. While the digital broadcast signals reach just over 100 million American households, according to Decisionmark, consumers are often unclear about the benefits and availability of digital and high-definition television (HDTV). With today's launch of CheckHD.com, consumers can easily find straightforward, accurate answers to these fundamental questions: What is digital TV?, Can I get digital TV?, and What do I need to get digital TV?, helping the industry move more Americans closer to purchasing a digital television. This announcement comes on the heels of a separate announcement today by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell regarding a major FCC consumer education campaign. "A successful transition to the world of high-quality, digital television requires a combination of efforts from both industry and the government. Websites like this one, and the FCC's own site, will help consumers learn more about the content and availability of digital programming," Chairman Powell said. A number of other organizations ranging from broadcast networks and associations to the consumer electronics companies are in full support of CheckHD.com. (See attached list of Quotes from Supporting Industry Leaders.) The site is loaded with clear DTV information, including a comprehensive guide for DTV and HDTV channels and programming broadcast to a consumer's exact location, which only Decisionmark patented technology can provide. "Once consumers realize the vast amount of HD and DTV programming available to them in over-the-air broadcasts, cable and satellite, they'll be more likely to invest in the new technology," said Jack Perry, President and CEO of Decisionmark. "Part of the struggle up to this point has been getting consumers to a place where they can find out if and when the digital and HD content is available to them. CheckHD does that," he added. CheckHD provides a one-of-a-kind, interactive, printable Buyer's Guide that consumers can take to their local retailers, a great research tool in the DTV shopping process. The Buyer's Guide comes complete with customized information on the channels received, products of interest, local retail locations and antenna recommendations. Once in hand, the Buyer's Guide serves as a concise set of answers that the retailer and consumer can review together, answers they wouldn't find in any other single resource. Completing the site is a guide to HDTV provided by the Consumer Electronics Association. The section also includes high-definition and digital TV Frequently Asked Questions, along with terms and definitions. These information resources together allow a consumer at any stage of the digital TV conversion process, from just interested to wanting to buy a set, to access the information they need. http://finance.lycos.com/qc/news/story.aspx?story=200410041400_BWR__BW5222 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 18:02:22 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Targeted TV Advertising Catches Interest NEW YORK (AP) -- As the advertising industry worries about the effectiveness of traditional television advertising, venture capitalists are betting the 30-second spot has a bright future. Since 2000, venture-capital firms have poured millions of dollars into fledgling companies developing software designed to get America's couch potatoes to watch TV ads. Television companies are starting to roll out those services, which enable advertisers to broadcast commercials tailored to specific groups of viewers. With the technology, a New York car dealership, for instance, no longer is limited to a one-size-fits all TV commercial. Instead, the dealer can air ads for its luxury brands in an affluent neighborhood such as Westchester, while marketing its lower-priced models in zip codes where residents may have less purchasing power. In the next year or so, advertisers in some regions will be able to use the technology to target individual households _ a sort of direct marketing over TV. Depending on the company, it can be done on cable, satellite or traditional broadcast television. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44242372 ------------------------------ From: David Clayton Subject: Mobile Use a Health Problem? Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 10:46:52 +1000 From http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/14/1097607336738.html Long-term mobile use linked to benign tumours Stockholm Ten or more years of mobile phone use almost doubles the risk of acoustic neuroma, or benign tumours on the auditory nerve, according to a study published by the Swedish Institute of Environmental Medicine (IMM) on Wednesday. "The risk of acoustic neuroma was almost doubled for persons who started to use their mobile phone at least 10 years prior to diagnosis," IMM said in a statement. "When the side of the head on which the phone was usually held was taken into consideration, we found that the risk of acoustic neuroma was almost four times higher on the same side as the phone was held, and virtually normal on the other side," the institute added. Some 150 acoustic neuroma patients and 600 healthy control subjects participated in the study, which was the first Swedish report within the so-called INTERPHONE study, an international collaboration coordinated by the World Health Organisation's cancer research institute IARC. "The Swedish results need to be confirmed in additional studies before firm conclusions can be drawn," IMM said. Since only analogue (NMT) mobile phones had been in use for more than 10 years when the study was conducted, the institute emphasised that it could not determine whether its research also reflected the use of digital (GSM) mobile phones. While non-cancerous, acoustic neuroma tumours that are not removed can grow to sizes where they put pressure on the brain and become life threatening. AFP Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@XYZ.myrealbox.com Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. (Remove the "XYZ." to reply) Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. ------------------------------ From: dog4dogg@yahoo.com (kansasman) Subject: Re: Cellphone Industry Turns to Unmined Territory: Seniors Date: 13 Oct 2004 14:16:14 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Marcus Didius Falco wrote in message news:: > From the New York Times -- > http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/11/technology/11cell.html?oref=login > By MATT RICHTEL > Having equipped most adults and half of all teenagers with cellphones, > the mobile phone industry is turning its attention to the last > untapped demographic -- people over 65. > But its dreams of collecting monthly subscription fees from > grandparents talking to their grandchildren, retirees calling friends > from their recreational vehicles or patients checking in with their > doctors may exact a hefty and unexpected price. The mobile phone > industry has roused the interest of AARP, the powerful lobby and > advocacy group for older Americans. > And AARP is not happy with what it has heard from its members: > complaints about incomprehensible service contracts, confusing bills > and dead zones that are not clearly marked on coverage maps. They are > the same concerns that have been expressed for years by other consumer > advocates, who now have a new champion in the 35-million-member AARP. > We're hoping "to make the industry stand up and say, 'We've got to fix > what's going on here,'" said Susan Weinstock, national coordinator, > economic and utility issues, with AARP. > The group has already prompted the introduction of legislation in New > York State that would provide more flexibility in canceling cellphone > contracts, and it plans similar efforts in other states. AARP's > campaign, which includes lobbying Congress, the Federal Communications > Commission and state legislatures, and talk of running its own > cellphone service, has caught the cellphone industry off guard and ill > tempered. Consumer advocates say AARP's aggressiveness also reflects > its own internal dynamics, that AARP is focusing on such a universally > and easily agreed upon position to unite a membership angered and torn > by the turmoil of last year's divisive Medicare fight. The cellphone > industry has argued that it has done a good job of serving the needs > of older customers and that what is best for people on fixed incomes > is an industry free from taxation and regulation and thus, > theoretically, able to offer lower prices. "Gene Kimmelman, executive director of Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, said AARP had another motive -- getting its own membership to take notice." I am glad that seniors have an organization that helps to defend members from possible price gaugers. ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Two Way Radio Service Date: 13 Oct 2004 10:22:42 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) William Warren wrote: > Users of trunked systems have the advantage of _not_ being on > common-carrier frequencies, so there's little chance of being out of > service during a mass-calling event, and they're insulated from price > hikes during the duration of their contract with the consortium or > aggregator. OTOH, they must buy and maintain expensive radios, can't > operate outside of their assigned area, and have no way to hook the > system up to the PSTN. Actually, many of the trunking systems do have an autopatch feature, where a simplex call can be patched to the PSTN. It's rather difficult to carry on a conversation this way, but it's an extremely useful feature to have, especially in emergencies. scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: jdj Subject: Re: Two Way Radio Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 12:28:25 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 22:16:01 -0400, Chris Farrar wrote: >> Geller wrote: >>> Is there any two-way radio service provider.? Can any one give me the >>> list of service providers.?? > It depends if he is talking about Commercial two-way radios, involing > repeaters or trunked service. If your geographic area is big enough two > individual radios won't have the range needed and you contract with XYZ > Ltd. to provide you with radios & service, either using dedicated > frequencies, PL tone squelch on shared frequencies, or on a trunked > radio service. Or you can go the Nextel route. All of the above will > cost money, either as a flat monthly fee or airtime minutes. There are in fact people attempting to sell ordinary two-way radio as if it were cellular. Most of these are cellular resellers. One of these jokers tried to offer me a simplex setup with a pair of one-channel UHF Kenwood HT's while I was trying to haggle on better terms for cellular, which I rarely use. He had the nerve to put a contract before me selling the radios for $300 each, and a $20.00 monthly subscription rate for 2 years. For many people their first real exposure to two-way radio is a cellular telephone. When someone comes along and offers a two-way radio plan with "unlimited anytime minutes" for only $20.00 per month, it seems to be a real bargain, even if the radios cost far more than a phone. > If someone is selling him a contract for 2 way radio, you need to know > what is being provided, trunked service covering what area, or if on a > dedicated frequency or using a shared frequency/PL Tone squelch, do they > have enough repeaters to cover the area you expect to use the radio in. Again, one must be familiar with radio and not just cellular, first. I don't want to second-guess but it seems from the question asked that he may be quite unfamiliar with two-way radio beyond cellular. There was once a two-way radio FAQ/tutorial on some website. I do not have the link anymore. Does anyone else? ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Deutsche Telekom AG Executives Reported To FBI For Abuse! Date: 13 Oct 2004 10:20:40 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Freespeechstore wrote: > FSS does not spam! Anybody can make a report to antispammers ... a > well documented fact. The FSS email system works similar to the > media, i.e. usatoday.com, but FSS has more controls, as well as > instant and permanent opt-out! The site is not about negatively, but > the speeches about such do get the most responses. Posting is FREE. > Come on in and say something positive! I think a quick search of news.admin.net-abuse.sightings will prove this incorrect. scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 23:25:27 -0600 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Marcus Didius Falco wrote: > Businesses can only allow the general public to use their telephones > for free in places where there is no charge for local usage. This > might be the case in some countries, though I am not aware of any. In > most countries the telephone company charges businesses for usage > (even local usage), and businesses would have to pass on that charge. Canada and/or the US? Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we. -- George W. Bush 08/05/2004 ------------------------------ From: GL Fowler Subject: Re: Law Hits Home Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 14:46:10 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 23:51:46 GMT, William Warren wrote: > On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 12:37:52 EDT, Lisa Minter > wrote: >> by Anush Yegyazarian >> A recent court decision on a 5-year-old case highlights the failure of >> our laws to protect the privacy of personal e-mail. >> Everyone (or almost everyone) knows that the e-mail you send and >> receive at work, using your employer's computers and network, isn't >> really private: The company and your boss have the right to both >> monitor and read what you're sending and receiving. But if you're like >> me, you probably thought that the Internet service provider you use at >> home -- and by extension those who work there -- doesn't have the same >> right. We're wrong: They do. > The safest approach to this problem is the same one the military uses: > they assume that everything transmitted electronically is fully open > to everyone in the world, and employ appropriate levels of > cryptography to secure information while in transit. > In other words, go to http://www.thawte.com/email/index.html and get a > free encryption certificate, which will allow you to receive encrypted > emails using most email clients. If your correspondents do the same, > you'll be able to encrypt things you send to them as well. > You may also use GPG, and encrypt emails offline for inclusion in an email > (either inline or as an attachment). GPG is Open Source, and free: > http://www.gnupg.org/. > John Ashcroft will thank you. The NSA will thank you. > HTH. > William > (Filter noise from my email for direct replies.) If I send a postcard to my Aunt in Texas should I have an expectation that the postman won't read the card? "The best proof of intelligent life in space is that it hasn't come here." - Sir Arthur C. Clarke ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 10:58:32 EDT From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: Basic Menu System Using VoIP? James Bowery wrote: > I need a basic touch tone menuing system that receives calls via > ethernet port using VoIP. This is trivial with Asterisk PBX, an Open Source PBX running on Linux (and Mac and other U*x platforms). > Call-back to purported Caller ID for spoofing prevention. You might think about another way to do spoofing prevention. If someone spoofs YOU (and callerID spoofing is quite easy on VoIP), you will place annoying callbacks to the spoofed numbers. /john ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #487 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Oct 14 16:03:08 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9EK38A10177; Thu, 14 Oct 2004 16:03:08 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 16:03:08 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410142003.i9EK38A10177@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 #488 TELECOM Digest Thu, 14 Oct 2004 16:03:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 488 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Wired: Click Fraud Threatens Web (Lisa Minter) Re: LNP For a Move (Tony P.) Re: Verizon May Hang up on Plan to Sell Phone Number (Tony P.) Re: Why SCO's McBride Declared War (noname) EFFector 17.38: Indymedia Servers Mysteriously Reappear (Monty Solomon) AT&T Introduces New Residential VoIP Plan (Monty Solomon) Nokia Reports Third-Quarter 2004 Net Sales of EUR 6 939 Mln (M. Solomon) Sony Ericsson Reports Continued Growth in Sales and Profit (M. Solomon) Roll Your Own Television Network Using Bittorrent (Monty Solomon) Intel Reveals First Entertainment PCs Signaling New Era (Monty Solomon) Motorola Home Monitoring and Control System (Monty Solomon) XSi - Xtreme Security Intelligence - Licenses and Deploys (M Solomon) Digital TV Finds It Hard to be Free (Monty Solomon) Making Peace with the Phone Bill (Monty Solomon) Pioneers Ready For Your Comments, Thoughts (TELECOM Digest Editor) Help Needed With 3-COM PCMCIA Ethernet Card (TELECOM Digest Editor) New York City [Verizon] Phone Users (NYC) Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue (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: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 18:33:38 PDT Subject: Click Fraud Threatens Web From: Lisa Minter Someone could make the argument that watchdogs have better things to do. But click fraud -- endlessly clicking on ads to generate cash or hurt a competitor -- is a serious threat to the web business, and no one's doing much about it. Commentary by Adam L. Penenberg. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,65324,00.html?tw=wn_story_mailer ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: LNP For a Move Organization: ATCC Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 00:55:02 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. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Verizon May Hang up on Plan to Sell Phone Number Organization: ATCC Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 00:56:03 GMT In article , stanncno1spam@noispam.yahoo.com says: > Bidders Hot for Jenny's NYC Number > Verizon may hang up on plan to sell 867-5309 > By Monty Phan > STAFF WRITER > Newsday (Long Island) > February 14, 2004 > To all Manhattan women named Jenny: He's got your number. > Combining the forces of '80s pop culture and offbeat Internet > auctions, a Manhattan man is using eBay to try to sell 212-867-5309, > the number -- sans area code -- that appears in the 1981 song > "867-5309/Jenny," by one-hit wonder Tommy Tutone. Interestingly enough -- Gem Pluming in Rhode Island is 401-867-5309. ------------------------------ From: noname Subject: Re: Why SCO's McBride Declared War Organization: ATCC Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 00:57:04 GMT In article , clj@panix.com says: > Monty Solomon writes: >> Online Extra: Why SCO's McBride Declared War >> Says the CEO about Linux: "It wasn't like we said, 'Oh, let's go find >> people and sue them.' It was a gradual enforcement of our rights" >> You have to give SCO Group ( SCOX ) CEO Darl McBride credit for one >> thing: He's got moxie. > First, in what way was it NOT like they said "Oh, let's sue"? Saying > that that isn't what they did doesn't change the fact that what they > did looks EXACTLY like that. > And no, I don't have to give Darl McBride credit for ANYTHING if I > don't want to. He can't make me, and siccing lawyers indiscriminately > won't change that fact. How did he end up in this universe without a > clue, anyway? I have a very low opinion of those who use the courts and our legislators to fatten their own pockets. McBride falls beneath my contempt because of this. SCO doesn't have a leg to stand on - this is a calculated risk to try and inflate the value of the company. I highly doubt it will work because SCO's credibility has been severely inhibited by it's unwillingness to state exactly which lines of code are in violation, if at all. And in the 01/26/04 issue of eWeek I see that they've even testified before our congress critters that open source software is a national security issue. Their argument is that a scientist in North Korea could download Linux, install it on a bunch of machines and cluster them into a supercomputer for nuclear research. The congress critters to their credit, explained that if proper export controls were exercised this wouldn't be an issue. But let's face it, North Korea will get what it wants from Japan, not the U.S. I hope SCO goes down in flames for this one. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 21:38:38 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 17.38: Indymedia Servers Mysteriously Reappear, But EFFector Vol. 17, No. 38 October 13, 2004 donna@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 309th Issue of EFFector: * Indymedia Servers Mysteriously Reappear, But Questions Remain * In File-Sharing Witchhunts, RIAA Is Foiled Again * Entertainment Giants Push Supreme Court to Rewrite Copyright Law * MiniLinks (12): DoJ Report Endorses PDEA, Induce Act * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/17/38.php ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 08:55:45 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AT&T Introduces New Residential VoIP Plan AT&T Introduces New Residential VoIP Plan Feature-rich Unlimited Local Service for $19.99 per month BEDMINSTER, N.J., Oct. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Providing customers a choice in voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calling plans, AT&T today introduced an unlimited local version of its popular residential broadband phone service called AT&T CallVantageSM Local Plan. For $19.99 per month, customers receive unlimited local calling and access to the entire AT&T CallVantage Service advanced feature set. All local toll and long distance calling in the U.S. and to Canada will be billed at $0.04 a minute. International calling will be billed by the minute at rates on average 50 percent less than the company's leading offers. The new calling plan will become available October 17. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44262884 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 09:00:38 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Nokia Reports Third-Quarter 2004 Net Sales of EUR 6 939 Million, Highlights Third Quarter 2004 (All Comparisons in Parentheses are to Third Quarter 2003 Results Regrouped According to 2004 Organization) ESPOO, Finland, October 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- - Net sales increased 1% to EUR 6 939 million (EUR 6 874 million in Q3 2003), up 8% at constant currency - Operating profit decreased 20% to EUR 928 million (EUR 1 154 million), with operating margin of 13.4% (16.8%) EPS (diluted) was EUR 0.14 (EUR 0.17) on net profits of EUR 660 million - Mobile Phones net sales of EUR 4 429 million (EUR 5 118 million) were 13% lower than in 2003, with EUR 822 million operating profit (EUR 1 473 million) and operating margin of 18.6% (28.8%) - Multimedia net sales increased 94% to EUR 914 million (EUR 471 million) - Networks net sales grew 21% to EUR 1 470 million (EUR 1 217 million), with EUR 181 million operating profit (EUR 4 million) and an operating margin of 12.3% (0.3%) - Enterprise Solutions net sales increased 52% to EUR 172 million (EUR 113 million) - Operating cash flow for the quarter was EUR 1.2 billion (EUR 1.2 billion) and overall cash position was EUR 11.8 billion (EUR 10.8 billion) at the end of the quarter - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44259933 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 09:01:46 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Sony Ericsson Reports Continued Growth in Sales and Profit TOKYO & STOCKHOLM, Sweden--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 14, 2004--Sony (NYSE:SNE) and Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERICY) today announced the consolidated financial summary for the third quarter ended September 30, 2004 of Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB (Sony Ericsson), the 50:50 joint venture of Sony and Ericsson. Units shipped in the quarter reached 10.7 million, a 51% increase compared to the same period last year. Sales for the quarter were Euro 1,678 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 29%. Income before taxes was Euro 136 million and net income was Euro 90 million, which represent year-on-year improvements of Euro 97 million (249%) and Euro 28 million (45%) respectively. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44257858 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 08:52:53 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Roll Your Own Television Network Using Bittorrent Posted by timothy on Tuesday October 05, @07:30PM from the or-at-least-think-about-doing-so dept. Cryofan writes "Mark Pesce, lecturer at the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) writes here and here about using p2p networks, specifically bittorrent, to create a grassroots television network. He cites as an example the BBC's "Flexible TV" internet broadcasting model using that as the core of a "new sort of television network, one which could harness the power of P2P distribution to create a global television network." Producers of video entertainment and news would provide a single copy of a program into the network of P2P clients, and the p2p network peers distribute the content themselves. Thus, a virtual 'newswiki' where the content is distributed bittorrent using some sort of 'trusted peer' or moderator mechanisms as a filtering/evaluation mechanism. So what is stopping anyone from doing this now? Awareness of the concept, perhaps? Lack of broadband connections? Lack of business models for content producers?" http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/05/2232203 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 08:56:47 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Intel Reveals First Entertainment PCs Signaling New Era NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 14, 2004--In a keynote speech here today, Intel Corporation executive Robert Crooke outlined products and technology trends that will revolutionize the way people experience entertainment in their homes. The company also unveiled several of the first available Entertainment PCs. Soaring sales of digital cameras, MP3 players, CD/DVD players, digital TVs, personal video recorders and a slew of other digital devices highlight the pervasiveness of digital entertainment. Consumers who want to enjoy this vast selection of digital content on their home TVs and stereos now have an easier way to do so due to a new category of PCs: the Entertainment PC. The media "command center" of the digital home, Entertainment PCs are designed to sit on an entertainment rack and work with a television set with a remote control. The Entertainment PC combines the functionality of home audio and video devices with the power of a high-performance multimedia computer. Easy to use, Entertainment PCs keep digital content in one convenient, central location, accessible via remote control or wireless keyboard. Entertainment PCs act as a combined CD/DVD player and recorder, FM stereo and music server, and personal video recorder. By adding a broadband connection, an Entertainment PC becomes an on-demand entertainment store, allowing users to download the latest movies, music, news and more. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44262142 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 08:59:17 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Motorola Home Monitoring and Control System Stay Connected to Your Home: Introducing the Motorola Home Monitoring and Control System NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT) today announced the immediate availability of the Motorola Home Monitoring and Control System from http://www.motorola.com/shop , and beginning November 1st from select retail outlets nationwide. Keep Informed While You Are Away The Motorola Home Monitoring and Control solution is a coordinated system of wired and wireless cameras, wireless door/window sensors and environmental devices that work together to provide real-time information about what's happening in your home. The included Home Monitoring and Control software provides an easy way to configure and control the System. Right from the desktop, the software lets you monitor real-time activity from cameras and sensors placed around your home. You can program the software to automatically record activity from these sensors whenever a certain event occurs (such as a door opening), and/or have a notification sent to a mobile phone or email account. Further, you can program one device to trigger another, extending your security options. For example, if a door or window sensor is triggered, that event can enable a wireless camera to record the event. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44260486 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 09:14:26 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: XSi - Xtreme Security Intelligence - Licenses and Deploys XSi - Xtreme Security Intelligence - Licenses and Deploys Advanced Homeland Security Solutions of the Next Generation of Technologies IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 14, 2004-- XSi(TM) Envisions Thousands of Robotic Cameras Enhancing Security Efforts Traditionally Limited by Cost and the Resources of Human Beings XSi, an IP-based security surveillance provider, announced today it will deploy the largest security surveillance network in the Americas. The company is also pleased to announce the recent licensing of its technologies in the states of Texas and New Mexico as part of its rollout. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44264453 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 09:33:54 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Digital TV Finds It Hard to be Free Broadcasters have spent billions on the technology -- but is free over-the-air digital TV a viable alternative to cable and satellite? By Deborah Asbrand FCC chairman Michael Powell's once-in-a-blue-moon halftime appearance on ABC's Monday Night Football was a bid to publicize the commission's new website promoting digital television. But Powell's cameo was also notable for capturing the dilemma of broadcast DTV. The push for digital TV originated with broadcasters as a quest for a marketing edge-a way to endow over-the-air offerings with features like multicasting and on-demand programming and thus better compete with cable and satellite. But with the decreasing importance of the networks and their local affiliates, broadcast digital TV remains a multibillion-dollar venture in search of an audience. http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/10/wo_asbrand101404.asp ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 09:33:29 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Making Peace with the Phone Bill Making Peace with the Phone Bill Sure, long distance costs are way down, but the typical household now spends vastly more on communications than before. MIT management professor Thomas Malone explains why that's actually a good thing. By Eric S. Brown In his recent book, The Future of Work, Thomas Malone argues that continuing reductions in the unit cost of communication are changing the face of business, leading to decentralization, innovative use of markets, and eventually, workplace democracy. (Yes, if you're lucky, you'll soon be able to fire your boss.) Malone's book is an intriguing vision of the future, and the extensive footnotes show he has done his homework. Still, from the point of view of one of the "e-lancers" (he co-invented the term in the late 1990s) who are driving the new "new" economy, I had to ask: what lowered communications costs? Sure, if you're a CFO, you may be thrilled that the cost of corporate voice and data services continues to plummet, but if you're sitting at home, all you see is one communications bill after another. http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/10/wo_brown101304.asp ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 21:48:38 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Pioneers Ready For Your Comments, Thoughts I mentioned the other day and want to remind you again that Internet Pioneers is now open for your review and your postings. Originally intended as a place for *long term* netizens to review the entries in the Internet Historical Society, it is also a place for general discussion of interest to netters; such things as changes we have seen in the net over the past several years, etc. You can read through the messages there presently at http://internet-pioneers.org and if you want to post thoughts of your own, send them in email to us at pioneers@internet-pioneeers.org PAT ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 22:59:32 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Most of you know I have a mish-mash of a network here, with a combination of various *old* computers running Win 98 and Win-2000, and a NetGear router. Here is today's dilemma: My very old, original computer is a Toshiba 220 CDS laptop. It was running with Win 95 until a few days ago. Dreadfully slow and small, with only 123 megs processing speed, and 32,512 KB memory (circa 1995-96) when it booted up. Under Win 95, it was hooked into my overall network with a 3-COM card, PCMCIA type, model 574-TX. (I think that is a 16 bit card. ) It was working fine, the Toshiba could see the internet, and the rest of the LAN as well. I formatted the hard drive, and started over, to upgrade this computer to a Win 98. All went pretty well, although it is still a very sluggish, older computer. But, the 3-COM ethernet connection is not working. I've tried installing it a few times, I have the driver for it from 3-COM and the little green light on it tells me it is working (the '100' is lighted. The computer toots when I remove or install the hardware. Properties tells me the driver is correctly installed. The icon for the slots tells me the 3-Com card is there.) But, it just won't work! ipconfig and winipcfg both claim there is no card in the slot. When I attempt to configure things to use the LAN instead of the dialup modem (also a PCMCIA card in the slot right above the Ethernet card) it won't be allowed. By the way, the modem PCMCIA card works fine. Anyone know why the ethernet card can see the network okay, but the computer cannot see the ethernet card? (Well, it apparently can see the card, it toots when the card goes in or out, etc.) I will appreciate any answers. PAT ------------------------------ From: NOTvalid@surplus4actors.INFO (NYC) Subject: New York City [Verizon] Phone Users Date: 13 Oct 2004 21:46:42 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Desperate New York Telephone's death rattles are being heard. Oh wait ... didn't they change their name to ... NYnex ... Verizon, there's one missing, [maybe hiding under a rock], it's hard to keep track. If you are a Verizon customer look at your phone bill. Pay attention now, or you will miss this. Look at the page that has "ITEMIZED CALLS" "Verizon Local calls" It used to itemize day, evening and night calls and list a 40% discount for evening calls and a 65% discount for night calls. The current bills still itemize day, evening and night calls but no longer tell you what the discount rate is. Pause and think. Why? To save paper? To save you from heady accounting verification calculations? To save the elderly poor from confusion? To make the bill easier to read? Nope! The real reason is, they DID AWAY with evening and night discounts! Now all calls are the same price! Add up the "number of calls" column and multiply by the "charge per call column". You will see that all calls are charged at the FULL "charge per call" rate. Sneaky, huh? WHY do the current bills still itemize day, evening and night calls if there is no longer any discount rate and all calls cost the same? The phone company is having a good laugh, Those of average intelligence will never notice anything amiss. For those of above average intelligence, Telco [the telephone company] simply throws in a special diversion. Have you noticed that the phone company now stuffs the envelopes upside down? An intelligent person's wheels start whirring, Why is Telco doing this? By the time the brain trust has figured out which way is up, they have been too distracted to notice the wool being pulled over their brains. The local hardwired telcos are getting desperate to slow down the revenue drain. They are loosing customers to wireless and VOIP. Some of those deals are not as good as they seem. You have to examine all the fine print. Free nights and weekends are not really "FREE", they are part of the plan that you are paying for! Some VOIP plans have limited minutes included. You need broadband [DSL, CATV etc.] for VOIP. You can't use a $4.95 a month ISP like we do. You can still save a lot on some local calls by using a pre-paid card with an 800#. You can get a rate of under 3 cents a minute to dial anywhere in the USA. Since anywhere in the USA includes anywhere within NYC itself, you can make local calls for 3 cents if it is a quickie to ask store hours for example. After a while you don't save anymore, for long calls you don't use this method. You can save a lot of money on telcom by choosing alternate means. If you decide to try a pre-paid card for local calling read all the fine print. They all charge extra to use from a payphone. Some charge a connection fee for every call. Some charge a minimum call length. We use http://www.www.OneSuite.com for long distance and some local calls. If you want to try them out Promotion Code 034720367 will give you some extra minutes at no charge. Altho you can call across the street or Georgia or California and even Hong Kong for under three cents a minute, watch out! It costs twenty-five cents a minute to Hawaii . ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 01:25:22 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue At 09:00 PM 10/13/04, editor@telecom-digest.org wrote: > From: DevilsPGD > Subject: Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue > Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 23:25:27 -0600 > Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com > Marcus Didius Falco wrote: >> Businesses can only allow the general public to use their telephones >> for free in places where there is no charge for local usage. This >> might be the case in some countries, though I am not aware of any. In >> most countries the telephone company charges businesses for usage >> (even local usage), and businesses would have to pass on that charge. > Canada and/or the US? If I recall correctly, most big cities in US have measured usage for business customers. I believe the same is true for Canada. In western Europe nearly all users, residential or business, are charged for usage. Thus, businesses might be expected to pass on any costs to members of the general public who they allow to use their phones. I realize I was not clear when I said that small businesses in Egypt allow the public to use their phones. I meant that they do so, but charge a small fee. ------------------------------ 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 #488 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Oct 14 18:04:41 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9EM4fK11413; Thu, 14 Oct 2004 18:04:41 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 18:04:41 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410142204.i9EM4fK11413@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 #489 TELECOM Digest Thu, 14 Oct 2004 18:05:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 489 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Robot Dialer Question (Scott Peterson) Verizon Planning 3-Million FTTH (Fiber) Connections (The Old Bear) Linux 9.0 and a Small Toshiba Laptop (Patrick Townson) Re: Why There's no DNS or Comparable Distributed Naming (A Burbaickij) Re: Two Way Radio Service (Scott Dorsey) Re: Deutsche Telekom AG Executives Reported To FBI (Freespeechstore) Re: Cellphone Industry Turns to Unmined Territory: Seniors (D Clayton) Last (Sad, Very Bitter) Laugh! A Nice Place to Work! (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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Scott Peterson Subject: Robot Dialer Question Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 23:02:43 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: scottp4.removethistoreply@mindspring.com I'm in So. Calif. and the politicians are out in force. I must have had 10 recorded politicial solicitations in the last couple of days. They're all the kind that start talking and lock your phone line until the recording is done. I needed to make a phone call but the thing locked my line up for about 5 minutes. I thought these things were illegal. Is there any way or any one to complain to about these calls? Scott Peterson A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians. -Frank Zappa [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Are you certain that if you hang up the phone and wait 20-30 seconds the line won't release on its own? Even that is irritating, but I can see why if you attempted to hang up and then (after 5-10 seconds) lifted the receiver again, the party would still be there. On lines which have three way calling or call waiting it takes a few seconds for the system to decide you intend to disconnect and are not just flashing the hook to (make or receive) another call. Under the old (crossbar) system, we could hang up one phone, (and admittedly) rush to another phone to pick it up to continue the conversation **provided the other end called us**. One hassle under the 'new' (ESS) style system is so much depends on the use of the switchhook, and a few seconds have to be allowed for the hook to stay permanently (up or down) to have the action take place. It is irritating, but I think if you give the other end 20-30 seconds of 'talking' to a dead connection you can get your line back. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 14:32:17 -0400 From: The Old Bear Subject: Verizon Planning 3-Million FTTH Cnnections (Fiber to the Home) As summarized in NewsScan for October 11, 2004: PHONE COMPANIES SPINNING COPPER INTO FIBER In a pitch to spruce up its image and retain customers, Verizon Communications and other Bell companies are going door-to-door, offering to replace customers' old copper wire with high-speed fiber optic lines capable of handling not only phone calls but TV programming and Internet connections at six times the speed of cable lines. The move signals the Bells' determination to maintain their grip on consumers' communications channels, despite cable companies' aggressive move into Internet phone service. It's a risky strategy -- the installations are being provided for free, despite the fact that they can cost the telcos up to $1,000 per house in equipment and labor. Nevertheless, Verizon says it plans to spend $3 billion to offer fiber service to three million homes nationwide by the end of 2005. source: New York Times (11 Oct 2004) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- NewsScan Daily is a lively summary of information technology news and is distributed FREE via email to its subscribers. To receive NewsScan, send email to NewsScan@NewsScan.com and in the subject line type "subscribe". For more information, see the NewsScan web pages at http://www.NewsScan.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: Linux 9.0 and Older Toshiba Laptop Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 17:00:00 EDT I've a Toshiba Satellite 220 CDS laptop here, from 1995-96. On booting it, I am told it has 32,512 KB memory. The hard drive is 1.34 GB and it runs at 123 megs. It has a single internal slot on the side which can be used either for a floppy drive or a CD Rom. I have both of them. It has a USB connection, places for a parallel port and a serial port. It has two slots for PCMCIA cards. My question is, if I install Linux 9.0 on this machine, will it work, and how well? I know it *barely* handles Win 98. It was originally an OEM Win 95 machine. Thanks for your comments. PAT ------------------------------ From: ariel.burbaickij@gmail.com (Ariel Burbaickij) Subject: Re: Why There's no DNS or Comparable Distributed Naming Service Date: 14 Oct 2004 01:38:00 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) wrote in message news:: > In article , William Warren > wrote: >> On 11 Oct 2004 02:19:00 -0700, Ariel Burbaickij >> wrote: >>>>> Could someone explain to me why there is no such service as DNS/whois >>>>> towards it in SS7 network? After all, we have exactly same concerns >>>>> here (distributed and independent administration of different subsets >>>>> of address space, mapping must be often provided between pointcodes >>>>> (numerical address) and its current owner), so why it was decided not >>>>> to do it this way but instead some arcane lists are distributed by ITU >>>>> exclusively? >> [large snip] >> I don't think it's needed in the way the Internet uses the term: DNS >> is essential for the internet because the number of separate nodes has >> grown too large for any one node to handle, so there has to be a >> lookup mechanism to spread the workload, and that's DNS. >> Central Offices don't need a dns-like service because: >> A. STPs already perform an equivalent function: there >> are few enough exchanges that each one can keep a >> basic routing table in memory and pass off any >> unknown npa/nxx codes to an STP for resolution. The >> STP routes the original SS7 traffic on behalf of the >> CO, unlike a DNS which returns a routable (IP) address >> to the requesting node. > This is not really correct. I think you're conflating the functions > of an STP and a tandem or gateway switch (which is an SSP, in the > usual terminology, but which is not an EO ("End Office"); people often > assume the terms are equivalent but they are not. > because STPs do, in fact, include a somewhat DNS-like address lookup > facility, Global Title Translation ("GTT"). It is correct to think of > GTT as the analogue to DNS in the SS7 protocl suite. > What GTT does is take a name for a service (a token that is of a type > *other than* 'SS7 network address and subsystem number') and return a > network address (which may be an alias for many hosts in the network, > just as a DNS query may return multiple addresses or a single anycast > address; SS7 had anycast long before IP did). > There is no particular reason one could not implement GTT with DNS as > a backend. (In fact, I designed a product that did this and have some > related claims in one of my patents). In practice, GTT data is > usually fully resident in each STP, downloaded there periodically by > various centralized provisioning systems. > But GTT is only used for end-to-end services; more precisely, it is > only generally used for TCAP "queries" (which can also be thought > about as remote procedure call over SS7). LNP is one such service, > which is one reason people sometimes confuse GTT, which translates > from data that is of one type (e.g. telephone number, trigger type, > and some digits) to another (a destination point code and subsystem > number) as DNS does, with LNP, which just uses remote procedure call > to translate from one telephone number to another (approximately. I > am well aware that it does not work quite this way!) > ISUP call signaling does *not* use GTT. Instead, switches have static > call-routing tables with, usually, a digit-at-a-time resolution > starting at the left hand side of the called number. Just like in IP > networks, there is sometimes a "default route" -- if there is not, the > calling party switch itself will play you an error message. The > output of these routing tables is a destination point code (an SS7 > address) and a trunk group number. The ISUP messages will go via an > STP (usually, in the absence of F-links) and may make several network > hops but the actual voice path *must* be direct. > This is a key point. STPs do not "route" voice; and they don't do > translation on ISUP messages because the calling switch essentially > can't require it -- it _has to_ know who the next hop in the voice > path is, because it has to know which of its trunk groups is hooked up > to it! > (Things can work a little differently in the presence of internetwork > gateways, but that is a very special case). > Calls may hop across many switches, end-office to tandem to tandem to > IXC gateway to IXC gateway to tandem to end-office, but at every hop > the next neighbor is known -- has to be, or you couldn't hook up the > voice path right. Again, LNP complicates things (the "translate this > number to another number" RPC can be invoked *anywhere* in the call > path) but it is still not right to think that normal call signalling > involves anything like DNS, nor, really, that that would be very > useful for that purpose, at least not in my opinion. > 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 Well, I also do not think LNP is as close as it can be to DNS and generally I keep idea of it pretty much strange. I would consider lifetime personal vanity numbers as: 1) far better alternative than LNP 2) It comes really far closer to DNS than LNP because it indeed involves GTT (again how this personal lifetime vanity numbers are normally implemented is pretty strange, you have to update your real number call is routed to all the time you changes your location, normally I would expect the possibility to define the scheme how some predifined set of numbers should be dialed with different preferences and, indeed, some new implementations do just exactly this) 3) I was not talking about terminal equipment but about pointcodes. The closest form of whois service here is operational bulletin #797 from ITU-T. It costs 20 Swiss franks and actually does not prevent anyone from lokking in this information. So I do not understand why it is not possible to build normal whois service based on its data. ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Two Way Radio Service Date: 14 Oct 2004 10:46:13 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Geller wrote: > Hey guys ... > Is there any two-way radio service provider.? Sure. I got a box of Motorola HT220s in the garage. I'll provide as many as you want. > Can any one give me the list of service providers.?? Look in your local yellow pages under "land-mobile" or "radio, two-way" scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: freespeechstore@aol.com (Freespeechstore) Subject: Re: Deutsche Telekom AG Executives Reported To FBI For Abuse! Date: 14 Oct 2004 08:22:02 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote in message news:: > Freespeechstore wrote: >> FSS does not spam! Anybody can make a report to antispammers ... a >> well documented fact. The FSS email system works similar to the >> media, i.e. usatoday.com, but FSS has more controls, as well as >> instant and permanent opt-out! The site is not about negatively, but >> the speeches about such do get the most responses. Posting is FREE. >> Come on in and say something positive! > I think a quick search of news.admin.net-abuse.sightings will prove > this incorrect. > scott > "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." Old news, Scott ... I finally realized (almost a year ago) that the members of NANAE were "FANATICS" and subsequently have been monitoring (not responding in their forums to libelous statements, defamation of character, restraint of trade, etc,) those who abused us for litigation purposes. We have two years to file on each count! Time will tell who wins. This is far from over! And, there it is Scooter! Hide and watch! http://freespeechstore.com/ http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&scoring=d&q=+news.admin.net-abuse.sightings+freespeechstore&btnG=Search http://freespeechstore.com/Qresults.asp?Search_Keyword=nanae&btnSearch2=Find+Speech [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This thread has come to an end with my thanks for everyone's participation (endurance?) PAT] ------------------------------ From: David Clayton Subject: Re: Cellphone Industry Turns to Unmined Territory: Seniors Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 16:34:31 +1000 dog4dogg@yahoo.com (kansasman) contributed the following: > Marcus Didius Falco wrote in message > news:: >> From the New York Times -- >> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/11/technology/11cell.html?oref=login >> By MATT RICHTEL >> Having equipped most adults and half of all teenagers with cellphones, >> the mobile phone industry is turning its attention to the last >> untapped demographic -- people over 65. >> But its dreams of collecting monthly subscription fees from >> grandparents talking to their grandchildren, retirees calling friends >> from their recreational vehicles or patients checking in with their >> doctors may exact a hefty and unexpected price. The mobile phone >> industry has roused the interest of AARP, the powerful lobby and >> advocacy group for older Americans. >> And AARP is not happy with what it has heard from its members: >> complaints about incomprehensible service contracts, confusing bills >> and dead zones that are not clearly marked on coverage maps. They are >> the same concerns that have been expressed for years by other consumer >> advocates, who now have a new champion in the 35-million-member AARP. ...... And here's me thinking that the major obstacle for just about anyone over 45 for using mobile phones more often is the bloody user interface! Just ask an "older" person how easy it is to use a tiny keyboard and read a display full of data, both obviously designed for sharp-eyed teenagers. Making phones smaller and smaller is great for carrying them about, but there comes a point when their "usability" for a fair segment of the population is compromised. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@XYZ.myrealbox.com Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. (Remove the "XYZ." to reply) Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What you say is true if you intend to use the phone for more than making telephone calls. For its original and intended purpose -- making phone calls -- small is okay with me, and I am an older person. And although I really love typing with my thumb (three taps to make a letter /c/ for example), I strongly dislike writing lengthy editor's notes or otherwise writing email, so I very seldom use that wonderful feature of my cell phone, nor the use of the cell phone to read web pages. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: Last, Very Bitter, Sad Laugh! A Nice Place to Work! Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 14:13:29 -0500 From: Ken Bryant To: kpbryant Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 11:16 AM Subject: Nice Place to Work! Audit: TSA Spent Lavishly on Awards Ceremony Thursday, October 14, 2004 WASHINGTON - The government agency in charge of airport security spent nearly a half-million dollars on an awards ceremony at a lavish hotel, including $81,000 for plaques and $500 for cheese displays, according to an internal report obtained by The Associated Press. Awards were presented to 543 Transportation Security Administration employees and 30 organizations, including a "lifetime achievement award" for one worker with the 2-year-old agency. Almost $200,000 was spent on travel and lodging for attendees. The investigation by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general, Clark Kent Ervin, also found the TSA gave its senior executives bonuses averaging $16,000, higher than at any other federal government agency, and failed to provide adequate justification in more than a third of the 88 cases examined. The report said lower-level employees were shortchanged, with a far lower percentage receiving bonuses. "A substantial inequity exists in TSA's performance recognition program between executive and non-executive employees," the report said. TSA spokeswoman Amy von Walter said the agency believes the bonuses and party were justified "given the hours and productivity of the work force during this critical period." This year, said von Walter, the TSA will conduct awards ceremonies at individual airports, as well as a much smaller and less expensive event at its headquarters in November. Congressional skeptics have criticized the TSA's hiring and spending practices during its short existence. Republicans say the agency has grown far larger than they envisioned when it was created following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. +++What a shock!+++ Ervin also is investigating why the agency's private recruiters worked out of lush resort hotels with golf courses, pools and spas. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said that he had not seen the full report but that it indicated "a colossal waste of money." "There's something terribly wrong with that agency," Dorgan said. "Of all the agencies, that's the one that's supposed to be working full-time against terrorist attacks." The awards banquet, which cost $461,745, was held at the Grand Hyatt, which bills itself as "one of the most magnificent" hotels in the nation's capital. According to the report, the agency chose that site because it was the only hotel available on Nov. 19, 2003, the agency's second anniversary. It also was one of the few places that could accommodate about 600 honorees and as many guests. While the inspector general noted the agency sought competitive bids for the party planner and chose the company with the lowest estimate, it found the "costs of the ceremony and reception were higher than necessary." The event planning company, MarCom Group Inc. (search) of Fairfax, Va., was paid $85,552 for its work and given an additional $81,767 for plaques, $5,196 for official photographs, $1,486 for three balloon arches and $1,509 for signs. The reception included finger food, coffee and cake that averaged $33 per person. Seven cakes cost a total of $1,850; three cheese displays, $1,500. In a written response, the TSA said the costs "were neither extraordinary nor incurred without careful consideration of the amount, the reasonableness of the cost, and value the activities would have to = the employees." The inspector general also expressed concern that the TSA was more generous than most other federal agencies in awarding bonuses to executives. Federal agencies on average gave cash awards to 49 percent of their executives in 2002, while 76 percent of TSA executives received them in 2003. The inspector general reviewed 88 employees' files and found that 38 percent "had no individual recommendation and justification for the performance award." "The legitimacy of such large awards is called into question by the lack of an appropriate selection process and the reliance on boilerplate justifications that could be applicable to anyone," the report said. The report also noted that fewer than 3 percent of nonexecutive employees received bonuses in 2003. In its response, the TSA said that executives who got a bonus didn't get a pay increase and weren't eligible for a presidential awards program that can amount to as much as 35 percent of their base pay. The agency agreed, however, that more could be done to equalize treatment of top executives and lower-level employees. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Kenneth P. Bryant is a cousin of mine. Isn't it good to know that we take such excellent care of those brave, courageous public servants who put their lives on the line for us each day in these times of 'terrorist' activities by talking sassy and rude and arrogrant and demanding to those us waiting in a line with a hundred people ahead of us; demanding to inspect every little piece of metal in our pockets or in our legs or heads. If Bush wants to cut back on 'terrorism', an army of new public servants working in airports is not going to do any good; maybe if he issued a **very strong, very meaningful apology** to the people of the middle east whose lives he has made such hell for the past few years it would be a good way to start. But what the heck; a man who thinks many of his own citizens are second class or less sure isn't going to be apologizing to folks in far away middle east countries anytime soon. Certainly not when there are hogs to be slopped on his own payroll, like TSA. 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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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #489 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Oct 15 13:50:57 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9FHovD21101; Fri, 15 Oct 2004 13:50:57 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 13:50:57 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410151750.i9FHovD21101@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 #490 TELECOM Digest Fri, 15 Oct 2004 13:51:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 490 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Privacy Eroding, Bit by Byte (Lisa Minter) Netflix Stock Drops on Amazon News (Monty Solomon) FCC Approves Fiber-Optic Broadband Rules (Monty Solomon) Sinclair's Disgrace (Monty Solomon) Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage (Fred Atkinson) Voicemail woes on Panasonic TA624/TVS-50 (Mike McWhinney) Re: Law Hits Home (William Warren) Re: Last, Very Bitter, Sad Laugh! A Nice Place to Work! (Lisa Hancock) Re: Linux 9.0 and Older Toshiba Laptop (Tony P.) Re: Linux 9.0 and Older Toshiba Laptop (Allen McIntosh) Re: Linux 9.0 and Older Toshiba Laptop (John McHarry) Re: Linux 9.0 and Older Toshiba Laptop (smith@tecnet1.jcte.jcs.mil) Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue (John Mayson) Re: LNP For a Move (Tim@Backhome.org) Re: Toshiba and Ethernet Card (smith@tecnet1.jcte.jcs.mil) Re: Toshiba and Ethernet Card (David Clayton) Book Review: Network Security Assessment, Chris McNab (Rob Slade) Re: Verizon Planning 3 Million FTTH Connections (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: Lisa Minter Subject: Privacy Eroding, Bit by Byte Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 07:36:18 EDT By Robert O'Harrow Jr., Washington Post Staff Writer First there were security cameras, sprouting like mushrooms on street corners and buildings. Then came shopper cards, offering discounts in exchange for details about buying habits. In recent years, we've seen the emergence of electronic tags or "cookies" on the Internet, software that monitors e-mail, GPS devices that pinpoint our position on the planet, and a growing number of machines that capture finger- and face-prints. Now comes the news that federal regulators on Wednesday approved the injection of microchips under the skin, enabling physicians with the right gear to know who someone is without having to ask. And yesterday, the omniscient-seeming search engine Google bested itself by announcing a service to probe for information both online and in your own machine. One company official called it a "photographic memory for your computer." Google says no personal information will be sent back to the company. But if it feels like you can't do anything these days without someone looking over your shoulder, you're not just paranoid. Cheap computers, blazing fast networks and clever engineers are finding more and more ways to keep tabs on where you go and what you buy, generally with your permission. They're even getting better at guessing what you'll do next. "It's this whole new world. It's sort of like all these little details about our lives are being recorded," said Richard M. Smith, an Internet security consultant in Boston. "We love the conveniences. We love the services. But people kind of instinctively know there's a dark side to this. They just hope it won't happen to them." To be sure, companies have long gathered personal and shopping information to better market to customers, often with dubious results. Who hasn't received junk mail or telemarketing calls that seem to have no connection with their lives? But those initiatives are fast improving and accelerating as people live more of their lives tethered to cell phones, the Internet and the rest of the wired world, where trading off personal information is part of the price of admission. Think about a typical day. An advertising service is notified when you check the sports scores on the Web. The EZ-Pass transponder signals when you go through a toll booth. The pharmacy collects personal medication details and sends them along to data companies for analysis. At work, some employees now use face recognition systems to get in to their offices, or they type on machines that trace every keystroke. "Every move you make is becoming part of your permanent record," said Peter P. Swire, a privacy expert and law professor at Ohio State University. "The trend is smaller, faster, cheaper." There's no question the data are accumulating, and faster than many people understand. A few years ago, researchers at the University of California at Berkeley estimated that all the information created by humanity by 1999 would double by about now. One of the leading aggregators of personal information, an Arkansas company called Acxiom Corp., has roughly a million times more information about adult Americans and their families than when it first sold stock two decades ago. Other commercial information services routinely tout their ability to access some 20 billion records. And that's not counting the digital details that come in the form of photographs, videotapes and sensor readings. Most people know companies can mine credit card data, loan records and other transactions. But few know that companies already offer video-mining services as well. One day we might be able to mine the information generated by radio frequency identification chip implanted in our arms. Or we might just use a Google search service custom-made for RFID, as the chips are known. Not everybody is vexed by these trends. Homeland security, law enforcement and intelligence officials are rushing to take advantage of this wealth of information to protect the country. Web sites like Amazon.com, cell phone services, catalogue retailers, financial services companies and many others are increasingly adept at using data systems to serve customers. Ask people whether they'd give up those services, and many would offer a resounding "no." David Brin, an author and futurist, believes that recent technological developments have revolutionized the ability of people to see -- through cameras around the globe -- and remember details through almost unimaginably rich warehouses of information that serve as proxies for our limited memories. He predicts that we will one day be able to "know" almost everybody in the world through instant access to personal information in ubiquitous data systems. He refers to this as the new "village." "You'll 'recognize' people on any street on Earth," he said, adding that young people who are better at using computer technology, and more comfortable with it, will be leading the way. "That part is inevitable. The village is returning." But even Brin's optimism, spelled out in his book, "The Transparent Society," has its limits. He worries that so much telling information could be misused by bad people or misguided government leaders. "It's wonderful stuff, but there are horrible possible consequences. We're all deeply worried that the future awaits us with Orwell's iron boot." "It's important," Brin said, "to remain calm." *** 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, Washington Post. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 03:38:24 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Netflix Stock Drops on Amazon News LOS GATOS, Calif. (AP) -- Shares of mail-order DVD rental company Netflix Inc. plunged Thursday after it warned that it was slashing its subscription price in anticipation of Amazon.com Inc. entering an already crowded market. In after-hours trading, Netflix share price fell more than 35 percent, or $6.18, even after it announced it had posted its most profitable quarter. The company's stock traded up 8 cents a share at $17.43 Thursday on the Nasdaq Stock Market. "We recently learned from several sources that Amazon is likely to enter our market soon," Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings said during a conference call with analysts. Hastings didn't specify who the sources were. Netflix also announced it was cutting its monthly fee from $22 a month to $18. The company had earlier this year raised its fees from $20 to $22. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44285463 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 03:39:47 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FCC Approves Fiber-Optic Broadband Rules By JENNIFER C. KERR Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal regulators approved new rules Thursday aimed at making high-speed Internet available to more Americans. Critics contended the action will hinder competition in broadband services and keep prices high. The proposal lets the major regional phone companies build fiber-optic networks to within 500 feet of a customer's home without requiring the companies to share their networks with competitors. Currently, the former Baby Bell companies do not have to lease their networks for fiber that is installed directly to the home. The new rule extends that regulation to within 500 feet of a residence. BellSouth requested the change so it could build networks to just outside a customer's home and reach more homes at once, rather than having to lay down fiber to each household. In a statement, the company said the decision would bring broadband service to more consumers, more quickly. Three members of the Federal Communications Commission approved the plan in whole, while a fourth agreed to some parts and objected to others. Commissioner Michael Copps, a Democrat, voted against the rules. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44285047 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 03:57:46 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Sinclair's Disgrace The right-wing network's decision to force its affiliates to air anti-Kerry propaganda is one of the lowest moments in the history of television news, says the former head of the FCC. And it may unleash a backlash. By Eric Boehlert Oct. 14, 2004 | "We do not believe political statements should be disguised as news content." Policy statement, Sinclair Broadcasting, April 2004. Kerry campaign officials aren't the only ones outraged over Sinclair Broadcasting's order to its 62 television stations nationwide to preempt regular programming days before votes are cast Nov. 2 to air "Stolen Honor," a highly charged documentary critical of Sen. John Kerry. The move breaks with a long-standing tradition among broadcasters of covering presidential campaigns as part of their obligation to serve the public interest, and to do so with at least a patina of honesty. Sinclair's unprecedented move once again raises questions about the effects of rampant media consolidation, the deregulation that allows a small number of large conglomerates to own so many outlets, let alone use them to advance an obvious political agenda. The controversy over "Stolen Honor" has also thrust little-known Sinclair before the klieg lights, drawing attention to its news department, whose public spokesman has no experience whatsoever in journalism. And it reveals a publicly held corporation, operating on the public airwaves, run by a hypocritical chief executive, preaching conservatives values by which he himself has been unable to live. http://salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/14/sinclair/ ------------------------------ From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 08:19:54 -0400 Greetings, A couple of months back, I called Vonage and spoke to their number portability group. I was a bit surprised at the result. I have a personal 800 number translated to my home telephone number (not through Vonage). I wanted to get it rerouted to Vonage and my Vonage telephone. Their portability group said that they could not do that. They would gladly provide me with a toll-free number and tranlate it to my telephone, but they would not take an existing personal toll-free number and have it pointed to Vonage. I tried to get them to explain the reason they won't do this (when they will get an existing number pointed at them). But, I am still very much in the dark about it. Does anyone have any feedback about this? Fred [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Who is the present owner of your 800 number? I know you are the end-user of it, but who is the *owner*? You said it is 'currently translated to ring your home number' but you want it to ring your Vonage number. Why don't you contact the *owner* of the 800 number -- the company to whom you pay the bill each month -- and get *them* to route it to your Vonage number. You said it was translated to wherever ... just tell that company your new home number is (Vonage number). 800 numbers do not work the same as regular numbers in this regard. Vonage 800 numbers offer you one hundred minutes per month as part of the $4.99 monthly fee to have one. Then additional (Vonage 800) minutes are four or five cents each. If based on your usage, that is a better deal than you currently have, then take the Vonage number instead. If your present deal is better for you, based on your useage, or it is some vanity number you wish to keep, then tell your comapny -- the *owners* -- to handle the translation for you to your new Vonage location. PAT] ------------------------------ From: eljainc@ameritech.net (Mike McWhinney) Subject: Voicemail Woes on Panasonic TA624/TVS-50 Date: 15 Oct 2004 05:43:09 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello, I have been having problems set up just *basic* voicemail on the Panasonic hybrid TA624 telephone system with the TVS-50 VPS. There is a settting in program #411 to set the time delay for the voicemail to answer if the call is not picked up. Regardless of whether I put 5 sec, 10 sec or 15 sec it picks up after 2 rings. The manual says the delay can be set by a number of rings, but I do not see this option anywhere. I have VPS1 and VPS2 connected to Jack 15 and Jack 16 and have program #131 to map to those ports on the VPS. Does anybody know how to post to comp.dcom.panasonic? It seems to be a defunct group or at least no longer archived. Thanks in advance, Mike ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Law Hits Home From: William Warren Organization: Comcast Online Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 01:10:57 GMT On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 14:46:10 GMT, GL Fowler wrote: > If I send a postcard to my Aunt in Texas should I have an expectation > that the postman won't read the card? No more or less than if you put a digital version of the card on your website and disclosed the URL only to your Aunt: both are intended to be viewed by uninterested parties and their content will usually reflect that. Mail, of course, is different than a website: even if (as used to be posible in the U.S.) you don't seal the envelope so as to get a lower postal rate, it's very difficult for your cousins to read it unless your Aunt shows it to them, and it's very difficult for anyone not involved in the transfer to read it enroute. We trust the technicians at our ISPs not to read our emails in the same way we trust the Postal Carrier not to open our letters, even though both can violate that trust easily and without leaving a trace. Short of having a signet ring made and buying some sealing wax, there's little that we can do to prevent unwanted examination of snail mail: it's even appropriate sometimes, since it's necessary to prevent the mails being used to send improper material. In like manner, it's necessary for an ISP to look at emails when they've been misrouted, or when they might contain a virus, or simply to resolve formatting problems when converting between two code sets or different languages. In both cases, we trust that the professionals we've hired will respect our privacy. Since some ISPs don't subscribe to this "social contract", I use encryption where appropriate. FWIW. YMMV. William (Filter noise from my address for direct replies.) Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/ ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: Last, Very Bitter, Sad Laugh! A Nice Place to Work! Date: 14 Oct 2004 19:03:17 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Patrick Townson wrote > Audit: TSA Spent Lavishly on Awards Ceremony > WASHINGTON - The government agency in charge of airport security spent > nearly a half-million dollars on an awards ceremony at a lavish hotel, [snip] I'm glad you posted this. For some reason Amtrak, which takes up a miniscule part of the Federal budget (1% of DOT, let alone the whole fed), seems to be the target of deficit haters and the "reform govt" movements. Yet, they ignore abuses like the aviation industry. Both sides of the political aisle have their pet projects and their pet dislikes. Amtrak happens to fall through the cracks. IMHO, solid funding of Amtrak would take some of the overcrowding off highways and airports (on short haul routes, obviously) saving the taxpayer money. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Linux 9.0 and Older Toshiba Laptop Organization: ATCC Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 22:10:51 GMT In article , ptownson@telecom- digest.org says: > I've a Toshiba Satellite 220 CDS laptop here, from 1995-96. On booting > it, I am told it has 32,512 KB memory. The hard drive is 1.34 GB and > it runs at 123 megs. It has a single internal slot on the side which > can be used either for a floppy drive or a CD Rom. I have both of them. > It has a USB connection, places for a parallel port and a serial port. > It has two slots for PCMCIA cards. My question is, if I install Linux > 9.0 on this machine, will it work, and how well? I know it *barely* > handles Win 98. It was originally an OEM Win 95 machine. Thanks for > your comments. > PAT RH9.0 should run ok on it. Hell, Linux will run ok on a 486 for that matter. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 22:30:47 -0400 From: Allen McIntosh Subject: Re: Linux 9.0 and Older Toshiba Laptop At a guess, it would be a dog. RH 7.3 might be a better choice. This sort of thing comes up from time to time in various Linux newsgroups, especially comp.os.linux.portable. Try using google. ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Linux 9.0 and Older Toshiba Laptop Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 02:55:32 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Patrick Townson wrote: > I've a Toshiba Satellite 220 CDS laptop here, from 1995-96. On booting > it, I am told it has 32,512 KB memory. The hard drive is 1.34 GB and > it runs at 123 megs. It has a single internal slot on the side which > can be used either for a floppy drive or a CD Rom. I have both of them. > It has a USB connection, places for a parallel port and a serial port. > It has two slots for PCMCIA cards. My question is, if I install Linux > 9.0 on this machine, will it work, and how well? I know it *barely* > handles Win 98. It was originally an OEM Win 95 machine. Thanks for > your comments. > PAT Burn a copy of Knoppix and see if you can boot to that. If so, you are probably OK. You should probably use a more recent version of Fedora. RedHat 9.0 is obsolete. Also Google your specific machine and Linux. Many laptops have odd behavior. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, what I have here now is a three CD set (from Cheap Bytes in Lodi, CA) of Mandrake Linux 9.2. I may risk formatting the hard drive still again, and trying to install the Mandrake 9.2 ... but it sounds a little scary to me. I had a Knoppix CD around here somewhere but cannot find it at present. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Oct 04 09:46:25 EDT From: smith@tecnet1.jcte.jcs.mil Subject: Re: Linux 9.0 and Older Toshiba Laptop You're biggest problem is memory. Can you add any? Hardware requirements SUSE LINUX Desktop is suitable for all common PC hardware. The following requirements should be met to ensure a smooth operation: Processor: * Intel: Celeron, Pentium. to Pentium. 4, Xeon. * AMD: K6/II/III, Duron(tm), Athlon(tm), Athlon(tm) XP/MP * IBM * 286, 386, 486 and Cyrix processors are not supported Main memory: * At least 64 MB are required for the installation with YaST2 in graphical mode; 128 MB or more recommended Hard disk * up to more than 3 GB (Personal Edition)for the installation of all packages; 2 GB or more recommended * LBA48 hard disks are supported Graphics cards * SUSE LINUX Desktop comes with drivers for common cards including the following: o ATI: Radeon 9000/9500/9700 o nVidia: GeForce 4, GeForce FX o Matrox: G450/G550 ISA plug & play cards * ISA plug & play cards may have to be configured manually. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, I dunno ... I have a vague memory of attempting to run the Knoppix CD (wherever it is) on the Toshiba a couple years ago and it only got mostly installed but then stalled on me. But I did have Win 95 on the machine at that time, which has now been removed totally (total disk format, etc). I wonder if I should do a total format once again and get Win 98 out of the way on that machine before starting, or will it all be a vain attempt and I wind up have to clean it and put Win 98 back on still another time? Advice, as always, more than welcome. PAT] ------------------------------ From: John Mayson Subject: Re: Monthly Bill Fatigue Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 04:14:45 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Isn't it funny how a short time after > we buy or otherwise obtain some new electronic toy, we discover that > it is 'indispensible' for us to be without? In talking to my mother > one hot day this past summer, I asked her, "how did you survive all > during the 1930's (when she was growing up) without any air conditioning > in your home?" Her response was, "well, we suffered but somehow survived. > How did *you* (meaning me) get along in the 1970's without a computer, > let alone five or six or them?" I dunno what I did ... now these days, I have very vivid dreams. I've had several lately where I've back in time and I'm anywhere between 8 and 13. I have all of the knowledge I have today. I go to my bedroom and realize a) I have no computer and b) even if I did, there's no Internet. I sit there and wonder just WTH I *did* as a kid. John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ From: Tim@Backhome.org Subject: Re: LNP For a Move Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 08:28:21 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications Tony P. wrote: > FX is still used when you cross rate centers. But then unlimited > packages have pretty much killed that too. Not to mention VoIP virtual numbers. My Vonage termination is in Southern California and my primary number is in Cleveland, Ohio. Think what that would have cost back in "the good old days" when Ma Bell had whips and chains. Then, I can take my adapter and plug into broadband in Hong Kong. Even Ma Bell didn't offer Cleveland FX to Hong Kong. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think this all depended on who Ma Bell's customer was ... when I worked at Standard Oil in 1970-75 Standard (or actually Amoco) had two 'tie-lines' of interest from their centrex switchboard system: In addition to a gazillion WATS lines and tie lines (reached by dialing a three digit code for starters) they had a tie line to an office in Kuwait and an office in London. If you dialed some three digit code (from our office in Chicago) you got dialtone from the office in London or Kuwait, whereupon you would dial the local extensions in those offices. Of course in those days, Amoco/Standard Oil was the third largest customer of Illinois Bell with a phone bill of about one million dollars per *month* on a 150 page phone bill delivered by Federal Express. (First and second largest customers, respectively were City of Chicago (1) and University of Chicago (2). PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Oct 04 17:01:52 EDT From: smith@tecnet1.jcte.jcs.mil Subject: Re: Toshiba and 3-COM Ethernet Card Did you upgrade to a Win 98 driver for the PCMCIA card? Some Win 95 drivers don't work because they depend on Win 95 standard files to be there. There should still be Win 98 drivers on the 3com site. Mark [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: All I found on the 3-COM site (but I was not really looking) was the driver for the C574-TX which was in the form c574.tx.exe and it was a DOS file. What should I have looked for? By the way, this is the same Toshiba Satellite 220-CDS laptop computer discussed earlier. PAT] ------------------------------ From: David Clayton Subject: Re: Toshiba and 3-COM Ethernet Card Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 07:55:45 +1000 TELECOM Digest Editor contributed the following: > Anyone know why the ethernet card can see the network okay, but the > computer cannot see the ethernet card? (Well, it apparently can see > the card, it toots when the card goes in or out, etc.) I will > appreciate any answers. I seem to remember that there were two "modes" for the PCMCIA controller in the PC, one an older mode and a newer one that didn't work with some older PCMCIA cards (PCMCIA vs "Cardbus" mode maybe, I can't really recall ...) I cannot remember exactly where you changed it -- I think in BIOS when the laptop starts up -- but it may be worth having a look for this sort of thing somewhere. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@XYZ.myrealbox.com Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. (Remove the "XYZ." to reply) Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In the BIOS set up on the Toshiba CDS-220 there is a toggle for 'PC Card Controller Mode' and the two choices given are 'Card Bus/16-Bit' and 'PCIC Compatible'. Which would you have me use? I am reasonably certain the 3-COM card is a 16 bit card; at least it does not say '32-bit' on it as my other 3-COM card (a model C575-TX) says on it. The C575-TX card does not respond at all in the Toshiba; at least the 574 card did when I was running Win 95 on that machine. Worked fine under Win 95, but admittedly it did not work at first there either until an experienced person helped me with it, but then the green light came on and all was well. Now the green light still comes on (with Win 98) when I plug in the eithernet cable, the machine still toots at me when the card is (un)plugged in or out, but no data goes anywhere. I got the 574 driver from the 3-COM site on another machine, put it on a floppy, then installed the floppy in the Toshiba. When I installed the driver I told Win 98 I had the disk, and directed its attention to 'A', where it loaded up just fine. At least when I installed it, when finished the computer tooted and the green light came on. Properties has no yellow exclamations or red X marks. What is still going wrong? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Rob Slade Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Subject: Book Review: Network Security Assessment, Chris McNab Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 10:14:31 -0800 Reply-To: rslade@sprint.ca BKNTSCAS.RVW 20040511 "Network Security Assessment", Chris McNab, 2004, 0-596-00611-X, U$39.95/C$57.95 %A Chris McNab chris.mcnab@trustmatta.com %C 103 Morris Street, Suite A, Sebastopol, CA 95472 %D 2004 %G 0-596-00611-X %I O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. %O U$39.95/C$57.95 707-829-0515 fax: 707-829-0104 nuts@ora.com %O http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/059600611X/robsladesinterne http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/059600611X/robsladesinte-21 %O http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/059600611X/robsladesin03-20 %P 507 p. %T "Network Security Assessment" In general, "learn to hack in order to secure" books provide very little useful material for helping security administrators to protect their systems. McNab's work is somewhat different: his descriptions (though not perfect) have a conceptual component, and the details often use accessible system tools, rather than relying on blackhat tools (of unknown reliability) or an extensive range of commercial utilities. Chapter one defines network security assessment somewhere between vulnerability scanning and penetration testing, and outlines the general campaign. A list of scanning tools, with very terse descriptions, is in chapter two. The querying of public information, using search engines and network information centres, is in chapter three. Chapter four provides details on IP network scanning, although the explanations are not always clear, seemingly missing particulars or skipping steps. This lack of description is even more evident in the material on remote information services (DNS - Domain Name Services, SNMP - Simple Network Management Protocol, LDAP - Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, and the like) in chapter five. Chapter six provides content on obtaining information about a number of Web utilities, products, and services, and lists a number of specific exploits. Chapter seven gives advice on identifying and exploiting specific terminal and terminal-like remote services. ftp and database exploits are listed in chapter eight. Chapter nine describes some tools for assessing and exploiting network (and particularly SMB (Server Message Block) services in Windows NT and 2000. Gathering information from SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is described in chapter ten, as well as a way to code MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) fields in order to defeat virus scanning on email. The exploits for VPN (Virtual Private Network) products, in chapter eleven are product specific and unstructured. Chapter twelve lists certain UNIX RPC (Remote Procedure Call) bugs. The explanation of general overflow and overwriting attacks in chapter thirteen provides thorough descriptions, but relies unnecessarily on coded C language references rather than broader explanations, reducing the conceptual clarity. Chapter fourteen reviews a combination of some of the techniques listed earlier in the book as an integrated attack example. The material could be helpful to security instructors, and fascinating for those interested in the topic, but may not be presented in a manner useful to network security administrators as direction for protection of their resources. The book is demanding of the reader, but it does do a better job than most of demonstrating the value of knowing how to find weaknesses in order to build defence. copyright Robert M. Slade, 2004 BKNTSCAS.RVW 20040511 ====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer) rslade@vcn.bc.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca rslade@sun.soci.niu.edu The Internet may promise to improve the way we educate and learn, but so did early television. TV technology has instead reduced our attention spans, reduced intellectual conversations to sound bits, and left us with the impression that in order to be informed, we must first be entertained. - Lew Platt, of HP http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev or http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: Verizon Planning 3-Million FTTH Cnnections (Fiber to the Home) Date: 15 Oct 2004 10:31:45 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com The Old Bear wrote: > In a pitch to spruce up its image and retain customers, Verizon > Communications and other Bell companies are going door-to-door, > offering to replace customers' old copper wire with high-speed > fiber optic lines capable of handling not only phone calls but > TV programming and Internet connections at six times the speed > of cable lines. They're installing it in my neighborhood as a pilot and I'm excited about it. I've asked but at this time they don't know what the rates and service packages will be. Only those who request it will get the fibre since the box at the house is very expensive. ------------------------------ 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 #490 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Oct 15 22:35:47 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9G2Zlv25091; Fri, 15 Oct 2004 22:35:47 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 22:35:47 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410160235.i9G2Zlv25091@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 #491 TELECOM Digest Fri, 15 Oct 2004 22:28:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 491 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Activating New Phone Service-What Does the RBOC Actually Do? (MacroMan) Fiber-Optic Illusion (Michael A. Desmon) Re: Linux 9.0 and Older Toshiba Laptop (Steve Schefter) Re: Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage (Fred Atkinson) Re: Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage (Rick Merrill) Re: Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage (Mark Roberts) Re: Last, Very Bitter, Sad Laugh! A Nice Place to Work! (Bob Goudreau) Re: Law Hits Home (G.L. Fowler) When Internet Dreams Turn to Crime (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: wyman_99@yahoo.com (MacroMan) Subject: Activating New Phone Service - What Does the RBOC Actually Do? Date: 15 Oct 2004 14:05:42 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I have found myself in the unfortunate circumstance of having moved into a new (for me) house three weeks ago and still being without phone service. When I called BellSouth a week before we moved, I was told that they could not activate the new phone for four weeks. Now I find out I'm going to have to wait at least seven weeks for the phone to be activated. The hurricanes are the ostensible reason for this delay. This raises the question of what exactly BellSouth has to do to turn on phone service. I would have thought that it was nothing more than making a few entries into a central office computer -- a process which could probably be done by the same person who took my order. Why would it involve somebody with the same skill set as they employ to rebuild their hurricane-damaged infrastructure? BellSouth has already lost me as a DSL customer -- they said that I would have to wait until Jan 6th to get DSL turned on -- whereas Adelphia took only two weeks. I am now signing up for Vonage and will cancel the BellSouth voice service if Vonage proves acceptable. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am assuming there is no hurricane damage where *you* are located which could account for intrastructure problems in *your immediate area*? PAT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: From: Michael A. Desmon Subject: Fiber-Optic Illusion Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 13:55:41 -0400 From San Francisco Weekly: Why Tom Ammiano's plans to create a city-owned broadband network are a boondoggle-in-the-making http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2004-10-13/smith.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 12:52:28 -0400 From: Steve Schefter Subject: Re: Linux 9.0 and Older Toshiba Laptop Hi Pat, > I've a Toshiba Satellite 220 CDS laptop here, from 1995-96. On booting > it, I am told it has 32,512 KB memory. The hard drive is 1.34 GB and > it runs at 123 megs. It has a single internal slot on the side which > can be used either for a floppy drive or a CD Rom. I have both of them. > It has a USB connection, places for a parallel port and a serial port. > It has two slots for PCMCIA cards. My question is, if I install Linux > 9.0 on this machine, will it work, and how well? I assume you mean something like Red Hat 9 or SuSE 9 (the versions of the distributions). Linux is only at 2.6.something. > I know it *barely* handles Win 98. It was originally an OEM Win 95 > machine. Thanks for your comments. I use a newer Toshiba Satellite with Linux and it runs well. The thing that may cause you some grief is the 32M. I've run Linux on as little as 64M, but not tried 32M. You will want to turn off the graphical desktop with that little memory (how are you with an old fashioned command line interface?). One thing to watch out for on Toshiba laptops: The PCMCIA interrupts that get assigned by the Linux kernel hang the machine at boot. I've had this problem with numerous versions of Linux (all based on the 2.6 kernel) and I've heard from others with other Toshiba models of the same problem. Install with no cards in the PCMCIA slots and then, after a post-install boot, edit the file /etc/pcmcia/config.opts and add the lines: exclude irq 2 exclude irq 5 exclude irq 6 You can then safely add PCMCIA cards after the next reboot. Regards, Steve [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What I meant to say was 'Mandrake Linux 9.2' from Cheap Bytes in Lodi, CA. I'll try your suggestion along with the others received. Being a little bit lazy, I would still like to get the 3-COM ethernet card working with (already installed and apparently otherwise okay) Win-98. It is a mystery to me why the card worked fine with Win 95 and **appears to be** working okay with Win 98 (computer toots, says card is present, and no yellow exclamations or red 'x' marks in the properties and the green LED is lighted) but no traffic actually moves through it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Re: Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 20:13:33 GMT Organization: Road Runner - Columbia To respond to that, Pat, That number has followed me from carrier to carrier for years. I believe I originally got it from Sprint years ago. Presently, Power Net Global is translating it to my Vonage number. But, doesn't it seem silly that when someone dials that number I (1) pay for the time to Power Net Global and (2) the clock on my Vonage minutes is ticking away for the same time. If Vonage was handling my 800 number, this wouldn't be true. Fred [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Exactly *what reason* did Vonage give for not being able/willing to move it? So you have a loyalty to that number instead of taking the Vonage $4.99 per month with a hundred minutes included? Judith Oppenheimer is our 800 expert here, maybe she can explain what's going on. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage Organization: Comcast Online Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 20:16:21 GMT Fred Atkinson wrote: > Greetings, > A couple of months back, I called Vonage and spoke to their number > portability group. I was a bit surprised at the result. > I have a personal 800 number translated to my home telephone number > (not through Vonage). I wanted to get it rerouted to Vonage and my > Vonage telephone. > Their portability group said that they could not do that. They would > gladly provide me with a toll-free number and tranlate it to my > telephone, but they would not take an existing personal toll-free > number and have it pointed to Vonage. > I tried to get them to explain the reason they won't do this (when > they will get an existing number pointed at them). But, I am still > very much in the dark about it. > Does anyone have any feedback about this? I thought that 800 numbers were assigned in blocks to various telcos. The reason could be technical (your number 'belongs' to another) or contractural (they agree not to 'port' each other's numbers). Here's more: Until last May, a business that wanted to move its 800 service to another phone company had to change 800 numbers when it changed carriers. Under the old system, carriers held exclusive rights to the first three digits after 800 in numbers they had assigned. The Federal Communications Commission ruled in 1988 that carriers had to route calls using all seven digits after the 800 prefix. The new system allows any phone company offering 800-number service to use any of the roughly 10 million 800-number combinations now available. No company has an exclusive right to any number, which enables businesses to take their 800 number from phone company to phone company." http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1154/is_n12_v81/ai_14752908 Nation's Business: Playing the new 800 numbers game: some companies may find lower prices and higher levels of service now that 800 phone numbers are portable -- opportunity to retain an 800 business number when changing telephone companies. "This new system depends on two very sophisticated technologies. One is a central database that stores the carrier assignment for each of the 2.5 million 10-digit 800 numbers now in use. The other component is a network protocol that, among other things, lets the computers of the phone company originating the 800 call search the central database and transfer the call to the proper recipient." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: See my earlier comments this issue: Judith Oppenheimer is the best person to address 800 number inquiries. PAT] ------------------------------ From: markrobt@comcast.net (Mark Roberts) Subject: Re: Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 21:23:42 -0000 Organization: 1.94 meters Fred Atkinson had written: > Their portability group said that they could not do that. They would > gladly provide me with a toll-free number and tranlate it to my > telephone, but they would not take an existing personal toll-free > number and have it pointed to Vonage. > I tried to get them to explain the reason they won't do this (when > they will get an existing number pointed at them). But, I am still > am very much in the dark about it. > Does anyone have any feedback about this? Vonage can be surprisingly inflexible about certain things. When I had two phone numbers with them, I wanted to swap the fax line number and the main line number. They said they couldn't do that. Since the account is billed by an account number independent of the phone number, I don't see what the problem would have been. Relevant to your question, these weren't 800 numbers but numbers that Vonage already "owned". (Actually in Northern California, they're blocks from Focal). I couldn't see what the problem was. Just transfer the features from line 1 to line 2 and recategorize the numbers. But, the answer continued to be "no". In any event, I dropped the fax number a couple of months later due to low usage. But it still rankles me slightly because I couldn't persuade Vonage to do something that a couple of RBOCs have previously done for me with nooooo problem. Mark Roberts|"Entire media networks, such as Fox News and Sinclair Oakland, CA | Broadcasting, prop up Bush in a way that would make NO HTML MAIL| their fellow propagandists in North Korea and Cuba proud." -- Markos Moulitsas, Guardian Unlimited, 2004-10-12 ------------------------------ Reply-To: BobGoudreau@nc.rr.com From: BobGoudreau@nc.rr.com Subject: Re: Last, Very Bitter, Sad Laugh! A Nice Place to Work! Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 16:08:16 -0400 hancock4@bbs=2Ecpcn=2Ecom (Lisa Hancock) wrote: > For some reason Amtrak, which takes up a miniscule [sic] part of the > Federal budget (1% of DOT, let alone the whole fed), seems to be the > target of deficit haters and the "reform govt" movements. Yet, > they ignore abuses like the aviation industry. For some reason, Amtrak zealots refuse to recognize how disproportiately large are the federal subsides lavished on Amtrak, given its tiny role in national transportation. For example, Amtrak averaged less than 460 million passenger miles per month last year, but nevertheless received a federal grant of $760 million for fiscal 2004 (see http://www.narprail.org/amstat.htm ) In contrast, airlines provided almost 100 times as many passenger miles per month in 2002 (the latest year for which statistics are available in http://www.bts.gov/publications/transportation_indicators/december_2002/entire.pdf). Road traffic accounted for at least 500 times as many (the actual number is 246 billion VEHICLE-miles traveled per month, so PASSENGER-miles traveled are actually higher still). So, to provide Amtrak-like subsidies to air and road travel (ie a bit under 14 cents per passenger-mile traveled), we would first have to abolish all the dedicated taxes and fees that current users of these ystems pay in order to fund the infrastructure they use (fuel taxes, airport fees, "Sept 11" ticket surcharges, etc). Then we would make the general public foot the bill, to the tune of $73 billion per year for ir travel and $407 billion per year for road travel. With numbers like those, you can see why some of us are less than enthusiastic about Lisa's "Amtrak in the sky" suggestion that the federal government nationalize bankrupt airlines. Amtrak ate less than a billion dollars of last year's federal budget, but an "AmSky" consuming $73 billion would make Amtrak look like a piker. Bob Goudreau Cary, NC ------------------------------ From: GL Fowler Subject: Re: Law Hits Home Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 20:19:16 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net On Fri, 15 Oct 2004 01:10:57 GMT, William Warren wrote: > On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 14:46:10 GMT, GL Fowler wrote: >> If I send a postcard to my Aunt in Texas should I have an expectation >> that the postman won't read the card? > No more or less than if you put a digital version of the card on your > website and disclosed the URL only to your Aunt: both are intended to > be viewed by uninterested parties and their content will usually > reflect that. > Mail, of course, is different than a website: even if (as used to be > possible in the U.S.) you don't seal the envelope so as to get a lower > postal rate, it's very difficult for your cousins to read it unless > your Aunt shows it to them, and it's very difficult for anyone not > involved in the transfer to read it enroute. We trust the technicians > at our ISPs not to read our emails in the same way we trust the Postal > Carrier not to open our letters, even though both can violate that > trust easily and without leaving a trace. > Short of having a signet ring made and buying some sealing wax, > there's little that we can do to prevent unwanted examination of snail > mail: it's even appropriate sometimes, since it's necessary to prevent > the mails being used to send improper material. > In like manner, it's necessary for an ISP to look at emails when > they've been misrouted, or when they might contain a virus, or simply > to resolve formatting problems when converting between two code sets > or different languages. In both cases, we trust that the professionals > we've hired will respect our privacy. Since some ISPs don't subscribe > to this "social contract", I use encryption where appropriate. > FWIW. YMMV. >William As you will. Awfully long winded just to say, No. And even if I seal it in an envelope I can not be absolutely certain. If I put confidential information on a post card there will be the reasonable expectation that it will be compromised. If I do the same with a clear-text email so should I expect. End of story. "The best proof of intelligent life in space is that it hasn't come here." - Sir Arthur C. Clarke ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 08:07:28 EDT From: Lisa Minter Subject: Internet Dreams Turn to Crime By Ariana Eunjung Cha of Washington Post CHELYABINSK, Russia -- Vasiliy Gorshkov did not set out to be a thief. Relatives and friends say he had wanted to build a dot-com like those he had read about on the other side of the world -- the Amazon.coms, eBays and Yahoos that were becoming household names even in this industrial expanse of dilapidated tenements and factories. But in the spring of 2000, just three months after he sank his inheritance into a quixotic start-up to build Web sites for corporations, Gorshkov was getting squeezed. Few merchants here wanted to hear about the Internet, much less invest in it. What's worse, Gorshkov told several associates, local crime bosses had started to demand that he hand over a percentage of his earnings to avoid smashed windows, theft of merchandise and broken bones. Gorshkov, then 24, didn't have the cash. Business associates recalled that he didn't even have enough money to keep paying his four programmers. But one of those programmers, 19-year-old Alexey Ivanov, said he knew how to raise the protection money, according to lawyers familiar with the conversation. Goshkov could offer a protection service of his own. To online businesses. Six thousand miles away in the United States. Soon, U.S. prosecutors said, Gorshkov and Ivanov were scouring the Internet looking for security vulnerabilities in the computer networks of American corporations. When they found a way in, they would steal credit card numbers or other valuable information. They would then contact the site's operator and offer to "fix" the breach and return the stolen data -- for a price. Within a few months, banking, e-commerce and Internet service providers across the country, including Central National Bank of Waco, Tex.; Nara Bank NA of Los Angeles; and Internet service provider Speakeasy Inc. of Seattle, became victims. The hackers also used online payment service PayPal Inc. to turn pilfered credit card numbers into cash by setting up phony accounts.The men would eventually expose American businesses to perhaps tens of millions of dollars in losses, the prosecutors said. Gorshkov and Ivanov are two of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of virtually untraceable hackers who are overwhelming cyberspace. Hackers have stolen customer databases, company blueprints and credit card numbers. They have unleashed viruses, crashed computer systems, placed phony orders for merchandise, rerouted e-mail communications and committed various other mischief. Over the past few years, the U.S. Justice Department, the FBI, the Secret Service and other government agencies have accelerated efforts to counter cybercrime. Last week, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said one joint operation resulted in the arrest of more than 130 people suspected of using the Internet to defraud 89,000 consumers and businesses of $176 million since the beginning of the year. Businesses are expected to spend $25 billion this year to fend off online intruders, according to market researcher IDC Corp. About 65 percent of all online attacks originate overseas. "The Internet makes moving money across continents faster, less of a hassle -- and easier to hide," said Louise I. Shelley, director of the Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at American University. International law is often ill-suited to deal with the problem, with conf licting views on what constitutes cybercrime, how -- or if -- perpetrators should be punished and how national borders should be applied to a medium t hat is essentially borderless. The FBI can't get us! "We don't think about the FBI at all," Gorshkov told a potential business partner. "Because they can't get us in Russia." Gorshkov was wrong. The events that led to his and Ivanov's arrest open a window on the elusive and lucrative world of computer hacking -- where many perpetrators no longer fool with computers just because they are bored or want to make political statements. They're in it for the money. The events were reconstructed from interviews with relatives, friends, co-workers, classmates and acquaintances of the hackers. Key details were corroborated by court records, prosecutors, defense lawyers and government inte lligence officials. Gorshkov answered several questions in a letter; Ivanov declined to be interviewed. Their case is unusual only because they were caught. Most online thieves, computer security investigators and prosecutors said, get away with it. Chelyabinsk might be the most polluted place on earth, because of an explosion in a nuclear-bomb-making factory in the 1950s that dumped radiation through its Ural Mountain river valley but was kept secret for decades. Monuments to Stalin's industrial push dominate the city of 1.2 million. During the Cold War, many residents lived well, working in state-of-the-art military installations that were so secret they were known only by their numbers. But since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the region has struggled and many residents have had trouble finding work comparable to what once was available. Gorshkov and Ivanov grew up here, though they didn't know each other until they were adults. Gorshkov is described as outgoing, with a gift for talking people into anything. He graduated from the area's top school, Southern Ural State University, with a mechanical engineering degree. Unlike most of his urbanite peers, who favored clothes in black and gray, Gorshkov -- a thin, muscular guy with a chiseled face -- would occasionally shock friends by showing up at gatherings wearing orange and purple shirts. Ivanov's life was more troubled. He left home at 16 and lived in a small fourth-floor apartment attached to the local prison. He is described as a computer whiz, having had the opportunity when he was very young to play with machines in the office of his mother, who is a history teacher. Ivanov briefly studied computers at Southern Ural State University, but he was kicked out after twice failing freshman exams, according to school officials. Children in Chelyabinsk play on an old tank. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, many residents have had trouble finding work compatible to what once was available there. Gorshkov's company and its Web site, known as tech.net.ru, were born in February 2000 when he quit his auto-parts job and struck out on his own, plunking down $40 for the first month's rent for Room No. 502 at the Chelyabinsk Textile Factory. It was a shoestring operation. Desks were built from scrap materials. The chairs were hand-me-downs from a Coca-Cola marketing campaign. But his programmers were first-class. The first few months he was in business, Gorshkov negotiated contracts to build Web sites for two companies. But he did the work at a severely discounted price and it wasn't long before Gorshkov's money began to run out and Ivanov introduced him to a group called the Expert Group of Protection Against Hackers. The group was made up of several dozen loosely affiliated hackers at any given time, 12 to 15 in Chelyabinsk and others in Russian cities including Moscow and St. Petersburg, though it is unclear how many people in all were involved. There were lots of good programmers scattered throughout the country, but very few good jobs for them. In Chelyabinsk, a programmer might earn $200 to $300 a month, but the jobs available were anything but the cutting-edge perches for programmers in the biotech, telecom and Internet companies in other countries. So some of them looked for other ways to put their skills to work. Gorshkov set up his Internet company in a textile factory. From there, he and his employees eventually hacked into U.S. Web sites. The hackers typically worked in groups of twos and threes, according to U.S. law enforcement officials. Sometimes members knew each other only by their online aliases. Some did not know each other at all. Each group or cell operated somewhat independently -- using its own methods and determining its own targets for online hacking -- but paid 30 percent of what it collected to a krisha, or "protector" whom no one was willing to identify. "I don't know and I don't want to know," said one person involved with the group. Gorshkov suddenly found himself in a profitable business. He, Ivanov and another programmer, Michael -- a 19-year-old Siberian and college classmate of Ivanov's -- were one cell. Each had a distinct role, Michael said. Gorshkov was the coordinator, Ivanov the hacker. Michael poked around the exposed computer systems, hunting for data that might be useful. The tech.net.ru computers were meticulously organized to make the crimes as efficient as possible, investigators said. Each victim's information was kept in its own file; the hacking programs were placed in a folder labeled "badstuff." At first, the target companies were chosen pretty much at random, said Michael, who is known online as Hermit and spoke on the condition that his real name not be used. They could be any e-commerce or banking companies that sounded like they had money. Ivanov created a program that would search on Google for keywords such as "bank" or "casino" or "electronics" to find targets. They would then run potential victims through a program that scanned the companies' networks for known vulnerabilities. The group had only one rule about choosing victims: Stay away from Russian businesses. You may go to jail and that's the best case," Michael said. "More likely, you'll be killed." The main way they broke into corporate Web sites was through a well-known vulnerability in the widely used Microsoft NT server software. Often, they only had to type in the default username and default password created by the manufacturer and then, just like that, they were inside the network, said security consultant Kevin Mandia, a cybercrime consultant who helped U.S. law enforcement agencies investigate Gorshkov and Ivanov. Their attacks were brazen. The hackers rarely bothered to cover their tracks. Mandia described their technique as akin to "storming a bank with a machine gun." "You could take five months to plan a super-secret operation, but if your chances of getting caught were minimal why bother?" Mandia said. The first contact between the hackers and their victims would typically be an e-mail sent to the company's chief executive or systems administrator. It was a form letter that Ivanov had shown to a lawyer to make sure it was legal under Russian law. It was in rough but polite English. "Hello Mr.," it began. "We are a security consulting group specialized in banking and credit card services, big online shops, insurance companies. Due to our job we have to work on the territory that can't be controlled by U.S. authorities. Our government and laws are loyal to that kind of computer activities." It then listed the number and a description of insecure computers on the company network and offered their security services. The group typically signed off with an ominous warning: "YOUR SITE IS TOTALLY INSECURE!!!. It's not just bluff. Any user on the net can get ALL the personal information concerning any account." As later detailed in court documents, Ivanov would follow up with another e-mail, an online chat request or a phone call, and say he used stolen calling card numbers or had commandeered satellite voice systems, talking leisurely with the cell's victims. Ivanov was so bold he sometimes sent his resume -- and even photos -- to prove that he was a serious security consultant. The documents listed his home phone number and detailed his previous experience, noting that he was an expert in a half-dozen computer languages and that he had a passport but needed "visa support." The hackers asked for as little as a few hundred dollars from some start-ups and several hundred thousand dollars from corporations that sounded rich. In an interview, Michael claimed that his group made as much as $500,000 during one nine-month period, much of it wired to accounts in the Russian Federation, Romania and Cyprus. U.S. authorities have only been able to account for about $10,000 of the extortion fees paid to the hackers. It's unclear how many of the tens of thousands of stolen credit card numbers Gorshkov and Ivanov used. The "Expert Group" traded files of credit card numbers with each other and with other associates and sold the information, prosecutors say, making it a difficult if not impossible task to assess who used them. A U.S. spot-check found that nearly 1,300 of the credit card numbers on tech.net.ru were used for fraudulent purchases in Canada, France, Guatemala, Israel and many other countries. Reaction to the hackers varied widely among their victims. Some cursed them and others befriended them. Speakeasy, a company that started as an Internet cafe and then expanded to offer network services to homes and businesses, was among the most troublesome. The company refused to pay up even after Ivanov threatened, deleted files and posted customer information on a Web site. In online chat, Max Chandler, a systems administrator for Speakeasy, was tough, telling Ivanov that hacking is illegal, according to court documents. Ivanov was unmoved and typed in this response: "If you want put me to jail you never can do it because laws in my country is not work and my country don't have strong computer crime laws." Later on in the conversation, however, Ivanov sounded almost child-like as he asked Chandler for career advice. Ivanov: I need job only because I need money. Okay? Ivanov: What name of companies where you have friends? Chandler: Well, Microsoft of course Amazon Ivanov: Hey hey. Cool company. I steal a lot of CD/DVD/books from Amazon. Max, is it possible to get job in Microsoft or Amazon? Chandler: Sure. They're hiring all the time. Ivanov: I mean for me? Chandler: Well, you need to send them a resume but I can put a word for you in certain departments. Ivanov: Okay. Please do it. Some companies treated the extortion demands as regular business transactins. When Brian Miller, chief executive of Cambridge, Mass.-based Internet service provider Channel 1 Communications, heard from Ivanov about a breach in its computer systems, he concluded that it would be better to have Ivanov on his team than to fight with him. He wired $250 to an account that Ivanov provided and thanked him for his help. "I had a lot of sympathy for him," Miller said. "He seemed like a bright kid who just wanted to make some money and get out of his country. I thought maybe he would move on to better things." Gorshkov, meanwhile, still believed he could get his legitimate business off the ground. He paid his programmers $150 a month to pursue projects that he hoped would change the way Russians use the Internet in the same way the Silicon Valley dot-coms were transforming American culture. One employee was working on a more robust e-mail filtering system. Another person was trying to set up an Internet dating service. Yet another person was programming an online auction site. Two of Gorshkov's programmers, Maxim Semenov and Denis Bukarov, who U.S. authorities say were not involved in the extortion scheme, said they loved working for the company because of its ambition. Their boss encouraged them to spend part of their time tinkering with new technologies. "It's a problem to find an interesting job like the one I had" at tech.net.ru, Bukarov said. Michael said the hackers felt invincible, and in some ways they were. He described nights when none of the other programmers were around and the three of them would sit drinking vodka and singing songs. Ivanov loved tunes from old Russian movies and would begin to belt them out, off key. Gorshkov and Michael would join in. The more happy and playful their mood, he said, the more generous they would be to their would-be victims. Take the U.S.-based network administrator for a Singapore Internet service provider. Michael said he threatened to crash her system unless she paid up but she sounded so nice online that they felt bad about the whole thing. He told her that if she called up on the phone and sang "Happy Birthday" they would leave her alone. She did and he kept his promise to drop the extortion demand. No one would say what the group did with all its money. To friends and relatives, the changes in the men's lifestyles were subtle. They apparently didn't splurge on lavish dinners or buy expensive clothes. Ivanov wore second hand jeans and old scruffy boots, said his grandmother, Raisa Gorshkova, age 73. "He even smoked very cheap brand of cigarettes. Nobody smokes these anymore." Ivanov, though, bought a used car and a $1,000 cell phone. Gorshkov got an apartment for himself and his fiancee, Masha Milegova, who he met on a trolley on the way home one night and who was pregnant with their first child. The hackers also used the credit card numbers they had purloined from companies that refused to pay their fee. Once, they ordered 15 DVD players and had them delivered to a mailbox across the border in Kazakhstan, less than an hour from their homes. They also ordered music CDs, movies, laptops, cell and satellite phones and other electronics. They also abused the PayPal system to turn the stolen credit card numbers into cash by setting themselves up as seller and buyer in online auctions. (PayPal officials said they have since taken steps to reduce the chances that perpetrators of that type of scam will succeed.) Later, in November 2000, Gorshkov threw a housewarming party for himself. One of the half-dozen or so close friends in attendance, a medical student named Yvgenia Peleskova, recalled that they drank beer and watched "Gone in 60 Seconds," a movie about ingenious car thieves who could break any lock, get past any alarm and never get caught. Peleskova remembered that it was a "big hit" with the people in the room. But while Gorshkov and Ivanov were laughing about their good fortune, they had become the target of a manhunt originating in America. Some of the companies the hackers thought were cooperating with them were actually working for the FBI. A Tempting Offer for the Russian Guys Jon Morgenstern's nightmare began with an e-mail. It arrived in his computer's mailbox on July 15, 2000, and its basic message was this: Your security has been compromised. We would like to help you. Morgenstern, president of E-Money Inc., a Washington-based provider of technology for online payment transactions, immediately suspected the message's underlying meaning. It was a threat. His fears were confirmed the next day when a youthful-sounding man called and asked Morgenstern if he had received the e-mail. The man identified himself as "Alex," said he was from Russia and part of something called the "Expert Group of Protection Against Hackers." He said he had gotten access to the firm's customer database , including credit card information, and would be happy to ensure that further intrusions were not possible -- as long as E-Money would pay him $500,000 to do so. As proof that E-Money's computer had been broken in to, he asked Morgenstern to go to one of his servers and look for a system file containing some digital graffiti. Morgenstern had no trouble finding the file. It said: "Alex was here." So began a series of transatlantic telephone, e-mail and instant message exchanges about how to resolve the situation. In the ensuing back-and-forth between Morgenstern and his attackers, a kind of easy rapport developed that would ultimately lead to the arrest of two members of the "Expert Group" and allow U.S. officials to gain new insight into an overseas hacking networks that to this day continues to terrorize American businesses. Hacking has reached crisis levels in the past few years -- the average U.S. company is attacked 30 times a week, according to the online security firm Symantec Corp. Most are not serious; they are efforts to scan computer networks for vulnerabilities. Still, a significant number -- about 15 percent -- are actual attempted or successful intrusions. Morgenstern, meanwhile, was conflicted. He didn't want to pay any extortion fee but he was determined not to let the hackers ruin his company's reputation either. He was worried that news of even a minor break-in might spook customers. After all, E-Money was built on trust. Morgenstern hired an expensive security consultant from Silicon Valley to respond to the hackers and ordered his systems administrators to do a complete analysis of the E-Money systems for other vulnerabilities, tasks that he estimates ended up costing his company more than $1 million in fees, lost business and new computer equipment. Meanwhile, Morgenstern tried to negotiate with the hackers. The $500,000 demand to "assist in repairing the system" became $250,000, then $150,000, and then $75,000. But when he still wouldn't pay, Morgenstern said, the hackers launched a new type of attack, bombing the company's network with so much bogus traffic that it caused his network to slow so much that legitimate transactions could not get processed. Morgenstern then called the FBI. To the agency, it was a familiar story. The FBI for many months had been tracking organized hacker groups in Russia, the Ukraine and other countries who had been trying to extort money from operators of Web sites. In particular, references to the "Expert Group" kept coming up. "The number of victims and losses involved made us take notice," remembered Charlie Mandigo, an FBI agent who was one of the supervisors of the investigation of the extortion cases. By the next year, the problem would become severe enough that the FBI would issue an unusual alert about the spree, which they said netted more than 1 million credit card numbers. The agency pleaded with firms to better secure their systems. The FBI's Don Cavender, who worked on the cases, said the breadth of the attacks showed the need for more trained cybercrime investigators. In part as a response to these case, the FBI recently doubled its staffing to 700 agents, supplementing the 200 trained agents the Secret Service employs. The local field office of the FBI sent two agents to help Morgenstern. They came by E-Money's offices and brought equipment so that Morgenstern could record all his conversations with Alex and a friend who called himself Victor, or Vladimir. Over several weeks, the FBI agents came by and sat next to Morgenstern at his Dupont Circle headquarters and his Gaithersburg home, listening in on his negotiations, their vigil fortified by one Diet Pepsi after another. They advised him to keep notes, drag out the negotiations and gather as much information as possible about the guys he was dealing with. Morgenstern said he spoke to them at least four times a week, or often more. It was always Alex or Victor who initiated the conversation, claiming to be dialing in from a satellite phone they had commandeered. The first few conversations followed this formula: Alex would begin by of fering to lower the price for "protection" from hacking. Each time Morgenstern would make up different excuses about why he couldn't pay. "My board is made up of very strict guys and they want to meet you and put you on a long-term retainer," Morgenstern told them. (With only 15 employees, E-Money did not, in fact, have a board.) "We need you in the United States. Or how about a more neutral place -- Finland? Denmark?" Morgenstern asked. (He was hoping officials in those countries would be more cooperative about letting U.S. authorities arrest the hackers.) But as the days went by, the tenor of the conversations changed. The men went from sounding arrogant and angry to gradually becoming more chatty. Sometimes the hackers would call Morgenstern at home. Morgenstern said his young son became so used to the odd-hours phone calls that he would often pick up and shout "Dad, it's Alex on the phone again!" Morgenstern told them about life in the United States and they in turn told him about life in Russia. Alex said he was fresh out of school and had had trouble finding a job and had little money for food or clothes. Victor said he was older, married with a child. Their personalities were evident in their choice of e-mail addresses: Alex was "megapunk" while Victor used a more generic name, "accessd. " Alex seemed okay with his situation, once saying that he could "live like a king here" on the money he made from American companies. But Victor was more uneasy. "You don't understand how hard I work. I work 72 hours at a time and I have all my programmers [to care for]. They are sleeping here and then we work more and more ... Jon, you think I like to do this for a living?" Morgenstern recalled Victor saying. Alex and Victor described how they were forced by men with "leather jackets" and "big guns" to work for a crime group and that he was supposed to get 50 cents per credit card number. The problem, they said, was that they often didn't get paid. Then one day Victor said something that threw Morgenstern off completely: He told him to forget about the extortion fee. He simply asked for a visa and employment in the United States. "Please get job from America," Morgenstern remembered Victor telling him. "John, I will fix up your system and you will never get anyone attack you again. I need to bring my wife and little child." Victor confirmed his intentions in a follow-up e-mail a few days later, on Sept. 11. "I have made a decision to come and visit you in USA whenever will happen to me. I am [expletive] tired of hiding. I will take a risc [sic]. I think I can trust you ... I want to get a job to forget about my criminal past ... I can departure next week." Morgenstern, who is a lawyer, empathized with their situation. He offered to serve as the men's representative and tried to broker an offer of immunity from the FBI if the two were to come to the United States and find honest work. He put them in touch with an agent who said he would talk to them about the possibility. The attacks abruptly stopped and Morgenstern never heard from the men again. By the summer of 2000, about the time Morgenstern's systems had been hacked, the United States had come to view the "Expert Group" as a major threat to the country's financial networks. People identifying themselves as members of the group had claimed responsibility for some of attacks on some of the country's most critical companies -- Western Union, PayPal and a series of regional banks. Investigators worried that perhaps the extortion demands represented only part of what the group was trying to accomplish. They feared the hackers had control of other computer networks that no one knew about and that they were attempting to creating a "credit card production system" that they could tap at any time. The attacks seemed to be coordinated by someone who knew more about money laundering than the average hacker, someone who could turn the credit card numbers in to goods and then sell the goods to generate cash. "One of the more disturbing trends we were beginning to see was an increased level of cooperation between the Russian hacker community and traditional organized crime," said Shawn J. Chen, a U.S. attorney in Connecticut who worked on the case. More than a dozen U.S. attorneys and FBI agents from Connecticut, Washington, California and New Jersey convened a series of brainstorming conferences about how to stop them. For months the law enforcement group had been pursuing conventional methods of trying to capture the Russian hackers. They suspected at least some of the hacks were being conducted by someone named Alexey Ivanov. He was so bold that he had been sending his resume and picture around to companies he was trying to extort. While authorities were investigating an incident at CTS Network Services in Seattle, which had "hired" Ivanov as a consultant, they found 38,000 partial credit card numbers from E-Money databases on one of the hacker's computer accounts. The Justice Department sent a letter through diplomatic channels asking that Ivanov be detained and questioned. There was no response. They sent a follow-up inquiry. Again, no response. To catch Ivanov, U.S. authorities couldn't very well go to Russia and grab him so they had to figure out a way to get him here, recalled Stephen Schroeder, one of the main U.S. attorneys on the case. "We do not have an extradition treaty with Russia so unless they were found outside of Russia our ability to deal with them would be limited," said Schroeder, who recently retired. The United States has taken the lead in recent years on trying to get coun= tries to cooperate in cybercrime investigations. It came to an agreement with other G-8 nations, which represent the governments of the world's biggest industrialized countries, to create a way for them to more easily share information and to make Internet service providers save data about break-ins. U.S. authorities have also sent attorneys and agents to travel around the world to train foreign intelligence officials about how to investigate such crimes. They are urging other countries to draft laws making hacking illegal. But in the end it is up to individual nations to decide whether they want to help. Morgenstern's pleas for the Russian programmers to meet him to discuss a business contract was just one of the ways the FBI was working behind the scenes to try to get the hackers to a place where they could be arrested. His conversations with the hackers along with those of other victims yielded valuable clues about the group's personality and hierarchy, allowing the U.S. government to invent what must have been seemed to Ivanov as an opportunity he couldn't refuse. That turned out to be a potential job offer from a fake company called Invita Technologies. Invita claimed to be looking to partner with a security firm to provide consulting services to U.S. companies. Investigators sent a flattering letter to Ivanov, telling him they had heard good things about him and were considering him as a candidate. He would need to come to their offices in Seattle for an interview. From Ivanov's perspective, the offer must have seemed magical: Finally someone recognized his talents and was offering to bring him to America. Ivanov contacted Invita and agreed, asking if he also could bring along his "business partner," a Vasiliy Gorshkov whose name the FBI officials hadn't heard before. The company responded yes. It would pay all of Ivanov's expenses, but his associate Gorshkov would need to buy his own plane ticket. Gorshkov gladly shelled out the money. Sergey Gorshkov, Vasiliy's older brother by two years and now 29, remembers that Vasiliy couldn't stop smiling after he received the letter. "It seemed like a dream come true to him, to all of us," Sergey said in a recent interview. A "company" representative picked them up from the airport in November 2000, took them to what looked like an ordinary office building. There, the hackers were asked to prove their skills, that they knew what they were talking about. The guys got busy at their laptops right away. The FBI secretly videotaped the encounter. The grainy black-and-white video shows two young men in the heavy, puffy coats they brought with them from Chelyabinsk -- outerwear that looked out of place in the mild weather of Seattle. Company employees flit around them in the 8-by-20-foot room asking if they want drinks or anything else to make them comfortable. They muse about the price of cigarettes, the weather. Then the real conversation begins. Gorshkov takes charge, telling the officials that the two men are experienced hackers. He describes past exploits as Ivanov sits silently tapping away at the keyboard of his laptop and later at one of the "company's" computers, apparently analyzing various Web sites and their security vulnerabilities while playing snippets of pop music. An undercover FBI agent asks: "So how often have you guys hacked into computer systems and have you ever found or taken credit card numbers?" Gorshkov avoids the question. He chuckles, then says, "These things are better talked about in Russia." But as the conversation drags on for an hour or so, he becomes bolder. Gorshkov: "We don't think about the FBI at all. Because they can't get us in Russia." FBI: "Right." Gorshkov: "Your guys don't work in Russia." Unbeknownst to Gorshkov and Ivanov, the agents had installed onto the "company's" computers a program that logged the young men's keystrokes as they were accessing the tech.net.ru systems in Russia. That allowed U.S. law enforcement to obtain the hackers' passwords. At about 5 p.m., the company officials offer to take Gorshkov and Ivanov to the flat that has been rented for them. After a short drive, the car doors burst open and someone shouts: "FBI -- Get out of the car! Get out of the car with your hands behind your back," according to a transcript of the taped encounter. There's garbled conversation and then one of the hackers -- it isn't clear which one -- starts pummeling the vehicle. "It's not my car," one of the FBI agents says. "Yeah, you can hit it. I don't care." A few hours later it was over. Gorshkov and Ivanov were in jail. And FBI computer specialists were preparing to enter the hackers' computers in Russia. They would eventually download 2,700 megabytes of data -- hacking programs, extortion letters, credit card numbers -- to help them build their case. Morgenstern didn't hear about the arrests until early 2001, a few months after they happened. By that time, he had managed to sell his business for a tidy sum to a competitor (he still serves as an executive). He wasn't sure whether Gorshkov and Ivanov were in fact the men he talked to on the phone but he knew they were somehow linked because they all identified themselves as part of the "Expert Group." He had mixed feelings about the sting. He was angry at the men for jeopardizing his business but he had come to understand that perhaps they had little choice in doing what they did. "It isn't their fault that they were born in a place where they don't have opportunities," Morgenstern said. Gorshkov pleaded innocent but was found guilty of conspiracy, computer fraud, hacking and extortion. Last fall, he was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay $700,000 in restitution. In a plea agreement, Ivanov acknowledged hacking into 16 companies, including E-Money, as well as a scheme to defraud payment service PayPal by using stolen credit card numbers to set up accounts. Ivanov is likely to be sentenced this summer (2003) and faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The FBI sting operation was held up as a example of the ingenuity of American law enforcement. Two of the agents who set up the sting -- Marty Prewett and Michael Schuler -- won outstanding criminal investigation awards from the agency's director. But there was still a little problem. In a series of interviews with investigators that took place over the next year, Ivanov acknowledged that he hacked E-Money but that he was not Alex and Gorshkov was not Victor as U.S. authorities initially had believed. Someone else had been on the phone with Morgenstern, he claimed, and that someone else was still in Russia. And U.S. authorities continue their investigation to this day. It is unlikely the third person alluded to will ever come to the United States. A copy of a Press Release regarding Russian Computer Hacker Convicted by Jury (October 10, 2001) is available by the following link: www.cybercrime.gov/gorshkivconvict.htm. Additional information about cybercrime is available at www.cybercrime.gov. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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End of TELECOM Digest V23 #491 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Oct 15 23:03:55 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9G33tA25497; Fri, 15 Oct 2004 23:03:55 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 23:03:55 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410160303.i9G33tA25497@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 #492 TELECOM Digest Fri, 15 Oct 2004 23:04:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 492 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Dialogic SCBUS Conference Volume (John) Re: Privacy Eroding, Bit by Byte (Lisa Hancock) Re: Verizon Planning 3-Million FTTH Connections (Fiber to Home) (AES) Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium (M Roberts) Re: Sinclair's Disgrace (Neal McLain) OSU Modified Admission Policy Changes (Charles Gray) Last Laugh! I Am So Sick of the Election (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: jbaird@statussolutions.com (John) Subject: Dialogic SCBUS Conference Volume Date: 15 Oct 2004 18:15:36 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I am joining two inbound analog lines into a conference using the scbus on a Dialogic d/41epci. I am seeing a significant drop in volume on the conference and would like to know if there is a way to have the Dialogic board boost the gain on the inbound or outbound side. I have tried to use the dx_adjsv() on both channels, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. John ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Privacy Eroding, Bit by Byte Date: 15 Oct 2004 16:07:38 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Lisa Minter wrote [article on privacy] This is a serious issue that bears discussion. But it is not a simple one. Corporations have been storing much data about us on computers for many years. But the Internet and more consistent file standards make it much easier for companies to share the information. And they do. There has been articles about a person's "credit score". There are three large national credit bureaus which collect your payment and loan history. From that they calculate (secretly) a "credit score" which plays a big part in how much you pay in loan interest or even qualify for a loan. Consumers are urged to look at their credit report from these bureaus (for which they must pay a fee!) to check for errors, which are common. The flip side is that collecting information makes it possible to protect business from fraud and allow them to offer many conveniences which consumers want. I doubt most of us would want to give up our credit cards and go back to paying cash or using traveler's checks, or wait weeks just to get a car loan approved. Or, give up ATM cards useable anywhere or automatic toll collection for their cars (like EZPASS). And of course doing business over the web. Information users are not only big corporations, but also small businesses, who legitimately need to know the credit worthiness of customers _before_ they risk their limited resources. Otherwise they'd have to have payment in advance which isn't a good idea. > Now comes the news that federal regulators on Wednesday approved the > injection of microchips under the skin, enabling physicians with the > right gear to know who someone is without having to ask. Yes that is a privacy concern, but there are also strong benefits. Having been an emergency room patient myself, I would've appreciated the ability for the doctors to get my history without me struggling to answer questions while I was ill. More significantly, my mother who had memory problems and was great at tearing off bracelets and the like, could have benefited from such a device. > Google says no personal information will be sent back to the > company. But if it feels like you can't do anything these days without > someone looking over your shoulder, you're not just paranoid. Cheap > computers, blazing fast networks and clever engineers are finding more > and more ways to keep tabs on where you go and what you buy, generally > with your permission. They're even getting better at guessing what > you'll do next. That is very true. A big problem IMHO is that modern computers are too automated, allowing all sorts of programs to start executing automatically. That capability allows viruses to run. As Java/Internet/Windows gets more sophisticated to do more things, the ability for sabotage grows and saboteurs are taking full advtg of it. My recommendation is that laws be passed and enforced to protect the consumer. For instance, credit reports should be free, and providing adverse eroneous information to a credit bureau should be get a fine. "Identify theft" violations should be aggressively prosecuted. A newspaper article said that now only major thefts -- in excess of many thousands of dollars -- are investigated, otherwise it's not worth their trouble. That's wrong. The criminals know it and use it. Information sharing should be tightly restricted and labeled. Today companies give you a pamphlet the size of the NYC White Pages of 0.5 point size type describing their policy and it's impossible to understand. Companies also share with their "business partners and affiliates" which could mean just about anyone and that should be illegal. The govt FTC has a responsibility to keep up with these trends and watch for abuses of consumers or small businesses. Unfortunately, since Pres. Reagan, govt regulation has a bad reputation and agencies are very limited. Further, big business lobbies hard to water down rules. [public replies, please] ------------------------------ From: AES/newspost Subject: Re: Verizon Planning 3-Million FTTH Cnnections (Fiber to the Home) Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 16:36:32 -0700 In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote: > The Old Bear wrote: >> In a pitch to spruce up its image and retain customers, Verizon >> Communications and other Bell companies are going door-to-door, >> offering to replace customers' old copper wire with high-speed >> fiber optic lines capable of handling not only phone calls but >> TV programming and Internet connections at six times the speed >> of cable lines. > They're installing it in my neighborhood as a pilot and I'm excited > about it. I've asked but at this time they don't know what the rates > and service packages will be. Only those who request it will get the > fibre since the box at the house is very expensive. Having a very broadband segment of the Information Highway coming straight into my house and home office would be absolutely lovely, and I'd be very glad to pay a decent price for it -- but ONLY if I can use it to exchange tons of bits with absolutely ANY distant partner or service with whom I want to communicate, not if I'm limited to only services or partners that are allowed or provided by Verizon. If you're able to become part of pilot -- hope you are -- an eventual user report to this group will be much appreciated. [As an aside, fiber optics technology is so inherently sweet that although the terminating boxes may initially be expensive, there's no reason at all that they have to continue to be so once a widespread market develops and they become commodity items.] ------------------------------ From: markrobt@comcast.net (Mark Roberts) Subject: Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 21:39:35 -0000 Organization: 1.94 meters Dave Close had written: > markrobt@comcast.net (Mark Roberts) writes: >> On your PCS, you should be able to dial them as 10 digits. On both >> SPCS and ATTWS, I am routinely able to dial all calls without the '1'. > I know, but I /can/ dial them as 11 digits. Doing so makes the dialing > plan common with all my other lines. >> I never thought I would advocate this, but the time may have come >> simply to require *all* calls to be dialed with 10 digits, thus >> dispensing with the '1'. > IMHO, that isn't thinking sufficiently far ahead. While most NANP > telcos treat the leading 1 as a number format indicator (an area code > follows), and some treat it as a toll indicator, it is also the > international country code for North America. The trend toward making > all NANP calls "local" is only a preview of the day when all calls, to > any country in the world, will also be "local". When that day arrives, > it will make no more sense to dial 011 before a country code that it > does now to dial 1 before the area code. We should simply dial all > calls with their full international number, country code + area code + > local number. It may be convenient for those of us in the NANP to just > continue to dial the 1 now in preparation for that day. Eliminating > the 1 now only to have to reinstate it later would only be confusing. Well, there's looking ahead and then there's looking waaaaay far ahead. In the European countries where I've been, you still have to dial the country code to get outside the country. I found this out when my luggage got lost en route to Germany and I was calling from my in-laws' house in the Netherlands. There were quite a few calls starting "049"! But at least the access code is uniformly "0", whether in-country or not. I presume that it is the length of the phone number as dialed that determines where it actually routes. Whether that's a step ahead of our NANP/not-NANP distinction is probably a matter of opinion at this point. I also see that Vonage has in fact gone to 7-digit local and 10-digit LD dialing (apologies for line break): http://www.vonage.com/ no_flash/help_knowledgeBase_article.php?article=215&category=0 Fair use excerpt: We now offer you the convenience of 7-digit dialing when making a call within your same area code and 10-digit dialing when making a call to another area code. [...] For example, if you live in New York City's (212) area code and you want to place a call: * to another (212) phone number, you can now dial xxx-xxxx, instead of 1-(212)-xxx-xxxx. * to a California (760) phone number, you can now dial (760)-xxx-xxxx instead of 1-(760)-xxx-xxxx. If you prefer to use the same dialing pattern for all your calls, 11-digit dialing may still be used. [snip] I don't remember seeing any publicity about this, but there it is. Mark Roberts|"Entire media networks, such as Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting, Oakland, Cal| prop up Bush in a way that would make their fellow propagandists NO HTML MAIL| in North Korea and Cuba proud." -- Markos Moulitsas, Guardian Unlimited, 2004-10-12 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 15:34:43 -0500 From: Neal McLain Reply-To: nmclain@annsgarden.com Subject: Re: Sinclair's Disgrace Monty Solomon wrote (quoting Salon.com): > The right-wing network's decision to force its affiliates > to air anti-Kerry propaganda is one of the lowest moments > in the history of television news, says the former head > of the FCC. Just to clarify: Sinclair didn't "order its affiliates" to clear the program; it ordered its *owned stations* to clear it. Sinclair is a group owner, not a network. > Kerry campaign officials aren't the only ones outraged over > Sinclair Broadcasting's order to its 62 television stations > nationwide to preempt regular programming days before votes > are cast Nov. 2 to air "Stolen Honor," a highly charged.... If Sinclair were a network, "Stolen Honor" would *be* the regular programming. A list of Sinclair's owned stations is at . Neal McLain ------------------------------ Cc: Jay Boyington Subject: Oklahoma State University Simplified Admission Requirements Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 00:00:00 GMT Pat, we would appreciate it if you would post the following update on the MSTM Program. In an effort to simplify the admission requirements, Oklahoma State University has made the following revisions in requirements for candidates for the Master of Science in Telecommunications Management (MSTM) Program. The requirement for GRE or GMAT examination is waived for part-time student applicants who meet the following criteria: - Two or more years experience in telecommunications - Have a technically-oriented undergraduate degree with a 3.2 (out of 4.0) or higher GPA. Details may be obtained at: http://www.mstm.okstate.edu/prospective_stu/admission_requirements.htm. See also the MSTM sponsorship note toward the end of each issue of the Digest. The purpose of these changes is to attract more working professionals into the MSTM program. The MSTM degree program requires 35 credit hours, all of which may be obtained via distance learning. All class materials are posted to the respective class web sites, and lectures are delivered via streaming video, DVD or VCR tape. Currently, students are enrolled from Virginia to California, and recent students have completed internships (the "Practicum" requirement) in Germany, Guatemala, and Botswana - as well as in Tulsa and Oklahoma City. Regards. Charles G. Gray Senior Lecturer, Telecommunications Oklahoma State University - Tulsa (918)594-8433 ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Last Laugh! I Am so Sick of the Election Date: 15 Oct 2004 16:21:50 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Yes, I do appreciate our democracy and those who fought so hard in the past so we may enjoy its fruits today. I'll be voting and I urge everyone to vote in every election. But I am really tired of the present election! The TV has been full of campaign ads. Some of the 3rd party ads from both sides of the aisle have been pretty disgusting, even worse than the toenail fungus ads they've supplemented. Grossly inaccurate. The propaganda artists have come out of the woodwork, with Michael Moore doing his nonsense and now Sinclair doing his. Both pieces are loaded with major distortions and exaggerations. The people who but into that stuff need to get a life. My phone has not stopped ringing from opinion polls and recorded commercials urging me to vote for a particular candidate. My goodness, my own state governor has managed to call me almost every day! I hope he's not upset I hang up on him. They also call for my mother who I took off from the voting roll last January. The only solution is to ask everyone to write in my name. My reason is simple: I want a job that pays $400,000 a year with lots of perks. I support Amk, so they'll be an "Amtrak 1" going around the country. I have some friends and co-workers whom I think would do a pretty job so I'll hire them, unfortunately, most are them are pretty smart and know what a mess they'd be getting into, so they're all turning me down. (My boss mumbled something "if you win then you'll leave?" and promised to vote for me.) Oh yes, I intend to enjoy the companionship of some nice young hot interns, so if that bothers you, too bad. Just remember they're all doing it, probably a lot more sleazy than I would be. So vote for me! Don't you think the govt would save millions in comm costs when I equip the White House with manual switchboards and perhaps an SxS system? When I throw out most of the Xerox machines and computers and make them use Underwood typewriters and carbon paper? [public replies, please] ------------------------------ 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 #492 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Oct 17 20:27:49 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9I0Rna14977; Sun, 17 Oct 2004 20:27:49 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 20:27:49 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410180027.i9I0Rna14977@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 #493 TELECOM Digest Sun, 17 Oct 2004 20:28:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 493 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Identity Badge Worn Under Skin Approved for Use in Health Care (Solomon) Let the Caller Beware / Homework Here Pays in Wireless Service (Solomon) The Limits of SpongeBob SquarePants/One Canadian's Wireless (M Solomon) Radio Questions (Lelannie) Re: Sinclair's Disgrace (Jim Haynes) Re: Sinclair's Disgrace (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) AMTRAK (was Re: Last Laugh! Nice Place to Work!) (John McHarry) A Problem With VOIP and Phone Books (Ed Clarke) VOIP2 Scam Warning (Alex Wright) Re: Privacy Eroding, Bit by Byte (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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 13:53:23 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Identity Badge Worn Under Skin Approved for Use in Health Care By BARNABY J. FEDER and TOM ZELLER Jr. The Food and Drug Administration has cleared the way for a Florida company to market implantable chips that would provide easy access to individual medical records. The approval, which the company announced yesterday, is expected to bring to public attention a simmering debate over a technology that has evoked Orwellian overtones for privacy advocates and fueled fears of widespread tracking of people with implanted radio frequency tags, even though that ability does not yet exist. Applied Digital Solutions , based in Delray Beach, Fla., said that its devices, which it calls VeriChips, could save lives and limit injuries from errors in medical treatment. And it expressed hope that such medical uses would accelerate the acceptance of under-the-skin ID chips as security and access-control devices. Scott R. Silverman, chairman and chief executive of Applied Digital, said the F.D.A.'s approval should help the company overcome "the creepy factor" of implanted tags and the suspicion it has stirred. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/14/technology/14implant.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Readers should also note an essay on privacy and 'marks of the beast' near the end of this issue. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 17:45:35 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Let the caller beware / Homework here pays in wireless service THE SENSIBLE TRAVELER By Bruce Mohl, Globe Staff | October 10, 2004 Nancy of Winchester rented a wireless phone in a rush last summer before dashing off to Europe to work on a one-month research grant. Now, she's paying the price. Nancy ended up with a bill for more than $900, more than she paid for her airplane ticket or her rail pass, and several hundred dollars more than she expected to pay. Embarrassed by the size of the bill, she asked that her last name not be used. "Others should know ahead of time what I have learned from a very expensive mistake," Nancy said. "It's the old caveat emptor story, once again." The key for travelers who want to take the convenience of a wireless phone abroad with them is doing your homework before you go. Do you plan to make a lot of calls or just a few? Will you be calling locally inside one country, or traveling widely and making a lot of international calls? Is convenience more important than cost? http://www.boston.com/travel/articles/2004/10/10/let_the_caller_beware/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 13:50:33 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Limits of SpongeBob SquarePants / One Canadian's Wireless One Canadian's Wireless Neighborhood Network Could Someday Serve Us All By Robert X. Cringely Like many of us, Andrew Greig put a WiFi access point in his house so he could share his broadband Internet connection. But like hardly any of us, Andrew uses his WiFi network for Internet, television, and telephone. He cancelled his telephone line and cable TV service. Then his neighbors dropped-by, saw what Andrew had done, and they cancelled their telephone and cable TV services, too, many of them without having a wired broadband connection of their own. They get their service from Andrew, who added an inline amplifier and put a better antenna in his attic. Now most of Andrew's neighborhood is watching digital TV with full PVR capability, making unmetered VoIP telephone calls, and downloading data at prodigious rates thanks to shared bandwidth. Is this the future of home communications and entertainment? It could be, five years from now, if Andrew Greig has anything to say about it. The advantage Andrew Greig has over most of the rest of us is that he works for Starnix, an international Open Source software and services consultancy in Toronto, Canada. Starnix, which deals with huge corporate clients, has the brain power to get running what I described above. And it goes much further than that simple introduction. http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20040930.html ------------------------------ From: Lelannie55@yahoo.com (Lelannie) Subject: Radio Questions Date: 16 Oct 2004 22:31:47 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hi, I am very interested in the history of radio and I was wondering if anyone knew where the first radio station in the United States was located? Thank you so much for all your help with my question. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I believe it was in Pittsburgh, PA in 1921. Unlike the rules today, where 'W' is east of the Mississippi River, and 'K' stations are to the west of the same river, the station in Pittsburgh was K-something, but I have forgotten its call sign for sure. Another early station, perhaps the second, was WBBM in Chicago, which began as a ham/shortwave station several years earlier in Joliet, Illinois, but it became an *official* broadcasting station when its owner got his license from the Federal Radio Commission (the precursor to the present time FCC) to use the call sign WBBM and moved his operation to the Broadmoor Hotel on the north side of Chicago, also in 1921. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Sinclair's Disgrace Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 20:26:39 GMT And as Molly Ivins has pointed out, Sinclair has been bending the rules about multiple-station ownership by "selling" some stations to its employees and their relatives. jhhaynes at earthlink dot net ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 02:50:37 GMT From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Subject: Re: Sinclair's Disgrace Organization: Excelsior Computer Services >> The right-wing network's decision to force its affiliates >> to air anti-Kerry propaganda is one of the lowest moments >> in the history of television news, says the former head >> of the FCC. > Just to clarify: Sinclair didn't "order its affiliates" to clear the Bringing this back to telecom somewhat, has anyone looked at how much TV (Sinclair, NBC, the live debates, etc.) has influenced this election compared to internet sites (whoisbush.com, chat groups, etc.)? -Joel ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: AMTRAK (was Re: Last, Sad Laugh! A Nice Place to Work!) Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 03:10:58 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Lisa Hancock wrote: > For some reason Amtrak, which takes up a miniscule part of the Federal > budget (1% of DOT, let alone the whole fed), seems to be the target of > deficit haters and the "reform govt" movements. Yet, they ignore > abuses like the aviation industry. > Both sides of the political aisle have their pet projects and their > pet dislikes. Amtrak happens to fall through the cracks. IMHO, solid > funding of Amtrak would take some of the overcrowding off highways and > airports (on short haul routes, obviously) saving the taxpayer money. It is also the easiest way to move up and down the Eastern Corridor. I took the Metroliner between DC and Newark a couple times shortly after 9/11. For that distance it is about as fast, and less expensive, than flying, if you are going to the city center. A day trip is easily doable, if a bit of a long day. It strikes me that one of our biggest voluntary economic disadvantages is our failure to maintain and improve a strong rail infrastructure. ------------------------------ From: Ed Clarke Subject: A Problem With VOIP and Phone Books Date: 16 Oct 2004 10:34:03 GMT Organization: Ciliophora Associates, Inc. Reply-To: clarke@cilia.org If you read the fine print in your contract, you'll discover that the phone numbers that you are given (if you can't port your old number over) are not listed in the "telephone book". This means that you've gone to an "unlisted" number. I wonder how long the "phone company" will keep your old number in their own very expensive book? Why should they? It's not their customer, is it? I just finished looking at several local guide or mini-phonebook websites; all the ones that I've looked at (411.com, worldpages.com, whitepages.com) refuse to let you add or edit a residential listing. In this age of information overload, it's disconcerting to find that information you want to publish is no longer available. Aren't cell phones in the same situation? I don't know of a cell phone directory that's equivalent to the phone book. And what's the situation when you move to an alternate provider? My wife moved us from Verizon to Excel for the home phone; is there a reason to expect our home phone number to remain in the Verizon book? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The reason it should remain in the Verizon phone book is because one of the things about divestiture and the rules everyone has to play by now is that the telephone company of record in your community (usually a former Bell or GTE company) has the responsibility of maintaining the directory listings. Here in Independence for example, Southwestern Bell prints listings for Prairie Stream in *its* directory. PAT] ------------------------------ From: alexwright321@altavista.com (alex wright) Subject: VOIP2 Scam Warning Date: 16 Oct 2004 03:35:04 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I signed up for service with this company. They advertised a "Small World" plan with unlimited world-wide calling for $49.99 residential. If you go to their main website now. They removed the word "unlimited" from their main page for the Small World plan. They also impose a cap on the minutes which they didn't have before. Here's an email I got from them, because I was calling too much. avoid http://www.voip2.com SmallWorld is designed for users who fall within the industry standards for residential usage of 750-1000 average minutes per month. SmallWorld allows costumers to use a percentage of their usage to stay in touch with friends and family overseas without worrying about additional per minute rates. These percentages vary based on the countries called most frequently. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 22:31:33 -0400 From: Jack Decker Subject: Re: Privacy Eroding, Bit by Byte [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Please see another message in this issue of the Digest from Monty Solomon discussing a company which makes 'body chip implants' for doctors and government agencies. PAT] Pat, please conceal my e-mail address as usual. Content advisory: There are a few quotes from the Bible in this message, specifically the prophetic book of Revelation. If that really offends you, please feel free to skip this message. I use them only to make a point, as you will see if you read on, but I know some people feel it is an affront to them to be exposed to anything from the Bible, so I'm just placing this warning up front. On 15 Oct 2004 16:07:38 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote: > The flip side is that collecting information makes it possible to > protect business from fraud and allow them to offer many conveniences > which consumers want. I doubt most of us would want to give up our > credit cards and go back to paying cash or using traveler's checks, or > wait weeks just to get a car loan approved. Or, give up ATM cards > useable anywhere or automatic toll collection for their cars (like > EZPASS). And of course doing business over the web. A long time ago, in the early days of the public Internet, I used to have a signature line that read, "What were once options are now mandates!" What I meant by that is that the government (or, sometimes, a business) will introduce, for example, some new technology or service in a way that seems totally innocent and benign, perhaps even beneficial, but always totally optional. The problem is that at some point these "optional" things suddenly become mandatory, usually at some cost to our liberty, our pocketbooks, or both. Insurance is a good example. There was a time that if you were willing to assume your own risk, you were perfectly free to do so. But then it was decided that there was some benefit to society to forcing people to buy certain types of insurance, whether they wanted it or not. Of course, you can bet that it was the insurance company lobbyists that helped get some of the mandatory insurance laws passed. Now, I can assure you that there are people who do not wish to use credit cards, and are perfectly happy to use cash or checks. And many people (especially older people) want nothing to do with ATM's, and prefer to deal with a live bank teller. Nevertheless, it appears that these things are being gradually forced upon us. Maybe "forced" seems like too strong a word, but it's becoming less and less convenient to function in society without these things. Of course, we tend to forget that all this convenience comes at a price, as one way or another the people who implement these schemes get a small cut out of every transaction. > Information users are not only big corporations, but also small > businesses, who legitimately need to know the credit worthiness of > customers _before_ they risk their limited resources. Otherwise > they'd have to have payment in advance which isn't a good idea. Um, why not? Where did we ever get the idea that it's a good idea to spend money we don't yet have? Sure, you can make an exception for major purchases such as a house, or possibly a car, but I have always personally felt it's generally a good idea to have the money before you spend it! And I think that up until the 1950's or so, most everyone felt that way. Then along came the pushers of credit cards, and somehow we got to a point where it was just considered normal to live beyond our means, while paying the credit card companies usurious interest rates. >> Now comes the news that federal regulators on Wednesday approved the >> injection of microchips under the skin, enabling physicians with the >> right gear to know who someone is without having to ask. > Yes that is a privacy concern, but there are also strong benefits. > Having been an emergency room patient myself, I would've appreciated > the ability for the doctors to get my history without me struggling to > answer questions while I was ill. More significantly, my mother who > had memory problems and was great at tearing off bracelets and the > like, could have benefited from such a device. Here's my question -- will I have the right to refuse implantation of such devices, or will someone else decide that I have no choice in the matter and forcibly inject these things into me? Bear in mind that we already force schoolchildren to be injected with various vaccines, which are helpful for many but still cause death to some small proportion of children who receive these vaccines. Currently it's a very small proportion, but it's still a risk some parents don't wish to take, but the law forces them to do it anyway. Why would I object to such a "helpful" device? I refer you to the book of Revelation, a prophetic book of the Bible: "Then I saw another beast, coming out of the earth. ... He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666." Note the mark on the right hand or forehead, and that no one can buy or sell unless they have this mark. That indicates that the "mark" must be some kind of data storage device; at the very least, some sort of identification device. I would guess that it would normally be placed on the right hand because that's the easiest for most people to wave over a scanner, but someone who is missing that particular limb may be required to take it in the forehead instead (since that can usually be easily scanned also, and let's face it, no one who is alive is without a head)! What I find interesting is that when one of the companies that make these things first brought these devices out, they used the name "Digital Angel" to refer to them -- see this story from 2000, and note especially the comment by Dr. Zhou near the bottom of the story: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=17705 Now, in a subsequent chapter in Revelation, we find this: "A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: 'If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name.'" Traditional Christian teaching (at least among those churches that recognize the book of Revelation as true prophecy) is that anyone who takes the "mark of the beast" is eternally doomed. Now, I don't know if this sort of implant really is the "mark of the beast" or perhaps some sort of precursor to it, or if the "mark" is something else entirely. But all the same, I'm not real comfortable with having that sort of technology implanted in my body, and I hope that I will always have the right to refuse it and that no one will forcibly implant one in me, or do it when I'm unconscious or otherwise unable to object. I would imagine that many Bible believers are going to have the same discomfort with these devices. Now, it's not my intent to start a theological discussion -- I realize that many people won't share my beliefs (and, indeed, some of my beliefs have changed considerably in the past few years). I'm certainly not going to argue how literally we should take the descriptions in Revelation. All I'm saying is that just as people with certain religious convictions are exempted from going to war, I believe those who object to these implants (and particularly those who object because of their religious beliefs) should have their wishes honored. Would you force someone to take one of these chips, if they sincerely believe that by doing so, they might be eternally damned? Whether you hold that belief or not isn't relevant -- if people have the right to hold their own beliefs and to have those beliefs respected, then a person who believes that taking an implant is wrong should have that belief respected. Since I have gone this far, I might as well add that some people have postulated that one reason that taking the "mark of the beast" will be such a bad thing is that it will somehow actively interfere with our transition to the next plane of existence -- Revelation states it this way: "I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years." It appears that what is being said here is that those who do not receive the mark, even though they are beheaded, will somehow come back to life and live without further experiencing death. But for whatever reason, taking the mark will make this resurrection impossible. In the past, some churches have taught that this is a punishment from God for not taking the mark, but lately I've heard more theorizing that the mark itself will somehow actively interfere with that transition. That, of course, would be impossible if the mark were just a mark, but perhaps quite possible if the mark were some sort of technology that in some way blocks or impedes some natural process that will take place at the time that the Bible refers to as the "first resurrection" (or what some others have postulated will be some sort of dimensional shift, but that's not my theory so I'll not comment further on that). Again, I realize that some will pooh-pooh all this as total nonsense, but I am just trying to show that some people may have what in their own minds are very valid reasons to not want such implants, despite any supposedly beneficial effects they may have. I, for one, would not want a doctor to have the information available to save my life if it means I will lose my eternal soul. I'm not saying that is definitely the case; so far nothing has come along (that I'm aware of) to tie the current crop of implants to the "mark" described in Revelation, and perhaps nothing ever will. But even if that is true, maybe we are being prepared to accept these implants, and when the real "mark" come along, it will seem like just another implant to most people, and those who choose to refuse it will be thought of as crazy, since they may have already accepted the "beneficial" implants. I really, truly hope that the day will never come when they start requiring people to take such implants, whether they want them or not. With my present beliefs, I would NOT want one, even if having one would somehow save my life. And I think you are going to find that a significant number of people feel as strongly about that as I do, or even moreso. Would you believe that not two hours after sending this message that (among other things) discussed implants (and their possible relevance to the Biblical "mark of the beast"), I came across the following article, which is the first time I've actually heard of such an implant being specifically placed for the purpose of facilitating commerce: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3697940.stm Barcelona clubbers get chipped BBC Science producer Simon Morton goes clubbing in Barcelona with a microchip implanted in his arm to pay for drinks. Simon Morton gets his microchip Having the chip inserted was a breeze Imagine having a glass capsule measuring 1.3mm by 1mm, about the size of a large grain of rice injected under your skin. Implanting microchips that emit a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) into animals has been common practice in many countries around the world, with some looking to make it a legal requirement for domestic pet owners. The idea of having my very own microchip implanted in my body appealed. I have always been an early adopter, so why not. [Jack Decker comment: I fear this is the attitude many will take on these things, and that such people will view those who object on religious grounds as nuts, or "potential terrorists", or worse.] Last week I headed for the bright lights of the Catalan city of Barcelona to enter the exclusive VIP Baja Beach Club. The night club offers its VIP clients the opportunity to have a syringe-injected microchip implanted in their upper arms that not only gives them special access to VIP lounges, but also acts as a debit account from which they can pay for drinks. This sort of thing is handy for a beach club where bikinis and board shorts are the uniform and carrying a wallet or purse is really not practical. [ ... snip ...] The chip is made of glass and is inert so there is no risk of it reacting with my body. It sits dormant under the skin sending out a very low range radio frequency so it will not set off airport security systems. The chip responds to a signal when a scanner is held near it and supplies its own unique ID number. The number can then be linked to a database that is linked to other data, at the Baja beach club it make charges to a customers account. [End of excerpts. So, there you have it -- a implant that is used for facilitating buying and selling. Totally optional now, and in fact portrayed as desirable, at least for patrons of that club. But will it always be optional, and will it always be just a dormant device that simply provides an ID number when scanned?] Full story at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3697940.stm [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Immaterial to the discussion perhaps, but here in Independence, a professor at the college has, for a few years now, conducted an on-going discussion of the contents of the book of the Bible called 'The Revelation of Jesus Christ', as the King James Version titles it. Written about the year 95-100 AD, by John, the last living disciple of Jesus (it is thought he was the 'John' who wrote it) it is an incredible and extremely difficult book to read. And some of the allusions in it to vases, horses and their horsemen, and numerology get *awfully* complex and deep. Its for no particular religion, just people who are curious. With 21 chapters, a comprehensive verse-by-verse examination takes most of a year to get through it. Its fun to go to his weekly lectures, but after two or three of them it went way over my head. 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 #493 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Oct 17 21:42:36 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9I1gZ316023; Sun, 17 Oct 2004 21:42:36 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 21:42:36 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410180142.i9I1gZ316023@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 #494 TELECOM Digest Sun, 17 Oct 2004 21:43:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 494 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Blockbuster Eyes Netflix, Plans Price Cuts (Monty Solomon) British Court Orders IDs of Downloaders (Monty Solomon) A Song About AT&T's Dave Dorman? (Jessica) Inexepnsive Remote Forwarding by Auto Attendant Over Vonage Line (Vish) Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium (Dave Close) Re: Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage (Tim@Backhome.org) Re: Click Fraud Threatens Web (SELLCOM Tech support) Re: Computer Users Face New Scourge (Phil McKerracher) Re: Verizon Planning 3-Million FTTH Cnnections (John Levine) Re: Robot Dialer Question (Scott Peterson) Re: Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage (Fred Atkinson) I Need a Long Distance Provider (Michael Muderick) Drivers Try an Anti-Photo Finish (Marcus Didius Falco) Re: Toshiba and 3-COM Ethernet Card (David Clayton) Re: Toshiba and 3-COM Ethernet Card (R. Jones) Re: Toshiba and 3-COM Ehternet Card (GlowingBlueMist) Share Day for October 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, 16 Oct 2004 00:10:00 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Blockbuster Eyes Netflix, Plans Price Cuts By DAVID KOENIG AP Business Writer DALLAS (AP) -- Blockbuster Inc. says it will undercut rival Netflix Inc. on the price of renting DVDs over the Internet, and the stock of both companies fell Friday _ Netflix shares plunged 41 percent _ as investors reacted to a budding price war. Netflix announced late Thursday that it would cut its monthly subscription for DVD rentals to $17.99 from $21.99 on Nov. 1 and expected only to break even next year because of tough competition. That would make Netflix cheaper than Blockbuster, which charges $19.99 a month. It took Blockbuster less than 24 hours to respond. On Friday, chief executive John Antioco said in an interview that later this month Blockbuster will cut its price to $17.49 for customers who keep up to three DVDs out at a time. The price war broke out less than two months after Dallas-based Blockbuster, the world's largest movie-rental company, jumped into the online-ordering, mail-delivery DVD business that Netflix pioneered. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44309251 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 00:11:30 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: British Court Orders IDs of Downloaders By JANE WARDELL Associated Press Writer LONDON (AP) -- The High Court in London has ordered Internet service providers to hand over the names and addresses of 28 alleged music pirates to Britain's trade body for the recording industry. The British Phonographic Industry Ltd., or BPI, Friday welcomed the court order by Justice William Blackburne as the first step to suing people it accuses of promoting the illegal downloading of copyrighted music. The ruling is a victory for both the BPI and its umbrella organization, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, IFPI, which announced earlier this month that its affiliates were filing a total of 459 lawsuits against alleged Internet pirates in Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, Italy and Austria. The lawsuits target people alleged to have put hundreds of copyright songs onto Internet file-sharing networks and offered them to millions of people worldwide without permission. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44306117 ------------------------------ From: f21r_announce@yahoo.com (Jessica) Subject: A Song About AT&T's Dave Dorman? Date: 16 Oct 2004 16:30:06 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hmmm ... is this song about AT&T's CEO Dave Dorman?? "Dave Says" http://www.cdbaby.com/mp3lofi/loublack-02.m3u http://www.cdbaby.com/LouBlack ck ------------------------------ From: visniranjan@hotmail.com (Vish) Subject: Inexepnsive Remote Forwarding by Auto Attendant Over Vonage Line Date: 16 Oct 2004 18:17:19 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hi all, I have a small business with a single Vonage line. This line has 3 way calling and call transfer functionality. The call transfer instructions from Vonage are: Just press the flash button or switch hook on your Vonage line telephone. Dial #90. Dial the phone number where you want the call transferred. Then hit #. Hang up the phone and the transfer will take place. I want to buy an inexpensive auto attendant that will announce the name of our company and based on callers need (1 for John, 2 for Peter, 3 for David) transfer the call to a remote number (home, cell etc.) The device will sit in a basement and will always be unattended. Any suggestions for an inexpensive auto attendant that will do the trick? Thanks in anticipation for your answers. Vish ps: If I must get a second Vonage line, I will. ------------------------------ From: dave@compata.com (Dave Close) Subject: Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium Date: 16 Oct 2004 22:29:52 -0700 Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California markrobt@comcast.net (Mark Roberts) writes: > I also see that Vonage has in fact gone to 7-digit local and > 10-digit LD dialing ... Of course, when dialing a 7-digit number, there is a time-out before call completion. At least when the first three digits match a possible area code, which these days is nearly all calls. And they don't seem to accept # to terminate dialing. That just gives a reorder tone. You can't dial 1+NXX-XXXX, so the leading 1 is significant. But this dialing plan makes Vonage essentially identical to Sprint PCS. Dial as 7, 10, or 11 digits, as you like. But dialing 7 can be chancy since it isn't clear if they assume your home NPA or the one where you currently are located. (Of course, a cell phone doesn't need a time-out to determine number length.) All in all, always dialing 10 or 11 is the only safe action, and 11 is the only reasonably universal technique. 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: Tim@Backhome.org Subject: Re: Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 08:20:44 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications Sort of like Pat says, you can get the present administrator of your 800 number to re-route it to your Vonage number. That doesn't involve Vonage at all. Fred Atkinson wrote: > Greetings, > A couple of months back, I called Vonage and spoke to their number > portability group. I was a bit surprised at the result. > I have a personal 800 number translated to my home telephone number > (not through Vonage). I wanted to get it rerouted to Vonage and my > Vonage telephone. > Their portability group said that they could not do that. They would > gladly provide me with a toll-free number and tranlate it to my > telephone, but they would not take an existing personal toll-free > number and have it pointed to Vonage. > I tried to get them to explain the reason they won't do this (when > they will get an existing number pointed at them). But, I am still > very much in the dark about it. > Does anyone have any feedback about this? > Fred > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Who is the present owner of your 800 > number? I know you are the end-user of it, but who is the *owner*? You > said it is 'currently translated to ring your home number' but you > want it to ring your Vonage number. Why don't you contact the *owner* > of the 800 number -- the company to whom you pay the bill each month > -- and get *them* to route it to your Vonage number. You said it was > translated to wherever ... just tell that company your new home number > is (Vonage number). 800 numbers do not work the same as regular > numbers in this regard. Vonage 800 numbers offer you one hundred > minutes per month as part of the $4.99 monthly fee to have one. Then > additional (Vonage 800) minutes are four or five cents each. If based > on your usage, that is a better deal than you currently have, then > take the Vonage number instead. If your present deal is better for > you, based on your useage, or it is some vanity number you wish to > keep, then tell your company -- the *owners* -- to handle the > translation for you to your new Vonage location. PAT] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But, as Fred pointed out later in a reply to the Digest, he has to pay for calls to his 800 number (no matter where it terminates) *and* he has to py for the minutes of usage on his Vonage line. He was hoping to combine the two sets of charges by having Vonage handle both parts of his service. PAT] ------------------------------ From: SELLCOM Tech support Subject: Re: Click Fraud Threatens Web Organization: www.sellcom.com Reply-To: support@sellcom.com Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 16:56:53 GMT Lisa Minter posted on that vast internet thingie: > Someone could make the argument that watchdogs have better things to > do. But click fraud -- endlessly clicking on ads to generate cash or > hurt a competitor -- is a serious threat to the web business, and no > one's doing much about it. Commentary by Adam L. Penenberg. We have reported "inconsistant" charges to Overture only to be brushed off and similar situations with Google with about the same result that they give a song and dance about how great their fraud protection is but they don't actually do anything about it. They want me to send my weblogs to them and then wait for weeks. They are charging me for stuff they don't have logs for? Let sites like Overture and Google be held legally responsible for fraud and watch how fast they suddenly find ways to plug the leaks. Steve at SELLCOM http://www.sellcom.com Discount multihandset cordless phones by Siemens, AT&T, Panasonic, 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: Phil McKerracher Subject: Re: Computer Users Face New Scourge Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 11:35:52 GMT Lisa Minter wrote in message news:telecom23.481.10@telecom-digest.org: > ... Harris spent days trying to fix the computer, but ... shelled > out $1,000 for a new computer ... If Internet users got grades > for the effort they take to maintain their computers, Harris would > be a straight-A student ... Well, not really. Most likely, he hasn't been patching his computer with security updates, given those symptoms. He hasn't found and used the readily-available free tool for removing this particular worm. And he bought a whole new PC rather than simply doing a clean installation!!! I would say grade B at best - no, make that a fail, since his computer is completely non-functional. He didn't even consult someone who knew what they were doing before buying a new PC. That's like servicing your own car leaving out the bits you don't understand, then buying a new car because someone let the tyres down and you can't work out how to use the jack and can't find the manual. > ... He made sure to use e-mail on the Web rather than a program that > downloads it ... He avoided installing instant messenger... This is just FUD, it's quite possible to download mail and use instant messaging safely. Everything has risks, but you inform yourself about them, take precautions and carry on with life. You do make backups, don't you? Phil McKerracher www.mckerracher.org ------------------------------ Date: 16 Oct 2004 19:59:15 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Verizon Planning 3-Million FTTH Cnnections (Fiber to the Home) Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > [As an aside, fiber optics technology is so inherently sweet that > although the terminating boxes may initially be expensive, there's no > reason at all that they have to continue to be so once a widespread > market develops and they become commodity items.] The price will certainly come down but they're unlikely ever to become as cheap as the boxes they use for copper POTS. One is that it'll always need some sort of transceiver to turn the outside fiber signal into whatever you use in the house. Even if it ends up being fiber to the TV or whatever, you can't just twist fibers together the way you can copper wire. You need a carefully manufactured and installed splitter and usually an amplifer since the amount of power in optical fiber is quite low. The other is power. Since the late 1800s, POTS phones have been line-powered which makes them quite reliable. Even if the city power goes out, the phones still work so long as there's power at the phone company central office. CO's usually have battery banks with a backup gas or diesel generator. If your FTTH phones are going to be anything like that reliable, the box will have to include a UPS, and the batteries in a quality UPS aren't cheap. 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 ------------------------------ From: Scott Peterson Subject: Re: Robot Dialer Question Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 21:31:28 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Reply-To: scottp4.removethistoreply@mindspring.com TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Scott Peterson : > Are you certain that if you hang up the > phone and wait 20-30 seconds the line won't release on its own? Even > that is irritating, but I can see why if you attempted to hang up and > then (after 5-10 seconds) lifted the receiver again, the party would > still be there. No 3-way calling, call waiting or other special features. I hung up the phone and picked it up at about 1-minute intervals just to see how long it would last. Scott Peterson As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in public schools. ------------------------------ From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Re: Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 04:20:42 GMT Organization: Road Runner - Columbia Well, maybe now that we are discussing it, they will rethink their approach. Whatever happened to 'The customer is always right'? Fred ------------------------------ From: Michael Muderick Subject: I Need a Long Distance Provider Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 02:49:34 -0400 My LD provider charges a monthly minimum. We don't always reach that minimum. I'm looking for a provider with a low per minute rate, calling card, and will let me take my 800 number from my other provider and no minumums or fees. I asked here about COGNI but got no responses. Has anyone heard of it? Do you have any other suggestions? Thanks, Michael Muderick ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 03:02:39 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Drivers Try an Anti-Photo Finish Pat, A couple of days ago you asked whether the sprays to prevent photographing license plates worked, and if so, how they did. These can be used by people who want to avoid tickets for speeding, running lights, or avoiding tolls. In some states such tickets have been overturned because the companies reading the film get a percentage of the fines, thus giving them a financial incentive and conflict of interest. I found the following in my files. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A222-2004Jul20.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A222-2004Jul20?language=3Dprinter washingtonpost.com Drivers Try an Anti-Photo Finish By Don Oldenburg Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 21, 2004; Page A01 If you inspected Will Foreman's SUV, you might notice how clean and shiny his Maryland license plates are. But you probably wouldn't detect the clear glossy coating the Howard County resident sprayed on them eight months ago to thwart traffic cameras from snapping readable photos of his tags. "It must work," says Foreman. He has not received a traffic camera ticket since using a $29.99 spray called PhotoBlocker. Foreman, owner of Eastover Auto Supply in Oxon Hill, also coated the plates of his eight delivery trucks. He says they previously drew $1,200 in photo-radar fines but none since the application. And he has had no complaints from customers who have bought about 700 cans of the spray at his shop. "If it didn't work, we would've heard about it," he says. Furman Eldridge of Cheverly bought PhotoBlocker a year ago as "a defense mechanism." He has enough faith in it that he says he gave a can to his pastor. "I've always been a law-abiding citizen," he says. "You don't want people speeding, but I don't think it should flash you if you're just going five miles over the limit." As jurisdictions increasingly turn to automated red-light and speed-radar cameras, products promising consumers stealth protection have multiplied. Dozens are on the market. In addition to the products' effectiveness, their use raises legal and ethical questions for consumers. Cheaper than radar detectors (which are illegal in the District and Virginia), sprays such as PhotoBlocker, Photo Fog ($24) and PhotoStopper ($19.99) are advertised as reflecting the flash back at automated cameras to overexpose the license plate. The photo is said to look like a picture taken with a flash in front of a mirror -- glared. Other products cover license plates with plastic shields. The Reflector ($19.95) uses reflective sparkles embedded in clear plastic. The PhotoShield ($25) uses a thin prismlike lens. The License Plate Loover ($8.95) blocks the camera's view with an angled louver effect. These products sell mostly online, although some have found their way to auto parts stores. PhotoBlocker, for instance, is sold online at PhantomPlate.com and at 10 independent auto supply dealers between Baltimore and Centreville -- and at one car wash. "It sells okay. If I could sell it for $5, I could sell a whole lot more," says Harold Berger, owner of Kenilworth Car Wash in Hyattsville. "The people who usually buy it have gotten tickets. People don't want to spend $30 unless they got burned. It's like paying for a ticket upfront, only less." Joe Scott, marketing director for PhantomPlate, the Alexandria firm that makes PhotoBlocker, says about 100,000 cans have sold in four years. And with traffic camera programs multiplying faster abroad than in the United States, his product is now sold on six continents. "Sales have been phenomenal," he says. The big questions are: Do these products work, and are they legal? Former Baltimore police officer Bob Kleebauer conducted his own road test. Late one night in March, he drove to the intersection where his wife got a photo-radar ticket. His license plate coated with PhotoBlocker, he waited until no cars were coming, then ran the light. He took that "$75 chance" because he believes red-light cameras are revenue traps targeting decent people, says Kleebauer, now a telecom salesman. "Ninety-nine percent of the drivers who get caught are law-abiding citizens who do it accidentally. You are approaching a yellow light and you have a tenth of a second to brake or go. Make the wrong decision and they got you." His test finding: "The flash went off behind me, but I've never received a ticket." The Denver Police Department, at the behest of Fox News, conducted a road test two years ago and found that PhotoBlocker was effective, plate covers less so. Similar results were found by TV news programs in Great Britain, Australia and Sweden. Five Washington area police departments declined to or didn't respond to requests that they conduct roadside tests for The Washington Post. Those who responded said they didn't have time and wouldn't want to promote a product that may be illegal or interferes with law enforcement. "We'd have to shut down the streets and traffic, and all of our red-light cameras are at major intersections," says Capt. David Mellender of the Fairfax City Police Department, which uses seven red-light cameras. "And if it does work, we don't want them to know about that." Fairfax County has 13 red-light cameras and plans to add two more by year's end. Bud Walker, an officer with the county's police department, says a field test "could be seen as an endorsement, and as a public institution we can't do that." Despite the television news tests, there's little consensus about the effectiveness. Ray "Radar Ray" Reyer, whose online firm Radarbuster.com sells Photo Fog and PhotoStopper, says roadside and weather conditions and camera angles can affect clarity. And the "flash-back" sprays have no effect against digital cameras that don't flash, like the ones Howard County recently began installing. "We would safely estimate 75 percent effectiveness," says Reyer, a retired 20-year veteran of the Maricopa County, Ariz., police department who markets mostly radar detectors. Speed Measurement Laboratories -- consultants to police departments and radar and radar-detector makers worldwide -- has tested most products designed to defeat photo enforcement, including car waxes and stealth sprays that claim to make cars "invisible to radar," photo-flash devices designed to flash back at cameras and the high-gloss tag sprays. "There's a lot of good people in the industry who are honest and a lot of charlatans. But it doesn't work, that's the bottom line," says Carl Fors, owner of the Fort Worth company. The bounce-back-the-flash concept does work sometimes, he says, but only on positive images traffic cameras produce. "If we reverse the image, go to a negative image, we can read every letter on a license plate," he says. Fors says the firms that make and operate radar camera systems and analyze the photos for municipalities routinely check negatives where license plates look unreadable. "Going to the negative image is no big deal," he says. PhotoBlocker's Scott concedes that adjusting the images can "sometimes" reveal the tag numbers, but "these companies will just throw out anything that's questionable. They don't want to have to dispute it in court and it's not cost-effective for them." Richard Kosina, director of engineering at Affiliated Computer Services, maker of most of the photo-radar cameras active in the District, Maryland and Virginia, says magnifying the image or adjusting brightness and contrast to make glared or blurred plate numbers legible is easy. But, he adds, those adjustments aren't usually necessary. "In the case of sprays, we know they don't work ... and we've tested every spray that's there," he says. Says Ray Reyer: "That's his perspective. There have been cities and towns that have banned the spray. Illinois just did. The reason they're doing this is because they're losing revenue. Why else would they?" For some law-abiding consumers, effectiveness may be a moot point. Many jurisdictions insist that such products are prohibited by laws that ban obstructing license plates. Ads for such products typically include a disclaimer about their legality. Anne Witt, director of the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles, thinks the products are "not legal in the District." D.C. laws require that license plates be "maintained free from foreign materials and in a clearly legible condition" and ban the attachment of anything that obstructs any part of the tag. The "illegible tag" fine is $50. The District's automated red-light and speed-enforcement programs are in full gear. Red-light cameras, now at 39 locations, have ticketed more than 450,000 drivers and collected $27 million in fines since the program's inception in 1999, according to the D.C. police Web site. The department's photo-radar speeding program, using mostly mobile cameras, has issued 993,000 tickets and collected more than $53.6 million since it began in 2001 -- including more than $10 million in 2004. Virginia outlaws any cover that obstructs the license plate, but the law doesn't specify clear spray coatings. However, Tim Murtaugh, spokesman for Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore, says state law bans "colored glass, colored plastic or any other type of covering" installed over a license plate in a way that alters or obscures. "We believe this would apply" to the sprays, he says. Scott argues that a loophole makes PhotoBlocker legal. "The law says you cannot obstruct your license plate," he says. "This spray only prevents a flash camera from taking a picture. If you look at it with the naked eye, you can't tell it's on there." Maryland's law is more specific, prohibiting "use, advertising and sale of license plate covers that distort a recorded image of any of the characters of a vehicle's registration plate recorded by a traffic control signal monitoring system." Says Kevin Enright, spokesman for Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr.: "There is no question that using these products is illegal under Maryland motor vehicle laws." John Carr, who has maintained a "State Traffic and Speed Law" Web site since 1997, says many states also have "very broad laws" about interfering with police. But Scott has another point to make: Even if laws target anti-photo sprays, police would be hard-pressed to identify who is using them. "There is no way to identify which plates are coated and which are not," he says. Copyright 2004 The Washington Post 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, Washington Post Company. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: David Clayton Subject: Re: Toshiba and 3-COM Ethernet Card Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 08:32:20 +1000 David Clayton contributed the following: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In the BIOS set up on the Toshiba > CDS-220 there is a toggle for 'PC Card Controller Mode' and the two > choices given are 'Card Bus/16-Bit' and 'PCIC Compatible'. Which would > you have me use? I am reasonably certain the 3-COM card is a 16 bit > card; at least it does not say '32-bit' on it as my other 3-COM card > (a model C575-TX) says on it. The C575-TX card does not respond at all > in the Toshiba; at least the 574 card did when I was running Win 95 on > that machine. Worked fine under Win 95, but admittedly it did not work > at first there either until an experienced person helped me with it, > but then the green light came on and all was well. > Now the green light still comes on (with Win 98) when I plug in the > eithernet cable, the machine still toots at me when the card is > (un)plugged in or out, but no data goes anywhere. I got the 574 driver > from the 3-COM site on another machine, put it on a floppy, then > installed the floppy in the Toshiba. When I installed the driver I > told Win 98 I had the disk, and directed its attention to 'A', where > it loaded up just fine. At least when I installed it, when finished > the computer tooted and the green light came on. Properties has no > yellow exclamations or red X marks. What is still going wrong? PAT] I'd try deleting the PCMCIA controller in Win 98, then do a re-boot and let it auto-install again. Do this after you change those BIOS settings (if you want to experiment with them) -- the Cardbus mode is the later one and probably should be ok but it may be worth trying the other option. I've experienced "weird" things with the PCMCIA stuff on laptops where it looks ok but just doesn't work properly, and sometimes letting Windows re-install it with the hardware auto-detect process helped. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@XYZ.myrealbox.com Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. (Remove the "XYZ." to reply) Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Here is an oddity for you: on a hunch, I took the NetGear Wireless 802.11 card out of its regular home in the IBM Think Pad where it normally resides and tried it in the Toshiba. When I had Win 95 in the Toshiba the computer totally ignored the NetGear wireless card; would not deal with it at all, despite loading the drivers, etc. But in the same installation of Win 98 which is there now, the Toshiba took to it immediatly. I loaded the drivers on the CD, bingo, it started right up. Ditto, another card I have here called 'Xircom Combination Ethernet/56 K Modem' (for which I also have a CD with drivers.) Not only that, but when Windows Update saw the Xircom card it produced an updated driver for it from a couple years ago. Meanwhile, the two 3-COM Ethernet cards will *not* work in the Toshiba 220-CDS under Win 98, although the older one of the two (model C874-TX) did work in the Toshiba under Win 95 with some effort. The two 3-COM cards do work just fine in the IBM Think Pads however. I never fail to be amazed and perplexed by computers. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 22:33:21 -0700 From: R. Jones Subject: Re: Toshiba and 3-COM Ethernet Card (1) Do not publish any of my e-mail addresses, including those that may show up on this message. (2) It sounds like you have the network card drivers installed but have not gone into Start Menu -> Control Panel -> Network and setup a TCP/IP protocol to talk to the new ethernet card. Without that, and maybe one or two other similar items in the network control panel box, you would see things like you have described. Good luck. TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to David Clayton: > TELECOM Digest Editor contributed the > following: >> Anyone know why the ethernet card can see the network okay, but the >> computer cannot see the ethernet card? (Well, it apparently can see >> the card, it toots when the card goes in or out, etc.) I will >> appreciate any answers. > I seem to remember that there were two "modes" for the PCMCIA > controller in the PC, one an older mode and a newer one that didn't > work with some older PCMCIA cards (PCMCIA vs "Cardbus" mode maybe, I > can't really recall ...) > I cannot remember exactly where you changed it -- I think in BIOS when > the laptop starts up -- but it may be worth having a look for this sort > of thing somewhere. > Regards, > David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@XYZ.myrealbox.com > Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. > (Remove the "XYZ." to reply) > Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag > you down to their level then beat you with experience. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In the BIOS set up on the Toshiba > CDS-220 there is a toggle for 'PC Card Controller Mode' and the two > choices given are 'Card Bus/16-Bit' and 'PCIC Compatible'. Which would > you have me use? I am reasonably certain the 3-COM card is a 16 bit > card; at least it does not say '32-bit' on it as my other 3-COM card > (a model C575-TX) says on it. The C575-TX card does not respond at all > in the Toshiba; at least the 574 card did when I was running Win 95 on > that machine. Worked fine under Win 95, but admittedly it did not work > at first there either until an experienced person helped me with it, > but then the green light came on and all was well. > Now the green light still comes on (with Win 98) when I plug in the > eithernet cable, the machine still toots at me when the card is > (un)plugged in or out, but no data goes anywhere. I got the 574 driver > from the 3-COM site on another machine, put it on a floppy, then > installed the floppy in the Toshiba. When I installed the driver I > told Win 98 I had the disk, and directed its attention to 'A', where > it loaded up just fine. At least when I installed it, when finished > the computer tooted and the green light came on. Properties has no > yellow exclamations or red X marks. What is still going wrong? PAT] ------------------------------ From: GlowingBlueMist Subject: Re: Toshiba and 3-COM Ethernet Card Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 02:35:27 -0500 TELECOM Digest Editor wrote in message news:telecom23.488.16@telecom-digest.org: > Most of you know I have a mish-mash of a network here, with a > combination of various *old* computers running Win 98 and Win-2000, > and a NetGear router. Here is today's dilemma: > My very old, original computer is a Toshiba 220 CDS laptop. It was > running with Win 95 until a few days ago. Dreadfully slow and small, > with only 123 megs processing speed, and 32,512 KB memory (circa > 1995-96) when it booted up. Under Win 95, it was hooked into my > overall network with a 3-COM card, PCMCIA type, model 574-TX. (I think > that is a 16 bit card. ) It was working fine, the Toshiba could see > the internet, and the rest of the LAN as well. > I formatted the hard drive, and started over, to upgrade this computer > to a Win 98. All went pretty well, although it is still a very > sluggish, older computer. But, the 3-COM ethernet connection is not > working. I've tried installing it a few times, I have the driver for > it from 3-COM and the little green light on it tells me it is working > (the '100' is lighted. The computer toots when I remove or install the > hardware. Properties tells me the driver is correctly installed. The > icon for the slots tells me the 3-Com card is there.) But, it just > won't work! ipconfig and winipcfg both claim there is no card in the > slot. When I attempt to configure things to use the LAN instead of the > dialup modem (also a PCMCIA card in the slot right above the Ethernet > card) it won't be allowed. By the way, the modem PCMCIA card works > fine. > Anyone know why the ethernet card can see the network okay, but the > computer cannot see the ethernet card? (Well, it apparently can see > the card, it toots when the card goes in or out, etc.) I will > appreciate any answers. > PAT I have had similar problems upgrading older hardware to W98 myself and found that I had the least problems when I pulled all of optional cards from the case, like modem, Ethernet, game port cards, sound card, and then do a fresh install of W98, not an upgrade. Start with the minimum needed to get the computer to read your W98 system disk and start a fresh install. Once the computer was a working W98 box I would power down and install ONE of the cards, usually the sound card if I am using one. Power up and let the system find and install the sound card. Shut the system down and repeat the procedure with the Ethernet card. Continue in this fashion until all accessory cards are installed and working. My usual problems with installing W98 in older boxes is a mixture of interrupts and memory conflicts that W98 was not able to sort out when all of the cards were installed prior to installing W98 OS. Much of the older hardware was not fully plug and play compatible but by adding one of the cards at a time you can usually make W98 figure out a card conflict and deal with it before you proceed with the next card. I know it's time consuming to install a system this way but it's worth a try and it has kept me from trashing some older equipment that worked just fine after loading it the "one-card-at-a-time" way. ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Share Day For October, 2004 Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 22:00:00 EDT 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. 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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 #494 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Oct 18 12:57:53 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9IGvrv23739; Mon, 18 Oct 2004 12:57:53 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 12:57:53 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410181657.i9IGvrv23739@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 #495 TELECOM Digest Mon, 18 Oct 2004 12:57:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 495 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #453, October 18, 2004 (Angus TeleManagement) Re: AMTRAK (was Re: Last Laugh! A Nice Place to Work!) (Joel M. Hoffman) Re: AMTRAK (was Re: Last Laugh! A Nice Place to Work!) (Scott Dorsey) Re: AMTRAK (was Re: Last Laugh! A Nice Place to Work!) (Dave VanHorn) Re: Radio Questions (Nick Ruark) Re: Radio Questions (John Levine) Re: Radio Questions (Steve Sobol) Re: Radio Questions (Gene S. Berkowitz) Re: Radio Questions (jdj) Re: Radio Questions (Withheld on Request) XM Radio; One Roady in Car, One in Home; Same Subscription (T Williams) Re: I Need a Long Distance Provider (Joseph) Re: Click Fraud Threatens Web (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) 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. 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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, 18 Oct 2004 10:13:19 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #453, October 18, 2004 ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 453: October 18, 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: ** Telus Abandons Microcell Bid ** Canada's Telecom Industry Profiled ** Bell Targets Fido Customers ** FCC Sets Powerline Broadband Rules ** Bell Mobility, Aliant Launch Video Messaging ** Area Code 226 to Overlay 519 ** Comments on 2500-2690 MHz Spectrum Allocation ** Court Orders CRTC to Reveal Staff Memo ** Rogers Completes AT&T Wireless Purchase ** AirIQ Buys Marine Communications Firm ** Nortel Postpones Flextronics Transfer ** Local Rates Increase in Cochrane ** TeraGo Starts Edmonton Service ** Vonage Canada Names Sales VP ** Correction--B.C. Area Code Meeting ** Taming Your Wireless Bills ============================================================ JOIN US THIS WEEK AT TELEMANAGEMENT LIVE! Don't miss Canada's premier conference on business telecommunications and networking, Wednesday & Thursday, October 20-21, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre South. ** Conference Sessions: Wednesday 8:15-5:00, Thursday, 8:15- 3:30 ** Networking Party featuring Saturday Nite Fish Fry: Wednesday 5:00-9:00 (Steam Whistle) ** Exhibits Open: Wednesday & Thursday, Noon-5:00 Register now: 1-866-309-2227 or www.telemanagementlive.com ============================================================ TELUS ABANDONS MICROCELL BID: Telus let its offer for Microcell shares expire on October 12 and canceled a related $500 million Royal Bank line of credit. CFO Robert MacFarlane said that Telus believes that Rogers' higher offer would be accepted by Microcell shareholders. CANADA'S TELECOM INDUSTRY PROFILED: Industry Canada's new report on "Telecommunications Service in Canada: an Industry Overview," covering the years 1997-2003, is downloadable from the Department's website. http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/insmt-gst.nsf/en/sf05637e.html BELL TARGETS FIDO CUSTOMERS: In a bid to steal Microcell's biggest-spending customers before Rogers takes over the company, Bell Mobility is offering Fido customers a free camera phone and free local service for one year if they sign a three-year contract at $45/month. FCC SETS POWERLINE BROADBAND RULES: The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has adopted new rules it says will "encourage the development of Access Broadband over Power Line (Access BPL) systems while safeguarding existing licensed services against harmful interference." http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-253125A1.doc BELL MOBILITY, ALIANT LAUNCH VIDEO MESSAGING: Bell Mobility and Aliant now offer a Samsung camcorder/cellphone that can capture up to 15 seconds of moving picture and sound and transmit the clip to another phone or an e-mail address. Price (Bell): $299 and up, plus 75 cents/message. AREA CODE 226 TO OVERLAY 519: The Canadian Numbering Administrator has assigned 226 as an overlay code for the 519 area in southwestern Ontario. The new code, and 10-digit local dialing, will be implemented on October 14, 2006. COMMENTS ON 2500-2690 MHz SPECTRUM ALLOCATION: Industry Canada has posted comments it has received on "Revisions to Allocations in the Band 2500-2690 MHz and Consultation on Spectrum Utilization." http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/insmt-gst.nsf/en/sf06357e.html COURT ORDERS CRTC TO REVEAL STAFF MEMO: The Federal Court of Appeal has ordered the CRTC to provide Telus with a copy of a Staff Memorandum which "may have affected" the Commission's ruling that partnership revenues must be included in calculating a carrier's share of CRTC telecommunications fees (Telecom Circular 2004-3). http://decisions.fca-caf.gc.ca/fca/2004/2004fca317.shtml www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Circulars/2004/ct2004-3.htm ROGERS COMPLETES AT&T WIRELESS PURCHASE: Rogers Communications has completed the purchase of AT&T Wireless's 34% stake in its wireless subsidiary for $1.8 billion in cash. (See Telecom Update #448) AIRIQ BUYS MARINE COMMUNICATIONS FIRM: Telematics provider AirIQ has completed the purchase of Boatracs, a California- based marine communications firm, for US$5 million. NORTEL POSTPONES FLEXTRONICS TRANSFER: Nortel Networks says its ongoing financial restatement efforts will delay the transfer of manufacturing sites in Canada to Flextronics by three months. Facilities in Montreal and Calgary will be transferred in the first and second quarters of 2005, respectively. (See Telecom Update #440) LOCAL RATES INCREASE IN COCHRANE: CRTC Telecom Order 2004-345 approves an application by the Cochrane Municipal Telephone System to increase its monthly rates for individual business lines from $36 to $39, and for urban residential individual line from $19.80 to $20.75. www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Orders/2004/o2004-345.htm TERAGO STARTS EDMONTON SERVICE: Wireless broadband provider TeraGo Networks has launched service in Edmonton, its fifteenth centre, and obtained $2.5 million in equity financing. VONAGE CANADA NAMES SALES VP: Vonage Canada has appointed Darrin Lamont its Vice-President of Sales and Customer Operations. Lamont was previously with Sprint Canada, Bell, and Group Telecom. CORRECTION--B.C. AREA CODE MEETING: Telecom Update #452 gave an incorrect location for the October 21-22 meeting on the future of Area Code 250. The meeting will be held in Kelowna, B.C. www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Notices/2004/pt2004-4.htm TAMING YOUR WIRELESS BILLS: Fed up with out-of-control bills for corporate wireless voice and data services? A feature report in this month's Telemanagement provides guidelines for the tools and methods needed to manage the high cost of mobility. Also in this issue: ** A New Voice for Business Customers: Lis Angus interviews the chair of the Coalition for Competitive Telecommunications Pricing ** John Riddell examines open-source alternatives for IP-PBXs and IP-Centrex. Subscribers to Telemanagement Online can read this issue online now. For a one-year subscription, including unlimited access to Telemanagement's extensive online content, visit www.angustel.ca/teleman/tm-sub-online.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. 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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, 18 Oct 2004 13:17:08 GMT From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Subject: Re: AMTRAK (was Re: Last, Sad Laugh! A Nice Place to Work!) Organization: Excelsior Computer Services > doable, if a bit of a long day. It strikes me that one of our biggest > voluntary economic disadvantages is our failure to maintain and > improve a strong rail infrastructure. I'm sure you can find the full story on-line without much trouble. The short version is that the U.S.'s lack of a strong rail infrastructure is, in fact, by design. Detroit auto manufacturers and the truck-driver unions combined to dismantle the rail network that existed in this country and to pour money into building motorways instead of railways. The result is that we have great highways in the U.S. and not nearly as much rail as we used to (and terrible train service on what's left). -Joel ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: AMTRAK (was Re: Last, Sad Laugh! A Nice Place to Work!) Date: 18 Oct 2004 10:52:18 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) In article , John McHarry wrote: > Lisa Hancock wrote: >> For some reason Amtrak, which takes up a miniscule part of the Federal >> budget (1% of DOT, let alone the whole fed), seems to be the target of >> deficit haters and the "reform govt" movements. Yet, they ignore >> abuses like the aviation industry. >> Both sides of the political aisle have their pet projects and their >> pet dislikes. Amtrak happens to fall through the cracks. IMHO, solid >> funding of Amtrak would take some of the overcrowding off highways and >> airports (on short haul routes, obviously) saving the taxpayer money. > It is also the easiest way to move up and down the Eastern Corridor. I > took the Metroliner between DC and Newark a couple times shortly after > 9/11. For that distance it is about as fast, and less expensive, than > flying, if you are going to the city center. A day trip is easily > doable, if a bit of a long day. It strikes me that one of our biggest > voluntary economic disadvantages is our failure to maintain and > improve a strong rail infrastructure. It is a _great_ way to move up and down the Eastern Corridor, especially on short notice. It's also a pretty good way to get up and down the west coast. It is a _terrible_ way to go anywhere else. East-west trips are next to impossible to schedule, and there are a lot of towns (like mine) that get only one or two trains a day. And out here, Amtrak does not own the tracks but uses Norfolk Southern tracks on a secondary basis. This means you can occasionally get behind a freight train and find a four hour trip taking ten hours. scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: Dave VanHorn Subject: Re: AMTRAK (was Re: Last, Sad Laugh! A Nice Place to Work!) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 10:24:47 -0500 > It is also the easiest way to move up and down the Eastern Corridor. I > took the Metroliner between DC and Newark a couple times shortly after > 9/11. For that distance it is about as fast, and less expensive, than > flying, if you are going to the city center. A day trip is easily > doable, if a bit of a long day. It strikes me that one of our biggest > voluntary economic disadvantages is our failure to maintain and > improve a strong rail infrastructure. Out here in the midwest, the train is essentially unusable, even though I live in a town that only exists at all, because of the confluence of rail lines. (Muncie Indiana) The cost, and inconvenience of booking a trip by rail out here is just insane. KC6ETE Dave's Engineering Page, www.dvanhorn.org Microcontroller Consultant, specializing in Atmel AVR ------------------------------ From: Nick Ruark Subject: Re: Radio Questions Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 18:08:30 -0700 Lelannie and Pat ... The call sign of the Pittsburgh station was and is KDKA. http://kdkaradio.com/history.shtml For more info on the history of broadcast radio, visit: http://www.fcc.gov/omd/history/radio/ http://earlyradiohistory.us/ http://www.oldradio.com/ http://home.luna.nl/~arjan-muil/radio/history.html http://history.acusd.edu/gen/recording/radio.html Unfortunately, with a few exceptions, of course, there's really not much worth listening to these days. (Big sigh!) Nick Ruark From: Lelannie55@yahoo.com (Lelannie) Subject: Radio Questions Date: 16 Oct 2004 22:31:47 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com > Hi, > I am very interested in the history of radio and I was wondering if > anyone knew where the first radio station in the United States was > located? Thank you so much for all your help with my question. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I believe it was in Pittsburgh, PA > in 1921. Unlike the rules today, where 'W' is east of the Mississippi > River, and 'K' stations are to the west of the same river, the station > in Pittsburgh was K-something, but I have forgotten its call sign > for sure. Another early station, perhaps the second, was WBBM in > Chicago, which began as a ham/shortwave station several years earlier > in Joliet, Illinois, but it became an *official* broadcasting station > when its owner got his license from the Federal Radio Commission (the > precursor to the present time FCC) to use the call sign WBBM and moved > his operation to the Broadmoor Hotel on the north side of Chicago, > also in 1921. PAT] Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Is yours? Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.778 / Virus Database: 525 - Release Date: 10/15/2004 ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 2004 01:22:57 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Radio Questions Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > I am very interested in the history of radio and I was wondering if > anyone knew where the first radio station in the United States was > located? Thank you so much for all your help with my question. Gee, I thought everyone knew that the first commercial broadcast radio station in the US was Westinghouse's KDKA which went on the air on 2 Nov 1920, broadcasting the the returns of the Cox-Harding election. Westinghouse engineer Frank Conrad had been experimenting broadcasting since October 1919 when amateur radio, shut down during WW I, resumed. The strong positive reaction to his material (everything from records to sports scores to his kids playing the piano) led Westinghouse to set up a commercial station. See http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/milestones_photos/kdka.html KDKA is still on the air, and I'm sure they'll be broadcasting election returns on 2 Nov 2004. If you're including non-commercial morse code stations, there were some earlier government stations including the predecessor to WWV. I don't know which one of those was first. ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Radio Questions Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 18:48:58 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Lelannie: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I believe it was in Pittsburgh, PA > in 1921. Unlike the rules today, where 'W' is east of the Mississippi > River, and 'K' stations are to the west of the same river, the station > in Pittsburgh was K-something, but I have forgotten its call sign > for sure. 1020 KDKA, still in operation today. Also KDKA-TV 2. Owned by CBS/Viacom. http://www.kdka.com/ (TV) http://www.kdkaradio.com/ (AM) Oddly enough, KYW-TV 3 in Philadelphia is also owned by Viacom!!!! KYW was an NBC owned-and-operated outlet for almost 50 years. KYW was another East Coast station that has K calls. I don't recall whether KYW started out in Cleveland, but it was in Cleveland at one point and NBC moved the calls to Philadelphia. 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: Gene S. Berkowitz Subject: Re: Radio Questions Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 22:49:38 -0400 In article , Lelannie55@yahoo.com says: > Hi, > I am very interested in the history of radio and I was wondering if > anyone knew where the first radio station in the United States was > located? Thank you so much for all your help with my question. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I believe it was in Pittsburgh, PA > in 1921. Unlike the rules today, where 'W' is east of the Mississippi > River, and 'K' stations are to the west of the same river, the station > in Pittsburgh was K-something, but I have forgotten its call sign > for sure. That would be KDKA, on Election Night, 2-Nov-1920. > Another early station, perhaps the second, was WBBM in > Chicago, which began as a ham/shortwave station several years earlier > in Joliet, Illinois, but it became an *official* broadcasting station > when its owner got his license from the Federal Radio Commission (the > precursor to the present time FCC) to use the call sign WBBM and moved > his operation to the Broadmoor Hotel on the north side of Chicago, > also in 1921. PAT] WBZ was the first _commercially licensed_ station, and began broadcasting 19-Sep-1921, from E. Springfield, MA. They later moved the studio to Boston, and the transmitter was eventually relocated to Hull, MA, a peninsula east of Boston. --Gene ------------------------------ From: jdj Subject: Re: Radio Questions Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 23:40:20 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com On Sat, 16 Oct 2004 22:31:47 -0700, Lelannie wrote: > Hi, > I am very interested in the history of radio and I was wondering if > anyone knew where the first radio station in the United States was > located? Thank you so much for all your help with my question. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I believe it was in Pittsburgh, PA in > 1921. Unlike the rules today, where 'W' is east of the Mississippi > River, and 'K' stations are to the west of the same river, the station > in Pittsburgh was K-something, but I have forgotten its call sign for > sure. Another early station, perhaps the second, was WBBM in Chicago, > which began as a ham/shortwave station several years earlier in Joliet, > Illinois, but it became an *official* broadcasting station when its > owner got his license from the Federal Radio Commission (the precursor > to the present time FCC) to use the call sign WBBM and moved his > operation to the Broadmoor Hotel on the north side of Chicago, also in > 1921. PAT] The first radio station? Or the first broadcast station? As far as I can tell the very first radio communications were in New York City with Tesla's devices. He demonstrated a wireless controlled boat at the New York World's Fair sometime well before Marconi's effort. There were a few other experimenters who went largely unacknowleged and then Marconi came along. Seems the first broadcast was from San Jose California: See radio history at: http://www.oldradio.com/ http://www.tvhandbook.com/History/History_radio.htm http://bayradio.blogspot.com/ See also San Francisco radio history at: http://www.oldradio.com/archives/stations/sf/articles.htm Charles Herrold broadcast voice and music beginning in 1909 in San Jose: http://www.oldradio.com/archives/stations/sf/kqw.htm http://www.charlesherrold.org/ http://www.californiahistoricalradio.com/history.html A site repeating the "official radio history", puts Herrold's broadcasts in 1912 and omits mention of key contributions by such people as Tesla: http://history.acusd.edu/gen/recording/radio.html The Douglas Perham Collection has artifacts from the early days of radio and a light bulb given him at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair by George Westinghouse: http://www.perham.org/Moving.html If anyone has the opportunity, check the Clive Arbuckle historical archives for photos and more info on old communications technology and people in Santa Clara County. I learned in school (a California school, no less) that nothing useful ever came out of California except gold, food and perhaps movies. It was still the wild, wild west in the 1960's and 1970's and there were a lot of Mexicans dancing around hats. What a waste. (And they wonder why kids don't like school?) But Lee De Forest was here, in Menlo Park, next to Palo Alto, not far from San Francisco. The official textbooks say he was in Menlo Park, New Jersey hanging out with Edison. The first broadcast station was here, and perhaps the first amateur station as well, though I understand that the ARRL considers Hiram Maxim to be the first amateur radio operator and vehemently objects to anything and anyone disagreeing. ------------------------------ From: Name/email Withheld on Request Subject: Radio Questions Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 23:27:40 -0400 Hi Pat, Please feel free to pass this web site along. It will answer everything the fellow is asking about the first broadcast station, and a whole lot more. I would appreciate that my name and e-mail not be included. Just pass the link along if you think it appropriate. http://www.johnmartinmyrick.com/history.htm ------------------------------ From: dejausenet@yahoo.com (Tom Williams) Subject: XM Radio; One Roady in Car, One in Home; Same Subscription Date: 18 Oct 2004 03:59:42 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I have XM service, using it in car to avoid having to carry roady back and forth to home, thinking of getting used second roady unit for use in home. Is it possible to have second unit on in home, on same one subscription? At no additional cost? If not, how much to have second subscription for home use? Thanks, t ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: I Need a Long Distance Provider Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 07:14:43 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Sat, 16 Oct 2004 02:49:34 -0400, Michael Muderick wrote: > My LD provider charges a monthly minimum. We don't always reach that > minimum. I'm looking for a provider with a low per minute rate, > calling card, and will let me take my 800 number from my other > provider and no minumums or fees. I asked here about COGNI but got no > responses. Has anyone heard of it? Do you have any other suggestions? The best comparison site that I've found is A Bell Tolls http://abtolls.com which compares many different LD providers. It also shows real costs per minute instead of just the advertised cost per minute. Also will take into account the USF. Also indicates the monthly costs (if any) to use the different services. As far as toll-free that also varies from company to company. For calling card use you are probably better to find a card that will provide a good rate separate from what your long distance provider provides. Not always but some of the companies you may find with abtolls may have good calling card rates as well. It will take a little bit of sleuthing, but you will be able to find a good rate without paying a monthly "privilege" fee to use the service. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 13:04:17 GMT From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Subject: Re: Click Fraud Threatens Web Organization: Excelsior Computer Services >> Someone could make the argument that watchdogs have better things to >> do. But click fraud -- endlessly clicking on ads to generate cash or >> hurt a competitor -- is a serious threat to the web business, and no > Let sites like Overture and Google be held legally responsible for > fraud and watch how fast they suddenly find ways to plug the leaks. I don't know. Aren't these ads similar to 800-numbers? A company agrees to incur a minor charge (the cost of a click or the cost of a phone call) in return for ease in promoting a product? Who's responsibility is it to prove phone fraud with toll-free numbers? -Joel ------------------------------ 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 #495 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Oct 18 14:37:48 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9IIblv24886; Mon, 18 Oct 2004 14:37:48 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 14:37:48 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410181837.i9IIblv24886@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 #496 TELECOM Digest Mon, 18 Oct 2004 14:38:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 496 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson New Search Tool, New Privacy Issues (Marcus Didius Falco) FCC Approves New Broadband Hookups (Marcus Didius Falco) DISH Network Viewers to Receive Unique Election Coverage (Monty Solomon) SBC Communications Announces $1.99 Monthly Wi-Fi Pricing (Monty Solomon) Car Computer Hobbyists Hack XM Radio (Monty Solomon) InfoUSA Acquires DialTel Corporation (distribution@eworldwire.com) Lee's ABC of the Telephone (Jason) Wi-Fi Successor Called High-Speed Hype, for Now (Yahoo!News) Routing to VOIP, was Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage (Danny Burstein) Re: Let Caller Beware / Homework Here Pays in Wireless Service (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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 23:21:56 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: New Search Tool; New Privacy Issues Specific privacy issues in the last couple of paragraphs of the first story and in the second story http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34099-2004Oct14.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34099-2004Oct14?language=3Dprinter Google's New Tool Brings Search Home Free Download Scans PC, Web or Both By Leslie Walker and David A. Vise Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, October 15, 2004 Google Inc. released free software yesterday that lets people simultaneously search the Web and their personal computers for information, a move analysts described as a potential blow to rivals Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. in the race to woo more searchers. Google Desktop Search offers what Microsoft has been trying to develop for more than a year -- the ability to let people enter one search term and see files relevant to that topic from both their computers and the Web displayed together. "This gives Google a huge first-mover advantage in desktop search," said Charlene Li, principal search analyst for Forrester Research, a market research firm. She predicted the software would be especially popular with heavy computer users, who store many files on their machines and need help sifting through them. "It's ironic that until now, it's been easier to search 6 billion documents on the Internet than it has been to find a single file on your hard drive," Li said. Google's new software, available as a download from desktop.google.com, not only indexes the full text of e-mail messages and word processing documents, it also gives people the option of creating a searchable archive of all Web pages they visit and all instant messages they send and receive with America Online Inc. software. "The goal for the application was for it to behave like a photographic memory for your computer," said Marissa Mayer, Google's director of consumer Web products. "So in addition to being able to search all of the files on your computer, it also indexes the Web pages you have seen." Some privacy advocates raised concerns about the new software, since the product indexes everything from online communications to files stored on a personal computer. Google said no documents from any user's computer would be sent to the company, stored on its computers or saved anywhere on the Web. And the company noted that the software gives users the ability to block it from recording online chats and visits to Web sites, and separately provides a way for people to turn it off for 15-minute intervals. But Gary Price, a search specialist who runs a Web reference site called ResourceShelf.com, said the new archiving capability could raise privacy issues by making it easier for someone to sit down at a person's computer and snoop through his hard drive. That could be troubling in the workplace, he said: "In a couple of minutes, people can search your entire computer your documents." David M. Burns, chief executive of Copernic Technologies Inc., which recently released its own free desktop search product, said his company spurned the idea of combining Web and computer searches for privacy reasons. When people are looking for private material, they may unwittingly choose the unified search option, he said, which will send their keyword over the Internet to run a Web search at Google. "I don't think people will like having their private keyword sent over the public Internet," Burns said. The new Google software is the company's first major innovation since its initial public offering in August, when it sold shares to investors for $85 each. Yesterday, Google stock closed at $142, up $1.10. Analysts who tested the software say it is simple and fast, partly because it operates the same way Google does on the World Wide Web, by creating an index of the files it finds in advance and then searching that index when someone enters a query. That makes it speedier than the approach used by the search software built into Windows. Google's new product is "very, very good," said Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, an online newsletter that tracks the search engine industry. Sullivan said one of its most useful features is the way that it stored a copy of all the pages he visited online recently and then made that personal Web surfing history available to him. "It improves your Web searching," Sullivan said. "This leaves me feeling that integrated search really is useful." In the past month, both Yahoo and Ask Jeeves Inc. have released personalized search services that let users create archives of their Web surfing histories. But unlike Google's new software, those approaches store the files online, rather than on a user's computer, as Google does, and do not include desktop search. Dulles-based America Online is testing a new technology for desktop search that it anticipates releasing next month, a company official confirmed. Google's release of the software ahead of Microsoft and the others may pose a problem for competitors, Sullivan said, because the personal archiving capability likely will grow more valuable to users over time, making it harder to switch to another search engine product. But Jim Lanzone, vice president of products for Ask Jeeves, said Google's head start gives it a limited edge. Ask Jeeves, for instance, plans to release its own offering before the end of the year. "Desktop search is in its very early stages," he said. "There is not an immediate mass market for this." While Microsoft has been promising to develop a new desktop search product, the company has pushed back its timetable. "Our focus is on helping consumers get faster, cleaner and easier access to the information they want, not on what other companies are doing," said Justin Osmer, product manager for Microsoft's MSN division. "We plan to offer desktop search with updates to our existing service within the next year." Microsoft does have software to search e-mails but has not unveiled a way for users to simultaneously search computer files and the Internet. "This is a big challenge," Osmer said. Yahoo said it also is exploring desktop search software. "Yahoo remains highly focused on evolving our products to empower users to manage all their digital content wherever it may reside -- the Web, desktop or Yahoo," said spokeswoman Stephanie Ichinose. Google's product works only on computers running Windows XP or 2000. It indexes the full text of certain documents, including those created in Microsoft's Outlook and Outlook Express e-mail programs, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. With other files, such as photographs and music, it simply indexes the file name. People who install the desktop software can run Google searches a number of different ways -- looking for files stored only on their computers, for files stored only on the Internet or for a mixture of both. Google, which profits by showing ads related to Web queries, does not plan to place ads beside search results from personal computers. However, Google will show ads beside Web results when users choose to see results from both the Internet and their computers. Mayer said early testing shows that most people will use the new software to search the Internet and their personal computers simultaneously, which will add to the number of Internet searches done through Google. "As a result, we will serve more Web results pages and more ads, and those ads have more chances of getting clicked on. So there will be incremental Web search revenue from this product," Mayer said. Once the Google search technology is installed on a personal computer, it will transmit basic data daily to the company about usage patterns. For example, it will tell the company how often Google is being used to search personal computers, how often it is used to search the Web, and how often simultaneous searches are done. Mayer said that daily feed will not, however, transmit any personal information to Google, adding that it is typical for major software programs to capture similar data. Users can also opt out of sending some usage data back to Google, though not all of it. "This is the most personal information Google has ever dealt with," Mayer said of the new desktop search technology. "We take user privacy and user trust very seriously. And we have throughout the entire development of this product." Copyright 2004 The Washington Post 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, Washington Post Company. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34098-2004Oct14.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34098-2004Oct14?language=3Dprinter ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 23:22:23 -0400 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: FCC Approves New Broadband Hookups http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34100-2004Oct14.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34100-2004Oct14?language=3Dprinter washingtonpost.com FCC Approves New Broadband Hookups Internet Connections to Use Power Lines By Yuki Noguchi Washington Post Staff Writer The Federal Communications Commission yesterday approved nationwide deployment of new technology that carries high-speed Internet connections over electric power lines. "Broadband-over-powerline" allows subscribers to connect to the Internet by plugging a modem into a conventional electrical outlet. Supporters said it could become a major alternative to cable modem and phone connections if FCC approval helps it attracts investment and the participation of major utility companies. "The impact is significant," said William Berkman, chairman of Current Communications Group, a five-year-old Germantown company. Current already has pilot projects offering the service to 5,000 customers in Cincinnati and several dozen in Potomac. Berkman said the company plans to introduce the service in parts of the Washington area within a year for $30 to $50 a month. The FCC had limited the new technology to pilot projects while it studied the concerns of critics, including amateur radio operators who said it could interfere with their signals. The FCC unanimously approved wider use of the technology after finding that the interference was manageable. It also set rules for monitoring interference. "The presence of a third universal broadband connection will mean a robust= choice for consumers and strong, healthy competition," FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell said in a written statement. On Tuesday, Powell took a tour of Manassas, where the technology is used. Commissioner Michael J. Copps expressed concern that wider deployment could still run into problems, and he raised the question of whether the customers of power companies would be subsidizing a new business. But he voted to approve the deal, saying he hoped it would drive down the price of broadband. Although the new technology would be installed on the lines of major utilities, which would share in the revenue, it is being developed and marketed by a number of upstart companies such as Current. The company is privately held by investors led by Berkman and his family, who have been major investors in the cable and telecom industries. Other investors include Liberty Media Corp., a major cable programming company and a group of power companies. Current has raised $70 million. It partners with Potomac Electric Power Co. and Cinergy Corp., which give it access to their power grids. Current installs devices on the network that allow electricity and Internet signals to travel at different frequencies over the same wire. Other companies offering similar technology include Main.net Communications Ltd. of Israel, Amperion Inc. of Andover, Mass., and Ameren Corp. of St.Louis. Copyright 2004 The Washington Post 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 the Washington Post Company. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 08:02:40 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: DISH Network Viewers to Receive Unique Election Coverage DISH Network Viewers to Receive Unique Election Coverage from Six Networks on One TV Channel; Viewers Can 'Vote' For Favorite Candidate in Special Cell Phone Poll - Oct 18, 2004 06:00 AM (BusinessWire) ENGLEWOOD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 18, 2004--EchoStar Communications Corporation (NASDAQ:DISH) announced today that its DISH Network(TM) satellite TV service is teaming with six networks to create unique coverage of the upcoming U.S. elections. Viewers will be able to watch national and state election coverage simultaneously from the six networks on a single TV screen. They also can easily select an individual network and view its coverage in full-screen format. The networks are CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, CSPAN, MTV: Music Television and Comedy Central, providing a variety of election coverage to meet the needs of a diverse audience. The interactive television (ITV) application, called DISH Network Election 2004 Coverage, is the first use of ITV multiple picture-in-picture technology for election coverage in the United States. From Monday, Oct. 25, through Friday, Nov. 5, DISH Network Election 2004 Coverage will be free to more than 9 million DISH Network customers with access to "dish home" ITV service. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44324291 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 08:03:24 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: SBC Communications Announces $1.99 Monthly Wi-Fi Pricing; SBC Communications Announces $1.99 Monthly Wi-Fi Pricing; Consumers, Businesses That Bundle SBC DSL with Public Wi-Fi Get Unlimited Access to 3,900 FreedomLink Hot Spots - Oct 18, 2004 06:00 AM (BusinessWire) SAN ANTONIO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 18, 2004--SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE:SBC) today announced it will offer FreedomLink Wi-Fi service for $1.99 a month to customers who bundle the service with SBC Yahoo! DSL. By bundling the services, SBC customers will enjoy a comparable broadband experience at home, in the office and on the road while paying as little as $29 a month for the two services. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44324307 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 02:33:33 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Car Computer Hobbyists Hack XM Radio By John Borland Staff Writer, CNET News.com A band of car and computer hobbyists has reconnected the XM Radio broadcasts to PCs, after the satellite radio company discontinued hardware that was being used to copy and archive digital music from the service. The XM satellite radio service is used largely through dedicated hardware, but until last month could be heard on a computer by using hardware that plugged directly into the PC. The company phased that PC link out, in part citing slow demand, after a Canadian programmer wrote software that allowed listeners to record and archive individual songs on a computer as MP3s. Now a small Florida company that makes in-car computer systems has re-created its own version of the hardware, saying its customers want a way to hook their onboard PCs to an XM system. The system may also be plugged back into the TimeTrax radio-recording software, again raising the possibility of pristine digital copying from the satellite service. The developers, at a company called Hybrid Mobile Audio, say they're more interested in giving people flexibility in listening to the XM Radio service, however. http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5410250.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 10:09:38 -0400 Subject: InfoUSA Acquires DialTel Corporation From: distribution@eworldwire.com LAS VEGAS/EWORLDWIRE/Oct. 18, 2004 --- InfoUSA, a Nevada-based corporation, today announced that it has completed all the steps in its acquisition of Calif.-based DialTel, a leading distributor of prepaid telephone calling-cards. The acquisition was actually made before the end of InfoUSA's fiscal 2003 (March 31, 2004), but the formal announcement was delayed pending the completion of the contingencies in the agreement. "This is a tremendous win-win for both InfoUSA and DialTel," said InfoUSA's CEO, Thomas Skala. "DialTel's existing network of some 2,500 distributors, and its base of over 10 million cards issued is going to dovetail beautifully with our EasyTel subsidiary's nationwide private calling network, GenieNet, and the Genie Bancor stored value ATM card." Ron Hay, a seasoned veteran in the telecommunications industry, will continue to serve as president of DialTel, and will join the InfoUSA management team as a vice president. "I couldn't be more excited about the joining of DialTel with InfoUSA. Together, we're going to take calling cards to places they have never been before." Hay was referring in part to a new product to be introduced by InfoUSA subsidiary EasyTel.Net, called the Genie ContinentalCard. The product combines traditional calling cards with a private telephone number for each cardholder, FollowMe calls, voicemail, and electronic banking services such as ATM access to cash anytime, worldwide. Unlike traditional calling cards, which can only be used to make calls, Genie Continental Cardholders will be able to both make calls and receive calls. "This new product will drive us into the realm of customer brand-loyalty, not something traditionally found in calling-card purchasers," explained Hay. "Features like nationwide access to local phone service and reloadable balances at any branch of Bank of America or Wells Fargo Bank will give customers a reason to keep the same card over time." Skala continued, "The existing network of distributors and huge base of distributed cards that DialTel brings to the table gives us an immediate opening to move the ContinentalCard into the marketplace more quickly than we could have imagined." About InfoUSA In 1994, InfoUSA embarked on a mission to design and fully develop a proprietary soft switch technology, both hardware and software, which integrates three powerful technologies - Telecommunications, the world's most universal and interactive communication medium; Electronic Banking, the key to electronic commerce; and the Internet, the world's most powerful information medium -- as one seamless service. InfoUSA has four main subsidiaries, EasyTel.net, Genie Bancor, DialTel, and the Universal Office Corporation. About DialTel DialTel is a leading distributor of prepaid telephone calling-cards and has already sold over 10 million pre-paid calling cards for International use. The company is developing plans to sell a new card combining stored value ATM/calling cards to the same market place. Recent and planned additions to the DialTel suite include international monetary services, major-bank branch reloading services, and local unified communications services throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico on. About EasyTel.Net EayTel.Net integrated InfoUSA's electronic banking services with its own unified communications platform: The Universal Office. EasyTel's proprietary soft switch runs on GenieNet, a nation-wide private voice-over-IP network. In all its variations, from simple consumer products such as prepaid VoiceFaxEmail.com to complex, multi-site business services, the Universal Office provides locally served communications and electronic banking services with national reach to over 80 percent of the U.S. population centers. About Genie Bancor.com Genie Bancor.Com integrated InfoUSA's unified communications services with its own electronic banking platform: GenieBank. Genie Bancor currently provides GenieBank ATM Cards which are usable worldwide at any ATM connected to the Cirrus, Interlink, Star, and the NYCE networks. Cardholders may deposit additional funds to their GenieBank ATM Cards at any branch of Bank of America and Wells Fargo Bank in the USA. Thomas Skala Las Vegas, NV 89119 PHONE. 800-850-5500 FAX. 800-850-5500 EMAIL: Thomas@EasyTel.net ------------------------------ From: Jason Subject: Lee's ABC of the Telephone Date: 18 Oct 2004 09:34:02 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hi Telecom Gurus! I'm new to the telecom industry and am trying to increase my knowledge in as many ways as possible. In some of my research, I've read that "Lee's ABC of the Telephone" was decidedly a defacto standard for learning how the phone systems of today were set up in the 70s. Past experience has shown me that if you learn how something was done originally, its far easier to understand its current setup (especially in the technology realm). SO...my question for all of you is, does anyone know where I might find copies of these books? Any advice would be greatly appreciated! -Jason ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Wi-Fi Successor Called High-Speed Hype, for Now Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 09:35:40 (EDT) At virtually every turn, Intel Corp. executives are heaping praise on an emerging long-range wireless technology known as WiMAX, which can blanket entire cities with high-speed Internet access. Just as Intel helped popularize Wi-Fi, a short-range technology now widely used in airports and in coffee shops, the world's largest chip maker hopes to usher in the "WiMAX era" -- using the technology to displace cable and DSL Internet access and segments of the cellular phone market. Yet as it heads into turf fiercely protected by the telecommunications and cable industries, WiMAX is likely to gain little traction, at least for several years, analysts said. The demand it does find may come mainly from rural markets outside the United States. Market research firm iSuppli on Monday described a largely lackluster outlook for WiMAX, which it said is surrounded by hype and will likely fail to catch on beyond niche applications. Established broadband access providers see no reason to adopt yet another technology for delivering data at high speeds, the company said. Industry-wide demand for WiMAX equipment will not top 1 billion until 2007, according to iSuppli's forecast. Divided up among many industry players, that amount might barely register at a company like Intel, which reported 30 billion in revenue last year. By 2009, the market will reach only 2.5 billion, iSuppli predicted. Intel, based in Santa Clara, California, is scheduled to report its quarterly earnings on Tuesday afternoon. "These applications will not be large enough to sustain the multitude of silicon suppliers and equipment manufacturers who have expressed interest in developing products for WiMAX," iSuppli said. "The hype surrounding WiMAX ... as a fixed wireless access technology will remain just that -- hype." Such skepticism has not stopped Intel, Fujitsu Ltd. (6702.T), and Alcatel (CGEP.PA) from investing heavily in WiMAX and promoting it as a logical competitor to DSL and cable Internet access. In March, Intel and Alcatel announced a "strategic alliance" to develop WiMAX equipment by the second half of next year. The U.S. chip unit of Japan's Fujitsu plans to introduce its own chips for WiMAX early in 2005. These companies and others envision WiMAX equipment installed outside homes and business, linking up with a base station hosted by fixed-line telecommunications operators. A short-range, Wi-Fi signal, or perhaps an ethernet cable, would bring the Internet to individual PCs in the home. According to iSuppli, incumbent suppliers of Internet access are deeply invested in their own infrastructure for delivering broadband Internet access via telephone or cable wires, and will be unlikely to spend more for a new wireless technology "that offers no quantum leap in capabilities over their current offerings." Beyond broadband, WiMAX faces similar challenges. A report from ABI Research on Monday said efforts to position WiMAX as a Wi-Fi killer -- Intel, for instance, plans to support WiMAX in its notebook computer chips in 2006 -- will fail. "WiMAX enthusiasts sometimes claim that it will 'kill' Wi-Fi. Nothing could be further than the truth," a note from ABI said. High power consumption makes WiMAX an unlikely choice for battery-powered devices like laptop computers and personal organizers. The best potential for WiMAX, according to iSuppli, may lie in precisely the area least promoted by companies like Intel -- in combined voice, video and data networks that are at best several years away from being developed. Cellular phone makers have invested more than 100 billion to roll out third-generation cellular networks, which can handle data at speeds suitable for games and video. By the time fourth-generation networks roll out, WiMAX could be the preferred choice. "With a higher bandwidth capability than existing 3G cellular technologies and reach ... rivaling that of a typical cellular technology cell site, WiMAX has the potential to be adopted by wireless carriers as 4G data-centric technology," according to the iSuppli report. Even then, the company noted, there are several hurdles to overcome -- including the availability of wireless frequencies licensed by governments, and approval by top-tier wireless carriers. *** 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. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: Routing to VOIP, was Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 03:18:05 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In Tim@Backhome.org writes: > Sort of like Pat says, you can get the present administrator of your > 800 number to re-route it to your Vonage number. That doesn't involve > Vonage at all. As a related issue, some of the 1-800 providers [a] are taking advantage of the interim regulatory quagmire vis-a-vis VOIP's exemption from the local telco per-minute termination fees. So since they don't have to pay those charges, they're (for the moment) charging you (the "owner" of the 1-800 number) less for calls that wind up at a(n) VOIP "number". [a] I'm familiar with kall-8, being a customer of theirs. I understand some others do this as well. http://www.kall8.com Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Let the Caller Beware / Homework Here Pays in Wireless Service Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 18:16:57 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 17:45:35 -0400, Monty Solomon wrote: (i.e. the article states): > The key for travelers who want to take the convenience of a wireless > phone abroad with them is doing your homework before you go. It's no different than making any plans to go overseas. If you don't want to pay out the butt you'll do your homework before you pick yourself up and deposit yourself on a plane for foreign destinations. It's the same advice anyone should take when they're going overseas to make sure you are prepared for what will greet you and what will happen when you step away from home. If you're going to a foreign country you should know about power requirements, you should know about foreign telephones and how they work. If you're planning on using a cell phone you should know how that works or doesn't as well. > Nancy didn't get a chance to do any of this planning. Her research > grant came through at the last minute, and she had to leave quickly > to do sculpture research in Switzerland and Italy. I find this totally odd. Did she not make application to the program? What did she have in mind that she was going to do *if* she was accepted? Did she not think that she'd have to make some plans before she just rushed off to her foreign destination. It shouldn't be a total surprise if she knew there was a *possibility* that she'd be in the program. It sounds to me like she was just ditzy and didn't make the proper preparations for a trip which she knew was possible that she might have to make. Maybe getting the $900 bill will teach her that if there's a possibility that she might have to do a program in the future that she should plan what she'll need to do if she ever gets in a situation where she'll have to travel again. I feel no pity for her situation. She could have easily avoided it. ------------------------------ 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 #496 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Oct 18 16:28:52 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9IKSqx26136; Mon, 18 Oct 2004 16:28:52 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 16:28:52 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410182028.i9IKSqx26136@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 #497 TELECOM Digest Mon, 18 Oct 2004 16:29:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 497 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium (M Roberts) Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium (J Covert) Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium (J McHarry) Re: Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage (John R. Covert) Re: Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage (Isaiah Beard) Free Air (Monty Solomon) Re: A Problem With VOIP and Phone Books (Isaiah Beard) Re: Lee's ABC of the Telephone (Jim Haynes) Re: VOIP2 Scam Warning (Isaiah Beard) Re: A Problem With VOIP and Phone Books (Fred Atkinson) Re: A Problem With VOIP and Phone Books (John Levine) Re: Radio Questions (Paul A Lee) Re: Sinclair's Disgrace (Lisa Hancock) Re: Drivers Try an Anti-Photo Finish (Linc Madison) Correction Re: Privacy Eroding, Bit by Byte (Jack Decker) Re: Privacy Eroding, Bit by Byte (Dan Lanciani) 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: markrobt@comcast.net (Mark Roberts) Subject: Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 03:39:59 -0000 Organization: 1.94 meters Dave Close had written: > markrobt@comcast.net (Mark Roberts) writes: >> I also see that Vonage has in fact gone to 7-digit local and >> 10-digit LD dialing ... > Of course, when dialing a 7-digit number, there is a time-out before > call completion. At least when the first three digits match a possible > area code, which these days is nearly all calls. And they don't seem > to accept # to terminate dialing. That just gives a reorder tone. You > can't dial 1+NXX-XXXX, so the leading 1 is significant. I have noticed about a 1.5-second delay when leaving off the leading 1. > But this dialing plan makes Vonage essentially identical to Sprint > PCS. Dial as 7, 10, or 11 digits, as you like. But dialing 7 can be > chancy since it isn't clear if they assume your home NPA or the one > where you currently are located. Since VOIP is location-independent, I would assume that they would assign your domiciled NPA as the default, regardless where your adapter is actually plugged in at any given moment. For example, if I took my adapter over the Bay to San Francisco, I would not expect that I could dial a 415 number with seven digits because there is no truly reliable way of mapping IP address with an actual, in-use physical location. I might not want to dial a 510 number with seven digits just to avoid confusion on my part. > All in all, always dialing 10 or 11 is the only safe action, and 11 is > the only reasonably universal technique. "Safe" I think is a bit overstated and, outside the POTS world, either 10 or 11 seems acceptable. Mark Roberts|"Entire media networks, such as Fox News and Sinclair Oakland, CA |Broadcasting prop up Bush in a way that would make their NO HTML MAIL|fellow propagandists in North Korea and Cuba proud." -- Markos Moulitsas, Guardian Unlimited, 2004-10-12 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 07:55:42 EDT From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium Dave Close wrote: > But dialing 7 can be chancy since it isn't clear if they assume your > home NPA or the one where you currently are located. No, it is clear. It's "your area code." Everything about Vonage says that where you are doesn't matter. And even if it did, ever since we've had overlays, there is no such thing as "the area code where you are now located." Speaking of overlays, Vonage is but should not be allowing seven digit dialing if the assigned area code has an overlay. There is a firm rule in the NANP that when there is an overlay, the area code MUST be dialed. The reason for this is to make the "traditional" area code in no way "preferable" to the overlay area code, as well as to make sure that people don't publish seven digit numbers in an area where you can't call up and say "What's the area code for ?" /john ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 13:49:22 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Dave Close wrote: > But this dialing plan makes Vonage essentially identical to Sprint > PCS. Dial as 7, 10, or 11 digits, as you like. But dialing 7 can be > chancy since it isn't clear if they assume your home NPA or the one > where you currently are located. (Of course, a cell phone doesn't need > a time-out to determine number length.) I don't see how they could impute anything other than your home NPA. Your current IP address doesn't tell them much about where you are. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 08:01:28 EDT From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage Fred Atkinson wrote: > doesn't it seem silly that when someone dials that number I > (1) pay for the time to Power Net Global and (2) the clock on > my Vonage minutes is ticking away for the same time. That's not happening. Read on. Patrick wrote: > [Fred] has to pay for calls to his 800 number (no matter where > it terminates) *and* he has to pay for the minutes of usage on > his Vonage line. As has been discussed before, THERE ARE NO INCOMING MINUTES on Vonage (or any other major VoIP provider). All incoming calls to lines on Vonage's $9.99 (softphone), $14.99 (500 minutes of outgoing calls), or $24.99 (unlimited outgoing calls) plans are completely free. Only Vonage's 800 service plan ($4.99 plus one of the types of lines above) charges for incoming minutes (after the first 100 included minutes), but even with the 800 service plan, the minutes are charged only against the 800 service account, and do not affect the outgoing minutes on the underlying actual Vonage number. It doesn't matter whether it's Vonage's 800 number (billed by Vonage) or someone else's 800 number (billed by someone else), the incoming minutes do not affect the minutes on the non-800 Vonage number which receives the incoming call. /john [P.S.: Vonage has begun offering E-911 in Rhode Island and has begun offering 311 service (non-emergency City Info calls) in a few cities, more to come. Info available at www.vonage.com.] ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard Subject: Re: Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 15:01:00 -0400 Fred Atkinson wrote: > To respond to that, Pat, > That number has followed me from carrier to carrier for years. I > believe I originally got it from Sprint years ago. Presently, Power > Net Global is translating it to my Vonage number. But, doesn't it > seem silly that when someone dials that number I (1) pay for the time > to Power Net Global and (2) the clock on my Vonage minutes is ticking > away for the same time. This was not the way things worked for me when I tried out Vonage. I had them for a while, and incoming calls were not counted against any minute allotments your plan might have. So while the clock is ticking on incoming Vonage minutes, it shouldn't actually be deducted from anything. So, the effect of this perceived inefficiency would only be psychological in that two services are racking up the minutes but only one tally -- that of the toll free carrier -- really counts for anything. Perhaps my account was incorrectly set up and it normally doesn't work this way. But, this was what I saw as I used the service. Ultimately I switched to Packet8 for its somewhat cheaper unlimited package and more attractive international rates. E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 15:59:21 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Free Air THE FINANCIAL PAGE FREE AIR Issue of 2004-10-18 In the late nineties, Washington policymakers took up a noble cause. There was a new technology, digital television, that almost everyone agreed would eventually revolutionize TV, but-quelle horreur-almost no one was adopting it. Among other things, local TV stations couldn't transmit digital signals on their existing analog channels. They needed digital spectrum. (If you think of the electromagnetic spectrum as a highway, digital and analog signals travel in different lanes.) So Congress decided to give the stations a leg up-or, rather, a handout. Instead of auctioning off the digital spectrum (which might have brought in new competitors, not to mention money), or simply asking broadcasters to pay for it (it was worth, conservatively, tens of billions of dollars), Congress offered it to them free. It was, as Reed Hundt, who was the F.C.C. chairman, said at the time, "the largest single grant of public property to . . . the private sector in this century." Senator John McCain was a little more blunt. He called it "one of the great rip-offs in American history." To be fair, Washington did insist on some quid for its quo. In exchange for the new spectrum, the broadcasters would accelerate their move into digital programming, and they would return their old analog channels. This was the important part; technological innovation had made those channels extremely valuable, for high-speed wireless connections and public-safety radio transmissions, among other things. Of course, the government had given the broadcasters these channels in the first place, so it wasn't exactly driving a hard bargain. But it was getting something, at least. Something is starting to look more and more like nothing. http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?041018ta_talk_surowiecki ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard Subject: Re: A Problem With VOIP and Phone Books Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 15:29:30 -0400 Ed Clarke wrote: > If you read the fine print in your contract, you'll discover that the > phone numbers that you are given (if you can't port your old number > over) are not listed in the "telephone book". This means that you've > gone to an "unlisted" number. > I wonder how long the "phone company" will keep your old number in > their own very expensive book? Why should they? It's not their > customer, is it? I just finished looking at several local guide or > mini-phonebook websites; all the ones that I've looked at (411.com, > worldpages.com, whitepages.com) refuse to let you add or edit a > residential listing. > In this age of information overload, it's disconcerting to find that > information you want to publish is no longer available. I guess it depends on your point of view. I personally don't see why my number needs to be published, and am quite happy to not have my VoIP or cell numbers published in any book. I keep friends, family and coworkers and anyone else who needs to contact me well-informed of how to do so. And only people I *don't* want contacting me (telemarketers and such) would have any need to look me up. > Aren't cell phones in the same situation? I don't know of a cell > phone directory that's equivalent to the phone book. While I would be only mildly annoyed if my VoIP number were published in a directory, I would find it completely unacceptable for my cell number to be published anywhere. My cell phone has finite minutes attached to it, and therefore I should have the exclusive right to control who has access to it (and those minutes). E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Lee's ABC of the Telephone Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 19:34:20 GMT There's one copy on www.abebooks.com right now. Another good book, somewhat different, is the AT&T Long Lines training book, "Principles of Electricity Applied To Telephone and Telegraph Work" There are several editions: 1938, 1941 reprint of 1938, 1953, and 1961. These are readily available through abebooks.com jhhaynes at earthlink dot net ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard Subject: Re: VOIP2 Scam Warning Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 15:40:39 -0400 Alex Wright wrote: > I signed up for service with this company. They advertised a "Small > World" plan with unlimited world-wide calling for $49.99 residential. > If you go to their main website now. They removed the word "unlimited" > from their main page for the Small World plan. > They also impose a cap on the minutes which they didn't have before. > Here's an email I got from them, because I was calling too much. > avoid http://www.voip2.com > SmallWorld is designed for users who fall within the industry > standards for residential usage of 750-1000 average minutes per month. > SmallWorld allows costumers to use a percentage of their usage to stay > in touch with friends and family overseas without worrying about > additional per minute rates. These percentages vary based on the > countries called most frequently. The current wording on their website for the small world plan is as follows: ------------------------- http://www.voip2.com/smallworld.html SmallWorld is for residential use only, and includes ALL the countries that are listed in our published rate plan. There are NO per minute rates in our SmallWorld plan. This is a Residential Plan only, and is not for Business use. The restrictions are gauged on a caller threshold, which means they are the average of calling times based on a per customer basis. We look at daily reports on individual usage, if these thresholds are exceeded you will be notified. ------------------------- So basically: you're stuck to a per-minute threshold, but you are not told what that threshold is is advance. It's subject to the whims of other subscribers, so it could vary unpredictably. Definitely not $49.95 if you ask me, especially if turns out that it's a slow month for everyone else, but your calling patterns are constant. And they're international calling rates leave much to be desired. Both Vonage and Packet8 beat them on a per minute basis in most countries. Finally, for a VoIP phone company that's intent on replacing your landline, they sure are fond of displaying oodles of photos on their site where people are using wireless phones. Looks like someone threw out a ton of telecom-related clipart without caring about content. E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. ------------------------------ From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Re: A Problem With VOIP and Phone Books Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 00:53:49 GMT Organization: Road Runner - Columbia Not a problem. Call your telephone company and request that a foreign listing be made. Most of the CSRs will be in the complete dark about this (as I found out when I had my foreign residential listing made). I finally had to acquire the help of the South Carolina Public Service Commission to get to someone who could help me. But, I got it done. The cost is a little over two dollars per month (residential listing) and Bellsouth bills annually for this. If you don't believe me, call 803 directory assistance and ask for Fred Atkinson, III in Columbia, SC. They will give you my telephone number. It is a Vonage provided number beginning with (803) 233, so you can be sure. So, you see, it's not a problem. I researched doing this in Maryland a few years back and found out the same thing for BellAtlantic (now Verizon) as here. So, go ahead and get a foreign listing in the phone book. The costs and rules may vary a bit from place to place. Fred ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 2004 01:01:21 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: A Problem With VOIP and Phone Books Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > My wife moved us from Verizon to Excel for the home phone; is there > a reason to expect our home phone number to remain in the Verizon > book? As Pat notes, the dominant local telco publishes the phone book. If you get phone service from someone else, it entirely depends whether they provide your number to the dominant telco to put in the book. I have no idea whether CLECs have to pay to have numbers listed. Does anyone else? For that matter, my ILEC is a tiny local telco that publishes its own tiny phonebook. Their book includes listings for adjacent VZ areas, and the VZ book for nearby Ithaca includes all of my telco's listings. Who pays who to do what? It seems to me that the whole concept of a phone book is nearing a crisis. I gather that in Las Vegas and Los Angeles the local phone book has less than half of the residential numbers, with the rest all being unlisted. My phone has always been listed, and I get an insignificant number of crank or junk calls. (It's on the telemarketer do-not-call list, of course.) Am I just lucky, or are all those unlisted people paranoid? Regards, John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of The Internet for Dummies, Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, Mayor "A book is a sneeze." - E.B. White, on the writing of Charlotte's Web [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A weird case I remember from long ago happened in Chicago. *Prior to divestiture, when it was Illinois Bell* IBT was the telco of record for northern Illinois. But there was an oddity: Although IBT 'owned' almost everything telephonic in those days, they did *not* service the suburb of Park Ridge nor *one* exchange in the city itself: 312-693 in Chicago was not Illinois Bell, but was a small (at the time) company called 'Central Telephone Company', (which later became 'Centel'). Strangely enough, 'Centel' or Central States Telephone Company's business office and corporate headquarters were serviced with an IBT exchange due to its location (slightly inside the IBT service area). The reason Centel existed was some obscure thing in history going back to the early 1900's. IBT could not have bought out Centel even if they had wanted to, which they did not, because of the earlier court ruling about AT&T not purchasing any more operating companies (the Kingsbury decree). So for thirty or more years, in my memory at least, that one exchange sat out there on the far northwest side of the city, right next to the suburb of Park Ridge, but served by Centel rather than IBT. If memory serves me, Centel tended to get its equipment from Automatic Electric (the GTE version of Western Electric). And a discerning eye could see the difference in the style of phones, etc. Illinois Bell did include that one exchange in the main Chicago phone book, and Park Ridge in its north suburban directory. But, Centel also published a tiny phone book of its own as well, which went under the name 'Chicago - Newcastle' (Newcastle is the central office in that area.) In the front of the phone book where they put all the numbers to use to call the business office, etc, the Centel directory said to contact our headquarters/business office, at (address) call us on number (an IBT number). In the Illinois Bell phone directory, a *much* larger publication, midst the several columns of listings of phone numbers for their business offices, headquarters, the business offices were always (exchange)-9100, but it warned, for the 693 exchange, call (IBT number on some exchange.) I don't know who paid for what either, but they (Centel and IBT) were always very cozy and worked closely together. Centel has a lot of small towns in the central and southern part of Illinois; how they got so far north (into the Chicago area) I do not know. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Paul A Lee Subject: Re: Radio Questions Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 13:26:20 -0400 Organization: Rite Aid Corporation In TELECOM Digest V23 #493, Lelannie55@yahoo.com (Lelannie) wrote (in part): > I am very interested in the history of radio and I was > wondering if anyone knew where the first radio station in the > United States was located? I knew this one because of many childhood visits with my grandparents in McKeesport, PA, and from my Pennsylvania history class in junior high ... The first commercial radio broadcasting station operating on a regular schedule was KDKA in Pittsburgh, PA. See http://kdkaradio.com/history.shtml for additional history of the station. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, but in an earlier issue of the Digest today, some folks mentioned that there was a lot of very early history in California as well, which is where those 'K' call signs belong anyway. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Sinclair's Disgrace Date: 17 Oct 2004 20:49:06 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Monty Solomon wrote > The right-wing network's decision to force its affiliates to air > anti-Kerry propaganda is one of the lowest moments in the history of > television news, says the former head of the FCC. And it may unleash a > backlash. Democracy is like sausages. We like the finished product, but do not like how it is made. The Sinclair business is propaganda just like Michael Moore's film is propaganda. I suspect many of those upset about Sinclair are the same people who applauded Michael Moore. The two are the same. What goes around comes around. When Nixon was starting out, he played hardball. He accused-- correctly -- his opponents of having liberal voting records. The liberal community didn't like that. A few years later they paid him back with accusations -- wrongly -- that he had an illegal slush fund. Speaking of communications ... Nixon made great use of TV when he made his Checkers speech to explain his campaign funding. Ironically, for someone who knew TV, he blew it with the Kennedy debates. (People who merely heard him on radio thought he did very well -- it was his image that was bad.) Generally, over his career Nixon tried to act statesman-like, but he was a lousy actor and didn't come across that well. Being assigned Eisenhower's political dirty work to do didn't help his image either. Roosevelt made great use of radio. He had an excellent radio voice, and knew how to present complex issues in understandable but not patronizing tones to the public. In contrast, Herbert Hoover was a lousy communicator. He was doing a lot more to fight the Depression and pump up the economy than history gives him credit for, but he did not communicate well to the people and thus is remembered poorly. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And speaking of propoganda, some Democrats are now pushing to get 'Farenheit 911' shown on all the television stations on Monday night before the Tuesday election. I guess that would be fair play also. You are right, Lisa, I would sort of prefer the toenail fungus ads they show several times daily on TV-Land. This entire election is much uglier than most, isn't it? PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Drivers Try an Anti-Photo Finish Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 23:23:24 -0700 From: Linc Madison Reply-To: lincmad@suespammers.org Organization: California resident; nospam; no unsolicited e-mail allowed In article , Marcus Didius Falco wrote: > ["Drivers Try an Anti-Photo Finish," by Don Oldenburg, Washington > Post, Wednesday, July 21, 2004, Page A01] > "There's a lot of good people in the industry who are honest and a lot > of charlatans. But it doesn't work, that's the bottom line," says Carl > Fors, owner of the Fort Worth company [Speed Measurement Laboratories]. > The bounce-back-the-flash concept does work sometimes, he says, but > only on positive images traffic cameras produce. "If we reverse the > image, go to a negative image, we can read every letter on a license > plate," he says. > Fors says the firms that make and operate radar camera systems and > analyze the photos for municipalities routinely check negatives where > license plates look unreadable. "Going to the negative image is no big > deal," he says. What UTTER and COMPLETE nonsense! If the positive image is illegible, the negative image will be EXACTLY as illegible. I don't care if you have a trillion-dollar budget, merely looking at the negative image cannot improve the legibility of a license plate. If you can't see the faint dark letters in the positive image, then you won't see them any better as faint white letters in the negative, or vice-versa. There are certainly ways to enhance the contrast to try to amplify and clarify subtle gradations, but they have nothing at all to do with checking the negatives. Nowadays, you just slap the digital image into Photoshop. Either Carl Fors was horrifically misquoted, or he is a total idiot. Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * lincmad@suespammers.org * primary e-mail: Telecom at LincMad dot com All U.S. and California anti-spam laws apply, incl. CA BPC 17538.45(c) This text constitutes actual notice as required in BPC 17538.45(f)(3). DO NOT SEND UNSOLICITED E-MAIL TO THIS ADDRESS. You have been warned. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 21:59:12 -0400 From: Jack Decker Subject: Correction Re: Privacy Eroding, Bit by Byte Pat, please conceal my e-mail address again. I just wanted to make a minor correction to my previous message. I wrote, "In the past, some churches have taught that this is a punishment from God for not taking the mark, but lately I've heard more theorizing that the mark itself will somehow actively interfere with that transition." The word 'NOT' in that sentence somehow evaded my proofreading -- of course, no church has taught that God would punish anyone for NOT taking the mark, because taking the mark is the act that is prohibited! But as I pointed out, some are now thinking that it may be something about the mark itself that interferes with a person's spiritual advancement. Anyway, just wanted to make that correction, in case I managed to confuse anyone. Jack ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 02:13:34 EDT From: Dan Lanciani Subject: Re: Privacy Eroding, Bit by Byte anonfwd774@withheld on request (Jack Decker) wrote: > Here's my question -- will I have the right to refuse implantation of > such devices, or will someone else decide that I have no choice in the > matter and forcibly inject these things into me? Another question might be: will removal of such implants become illegal? What about a device which renders them inoperable? The whole security aspect of these implants (ignore the "convenience" factor) seems to depend on their being difficult to remove. Such security operates largely against (rather than for) the implantee. While you may not be able to have your own implant removed, the bad guy can certainly cut it out of you along with the surrounding tissue. A scanner is not going to know the difference, so the bad guy can pretend to be you. (I'd rather hand a mugger my credit cards than have him cut out an implant, especially when the credit card company is going to say that the use of the implant *must* prove that the bad guy is me ...) Markers with this characteristic -- hard for the marked person to remove but possible to steal -- are usually used to indicate something negative about the marked subject rather than to grant him privileges. A few years back I had the misfortune to adopt one of my cats on the day that the shelter received its shiny new chip implanting kit. In spite of my protests they had to make my cat their first subject. (My alternative was to forget the adoption and let them euthanize the cat since she had been there for the maximum allowed time.) They insisted that they were doing me a big favor since the implant would allow the cat to be identified if lost. I suggested that tags or even a tattoo would make more sense for that purpose since (at least at the time) few shelters had scanners and certainly no individuals who might find a lost cat would have such equipment. They explained that it was too easy to remove or obscure those means of identification while vets apparently understand that they are not supposed to remove chip implants unless there is a medical problem with them. I asked why anybody would go the trouble to obscure the identification of a 2 year old mixed-breed cat with bad teeth. They finally admitted that they have problems with people abandoning or harming adopted cats and they need a tamper-proof way to prove who was the responsible owner so they can initiate legal action. This experience left me very skeptical about the stated benefits of chip implants ... Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*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 #497 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Oct 19 00:37:35 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9J4bYI29888; Tue, 19 Oct 2004 00:37:35 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 00:37:35 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410190437.i9J4bYI29888@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 #498 TELECOM Digest Tue, 19 Oct 2004 00:38:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 498 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Comcast Launches First Broadband Internet Channel Built (Monty Solomon) Comcast Presents Election 2004 ON DEMAND Featuring Colorado (M Solomon) VoIP, IVR and Text to Speech, looking for ideas (Mail Ias) Re: AMTRAK (was Re: Last, Sad Laugh! A Nice Place to Work) (L Hancock) Re: AMTRAK (was Re: Last, Sad Laugh! A Nice Place to Work) (John Mayson) Re: XM Radio; One in Car, One in Home; Same Subscription (Isaiah Beard) Re: Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage (DevilsPGD) Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium (DevilsPGD) Re: Cellphone Industry Turns to Unmined Territory: Seniors (kansasman) Re: DISH Network Viewers to Receive Unique Election Coverage (L Hancock) Re: Radio Questions (John Mayson) 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, 18 Oct 2004 18:21:14 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Comcast Launches First Broadband Internet Channel Built Comcast Launches First Broadband Internet Channel Built Specifically for Kids Channel launches with premium content from Disney Online PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK), the nation's leading broadband Internet provider, today announced the launch of the Comcast Kids Channel, a safe interactive environment designed for today's broadband family. The channel launches with premier content from Disney Online. Specifically, Comcast is featuring Disney Connection, a collection of Disney broadband entertainment for kids. It includes a regularly updated slate of games, activities and video, as well as select access to two premium offerings: Disney's Blast, an ad-free online entertainment service for kids ages 3-10, and Disney's Toontown Online, the first massively multiplayer Internet game designed specifically for kids and families. In addition, the new Digital Showcase provides videos from Disney each week, including cartoon shorts, music videos and movie trailers. Additional Disney video content is available in The Fan(TM), Comcast's innovative multimedia broadband player, providing more fun and educational information geared for kids. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44330752 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 18:23:33 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Comcast Presents Election 2004 ON DEMAND Featuring Colorado PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Comcast announced today that the Company is showcasing the race for U.S. Senate in the state of Colorado on Comcast ON DEMAND, Comcast's Video on Demand (VOD) service. "Candidates on Demand" is an innovative pilot initiative that will use new television technology to enable Colorado voters to learn more about issues of importance in the election featuring Republican Pete Coors and Democrat Ken Salazar. Comcast customers in Colorado with VOD will be able to watch each candidate's response to seven major policy questions any time they want, as well as pause, stop, rewind, and fast forward the candidates' responses. Both candidates will have approximately three minutes each to individually address topics including education, health care, the economy, Social Security and homeland security. These policy statements will be available any time between the afternoon of October 19th and November 1st. This public service initiative reflects Comcast's commitment to the communities it serves. Comcast's VOD service is provided to Comcast Digital Cable customers at no additional charge, and is being rapidly rolled out across Colorado. To date, Comcast provides VOD service to approximately 215,000 customers in Colorado. Comcast is also making the Candidates on Demand content available to Bresnan Communications for the cable operator to distribute to their VOD customers in Colorado. Bresnan has 11,000 VOD customers, bringing the combined total distribution in Colorado to 226,000. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=44336631 ------------------------------ From: mailias@yahoo.com (Mail Ias) Subject: VoIP, IVR and Text to Speech, looking for ideas Organization: Insight Broadband Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 02:57:55 GMT I've been asked to help gather information about a building a VoIP based IVR application with Text to Speech capabilities. What makes this system unique and cutting edge is the use of VoIP. The hardware would be based in a data center with good backbone connectivity to the Internet. Calls would come from many different cities around the country. Callers would call a local VoIP number provided by a company like Vonage. Therefore callers would pay no toll charges, nor would the provider of the IVR system (other than VoIP charges where applicable). The underlying goal is to have a system where you can process as many calls as bandwith allows without toll charges. Also, the need for expensive telephony hardware from the likes of Dialogic and others would not be needed along with the difficulty of scaling the exact number of hardware ports via POTS, T1 or other connections to the board. To increase call handling capacity you could add more powerful processors, more processors or more servers. What's needed: 1) A service provider that is in many cities nationwide that could provide the VoIP service. Vonage is out because you have to terminate on their hardware only, not a server. Plus their usage policy doesn't allow this. 2) A software-only server platform that can process the incoming VoIP traffic through an ethernet card on an Intel standard PC server. If not possible to do through just software I suppose a DSP based card or cards is needed 3) Text to Speech and IVR software A quick guess of initial call volume might be about 200,000 minutes per month. Of course the ability to scale that to much higher volumes is desireable and probable. Also, consider that this system is needed by a very small entrepreneurial company, not a Fortune 500 with deep pockets. Any and all ideas or comments are welcomed. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: AMTRAK (was Re: Last, Sad Laugh! A Nice Place to Work!) Date: 18 Oct 2004 16:00:57 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) wrote: > The short version is that the U.S.'s lack of a strong rail > infrastructure is, in fact, by design. Detroit auto manufacturers and > the truck-driver unions combined to dismantle the rail network that > existed in this country and to pour money into building motorways > instead of railways. The result is that we have great highways in the > U.S. and not nearly as much rail as we used to (and terrible train > service on what's left). The book, "The Palace Guard" about the Nixon Administration, documents the pressure the above mentioned groups put on to fight Amtrak's creation. DOT Secretary Volpe was disliked because of his contribution toward Amtrak's creation. From the 1930s to 1950s, a consortum led by General Motors and tire and oil interests bought out city street railways and converted them to buses supplied by the consortum. This was not the only reason cities lost their streetcars, but it was a significant contributor and accelerated the loss. As to communications, when Amtrak took over the former Pennsylvania Railroad lines, it had to replace a 50 y/o telecommuniations network. It was advanced for the 1930s, but obsolete in the 1980s. Amtrak gave an LD carrier the right to bury fibre-optic along its right of way in return for free channels. For the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak installed two state of the art control centers in Philadelphia and New York. Dispatchers have computer screens that pinpoint the location of all trains and switch settings over the entire NEC railroad. Previously, control towers were required every few miles and had to manned around the clock, with instructions relayed back and forth between each tower and a central dispatcher. Amtrak never gets credit for these installations. In contrast, the FAA has been very slow to upgrade its 1960s computer systems for air traffic control and has had troubles in trial installations. Freight railroads have also installed such high-tech centers, however, they have just one serving a huge part of the country. (CSX has theirs in Jacksonville FL serving the whole eastern half of the U.S.) I think too much centralization is bad. For instance, when hurricanes strike FL and CSX has to evaccuate its Jacksonville dispatchers, the entire railroad shuts down. It's not right for trains in NY State to cease and block tracks for something going on in Florida. ------------------------------ From: John Mayson Subject: Re: AMTRAK (was Re: Last, Sad Laugh! A Nice Place to Work!) Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 02:44:46 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com > It is also the easiest way to move up and down the Eastern Corridor. I > took the Metroliner between DC and Newark a couple times shortly after > 9/11. For that distance it is about as fast, and less expensive, than > flying, if you are going to the city center. A day trip is easily > doable, if a bit of a long day. It strikes me that one of our biggest > voluntary economic disadvantages is our failure to maintain and > improve a strong rail infrastructure. If it provided such an economic advantage then private companies would be chomping at the bit to set up commuter rail service. > I'm sure you can find the full story on-line without much trouble. > The short version is that the U.S.'s lack of a strong rail > infrastructure is, in fact, by design. Detroit auto manufacturers and > the truck-driver unions combined to dismantle the rail network that > existed in this country and to pour money into building motorways > instead of railways. The result is that we have great highways in the > U.S. and not nearly as much rail as we used to (and terrible train > service on what's left). This isn't the sole cause, but there is something else contributing the decline of rail. Around 1906 or so the US government passed stringent regulations concerning the transport of cattle and hogs by rail. At the time no one used trucks (were they even invented?). Rail operators had to provide for the animals' comfort which meant feeding them, giving them water, a place to sleep, and heat. This was quite expensive to the cattle industry and intended to improve animal welfare. These laws are still on the books today, but they apply only to rail, not truck. So guess which mode of transportation the cattle and hog industry uses today? John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard Subject: Re: XM Radio; One Roady in Car, One in Home; Same Subscription Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 15:58:11 -0400 Tom Williams wrote: > I have XM service, using it in car to avoid having to carry roady back > and forth to home, thinking of getting used second roady unit for use > in home. > Is it possible to have second unit on in home, on same one > subscription? At no additional cost? If not, how much to have second > subscription for home use? A second XM radio subscription is $6.99 per month. Another possibility, if you have broadband, is XM Radio Online which was just launched. That service is $3.99 a month for current XM radio subscribers, and you don't have to buy a second radio. You just login using a broadband connection and all of the music channels are streamed over the 'net to your computer. The drawback to XM Radio Online is that it only includes the music channels, comedy channels and (for the month of October only) channel 202. The Traffic and Weather channels, CNN/MSNBC and other talk channels are only broadcast over the air. The website is http://listen.xmradio.com , and as part of their launch, they're offering a free 3-day trial (with no credit card required to try it). E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 21:08:14 -0600 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Fred Atkinson: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Exactly *what reason* did Vonage give > for not being able/willing to move it? So you have a loyalty to that > number instead of taking the Vonage $4.99 per month with a hundred > minutes included? Judith Oppenheimer is our 800 expert here, maybe > she can explain what's going on. PAT] Vonage simply isn't prepared to handle the paperwork or hassles of moving a tollfree. It's significantly more complex then LNP, and there is a (relatively) low demand for this service. ... or so I was told when I inquired (and I made it up the food chain slightly before giving up.) Tim@Backhome.org wrote: > Sort of like Pat says, you can get the present administrator of your > 800 number to re-route it to your Vonage number. That doesn't involve > Vonage at all. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But, as Fred pointed out later in a > reply to the Digest, he has to pay for calls to his 800 number (no > matter where it terminates) *and* he has to py for the minutes of > usage on his Vonage line. He was hoping to combine the two sets of > charges by having Vonage handle both parts of his service. PAT] Vonage doesn't bill for incoming calls, so I'm not seeing this as a problem. Fred Atkinson wrote: > Well, maybe now that we are discussing it, they will rethink > their approach. Whatever happened to 'The customer is always right'? Customers got dumber. Much dumber. And sometimes I park, in handicapped spaces, While handicapped people, make handicapped faces! -- Denis Leary ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 21:06:11 -0600 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com John R. Covert wrote: > Speaking of overlays, Vonage is but should not be allowing seven > digit dialing if the assigned area code has an overlay. There is a > firm rule in the NANP that when there is an overlay, the area code > MUST be dialed. The reason for this is to make the "traditional" > area code in no way "preferable" to the overlay area code, as well > as to make sure that people don't publish seven digit numbers in > an area where you can't call up and say "What's the area code for > ?" It's worth noting that there is no "advantage" to the traditional area code once both area codes are established the way Vonage implemented 7 digit dialing -- You don't go to the traditional area code, Vonage assumes your area code. The reason is probably very simply: They were probably too lazy to figure out which area codes have overlays and which do not (and to deploy different ATA programming depending on the overlay status) And sometimes I park, in handicapped spaces, While handicapped people, make handicapped faces! -- Denis Leary ------------------------------ From: dog4dogg@yahoo.com (kansasman) Subject: Re: Cellphone Industry Turns to Unmined Territory: Seniors Date: 18 Oct 2004 14:41:44 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com David Clayton wrote in message news:: > dog4dogg@yahoo.com (kansasman) contributed the following: >> Marcus Didius Falco wrote in message >> news:: >>> From the New York Times -- >>> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/11/technology/11cell.html?oref=login >>> By MATT RICHTEL >>> Having equipped most adults and half of all teenagers with cellphones, >>> the mobile phone industry is turning its attention to the last >>> untapped demographic -- people over 65. >>> But its dreams of collecting monthly subscription fees from >>> grandparents talking to their grandchildren, retirees calling friends >>> from their recreational vehicles or patients checking in with their >>> doctors may exact a hefty and unexpected price. The mobile phone >>> industry has roused the interest of AARP, the powerful lobby and >>> advocacy group for older Americans. >>> And AARP is not happy with what it has heard from its members: >>> complaints about incomprehensible service contracts, confusing bills >>> and dead zones that are not clearly marked on coverage maps. They are >>> the same concerns that have been expressed for years by other consumer >>> advocates, who now have a new champion in the 35-million-member AARP. > And here's me thinking that the major obstacle for just about anyone > over 45 for using mobile phones more often is the bloody user > interface! > Just ask an "older" person how easy it is to use a tiny keyboard and > read a display full of data, both obviously designed for sharp-eyed > teenagers. > Making phones smaller and smaller is great for carrying them about, > but there comes a point when their "usability" for a fair segment of > the population is compromised. > Regards, > David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@XYZ.myrealbox.com > Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. > (Remove the "XYZ." to reply) > Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag > you down to their level then beat you with experience. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What you say is true if you intend to > use the phone for more than making telephone calls. For its original > and intended purpose -- making phone calls -- small is okay with me, > and I am an older person. And although I really love typing with my > thumb (three taps to make a letter /c/ for example), I strongly dislike > writing lengthy editor's notes or otherwise writing email, so I > very seldom use that wonderful feature of my cell phone, nor the use > of the cell phone to read web pages. PAT] You are right about non-user friendly cell phones for people with poor eye sight. It can be a problem. I know that aarp has an advice page for folks looking to buy cell phones, including the various cell plans, but perhaps you might want to voice your concerns with them to let more people know that accurately reading cell phones is a major concern. Here is the site: http://www.aarp.org/money/consumerprotection/telephones/Articles/a2002-10-04-UtilitiesCellPhones.html I agree with you that seniors who may be vision or hearing impaired may need special phones. Thanks for your input. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: DISH Network Viewers to Receive Unique Election Coverage Date: 18 Oct 2004 15:43:08 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Monty Solomon wrote > DISH Network Viewers to Receive Unique Election Coverage from Six > Networks on One TV Channel; Viewers Can 'Vote' For Favorite > Candidate in Special Cell Phone Poll > - Oct 18, 2004 06:00 AM (BusinessWire) While a few news junkies might find this entertaining, IMHO there is no real true news value to this sort of thing. Indeed, much of the reporting of the all-news cable is worthless. Let me emphasize that "news" is NOT raw facts or figures given by a reporter on the scene. That is just raw information that in itself is meaningless, and the cable news networks spend much time giving out only this raw data. Raw data becomes news after it is combined, reviewed, analyazed, and brought together. Context is vital. For example: a news report that six people were found dead in one day in an apartment complex sounds very bad. However, if it is added to the report that all six were very sick with terminal illnesses, it isn't that bad. "Six people dead" is only raw data. Adding context that they previously very sick changes the meaning substantially. In election reports, returns from individual districts are meaningless until many districts are in. Some districts are very partisan and not an indicator of any trends. ------------------------------ From: John Mayson Subject: Re: Radio Questions Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 02:53:52 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I believe it was in Pittsburgh, PA > in 1921. Unlike the rules today, where 'W' is east of the Mississippi > River, and 'K' stations are to the west of the same river, the station > in Pittsburgh was K-something, but I have forgotten its call sign > for sure. Another early station, perhaps the second, was WBBM in > Chicago, which began as a ham/shortwave station several years earlier > in Joliet, Illinois, but it became an *official* broadcasting station > when its owner got his license from the Federal Radio Commission (the > precursor to the present time FCC) to use the call sign WBBM and moved > his operation to the Broadmoor Hotel on the north side of Chicago, > also in 1921. PAT] You're thinking of KDKA. IIRC, there's some controversy about whether they were the first radio station in this country. Callsigns came to us from the maritime world. Back when ships used CW (Morse code) to communicate, sending "Portsmouth this is the USS John Hancock" was a little unwieldy, so much of the world adopted callsigns. Ever wonder how the US ended up with W and K (we also have N and part of the A series too)? We were late. Much of the world adopted callsigns before we did, so Great Britain got "G", the Commonwealth ended up with "V" for Queen Victoria, Germany got "D", France got "F", etc. We had to take what was left. Originally coastal stations on the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico got "W" callsigns and Pacific stations got "K". When we started assigning callsigns to broadcast stations some Texas stations like WFAA and WOAI ended up with W's. Pittsburgh's KDKW and Philly's KYW were allowed to keep their pre-existing callsigns. The government quickly redrew the line along the Mississippi because the more populous east was eating up too many "W" callsigns. I only know of one exception to the Mississippi rule. The FCC allowed a Waco, TX TV station (and possibly radio) to adopt WACO. John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------ 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 #498 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Oct 19 14:06:51 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9JI6og06935; Tue, 19 Oct 2004 14:06:51 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 14:06:51 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410191806.i9JI6og06935@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 #499 TELECOM Digest Tue, 19 Oct 2004 14:07:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 499 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Cops Track Emergency Call to Malfunctioning TV (Monty Solomon) Verizon Taking Lessons From Hooterville Telephone Company (T Pelliccio) Re: AMTRAK (was Re: Last, Sad Laugh! A Nice Place to Work!) (M Crispin) Re: AMTRAK (was Re: Last, Sad Laugh! A Nice Place to Work!) (L Hancock) Re: Sinclair's Disgrace (Joseph) Re: Routing to VOIP, was Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage (Stanley Cline) Re: Drivers Try an Anti-Photo Finish (John R. Covert) Re: A Problem With VOIP and Phone Books (Stanley Cline) 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, 19 Oct 2004 10:06:55 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cops Track Emergency Call to Malfunctioning TV By Richard Shim Talk about unwanted new features in fancy televisions, college student Chris van Rossman got more than he wanted with his Toshiba set -- as he learned when emergency and law enforcement officials came knocking. Earlier this month, Rossman's year-old 20-inch flat screen TV started broadcasting over the 121.5MHz frequency, the channel used for distress signals. Such signals are used by search and rescue workers to find airplanes that have crashed or boats that are lost or missing. Rossman's TV was picked up by search and rescue satellites and emergency crews were alerted. http://news.com.com/2100-1041-5415719.html ------------------------------ From: kd1s@yahoo.com (Tony Pelliccio) Subject: Verizon Taking Lessons From Hooterville Telephone Company Date: 19 Oct 2004 06:09:38 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I recently moved three blocks east of my former location and contacted Verizon to move the line. I was assured that at 8:30AM on the 15th service at the old address would cut and the new address would be active at 10:30AM. Service at the old location cut at 11:30PM on Friday but the new location wasn't up yet. I've been going around and around with Verizon for days about this. They say the switch is telling them service is fine and to find my network interface and they'll take it from there. What I found was I'm pair #14 on a 50 pair breakout box with screw posts and nuts to hold the wiring down. I had to ANAC about 30 lines before I found mine. Thing is, I know I'm going to have to wire my jacks as whoever did the wiring before was a hack. But I had this faint image of having to climb a telephone pole to make a call that harkens back to Green Acres and the Hooterville Telephone Company. Needless to say -- the CATV line is in the house and the HSI is getting installed Thursday so I just might port my service to Vonage and be done with the stodgy phone company once and for all. ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: Re: AMTRAK (was Re: Last, Sad Laugh! A Nice Place to Work!) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 22:57:23 -0700 Organization: University of Washington On Mon, 18 Oct 2004, Lisa Hancock wrote: > From the 1930s to 1950s, a consortum led by General Motors and tire > and oil interests bought out city street railways and converted them > to buses supplied by the consortum. This was not the only reason > cities lost their streetcars, but it was a significant contributor and > accelerated the loss. I have heard this claim many times but have seen scant evidence of a conspiracy. Rather, it seems that companies in the *transportation* business consolidated. Streetcars, while quaint, have limitations. Streetcars vanished from NYC, London, and Tokyo; yet all three cities have extensive rail-based rapid transit networks. You'll see streetcars in Germany and Austria, as part of an aboveground S-Bahn network which is invariably slower and less preferred to the underground U-Bahn. The S-Bahn quickly becomes rapid transit once in suburbia. LA actually had a public vote in the 1920s on whether to extend the streetcar lines. The voters overwhelmingly voted *against* streetcars in favor of more auto roads and bus lines. From that moment, the streetcars' doom was sealed, although it took a few decades for the streetcars to die. Most American cities are still too sparsely-populated to support a rapid transit line. The modern incarnation of streetcars, "light rail", remain limited in service area compared to buses. Some cities, such as Seattle, try to get the best of both worlds with diesel/electric buses that run on overhead power lines when present and on diesel fuel otherwise. Seattle is now trying to build a light rail line and a monorail ... -- Mark -- http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. Si vis pacem, para bellum. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Streetcars have very few limitations. They are actually preferred, IMO, in various ways. Trolley busses are better, however (the distinction being trolleys run with overhead power lines (i.e. catenary poles) but rubber tires rather than wheels like railroad cars. Chicago Transit Authority had both street cars at one time, and trolley busses until later, into the 1960's on the latter. As children, we would play a game which for lack of a better name was called 'stall the trolley bus'. A trolley bus ran east and west on Lawrence Avenue; a streetcar ran north and south on Western Avenue. The kids got 'points' if they could slip unseen behind the trolley bus and knock the catenary pole down, causing the trolley to stall (from lack of electrical power), while it stopped at Lawrence and Western (a fairly busy intersection) to load/unload passengers. Still more points were given if the kid timed it just right, (Trolley stopped at a stop light, light changed to green, kid waited until the trolley had started to accelerate his motor, *then* pull the catenary down, giving the trolley *just enough power* to coast out into the middle of the intersection before it stalled completely.) Of course if Lawrence had just gotten the green light at that point then Western had a red light. The trolley driver would get out of the bus muttering or cursing about the 'little bastards' who had done it. It was a two or three minute process to get off the bus, walk to the rear, take the connecting rod, prod the catenary into place, re-establish the power, get back on the trolley and drive away. Most likely the stop and go had changed colors twice by then, so of course traffic on Western Avenue was stalled also for the duration. Still more points awarded if the Western Avenue streetcar was coming as well, since *he* had to sit there and wait while the Lawrence trolley bus got un-stalled and restarted. One time that happened, the streetcar motorman came over to help the trolley bus driver get his pole up and re-established. Of course the little bastards were no where to be found, having run off to hide as usual after they had done that. All the cars on Western Avenue which cannot get past are sitting there honking their horns as the trolley driver is trying to get his pole back up, and the passengers on the trolley peering out the window watching it all. The little bastards, from their hiding place were all doubled up in hysterical laughter at it all. It was a great game for boys 10-12 years old. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: AMTRAK (was Re: Last, Sad Laugh! A Nice Place to Work!) Date: 19 Oct 2004 10:09:50 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com John Mayson wrote: > If it provided such an economic advantage then private companies would > be chomping at the bit to set up commuter rail service. When economic advantages accrue to society at large, private companies are not interested and the government is needed to support for them. For example, firehouses are a vital service, but there are very few for-profit fire services and no interest to turn it into something like that. The private sector has shown little interest in building and operating its own turnpikes and toll bridges (though there are a few). One pvt toll bridge in southern New Jersey wants the take to take it over. Likewise, the airlines have shown no interest in raising capital and building and operating their own airports, preferring to rent space from govt built and owned facilities. > This isn't the sole cause, but there is something else contributing > the decline of rail. > Around 1906 or so the US government passed stringent regulations ... Imagine you own old grocery stores. They aren't doing very well. You're thinking of either (1) investing your money to modernize them or (2) closing some or all down. But the government comes along and builds a fancy new shopping across the street from you. Your property taxes go up to for it. You then decide to close those stores which directly compete with the govt stores and have lost their patronage. But, the govt tells you must keep those stores open full hours as a public service, even though you're losing money on them. As to investing money to modernize your stores, you discover that the govt stores were built with guaranteed tax free bonds, which pay little interest. The loans you would take would be much more costly. Further, because you're losing money, investors are leery about giving you a loan, further raising the interest rate. It just doesn't pay you to the run your stores, even where it is still profitable. The above was the railroad passenger situation in the 1950s. Tightly regulated with many mandated unprofitable services, yet government subsidized competition taking away business. In the late 1960s, policy makers realized that highways and airports were so badly overcrowded and using up so much good _irreplaceable_ land that they just weren't working out. So, they recognized there still was a place for the passenger train to supplement the above modes and ease some of the burden. That was the rationale to create Amtrak (and commuter rail lines). ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Sinclair's Disgrace Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 07:48:19 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On 17 Oct 2004 20:49:06 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote: > The Sinclair business is propaganda just like Michael Moore's film > is propaganda. I suspect many of those upset about Sinclair are > the same people who applauded Michael Moore. The two are the same. > What goes around comes around. If you're going to compare do it with apples to apples not apples to oranges. People had to *want* to see the Michael Moore film and pay for it and it was not broadcast on public airwaves. What Sinclair is going to do is *demand* that the stations that they control pump this out to the public pre-empting other programming. It's hardly the same thing. ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: Routing to VOIP, was Can't Move 800 Number to Vonage Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 01:02:45 -0400 Organization: Roamer1 Communications Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 03:18:05 UTC, Danny Burstein wrote: > As a related issue, some of the 1-800 providers [a] are taking > advantage of the interim regulatory quagmire vis-a-vis VOIP's > exemption from the local telco per-minute termination fees. So since > they don't have to pay those charges, they're (for the moment) > charging you (the "owner" of the 1-800 number) less for calls that > wind up at a(n) VOIP "number". > [a] I'm familiar with kall-8, being a customer of theirs. I understand > some others do this as well. http://www.kall8.com AIUI, it's not really so much that as the fact that carriers like Kall8 that can terminate traffic "directly" to SIP destinations usually terminate such calls on a dedicated T1 from an IXC, just like a large call center would, that goes into some sort of softswitch or media gateway, or the carrier is both an IXC and a CLEC (Kall8/ITL is both) and so can avoid paying themselves access charges on the terminating end. 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 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 10:13:12 EDT From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: Drivers Try an Anti-Photo Finish In reply to an article stating "the firms that make and operate radar camera systems and analyze the photos for municipalities routinely check negatives where license plates look unreadable" Linc Madison wrote: > What UTTER and COMPLETE nonsense! If the positive image is illegible, > the negative image will be EXACTLY as illegible. This is only true if you are assuming EXACTLY the same technology for the negative and positive image. But this is not usually the case. The shadow definition (the number of different levels of light and dark or shades of gray) as well as the number of different colors representable is usually significantly greater on negative film than on positive print paper. The resolution is usually higher as well. The printing process which creates the positive image does not retain all of the information that is in the negative. So it's not nonsense at all. You might enjoy the movie "Blow Up!" /john ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: A Problem With VOIP and Phone Books Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 00:52:56 -0400 Organization: Roamer1 Communications Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org On 16 Oct 2004 10:34:03 GMT, Ed Clarke wrote: > If you read the fine print in your contract, you'll discover that the > phone numbers that you are given (if you can't port your old number > over) are not listed in the "telephone book". This means that you've > gone to an "unlisted" number. > I wonder how long the "phone company" will keep your old number in > their own very expensive book? Why should they? It's not their If you port out to a non-LEC VoIP carrier (Vonage and so on), it'll usually go out of directory assistance as soon as the port goes through, or a week or two thereafter. :( That said, I think a few VoIP providers (BroadVox Direct comes to mind) do have arrangements with the CLECs they use to get numbers into directory assistance and the phone book, at least for business customers. > customer, is it? I just finished looking at several local guide or > mini-phonebook websites; all the ones that I've looked at (411.com, > worldpages.com, whitepages.com) refuse to let you add or edit a > residential listing. Keep looking -- there are some that do allow addition of listings. (switchboard.com comes to mind.) > that's equivalent to the phone book. And what's the situation when > you move to an alternate provider? My wife moved us from Verizon to > Excel for the home phone; is there a reason to expect our home phone > number to remain in the Verizon book? If you port to a certified CLEC (pure reseller, UNE-P, UNE-L, your cable company, etc.), you can almost always keep your listing, or choose to be nonlisted or non-pub as with the ILEC. Wireless carriers just aren't used to people wanting their wireless numbers listed; non-telco VoIP is complicated by the fact that in most cases, the *VoIP provider* and not the actual end user is the "owner" of the phone number. (If you port a number to a VoIP provider the "LNP" request usually consists of a combination LNP request -- to get the number to whatever CLEC the VoIP provider uses -- as well as a "temporary" LOA assigning the number to the VoIP provider while you have service with them. This is why you can almost always port out a number you ported to a VoIP carrier, but you can't port out numbers the VoIP carrier assigned you -- in the former case, it's still "your" number, but in the latter case the number isn't "yours". Technically, a VoIP provider could LOA numbers they assigned to departing customers to let them port out, but none are set up to do that, probably intentionally.) 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 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 #499 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Oct 20 01:18:25 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i9K5IPT12060; Wed, 20 Oct 2004 01:18:25 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 01:18:25 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410200518.i9K5IPT12060@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 #500 TELECOM Digest Wed, 20 Oct 2004 01:18:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 500 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Identity Badge Worn Under Skin Approved for Use in Health Care (Joseph) Help Me Identify/Repair Power Transformers (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: Radio Questions (Robert Bonomi) Re: Radio Questions (R. T. Wurth) Re: Radio Questions (J Kelly) Re: Lee's ABC of the Telephone (Jason) Re: Verizon Taking Lessons From Hooterville Telephone Company (HorneTD) Re: Privacy Eroding, Bit by Byte (Lisa Hancock) Re: AMTRAK (was Re: Last, Sad Laugh! Nice Place to Work!) (Lisa Hancock) Re: Sinclair's Disgrace (Lisa Hancock) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joseph Subject: Identity Badge Worn Under Skin Approved for Use in Health Care Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 16:54:49 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com By BARNABY J. FEDER and TOM ZELLER Jr. The Food and Drug Administration has cleared the way for a Florida company to market implantable chips that would provide easy access to individual medical records. The approval, which the company announced yesterday, is expected to bring to public attention a simmering debate over a technology that has evoked Orwellian overtones for privacy advocates and fueled fears of widespread tracking of people with implanted radio frequency tags, even though that ability does not yet exist. Applied Digital Solutions, based in Delray Beach, Fla., said that its devices, which it calls VeriChips, could save lives and limit injuries from errors in medical treatment. And it expressed hope that such medical uses would accelerate the acceptance of under-the-skin ID chips as security and access-control devices http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/14/technology/14implant.html?oref=login&th ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 17:05:30 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Help Me Identify/Repair/Replace a Power Transformer Here is a question for the group regards 'low voltage' electrical current. I have two transformers: One is Radio Shack, 'clean' DC output, 13.8 Volts at 3 Amps. Its like a little box, a 'powerhouse' kind of thing. It has a 'reset' button on the back in case the output goes out due to overload or a short. $39 at Radio Shack. I had been using it to run a small portable TV set and a scanner radio, such as would be plugged into a car cigarette lighter and run from a car battery. The other transformer is an Intermatic, model is 'Malibu 88-T' and it does output of 12 Volts and 1 Amp. It has a clock built in which allows it to be automatically turned on/off as desired. Its purpose is to service outside lights along a sidewalk for example. Using 12 or 14 gauge wire, a series of little lights strung over a distance of 50 feet will light up. Total wattage allowed is 88 Watts between all the bulbs, which are 5-10 watts each. It is available from Ace Hardware here in Indy also for $39. Are these two power supplies interchangeable (ignoring the fact that the Intermatic has a built in clock since I have other timers I can use)? How do you calculate volts/amps to watts? I am not going to have $78 to spare this month (barely can spare $39 for one of them), so am curious to know what I can get away with or not get away with. PAT ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Radio Questions Organization: Robert Bonomi Consulting From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 22:49:01 +0000 In article , John Mayson wrote: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I believe it was in Pittsburgh, PA >> in 1921. Unlike the rules today, where 'W' is east of the Mississippi >> River, and 'K' stations are to the west of the same river, the station >> in Pittsburgh was K-something, but I have forgotten its call sign >> for sure. Another early station, perhaps the second, was WBBM in >> Chicago, which began as a ham/shortwave station several years earlier >> in Joliet, Illinois, but it became an *official* broadcasting station >> when its owner got his license from the Federal Radio Commission (the >> precursor to the present time FCC) to use the call sign WBBM and moved >> his operation to the Broadmoor Hotel on the north side of Chicago, >> also in 1921. PAT] > You're thinking of KDKA. IIRC, there's some controversy about whether > they were the first radio station in this country. > Callsigns came to us from the maritime world. Back when ships used CW > (Morse code) to communicate, sending "Portsmouth this is the USS John > Hancock" was a little unwieldy, so much of the world adopted callsigns. > Ever wonder how the US ended up with W and K (we also have N and part of > the A series too)? We were late. Much of the world adopted callsigns > before we did, so Great Britain got "G", the Commonwealth ended up with > "V" for Queen Victoria, Germany got "D", France got "F", etc. We had to > take what was left. > Originally coastal stations on the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico got "W" > callsigns and Pacific stations got "K". When we started assigning > callsigns to broadcast stations some Texas stations like WFAA and WOAI > ended up with W's. Pittsburgh's KDKW and Philly's KYW were allowed to > keep their pre-existing callsigns. The government quickly redrew the > line along the Mississippi because the more populous east was eating > up too many "W" callsigns. > I only know of one exception to the Mississippi rule. The FCC allowed a > Waco, TX TV station (and possibly radio) to adopt WACO. You havn't looked very hard. Ones I grew up with: WHO (AM, FM, and TV), Des Moines, Iowa. WOI (AM, FM, and TV -- university owned, TV station since sold), Ames, Iowa WWL Waterloo, Iowa. Intrestingly, KWWL is in the same town. WSUI Iowa City, Iowa Also the home of KSUI. *SAME* owner, even. :) WOW Omaha, Nebraska WMT Cedar Rapids, Iowa Some more that I dug up: WOC Davenport, Iowa WRR Dallas, Texas WBAP Ft. Worth, Texas WCAL Northfield, Minnesota WDAF Kansas City, Missouri WDAY Fargo, North Dakota WFAA Dallas, Texas WIBW Topeka, Kansas WJOD Asbury, Iowa WJON St. Cloud, Minnesota WNAX Yankton, South Dakota WOAI San Antonio, Texas WOWT Omaha, Nebraska WTAW College Station, Texas WWLS Moore, Oklahoma WWJO St. Cloud, Minnesota WYRQ Little Falls, Minnesota and, some hair-splitting (Metro area crosses the river, transmitter _could_ be on the Illinois side of the Missippi): WIL St. Louis, Missouri WRTH St. Louis, Missouri WCCO Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota WLTE Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota WMCN St. Paul, Minnesota These I can't locate on the map. WBJI Blackduck, Minnesota WIRN Buhl, Minnesota And, yes, WACO Waco Texas. ------------------------------ From: rwurth@att.net (R. T. Wurth) Subject: Re: Radio Questions Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 00:24:18 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet In article , John Mayson wrote: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I believe it was in Pittsburgh, PA >> in 1921. Unlike the rules today, where 'W' is east of the Mississippi >> River, and 'K' stations are to the west of the same river, the station >> in Pittsburgh was K-something, but I have forgotten its call sign >> for sure. Another early station, perhaps the second, was WBBM in >> Chicago, which began as a ham/shortwave station several years earlier >> in Joliet, Illinois, but it became an *official* broadcasting station >> when its owner got his license from the Federal Radio Commission (the >> precursor to the present time FCC) to use the call sign WBBM and moved >> his operation to the Broadmoor Hotel on the north side of Chicago, >> also in 1921. PAT] > You're thinking of KDKA. IIRC, there's some controversy about whether > they were the first radio station in this country. > Callsigns came to us from the maritime world. Back when ships used CW > (Morse code) to communicate, sending "Portsmouth this is the USS John > Hancock" was a little unwieldy, so much of the world adopted callsigns. > Ever wonder how the US ended up with W and K (we also have N and part of > the A series too)? We were late. Much of the world adopted callsigns > before we did, so Great Britain got "G", the Commonwealth ended up with > "V" for Queen Victoria, Germany got "D", France got "F", etc. We had to > take what was left. > Originally coastal stations on the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico got "W" > callsigns and Pacific stations got "K". When we started assigning > callsigns to broadcast stations some Texas stations like WFAA and WOAI > ended up with W's. Pittsburgh's KDKW and Philly's KYW were allowed to > keep their pre-existing callsigns. The government quickly redrew the > line along the Mississippi because the more populous east was eating > up too many "W" callsigns. > I only know of one exception to the Mississippi rule. The FCC allowed a > Waco, TX TV station (and possibly radio) to adopt WACO. > John Mayson > Austin, Texas, USA There were some W-s, WEW and WIL, licensed to serve St. Louis, west of the Mississippi, and thus signing as WEW, St. Louis, and WIL, St. Louis (technically broadcast radio/tv call signs had to include the community of license as well as the call letters). These would appear to be breaking the Mississippi rule. I can think of a few possible reasons that might make them technically non-exceptions. It is possible that they transmitted from across the river in Illinois, and that the rule referred to transmitter site, not to community of licensure, or it may have been that they were originally licensed to E. St. Louis, IL, and then petitioned to move their license to St. Louis. Does anyone know the real explanation? Were these stations exceptions, too, or were they special cases? Rich Wurth / rwurth@att.net / Rumson, NJ 07760 USA ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Re: Radio Questions Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 20:52:18 -0500 Organization: http://newsguy.com Reply-To: jkelly@newsguy.com On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 02:53:52 GMT, John Mayson wrote: > Originally coastal stations on the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico got "W" > callsigns and Pacific stations got "K". When we started assigning > callsigns to broadcast stations some Texas stations like WFAA and WOAI > ended up with W's. Pittsburgh's KDKW and Philly's KYW were allowed to > keep their pre-existing callsigns. The government quickly redrew the > line along the Mississippi because the more populous east was eating > up too many "W" callsigns. > I only know of one exception to the Mississippi rule. The FCC allowed a > Waco, TX TV station (and possibly radio) to adopt WACO. I know of several "W" call stations in both Iowa and Nebraska (WMT, WHO, WOI, WOWT, WSUI and I am sure many others). ------------------------------ From: Jason Subject: Re: Lee's ABC of the Telephone Date: 19 Oct 2004 14:45:25 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Many thanks Jim! I picked up more than a few volumes from that site today. I'll probably be grabbing an edition of the "Principles of Electricity Applied To Telephone and Telegraph Work" as well. -Jason ------------------------------ From: HorneTD Subject: Re: Verizon Taking Lessons From Hooterville Telephone Company Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 01:15:57 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Tony Pelliccio wrote: > I recently moved three blocks east of my former location and contacted > Verizon to move the line. > I was assured that at 8:30AM on the 15th service at the old address > would cut and the new address would be active at 10:30AM. > Service at the old location cut at 11:30PM on Friday but the new > location wasn't up yet. I've been going around and around with Verizon > for days about this. They say the switch is telling them service is > fine and to find my network interface and they'll take it from there. > What I found was I'm pair #14 on a 50 pair breakout box with screw > posts and nuts to hold the wiring down. I had to ANAC about 30 lines > before I found mine. > Thing is, I know I'm going to have to wire my jacks as whoever did the > wiring before was a hack. But I had this faint image of having to > climb a telephone pole to make a call that harkens back to Green Acres > and the Hooterville Telephone Company. > Needless to say -- the CATV line is in the house and the HSI is > getting installed Thursday so I just might port my service to Vonage > and be done with the stodgy phone company once and for all. Just be aware that voice over cable requires electric power at both ends of the circuit and several places in between. In the event of a power outage your phone service dies. Tom H [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A suggestion has been made here in this Digest a few times that to eliminate the problem of a lack of power due to a storm, or fallen wires or whatever, use a UPS for the VOIP phone adapter and your modem. This will allow you to make emergency calls during the power outage. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Privacy Eroding, Bit by Byte Date: 19 Oct 2004 19:41:00 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Jack Decker wrote: >> Information users are not only big corporations, but also small >> businesses, who legitimately need to know the credit worthiness of >> customers _before_ they risk their limited resources. Otherwise >> they'd have to have payment in advance which isn't a good idea. > Um, why not? Where did we ever get the idea that it's a good idea to > spend money we don't yet have? I should've elaborated what I meant. Say you're a homeowner and you order a new central heater/air conditioner installation, with payment due upon completion of the work. Now the contractor, having laid out his money to buy the units and his time to install them, doesn't want to get burned when he is ready to get paid. Sure he has legal recourse, but that's slow and iffy. The contractor can check your credit quickly and if you have a deadbeat or bad check history, decline your order or require pre-payment. Unfortunately, too many people ditch their obligations with bad checks or no payment and small business people can't afford the losses. > ... And I think that up until the 1950's or so, most > everyone felt that way. Then along came the pushers of credit cards, > and somehow we got to a point where it was just considered normal to > live beyond our means, while paying the credit card companies usurious > interest rates. Actually, installment buying has been around since the 1920s and widely used by consumers to buy new electric appliances that were coming out in those days. Department stores had charge codes and if you spread out your payments, your interest rates were high. I think in more recent years people have been using Visa/Mastercards more and more for smaller purchases they previously used cash, such as a pizza dinner. I'm not sure that's a good idea. As to home mortgages, small down payments and govt guarantees date from WW II for veterans and helped a big portion of society get their first owned home. However, today I see a lot of people buy a house with very little down and fail to pay for it and lose it. The govt ends up eating foreclosure costs. Other creditors get screwed. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I quite agree with the original author that we should not spend money we don't have. At least not in a frivilous fashion. But it is good to have one or two debit cards to use in emergencies plus a *very limited line of credit* on a credit card to use as needed. I had to take one of my two cats to Doctor Epp's Animal Hospital about two weeks ago. I would have been hung out, high and dry, as the saying goes if I had not had my very small, high interest credit card to use for her treatments. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: AMTRAK (was Re: Last, Sad Laugh! A Nice Place to Work!) Date: 19 Oct 2004 20:07:50 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Mark Crispin wrote: >> From the 1930s to 1950s, a consortum led by General Motors and tire >> and oil interests bought out city street railways and converted them >> to buses supplied by the consortum. This was not the only reason >> cities lost their streetcars, but it was a significant contributor and >> accelerated the loss. > I have heard this claim many times but have seen scant evidence of a > conspiracy. Rather, it seems that companies in the *transportation* > business consolidated. I'm not sure what you're asking. It is a well documented fact that General Motors with several other major vehicle suppliers had a company known as National City Lines buy up streetcar companies and convert the properties to buses, supplied by the parent companies of NCL. I did not label this a "conspiracy". In 1974 Congress held hearings on this issue in light of the energy crisis. I do know in the case of Philadelphia, the existing management intended to retain many streetcar routes and was buying modern new cars for them. When NCL took over it promptly purchased 1,000 GMC buses and quickly converted many streetcar routes to bus. Observers (former mgmt employees) have said that NCL curtailed maintenance to save money. In any event, it was good business for the bus, tire, and fuel manufacturers involved, but not necessarily in the best interests of the riding public. > Streetcars, while quaint, have limitations. Yes, they do. But in certain situations they are superior. They held more people and accelerated faster than a bus did, providing faster and more comfortable service. However, in street service they get blocked behind stuck cars. The older models (pre 1930) were noisy and rough riding, but the 1930 and onward, especially the PCC* cars were very nice. *PCC was an industry top-down new design of a streetcar with high comfort and performance and efficiency in mind. Anyone lucky enough to ride the Newark (NJ) City Subway before new cars got to see how smooth and quiet they were. The design was copied in Europe and thousands of cars were built there. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Streetcars have very few limitations. > They are actually preferred, IMO, in various ways. Trolley busses are > better, however (the distinction being trolleys run with overhead > power lines (i.e. catenary poles) but rubber tires rather than wheels > like railroad cars. Chicago Transit Authority had both street cars at > one time, and trolley busses until later, into the 1960's on the latter. Chicago got a huge new fleet of PCC cars, but then decided to convert to bus. They scrapped the nearly new PCC cars and used the parts to build El cars. (Contrary to myth, the cars were not simply converted to be El cars since too many elements were not compatible). Some of those El cars ended their careers in suburban Philadelphia as emergency replacements on a suburban line. (Supposedly this included the one Bob Newhart rode in the intro to his TV show.) This suburban line also earlier purchased the North Shore "Electroliners" which were an unbelievable delight. They're retired in museums now. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For readers not familiar, Lisa's use of the term 'El' is short for 'elevated', the type of rapid transit system very common in Chicago. Not many people are aware of the fact that the earlier (two generations ago) elevated cars were largely built from modified/re-worked 'Green Hornet' street cars (the PCC cars Lisa mentions.) Bob Newhart boarded and exited an elevated car at the Merchandise Mart station on the Ravenswood branch line. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Sinclair's Disgrace Date: 19 Oct 2004 20:25:28 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Joseph wrote: > What Sinclair is going to do is *demand* that the stations that they > control pump this out to the public pre-empting other programming. > It's hardly the same thing. It's his personal stations, so he is not "demanding" anything, but merely showing what he feels like showing, as any station owner may do. A TV station owner is free to show F/911 if it so chooses. He may take a loss on revenues if nobody few people watch it or he can't get sponsors for the time. I think the guy is being sleazy for doing this, but he's within his rights. I also don't think it will impact the election, indeed the stunt may turn people off, esp if their desired viewing is pre-empted. BTW, FDR, who expertly used radio to communicate directly to the people, didn't like radio station owners. He didn't like newspaper owners either (some were notoriously hostile to him) but he couldn't do anything about them. He _could_ do something about radio stations and had the early FCC develop ownership rules. Nixon and Johnson got a lot of flack for complaining to TV execs and threatening their licenses, but FDR was doing the same thing only quietly. BTW, NBC used own what is ABC today, back then there was NBC Red and NBC Blue. During WW II the govt ordered NBC to divest and thus ABC was born. Pat (Sylvester) Weaver wrote a book about the early days of the TV industry. (I forgot the title). I do recommend it and it describes a lot of the stuff that went on behind the scenes of the networks. I have a feeling that General Sarnoff, head of RCA and NBC, and Paley, head of CBS, were some very tough cookies who you'd better not alienate. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You may be interested in a show to be aired on October 27 at (I think) 10 PM eastern/9 central on TV Land, called "Politics and Prime Time". Among other things, they are going to be showing *ancient* political advertising clips from the days of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Bush the First, etc. That will be followed by a one hour rarely seen 'Tour of the White House' which was produced for CBS when Jacqueline Kennedy was the First Lady, 1961-63. TV Land has been doing promotions for it for several weeks now, including the infamous one of Barry Goldwater (who ran against Kennedy as I recall) with his taken out of context remark about the hydrogen bomb (or H-Bomb). We see the mushroom cloud in the background, Goldwater in the foreground and a voice-over informing us that "Goldwater says 'the H-Bomb is just another weapon ...' just another weapon ??" the voice asks incredulously. Remember how Goldwater was thought to be such a war hawk when he was running, and all the smears against him by the Democrats? And his Democratic opponent, John Kennedy, the Republicans hastened to remind us continually everytime they got a chance, was a (gasp!) Roman Catholic, and if *he* got elected, before long, the (gasp!) Pope would be running America, 'since all Catholics have to obey the Pope.' The other good one TV Land has shown almost daily of late is Bush the First telling us "what America needs is a family structure like the Walton's, not Homer Simpson." Smears and innuendo are nothing new at election time, are they, Lisa? Anyway, check out 'Politics and Primetime' on TV Land, October 27 for some of the good old-fashioned smear campaigns they used to do in the 1950-1980 era of television. Some of the stuff they get away with saying on national TV in those days was incredible, almost like today. 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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