From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 4 00:08:44 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 7EBC114DA4; Fri, 4 Nov 2005 00:08:44 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #501 Message-Id: <20051104050844.7EBC114DA4@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 00:08:44 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.0 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, NO_COST autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 3 Nov 2005 23:58:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 501 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Botmaster Charged in Unique Computer Crime (Dan Whitcomb) MIT Wireless Network Tracks Info on Users (Brooke Donald) Mesh Networks: New Options For Wireless Users (Mark Long) Mystery Object: Supermassive Black Holes? (Peter N. Spotts, CS Monitor) Re: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far (Jim Haynes) Re: Verizon FIOS, DSL, and Possible Cancellation Fees (jeremyeastburn) Re: Recorded Call From Law Office? (Carl Moore) Re: Do We Go Overboard for Halloween? (John McHarry) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dan Whitcomb Subject: Botmaster Charged in Unique Computer Crime Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 21:03:23 -0600 By Dan Whitcomb A 20-year-old man accused of using thousands of hijacked computers, or "bot nets," to damage systems and send massive amounts of spam across the Internet was arrested on Thursday in what authorities called the first such prosecution of its kind. Jeanson James Ancheta, who prosecutors say was a well-known member of the "Botmaster Underground" -- or the secret network of computer hackers skilled at bot attacks -- was taken into custody after being lured to FBI offices in Los Angeles, said U.S. Attorney's spokesman Thom Mrozek. A bot is a program that surreptitiously installs itself on a computer and allows the hacker to control the computer. A bot net is a network of such robot computers, which can harness their collective power to do considerable damage or send out huge quantities of spam. Mrozek said the prosecution was unique because, unlike in previous cases, Ancheta was accused of profiting from his attacks -- by selling access to his "bot nets" to other hackers and planting adware -- software that causes ads to pop up -- into infected computers. "Normally what we see in these cases, where people set up these bot systems to do, say, denial of service attacks, they are not doing it for profit, they are doing it for bragging rights," he said. "This is the first case in the nation that we're aware of where the guy was using various bot nets in order to make money for himself." Ancheta has been indicted on a 17-count federal indictment that charges him with conspiracy, attempted transmission of code to a protected computer, transmission of code to a government computer, accessing a protected computer to commit fraud and money laundering. Ancheta, who was expected to make an initial court appearance late on Thursday or Friday, faces a maximum term of 50 years in prison if convicted on all counts, though federal sentencing guidelines typically call for lesser penalties. Prosecutors did not name the companies that they said paid Ancheta and said the firms did not know any laws were broken. Mrozek said Ancheta, who lives in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, was thought to have made nearly $60,000 from the planted adware, using the money to pay for servers to carry out additional attacks, computer equipment and a BMW. He said Ancheta was taken into custody after FBI agents called him into their offices to pick up computer equipment that had been seized in an earlier raid. Among the computers he attacked, Mrozek said, were some at the Weapons Division of the U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California and at the U.S. Department of Defense. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Brooke Donald Subject: MIT Wireless Network Tracks Info on Users Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 21:04:29 -0600 By BROOKE DONALD, Associated Press Writer In another time and place, college students wondering whether the campus cafe has any free seats, or their favorite corner of the library is occupied, would have to risk hoofing it over there. But for today's student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, that kind of information is all just a click away. MIT's newly upgraded wireless network -- extended this month to cover the entire school -- doesn't merely get you online in study halls, stairwells or any other spot on the 9.4 million square foot campus. It also provides information on exactly how many people are logged on at any given location at any given time. It even reveals a user's identity if the individual has opted to make that data public. MIT researchers did this by developing electronic maps that track across campus, day and night, the devices people use to connect to the network, whether they're laptops, wireless PDAs or even Wi-Fi equipped cell phones. The maps were unveiled this week at the MIT Museum, where they are projected onto large Plexiglas rectangles that hang from the ceiling. They are also available online to network users, the data time-stamped and saved for up to 12 hours. Red splotches on one map show the highest concentration of wireless users on campus. On another map, yellow dots with names written above them identify individual users, who pop up in different places depending where they're logged in. "With these maps, you can see down to the room on campus how many people are logged on," said Carlo Ratti, director of the school's SENSEable City Laboratory, which created the maps. "You can even watch someone go from room to room if they have a handheld device that's connected." Researchers use log files from the university's Internet service provider to construct the maps. The files indicate the number of users connected to each of MIT's more than 2,800 access points. The map that can pinpoint locations in rooms is 3-D, so researchers can even distinguish connectivity in multistoried buildings. "Laptops and Wi-Fi are creating a revolutionary change in the way people work," Ratti said. The maps aim to "visualize these changes by monitoring the traffic on the wireless network and showing how people move around campus." Some of the results so far aren't terribly surprising for students at the vanguard of tech innovation. The maps show, for example, that the bulk of wireless users late at night and very early in the morning are logged on from their dorms. During the day, the higher concentration of users shifts to classrooms. But researchers also found that study labs that once bustled with students are now nearly empty as people, no longer tethered to a phone line or network cable, move to cafes and nearby lounges, where food and comfy chairs are more inviting. Researchers say this data can be used to better understand how wireless technology is changing campus life, and what that means for planning spaces and administering services. The question has become, Ratti said, "If I can work anywhere, where do I want to work?" "Many cities, including Philadelphia, are planning to go wireless. Something like our study will help them understand usage patterns and where best to invest," said researcher Andres Sevtsuk. Sevtsuk likened the mapping project to a real-time census. "Instead of waiting every year or every 10 years for data, you have new information every 15 minutes or so about the population of the campus," he said. While every device connected to the campus network via Wi-Fi is visible on the constantly refreshed electronic maps, the identity of the users is confidential unless they volunteer to make it public. Those students, faculty and staff who opt in are essentially agreeing to let others track them. "This raises some serious privacy issues," Ratti said. "But where better than to work these concerns out but on a research campus?" Rich Pell, a 21-year-old electrical engineering senior from Spartanburg, S.C., was less than enthusiastic about the new system's potential for people monitoring. He predicted not many fellow students would opt into that. "I wouldn't want all my friends and professors tracking me all the time. I like my privacy," he said. "I can't think of anyone who would think that's a good idea. Everyone wants to be out of contact now and then." On the Net: http://ispots.mit.edu/ http://senseable.mit.edu/ Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more news from Associated Press please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ From: Mark Long Subject: Mesh Networks: New Options for Wireless Users Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 21:05:39 -0600 by Mark Long, newsfactor.com The race has begun to make wireless networks more viable for cities, large corporate headquarters, university campuses, and other environments where the technology used in today's Wi-Fi hotspots might be insufficient on its own. Several companies -- including tech giant Motorola and smaller shops such as Firetide, Tropos Networks, BelAir Networks, and Strix Systems -- have been pursuing a wireless broadband network strategy, known as 'mesh,' to help extend the reach of wireless networks. The ingenious technology works in such a way that users who are out of range of an Internet-access point do not need a dedicated connection of their own. Instead, they can piggyback their Internet requests on devices scattered around a geographic location. These devices relay the requests back to the central connection. In theory, long chains of such devices can provide Internet connectivity far from the actual access point. Mesh Backbone One company leading the way in the march to mesh, SkyPilot Networks in Santa Clara, California, is applying the technology to serve both residential broadband customers and city workers. "We are the only company thus far to use the same mesh backbone infrastructure to provide both broadband Ethernet access and Wi-Fi," said SkyPilot CEO Bob Machlin. He said that such a network can scale to all kinds of distances and capacities, and that having a single integrated network makes it easier to manage the system as well as to maintain quality of service. "Today it is very easy to do a Google search on the term 'metro Wi-Fi' and come up with list of a thousand projects out there," Machlin said. "They range from connectivity for public employees to ones that add on free public service and public safety connectivity from fire to police." At least one Internet service provider (ISP), however, is sold on the mesh-networks idea. MetroFi in Mountain View, California, now offers residential customers in both Cupertino and Santa Clara Wi-Fi services for which SkyPilot provided the components. "The deployments cover 20 square miles and use 25 SkyPilot mesh infrastructure nodes per square mile," said MetroFi CEO Chuck Haas. "And our service is available today for $19.95, or about half the cost of subscribing to DSL or cable." Community Coverage Another benefit of MetroFi's new service is that subscribers can access the system using a laptop from anywhere within the community's coverage area. Although the company does not offer public-safety communications in Cupertino or Santa Clara, Haas said MetroFi is talking with other California communities about providing cities with such networks under an 'all-in' pricing of $50,000 per square mile, inclusive of site surveys, network design, equipment, and installation. Beyond its potential metropolitan-wide applications, SkyPilot's technology has facilitated the rollout of broadband services in rural environments where DSL and cable providers fear to tread. Larry Bowman, a partner at SkyWest Broadband, has deployed SkyPilot's technology to cover residential customers in Grass Valley, California, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Bowman said that SkyPilot's mesh-routing technology allows the packets of data that compose all Internet uploads and downloads to take several paths in order to get from Point A to Point B. As a result, his network's data travels automatically around hills, buildings, or dense foliage. Wireless Heroes 'The way the system works is that you have one main antenna, which SkyPilot calls the Sky-Gateway,' Bowman said. 'Reaching out from there are the extenders that gather the information and forward it on to the main antenna. In fact, I am standing on the top of a hill as we speak, installing an extender in order to get into a valley that cannot reach the main gateway directly.' The third essential piece of the system is the hardware installed at each subscriber's residence, which SkyPilot calls the Sky-Connector. 'It has an antenna and mounts somewhere on or near the home, and is connected to a wireless router within the home or to an Ethernet card installed in a computer,' Bowman said. Bowman estimated that with the single Sky-Gateway that he and his partners have in place, and with enough strategically placed Sky-Extenders, SkyWest eventually could serve as many as 500 rural subscribers in Grass Valley. With Internet access service priced at $45 per month, SkyWest expects to begin turning a profit within six months. "There's a local housing community where we have almost 100 percent penetration already," Bowman said. "We're their heroes." Mesh Implications "Because it features the ability to allow traffic to be routed around problem points, mesh gives certain advantages," said Yankee Group senior analyst Lindsay Schroth. "Due to its self-sealing capabilities, you don't have to have [a dedicated connection between access points]." The value is in instances in which mesh 'will definitely make sense from the viewpoint of broader availability,' said Schroth. "For example, when the city of San Francisco talks about providing public access, the set-up will not be purely Wi-Fi," she said. Rather, it will incorporate what SkyPilot has been talking about doing. But the application of mesh technology might not be the best design in every case, Schroth added. Even so, laptop manufacturers and software developers are beginning to eye mesh technology as a way to create mobile Wi-Fi networks even without having to place dedicated devices around a geographic area. One company, PacketHop, recently released software, called TrueMesh, that gives Windows XP laptops the ability to route wireless data is if they were dedicated access points. If the technology were distributed by a major laptop vendor, such as Dell or Hewlett-Packard, mobile users might never be out of range of a wireless connection. Copyright 2005 NewsFactor Network, Inc. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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, News Factor Network, Inc. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Peter N. Spotts Subject: Mystery Object: Supermassive Black Hole? Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 21:16:07 -0600 from the November 04, 2005 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1104/p02s01-stss.html A step closer to identifying that monster in the Milky Way Mystery object is smaller than once thought - and incredibly dense. Might it be an actual supermassive black hole? By Peter N. Spotts | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor Astronomers have taken the measure of a monster lurking at the center of the Milky Way. It's not as big as astronomers once thought. But its incredible density throws more weight behind the idea that it's a supermassive black hole, not some oddball collection of other exotic objects. The research brings astronomers a step closer to capturing images of the edge, or "event horizon," of a black hole -- which scientists say would be the "smoking gun" that proves such entities exist. Once that horizon is crossed, anything falling in -- including light -- will never come out. Supermassive black holes are enormous concentrations of matter confined to relatively tiny spaces in the centers of most galaxies. They are the oversized cousins of stellar black holes, which can form after stars at least 10 times as massive as the sun burn out and collapse. These smaller black holes tend to be 18 or 19 miles across. To produce the new results, astronomers aimed a continentwide network of radio telescopes at a source of radio emissions at the center of the galaxy, in the constellation Sagittarius. The source is an object 4 million times more massive than the sun. But the object apparently does not take up much space as previous measurements had indicated, the new results show. Instead of filling a patch of space as wide as the solar system, or even as wide as Earth's full orbit around the sun, the object is smaller than the distance between the Earth and sun, or 1 astronomical unit. Given estimates of its mass and its incredible shrinking volume, calculations of its density are going through the roof. By closing in on the object's true size, "we're getting tantalizingly close to being able to see an unmistakable signature ... of a supermassive black hole," notes Zhi-Qiang Shen of the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who led a team from China, the US, and Taiwan. Its results appear in the current issue of the journal Nature. What would that signature look like? Most likely, it would appear as a black circle, surrounded by a thin, bright line, astronomers say. This thin line of radiation actually would come from objects behind the black hole. But a process called gravitational lensing would focus the radiation around the black hole. Moreover, the black hole would likely appear off-center inside its thin halo -- an effect traced to its rotation. Solving the mystery at the heart of the Milky Way is important, astronomers say, because supermassive black holes are thought to lie at the center of most galaxies. Knowing more about the one in the Milky Way -- if that's really what it is -- will help astronomers understand the role these objects play in other galactic cores. Until the smoking gun is spotted, notes University of Maryland astrophysicist Christopher Reynolds, the object could be something more bizarre and still fall within the confines of standard physics. One possibility, although remote, is what he calls a "boson star," made up of particles associated with the fundamental forces of nature. Such a star could have the size and mass characteristics of the object at the heart of the Milky Way. "There are other families of particles out there that can form massive compact objects," says Dr. Reynolds. New instruments expected to be developed over the next decade should help astronomers sift the right answers from the wrong ones, he says. Copyright 2005 The Christian Science Monitor. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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 Christian Science Publishing Society. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Read the Christian Science Monitor and the New York Times on line at no charge each day at: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/nytimes.html ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Thu, 03 Nov 2005 22:21:00 GMT It's ironic that it is Sony, since Sony was on the other side in the famous VCR case. "Sony" is a lawyerly nickname for the case in which the movie and TV industries sued to have VCRs outlawed because they could be used to violate copyright law. The Supreme Court found in favor of the VCR industry because there are substantial non-infringing uses of the machines. jhhaynes at earthlink dot net ------------------------------ From: jeremyeastburn@gmail.com Subject: Re: Verizon FIOS, DSL, and Possible Cancellation Fees Date: 3 Nov 2005 14:29:28 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Correct, both Verizon. And I just ordered FIOS yesterday (5down/2up) and they waived the cancellation fee AND they gave me $10/month off for 12 months! I can't wait, thanks. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 14:43:06 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: Recorded Call From Law Office? I did hear a complete number but did not write it down. (Just in case the record needs to be straightened out.) ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Do We Go Overboard for Halloween? Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 03:25:40 GMT On Wed, 26 Oct 2005 12:02:33 -0700, hancock4 wrote: > A society communications question: > I've noticed that Halloween seems to have grown substantially in > importance as a holiday. Years ago it was one night -- -kids went > around and collected candy, maybe a few adults had a costume party. > But in more recent years it seems to rival Christmas as a major > holiday. When I was a child in central IL in the 50s, early 60s, it seems it was a childrens' affair, but it did last for several days. The town claimed a population 4400, which has declined since, and a lot or kids canvassed the entire town. I recall that a friend and I tipped over the last two remaining outhouses in town. One collapsed, and the other was demolished and removed by the owners. There was also a fair amount of soaping and paraffining of windows, though not much other vandalism. The general idea was to commit a prank, not wanton destruction. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The worst thing I ever think I did as a child on Halloween was go with some friends to the State-Lake Theatre in downtown Chicago. We set off a couple of 'stink bombs' in the middle the movie. My friends had some sort of acid (sulphuric perhaps) which created very much a 'rotten egg' odor, then we got out of the theatre before the stench had permeaeted the entire place. I recall they had to evacuate the theatre and it was closed for a couple days while the carpet was replaced where we had done it. Other than that, our other favorite prank (good at Halloween or any time of the year) was called 'stall the trolley bus.' Lawrence Avenue (and many other east/west streets on the north side of Chicago had trolley bus service provided by CTA. Unlike a streetcar, which uses an overhead catenary pole and wire, but runs on actual rails (CTA had lots of those also), a trolley bus used the catenary and overhead wire but ran on rubber tires. We would gather at a relatively busy inter- section, Lawrence and Western Avenues. The trolley would invariably stop there to pick up or drop off riders. The object was to wait behind the vehicle until just one or two seconds after the driver started to pull away. Then one of my friends would run up behind the trolley and yank down the catenary pole. Obviously, the trolley came to a dead stop. But if we were 'lucky' the driver had just accelerated enough to coast into the center of the street as he was stalling. This had the effect of causing the north/south traffic on Western Avenue to get stalled also. Timed just right, we could cause it to happen just as Western got a green light to cause an even longer backup of cars. Getting the trolley stuck in the middle of Western Avenue was our goal. One day the Western Avenue streetcar was coming north, so _he_ got stalled as well. The trolley driver would get off the tolley with an angry look around and muttering about 'the little bastards who did this'. Around behind the trolley, trying to raise the catenary pole back into place, all the while the stop/go light had changed twice so now cars on Lawrence were trying to make it through the intersection as well as the ones on Western Avenue, everyone laying on their horns and getting nowhere fast. The trolley guy (apparently sort of new) was having a very hard time getting the catenary to stay up, and the Western Avenue streetcar guy came over to help him and show him how to do it. Those guys -- CTA trolley and street car drivers -- could have cared less about the other traffic on both directions all around them; they stood out there in the street talking about it all the while the 'little bastards' had run off to hide, and watch in secret, as they convulsed with laughter. They finally got the trolley catenary re-established, all the while motorists in all directions were creeping past them, honking and cussing them. After four or five minutes, and as many cycles of the stop/go lights, and the passengers on both the trolley and streetcar sitting inside nonchalantly reading their newspapers, oblivious one would think to the commotions around them on the street, trolley was reconnected, the driver got back inside and pulled away, then the streetcar driver got back on his vehicle and drove away. Another minute or two after that and the intersection was back to 'normal'. That was our idea of Halloween 'fun'. Plus of course, soaping things and tossing rolls of toilet paper around everywhere. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #501 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 4 14:35:19 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id AA89E14F90; Fri, 4 Nov 2005 14:35:18 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #502 Message-Id: <20051104193518.AA89E14F90@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 14:35:18 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.9 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR,NA_DOLLARS autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: R TELECOM Digest Fri, 4 Nov 2005 14:35:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 502 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Hollywood Offers to Cut a Deal With Grandpa Getting Sued (jsonline) Re: Grandpa Gets Sued Over Grandson's Downloads From Net (David Clayton) Cable Companies, Sprint Join Forces (John C. Roper) Amazon to Sell Digital Books in Google Challenge (Alexandria Sage) Libya Puts Blogger in Prison (Jasper Mortimer) Internet Community Organizations at World Summit (Peter Godwin) Replacement for Siemens Gigaset (rlittle@thetasoft.com) Cellular-News for Friday 4th November 2005 (Cellular-News) Bell System/Western Electric Apparatus Help? (Michael Muderick) With O2 Deal, Telefonica Expands Into Uncharted Areas (USTA DailyLead) Telecom Update #504 (Canada) (jriddel) Re: Recorded Call From Law Office? (Clark W. Griswold, Jr.) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal Subject: Hollywood Offers to Cut a Deal With Grandpa Getting Sued Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 11:07:51 -0600 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You may recall our main story in yesterday's issue of the Digest was about a man being sued on account of some movies downloaded onto computer by his 12-year old grandson. The stink got pretty awful, so MPAA contacted grandpa on the phone late Wednesday and offered what they termed a 'generous offer'. PAT] A man sued by the film industry after his teen grandson downloaded four movies on the family's computer has been offered a chance to settle the case by paying $4,000 in installments. The Motion Picture Association of America filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against Fred Lawrence of Racine, seeking as much as $600,000 in damages for downloading four movies over the Internet file-sharing service iMesh. An attorney for the Motion Picture Association of America called Lawrence late Wednesday, telling him the lawsuit would be dropped if he paid $4,000, Lawrence said. The MPAA said it would let Lawrence pay the amount in monthly payments over a year to 18 months, he said. The deal is about the same one offered Lawrence in March, which he ignored, except it allows him to pay in installments. "I don't want to sound like a smart aleck, but $4,000 might as well be a $1 million," Lawrence said. "We are budgeted. We have a fixed income. I don't have even an extra $250 a month." Lawrence, a former employee of Snap-on Inc. and seasonal worker for the City of Racine, said he is still trying to find an attorney to defend him in the suit. Lawrence said he didn't even know what file sharing was. Lawrence was one of several people the MPAA contacted this year who were offered an out-of-court settlement. Those who declined or didn't respond including Lawrence, now face individual lawsuits. A message left at the association Friday by The Associated Press was not immediately returned. Information from: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, http://www.jsonline.com Copyright 2005 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. ------------------------------ From: David Clayton Subject: Re: Grandpa Gets Sued Over Grandson's Downloads From Net Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 14:06:47 +1100 On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 20:02:21 -0600, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal wrote: ...... > Illegal downloading costs the movie industry an estimated $5.4 billion a > year, she said. ...... Yep, you can guarantee that every illegally downloaded movie/song etc. directly results in lost revenue, because those naughty people would have paid for it anyway ... not! Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@XYZ.myrealbox.com Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. (Remove the "XYZ." to reply) Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have. ------------------------------ From: John C. Roper Subject: Cable Companies, Sprint Join Forces Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 10:39:55 -0600 TV, telephone services are ready for strategic fight to sign customers By JOHN C. ROPER Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle The nation's leading cable TV companies have banded with Sprint-Nextel to offer cell phone service and in doing so upped the ante in their heated competition with the traditional phone companies. The cable companies -- Time Warner Cable, which serves the Houston area, Comcast, Cox Communications and Advance/Newhouse Communications -- say the deal will allow them to package television, Internet and wireless services to consumers by early 2006. Doing so will allow them to keep pace with telephone companies like SBC and Verizon, which have Internet, telephone and cellular offerings and plan to sell advanced television services in the near future. SBC, along with BellSouth, owns Cingular Wireless. "Both the telephone companies and the cable industry are gearing up to go to battle with each other," said Jeff Kagan, an independent telecom analyst based in Atlanta. Kagan said the move signals the beginning of a major transformation of the industry where the phone and cable companies will be truly competitive in selling multiple services packaged together at discount prices. The cable companies are already well entrenched into a technology that provides telephone service through the Internet called Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP. The long-expected deal requires the cable companies to invest a combined $100 million in the joint venture, with Sprint pitching in $100 million as well. The investments will be used to converge telecommunications services. The companies say they will be able to reach 75 million homes. "Cable is fundamentally a local business and our competitors are much larger in geographic scope," said Glenn Britt, chairman and CEO of Time Warner Cable. "Many of them are national, and our ability to work together with Sprint is really important to enable us to compete." Services converge The move goes well beyond simply tying traditional cell phone service to the other offerings of the cable companies. The plan is to converge the cell phone with the services offered by the cable companies. For example, consumers could use a cell phone to easily program digital video recorders while away from home or even use it to watch television programing. Gary Forsee, president and CEO of Sprint-Nextel, said doing so will make its cell phones "an indispensable third screen in customer's lives." Market still a question Analysts said it was unclear whether most consumers would be ready or even interested in using their cell phones for things other than carrying on conversations. "At the end of the day, most people still just want to talk on their cell phone," said Julie Ask, who follows the wireless industry for Jupiter Research. "There are very few people who want to download music or do these types of broadband-type activities." Ask said consumers choose their cell phone provider in standard ways. "The way people make decisions about cell phones is still about cheap minutes, good coverage at home and a free handset," Ask said. Still, the partnership gives Sprint-Nextel more opportunities to sell its services. Starting early next year, consumers will be able to go to Sprint retail stores, RadioShack and to outlets operated by the cable companies to sign up for any of the services. The cable companies, including Time Warner, plan to have all of the services on a single bill if they are purchased along with some of their own services. Bills would remain the same for customers who only subscribe to Sprint-Nextel services. Too early to talk prices The companies said it was too early to discuss pricing, other than to say discounts would be offered for bundling services. Both the phone and cable companies believe consumers will be reluctant to switch companies -- called "churn" -- if they are tied down to multiple services. "The more products and services you add to the bundle, the lower the churn rate is," said Jim Robbins, president and CEO of Cox Communications, adding that the Sprint-Nextel deal will mean that "more of them are going to stay with us." john.roper@chron.com This article is: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3434695 ------------------------------ From: Alexandria Sage Subject: Amazon to Sell Digital Books in Google Challenge Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 11:04:02 -0600 By Alexandria Sage Amazon.com on Thursday said it would let readers buy digital pages, chapters and entire books through two plans that present a broad challenge to a controversial strategy of Google Inc. Amazon pioneered the ability to search inside books on the Web, but Internet search engine Google has attracted more attention recently with its plan to copy contents of several libraries, drawing fire from publishers who see it as a violation of copyright. The Amazon Pages program, in coordination with publishers, lets users buy Internet access to either a page, chapter or the entirety of a book, while a second program, Amazon Upgrade, gives online access to a work that the consumer buys in physical form for an extra fee. "We believe that over time this could turn into a significant business for Amazon, significant revenue stream for publishers and authors and a helpful customer service for readers," said Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, who said the programs would launch sometime next year. Bezos declined to comment on Google's program. Amazon immediately drew praise from the book industry. The president of the Association of American Publishers, Patricia Schroeder, said Amazon appeared to be complying with copyright laws while Google's actions amounted to "rogue eminent domain." "If the search engines don't respect the creators, there won't be anything to search in the future because creators have to make a living too," Schroeder said. Prices for Amazon Pages would vary by publisher and potentially by book, but most would cost a few cents per page, Bezos said. He used an example in the Amazon Upgrade program of a book costing $20 and the online access another $1.99. "Ultimately for each individual book, pricing will be up to the copyright holders," Bezos said. "The copyright holders are the ones who get to make these decisions." Since readers must pay to view and download books, Amazon's programs steer clear of the controversy around Google, whose plan to scan copyrighted material in libraries has raised the ire of publishers and writers. They claim the Google Print Library program, which promises to digitize the book collections of major libraries and allow online users to see just a few lines, will set a precedent opening the door to anyone wanting to digitally duplicate books and deprive authors and publishers of revenues. Google -- whose program excludes material only from publishers who contact it to opt out -- claims it is organizing and making accessible the world's information and says the program will result in increased awareness and greater sales of the scanned books. The company unveiled on Thursday its first collection of public domain works, mostly historical and 19th century literary titles. Google also has a program, in cooperation with some publishers, that is similar to Amazon's feature allowing search inside books. Yahoo Inc. is also involved in the race over digitized content through a consortium of companies and archives, but its program only accepts copyrighted content from publishers who allow their books to be included. Amazon's Search Inside the Book program, which launched two years ago, allows readers a glimpse at select pages of text. Fifty percent of Amazon's titles available in hard copy have already been scanned in the program, Bezos said. Bezos said that besides launching the two search programs, Amazon next year would continue to roll out product categories in its international sites that are currently only found in the United States. Amazon shares closed up 2 percent on Nasdaq at $41.65. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Jasper Mortimer Subject: Libya Puts Blogger in Prison Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 11:05:43 -0600 By JASPER MORTIMER, Associated Press Writer Libya has sent to prison for 18 months a blogger who criticized the government on the Internet, Human Rights Watch says in a report that inspired a series of Web tributes to the dissident Friday. A Tripoli court convicted Abdel Raziq al-Mansuri of illegal possession of a handgun and sentenced him to 18 months' imprisonment on Oct. 19, the New York-based rights group said in an e-mail to The Associated Press in Cairo. "The gun charges are a ruse," said the Middle Eastern director of HRW, Sarah Leah Whitson. "The authorities went after al-Mansuri because they did not like what he wrote. Having him in prison will shut him up." Al-Mansuri, 52, was detained in Tobruk, his hometown, in January after publishing about 50 articles critical of Libyan society and government on a dissident Web site based in Britain, http://www.akhbar-libya.com, the rights group said Thursday. Libyan government officials were not available for comment Friday as the country was celebrating the Eid al-Fitr holiday that follows the holy month of Ramadan. The rights group, who visited al-Mansuri in Tripoli's Abu Selim prison on May 5, said his family published the outcome of his trial in an Oct. 27 letter to the government, media and rights organizations that condemned al-Mansuri's detention and sentence. "Such outspoken criticism is rare in Libya," said Human Rights Watch. Politics has been tightly controlled in the country since Col. Moammar Gadhafi seized power in 1969. The letter said the authorities had asked family members to denounce al-Mansuri as mentally deranged. "If defending the right to free speech, and asking for basic human rights is insane in our country, then welcome to a family that is, from its oldest to its youngest, insane," the letter said, according to Human Rights Watch. The letter added that in sentencing al-Mansuri, the court had refused to give him credit for the months in detention he had already served. The rights group said that after detaining al-Mansuri, Libyan security officials searched his home and "found an old pistol that belonged to his father." The group reported the head of the Internal Security Agency, Col. Tuhami Khaled, as denying that al-Mansuri was arrested for his Internet writings. "He was arrested because he had a gun without a license," the group quoted Khaled as telling its representatives in May. Asked why the Internal Security Agency was detaining al-Mansuri instead of the police, Khaled replied that the pistol was "a job for internal security," the group said. On Friday, the Web site http://www.akhbar-libya.com carried numerous statements of support for al-Mansuri from Libyans in exile and human rights groups. "With his courage and truthful words, Abdel Raziq managed to break the barrier of fear. He has moved from the big prison (Libya) to a smaller one," said Ahmed Masoud Al-Ghabali, a Libyan who recalled meeting al-Mansuri in Britain. The site itself said he had been arrested for writing articles that "demanded freedom of expression and denounced human rights abuses in Libya." Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more news headlines from Associated Press please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ From: Peter Godwin Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 15:47:12 +0100 Subject: Internet Community Organization at World Sunmit Outline Geneva, Switzerland - 4th November 2005 - Many of the Internet community organisations that enable the processes for the development and administration of the Internet will host the 'Internet Pavilion' (stand 1323) at the 'ICT 4 all' exhibition at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis, 15-19 November 2005. Organisations at the 'Internet Pavilion' will include the Internet Society (ISOC), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Number Resource Organization (NRO), the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the London Internet Exchange (LINX), the Council of European National Top level Domain Registries (CENTR) and the African ISP Association (AfrISPA). The pavilion theme is 'The Internet -- How does it work, Who makes it work'. It will offer WSIS attendees a clear understanding of the issues involved in the successful coordination of the Internet's technical infrastructure, including the importance of building on the proven success of the inclusive and established processes that have fostered its incredible growth. "Coordination and collaboration between the many organisations that play a role in Internet administration and development is vital," commented Axel Pawlik, NRO Chairman. "The industry partners hosting the 'Internet Pavilion' at WSIS will show how cooperation is fundamental to the stability of the Internet." The 'Internet Pavilion' will demonstrate how participating organizations represent the evolving needs of the global Internet community through an open, neutral, bottom-up, collaborative and inclusive multi-stakeholder framework. The specific roles of each organisation in Internet administration and coordination will be highlighted. "This is a crucial time for all those with an interest in the future of the Internet," explained Lynn St. Amour, President and CEO of the Internet Society (ISOC). "We encourage direct participation of any interested party in reinforcing the success of the existing mechanisms that have been built and driven by the Internet community." With regard to the results of the WSIS process, Ms. St. Amour asks that governments and other stakeholders remind themselves that decisions should be taken with the interests of Internet users in mind. "At the end of the day, the WSIS should protect the openness of the Internet and promote ways of facilitating access for those who wish to benefit from this incredibly valuable medium," said Ms. St. Amour. The 'Internet Pavilion' brochure can be found at: http://www.isoc.org/internetpavilion.pdf Participating groups are: The Internet Society (ISOC) is a not-for-profit membership organisation providing leadership in Internet related standards, education, and policy. For over 13 years ISOC has run international network training programs for developing countries and these have played a vital role in setting up the Internet connections and networks in virtually every country connecting to the Internet during this time. Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) http://www.ietf.org The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has provided leadership in the development of Internet standards for nearly 20 years. The IETF is a large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet. It is open to any interested individual. Number Resource Organization (NRO) http://www.nro.net Formed by the Regional Internet Registries to formalise their cooperative efforts, the Number Resource Organization exists to protect the unallocated Number Resource pool. It also promotes and protects the bottom-up policy development process, and acts as a focal point for Internet community input into the RIR system. Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) http://www.icann.org The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is an internationally organized, non-profit corporation that has responsibility for Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domain name system management, and root server system management functions. London Internet Exchange (LINX) http://www.linx.org LINX is a mutual, not-for-profit organisation, which connects the networks of Content Delivery and Internet Service Providers so that traffic may flow more efficiently between them. Council of European National Top level domain Registries (CENTR) http://www.centr.org The Council of European National Top-Level-Domain Registries, CENTR, is an association of Internet Country Code Top Level Domain Name (TLD) registries (such as .uk for United Kingdom, .it for Italy, .es for Spain). CENTR has a European focus, but no geographical restrictions to membership which includes a number of non-European registries, including some emerging countries. CENTR membership is responsible for 95% of all domain names currently registered worldwide. African ISP Association (AfrISPA) http://www.afrispa.org AfrISPA is a continental Association of African Internet Service Provider Associations whose primary objective is to provide industry perspective on policy formulation and regulation as it relates to the Internet industry and to act as an interface with Governmental bodies and the public at large. # General information about the 'ICT 4 all' exhibition is available here: http://www.expo.ict4all-tunis.org # Peter Godwin Communications Manager Internet Society Email: godwin@isoc.org Tel: +41 22 807 1447 'Internet Pavilion' contact: Paul Rendek Head of Member Services and Communications RIPE NCC Email: rendek@ripe.net Mobile: +31 655782348 ------------------------------ From: rlittle@thetasoft.com Subject: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset Date: Thu, 03 Nov 2005 22:20:18 -0800 The Siemens Gigaset is great as far as features go, operating like a little PBX (the extensions dial each other, the base unit does the actual telecom work of dialing while the handsets just act like recievers). Unfortunately, the Siemens quality sucks. It works for about a year before it starts flaking out -- we've already gone through 2 base units, and Siemens customer support is worse than their reliability. So, I'm in the market for a new system. I got the Panasonic 2 line 6502, but feature-wise its horrible. (I'm so tired of seeing "24 missed calls" on the handset that was lost under the couch). Is there a good system out there? Cost is really no issue -- I'm desperate for feature parity with the Siemens -- cordless handsets (6 or more), base unit does all the dialing, multiple lines (2), answering machine, transfer & conference between handsets... Surely there must be something out there! Help! --rob ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Friday 4th November 2005 Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 07:32:55 -0600 From: Cellular-Bnews Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com Mobile Base Station Contract from US Utility Firm http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14692.php Wireless Matrix has announced an agreement with one of the leading utilities on the East Coast of the USA serving more than 2 million homes and businesses, for an initial order of 400 Mobile Base Station 2 (MBS2) units. This first purchase order unde... 3G Wait-&-See Fails to Stall Taiwanese Mobile Phone Market http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14691.php The aggressive promotion of 3G services by mobile phone carriers was expected to stimulate the growth of the Taiwanese mobile phone market in the third quarter of 2005. However, according to the Market Intelligence Center (MIC), a Taipei-based indust... Siemens Wins Thai GSM Contract http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14690.php Thailand's largest mobile provider, Advanced Info Service (AIS), has contracted with Siemens to expand its GSM radio and core network. In the future, up to one million additional subscribers will be able to make phone calls and utilize mobile communi... Study Finds Mobile Phone Users Embracing Mobile Data Services http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14689.php Mobile phone users are increasingly comfortable with mobile data services but continue to worry about content and price, according to the latest Mobinet study of how 4,000 mobile phone users in 21 countries use their phones. The study has been conduc... African Network Operator to Seek UK Stock Market Listing http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14688.php Econet Wireless Group has announced plans to seek a listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) through an initial public offering that the company estimates will raise between US$400 million and US$500 million.... PTT Will Become the New 3G Hotspot - report http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14687.php Analysys International predicts that PTT (push-to-talk) will become the new hotspot of 3G applications with user numbers to reach 8 million by year 2009 in its newly released focus report. It also says that the barrier of interconnection will be remo... Customers Rarely Complain About Mobile Data Problems http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14686.php A new NOP survey commissioned by Olista, the service experience assurance company, reveals that users who encounter problems in using new mobile data services will simply give up rather than seek assistance. According to the survey of 1000 adults car... FOCUS: Russia's alternative operators may strike gold in regions http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14685.php [Premium] On the eve of the privatization of Russia's national telecom holding Svyazinvest, regional fixed-line operators are cutting their investment plans, while alternative operators, who operate mostly in Moscow and St. Petersburg, prepare for an aggressiv... Telefonica Moviles Back To 6 Million Mobile Users In Mexico http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14684.php Spanish wireless phone operator Telefonica Moviles SA said Thursday that it added 129,000 subscribers in Mexico in the third quarter, bringing its roster back to 6 million, up 33% from a year ago. ... Nokia: N70 Phone Is Shipping In High Volumes http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14683.php Nokia Corp.'s second mobile phone in its multimedia Nseries to hit stores has had a very good response from consumers and is shipping in large volumes, a company spokesman said Thursday. ... TDC Mobil To Open 3G Network To Private Clients Nov 7 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14682.php Danish telecommunications operator TDC A/S Thursday said its unit TDC Mobil will open its third-generation networks to private customers on Nov. 7. ... Reiman says Russian mobile operators may enter Chinese market http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14681.php Russian mobile operators may enter the Chinese market, Russian IT and Telecommunications Minister Leonid Reiman said Thursday, ITAR-TASS reported. Reiman was speaking before the meeting of Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov with Chinese Prime Min... Mexico Billionaire Pledges $400 Million Argentina Invest In '06 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14680.php Mexican billionaire businessman Carlos Slim has pledged to invest $400 million next year in two telecommunications companies operating in Argentina: Telefonos de Mexico SA, or Telmex, and America Movil's CTI. ... Nortel Discloses Additional Subpoena For Accounting Records http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14679.php Nortel Networks Inc. on Thursday disclosed that it received an additional federal subpoena in connection with an ongoing criminal investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas. ... UPDATE: Qualcomm to Vigorously Defend Against Claims At EC http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14675.php Qualcomm Inc. vowed to vigorously fight the claims of five competitors who complained last week to European antitrust regulators about its licensing practices. ... Vodafone To Buy Up To 15% More In Vodacom Group http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14674.php Vodafone announced Thursday that it has entered into exclusive negotiations with the Rembrandt Trust, which are expected to result in Vodafone acquiring up to an additional 15% economic interest in Vodacom Group for a net cash consideration of up to ... Qualcomm 4Q Net Up 37%; Co Gives 1Q, FY06 Views http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14673.php Qualcomm Inc.'s fourth-quarter earnings rose 37%, fueled by demand for next-generation cell phones. ... ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 04:38:55 -0500 From: Michael Muderick Subject: Bell System/Western Electric Apparatus Help? I am looking for some help in identifying some equipment. I have a couple of Western Electric/Bell System/ATT apparatus units. 30AM. One has an RN1J82 number. I think they are part of paging adapters; one is labeled EMERGENCY AUDIO. I'd be happy to email a picture if someone can help me identify what they are, and perhaps send me a BSP. I have a bunch of BSP manuals, but don't have a number and haven't been able to find it. Can anyone assist? Michael@muderick.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 12:32:33 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: With O2 Deal, Telefonica Expands Into Uncharted Territories USTelecom dailyLead November 4, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xwvMatagCwkaqFYIJf TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * With O2 deal, Telefonica expands into uncharted territories BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * DirecTV looks beyond the tube * Gear makers on rise as triple play gets hotter * SBC moves a step closer to IPTV reality USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * NEW! 2005 USTelecom Industry Directory TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * MIT's wireless network helps users ID high-traffic areas * 3G, mobile TV, wireless VoIP seen as hot technologies in 2006 VOIP DOWNLOAD * NetZero launches VoIP for dial-up * Companies team up to promote VoIP * Why testing is crucial in IP rollouts REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * FCC to examine local barriers to new cable services Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xwvMatagCwkaqFYIJf ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 10:52:20 -0800 Subject: Telecom Update #504, November 4, 2005 From: Angus TeleManagement Group Reply-To: Angus TeleManagement Group ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 504: November 4, 2005 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: ** 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/ ** NEC UNIFIED SOLUTIONS: www.necunifiedsolutions.com ** ROGERS TELECOM: www.rogers.com/solutions ** VONAGE CANADA: www.vonage.ca ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** CRTC Reports on State of Competition ** TWU Members Reject Telus Settlement ** Quebecor Wants VoIP Ruling Reviewed ** Bell Launches 2-Meg Wireless Data ** Business Sales Lead BCE Revenue Increase ** MTS Results Reflect Allstream Woes ** Videotron Revenue Up 13% ** Nortel Sales Up 22% ** Nortel Pays $11.5 Million for Zafirovski ** Virgin Mobile Comes to Saskatchewan ** Bell Sued Over Installation Delays ** New CEO at Expertech ** Colbanet Promises Cellular LD Savings ** Telus to Use Nokia DSL Gear ** Inukshuk Seeks Broadband Wireless Proposals ** Mike Larkin Joins Route1 ** Seminar Examines Changes in Contact Centres ============================================================ CRTC REPORTS ON STATE OF COMPETITION: The CRTC issued its 2005 Telecom Monitoring Report this week, providing statistics and analysis on the status of competition and the deployment of broadband to the end of 2004. Some highlights: ** Total telecom revenue rose 4.7% to $33.3 billion. Long distance revenue fell 6% even though minutes increased by 6%. Wireless revenues were up 17.6%. ** Private line revenues fell 10%, while data revenues grew 6.9%. ** 59% of Canadian households have Internet access; 46% have broadband access. ** In 15 cities, the incumbent telcos have lost between 10% and 25% of local business telephone lines. (Due to an error in the CRTC's initial announcement, this was widely and inaccurately reported as 10% to 25% of all telephone lines.) http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/publications/reports/PolicyMonitoring/2005/gic2005.pdf TWU MEMBERS REJECT TELUS SETTLEMENT: Members of the Telecommunications Workers Union rejected a proposed contract with Telus that had been recommended by the union's executive. 9,027 members voted: 4,487 (49.7%) voted yes and 4,540 (50.3%) voted no. ** On Thursday, Telus rejected a TWU proposal to return to the bargaining table. The TWU says it will ask the federal government to appoint a special mediator to facilitate a settlement. QUEBECOR WANTS VoIP RULING REVIEWED: Quebecor has filed a Part VII application asking the CRTC to review and vary Telecom Decision 2005-62, which allowed Bell to charge different rates for its Digital Voice service in Ontario and Quebec. Quebecor says the CRTC based the decision on the assumption that Digital Voice is a VoIP service, but it is actually normal local phone service with bundled calling features. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2005/8662/q15_200512443.htm BELL LAUNCHES 2-MEG WIRELESS DATA: Bell Mobility now offers wireless data communications based on EVDO (Evolution Data Optimized) technology in the Toronto and Montreal areas. The technology promises average download speeds of 400 to 700 Kbps, and a maximum of 2.4 Mbps. Bell is selling new EVDO-equipped phones made by Kyocera, RIM, and Samsung. ** Aliant Mobility says it will begin testing EVDO in the Halifax area later this month. BUSINESS SALES LEAD BCE REVENUE INCREASE: BCE had third-quarter revenue of $4.95 billion, up 3.6% from the same period last year. A 5.3% increase in sales to businesses was almost double the increase for Bell Canada as a whole. BCE net income after one-time items was $462 million, down 3.8%. ** Bell added a net 123,000 wireless and 106,000 high-speed Internet subscribers. ** DBRS lowered BCE's credit rating, commenting that Bell's "local market share is in decline." MTS RESULTS REFLECT ALLSTREAM WOES: Manitoba Telecom third quarter revenue rose 4.1% to $516 million, despite difficulties in its Allstream division, where sales remained stalled at $280 million. Allstream's EBITDA of $44 million was down 26% from the same period last year. MTS net income declined 12% to $45 million. VIDEOTRON REVENUE UP 13%: Quebecor's Videotron division had third quarter revenues of $250.8 million, 13.3% more than in the same period a year ago. Revenue per user rose 11.7% Much of the gain came from Videotron's phone service, which added 54,200 new customers. NORTEL SALES UP 22%: Nortel Networks' third-quarter revenue of US$2,665 million was 22% higher than in the same period last year. Enterprise sales increased 16%. Gross margin of 38% was two points higher than a year ago. The net loss was $105 million, compared with $259 million last year. Nortel's cash balance of $3.0 billion was down 12%. ** For the first time in several years, Nortel filed its financial results on time. NORTEL PAYS $11.5 MILLION FOR ZAFIROVSKI: Nortel has agreed to pay US$11.5 million to Motorola to settle a lawsuit aimed at preventing former Motorola executive Mike Zafirovski from becoming Nortel's CEO. VIRGIN MOBILE COMES TO SASKATCHEWAN: Virgin Mobile has begun offering its prepaid wireless service in Saskatchewan: it is now available in all ten provinces. BELL SUED OVER INSTALLATION DELAYS: A Toronto lawyer has launched a class-action lawsuit against Bell Canada over delays in installing wireline phone service during and after the Entourage strike this year, saying Bell should have warned its customers of the holdup. NEW CEO AT EXPERTECH: Jacques Robichon, former VP of Wireless Network Operations at Bell Canada, has been named President and CEO of Expertech Network Installation Inc. Expertech, which is owned by Bell and SNC-Lavalin, provides installation and maintenance services to carriers. COLBANET PROMISES CELLULAR LD SAVINGS: A new service from Montreal- based ColbaNet allows customers to place cellular LD calls on ColbaNet's network. The company says that usage rates for its SpectraVoice Mobility offering are up to 80% less than the carriers' wireless LD rates. TELUS TO USE NOKIA DSL GEAR: Telus has contracted to use Nokia's D500 IP DSLAM, equipped with ADSL2+ technology, to expand its broadband access network. INUKSHUK SEEKS BROADBAND WIRELESS PROPOSALS: Inukshuk has issued a Call for Proposals for projects related to the provision of wireless broadband Internet access in remote communities, and for projects to develop rich learning content, applications, or learning environments. The deadlines for responses vary by region. http://www.inukshuk.ca/anglais/fonds.html MIKE LARKIN JOINS ROUTE1: Mike Larkin, who previously held VP Sales positions at BCE Emergis and Bell Canada, has been named Sales VP at Route1, a Toronto-based company that develops mobile computing applications. He replaces Stephen Skinner, who "has left the Company to pursue new endeavours." SEMINAR EXAMINES CHANGES IN CONTACT CENTRES: During November, Henry Dortmans, president of Angus Dortmans Associates, will discuss impending changes in contact centre technology and management as the keynote speaker at seminars organized by Telus in Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, and Edmonton this month. For information: http://promo.telus.com/tm/05/q3/cca/expert_series.html ============================================================ HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-mail ianangus@angustel.ca and jriddell@angustel.ca =========================================================== 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 late Friday afternoon each week at http://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 2005 Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. All rights reserved. For further information, including permission to reprint or reproduce, please e-mail jriddell@angustel.ca. 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: Clark W. Griswold, Jr. Subject: Re: Recorded Call From Law Office? Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 07:51:09 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Carl Moore wrote: > I did hear a complete number but did not write it down. (Just in case > the record needs to be straightened out.) Sounds like a troll for a class action lawsuit. What you have to understand is that even the bottom feeders have bottom feeders. Consider the following purely hypothetical situation: A law firm (lets call them MBF, for Master Bottom Feeders), specializes in class action lawsuits. You know -- the kind where they collect millions of dollars for themselves and the claimants get a coupon for a free hamburger. MBF scours the medical journals and comes across a paper that suggests that people who ingest too much dihydrogen monoxide die at a higher rate that regular people. MBF puts out the word to the thousands of LBFs (Local Bottom Feeders): "Find us people who have ingested dihydrogen monoxide!" and offers a referal bounty for every candidate that meets the criteria for the class. Hence you get all the LBFs putting up billboards, running radio and TV ads, and making mass telephone calls such as the one above. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A very good point you raise is how little the actual 'victims' get in class action lawsuits. Here is an example involving a well known restaurant chain, McDonalds, in the Chicago area. First, some background: In Chicago, at least, maybe elsewhere, there are McDonalds restaurants _everywhere_, every few blocks it seems. In a couple instances, there are two on the same block (State/Dearborn and Randolph Streets in Chicago). A McDonalds on one corner with a Burger King right across the street, then a half block further west, in the old Greyhound Station another McDonalds. Ditto on the north side, State Street and Chicago Avenue. Burger King and McDonalds right next door to each other, then a block east at Rush Street a McDonalds and a Jack-in-the-Box. Second, all the McDonalds are independently owned and operated, but a 'support group' run by the owner/operators services them all for technical needs. The 'Chicagoland McDonalds Operator's Association' runs a central warehouse for their supplies, their foodstuffs, their cash register repairs, etc. Next point: What is termed 'Chicago' has, in addition to Chicago itself, a hundred plus smaller suburbs, and when you get out in the western area, the suburbs are a few blocks apart, almost as frequent as the McDonalds restaurants. Each of the suburbs has its own idea on what 'sales tax' should be for ready to eat food, groceries, other stuff. Since there are many McDonalds employees with only a simple education, not including much arithmetic skills, McDonalds' cash registers all have pictures and words on the keys. Customer wants the double cheesebuger special, clerk presses the key with that on it; the cash register calculates the total due, _includng the tax_ and prints out the amount of money expected. Trouble is, the _sales tax_. One Extra Value Meal in Chicago may cost two dollars, in Skokie it may cost $1.98 or in Morton Grove $2.05. When a cash register goes out of order, the manager calls to the 'central services' and orders a new, refurbished cash register. Later that day a new register arrives, central services workers bring it in and install it. Theoretically, cash registers from one taxing jurisdiction are to stay in that jurisdiction. In actual practice, they go anywhere. So you pay $2.00 for your Extra Value Meal today, come in tomorrow for another of the same and $2.06 or whatever is demanded instead. You can inquire all you like about the difference in price between yesterday and today, or one register out of three or four in the same restaurant, the clerk just looks at you with a blank look on their face. Anyway, about ten or twelve years ago, the McDonalds in Skokie, IL (which is known not only as the second or third McDonalds in existence, having been started orginally as a 'company location' when it started in 1958) is one of the most ill-managed in the chain, wound up being the defendant in a class action suit based on their poorly programmed cash registers. (Walmart has the same situation; a cash register used today in Illinois may be used next week [following its repair, etc in Kansas or Oklahoma]; proper sales tax rate is of no concern to those folks.) Plaintiff's class action lawyers said they were frequently overcharged on taxes, and it is true that if you as a shopkeeper make a claim that 'X amount of money is for taxes' when in fact the tax is either (1) incorrectly stated or (2) does not exist at all, a crime has been committed. The class action lawsuit went on a couple years, the attornies raked in piles of money; it was finally settled by McDonalds putting a newspaper ad in several Chicago-area publications with a coupon to clip out, offering a free small size drink to the holder of the coupon, to cure the problem of being charged a couple pennies too much on tax. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V24 #502 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Nov 5 02:40:44 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id E5CED14E75; Sat, 5 Nov 2005 02:40:43 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #503 Message-Id: <20051105074043.E5CED14E75@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 02:40:43 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.3 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR,SOMETHING_FOR_ADULTS autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: R TELECOM Digest Sat, 5 Nov 2005 02:40:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 503 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Porncasts Appear on Video Playing iPod (Ron Harris) Consumers Sing Copy Protection Blues (Todd Martens) Microsoft Patches Break Some Sites (Jeremy Kirk) Verizon POTS (Joe) EFFector 18.35: A Trio of Victories at WIPO (Monty Solomon) EFFector 18.37: Court Issues Surveillance Smack-Down to Justice (M Solomon) AT&T Answering System 1309 - Need Help With Instructions (browny) Looking for 1A2 Phone System Parts [Amphenol to Amphenol Splitters] (mdhes) Re: Recorded Call From Law Office? (DevilsPGD) Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset (Michael D. Sullivan) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ron Harris Subject: Porncasts Appear on Video Playing iPod Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 00:27:14 -0600 Porncasts Appear on Video-Playing iPod By RON HARRIS, Associated Press Writer Purveyors of porn and entrepreneurs who spied a niche when Apple Computer Inc. unveiled its video-playing iPod are proving that sex even sells in tiny packages -- especially when it is portable. One online social network of amateur pinup girls said it logged 500,000 downloads of the sexy "featurettes" -- three- to five-minute video clips -- in the first 24 hours targeting the new iPod-toting crowd. Most of these had been downloaded at one time or another from Usenet. It's a no-brainer: pornography to go. The naughtiness is already finding its way into video handhelds through business models tried-and-true -- along with some new ones -- as the adult entertainment industry works to untether video content. Soon enough, skin flicks whose viewing has been largely restricted to the privacy of homes and theaters could be on view in the open public of parks and mass transit, for all ages to see. Porn is no doubt a very big business on the Internet. Two in five Internet users visited an adult site in August, according to tracking by comScore Media Metrix. The company said 3 percent of all Web traffic and 2 percent of all surfing time involved an adult site. The Internet accounted for $2.5 billion of the adult industry's $14 billion in U.S. revenues last year, about the same as revenues from cable and satellite pay-per-view showings, according to Adult Video News, a trade magazine. Vivid Entertainment Group, a major adult video producer that already offers high-resolution still images, video clips and footage from "voyeur cams" through its Web site, now plans to shoot shorter films specifically for the iPod and other portables. "It could be a huge percentage of our business," says the company's chief executive, Steven Hirsch. "People love watching adult movies and to be able to carry an adult movie in your pocket is a powerful tool." Sin City, based in Chatsworth, Calif., already offers trailers of full-length adult films for the Sony PlayStation Portable, a handheld video game player. It now plans full-length adult films for the video iPod. Apple wasn't first on the scene with a small digital device capable of playing good-quality video. Creative Technology and iRiver are among companies with pocket-sized devices already on the market; they use Windows Mobile software to display video, audio and still images. In addition, one early entrant, Archos, has a Jukebox that can store and play a whopping 400 hours of video in the MPEG-4 standard. Yet the very marketing and deal-making finesse that helped Apple rise to dominate the portable music market make its new video-playing iPod a likely vessel for adult movies' expansion to portable porn. The Apple's iTunes online story already features several hot and heavy podcasts, audio downloads geared to portability. The company isn't offering much in the way of sex on videos, though some of the music videos it sells for $1.99 each can tend toward titillation. Apple officials refused requests for interviews on whether they might offer adult content on iTunes for iPod owners. For many high-profile companies, sex remains a tough sell. Although wireless phone companies support devices that play video, they are reluctant to expose themselves to complaints from a large and valuable customer base. One company that knows firsthand is Digital Orchid, which manages the delivery of streaming video to cell phones for top brands, including MLB.com, NASCAR.com, ESPN and the National Hockey League. It also handles Hawaiian Tropic, the suntan oil company perhaps better known for its comely bikini models. That sort of content is about as racy as wireless carriers want to get, says Robert Betros, Digital Orchid's co-founder and chief technology officer. "We won't cross that line because the carriers won't distribute it, and that's a majority of the revenue opportunity for us," Betros said. "Now they may change their tune, and in some places in Europe carriers are distributing this kind of content." In the wireless industry, carrier-approved content exists within something referred to as a walled garden. In the United States, at least, that garden is generally safe for children. Once users stroll outside garden walls and inside a Web browser, however, all bets are off. A company called Xobile sells pornographic video clips for cell phones. No special operating system or other software is necessary: Just a Web browser, which is commonplace now for phones with access to digital data networks. That it's now easier than ever for minors to view X-rated content on portable devices concerns media watch groups that seek to protect children. The problem is that children are often quicker to grasp the technology than their parents, says Jack Samad, a senior vice president with the National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families. "The arena is wide open, unfiltered, unrestricted, for adult content," Samad said. "Children are very aware of where it is and how to download it." Associated Press Writer Gary Gentile in Los Angeles contributed to this report. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more Associated Press news stories and headlines, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ From: Todd Martens Subject: Consumers Sing Copy Proection Blues Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 00:25:21 -0600 By Todd Martens and Brian Garrity Complaints continue to mount regarding a controversial CD copy-protection initiative by Sony BMG Music Entertainment. Artists and consumers' initial concern was that the digital rights management technology does not work with iPods. Now a growing number of music fans charge that the security software behaves like spyware and may create security vulnerabilities in users' computers. The matter drew increased attention in technology circles October 31, when software developer/computer security expert Mark Russinovich began blogging the details of problems he experienced after using his computer to play the copy-protected CD of "Get Right With the Man" by Van Zant, a Southern rock act signed to Columbia Records. Russinovich posted that Sony BMG's DRM drained resources from his computer processor, even when the CD was not being played, and was extraordinarily difficult to locate and uninstall. When he finally deleted the software, his computer's CD player stopped working. "This is a clear case of Sony taking DRM too far," he wrote. Within 24 hours, online tech-news sites including SlashDot and CNet had posted news about Russinovich's account. And by November 2, Sony BMG had posted instructions on its own site (cp.sonybmg/xcp) for removing the DRM. IN SEARCH OF TRANSPARENCY Copy-protection software is not actually spyware, of course. And industry executives have long pointed to piracy rates in defense of DRM measures. Consumers on average acquire almost 30 percent of their music annually by burning and ripping CDs, according to the NPD Group. But Russinovich and others complain that Sony BMG's latest DRM lacks transparency -- and a simple uninstall option. "The disclosure is totally inadequate," says Fred Von Lohmann, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "I read the (end-user license agreement), and it does not say they will install software that hides itself and is difficult to uninstall. When I read that someone is going to install software, I don't think it's going to behave like spyware and try to evade me." Sony BMG representatives declined to comment, but sources in the company and the label's technology partners -- which include First 4 Internet and SunnComm -- say hiding software on computers is standard. "Cloaking technology is reasonably commonplace," says Mathew Gilliat Smith, CEO of First 4 Internet, a developer of copy-protection technology. "This is a protection software, and the object is to make it more difficult to circumvent." But Russinovich says Sony's software may create a weakness for others to exploit. "All it takes is one malware (malicious software) author to get one of these CDs and see how it works and recognize it's on millions of people's machines," Russinovich says. "The whole malware industry is financially driven, and there are tons of smart people paid to find those opportunities." PATCHING THINGS UP As part of their November 2 online update, Sony BMG and First 4 Internet released a patch to make the files visible and ensure that malware writers cannot hide their own files behind the DRM technology. The patch is also being distributed to manufacturers of anti-virus software. Gilliat Smith says First 4 Internet is looking for new installation methods for its software, but did not provide specifics. SunnComm executives say they have not had any problems with their technology. In the meantime, a growing number of consumers and consumer advocates are expressing frustration with the technology. "I know this is the last copy-protected CD I will buy," Russinovich says. "It strikes me as particularly pernicious," Von Lohmann adds, "to single out paying customers for this kind of treatment." Reuters/Billboard Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Jeremy Kirk Subject: Microsoft Patches Break Some Sites Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 00:28:38 -0600 Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service Two patches released by Microsoft earlier this year for its Internet Explorer browser may cause some Web sites not to load properly. The bulletins, MS05-038 and MS05-052, removed "unsafe functionality" and change how the browser handles ActiveX controls for security reasons, Stephen Toulouse, a program manager in Microsoft's security unit, wrote on Thursday on the Microsoft Security Center Response Blog. After installing MS05-038, which was published August 9 on the Microsoft Download Center, Web pages containing Component Object Model (COM) objects called monikers may not work as expected. Patch Particulars MS05-052, which was published October 11, added an additional check for a specific interface for ActiveX controls before allowing a COM object to run in Internet Explorer. But it also blocks some Web pages containing ActiveX controls, Microsoft said. Users who are missing certain registry subkeys may also experience problems with this patch, Microsoft said. Microsoft has published instructions on how to resolve the MS05-038 issues. Also available is additional information on the two possible problems with MS05-052. Copyright 2005 PC World Communications, Inc. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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 Communications, Inc. For more information go to:http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Joe Subject: Verizon POTS Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 21:39:39 GMT How long does it take for Verizon to install POTS? I have moved my mother to an apartment. The complex is not new, been there for 10+years. The previous tenent had Verizon POTS. I called Verizon for new service on 10/27. Got a tracking number. But it has been 5 business days and no telephone service. Checked online using tracking number but it shows "in progress", no date. Called customer support, on hold for 45min. then gave up. Any idea how long it takes? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 17:11:04 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 18.35: A Trio of Victories at WIPO A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 351st Issue of EFFector: * A Trio of Victories at WIPO * Adult Website Lawsuit Threatens Google Image Search * New Government Excuses for Cell Phone Surveillance * First Annual P2P Litigation Summit, November 3 * miniLinks (9): Your Right to Bare Arms * Staff Calendar: 10.15.05 - Kurt Opsahl, Fred von Lohmann and Kevin Bankston speak at California First Amendment Coalition Assembly, Fullerton, CA. * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/18/35.php ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 17:07:47 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 18.37: Court Issues Surveillance Smack-Down to Justice A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 353rd Issue of EFFector: * Court Issues Surveillance Smack-Down to Justice Department * Plan for Internet "Backdoors" Draws Coordinated Attack * Want to Take a Bite Out of the DMCA? Now's the Time * First Annual P2P Litigation Summit, November 3 * The Patent System of the Future? * Spring Legal Internships at EFF * Stanford Center for Internet and Society Mailing List * miniLinks (10): Open Letter to Yahoo's Jerry Yang * Staff Calendar: 10.30.05 - Fred von Lohmann at Eastern * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/18/37.php ------------------------------ From: browny Subject: AT&T Answering System 1309 - Need Help With Instructions Date: 4 Nov 2005 14:43:16 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I have misplaced my instructions for this unit (telephone answering machine). Would like to use the REMOTE ACCESS feature and don't recall how. Can anyone help me? ------------------------------ From: m3deshmukh@verizon.net Subject: Looking for 1A2 Phone System Parts [Amphenol to Amphenol Splitters] Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 19:27:55 GMT Hello, Item: Splitting device that takes in Amphenol and puts out 6 or more Amphenols My company is looking to find a [or several] bridging adapters, bunching blocks, splitters for a 1A2 telephone system that would take in one Amphenol jack and Output 6 or more Amphenol Sockets. My boss likes having the 1A2 phone system in place, but we're trying to find an alternative to daisy-chaining the feed with 2 and 3 way splitters right in-front of each phone/fax. We'd like to find a piece of equipment that would allow us to localize all the splitting, right after the KSU. I found some real helpful phone wizards on another site who told me about the Suttle company and gave me some parts numbers: Suttle #SE-825L6-1P49 (gray) or 1P50 (beige) has one input and six outputs on through Suttle #SE-825l12-1P49 or 1P50 with one input and 12 outputs I will be continuing to search for these parts with warehouses I find online [right now eBay doesn't have what I'm looking for], but I wanted to put word out in this group, so if anyone is holding something like this [the more amphenol outs the merrier!] and looking to get rid of it, they might let me know. Thanks. Easy on. Mayur Deshmukh Interpage Network Services, Inc. mayurXYZZTOP@interpage.net [to email me, remove the CAPS] http://www.interpage.net ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Recorded Call From Law Office? Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 16:15:58 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message Clark W. Griswold, Jr. wrote: > Anyway, about ten or twelve years ago, the McDonalds in Skokie, IL > (which is known not only as the second or third McDonalds in > existence, having been started orginally as a 'company location' when > it started in 1958) is one of the most ill-managed in the chain, wound > up being the defendant in a class action suit based on their poorly > programmed cash registers. (Walmart has the same situation; a cash > register used today in Illinois may be used next week [following its > repair, etc in Kansas or Oklahoma]; proper sales tax rate is of no > concern to those folks.) Plaintiff's class action lawyers said they > were frequently overcharged on taxes, and it is true that if you as a > shopkeeper make a claim that 'X amount of money is for taxes' when in > fact the tax is either (1) incorrectly stated or (2) does not exist > at all, a crime has been committed. The class action lawsuit went on > a couple years, the attornies raked in piles of money; it was finally > settled by McDonalds putting a newspaper ad in several Chicago-area > publications with a coupon to clip out, offering a free small size > drink to the holder of the coupon, to cure the problem of being > charged a couple pennies too much on tax. PAT] They're still billing incorrectly though, or they were as of last July when I visited their location. I didn't look at the tax, just the rest of the meal. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you are referring to the McDonalds at 5000 or 5100 West Dempster (Niles Center Road and Dempster, about a block east of the Skokie Swift station) that does not surprise me at all. They got the notion once to lock down the inside eating area at 9 PM but keep the drive up window open until 11 PM, so at 9:10 PM I came walking along on foot past the drive in window to get an order. The woman refused to sell to me since I was 'not in a car'. We exchanged a few words; I wound up getting an empty bag out of the trash can nearby and calling the McDonalds customer service number. The woman just about flipped out when she got a call from customer service a couple minutes later asking her what was going on. Her excuse was a 'man on a bike a couple weeks earlier had robbed her and she was not going to take any more chances with pedestrians when the main dining area had been closed for the night. Another time I was told they considered it 'more effecient' to be 'blackmailed' out of drinks rather than change their way of doing business. By comparison, the McDonalds here in Independence is so pleasant, even for a Mcdonalds place. I am watching to see if walmart gets sued the same way, for using incorrectly (tax) programmed cash registers here. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 05:05:18 GMT rlittle@thetasoft.com wrote: > The Siemens Gigaset is great as far as features go, operating like a > little PBX (the extensions dial each other, the base unit does the > actual telecom work of dialing while the handsets just act like > recievers). > Unfortunately, the Siemens quality sucks. It works for about a year > before it starts flaking out -- we've already gone through 2 base > units, and Siemens customer support is worse than their reliability. > So, I'm in the market for a new system. I got the Panasonic 2 line > 6502, but feature-wise its horrible. (I'm so tired of seeing "24 > missed calls" on the handset that was lost under the couch). > Is there a good system out there? Cost is really no issue -- I'm > desperate for feature parity with the Siemens -- cordless handsets (6 > or more), base unit does all the dialing, multiple lines (2), > answering machine, transfer & conference between handsets... Surely > there must be something out there! Rob, I went through the same problems with the Siemens Gigaset. I replaced it with an AT&T-branded multi-set system (actually made by Vtech, I think). It's a great improvement, but not perfect. I looked at the Panasonic multi-set systems, but the handsets were too gadgety. The AT&T 2-line system handles up to 8 or 9 handsets and has a corded base station; both the base station and the cordless handsets can be used as speakerphones. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD (USA) (Replace "example.invalid" with "com" in my address.) ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 V24 #503 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Nov 5 15:55:02 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id CE20814F42; Sat, 5 Nov 2005 15:55:01 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #504 Message-Id: <20051105205501.CE20814F42@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 15:55:01 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.3 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, INFO_TLD autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sat, 5 Nov 2005 15:55:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 504 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson NN0 Central Office Codes (Neal McLain) Just Googling It Is Striking Fear Into Companies (Monty Solomon) Meeting Will End Fight Over Cell Tower (Monty Solomon) Re: Verizon POTS (Steve Sobol) Re: Verizon POTS (NOTvalid@XmasNYC.Info) Re: Verizon POTS (Tony P.) Re: Recorded Call From Law Office? (DevilsPGD) Re: Bank of America Delays Security Update (lenagainster@gmail.com) Re: AT&T Answering System 1309 - Need Help With Instruction (Garner Miller) Re: Old Chicago Numbering (Tony P.) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 13:42:00 -0600 From: Neal McLain Reply-To: nmclain@annsgarden.com Subject: NN0 Central Office Codes A few issues back, there was a thread about NN0 codes as central office codes. AT&T's publication "Notes on Distance Dialing" (1975) [1] includes a list of 63 NN0 codes that could be assigned either as area codes or as central office codes. This list, identified as "Chart 5," includes all NN0 codes in the range 220-990 (except for 950 which "is reserved for a future network-wide service") in an arbitrary (non-numerical) order. Each code is identified by a "sequence" number (#1 - #63). A copy of the list is posted at http://tinyurl.com/8csz7 . The accompanying text states: 2.03 Sometime after 1995, it is estimated that the 21 NPA codes still unassigned (end of 1974) will have been used and that it will be necessary to start using NNX type codes as NPA codes. In the interest of minimizing ambiguity, it is planned to assign the NN0 codes first in accordance with the sequence shown in Chart 5. (The NN0 codes have been designated as the last to be assigned as CO codes and a sequence that is the reverse of the of that for NPA code assignment is recommended.) Ultimately, it will become necessary to assign the remaining NNX codes for NPA code purposes. [2] Notes [3] on Chart 5 clarify the order of assignment: Central office codes should be drawn from the list in sequence-number order. After all N0/1X area codes are exhausted, further area codes should be drawn from the list in reverse-sequence-number order. If I understand this correctly, the idea was to assign NN0 codes as central office codes *and* as area codes *before* the introduction of interchangeable area codes, but to draw from opposite ends of the NN0 list in order to prevent ambiguity. Presumably, this would have forestalled the need for interchangeable area codes until the list was exhausted, theoretically somewhere in the middle of the list. It didn't work out that way ... Many NN0 codes were assigned as central office codes whenever and wherever they were needed, without regard to their positions on Chart 5. Examples that come to mind: 702-870 (#3 on the list) ca. 1989 Las Vegas 312-990 (#32 on the list) ca. 1988 Hinsdale 201-460 (#36 on the list) ca. 1982 Lyndhurst 414-730 (#52 on the list) ca. 1986 Appleton 214-680 (#54 on the list) ca. 1983 Dallas I assume that one reason for selecting these combinations was an attempt to maintain the look and feel of existing central office codes. That was certainly the case in Appleton, where Wisconsin Telephone was already using several other 73X combinations as central office codes. Curiously (as Mark Roberts noted in TD 24:482), 530 (#1 on the list) was in service -- at least briefly -- in California in 1965, a decade before Chart 5 was published. I wonder if this was just a coincidence? Or had some early version of Chart 5 already been published in 1965? No NN0 area codes were assigned before 1/1/1995 (when interchangeable area codes were introduced), but once the floodgates were open, many NN0 codes appeared quickly. But they too were assigned as needed, without regard to their positions on Chart 5. Seven of them were assigned [4] during 1995: 360 (#6) Washington 630 (#15) Illinois 770 (#25) Georgia 540 (#29) Virginia 970 (#31) Colorado 860 (#34) Connecticut 520 (#61) Arizona Note that Washington's 360 (#6 on the list) was actually #58 in the reverse sequence, while Arizona's 520 (#61) was actually #3 in reverse sequence. And, of course, all N90 combinations were reserved for future use, even though all eight of them appear on Chart 5. Apparently, Chart 5 had been abandoned before 1995. I assume that a major factor in the selection of new area codes after 1/1/1995 was conflict-avoidance: avoiding conflict between an area code and any central office code within the area code. This would have been a further reason for abandoning Chart 5. Even NPA 847 obeyed this constraint when it was first assigned; 847-847 appeared some time later. -------- References ------------- [1] American Telephone and Telegraph Company, Engineering and Network Services Department, Systems Planning Section. "Notes on Distance Dialing," Section 2 ("Numbering Plan and Dialing Procedures"), 1975. [2] Ibid, Section 2, p.2. [3] Ibid, Section 2, p.17. [4] Carl Moore: history.of.area.splits. November 2, 1995. http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/archives/areacodes/history.area.splits.11-95 Neal McLain ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 13:07:49 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Just Googling It Is Striking Fear Into Companies By STEVE LOHR The New York Times November 6, 2005 Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, strikes fear into the hearts of its competitors and suppliers. Makers of goods from diapers to DVD's must cater to its whims. But there is one company that even Wal-Mart eyes warily these days: Google, a seven-year-old business in a seemingly distant industry. "We watch Google very closely at Wal-Mart," said Jim Breyer, a member of Wal-Mart's board. In Google, Wal-Mart sees both a technology pioneer and the seed of a threat, said Mr. Breyer, who is also a partner in a venture capital firm. The worry is that by making information available everywhere, Google might soon be able to tell Wal-Mart shoppers if better bargains are available nearby. Wal-Mart is scarcely alone in its concern. As Google increasingly becomes the starting point for finding information and buying products and services, companies that even a year ago did not see themselves as competing with Google are beginning to view the company with some angst - mixed with admiration. Google's recent moves have stirred concern in industries from book publishing to telecommunications. Businesses already feeling the Google effect include advertising, software and the news media. Apart from retailing, Google's disruptive presence may soon be felt in real estate and auto sales. Google, the reigning giant of Web search, could extend its economic reach in the next few years as more people get high-speed Internet service and cellphones become full-fledged search tools, according to analysts. And ever-smarter software, they say, will cull and organize larger and larger digital storehouses of news, images, real estate listings and traffic reports, delivering results that are more like the advice of a trusted human expert. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/technology/06google.html?ex=1288933200&en=382239f45e5a64bd&ei=5088 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 02:30:16 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Meeting Will End Fight Over Cell Tower By Kristen Green, Globe Correspondent | October 30, 2005 After years of battling cellular phone companies over where they can locate their antennas, Wayland selectmen will ask residents Tuesday to rezone town-owned land in the Reeves Hill area as a wireless district, which would pave the way for the first town-approved cell tower. Officials are asking voters to approve a location specified in a legal settlement the town reached this summer with Cingular Wireless, a cellphone company, and Horizon Towers, a tower-building company. The companies had taken the town to court to push their proposal to build a tower on Boston Post Road (Route 20) near Pine Brook Road. The zoning change requires two-thirds approval at Tuesday's Special Town Meeting. Voters will also be asked to allow the town to lease the property to Horizon Towers, which would construct a 180-foot cellphone tower, replacing an existing 120-foot tower on Reeves Hill the town uses for police and fire communications. If voters reject the articles, the town will be required under its settlement agreement to issue a building permit at the Route 20 site, said Michael L. Tichnor, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, a siting the town has fought. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/10/30/meeting_will_end_fight_over_cell_tower/ ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Verizon POTS Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 08:46:05 -0800 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Joe wrote: > How long does it take for Verizon to install POTS? They installed it a week or so after I ordered it. I told them when I was moving in. Apple Valley, California. Former Continental Telephone/GTE territory. YMM definitely V. Did they give you an install date or a turnaround time when you placed the order? Steve Sobol, Professional Geek 888-480-4638 PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Company website: http://JustThe.net/ Personal blog, resume, portfolio: http://SteveSobol.com/ E: sjsobol@JustThe.net Snail: 22674 Motnocab Road, Apple Valley, CA 92307 ------------------------------ From: NOTvalid@XmasNYC.Info Subject: Re: Verizon POTS Date: 5 Nov 2005 10:29:19 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com What happens if you plug in a phone? ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Verizon POTS Organization: Ace Tomato and Cement Co. Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 08:52:34 -0500 In article , Joe@NOSPAM.SPAM says... > How long does it take for Verizon to install POTS? > I have moved my mother to an apartment. The complex is not new, been > there for 10+years. The previous tenent had Verizon POTS. I called > Verizon for new service on 10/27. Got a tracking number. But it has > been 5 business days and no telephone service. Checked online using > tracking number but it shows "in progress", no date. Called customer > support, on hold for 45min. then gave up. > Any idea how long it takes? Verizon is famous for having crappy outside plant records. For example, when I moved here in October, 2004 they swore up and down that service was hooked up. Plug in the phone and no dial-tone. No NID either. So I open the terminal block, take out the butt set and start dialing the ANAC number on every pair. Not only did I find my pair, I found the NID for my apartment and the two weren't anywhere near each other, nor was the NID connected. Called Verizon and told em' it was pair 14 and I wanted it hooked to my NID. The tech that came out had a good laugh, he said I'd stirred up a hornets nest inside Verizon's install/repair depot. Customers are NOT supposed to open terminal boxes. But when said boxes are secured with 7/16" nuts, it isn't hard to get in. ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Recorded Call From Law Office? Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 01:16:18 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message DevilsPGD wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you are referring to the McDonalds > at 5000 or 5100 West Dempster (Niles Center Road and Dempster, about a > block east of the Skokie Swift station) that does not surprise me at > all. They got the notion once to lock down the inside eating area at > 9 PM but keep the drive up window open until 11 PM, so at 9:10 PM I > came walking along on foot past the drive in window to get an order. > The woman refused to sell to me since I was 'not in a car'. We > exchanged a few words; I wound up getting an empty bag out of the > trash can nearby and calling the McDonalds customer service number. > The woman just about flipped out when she got a call from customer > service a couple minutes later asking her what was going on. Her > excuse was a 'man on a bike a couple weeks earlier had robbed her and > she was not going to take any more chances with pedestrians when the > main dining area had been closed for the night. Another time I was > told they considered it 'more effecient' to be 'blackmailed' out of > drinks rather than change their way of doing business. By comparison, > the McDonalds here in Independence is so pleasant, even for a > Mcdonalds place. I am watching to see if walmart gets sued the same > way, for using incorrectly (tax) programmed cash registers here. PAT] Definitely on Niles ... I think that's the right location, although I'm not 100% sure, it's been a couple months. It's actually not that uncommon these days for a place to have later drive through hours then restaurant hours, especially when they have a homeless and/or drunk problem. Also, the refusal to service walk through in the drive through is more of a safety issue, so that some asshole in a car doesn't mow you down. *shrugs* [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, it is Dempster Street and Skokie Blvd (Cicero Avenue a few blocks south when in Chicago). Niles Center Road runs at an angle a few blocks west of the Skokie Swift station. Cicero Avenue is 4800 west (as is Skokie Blvd) and the restaurant is 4800 West Dempster on its address. 5001 Dempster is the Skokie Swift station. The old name of the village of Skokie used to be 'Niles Center' which is how the street by that name got its name, and it cuts through at about 5100 west at that point. The parking area and the drive up window were completely abandoned at that point in time; I had originally gone by the restaurant entrance and saw a crew working inside there, but they waved me away saying they were closed, 'but drive through is open until midnight'. Going around to that side, then the rude lady waved me away saying she was not going to serve any pedestrians walking through. PAT] ------------------------------ From: lenagainster@gmail.com Subject: Re: Bank of America Delays Security Update Date: 5 Nov 2005 07:56:26 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Robert McMillan wrote: > The Bank of America's rollout of a stronger user authentication > technology has hit a snag Sure did AFAIC. Constantly asking me my secret question and telling me it doesn't recognize my computer. Same computer, no changes, same cookies. Don't particularly care for the fact that it uses my SSN for an ID. It's broke, and I'm stuck with it until BOA fixes it or until I can get all my direct deposits transferred to my other bank, where I have easy access and don't get constantly slammed with Yahoo-like ads. Bye -bye BOA. Lena ------------------------------ Subject: Re: AT&T Answering System 1309 - Need Help With Instructions From: Garner Miller Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 16:23:34 GMT Organization: Road Runner In article , browny wrote: > I have misplaced my instructions for this unit (telephone answering > machine). Would like to use the REMOTE ACCESS feature and don't > recall how. Can anyone help me? I dug around the AT&T web site, and found manuals for most of their models. They didn't have the 1309 specifically, but they did have the 1306 and several others, which *might* be close enough to get you started. Take a look: http://telephones.att.com/telephones_ui/support/dsp_manuals_list.cfm#257 Garner R. Miller Clifton Park, NY =USA= http://www.garnermiller.com/ ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Old Chicago Numbering Organization: Ace Tomato and Cement Co. Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 08:46:02 -0500 In article , JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com says: > On Mon, 31 Oct 2005 18:43:17 -0500, Tony P. > wrote: >> I do recall that they really stretched out the cutovers. My >> grandparents house in Providence still had the old style call progress >> tones indicating they were still on the Panel until 1975 or so. The CO >> for most of Providence is a huge building -- at least 14 floors that >> were once filled with switching gear. Now it's just the 4th floor. The >> rest of the building is offices. > I was in Providence in 1978 and my recollection is that they had mixed > ESS, panel and #1XB all working right next to each other. Another > interesting thing about Providence is evidently Providence was a 2L 4N > city originally since many of the exchanges in Providence have a one > after them like PLantations 1, ELmhurst 1 and so on. Yes I believe it did but in my time we had 7 digit. The only phone I'd ever seen with 2L1-4N was my grandparents 554 set. JAckson-1-4937. But I've seen old advertising materials for the Providence area that has 2L-4N numbers on it. Very interesting -- I knew that Panel an ESS were in existence at the same time but wasn't aware of the #1XB. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 V24 #504 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Nov 6 23:54:07 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 4E43B14DCD; Sun, 6 Nov 2005 23:54:07 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #505 Message-Id: <20051107045407.4E43B14DCD@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sun, 6 Nov 2005 23:54:07 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.2 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sun, 6 Nov 2005 23:55:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 505 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Market Growing for Refurbished, Used iPods (Antony Bruno) New Law Fuels Technology / Legal Clash (Brian Bergstein) Massachusetts Fights Microsoft on Data Format (Mark Jewell) FCC Sets April, 2009 Deadline on Digital TV (Jennifer C. Kerr) Newest Google Service (Marcus Didius Falco) Re: Phone Shown in 'Capote' / RJ Connector History (Paul Coxwell) Re: Old Chicago Numbering (Paul Coxwell) Re: Wabash Cannonball (was Re: Old Chicago Numbering) (Paul Coxwell) Re: Recorded Call From Law Office? (Justa Lurker) Re: Verizon POTS (Justa Lurker) Can't See dot.tk (Tom) Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset (Dan Lanciani) Sunday Sermon For This Week (Nicole Winfield) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Antony Bruno Subject: Market Growing for Refurbished, Used iPods Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 15:07:47 -0600 By Antony Bruno The popular iPod Nano and the just-released video iPod are expected to lead a surge of holiday sales for Apple Computer. Research firm Fulcrum Global Partners predicts Apple will sell 10 million iPods in the fourth quarter, a strong follow-up to the 7 million sold in the previous quarter. But not all of these sales will be to new iPod owners. Piper Jaffray analysts say about 30 percent of the iPod purchasers are now repeat buyers who are either replacing an existing, earlier-generation iPod or adding to their range of styles (such as an iPod Shuffle and a video iPod). If the average lifespan of an iPod is about 1.5 years, what happens to the older models? Analysts say most users hand down their iPods to friends or family once they purchase a new one. Some simply throw them away. Increasingly, however, consumers are capitalizing on the growing iPod phenomenon by selling their used iPods for cash or as a trade-in toward a new device. And it is not just for bargain hunters, either. With the popular iPod Mini being discontinued, many fans have turned to the refurbished market to track down a favorite color in what is becoming a cult-nostalgia item. "There is an emerging market for older iPods," Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster says. "Apple discontinues successful products that people feel some sort of connection to. They're the retro-cool thing." COTTAGE INDUSTRY Internet auction site eBay has literally thousands of iPod and iPod-related products for sale. The site is considered a leading resource for those seeking an inexpensive way to join the iPod revolution. So is Web site Craigslist. With 28 million iPods sold worldwide, the potential for iPod refurbishment and sales has created a cottage industry of sorts. Small Dog Electronics, for instance, is an established Apple reseller that has for years sold refurbished Macintosh computers and other accessories. The company now sells around 500 used and refurbished iPods per month from its Web-based store at significant discounts. A refurbished third-generation, 30GB iPod that cost $400 in 2003 now runs for about $210, for example. The company offers up to $100 off the price of a new iPod to anyone trading in a used one. According to CEO Don Mayer, the pace of such replacements is expected to increase as iPod sales continue to grow. "You have a curve that's getting larger every quarter for the installed base of iPods," he says, "so the used and refurbished ones are getting more and more prevalent. All that increases with volume." Another company, PodSwap, takes it a step further by not only offering cash for used iPods but also shipping players loaded with music that has been authorized for such distribution by artists who own the necessary rights. Both companies collect the used devices, determine and classify their condition, make whatever repairs are necessary and then clear the memory of any music files before shipping. COLLECTIONS FOR SALE It is a bit more loose on Craigslist and eBay. Several iPods up for auction include the sellers' music collection and instructions on how to transfer the music from the iPod to the buyer's computer. Some even take requests for additional songs to be added prior to shipping. One video iPod for sale contains an entire season of TV show "King of Queens" included. Even Apple competitors have tried to use the swap as a promotional tool. Dell offered a $100 mail-in rebate to any customer turning in an old iPod when buying one of its MP3 players. Interestingly, all the deals are better than what Apple itself offers. The company began offering iPod owners a 10 percent discount on new iPods when they trade in an older device. That translates to anywhere from $45 off a 60GB video iPod to $10 off the iPod Shuffle. Reuters/Billboard Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Brian Bergstein Subject: New Law Fuels Tecnology / Legal Clash Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 15:09:21 -0600 By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, AP Technology Writer A new method of communicating is creating intriguing services that beat old ways of sending information. But law enforcement makes a somber claim: These new networks will become a boon to criminals and terrorists unless the government can easily listen in. This was the story line in the mid-1990s when the Clinton administration sought to have electronic communications encrypted only by a National Security Agency-developed "Clipper Chip," for which the feds would have a key. The Clipper Chip eventually went the way of clipper ships after industry balked and researchers showed its cryptographic approach was flawed anyway. But while the Clipper Chip died, the dilemma it illuminated remains. With each new advance in communications, the government wants the same level of snooping power that authorities have exercised over phone conversations for a century. Technologists recoil, accusing the government of micromanaging -- and potentially limiting -- innovation. Today, this tug of war is playing out over the Federal Communications Commission's demands that a phone-wiretapping law be extended to voice-over-Internet services and broadband networks. Opponents are trying to block the ruling on various grounds: that it goes beyond the original scope of the law, that it will force network owners to make complicated changes at their own expense, or that it will have questionable value in improving security. No matter who wins the battle over this law -- the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, known as CALEA -- this probably won't be the last time authorities raise hackles by seeking a bird's eye view over the freewheeling information flow created by new technology. Authorities are justified in trying to reduce the ways that technology helps dangerous people operate in the shadows, said Daniel Solove, author of "The Digital Person." But a parallel concern is that technology can end up increasing the government's surveillance power rather than just maintaining it. "We have to ask ourselves anew the larger question: What surveillance power should the government have?" said Solove, an assistant professor at George Washington University Law School. "And to what extent should the government be allowed to manage the development of technology to embody its surveillance capability?" Wiretapping -- so named because eavesdropping police placed metal clips on the analog wires that carried conversations -- has a complex legal history. A 1928 case, Olmstead v. United States, legitimized the practice, when the Supreme Court ruled it was acceptable for police to monitor the private calls of a suspected bootlegger. Behind that 5-4 ruling, however, a seminal debate was raging. The dissenting opinion by Justice Louis Brandeis argued, among other things, that the government had no right to open someone's mail, so why should a phone -- or other technologies that might emerge -- carry different expectations about privacy? In 1967, as the dawn of the digital age was fulfilling Brandeis' fears that other forms of technological eavesdropping would become possible, the Supreme Court reversed Olmstead. After that, authorities had to get a search warrant before setting wiretaps, even on public payphones. That apparently hasn't been much of a hindrance. State and federal authorities have had 30,975 wiretap requests authorized since 1968, with only 30 rejections, according to the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Some 1,710 wiretaps were authorized last year, the most ever, with zero denied. Since 1980, authorities also have been able to set secret wiretaps with the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which privacy watchdogs say requires a lower standard of evidence than the general warrant process. For the first two decades FISA orders numbered less than 1,000 annually; 2003 and 2004 each saw more than 1,700. Only four FISA applications have been rejected, all in 2003. But technology began to pose obstacles in the 1980s, as old-fashioned telephone networks were giving way to digital switching systems that could also transmit information. Suddenly some wiretaps had to become virtual, using "packet sniffing" programs that spy on the splintered packets of data that make up network traffic. Congress passed CALEA in 1994, requiring telecom carriers to ensure that their networks left it relatively easy for law enforcement to set wiretaps. The law applied to landline and cell phone networks but essentially exempted the Internet. Of course, at the time, federal officials were advocating use of the Clipper Chip to ensure that bad guys couldn't hide by encrypting their online traffic. The FBI also was developing Carnivore, a program that agents could tailor to grab specific e-mails and other Internet communications defined in a court order. (The FBI eventually dropped Carnivore in favor of commercial software; frequent cooperation from Internet service providers often made the technology unnecessary anyway.) And all the while the NSA was harvesting the fruits of a system called Echelon, intercepting millions of international telephone calls and feeding them into the agency's humungous maw for analysis. Justifiably or not, each of these steps unsettled privacy activists. And it is that unease that colors the current fight over expanding CALEA's reach to new services such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) by 2007. The FCC says the move is critical because converting voice calls into data packets essentially replaces the old phone system. VoIP services are expected to attain some 4 million U.S. subscribers by the end of this year. "CALEA in a sense is the culmination of where we've been," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty program at the American Civil Liberties Union. "Now the communications network is built to be wiretap-ready, so you don't need Carnivore anymore. It's just intrinsic to the system." Clipper Chip objectors a decade ago contended that in addition to being an onerous demand, the technology could be foiled, rendering it pointless. Similarly, critics of expanding CALEA to broadband networks say the cost of rewiring -- estimated as high as $7 billion for universities alone -- is excessive. Those against expanding it to VoIP say it leaves too many holes to be effective. For example, Internet phone services such as Vonage that can route calls to regular phones will be expected to support CALEA. But "peer-to-peer" VoIP services and instant-messaging programs that carry voice conversations from one computer to another are exempt -- at least for now. "If you take the argument to its extreme, every kind of Internet application, including (file-transfer programs) and Web browsing, is capable of transmitting communications. So where does it end?" said Glenn Manishin, an attorney with Kelley Drye & Warren LLP who has handled telecom regulation cases for companies and consumer groups. "Do they now have to have a back door into every Web browser?" Plus, overseas services aren't covered by the U.S. law. Nor can it touch any home-grown Internet voice programs that serious criminals could develop. "For the past two years, law enforcement has been saying, `If we just had CALEA we'd catch all the terrorists,'" said John Morris, director of Internet standards, technology and policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "Well, if they're sophisticated enough to evade all of our intelligence capabilities, they'll be sophisticated enough not to use a CALEA-compliant phone service." CALEA critics also say authorities haven't shown that existing monitoring methods are so weak as to justify costly new back doors for government. Indeed, while they are not nearly as common as phone surveillance, computer wiretaps have been successful even without the extra assistance CALEA might provide. For example, a 2003 report by the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts explained how surveillance on a DSL high-speed Internet line in Minnesota intercepted 141,420 "computer messages" in three weeks, aiding a racketeering investigation. If there's one thing widely agreed upon in this debate, it's that Congress could do well to step in. Not only could lawmakers clarify how much of CALEA ought to apply to the Internet, but they might also reconsider the overarching Electronic Communications Privacy Act. That was passed in 1986, well before the Internet became the vast commercial and personal medium that redefined our categories of information. "That pervades CALEA and everything we talk about," Solove said. "This is something that Congress has been very derelict in addressing." On the Net: FBI page on CALEA: http://www.askcalea.com Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. For more news and headlines from Associated Press please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ From: Mark Jewell Subject: Massachusetts Fights Microsoft on Document Format Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 15:10:38 -0600 By MARK JEWELL, AP Business Writer The Revolutionary War started in Massachusetts, and now the state is firing some opening rounds in a revolt against Microsoft Corp. that seeks an open, proprietary-free format for storing electronic documents. Gov. Mitt Romney's administration has directed state government's executive offices to begin storing new records by Jan. 1, 2007, in a format that challenges Microsoft's market-dominating Office software, which isn't yet designed to support the new standard. Massachusetts is the first state to take the step, but others are closely watching a fight drawing comparisons to the battles at Lexington and Concord that opened the Revolution. "It may be the technological equivalent to the shot heard 'round the world," said Joe Wilcox, a Jupiter Research analyst. "If Massachusetts follows through with this plan, it will be a radical departure from how Microsoft and other businesses work with state governments." Massachusetts' shift to the so-called OpenDocument format seeks to ensure the state's electronic records can easily be read, exchanged and modified now and in the future, free of licensing restrictions and compatibility problems as software evolves. Microsoft and other critics of the change have warned in public hearings that the state is narrowing its options by banking on an untested format that may not work with many of the state's Office-based computer systems. The Redmond, Wash.-based company also argues the switch will hurt citizens and businesses using Office who may find state records don't translate well when they read them with their software. Among the programs that do fully work with the OpenDocument format are Sun Microsystems Inc.'s StarOffice and free products such as OpenOffice. Microsoft is trying to stem the rebellion's spread to other state governments and the private sector. Businesses sometimes follow the lead of government database managers, and software vendors try to tailor their products to government clients' preferred format. "There is a lot at stake for Microsoft," said David Smith, a Gartner Inc. analyst. "If this were to become a tremendously successful initiative, it could perhaps open the floodgates to other governments and business enterprises doing the same thing." Similar proposals in Oregon and Texas have been shot down. But officials in several other states including Rhode Island and Wisconsin continue to express interest in moving to the new data standard, said Jack Gallt, assistant director of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers. Peter Quinn, Massachusetts' chief information officer, testified at a recent legislative hearing that the switch to OpenDocument aims to transform the state from an information technology "Tower of Babel to an IT United Nations." The move will affect about 50,000 desktop PCs used by state government, many now equipped with Office software. Quinn has said computer systems using Office will be retained and not dismantled unless a cost-effective way is found to replace them. Agencies using Office software can continue doing so, as long as they begin saving documents in OpenDocument format. The switch involves only agencies within the executive branch, and doesn't apply to courts, the Legislature, and constitutional offices. It also doesn't apply to the state's Microsoft-based e-mail system. Massachusetts isn't alone in its campaign. The European Union and U.S. Library of Congress have in principle embraced OpenDocument as their preferred format. Several foreign governments also have endorsed the broader movement toward open-source software and the Linux operating system, which uses publicly available software code that can be customized. Because such software does not carry licensing fees, proponents cite cost savings and say open source is less of a target for hackers. Critics say the savings can disappear in the long run when service costs are factored in, along with compatibility problems pairing Microsoft systems with other products. Microsoft uses proprietary code for most of its products, protecting them with copyright and patent licenses restricting other developers' ability to write programs that support Microsoft software. The OpenDocument format was created by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, a nonprofit, international consortium that sets data standards. Its membership includes Microsoft rivals such as Sun and SAP AG. Microsoft said in June that Office 12, the next-generation version due next year, would use a different format that would make it easier for outside programs to read documents created in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Microsoft is adopting a standard called XML that lets data be shared across different systems with a uniform appearance. But critics say that switch will still leave some code off-limits and fall far short of the OpenDocument format's minimal restrictions on developers who write supporting applications. Microsoft has said it may rely on "filters" to convert documents from one standard to another rather than building that capability within Office 12. Microsoft hopes Massachusetts legislators will slow or halt the Romney administration's directive. Some legislators and other state officials question the cost and legality, and cite objections from visually impaired people who find Office software easier to use than rival products. Sen. Marc Pacheco, a Democratic committee chairman who ordered the legislative hearing, said he wants Quinn's office "to stop and to collaborate with the necessary agencies before moving ahead with this process." Alan Yates, a Microsoft general manager, said the company was "encouraged by the additional review that the Legislature is pursuing to better understand the costs and issues associated with the existing Massachusetts policy." Romney spokesman Felix Browne said it was too early to say whether the plans to switch to OpenDocument might be altered. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Jennifer C. Kerr Subject: Senate Sets 2009 Digital TV Deadline Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 15:12:11 -0600 Senate Sets 2009 Digital TV Deadline By JENNIFER C. KERR The Senate moved the digital TV transition one step closer to reality on Thursday, setting a firm date for television broadcasters to switch to all-digital transmissions. Lawmakers gave broadcasters until April 7, 2009, to end their traditional analog transmissions. The so-called "hard date" was included in a sweeping budget bill. The bill also would provide $3 billion to help millions of Americans buy digital-to-analog converter boxes for their older television sets - so those consumers will continue to receive a signal once the switch is made permanent. Legislation approved last month by the House Energy and Commerce Committee calls for a Dec. 31, 2008, deadline and provides nearly $1 billion for the converter boxes. Differences between the measures would need to be worked out in a House-Senate conference. In the Senate, an amendment by Republican John Ensign of Nevada that would have reduced the converter box subsidy to $1 billion was withdrawn. Spokesman Jack Finn said Ensign was concerned that the $2 billion in savings would be spent on other projects instead of deficit reduction. Digital television promises sharper pictures and better sound than analog TV. National Association of Broadcasters president Eddie Fritts said the 2009 deadline "represents a victory for millions of Americans who could have been left stranded by a premature end to analog television service." The move to all-digital will free valuable radio spectrum, some of which will be allocated to improve radio communications among fire and police departments and other first responders. Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., unsuccessfully offered an amendment to move up the hard date by one year, saying "first responders' ability to communicate during times of tragedy can be literally a matter of life and death." Public safety officials had pressed for the earliest possible transition. "We would have preferred an earlier date, but the most important thing is that we have a firm date so that people can start the planning and funding process," said Robert Gurss, director of legal and government affairs at the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials. In addition to the hard date, the Senate measure also set aside an additional $1 billion for public safety to buy new radio communications equipment. The original digital television bill was sponsored by Sens. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii. Separately on Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission moved up by four months the date by which small TV sets sold in the U.S., those 13 inches to 24 inches, must have tuners to receive digital signals. The new deadline will be March 1, 2007. Sets under 13 inches will also have to have digital tuners by that date. The commission had previously ruled that mid-sized sets, screens from 25 inches to 36 inches, be digital-ready by March 1, 2006. On the Net: Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov Federal Communications Commission: http://www.fcc.gov Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. Also see: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 06 Nov 2005 20:57:14 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Newest Google Service Search the full text of books. Excellent new research service. Even obscure topics will often get excellent hits. * Original: FROM..... Mehitabel Try these....you'll be blown away......m http://print.google.com/ http://print.google.com/advanced_print_search?ie=UTF-8 Direct replies are unlikely to be read. To reply use the address below: falco(underscore)md(atsign)yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk ------------------------------ From: Paul Coxwell Subject: Re: Phone Shown in 'Capote' / RJ Connector History Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 14:22:16 +0000 > As to modular connectors, I don't think they came out until the mid > 1970s. When we got new phone service in 1972, our jacks were the old > style big 4-prong. I believe my office converted to touch tone and > modular sets around 1977, many of us continue to use that system to > this day, though I think most of the WE 2500 sets have been replaced > with more modern 2500 sets or modern fancy sets. All the material I've ever seen also suggests that the modular connectors were introduced mid 1970s. I have a couple of WE-500 sets dating from 1970/71,and they still have hardwired cords. One of them came to me direct from Idaho and had the old-style 4-prong plug which was color-matched to the cord and phone (a kind of pinky-beige color). The cord actually has spade ends for wiring to a wall junction box and the plug is designed to accept the same terminations for easy conversion. > I hate sloppy history in movie props. Some years ago I used to be involved with lighting and sound for amateur dramatics, and I was always on the lookout for things which were out of place in "period" plays. Quite a few of the errors I pointed out to the producers stick in my mind to this day. There was a play set during the Korean war in which one of the leading characters almost went on stage wearing a digital watch which would have been visible to everybody in at least the front two or three rows. In the same play where a scene had rows of books on shelves, one particularly thick volume had large labeling on the spine which could easily be read at a similar distance -- "Almanac 1971." Another play set in -- if I recall correctly -- the 1930s had the set mocked up with modern-style light switches which simply didn't exist back then. On telephones, there was more than one play in which somebody in props had procurred what to them was obviously just "an old phone," and I had to point out that the British GPO 700-series phones didn't appear until the late 1950s. I was pedantic about the use of the props too. There was one play set in a small seaside town on the south coast in the early 1950s in which a character had to make a call to London. One of the older members of the cast had remembered that there was no STD back then and that a long-distance call had to be placed via the operator, but he then started dialing 100 to place the call. I had to point out that prior to STD we just dialed 0 for an operator. There were people saying "It doesn't matter," but after mentioning this the fellow thought for a moment and then recalled "Oh yeah, that's right, we did, didn't we?" So if he remembered, you can be sure somebody in the audience would spot the mistake too (and not just a telephone geek like myself!). Most people wanted to strive for accuracy as far as possible, but we had one producer who was "The what does it matter" type, and I had more than a couple of disagreements with her over technical inaccuracies. You don't even want to know what she thought we could get away with as a doorbell in "Little Women." -Paul. ------------------------------ From: Paul Coxwell Subject: Re: Old Chicago Numbering Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 14:23:10 +0000 Many thanks to all who have documented their recollections. I've edited the replies together and forwarded them to assist with piecing together old memories (Bill worked in the HUmboldt office). I'm not very familiar with Chicago myself, having only ever passed through the city a couple of times, so I'm going to have to dig out some maps to follow all the descriptions! -Paul ------------------------------ From: Paul Coxwell Subject: Re: Wabash Cannonball (Was: Old Chicago Numbering) Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 14:24:08 +0000 > For younger readers and not particularly Telecom related ... The > nickname for the switching machine at the Chicago-Wabash CO > undoubtably comes as a reference to a very popular tune dating from > the Mid-1930s - "The Wabash Cannonball". Written by A.P. Carter, the > chorus line probably brought to mind the sound of the CO machine on a > busy afternoon: > Listen to the Jingle > The rumble and the roar > As she glides along the woodlands > Through the hills and by the shore > Hear the mighty rush of the engine > Hear those lonesome hoboes squawl > While traveling through the jungle > On the Wabash Cannonball! > The song relates a steam locomotive trip on the Ireland, Jerusalem, > Australian and Southern Michigan Railroad. Legend has it that the I, > J, A and SM was built by Cal S. Bunyan, a younger brother of Paul. > So there you have it! I grew up knowing this old song even as an English kid many thousands of miles removed from its origins. I have the Carter Family's recording of it in my record collection somewhere. -Paul ------------------------------ From: Justa Lurker Subject: Re: Recorded Call From Law Office? Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 22:51:16 GMT > The parking area and the drive up window were completely abandoned at > that point in time; I had originally gone by the restaurant entrance > and saw a crew working inside there, but they waved me away saying > they were closed, 'but drive through is open until midnight'. Going > around to that side, then the rude lady waved me away saying she was > not going to serve any pedestrians walking through. PAT] You are better off not eating that stuff. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are generally correct on that. I go to get McDonalds when I a really hungry and no other place close is open. On that particular night, as I recall, the Jewish deli right across the street (where I would normally have gone was closed for the night. McDonalds was closer than the next nearest place, several blocks away. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Justa Lurker Subject: Re: Verizon POTS Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 22:59:34 GMT > Verizon is famous for having crappy outside plant records. For > example, when I moved here in October, 2004 they swore up and down > that service was hooked up. Plug in the phone and no dial-tone. No NID > either. > > the ANAC number on every pair. Not only did I find my pair, I found > the NID for my apartment and the two weren't anywhere near each other, > nor was the NID connected. > Called Verizon and told em' it was pair 14 and I wanted it hooked to > my NID. The tech that came out had a good laugh, he said I'd stirred > up a hornets nest inside Verizon's install/repair depot. Customers are > NOT supposed to open terminal boxes. > But when said boxes are secured with 7/16" nuts, it isn't hard to get > in. Exact same experience getting 2nd line into our house here in Freehold, NJ in 1996 when it was still Hell, errrrr. I mean Bell Atlantic. Took them three tries to get me a working line with the number which they'd told me was assigned ... one time, they even managed to break some local business's service ... I started getting their calls instead of them. Eventually they managed to make it work correctly. Wrote a letter to president/CEO of Bell Atlantic at that time (Ray Smith, I think) along with copies to some other executives as well as the NJ PUC describing exactly what had happened. I ended up getting a phone call from some outside plant supervisor who said to call him directly if I ever had any other problems (I doubt he's even there anymore 10 years later) as well as 2 separate form letters from "Ray Smith" which promised me a service credit [they even screwed that up, instead of one month's free local service, I think I got 3 !] No wonder they call them "Public Futilities". ------------------------------ From: Tom Subject: Can't See dot.tk Date: 5 Nov 2005 21:19:55 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com When I try to view my dot.tk doamin it won't show up, In fact I can't view any dot.tk domains except for the actual www.dot.tk doamin. Please help! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 6 Nov 2005 04:13:31 EST From: Dan Lanciani Subject: Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset I've been mostly satisfied with the first two generations of the 900MHz EnGenius system. It supports handset-to-handset calls but not conference. I've been thinking about my "next generation" cordless phone. It occurs to me that it might be possible to leverage my existing 802.11 access point infrastructure to support 802.11 VoIP handsets with a gateway like the Sipura SPA-3000 to a POTS line. (Obviously it could make other kinds of VoIP calls as well.) Has anybody tried to build a cordless phone this way? In reading the SPA-3000 configuration guide I think I noticed a possible problem. It appeared (and I should say that I spent very little time on this so I may have missed something) that the gateway will not forward a POTS call to VoIP unless it actually answers the call. I noticed that you can control an answer delay in order to accommodate other devices on the POTS line, but that's not quite what I want. Is there some way to send a setup message to the VoIP handset on detecting a ringing POTS line but not answer the POTS call unless the VoIP handset is itself answered? Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com ------------------------------ From: Nicole Winfield Subject: Sunday Sermon For This Week Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 15:13:43 -0600 Vatican: Faithful Should Listen to Science By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Writer A Vatican cardinal said Thursday the faithful should listen to what secular modern science has to offer, warning that religion risks turning into "fundamentalism" if it ignores scientific reason. Cardinal Paul Poupard, who heads the Pontifical Council for Culture, made the comments at a news conference on a Vatican project to help end the "mutual prejudice" between religion and science that has long bedeviled the Roman Catholic Church and is part of the evolution debate in the United States. The Vatican project was inspired by Pope John Paul II's 1992 declaration that the church's 17th-century denunciation of Galileo was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension." Galileo was condemned for supporting Nicolaus Copernicus' discovery that the Earth revolved around the sun; church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe. "The permanent lesson that the Galileo case represents pushes us to keep alive the dialogue between the various disciplines, and in particular between theology and the natural sciences, if we want to prevent similar episodes from repeating themselves in the future," Poupard said. But he said science, too, should listen to religion. "We know where scientific reason can end up by itself: the atomic bomb and the possibility of cloning human beings are fruit of a reason that wants to free itself from every ethical or religious link," he said. --> "But we also know the dangers of a religion that severs its links with reason and becomes prey to fundamentalism," he said. <-- "The faithful have the obligation to listen to that which secular modern science has to offer, just as we ask that knowledge of the faith be taken in consideration as an expert voice in humanity." Poupard and others at the news conference were asked about the religion-science debate raging in the United States over evolution and "intelligent design." Intelligent design's supporters argue that natural selection, an element of evolutionary theory, cannot fully explain the origin of life or the emergence of highly complex life forms. Monsignor Gianfranco Basti, director of the Vatican project STOQ, or Science, Theology and Ontological Quest, reaffirmed John Paul's 1996 statement that evolution was "more than just a hypothesis." "A hypothesis asks whether something is true or false," he said. "(Evolution) is more than a hypothesis because there is proof." He was asked about comments made in July by Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, who dismissed in a New York Times article the 1996 statement by John Paul as "rather vague and unimportant" and seemed to back intelligent design. Basti concurred that John Paul's 1996 letter "is not a very clear expression from a definition point of view," but he said evolution was assuming ever more authority as scientific proof develops. Poupard, for his part, stressed that what was important was that "the universe wasn't made by itself, but has a creator." But he added, "It's important for the faithful to know how science views things to understand better." The Vatican project STOQ has organized academic courses and conferences on the relationship between science and religion and is hosting its first international conference on "the infinity in science, philosophy and theology," next week. On the Net: Vatican project STOQ: http://www.stoqnet.org Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more headline news reports, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/TDNewsradio.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There are many instances where science and religion _can_ be reconciled; so often people tend to dismiss all religious thinking as nonsense, which is a pity. Think in terms of a 'bigger picture' when confronted with seeming discrepancies between the two. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #505 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Nov 7 12:53:18 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id BA75014D60; Mon, 7 Nov 2005 12:53:17 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #506 Message-Id: <20051107175317.BA75014D60@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 12:53:17 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.2 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Mon, 7 Nov 2005 12:55:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 506 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson An FBI Secret Letter and Order (Barton Gellman) Yahoo, Google to Launch Wireless Service (Reuters News Wire) Gooogle Offers Mapping Software (Associated Press News Wire) Online Movie Pirate Gets 3 Months in Jail (Reuters News Wire) CSL Launches Asia's First Commercial Video Sharing Service (Monty Solomon) Yahoo, TiVo Team Up on TV, Web Service (Monty Solomon) Increase DTMF Tones (frederic.willem@gmail.com) Cellular-News for Monday 7th November 2005 (Cellular-News) Re: Wabash Cannonball (Was: Old Chicago Numbering) (davidesan@gmail.com) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Barton Gellman Subject: An FBI Secret Letter and Order Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 10:12:53 -0600 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Excerpts from a rather lengthy article over the weekend in Washingon Post. See the newspaper's web site for the entire article. http://washingtonpost.com And people think Joe McCarthy was bad news ... PAT] The FBI's Secret Scrutiny In Hunt for Terrorists, Bureau Examines Records of Ordinary Americans By Barton Gellman Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, November 6, 2005; A01 The FBI came calling in Windsor, Conn., this summer with a document marked for delivery by hand. On Matianuk Avenue, across from the tennis courts, two special agents found their man. They gave George Christian the letter, which warned him to tell no one, ever, what it said. Under the shield and stars of the FBI crest, the letter directed Christian to surrender "all subscriber information, billing information and access logs of any person" who used a specific computer at a library branch some distance away. Christian, who manages digital records for three dozen Connecticut libraries, said in an affidavit that he configures his system for privacy. But the vendors of the software he operates said their databases can reveal the Web sites that visitors browse, the e-mail accounts they open and the books they borrow. Christian refused to hand over those records, and his employer, Library Connection Inc., filed suit for the right to protest the FBI demand in public. The Washington Post established their identities -- still under seal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit -- by comparing unsealed portions of the file with public records and information gleaned from people who had no knowledge of the FBI demand. The Connecticut case affords a rare glimpse of an exponentially growing practice of domestic surveillance under the USA Patriot Act, which marked its fourth anniversary on Oct. 26. "National security letters," created in the 1970s for espionage and terrorism investigations, originated as narrow exceptions in consumer privacy law, enabling the FBI to review in secret the customer records of suspected foreign agents. The Patriot Act, and Bush administration guidelines for its use, transformed those letters by permitting clandestine scrutiny of U.S. residents and visitors who are not alleged to be terrorists or spies. The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. The letters -- one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people -- are extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans. Issued by FBI field supervisors, national security letters do not need the imprimatur of a prosecutor, grand jury or judge. They receive no review after the fact by the Justice Department or Congress. The executive branch maintains only statistics, which are incomplete and confined to classified reports. The Bush administration defeated legislation and a lawsuit to require a public accounting, and has offered no example in which the use of a national security letter helped disrupt a terrorist plot. The burgeoning use of national security letters coincides with an unannounced decision to deposit all the information they yield into government data banks -- and to share those private records widely, in the federal government and beyond. In late 2003, the Bush administration reversed a long-standing policy requiring agents to destroy their files on innocent American citizens, companies and residents when investigations closed. Late last month, President Bush signed Executive Order 13388, expanding access to those files for "state, local and tribal" governments and for "appropriate private sector entities," which are not defined. National security letters offer a case study of the impact of the Patriot Act outside the spotlight of political debate. Drafted in haste after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the law's 132 pages wrought scores of changes in the landscape of intelligence and law enforcement. Many received far more attention than the amendments to a seemingly pedestrian power to review "transactional records." But few if any other provisions touch as many ordinary Americans without their knowledge. Senior FBI officials acknowledged in interviews that the proliferation of national security letters results primarily from the bureau's new authority to collect intimate facts about people who are not suspected of any wrongdoing. Criticized for failure to detect the Sept. 11 plot, the bureau now casts a much wider net, using national security letters to generate leads as well as to pursue them. Casual or unwitting contact with a suspect -- a single telephone call, for example -- may attract the attention of investigators and subject a person to scrutiny about which he never learns. A national security letter cannot be used to authorize eavesdropping or to read the contents of e-mail. But it does permit investigators to trace revealing paths through the private affairs of a modern digital citizen. The records it yields describe where a person makes and spends money, with whom he lives and lived before, how much he gambles, what he buys online, what he pawns and borrows, where he travels, how he invests, what he searches for and reads on the Web, and who telephones or e-mails him at home and at work. As it wrote the Patriot Act four years ago, Congress bought time and leverage for oversight by placing an expiration date on 16 provisions. The changes involving national security letters were not among them. In fact, as the Dec. 31 deadline approaches and Congress prepares to renew or make permanent the expiring provisions, House and Senate conferees are poised again to amplify the FBI's power to compel the secret surrender of private records. The House and Senate have voted to make noncompliance with a national security letter a criminal offense. The House would also impose a prison term for breach of secrecy. Like many Patriot Act provisions, the ones involving national security letters have been debated in largely abstract terms. The Justice Department has offered Congress no concrete information, even in classified form, save for a partial count of the number of letters delivered. The statistics do not cover all forms of national security letters or all U.S. agencies making use of them. "The beef with the NSLs is that they don't have even a pretense of judicial or impartial scrutiny," said former representative Robert L. Barr Jr. (Ga.), who finds himself allied with the American Civil Liberties Union after a career as prosecutor, CIA analyst and conservative GOP stalwart. "There's no checks and balances whatever on them. It is simply some bureaucrat's decision that they want information, and they can basically just go and get it." 'A Routine Tool' Career investigators and Bush administration officials emphasized, in congressional testimony and interviews for this story, that national security letters are for hunting terrorists, not fishing through the private lives of the innocent. The distinction is not as clear in practice. Under the old legal test, the FBI had to have "specific and articulable" reasons to believe the records it gathered in secret belonged to a terrorist or a spy. Now the bureau needs only to certify that the records are "sought for" or "relevant to" an investigation "to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities." That standard enables investigators to look for conspirators by sifting the records of nearly anyone who crosses a suspect's path. "If you have a list of, say, 20 telephone numbers that have come up ... on a bad guy's telephone," said Valerie E. Caproni, the FBI's general counsel, "you want to find out who he's in contact with." Investigators will say, " 'Okay, phone company, give us subscriber information and toll records on these 20 telephone numbers,' and that can easily be 100." Bush administration officials compare national security letters to grand jury subpoenas, which are also based on "relevance" to an inquiry. There are differences. Grand juries tend to have a narrower focus because they investigate past conduct, not the speculative threat of unknown future attacks. Recipients of grand jury subpoenas are generally free to discuss the subpoenas publicly. And there are strict limits on sharing grand jury information with government agencies. Since the Patriot Act, the FBI has dispersed the authority to sign national security letters to more than five dozen supervisors -- the special agents in charge of field offices, the deputies in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, and a few senior headquarters officials. FBI rules established after the Patriot Act allow the letters to be issued long before a case is judged substantial enough for a "full field investigation." Agents commonly use the letters now in "preliminary investigations" and in the "threat assessments" that precede a decision whether to launch an investigation. "Congress has given us this tool to obtain basic telephone data, basic banking data, basic credit reports," said Caproni, who is among the officials with signature authority. "The fact that a national security letter is a routine tool used, that doesn't bother me." If agents had to wait for grounds to suspect a person of ill intent, said Joseph Billy Jr., the FBI's deputy assistant director for counterterrorism, they would already know what they want to find out with a national security letter. "It's all chicken and egg," he said. "We're trying to determine if someone warrants scrutiny or doesn't." Billy said he understands that "merely being in a government or FBI database ... gives everybody, you know, neck hair standing up." Innocent Americans, he said, "should take comfort at least knowing that it is done under a great deal of investigative care, oversight, within the parameters of the law." He added: "That's not going to satisfy a majority of people, but ... I've had people say, you know, 'Hey, I don't care, I've done nothing to be concerned about. You can have me in your files and that's that.' Some people take that approach." 'Don't Go Overboard' In Room 7975 of the J. Edgar Hoover Building, around two corners from the director's suite, the chief of the FBI's national security law unit sat down at his keyboard about a month after the Patriot Act became law. Michael J. Woods had helped devise the FBI wish list for surveillance powers. Now he offered a caution. "NSLs are powerful investigative tools, in that they can compel the production of substantial amounts of relevant information," he wrote in a Nov. 28, 2001, "electronic communication" to the FBI's 56 field offices. "However, they must be used judiciously." Standing guidelines, he wrote, "require that the FBI accomplish its investigations through the 'least intrusive' means. The greater availability of NSLs does not mean that they should be used in every case." Woods, who left government service in 2002, added a practical consideration. Legislators granted the new authority and could as easily take it back. When making that decision, he wrote, "Congress certainly will examine the manner in which the FBI exercised it." Looking back last month, Woods was struck by how starkly he misjudged the climate. The FBI disregarded his warning, and no one noticed. "This is not something that should be automatically done because it's easy," he said. "We need to be sure ... we don't go overboard." One thing Woods did not anticipate was then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft's revision of Justice Department guidelines. On May 30, 2002, and Oct. 31, 2003, Ashcroft rewrote the playbooks for investigations of terrorist crimes and national security threats. He gave overriding priority to preventing attacks by any means available. Ashcroft remained bound by Executive Order 12333, which requires the use of the "least intrusive means" in domestic intelligence investigations. But his new interpretation came close to upending the mandate. Three times in the new guidelines, Ashcroft wrote that the FBI "should consider ... less intrusive means" but "should not hesitate to use any lawful techniques ... even if intrusive" when investigators believe them to be more timely. "This point," he added, "is to be particularly observed in investigations relating to terrorist activities." 'Why Do You Want to Know?' As the Justice Department prepared congressional testimony this year, FBI headquarters searched for examples that would show how expanded surveillance powers made a difference. Michael Mason, who runs the Washington field office and has the rank of assistant FBI director, found no ready answer. "I'd love to have a made-for-Hollywood story, but I don't have one," Mason said. "I am not even sure such an example exists." What national security letters give his agents, Mason said, is speed. "I have 675 terrorism cases," he said. "Every one of these is a potential threat. And anything I can do to get to the bottom of any one of them more quickly gets me closer to neutralizing a potential threat." Because recipients are permanently barred from disclosing the letters, outsiders can make no assessment of their relevance to Mason's task. Woods, the former FBI lawyer, said secrecy is essential when an investigation begins because "it would defeat the whole purpose" to tip off a suspected terrorist or spy, but national security seldom requires that the secret be kept forever. Even mobster "John Gotti finds out eventually that he was wiretapped" in a criminal probe, said Peter Swire, the federal government's chief privacy counselor until 2001. "Anyone caught up in an NSL investigation never gets notice." To establish the "relevance" of the information they seek, agents face a test so basic it is hard to come up with a plausible way to fail. A model request for a supervisor's signature, according to internal FBI guidelines, offers this one-sentence suggestion: "This subscriber information is being requested to determine the individuals or entities that the subject has been in contact with during the past six months." Edward L. Williams, the chief division counsel in Mason's office, said that supervisors, in practice, "aren't afraid to ask ... 'Why do you want to know?' " He would not say how many requests, if any, are rejected. 'The Abuse Is in the Power Itself' Those who favor the new rules maintain -- as Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, put it in a prepared statement -- that "there has not been one substantiated allegation of abuse of these lawful intelligence tools." What the Bush administration means by abuse is unauthorized use of surveillance data -- for example, to blackmail an enemy or track an estranged spouse. Critics are focused elsewhere. What troubles them is not unofficial abuse but the official and routine intrusion into private lives. To Jeffrey Breinholt, deputy chief of the Justice Department's counterterrorism section, the civil liberties objections "are eccentric." Data collection on the innocent, he said, does no harm unless "someone [decides] to act on the information, put you on a no-fly list or something." Only a serious error, he said, could lead the government, based on nothing more than someone's bank or phone records, "to freeze your assets or go after you criminally and you suffer consequences that are irreparable." He added: "It's a pretty small chance." "I don't necessarily want somebody knowing what videos I rent or the fact that I like cartoons," said Mason, the Washington field office chief. But if those records "are never used against a person, if they're never used to put him in jail, or deprive him of a vote, et cetera, then what is the argument?" Barr, the former congressman, said that "the abuse is in the power itself." "As a conservative," he said, "I really resent an administration that calls itself conservative taking the position that the burden is on the citizen to show the government has abused power, and otherwise shut up and comply." At the ACLU, staff attorney Jameel Jaffer spoke of "the profound chilling effect" of this kind of surveillance: "If the government monitors the Web sites that people visit and the books that they read, people will stop visiting disfavored Web sites and stop reading disfavored books. The FBI should not have unchecked authority to keep track of who visits [al-Jazeera's Web site] or who visits the Web site of the Federalist Society." Links in a Chain Ready access to national security letters allows investigators to employ them routinely for "contact chaining." "Starting with your bad guy and his telephone number and looking at who he's calling, and [then] who they're calling," the number of people surveilled "goes up exponentially," acknowledged Caproni, the FBI's general counsel. But Caproni said it would not be rational for the bureau to follow the chain too far. "Everybody's connected" if investigators keep tracing calls "far enough away from your targeted bad guy," she said. "What's the point of that?" One point is to fill government data banks for another investigative technique. That one is called "link analysis," a practice Caproni would neither confirm nor deny. Two years ago, Ashcroft rescinded a 1995 guideline directing that information obtained through a national security letter about a U.S. citizen or resident "shall be destroyed by the FBI and not further disseminated" if it proves "not relevant to the purposes for which it was collected." Ashcroft's new order was that "the FBI shall retain" all records it collects and "may disseminate" them freely among federal agencies. The same order directed the FBI to develop "data mining" technology to probe for hidden links among the people in its growing cache of electronic files. According to an FBI status report, the bureau's office of intelligence began operating in January 2004 a new Investigative Data Warehouse, based on the same Oracle technology used by the CIA. The CIA is generally forbidden to keep such files on Americans. Data mining intensifies the impact of national security letters, because anyone's personal files can be scrutinized again and again without a fresh need to establish relevance. "The composite picture of a person which emerges from transactional information is more telling than the direct content of your speech," said Woods, the former FBI lawyer. "That's certainly not been lost on the intelligence community and the FBI." Ashcroft's new guidelines allowed the FBI for the first time to add to government files consumer data from commercial providers such as LexisNexis and ChoicePoint Inc. Previous attorneys general had decided that such a move would violate the Privacy Act. In many field offices, agents said, they now have access to ChoicePoint in their squad rooms. What national security letters add to government data banks is information that no commercial service can lawfully possess. Strict privacy laws, for example, govern financial and communications records. National security letters -- along with the more powerful but much less frequently used secret subpoenas from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court -- override them. 'What Happens in Vegas' The bureau displayed its ambition for data mining in an emergency operation at the end of 2003. The Department of Homeland Security declared an orange alert on Dec. 21 of that year, in part because of intelligence that hinted at a New Year's Eve attack in Las Vegas. The identities of the plotters were unknown. The FBI sent Gurvais Grigg, chief of the bureau's little-known Proactive Data Exploitation Unit, in an audacious effort to assemble a real-time census of every visitor in the nation's most-visited city. An average of about 300,000 tourists a day stayed an average of four days each, presenting Grigg's team with close to a million potential suspects in the ensuing two weeks. A former stockbroker with a degree in biochemistry, Grigg declined to be interviewed. Government and private sector sources who followed the operation described epic efforts to vacuum up information. An interagency task force began pulling together the records of every hotel guest, everyone who rented a car or truck, every lease on a storage space, and every airplane passenger who landed in the city. Grigg's unit filtered that population for leads. Any link to the known terrorist universe -- a shared address or utility account, a check deposited, a telephone call -- could give investigators a start. "It was basically a manhunt, and in circumstances where there is a manhunt, the most effective way of doing that was to scoop up a lot of third party data and compare it to other data we were getting," Breinholt said. Investigators began with emergency requests for help from the city's sprawling hospitality industry. "A lot of it was done voluntary at first," said Billy, the deputy assistant FBI director. According to others directly involved, investigators turned to national security letters and grand jury subpoenas when friendly persuasion did not work. Early in the operation, according to participants, the FBI gathered casino executives and asked for guest lists. The MGM Mirage company, followed by others, balked. "Some casinos were saying no to consent [and said], 'You have to produce a piece of paper,' " said Jeff Jonas, chief scientist at IBM Entity Analytics, who previously built data management systems for casino surveillance. "They don't just market 'What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.' They want it to be true." The operation remained secret for about a week. Then casino sources told Rod Smith, gaming editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, that the FBI had served national security letters on them. In an interview for this article, one former casino executive confirmed the use of a national security letter. Details remain elusive. Some law enforcement officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they had not been authorized to divulge particulars, said they relied primarily on grand jury subpoenas. One said in an interview that national security letters may eventually have been withdrawn. Agents encouraged voluntary disclosures, he said, by raising the prospect that the FBI would use the letters to gather something more sensitive: the gambling profiles of casino guests. Caproni declined to confirm or deny that account. What happened in Vegas stayed in federal data banks. Under Ashcroft's revised policy, none of the information has been purged. For every visitor, Breinholt said, "the record of the Las Vegas hotel room would still exist." Grigg's operation found no suspect, and the orange alert ended on Jan. 10, 2004."The whole thing washed out," one participant said. 'Of Interest to President Bush' At around the time the FBI found George Christian in Connecticut, agents from the bureau's Charlotte field office paid an urgent call on the chemical engineering department at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. They were looking for information about a former student named Magdy Nashar, then suspected in the July 7 London subway bombing but since cleared of suspicion. University officials said in interviews late last month that the FBI tried to use a national security letter to demand much more information than the law allows. David T. Drooz, the university's senior associate counsel, said special authority is required for the surrender of records protected by educational and medical privacy. The FBI's first request, a July 14 grand jury subpoena, did not appear to supply that authority, Drooz said, and the university did not honor it. Referring to notes he took that day, Drooz said Eric Davis, the FBI's top lawyer in Charlotte, "was focused very much on the urgency" and "he even indicated the case was of interest to President Bush." The next day, July 15, FBI agents arrived with a national security letter. Drooz said it demanded all records of Nashar's admission, housing, emergency contacts, use of health services and extracurricular activities. University lawyers "looked up what law we could on the fly," he said. They discovered that the FBI was demanding files that national security letters have no power to obtain. The statute the FBI cited that day covers only telephone and Internet records. "We're very eager to comply with the authorities in this regard, but we needed to have what we felt was a legally valid procedure," said Larry A. Neilsen, the university provost. Soon afterward, the FBI returned with a new subpoena. It was the same as the first one, Drooz said, and the university still had doubts about its legal sufficiency. This time, however, it came from New York and summoned Drooz to appear personally. The tactic was "a bit heavy-handed," Drooz said, "the implication being you're subject to contempt of court." Drooz surrendered the records. The FBI's Charlotte office referred questions to headquarters. A high-ranking FBI official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the field office erred in attempting to use a national security letter. Investigators, he said, "were in a big hurry for obvious reasons" and did not approach the university "in the exact right way." 'Unreasonable' or 'Oppressive' The electronic docket in the Connecticut case, as the New York Times first reported, briefly titled the lawsuit Library Connection Inc. v. Gonzales . Because identifying details were not supposed to be left in the public file, the court soon replaced the plaintiff's name with "John Doe." George Christian, Library Connection's executive director, is identified in his affidavit as "John Doe 2." In that sworn statement, he said people often come to libraries for information that is "highly sensitive, embarrassing or personal." He wanted to fight the FBI but feared calling a lawyer because the letter said he could not disclose its existence to "any person." He consulted Peter Chase, vice president of Library Connection and chairman of a state intellectual freedom committee. Chase -- "John Doe 1" in his affidavit -- advised Christian to call the ACLU. Reached by telephone at their homes, both men declined to be interviewed. U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall ruled in September that the FBI gag order violates Christian's, and Library Connection's, First Amendment rights. A three-judge panel heard oral argument on Wednesday in the government's appeal. The central facts remain opaque, even to the judges, because the FBI is not obliged to describe what it is looking for, or why. During oral argument in open court on Aug. 31, Hall said one government explanation was so vague that "if I were to say it out loud, I would get quite a laugh here." After the government elaborated in a classified brief delivered for her eyes only, she wrote in her decision that it offered "nothing specific." The Justice Department tried to conceal the existence of the first and only other known lawsuit against a national security letter, also brought by the ACLU's Jaffer and Ann Beeson. Government lawyers opposed its entry into the public docket of a New York federal judge. They have since tried to censor nearly all the contents of the exhibits and briefs. They asked the judge, for example, to black out every line of the affidavit that describes the delivery of the national security letter to a New York Internet company, including, "I am a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ('FBI')." U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero, in a ruling that is under appeal, held that the law authorizing national security letters violates the First and Fourth Amendments. Resistance to national security letters is rare. Most of them are served on large companies in highly regulated industries, with business interests that favor cooperation. The in-house lawyers who handle such cases, said Jim Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, "are often former prosecutors -- instinctively pro-government but also instinctively by-the-books." National security letters give them a shield against liability to their customers. Kenneth M. Breen, a partner at the New York law firm Fulbright & Jaworski, held a seminar for corporate lawyers one recent evening to explain the "significant risks for the non-compliant" in government counterterrorism investigations. A former federal prosecutor, Breen said failure to provide the required information could create "the perception that your company didn't live up to its duty to fight terrorism" and could invite class-action lawsuits from the families of terrorism victims. In extreme cases, he said, a business could face criminal prosecution, "a 'death sentence' for certain kinds of companies." The volume of government information demands, even so, has provoked a backlash. Several major business groups, including the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, complained in an Oct. 4 letter to senators that customer records can "too easily be obtained and disseminated" around the government. National security letters, they wrote, have begun to impose an "expensive and time-consuming burden" on business. The House and Senate bills renewing the Patriot Act do not tighten privacy protections, but they offer a concession to business interests. In both bills, a judge may modify a national security letter if it imposes an "unreasonable" or "oppressive" burden on the company that is asked for information. 'A Legitimate Question' As national security letters have grown in number and importance, oversight has not kept up. In each house of Congress, jurisdiction is divided between the judiciary and intelligence committees. None of the four Republican chairmen agreed to be interviewed. Roberts, the Senate intelligence chairman, said in a statement issued through his staff that "the committee is well aware of the intelligence value of the information that is lawfully collected under these national security letter authorities," which he described as "non-intrusive" and "crucial to tracking terrorist networks and detecting clandestine intelligence activities." Senators receive "valuable reporting by the FBI," he said, in "semi-annual reports [that] provide the committee with the information necessary to conduct effective oversight." Roberts was referring to the Justice Department's classified statistics, which in fact have been delivered three times in four years. They include the following information: how many times the FBI issued national security letters; whether the letters sought financial, credit or communications records; and how many of the targets were "U.S. persons." The statistics omit one whole category of FBI national security letters and also do not count letters issued by the Defense Department and other agencies. Committee members have occasionally asked to see a sampling of national security letters, a description of their fruits or examples of their contribution to a particular case. The Justice Department has not obliged. In 2004, the conference report attached to the intelligence authorization bill asked the attorney general to "include in his next semiannual report" a description of "the scope of such letters" and the "process and standards for approving" them. More than a year has passed without a Justice Department reply. "The committee chairman has the power to issue subpoenas" for information from the executive branch, said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), a House Judiciary Committee member. "The minority has no power to compel, and ... Republicans are not going to push for oversight of the Republicans. That's the story of this Congress." In the executive branch, no FBI or Justice Department official audits the use of national security letters to assess whether they are appropriately targeted, lawfully applied or contribute important facts to an investigation. Justice Department officials noted frequently this year that Inspector General Glenn A. Fine reports twice a year on abuses of the Patriot Act and has yet to substantiate any complaint. (One investigation is pending.) Fine advertises his role, but there is a puzzle built into the mandate. Under what scenario could a person protest a search of his personal records if he is never notified? "We do rely upon complaints coming in," Fine said in House testimony in May. He added: "To the extent that people do not know of anything happening to them, there is an issue about whether they can complain. So, I think that's a legitimate question." Asked more recently whether Fine's office has conducted an independent examination of national security letters, Deputy Inspector General Paul K. Martin said in an interview: "We have not initiated a broad-based review that examines the use of specific provisions of the Patriot Act." At the FBI, senior officials said the most important check on their power is that Congress is watching. "People have to depend on their elected representatives to do the job of oversight they were elected to do," Caproni said. "And we think they do a fine job of it." Researcher Julie Tate and research editor Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report. Copyright 2005 The Washington Post Company NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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 ------------------------------ From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Yahoo, Google to Launch Wireless Services Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 10:24:06 -0600 Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. are set to roll out new wireless services, taking advantage of advanced networks and cellphones to provide features similar to those available on computers, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. Yahoo soon will introduce a cellphone it will sell through a partnership with SBC Communications, according to SBC executives. The phone will take Yahoo a step closer to linking music, photos and email with consumers' existing online accounts, address books and preferences, the paper said. Google is tailoring some Internet services for use on wireless devices. Starting Monday, consumers using some types of cellphones will be able to access satellite maps wirelessly as they can on the Google Maps service, the paper said. The moves will mark a further step in the evolution of cellphones from communications devices to minicomputers that can be used for email, Web browsing, music downloading and even watching TV, in addition to calls. Handset manufacturers have already started to produce single devices that combine cellphones, Web surfing, wireless email and MP3 players. SBC and Yahoo have had a partnership since 2001 and have steadily expanded it beyond traditional telecom and online services to merge video, wireless and phone services. SBC executives said the SBC-Yahoo phone, which will be manufactured by Nokia, is expected to be available as soon as early next year and will cost $200 to $300. Operating on the Cingular Wireless network, which is co-owned by SBC and BellSouth Corp., the phone will also be an MP3 player, a 1.3 megapixel camera and will have a removable memory card. Last year, Google began letting U.S. consumers get search results by sending text messages from their cellphones. Starting Monday, many consumers whose phones support Java software will be able to download the Google Local application. From there, they can conduct searches for businesses or services in a specific geographical location and view the search results plotted on a map. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Associated Press News Wire Subject: Google Offers Software for Mapping Service Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 10:25:05 -0600 Google Inc. is introducing software Monday designed to make its local search and mapping service easier to navigate on mobile phones, continuing the Internet search engine leader's effort to extend its reach beyond personal computers. Consumers who download and install the new software will be able to skip some of the steps that had been required since Google began offering a mobile version of its maps nearly seven months ago. For instance, users won't have to type in their location before getting directions to a specific location, as long as their phone has Global Positioning System, or GPS, capabilities, said Deep Nishar, a director of Google's mobile products. Google has been exploring ways to pinpoint the location of its users in order to better target ads from nearby merchants. But Nishar said that goal isn't driving the mobile upgrade: Google doesn't plan to display ads alongside its mobile maps. Ads generate virtually all of Google's revenue, which totaled $4.2 billion through the first nine months of this year. The Mountain View-based company recorded a $1.1 billion profit during that time, continuing an exceptional streak of prosperity that has propelled its market value above $100 billion just seven years after its inception. Emboldened by its success, Google has been busily expanding beyond its once-austere search engine. With the push, Google is becoming increasingly involved in telecommunications, television and publishing. Using Google's new mobile mapping software requires Java-enabled phones. Most subscribers with wireless service from Cingular, T-Mobile and Sprint should be able to use the software, Nishar said. The service won't work with Verizon phones, Blackberry devices or Palm devices. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more news from Associated Press please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html (audio and reading, or) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Online Movie Pirate Gets 3 Months in Jail Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 10:30:05 -0600 A Hong Kong court sentenced a local man to three months in jail on Monday for trying to illegally distribute movies using BitTorrent software. Chan Nai-ming was convicted last month for trying to distribute three Hollywood blockbusters -- Daredevil, Red Planet and Miss Congeniality -- on the Internet without licences. He pleaded not guilty. "He was sentenced to three months for each count but they will run concurrently," a court clerk said. Chan filed an appeal and was freed on HK$5,000 (US$645) bail. It is believed to be the world's first intellectual piracy case involving the file-sharing technology. BitTorrent, created by programer Bram Cohen, distributes large files quickly by breaking them into many pieces, sharing the pieces among a large number of users, and reassembling them upon delivery. It is widely used to trade copyrighted materials like movies and television shows. It also has many non-infringing uses. The Hong Kong government has said the case was the first successful enforcement action against peer-to-peer file sharing. The maximum penalty is four years' jail and a hefty fine. (US$=HK$7.8) Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 03:30:35 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CSL Launches Asia's First Commercial Video Sharing Service CSL Launches Asia's First Commercial Video Sharing Service With Nokia IMS - Nov 7, 2005 02:50 AM (PR Newswire) HONG KONG, China, November 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Mobile operator CSL and Nokia today jointly announced the commercial launch of Asia's first video sharing service in Hong Kong enabled by Nokia IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and systems integration services. At a press conference, CSL and Nokia demonstrated video sharing service using the Nokia N70, the 3G Series 60 smartphone with 2 megapixel camera and a full set of Nokia Nseries features. The service launch affirms CSL and Nokia's leading position in bringing innovative mobile services to the end-users. This milestone service also demonstrates Nokia's end-to-end capability in enabling operators to differentiate and offer a variety of services on the fiercely competitive Hong Kong telecommunication market. Video sharing is a multimedia service that allows users to view live or prerecorded video during a normal voice call on their mobile phones. Both the caller and the receiver can watch the same video and discuss it, and then end the video sharing without ending the voice call. Video sharing is based on standardized 3GPP IMS and IETF technologies, and its specifications are available at Forum Nokia. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=52910516 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 09:19:21 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Yahoo, TiVo Team Up on TV, Web Service By MAY WONG Associated Press Writer SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Yahoo Inc. and TiVo Inc. are teaming up to blend some of their services, a move that further fades the lines between offices and living rooms, TVs and PCs. Under a partnership announced Monday, the two will collaborate to offer Yahoo's Internet-based content and services through TiVo's digital video recording devices. Users of Yahoo's TV page will be able to click on a record-to-TiVo button directly from a television program listing to remotely schedule recordings. And in the coming months, possibly before the end of the year, Yahoo's traffic and weather content, as well as its users' photos will be viewable on televisions via TiVo's broadband service and easy-to-use screen menu. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Edward Lichty, TiVo's vice president of corporate strategy, said TiVo hopes the collaboration will set the foundation for a long-term relationship. TiVo subscribers already have the ability to remotely schedule recordings from the TiVo Web site, but this will give the DVR pioneer a way to potentially tap Yahoo's large user base and gain some much-needed new customers. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=52916081 ------------------------------ From: frederic.willem@gmail.com Subject: Increase DTMF Tones Date: 7 Nov 2005 03:06:22 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hi all, I would like to increase the duration of the DTMF tones of my incoming calls on the PABX. I know that there is equipment making it possible to parameterize this kind of things but I do not find anything in the groups nor on Google. If somebody among you knows this kind of apparatus, can it leave me a reference? Thanks in advance, Eric Willem ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Monday 7th November 2005 Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 07:46:57 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com Top 10 Selling Handsets in October http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14710.php The Swedish manufacturer of carrying cases for portable electronics, Krusell, has released their "Top 10"-list for October 2005. The list is based upon the number of pieces of model specific mobile phone cases that has been ordered from Krusell durin... Romanian Mobile Call Volumes Jump 45% http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14709.php The number of mobile telephony users in Romania reached 11.37 million in June 2005, increasing by more than 10% (1.16 million) as compared to end-2004, according to the final report on the electronic communications sector for the period January 1st -... MMS Is A Huge Success In Norway http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14708.php Strand Reports has noted that it would not have been completely misleading, if SMS had been the abbreviation for "Surprising Messaging Success" -- as the success of SMS messages took the mobile operators completely by surprise. Currently mobile operat... Taiwanese Mobile Phone Industry Gains from Low-Cost Handsets http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14707.php Riding the wave of new handset demand running through emerging markets as well as healthy replacement demand in mature markets, global mobile phone shipments continued the strong pace. Registering an estimated 200 million units in the third quarter, ... Orange Launches Three New Windows Mobile 5.0 Products http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14706.php Orange is expanding the SPV range in the business customer sector. Orange says that it is the first mobile telephony supplier in Switzerland to offer three new devices with the new Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system. The new flagship is the SPV M500... 39 hours - The World Record for the Longest Phone Conversation http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14705.php On November 1 at 11:15 a.m., Sandra Kobel (28) from Berne and Stephan Hafner (29) from Wettingen embarked on the first-ever world-record attempt at the longest phone conversation over the Internet. Both participants demonstrated their enormous commun... Cheap Voice Bundles Drive 3G Mobile Services http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14704.php New research suggests that 3G mobile services are now beginning to take off, however instead of supposedly new "killer applications" or high speed data services driving sales as many pundits predicted, it is the promise of cheaper voice and text bund... NEC Makes HSDPA Kit Available http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14703.php NEC Corporation has announced that its High Speed Download Packet Access (HSDPA) solution is ready to be delivered for use in commercial networks worldwide. The successful field network operation trial for NEC's HSDPA was carried out this summer thro... Western European Enterprises Still Slow to Adopt Mobile Solutions http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14702.php Enterprises in Western Europe have been slow to adopt mobile solutions in the past 12 months, according to IDC's 2005 Enterprise Mobility Survey. Although there is now more awareness of and interest in mobile technologies and applications, adoption h... TDC Launches 3G in Denmark http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14701.php Denmark's TDC Mobile has opened its 3G network for residential customers today. Already on October 3, TDC Mobile's business customers got access to the higher speeds via the mobile broadband card.... Mobile television: Swisscom launches DVB-H trial http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14700.php Around 100 people are currently testing a new mobile television technology. Between now and the end of the year, Switzerland's Swisscom Broadcast and Swisscom Mobile will be carrying out a technical trial of the new digital standard DVB-H.... USA Trailing Rest of World in Embracing Music on Cell Phones http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14699.php Almost one in five (19%) of all mobile phone owners worldwide now listen to music on their phones, according to a new study by TNS. Amongst this global group, some 16% of all music they listen to daily is on their phones, compared with 15% on a stere... T-Mobile Netherlands: 3G turbo gets test run http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14698.php After having demonstrated High-Speed Download Packet Access (HSDPA) to corporate customers in August this year, T-Mobile Netherlands last week became the first Dutch provider to have established a HSDPA connection on a live network. Employees from Pl... Telefonica Argentina Head Sees New Phone Contract Soon http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14697.php The head of Telefonica SA's Argentina unit said Friday he expects to shortly finish a long-delayed renegotiation of the company's telephone services contracts with the Argentine government. ... Madrid Court Dismisses Case Against Telefonica Chairman -Source http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14696.php A Madrid court has dismissed a case against Telefonica SA Chairman Cesar Alierta, ruling that the statute of limitations for the insider trading charges brought against him had expired, a judicial source said Friday. ... Ericsson To Test HSDPA With Vodafone K.K.'s Tokyo Network http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14695.php Swedish telecommunications equipment maker Telefon AB LM Ericsson Friday said it has successfully upgraded Vodafone K.K.'s commercial network in central parts of Tokyo with high speed downlink packet access, or HSDPA, to test the technology on the mo... New Zealand Telecom 1Q Net NZ$199 Million Vs NZ$203 Million http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14694.php Telecom Corp. of New Zealand Ltd. Friday reported a first quarter net profit of NZ$199 million, down 2% from the previous year's NZ$203 million, which was adjusted to comply with international accounting standards. ... UTStarcom Incurs Loss On Writedown http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14693.php UTStarcom Inc. on Thursday posted a large third-quarter loss as the company wrote down the value of assets and struggled with declining revenue. ... ------------------------------ From: davidesan@gmail.com Subject: Re: Wabash Cannonball (Was: Old Chicago Numbering) Date: 7 Nov 2005 07:32:05 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Let's not forget that the Wabsh Cannonball was sung often by Dizzy Dean during baseball broadcasts. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #506 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Nov 7 19:23:42 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 0611614F07; Mon, 7 Nov 2005 19:23:41 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #507 Message-Id: <20051108002341.0611614F07@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 19:23:41 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.8 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,BAYES_00, INFO_TLD autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Mon, 7 Nov 2005 19:23:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 507 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Internet Phone Customers May Get Cut Off (Reuters News Wire) EU Optomistic Over Plan For Wider Governance of Internet (Huw Jones) Grokster to Shut Down Almost Immediatly (Ted Bridis) Murdoch Hints at U.S. Broadband Service (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset (davidesan@gmail.com) Re: Verizon POTS (Joe) Re: An FBI Secret Letter and Order (Tom Betz) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Internet Phone Customers May Get Cut Off Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 17:32:42 -0600 Roughly 750,000 of the estimated 2.5 million Internet telephone customers may have service turned off because providers cannot offer enhanced 911 service, according to a survey on Monday by Voice On the Net Coalition. The Federal Communications Commission ordered providers to suspend service by November 28 to customers who will not have enhanced 911 services, which includes providing dispatchers a caller's number and location. The agency's order followed several instances where Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) subscribers had trouble reaching help when they dialed 911 for help. In several cases, calls went to business lines instead of emergency dispatchers. Most of those who would have to be disconnected would have only basic 911 access, and are residential customers who use their service in multiple locations, the VON Coalition said. The group said hurdles facing VOIP providers to offer enhanced 911 service include accessing the necessary databases, the short time frame, and technological limits. The survey included a dozen VOIP providers like Vonage Holdings Corp. Nuvio Corp. and other VOIP providers last week filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit seeking a stay of the FCC order while it challenges the requirements. The providers argued, among other things, that they had only 120 days to comply with the requirements, while other telecommunications services like wireless had much more time. The FCC has until Tuesday to respond. Last week FCC Chairman Kevin Martin defended the deadline. Many Internet phone services can be used anywhere there is a high-speed Internet connection, but such mobility forces callers to identify their current location for enhanced 911 service to work. Less than half of the dozen VOIP providers surveyed, 42 percent, said they would be able to provide enhanced 911 service to 100 percent of their customers with a primary fixed location, according to VON. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Huw Jones Subject: EU Optimistic Over Plans for Wider Governance of Internet Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 17:31:35 -0600 By Huw Jones The European Commission hopes a meeting next week will come up with an agreement to allow governments more direct influence over the domain name system that guides traffic around the Internet. A U.N. report has put forward a more multi-national approach to running the Internet which serves a billion users worldwide, saying this would be more democratic and transparent, a view the 25-nation European Union shares. Day-to-day handling of domain names is done by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California-based non-profit organization created by the U.S. Commerce Department. ICANN's _governments_ committee has only an advisory role. A final round of diplomatic talks on the report is due on Saturday ahead of the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis on November 16-18. Internet governance is seen by most users and countries outside the United States as being too heavily skewed in favor of America, though David Gross, the U.S. State Department ambassador who is heading the U.S. delegation in Tunis, told Reuters last month that it was the private sector that leads in running the Internet. The Commission said it has made much progress with its aims. "We are entering into the final phase of negotiations with quite an optimistic point of view," Jean-Francois Soupizet, deputy head of international relations at the Commission said. "We have already the elements for an agreement, notably a workable definition of Internet governance," Soupizet told a forum on convergence in the media. Software and Internet firms fear that wide government involvement will mean more regulation and taxes. Soupizet said the EU was against setting up a new U.N. mechanism to intervene in developing the Internet infrastructure, which the EU says should be left to current operators on a day-to-day basis. "Only when this is not working properly, then we could consider intervention. This point is now widely shared by all parties at WSIS ... and will be reflected in the Tunis agenda for action," Soupizet said. Some 80 to 90 percent of plan of action to be signed off in Tunis has already been agreed, he added. The U.N. report has raised hackles among U.S. politicians. "We cannot allow the U.N. to control the Internet," Republican senator Norm Coleman has said, "It has to be the United States only in control." Other politicians have called for the U.S. role in Internet governance to be maintained, with the Commerce Department still overseeing ICANN. Theresa Swinehart, a general manager at ICANN, made claims at the meeting that ICANN did not "run or control or govern the Internet, but coordinates," but many of the other participants strongly disagreed, claiming that ICANN deliberatly ignores certain safeguards which would help their users. Wider representation of countries and other interested parties is already emerging but was not perfect yet, she said. "The WSIS process needs to make sure it does not put at risk the 35 years to develop the Internet to date." Bernard Benhamou, director of Internet governance in the French Prime Minister's office, said more democratic governance of the Internet was needed as its power to intrude into people's lives increases, and the need to tackle civil liberties issues such as identity theft and spam. "ICANN only represents corporate America business interests", he added. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Ted Bridis Subject: Grokster Downloading Service to Shut Down Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 17:34:07 -0600 By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer Grokster Ltd., which lost a Supreme Court fight over file-sharing software used for stealing songs and movies online, agreed Monday to shut down and pay $50 million to settle piracy complaints by Hollywood and the music industry. The surprise settlement permanently bans Grokster from participating, directly or indirectly, in the theft of copyrighted files and requires the company to stop giving away its software, according to court papers. Executives indicated plans to launch a legal, fee-based "Grokster 3G" service before year's end under a new parent company, believed to be Mashboxx of Virginia Beach, Va. Mashboxx, headed in part by former Grokster president Wayne Rosso, already has signed a licensing agreement with Sony BMG Music Entertainment. "It is time for a new beginning," Grokster said in a statement issued from its corporate headquarters in the West Indies. Grokster's Web site was changed Monday to say its existing file- sharing service was illegal and no longer available. "There are legal services for downloading music and movies," the message said. "This service is not one of them." The head of the Recording Industry Association of America, Mitch Bainwol, described the settlement as "a chapter that ends on a high note for the recording industry, the tech community and music fans and consumers everywhere." It was unclear whether Grokster can afford to pay the $50 million in damages required under the agreement. The head of the Motion Picture Association of America, Dan Glickman, said the entertainment industry will demand full payment unless Grokster satisfies all its obligations under the settlement. Grokster's brand will survive. The new fee-based version of its software will be available within 60 days, according to one executive involved in the deal. This executive spoke only on condition of anonymity because the sale of Grokster's assets is pending. Grokster's decision was not expected to affect Internet users who already run the company's file-sharing software to download music and movies online, nor was it expected to affect users of rival downloading services, such as eDonkey, Kazaa, BitTorrent and others. Glickman said Grokster will send anti-piracy messages to existing users, and the company is forbidden from maintaining its software or network. "Without those services, the system will degrade over time," Glickman said. Grokster lost an important Supreme Court ruling in June. Justices ruled that the entertainment industry can file piracy lawsuits against technology companies caught encouraging customers to steal music and movies over the Internet. The decision, which gave a green light for the federal case to advance in Los Angeles, significantly weakened lawsuit protections for companies that had blamed illegal behavior on their own customers rather than the technology that made such behavior possible. The court said Grokster and another firm, Streamcast Networks Inc., can be sued because they deliberately encouraged customers to download copyrighted files illegally so they could build a larger audience and sell more advertising. Writing for the court, Justice David H. Souter said the companies' "unlawful objective is unmistakable." "They're out of business," said Charles Baker, a lawyer for Streamcast. "It's over for them. There was a lack of desire to continue to fight this thing going forward." Baker said the settlement does not affect Streamcast, the co-defendant in the entertainment industry's lawsuit. The Supreme Court noted as evidence of bad conduct that Grokster and Streamcast made no effort to block illegal downloads, which the companies maintained wasn't possible. On the Net: Grokster Ltd.: http://www.grokster.com Recording Industry Association of America: http://www.riaa.org Motion Picture Association of America: http://www.mpaa.org Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more Associated Press headlines and stories, please check out: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html (audio report with stories; also http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 12:55:50 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Murdoch Hints at U.S. Broadband Service USTelecom dailyLead November 7, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xCqkatagCwpfyVSuYY TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Murdoch hints at U.S. broadband service BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Google, Yahoo! enter mobile phone space * Terayon takes wraps off IPTV ad-insertion system * XO sells fixed-line business to Carl Icahn * NexTone plans expansion with $35M in new funds * Analysis: Sprint Nextel deal goes beyond quadruple play * Cablevision to sell faster Internet service USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Learn how to implement IP video HOT TOPICS * Report: DSL gaining fast on cable * Four MSOs announce deal with Sprint Nextel * Level 3 buys WilTel * Cable's push toward the quadruple play * BellSouth charts its own course TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Juniper unveils system for dynamic bandwidth allocation for IP services * BusinessWeek report: TV in 2005 REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Qualcomm sues Nokia over GSM patents * Damaged microwave networks hamper communications systems in Gulf Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xCqkatagCwpfyVSuYY Other telecom news reports at: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html ------------------------------ From: davidesan@gmail.com Subject: Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset Date: 7 Nov 2005 14:50:30 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I too have been looking for a new cordless system. I've been doing a lot of opinion reading and have discovered the following: 1. Lots of people like to complain, and most of the complaints seem fairly petty. Things like too small for my big face is worthless since we don't know if the user is normal sized, or is an offensive lineman for a professional football team. Bad reception can be caused by a bad installation (I put the base unit in the basement), or building construction. 2. When there are lot of similar complaints, you've got to believe there is an issue. 3. For every complaint or group of complaints you get one person telling you that this phone is the best phone that they have ever used. Are they real or are they a shill for the company? Is the good report really an outlier? This said some of the results that are helping narrow the search are: 1. Panasonic seems to have battery problems. The number of complaints on the Amazon site is huge and all are nearly identical. Batteries last only about 2 hours off the charger. Voice quality seems to be a big complaint. 2. Vtech seems to get generally high marks. 3. AT&T also seems to get high marks. 4. Motorola voice quality seems to be poor. 5. GE get high marks for battery and sound quality, but the caller menu is different for each extension, and is not alphabetized or easily searchable. Vtech and ATT seem to treat the menu of stored phone numbers like a good cellphone. Now for my questions: 1. Cellphones are available in 900 mhz, 2.4 Ghz, and 5.8 Ghz. I have read that the 2.4 Ghz phones can interfere with 802.11.x wireless routers. And I have read that there is no problem. Your thoughts or experiences? The 2.4 Ghz phones are about 1/2 the price of the 5.8 and I don't really want to pay for technology I don't need. 2. Any recommendations on brand? Thanks. PS: Uniden phones are uniformally disliked for poor quality sound in every review panel I've seen. There seems to be a correlation between cost and quality (what a surprise!). ------------------------------ From: Joe Subject: Re: Verizon POTS Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Mon, 07 Nov 2005 19:59:58 GMT I get a dial tone. However, when I dial a number, I get a message saying to call Verizon if I want telephone service. wrote in message news:telecom24.504.5@telecom-digest.org: > What happens if you plug in a phone? No install date given. Will call again later when I have time to be on hold and see. Steve Sobol wrote in message news:telecom24.504.4@telecom-digest.org: > Joe wrote: >> How long does it take for Verizon to install POTS? > They installed it a week or so after I ordered it. I told them when I was > moving in. > Apple Valley, California. Former Continental Telephone/GTE territory. YMM > definitely V. > Did they give you an install date or a turnaround time when you placed the > order? > Steve Sobol, Professional Geek 888-480-4638 PGP: 0xE3AE35ED > Company website: http://JustThe.net/ > Personal blog, resume, portfolio: http://SteveSobol.com/ > E: sjsobol@JustThe.net Snail: 22674 Motnocab Road, Apple Valley, CA 92307 ------------------------------ From: Tom Betz Subject: Re: An FBI Secret Letter and Order Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 22:06:31 UTC Organization: Anything Barton Gellman wrote in news:telecom24.506.1@telecom-digest.org: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Excerpts from a rather lengthy article > over the weekend in Washingon Post. See the newspaper's web site for > the entire article. http://washingtonpost.com And people think Joe > McCathy was bad news ... PAT] For a look at the Patriot Act from the point of view of one of its targets, see http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7624.shtml "An Enemy Of The State" by Doug Thompson. An excerpt: According to a printout from a computer controlled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice, I am an enemy of the state. The printout, shown to me recently by a friend who works for Justice, identifies me by a long, multi-digit number, lists my date of birth, place of birth, social security number and contains more than 100 pages documenting what the Bureau and the Bush Administration consider to be my threats to the security of the United States of America. It lists where I sent to school, the name and address of the first wife that I had been told was dead but who is alive and well and living in Montana, background information on my current wife and details on my service to my country that I haven't even revealed to my wife or my family. Although the file finds no criminal activity by me or members of my immediate family, it remains open because I am a "person of interest" who has "written and promoted opinions that are contrary to the government of the United States of America." And it will remain active because the government of the United States, under the far-reaching provisions of the USA Patriot Act, can compile and retain such information on any American citizen. That act gives the FBI the authority to collect intimate details about anyone, even those not suspected of any wrongdoing. We live in a very scary world. George Bush's War of Choice on Iraq is a totally unnecessary war. Every life lost, every limb lost, every disfigurement, every disability caused there is more blood on George W. Bush's hands, and on the hands of everyone who voted for George W. Bush. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That we do (live in a scary world). I expect to be totally gone in five or ten years, and I cannot say I will really miss it any, as things are going now. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #507 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Nov 8 14:26:08 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id E8EE614ECB; Tue, 8 Nov 2005 14:26:07 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #508 Message-Id: <20051108192607.E8EE614ECB@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 14:26:07 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.7 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Tue, 8 Nov 2005 14:27:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 508 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson US FCC Says No Cutoff for Internet Phone Customers (Jeremy Pelofsky) FCC Clarifies VOIP Disconnect Order (Associated Press Newswire) Good News, Linux Users! A Worm Just for You (Nancy Weil) Security Firm: Sony CDs Secretly Install Spyware (Monty Solomon) US Mandates More Security in Online Banking (Monty Solomon) AT&T Among 'Winners' For Worst Software Bugs (mkuras) Cellular-News For Tuesday 8th November 2005 (Cellular-News) Grokster Agrees to Close Down (USTA Daily Lead) Re: Looking for 1A2 Phone System Parts [Amphenol Splitters](Scott Dorsey) Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: Verizon POTS (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Grokster Downloading Service to Shut Down (GlowingBlueMist) Re: NN0 Central Office Codes (Mark Roberts) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jeremy Pelofsky Subject: US FCC Says No Cutoff for Internet Phone Customers Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 12:01:53 -0600 By Jeremy Pelofsky Internet telephone providers do not have to cut off U.S. subscribers even if they are not provided enhanced 911 emergency service which gives dispatchers their location and phone number, U.S. communications regulators said on Monday. Internet telephone providers like Nuvio Corp. had worried that the Federal Communications Commission rules adopted in May had required them to suspend by November 28 service for subscribers who cannot receive enhanced 911 (E911) service. Existing customers did not have to be disconnected, but the FCC said Internet telephone providers would have to cease marketing and accepting new customers in areas where they are not connecting 911 calls with the person's location and phone number, according to guidance issued on Monday. Nuvio and other providers of Internet phone service, known as Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP), last week filed challenges with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit seeking to stay the November 28 date pending their challenge. VOIP providers have complained that they face numerous hurdles to offering enhanced 911 service, including accessing the necessary databases operated by other telecommunications providers. "Our concern is that this marketing restriction will slow down our deployment of E911 because it gives clear incentives to some of our competitors, who control access to the 911 systems, to delay every way possible," said Chris Murray, vice president for government affairs at Vonage Holdings Corp., the biggest U.S. VOIP provider. The FCC adopted several E911 rules for VOIP in May, including requiring 911 calls be routed to live dispatchers and the caller's location and number be identified. The move followed instances in which customers had trouble reaching help when they dialed 911. The FCC had eased an earlier requirement that VOIP providers suspend service for those customers who failed to acknowledge the limitations of 911 capability with it. The Voice On the Net Coalition, which represents many VOIP providers, said that roughly 750,000 customers could be affected if they had to suspend service to those who did not have enhanced 911 service available. Less than half of the dozen VOIP providers surveyed by the coalition, 42 percent, said they would be able to provide enhanced 911 service to 100 percent of their customers with a primary fixed location by November 28. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Associated Press News Wire Subject: FCC Clarifies VOIP Disconnection Deadline Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 12:03:15 -0600 The Federal Communications Commission won't require Internet phone service providers to cut off customers who don't have reliable 911 emergency call service. The agency in a notice issued late Monday said providers that have not achieved full 911 compliance by Nov. 28, will not be forced to discontinue such service to any existing customers. At the same time, the FCC said it expected providers to discontinue marketing Internet call service and accepting new customers in areas where the companies are not routing 911 calls to emergency response centers. In May, the FCC ordered providers of Internet-based phone calls to certify that their customers will be able to reach an emergency dispatcher when they call 911. Dispatchers also must be able to identify the caller's phone number and location. The companies were given until late November to comply, and many providers worried that they would be forced to disconnect customers who didn't have full 911 service. The FCC issued the order after a series of highly publicized incidents in which Internet phone users were unable to connect with a live emergency dispatch operator when calling 911. On the Net: Federal Communications Commission: http://www.fcc.gov Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For other news headlines from Associated Press please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/TDNewsradio.html ------------------------------ From: Nancy Weil Subject: Good News, Linux Users! A Worm Just for You Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 12:04:31 -0600 Lupper Worm Targets Linux by Nancy Weil, IDG News Service A worm that affects Linux systems and spreads by exploiting Web server-related vulnerabilities has been reported by antivirus companies, but so far Linux.Plupii, which is also known as Lupper, hasn't spread much and isn't seen as much of a threat. Linux users should update antivirus software and patches to protect against the worm, say representatives of the major antivirus product vendors said. Both McAfee and Symantec have updated their software to identify and stop the worm. Information about the worm can be found at McAfee's Web site and also from Symantec. How Worm Works The worm spreads by exploiting Web servers hosting vulnerable PHP/CGI programming language scripts, according to McAfee. The worm is a derivative of the Linux/Slapper and BSD/Scalper worms from which it has taken its propagation strategy, McAfee said in information provided on its Web site about the worm, which was discovered Sunday. The worm attacks Web servers by sending malicious Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) requests on port 80, McAfee said. If the server being targeted is running a vulnerable script at certain URLs and is configured to permit external shell commands and remote file download in PHP/CGI the worm could be downloaded and executed, McAfee said. It can also harvest e-mail addresses stored in Web server files. The worm opens a back door on a compromised computer and then generates URLs to scan for other computers to infect and that can affect network performance, according to Symantec. Symantec rates the worm as having a medium damage and distribution threat. As of Tuesday morning, it hadn't spread much and Symantec said it is easy both to contain and remove. McAfee assessed it as a low threat for both corporate and home users. Copyright 2005 PC World Communications, Inc. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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 Communications, Inc. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 08:37:32 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Security Firm: Sony CDs Secretly Install Spyware Company denies allegations, saying program aims to foil music piracy By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff Sony is spying on thousands of listeners who buy and play its music CDs on their computers, a leading computer security firm said yesterday. Computer Associates International Inc. said that new anticopying software Sony is using to discourage pirating of its music also secretly collects information from any computer that plays the discs. One of the world's largest software and information technology companies, Computer Associates is the latest to wade into the growing controversy over Sony's efforts to curb theft and illegal pirating of its music. The software works only on computers running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system. It limits listeners' ability to copy the music onto their computers, and locks copied files so they cannot be freely distributed over the Internet. But Computer Associates said the antipirating software also secretly communicates with Sony over the Internet when listeners play the discs on computers that have an Internet connection. The software uses this connection to transmit the name of the CD being played to an office of Sony's music division in Cary, N.C. The software also transmits the IP address of the listener's computer, Computer Associates said, but not the name of the listener. But Sony can still use the data to create a profile of a listener's music collection, according to Computer Associates. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/11/08/security_firm_sony_cds_secretly_install_spyware/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Another article in this issue of the Digest tells about Grokster going out of business (as it is) and planning to reopen in a new format; one user says that will be spying also. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 08:38:38 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: US Mandates More Security in Online Banking Complex ID verification designed to combat fraud By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff Online banking, advertised by banks as nearly effortless, is about to become more cumbersome. Federal regulators, alarmed by the threat of online financial fraud, are requiring banks by the end of 2006 to provide several layers of identify verification before customers can access their accounts and conduct other banking over the Internet. In addition to standard passwords, customers may soon need a unique digital 'fingerprint' that will identify their computer for the bank, or may scan a copy of their real fingerprints to identify themselves to the bank's network. Another, more cumbersome method would have customers carrying keyfob-sized electronic 'tokens' that authenticate their identity. With some 53 million Americans paying bills, checking account balances, and doing other banking online, Internet fraud has become a growing threat to the popularity of Internet business transactions. Research firm Gartner Inc. estimated in a June report that 2.5 million people lost money in so-called 'phishing' attacks last year. Phishing involves thieves who try to dupe customers into providing account numbers and other sensitive information by directing them to phony websites that resemble a legitimate business -- frequently a bank. Federal financial regulators say these threats are scaring away many potential customers. http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2005/11/07/us_mandates_more_security_in_online_banking/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 12:12:01 -0500 From: mkuras Subject: AT&T Among 'Winners' For Worst Software Bugs snipped from _Wired_ magazine: Here, in chronological order, is the Wired News list of the 10 worst software bugs of all time ... so far. January 15, 1990 -- AT&T Network Outage: A bug in a new release of the software that controls AT&T's #4ESS long distance switches causes these mammoth computers to crash when they receive a specific message from one of their neighboring machines -- a message that the neighbors send out when they recover from a crash. One day a switch in New York crashes and reboots, causing its neighboring switches to crash, then their neighbors' neighbors, and so on. Soon, 114 switches are crashing and rebooting every six seconds, leaving an estimated 60 thousand people without long distance service for nine hours. The fix: engineers load the previous software release. http://wired.com/news/technology/bugs/0,2924,69355,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1 ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Tuesday 8th November 2005 Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 07:41:32 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com HSDPA Deployments Face Performance Roadblocks Indoors http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14731.php While the wireless world readies for broad scale deployment of HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access), 3G technology being deployed by GSM Operators ideally capable of up to 1 Mb per second data throughput, Spotwave Wireless asserts that a glaring... Picture Service Added to iDEN Network http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14730.php The USA based, Sprint has announced the availability of Nextel Direct Send Picture, a service that allows Nextel subscribers with capable Nextel phones the ability to send and review a picture quickly and easily, all while on a Nextel Walkie-Talkie c... Nigerian Operator Taps Consultants for Training Needs http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14729.php The most rapidly growing cell phone market in the world is on a continent where just having access to a plain old telephone is a rarity in many villages. Now, millions of people from farmers and fishermen to healthcare and factory workers are buying ... Testing GSM in South Korea http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14728.php Spain's Centro de Tecnologde las Comunicaciones, (CETECOM) says that it has supplied MINT (Mobile Communications Integrated Tester) to TTA (Telecommunications Technology Association), the first GSM laboratory in Korea. This will allow TTA to offer... Pantech Signs Indian CDMA Handset Contract http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14727.php South Korea's Pantech has signed a direct supplier agreement with India's Tata Teleservices (TTSL) to provide 300,000 CDMA handsets in India, starting with the compact, slim PA-711 phone, which will be sold under the Pantech brand. Pantech says that ... Motorola Releases Three Findings from Outdoor HSDPA Trials http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14726.php Motorola has released three latest findings from its HSDPA trial results in Europe. The findings will help operators determine how to best deploy HSDPA and are taken from the first known global study which includes both multiple users and outdoor per... New Boss for Egyptian Operator http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14725.php Egypt's GSM network operator, Mobinil has elected Mr. Iskander Naguib Shalaby as the new Chief Executive Officer of the Company. The Board says that it has reached this decision after the mutual agreement between the two major shareholders of Egyptia... A Single-Chip, Quad-Band EDGE Transceiver http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14724.php Analog Devices has unveiled its single-chip radio transceiver for the EDGE cellular standard. Based on Analog Devices' award-winning direct conversion Othello radio architecture, the new Othello-E transceiver integrates virtually all the necessary co... Ukraine's CDMA Operator subscriber base up to 24,000 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14723.php The subscriber base of Ukraine's CDMA operator Intertelecom, based in the Odessa Region, increased to 24,000 users as of November 1 from about 11,000 in October 2004, the company said Monday. ... Russia's Sky Link, Japan's Kyocera to jointly promote CDMA450 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14722.php Russia's Sky Link mobile operator and Japan's Kyocera Corporation have signed a memorandum of intent aimed at developing and promoting IMT-MC-450 standard for mobile handsets on the Russian market, Sky Link's press office reported Monday. ... PM says Kazakh govt to auction GSM 1800 frequency license 2006 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14721.php The Kazakh government plans to hold a tender for a GSM 1800 frequency license in 2006, Kazakh Prime Minister Daniyal Akhmetov said at a joint meeting of the country's two houses of parliament Monday. ... MVNOs Capture Nearly 10% Of New French Mobile Subscribers http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14720.php [Premium] The French telecom regulator said Monday that nearly 10% of all new mobile phone subscribers in the third quarter signed up with alternative carriers known as MVNOs. ... Google, Yahoo Dial Into Cell Phone Business http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14719.php Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. are rolling out new wireless services to provide features similar to computers on cell phones. ... Ukraine's Kyivstar user base rises 6.8% on month as of Nov 1 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14718.php The subscriber base of Ukraine's mobile operator Kyivstar rose 6.8% on the month to 11.687 million users as of November 1, the company said Monday. ... Polish TPSA Sees Centertel Unit As Market Leader By 2007 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14717.php Centertel, a mobile unit of telephone operator Telekomunikacja Polska SA, will be Poland's number one mobile phone operator by 2007, TPSA representatives said Monday. ... Source says MTS' mobile license in Turkmenistan extended http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14716.php Turkmenistan's President Saparmurat Niyazov has signed a decree allowing the Telecommunications Ministry to extend the mobile license of Barash Communications Technologies Inc., a subsidiary of Russia's largest mobile operator Mobile TeleSystems (M... Qualcomm Files Patent Infringement Suit Vs Nokia http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14715.php Qualcomm has filed a lawsuit against cell phone maker Nokia Corp. alleging the infringement of a dozen patents. ... Disney Buys Mobile Games Developer http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14714.php LONDON (AP)--The Walt Disney Co. signaled its expansion in the European cell phone games market Monday, announcing the acquisition of German game developer and publisher Living Mobile. ... Japans DoCoMo Invests in Mobile Music http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14713.php Japanese mobile phone giant NTT DoCoMo Inc. said Monday it will buy a 42% stake in Tower Records Japan Inc. later this month to offer broader mobile phone services. ... Ericsson, Mobtel Launch Mobile Softswitch In Serbia http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14712.php Telefon AB LM Ericsson said Monday it and operator Mobtel successfully launched Ericsson Mobile Softswich in Serbia. ... Nokia, CSL Launch Video Sharing Service In Hong Kong http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14711.php Finnish mobile phone producer Nokia Oyj and Hong-Kong-based mobile operator Hong Kong CSL Ltd. Monday announced the commercial launch of Asia's first video-sharing service enabled by Nokia IP Multimedia Subsystem, or IMS, and systems integration serv... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 12:49:44 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead USTelecom dailyLead November 8, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xFqkatagCwsLipMRtE TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Grokster agrees to close down BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Covad signs Redback * Juniper hires security expert who exposed Cisco flaw * Cincinnati Bell reports earnings USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * dailyLead and Membership USTelecom prepare you for what's NEXT TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Accton unveils Skype-enabled mobile phone REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * New York county targets unsecured Wi-Fi networks * FCC gives VoIP providers a break on 911 rules * Analysis: Lessons learned from New Orleans' 911 failures Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xFqkatagCwsLipMRtE ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Looking for 1A2 Phone System Parts [Amphenol Splitters] Date: 8 Nov 2005 13:20:04 -0500 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) m3deshmukh@verizon.net wrote: > Hello, > Item: Splitting device that takes in Amphenol and puts out 6 or more > Amphenols > My company is looking to find a [or several] bridging adapters, > bunching blocks, splitters for a 1A2 telephone system that would take > in one Amphenol jack and Output 6 or more Amphenol Sockets. > My boss likes having the 1A2 phone system in place, but we're trying > to find an alternative to daisy-chaining the feed with 2 and 3 way > splitters right in-front of each phone/fax. We'd like to find a piece > of equipment that would allow us to localize all the splitting, right > after the KSU. Why not just take some ribbon cables and swage on some Amphenol jacks and go with it? Anybody that can make SCSI cables can do this for you. Of course, all the things plugged into it are the same, so stuff like intercom functions and selective ringing won't work. But that does not seem like an issue for you. scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 02:36:19 GMT davidesan@gmail.com wrote: > Cellphones are available in 900 mhz, 2.4 Ghz, and 5.8 Ghz. I have > read that the 2.4 Ghz phones can interfere with 802.11.x wireless > routers. And I have read that there is no problem. Your thoughts or > experiences? The 2.4 Ghz phones are about 1/2 the price of the 5.8 > and I don't really want to pay for technology I don't need. They're cordless phones, not cellphones. I haven't used the 5.8 GHz phones, so I can't opine on them. The 2.4 GHz phones seem to me to be less susceptible to interference than the 900 MHz phones, but that may be a matter of how many users there are in a given band. I have been using 2.4 GHz phones in my home for many years, coexisting without incident with wireless networks using the same band (initially HomeRF, now 802.11B/G). Currently I have three Wi-Fi access points running, along with 8 AT&T/Vtech 2-line spread spectrum handsets and three Wi-Fi computers (more when my son's friends come over with their laptops to play games). Also a microwave oven. There is a small amount of occasional interference on the phones, mostly location-based (i.e., in a bad reception area), and no wireless issues to mention with regard to Wi-Fi. > 2. Any recommendations on brand? I had bad luck with Siemens Gigasets (lots of interference and very very poor battery life), better luck with AT&T/Vtech. I had a wonderful Uniden many years ago, but it was discontinued. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD (USA) (Replace "example.invalid" with "com" in my address.) ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 06:25:47 UTC Organization: Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , wrote: > 2. Vtech seems to get generally high marks. > 3. AT&T also seems to get high marks. I believe that at least some of the AT&T phones are actually made by Vtech. > 1. Cellphones are available in 900 mhz, 2.4 Ghz, and 5.8 Ghz. I have > read that the 2.4 Ghz phones can interfere with 802.11.x wireless > routers. And I have read that there is no problem. Your thoughts or > experiences? The 2.4 Ghz phones are about 1/2 the price of the 5.8 > and I don't really want to pay for technology I don't need. I would stay away from the 900Mhz phones for a few reasons. First, the only multi-line phones available in 900Mhz are notoriously unreliable. Second, eavesdropping on many 900Mhz phones, even modern ones, is trivial. In the 2.4Ghz band you will in fact see some interference with 802.11b or g networks (and probably with 802.11n when it's available). How much depends on how efficient your phone is and how busy your network is. The Gigasets were actually pretty good this way, but the incredibly poor quality control on the later handsets made them almost worthless as has been mentioned earlier in this thread. Another option is to use an 802.11a network -- which operates in the 5.8Ghz band -- if you want to use 2.4Ghz devices such as phones. However, 5.8Ghz is even more directional than 2.4GHz and if your house has lots of thick walls and complicated angles in its layout you may not get good results with an 11a network. Phones need so much less bandwidth they don't seem to care much. The 5.8Ghz phones are a nice solution if you have an interference problem with a 2.4GHz wireless network, which many people do. The real problem is that as far as I can tell, no vendor sells even a 2-line 5.8Ghz base station -- as compared to 2.4Ghz where 2 and even 4 line sets are common. If, like me, you live in a building with a door intercom that's delivered to you on a phone line, being limited to one line on your fancy expandable cordless phone can be a real pain. Avoid analog phones no matter what band they're operating in. It is just too easy (and too popular) to eavesdrop on them. Unfortunately, though the Gigasets were intentionally designed to be difficult to eavesdrop on most of the newer stuff isn't; if this is a concern for you I'm not quite sure what advice to give -- except to stay away from analog cordless phones (now showing up on the market even in 5.8Ghz!) even if you don't think it's a concern. Sigh. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "The inconsistency is startling, though admittedly, if consistency is to be abandoned or transcended, there is no problem." - Noam Chomsky ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Verizon POTS Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 02:26:07 GMT Joe wrote: > I get a dial tone. However, when I dial a number, I get a message > saying to call Verizon if I want telephone service. That's known as soft dial tone. You can call 911 (and maybe the telco's business office), but nothing else. It's required in many places, for emergency situations. It also lets you know that the phone line is electrically connected to the CO. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD (USA) (Replace "example.invalid" with "com" in my address.) ------------------------------ From: GlowingBlueMist Subject: Re: Grokster Downloading Service to Shut Down Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 20:39:18 -0600 Organization: Octanews Ted Bridis wrote in message news:telecom24.507.3@telecom-digest.org: > By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer > Grokster Ltd., which lost a Supreme Court fight over file-sharing > software used for stealing songs and movies online, agreed Monday to > shut down and pay $50 million to settle piracy complaints by Hollywood > and the music industry. > The surprise settlement permanently bans Grokster from participating, > directly or indirectly, in the theft of copyrighted files and requires > the company to stop giving away its software, according to court > papers. > Executives indicated plans to launch a legal, fee-based "Grokster 3G" > service before year's end under a new parent company, believed to be > Mashboxx of Virginia Beach, Va. Mashboxx, headed in part by former > Grokster president Wayne Rosso, already has signed a licensing > agreement with Sony BMG Music Entertainment. > "It is time for a new beginning," Grokster said in a statement issued > from its corporate headquarters in the West Indies. > Grokster's Web site was changed Monday to say its existing file- > sharing service was illegal and no longer available. "There are legal > services for downloading music and movies," the message said. "This > service is not one of them." > The head of the Recording Industry Association of America, Mitch > Bainwol, described the settlement as "a chapter that ends on a high > note for the recording industry, the tech community and music fans and > consumers everywhere." > It was unclear whether Grokster can afford to pay the $50 million in > damages required under the agreement. The head of the Motion Picture > Association of America, Dan Glickman, said the entertainment industry > will demand full payment unless Grokster satisfies all its obligations > under the settlement. > Grokster's brand will survive. The new fee-based version of its > software will be available within 60 days, according to one executive > involved in the deal. This executive spoke only on condition of > anonymity because the sale of Grokster's assets is pending. > Grokster's decision was not expected to affect Internet users who > already run the company's file-sharing software to download music and > movies online, nor was it expected to affect users of rival > downloading services, such as eDonkey, Kazaa, BitTorrent and others. > Glickman said Grokster will send anti-piracy messages to existing > users, and the company is forbidden from maintaining its software or > network. "Without those services, the system will degrade over time," > Glickman said. > Grokster lost an important Supreme Court ruling in June. Justices > ruled that the entertainment industry can file piracy lawsuits against > technology companies caught encouraging customers to steal music and > movies over the Internet. > The decision, which gave a green light for the federal case to advance > in Los Angeles, significantly weakened lawsuit protections for > companies that had blamed illegal behavior on their own customers > rather than the technology that made such behavior possible. > The court said Grokster and another firm, Streamcast Networks Inc., > can be sued because they deliberately encouraged customers to download > copyrighted files illegally so they could build a larger audience and > sell more advertising. Writing for the court, Justice David H. Souter > said the companies' "unlawful objective is unmistakable." > "They're out of business," said Charles Baker, a lawyer for > Streamcast. "It's over for them. There was a lack of desire to > continue to fight this thing going forward." Baker said the settlement > does not affect Streamcast, the co-defendant in the entertainment > industry's lawsuit. > The Supreme Court noted as evidence of bad conduct that Grokster and > Streamcast made no effort to block illegal downloads, which the > companies maintained wasn't possible. > On the Net: > Grokster Ltd.: http://www.grokster.com > Recording Industry Association of America: http://www.riaa.org > Motion Picture Association of America: http://www.mpaa.org > Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. Did I read it right? The crooks at Grokster seeking a license to deal Sony BMG products. The mind boggles at what the two organizations working together will try to hide in the code for others to stumble over. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: See another article in this issue about Sony, (by Monty Solomon) and how there are allegations of that company spying on users by making note of their listening habits and using the net to send that information to a Sony office somewhere. Sony denies these allegations and says all they are doing is trying to prevent 'piracy'. PAT] ------------------------------ From: markrobt@myrealbox.com (Mark Roberts) Subject: Re: NN0 Central Office Codes Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 03:14:35 -0000 Organization: 1.94 meters Neal McLain had written: > It didn't work out that way ... > Many NN0 codes were assigned as central office codes whenever and > wherever they were needed, without regard to their positions on Chart 5. > Examples that come to mind: > 702-870 (#3 on the list) ca. 1989 Las Vegas > 312-990 (#32 on the list) ca. 1988 Hinsdale > 201-460 (#36 on the list) ca. 1982 Lyndhurst > 414-730 (#52 on the list) ca. 1986 Appleton > 214-680 (#54 on the list) ca. 1983 Dallas I can add, all circa 1984 from Houston: 713-520 713-630 713-840 713-850 The first two were in the JAckson switch (Montrose, River Oaks, the Museum District) and the 520 prefix is an obvious candidate for "lookalike" status. At the time, Southwestern Bell had been so regular in grouping exchanges by the first two digits that Key Maps, a local company, was able to publish maps identifying exchanges by the first two digits only in most cases. I can personally attest to 713-630 because that was used for the PBX at KTRH radio, where I worked at the time. While most of the "public" numbers for KTRH were standard JAckson numbers -- I'm pretty sure the main call-in number was 526-5874 (KTRH) -- our internal extensions were of the form 630-3xxx. The second two were in the NAtional office (Greenway Plaza and the Galleria area). They, of course, looked nothing like the usual 62x-xxxx numbers in that area. > Curiously (as Mark Roberts noted in TD 24:482), 530 (#1 on the list) > was in service -- at least briefly -- in California in 1965, a decade > before Chart 5 was published. As an interim measure, until I can write up some better-looking pages, I have put the 1964 and 1965 exchange maps online from the Pacific Bell Oakland ("East Bay") directory. I should note that there was a *series* of maps, designed to indicate the message-unit charges from the East Bay "exchange" (Berkeley, Main-Piedmont, Alameda, Fruitvale, Trinidad) to other rate centers in the region. Each East Bay rate center had its own map. I've scanned the ones for Main-Piedmont to provide a comparison, and to more clearly show the "530" prefix in the Fruitvale area in the 1965 map. On the map: A = Berkeley B = Main-Piedmont C = Alameda D = Fruitvale E = Trinidad Sometime in 1965 -- I have not yet nailed down when -- there was a spinoff into a new switch, affecting primarily the Fruitvale rate center, but also the eastern part of Main-Piedmont. Approximately the eastern half of the Fruitvale rate center plus the little corner of Main-Piedmont went into the switch now known as OKLDCA13DS0. This split accounts for the new 339 and 531 prefixes. As I previously mentioned, 530 popped up only for that year. Later, however, 530 "joined" 531 in eastern Fruitvale and is an active prefix today (several of my neighbors have it including one who moved to this area in the 1970s). Another thing I need to nail down is how extensive the cutover was at first. Today, the Fruitvale OKLACA13DS0 area extends all the way to Interstate 580 and over to the junction of 580 and Highway 13. It may be that the original cutover area was smaller, and areas were added later (e.g. along MacArthur Boulevard). This distinction, of course, is NOT shown on the maps that I scanned, and consequently will have to be inferred from listings, newspaper ads, etc. Anyhow, here are the maps. There were several prefixes added between 1964 and 1965, not just in Oakland: http://www.cosmos-monitor.com/etc/phones/eastbay-1964-piedmont.jpeg http://www.cosmos-monitor.com/etc/phones/eastbay-1965-piedmont.jpeg Mark Roberts | "I know you know the situation is past critical." Oakland, Cal.| -- FEMA staff member Marty Bahamonde, in New Orleans NO HTML MAIL | "Anything specific I need to do or tweak?" | -- FEMA director Michael Brown replies to that e-mail ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #508 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Nov 8 21:27:16 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id D6E8F14D2E; Tue, 8 Nov 2005 21:27:15 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #509 Message-Id: <20051109022715.D6E8F14D2E@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 21:27:15 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.1 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Tue, 8 Nov 2005 21:28:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 509 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Internet ID Theft Worsens, Scares Away Bank Customers (Jonathan Stempel) Verizon Reduces Prices For Telephone Service (Bruce Myerson) U.S. Wireless Carriers Take Aim at Adult Content (Reuters News Wire) CBS, NBC Offering TV Shows for 99 Cents (Associated Press News Wire) Re: Internet Phone Customers May Get Cut Off (zeez) Re: NN0 Central Office Codes (jsw@ivgate.omahug.org) Re: NN0 Central Office Codes (Garrett Wollman) Re: NN0 Central Office Codes (Joseph) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jonathan Stempel Subject: Internet ID Theft Worsens, Scares Away Bank Customers Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 18:42:01 -0600 By Jonathan Stempel Even as banks and regulators step up efforts to thwart identity theft over the Internet, the worry that fraudsters remain one step ahead is convincing many Americans that banking online is too risky. At an identity theft forum in New York on Tuesday, security and policy experts said banks are taking appropriate steps to stop online criminals, but that their best efforts -- and consumers' own vigilance -- may not be enough. "Consumers can do everything right -- not give out passwords or financial information -- and still become victims," said Susanna Montezemolo, a policy analyst at Consumers Union, in an interview. An October survey commissioned by Internet security company Entrust Inc. and released at the forum found that 18 percent of Americans who have banked online now do so less, or not at all, because of security concerns. Ninety-four percent say they're willing to accept extra online security protections. The survey was conducted around the time the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council ordered banks to tighten online access by late 2006. The council, composed of U.S. regulators including the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., expects banks to require at least two forms of authentication when the risks of online breaches are too high. The second form can include smart cards, tokens that generate random passwords, or biometrics that identify fingerprints or handwriting. Some 10 million Americans are ID theft victims each year, the Federal Trade Commission estimates. Congress is considering national standards to fight ID theft. Michael Oxley (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said victims of ID theft spend an average 90 hours and $1,700 resolving the problem. ID THEFT METHODS PROLIFERATE Perhaps the best known form of online theft is "phishing." This is where criminals send e-mails asking prospective victims to verify personal information through links to real-looking Web sites. There were 13,776 distinct phishing attacks in August, according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group. "Not only do they ask you to 'confirm' your identity, but they also offer you bogus, fake 'banks' to use if you do fall for their deception." Fraudsters soon graduated to spyware and keylogging, where they monitor prospective victims' Web use and keystrokes. This year, security experts have seen a surge in "pharming." This is where criminals redirect user traffic at legitimate Web sites to fraudulent sites or proxy servers, without any overt indication they are doing so. "Spyware, keyloggers and pharming are really growing," said Michael Jackson, associate director of technology supervision at the FDIC, in an interview. "Banks could step it up a notch in terms of security, which is why we have the guidance." Still, in banking, traditional forms of theft such as check fraud remain more prevalent than online theft. Consumers, moreover, complain about cumbersome security procedures. Tuesday's survey showed 81 percent don't want to pay for extra online banking protection. Consumers Union's Montezemolo said computer users should make sure their online connections are secure, vary the identifying information they use on accounts, and not work with their accounts on shared computers. She also urged banks not to share client information among affiliates, and not assign such obvious data as Social Security numbers as default log-ins. "They'll never have 100 percent control," she said. "But we need to empower consumers to opt out on whether information is used, and give them tools to take more control." InfoSurv Inc. conducted the online survey of 710 people for Addison, Texas-based Entrust during the week of October 17. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One of the major banks, Bank of America, has considered having a picture (a .jpg perhaps?) of the customer on line to help 'prove his identity', so that if a phisherman comes along asking you to do something allegedly for BOA, _your_ picture will have to be part of whatever _authentic_ request is made by the bank. All well and good, I suppose, but what prevents the phisherman from adding the same .jpg files to his pitch letters? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Bruce Meyerson Subject: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 18:43:19 -0600 By BRUCE MEYERSON, AP Business Writer Verizon Communications Inc. sharply cut its prices for unlimited telephone service across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic on Tuesday, including markets where Cablevision Inc. has just boosted broadband Internet speeds. The latest jockeying augurs an ever fiercer struggle ahead between the phone and cable TV industries, with consumers getting lower prices and advanced services. The new Verizon plans range from $35 to $40 for unlimited local and domestic long-distance plus call waiting, caller ID and voice mail, or from $30 to $35 for unlimited calling with no extra features. Taxes and surcharges typically add $10 to $20 to the monthly bill. Those rates are at least $15 cheaper than any of Verizon's existing packages with unlimited calling, although many of those plans include a larger selection of features and calls to Canada. The aggressive offers mark another tactical maneuver in the developing showdown between phone and cable companies. The two industries are increasingly venturing into one another's traditional markets in a bid to win new customers with a one-stop-shop for calling, Internet, TV and wireless services. Verizon and fellow regional phone provider SBC Communications Inc. are spending billions to replace their copper phone lines with fiber-optic cables that can deliver cable TV, far-speedier Internet connections and new multimedia and interactive services. Using those new lines, Verizon recently introduced TV in its first market, a suburb of Dallas, and now offers broadband download speeds from 5 to 30 megabits per second in 800 communities in 15 states. At the same time, Verizon is also competing aggressively on price with its slower DSL service, introducing a $15 a month plan last month, and now offering unlimited calling at rates almost competitive with the $20 to $30 a month charged by providers of voice over Internet phone services. SBC has made similar moves in cutting its phone and DSL rates in a bid to keep subscribers from leaving and to attract news ones while it prepares for next year's launch of TV and speedier broadband connections. Cable companies, which have already lured away more than 5 million customers for their new phone services, are responding by boosting their broadband speeds and venturing into cellular service. Cablevision, which competes with Verizon in New York City and its suburbs, on Monday announced it was increasing the maximum download speed of its lowest-price broadband service to 15 megabits per second, up from a maximum of 10 -- which was already several times faster than most consumer DSL services. The company also introduced new 30 and 50 Mbps options to compete with Verizon's new FiOS fiber optic offerings. And last week, four of the nation's biggest cable providers announced a deal with Sprint Nextel Corp. to introduce co-branded cell phone service by the middle of 2006. The lower-priced Verizon calling plans, first introduced last month at slightly higher rates in California, Texas and Florida, are being offered in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Virginia and Washington, D.C. There's no timetable for when Verizon might introduce the new plans in its remaining local phone territories in North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: How odd ... so even SBC is in on this new pricing structure. I can recall when our local CLEC 'Prairie Stream Communications' first opened for business in 2002, they were offering flat rate, open-ended packages of _everything_ for $25.00 per month, and SBC complained to the Kansas Commission that 'Prairie Stream is being predatory'; although the Commission left Prairie Stream alone on it, SBC continually complained that 'Prairie Stream will not stay in business very long at that pricing'. So now, Verizon and SBC are gradually lowering their prices as well. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Reuters News Wire Subject: U.S. Wireless Carriers Take Aim at Adult Content Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 18:47:49 -0600 With Internet and video more readily available on wireless phones, and much of the Internet being used for pornographic stuff, major U.S. carriers on Tuesday unveiled guidelines aimed at limiting children's access to adult content and services. Those under the age of 18 would need parental or a guardian's permission to receive content that carriers offer that may be sexually explicit, excessively violent, or involve gambling, according to voluntary guidelines issued by the wireless industry's biggest trade group, CTIA. Carriers also plan to make filters and other tools available to restrict Internet access on wireless devices. "Parents must ultimately decide what materials are most suitable for their children, and wireless carriers participating in this important measure are committed to providing parents with the necessary tools to do so," said Steve Largent, CTIA president and chief executive officer. The top three wireless carriers are among the participants: Cingular Wireless, a joint venture of BellSouth Corp. and SBC Communications Inc., Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc, and Sprint Nextel Corp. About 21 million 5- to 19-year-olds had wireless phones by the end of 2004, according to the technology research firm IDC. The Federal Communications Commission in February urged the industry to act on the issue of adult content. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Associated Press News Wire Subject: CBS, NBC Offering TV Shows for 99 Cents Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 19:37:53 -0600 CBS and NBC have announced deals to offer replays of prime-time programs for 99 cents per episode, shifting television toward a sales model that gained popularity with downloaded music. CBS is teaming up with Comcast Corp. and NBC with satellite operator DirecTV to offer the on-demand replays. NBC Universal will offer commercial-free episodes of "Law & Order: SVU" and other shows to subscribers of DirecTV Group Inc. who use the satellite company's new digital video recorder. Comcast's on-demand customers in some markets will be able to view "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," "NCIS," "Survivor" and "The Amazing Race" at their convenience. Terms of the deals, which were announced Monday, were not disclosed. "This is an incredibly exciting evolution for CBS and network television -- video on demand is the next frontier for our industry," CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves said of the deal with Philadelphia-based Comcast, the nation's largest cable systems operator. CBS, which is owned by Viacom Inc., announced last week it would stream episodes of its show "Threshold" over CBS.com. The Walt Disney Co.'s ABC network offers downloads of several programs, including "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost," for $1.99 each via iTunes software from Apple Computer Inc. Less than three years ago, Apple helped spur the explosion of legally downloaded music with its iTunes Music Store and iPod portable players -- the latest versions of which now play video. Comcast's service will be available starting in January to customers in markets with a CBS owned-and-operated television station, which includes the nation's seven largest media markets. The episodes will be available as early as midnight following a broadcast and will include commercials. The DirecTV agreement includes shows that air on NBC, USA, Bravo and the Sci-Fi Channel, including "The Office" and "Monk." Episodes of the shows will remain available for one week after their broadcast. NBC Universal is a unit of General Electric Co. DirecTV, which is based in El Segundo, Calif., and controlled by the media conglomerate News Corp., began shipping its new DVR this week. The device uses interactive software from NDS Group Ltd., another News Corp. unit, and is designed to transition the company from dependence on similar devices made by TiVo Inc. "We are talking to the other networks and hope to reach similar agreements soon," DirecTV spokesman Robert Marsocci said Monday. The new DirecTV DVR comes with a hard drive that holds 160 hours of programming. One hundred hours are available for subscribers to record and store programs. The remaining 60 hours will be used by DirecTV to download programs that can be viewed on demand for an extra fee. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more headline news from Associated Press please to to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html (audio and reading) or http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ From: zeez Subject: Re: Internet Phone Customers May Get Cut Off Date: 8 Nov 2005 12:38:04 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com That's brilliant! Now instead of marginal or no 911 service, customers will have NO service whatsoever! Your tax dollars, and the "brains" they bought at work. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If I read the story correctly, a more recent clarification from FCC says those users will _not_ be cut off. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: NN0 Central Office Codes Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 16:06:00 CST From: jsw@ivgate.omahug.org Reply-To: jsw@ivgate.omahug.org > AT&T's publication "Notes on Distance Dialing" (1975) [1] includes a > list of 63 NN0 codes that could be assigned either as area codes or as > central office codes. This list, identified as "Chart 5," includes all Hmmmmm ... I distinctly remember 212-440 (Manhattan), in the first part of that list and 212-680 (Brooklyn, then in AC 212) which is toward the end of the list as both being in service in the early 1970s. If that list was around in those days they didn't appear to be following the order. ;-) ------------------------------ From: wollman@khavrinen.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: NN0 Central Office Codes Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 22:47:41 UTC Organization: MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory In article , Mark Roberts wrote: > I can personally attest to 713-630 because that was used for the PBX > at KTRH radio, where I worked at the time. While most of the "public" > numbers for KTRH were standard JAckson numbers -- I'm pretty sure the > main call-in number was 526-5874 (KTRH) -- our internal extensions > were of the form 630-3xxx. Not uncommon. At Boston's WBZ, the main call-in number was originally ALgonquin 4-5678 (617-254-5678), which still works but has been superseded by 254-1030 to reinforce the branding. But the contest line is in what was the Boston "choke" exchange, 617-931-1030. The main switchboard number is 617-787-7000, which would have been STadium 7-7000 in 2L+5D days, but I don't know if that number was in use back then. Those three exchanges historically belonged to three separate COs: 617-254 is Allston, 617-787 is Brighton (both now in the same ratecenter IIRC), and 617-931 is a downtown Boston exchange which I think was historically located at the NET&T headquarters. WBZ-TV (channel 4) used to have 617-782-4444, but I doubt that is as old as the number would imply. (WBZ-TV has been at the same location since 1948, when that number would have been STAdium 4444.) -GAWollman Garrett A. Wollman | As the Constitution endures, persons in every wollman@csail.mit.edu | generation can invoke its principles in their own Opinions not those | search for greater freedom. of MIT or CSAIL. | - A. Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: NN0 Central Office Codes Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 17:06:48 -0800 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Tue, 08 Nov 2005 03:14:35 -0000, markrobt@myrealbox.com (Mark Roberts) wrote: > It didn't work out that way ... >> Many NN0 codes were assigned as central office codes whenever and >> wherever they were needed, without regard to their positions on Chart 5. >> Examples that come to mind: >> 702-870 (#3 on the list) ca. 1989 Las Vegas >> 312-990 (#32 on the list) ca. 1988 Hinsdale >> 201-460 (#36 on the list) ca. 1982 Lyndhurst >> 414-730 (#52 on the list) ca. 1986 Appleton >> 214-680 (#54 on the list) ca. 1983 Dallas I was in Falmouth, Massachusetts in 1972 and they had a CO prefix 617-540 (KImball) now of course 508-540. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #509 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Nov 9 13:09:48 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 1757A14FA1; Wed, 9 Nov 2005 13:09:47 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #510 Message-Id: <20051109180947.1757A14FA1@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 13:09:47 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.3 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Wed, 9 Nov 2005 13:10:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 510 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson French Youth use Internet to Plan Riot (Paul Carrel) Gates Warns of 'Sea Change' in Memo (Allison Linn) High-Tech 'Sniffers' Try to Stop 'Dirty Bombs' (Mark Clayton) Verizon's New Slimmed-Down Unlimited Calling Plans Add Choice (M Solomon) Digital Tracking to Protect On-Demand TV (Monty Solomon) Jumpy Enough to Chew a Chair? Try DogCatRadio (Monty Solomon) Pay Phone Coin Drop Reference on TV; Youth Phone Culture (Lisa Hancock) Cellular-News for Wednesday 9th November 2005 (Cellular-News) Dimension (Michael Muderick) Re: Verizon POTS (Michael Chance) Re: Verizon POTS (Lisa Hancock) Re: NN0 Central Office Codes (Fred Goldstein) Re: NNO Central Office Codes (Mark Roberts) Re: US Mandates More Security in Online Banking (Dan Lanciani) Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service (Dan Lanciani) Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service (Lena) Re: Internet ID Theft Worsens, Scares Away Bank Customers (Wesrock@aol.com) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Paul Carrel Subject: French Youth use Internet to Plan Riots Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 10:30:58 -0600 By Paul Carrel France's government is policing cyberspace as well as rundown suburbs in the battle to end two weeks of rioting. Young rioters are using blog messages to incite violence and cellphones to organize attacks in guerrilla-like tactics they have copied from anti-globalisation protesters, security experts say. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has diverted resources to monitoring blogs -- short for Web logs -- in an effort to anticipate the movements of the protesters, who have set fire to thousands of cars since the unrest began on October 27. Two youths were placed under official investigation, one step short of pressing charges under French law, early on Wednesday on suspicion of inciting violence over the Internet after urging people to riot in blogs, a judicial source said. But tracking rioters' blogs is a big task for the security services, already stretched by the violence on the ground. "This is a new dimension to take into consideration," said Internet security expert Solange Ghernaouti-Helie. "To do the tracking on the Internet to identify the people involved is without doubt possible. But it requires considerable surveillance and analysis resources," she said. Blogs are easy-to-publish Web sites where millions of people post commentary. Those allegedly posted by the two youths under investigation were made in online diaries hosted by Skyblog, a Web site belonging to popular youth radio station Skyrock. Skyblog's site says it hosts over three million blogs, with thousands added each day. One of those urging people to riot -- since deactivated by Skyrock -- read: "Unite, burn the cops." Some bloggers have urged people not to incite violence. The host of bouna93.skyblog.com, a memorial blog for the two youths whose deaths sparked the riots, urged contributors to respect the dead boys, adding: "It would be preferable not to make racist, fascist comments or to give rendez-vous spots." CELLPHONES Youths are also using cellphones to coordinate the violence, mainly blamed on frustration over racism and unemployment, and to evade the police once the riots are underway. "Text messages and mobile phones ... help small groups of rioters," said criminologist Alain Bauer. "They can connect easily. It's not only a way to avoid the police, it's a way to organize the fires." The rioters have learned from anti-globalisation protesters, some of whom have used cellphones to coordinate riots at meetings of the Group of Eight industrial nations and the World Trade Organization in recent years, Bauer said. "I think they learned from what they saw on television. I think anti-globalisation movements and rioters have the same way to organize -- or to disorganise the police," he said. "It's old guerrilla tactics with modern technology." The political establishment is also harnessing technology to amass and organize support. The ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) has tapped into intense Web traffic searching for information on the unrest to try to rally support for the tough line taken against rioters by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, the party's president. Since the weekend, searches on Google for words such as "riots" or "burned cars" in French have thrown up a link to a UMP site where readers are invited to put their names to a petition supporting Sarkozy's policy of "firmness." A UMP official said more than 12,000 people had registered their support via the online petition since Sunday. (Additional reporting by Thierry Leveque) Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Allison Linn Subject: Gates Warns of 'Sea Change' in Memo Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 10:33:06 -0600 By ALLISON LINN, AP Business Writer The technology industry shift's to Internet-based software and services represents a massive and disruptive "sea change," Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates wrote to top-level executives in a memo aimed at rallying his troops against the new competitive threats the company faces. In an e-mail to top executives, dated Oct. 30 and obtained late Tuesday by The Associated Press, Gates urged company leaders to "act quickly and decisively" to move further into the field of offering such services, in order to best formidable competitors. But he also warned that the company must be thoughtful in building the right technology to serve the right audience. "This coming 'services wave' will be very disruptive," Gates wrote. "We have competitors who will seize on these approaches and challenge us - still, the opportunity to lead is very clear." Gates compares the push toward such services -- which range from online business software offerings to free Web-based e-mail -- to the changes he saw nearly a decade ago. Then, he wrote a now-famous memo, called "The Internet Tidal Wave," the prompted a massive shift at Microsoft toward Internet-based technology. "The next sea change is upon us," Gates wrote to executives. Gates included a memo from Ray Ozzie, one of Microsoft's three chief technical officers, which outlined ideas for broad companywide changes that can address the growing competitive threat. In the memo, dated Oct. 28, Ozzie concedes that Microsoft has not led the pack on Internet-based software and services, and now faces intense competition from companies like Google Inc. Ozzie said Microsoft needs to focus on key tenets of the new model, including a shift toward offering free, advertising-supported offerings and more sophisticated, Internet-based methods of delivering products. "I believe at this juncture it's generally very clear to each of us why we need to transform -- the competitors, the challenges, and the opportunities," Ozzie wrote. Last week, Microsoft announced plans for Windows Live and Office Live, two Web-based offerings that aim to help the company compete with Google, Yahoo Inc. Salesforce.com and other companies that are already seeing success with such Web-based offerings. Microsoft Corp. has recently faced criticism that its model, which still relies mostly on delivering software in traditional packaging, could grow antiquated. The concern is that, as more companies offer online services for everything from word processing to storing photos, there will be less of a need for Microsoft's lucrative Windows operating system and Office business software. Microsoft's nascent Windows Live and Office Live efforts aim to complement its valuable software franchises with online products that build on what people find on their desktop computers. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more Associated Press headlines and strories, go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ From: Mark Clayton Subject: High-Tech Sniffers Try to Stop 'Dirty' Bombs Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 10:36:44 -0600 By Mark Clayton, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor If a terrorist tried to sneak a "dirty" bomb into the United States, would anyone notice? Possibly. Radiation detectors rushed into service since 9/11 might sound the alarm at seaports, border checkpoints, and mail-handling facilities. Then again, the sensors have been set off by everything from loads of kitty litter to bananas. And a smart terrorist could hide a basketball-size chunk of highly enriched uranium by using lead shielding less than an inch thick. That's why the US is set to begin deploying a new generation of radiation detectors intended to be America's "last line of defense" against weapons of mass destruction. By early spring, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will pick technologies from among 10 companies, whose newest generation of nuclear detectors was tested in the Nevada desert this summer. Their devices will begin field-testing at a few ports of entry by next June, with a full-production decision expected by 2007. Some experts are breathing a sigh of relief. "We're now on the cusp of seeing the next generation of [nuclear and radiological] detectors," says Benn Tannenbaum, a physicist and expert on sensor technology at the Center for Science, Technology & Security Policy at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington. But others say the US is not moving fast enough to install a multilayered defense against one of its biggest security threats. While billions of dollars have been spent on biological countermeasures, nuclear detection efforts have lagged. "Little steps are being taken that may be in the right direction," says Richard Wagner Jr., a senior staffer at Los Alamos National Laboratory, who served in the Pentagon during the Reagan administration. "It's the rate of progress I'm concerned about." Alarming evidence that the pace may be picking up as disturbing evidence accumulates. About a year ago, the National Intelligence Council warned that "undetected smuggling has occurred, and we are concerned about the total amount of [nuclear and radiological] material that could have been diverted or stolen in the past 13 years" around the world. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has documented 650 cases of trafficking since 1993, echoed that report. About $300 million has been spent by the Department of Homeland Security since 1994 to deploy 470 radiation-detection systems at America's border crossings and ports, according to a Government Accountability Office report in June. But their shortcomings have become obvious. In March, DHS officials told Congress port detectors were working and had registered at least 10,000 radiation hits. But questions about the value of those hits arose in a June congressional hearing, when the security manager for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey reported 150 "false positives" per day. That amounted to a false alarm -- and possibly a time-consuming search -- for about 1 in every 40 shipping containers. The resulting delays, in turn, often caused detection sensitivity to be turned down, crippling a sensor's ability to detect weapons material, the Port Authority security manager and other experts say. Next-generation sensors will generally be far smaller, often mobile, and smarter -- networked with other sensors and able to detect the difference between radiation emitted from a nuclear bomb and a load of bananas. New homeland security officeOverseeing the effort is a brand new office within the Department of Homeland Security devoted to one goal: detecting terrorist nuclear material before it can get into the country. Established by presidential directive in April, its first assignment is to create a network of US nuclear detectors as part of a larger "global architecture" of detectors to be deployed overseas. "We anticipate mobile detection systems and fixed systems ... that enable us to achieve randomness and screening around the country, in transit zones, aircraft in flight, and container ships," says Vayle Oxford, acting director of the new DHS Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO). He envisions detectors that would screen "target areas" like high-risk cities, and some that could alert security forces to investigate. In sum, it's a new concept that will need huge databases to collect and collate data from what could become thousands of WMD sensors on bridges and buildings. "What we're trying to do with global architecture is to knit this together," Dr. Oxford says. DNDO received $318 million in fiscal year 2006 funding -- about $90 million more than President Bush requested from Congress. Today only a few truly advanced detection systems are actually deployed, including one at MassPort in Boston and another at a border crossing with Mexico near San Diego, Dr. Tannenbaum says. By 2007, DHS expects to decide on the best technology to put into 2,500 advanced detectors to be rolled out nationwide. Innovative technologiesOne possible technology, from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is RadNet, a kind of global positioning system married to a radiation detector packed into a cellphone. The idea is that this "cellphone sniffer" could be carried by police officers on their daily routes -- all the while detecting radiation and transmitting coordinates to a computer that maps hot zones for investigation. Another contender: Princeton University's Miniature Integrated Detection System (MINDS), which can distinguish between types of radiation using sophisticated software. So far, MINDS systems are scanning for suspicious material at a major train station on the East Coast and a military base in New Jersey, as well as being evaluated for airports and mail facilities. Scientists at the Livermore lab are working on an even more futuristic nuclear detector that could sense a bomb made of highly enriched uranium, which emits little radiation and is easily shielded. Other countries are coming on board. A year ago, the European Union and the US agreed to cooperate on development of sensor technology. Canada last year noted that its Ottawa International Airport would be getting detectors that would sense material likely to be in a dirty bomb, a non-nuclear device that uses conventional explosives. Even local entities are getting involved. Last year several Las Vegas hotels announced deployment of nuclear and chemical sensors. MetroRail in the nation's capital has been moving to upgrade its chemical and biological sensors. WMD sensors: not sufficient? Few experts, however -- Oxford included -- believe WMD sensors are enough. Most agree the primary defensive layer must be locking down and monitoring with new smart detectors the insecure nuclear materials in places like the research reactors of the former Soviet Union. The next layer would be smart sensors at ports overseas to screen cargo before it is loaded onto a ship bound for the US. Some critics, though, say the bulk of funds should be spent securing loose nuclear material overseas and creating sensor networks to make sure that it doesn't end up in the wrong hands. If it did, the argument goes, all the sensors in the world might not be enough. "This could become a Maginot line for us, creating a false sense of security," says Randall Larsen, CEO of Homeland Security Associates, an Arlington, Va., consulting firm. "Anyone smart enough to get this stuff could sneak it past detectors." Still, other experts say sensor networks abroad combined with a last line of defense in the US are critical. "If you have a better defensive system, the attacker has to work that much harder, recruit more people, put on more shielding," says Mr. Wagner. "The bigger the operation gets, the better chance our people have of detecting and stopping it." Copyright 2005 The Christian Science Monitor NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. To read headlines and stories each day from Christian Science Monitor and New York Times with no login nor registration requirements, go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/nytimes.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 00:37:33 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon's New Slimmed-Down Unlimited Calling Plans Add Choice Verizon's New Slimmed-Down Unlimited Calling Plans Add Choice and Value in 9 East Coast Markets Unlimited Calling for as Little as $29.95 a Month Underpins Super Prices on Bundles of Calling, Internet and Entertainment NEW YORK, Nov. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon customers in nine East Coast markets now have two new options for flat-rate, unlimited, any-distance calling. Customers can combine the new phone plans with Verizon high-speed Internet and DIRECTV services to meet or beat the best offers from cable. Verizon Freedom Essentials offers unlimited local, regional and domestic long-distance calling with the three most popular calling features -- Home Voice Mail, Call Waiting and Caller ID -- for as little as $34.95 a month. Verizon Freedom Value, offering any-distance domestic calling but no calling features, starts at $29.95 in some markets and is the company's lowest-priced any-distance calling plan. The new plans are available starting today in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Virginia and Washington, D.C. The Freedom Value and Freedom Essentials plans were introduced last month in Florida, California and Texas and have proven very popular, bringing new long-distance customers to Verizon and promoting sales of service packages that include Verizon Online DSL and DIRECTV all-digital entertainment services. With the new calling plans, customers can have unlimited calling at as little as $29.95 and entry-level DSL at up to768 megabits per second (Mbps) downstream at $14.95 for a combined cost as low as $44.90. DIRECTV service from Verizon can be added for a total of as little as $84.89 per month. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=52953597 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 00:56:38 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Digital Tracking to Protect On-Demand TV Digital Tracking to Protect On-Demand TV - Nov 8, 2005 11:01 PM (AP Online) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=52981885 BURBANK, Calif. (AP) -- Invisible marks that can be used to trace illegal copies of television shows and movies will be embedded in programs available on demand across the country using technology from Widevine Technologies. Widevine, based in Seattle, said Tuesday its invisible digital markers would be embedded in programs distributed to cable companies served by TVN Entertainment Corp., a Burbank-based company. Among TVN's cable customers are four of the nation's largest operators: Comcast Corp., Cox Communications Inc., Charter Communications Inc. and Adelphia Communications Corp. Digital watermarks are not visible to the naked eye, but contain information about the origin of the program. They allow Hollywood studios to track shows as they are distributed to cable boxes, TV sets, computers, cell phones or other devices. The watermarks remain even after the program is copied several times, allowing law enforcement to tell where illegal copies were obtained. TVN provides movies, concerts and other programs to cable operators and telecommunication companies, who then offer them to consumers for a pay-per-view fee. Tuesday's announcement marks the first time digital watermarking has been used to track such programs. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 07:55:49 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Jumpy Enough to Chew a Chair? Try DogCatRadio By DINITIA SMITH "Remember, be kind to your mailman," said Jane Harris, a disc jockey. Then she softened her voice until it was a little insinuating: "He only wants to deliver the mail." It is a message that many of her listeners need to hear. Ms. Harris is a D.J. on DogCatRadio.com, a new Internet radio station for pets. Now dogs, cats, hamsters and parrots can keep the anxiety, the loneliness, the restlessness at bay while their owners are out. It is radio just for them, live 17 hours a day, 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. Pacific time, and podcast for the rest of the 24 hours. Those who listen to DogCatRadio will find that there is generally an animal motif to the playlist, like "Hound Dog": "You ain't nothin' but a hound dogcryin' all the time." This Elvis song is a frequent request from listeners (presumably the owners), as are the Baha Men, singing: "Who let the dogs out (woof, woof, woof, woof)." And Dionne Warwick is also popular, especially her soothing song "That's What Friends Are For": "Keep smiling, keep shining,/Knowing you can always count on me." Since many pets are apparently bilingual, DogCatRadio also has a "Spanish Hour," 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Pacific time daily, with Hispanic commentary and music, like Luis Miguel's "No S=E9 T=FA": DogCatRadio.com was started last June by Adrian Martinez, who is also president of Marusa records, an independent record label in Los Angeles. He runs the station out of a customized RV parked in his office lot in the Eagle Rock section of Los Angeles. Mr. Martinez, 34, who owns six dogs and two cats, said he founded the station because "my cat, Snickers, asked me to do it." One day, Snickers was pacing the floor restlessly and meowing. "I said, 'What do you want?' " Mr. Martinez recalled in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. "I turned up the music, and she was fine." He discovered that Snickers likes 80's rock, particularly the Eddie Money version of the song "Take Me Home Tonight:" "I feel a hunger /It's a hunger that tries to keep a man awake at night." Mr. Martinez added, "I wanted to do something for the pet community." The first week that DogCatRadio was broadcast, the local CBS television station showed a feature about it. As a result, so many people tuned in, 130,000 in one day, that the server crashed, Mr. Martinez said. "We had to get a bigger server to accommodate more listeners." Now, he said, "We average close to 8,000 hits a week. We have a meter that tracks it." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/02/arts/02pet.html?ex=1288587600&en=363ad= acb531f2993&ei=5090 ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Pay Phone Coin Drop Reference in TV Show; Youth Phone Culture Date: 9 Nov 2005 06:47:38 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com A TV show just broadcast used the "ding ding" sound effect when coins were desposited in a modern pay phone. The show was "Life with Derek"* shown on the Disney Channel. What is interesting is that this show is meant for younger people who very likely never saw a or used a 3-slot pay phone, so they're not familiar with the coin drop sounds. Further, a lot of teens today probably never even used a pay phone because they have cell phones (in this episode's plot, the user didn't have a cell phone and was working to get one, thus her need to make a pay phone call.) Our local public library got rid of its pay phone because it was not used enough, when kids need a ride home they have a cell to call. (There are occassional requests for a phone, however). I wonder what the market penetration of cell phones among teenagers is today. It seems every time I see a teen they're staring at their cell phone panel. (My cube neighbor yells at his kids for too much cell phone/text msg use and big bills). Also in this episode the "ker-ching" sound effect of a cash register was used. This is a very common sound effect on TV when money is mentioned. But almost every cash register in stores for years is electronic. Indeed, the "ker ching" type of cash register was manual and not as widely used as electric registers. Many smaller stores or secondary counters in big stores did use a manual register (where the lever action of depressing keys worked the mechanism). The pre-record ".wav" sounds included with my PC included that sound. Indeed, sometimes I wonder if some of the jokes on youth shows might go over kids' heads unfamiliar with culture history. For instance, in another show, during career day a 13 y/o tells of how "mama won't work for the man", which I thought was an expression of an older generation. As an aside, about 25 years ago it was common for affluent families to install a second phone line for the kids to use (pre computer days, voice only). (In those days I remember senior citizens looking down at that as being decadent and reminding us that in their day they all shared the phone in the drugstore, if they had a phone at home it was shared with many siblings and a party line.) Anyway I wonder if families still bother with second lines just to meet voice needs or the cell phones now meet that need. Also, with DSL and cable modems, I wonder if people still have second lines for their computer. *"Life with Derek" is about a teen girl who mother remarries and she now has to live with a very annoying step-brother. Import from Canada. ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Wednesday 9th November 2005 Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 07:41:17 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com GSM Network gets World Bank Loan http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14744.php The International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, has announced the signing of a US$20 million loan to Wataniya Telecom Maldives which is building a GSM network in the island nation. In addition, IFC mobilized a U... Nearly 70% of All Ringtones are Purchased by Women http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14743.php Telephia reports that women outpaced men in purchasing ringtones by two to one during Q3 2005. Sixty-nine percent of mobile ringtones were bought by women, while purchases by men comprised 31% of the total revenue share, according to the latest Telep... Starent Networks Connects over 7 Billion Subscriber Data Calls http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14742.php Starent Networks is celebrating its fifth birthday. Since its inception, the company has deployed its ST16 Intelligent Mobile Gateway in numerous CDMA2000 and UMTS networks, connecting more than 7 billion subscriber data calls.... Qualcomm Gets a Foothold in the UK http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14741.php Qualcomm has signed an agreement with O2 UK to use uiOne to develop a consistent user interface (UI), initially for two of its own-branded X range devices. With this agreement, O2 becomes the first operator in Europe to announce plans to deploy uiOne... Top 50 Companies in the UK Mobile Market http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14740.php O2 UK has published a "50 to Watch in Mobile" report, which is an independently compiled list identifying the 50 most important British mobile companies to watch. The list looks beyond handset manufacturers and network operators, to reveal the new vi... SaskTel Mobility and Virgin Mobile Rank Highest in Canadian Customer Satisfaction Study http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14739.php Canada's SaskTel Mobility, a regional operator in Saskatchewan, ranks highest in customer satisfaction with contracted wireless service, while Virgin Mobile, which is new to the Canadian market, ranks highest in pre-paid service, according to the J.D... Niche Markets Ripe for a New Breed of MVNO http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14738.php ABI Research says that Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) are in a second phase of growth, made possible by the advent of 3G mobile phone services. 3G's data-centric capabilities have opened up new markets for MVNOs targeting specific high-end ... British Consumers not Reaping Full Benefits of 3G http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14737.php A recent survey by Harris Interactive shows that although 3G mobile phones have reached a nine percent (9%) share of the mobile phone market in Great Britain, 41% of 3G users are only using their phone for talking and texting. Furthermore, some users... Technology Promises To Link Wireline, Wireless Networks http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14736.php [Premium] Phone carriers are pinning their hopes on a technology that promises to bridge disparate communications networks, potentially saving them money and setting the groundwork for new services. ... Russian court freezes 20% of SMARTS, bans registration http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14735.php Russia's St. Petersburg Arbitration Court has frozen 799 shares, or about 20% of Russian regional mobile operator SMARTS and prohibited the regional tax service from registering the company as an open joint stock company, Pavel Svirsky, general direc... Hong Kong Hutchison Telecom End-Sep Subscribers At 15.1 Million http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14734.php Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd. said Tuesday the number of subscribers to its mobile phone services at the end of September was 15.1 million, up 34% from a year earlier and up 9.6% from the end of June. ... Nokia To Analyze Qualcomm Claims When Complaint Obtained http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14733.php Finnish telecommunications equipment maker Nokia Corp. late Monday said it has learned from a Qualcomm press release that Qualcomm has filed a complaint for alleged patent infringement against Nokia and Nokia Inc. in San Diego apparently involving so... SingTel Says Regional Mobile Subscribers Exceed 74 Million http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14732.php Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. said Tuesday its mobile subscribers totaled 74.05 million at the end of September, a gain of 2.91 million from the end of June. ... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 09:51:14 -0500 From: Michael Muderick Subject: Dimension Does anyone still maintain the old Bell System Dimesion systems? I came across an operator console and programming console along with a set of manuals /schematics. Does anyone need them? INterestingly, there were stickers on the equipment from other companies. Was Dimension post divestiture? mm ------------------------------ From: Michael Chance Subject: Re: Verizon POTS Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 11:20:16 GMT In article , userid@camsul.example.invalid says: > Joe wrote: >> I get a dial tone. However, when I dial a number, I get a message >> saying to call Verizon if I want telephone service. > That's known as soft dial tone. You can call 911 (and maybe the > telco's business office), but nothing else. It's required in many > places, for emergency situations. It also lets you know that the > phone line is electrically connected to the CO. Didn't know that Verizon still had soft dial tone in places, but if that's what it is, then you've got completely wired service already in place. No inside central office wiring to do, no outside or customer location wiring needed, so the only thing is to update all the provisioning and billing databases and set the central office switch to show the new service, all done with software. Should take no more than a couple of hours, max. Michael Chance ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Verizon POTS Date: 9 Nov 2005 06:50:57 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Tony P. wrote: > Verizon is famous for having crappy outside plant records. For > example, when I moved here in October, 2004 they swore up and down > that service was hooked up. Plug in the phone and no dial-tone. No NID > either. Verizon is a big company that is a hodge podge of companies with very different performance history. You can't generalize. When we added service it took only a day (physical line already there), and about week (wires had to be run, cost $110). > So I open the terminal block, take out the butt set and start dialing > the ANAC number on every pair. Not only did I find my pair, I found > the NID for my apartment and the two weren't anywhere near each other, > nor was the NID connected. What is "ANAC" and "NID"? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 23:32:07 -0500 From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: NN0 Central Office Codes On Tue, 8 Nov 2005 22:47:41 UTC, wollman@khavrinen.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) wrote: > Not uncommon. At Boston's WBZ, the main call-in number was originally > ALgonquin 4-5678 (617-254-5678), which still works but has been > superseded by 254-1030 to reinforce the branding. But the contest > line is in what was the Boston "choke" exchange, 617-931-1030. The > main switchboard number is 617-787-7000, which would have been STadium > 7-7000 in 2L+5D days, but I don't know if that number was in use back > then. Those three exchanges historically belonged to three separate > COs: 617-254 is Allston, 617-787 is Brighton (both now in the same > ratecenter IIRC), and 617-931 is a downtown Boston exchange which I > think was historically located at the NET&T headquarters. WBZ-TV > (channel 4) used to have 617-782-4444, but I doubt that is as old as > the number would imply. (WBZ-TV has been at the same location since > 1948, when that number would have been STAdium 4444.) If there was ever an Allston CO, it was gone many years ago. Allston is a part of Brighton. Allston's separate identity dates back to the railroad, which needed a name for a second station in Brighton. George Washington Allston was a popular local painter, so they named it after him, and it stuck; the neighborhood (once a Town before crooked politicians essentially sold it to Boston sometime around 1870) is sometimes called Allston-Brighton, though the two halves are reasonably distinct. The Brighton CO is right in Brighton Center, within a short enough reach of Allston to cover it efficiently. Note, though, that a significant part of Allston-Brighton is served by the Brookline CO and is in that rate center. When I moved from one side of Comm. Ave. to the other some years ago, my phone number (and rate center) changed from ASPinwall-7 to STAdium-3. (Brookline's 3Ls included REGent and LONgwood.) Boundaries are weird there. The phone company follows the middle of Comm. Ave. (a natural boundary for wire, with a trolley line running there). The post office puts all Comm. Ave. addresses, both sides, in Allston or Brighton, but side streets in Brookline. (This impacts insurance rates. I once knew someone whose basement apartment, on a side street, netted a much lower car insurance rate than the upstairs units, because of the different ZIP code.) The real city limits meander a couple of blocks back. Harvard has bought up a LOT of land in North Allston, right across from their Cambridge campus, and is planning to develop that too. I think a couple of blocks in Allston near Harvard are already in the Cambridge rate center, and Harvard is likely to equip most of its new buildings with Cambridge numbers too. WGBH ("God Bless Harvard", though they'll probably claim it stands for "Great Blue Hill") has a Cambridge phone number, for instance, though it too is in Allston (or as it's known to Zoomers, "Boston 02134"), just across the river. The 617-931 choke exchange is listed in the LERG to the Cambridge 02T tandem, a DMS-200. It's one of two tandems in VZ's 210 Bent St. CO (the other is a 5E; a 4E next door, at 250, has been decommissioned). If MIT still gets its dial tone from VZ, it comes out of Bent St. That 3-block-long street is full of telecom carriers, Level 3 (and others having buildings there. AT&T still uses 250, which is a divestiture condo (shared between AT&T and VZ). I think the carrier hotel (was Network Plus, now defunct) at #185 has closed. XO is at 89 Fulkerson, a block or two off Bent. It seems like there's more glass than dirt in the ground around there.... Fred Goldstein k1io fgoldstein "at" ionary.com ionary Consulting http://www.ionary.com/ ------------------------------ From: markrobt@myrealbox.com (Mark Roberts) Subject: Re: NN0 Central Office Codes Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 17:00:48 -0000 Garrett Wollman had written: > In article , Mark Roberts > wrote: >> I can personally attest to 713-630 because that was used for the PBX >> at KTRH radio, where I worked at the time. While most of the "public" >> numbers for KTRH were standard JAckson numbers -- I'm pretty sure the >> main call-in number was 526-5874 (KTRH) -- our internal extensions >> were of the form 630-3xxx. > Not uncommon. And it is a practice not limited to broadcasting stations. A local example in Oakland is a real estate agency in my area whose main office line is 531-xxxx. In its corporate ads for real estate listings, the agents for the individual listings are given a phone number of 531-xxxx, ext. nnn. But in ads for the individual agents (such as their open house of the week), they usually give their phone numbers as 485-7nnn. Interestingly, 485 isn't a Pac Bell/SBC office. This, too, seems increasingly common judging by the prefixes I have seen in our neighborhood weekly whose primary means of support is real-estate ads. Of course, there is nothing these days to prevent routing an ILEC number to a CLEC switch, but it is perhaps notable that the established ILEC number is retained as a central point of contact even as all the internal DID extensions are provided by the CLEC. For the real-estate office example above, it would seem that 485-7000 would be a perfectly serviceable main reception number, yet they've kept the 531-xxxx number. Mark Roberts | "I know you know the situation is past critical." Oakland, Cal.| -- FEMA staff member Marty Bahamonde, in New Orleans NO HTML MAIL | "Anything specific I need to do or tweak?" | -- FEMA director Michael Brown replies to that e-mail Permission to archive this article in any form is hereby explicitly denied. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 01:17:02 EST From: Dan Lanciani Subject: Re: US Mandates More Security in Online Banking > Federal regulators, alarmed by the threat of online financial fraud, > are requiring banks by the end of 2006 to provide several layers of > identify verification before customers can access their accounts and > conduct other banking over the Internet. Yet they continue to allow (or even encourage) banks to refuse to allow customers to require any verification at all for ACH debits against their accounts by third parties. > In addition to standard passwords, customers may soon need a unique > digital 'fingerprint' that will identify their computer for the > bank, or may scan a copy of their real fingerprints to identify > themselves to the bank's network. As usual, their answer is for consumers to disclose more personal information and/or allow snooping on their computers. I'm sure that information will never be abused ... even by the phishers who will collect it as well ... > Another, more cumbersome method would have customers carrying > keyfob-sized electronic 'tokens' that authenticate their identity. Because it would be, like, impossible to set up a cryptographically secure, publicly verifyable (open source) system that works for the customer ... It's getting really hard to attribute all this nonsense to mere incompetence. Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 01:26:51 EST From: Dan Lanciani Subject: Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service > Verizon Communications Inc. sharply cut its prices for unlimited > telephone service across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic on Tuesday, > including markets where Cablevision Inc. has just boosted broadband > Internet speeds. Unless you have residential ISDN in Massachusetts (which is apparently no longer offered to new customers). All the new low-cost plans explicitly exclude ISDN customers. :( And it looks like all the plans that didn't exclude ISDN are themselves no longer offered, so ISDN lines are pretty much frozen. Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com ------------------------------ From: Lena Subject: Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service Date: 8 Nov 2005 20:25:29 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Shame that it doesn't show on the website yet (11/8/05. 11 pm EDT) Lena [TELECM Digest Editor's Note: Well, remember, Lena, you read it _first_ here in TELECOM Digest, both yesterday and again in the current issue in another article in this issue. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 09:38:51 EST Subject: Re: Internet ID Theft Worsens, Scares Away Bank Customers In a message dated 11/8/05 8:27:46 PM Central Standard Time, editor@telecom-digest.org writes, in a note to a posting by Jonathan Stempel < reuters@telecom-digest.org>: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One of the major banks, Bank of > America, has considered having a picture (a .jpg perhaps?) of the > customer on line to help 'prove his identity', so that if a phisherman > comes along asking you to do something allegedly for BOA, _your_ > picture will have to be part of whatever _authentic_ request is made > by the bank. All well and good, I suppose, but what prevents the > phisherman from adding the same .jpg files to his pitch letters? PAT] The bank provides a selection of pictures from which to make your selection. You also give the picture a name. After you enter your username, the picture and the name you gave it is displayed with a warning not to enter your password unless the proper picture appears along with the name you gave it. Then it allows you to enter your password. Presumably it will be more difficult for the operator of a phishing or fraudulent site to find and display the proper picture and the name you gave it. Why someone would respond to an e-mail request supposedly from a bank by clicking on a link in the e-mail is beyond me anyway. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #510 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Nov 9 19:36:34 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 6C58D14EDA; Wed, 9 Nov 2005 19:36:33 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #511 Message-Id: <20051110003633.6C58D14EDA@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 19:36:33 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.3 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Wed, 9 Nov 2005 19:35:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 511 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Phishers Lure Google Users With Bogus Cash Prizes (Jay Wrolstad) New York Times Signs Up 135,000 New Online Subscribers (AP News Wire) Eircom to Give Swisscom Exclusive Window (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: French Youth Use Internet to Plan Riots (john.brewer) Re: NN0 Central Office Codes (Garrett Wollman) Re: High-Tech Sniffers Try to Stop 'Dirty' Bombs (AES) Re: Verizon POTS (Mark Atwood) Re: Verizon Reduces Prices For Phone Service (lena) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jay Wrolstad Subject: Phishers Lure Google Users With Bogus Google Cash Prizes Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 17:19:24 -0600 Jay Wrolstad, newsfactor.com An online scam offering the lure of free money through a bogus Google Web site has been uncovered by security company Websense, which reported that the site was shut down about 30 hours after it was first discovered on Monday. The phishing attack employed a page that closely resembled the real Google home page, with a banner message claiming "You won $400.00!" Users were instructed to collect their prize money by transferring it to a credit card. To do so, they were asked to provide their account numbers. They also were asked to provide their home addresses and phone numbers. After the sensitive personal information was collected, users were redirected to Google's legitimate Web site. The phishing site was hosted in the U.S., Websense said. Direct Approach "This is a little different than other phishing attacks in that it attempted to entice people into divulging their credentials and using the Google name, as opposed to attacks that target banks or e-commerce sites," said Dan Hubbard, senior director of security research at Websense. This particular phishing site did host other attacks targeting financial institutions, he added, noting that the approach taken by these criminals was fairly rudimentary when compared with attacks that use a Trojan horse or log a user's keystrokes. Attacks on the Rise And the Google mimicry reflects a disturbing trend. A recent Gartner survey showed that phishing attacks grew at double-digit rates last year in the U.S. In the 12 months ending in May 2005, some 73 million U.S. Internet users said they received an average of more than 50 phishing e-mails in the prior year; some users reported a dozen or more daily. And an estimated 2.4 million online consumers report losing money directly because of the phishing attacks. Of these, approximately 1.2 million consumers lost $929 million during the year preceding the survey, Gartner reported. "The standard security rules apply in protecting yourself from a phishing attack," said Hubbard. "Don't click on links in e-mail messages, type in the address of a bank yourself, run the latest antivirus software, and obtain the latest security patches." "And," Hubbard noted, "you can assume that anyone offering you some sum of money on the net is most likely just a crook." Copyright 2005 NewsFactor Network, Inc. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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, News Factor Network. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Associated Press News Wire Subject: New York Times Signs Up 135,000 Online Subscriptions Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 17:17:28 -0600 The New York Times Co. said Wednesday it had signed up about 135,000 paying subscribers to its new online service that offers access to Op-Ed columns and other premium content. The new service, TimesSelect, launched Sept. 19, and is free to home delivery subscribers. Non-subscribers can get access to the service for $49.95 a year or $7.95 every month. The Times said it had signed up more than 270,000 subscribers to the service since it began, and that about half of them are online-only. TimesSelect marks the latest attempt by newspaper companies to bring in new revenue from the Internet, where many people are increasingly going for news. Newspapers are facing long-term declines in their paid circulation, and more and more advertising dollars are moving from traditional print outlets to the Internet. The Times and other newspaper publishers have also been reporting higher revenues from online advertising at their own sites. So far The Wall Street Journal, which is published by Dow Jones & Co., has had the most success in convincing users to pay for access to online editions. The Journal now has 764,000 subscribers. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For _totally free_ access to various newspapers around the USA with _no registration, and no login requirement_ check out the Telecom Digest Extra pages here; just a few of the several features we offer are: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/index.html (general index of features) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html (news headlines and AP audio) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra.nytimes.html (about 90 percent of each day's New York Times, Christian Science Monitor and NPR reports.) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/internet-news.html (USA Today, others) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html (telecom, internet news) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/TDNewsradio.html (our own news radio) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/BBC.html (audio from BBC and news) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/KOSU.html (NPR News and classical music) The index.html page gives a full listing of what is available; the above is only a small sample. And remember, _no login, no registration_ for anything; the way the net should be! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 13:06:04 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Eircom to Give Swisscom Exclusive Window USTelecom dailyLead November 9, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xJqkatagCwyZqFjRrZ TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Eircom to give Swisscom exclusive window BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Report: DSL could catch cable by 2006 * Verizon lowers price for unlimited calling plans * Report: Cisco poised to enter mesh networking market * BellSouth inks marketing pact with home builder * Gates: A fundamental shift for Microsoft * Deutsche Telekom reports earnings USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Bookstore Best-Seller: VoIP Implementation and Planning Guide TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * WiMAX "plugfest" puts gear on display REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Japan opens its mobile phone market Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xJqkatagCwyZqFjRrZ ------------------------------ Subject: Re: French Youth Use Internet to Plan Riots From: john.brewer@us.schneider-electric.com Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 13:41:04 -0500 > Young rioters are using blog messages to incite violence and > cellphones to organize attacks in guerrilla-like tactics they have > copied from anti-globalisation protesters, security experts say. I find it interesting that the news media portrays the rioters as comprised of those marginalized by poverty,(as if that were justification for burning your neighbors car) yet according to this, they're well enough heeled to afford computers and cellphones. There must be a new-age definition of poverty. John twoube@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: wollman@khavrinen.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: NN0 Central Office Codes Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 19:24:39 UTC Organization: MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory In article , Fred Goldstein wrote: > If there was ever an Allston CO, it was gone many years ago. I don't think so. It's located on the short diagonal street behind the gas station at the corner of Western and Harvard. Now it's probably just a remote wirecenter on the Brighton CO. (When I lived in Brighton, I also had an ASPinwall (617-277) number and Brookline ZIP code. This did not result in lower insurance rates; the insurance companies have maps that show where the town line lies -- as do the city and town parking offices. The other important Brookline exchange you didn't mention was BEAcon (617-232).) > The 617-931 choke exchange is listed in the LERG to the Cambridge 02T > tandem, a DMS-200. It's one of two tandems in VZ's 210 Bent St. CO > (the other is a 5E; a 4E next door, at 250, has been > decommissioned). If MIT still gets its dial tone from VZ, it comes > out of Bent St. MIT has its own 5ESS and has for a long time (it was one of the first 5E's sold to a non-telco customer). There's a project on now to figure out what to do about it before it comes up for renewal next in a few years' time. Garrett A. Wollman | As the Constitution endures, persons in every wollman@csail.mit.edu | generation can invoke its principles in their own Opinions not those | search for greater freedom. of MIT or CSAIL. | - A. Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) ------------------------------ From: AES Subject: Re: High-Tech Sniffers Try to Stop 'Dirty' Bombs Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 14:41:44 -0800 Organization: Stanford University In article , Mark Clayton wrote: > By Mark Clayton, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor > If a terrorist tried to sneak a "dirty" bomb into the United States, > would anyone notice? > Possibly. Radiation detectors rushed into service since 9/11 might > sound the alarm at seaports, border checkpoints, and mail-handling > facilities. (snipped) > Innovative technologies: One possible technology, from Lawrence > Livermore National Laboratory, is RadNet, a kind of global positioning > system married to a radiation detector packed into a cellphone. The > idea is that this "cellphone sniffer" could be carried by police > officers on their daily routes -- all the while detecting radiation > and transmitting coordinates to a computer that maps hot zones for > investigation. Or perhaps rudimentary radiation detectors (and possibly sensors of other types, bio or chemical) built into _every_ cell phone: one sensor per phone, randomly allocated, not available to user control. If the sensor detects a signal above a set threshold, the phone just silently dials in to a collection center computer, reports the fact, then shuts down for a selected dead time. The collection center computers collect and collate all these reports, and if a sufficient density of reports start showing up in a given area (or along a given track), alerts a human to take a look at the accumulated data, and maybe send a human responder out to look at the general location, or perhaps just auto-query other phones in the same area. Location to the nearest cell tower ought to be enough for a start; GPS location accuracy not required, at least not initially. The problem of occasional false positives is greatly reduced by having a large ensemble of reporting devices. If you can build a complete camera into a cell phone for, what is it, about $10 or $20, seems like, with a little development, you should be able to put in just a single rudimentary sensor for the same or less. If I were to post this same idea to comp.risks, I suspect a lot of potential downsides and unanticipated problems with it would also emerge. Seems worth thinking about nonetheless. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Verizon POTS From: Mark Atwood Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 22:50:37 GMT > In article , > userid@camsul.example.invalid says: >>> I get a dial tone. However, when I dial a number, I get a message >>> saying to call Verizon if I want telephone service. >> That's known as soft dial tone. You can call 911 (and maybe the >> telco's business office), but nothing else. My (disconnected) telco pair in my house has such a "soft dial tone". When I tried to do a 911 test, it didnt go to 911, it instead went to the telco "try to sell me service". Mark Atwood When you do things right, people won't be sure me@mark.atwood.name you've done anything at all. http://mark.atwood.name/ http://www.livejournal.com/users/fallenpegasus ------------------------------ From: Lena Subject: Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service Date: 9 Nov 2005 15:58:06 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Well, I called customer Service at Verizon and asked about plans that have dropped their rates in the order of $15 per month. The rep was only aware of a Verizon Freedom package that cost $39.95 per month. If it was the Verizon Freedom Extra package at $56.95 per month, it still says $56.95 per month on the website. (Heck, my bank was advertising free online billpaying for the past six months, and the website still indicated it cost $6.95 per month until I emailed them about the discrepancy). Verizon won't entice me back until they drastically drop the cost of their unlimited local calling, included caller id and call waiting, and add a very low rate long distance plan. I just don't use enough LD to pay a fixed amount per month for unlimited LD calls. Lena [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And if you had not issued that challenge to the rep (showing that you had some sort of clue about their new rate structure) and had ordered the service -- either from the web site or the phone call -- you would still be getting charged at the $56.95 rate. Ditto SBC; there are _so many_ different promotional rates in effect at any given time, most of which are tied to various lengths of time and with varying conditions, you can get most anything you want at any price from them these days. Two questions you may wish to ask the rep on a subsequent phone call: (1) is this new rate a promotional thing for new/returning subscribers only and if so (2) how many months is it good for? Is any contract required, and if so, for how long? A couple other questions it might be fun to ask: Like (the old) AT&T long distance plans which could never get installed correctly on the local telco computers, do you need to call them month after month to get the credit issued; is there any conditions now or in the future regarding a 'tie-in' to DSL service where you must take the one to get the other; and three, not at all very politic but interesting none the less: telco is _supposed to be_ a common carrier utility operated at cost. Did the operating costs suddenly make it feasable to offer this 'reduced rate' now; if it was feasable earlier, _why wasn't it offered earlier_? If this new deal is for _all customers_ and not just new customers, should existing customers expect sometime soon to see a notice in their bills about the new rate structure? You may quote TD as the source of these nuisance questions if you wish. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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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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 V24 #511 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Nov 10 15:12:10 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 519F614DC2; Thu, 10 Nov 2005 15:12:10 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #512 Message-Id: <20051110201210.519F614DC2@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 15:12:10 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.4 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 10 Nov 2005 15:12:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 512 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson NASA Telescope Gets Image of Young Stars (Associated Press News Wire) European Space Agency Lauches Venus Probe (Melissa Eddy) Telephone History Enquiry: Earliest Pre-Pay Calls (John R. Covert) "Soft Dial Tone" on Unused Lines (Lisa Hancock) Yahoo! Drops Bid For AOL Stake (USTelecom dailyLead) Cellular-News for Thursday 10th November 2005 (Cellular-News) Dutch Trial SMS Disaster Alert System (Joseph) Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service (Bruce K.) Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service (Lisa Hancock) Re: Phishers Lure Google Users With Bogus Google Cash Prizes (S Lichter) Re: Good News, Linux Users! A Worm Just for You (ellis@no.spam) Re: NN0 Central Office Codes (Fred Goldstein) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Associated Press News Wire Subject: NASA Telescope Gets Image of Young Stars Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 22:26:00 -0600 A dazzling photo taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows colossal pillars of cool gas and dust, giving scientists an intimate look at the star-forming process. The image released Wednesday shows the columns stretching out like fingers similar to an iconic photo taken of the Eagle Nebula by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995. While the Hubble visible-light image was dubbed "Pillars of Creation," NASA describes the Spitzer infrared image as "cosmic mountains of creation." The image reflects a region in space known as W5, in the constellation Cassiopeia 7,000 light years away, which is dominated by a single massive star. The largest pillars -- formed by radiation and winds from hot, massive stars -- contain hundreds of newborn stars. "We believe that the star clusters lighting up the tips of the pillars are essentially the offspring of the region's single, massive star," Lori Allen of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said in a statement. Spitzer was able to spy the stars being born inside the pillars because of its infrared capability. A visible light telescope would see the same region as dark columns outlined by specks of light. Scientists believe the pillars eventually become dense enough to give rise to a second generation of stars, which may in turn, trigger successive generations. On the Net: Spitzer Space Telescope: http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For additional news headlines from Associated Press, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ From: Melissa Eddy Subject: European Space Agency Launches Venus Probe Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 22:29:27 -0600 By MELISSA EDDY, Associated Press Writer A European spacecraft left Earth orbit Wednesday on a five-month, 220 million-mile journey to Venus, an exploratory mission that could help spur a new space race. The European Space Agency said the unmanned Venus Express lifted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and mission control in Darmstadt activated the probe's instruments and immediately picked up a signal to hearty applause in the observation room. The Europeans then received another signal -- a congratulatory note from the Pasadena, Calif.,-based Planetary Society, which had monitored the launch from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. The $260 million spacecraft will take 163 days to get to Earth's nearest planetary neighbor, where it will drop into orbit and explore the hot, dense atmosphere of Venus. "The mission is an outstanding success," Gaele Winters, director of ESA's operations in Darmstadt, told reporters. "We had a perfect launch, the instruments are switched on, the solar panels are deployed, everything is working." The Venus mission is the latest sign that competition in space is heating up even as NASA is reassessing its own exploration plans. NASA is cutting some of its programs to focus resources on developing a replacement for the space shuttle. The space shuttle Columbia tragedy in 2003 caused NASA to ground its fleet for more than two years. Flights resumed in July with the Discovery, but the dangerous loss of a chunk of its insulation during launch has put future missions on hold until at least May, and possibly even next summer. NASA plans 18 more shuttle flights to the international space station and possibly one to the Hubble Space Telescope before the fleet is retired in 2010. "NASA has really dominated in planetary science and missions for the last 40 years," having seen off the challenge from the former Soviet Union, said Spas Baradash of the Swedish Institute of Space Physics. "But now Europe is catching up." Last month, two Chinese astronauts spent five days in orbit last month on that country's second manned mission. Japan and India also are ramping up their programs, and despite close cooperation between scientists and agencies, "maybe we are witnessing the beginning of a new space race," said Baradash, who worked on the instruments aboard Venus Express. David Southwood, ESA's scientific director, said the Venus mission "once again illustrates Europe's determination to explore the different bodies in our solar system." European scientists plan to apply next month for funding for new ESA missions to Mars and the moon. Venus Express follows ESA's successful Mars Express, launched in 2003. It is Europe's first mission to Venus, which is sometimes visible at sunrise or sunset along the horizon. The Venus mission aims to explore the planet's atmosphere, concentrating on its greenhouse effect and the hurricane force winds that constantly encircle it at high altitudes. There have been roughly 20 U.S. and Soviet missions to Venus since the 1960s, the last being NASA's Magellan, which completed more than 15,000 orbits between 1990 and 1994. Using radar, Magellan mapped virtually its entire surface, revealing towering volcanoes, gigantic rifts and crisp-edged craters. The Venus Express' seven instruments, including a special camera as well as a spectrometer to measure temperatures and analyze the atmosphere, will try to determine whether the planet's volcanoes are active. It also will examine how a world so similar to Earth could have evolved so differently. "Venus is still a big mystery," said Gerhard Schwehm, head of planetary missions at ESA. In the next three days, mission controllers will continue testing the probe's instruments. It is expected to reach Venus in April, when it will slow down to enter the planet's orbit. It will begin the initial stages of gathering data in June. "We hope to see the first results in early July," said Schwehm, adding that the probe will remain active for more than a year. Venus and Earth are alike in that they share similar mass and density. Both have inner cores of rock and are believed to have been formed at roughly the same time. However, they have vastly different atmospheres, with Venus' composed almost entirely of carbon dioxide and very little water vapor. It also has the hottest surface of all the planets in the solar system. Associated Press Writer Stephen Graham contributed to this report from Berlin. On the Net: http://www.esa.int Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. More Associated Press reports available at: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 09:38:54 EST From: John R. Covert Subject: Telephone History Enquiry: Earliest Pre-Pay Calls Telephone History Buffs: I'm looking for information on early pre-pay systems that did not require special telephones. To be relevant to my search, the pre-pay system would need to: 1. Have been implemented before 1987. 2. Have documentation that we could find today. 3. Not require special telephone stations. An example of a system which might meet these requirements would be a company which would provide telephone calls for me on the basis of my depositing money into an account with them; I would then call their telephone number and they would then extend calls for me only until that credit was used up; terminating the call when the there was no more money, and requiring me to replenish my account before further calls could be made. Yes, this is common today with the plethora of pre-pay calling cards. I'm looking for the first instance of such a thing, even if fully manual in terms of operation. To be relevant, it must have been in use (and verifiably so) prior to 1987. My search of the archives so far has not returned anything; we weren't talking about such things in the early 1980s. Back then we thought that the introduction by the Bell System of the first dial-it-yourself calling card system in early 1982 was cool (ref my own article in the digest 21 Jan 1982 1035). Prepay doesn't seem to have been needed back then since almost anyone could get the pay-when-the-bill-comes type of calling card. People must have been more obvious, or more of the cost of fraud was built into the cost we all paid for calls. And resellers of telephone service were few and far between. Regards/john TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For those readers who may have missed the issue of the Digest from almost 24 years ago -- January 21, 1982 -- the pertinent message from John Covert, another long time, charter subscriber to this Digest, is excerpted here. Prior to using '@' as the middle character in our email addresses and using a domain suffix such as '.org' or '.com' we simply concluded with the site name. _Do not_ use the address shown below to reach Mr. Covert now. PAT] Date: 21 Jan 1982 1035-EST From: John R. Covert Subject: Dial-it-yourself telephone Calling Card service I was using the new Dial-it-yourself credit card service on our Denver FX last night. It is really well done. In a previous message I described the operation of the service. That demon- stration was before the service was put into actual use. When your call goes into TSPS, you will hear a new tone, which is the DTMF "#" key immediately followed by a very brief and fading dial tone. During the pre-service demonstration, you then got a recorded voice asking you to enter your Calling Card number. It seems that in actual implementation, that message does not occur. You have to simply know that if you hear the new tone to enter your card. If you don't, or if you dial "0", you will go to an operator. If you want to call the number to which the credit card is issued, you need dial only the last four digits of the credit card. This is the reason RAOs beginning with "0" will appear on calling cards beginning with "6" now. If there is no answer, or after the person you call hangs up, you may dial a "#", and you will be told, "You may dial another number now." At this point you may dial either 0+Number or just Number with the same result. 1+Number is illegal. Likewise, you may dial 01+ overseas number, but not 011+ overseas number. In no case do you get an actual operator through this procedure, although I have heard that there may be a change to the procedure to allow you to dial you calling card and still get an operator for person-to-person calls. Surprising, though. They'd like to make person-to-person go away. This may have been a false story. The rates for using this will, like all phone rates, be regulated by state authorities for instate use and by the FCC for interstate use. In a few states, Bell has already filed special credit card rates. For example, in Massachusetts, you get the DDD rate for credit card calls (regardless of whether it is operator keyed or dialed yourself) but you pay a $0.45 credit card billing charge. From messages in this digest, I presume that North Carolina has done the same thing. Other states may have as well. In a previous message to this digest, I explained that I have a copy of an "illustrative" tariff which shows a significant re-vamping of charges for INTERstate calls. In this tariff, there is a service called "Customer Dialed Calling Card, Station" which is the DDD rate plus $0.50. The next line lists "Operator-Station" as the DDD rate plus mileage-based service charges. The final line lists "Operator-Person-to-Person" as the DDD rate plus $3.00. This tariff is not yet approved. It seems unfair for me to have to pay more to use my calling card simply because some pay-phone at some airport in some small town doesn't have Touch-Tone. The instate tariffs I have seen so far seem to take that into account; the "illustrative" tariff for interstate calls doesn't. ------------------------------ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A quarter-century ago, Mr. Covert was an active participant in this Digest. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: "Soft Dial Tone" on Uuused lines Date: 10 Nov 2005 06:56:47 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Some other posters mentioned that an unused land phone line may still offer dial tone to provide for emergency 911 service. Is this a recent offering? The phone boxes within my apt have a forest of wires, it appears about six pairs. It's been a while since I tested them, but other than the ones I use the lines are dead. They may not be physically connected within the master jct box outside. Cell phones purchased at a flea market have that capability, I believe that was mandated by law a few years ago. I keep such a phone in my car glove box (with an power adapter) in case of emergency since I don't carry my real cell with me that often. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 12:39:51 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Yahoo! Drops Bid For AOL Stake USTelecom dailyLead November 10, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xPfgatagCxclqFaevF TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Yahoo! drops bid for AOL stake BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Analysis: RIM settlement looks likely * Calix acquires OSI * Marriage of music, mobile phones off to rocky start in U.S. * Cisco, NTT report earnings USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Telecom Crash Course -- The must-have book for telecom professionals TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Intel bullish on WiMAX * Nortel teams with partners on IPTV solution REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Bush nominates Tate for FCC; backs new term for Copps * House lawmakers move forward on telecom bill EDITOR'S NOTE * The dailyLead will not be published Friday Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xPfgatagCxclqFaevF ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Thursday 10th November 2005 Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 07:51:02 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com US Messaging Market Set for Rapid Growth - report http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14765.php Wireless messaging revenue in the USA increased by 106% in 2004 and is expected to continue to grow strongly over the next five years from its current low base, according to a new report published by Analysys. In 2004, wireless data accounted for jus... Verizon Wireless Stops Information Theft - Again http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14764.php Verizon Wireless has filed suit and obtained an immediate injunction against a Florida-based private investigative agency and its affiliates to stop their attempts to fraudulently obtain confidential information about Verizon Wireless customers. The ... USA Networks Set Adult Content Control Rules http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14763.php The USA's Wireless Association, in partnership with leading carriers, has unveiled a set of voluntary guidelines to proactively provide tools and controls to manage wireless content offered by the carriers or available via Internet-enabled wireless d... Five New Phones from Samsung http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14762.php Samsung is launching five new mobile phones for the European market. The average thickness of the newly unveiled phones are under 15mm and offer the latest multimedia features, such as music playback capability, megapixel camera and Bluetooth connect... Wireless Operators Not Doing Enough to Sell Mobile Data http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14761.php Pyramid Research says that it estimates that 42% of the roughly 1.05bn new mobile subscribers over the next five years will come from the BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China. According to a recent study, 20% to 50% of mobile subscribers ... Econet Granted Leave to Seek Arbitration in Legal Battle http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14760.php Nigeria's Econet Wireless has been granted court permission to launch two additional arbitration applications against two other shareholders in Vee Mobile Networks of Nigeria for their failure to buy and sell shares in the company without following l... Record GSM Subscriber Additions in India http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14759.php India's COAI has again reported a record subscriber growth of more than 2 million subscribers during the month of October'05 ? the highest subscriber additions (2.11 million) since inception of service. The cumulative GSM subscriber base grew to 52.... New Billing Contract in the Cayman Islands http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14758.php Cerillion Technologies has announced a new contract to supply caymanone with a complete CRM and billing solution for their telecom network in the Cayman Islands. Cerillion will deliver a complete turnkey solution, implementing the Revenue Manager, CR... FOCUS: Russian police raids fail to cut illegal handset imports http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14757.php [Premium] The raids against illegal imports of mobile handsets undertaken by the Russian police and the Federal Customs Service in August have failed to make the market transparent and cut illegal handset imports, industry representatives said adding that the ... Ukraine's UMC mobile subscriber base up to 11.49 mln Oct 30 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14756.php The total subscriber base of Ukraine's Mobile Communications, or UMC, Ukraine'slargest mobile phone operator, rose 5.3% on the month to 11.490 million subscribers as of October 31, UMC said. ... Caudwell Group Invites Offers For Caudwell Holdings http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14755.php Caudwell Group said Wednesday that it decided to invite offers for 100% of Caudwell Holdings Limited and has decided to delay any final decision in respect of the proposed sale of Caudwell Communications, the fixed line telephony business of the Caud... INTERVIEW:Qualcomm President -Royalty Model Aids Competition http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14754.php [Premium] The licensing model at the heart of a European Union investigation into Qualcomm Inc.'s royalty payments stimulates rather than stifles competition in the mobile handset market, according to Steve Altman, the company's president. ... Judge To Review RIM-NTP Settlement http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14753.php he ongoing patent dispute between Research In Motion Ltd. and NTP Inc. took another turn Wednesday, when a federal judge said he would review the disputed $450 million settlement between the companies. ... China's Huawei also gets VimpelCom's offer on URS deal http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14752.php China's telecommunications equipment producer Huawei has received an offer from Russia's second-largest mobile operator VimpelCom, which would help the Russian mobile operator enter the Ukrainian market by purchasing Ukrainian Radiosystems mobile o... Number of Mobile Users Almost Doubles in Uzbekistan This Year http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14751.php The number of mobile telecommunication subscribers almost doubled in Uzbekistan since January 1 to over 1 million users as of now, Uzbektelecom, Uzbekistan's national telecommunications company, said Wednesday. ... Deutsche Telekom Swings To Profit, But Outlook Weighs http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14750.php Deutsche Telecom AG, Europe's largest phone company, said Wednesday it swung to a profit after adding large numbers of wireless customers in the U.S. ... TeliaSonera Continues Integrating Mobile, IP Telephony http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14749.php Swedish telecommunications company TeliaSonera AB Wednesday said it continues with the initiatives in integrating fixed and mobile telephony and will now conduct a technical trial of the Unlicensed Mobile Access technology which permits the use of on... Taiwan Chunghwa Telecom Lowers Call Costs http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14748.php Chunghwa Telecom Co. said Wednesday it will cut the fees it charges for mobile-to-fixed line services by an average of 7% effective Dec. 1, a move it doesn't expect to affect revenue much. ... Ericsson, TeliaSonera In Joint Trial Of UMA http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14747.php Swedish telecommunications equipment maker Telefon AB LM Ericsson Wednesday said that together with Nordic operator TeliaSonera AB it will conduct a joint trial of Mobile@Home, Ericsson's solution for Unlicensed Mobile Access, or UMA, which permits t... SK Telecom To Invest In Vietnam Wireless Joint Venture http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14746.php SK Telecom Co. said Wednesday it plans to invest up to $280 million in a wireless joint venture that offers mobile services in Vietnam. ... Swisscom Confirms Talks With Eircom http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14745.php Swiss telecommunications company Swisscom AG Wednesday confirmed it was in talks with Eircom Group PLC about a potential takeover. ... ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Dutch Trial SMS Disaster Alert System Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 17:13:43 -0800 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com By Julie Clothier for CNN Using text messaging to warn people they are in danger is quick and easy, says the Dutch government. (CNN) -- The Dutch government is testing a mobile phone danger alert system that sends text messages to people who could be affected by natural disasters or terrorist attacks. The system, called Cell Broadcast, uses GSM technology to identify cell phone users in a particular area. If a disaster occurs, a message is sent to all phones in the area, warning of the danger. http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/11/09/dutch.disaster.warning/index.html ------------------------------ From: Bruce K. Subject: Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 07:18:24 -0500 Organization: Optimum Online Called Verizon Wednesday. Rep told me I was the first customer to make request to her. She then reduced my bill by $15.00. Bruce [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Verizon is not (thank God!) SBC but I do suggest you make certain the credit is permanent and that it 'sticks' in the computer system. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service Date: 10 Nov 2005 09:52:14 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Lena wrote: > (Heck, my bank was advertising free online billpaying for the past six > months, and the website still indicated it cost $6.95 per month until > I emailed them about the discrepancy). Sadly, these ad discrepancies are a big part of the world we live in today. Companies are so big and far flung that often the right-hand doesn't know what the left-hand is doing. Further, many of the ad campaigns are run by extra aggressive marketing and advertising units which are not in touch with the rest of the company, indeed, often are not even part of the company but just a hired consultant. Try calling one of the promotional 800 numbers and tell them you have two-party service or a 'local battery line' and if you can still ger DSL and they'll say "sure you can, that's not a problem". They're just a bunch of boiler room serfs under heavy pressure to sign up as many names as possible. This isn't just the phone companies, but big banks, department stores, even hospitals. > Verizon won't entice me back until they drastically drop the cost of > their unlimited local calling, included caller id and call waiting, and > add a very low rate long distance plan. I just don't use enough LD to > pay a fixed amount per month for unlimited LD calls. Everybody's situation is different. For myself, I found it cost effective to switch to unlimited LD. The reason was that while I make extremely few traditional "long distance" calls, I make a lot of local toll calls. Local toll rates are high as is unlimited regional local service (which is what I had before). Upgrading to unlimited national LD from regional LD is only a few bucks more. In the old days of the Bell System short distance toll calls were very cheap, only a few cents per minute. But after divesture every toll call, whether 10 miles or 1,000 miles away became the same rate. For myself, I was paying EIGHT times as much for my LD calling. So much for divesture saving us ordinary consumers money. I think the new era phone companies new most subscribers area of interest was regional toll calls, not 1,000 long distance. Thus, it was profitable for them to lower the price of 3,000 mile calls while steeply increasing 10 mile calls. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: ... Two questions you may wish to ask > the rep on a subsequent phone call: (1) is this new rate a > promotional thing for new/returning subscribers only and if so (2) > how many months is it good for? Is any contract required, and if so, > for how long? Very good and important questions to ask. A common practice today is to have promotional plans to lock you in, than later discretely steeply jack up the cost of service. Most consumers will be lazy and do nothing and keep the service. Another practice, esp in long distance, was to discontinue a plan and revert to higher a la carte pricing. A third practice was to add a service charge on top of actual usage charges. I avoided many LD plans that add a $5/month service charge since that $5 far outweighed any savings from the plan. I will note that my Verizon LD plan has been fixed and trouble free since I got it. Having unlimited service does make it more pleasant to chat on the phone without worrying about the meter running or wasting calls to someone's machine and playing phone tag. > regarding a 'tie-in' to DSL service where you must take the one to get > the other My LD plan has no tie-in to DSL. However, getting DSL does have tie-ins to other services. One must be careful ordering DSL, although users I've spoken to are very happy with it. I'll probably go that way when I get a new computer than can handle the speed. > not at all very politic but interesting none the less: telco is > _supposed to be_ a common carrier utility operated at cost. Did the > operating costs suddenly make it feasable to offer this 'reduced > rate' now; if it was feasable earlier, _why wasn't it offered > earlier_? It has been fairly recent that the local telcos have been allowed to offer their own long distance service and bundle it with other offerings. Many parts of telephone service are no longer offered as "common carrier" status, that is, they have been deregulated. I think nowadays basically the local dial-tone line is all that's left of common carrier regulated status, everything else is optional and unregulated. The phone co can thus introduce or withdraw services and pricing as it sees fit. I pay a single phone bill to Verizon, but on the fine print (literally) of the bill are a variety of Verizon subsidiary companies offering various services to me, all bundled together. If I fail to pay my phone bill, Verizon can shut off instantly any of the optional services. However, it must follow PUC procedures for protecting local service. The bill includes a complex matrix of charge and payment allocation. That's really only the fair to go nowadays since the competition has the ability to market as it chooses, so the local Baby Bell should be able to do the same. Those who advocated free market competition in telephone service had a false idea that prices would be the lowest possible. That is not how it works in other businesses. Every business has some high profit items and low-profit items for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's more profitable for a business to charge a high markup and sell low volume. The sad fact is that our telephone companies, once proudly quite staid and proper, are now as slippery as the guy in the loud plaid jacket at the used-car lot down the street. In the old days, when Ernestine quoted you $4.65 for local service, that is what it cost you. Today the quotes are meaningless with all the extra "FCC Line Cost", "Deaf Relay Service", "911 Fee", "Porta number fee", "Help the Martian settlers fee", etc. I know others steadfastly maintain long distance rates are lower on account of competition. However I maintain it is technology. Cheap switchgear and fibre channels are a world of difference to what AT&T had to do to offer long distance 30 years ago. Rates were dropping long before divesture came along. Further, many toll call services, such as collect and pay phone, have gone up dramatically. Remember that the same technology that allows you to buy a computer for $500 that once not long ago cost $10,000 applies to telco equipment as well. [public replies please] ------------------------------ From: Steven Lichter Reply-To: Die@spammers.com Organization: I Kill Spammers, Inc. (c) 2005 A Rot in Hell Co. Subject: Re: Phishers Lure Google Users With Bogus Google Cash Prizes Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 00:55:27 GMT Jay Wrolstad wrote: > Jay Wrolstad, newsfactor.com > An online scam offering the lure of free money through a bogus Google > Web site has been uncovered by security company Websense, which > reported that the site was shut down about 30 hours after it was first > discovered on Monday. > The phishing attack employed a page that closely resembled the real > Google home page, with a banner message claiming "You won $400.00!" > Users were instructed to collect their prize money by transferring it > to a credit card. To do so, they were asked to provide their account > numbers. They also were asked to provide their home addresses and > phone numbers. > After the sensitive personal information was collected, users were > redirected to Google's legitimate Web site. The phishing site was > hosted in the U.S., Websense said. > Direct Approach > "This is a little different than other phishing attacks in that it > attempted to entice people into divulging their credentials and using > the Google name, as opposed to attacks that target banks or e-commerce > sites," said Dan Hubbard, senior director of security research at > Websense. > This particular phishing site did host other attacks targeting > financial institutions, he added, noting that the approach taken by > these criminals was fairly rudimentary when compared with attacks that > use a Trojan horse or log a user's keystrokes. > Attacks on the Rise > And the Google mimicry reflects a disturbing trend. A recent Gartner > survey showed that phishing attacks grew at double-digit rates last > year in the U.S. > In the 12 months ending in May 2005, some 73 million U.S. Internet > users said they received an average of more than 50 phishing e-mails > in the prior year; some users reported a dozen or more daily. > And an estimated 2.4 million online consumers report losing money > directly because of the phishing attacks. Of these, approximately 1.2 > million consumers lost $929 million during the year preceding the > survey, Gartner reported. > "The standard security rules apply in protecting yourself from a > phishing attack," said Hubbard. "Don't click on links in e-mail > messages, type in the address of a bank yourself, run the latest > antivirus software, and obtain the latest security patches." > "And," Hubbard noted, "you can assume that anyone offering you some > sum of money on the net is most likely just a crook." > Copyright 2005 NewsFactor Network, Inc. > NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the > daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at > http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new > articles daily. I think when these people are cought, they should just shoot them right on the spot, after a few public shootings then they will all get the idea!!!! The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2005 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot in Hell Co. ------------------------------ From: ellis@no.spam Subject: Re: Good News, Linux Users! A Worm Just for You Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 01:51:47 -0000 Organization: S.P.C.A.A. In article , Nancy Weil wrote: > Linux users should update antivirus software No, Linux users should intall the PHP updates that fix the XML-RPC problem. http://www.spinics.net/linux/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 22:59:10 -0500 From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: NN0 Central Office Codes On Wed, 9 Nov 2005 19:24:39 UTC, wollman@khavrinen.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) wrote, >> If there was ever an Allston CO, it was gone many years ago. > I don't think so. It's located on the short diagonal street behind > the gas station at the corner of Western and Harvard. Now it's > probably just a remote wirecenter on the Brighton CO. That would probably be Spurr St., behind the Gulf. City on-line tax records show the entire triangular mini-block to belong to Cumberland Farms (which runs Gulf stations), while Harvard owns the other side of the street. No land nearby appear to belong to Verizon (under any of its names). It is possible, though, that they have a hut there, something that is not classified as a wire center, on rented land. (The LERG shows no switches in Allston.) They might, for instance, have a Digital Loop Carrier. But the nearby Soldiers Field Park apartment complex, while in North Allston, has Harvard extensions (617-498). Nearby buildings on Western also have Cambridge numbers. Perhaps it's a Cambridge DLC, though being so close to the Cambridge-Ware St. CO, I'd be a little surprised they'd use one. Also it would be right on the rate center boundary, a strange place for a DLC. In any case, all of Verizon's Brighton prefix codes are homed on the Brighton (Wirt St.) switch. > (When I lived in Brighton, I also had an ASPinwall (617-277) number > and Brookline ZIP code. This did not result in lower insurance rates; > the insurance companies have maps that show where the town line lies > -- as do the city and town parking offices. The other important > Brookline exchange you didn't mention was BEAcon (617-232).) Funny; when I moved my car registration to Massachusetts in 1978, I gave my "Brookline 02146" postal address for my Brighton apartment, and got the Brookline rate. It was all on ZIP code; different Boston ZIPs got different rates, almost always higher than anyplace else in the state. I wonder if they changed that rule. Thanks for pointing out BEAcon; I knew I was forgetting at least one. >> The 617-931 choke exchange is listed in the LERG to the Cambridge 02T >> tandem, a DMS-200. It's one of two tandems in VZ's 210 Bent St. CO >> (the other is a 5E; a 4E next door, at 250, has been >> decommissioned). If MIT still gets its dial tone from VZ, it comes >> out of Bent St. > MIT has its own 5ESS and has for a long time (it was one of the first > 5E's sold to a non-telco customer). There's a project on now to > figure out what to do about it before it comes up for renewal next in > a few years' time. Yes, the MIT 5E was installed as a PBX, when there were not a lot of alternatives for that range (basically just the DMS-100, which as a PBX was called an SL-100 at the time). It must be about 20 years old. The 5E is still technically a current product, though MIT's may be an obsolete variant. Still, newer stuff is a LOT cheaper to buy AND operate -- smaller, less power consumption, easier, lower software fees. What can touch the 5E's end user friendliness is an interesting question, though. For all of its benefits, though, the 5E can't touch the old Dorm Line Strowgers for the hands-on experience. ;-) Fred Goldstein k1io fgoldstein "at" ionary.com ionary Consulting http://www.ionary.com/ ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #512 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Nov 10 23:39:24 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id EBE6814E0B; Thu, 10 Nov 2005 23:39:23 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #513 Message-Id: <20051111043923.EBE6814E0B@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 23:39:23 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.0 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAD_CREDIT, BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 10 Nov 2005 23:39:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 513 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Three Companies Shut Down by Court on Spyware Charges (Reuters News Wire) Hackers Use Sony BMG to Hide on PCs (Reuters News Wire) Senior Citizen Bloggers Defy Stereotypes (Carla K. Johnson) Gold at the End of Rainbow Cracking? (Monty Solomon) The Best Way to Get From Here to There (Monty Solomon) Infone to Shut Down (J Kelly) Re: Phishers Lure Google Users With Bogus Google Cash Prizes (Tim@backhome) Re: Phishers Lure Google Users With Bogus Google Cash Prizes (H. Henhouse) Re: Telephone History Enquiry: Earliest Pre-Pay Calls (Lisa Hancock) Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service (Tony P.) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Three Companies Shut Down by U.S. Court on Spyware Charges Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 15:40:40 -0600 A U.S. court on Thursday shut down three Internet companies for secretly bundling malicious "spyware" with ring tones, music programs and other free high-tech goodies, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday. The malicious software tracked victims' Internet activity, hijacked their home pages and deluged them with unwanted "pop up" ads, the FTC said. The assets of Enternet Media Inc. and Conspy & Co. Inc., based in California, and Iwebtunes, based in Ohio, have been frozen pending further court action, the FTC said. The court also ordered all three firms to immediatly halt downloads of the software. Enternet Media and Iwebtunes could not be reached for comment. Conspy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. According to a complaint filed in district court in Los Angeles, Enternet and Conspy bundled their malicious software with music files, song lyrics and cellular telephone ring tones offered free on a range of Web sites. The software was also disguised as a security upgrade for Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer Web browser. Iwebtines bundled the spyware with a program that plays background music on blogs, the FTC said. Once lodged on a victim's computer, the spyware was difficult to remove, the FTC said. Microsoft, Google Inc. and Webroot Software Inc. helped FTC with the investigation, the FTC said. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill in May that would stiffen jail sentences and establish multimillion-dollar fines for spyware purveyors, but the Senate has not yet taken it up. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Hackers Use Sony BMG to Hide on PCs Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 15:37:10 -0600 A computer security firm said on Thursday it had discovered the first virus that uses music publisher Sony BMG's controversial CD copy-protection software to hide on PCs and wreak havoc. Under a subject line containing the words "Photo approval," a hacker has mass-mailed the so-called Stinx-E trojan virus to British email addresses, said British anti-virus firm Sophos. When recipients click on an attachment, they install malware, which may tear down a computer's firewall and give hackers access to a PC. The malware hides by using Sony BMG software that is also hidden -- the software would have been installed on a computer when consumers played Sony's copy-protected music CDs. "This leaves Sony in a real tangle. It was already getting bad press about its copy-protection software, and this new hack exploit will make it even worse," said Sophos's Graham Cluley. Later on Thursday, security software firm Symantec Corp. also discovered the first trojans to abuse the security flaw in Sony BMG's copy-protection software. A trojan is a program that appears desirable but actually contains something harmful. Sony BMG's spokesman John McKay in New York was not immediately available to comment. The music publishing venture of Japanese electronics conglomerate Sony Corp. and Germany's Bertelsmann AG is distributing the copy- protection software on a range of recent music compact disks (CDs) from artists such as Celine Dion and Sarah McLachlan. When the CD is played on a Windows personal computer, the software first installs itself and then limits the usage rights of a consumer. It only allows playback with Sony software. The software sparked a class action lawsuit against Sony in California last week, claiming that Sony has not informed consumers that it installs software directly into the "roots" of their computer systems with rootkit software, which cloaks all associated files and is dangerous to remove. Sophos said it would have a tool to disable the copy protection software available later on Thursday. Sony BMG made a patch available on its Web site on Tuesday that rids a PC from the "cloaking" element that is part of the copy-protection software, while claiming that "the component is not malicious and does not compromise security." The patch does not disable the copy protection itself. The Sony copy-protection software does not install itself on Macintosh computers or ordinary CD and DVD players. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Carla K. Johnson Subject: Senior Citizen Bloggers Defy Stereotypes Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 15:38:51 -0600 By CARLA K. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer Forget shuffleboard, needlepoint and bingo. Web logs, more often the domain of alienated adolescents and home to screeds by middle-aged pundits, are gaining a foothold as a new leisure-time option for senior citizens. There's Dad's Tomato Garden Journal, Dogwalk Musings, and, of course, the Oldest Living Blogger. "It's too easy to sit in your own cave and let the world go by, eh?" said Ray Sutton, the 73-year-old Oldest Living Blogger and a retired electrician who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. "It keeps the old head working a little bit so you're not just sitting there gawking at TV." Web logs, or blogs, are online journals where people write about anything and everything that interests them. Blogs tend to be topical, and typically offer links to other Web sites, photos and opportunities for readers to comment. Bloggers say their hobby keeps them up on current events, lets them befriend strangers around the globe and gives them a voice in a society often deaf to the wisdom of the elderly. "It brings out the best in me," said Boston-area blogger Millie Garfield, 80, who writes My Mom's Blog with occasional help from her son, Steve Garfield, a digital video producer. "My life would be dull without it." And it's brought her a bit of fame. In June, Garfield was invited to speak at a Boston seminar for marketers on how to use the Web more effectively. A short video of the event, posted on her blog, captures the professionals laughing at her wisecrack about the benefits of a man who can still drive at night. Sutton, the Oldest Living Blogger, has also enjoyed some limelight. He was asked to take part in a talk radio debate on a controversial high-voltage power line after he posted his views about it on his blog. Three percent of online U.S. seniors have created a blog and 17 percent have read someone else's blog, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Compare that to online 18- to 29-year-olds: Thirteen percent have created blogs and 32 percent have read someone else's blog, according to Pew. Joe Jenett, a Detroit-area Web designer who has been tracking the age of bloggers for a personal project called the Ageless Project, said he has noticed more older bloggers in the past two years. "Isn't that phenomenal? And their writing is vibrant," Jenett said. He noted that sites such as Blogger.com give step-by-step instructions and free hosting, making it simpler to self-publish on the Web. "It's easy to start one if you can connect dots," said former Jesuit priest and retired newspaperman Jim Bowman, 73, of Oak Park, Ill. Bowman writes four regular blogs: one on happenings in his city, one a catchall for his opinions, one on religion and one offering feedback on Chicago newspapers. Bowman once had eight separate blogs, but has let some lapse. The blog topics he doesn't keep up with anymore include ideas for sermons, Chicago history and condominium life. "Like any other hobby, you've got to make sure it doesn't take over," he said. Mari Meehan, 64, of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, has been blogging since July. It's given her a voice in her small resort town where, as a relative newcomer, she felt rebuffed in her efforts to get involved. Inspired by other local bloggers she'd found on The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Wash.) newspaper's Web site, Meehan discovered it was easy to get started. "If you can read, you can do it," she said. She titled her blog Dogwalk Musings and based it on the premise that she would write about her thoughts during morning walks with her St. Bernard, Bacchus. Her posts range from nature sightings of a kildeer's nest with four eggs to rants about local and national politics. When readers started mentioning Dogwalk Musings as one of their favorites on a newspaper columnist's blog, Meehan said she felt compelled to post every day. But now she's backing off. "Lots of times, I'll walk away from it for three or four days," Meehan said. "I'm not going to let it take over." Response from blog readers does keep many older bloggers returning to their keyboards day after day. If they skip a day, readers will e-mail the older bloggers, asking if they're sick. In the two years since 92-year-old retired Tennessee poultry and egg farmer Ray White started Dad's Tomato Garden Journal, the blog has been viewed more than 45,000 times. White's daughter, Mary, said the blog keeps her father interested in life. White now has friends he's never met in England, Portugal, Germany, Canada and all 50 states, he said. "You'd be surprised how many questions I get during the tomato season," he said. "There's always somebody having a problem." On the Net: The Ageless Project: http://jenett.org/ageless/ Blogger: http://www.blogger.com Oldest Living Blogger: http://www.urbanvancouver.com/blog/ray Chicago Newspapers: The Blog: http://www.chicagonewspapers.blogspot.com/ My Mom's Blog: http://mymomsblog.blogspot.com/ Dogwalk Musings: http://dogwalkmusings.blogspot.com/ Dad's Tomato Garden Journal: http://journals.aol.com/white6416r/DadsTomatoGardenJournal/ Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more Associated Press headlines please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 14:11:26 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Gold at the End of Rainbow Cracking? Robert Lemos, SecurityFocus 2005-11-09 A trio of entrepreneurial hackers hope to do for the business of password cracking what Google did for search and, in the process, may remove the last vestiges of security from many password systems. Over the past two years, three security enthusiasts from the United States and Europe set a host of computers to the task of creating eleven enormous tables of data that can be used to look up common passwords. The tables -- totaling 500GB -- form the core data of a technique known as rainbow cracking, which uses vast dictionaries of data to let anyone reverse the process of creating hashes -- the statistically unique codes that, among other duties, are used to obfuscate a user's password. Last week, the trio went public with their service. Called RainbowCrack Online and submit password hashes for cracking. http://www.rainbowcrack-online.com http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11355 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 18:53:22 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Best Way to Get From Here to There By WALTER S. MOSSBERG Fewer and fewer drivers use traditional fold-out maps in the car. Instead, they simply print out maps and directions for where they're heading from one of the popular mapping sites on the Web, often moments before they leave. One such Web site, MapQuest, a subsidiary of America Online at www.MapQuest.com, has long been a favorite. Its straightforward, no-frills approach asks you to enter "start" and "end" points for your trip, and selecting "Get Directions" completes your navigational duties. Numbered instructions, a map, and an estimated total time and distance for the trip are retrieved to help you along your journey. Yahoo also built a following with a similar plain mapping site. But, since Google entered the category with a flashy new type of mapping service earlier this year, competition in the online-mapping category has heated up. All of the big portals and search engines are looking to build their local search businesses, which they see as a golden opportunity for ad sales and other revenue. And they have come to see their mapping functions as a gateway to these local search databases, which make it easy to find businesses and services in the areas people want to map. This week, my assistant Katie Boehret and I tested the old reliable, MapQuest, against Google Local, http://maps.google.com, and a new, enhanced version of Yahoo Maps, http://maps.yahoo.com/beta. Yahoo's new site was just released last week, and it's still in its "beta," or test, phase. http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/solution-20051109.html ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Infone to Shut Down Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 17:48:16 -0600 Organization: http://newsguy.com Reply-To: jkelly@newsguy.com I remember a couple years back some posts about Infone, the Metro One "teleconcierge" service. I got an email today from Infone telling me their service will be closing up shop on 12/31/05. I used it a few times and was quite pleased with the service. I hate to see it go, but I guess they only managed to attract about 83,000 subs after spending $70 million to promote the service. Not a real money maker. ------------------------------ From: Tim@backhome.com Subject: Re: Phishers Lure Google Users With Bogus Google Cash Prizes Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 13:54:44 -0800 Organization: Cox Communications Steven Lichter wrote: > I think when these people are cought, they should just shoot them > right on the spot, after a few public shootings then they will all get > the idea!!!! I would add to that list people who run red lights and stop signs, don't use their turn indicators (especially for left turns in front of on-coming traffic, and who weave in and out of metro freeway traffic at 90 mph. Come to think of it, people who use cell phones in nice restaurants should also be summarily executed. ;-) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 16:52:22 -0800 From: Henry Cabot Henhouse III Subject: Re: Phishers Lure Google Users With Bogus Google Cash Prizes Steven Lichter wrote in message news:telecom24.512.10@telecom-digest.org: > Jay Wrolstad wrote: >> Jay Wrolstad, newsfactor.com >> An online scam offering the lure of free money through a bogus Google >> Web site has been uncovered by security company Websense, which >> reported that the site was shut down about 30 hours after it was first >> discovered on Monday. [snip] >> Copyright 2005 NewsFactor Network, Inc. > I think when these people are cought, they should just shoot them > right on the spot, after a few public shootings then they will all get > the idea!!!! > The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? > (c) 2005 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot in Hell Co. I'm looking forward to the day when a few hackers in Moscow crack in to a system the Russian Mafia uses ... can we say "execution" ? Hum ... here's an idea ... there are many countries that routinely violate human rights ... let's take up a collection and bribe a judge to impose a few death sentences here and there on script kiddies and phishers :) ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Telephone History Enquiry: Earliest Pre-Pay Calls Date: 10 Nov 2005 13:43:25 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com John R. Covert wrote: > Telephone History Buffs: > I'm looking for information on early pre-pay systems that did not > require special telephones. To be relevant to my search, the pre-pay > system would need to: > 1. Have been implemented before 1987. > 2. Have documentation that we could find today. > 3. Not require special telephone stations. Are you talking about long distance, local service, or both? I am not aware of any such services offered to the general market. It is possible some sub-contractors might have offered such a service to a limited population, such as boarding house residents or college students in a dorm, where a private PBX operator manually tracked calls and verified deposit balances. It is possible the phone company offered such services on a trial or limited basis in a few locations. Deposit accounts of various sorts were common in institutions. Students would get meal cards which would get punched for each meal eaten until the card was punched down. Such prepaid accounts would be used in other situations such as laundry or for transient populations where the risk of default was high. Transit fare tokens are a form of a deposit account -- you buy the tokens in advance and use them as you go. There were once tokens for laundries, cafeterias, etc. Today mag cards and computers have replaced cardboard and tokens. Toll bridges have deposit accounts and cars use transponders ("EZ PASS"). It was common for the telephone company to require an up front deposit for someone to get telephone service if they never had it before or had bad credit. If you paid your bill on time for a while the deposit would be refunded.* They said long distance charges would be monitored and suspended if I exceeded my deposit balance. I was making many calls but never heard from them. I do wonder how closely Bell monitored toll usage against deposit balances. I've heard they got burned by people running up big bills and not paying them, despite having a deposit. The PUCs tend to favor the poor guy over the big corporation. *(I recall getting a handsome refund check still using the old style Bell logo and Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania spelled out in fancy type even though they had the modern logo and went by Bell of PA). ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service Organization: Ace Tomato and Cement Co. Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 18:34:30 -0500 In article , ap@telecom-digest.org say: > By BRUCE MEYERSON, AP Business Writer > Verizon Communications Inc. sharply cut its prices for unlimited > telephone service across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic on Tuesday, > including markets where Cablevision Inc. has just boosted broadband > Internet speeds. > The latest jockeying augurs an ever fiercer struggle ahead between the > phone and cable TV industries, with consumers getting lower prices and > advanced services. > The new Verizon plans range from $35 to $40 for unlimited local and > domestic long-distance plus call waiting, caller ID and voice mail, or > from $30 to $35 for unlimited calling with no extra features. Taxes > and surcharges typically add $10 to $20 to the monthly bill. > Those rates are at least $15 cheaper than any of Verizon's existing > packages with unlimited calling, although many of those plans include > a larger selection of features and calls to Canada. While they might be $15 cheaper they don't beat the $27 a month I pay for VoIP. > The aggressive offers mark another tactical maneuver in the developing > showdown between phone and cable companies. The two industries are > increasingly venturing into one another's traditional markets in a bid > to win new customers with a one-stop-shop for calling, Internet, TV > and wireless services. > Verizon and fellow regional phone provider SBC Communications Inc. are > spending billions to replace their copper phone lines with fiber-optic > cables that can deliver cable TV, far-speedier Internet connections > and new multimedia and interactive services. > Using those new lines, Verizon recently introduced TV in its first > market, a suburb of Dallas, and now offers broadband download speeds > from 5 to 30 megabits per second in 800 communities in 15 states. > At the same time, Verizon is also competing aggressively on price with > its slower DSL service, introducing a $15 a month plan last month, and > now offering unlimited calling at rates almost competitive with the > $20 to $30 a month charged by providers of voice over Internet phone > services. > SBC has made similar moves in cutting its phone and DSL rates in a bid > to keep subscribers from leaving and to attract news ones while it > prepares for next year's launch of TV and speedier broadband > connections. > Cable companies, which have already lured away more than 5 million > customers for their new phone services, are responding by boosting > their broadband speeds and venturing into cellular service. > Cablevision, which competes with Verizon in New York City and its > suburbs, on Monday announced it was increasing the maximum download > speed of its lowest-price broadband service to 15 megabits per second, > up from a maximum of 10 -- which was already several times faster than > most consumer DSL services. The company also introduced new 30 and 50 > Mbps options to compete with Verizon's new FiOS fiber optic offerings. > And last week, four of the nation's biggest cable providers announced > a deal with Sprint Nextel Corp. to introduce co-branded cell phone > service by the middle of 2006. > The lower-priced Verizon calling plans, first introduced last month at > slightly higher rates in California, Texas and Florida, are being > offered in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, > Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Virginia and Washington, D.C. > There's no timetable for when Verizon might introduce the new plans in > its remaining local phone territories in North Carolina, South > Carolina, West Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, > Nevada, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. > Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: How odd ... so even SBC is in on this > new pricing structure. I can recall when our local CLEC 'Prairie > Stream Communications' first opened for business in 2002, they were > offering flat rate, open-ended packages of _everything_ for $25.00 > per month, and SBC complained to the Kansas Commission that 'Prairie > Stream is being predatory'; although the Commission left Prairie > Stream alone on it, SBC continually complained that 'Prairie Stream > will not stay in business very long at that pricing'. So now, Verizon > and SBC are gradually lowering their prices as well. PAT] Too little too late. They ILEC's are getting hit on all sides these days. People are tired of paying too much for phone service. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 V24 #513 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 11 13:39:19 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 52E5314EBC; Fri, 11 Nov 2005 13:39:19 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #514 Message-Id: <20051111183919.52E5314EBC@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 13:39:19 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.4 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 11 Nov 2005 13:39:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 514 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Vint Cerf Testimony to Congressional Committee (Circle ID) SBC to Ask Illinois Commerce Commission For More Flexibility (M Wisniewski) Vonage and 911 Saga May be Drawing to a Close (Gordon S. Hlavenka) How do I Detect the Number of a Phone Line? (jason.sandlin@wymtnews.com) Re: Good News, Linux Users! A Worm Just for You (Steve Sobol) Re: Good News, Linux Users! A Worm Just for You (harold@hallikainen.com) Re: Phishers Lure Google Users With Bogus Google Prizes (Steven Lichter) Re: Dutch Trial SMS Disaster Alert System (DevilsPGD) Re: Infone to Shut Down (DevilsPGD) Re: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management; Gone Too Far (M Solomon) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Circle ID Subject: Vint Cerf Testimony to Congressional Committee Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 23:19:39 -0600 Vint Cerf Speaking Out on Internet Neutrality By CircleID Reporter In a U.S. congress hearing held yesterday November 9th, significant focus was projected on 'network neutrality' and a new telecommunications bill affecting the Internet. "This bill could fundamentally alter the fabulously successful end-to-end Internet," says Alan Davidson in the post on Google blog. Vint Cerf was not able to testify because of the Presidential Medal of Freedom award ceremony at the White House, but submitted the following letter to the hearing: Dear Chairman Barton and Ranking Member Dingell, I appreciate the inquiries by your staff about my availability to appear before the Committee and to share Google's views about draft telecommunications legislation and the issues related to 'network neutrality'. These are matters of great importance to the Internet and Google welcomes the Committee's hard work and attention. The hearing unfortunately conflicts with another obligation, and I am sorry I will not be able to attend. (Along with my colleague Robert Kahn, I am honored to be receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Wednesday at the White House for our work in creating the Internet protocol TCP/IP.) Despite my inability to participate in the planned hearing in person, I hope that you will accept some brief observations about this legislation. The remarkable social impact and economic success of the Internet is in many ways directly attributable to the architectural characteristics that were part of its design. The Internet was designed with no gatekeepers over new content or services. The Internet is based on a layered, end-to-end model that allows people at each level of the network to innovate free of any central control. By placing intelligence at the edges rather than control in the middle of the network, the Internet has created a platform for innovation. This has led to an explosion of offerings's from VOIP to 802.11x wi-fi to blogging that might never have evolved had central control of the network been required by design. My fear is that, as written, this bill would do great damage to the Internet as we know it. Enshrining a rule that broadly permits network operators to discriminate in favor of certain kinds of services and to potentially interfere with others would place broadband operators in control of online activity. Allowing broadband providers to segment their IP offerings and reserve huge amounts of bandwidth for their own services will not give consumers the broadband Internet our country and economy need. Many people will have little or no choice among broadband operators for the foreseeable future, implying that such operators will have the power to exercise a great deal of control over any applications placed on the network. As we move to a broadband environment and eliminate century-old non-discrimination requirements, a lightweight but enforceable neutrality rule is needed to ensure that the Internet continues to thrive. Telephone companies cannot tell consumers who they can call; network operators should not dictate what people can do online. I am confident that we can build a broadband system that allows users to decide what websites they want to see and what applications they want to use and that also guarantees high quality service and network security. That network model has and can continue to provide economic benefits to innovators and consumers and to the broadband operators who will reap the rewards for providing access to such a valued network. We appreciate the efforts in your current draft to create at least a starting point for net neutrality principles. Google looks forward to working with you and your staff to draft a bill that will maintain the revolutionary potential of the broadband Internet. Thank you for your attention and for your efforts on these important issues. Sincerely, Vinton Cerf Chief Internet Evangelist Google Inc. CircleID is an Online Community Hub for the Internet's Core Infrastructure & Policy Developments. Copyright 2005 Circle ID. http://www.circleid.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: While Vint Cerf raises some very good points, he seems to overlook the fact that Internet already has a de-facto central coordinator in the form of ICANN. And while ICANN would seem to agree with Cerf on one point at least, that 'network operators should not dictate what people can do online' (which is to say they do not object to or stop spammers, scammers, virus writers and similar vermin) ICANN sees no objection to having very onerous contracts for regular users to follow. I'd accept his efforts at sincerity -- even if he is a bit misguided, IMO -- if ICANN would at the very least write their contracts to at least show disapproval of some of the crap which has taken such a chokehold on the net in the past decade. As long as things remain as they are now, where a regular net user -- like myself, or most of you -- can lose his domain name in an instant if ICANN chooses to enforce its contract and revoke us, while turning a blind eye toward the ones who need to be revoked -- virus writers, fraudsters, spammers, etc -- then I am not sure I believe Vint Cerf is doing other than putting on a good show for Congress when he makes speeches or writes letters such as illustated here. Quite obviously, Cerf is more than happy with the de-facto central authority on the net (ICANN). He would have been more honest saying "I do not want central authority _unless it is the central authority of which I approve_. And in his years of employment with MCI, Vint Cerf also sang a different tune: Control of the net by an MCI/ICANN consortium would have suited him fine. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Mary Wisniewski Subject: SBC to Ask Illinois Commerce Commission for 'More Flexibility' Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 10:42:21 -0600 BY MARY WISNIEWSKI Business Reporter Chicago Sun-Times SBC will ask the Illinois Commerce Commission today to declare the Chicago marketplace competitive to ease rules on how SBC can charge for residential local service. "It's like asking the commission to acknowledge the sky is blue," said Carrie Hightman, president of SBC Illinois. "It's to acknowledge that customers have a choice in phone service." Hightman said the requested ICC ruling would permit the Texas-based phone giant to compete freely with unregulated competitors like wireless and cable companies. Hightman said the requested ruling would not totally deregulate SBC in the Chicago area -- since the ICC would still look at its rates -- but would give SBC more flexibility. "It will enable us to price according to the market, whatever the market can bear," Hightman said. SBC had promoted a telecommunications bill to the General Assembly last spring that would further deregulate what SBC can charge rivals and customers. SBC had argued that SBC's real competition comes from cable television companies, cell phones and the growing use of Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP. The bill passed the Senate, but got stuck in the House. The new request is narrower than the bill -- focusing on residential service in the most competitive Illinois market. Having the Chicago area declared competitive would allow SBC to respond in a timely way to promotional offerings from rivals. It can't do this now because of regulation, Hightman said. The telecom bill had been criticized by the Citizens Utility Board, a consumer watchdog group, as liable to push up prices for consumers. SBC's current proposal could face similar opposition. Hightman said she believes real competition would give consumers better value and more choice. She noted that prices in the long-distance market went down by 28 percent because of competition, while prices for wireless service, which was never really regulated, have dropped 50 percent in the past four years. If it decides to investigate, the commission would have 180 days to review SBC's request. Hightman noted that neighboring states have reduced phone regulation. SBC has lost 1.7 million landlines in Illinois since 2001, Hightman said. In that same time period, consumers added 3 million wireless lines, 900,000 non-SBC landlines and 1.3 million broadband connections. In other news, SBC has reached an agreement with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 21 on the building of Project Lightspeed, an initiative to expand SBC's fiberoptics network. The agreement would allow the company more flexible use of contractors as it deploys the initiative. In turn, the company has agreed to rehire about 200 IBEW-represented technicians and has canceled the layoff of about 228 people who handle customer calls for network installation and repair at SBC's Lakewood Center in Hoffman Estates. Copyright 2005, Digital Chicago Inc. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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, Digital Chicago/Chicago Sun-Times. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml For more news headlines, check out our features such as http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/internet-news.html and http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 10:01:35 -0600 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Reply-To: nospam@crashelex.com Organization: Crash Electronics Subject: Vonage and 911 Saga may be Drawing to a Close I posted a month or two ago with a sort of "Vonage 911 digest", following the tone of their emails as the FCC "deadline" approached. The deadline was postponed, then canceled, and I thought that would be the last I heard from Vonage about 911. But I was wrong. Even after the cancellation of the FCC requirement, I continued to get strident emails urging me to view their 911 info page and activate my 911 service. These were the same emails I'd received before, just the earlier (less panicky) versions. Also, I continued to receive recorded transmissions on my Vonage number. Interestingly, these now don't fall through to voicecmail as they once did; they ring a few times and then hang up. But I recognize the 800 number on CID. Now I believe I may actually be hearing the last from Vonage on 911; yesterday I received this email: > Dear Gordon, > We have sent numerous notifications prompting you to provide us with > location information (street address) where you will be using your > Vonage service. This information is required to activate your 911 > Dialing service for phone number 1630-------. As we have advised you, > all VoIP operators are required by the FCC to provide 911 Dialing > service to all of our customers. > Beginning November 18, we will use the following address to route > your 911 calls unless you immediately login to your web account > https://secure.vonage.com/webaccount/public/login.htm, select the > Features link on your dashboard, and insert your correct street > address information in the 911 Dialing feature box: > [ My address appears here ] > No action on your part is necessary if the address above reflects the > accurate location where you use your Vonage service. In addition, > please note that if you have multiple Vonage lines you must activate > 911 Dialing for each line separately. > Again, if the address above is incorrect, simply login to your web > account (https://secure.vonage.com/webaccount/public/login.htm), > select the Features link on your dashboard, and edit your street > address information from the 911 Dialing feature box. > Please note that 911 calls are routed based on the street address you > have registered with us, so if you move your device you must > re-register your new street address. Also, if you add a line to your > account you will need to activate 911 Dialing by providing us with > your street address for that line as well. Remember, you can easily > update your street address at any time through your web account. > We appreciate your immediate attention to this matter, and we look > forward to providing you with reliable broadband phone service. > Sincerely, > Vonage Customer Care So they are going to default their unregistered accounts to the addresses provided at signup. I imagine that this will allow them to report "100%" to the FCC, and blame any errors on the customer. I originally got my Vonage line as an inexpensive way to "park" a couple of phone numbers, however that didn't pan out (although it looks like I may be able to work it in January) so I've been paying them $15/mo for a line that is never used. The only traffic on my Vonage account has been a couple of test calls and their constant efforts to get me to activate the 911 service. In retrospect I s'pose I could have spent my money more wisely :-) Anyway the ironic thing is that I'm moving to a new address, so now instead of a line with no 911 service I'm going to have a line with erroneous 911 service. (I know, I can just login and change the address. But, in the interest of Science, I'm evaluating their process here.) Gordon S. Hlavenka http://www.crashelectronics.com If your teacher tells you to Question Authority Should you do it? ------------------------------ From: jason.sandlin@wymtnews.com Subject: How Do I Detect the Number of a Phone Line? Date: 11 Nov 2005 07:48:11 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hey. I am going to be running a few new phone lines into my building. I have the TS21 Harris test set, but I want to be able to see what the number is on the line that I am testing. I have seen this done before, but i am not sure how. I want to do this so that I am sure that I do not cross any lines. I will be running the lines and testing them. I know how to test for tone, polarity and all of that stuff. I just want to be able to see what the phone number is coming in on that line. Please help. Thanks Jason [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In most communities there is a phone number one can call which will recite back to you the number you are on. The number to dial changes from one community to another, and itself is frequently changed. (It is intended only for telco outside plant technicians to use.) If you check with Mike Sandman mike@sandman.com or http://sandman.com he also has an 800 number set up to do the same thing. You dial into the 800 number; it reads back your number to you. And there are other 800 numbers doing the same thing, but I forget what they are. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Good News, Linux Users! A Worm Just for You Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 22:13:55 -0800 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com ellis@no.spam wrote: > In article , Nancy Weil > wrote: >> Linux users should update antivirus software > No, Linux users should intall the PHP updates that fix the XML-RPC > problem. Yeah. I'm trying to figure out how a PHP vulnerability ends up getting spin-doctored into being a Linux problem. PHP on Windows should have the same problem, no? Steve Sobol, Professional Geek 888-480-4638 PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Company website: http://JustThe.net/ Personal blog, resume, portfolio: http://SteveSobol.com/ E: sjsobol@JustThe.net Snail: 22674 Motnocab Road, Apple Valley, CA 92307 ------------------------------ From: harold@hallikainen.com Subject: Re: Good News, Linux Users! A Worm Just for You Date: 11 Nov 2005 05:46:36 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com ellis@no.spam wrote: > In article , Nancy Weil > wrote: >> Linux users should update antivirus software > No, Linux users should intall the PHP updates that fix the XML-RPC > problem. > http://www.spinics.net/linux/ It DOES look like people are trying to exploit this. Here are a few of the 404 errors from yesterday's log on my server. /MSOffice/cltreq.asp?UL=1&ACT=4&BUILD=6403 ... MVER=4&CAPREQ=0: 1 Time(s) /_vti_bin/owssvr.dll?UL=1&ACT=4&BUILD=6403 ... MVER=4&CAPREQ=0: 1 Time(s) /awstats/awstats.pl?configdir=|echo;echo%2 ... cho%20YYY;echo|: 2 Time(s) /blog/xmlrpc.php: 1 Time(s) /blog/xmlsrv/xmlrpc.php: 1 Time(s) /blogs/xmlsrv/xmlrpc.php: 1 Time(s) /cgi-bin/awstats.pl?configdir=|echo;echo%2 ... cho%20YYY;echo|: 2 Time(s) /cgi-bin/awstats/awstats.pl?configdir=|ech ... cho%20YYY;echo|: 1 Time(s) /drupal/xmlrpc.php: 1 Time(s) /live: 1 Time(s) /phpgroupware/xmlrpc.php: 1 Time(s) /wordpress/xmlrpc.php: 1 Time(s) /xmlrpc.php: 2 Time(s) /xmlrpc/xmlrpc.php: 1 Time(s) /xmlsrv/xmlrpc.php: 1 Time(s) Harold ------------------------------ From: Steven Lichter Reply-To: Die@spammers.com Organization: I Kill Spammers, Inc. (c) 2005 A Rot in Hell Co. Subject: Re: Phishers Lure Google Users With Bogus Google Cash Prizes Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 04:55:06 GMT Tim@backhome.com wrote: > Steven Lichter wrote: >> I think when these people are cought, they should just shoot them >> right on the spot, after a few public shootings then they will all get >> the idea!!!! > I would add to that list people who run red lights and stop signs, > don't use their turn indicators (especially for left turns in front of > on-coming traffic, and who weave in and out of metro freeway traffic > at 90 mph. > Come to think of it, people who use cell phones in nice restaurants > should also be summarily executed. ;-) You must be in Riverside, Calif. The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2005 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot in Hell Co. ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Dutch Trial SMS Disaster Alert System Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 00:17:06 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message Joseph wrote: > Using text messaging to warn people they are in danger is quick and > easy, says the Dutch government. > (CNN) -- The Dutch government is testing a mobile phone danger alert > system that sends text messages to people who could be affected by > natural disasters or terrorist attacks. > The system, called Cell Broadcast, uses GSM technology to identify > cell phone users in a particular area. > If a disaster occurs, a message is sent to all phones in the area, > warning of the danger. Now this is a damn cool idea. ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Infone to Shut Down Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 00:17:06 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message J Kelly wrote: > I remember a couple years back some posts about Infone, the Metro One > "teleconcierge" service. I got an email today from Infone telling me > their service will be closing up shop on 12/31/05. I used it a few > times and was quite pleased with the service. I hate to see it go, > but I guess they only managed to attract about 83,000 subs after > spending $70 million to promote the service. Not a real money maker. I signed up, but I never bothered to use it, I've just never made a 411 call either. The rest of their features looked interesting, but not all that useful since it wouldn't save much time. Sure I could call Infone and have them make a reservation for me, but I could just call and do it myself in the same amount of time. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 09:02:38 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Re: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far More on the Sony DRM ... Are You Infected by Sony-BMG's Rootkit? EFF has confirmed the presence of XCP on the following titles http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004144.php Excerpt from XCP.Sony.Rootkit http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/pest/pest.aspx?id=453096362 Furthermore, XCP.Sony.Rootkit installs a device driver, specifically a CD-ROM filter driver, which intercepts calls to the CD-ROM drive. If any process other than the included Music Player (player.exe) attempts to read the audio section of the CD, the filter driver inserts seemingly random noise into the returned data making the music unlistenable. Trojan horse exploits Sony DRM copy protection vulnerability Sophos issues tool to detect and disable "cloaking" flaw exploited by Trojans http://sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2005/11/stinxe.html Now the Legalese Rootkit: Sony-BMG's EULA November 09, 2005 If you thought XCP "rootkit" copy-protection on Sony-BMG CDs was bad, perhaps you'd better read the 3,000 word (!) end-user license agreement (aka "EULA") that comes with all these CDs. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004145.php Calif. Lawsuit Targets Sony http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2005/11/calif_ny_lawsui.html Perspective: Why they say spyware is good for you By Declan McCullagh Published: November 7, 2005, 4:00 AM PST http://news.com.com/2010-1071-5934150.html Sony gets an earful over CD software Program to block music piracy prompts privacy, security worries Carrie Kirby, Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, November 11, 2005 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/11/11/MNGFMFMNV61.DTL ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #514 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 11 17:56:38 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id ACEB714D9B; Fri, 11 Nov 2005 17:56:37 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #515 Message-Id: <20051111225637.ACEB714D9B@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 17:56:37 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.3 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, BODY_ENHANCEMENT2,MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 11 Nov 2005 17:57:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 515 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Showdown With USA Over Internet Control (Andy Sullivan) Telecom Update #505, November 11, 2005 (Angus TeleManagement Group) Spyware Maker Sues Detection Firm (Jim Haynes) Internet-History.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) MIT's 5ESS: (was: NN0 Central Office Codes) (Joe Morris) Re: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far (D Reinecke) Last Laugh! Woman Robs Banks While on Her Cell Phone (Associated Press) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Andy Sullivan Subject: Showdown with USA Over Internet Control Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 13:02:00 -0600 By Andy Sullivan The United States is headed for a showdown with much of the rest of the world over control of the Internet. President Bush says he doesn't care. Countries like China, Brazil and Iran don't like the fact that the world's only superpower oversees the system that guides traffic across the global computer network, and have pushed for an international body to take over that role. The United States believes such a body would slow the pace of online innovation to a crawl, requiring entrepreneurs to win permission from a cumbersome bureaucracy before introducing services like Internet telephony. "It would be akin to having more than 100 drivers of a single bus. Right now we have a driver, and the driver's been doing a good job," said Assistant Commerce Secretary Michael Gallagher, the U.S. official who oversees the domain-name system. Much of the business and technical community that actually runs the Internet agrees with Gallagher. But those groups will be relegated to the sidelines and the United States will find few allies among other governments at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis, Tunisia next week. "Materially there's nothing wrong with the current structure. But formally it is strange that something with such a global impact is being controlled by one nation, and there is a sharpened position against the United States' unilateral thinking," Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs Laurens Jan Brinkhorst said in an interview. If unresolved, the clash could lead to a split in the domain-name system, and Internet users wouldn't necessarily reach the same Web site when they type an address like "www.reuters.com" into their browsers. Experts say that's unlikely as it would destroy the consensus on which the Internet is built, but few expect the issue will be resolved at the United Nations-sponsored event. The head of the U.S. delegation said the dispute has distracted attention from the summit's original focus on bringing advanced communications to the developing world. "As far as I can tell, these discussions about Internet governance won't put one more computer or one more cell phone or one more anything into the hands of somebody who doesn't have it in Africa, Asia, South America or elsewhere," Ambassador David Gross said in an interview. GOOGLE-POWER Others point out that search engines are gradually making the domain-name system irrelevant. "This is such a sideshow debate," said Oxford University professor Jonathan Zittrain. "If you couldn't find IBM at ibm.com, what would you do? You would Google it, and there you'd be." The dispute revolves around a simple list stored in thousands of domain-name servers around the globe. That list, known as the "root zone file," serves as a master telephone book for the Internet's 259 "top level" domains -- those portions of the domain name that appear behind the final dot, such as ".com," ".org" or the United Kingdom's ."uk." The list only changes when a California nonprofit body called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, adds new top-level domains or redelegates the ones that exist. ICANN can't make any changes without the approval of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Some countries worry that the United States could use this system to effectively "unplug" a nation from the Internet by redirecting its country code. Experts say that would be difficult to pull off because it would require thousands of computer administrators across the globe to cooperate. Gallagher says the United States has kept politics out of the root since it set up ICANN in 1998. But in August he asked ICANN to postpone work on a .xxx domain for sex sites after conservative groups urged the Commerce Department to block it. "Nothing would have happened unless the U.S. government sent that letter," said Syracuse University professor Milton Mueller, who chairs ICANN's noncommercial users group. Business and technical experts say the United States would have been better off expressing its concerns through ICANN's government committee rather than taking a stand on its own. Gallagher said he sent the letter to express concerns in as transparent a manner as possible and avoid charges of backroom manipulation. "(When) other countries have done it, it's not a foul. For some reason when the U.S. does it it's a foul," he said. Though the United States does not plan to give up control of the domain-name system, the summit may lead to other changes. The United States has said it's willing to give other countries more direct control over their own country codes, and ICANN is exploring ways to improve the relationship with its governments committee. Participants may also agree to set up a forum to discuss cross-border issues like spam and cybercrime. "I think the U.S. realizes in some way that they're picking fights they don't need to have," Mueller said. (Additional reporting by Lucas van Grinsven in Amsterdam) Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It seems to me that the USA is being sort of high and mighty on this matter. Just as the USA pays little or no attention to what other countries want or do with their two-letter TLDs such as .uk, .gr, and others, why would they now start worrying about what a UN-controlled body said regards (for example) China being the controller or Germany or UK? Wouldn't we still continue to do as we pleased anyway? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 10:33:20 -0800 Subject: Telecom Update #505, November 11, 2005 From: Angus TeleManagement Group Reply-To: Angus TeleManagement Group ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 505: November 11, 2005 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: ** 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/ ** NEC UNIFIED SOLUTIONS: www.necunifiedsolutions.com ** ROGERS TELECOM: www.rogers.com/solutions ** VONAGE CANADA: www.vonage.ca ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: Statscan -- Wireless Revenues Hit New High TWU Votes on Another Telus Contract Telus Begins EVDO Rollout Cellcos Plan Wireless Payments U.S. Government Opposes BlackBerry Sales Ban Cablecos Support VoIP Ruling 2006 Contribution Level Set Bell, Nortel Deploy Broadband in Chapleau More JDS Layoffs in Ottawa International Voice Business Improves Total Telcom Selling Assets Sasktel, Virgin Top Cellco Satisfaction Survey Hamilton Gets Cogeco Phone Service Prevost to Head MTS Marketing Videotron Expands ExpressVu Suit Telus Profit Up 21% ============================================================ STATSCAN -- WIRELESS REVENUES HIT NEW HIGH: Statistics Canada issued its quarterly report on the telecom industry this week, covering the second quarter of 2005. The wireless industry added 438,000 customers; operating revenues for wireless carriers reached an all-time record of $2.7 billion, up 16.1% from a year earlier. ** Wireline service continues to decline: at the end of June there were 19.2 million traditional residential and business lines in service, a 1.4% drop. Wireline revenues fell 2.8%, to $5.5 billion. http://www.statcan.ca/bsolc/english/bsolc?catno=56-002-XIE TWU VOTES ON ANOTHER TELUS CONTRACT: The Telecommunications Workers Union has submitted another five-year contract with to its membership for a vote. A TWU representative said support for the strike is weakening in Alberta, and the federal government had threatened to order a new vote on the previous proposal. (See Telecom Update #501, 504) ** This vote is being conducted by mail; the previous one was held at a series of membership meetings. ** Telus says that all unionized employees in B.C. have remained off the job, but that 56% of union members in Alberta were reporting to work by September 30, up from 29% at the beginning of the action. TELUS BEGINS EVDO ROLLOUT: Speaking to analysts on November 10, Telus CEO Darren Entwistle said that next week Telus Mobility will begin offering high-speed mobile data communications in five cities using EVDO (Evolution Data Optimized) technology. CELLCOS PLAN WIRELESS PAYMENTS: Bell Mobility, Rogers Wireless, and Telus Mobility have formed a joint venture, Wireless Payment Services, which aims to market a mobile commerce service within the next year. The service is to provide standardized wireless access to existing payment schemes. U.S. GOVERNMENT OPPOSES BLACKBERRY SALES BAN: The U.S. government has told a Virginia court that an injunction against BlackBerry sales and services would "prevent RIM from providing the services that would be essential" to enable U.S. government authorities to continue use of BlackBerry devices. ** Judge James Spencer has promised to "move swiftly" to settle the dispute between Research In Motion and NTP Inc. He may enforce either his previous injunction against BlackBerry sales in the U.S., or the failed March agreement between RIM and NTP. (See Telecom Update #485) CABLECOS SUPPORT VoIP RULING: The Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association has asked the Cabinet to uphold the CRTC's ruling on VoIP regulation. The CCTA says the VoIP market needs "basic safeguards to prevent anti-competitive behaviour." (See Telecom Update #481, 490) 2006 CONTRIBUTION LEVEL SET: CRTC Telecom Decision 2005-68 finalizes the 2005 contribution fee paid by all telecommunications service providers at 1.03%, and sets the 2006 fee at the same percentage on an interim basis. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2005/dt2005-68.htm BELL, NORTEL DEPLOY BROADBAND IN CHAPLEAU: Project Chapleau, a "technology showcase" developed by Bell Canada, Nortel, and the Township of Chapleau, has turned on high-speed networking in the Northern Ontario community, using Nortel "Wireless Mesh" technology. Researchers will study the project's impact on the community over the next 14 months. MORE JDS LAYOFFS IN OTTAWA: JDS Uniphase will cut another 300 jobs in Ottawa in 2006, leaving only 400 employees in a city where it had 11,000 four years ago. The company is shifting all manufacturing to Asia and Europe. INTERNATIONAL VOICE BUSINESS IMPROVES: Researchers at TeleGeography say that after a period of stagnation or decline, the international voice business is growing again. Global cross-border traffic grew 14% in 2004 and has continued to grow in 2005. International voice revenues reached $65.2 billion in 2004, up 7%. ** TeleGeography expects that international voice traffic in 2005 will make up 16% of the global market. http://www.telegeography.com/products/tg TOTAL TELCOM SELLING ASSETS: Alberta-based Total Telcom Inc. says it has agreed to sell its wholly owned subsidiary, Total Telcom Fiber Inc, to an undisclosed third party for $4.7 million and 90% of fibre sales for five years. The subsidiary owns all of the corporation's fibre facilities. SASKTEL, VIRGIN TOP CELLCO SATISFACTION SURVEY: J.D. Power and Associates says that SaskTel Mobility ranks number one in customer satisfaction with contracted wireless service, while Virgin Mobile, ranks highest in prepaid. HAMILTON GETS COGECO PHONE SERVICE: Cogeco Cable now offers its Digital Phone service to most residents in Hamilton. The rest of the city will be covered by the end of 2006. PREVOST TO HEAD MTS MARKETING: Dean Prevost, Allstream's Executive VP Consumer Operations, has been named Chief Marketing Officer of Manitoba Telecom, Allstream's parent company. Allstream VP Peter Ronan is now the unit's Executive VP Sales. VIDEOTRON EXPANDS EXPRESSVU SUIT: Videotron has increased the sum it is seeking in a lawsuit against Bell ExpressVu to $374 million. The lawsuit, filed in August, claims that ExpressVu has not done enough to protect its broadcast signal from piracy. (See Telecom Update #359, 395) TELUS PROFIT UP 21%: Telus third-quarter revenues of $2.06 billion were 6% higher than the same period last year. Net income rose 21% to $190 million. Wireline sales were flat, but wireless revenue rose 16% and now makes up 42% of Telus's total sales. ** Telus says the strike of unionized workers contributed to a decline of 2.2% in network access lines and a low increase in high-speed Internet subscribers. ============================================================ HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-mail ianangus@angustel.ca and jriddell@angustel.ca =========================================================== 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 late Friday afternoon each week at http://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 http://www.angustel.ca/update/privacy.html. =========================================================== COPYRIGHT AND CONDITIONS OF USE: All contents copyright 2005 Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. All rights reserved. For further information, including permission to reprint or reproduce, please e-mail jriddell@angustel.ca. 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. ============================================================ ------------------------------ Subject: Spyware Maker Sues Detection Firm Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 21:03:08 GMT From slashdot today, says RetroCoder, a spyware maker, is suing Sunbelt Software, makers of an anti-spyware program. RetroCoder claims that their end user license agreement forbids using the program in "anti-spyware research" and therefore detecting it violates the agreement. Once again, the inmates are running the asylum. jhhaynes at earthlink dot net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If the inmates did not run the asylum, chances are quite likely the asylum would not get run at all. Yes, there has to be overall supervision of the asylum, but most of them in the past, like prisons, by and large were run by inmate labor. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Internet-History.org Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 16:48:48 EST From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Some of you may recall when we had a site called http://internet-history.org which had a collection of articles and information on the history of the internet in one single location. Then one day it up and disappeared and apparently the person who was handling it for me had failed to renew it. That is an understandable error, that the person who has helped me all along with some of those things, such as domain names, etc would manage to miss a payment. One day the site was for history, the next day a cybersquatter got it and turned it into a penis-enlargement scam place. I had _thought_ that sort of web site was totally out of line for .org but then some self-proclaimed experts who when it suits them read the Digest were quick to inform me that was not the case; that anyone could have any name in any TLD they wished. To hell with the PIR charter is what they seemed to be saying. The same self-proclaimed experts also insisted that 'the same day the old holder releases the name, the new holder can jump in and take it.' Well, that was erroneous also. Public Interest Registry (at least, I do not know about others) has a 'Redemption Grace Period' of 30 days and a 'Redemption Hold Period' of the 5 days which follows the Grace Period during which time the site name is _locked and kept on hold_ for the original owner. And, ICANN has a similar grace period with similar terms. So, if one of the several self-proclaimed experts had bothered to mention that little technicality to me -- that redemption of internet-history.org was possible -- as a _legitmate_ web site and not just a scam thing, I could have mentioned that to the person handling it sometime within that month and gotten it redeemed. I notice that as of today http://internet-history.org is serving as a redirect to someone in UK who in turn refers users to various online casino services, another splendid example of going off topic in an internet group, again IMO. If I did not know any better -- (and anyway, what do _I_ -- an old man suffering from a diseased brain -- know about anything) I would say some of our self-proclaimed experts around here were very biased with their own political agenda for the net coming first and foremost, ahead of any truth which they claim to hold so dear. That seems to be the case so often, where our own political agendas come first. So now it would appear, since we are well past the month or so during which time http://telecom-history.org _could_ have been redeemed but was not (thank you, self-proclaimed experts, one and all) the Internet Historical Society web site is a dead issue. I do have a re-direct pointed to it via http://internet-history.us.tf which will have to do I guess. It appears however that Google Search does not deal with those redirect web addesses at all. Remember, as needed, an alternative address for the Digest is 'ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu' and to view our web site is http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives PAT ------------------------------ From: Joe Morris Subject: MIT's 5ESS: (was: NN0 Central Office Codes) Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 19:17:20 UTC Organization: The MITRE Organization wollman@khavrinen.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) writes: > MIT has its own 5ESS and has for a long time (it was one of the first > 5E's sold to a non-telco customer). There's a project on now to > figure out what to do about it before it comes up for renewal next in > a few years' time. Thread drift question: how common are successful hacking (old definition of the word "hack") attempts against MIT's 5ESS? When I was at the 'tute long ago it had a SxS (in building 10 IIRC) with the main number at UN4-6900, and one of the popular entertainments among the student body was trying to find a live wire pair from which one could dial "9" to make an outside call [*]. Occasionally someone would manage to get into the switchroom and do a bit of rewiring, although I don't recall ever hearing of any damage being done other than a few unauthorized LD calls. (But one of the hackers' exploits in 1961 or so was described in an article in Newsweek ... not for his "informal" rewiring jobs, but for his use of what today is called "social engineering" to make an international call from a campus-only line.) I'm having trouble imagining today's MIT students being able to resist the challenge of hacking into the switch and making it do "interesting" things. There were other PABX systems on campus not connected to the "real" phone system. The dorms had their own SxS plant (and a manual board in East Campus, being converted to an automated plant as I left), and of course the TMRC folk had a SxS exchange built into the model train control system along with a lot of other WECo switchgear that somehow found its way to building 20. [*] which resulted in an entry in the TMRC Dictionary: 9th Level, the: A level of communication attained most eminently by L. van Beethoven Joe Morris ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 13:20:35 -0600 From: Denise Reinecke Subject: Re: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far > Furthermore, XCP.Sony.Rootkit installs a device driver, specifically a > CD-ROM filter driver, which intercepts calls to the CD-ROM drive. If > any process other than the included Music Player (player.exe) attempts > to read the audio section of the CD, the filter driver inserts > seemingly random noise into the returned data making the music > unlistenable Could I ask a very stupid question here, and maybe this is so obvious that they defeated this? I assume that these CD's play in regular non-computer players, like the one in your car, right? Couldn't you just turn off all of the auto-run and all that stuff on your PC and play the thing just like a regular audio CD? Or is that something that they have prevented? ------------------------------ From: Associated Press News Wire Subject: Last Laugh! Woman Robs Banks While on Her Cell Phone Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 12:57:31 -0600 These days it seems that some people just can't go anywhere or do anything without a cell phone in their ear. In northern Virginia the police say they're looking for a woman who's been holding up banks while chatting on her phone. "This is the first time that I can recall where we've had a crime committed while the person was using a cell phone," Loudoun County sheriff's spokesman Kraig Troxell told The Washington Post in a story published Friday. "The question would be whether anyone is on the other end of the line or not." Investigators believe the woman has hit four Wachovia bank branches in recent weeks in Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties. In three of those bank jobs, she was talking on a cell phone, while showing the teller a box with a holdup note attached to it. In the most recent holdup, on Nov. 4, in Ashburn, the robber showed the teller a gun. The woman is described as well-spoken, with a slight Hispanic accent. Investigators say they're not sure if she's actually talking to someone on the phone or just pretending. They also won't speculate on why she's chosen only Wachovia branches. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #515 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Nov 12 15:25:28 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id A0B3514E1F; Sat, 12 Nov 2005 15:25:27 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #516 Message-Id: <20051112202527.A0B3514E1F@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 15:25:27 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.9 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, HOT_NASTY autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sat, 12 Nov 2005 15:25:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 516 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson EU Takes Swipe at U.S. Internet Oversight With ICANN (David Lawsky) Re: Showdown With USA Over Internet Control (Patrick Townson) Can You Still Build a PC For Less? (Tom Mainelli) Sony to Suspend Making Anti-piracy CDs (Ted Bridis) U.S. Enters Blackberry Patent Fight (Stephanie Stoughton) If You Wish to Get Away From ICANN Oversight and Registrars (P. Townson) EFFector 18.38: Action Alert - Horror Triple Bill for Digital (M Solomon) Re: MIT's 5ESS: (was: NN0 Central Office Codes) (Garrett Wollman) Re: MIT's 5ESS: (was: NN0 Central Office Codes) (Diamond Dave) Re: Infone to Shut Down (J Kelly) Delayed Flight (Fred Atkinson) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Lawsky Subject: EU Takes Swipe at U.S. Internet Oversight With ICANN Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 17:11:58 -0600 By David Lawsky The European Commission on Friday took a swipe at U.S. oversight of the Internet but offered no concrete alternatives, in advance of an international summit on how the Internet should be run. A U.N. report has proposed a multinational approach as a more democratic and clearer way of running the Internet. The controversy centers around the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California-based non-profit company set up in 1998. ICANN doles out Internet suffixes such as the familiar .com, country suffixes such as .uk, and newer suffixes such as .tv, .biz or .eu. It authorises changes to the "root zone file," which matches those domains with numerical addresses, but ICANN has refused to allow either .xxx or .sex and has refused to discourage spam and other questionable or illegal uses of the net. The U.S. Commerce Department has ultimate control of the root zone file, and Washington made clear recently it intends to maintain that role. The U.S. Commerce Department was expected to surrender its control of ICANN, but said in July it would "maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file." EUROPE CRIES 'FOUL' Europe cried "foul," arguing Washington changed the rules of the game and plans to keep permanent control of the system. "There was an agreement that the Department of Commerce control would be phased out but this summer the United States announced they would maintain this oversight function," a Commission official said. A second European official added: "We just say this needs to be addressed in a more co-operative way ... under public policy principles." Both officials asked not to be identified. The European Union will try to reach agreement at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis on Wednesday and Thursday. But the United States has said it will not agree to any changes. As matters stand, for example, if a country wants to change some aspects of its national top level domain, such as .nl for the Netherlands, that decision must be approved first by ICANN and then by a Commerce Department official. The European Commission wants to take the Commerce Department out of the loop, but it is vague about what should replace that. Pressed, European Commission officials referred reporters to its principles, which say that "the role of governments ... should be mainly focused on principle issues of public policy, excluding any involvement in the day-to-day operations." But to American ears that sounds like replacing what they call the "light touch" of American Internet regulation with potential interference from upwards of 200 countries. But European Commission officials say that 'light touch' ICANN seems to prefer should be at least tightened just a little, to firm up attitudes prevalent elsewhere. "We don't really see how an organization can have oversight and final veto control and not have an impact on day-to-day activities," said David McGuire of the non-government Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, D.C. "We don't think it's optimal for any government to be directly involved in the oversight management," of ICANN. He said the U.S. government has never reversed an ICANN decision and eventually the organization should stand on its own two feet. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: Re: Showdown with USA Over Internet Control Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 14:00:00 -0600 Andy Sullivan writing for Reuters, quoted Commerce Secretary Michael Sullivan in TD V24_#515: > "It would be akin to having more than 100 drivers of a single > bus. Right now we have a driver, and the driver's been doing a good > job," said Assistant Commerce Secretary Michael Gallagher, the > U.S. official who oversees the domain-name system. Unfortunatly no ... the bus driver has _not_ been doing a good job. The bus driver _says_ he has been doing a good job, but that is just his opinion. What bus driver would admit to doing a lousy job? > "Materially there's nothing wrong with the current structure. But > formally it is strange that something with such a global impact is > being controlled by one nation, and there is a sharpened position > against the United States' unilateral thinking," Dutch Minister of > Economic Affairs Laurens Jan Brinkhorst said in an interview. The United States seems to be saying, we invented the bus, therefore we will also appoint the driver. > If unresolved, the clash could lead to a split in the domain-name > system, and Internet users wouldn't necessarily reach the same Web > site when they type an address like "www.reuters.com" into their > browsers. And that would be bad news. > The list only changes when a California nonprofit body called the > Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, adds > new top-level domains or redelegates the ones that exist. ICANN can't > make any changes without the approval of the U.S. Department of > Commerce. > Some countries worry that the United States could use this system to > effectively "unplug" a nation from the Internet by redirecting its > country code. Experts say that would be difficult to pull off because > it would require thousands of computer administrators across the globe > to cooperate. Then why is the USA so concerned about internet being 'controlled' (as if it could be) by some other country? Would the same 'thousands of computer administrators across the globe' handle things any differently if ICANN was treated as a technical agency of the United Nations (just as ITU is now) than if it remained the sole property of the United States? Wouldn't the 'thousands of computer administrators' continue doing their own thing? > Gallagher says the United States has kept politics out of the root > since it set up ICANN in 1998. But in August he asked ICANN to > postpone work on a .xxx domain for sex sites after conservative groups > urged the Commerce Department to block it. But in this instance, ICANN and the conservative groups were in agreement about .xxx although for different reasons. Although conservative groups do not want to legitimitize sex for reasons of their own, ICANN does not really like the idea of sex being stigmatized, as they fear would happen with .xxx . It would be a lot like asking ICANN to start a couple new top-level domains (let's call them .spam and .scam and maybe .phish) to properly and accurately reflect where things are at on the net these days. I honestly do not think ICANN wants attention drawn to the overwhelming use of the net these days for spam, scam or for that matter sex. Where spam and scam are concerned, ICANN almost treats it as just an abberation, something out of the blue which 'coincidentally' happens and that we users should not be concerned; after all, the 'experts' will cure it for us if they decide it needs curing, and we can always 'filter' our email, and run virus scanners galore, isn't that sufficient? And they do not want to make things _too easy_ to filter out; that might make the internet useful for average, everyday citizens once again. > Gallagher said he sent the letter to express concerns in as > transparent a manner as possible and avoid charges of backroom > manipulation. > "(When) other countries have done it, it's not a foul. For some reason > when the U.S. does it it's a foul," he said. Because the United States _should_ know better. After all, we were a major force in the creation of the United Nations were we not? And the UN is headquarted here, is it not? Presumably there were good reasons for that. > Though the United States does not plan to give up control of the > domain-name system, So they have said at least a few times. > the summit may lead to other changes. Let's hope so. > Participants may also agree to set up a forum to discuss cross-border > issues like spam and cybercrime. Considering the huge amount of spam and cybercrime on the internet these days, I really have to wonder why the USA thinks it would be so awful having an 'oppressive government' involved in running things. Isn't the amount of spam and cybercrime we have now oppressive enough in its own right? Could (for example) China or Iraq make things any worse? In some ways they might make things _better_. > Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. PAT ------------------------------ From: Tom Mainelli Subject: Can You Still Build a PC For Less? Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 17:13:53 -0600 Tom Mainelli, PC World Conventional wisdom once stated that building your own PC was more than just a way to create your perfect computer -- it was also a lot cheaper than buying a finished system. However, in recent years economies of scale have overturned this truism, making it nearly impossible for the average individual PC builder to beat a big vendor's price when it comes to a basic desktop system. Don't believe me? Just try building yourself a Pentium-4 based system for less than you'd pay for any basic Dell Dimension PC. See, every day Dell buys a gazillion hard drives, optical drives, motherboards, and so on, so it gets a better unit price for these components than you do for your single purchase. The fact is, without cannibalizing half of your current PC's parts, you can't touch Dell when it comes to building a cheap PC. That said, I recently stumbled upon the satisfying realization that when it comes to high-end systems, there's still some wiggle room. Apparently this is the market where PC builders -- both big and small -- like to pad their margins a bit, so you can still save some bucks by doing it yourself. Super-Powered Shuttle When Shuttle recently announced its first dual-graphics-board system, I sat up and took notice. I'm a long-time fan of the company's small form factor bare-bones products and its fully finished systems, and with the XPC P 2600, Shuttle promised blazing desktop performance. I requested and received a fully outfitted (and notably expensive) P 2600 review system to test for our January issue. And I have to say, Shuttle delivered big time. This is one serious, high-performance desktop PC. If speed is your need, this tiny terror will not disappoint. Using NVidia's NForce 4 chip set and SLI technology, the P 2600's design is mighty impressive: The company fits two full-sized EVGA 7800GTX cards side by side in the 12.6- by 8.3- by 8.7-inch case. Also elegantly stowed inside: a Advanced Micro Devices X2 4800+ CPU, 2GB of memory, two 400GB hard drives, and a DVD burner. In our tests the P 2600 put all that cutting-edge hardware to good use and notched a WorldBench score of 123, near the top achievers in our Power Desktop category. Predictably, the unit also scored very well in our graphics tests. But despite its high-performance pedigree -- and its seven internal fans -- the system remains remarkably quiet. If the P 2600 has any weakness, it's a lack of expandability. There is no room to add parts to this machine: no open PCI or PCI Express slots, no unused bays to add hard drives, and no empty memory sockets. That means, for example, that you'll never be able to upgrade from the integrated audio. And then there's the spare-no-expense price tag. The shipping system I tested -- which included a 17-inch LCD, complete with carrying handle -- sells for a whopping $4635. Now, to be fair, I did ask Shuttle to load this system up with the latest and greatest hardware. And we all know bleeding-edge stuff is expensive. Plus, putting two NVidia 7800 GTX graphics boards in a PC is never going to be cheap. But $4635? That seems awfully high. I was convinced I could build nearly the same system for less. A lot less, even. So I pointed my browser toward NewEgg.com and got to work. Saving a Pretty Penny Shuttle started off engineering and selling bare-bones systems exclusively; it only started selling fully configured desktops a few years ago. I was pretty sure I could find the exact same chassis and motherboard combination as that of the P 2600. I was right: It's the $559 XPC SN26. From there I just worked my way down the P 2600's components list, most of which are standard-issue. One AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+: $884 Two 400GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 SATA drives: $471 Two EVGA GeForce 7800 GTX boards: $918 One Shuttle XP17 monitor: $390 One copy of Windows XP Pro (OEM version): $149 For those parts I couldn't match precisely, I picked top-quality alternates that weren't always the most expensive, but weren't the cheapest either. One Lite-On DVD Burner: $43 Two sticks of Corsair XMS DDR 400 memory (2GB total): $221 One Logitech mouse, keyboard, and headset: $110 By the end I'd pretty much re-created the spitting image of Shuttle's $4635 XPC P 2600 system in my shopping cart. Grand total: $3745. Doing the Math Now, if I were a math wiz I'd be a famous architect and not a journalist. But I'm pretty sure that's a huge savings. (It's $890, to be precise.) True, the P 2600 comes with some additional software, a system warranty, and a QuickStart guide and disc-based manual. However, I noticed that none of these things were made of solid gold, so I still think the build-it-yourself deal is a better one. I'm not here to give Shuttle a hard time for the price of its high-end system. The company deserves to make a profit, right? Okay, maybe I am here to give Shuttle some grief. I mean, just how big a profit margin do you need? In the end, I suppose the question for anybody who wants a system just like this is simple. Do you want to spend the time and effort to build it yourself and save some cash, or would you rather have it delivered to you ready to go? I didn't actually build this system, but if I had I can't imagine it would have taken me more than a few hours, including the OS install. My time is valuable, but I'm pretty sure it's not that valuable. For my money -- or lack thereof -- I'd build every time. Tom Mainelli is currently trying to figure out if he can turn in a receipt for Civilization 4 as a work expense. Copyright 2005 PC World Communications, Inc. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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 Communications, Inc. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Ted Bridis Subject: Sony to Suspend Making Antipiracy CDs Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 17:15:04 -0600 By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer Stung by continuing criticism, the world's second-largest music label, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, promised Friday to temporarily suspend making music CDs with antipiracy technology that can leave computers vulnerable to hackers. Sony defended its right to prevent customers from illegally copying music but said it will halt manufacturing CDs with the "XCP" technology as a precautionary measure. "We also intend to re-examine all aspects of our content protection initiative to be sure that it continues to meet our goals of security and ease of consumer use," the company said in a statement. The antipiracy technology, which works only on Windows computers, prevents customers from making more than a few copies of the CD and prevents them from loading the CD's songs onto Apple Computer's popular iPod portable music players. Some other music players, which recognize Microsoft's proprietary music format, would work. Sony's announcement came one day after leading security companies disclosed that hackers were distributing malicious programs over the Internet that exploited the antipiracy technology's ability to avoid detection. Hackers discovered they can effectively render their programs invisible by using names for computer files similar to ones cloaked by the Sony technology. A senior Homeland Security official cautioned entertainment companies against discouraging piracy in ways that also make computers vulnerable. Stewart Baker, assistant secretary for policy at DHS, did not cite Sony by name in his remarks Thursday but described industry efforts to install hidden files on consumers' computers. "It's very important to remember that it's your intellectual property, it's not your computer," Baker said at a trade conference on piracy. "And in the pursuit of protection of intellectual property, it's important not to defeat or undermine the security measures that people need to adopt in these days." Sony's program is included on about 20 popular music titles, including releases by Van Zant and The Bad Plus. "This is a step they should have taken immediately," said Mark Russinovich, chief software architect at Winternals Software who discovered the hidden copy-protection technology Oct. 31 and posted his findings on his Web log. He said Sony did not admit any wrongdoing, nor did it promise not to use similar techniques in the future. Security researchers have described Sony's technology as "spyware," saying it is difficult to remove, transmits without warning details about what music is playing, and that Sony's notice to consumers about the technology was inadequate. Sony executives have rejected the description of their technology as spyware. Some leading antivirus companies updated their protective software this week to detect Sony's antipiracy program, disable it and prevent it from reinstalling. After Russinovich criticized Sony, it made available a software patch that removed the technology's ability to avoid detection. It also made more broadly available its instructions on how to remove the software permanently. Customers who remove the software are unable to listen to the music CD on their computer. On the Web: Sony's XCP Page: http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp Russinovich's Blog: http://www.sysinternals.com/Blog Symantec warning: http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/securityrisk.aries.html Computer Associates warning: http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/newsinfo/collateral.aspx?cid76345 Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Stephanie Stoughton Subject: U.S. Enters Blackberry Patent Fight Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 17:17:15 -0600 By STEPHANIE STOUGHTON, AP Business Writer The U.S. government has inserted itself in a high-stakes patent fight over the popular BlackBerry device, saying it wants to make sure federal workers won't be cut off from mobile access to their e-mail. The Justice Department filed a "statement of interest" earlier this week to explain how the U.S. government, with as many as 200,000 BlackBerry users, could be harmed if a federal judge in Virginia issues an injunction against Research In Motion Ltd. to stop selling the device and accompanying e-mail service. If the judge issues an injunction, "it is imperative that some mechanism be incorporated that permits continuity of the federal government's use of BlackBerry devices," the filing said. The patent dispute with NTP Ltd. has heated with its return this week to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia -- nicknamed the "Rocket Docket" for its speedy resolution of civil cases. And RIM may have more reason to be concerned. In a status hearing Wednesday, Judge James R. Spencer appeared impatient to wrap up the long-running suit brought by NTP, which convinced a jury in 2003 that the technology behind the BlackBerry infringes on its patents. The judge immediately dashed one of RIM's hopes. Spencer said it was unlikely he'd delay proceedings to wait for a re-examination NTP's patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which recently issued preliminary rulings questioning their validity. "I don't run their business and they don't run mine," Spencer said, asserting that he had spent enough time on the suit and intended to move swiftly on key issues. Spencer, who issued an injunction against RIM after the 2003 jury verdict, but stayed it pending appeals, could rule before Thanksgiving on whether a $450 million settlement deal reached earlier this year is valid. RIM says it is. NTP says it was never finalized. The government filing by Paul J. McNulty, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said "there does not appear to be a simple manner in which RIM can identify which users of BlackBerries are part of the federal government." But James H. Wallace Jr., an NTP attorney, called McNulty's filing "highly misleading and inappropriate." Wallace said NTP has promised several times that an injunction would not apply to any government or emergency personnel in the United States, and said it would not be difficult for wireless carriers to identify such users. McNulty said one way to ensure continued e-mail service for government employees would be to create a database of their devices. He suggested the court delay consideration of the injunction for at least 90 days, given the potential expense and complexity involved in inventorying those BlackBerries. The filing included an estimate that anywhere from 50,000 to 200,000 federal employees use BlackBerry devices, which allow employees to retrieve and send e-mails when away from their office computers. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For other Associated Press headlines and stories, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html (also) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: If You Would Like to Get Away From ICANN Oversight and Registrars Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 21:34:57 -0600 ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is sort of a strange bunch to deal with. If you would like to get a domain name totally free of charge in another country which is essentially anonymous (you do self registration) try one of these possibilities: UNONIC (United Names Organization) http://unonic.com where you can register any domain name of your choice in the '.tf' top level. or JOYNIC http://joynic.com where you can register domains in the name of your choice on the top level '.tt' or CYDOTS http://cydots.com where you can register domains in the name of your choice in the top level '.ms' or DHS International http://www.dhs.org where you can register domains in the name of your choice in the 'n3.net' top level and a few other top levels. These folks are based out of Australia and do use 'American-looking' domain names i.e. '.n3.net' and they ask for a voluntary donation via Pay Pal. or SMARTDOTS http://smartdots.com where you can register domains in the name of your choice in the top level '.tc' All the above are self-service registration, meaning you do it from your own computer, picking the desired URLs and answering a few simple questions, set up the contact information _truthfully_, etc. Many of them also have email forwarding, and all of them simply redirect to your existingweb page elsewhere. The WHOIS information on many of them is totally confidential with only email of inquiry sent to you from the nosy person who is asking. They are all totally free to use, they all cloak the true name of your web site by using frames and your alias URL name. They all last forever, require no contracts and except for DHS are totally free but they like it if you use a pop up or a banner they supply. In addition to the country codes mentioned 'tc' 'tf' 'tt' and 'ms' they all have a raft of second-level choices under them such as 'net' 'us' and others. I've had several of them over the years; for example, check out http://patricktownson.us.tf which will take you to my blog, the same as if you entered http://ptownson.blogspot.com . I hope this information is helpful to you especially if you do not like the ICANN contracts, prefer to be anonymous, etc. PAT ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 17:44:56 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 18.38: Action Alert - Horror Triple Bill for Digital EFFector Vol. 18, No. 38 November 4, 2005 editor@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 354th Issue of EFFector: * Action Alert: Horror Triple Bill for Digital Technology * File-Sharing Lawsuits Fail to Deter P2P Downloaders * Justice Department Not Appealing Cell Phone Surveillance Cases * Uproot Sony-BMG's Invasion of Your Privacy and Your Computer * Report from Hearing on National Security Letters * miniLinks (6): What Would Justice Do? Clues on Alito * Staff Calendar * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/18/38.php ------------------------------ From: wollman@khavrinen.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: MIT's 5ESS: (was: NN0 Central Office Codes) Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 23:38:46 UTC Organization: MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory In article , Joe Morris wrote: > Thread drift question: how common are successful hacking (old > definition of the word "hack") attempts against MIT's 5ESS? I've never heard of one, although that doesn't necessarily mean anything, since I don't know the people who manage it. According to the first hit on Google, it's located in E19, with extensions in 24 and NW12 (i.e., the usual places for network gear). I have no idea where in E19 it is, or how well-secured those locations are -- but phone blocks are exposed in a whole bunch of locations that are probably easier to access. There's also the additional challenge that many lines, particularly "class A" lines with unlimited access, are ISDN lines using the AT&T proprietary BRI signalling to communicate with 7506 desk phones. But telephone equipment is ancient history; who would want to mess with that when there are *computers* around?! One story I can tell, as it was relayed to me by a hacker who was there: the original 7506es had a firmware bug. When the handset was off-hook, the built-in clock stopped running (presumably because they were using the same timer interrupt for the call timer). LCS was an early adopter of the ISDN phones, and my colleague told me that AT&T sent a technician to every office in the building to extract a ROM from each phone and replace it with a fixed version. They tried to get one of the buggy ROMs to hack on; I don't recall if they were successful. (This would have been mid-1980s.) > I'm having trouble imagining today's MIT students being able to resist > the challenge of hacking into the switch and making it do > "interesting" things. But don't forget that hacking ethics would prevent them from doing anything so interesting as to have an impact on public safety. Garrett A. Wollman | As the Constitution endures, persons in every wollman@csail.mit.edu | generation can invoke its principles in their own Opinions not those | search for greater freedom. of MIT or CSAIL. | - A. Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) ------------------------------ From: Diamond Dave Subject: Re: MIT's 5ESS: (was: NN0 Central Office Codes) Organization: The BBS Corner / Diamond Mine On-Line Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 21:54:21 -0500 On Fri, 11 Nov 2005 19:17:20 UTC, Joe Morris wrote: > Thread drift question: how common are successful hacking (old > definition of the word "hack") attempts against MIT's 5ESS? When I > was at the 'tute long ago it had a SxS (in building 10 IIRC) with the > main number at UN4-6900, and one of the popular entertainments among > the student body was trying to find a live wire pair from which one > could dial "9" to make an outside call [*]. Occasionally someone > would manage to get into the switchroom and do a bit of rewiring, > although I don't recall ever hearing of any damage being done other > than a few unauthorized LD calls. (But one of the hackers' exploits > in 1961 or so was described in an article in Newsweek ... not for his > "informal" rewiring jobs, but for his use of what today is called > "social engineering" to make an international call from a campus-only > line.) Most are probably worrying about hacking the campus computer system to change their grades. Most also probably have cell phones and could care or less about landlines. For landline service, most colleges use outside services to handle their LD service. Penn State, for example, uses AT&T ACUS (forget what the acromym stands for) and all the LD is handled via AT&T's OSPS operator services & calling card platform (Operator Services Position Station). Pretty hard to hack. Not impossible, but not simple either. Dave ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Re: Infone to Shut Down Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 21:48:20 -0600 Organization: http://newsguy.com Reply-To: jkelly@newsguy.com On Fri, 11 Nov 2005 00:17:06 -0700, DevilsPGD wrote: > In message J Kelly > wrote: >> I remember a couple years back some posts about Infone, the Metro One >> "teleconcierge" service. I got an email today from Infone telling me >> their service will be closing up shop on 12/31/05. I used it a few >> times and was quite pleased with the service. I hate to see it go, >> but I guess they only managed to attract about 83,000 subs after >> spending $70 million to promote the service. Not a real money maker. > I signed up, but I never bothered to use it, I've just never made a > 411 call either. The rest of their features looked interesting, but > not all that useful since it wouldn't save much time. > Sure I could call Infone and have them make a reservation for me, but > I could just call and do it myself in the same amount of time. So true. I used them a handful of times from my cell mainly because it was cheaper than using US Cellular's 411 which costs "only" $1.50. USCC makes it out like they are doing me a favor by only charging a buck fifty. ------------------------------ From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Delayed Flight Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 18:35:20 -0500 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Fred sent along this article especially for Veterans Day which was Friday, but it got here too late to appear in the issues of the Digest which went out yesterday. His sentiments are very good and appropriate for the occassion. PAT] I sat in my seat of the Boeing 767 waiting for everyone to hurry and stow their carry-ons and grab a seat so we could start what I was sure to be a long, uneventful flight home. With the huge capacity and slow moving people taking their time to stuff luggage far too big for the overhead and never paying much attention to holding up the growing line behind them, I simply shook my head knowing that this flight was not starting out very well. I was anxious to get home to see my loved ones so I was focused on my issues and just felt like standing up and yelling for some of these clowns to get their act together. I knew I couldn't say a word so I just thumbed thru the "Sky Mall" magazine from the seat pocket in front of me. You know it's really getting rough when you resort to the over priced, useless sky mall crap to break the monotony. With everyone finally seated, we just sat there with the cabin door open and no one in any hurry to get us going although we were well past the scheduled take off time. No wonder the airline industry is in trouble I told myself. Just then, the attendant came on the intercom to inform us all that we were being delayed. The entire plane let out a collective groan. She resumed speaking to say "We are holding the aircraft for some very special people who are on their way to the plane and the delay shouldn't be more than 5 minutes. The word came after waiting six times as long as we were promised that I was f inally going to be on my way home. Why the hoopla over "these" folks? I was expecting some celebrity or sport figure to be the reason for the hold up ... Just get their butts in a seat and let's hit the gas I thought. The attendant came back on the speaker to announce in a loud and excited voice that we were being joined by several U.S. Marines returning home from Iraq !!! Just as they walked on board, the entire plane erupted into applause. The men were a bit taken by surprise by the 340 people cheering for them as they searched for their seats. They were having their hands shook and touched by almost everyone who was within an arm's distance of them as they passed down the aisle. One elderly woman kissed the hand of one of the Marines as he passed by her. The applause, whistles and cheering didn't stop for a long time. When we were finally airborne, I was not the only civilian checking his conscience as to the delays in "me" getting home, finding my easy chair, a cold beverage and the remote in my hand. These men had done for all of us and I had been complaining silently about "me" and "my" issues I took for granted the everyday freedoms I enjoy and the conveniences of the American way of life. I took for granted that others had paid the price for my ability to moan and complain about a few minutes delay to "me" while those Heroes were going home to their loved ones. I attempted to get my selfish outlook back in order and minutes before we landed, I suggested to the attendant that she announce over the speaker a request for everyone to remain in their seats until our heroes were allowed to gather their things and be first off the plane. The cheers and applause continued until the last Marine stepped off and we all rose to go about our too often taken for gr! anted everyday freedoms. I felt proud of them. I felt it an honor and a privilege to be among the first to welcome them home and say "Thank You for a job well done." I vowed that I will never forget that flight nor the lesson learned. I can't say it enough, THANK YOU to those Veterans and active servicemen and women who may read this and a prayer for those who cannot because they are no longer with us. GOD BLESS AMERICA! WELCOME HOME! AND THANKS FOR A JOB WELL DONE!!!!! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Ditto from myself and I am sure, many readers of this Digest. Regardless of what you or I may think about the situation in Iraq and other parts of the world, it is _not_ the fault of these brave men and women, who are there following the instructions they have been given. Although the end result of the war in Iraq may well turn out to be the debacle we saw in Vietnam, and I would not be surprised if it did turn out that way, considering the higher up authorities in our nation and their role in it all, at least I hope the American public has 'wised up' enough to place any blame where it belongs, which is _not_ on the average American soldier. Bless them, one and all. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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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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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V24 #516 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Nov 13 18:15:29 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 3432614F0E; Sun, 13 Nov 2005 18:15:28 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #517 Message-Id: <20051113231528.3432614F0E@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 18:15:28 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.1 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, FULL_REFUND,NO_COST autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sun, 13 Nov 2005 18:15:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 517 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Getting the 411 on 911 Service (Aoife M. McEvoy) Moving Your Phone Number to VOIP (PC World RSS Feed) Expedia Pricing Error Irks Several Users (Kyle Peterson) Spinners and Bloggers: Political Communication in Digital Age (M Solomon) And the Emmy for Best Actor on iPods Goes to ... (Monty Solomon) For 'CSI,' Press A1 (Monty Solomon) Comcast, Verizon Wage Licensing War/Towns in Cable Crossfire (M Solomon) Crunching Metadata/What Google Print Tells Us About Books (Monty Solomon) Most Viewers are in Dark About Digital Television (Monty Solomon) NYC Taxis Prepare to go Wireless With a Backseat Upgrade (Monty Solomon) Re: MIT's 5ESS: (was: NNO Central Office Codes) (Tony P.) Re: MIT's 5ESS: (was: NN0 Central Office Codes) (Garrett Wollman) Re: Can You Still Build a PC For Less? (Thomas A. Horsley) Re: "Soft Dial Tone" on Unused Lines (Michael Chance) Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset (CharlesH) Re: If You Want to Get Away From ICANN Oversight; Registrars (Dave Garland) Re: Infone to Shut Down (DevilsPGD) Online Small-Scale POSTAL Mailing Firms? (AES) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Aoife M. McEvoy Subject: Getting the 411 on 911 Service Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 17:40:39 -0600 Net Phone Zone Senior Editor Aoife M. McEvoy explores the exciting new world of Internet telephony, from hardware and services to government policy. The 411 on 911 Access to 911 emergency services is one of the most controversial issues in VoIP today. Here's what it's all about -- and what it means for you. I hope I never have to dial 911. I hope you never have to, either. However, in emergency situations, you'd like to know that the first phone you grab -- no matter where you are -- allows you to dial 911 without any problems. In the case of a traditional landline phone, in which the phone number is tied to a physical location, you're hooked up to the national 911 network. When you dial 911, your call is automatically routed to emergency response personnel at your local PSAP (Public Service Answering Point or Public Safety Answering Point). In most areas of the country (exceptions include remote parts of Alaska), the dispatcher who picks up your call also sees your phone number and street address pop up on screen. This "location technology" is known as Enhanced 911 or E911. When it comes to Voice-over-IP phone services, though, it's a very different (and scary) story. For one thing, your VoIP phone number does not have to correlate with the area where you live. As long as the area code is available, Jane Doe in San Francisco, for instance, can sign up for a Miami Beach-based area code. These so-called nomadic or out-of-region phone numbers can wreak havoc with the 911 system; the last thing you'd want is for your emergency call in California to get routed to the east coast. Also, 911 dialing on a VoIP service is not usually set up by default. To make it happen, you need to register your street address with your VoIP provider. This involves filling out a form on the company's site. Right now, if you dial 911 using a service such as Primus Telecommunications' Lingo, which doesn't offer E911, you're tapping into a workaround for emergency service: Your call goes to an administrative telephone line at the PSAP in your area, which is more like a switchboard of sorts. The operator or receptionist who picks up your call may or may not be a trained emergency agent; this operator cannot see your street address, and may not even see your number, so you have to relay this information verbally -- wasting precious, precious time. (Let's not even think about an emergency situation in which you can't speak.) Based on the information you provide, the operator then handles the dispatch portion by contacting the appropriate public service agency, such as the fire department, the police, and so on. After normal business hours, the situation can be even more troubling: Depending on where you live, your 911 call may end up at the switchboard or an answering machine at your local sheriff's office. And you know the drill: "Thank you for calling. Our offices are now closed. If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial 911." With Verizon's VoiceWing plan, for example, which offers limited 911 access, the company clearly states that in some areas of the country, your 911 call may simply not go through. Of the ten VoIP companies I looked at -- most of them offering nationwide service -- only America Online and 8x8 offer E911 service -- meaning that when subscribers dial 911, their phone number and physical address appear on the screen of the operator answering the call. AOL offers E911 for free, but 8x8 charges you for the privilege: $10 to activate E911 service and a $1.50 monthly fee. With AT&T's CallVantage VoIP service, you might get E911 at no charge, but this depends on where you live; otherwise, you will have access to the typical 911 workaround. Vonage, meanwhile, has rolled out a free trial version of E911 service for customers in Rhode Island. All this is about to change thanks to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's recent approval of regulations that require all VoIP providers to offer E911 service by the end of the year. Once the new rules are published in the Federal Register, which should happen by mid-July, VoIP providers will have 120 days to deliver the goods, so VoIP customers should have E911 available by October or November. For more details, read "FCC Requires VoIP Providers to Offer E911 Service." Behind the Scenes The FCC's mandate is great news for VoIP users -- peace of mind, at last. You may already know about some of the tragedies that have unfolded as a result of VoIP's 911 shortcomings. In these terrible life-or-death situations, people were unable to dial 911 from their home phones. Instead they were forced to rush out to neighbors' houses to make the calls. And in the case of an emergency involving an infant girl in Deltona, Florida, it was too late. In my opinion, the FCC's action is long overdue. Sure, the new requirements will help prevent future tragedies, but it's a shame that families had to suffer because of VoIP's known failings before something was done. These limitations have been well documented for quite a while. While most of us rejoice about the FCC's action, VoIP players have their work cut out for them. Because VoIP calls are not routed through the conventional phone system, service providers need to find a way to connect calls to the national 911 network, which is controlled by the local telephone companies around the country, including BellSouth, Qwest, SBC, and Verizon. So how are VoIP providers going to comply with the FCC's mandate? In the case of the bigger companies with VoIP offerings, like Verizon and AT&T, it's not such a tall order: These companies already have infrastructures in place. Other VoIP companies will choose to work with the local phone companies, competing communications carriers like Level 3 Communications, or third-party systems such as Intrado. For example, Level 3 provides the behind-the-scenes infrastructure for 8x8 and AOL that enables the two companies to offer E911 capability (among other services) to their customers. In the past, as far as I can tell, some of the Baby Bells have been reluctant to allow VoIP companies -- essentially direct competitors -- access to their infrastructures. That's changing, bit by bit. For example, Vonage recently bought access to BellSouth's, SBC's, and Verizon's networks. And SunRocket got a head start on planning for E911 by working with competitors of the Baby Bells, including Global Crossing, for instance, to obtain access to local 911 infrastructures. Whether VoIP providers work with local phone companies or competitors to link to the 911 infrastructures, there is potential for trouble -- which isn't good news for consumers. "The difficulty would be in the integration between the VoIP providers' systems and these [infrastructure] links, and the testing to make sure that it all works as expected," says John Muleta, former chief of the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau and currently group co-chairman at Venable Communications. Of course, such testing will be critical before E911 is rolled out -- one huge thing that VoIP providers will face as they brace themselves for the FCC's deadline. Muleta knows firsthand about these things: During his tenure at the FCC, Muleta was responsible for ensuring that wireless carriers offer 911 services. The FCC requires the Baby Bells to grant 911 system access to direct landline competitors -- companies such as Global Crossing or Level 3, for example -- but does not require the Baby Bells to offer similar access to VoIP providers; nor does it put any limits on what they can charge for such access. So essentially, the FCC is making demands on the VoIP companies to get their E911 act together, but isn't giving them any assistance. Consequently, complying with the FCC's ruling is likely to be a huge financial undertaking for any VoIP company, and it's possible that some of the smaller providers will disappear -- or services that are in development now may not see the light of day. The New Ruling and You As of this writing, the compliance deadline is several months away. Only a handful of companies I contacted had details on their E911 rollout plans; most of them indicated that they would not charge for the service. 8x8 said that it will probably continue to charge its Packet8 subscribers, but the company did not have specifics at this point. BroadVoice expects to implement 911 in stages across its coverage area, and it hopes to meet or beat the FCC's deadline. The company is currently testing E911 services in some areas. And BroadVoice reports that it will have to charge customers for E911, when the time comes. Brooke Schulz, senior vice president of communications and government affairs at Vonage, says that the company hopes to have E911 available to the majority of its customers by the end of the year--as long as it has the necessary access to the Baby Bells' 911 systems. "If our current agreements with Verizon, SBC, and BellSouth fall apart, we will need to seek regulatory help in gaining access to those networks," adds Schulz. In addition to E911 availability in Rhode Island, Vonage plans to roll out the service in New York City in July. 8x8 expects to have 90 percent of its customers covered by the end of the year. SunRocket is ahead of the rest of the pack. The company says that it plans to provide E911 service to customers in its territories within 30 days of the FCC's original ruling -- it isn't waiting for the actual publication date. The company also says that it no longer sells any VoIP numbers that cannot be mapped to a physical address. In addition, SunRocket will stop offering nomadic numbers, reports spokesperson Brian Lustig. Once your VoIP provider offers E911, as with the workaround 911 process, it's not something that happens automatically. You will still need to activate the service by registering your street address with your VoIP provider. If you move or if you take your VoIP hardware with you to a temporary location, you need to go to the company's site and update your street address. Later this month, Vonage plans to offer new customers the chance to turn on 911 service while they're signing up for a calling plan. Currently, 911 activation is a separate thing; you have to turn it on after you've signed up for service. If you already have a VoIP service and are anxious about the lack of proper 911 service, the October-November deadline for compliance with the FCC's new regulations may certainly feel like a long way off. If you still have a landline up and running, then at least you have a backup phone system. If your VoIP phone is your only fixed line, there are a couple of things you can do to help prepare yourself for a worst-case scenario: a.. Make sure that your VoIP provider has your current street address. b.. Find the phone numbers for your local police department, fire department, and hospital emergency room, and program them into your VoIP phone (if feasible) and your cell phone. Better yet, set them as speed dial numbers if your phone has this function. E911 for VoIP services is all very well, but remember that if you're in the middle of a power outage or your broadband connection goes on the blink, you can't dial 911 or any other phone number. Period. To get around the power loss, you can plug your telephony adapter and broadband modem and/or router into a universal power supply -- and that will keep the juice going for a little while. But if your DSL or cable service fails, you're seriously out of luck. That's often enough of a reason to cling to a landline service and your old analog phone. Copyright 2005 PC World. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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: PC World Communications RSS Feed Subject: Moving to VOIP But Keeping Same Phone Number Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 17:41:35 -0600 PC World Changing cell phone companies? You can keep your number. Changing local phone companies? Same deal. Switching over to Internet phone service? Well ... Over the last several years, consumers have become accustomed to retaining control of their phone numbers -- specifically, being able to transfer them when switching cellular or local landline services. But the situation is less clear for relatively new Voice-over-IP services. The Federal Communications Commission has yet to decide whether and how number portability -- be it to or from a landline service, a cell phone service, or another VoIP service -- and other telecom regulations should apply to VoIP. Meanwhile, some of those consumers who venture into the brave new world of Internet phone service are discovering that even when no one challenges their right to hold on to a phone number that they've had for years, red tape can make implementing a transfer much more time-consuming than they expected. Jerry Gerlach, technology director for the town of Biddeford, Maine, says that while he's happy with his Vonage VoIP service, he was frustrated that it took more than four months for Vonage to transfer his phone number of 13 years from his previous VoIP provider, Time Warner. (Time Warner took only a few hours to get the number from Gerlach's landline service in 2001.) Gerlach says that he became "fairly aggressive" after two months, going so far as to track down a Vonage vice president's e-mail address and to file an online complaint with the FCC. He says a Vonage official finally told him the problem was the company's lack of a number-transfer agreement with Time Warner. (A Vonage spokesperson said the company doesn't comment on these agreements.) Why are transfers so problematic? Stand-alone VoIP firms such as Vonage must partner with traditional landline carriers to give customers any phone number -- new or existing. To transfer an existing number, a VoIP company must also possess an interconnection agreement, which spells out how a transfer will be handled, with the phone company that has been servicing the number. Then the VoIP company's landline partner can arrange the transfer. The customer is usually not even aware of these arrangements, but they can seriously prolong the transfer process. Sound complicated? It is. "It's a complex industry," says AT&T CallVantage spokesperson Gary Morgenstern. Even AT&T, which can offer its VoIP customers phone numbers from its own huge pool, is limited in its ability to provide number portability. The company still lacks the interconnection agreements necessary to transfer cell phone numbers, Morgenstern says. The good news is that if the agreements are already in place, transferring your phone number to VoIP service can be speedy and smooth. For instance, two other Vonage customers, Dan Bahr of Bellport, New York, and John Painter of Lewiston, Maine, both say that their transfers took less than the 20 days Vonage estimated for the process. However, both men transferred their phone numbers from Verizon, which has an agreement with Vonage. If you're thinking of taking the Internet-phone plunge and you want to retain your current number, you can do a few things to help smooth the transition. For starters, contact your prospective VoIP service (see our September review, " Net Phones Grow Up ," for suggestions) and ask whether it has an agreement with your current phone company. If it doesn't, you might want to wait until it does -- or shop around for a different company that has an agreement. Also, be very careful when filling out any forms: Even making a simple mistake like transposing two letters in the name of your street could stop the whole process and force you to start from scratch. Copyright 2005 PC World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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 Communications, Inc. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Kyle Peterson Subject: Expedia Hotel Pricing Error Irks Some Travelers Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 19:01:57 -0600 By Kyle Peterson Online travel agency Expedia.com said a glitch last week allowed some travelers to book hotel stays in Japan at stunningly low prices and that only some of these reservations would be honored. Expedia.com, run by Expedia Inc., posted incorrect prices for two Hilton International hotels in Japan. Some customers reported prices as low as $2 a night. The agency blamed the mix-up on an "isolated processing incident" at Hilton. A hotel spokeswoman described it as a "technical glitch" on Hilton's side. Expedia said on Friday that Hilton would honor some of these bookings and that other customers would get a $250 coupon for a package trip to Japan. The company also said it notified some customers offering to confirm the original booking at the correct price or cancel the booking with a full refund. Randall Besta, who had booked stays for 11 nights in Tokyo and Osaka next year, said that option was unacceptable. The 43-year-old Toronto marketing consultant had already booked flights for himself and a friend to Tokyo. He said he has received confirmation from Hilton saying the rate would be honored but that Expedia told him the rate was incorrect. Besta said he would think twice before booking on Expedia again. "If they come clean on this, then yes," said Besta, who booked his rooms for $3.48 a night. Expedia said that bookings for this month would be honored at the quoted price. But later bookings would be canceled at Hilton's request. The exception is for package deals booked on Expedia. Those also will be honored. Expedia said it was offering customers who booked rooms at the wrong rate a $250 coupon for a package trip to Japan booked prior to December 31, 2005. Travel must be completed by December 31, 2006. Bill Scannell, who plans to fly with his family to Osaka, Japan, next year, said Expedia agreed to honor his booking after he called several times to complain. "You can't weasel out of something like this," said Scannell, a 41-year-old publicist in Washington. "With travel you make plans. You buy tickets. I've been busy mapping out frequent fliers to get my family there." He said he had been considered legal action if his September 7-20, 2006, reservation at a Hilton in Osaka was not kept at the price he was promised. Scannell booked the room on November 4 for a total of $46.57. Expedia later told him the correct figure was $2,079.57. Expedia said one reason it was canceling the bookings was to prevent people from reselling the cheap bookings to travelers at higher prices. Expedia bookings are nontransferable. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 10:52:15 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Spinners and Bloggers: Political Communications in Digital Age Abstract For decades, perhaps for as long as independent newspapers have existed, political operatives have used "spin" to shape the way the news media respond to candidates and their policies. Spin can be understood as a kind of top-down power that depends on the social network linking political leaders and the news media. Some have argued that weblogs or blogs have emerged in recent years to disrupt this culture of spin. They see blogging as a grassroots movement that also tries to shape or control public perceptions of important events and issues. Others have claimed that the blogosphere has merely enhanced the influence of traditional interest groups, giving ideologues of the left and the right even more power to "spin" the world as they wish to see it. How can we understand the interplay between spin and blogs? How do each shape, some would say manipulate public opinion? How are each subject to abuse? Is the culture of spin and blogging contributing to the polarization of American political discourse? http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/forums/spinners_bloggers.htm http://web.mit.edu/smcs/commforum/mit-comm-forum-20oct2005-16k.ram ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 11:31:06 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: And the Emmy for Best Actor on iPods Goes to ... By LAURA M. HOLSON LOS ANGELES, Nov. 11 - The newest award in broadcasting excellence gives new meaning to the line Gloria Swanson made famous in "Sunset Boulevard": "I am big. It's the pictures that got small." The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, best known for handing out the Daytime Emmy Awards, is expected to announce on Tuesday that it has created an award category to recognize original video content for computers, cellphones and other hand-held devices, like the video iPod and PlayStation Portable. The category is to have its debut at the academy's next Sports Emmys presentation, and ultimately be added as a category for other Emmy presentations as well, including those for news and documentary, business and financial reporting and daytime television. The category will not be included in the prime-time Emmy Awards, which are overseen by a sister organization. The academy already hands out a technical achievement award for new media. But this will be the first time the group has recognized original content for cellphones and other devices, which have gained some acceptance among media-hungry consumers. Already several studios are experimenting with creating serials for mobile phones, many derived from programs already shown on television. The academy hopes the new category will draw attention to a rapidly growing business that is expected to expand even more as consumers, largely teenagers, adopt new technology quickly. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/11/technology/11emmy.html?ex=1289365200&en=aa8fc522cba9d24a&ei=5090 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 11:53:15 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: For 'CSI,' Press A1 By RICHARD SIKLOS and GERALDINE FABRIKANT Don't touch that dial. A video-on-demand venture that CBS announced this week was just one part of an urgent plan by the nation's most watched television network to prove to investors that a media company built around broadcast television has legs in the digital world. Most radically, Leslie Moonves, the chairman of CBS, is also pursuing a strategy that is sure to stir up cable and satellite operators: pushing to charge them for access to CBS, as they do for cable networks like TBS and USA Networks. He is also creating spin-off channels and expanding the network's presence on the Internet. On Tuesday, CBS and the Comcast Corporation, the nation's largest cable operator, unveiled a plan to sell reruns of four top CBS shows -- including "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "Survivor" -- within hours of their broadcast. The shows will cost 99 cents each, and will be available in areas where CBS owns TV stations and Comcast provides digital cable. The deal bears some similarity to recent agreements NBC and ABC have struck with DirecTV and Apple Computer. All are meant to adapt the business model of a broadcast television network to changing technologies and viewer habits, and find additional ways to be paid, beyond the advertising that has been broadcasting's sole source of revenue. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/12/business/media/12television.html?ex=1289451600&en=d3f5a48dda50055d&ei=5088 ------------------------------ From: Monty Solomon Subject: Comcast, Verizon Wage Licensing War / Towns Caught in Cable Crossfire Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 14:52:54 -0500 By Keith Reed, Globe Staff | October 30, 2005 Comcast Corp. wants to make sure Verizon Communications Inc. hears its message: The cable giant is not about to cede its prized turf to the phone company quietly. Comcast earlier this month sent letters to about 20 municipalities in Massachusetts warning them it expects Verizon to be held to the same terms spelled out in its contract with those communities. Verizon is getting into the lucrative cable business and could pose to a big threat to Comcast if its service gains a foothold. In one letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Globe, Comcast reminded Winchester's board of selectmen of a clause in its cable license that guarantees a 'level playing field' with a newer competitor; that is, Verizon or any other competitors' licenses should be similar, if not identical, to Comcast's, or Comcast would be put at a disadvantage. Already one Massachusetts community has inked different terms with Verizon. Early this month, Woburn granted Verizon a cable license but gave the phone company an escape clause that the city does not have in its contract with Comcast. The cable company worries that the Woburn deal will set a precedent that will allow communities to negotiate all manner of special deals with Verizon. Comcast spokeswoman Shawn Feddeman said the letter to the other Massachusetts communities reinforces 'our expectation that any new provider seeking a video license should operate under the same set of rules as Comcast.' Comcast acknowledged that it cannot stop Verizon from becoming a competitor. Moreover, communities generally cannot refuse to license any new cable competitor unless they have some compelling reason. But Woburn gave Verizon a clause allowing the phone company to pull out after three years if it decides it doesn't have enough video customers. Comcast has complained that the clause is unfair because its licenses don't include the same escape provision. Mayor John Curran acknowledged Woburn's other licensed cable firms -- Comcast and RCN -- don't have such a clause, but said it isn't a big deal. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/10/30/ comcast_verizon_wage_a_licensing_war/ http://tinyurl.com/anfp8 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 16:20:05 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Crunching Metadata/What Google Print Tells us About Future of Books By David Weinberger IN RECENT MONTHS, we've heard that Google is digitizing the libraries of several major universities and making the text searchable through its Google Print search engine-bringing cries of copyright infringement from publishers and author groups. Meanwhile, Microsoft says it will provide online access to 100,000 books in the British Library, and Amazon, which already sells digital versions of books, will soon sell individual chapters, too. But despite the present focus on who owns the digitized content of books, the more critical battle for readers will be over how we manage the information about that content-information that's known technically as metadata. We've been managing book metadata basically the same way since Callimachus cataloged the 400,000 scrolls in the Alexandrian Library at the turn of the third century BC. Callimachus listed the library's contents on scrolls, Medieval librarians used ledgers, and we use card catalogs, now mostly electronic. But until information started moving online, the basic strategy has been the same: Arrange the books one way on the shelves, physically separate the metadata from them, and arrange the metadata in convenient ways. This technique works so well for organizing physical books that we've long overlooked its basic limitation: Because books and their metadata have, until recently, been physical objects, we've had to pick one and only one way to order them in defined, stable ways. When Melvil Dewey introduced the Dewey decimal classification system in 1876, it was an advance because it shelved books by topic, making the library's floor plan into a browsable representation of the order of knowledge itself. But no one classification can represent everyone's way of organizing the world. You may file a field guide to the birds under natural history, while someone else files it under great examples of the illustrative art and I file it under good eating. The digital world makes it possible for the first time to escape this limitation. Publishers, libraries, even readers can potentially create as many classification schemes as we want. But to do this, we'll need two things. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/11/13/crunching_the_metadata/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 16:37:59 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Most Viewers Are in the Dark About the Future of Digital TV By Bruce Mohl, Globe Staff As the nation prepares to make the leap to digital television, Congress is trying to decide how many billions of dollars it's going to spend to make sure no TV viewer gets left behind. Unbeknownst to most Americans, TV stations across America currently broadcast shows in both digital and analog formats. Roughly three years from now, Congress intends to shut off the analog signals and complete the transition to digital TV, which offers the potential for much sharper pictures, more programming options, and interactive services. But not everyone is ready to make the jump. Americans own an estimated 70 million TV sets that rely on free over-the-air analog signals. Without converter boxes that are expected to cost $60 apiece, those sets will go dark when the analog signals are shut off. Those converter boxes will add up. So here's the billion-dollar question: Is this government-mandated transition to digital TV the equivalent of an eminent domain taking? By shutting off the analog signals, is the government required to pay for the converter boxes that will allow analog TVs to keep working? The House has proposed paying a portion of the cost, setting aside $830 million to subsidize the purchase of converter boxes, plus another $160 million to administer the subsidy program. The Senate is willing to go further, budgeting nearly $3 billion for subsidies and administrative expenses. The branches are trying to reconcile their numbers. http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2005/11/13/most_viewers_are_in_the_dark_about_the_future_of_digital_tv/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 16:42:44 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: NYC Taxis Prepare to go Wireless, With a Back-Seat Upgrade By Lisa Kassenaar, Bloomberg News NEW YORK -- For those who hate battling for a taxi on a crowded New York corner and then fumbling for the fare, relief may be just around the corner. The city's 12,766 yellow cabs are scheduled to get wireless connections next year that will track drivers and help alert them to waiting customers. Riders will be able to pay by credit card, to check flight data, or to buy movie tickets. The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission, after gathering ideas from 70 companies, such as Bank of America Corp. and Sprint Nextel Corp., may announce this month the companies selected to add the services. "This will bring a dinosaur industry into the 21st century," said Michael Levine, owner of Ronart Leasing Corp., a taxi company based in Queens that has 350 cars, and that Levine's grandfather started in 1937. "It's about time something happened." Yellow cabs, the only taxis in the biggest US city allowed to pick up people who flag them down, carry 238 million passengers a year and bring in about $1.5 billion. In Manhattan, where people in three of four households do not own a car, cabs carry babies home from hospitals, move furniture, and shuffle visitors between appointments. The link from taxis to cellular networks and satellites would follow last year's 26 percent fare increase, the city's first in eight years, to increase the average driver's pay to more than $12 an hour. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/11/13/nyc_taxis_prepare_to_go_wireless_with_a_back_seat_upgrade/ ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: MIT's 5ESS: (was: NN0 Central Office Codes) Organization: Ace Tomato and Cement Co. Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 16:12:44 -0500 In article , wollman@khavrinen.csail.mit.edu says: > In article , Joe Morris > wrote: >> Thread drift question: how common are successful hacking (old >> definition of the word "hack") attempts against MIT's 5ESS? > I've never heard of one, although that doesn't necessarily mean > anything, since I don't know the people who manage it. According to > the first hit on Google, it's located in E19, with extensions in 24 > and NW12 (i.e., the usual places for network gear). I have no idea > where in E19 it is, or how well-secured those locations are -- but > phone blocks are exposed in a whole bunch of locations that are > probably easier to access. There's also the additional challenge that > many lines, particularly "class A" lines with unlimited access, are > ISDN lines using the AT&T proprietary BRI signalling to communicate > with 7506 desk phones. But telephone equipment is ancient history; > who would want to mess with that when there are *computers* around?! I'm not sure but don't most AT&T switches have INAD ports built into them? AT&T's method of security is a prominent notice that unauthorized access is illegal. Not to mention that newer gear (or updated for that matter) has IP access. And actually the 5E probably has some serious horsepower and there are still those who might want to phreak it. The 7506 -- I'm not familiar with that model so I googled. Looks very much like a 7406 except the speaker, mute, etc. buttons are in the wrong place. ------------------------------ From: wollman@khavrinen.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: MIT's 5ESS: (was: NN0 Central Office Codes) Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 20:58:39 UTC Organization: MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory In article , Diamond Dave wrote: > Most are probably worrying about hacking the campus computer system to > change their grades. We're talking about hacking, not cracking; if I were an MIT student rather than a mere employee, those would be fighting words. (Although an MIT lifer might well be amused at your reference to "the campus computer system" -- the last time you could say "*the* campus computer system" would have been fifty years ago at least. Forrester et al invented core memory in 1949 and I don't think there's been a moment since the early '50s when there have not been multiple computers on campus. I don't know anything about the systems that store private student information -- that's about as far from my job as you can get -- but I do know that the Institute takes its FERPA responsibilities seriously.) Garrett A. Wollman | As the Constitution endures, persons in every wollman@csail.mit.edu | generation can invoke its principles in their own Opinions not those | search for greater freedom. of MIT or CSAIL. | - A. Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Can You Still Build a PC For Less? From: tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 21:19:53 GMT > The fact is, without cannibalizing half of your current PC's parts, you > can't touch Dell when it comes to building a cheap PC. But for me, this has always been the whole point. I don't need a new keyboard and mouse and speakers and case and new copies of all the software. I've got all that on my old dead system -- that's why I'm upgrading -- the old one died (I don't include disk drives in the list because they are usually the main component that dies and gives me an excuse to convince myself it is time for an upgrade :-). >>==>> The *Best* political site >>==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL | Free Software and Politics <<==+ ------------------------------ From: Michael Chance Subject: Re: "Soft Dial Tone" on Unused Lines Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 22:46:38 GMT In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com says: > Some other posters mentioned that an unused land phone line may still > offer dial tone to provide for emergency 911 service. Is this a > recent offering? It's actually relatively old. "Soft Dial Tone" (also known as "Quick Dial Tone") was trialed by most of the RBOCs back in the early 1990s (I think that it was a Telcordia/Bell Labs brainstorm), but was mostly abandoned due to the need for dedicated facilities (a completely connected line for every address served) and TNs (SDT/QDT is essentially a non-billed, restrictive voice type of service). It also proved very cumbersome to maintain, usually requiring two service orders (one for the customer, one for the SDT/QDT service) for every new connect and disconnect. The historical telco provisioning models don't have lines available for every possible address, since not all of them will have paying customers 100% of the time, so they play the percentages and only have lines available for the normal load of customers. SDT/QDT requires 100% connected lines all the time, and a TN assigned to every one of them, with a large percentage that will be non-paying facilities that still have to be maintained as if there were someone paying for it. In the SBC territories that I'm familiar with, the Midwest region (nee' Ameritech) it was completely abandoned, and is not currently offered. In the Southwest region (nee' Southwestern Bell), it was also mostly abandoned, except for Texas, where there is a similar product known as Service Ready Drop is sold as part of the SmartMoves package for rental property owners and developers. However, when a live customer disconnects, it is not automatically re-installed, the way SDT/QDT is intended to work - the SmartMoves customer has to call in to have it re- established. It is also not available in SBC territory in Nevada (nee' Nevada Bell). The one exception is California (nee Pacific Bell/Pacific Telesys). The California PUC has not only mandated QDT, it's actually written into CA law. QDT must be provisioned at all residential addresses "where technologies and facilities permit" (meaning that it's not currently available everywhere), and it is a mostly automated process of moving from QDT to customer voice and back again. As with most things the PUC's definition of "where technologies and facilities permit" (which includes TN availability as well as central office and outside line configurations) and SBC's tend to be very different, and occassionally causes some disputes about whether it can be offered in a given area or not. I'd love to hear what the other RBOCs (Verizon, BellSouth, Qwest/USWest) experiences with SDT/QDT were/have been, as well as if any of the independents have experimented with it or are currently offering it. Michael Chance ------------------------------ From: CharlesH Subject: Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 02:52:29 GMT Thor Lancelot Simon wrote: > I would stay away from the 900Mhz phones for a few reasons. First, > the only multi-line phones available in 900Mhz are notoriously > unreliable. Second, eavesdropping on many 900Mhz phones, even modern > ones, is trivial. How does one eavesdrop on a Digital Spread Spectrum (DSS) 900MHz cordless phone? I would have thought that with the spreading code being changed every time the phone is put into the base, they would be essentially uncrackable, like CDMA cell phones. ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: If You Would Like to Get Away From ICANN Oversight and Registrars Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 01:29:50 -0600 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when Patrick Townson wrote: > or DHS International http://www.dhs.org where you can register domains in > the name of your choice in the 'n3.net' top level and a few other top > levels. ".net" is the "top" level. > or SMARTDOTS http://smartdots.com where you can register domains in the name > of your choice in the top level '.tc' I think that they actually own about 25 domains such as "at.tc" and "net.tc", and offer subdomains. I have a few sub-subdomains there myself, though I'm converting them to .com since Google doesn't seem to index them. ".tc" is the national top-level domain for the Turks & Calicos Islands. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are correct; it is '.net' and not 'n3.net' which is the top level. 'n3' is one underneath it. I thank you for telling me the geographic location of '.tc' and I believe that '.tf' is somewhere in the southern part of the Indian Ocean. I do not know where '.tt' is located, nor '.tv' although the latter is used by many television stations/networks in the USA for their web sites. I think the way Google gets around to indexing those is if you have approval for (and install script) on your pages there using Ad Sense. As soon as Google gets a call for ads on pages there, they also index those pages. I do know that _identical_ pages referenced via (for example) '.us.tf' or '.net.tf' get different Google ads than when the same pages are called via '.com' or '.org'. You'll see this in action if you request 'telecom-digest.us.tf' instead of 'telecom-digest.org'. I think the hassle is you are in the USA, not in Turks & Calicos, so you see (mostly) the index intended for USA viewers; I'll wager if you were in T&C you would get a somehat different index also, but I am not positve on that. How do you like being able to self-service register your sites on '.tc'? No fees, no registrar, no validation of any kind required. That's the part I think I like best about all my sites there. You register a site, no propogation required; it is immediatly available, that _instant_. PAT] ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Infone to Shut Down Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 03:17:28 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message J Kelly wrote: > On Fri, 11 Nov 2005 00:17:06 -0700, DevilsPGD > wrote: >> In message J Kelly >> wrote: >>> I remember a couple years back some posts about Infone, the Metro One >>> "teleconcierge" service. I got an email today from Infone telling me >>> their service will be closing up shop on 12/31/05. I used it a few >>> times and was quite pleased with the service. I hate to see it go, >>> but I guess they only managed to attract about 83,000 subs after >>> spending $70 million to promote the service. Not a real money maker. >> I signed up, but I never bothered to use it, I've just never made a >> 411 call either. The rest of their features looked interesting, but >> not all that useful since it wouldn't save much time. >> Sure I could call Infone and have them make a reservation for me, but >> I could just call and do it myself in the same amount of time. > So true. I used them a handful of times from my cell mainly because > it was cheaper than using US Cellular's 411 which costs "only" $1.50. > USCC makes it out like they are doing me a favor by only charging a > buck fifty. Yeah. If I ever had the need to call 411 I'd have called Infone, but I simply haven't used 411 since I signed up with Infone. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The best directory information service I know of is the one the Digest sponsors. And it is the least expensive also: Directory Assistance just 65 cents for one or two inquiries, charged to your credit card. It is _real time_ from a telco-associated service bureau. The way it works is that you register a few phone numbers you will most always use to get your directory assistance. Then you are assigned an 800 number to use. When you call that 800 number the ANI is captured; the 65 cent charge is placed on your credit card (usually, several accumulated calls, around a month's worth are charged at one time) and you are patched through to an operator at the telco service bureau to get the desired information. 65 cents is a very good rate! Try it for a few calls and see if you like it. There are no deposits required, nor any minimum number of calls required. If you like it, the program your phone system to take all calls dialed to '411' or '555-1212' and translate them into the 800 number you are assigned to use. If you don't like it, then quit using it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: AES Subject: Online Small-Scale POSTAL Mailing Firms? Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 09:25:37 -0800 Organization: Stanford University Posting this query to these two groups because I suspect some of their readers may have the answer at their fingertips: An organization I'm involved with has a medium-size email distribution list (say 800 names) it uses for announcements and alerts sent at random times. There's a small residual set of hold-outs (maybe 50 names) who don't have or won't get email and want these messages postal-mailed to them. Are there online services that will accept a message, a few instructions, and a small list of names and addresses online; print, stuff, stamp, and mail the message to this list of names using some low-end automated machinery; and bill the organization online -- at low cost? ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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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End of TELECOM Digest V24 #517 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Nov 14 13:34:44 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 7F42D14FA2; Mon, 14 Nov 2005 13:34:43 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #518 Message-Id: <20051114183443.7F42D14FA2@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 13:34:43 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.3 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Mon, 14 Nov 2005 13:34:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 518 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Should the U.S. or the U.N. Control Internet? A Third Way (Phil Earnhardt) Cellular-News for Monday 14th November 2005 (Cellular-News) Startup Exits Stealth Mode to Announce Fixed-Mobile Solution (US Dailylead) Sony BMG "Service Pack 2a" (Monty Solomon) Re: Sony BMG "Service Pack 2a" (Monty Solomon) Re: Moving to VOIP But Keeping Same Phone Number (John Levine) Re: Infone to Shut Down (J Kelly) Re: Infone to Shut Down (Gordon S. Hlavenka) Re: MIT's 5ESS: (was: NN0 Central Office Codes) (Garrett Wollman) Re: MIT's 5ESS: (was: NN0 Central Office Codes) (Joe Morris) Re: Online Small-Scale POSTAL Mailing Firms? (John Levine) Re: Comcast, Verizon Wage Licensing War/Towns Caught in Crossfire (S Sobol) Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset (Robert Bonomi) Re: If You Would Like to Get Away From ICANN Oversight and (Robert Bonomi) Re: Getting the 411 on 911 Service (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com) Re: "Soft Dial Tone" on Uuused lines (Gerard Bok) Re: Can You Still Build a PC For Less? (Steve Stone) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phil Earnhardt Subject: Should the U.S. or the U.N. Control the Internet? Here's a Third Way Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 23:42:49 -0700 Organization: http://newsguy.com http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007543 Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc. This editorial appeared in print on Saturday's Wall Street Journal (they started publishing a weekend edition earlier this fall). As an aside, I think the WSJ does an excellent job keeping its readers up-to-date on such issues. I fondly hope what they describe never ever happens, but it certainly sounds possible. --phil Breaking Up Is Hard to Do Should the U.S. or the U.N. control the Internet? Here's a third way. BY BRIAN M. CARNEY Saturday, November 12, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST It's been a good ride, this whole Internet thing. To hear its boosters tell it, the Net has, in addition to the porn, online poker and cheap drugs, given us democratized information, become a tool for the undermining of totalitarian regimes and given people in the farthest corners of the Earth a window on the wider world that would have been unthinkable before Al Gore invented the Internet (sic). But all that is about to change -- starting tomorrow. The bad news is that we can't really do anything about it. The good news is that the changes that are coming probably won't bring about the end of the Information Age, but merely its evolution. Before we get to that, you're probably wondering what in the world is going on -- surely if the whole Internet thing had been called off, there would have been a press release, right? Well, there was, but you may not have noticed. Tomorrow, in Tunis, Tunisia, the U.N. is hosting the World Summit on the Information Society. One of the goals of the summit is to advance the "internationalization" of what is known as "Internet governance." Since its inception, the Internet has been a pretty American affair. Many fundamental aspects of its architecture are controlled by a California-based nonprofit corporation known as Icann, short for Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers. Icann was founded by the U.S. government and, many believe, is still controlled by it to some extent. For a lot of different reasons, that makes a lot of people mad. So, for several years now, the U.N., through events like tomorrow's summit, has been urging the U.S. to give control of Icann -- or more precisely, of the root file that maps every Internet address and connects them to the names, like OpinionJournal.com, that we are all familiar with -- to the U.N.'s wise stewardship. The U.S. hates the idea, with good reason. An Internet "governed" by the U.N. could be expected to travel a familiar road. The countries with the greatest interest in regulating, limiting or controlling the Net would pull out the stops to put themselves on the governing board, and then use the U.N.'s imprimatur to justify the shackling of a once (more or less) free medium in the interests of cultural diversity, or "Asian values" or some other bromide. That the Saudi Arabias, Chinas and Frances of the world would love to impose their own particular vision of what should and should not be available on the Internet should surprise no one. All the countries above have restricted or attempted to restrict Internet access. America, for its part, has engaged in aggressive enforcement against offshore gambling sites that are accessible from the U.S. The U.S. is making apocalyptic predictions of what the U.N. would do if given control. Those predictions are probably optimistic; U.N. control would be a disaster. But there is a third way, as Mr. Gore might say. That alternative doesn't serve the interests of either the U.S. government, which enjoys the control it currently exercises, or its critics, who would much prefer to do their censoring under a multilateral umbrella. But if the U.S. continues its Internet brinkmanship, the third way will become not only likely, but inevitable. That alternative is a fragmented Internet, without a single "root file" that describes the locations of everything on the Net. The U.S. government has led many to believe that this is equivalent to dismantling the Internet itself. But it is bluffing. Here's how it might work. At some point, China will grow tired of the U.S. refusal to give up control to the U.N., and it will secede from the status quo. It will set up its own root server, tweaked to allow access only to those sites the government deems nonthreatening, and simply order every Internet service provider in the country to use it instead of ICANN's. The change will be seamless to most users, but China will have set up its own private Net, one answerable to the people's revolutionaries rather than to the U.S. Commerce Department. Others may follow suit. Root servers could spring up in France, or Cuba, or Iran. In time, the Internet might look less like the Internet and more like, say, the phone system, where there is no "controlling legal authority" on the international level. More liberal-minded countries would probably, if they did adopt a local root-server, allow users to specify which server they wanted to query when typing in, say, Microsoft.com. As a technical means of content control, going "split root," as they say in the business, is too compelling for governments not to give it a try. But the user experience would likely be much the same as it ever was most of the time. ISPs, as well as most vaguely democratic governments, would have an interest in ensuring broad interoperability, just as no one in Saudi Arabia or China has yet decided that dialing +1-202-456-1414 -- the White House switchboard number -- from those countries should go somewhere else, like Moammar Gadhafi's house. Nothing stops phone companies from doing things like that, except that the market expects a certain consistency in how phone calls are directed, so it is in the interests of the operators to supply what the market expects. The same principle would apply in a split-root world. Would it be better if countries that want to muck around with the Net just didn't? Sure. But they do want to, and they will, and it would be far better, in the long run, if they did so on their own, without a U.N. agency to corrupt or give them shelter. It's time to drop the apocalyptic rhetoric about a split root file and start looking beyond the age of a U.S.-dominated Internet. Breaking up is hard to do, but in this case, the alternative would be worse. Mr. Carney is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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, Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Monday 14th November 2005 Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 07:36:20 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com Changes to cellular-news. Based on some of the feedback from our recent reader survey, we are introducing "news categorization". Henceforth, all news articles (and eventually, the archive) will be listed under upto 5 categories. The newsletter and main web site will use the primary category for display, and you will be able to see news articles from each category by using the "News menu" on the main web site. If you have not completed the survey, then you can guide cellular-news by completing it here -- http://www.cellular-news.com/survey/survey.php?sid=28 [[3G News]] Russia's Reiman says may hold tenders for 3G licenses 2006 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14791.php Russia may hold tenders for third generation (3G) telecommunication licenses in 2006, IT and Telecommunications Minister Leonid Reiman told reporters Friday. ... EDGE Launched in Azerbaijan http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14798.php Azerbaijan's Azercell Telecom says that it has launched EDGE services in the country. The service has been under test for the past few months and has now been launched commercially. According to results of the tests, data transfer speed reached 200 k... Three Bid for Malaysian 3G Licences http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14801.php Malaysia's telecoms regulator, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) says that three companies have submitted tenders for its 3G licences. The tender invitation commenced on 22 August 2005 and closed at 12 noon, 11 November, 2... EDGE Coverage Increases in Moldova http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14802.php Moldova's Moldcell says that it has extended its EDGE coverage to just over 30% of the population. The company has also put 8 new GSM stations into operation in the last two months, which extended the coverage in the capital and 2 other cities of the... Tajikistan Gets a 3G Network http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14807.php ZTE Corporation has clinched a WCDMA contract with Indigo Tajikistan, a joint venture belonging to the American multinational carrier MCT. The project is also ZTE?s first WCDMA contract in Central Asia. Under the contract, ZTE will deliver a complete... [[Financial News]] VimpelCom Buys Ukrainian RadioSystems For $231.3M http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14789.php OAO Vimpel Communications, operator of Russia's second-largest mobile phone network, Friday said it will buy Ukrainian RadioSystems for $231.3 million. ... KPMG says Russia's Euroset minimized taxes in 2004 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14790.php U.K.-based accounting company KPMG has announced that Russia's largest mobile handset retailer Euroset used non-affiliated companies in order to minimize tax payments in 2004, Russian business daily Vedomosti said Friday citing Euroset's an... Russia's VimpelCom CEO eyes 15% of Ukraine's mobile market http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14792.php Russia's second-largest mobile operator VimpelCom plans to get a 15% share of Ukraine's mobile telecommunication services market, VimpelCom's CEO Alexander Izosimov told a news conference Friday. ... Norway's Telenor says still opposes VimpelCom' buy of URS http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14794.php Norway's telecommunications company Telenor still opposes Russia's second-largest mobile operator VimpelCom's purchase of Ukrainian Radiosystems mobile operator (URS), Telenor said in a press release Friday. ... Regulatory Hurdles Might Delay 3 Italy IPO - Sources http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14796.php Regulatory hurdles might delay to 2006 the initial public offering of Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.'s Italian unit 3, people close to the situation told Dow Jones Newswires Saturday. ... South African Operator Invests in Botswana http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14805.php South Africa's MTN has acquired an effective indirect interest of 44% in Botswana's Mascom Wireless. Mascom is the leading mobile operator in Botswana with a market share of over 70% and a subscriber base in excess of 440,000.... How Much was BenQ Paid to Take Siemens Handsets Division ? http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14808.php An analyst at Merrill Lynch, Bram Cornelisse, has questioned the price that Siemens paid to dispose of its ailing handset division to BenQ. When the sale was originally announced back in June, the estimated loss to Siemens was put at around the US$41... [[Legal News]] Telephone & Data, US Cellular Subjects Of SEC Probe http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14793.php Telephone & Data Systems Inc. and United State Cellular Corp. are the subjects of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation regarding their recent restatement decisions. ... FOCUS: Court ruling hurts Sistema, control of MTS under threat http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14795.php Major Russian holding AFK Sistema was dealt a disappointing blow on Monday after the Moscow Arbitration Court upheld the Federal Tax Service's claim and ruled to liquidate TOO VAST company, which holds 3% in the country's largest mobile operator Mobi... KPN Fails to Secure Deal with Trades Unions http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14800.php KPN and the trades unions have failed to reach agreement on a new collective labour agreement. Trades union negotiators refused to accept the pension proposals. KPN's final offer comprised a structural salary increase totalling 3% over 27 months, cha... Registration Required for New PrePay Customers http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14804.php South Africa is about to impose regulations that will require all purchasers of cell phones to provide proof of identity when buying a new phone. The government says the move is to ensure that new phone tapping legislation will be correctly implement... [[Mobile Content News]] Developing Mobile Commerce in Canada http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14799.php Canada's national wireless service providers, Bell Mobility, Rogers Wireless and Telus Mobility, have announced the launch of Wireless Payment Services. The jointly owned venture will act as a mobile commerce, or m-commerce, gateway, facilitating sec... [[Network Contracts News]] Two Phone Numbers - One SIM Card http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14803.php Singapore's SingTel says that it is offering its customers the ability to use two mobile phone lines with only one SIM card and mobile phone with a new 2-in-1 SIM value added service. The new 2-in-1 SIM card stores two mobile numbers and will enable ... Rural Operators Order Fault Manager http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14806.php Telsasoft has announced that two more regional wireless service providers have chosen it's alarm fault and performance metrics analytics tools solution to enhance their GSM network management operations.... [[Technology News]] AirNet Reports on Two New Field Trials http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14797.php AirNet Communications says that it has been showcasing the capabilities of the RapidCell base station at various locations in the U.S. for a Government Communications end user. An undisclosed OEM aerospace and defense contractor who has purchased Rap... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 12:21:56 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Startup Exits Stealth Mode to Announce Fixed-Mobile Solution USTelecom dailyLead November 14, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xSsYatagCxixBJxOnL TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Startup exits stealth mode to announce fixed-mobile solution BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Warner Bros., AOL to offer free TV classics online * Analysis: Nokia poised for growth spurt * SBC's CFO talks strategy with BusinessWeek * Lucent signs BellSouth to IMS deal * Telecom network firms benefit from quadruple-play fight * Sprint Nextel retains Lazard to assess Nextel Partners USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Find IMS, Fixed Mobile Convergence, IPTV solutions at TelecomNEXT HOT TOPICS * XO sells fixed-line business to Carl Icahn * Murdoch hints at U.S. broadband service * Gates: A fundamental shift for Microsoft * Verizon lowers price for unlimited calling plans * Report: DSL could catch cable by 2006 TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Icera rolls out HSDPA chip * Cisco launches bundled offering for small businesses * Companies join forces to promote Linux for mobile phones REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Most VoIP providers to miss 911 deadline * U.S. government takes interest in BlackBerry case Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xSsYatagCxixBJxOnL ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 21:39:14 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Sony BMG "Service Pack 2a" http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/updates.html SOFTWARE UPDATES/ PLUG-INS November 8, 2005 - This Service Pack removes the cloaking technology component that has been recently discussed in a number of articles published regarding the XCP Technology used on SONY BMG content protected CDs. This component is not malicious and does not compromise security. However to alleviate any concerns that users may have about the program posing potential security vulnerabilities, this update has been released to enable users to remove this component from their computers. Please note, Service Pack 2a is a maintenance release designed to reduce the file size of Service Pack 2. It includes all previous fixes found in Service Pack 1 and Service Pack 2. http://updates.xcp-aurora.com/ An offline version of Service Pack 2 is also available as a zip file (1.4MB) or as an exe (1.5MB). http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/Update071105.zip http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/Update071105.exe http://updates.xcp-aurora.com/Update071105.exe ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 22:03:11 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Re: Sony BMG "Service Pack 2a" More on Sony: Dangerous Decloaking Patch, EULAs and Phoning Home. http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/11/more-on-sony-dangerous-decloaking.html Sony's Rootkit: First 4 Internet Responds http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/11/sonys-rootkit-first-4-internet.html Sony: You don't reeeeaaaally want to uninstall, do you? http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/11/sony-you-dont-reeeeaaaally-want-to_09.html ------------------------------ Date: 14 Nov 2005 00:02:11 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Moving to VOIP But Keeping Same Phone Number Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > it took more than four months for Vonage to transfer his phone > number of 13 years from his previous VoIP provider, Time Warner. Well, that's Vonage for you, billions for advertising, pennies for customer "service". I am pleased to report, though, that when I ditched Vonage in favor of Lingo, it only took a few days to transfer my number over. As far as I can tell, Vonage still hasn't figured out that it's been ported, so Vonage users still can't call it since they route calls to my long ago returned terminal adapter. But everyone else can. ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Re: Infone to Shut Down Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 21:37:30 -0600 Organization: http://newsguy.com Reply-To: jkelly@newsguy.com On Sun, 13 Nov 2005 03:17:28 -0700, DevilsPGD wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The best directory information service > I know of is the one the Digest sponsors. And it is the least > expensive also: > Directory Assistance just 65 cents for one or two inquiries, charged > to your credit card. It is _real time_ from a telco-associated service > bureau. The way it works is that you register a few phone numbers > you will most always use to get your directory assistance. Then you > are assigned an 800 number to use. When you call that 800 number the > ANI is captured; the 65 cent charge is placed on your credit card > (usually, several accumulated calls, around a month's worth are > charged at one time) and you are patched through to an operator at the > telco service bureau to get the desired information. 65 cents is a > very good rate! Try it for a few calls and see if you like it. There > are no deposits required, nor any minimum number of calls required. If > you like it, the program your phone system to take all calls dialed to > '411' or '555-1212' and translate them into the 800 number you are > assigned to use. If you don't like it, then quit using it. The sign-up > page is at http://www.easy411.com/telecomdigest . PAT] Thanks for the tip, Pat! I now remember you mentioning this before, but I liked Infone so didn't pay much attention. I never use 411 from home, thats what Google is for, but when on the road I occasionally have a need for it. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 00:01:25 -0600 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Reply-To: nospam@crashelex.com Organization: Crash Electronics Subject: Re: Infone to Shut Down DevilsPGD wrote: > If I ever had the need to call 411 I'd have called Infone, but > I simply haven't used 411 since I signed up with Infone. Same here. I set up an Infone account when they were fairly young, not so much for 411 service as for all the other stuff they offered. For instance, you can chain calls -- an Infone call is 80 cents for up to 15 minutes; you can call somebody, have a brief conversation then "flash-hook" back to Infone and get hooked up with somebody else on the same 80 cents. Very handy for hands-free use. Or, you can call for driving directions and simply stay on line with Infone and let them "talk you in" to your destination. Or so it seems from the service description, anyway. Unfortunately I have my phone numbers programmed into my cellphone (which has decent voice recognition), and as I'm blessed with a Y chromosome I never need to ask for directions :-) Anyway, I'm sad to see them go, even though I hardly knew them... Gordon S. Hlavenka http://www.crashelectronics.com If your teacher tells you to Question Authority Should you do it? ------------------------------ From: wollman@khavrinen.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: MIT's 5ESS: (was: NN0 Central Office Codes) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 00:58:24 UTC Organization: MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory In article , Tony P. wrote: > The 7506 -- I'm not familiar with that model so I googled. Looks very > much like a 7406 except the speaker, mute, etc. buttons are in the > wrong place. The 7506 and its big brother the 7507 are the only ISDN desk sets I've ever seen in use anywhere. T/LU/Avaya ceased manufacturing them several years ago, and MIT is one of Avaya's largest customers for the refurbs and maintenance. At this point, I think they (IS&T) are just hoping the things will last long enough to figure out how the economic model for VOIP works, and then they can dump the 750[67]s (most of which are being used by staff, who already have newish computers with sound cards) and probably significantly downsize if not eliminate the 5E. Life safety is a big issue, particularly, on a campus the size of MIT's the whole E911-for-VOIP quagmire. They'll probably have to keep some analog capability for the foreseeable future, but if they can get everyone over to VOIP by 2009ish they could probably outsource the remaining copper. Garrett A. Wollman | As the Constitution endures, persons in every wollman@csail.mit.edu | generation can invoke its principles in their own Opinions not those | search for greater freedom. of MIT or CSAIL. | - A. Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) ------------------------------ From: Joe Morris Subject: Re: MIT's 5ESS: (was: NN0 Central Office Codes) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 13:56:43 UTC Organization: The MITRE Organization wollman@khavrinen.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) writes: > Joe Morris wrote: >> I'm having trouble imagining today's MIT students being able to resist >> the challenge of hacking into the switch and making it do >> "interesting" things. > But don't forget that hacking ethics would prevent them from doing > anything so interesting as to have an impact on public safety. Add the qualifier "deliberately" and I'll agree. I suspect,however, that the majority of one-time undergraduates who have been out of college and in the real world for a few years hope that the world at large never discovers some of the hare-brained schemes they cooked up while at school. Recall the Tom Lehrer song on the subject of college life ... Bright college days, Oh carefree days that fly; To thee we sing, With our glasses raised on high; Let's drink a toast, As each of us recalls, Ivy-covered professors, In ivy-covered halls. Turn on the spigot, Pour the beer and swig it, And gaudemus igit, I-tur. Joe Morris ------------------------------ Date: 14 Nov 2005 00:19:56 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Online Small-Scale POSTAL Mailing Firms? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > There's a small residual set of hold-outs (maybe 50 names) who don't > have or won't get email and want these messages postal-mailed to > them. There aren't many places interested in a mailing that small. I would recommend an outfit called the US Postal Service, which has a licensee offering a service called NetPost. A one-page B/W flyer is 43 cents each, or one page in an envelope is 54 cents, including postage. There doesn't seem to be a minimum order, and you can do everything over the net. See http://www.usps.com/netpost/welcome.htm R's, John ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Comcast, Verizon Wage Licensing War/Towns Caught Cable Crossfire Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 16:29:59 -0800 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Monty Solomon wrote: > Comcast Corp. wants to make sure Verizon Communications Inc. hears its > message: The cable giant is not about to cede its prized turf to the > phone company quietly. I'm sure the same thing will happen here, as the Town of Apple Valley has decided to award a second cable franchise to Verizon. The chances of me using Verizon for anything other than POTS are less than nil, given the availability of Charter broadband in AV (which has been quite reliable over the past two years), and the suckage level of Verizon DSL, but it'll be interesting to see if Charter raises a fuss about Verizon entering the market, anyhow. Steve Sobol, Professional Geek 888-480-4638 PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Company website: http://JustThe.net/ Personal blog, resume, portfolio: http://SteveSobol.com/ E: sjsobol@JustThe.net Snail: 22674 Motnocab Road, Apple Valley, CA 92307 ------------------------------ From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Subject: Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 14:45:32 -0000 Organization: Widgets, Inc. In article , CharlesH wrote: > Thor Lancelot Simon wrote: >> I would stay away from the 900Mhz phones for a few reasons. First, >> the only multi-line phones available in 900Mhz are notoriously >> unreliable. Second, eavesdropping on many 900Mhz phones, even modern >> ones, is trivial. > How does one eavesdrop on a Digital Spread Spectrum (DSS) 900MHz > cordless phone? I would have thought that with the spreading code > being changed every time the phone is put into the base, they would be > essentially uncrackable, like CDMA cell phones. The phone and the base station have to negotiate the spreading code used for each session. If you can eavesdrop on that negotiation, you _can_ predict the frequency hops, rendering it 'trivial' to track as a third-party listener. ------------------------------ From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Subject: Re: If You Would Like to Get Away From ICANN Oversight and Registrars Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 15:14:32 -0000 Organization: Widgets, Inc. In article , Dave Garland wrote: > It was a dark and stormy night when Patrick Townson > wrote: >> or DHS International http://www.dhs.org where you can register domains in >> the name of your choice in the 'n3.net' top level and a few other top >> levels. > ".net" is the "top" level. >> or SMARTDOTS http://smartdots.com where you can register domains in the name >> of your choice in the top level '.tc' > I think that they actually own about 25 domains such as "at.tc" and > "net.tc", and offer subdomains. I have a few sub-subdomains there > myself, though I'm converting them to .com since Google doesn't seem to > index them. ".tc" is the national top-level domain for the Turks & > Calicos Islands. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are correct; it is '.net' and not 'n3.net' > which is the top level. 'n3' is one underneath it. I thank you for > telling me the geographic location of '.tc' and I believe that '.tf' > is somewhere in the southern part of the Indian Ocean. I do not know > where '.tt' is located, nor '.tv' although the latter is used by many .tf is the "French Southern Territories" -- a group of 4 *UNINHABITED* islands in the southern Indian Ocean, about equidistant between Africa, Antarctica, and Australia. NO permanent residents, only visiting researchers studying native fauna. (according to CIA world fact book.) .tv is "Tuvalu". an island group in the South Pacific about halfway between Hawaii and Australia. They are most noted for leasing their Internet domain (.tv) for _US$50_million_ in royalties, paid over a dozen years. .tt is 'Trinidad and Tobago. an island group between the Caribbean Sea, and the North Atlantic Ocean, northeast of Venezuela. part of the Atlantic Ocean. See ISO 3166-1 (on-line at www.iso.org) for what all those two-letter codes mean, and the CIA world factbook (can be found online at: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ ) for where the place is, and "more than you really want to know" about what they do there. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't suppose you know about '.ms' do you? http://cydots.com offers .ms on a self-registering basis. They publicize the use of the phrase (m)y (s)ite when you advertise your new domain name. Like the others, they merely point to an _existing_ web site at some other place (which presumably you keep secret) and if I recall, I think they even refuse to give WHOIS, instead offering to forward a letter from the inquirer the site holder. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Getting the 411 on 911 Service Date: 14 Nov 2005 08:05:42 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Aoife M. McEvoy wrote: > In most areas of the country (exceptions include remote parts of > Alaska), the dispatcher who picks up your call also sees your phone > number and street address pop up on screen. This "location > technology" is known as Enhanced 911 or E911. Has virtually the entire U.S. converted over to 911? Seems to me it wasn't that long ago that outlying suburban and rural areas retained traditional telephone numbers although a conversion process was going on. Further, has the whole country gone to "enhanced" 911, not just a central dispatcher? > In my opinion, the FCC's action is long overdue. Sure, the new > requirements will help prevent future tragedies, but it's a shame that > families had to suffer because of VoIP's known failings before > something was done. These limitations have been well documented for > quite a while. I'm not sure I agree about the "limitations being well documented". I think many consumers simply saw an ad for deeply discounted telephone service (VOIP) and went out and bought it. They didn't realize that the service did not includes some basics people have taken for granted for years. The companies, being unregulated, had no mandate to clearly advertise this limitation. Please remember that individual ordinary consumers do not read technical magazines or newsgroups. I hate it when the technocrats get all hissy when consumers get burned because they're not up on the latest marketing scams. > Consequently, complying with the FCC's ruling is likely to be a huge > financial undertaking for any VoIP company, and it's possible that > some of the smaller providers will disappear -- or services that are > in development now may not see the light of day. So maybe VOIP isn't such a great deal that it was made out to be. Why isn't Judge Greene (or his successors) on top of these things? ------------------------------ From: bok118@zonnet.nl (Gerard Bok) Subject: Re: "Soft Dial Tone" on Uuused lines Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 16:34:54 GMT On Sat, 12 Nov 2005 22:46:38 GMT, Michael Chance wrote: > In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com > says: >> Some other posters mentioned that an unused land phone line may still >> offer dial tone to provide for emergency 911 service. Is this a >> recent offering? > It's actually relatively old. "Soft Dial Tone" (also known as "Quick > Dial Tone") was trialed by most of the RBOCs back in the early 1990s > (I think that it was a Telcordia/Bell Labs brainstorm), but was mostly > abandoned due to the need for dedicated facilities (a completely > connected line for every address served) and TNs (SDT/QDT is > essentially a non-billed, restrictive voice type of service). So the client uses VOIP and the RBOC supplies 911 access ? > I'd love to hear what the other RBOCs (Verizon, BellSouth, > Qwest/USWest) experiences with SDT/QDT were/have been, as well as if > any of the independents have experimented with it or are currently > offering it. Curious too :-) Kind regards, Gerard Bok ------------------------------ From: Steve Stone Subject: Re: Can You Still Build a PC For Less? Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 16:47:33 GMT You may not be able to build it cheaper than the big boys, but you can build it to your exact specs rather than a compromise. Steve N2UBP ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #518 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Nov 15 01:54:52 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id D797C14F90; Tue, 15 Nov 2005 01:54:50 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #519 Message-Id: <20051115065450.D797C14F90@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 01:54:50 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.3 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, BEST_PORN,MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Tue, 15 Nov 2005 01:55:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 519 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AOL to Launch Online TV (Kenneth Limon) Net Consensus Unlikely at Summit (Andrew Sullivan & David Lawsky) AOL.com is First Major Portal to Deliver DVD Quality Videos (Monty Solomon) AOL and Warner Bros. Announce 'In2TV,' New Broadband Network (M Solomon) UK Mobile Company O2 Reports Strong Growth (Monty Solomon) Akamai Net Usage Index Releases Data on Most Viewed News Events (M Solomon) The On Demand Future of TV (Monty Solomon) States Get Western Union to Help With Money Sleazoids (Danny Burstein) Re: If You Would Like to Get Away From ICANN ; Registrars (Paul Vader) Re: If You Would Like to Get Away From ICANN ; Registrars (Mike Sullivan) Re: If You Would Like to Get Away From ICANN ; Registrars (John Levine) Re: Sony BMG "Service Pack 2a" (beavis) Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset (DevilsPGD) Re: "Soft Dial Tone" on Uuused lines (Lisa Hancock) Re: Comcast, Verizon Wage Licensing War/Towns Caught in Crossfire (Levine) Re: Moving to VOIP But Keeping Same Phone Number (Tony P.) Re: Online Small-Scale POSTAL Mailing Firms? (Clark W. Griswold, Jr.) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kennth Limon Subject: AOL to Launch Online TV Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 23:46:17 -0600 By Kenneth LiMon Time Warner's AOL said on Monday it planned to launch a free Internet television service by early 2006, in one of the technology and media industry's most ambitious designs to reach TV viewers online. Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. threaten to bypass traditional media outlets by linking computer users with TV shows online, striking partnerships with programmers, or create it themselves, but what they lack AOL now possess in abundance -- the shows themselves. The advertising-supported service, In2TV, will feature approximately 3,400 hours of programing from 4,800 episodes spanning 100 series of Warner Bros.-produced shows from the past in its first year in an exclusive deal. They include past primetime hits "Welcome Back Kotter," "Growing Pains" and "Kung Fu" organized under six channels divided by comedy, drama, animation, action, classic and superhero/villain genres. Two more may launch in 2006. Over time, Warner Bros. could add up to 14,000 episodes from 300 series it has currently cleared with rights holders, executives said. AOL is also currently in talks with "every major provider" to offer shows not owned by Time Warner, Kevin Conroy, executive vice president of AOL media networks said in an interview. ONE PLUS ONE EQUALS SEVEN In2TV has been two and a half years in the making, executives said, and to date remains one of the most aggressive displays of collaboration among the corporate siblings of world's largest media conglomerate once riven by dissension and infighting after the 2001 merger of AOL and Time Warner. "The great promise behind this legendary merger was there would be synergies," said Jupiter Research analyst Todd Chanko, who was briefed on the service ahead of the announcement. "Here, you have a great example of two sister operations with mutual needs being satisfied by the other. It's a no lose proposition." Working with a corporate sibling was "better than spending $100 million" to build a service from soup to nuts, Eric Frankel, president of Warner Bros. domestic cable distribution, told Reuters. Invoking phrases eerily reminiscent of the unkept promises of the merger, Frankel added, "We're hoping one plus one equals seven." Indeed, with some 112 million unique monthly visitors to AOL's online properties, the company has been quickly restructuring the company to attract even more by offering more free programing, through which it can sell online advertising to offset a quickly declining dial-up subscriber base. AOL has also been in discussions for an alliance or a sale of a stake in the division to Microsoft Corp., Google Inc. and Comcast to reach a wider audience. The project comes amid turmoil in the traditional TV industry, when the Internet, digital media players such as Apple's iPod, cable TV's on-demand systems and video games now compete for attention. Eyeing a shift in viewership, two top U.S. TV broadcast networks, Viacom's CBS and General Electric's NBC, inked deals with cable company Comcast Corp. and satellite TV provider DirecTV Group Inc. respectively to sell on-demand episodes of recently aired top shows for 99 cents. Meanwhile, Apple and Walt Disney's ABC networks struck a landmark agreement in October to offer episodes of top shows "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" for sale at $1.99 per show that can be downloaded into recently launched new iPod digital music players. CBS and NBC are also in discussions to offer shows to Apple's service, sources have said. Jupiter's Chanko, who is a media industry veteran, said he saw the future of TV in free, advertising-driven business models. Selling shows directly to consumers on a per episode basis, although interesting, could face problems at a time when monthly cable bills average about $40 and rising each year. "There's only so much programming that the U.S. public will pay for at any given point of time," Chanko said. Conroy said AOL has not ruled out a transactional business and perhaps someday charge for shows. But, he added, "You have to build a mass market for consumer consumption before people think about ownership models." In the foreseeable future, however, In2TV, will only feature backlog shows that are not currently on syndication on other channels to sidestep conflicts with existing distribution agreements. "We have more programming in our warehouse than we can monetize on traditional TV," Frankel said. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Andy Sullivan Subject: Net Consensus Unlikely at Summit Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 23:48:36 -0600 By Andy Sullivan and David Lawsky The United States is headed for a showdown with much of the rest of the world over control of the Internet but few expect a consensus to emerge from a U.N. summit in Tunisia this week. The very notion of "Internet governance" may seem an oxymoron to the 875 million users of the global computer network, which has proven stubbornly resistant to the efforts of those who wish to rid it of pornography, "spam" e-mail and other objectionable material. But the United States, which gave birth to the Internet, maintains control of the system that matches easy-to-remember domain names like "reuters.com" with numerical addresses that computers can understand. That worries countries like Brazil and Iran, which have pushed to transfer control to the United Nations or some other international body. Even the European Union, where much of the business community backs the current system, has taken swipes at the United States. "We just say this needs to be addressed in a more cooperative way ... under public-policy principles," said one EU official who asked not to be identified. The official noted that, "having the United States controlling _our_ web sites, with the ability to censor us or otherwise cut us out is not acceptable." The issue is expected to dominate the World Summit on the Information Society, which begins Wednesday in Tunis, Tunisia. Part diplomatic summit, part trade fair, the summit was launched two years ago with a focus on bringing the Internet and other advanced communications to less developed parts of the world. That remains a hot topic for many of the 17,000 diplomats, human-rights activists and technologists expected to attend. High-tech heavyweights like Intel Corp. and Alcatel will send top executives to talk up their development programs. Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will unveil a $100 laptop computer that can be powered by a hand crank in areas without a reliable supply of electricity. INTERNET 'PLUMBING' But progress can't come without legal reform, business groups say. Internet access in the developing world will always remain expensive as long as governments allow their telecommunications monopolies to discourage competition, said Allen Miller, a senior vice president at the Information Technology Association of America. "For most of these countries that are complaining about it, it's their own regulation and lack of liberalization that's preventing backbone providers from coming in," he said. Over the past two years tension between the haves and have-nots has shifted from the question of who has access to the Internet to who controls its plumbing. Diplomats were to meet on Sunday for a final round of negotiations before the summit. They might agree to set up a forum to discuss issues like cybercrime and spam, and countries might win more direct control over their own top-level domains, such as .nl for the Netherlands and .fr for France. But the United States has said repeatedly it does not intend to cede control of the domain-name system to a bureaucratic body that could stifle innovation. "No agreement is preferred to a bad agreement," U.S. Ambassador David Gross said at a recent public meeting. Many experts say the Internet needs less government involvement, not more. "When governments talk about imposing their public policies on the Internet, unfortunately they don't typically mean, 'Let's protect human rights, individual rights, let's guarantee the freedom of the Internet,"' said Milton Mueller, a professor at Syracuse University's School of Information Studies. "They mean, 'Damn it, somebody using the Internet did something I don't like and let's find a way to stop it,"' he said, "and the same thing is true of many elements in the United States as well." Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 00:11:23 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AOL.com is First Major Portal to Deliver DVD Quality Videos DULLES, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 14, 2005-- Trial Begins for "AOL Hi-Q" Video Format, Which Provides Free Video on Demand, Such as Online Movie Trailers, Music Videos, and Video Game Trailers, to Broadband Users The AOL.com portal is the first to introduce a trial for a new "AOL Hi-Q" high quality video format. The AOL Hi-Q format builds on the AOL.com Web portal's industry-leading video experience ( http://www.aol.com/video ) and can deliver DVD quality videos, in addition to standard quality streaming video, free to broadband users. Consumers can view AOL Hi-Q video on demand as well as select to have new Hi-Q videos in a particular category of interest, such as online movie trailers, music videos, video game trailers and more entertainment content, pushed to them when they are available. Using one of the industry's first commercial-grade, peer-to-peer grid distribution networks, developed in partnership with Kontiki, AOL(R) Hi-Q(TM) can deliver DVD quality videos directly to consumers more quickly and efficiently. The peer-to-peer distribution network built by Kontiki features robust security to protect copyrighted content through digital rights management (DRM) and a centrally managed, highly-scalable delivery model that enables AOL to reliably deliver content to consumers. Through the installation of a simple plug-in, a special AOL Hi-Q video player provides a high resolution display with image quality designed for full-screen viewing on PC monitors or televisions capable of showing a PC interface. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53118361 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 00:13:51 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AOL and Warner Bros. Announce 'In2TV,' New Broadband Network AOL and Warner Bros. Announce ''In2TV,'' New Broadband Network on AOL.com, Delivering the Largest Offering of Long-Form Television Programming Online DULLES, Va. & BURBANK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 14, 2005--America Online, Inc.: Thousands of Episodes from Welcome Back Kotter, Sisters, Beetlejuice, Lois & Clark, La Femme Nikita, Growing Pains and Many More to be Shown in Their Entirety, Free and On-Demand, With Interactive Quizzes, Games, Polls, and Contests Thousands of episodes from some of the most popular television series of all time will make a comeback exclusively on AOL.com http://www.aol.com in early 2006, thanks to a pioneering collaboration between AOL and Warner Bros. Domestic Cable Distribution to form a new broadband network. The network- called In2TV - will allow consumers to stream full-length episodes from favorite series such as Welcome Back Kotter, Sisters, Beetlejuice, Lois & Clark, La Femme Nikita and Growing Pains free and on-demand on the Web. Along with full-length episodes, In2TV will also include unique interactive features such as games, quizzes, polls, trivia contests and more. This first-of-its-kind interactive video experience demonstrates the impact of broadband -- now in 53% of U.S. households* -- on the television industry, as broadband provides a new platform for television assets on the Internet. This treasure trove of television programming will serve as a cornerstone of the AOL.com website's commitment to delivering broadband video through AOL Video on Demand http://www.aol.com/video and AOL Video Search http://www.aol.com/videosearch and http://www.aolsearch.com , as well as through AOL Television http://www.aol.com/television , the number one television destination online**. AOL's Video Search engine is one of the industry's most comprehensive video search tools, drawing from the industry-leading AOL Video on Demand archive of more than 18,000 licensed and originally produced assets and over 1.5 million video assets on the Internet indexed through AOL's Singingfish. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53118177 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 00:20:19 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: UK Mobile Company O2 Reports Strong Growth By JANE WARDELL AP Business Writer LONDON (AP) -- British telecommunications company O2 PLC on Monday reported strong growth in customer numbers and a higher profit in its final set of interim results as an independent company. O2 last month agreed to an 18 billion pound ($31.5 billion) takeover by Telefonica SA, the Spanish telecom powerhouse that has been expanding in Latin America and Eastern Europe. In line with takeover rules, O2 did not comment on the progress of the offer Monday, but did confirm that it had not received any rival bids since the Telefonica offer was announced. O2 said its profit in the six months to Sept. 30 increased 4.2 percent to 350 million pounds ($611.8 million) from 336 million pounds. Revenue increased 12 percent to 3.6 billion pounds ($6.3 billion) from 3.2 billion pounds. The company also said that it increased its customer base 17 percent to 25.7 million from 22 million a year ago. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53119143 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 00:22:59 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Akamai Net Usage Index Releases Data on Most Viewed News Events CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 14, 2005--Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:AKAM): -- Akamai releases Net Usage Index "Widget" for use on MAC and PC desktops -- Index adds new feature that chronicles the prior 24 hours of news consumption by geography -- Over 48,000 unique visitors from around the world have accessed the Akamai Net Usage Index to date Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:AKAM), the leading global service provider for accelerating content and business processes online, today announced that its Akamai Net Usage Index for News ( www.akamai.com/netusageindex ) has chronicled its first 90 days of real-time news consumption on a global scale. As part of the analysis that is possible with the Net Usage Index for News, Akamai released today a look at the five highest peaks based on total visitors per minute to its aggregate set of 100+ news sites. The following data ranks the top five peaks since the launch of the Index and the corresponding events that were taking place in the world at the time. Rank Date Approx. Peak visitors Compelling News Event(1) Time (EST) per minute ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Sep. 12 12 p.m. 3,294,300 Memorial coverage for the 4- (Mon.) year anniversary of September 11, 2001 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Oct. 2 4 p.m. 3,196,750 Bali Bombings (Sun.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 Sep. 8 12 p.m. 3,154,000 Flood survivors forced from (Thu.) New Orleans; Yushchenko fires government in Ukraine ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 4 Sep. 2 2 p.m. 2,921,400 Hurricane Katrina coverage (Fri.) on Friday before Labor Day weekend (U.S.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 5 Oct. 4 4:30 p.m. 2,903,950 UN condemns Iraq charter (Tue.) change ---------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) The Net Usage Index for News does not represent that a single news event accounts for all Web news traffic at any given time, but the Index can be used to correlate worldwide interest in specific news events with relative audience size. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53120402 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 00:34:08 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The On Demand Future of TV The On Demand Future of TV Aired: Monday, November 14, 2005 11-12PM ET By host Tom Ashbrook: There is a gusher of news from the world of television lately - and maybe the end, we're told, of TV as we know it. The common theme is the collision of television and the Internet, and everything going "on demand." Haven't had enough of "The Fugitive," "Eight is Enough," or "Welcome Back Cotter"? There is news today that Warner Brothers and AOL will put them all on line. Last week, CBS and NBC announced 99-cent downloads, on demand, of prime-time fare: CSI, Law & Order and more. ABC is pushing "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" through i-Tunes. The electronic hearth of television is being shattered. Hear about on demand and on your own, in TV-land. Guests * Tom Lowry, Senior Media Writer at Business Week, co-author of the article "The End of TV (As You Know It)" in the current issue of Business Week. * Aaron Barnhart, Television Critic for the Kansas City Star * Jim Nail, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, co-author of a new report arguing that the "TV Schedule will soon be as irrelevant as last night's news." * Steven Johnson, author of "Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter." * Bob Thompson, Director of the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2005/11/20051114_b_main.asp ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: States get Western Union to Help With Money Sleazoids Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 16:51:33 -0500 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC " (NYS) Attorney General Eliot Spitzer today announced that Western Union Financial Services has entered into an agreement with New York and 46 other states to address the prevalent use of the company's wire transfer services by fraudulent telemarketers. " Under the agreement, Western Union will include very prominent consumer warnings on the forms used to wire money. These disclosures are aimed at warning consumers of the dangers of fraud-induced wire transfers.... ( Spitzer's press release at: http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2005/nov/nov14a_05.html ) danny " wondering which three states held out " burstein _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) Subject: Re: If You Would Like to Get Away From ICANN Oversight and Registrars Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 23:16:14 -0000 Organization: Inline Software Creations > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't suppose you know about '.ms' do you? Montserrat: http://www.iana.org/root-whois/ms.htm. It took two seconds in google to find this out. * * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: If You Would Like to Get Away From ICANN Oversight and Registrars Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 01:44:53 GMT Robert Bonomi wrote: > See ISO 3166-1 on-line at http://www.iso.org for what all those two-letter > codes mean, and the CIA world factbook (can be found online at: > http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ ) for where the place > is, and "more than you really want to know" about what they do there. The problem is that http://www.iso.org will SELL you an official list of the country codes for a lot of money if you just type 3166-1 into the search box. I went to http://www.3c.org, searched for ccTLD (country code top level domain) and got a FREE iso.org listing of the country codes. It's at http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/02iso-3166-code-lists/list-en1.html > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't suppose you know about '.ms' do you? Monserrat, according to the above reference. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD (USA) (Replace "example.invalid" with "com" in my address.) ------------------------------ Date: 14 Nov 2005 20:02:30 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: If You Would Like to Get Away From ICANN Oversight and Registrars Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > .tf is the "French Southern Territories" -- a group of 4 *UNINHABITED* > islands The domain was run by AdamsNames in the UK, which handle a bunch of other vanity country domains, until the French government noticed, grabbed it back, and put it under the same management as .fr. Once the current vanity registrations expire, you're not likely to see anything in it other than perhaps the research stations located there. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't suppose you know about '.ms' > do you? That's Montserrat, a small Caribbean island that is nearly uninhabited due to an erupting volcano. It's been a popular location for "free" porn chat since they have +1 numbers and very high rates. Their registry is also run by AdamsNames. > http://cydots.com offers .ms on a self-registering basis. No, they offer third level subdomains in .net.ms, etc., which are fine so long as Cydots feels like doing so. The moment they lose interest, all of those 3rd level domains disappear. By the way, be sure never to look at IANA's list of country domains at http://www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm, since then you will actually know what they are and who runs them, and it'll be a lot harder to concoct rumors about them. R's, John ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Sony BMG "Service Pack 2a" From: beavis Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 18:32:11 GMT Organization: Road Runner In article , Monty Solomon wrote: > November 8, 2005 - This Service Pack removes the cloaking technology > component that has been recently discussed in a number of articles > published regarding the XCP Technology used on SONY BMG content > protected CDs.... This works even better: http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/security/ ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 12:11:07 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote: > In article , > CharlesH wrote: >> Thor Lancelot Simon wrote: >>> I would stay away from the 900Mhz phones for a few reasons. First, >>> the only multi-line phones available in 900Mhz are notoriously >>> unreliable. Second, eavesdropping on many 900Mhz phones, even modern >>> ones, is trivial. >> How does one eavesdrop on a Digital Spread Spectrum (DSS) 900MHz >> cordless phone? I would have thought that with the spreading code >> being changed every time the phone is put into the base, they would be >> essentially uncrackable, like CDMA cell phones. > The phone and the base station have to negotiate the spreading code > used for each session. If you can eavesdrop on that negotiation, you > _can_ predict the frequency hops, rendering it 'trivial' to track as a > third-party listener. Sure, except that the negotiation is typically performed by the base and handset via a wired connection OR at extremely low power (since it only happens when they're physically connected) ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: "Soft Dial Tone" on Uuused lines Date: 14 Nov 2005 11:10:49 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Michael Chance wrote: > The historical telco provisioning models don't have lines available > for every possible address, since not all of them will have paying > customers 100% of the time, so they play the percentages and only > have lines available for the normal load of customers. I tend to question that. The vast majority of addresses will have active telephone service and many locations will require multiple lines. There would be very few lines that might be out of service due to building vacancy or unable to afford service. Rather, I think the limiting factor is loop-line-concentrator and switch capacity. That is, everybody in a given exchange might have a telephone, but not everybody in that exchange can use their phone at the same time. I have no idea what the percentage of calls relative to lines a switch can handle; obviously this varies by community. (Older concentrators limited the number of active calls within a specific neighborhood because of line capacity. One critic of the Bell System claimed Bell was too stingy with trunk lines per concentrator resulting in unnecessary blocking out.) (I once visited a #5 xbar switch that had two exchanges assigned to it. They told me they could handle 60 calls at once, FWIW. It was primarily a suburban residential area, but it did have a reasonably sized business district with some large shopping centers and commercial strips.) Now I think cables tend to be built with excess capacity, so a community having say 250 homes might have pairs for 300 lines or more. But I don't think the CO is built to put everyone one of those lines into service -- a dead line that terminates nowhere is different than a line that terminates into someone's house, in service or not. > SDT/QDT requires 100% connected lines all the time, and a > TN assigned to every one of them, with a large percentage that will be > non-paying facilities that still have to be maintained as if there > were someone paying for it. I'm not sure what "maintained" would require. Since the lines aren't being used, presumably nobody is calling to complain if service isn't working. Since individual phone lines are bundled into cables and possibly carrier facilities, if one line has trouble it means a problem in a cable affecting many people at once. I do agree some additional work might be required in outdoor terminal junction boxes. However, I do agree that switching and bookeeping for such lines could be a nuisance. I found a demarc box high up on an electric pole in my development, a red green pair was dangling underneath it. I had no idea why it was there (the development was old). I didn't try the pair since it was on a higher voltage power pole and I didn't want to take any chances. Eventually the pair was gone. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Nov 2005 20:28:01 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Comcast, Verizon Wage Licensing War/Towns Caught Cable Crossfire Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > The chances of me using Verizon for anything other than POTS are > less than nil, given the availability of Charter broadband in AV > (which has been quite reliable over the past two years), and the > suckage level of Verizon DSL, but it'll be interesting to see if > Charter raises a fuss about Verizon entering the market, anyhow. Even if they don't, you should if they offer Verizon anything that Charter doesn't already have. The franchise we have with T-W says that if we sign any franchise agreements with anyone else, they have the option of using the new agreement, which I gather is typical. R's, John ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Moving to VOIP But Keeping Same Phone Number Organization: Ace Tomato and Cement Co. Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 17:43:12 -0500 In article , johnl@iecc.com says... >> it took more than four months for Vonage to transfer his phone >> number of 13 years from his previous VoIP provider, Time Warner. > Well, that's Vonage for you, billions for advertising, pennies for > customer "service". > I am pleased to report, though, that when I ditched Vonage in favor of > Lingo, it only took a few days to transfer my number over. As far as > I can tell, Vonage still hasn't figured out that it's been ported, so > Vonage users still can't call it since they route calls to my long ago > returned terminal adapter. But everyone else can. I've noticed that Vonage is a hit/miss thing. In my case my number transferred in < 20 days but I was proactive about it, involving friends at the PUC in order to grease the process. Haven't had any problems with Vonage either. Most of the loss of service (97%) were my fault or my ISP's fault not that of Vonage. The only annoyance is that they don't yet have ACR. The reason it annoys me is that they're using Paetec in my area and I know Paetec offers it on their 5E. In essence VoIP is just a last mile technology so why the hell can't I have that one feature? It also appears to be high on the list of many Vonage subscribers. ------------------------------ From: Clark W. Griswold, Jr. Subject: Re: Online Small-Scale POSTAL Mailing Firms? Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 20:56:08 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com AES wrote: > Are there online services that will accept a message, a few > instructions, and a small list of names and addresses online; print, > stuff, stamp, and mail the message to this list of names using some > low-end automated machinery; and bill the organization online -- at > low cost? http://www.usps.com/netpost/welcome.htm?from=0001home&page=0129netpostservices ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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. 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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 V24 #519 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Nov 15 15:17:22 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 9D3DC14F5C; Tue, 15 Nov 2005 15:17:22 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #520 Message-Id: <20051115201722.9D3DC14F5C@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 15:17:22 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.5 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, INFO_TLD autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Tue, 15 Nov 2005 15:16:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 520 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Negotiators Change Internet Governance Text (Associated Press News Wire) Duping Migrants via Internet (Reuters News Wire) China to be in Top 5 Internet by 2010 (Godwin Chellam) Snail Postage Increases Two Cents on January 8, 2006 (Associated Press) Severe Crack Down on Piracy Announced by Music Industry (Patrick Lannin) Old Movie Phone References (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com) Telstra Announces IP 3-G Roadmap (USTA Daily Lead) Cellular-News for Tuesday 15th November 2005 (Cellular-News) Imagine All Your Information in One Convenient Place (info@mijavanetwork) New Mobile Phone Forum (rajendd@gmail.com) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Associated Press News Wire Subject: Negotiators Change Internet Governance Text Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 12:45:49 -0600 Negotiators seeking to avert a U.S.-EU showdown at this week's U.N. summit on the information society watered down language on the Internet's governance in talks Tuesday. U.S. officials considered the vague language a signal that world leaders would ultimately agree to leaving the U.S. Commerce Department ultimately in charge of the Internet's addressing system. "We're waiting until they pass something we can accept," said U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce Michael Gallagher. Diplomats are eager to reach agreement before Wednesday's start of the World Summit on the Information Society, which is scheduled to last through Friday. The summit was originally conceived to address the digital divide -- the gap between information haves and have-nots -- by raising both consciousness and funds for projects. Instead, it has centered largely around Internet governance: oversight of the main computers that control traffic on the Internet by acting as its master directories so Web browsers and e-mail programs can find other computers. That job is handled by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, a powerful group that ultimately answers to the U.S. government. Since the latest round of talks began Sunday, the specific wording of the summit's draft declaration has evolved from "international management of the Internet," written by Pakistan, to far less specific language. "We're two-thirds of our way to a good compromise," EU spokesman Martin Selmayr said. The EU has been mediating between the United States and a group of countries including China and Iran that have sought to replace ICANN with a multi-country group under U.N. auspices. Washington set a course for confrontation when it declared in June that it will retain such oversight indefinitely, despite what many countries thought was a longstanding policy to one day completely turn the function over to ICANN as a new, independent technical agency of the United Nations. The EU responded in September by insisting that some sort of new combination of governments and the private sector share the responsibility of policing the Internet. EU is asking for a 'neutral management of the internet'. Already, rights watchdogs say, both Tunisian and foreign reporters on hand for the summit have been harassed and beaten. Reporters Without Borders says its secretary-general, Robert Menard, has been banned from attending at the insistence of ICANN and the United States. Civil groups also accused the government Tuesday of blocking access within Tunisia to a Web site devoted to a citizens' summit held in conjunction with the main U.N. event. On the Net: http://www.itu.int/wsis Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more news headlines from Associated Press, please to to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html (or) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/TDNewsradio.html ------------------------------ From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Duping Migrant Workers via the Internet Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 12:36:31 -0600 Would-be migrants from Asia, Africa and Latin America are being tricked into paying up to $1,000 for promises of travel to a rich country by Web sites claiming links to the United Nations, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday. Fraudsters and phishers infiltrated chat rooms, special interest groups and even dating sites to entice men and women by claiming to belong to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or other organizations, UNHCR spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis told journalists. "Unsuspecting victims are encouraged to apply to these sham resettlement programs by paying an administrative fee which ranges from $100 up to $1,000," she said. The UNHCR never charges for assistance to refugees requiring international protection and people should understand that all such offers of help were false, Pagonis said. The scams first come to light at the beginning of the year and the Geneva-based UNHCR was working with governments to try to close down any fraudulent Internet sites detected, she said. She had no information on how many sites had been closed or on how much money might have been lost so far. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Godwin Chellam Subject: China to be in Top Five Market by 2010 Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 12:42:42 -0600 By Godwin Chellam Microsoft Corp.'s Internet unit, MSN, expects China to become one of its top five markets by 2010, fueled by growing demand for its popular email and search engine software, executives said. Chris Dobson, general manager of digital marketing sales at MSN International, told Reuters the software giant intended to ride that growth while taking a larger share of the country's nascent but booming $500 million (287.9 million pound) online advertising market. The world's second-largest Internet market -- 100 million Web users and counting -- does not even rank among MSN's 10 biggest markets now, executives told Reuters late on Monday. "We're starting from very modest beginnings in the Chinese market, but if we look five years out and if we haven't graduated China to be in the top five of the world's market, then we would have failed," Dobson said in an interview in Shanghai, where he was attending an advertising forum. In May, the software giant launched MSN China, a Chinese-language portal with content provided by local partners. The portal is run by Shanghai MSN Network Communications Ltd., a joint venture Microsoft established with Shanghai Alliance Investment Ltd. Microsoft has said the portal will offer far more communication, information and content than available through the MSN services, such as Hotmail and Messenger, it already runs in China. Dobson said Messenger, an instant messaging platform, was especially popular. The service now had 10 million users versus about 7 million when it was launched six months ago. Major foreign players such as Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) and Google Inc. have already opened Chinese sites and established positions in the market through a string of acquisitions. SEARCH, ADS AND CENSORSHIP MSN executives said they were particularly encouraged by the growth of the online advertising market in China, where state media said revenues hit 1.9 billion yuan last year and are expected to almost double this year. "Display advertisements, for example, have been growing 50 percent annually and we expect this trend to continue," said Chuan Luo, general manager of MSN's Chinese venture. But competition on search engines, fought over by Yahoo, Google and local rivals such as Baidu.com Inc, Sohu.com and Sina Corp., remains a big challenge. Dobson said MSN would leverage on the popularity of Hotmail, which had more than 200 million users worldwide, to draw users to its portal. "We were probably late into search as a company but we've been late before and it doesn't necessarily mean we'll be late at the end. It's a long game, it's a big market, there's room for more than one player," he said. The software giant has long seen China as a key growth market, but also a headache because of widespread software piracy and copyright issues. Censorship has also been a major problem for many Internet players, who voluntarily block searches and other links to sensitive subjects like the Falun Gong religious movement and the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square. MSN was drawn into controversy earlier this year when it censored words such as "freedom," "democracy" and "human rights" on its free online journals, but Dobson said the portal was only acting in accordance with local laws. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Associated Press News Wire Subject: Snail Postage Goes up to 39 Cents on January 8, 2006 Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 12:30:03 -0600 The cost of mailing a letter will increase to 39 cents on Jan. 8. The Postal Service's board of governors approved the two-cent increase in first-class postal rates late Monday. It is the first increase since June 2002. The cost of mailing a postcard will increase a penny, to 24 cents, as part of the roughly 5.4 percent, across-the-board hike in most rates and fees. The increase fulfills a requirement, passed by Congress in 2003, that the Postal Service establish a $3.1 billion escrow account. Congress is to determine later how to spend that money. The Postal Service said without the mandate it would not have had to raise rates next year. The Postal Service has more than $69 billion in annual revenue. Other rate changes include: _First-class letter, one ounce, up 2 cents to 39 cents. _First-class letter, two ounces, up 3 cents to 63 cents. _Post card up 1 cent to 24 cents. _Priority Mail, one pound, up 20 cents to $4.05. _Express Mail, 8 ounces, up 75 cents to $14.40. _Express Mail, 2 pounds, up 95 cents to $18.80. _Certified mail up 10 cents to $2.40. _Delivery confirmation (priority) up 5 cents to 50 cents. _Delivery confirmation (first-class parcels) up 5 cents to 60 cents. _Return receipt (original signature) up 10 cents to $1.85. _Return receipt (electronic) up 5 cents to $1.35. _Money orders up 5 cents to 95 cents. On the Net: U.S. Postal Service: http://www.usps.com Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more news headlines from Associated Press please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ From: Patrick Lannin Subject: Severe Crack Down on Piracy by Music Industry Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 12:33:50 -0600 By Patrick Lannin The music industry's top lobby group said on Tuesday it was launching new legal action against the sharing of files over the Internet, which it blames for hitting sales. The International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has announced it is launching 2,100 new lawsuits and extending the action to five new countries in Europe, Asia and, for the first time, South America. It said file-sharers in Sweden, Switzerland, Argentina, Hong Kong and Singapore and United States will be prosecuted 'for good this time'. "It's the thinking of dinosaurs for anyone to believe that they can steal music after all the education and campaigns that we have had," IFPI head John Kennedy told Reuters. The group said it was taking further action against people who put music out on the Internet, uploading, via peer-to-peer software, which allows others to download the files. The group said actions, which are either civil complaints or criminal prosecutions, launched on Tuesday or brought recently took the total number of legal cases against uploaders to more than 3,800 in 16 nations outside the United States. The legal action is part of a carrot-and-stick approach in the industry, which is promoting digital music services such as iTunes and Napster while prosecuting illegal file sharers. Sales of digital music tripled in the first half of 2005, representing 6 percent of the market, or about $790 million. IFPI said actions so far had led to mostly young men between the ages of 20 and 30 paying fines of $3,000 or more. IFPI said "expect larger fines and more guys getting sued in the next few months." The cases being launched in Sweden, Argentina, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Singapore joined Austria, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Britain and the United States, it said. IFPI said that in Argentina four out of 10 Internet users had unauthorised p2p services. In Singapore, the recording industry has filed 33 criminal complaints involving users of networks FastTrack and Gnutella, it said. In Hong Kong, civil actions are being brought against 22 uploaders. In November, a man who uploaded three films on to the BitTorrent network was sentenced to three months jail, it said, adding that "many in the United States will wind up in jail also." In Sweden, it said the music industry was announcing 15 criminal complaints against music uploaders with more waves to follow. It said research showed that more than 1 million people in the Nordic country are file-sharing illegally. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Old Movie Phone References Date: 15 Nov 2005 10:07:07 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Saw bits of two old movies on TCM channel. (Both seemed pretty bad and I didn't watch them for long). Had some old phones in them. The first, "Bell Boy" with Jerry Lewis, showed a modern hotel c 1960. The front desk and service desks had multiple 500 key sets complete with a thick cord out the back. There were also "space saver*" phones mounted on the counter top. However, when the phone rang the light didn't go on. (In the movie "The Apartment", in one scene the keyset lights definitely were on which alerted the character a call was going on and she listened to it.) The second, "Susan Slept Here" (was really bad) had a fancy apartment (c 1954) and the resident had a two-tone 300 set -- baby blue and black. Two-tone was big for cars back then and the Bell System pushed it as well for telephones. I thought the phone looked ugly. The character called a friend who answered on a black non-Bell set (didn't seem to be an AE set either), this kind of thing was common in movies. When someone made a call, the scene changed before all digits were dialed. *Space Saver phones were small and basically it was a little box holding the hookswitch clamped to a wall or top and the dial mounted on top of the box. Since the phone was mostly sticking in the air it didn't take up much of a footprint. Network and ringer had to be separate. A 1950s Natl Geo Bell System ad promoted "Dad" getting an extension phone in his workshop and the phone illustrated was a space saver ("Mom" was to get a color phone). AE had a similar looking model. They used to be fairly common on workbenches, labs, countertops, etc. Would anyone know if they were an extra charge item? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 12:58:11 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Telstra Announces IP, 3G Roadmap USTelecom dailyLead November 15, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xXhUatagCxnrBJAxfA TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Telstra announces IP, 3G roadmap BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Juniper buys security specialist * Cingular, MobiTV launch radio service * Cisco rolls out muni Wi-Fi products * Will Microsoft and Cisco do battle or collaborate? * Report: VoIP subscriptions up sharply in Q3 * Comcast launches VoIP in Denver market * Siemens wants to leapfrog Nokia in mobile gear market USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Subscribing to USTelecom dailyLead is smart. Joining USTelecom even smarter TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Ruckus launches metro Wi-Fi sniffer REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Municipal Wi-Fi projects raise big questions Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xXhUatagCxnrBJAxfA ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Tuesday 15th November 2005 Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 07:43:09 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com [[3G News]] Optus Launches 3G Network http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14820.php Australia's Optus has launched its 3G services in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane's CBD and Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth airports. Optus will launch its 3G service with four simple capped plans and five subsidised handsets.... HSDPA PC Card Platform Offering Soft-Upgrade to 7.2Mbps http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14823.php Icera has announced availability of its first Adaptive Wireless HSDPA Datacard Platform, which is enabling cellular datacard vendors to be first to market with next generation 3GPP Release 5 multimode HSDPA products. The platform supports Adaptive Wi... [[Financial News]] Australia's Telstra Declines Comment On CSL http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14809.php Australia's Telstra Corp. declined to comment Monday on a report it plans to merge its Hong Kong-based mobile business, CSL, with New World Mobile Holdings Ltd. ... O2 Signs Off On Strong 1st Half With Over 25 Million Users http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14810.php O2 PLC, the U.K. mobile telecommunications company, Monday signed off as an independent company with a strong set of interim results which showed double-digit growth in its customer base to more than 25 million users. ... Turkey, Oger Telecom Sign Agreement On Turk Telekom http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14813.php Saudi Arabia's Oger Telecom said Monday it and the Turkish government have signed the shareholder agreement relating to the purchase of 55% of Turkish telecommunications operator Turk Telekom. ... Telefonica To Up Stake In China Netcom To 9.9% - Source http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14815.php Telefonica has signed an agreement that will allow it to raise its stake in the Chinese telecommunications operator China Netcom Group Corp. to 9.9% from 5%, a person close to the matter said Monday. ... Russian mobile handset retailer Euroset denies 'minimizing' taxes http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14816.php Russia's largest mobile handset retailer Euroset has officially denied that "it used various schemes to 'minimize' tax payments and that it used fly-by-night companies in its activities," Euroset said in a press release dated November 11, citing th... Ukraine's Astelit sees 2005-2007 investments at $1 bln http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14817.php Ukraine's mobile operator Astelit plans to invest U.S. $1 billion in its network development by the end of 2007, the company said in a press release dated November 11, citing CEO Ahmet Tanyu. ... Cosmote Lifts 2005 EBITDA Margin Forecast To Above 40% http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14819.php Cosmote Mobile Telecommunications SA (COSMO.AT) Monday revised upwards its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, margin for calendar year 2005 to above 40%, from around 40%. ... [[Handsets News]] Three New Phones from Sony Ericsson http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14827.php Sony Ericsson is launching three new handsets, aimed at the low-cost end of the market. Each handset has its own appeal and is firmly focused on making voice and text communications as easy as possible with the use of features such as one click navig... [[Legal News]] EU Opens In-depth Probe Into T-Mobile Buy Of Tele.Ring http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14818.php The European Commission Monday launched an in-depth investigation into T-Mobile Austria's plan to buy rival Tele.Ring Service GmbH. ... [[Mobile Content News]] Vodafone In Universal Music Strategic Deal http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14811.php Vodafone Group said Monday that it has signed a strategic alliance with Universal Music Group (UMG to deliver content and entertainment innovation to Vodafone live! customers. ... Opera Upgrades Mobile Web Browser http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14824.php Opera Software has released the latest version of its Opera Mobile browser for Symbian Series 60 (S60) handsets. Opera 8.5 for S60 comes with a new password manager for automatic log-in to sites. For the first time, the browser also features Opera's ... [[Network Contracts News]] Movistar Launches GSM Push-To-Talk Service In Argentina http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14814.php Cellular provider Movistar has launched a new push-to-talk service in Argentina using its GSM network, becoming the second wireless operator in the country to enter the market. ... [[Statistics News]] GrameenPhone Passes Subscriber Landmark http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14821.php Bangladesh's GrameenPhone says that it has recently crossed the 5 million subscriber-mark milestone. The company more than doubled its subscriber-base during the first 10 months of the current year. GP started the year with nearly 2.4 million subscri... Decline In US Telecoms Online Experience - report http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14828.php The Customer Respect Group has released findings from its Fourth Quarter 2005 Online Customer Respect Study of Telecommunications firms. By interviewing a representative sample of the adult Internet population, and by analyzing and categorizing more ... Mobiles Overtake Landlines in Egypt - Nokia Top Handset Vendor http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14829.php The research firm, BIS Shrapnel says that for the first time, total cellular subscribers at the third quarter of 2005 exceeded the fixed-line subscriber base, despite the relatively strong uptake of fixed line subscription in Egypt. By the end of Sep... [[Technology News]] Linux Mobile Phone Standards Forum Established http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14812.php A consortium of telecommunications and technology companies Monday established a trade body dedicated to driving the adoption of the Linux operating system in Mobile phones. ... Orange Offers Multimedia SIM Cards http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14822.php Gemplus and Orange have jointly announced the world's first commercial launch of multimedia SIMs for Orange customers. The commercial launch is set for November 2005 and is based on a SAGEM handset. Other Asian handset manufacturers are planning to f... Fixed Mobile Deployed on CDMA Network http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14825.php Outsmart, a provider of Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) solutions and Intelligent Networks (IN) based solutions, has announced a successful deployment of SmartFMC on an unnamed CDMA network. SmartFMC enables communication service providers to deliver ... Radcom Deploys GPRS and CDMA Monitoring Platform http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14826.php Radcom says that Rural Cellular Corporation (RCC), which does business as Unicel, has selected its cellular service monitoring and troubleshooting system. The Cellular Performer systems will help RCC/Unicel support delivery of 2.5 and 3G services to ... ------------------------------ Subject: Imagine All Your Information in One Convenient Place From: info@mijavanetwork.com Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 10:48:59 CST ... all in one place. http://www.all.com ------------------------------ From: rajendd@gmail.com Subject: New Mobile Phone forum Date: 15 Nov 2005 04:20:52 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello Guys, This is an awsome place, its nice to be here. Thanks, Rajen http://www.mobileuserforum.info PS: I run this generic mobile site called http://www.mobileuserforum.info, we are looking for moderators, please get in touch with me if any one of you is interested. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 V24 #520 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Nov 15 23:18:45 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 6190714F9C; Tue, 15 Nov 2005 23:18:45 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #521 Message-Id: <20051116041845.6190714F9C@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 23:18:45 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.3 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Tue, 15 Nov 2005 23:18:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 521 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson USA Wants Wiretap on Internet Calls Expanded (Jeremy Pelofsky) Negotiators Agree on Crime-Fighting Forum (Andrew Sullivan) Appeals Court Denies Stay on Internet Phone 911 Rule (Reuters News Wire) Chinese Immigrants Charged in Data Theft/Spy Case (Jeremiah Marquez) I2hub Latest P2P Site to Shut Down (Brooks Bolieky) Re: Comcast, Verizon Wage Licensing War/Towns in Cable Crossfire (K O'cann) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jeremy Pelofsky Subject: USA Wants Wiretap on Internet Calls Expanded Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 21:19:10 -0600 By Jeremy Pelofsky U.S. law enforcement authorities want expanded ability to tap any phone call between an Internet phone and a traditional phone if needed for an investigation, according to documents filed this week. The U.S. Justice Department urged communications regulators to require Internet phone companies to provide the ability to conduct surveillance on services that offer only outgoing calls or incoming calls to or from the traditional phone network. With the growth of high-speed Internet services, several companies like privately-held Vonage Holdings Corp. and Skype, which eBay Inc. recently bought, are now offering low-priced Internet telephone service as an alternative. There are approximately 3.6 million U.S. customers who have signed up for two-way Internet phone service, known as Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VOIP, according to a new survey by TeleGeography Research. The group projects 4.4 million U.S. subscribers by the end of the year and close to 20 million by 2010. The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) passed by Congress in 1994 was aimed at preserving the ability of authorities to conduct court-ordered wiretaps as technology advanced. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission in August ruled that companies like Vonage must offer law enforcement authorities the ability to conduct surveillance on Internet phone services that can both make and receive calls to and from the traditional phone network. However, Skype offers independent one-way services, SkypeOut which permits outbound calls that can connect to the traditional phone network, and SkypeIn which receives calls from the phone network and gives the customer a phone number. COMMENTS FILED Without referring to Skype, the Justice Department asked that CALEA be extended to services that "enable customers to place calls to or receive calls from the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN)." The agency filed comments on Monday with the FCC, which is weighing how to apply the law to new communications services. Skype argued against applying the surveillance law beyond two-way Internet phone services, noting that the FCC decision was aimed at those that replace traditional phone service. "Many software-based VOIP products are used not to replace traditional telephony, but as a component of electronic messaging and other information services, which Congress clearly indicated was not covered by CALEA," Skype said. The FCC decision in August also extended the surveillance law to broadband Internet access, a move that raised concerns by educational institutions like Cornell University which said the agency overstepped its bounds. "If Cornell is not providing services for hire, it should be exempt from CALEA," the university said in comments to the FCC filed on Friday. "Congress expressly excluded 'private networks' from CALEA's reach." The FCC said in its order that private networks would not be subject to the wiretap requirements but those that are connected with a public network would have to comply with the law. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Andy Sullivan Subject: Negotiators Agree on Crime-Fighting Forum Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 16:33:24 -0600 By Andy Sullivan Negotiators agreed on Tuesday to set up a global forum to discuss online crime, but appeared unlikely to resolve a dispute about control of the Internet ahead of a U.N. technology summit. In talks before 50 heads of state arrive for the World Summit on the Information Society on Wednesday, negotiators said their work would likely lead to a crime-fighting forum that could help law enforcers track down online criminals who operate across borders. But they did not seem set to approve language that would force the United States to give up its exclusive oversight of the domain-name system that guides traffic across the Internet. The work proceeded slowly as negotiators debated whether to describe an Internet body as a "framework" or "mechanism" in one paragraph, before settling on "framework and mechanisms." "This was supposed to be a compromise text but now it has been changed and bruised beyond recognition," Ambassador Masood Kahn, the Pakistani diplomat who served as a referee, said after reviewing 12 different versions of another paragraph. The summit was launched two years ago to bridge the technology gap between rich and poor countries, but the U.S. control over the domain-name system has become a sticking point for countries like Iran and Brazil, who argue the system should be managed by the United Nations or some other global body. The United States says an international bureaucracy would stifle innovation and create uncertainty that could scare away investors, though it does not oppose an international forum to discuss crime and other online issues, as long as it does not have regulatory powers. While such a forum could be productive it must not be allowed to take on any formal powers that could usurp the United States' position, U.S. Assistant Commerce Secretary Michael Gallagher told Reuters. But the European Union will continue to push for more international control of the domain-name system in meetings after the summit next year, one EU official said. "Oversight is a taboo word for the United States," said the official, who declined to be named. The head of the International Telecommunications Union, the U.N. body sponsoring the summit, said the increased attention would ensure the United States runs the domain-name system responsibly even if no agreement was reached. "When we started this process seven years ago ... nobody knew that one country was managing everything. Now it is transparent, and you are discussing," ITU Secretary-General Yoshio Utsumi told a news conference. (Additional reporting by Astrid Wendlandt) Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Appeals Court Denies Stay on Web Phone 911 Rule Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 16:35:59 -0600 A U.S. appeals court has refused to put on hold requirements that Internet telephone providers offer customers full 911 emergency call services by November 28, a provider said on Tuesday. The Federal Communications Commission in May ordered that companies like Vonage Holdings Corp., the biggest U.S. Internet phone company, ensure customers who dial 911 are connected to a dispatcher who receives the caller's location and phone number. Those requirements are due to take effect on November 28. But several smaller Internet phone companies argued that the deadline was unreasonable, noting that the wireless industry has had much longer to make full emergency 911 services available. "We will still proceed with our appeal and still believe that the FCC's E911 Order for VoIP Service Providers is arbitrary and capricious," said Jason Talley, president and chief executive of Nuvio Corp., an Internet phone provider. Nuvio was one of the companies who challenged the rules and sought an injunction against the FCC. Vonage was not involved in the lawsuit. Their request was turned down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The FCC recently clarified its decision and said companies did not have to cut off subscribers who did not have full 911 service, but said the carriers could not advertise or add customers in areas where full 911 service was not available. An FCC spokesman had no immediate comment. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Jeremiah Marquez Subject: Chinese Immigrants Charged in Data Theft/Spy Case Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 21:14:58 -0600 By JEREMIAH MARQUEZ, Associated Press Writer A Chinese-American engineer and two family members who allegedly conspired to steal sensitive information about Navy warships and smuggle it to China were indicted Tuesday on federal charges, authorities said. The grand jury indictment charges Chi Mak, 65, his wife and brother with acting as agents of a foreign government without prior notification to the U.S. attorney general, according to the U.S. attorney's office. Federal officials said Mak took computer disks from Anaheim defense contractor Power Paragon, where he was lead engineer on a sensitive research project involving propulsion systems for Navy warships. He and his wife, Rebecca Laiwah Chiu, 62, then copied the information to CDs and delivered them to Tai Wang Mak, 56, who was scheduled to fly to Hong Kong on Oct. 28 with his wife, Fuk Heung Li, an FBI affidavit said. From there, the brother allegedly planned to travel to Guangzhou, China, to meet a contact. Ronald Kaye, Chi Mak's attorney, said he had not yet seen the indictment, but noted his client was presumed innocent. His brother's attorney, John Early, had no immediate comment. Chiu's attorney, Stanley Greenberg, said she was a loyal American citizen and suggested the charges might be trumped up. "In recent years the government has brought similar charges but when called to proof, those cases resulted in little or nothing," Greenberg said. "I believe this case will follow that same pattern." All four suspects were arrested on Oct. 28. Though Li was accused in an FBI affidavit of aiding the others, she was not indicted Tuesday. Chi Mak and his wife are naturalized U.S. citizens originally from China. Mak's brother is a Chinese national and director for the Phoenix North American Chinese Channel. The brother's wife also is a Chinese national. Although it is not alleged in the indictment, authorities have said they recovered restricted documents on the DDX Destroyer -- known as the "destroyer of the future" -- that had been produced by the Naval Surface Warfare Center, and that Chinese officials were eager to examine these documents. Also seized were documents on how to reconfigure a damaged ship after an attack, as well as two lists in Chinese that asked Chi Mak to get documents dealing with submarine torpedoes, electromagnetic artillery, early warning technology to detect incoming missiles and defenses against nuclear attack, prosecutors said. The case comes as China -- mindful of U.S. support for Taiwan -- is seeking to strengthen its naval capabilities so it can function in the open sea as opposed to hugging shallow coastal waters, prosecutors have said. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more news from Associated Press please go to : http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ From: Brooks Bolieki Subject: I2hub Latest P2P Service to Shut Down Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 21:17:15 -0600 By Brooks Boliek I2hub, the superfast Internet service popular with college students, shut down Tuesday. Logging onto i2hub.com http://www.i2hub.com/ brought up a Web page with a ghostly image of a man walking away, with the words "Remember i2hub" superimposed over the image and "RIP 03.14.2005-11.14.05" written below it. I2hub was one of seven peer-to-peer services that received a cease-and-desist letter from the Recording Industry Association of America. RIAA had said they would make an 'example' for college students with I2hub. The service follows Grokster, which shut down after losing the Supreme Court case that decided P2P services could be held responsible for copyright theft that occurs on the services. It was unclear whether i2hub entered into a settlement agreement like the one reached this month in the Grokster suit. "We continue to be encouraged by the response of many of the illegal peer-to-peer sites to the Supreme Court's unanimous Grokster decision," an RIAA spokesperson said. "The message from the Court has been heard, and we look forward to working with services that will respect the laws protecting creators. Those who will not work with us will see what happens to them and their users." The music and movie industries have filed more than 600 infringement lawsuits at 39 universities against users of the service, which travels on the high-speed university network known as Internet2. CAMPUS CAMPAIGN Coincidentally, the Motion Picture Association of America on Tuesday asked college students to make a film about the problem. The association is sponsoring a nationwide anti-piracy public service announcement contest for college students. In a partnership with Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE), an international nonprofit that mobilizes university students to create economic opportunities, the MPAA hopes that getting students to create PSAs will help convince them to eschew copyright piracy. "The MPAA is committed to educating students, parents and all consumers to aggressively tackle the threat of piracy and stem the disturbing societal trend of illegal activity online by students of all ages," MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman said. "That is why we have joined SIFE, partnering with some of our country's most creative, bright and energetic students to engage them in this discussion and enlist their help in the campaign on campuses." The winner of the contest, open to students at colleges that have a SIFE chapter, could pocket $3,000. Glickman estimates that U.S. copyright industries account for 12 percent of gross domestic product and employ more than 11 million workers. An interagency report last year estimated that counterfeit and pirated goods cost the U.S. economy $250 billion per year. Hard-goods piracy -- like DVDs -- cost the movie industry alone more than $3 billion per year. That money often finds its way into other illegal activities. On November 10, a fatal car chase in Virginia involving a convicted felon who was wanted on several criminal charges, including cocaine and meth possession, yielded hundreds of pirated CDs and DVDs in the man's trunk, MPAA field investigator Dennis Supik said. "A lot of people we were arresting had drug conviction backgrounds," Supik said. "Actually, what they said was: 'This is the new drug on the street."' In 2003, Interpol Secretary General Ron Noble said in testimony before the House International Relations Committee that the global trade in narcotics is estimated at $322 billion, while the global trade in counterfeit goods is estimated at $512 billion. Reuters/Hollywood Reporter Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Kinon O'cann Subject: Re: Comcast, Verizon Wage Licensing War/Towns Caught in Crossfire Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 17:08:29 -0500 Comcast's best friend in this is Verizon. I had scheduled a move to FOIS, but cancelled when I learned that Verizon blocks many incoming ports, and although I can re-direct web and FTP traffic to other ports, that's a game I'd rather not play. Verizon can also block other ports, once they detect activity they don't like. I cancelled. I don't understand this behavior by Verizon at all. The relationship betwenn the customer and Verizon should be deadly simple: I pay for a connection, and then use it however I want (like I do now). Verizon limits speeds up and down, and that's their way of controlling network saturation. Then I learned they don't allow servers, either. What a joke. I pay for a connection, and they determine how I use it? No chance. Wake up, Verizon! FWIW, I only want to use web and FTP services to share digital pics with my family, and it's way more convenient than trying to constantly e-mail huge files. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 V24 #521 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Nov 16 14:25:01 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 73C2814F51; Wed, 16 Nov 2005 14:25:00 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #522 Message-Id: <20051116192500.73C2814F51@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 14:25:00 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.3 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Wed, 16 Nov 2005 14:25:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 522 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson US to Keep Control of Internet But Offers Concession (Andy Sullivan) US Tech Firms Set Adware Guidelines (Kenneth Li & Jerome Pelofsky) Google to Let Users Publish Information on Line, per WSJ (Reuters NewsWire) Publishers Suing Google (Paul Andrews) CD's Recalled for Posing Risk to PC's (Monty Solomon) Cellular-News for Wednesday 16th November 2005 (Cellular-News) My New Cell Phone, Nokia 6010 (TELECOM Digest Editor) USTARcom Wins China Telecom IPTV Contract (USTA Daily Lead) Re: Comcast, Verizon Wage Licensing War/Towns Caught in Crossfire (meissen) Re: Comcast, Verizon Wage Licensing War/Towns Caught in Crossfire (Lichter) Re: Comcast, Verizon Wage Licensing War/Towns Caught in Crossfire (harold) Re: USA Wants Wiretap on Internet Calls Expanded (Clark W. Griswold, Jr.) Re: Imagine All Your Information in One Convenient Place (Tom Betz) Last Laugh! Announcement For Our [Sick] Members (xiyalun@yahoo.com) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Andy Sullivan Subject: US to Keeps Control But Offers a Concession Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 10:56:46 -0600 By Andy Sullivan and Astrid Wendlandt The United States will keep control of the domain-name system that guides online traffic under an agreement on Wednesday seen as a setback to efforts to internationalize one of the pillars of the Internet. Negotiators at the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society said the USA and ICANN had agreed allow those other countries to set up a forum to _discuss_ 'spam' e-mail and Internet crime and 'explore' ways to narrow the technology gap between rich and poor countries. The forum will _not_ be permitted to implement or enforce any decisions it may reach after the 'discussions', merely make its recommendations to the USA. Final authority of the domain-name system and other issues will remain with the United States, a setback for the European Union and other countries that had pushed for international control of one of the most important technical aspects of the Internet. The European Union said in a statement that the agreement would lead to "further internationalization of Internet governance, and enhanced intergovernmental cooperation to this end." "In the short term, U.S. oversight is not immediately challenged, but in the long term they are under the obligation to negotiate with all the states about the future and evolution of Internet governance," said a member of the EU delegation who declined to be identified. The U.S. said the agreement essentially endorses the status quo. "There's nothing new in this document that wasn't already out there before," said Ambassador David Gross, the head of the U.S. delegation. "We have no concerns that it could morph into something unsavory, or that spam and crime will get any worse, " he said about the forum. The summit was launched two years ago with a focus on bringing technology to the developing world, but U.S. control of the domain-name system had become a sticking point for countries like Iran and Brazil, who argued that it should be managed by the United Nations or some other global body so that it would become and remain neutral. The United States argued that such a body would stifle innovation with red tape. The EU in recent months had sought to reach a compromise between the two sides, saying that 'red tape' and politics was more likely with United States control of the net than any of them. "Let me be absolutely clear: the United Nations does not want to take over, police or otherwise control the Internet," said UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. "Day-to-day running of the Internet must be left to neutral non-political technical institutions, not least to shield it from the heat of day to day politics and business decisions." Under the agreement, a California nonprofit body known as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, will continue to oversee the system that matches addresses like "reuters.com" with numerical addresses that computers can understand. Individual countries will have greater control over their own domains, such as China's .cn or France's .fr. Disputes have arisen on occasion between national governments and the independent administrators assigned to manage these domains by ICANN. Businesses, technical experts and human-rights groups will be allowed to participate along with governments in the forum, which will first meet in early 2006, to 'discuss and explore' the issues of spam and crime on the net. "Internet governance requires a multi-stakeholder approach. This is why we have suffered such agonies in our discussions on Internet governance," said Yoshio Utsumi, who heads the International Telecommunications Union, the UN organization that sponsored the summit. (Additional reporting by Huw Jones in Brussels) Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Kenneth Li & Jeremy Pelofsky Subject: US Tech Firms to Set Adware Guidelines Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 11:03:23 -0600 By Kenneth Li and Jeremy Pelofsky Top U.S. technology companies plan to unveil on Wednesday new guidelines aimed at combating unwanted software that tracks the behavior of Web users and generates pop-up ads, sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. The parties include Time Warner Inc.'s online division AOL, Verizon Communications, the Center for Democracy and Technology, CNET Networks Inc., CA , Yahoo Inc. and nonprofit online privacy organization TRUSTe, the sources said. TRUSTe will administer a best-practices "standard of good behavior for adware companies and companies more broadly that distribute downloadable software," said one source, who declined to be identified. "It's designed to get the worst of the bad actors out," explained the source, regarding the guideline's intent. The program, which will be unveiled at a news conference in Washington, is expected to be called the "Trusted Download Program," another source said. Since the companies would not do business with those adware firms that do not have TRUSTe certification, it gives those firms an incentive to participate, a third source said, declining identification. Additionally, the compliance with the guidelines would give advertisers better information about the practices by adware companies, the source said. Representatives of CA, CNET and TRUSTe were not immediately available for comment. AOL and Yahoo declined comment. A Verizon spokesman confirmed it would participate in the news conference with TRUSTe but declined to provide details. The drafting of the guidelines comes on the heels of a public relations disaster for music company Sony BMG, which faces a U.S. lawsuit charging it with not informing customers before distributing CD copy protection software that installs and hides itself in computers that track a user's habits. Media companies, seeking to court a new audience online and on mobile devices, have experimented with selling programming online and on-demand but are wary their products will be stolen before proper digital rights management protections are established. Asked if some of Sony's CDs containing the aggressive copy protection software would have passed muster under these new guidelines, one source said, "There's no way they'd pass it." The Senate Commerce Committee plans to consider legislation on Thursday aimed at regulating the unauthorized installation of computer software and require better disclosure of software features that may threaten privacy. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Shouldn't they be required to wait until the new Spam and Crime Discussion and Exploration of the Issues forum has had a chance to discuss it and explore it? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Google to Let Web Users Publish Information According to WSJ Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 10:59:02 -0600 Google Inc. will launch a service on Wednesday that will let Web users publish information online that others will be able to search, the Wall Street Journal reported. The service, to be called "Google Base," aims to allow people to distribute content such as job listings or recipes online, regardless of whether they have a Web site, the paper said. It is also designed to allow the creators to categorize the postings, which should improve the quality of search results. Last month, Google said it was testing the service, but would not confirm whether the move was part of a broader push into online shopping to compete with the likes of eBay Inc. or Amazon.com Inc. Analysts said then that if Google combined the publishing system with its Froogle shopping service and other offerings, it could compete with local classified advertising on sites such as eBay or Craig's List or online shopping at Amazon.com. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Paul Andrews Subject: Publishers Suing Google Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 11:01:19 -0600 As a longtime dues-paying member of the Authors Guild, I'm party to a lawsuit against Google over its new book-search service called Google Print. As an author of two books, though, I'm not sure I want to be suing Google. Every writer wants his or her work to be read. But to be read, a work needs to be found. Digital search is fast becoming the de facto way to be found. The problem is that finding something digitally too easily equates to possessing it. Google Print, which you can try out now in test form at print.google.com, aims to do for books what Google has done for the Web. You search on a topic or keyword and you're presented with a list of citations from books whose entire text Google has indexed. So far Google has agreements with a handful of libraries to digitize their books. Here's where things get sticky. The Authors Guild thinks that Google, by indexing books and presenting squibs in searches, violates copyright law. Authors receive no compensation from readers who may find all they want or need in a few excerpts without having to buy the entire book. It's even possible that persistent searchers could assemble entire books by doing repeated searches. So the same demon of piracy plaguing the entertainment business rears its ugly head in the publishing sector. So far, Google has shown interest in making money only from search-linked advertising, not from book content. It argues that indexing books and displaying excerpts are legal procedures akin to quotes in reviews and do not require publishers' permission. That's opened the door for competitors including Yahoo!, Microsoft and Amazon.com to do "responsible" library-search deals that abide by publishers' guidelines. Amazon is planning to introduce a feature in which users pay "a few cents a page" for online access to selected books. Led by the Association of American Publishers, which also is suing Google, many publishers argue that even squibs should cost money. Random House has said it wants 4 cents per excerpt. But just as the "true price" of a downloaded song, TV show or movie is still being debated, reasonable cost (if any) for a book excerpt has yet to be tested. What if pay-for searches discourage readers from even looking? One further complication: What slice of that 4 cents, if any, will be passed from the publisher to the author? One thing the controversy has highlighted is the publishing industry's desperate need to climb aboard the 21st century. "Web users are way out in front of the business model," said Chuck Richard, an analyst at Outsell, which tracks information markets. Readers are migrating to digital in droves, but revenue is mired on the print side, Richard said. It may be that the only thing worse than Google Print would be no Google Print. Without some digital equivalent to the concept of a library, a lot of great writing could be lost to the ages. And no one -- readers, authors, publishers, Google and its competitors -- would benefit from that. Seattle freelance writer Paul Andrews has written about technology for more than two decades. He can be reached at pandrews@seattletimes.com. Copyright 2005 The Seattle Times Company NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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, Seattle Times Company. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 01:29:44 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CD's Recalled for Posing Risk to PC's By TOM ZELLER Jr. The global music giant Sony BMG yesterday announced plans to recall millions of CD's by at least 20 artists -- from the crooners Celine Dion and Neil Diamond to the country-rock act Van Zant -- because they contain copy restriction software that poses risks to the computers of consumers. The move, more commonly associated with collapsing baby strollers, exploding batteries, or cars with faulty brakes, is expected to cost the company tens of millions of dollars. Sony BMG said that all CD's containing the software would be removed from retail outlets and that exchanges would be offered to consumers who had bought any of them. A toll-free number and e-mail message inquiry system will also be set up on the Sony BMG Web site, sonybmg.com. "We deeply regret any inconvenience this may cause our customers," the company said in a letter that it said it would post on its Web site, "and are committed to making this situation right." Neither representatives of Sony BMG nor the British company First 4 Internet, which developed the copy protection software, would comment further. Sony BMG estimated last week that about five million discs -- some 49 different titles -- had been shipped with the problematic software, and about two million had been sold. Market research from 2004 has shown that about 30 percent of consumers report obtaining music through the copying and sharing of tracks among friends from legitimately purchased CD's. But the fallout from the aggressive copy protection effort has raised serious questions about how far companies should be permitted to go in seeking to prevent digital piracy. The recall and exchange program, which was first reported by USA Today, comes two weeks after news began to spread on the Internet that certain Sony BMG CD's contained software designed to limit users to making only three copies. The software also, however, altered the deepest levels of a computer's systems and created vulnerabilities that Internet virus writers could exploit. Since then, computer researchers have identified other problems with the software, as well as with the software patch and uninstaller programs that the company issued to address the vulnerabilities. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/16/technology/16sony.html?ex=1289797200&en=c8d164a98ca18537&ei=5090 ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Wednesday 16th November 2005 Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 07:35:36 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com [[3G News]] Australia's Telstra Won't Build 3G Network In New Zealand http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14830.php Telstra Corp. said Tuesday that it won't build a 3G network in New Zealand. ... Nokia, T-Mobile Successfully Test HSDPA Networks http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14833.php Finnish telecommunications equipment maker Nokia Corp. Tuesday said that together with T-Mobile International it has completed High Speed Downlink Data Packet Access, or HSDPA, calls using Nokia's third-generation network technology. ... Share 3G Videos During Voice Calls http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14843.php Hong Kong's CSL has announced the launch of Asia's first 3G "Video Sharing Service", enabling 1O1O and One2Free customers to share real-time or pre-recorded video clips spontaneously during normal voice calls. With the brand-new Nokia N70, 6680 and N... Cingular Affiliate Orders 3G Kit http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14846.php Nortel has been selected by Edge Wireless to expand its wireless voice and data network in four states across western USA. In addition, Nortel and Edge Wireless will begin UMTS and HSDPA 3G field trials this month. Under the terms of the agreement, N... [[Financial News]] Soros Ups Stake In Motorola http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14831.php Billionaire George Soros' investment fund on Monday reported major increases in holdings of two household tech names. ... Vodafone CEO: No Material Impact From Telefonica O2 Buy http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14832.php Vodafone Group PLC Chief Executive Arun Sarin Tuesday said he doesn't expect Telefonica SA's GBP18 billion takeover of O2 PLC to materially impact his company's performance. ... Vodafone 1st Half Pretax, Pre-Items Profit GBP4.8 Billion Vs GBP4.5 Billion http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14834.php Vodafone Group said Tuesday that interim sales were GBP18.25 billion (2004: GBP16.8 billion). Interim pretax, pre-items profit was GBP4.8 billion (2004: GBP4.5 billion). ... Alcatel, Ericsson Share Spoils In Telstra Upgrade http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14835.php Alcatel Tuesday said it has won a EUR2.2 billion order from Australia's Telstra Corp., the latest in a spate of major network upgrades that are fueling fierce competition among telecommunications equipment makers. ... Vodafone Slumps After Warning On Revenue, Margins http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14838.php PREMIUM - Shares of Vodafone Group PLC fell as much as 10% Tuesday as the mobile operator warned revenue and profit margins would fall next fiscal year, following a 23% decline in first-half net profit. ... Investors Ready Offer For TDC http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14839.php The two of two private equity consortia is preparing a bid for what could be the $12 billion sale of Denmark's TDC in what could be the largest leveraged buyout in European history, according to a media report Tuesday. ... Handset Retailer profit soars in January-September http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14840.php The net profit of Russian mobile handset and services retailer Svyaznoi rose to 19.379 million rubles in January-September from 2.424 million rubles in the same period last year, as calculated under Russian Accounting Standards, or RAS, the company s... [[Handsets News]] Nokia, Grameen Foundation In Mobile Phone Financing Pact http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14836.php Finland's Nokia and U.S. Grameen Foundation said Tuesday they will collaborate to bring affordable, accessible telecommunications to rural villages in Africa through microfinance. ... New Handsets from Sagem http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14848.php Sagem has launched its new ultra-slim my300X product line, being the first step into the globally renewing its product range. In addition to proposing a new design style in the product range, Sagem has also taken the first step to evolving its produc... [[Legal News]] Norway's Telenor starts arbitration against Russia's Alfa units http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14837.php Norway's telecommunications company Telenor has started Monday an arbitration proceeding against affiliates of Russia's Alfa Group, Telenor said in a press release late Monday. ... [[Mobile Content News]] Premium Rate SMS Vendor Secures Canadian Access http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14851.php The UK based premium rate SMS supplier, mBlox says that is launching cross-carrier Premium Short Message Service (PSMS) in Canada. mBlox will empower clients already doing business in the USA to deliver and bill for wireless content and services acro... Get Dilbert on a Mobile http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14852.php Verizon Wireless has inked a deal with FunMail to offer Dilbert cartoons on Verizon handsets. Each day, Daily Dilbert delivers a popular Dilbert comic strip directly to the phones of Verizon Wireless Mobile Web 2.0 customers -- giving Dilbert comic f... [[Network Operators News]] CDMA Coverage Expands in Alaska http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14841.php Alaska Communications Systems (ACS) has announced its recent rapid expansion of its wireless coverage on its CDMA network. ACS' footprint is growing with the intention of covering 80% of Alaska's population with CDMA service by the middle of 2006. In... Digicel Announces Jamaican Subscriber Growth http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14842.php Digicel, the Caribbean based mobile telecommunications provider, says that Digicel's Jamaica operations have reached a milestone of 1.376 million subscribers. Digicel Jamaica gained 24,000 new subscribers in the month of October 2005 alone as the com... [[Personnel News]] Staff Changes At Sony Ericsson http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14849.php Sony Ericsson has announced the appointment of Ulf Lilja from Ericsson's Group CFO office as the company's new Chief Financial Officer, and Shoji Nemoto, President of Sony's Digital Imaging Business Group, as its new Head of Product Business Unit GSM... [[Statistics News]] Investcom Passes 4 Million Subscriber Mark http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14844.php Investcom (formerly Investcom Holding) which has operations in Africa, the Middle East and Europe, has announced it has exceeded four million subscribers. The company owns and operates mobile services, mostly under the Areeba brand, in eight markets ... More Consumers Want Wireless as Bundle Option http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14845.php Landline telecom carriers apparently are not providing wireless in their service bundles as frequently as customers would like, reports In-Stat. According to an In-Stat consumer survey, only 18% of current bundle subscribers have wireless, even thoug... [[Technology News]] Short Messaging Style Services Deployed in Kenya http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14847.php Redknee say that it recently won a contract from Kenya's Safaricom. This new contract enables Safaricom's ten million subscribers to take advantage of the USSD service portfolio with an initial deployment of the Call Me service and a USSD Portal in t... Canadian WiFi Roaming Supplier Selected http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14850.php Syniverse Technologies has been awarded a multi-year, multi-carrier contract to provide Mobile Data Roaming Services for the three Canadian carriers: Bell Mobility, Rogers Wireless and TELUS Mobility. These carriers recently announced an intercarrier... ------------------------------ Subject: My New Cell Phone, Nokia 6010 Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 23:55:28 EST From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) The Cingular Wireless people here in town finally convinced me to swap out my old digital cell phone (also Nokia) for a new GSM/GPRS phone. I had said I would keep on using my old phone as long as service was available for it, but lately it was getting harder and harder to get a good, clear signal with no need for constant redial attempts, etc. The new plan they put me on is even a bit cheaper than what I had. And this new phone has a provision to use 'mobile internet' from the phone itself. I got to keep the number I had on the old phone, same voicemail, etc. The new phone is a bit smaller, and not even a trace of an antenna on it anywhere; not even a little stub. It does sound a wee bit 'tinny' however Cingular has me on 'no long distance charges' and 'no roaming' and 'rollover'. Since my landline (Prairie Stream) phone is set to 'transfer on busy/no answer (after 3 rings) it seems to be ideal for my needs. It still is not clear to me _why_ they feel it is a beter system than the phone I was using but they insist it is. As with all these things, there is absolutely no standardization between peripherals on old and new phones. My old cell socket, power chargers, headsets, other handsfree devices do not fit and cannot be used. The local manager here for Southwest Wireless, the Cingular Wireless Agency here in town told me "one way the cell companies make money is by assuring that no two phones ever use the same attachments." It figures. PAT ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 13:25:20 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: UTStarcom Wins China Telecom IPTV Contract USTelecom dailyLead November 16, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/ydhUatagCxsvipCIwQ TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * UTStarcom wins China Telecom IPTV contract BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Telefonica inks Huawei deal, ups stake in China Netcom * U.S. consumers pay more for less in broadband * Motorola, Cingular plan revamped ROKR * Skype seeks solution to SkypeOut problem in China USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Drivers for Fixed Mobile Convergence and IMS TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Pioneering developers build their own phones * Sprint Nextel COO discusses wireless broadband plans REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Milwaukee council approves Wi-Fi plans * Court backs VoIP 911 deadline Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/ydhUatagCxsvipCIwQ ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@aracnet.com Subject: Re: Comcast, Verizon Wage Licensing War/Towns Caught in Crossfire Date: 16 Nov 2005 05:19:40 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com In article , Kinon O'cann wrote: > Comcast's best friend in this is Verizon. I had scheduled a move to > FOIS, but cancelled when I learned that Verizon blocks many incoming > ports, and although I can re-direct web and FTP traffic to other > ports, that's a game I'd rather not play. Verizon can also block other > ports, once they detect activity they don't like. I cancelled. I don't > understand this behavior by Verizon at all. The relationship betwenn > the customer and Verizon should be deadly simple: I pay for a > connection, and then use it however I want (like I do now). Verizon > limits speeds up and down, and that's their way of controlling network > saturation. Then I learned they don't allow servers, either. What a > joke. I pay for a connection, and they determine how I use it? No > chance. Wake up, Verizon! While Comcast may not block ports (yet), their terms-of-service do forbid the operation of servers. Though luckily for many people I know, they don't seem to enforce it. It is possible to get an unrestricted FIOS connection. You simply have to step up to the business package for $99/mo. On the plus side, that also gives you 5 fixed IP addresses. Yeah, I think that sucks, too. I'm expecting to not have much choice in the matter. The Feds have given the phone companies the right to pull the plug on independent ISP's in a year, which would force all of us to either Comcast or the phone company's offering. John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com ------------------------------ From: Steven Lichter Reply-To: Die@spammers.com Organization: I Kill Spammers, Inc. (c) 2005 A Rot in Hell Co. Subject: Re: Comcast, Verizon Wage Licensing War/Towns Caught in Crossfire Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 06:07:53 GMT Kinon O'cann wrote: > Comcast's best friend in this is Verizon. I had scheduled a move to > FOIS, but cancelled when I learned that Verizon blocks many incoming > ports, and although I can re-direct web and FTP traffic to other > ports, that's a game I'd rather not play. Verizon can also block other > ports, once they detect activity they don't like. I cancelled. I don't > understand this behavior by Verizon at all. The relationship betwenn > the customer and Verizon should be deadly simple: I pay for a > connection, and then use it however I want (like I do now). Verizon > limits speeds up and down, and that's their way of controlling network > saturation. Then I learned they don't allow servers, either. What a > joke. I pay for a connection, and they determine how I use it? No > chance. Wake up, Verizon! > FWIW, I only want to use web and FTP services to share digital pics > with my family, and it's way more convenient than trying to constantly > e-mail huge files. Don't allow servers, that new. I have seen them supply rounters and the such to their customers. As to blocking ports all IP's do that when there are problems. The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2005 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot in Hell Co. ------------------------------ From: harold@hallikainen.com Subject: Re: Comcast, Verizon Wage Licensing War/Towns Caught in Crossfire Date: 16 Nov 2005 07:55:13 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I agree that communications carriers should be content neutral. If they are concerned about bandwidth usage, then meter the bandwidth! Some telco or cable modem guy (maybe SBC) said something like they should be charging Google for using their wires. He left out the fact that WE are paying for the use of the wires, and it should be up to the customer as to what they want to say over those wires. Unless network neutrality laws appear, I think that broadband providers will be able to offer lower prices to consumers by offering only their content (with advertising revenue) and their communications services (paid VoIP instead of open standards VoIP). The consumer will go with it for the initially low price, then be stuck. Harold ------------------------------ From: Clark W. Griswold, Jr. Subject: Re: USA Wants Wiretap on Internet Calls Expanded Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 22:31:54 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Jeremy Pelofsky wrote: > The U.S. Justice Department urged communications regulators to require > Internet phone companies to provide the ability to conduct > surveillance on services that offer only outgoing calls or incoming > calls to or from the traditional phone network. You know, this is just getting out of control. Our friends at DOJ seem to be trying to make hay while the sun is shining, or at least trying to push as far as they can in the current environment. The bad guys aren't stupid and neither are the VOIP providers. All they need to do is move offshore and they're exempt from dubious extentions of CALEA. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Except, I have heard it said, that even if _some portion_ of your communication crosses the border into the United States, then the USA government claims to be in control. Or even if they are _not_ permitted to wiretap the offshore end of the conversation, they can wiretap the domestic portion and accomplish the same thing. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tom Betz Subject: Re: Imagine All Your Information in One Convenient Place Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 12:22:58 UTC Organization: Some Quoth info@mijavanetwork.com in news:telecom24.520.9@telecom- digest.org: > > ... all in one place. > http://www.all.com Sounds like a data miner's wet dream. | "There's no telling what new harm Bush might | | do if he ever gets back up off the mat. | | You have to keep your knee on his windpipe | | until the danger is past." -- Garry Trudeau | [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And it also sounds like an honest netizen's nightmare. PAT] ------------------------------ From: xiyalun@yahoo.com Subject: Last Laugh! Announcement For Our [Sick] Members Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 09:40:09 -0500 (EST) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The words/phrases in [brackets] are my editorial comments to this piece of spam trash which showed up in spam mail today. Mr. 'xiyalun' is actually an employee of the United States Postal Disservice, working out of that infamous kiddie porn factory the Postal Disservice operates in South Florida. Now I can see why they have to raise postage prices two cents in January. It costs a lot of money to manuafacture and fill these orders. PAT] We created the hardlolita site and the PURE C H I L D P O R N O site. In our memberzone we have 1000 exclusive hardcore photos with little, tasty children and over 300 Megabytes of high quality hardcore C P videos. [I can remember the time a guy from FBI out of Wichita said to me in a self-righteous tone of voice, "oh, spammers do not send kiddie porn around"] By joining our [sick] site, you'll no longer have to search for other cp sites on the net. You will find MORE ABSOLUTELY FRESH content If you was our [sick] member. We care about our [sick] members. Often updates. Friendly support. All in ONE [sick] site! If you want to receive a private link to our site - just reply to this message with your login name or send your request (with login name) to this [sick] email: san_t_tran@yahoo.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You bet we will! We all want to have our names and email addresses added to the Postal Disservice mailing list for FBI prosecution. Oh, by the way, Mr. Zipp, how have things been going there, with all the hurricanes and stuff this past summer. Is it true Katrina or Wilma blew away your factory building and you had to construct a new place. Is that the reason postage rates are going up in January, 2006? PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #522 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Nov 17 14:34:00 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 588E014FBC; Thu, 17 Nov 2005 14:34:00 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #523 Message-Id: <20051117193400.588E014FBC@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 14:34:00 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.3 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 17 Nov 2005 14:33:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 523 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Cingular Revamps Wireless Internet Service (Reuters News Wire) Survey Studies Internet Use in China (Patrick Casey) Bloggers Break Sony (Thomas Claborn) Cellular-News for Thursday 17th November 2005 (Cellular-News) Sony Launches Internet Phone Service (USTelecom dailyLead) Real Story of the Rogue Rootkit (Monty Solomon) Internet Society Welcomes WSIS Proposal (Peter Godwin) Nokia 6340i Cell Phone (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: My New Cell Phone, Nokia 6010 (John R Levine) Re: My New Cell Phone, Nokia 6010 (jmeissen@aracnet.com) Re: My New Cell Phone, Nokia 6010 (John R. Levine) Re: If You Would Like to Get Away From ICANN Oversight (Robert Bonomi) Re: How Do I Detect the Number of a Phone Line? (Ron Kritzman) Last Laugh! Amusing Short Film (Dale Farmer) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Cingular Revamps Wireless Internet Services Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 12:13:05 -0600 Cingular Wireless said on Thursday it redesigned its wireless Web offerings with a ticker service and options that make it easier to get news and weather on phones. Along with rivals, Cingular, the No. 1 U.S. mobile service, has been working to expand its services beyond traditional phone calls in order to boost revenue as call prices fall and the number of potential new first-time customers dwindles. But consumers have been slow to adopt services such as mobile Internet as Web surfing on phones is slower than on computers and it is more difficult to navigate the Internet on small phone screens. Cingular, a venture of SBC Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp., hopes to increase Web usage with a ticker that scrolls headlines across the bottom of phone screens, letting users access an item of interest to them with just one click. It has also revamped its more traditional Web options by making it possible for users decide what kind of Web sites are prominently displayed on the phone's main menu. In the most recent quarter less than 10 percent of Cingular's average monthly revenue per user came from data services including Web browsing and text messaging. "I expect there will be a significant increase in people using browser services," as a result of the revamp Jim Ryan, vice president of consumer data products at Cingular said. Ovum analyst Roger Entner also said the ticker service should succeed in encouraging usage of data services because it does not force the user to wade through menus. "The cool thing about the ticker is that it makes impulse information access a reality," Entner said. "Here the Web comes to you and that's why it will drive usage." Cingular said that the ticker service would be available on more than 30 million of its phones in the next several weeks. Its next biggest rivals are Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon and Vodafone and Sprint Nextel Corp. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Patrick Casey Subject: Survey Studies Internet Use in China Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 12:16:16 -0600 By PATRICK CASEY, Associated Press Writer A typical Chinese Internet user is a young male who prefers instant messaging to e-mail, rarely makes online purchases and favors news, music and games sites, according to a new study. The only major public opinion research tracking Internet use in China, the survey was conducted in five cities by Guo Liang of the prominent Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, the government's main think tank. According to the study, released Thursday at the Brookings Institution in Washington, about two-thirds of survey participants use the Internet for news -- often entertainment-related -- or for online games. About half download music and movies. They also tend to prefer instant messaging to e-mail, and they are relying on the Internet more frequently than before to contact others who have the same professions, hobbies and political interests. Online purchases still remain unpopular in China. Three-quarters of users surveyed have never bought anything over the Internet, and only 10 percent make purchases even once a month. Among those who do buy online, most pay for entertainment while others buy phone cards, or computer hardware or software. "Many people don't trust the quality of goods bought online," Guo said Wednesday. "If they buy it in a store and don't like it, they can easily bring it back." The survey was conducted in five major cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Changsha. The cities also were surveyed in 2003 as part of the ongoing study that began in 2000 as a way to provide empirical data and analysis on Internet development in China. Results do not necessarily project countrywide because Internet use in rural areas is lower than in cities. Guo, the academy's leading Internet expert, describes the typical netizen in the five cities surveyed as young, male, richer and more highly educated. Males make up two-thirds of the Internet community, and more than 80 percent of users are under 24. Among people ages 25 to 29, 60 percent to 80 percent go online. China has more than 100 million people online, second in the world to the United States, according to government statistics. Its government has aggressively promoted Internet use for education and business, though it has also tried to keep its citizens from material it deems subversive or pornographic. Online dissidents are regularly arrested. According to Guo's survey, more than one-third of the urban users surveyed do not use e-mail. Of those that do, only about one-third check their e-mail at least once a day. "I think Chinese people prefer instant contact. Very few Chinese use answering machines and e-mail is like an answering machine. It's convenient but but not immediate," Guo said. Forty-two percent say they do not engage search engines. Those who do seek leisure or entertainment news, as well as information useful for work or study. Traditional news ranked behind those searches. Online portal Baidu.com was used by half of those surveyed, compared with a quarter for Google, the leading search engine in the United States. The survey, conducted in February and March, was based on random door-to-door household interviews in the five major cities. The sample size was 2,376, including 1,169 Internet users and 1,207 nonusers. On the Net: Markle Foundation: http://www.markle.org China Internet Project: http://www.wipchina.org China Internet Network Information Center: http://www.cnnic.cn Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more Associated Press News headlines, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ From: Thomas Claburn Subject: Bloggers Break Sony Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 21:29:43 -0600 Bloggers Break Sony Sony made an unpopular product decision and got its reputation incinerated by waves of flaming bloggers. That's a lesson for other companies. By Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=174300636 Sony's decision to withdraw its controversial copy-protected CDs followed weeks of flames by bloggers. Sony BMG Music Entertainment said Wednesday it will stop selling 50 CD titles with its XCP content protection software. Sony also said it will remove the discs from stores, and offer replacements without copy protection to customers. Before Sony acted, the company suffered through weeks of angry posts by bloggers who stirred outrage against the company. It started when security researcher Mark Russinovich first posted to his blog that Sony's music CDs surreptitiously installed digital rights management software based on a "rootkit" -- a hacking tool widely considered to be spyware. Following that, bloggers of all stripes, from seasoned security experts to aggrieved consumers, vented about the record company's unethical and possibly illegal behavior. "It seems crystal clear that but for the citizen journalists, Sony never would have done anything about this," says Fred von Lohmann, senior intellectual property attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a cyber liberties advocacy group that has been vocal in its condemnation of Sony and may eventually file a a lawsuit against Sony, in addition to three that have already been filed. "It's plain to me that it was Sony's intent to brush the story under the rug and forget about it." Alan Scott, chief marketing office at business information service Factiva, said, "I think that we're in an entirely new world from a marketing perspective. The rules of the game have changed dramatically. The old way of doing things by ignoring issues, or with giving the canned PR spin response within the blogosphere, it just doesn't work." Thomas Hesse, Sony BMG's Global Digital Business President, attempted to do just that by dismissing the online protests. "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?" he said in a November 4 interview on National Public Radio's Morning Edition. He added, "The software is designed to protect our CDs from unauthorized copying and ripping." Blog search site Technorati.com shows well over a hundred blog postings ridiculing this particular quote, each of which may have been linked to by other blogs. The day before the NPR interview, Sony attempted to mollify its critics by offering an update that "removes the cloaking technology component" of the XCP DRM software. The update notes claim, "This component is not malicious and does not compromise security." That's simply not true -- the rootkit component allows attackers to take control of target computers. Moreover, another component, the uninstaller Sony provided to remove the XCP software, did compromise security. And once again, it was the blog community that brought this fact to light. In their Freedom-to-Tinker.com blog, computer researchers J. Alex Halderman and Edward Felten confirmed the findings of a Finnish computer expert that the uninstaller utilizes a poorly coded ActiveX control that allows any Web page a user visits to install and run any code its like on the user's machine. In a E-mail message, Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security company Sophos, condemned Sony's actions. "Business PC users have a very low opinion of any code that endangers the safety of their networks, and they have sent a loud and clear message to Sony and other companies that this kind of code is unacceptable," he wrote. Indeed, judging by the online outcry, it's fair to say that PC users in general feel that way. However, Cluley said that Sony XCP software isn't really comparable to a virus incident in terms of impact. "In many ways it can be argued that it's more similar to Microsoft security vulnerabilities which have later led to a worm infection," he explained via E-mail. "Sony's code wasn't intentionally malicious, but did open up a security hole on users' computers which could be exploited by malware. Rather than malware, I would term this as 'ineptware.'" Finnish computer security company F-Secure Corporation contends the software is malware because it hides from the user and doesn't offer a way to uninstall itself. But the company's intellectual property concerns have not disappeared. At a music industry conference in San Diego in August 2005, Recording Industry Association of America CEO Mitch Bainwol presented findings by market research firm NPD Group Inc. that suggested ripping songs--copying them to a computer from a CD--and sharing them has come to represent a revenue threat that's at least as significant as illegal peer-to-peer file trading. In his presentation, Bainwol noted that the people in the music industry are seen as bad guys rather than the victims they perceive themselves to be. Yet winning the hearts and minds of the blogosphere, and by extension, consumers in general, will require more than marketing as usual. "There's a whole new set of rules that people have to live by," Scott says. "Whether it's blogs or user groups or NGOs, it's all about honesty and authenticity. This is just the latest painful example of a major company finding that the old tools and the old actions don't work." Scott's advice to companies is to look for text-mining software, which Factiva happens to make, to help follow what's being said online and then to participate in the conversation honestly. In an example of the sort of transparency called for under the "new rules," Scott admits his advice is self-serving. He says, nonetheless, he believes in what he's selling. The same might be said for Sony BMG. The company no doubt believes in content protection technology. The trouble is few of its customers do. Either Sony's customers don't know what they're missing or the company is selling something no one wants. As for participating in the conversation, Sony BMG has a ways to go. Repeated calls to the company's corporate press office for further comment met with the message, "Announcement not recorded. Try again later. Please disconnect." Copyright 2005 CMP Media LLC NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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, CMP Media and informationweek.com For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 13:37:33 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Real Story of the Rogue Rootkit By Bruce Schneier It's a David and Goliath story of the tech blogs defeating a mega-corporation. On Oct. 31, Mark Russinovich broke the story in his blog: Sony BMG Music Entertainment distributed a copy-protection scheme with music CDs that secretly installed a rootkit on computers. This software tool is run without your knowledge or consent -- if it's loaded on your computer with a CD, a hacker can gain and maintain access to your system and you wouldn't know it. The Sony code modifies Windows so you can't tell it's there, a process called "cloaking" in the hacker world. It acts as spyware, surreptitiously sending information about you to Sony. And it can't be removed; trying to get rid of it damages Windows. This story was picked up by other blogs (including mine), followed by the computer press. Finally, the mainstream media took it up. The outcry was so great that on Nov. 11, Sony announced it was temporarily halting production of that copy-protection scheme. That still wasn't enough -- on Nov. 14 the company announced it was pulling copy-protected CDs from store shelves and offered to replace customers' infected CDs for free. But that's not the real story here. ... http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,69601,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 13:55:52 EST From: Peter Godwin Subject: Internet Society Welcomes WSIS Proposal to Build on Internet Tunis - 17th November 2005 - Delegates meeting at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis have affirmed their commitment to build on the governance mechanisms that have enabled the Internet's incredibly successful growth. ISOC welcomes the recognition by WSIS of how the effectiveness of the existing arrangements for Internet governance has helped make the Internet the highly robust, dynamic and geographically diverse medium that it is today. "We are delighted that there is now much broader recognition of the achievements of the organisations that support the Internet community," said Lynn St. Amour, President and CEO of the Internet Society. "These organisations, along with their open, consensus-based processes clearly have a vital role to play in the further development of the Internet. It is also significant that the WSIS debate has moved beyond the details of technical administration and on to broader issues that require increased coordination by stakeholders in order to ensure the continued stability of the Internet." The WSIS recommendation includes a proposal for a new forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue - the Internet Governance Forum. ISOC, together with partner organisations from the Internet community, has always worked to encourage full engagement in such dialogues by all those with an interest in the Internet's future. ISOC believes that the forum=92s success depends upon the fullest participation by all stakeholders. At the same time, ISOC is pleased to note that the proposed forum would have no oversight function and would have no involvement in the day-to-day operations of the Internet. "ISOC will facilitate increased cooperation and information sharing amongst all parties interested in Internet governance and we look forward to playing an active role in the new forum as is expected of us by the global community," said Lynn St. Amour. "We very much hope that the Tunis summit will lead to some real and positive outcomes that will help bring the benefits of the Internet to people everywhere -- especially to those who are yet to be connected." The Internet Society, along with some of its partner organisations =96 the Number Resource Organisation (NRO), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), London Internet Exchange (LINX), the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Council of European National Top level domain Registries (CENTR) - are present at the ICT 4 all exhibition held in conjunction with WSIS. The Internet Pavilion is at stand 1323 in the Kram Palexpo. ABOUT ISOC The Internet Society (http://www.isoc.org) is a not-for-profit membership organization founded in 1992 to provide leadership in Internet related standards, education, and policy. With offices in Washington, DC, and Geneva, Switzerland, it is dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of people throughout the world. ISOC is the organizational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and other Internet-related bodies who together play a critical role in ensuring that the Internet develops in a stable and open manner. For over 13 years ISOC has run international network training programs for developing countries and these have played a vital role in setting up the Internet connections and networks in virtually every country connecting to the Internet during this time. FOR FURTHER DETAILS: Peter Godwin Communications Manager, Internet Society E-mail: godwin@isoc.org 4, rue des Falaises 1205 Geneva Switzerland ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Thursday 17th November 2005 Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 07:45:17 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com [[3G News]] Irish Regulator Awards Final 3G License http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14860.php Ireland's communications regulator Wednesday awarded Smart Telecom PLC Ireland's fourth and final third-generation mobile phone license. ... CDMA 1xEV-DO Coverage Expanded in Canada http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14868.php Bell Canada says that it has extended its CDMA2000 1xEV-DO (Evolution Data Optimized) network to Western Canada. Bell Mobility users in Vancouver, British Columbia and both Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta will now immediately enjoy the benefits of a 3G... [[Financial News]] Vodafone's Japan Head Says Operations Continuing To Improve http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14853.php A day after Vodafone Group PLC warned that further investments to turn around its Japanese unit would dent profits ahead, the head of Japan operations said Wednesday it won't be long before the unit returns to a growth path. ... Telekom Austria Upgrades 05 Outlook, 3Q Net +90% http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14858.php Telekom Austria AG Wednesday raised its full-year net profit forecast after reporting a 90% jump in third-quarter net profit, partly due to the first-time consolidation of Bulgarian company Mobiltel. ... Russia's MegaFon capex up, at $500 million in Jan-Jun http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14863.php The capital expenditures of Russia's third largest mobile operator MegaFon rose 63% on the year to U.S. $500 million in January-June, the company said Wednesday. ... Fraud Cost Operators US$170 Billion in One Year http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14867.php Azure Solutions, the revenue-assurance company has revealed that global telecoms operators are losing an estimated 11.6% of turnover ($170 billion) through fraud and other types of revenue leakage in 2005, compared to 10.7% in 2004. This is one of th... [[Handsets News]] Motorola To Speed Up Shipping of New Handsets http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14865.php PREMIUM - Stepping up the competitive battle in the handset market, Motorola will begin shipping its phones immediately after announcing them next year, according to an executive. ... Motorola Expands in India http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14871.php Motorola has announced a series of important firsts to help drive the company's growth in India. Specifically, Motorola announced the C115, one of the company's hottest-selling handsets, will now have a "Made in India" label - a first for the company... [[Interviews News]] INTERVIEW: Symbian CEO Says Targeting Mass Market http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14861.php PREMIUM - The Symbian software used in high-end mobile phones will expand out of its current niche, Symbian Chief Executive Nigel Clifford said Wednesday. ... [[Legal News]] EU: No Decision On Kroes Conflict In Telefonica-O2 Deal http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14857.php Europe's top antitrust official Neelie Kroes hasn't decided whether to let another European Commission official review Telefonica SA's bid for O2 PLC, the Commission said Wednesday. ... FOCUS: VimpelCom enters Ukraine, conflict with Telenor to worsen http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14862.php Despite fierce opposition from a key shareholder, Russia’s second-largest mobile operator VimpelCom closed a deal last week to buy Ukrainian Radiosystems, or URS, a little-known small mobile operator in Ukraine. ... Chile Antitrust Court Rejects Telefonica Moviles' Auction http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14864.php Chile's antitrust court Wednesday rejected the mobile spectrum auction submitted by the Chilean unit of mobile telephony company Telefonica Moviles. ... [[Messaging News]] UK Data Users Tend to Switch Networks Regularly - report http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14870.php More than half of advanced mobile data service users in the UK have switched mobile network provider in the last three years, according to independent research commissioned by LogicaCMG. The research also shows that users of services such as MMS and ... [[Mobile Content News]] Wireless Content Market Rebound Begins http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14875.php The Russian research firm, J'son & Partners (J&P) announced in a recent client letter that its indicators show a clear rebound in the Russian wireless content industry in 3Q and 4Q 2005. Following a slack-down and crisis in 1H 2005, the Russian wirel... [[Network Contracts News]] O2 Germany Awards Siemens EUR250 Million Wireless Equipment Deal http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14854.php German engineering firm Siemens AG Wednesday said that O2 Germany has placed an order with its telecoms equipment unit to deliver mobile technology for its GSM/UMTS network by 2010, worth EUR250 million. ... Ericsson To Build Network In Ukraine For Vimpelcom http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14855.php Swedish telecommunications equipment maker Telefon AB LM Ericsson Wednesday said it has signed a deal with Russian mobile operator Vimpel Communications to supply a GSM/GPRS/EDGE network in Ukraine. ... Macau Signs CDMA Roaming Contract http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14873.php Syniverse Technologies has been awarded a contract with China Unicom Macau for a suite of voice roaming services that includes clearinghouse services for roaming revenue settlement and exchange between roaming partners, network connectivity and inter... Vodafone Signs Latin American Partnership http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14876.php Vodafone has signed a group wide co-operation Agreement with America Movil covering 53 countries across the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia. Under the terms of the agreement America Movil and Vodafone will deliver international roaming services to ... [[Network Operators News]] MTS launches network in 2 Russian regions http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14866.php Russia's largest mobile operator Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) has started operating in Russia's constituent republics of Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria and plans to launch its network in the constituent republic of Karachayevo-Cherkessia Thursday, M... [[Regulatory News]] Russia May Allocate GSM Frequencies Without Tender http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14859.php The Russian government is prepared to allocate mobile phone frequencies for Russia's Far-East districts to OAO New Telephone Company, or NTC, without a tender, according to documents seen Wednesday by Dow Jones Newswires. ... Tunisia's Telecom Market: At the Threshold of Major Changes http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14874.php The planned privatization of Tunisie Telecom will be a major event in Tunisia's telecom history says a report from Arab Advisors. That, along with the government's liberalization plans, will usher in a new era of massive growth and potential in the T... [[Statistics News]] Camera Phone Shipments to Reach 850 Million in 2009 - report http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14869.php InfoTrends/CAP Ventures' latest camera phone and photo messaging forecast shows worldwide camera phone shipments continuing on a strong growth trajectory, climbing from 370 million units in 2005 to 847 million units in 2009.... Cell Phone Roaming Spending Climbs During Summer Vacation Season http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14872.php Roaming spending for American mobile phone subscribers rose during the peak summer travel season, according to Telephia. The latest data from Telephia's Customer Value Metrics report shows cell phone subscribers paid 15% more in roaming charges to ne... 8 out of 10 Cell Phone Customers Choose GSM Service http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14877.php Wireless industry trade association 3G Americas reports that the GSM family of wireless technologies -- GSM, GPRS, EDGE and UMTS/HSDPA -- added more than 112 million new customers in three months (Q3 2005), increasing its global market share to 77.6%... [[Technology News]] Intel Sees Mobile Chip Market Share Over 10% http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14856.php Intel Corp. Chairman Craig Barrett said Wednesday he expects the company to reach a double-digit share in the global chip market for mobile phones in the next few years. ... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 13:07:10 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Sony Launches Internet Phone Service USTelecom dailyLead November 17, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/yhvMatagCxxgyVuEcp TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Sony launches Internet phone service BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * BellSouth's DSL feels need for speed * Cingular updates Media Net * Nokia buys Intellisync * Mobile content market becomes a battlefield * AT&T chief Dorman reflects on tenure at Ma Bell * Vodafone KK shifts course to better serve Japanese customers * Japanese handset makers see opportunity in growing 3G markets USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Broadband Certainty: Forward Looking Legislation for the Broadband Era TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * KT debuts WiBro at economic summit * BellSouth data backup service links to Cingular's wireless network REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Aussie government to forge ahead with Telstra privatization Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/yhvMatagCxxgyVuEcp ------------------------------ Subject: Nokia 6340i Cell Phone Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 00:35:53 EST From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) John Levine sent a message to the Digest regards my new cell phone, which got trashed by accident mid all the spam here tonight. I now have a Nokia 6010 and complained here yesterday about being unable to use any of my accessories as a result. John said the Nokia 6340i was almost identical in shape, size, etc to the Nokia 5165 for which I have all my atachments. What I want to know is if the 'pinout' on the bottom of the 6340i phone is identical to the 5165 (so therefore things like my 'cell socket' will work (use cell phone connected to another regular style phone) and my headset (which relies on an adapter I got at Radio Shack to connect with the pinout on the bottom). If that is true (pinout works identical) then how would I go about swapping out the SIM which was installed in this phone and putting it into the 6340i which I will buy from EBay? Also some of the sellers on EBay say their (Nokia type) phones are 'unlocked' but I see no mention of Cingular Wireless on many of them. The 6340i phones however seem very inexpensive around $15-20 usually. Any comments? PAT ------------------------------ Date: 17 Nov 2005 01:48:57 -0500 From: John R Levine Subject: Re: My New Cell Phone, Nokia 6010 > I do not know how to exchange the SIM to a different phone. It's a little chip about the size of your thumbnail, usually in a socket under the battery. Cingular SIMs are orange and white. Takes about 10 seconds to pop out and pop into another phone. Look in the manual that came with the phone. > And I do not know why some of the sellers on Ebay say their phones are > 'unlocked'. Locked == Cingular only, unlocked == any GSM carrier. In this case, you don't care. If you want to unlock a locked phone yourself, you can buy an unlock code online for about $8. I've done it. > I do see the phone you told me about on E-Bay but I cannot > see the 'pin out' on the bottom of the phone all that well, and I wish > to know if the pin out on the bottom works _exactly_ the same way or > not. It's just the same. The car kit matched up to every single pin, power, and even the antenna plug on the back, and it all worked. > (instead of plugging in with a eighth inch plug uses an adapter > I got at Radio Shack to plug in on the pin out. It's just the same. > I also have a 'Cell Socket' which allows the phone to charge while > in the holder and be used at the same time. Yes, I know. > If the pin out on the bottom matches exactly with the pin out on the > old phone (including the little rubber stopper on the back side > which you can remove to plug it into the Cell Socket then I will get > it. The pinout is just the same. It fit my car kit which has the same pins and antenna plug, remember? I suppose it's possible that the Cellsocket has some dependency on the phone firmware, but it looks to me like the one you have supports all sorts of Nokia 5100 and 6000 models. > This new phone also has a very long life battery (Lithium?) which goes > for a couple days without charging. Does the new phone you are talking > about also have a long life battery? All the 6340i phones you'll find are used, so it depends how old they are. I got a new battery for mine which seems to be good for a week. R's, John ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@aracnet.com Subject: Re: My New Cell Phone, Nokia 6010 Date: 16 Nov 2005 20:50:41 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com In article , TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > It still is not clear to me _why_ they feel it is a better > system than the phone I was using but they insist it is. "Better" doesn't necessarily mean "better for you". I expect there are a lot of advantages for them to move customers to GSM phones. When my phone needed replacing I let them sell me a GSM phone/plan, and in my opinion the sound quality sucks, the ATT GSM network (at the time) wasn't as widespread, and I have constant problems with dropped calls and wildly varying reception, even when standing still in a spot that initially shows "5 bars". If I had any reason to believe that any of the other providers was any better I'd switch from Cingular. John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com ------------------------------ From: John Levine Subject: Re: My New Cell Phone, Nokia 6010 Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2005 00:00:00 EST >> It still is not clear to me _why_ they feel it is a beter system >> than the phone I was using but they insist it is. Because your old phone was TDMA and your new phone is GSM. Cingular is moving their entire network from TDMA to GSM and as time goes on there will be less and less TDMA capacity and more and more GSM. > As with all these things, there is absolutely no standardization > between peripherals on old and new phones. My old cell socket, power > chargers, headsets, other handsfree devices do not fit and cannot be > used. Wasn't your old phone a Nokia 5165? If so, poke around on ebay and get yourself a Nokia 6340i. It's GSM (actually a GSM/TDMA combo) and it fits all the same stuff as a 5165. I got my 6340i because I had a 5165 car kit in my truck. You need only move the SIM chip from your current GSM phone to the 6340i and it'll work. They're quite cheap, about $20 plus shipping. When my wife lost her fancy flip phone, I bought a new SIM from Cingular, then a rugged 6340i on ebay. I also blew $3 on some new covers so her phone would look different from mine. R's, John ------------------------------ From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Subject: Re: If You Would Like to Get Away From ICANN Oversight and Registrars Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 17:36:40 -0000 Organization: Widgets, Inc. In article , Robert Bonomi wrote: > In article , Dave Garland > wrote: >> It was a dark and stormy night when Patrick Townson >> wrote: >>> or DHS International http://www.dhs.org where you can register domains in >>> the name of your choice in the 'n3.net' top level and a few other top >>> levels. >> ".net" is the "top" level. >>> or SMARTDOTS http://smartdots.com where you can register domains >>> in the name of your choice in the top level '.tc' >> I think that they actually own about 25 domains such as "at.tc" and >> "net.tc", and offer subdomains. I have a few sub-subdomains there >> myself, though I'm converting them to .com since Google doesn't seem to >> index them. ".tc" is the national top-level domain for the Turks & >> Calicos Islands. >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are correct; it is '.net' and >> not 'n3.net' which is the top level. 'n3' is one underneath it. I >> thank you for telling me the geographic location of '.tc' and I >> believe that '.tf' is somewhere in the southern part of the Indian >> Ocean. I do not know where '.tt' is located, nor '.tv' although the >> latter is used by many > .tf is the "French Southern Territories" -- a group of 4 *UNINHABITED* > islands in the southern Indian Ocean, about equidistant between > Africa, Antarctica, and Australia. NO permanent residents, only > visiting researchers studying native fauna. (according to CIA world > fact book.) > .tv is "Tuvalu". an island group in the South Pacific about halfway > between Hawaii and Australia. They are most noted for leasing > their Internet domain (.tv) for _US$50_million_ in royalties, > paid over a dozen years. > .tt is 'Trinidad and Tobago. an island group between the Caribbean Sea, > and the North Atlantic Ocean, northeast of Venezuela. > part of the Atlantic Ocean. > See ISO 3166-1 (on-line at www.iso.org) for what all those two-letter > codes mean, and the CIA world factbook (can be found online at: > http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ ) for where the place > is, and "more than you really want to know" about what they do there. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't suppose you know about '.ms' do you? Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. And there *is* an interesting story there. It seems that, a number of years ago, the titular ruler of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick[1] (the Duchess Gloriana) fell head-over-heels in love with a dashing Italian nobleman -- the Count Giovaninni Bruno Enzo Ippi. The Duchess, exercising the powers of her throne, purchased a tropical island (located a distance south-east of Puerto Rico), and caused a mansion to be constructed there -- this was to be a private 'getaway' for her, and her soon-to-be-husband. After the construction was completed, Gloriana abdicated the throne, married the Count, and they retired to the island hideaway, to live for the rest of their days. Gloriana also renounced all of her titles of nobility, saying that now, to her, the only title that mattered, and the one that gave her happiness, was that of "Mrs. Ippi". With that background, the rationale for the assignment of that particular ISO code to her domicile should be obvious. [1] for more on the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, consult the histories written by Leonard Wibberly -- "The Mouse that Roared", "Beware of the Mouse", "The Mouse on the Moon", "The Mouse on Wall Street", and "The Mouse that Saved the West". ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 11:41:28 -0600 From: Ron Kritzman Subject: Re: How Do I Detect the Number of a Phone Line? jason.sandlin@wymtnews.com wrote: > Hey. I am going to be running a few new phone lines into my building. I > have the TS21 Harris test set, but I want to be able to see what the > number is on the line that I am testing. I quit bothering with verification numbers years ago. I just dial my own cell phone and look at the caller-id. Emoveray ethay Igpay Atinlay otay eplyray ------------------------------ From: Dale Farmer Organization: The fuzz in the back of the fridge. Subject: Last Laugh! Amusing Short Film Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 06:07:12 GMT About the worst job in telecom today. Not work safe, due to some profanity near the end. those who are not in the US may not get the joke. http://www.wimp.com/worstjob/ --Dale ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #523 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 18 16:25:06 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 23E5914EBE; Fri, 18 Nov 2005 16:25:06 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #524 Message-Id: <20051118212506.23E5914EBE@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 16:25:06 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.2 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, LONGWORDS,NO_COST autolearn=no version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 18 Nov 2005 16:27:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 524 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson SBC Says "Lightspeed Strategy" Won't Choke Broadband Access (Fred Dawson) Cable Competition Worries Some Municipal Authorities (Michael Johnson) Verizon and Caller ID (Michael Quinn) The Firefly Phone (Monty Solomon) AOL Pictures Introduces Free Photo Sharing Website (Monty Solomon) Alltel to Offer Motorola RAZR V3c; Watch Live Television (Monty Solomon) Product Review: Podcasts Converted to Text (Monty Solomon) Cellular-News for Friday 18th November 2005 (Cellular-News) Cisco to Buy Scientific-Atlanta (USTelecom dailyLead) Telecom Update #506, November 18, 2005 (Angus TeleManagement Group) A Question About My Cell Phone Purchase (Patrick Townson) Re: Replacement For Siemens Gigaset (Robert Bonomi) Last Laugh! Bitch Dog Gets Cable Service (Dan Oldenburg) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Fred Dawson Subject: SBC Says 'Lightspeed Stategy' Will Not Choke Broadband Access Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 14:14:38 -0600 SBC Says Lightspeed Strategy Won't Choke Broadband Access By Fred Dawson SBC Communications' Project Lightspeed service strategy has sparked considerable confusion and even alarm as to what the impact will be on users ' access to Internet content and applications, but company officials say nothing has really changed in terms of SBC's approach to best-effort broadband service. "The pipe has gotten much bigger, which means the user experience over best-effort broadband will be better, not worse with Project Lightspeed," says Jeff Weber, vice president for product and strategy at the carrier. "But it's important to recognize the Internet is best effort today, and it will be tomorrow, which is different from the managed network we're creating with Project Lightspeed." SBC has committed to delivering a suite of IP services, including best-effort broadband, IPTV and voice over IP, via next-generation DSL lines at an aggregate minimum rate of 25mbps to each household. Under this scenario, about 5 to 6mbps is slated to be available for best-effort Internet access, which "is what the cable companies are offering," Weber notes. The 25mbps threshold will not be a barrier to SBC's ability to expand access bandwidth in response to market conditions, including demand for higher speed broadband access, notes Chris Rice, executive vice president for network technology. "We can bond two VDSL2 ports to deliver 50mbps at 5,000 feet (of local loop), which, at 3,000 feet, would increase to 80mbps," he says. The question raised by consumer advocates and Web companies is whether SBC Edward Whitacre in comments reported by Business Week in early November was suggesting a new approach that would require portals, third-party VoIP providers and other players to pay for use of the carrier's network if they wanted to access its customers at the levels of quality and bandwidth they' ve been accustomed to in the best-effort broadband environment. Whitacre, referring to Web entities, told Business Week "there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using.. For a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes free is nuts." SBC officials said Whitacre was referring to the company's plans to charge content suppliers for the quality-of-service, bandwidth assurances, prioritization and other enhanced mechanisms available through the Lightspeed network that would provide users a better than best-effort experience. "It would be senseless for us to degrade the broadband experience for our users when we have competitors who are offering high bandwidth broadband services," Weber notes. Left unanswered is the question of what allocation of significant network capacity for quality-assured services, including bandwidth-consuming IPTV, will mean to the amount of capacity that's left over for best-effort broadband. Today all the IP-based capacity for consumer services is used on a first-come, first-served basis by packets flowing through the pipe. If that capacity is squeezed by allocations of IP capacity to higher-quality services, best effort in the new environment could be significantly affected. While SBC hasn't provided specific clarification on this issue, officials say the capacity expansion for IP traffic across metro backbones as well as through access lines ensures the best-effort capacity component will be unaffected. "We're spending a lot of money to provide the carrying capacity for IP services that will deliver a superior experience for our customers in all service categories, including best-effort broadband," Weber says. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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, Business Week. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Mike Johnson Subject: Cable Competition Worries Some Municipal Leaders Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 14:16:15 -0600 http:.//www.jsonline.com Original URL: http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/nov05/370051.asp By MIKE JOHNSON mikejohnson@journalsentinel.com Legislation before Congress designed to increase cable TV competition by allowing more companies into the market is getting a bad reception from local governments. Many leaders in municipalities in southeast Wisconsin and elsewhere say they are worried they will lose the franchise fees they collect from cable companies if the legislation passes. The fees amount to thousands of dollars a year for some local governments and, in the case of Milwaukee, almost $3.7 million expected in 2006, for allowing cable providers use of public rights of way. The Video Choice Act, legislation introduced by U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), would eliminate local franchise agreements, a move she contends will drive down the prices consumers pay for cable TV. Blackburn thinks the franchise agreements create a monopoly. Current law that mandates franchise agreements serves "as a barrier to competition" and prevents "new technologies from entering the market," she told her U.S. House colleagues this year. Many communities have agreements with a single provider, she noted. The Video Choice bill would increase competition, allowing new competitors, including other cable companies, telephone companies and Internet providers, into the cable TV market, Blackburn said. But local elected officials, who say they support increased competition, are encouraging their federal representatives to oppose Blackburn's bill and similar legislation, including a bill in the U.S. Senate that could nationalize franchising. Waukesha Mayor Carol Lombardi said municipal leaders are worried about two things: the loss of the franchising fees and the loss of local control in determining who provides cable service. The revenue from franchise fees is crucial to municipalities, Lombardi said, especially now that local governments are under a spending cap imposed by state lawmakers. Lombardi, who leads the Waukesha County Municipal Executives group, sent a letter to U.S. Sens. Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl and U.S. Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., urging them to vote against any legislation that would remove local control over franchising fees. "The financial constraints that we, at local government, ... are facing is very serious," Lombardi wrote. Waukesha's franchise fee with Time Warner Cable generates about $600,000 a year. Menomonee Falls will get about $232,000 this year through its agreement with Time Warner. Its village president, Rick Rechlicz, said he doesn't appreciate "big government" sticking its nose in local government's business. "At a time when we're trying to be fiscally sound, they want to eliminate a non-tax revenue item," he said. Milwaukee's Common Council also has opposed the measure, and city officials have sent a letter to local congressmen stating their opposition, said Paul Vornholt, a spokesman for Mayor Tom Barrett. Need for competition cited But Blackburn said local governments would not lose their fee revenue. "My bill absolutely does not take away local revenue streams, and those who claim otherwise don't have their facts correct," Blackburn said. "The language was specifically written to require that video providers continue to pay fees to the local government. In all likelihood, this legislation would decrease costs for consumers and increase revenues for our local governments as more providers enter your local marketplace," she said. "More providers equal lower consumer prices and more fees for local government. "We've fallen to 16th in the world in broadband deployment, and we've got little to no video provider competition because of the current regulations. This bill manages to correct those problems while preserving local funding streams and control." Del Beaver, the administrator of the Village of Jackson in Washington County, said the federal government should leave well enough alone. Jackson will get about $45,000 this year through its franchise agreement with Charter Communications. "The competition thing is a sham," Beaver said. "It isn't going to happen." From the Nov. 12, 2005, editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ Subject: Verizon and Caller ID Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 18:52:12 -0500 From: Michael Quinn Michael Verizon called my house several times today concerning a fiber installation scheduled for tomorrow. Interestingly enough, the numbers from which they called: (757) 896-6330, and (888) 223-2355 delivered the numbers but not the caller name (they each showed as "out of area") to my caller ID boxes and phones. This from a company that I pay for caller ID service. When I or my wife call from our office or cell phones, name is always delivered. Strikes me as curious at best, and hypocritical at less than best; Verizon can't deliver caller name??. Anyone with similar experiences? No one at (so-called) "Customer Service" was able to explain why. One trying-to-be-helpful supervisor suggested the phenomenon would go away when my fiber service was activated. Jeez. Regards, Mike [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It _probably_ has to do with the type of switch or PBX that Verizon is using in that office. Telco also uses switching gear in their own business office for their own incoming and outgoing calls, in addition to the central office stuff everyone else (including Verizon) uses. Some phone setups (like Direct Inward Dialing for example and some flavors of Centrex) do not do very well on delivering caller ID period, let alone name with the ID. If every single employee of Verizon had a phone connected direct to the central office (with no in-between switches or systems) then chances are likely your caller ID box would deliver the number and the _name_ of the person or the department, etc. But every single employee/department of telco does not have that individual line -- well they do, but they are routed through concentrators, switches, etc. Its those inbetween devices or switches or PBXs, etc which are either misprogrammed (or most likely not capable of correctly rendering the _name ID_) that are guilty. Since you are purchasing caller/name ID service, whenever the central office is unable to deliver same, the 'default' is to tell you it is 'out of area' or 'unavailable' or whatever. I'll now tell you (and other interested readers) a story about me in Chicago calling '611' one day: I have forgotten what the problem was but I called '611' to report it. Thirty minutes or an hour later I got a call back from some repair tech to say the problem was cured. The tech's call came in per _my_ caller ID from 312-525-something, but I was out and missed the call. I returned as the phone quit ringing and went to check my caller ID box. I noted the number, and returned the call only to be greeted by a voice saying 'Ameritech Repair Service, how may I help you? When I gave my name and number, the tech knew what it was about and told me what corrections had been made. So far, so good. Then about 10-15 minutes later, I received a very angry call from a _supervisor_ in repair who bawled me out good for 'calling in on our direct line rather than dialing 611'. She told me I was 'never again to call in to a given tech person on their direct line, I was only to use the main number of '611'. I told her all I had done was returned a call showing on my caller ID. "oh ... well ... I will have to think about that ..." was her reply. Later, she called back to apologize for her angry call, saying she was unaware that caller ID boxes were giving out the 'direct numbers' of their employees, rather than the general incoming number of '611'. So many people at telco do not know, nor have any real reason to know, how _their own_ phone system works, nor anything much about the company they work for other than their own job function. I reported this in this Digest at the time it happened (early 1990's) and remember someone responding by saying "Bell got hoisted on their own petard". PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 21:42:25 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Firefly Phone Introducing The Latest 'Catch' From Cingular: The Firefly Phone In time for holidays, Cingular offers Cool, Fun Mobile Phone for Tweens that Helps Keep Parents in Control of Calls ATLANTA and CHICAGO, Nov. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Cingular Wireless and Firefly Mobile, Inc. today announced the availability of the Firefly phone, a pioneering mobile phone designed specifically for kids ages 12 and under. Cingular is the first national U.S. carrier to launch this unique voice-only phone. Firefly Mobile also announced this week that the Firefly phone was awarded the prestigious 2006 'Best of Innovations' Award in the telephone category from the Consumer Electronics Association (CES). The Firefly phone was designed with just five keys instead of a regular dial pad. Parents use a private PIN to program up to 22 outgoing numbers into the phone, including speed-dial keys for Mom and Dad. Kids place calls by pressing the Mom or Dad key, or selecting a name in the Phone Book and pressing "send." Caller ID lets your child know who's calling. An optional call screening feature can be activated, allowing the phone to accept incoming calls from only those numbers programmed into the phone. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53245670 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 21:43:56 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AOL Pictures Introduces Free Photo Sharing Website DULLES, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 17, 2005-- AOL Pictures Offers Consumers Unlimited Online Digital Photo Storage, Tools That Make It Easier To Create Photo Albums, and Special Holiday Offer for Free Prints. AOL today announced the launch of AOL Pictures. The free photo sharing website offers consumers unlimited online digital photo storage in original resolution, tools that make it easier to create photo albums, and much more. As a special holiday promotion, AOL Pictures is offering each user 100, free 4x6 glossy or matte prints. AOL Pictures, formerly known as You've Got Pictures, is a popular online service which has been enhanced to provide a comprehensive digital photo solution for consumers who want an easy way to view, share, store, print and protect all of their favorite images. The service, which currently has more than six million monthly visitors and stores nearly 300 million photos, builds on AOL's extensive infrastructure to offer unlimited and free storage for digital photos in their original resolution, and is available free to anyone on the Internet through the AOL.com portal ( http://www.aol.com/pictures ), as well as on the AOL service. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53247086 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 21:58:47 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Alltel to Offer Motorola RAZR V3c; Watch Live Television Alltel to Offer Motorola RAZR V3c; Watch Live Television with New CDMA EVDO Handset LITTLE ROCK, Ark. & LIBERTYVILLE, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 17, 2005--Alltel (NYSE:AT), owner and operator of the nation's largest wireless network, and Motorola (NYSE:MOT), a global leader in wireless communications, announce today that the Motorola RAZR V3c mobile phone will be available at Alltel stores nationwide starting Monday. Customers can watch live television on the new CDMA EVDO handset through MobiTV. "The Motorola RAZR with its sleek design and next-generation technology offers customers an unparalleled wireless experience, including live TV that customers can watch while on the go," said Wade McGill, vice president of wireless product management at Alltel. "Alltel subscribers can now experience the most talked about mobile device, the Motorola RAZR V3c," said Rick Gadd, senior director for Motorola Mobile Devices Business. "This coveted mobile gives CDMA users high style and in-demand design in the one thing they always carry with them, their mobile phone." The Motorola RAZR V3c features a 1.3 megapixel camera with 8x digital zoom, video capture and playback and MP3 capabilities. The phone has Bluetooth functionality as well as BREW 3.1. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53250680 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 22:08:36 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: PRODUCT REVIEW: Podcasts Converted to Text By BRIAN BERGSTEIN AP Technology Writer BOSTON (AP) -- Suddenly the universe of downloadable audio files known as podcasts seems as enormous as the Internet. Name a topic _ from the weather in Asuncion to the ZigBee wireless technology _ and there is a podcast about it. But while the Internet's vastness is accessible because of deep-probing search engines, comparably authoritative services for podcasts and other multimedia haven't really emerged. That's because search programs are primed to catalog text. When they encounter an audio or video file, generally they determine the contents by reading the titles and other descriptive tags, known as "metadata," that creators voluntarily add. It's useful, but much like examining only the first few lines of a Web site. Reading the whole thing is a lot better. With that in mind, a few companies are trying to make search engines actually listen to big audio and video files. From there, speech-to-text software can generate written transcripts, which are searched in addition to metadata. Perhaps best known has been Blinkx Inc., an information-management startup that gets its speech-to-text software from Autonomy Corp. Now comes BBN Technologies Inc., a defense contractor that developed elements of the Internet. After tinkering with speech-to-text programs it created for U.S. intelligence services, BBN has produced Podzinger, a Web service that mines the content of podcasts. A third service, Podscope, from a broadcast-monitoring company called TV Eyes Inc., performs a similar trick, but with a twist. CEO David Ives says Podscope uses some voice-recognition technology but mainly scans for phonemes _ the individual sounds that make up syllables _ rather than full words. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53272500 ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Friday 18th November 2005 Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 08:08:37 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com [[3G News]] 3G Security Protection for Israeli Network http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14893.php ArcSight says that Israel's Partner Communications has standardized on ArcSight's ESM software to protect its 3G wireless network operations from security threats. Partner Communications, a subsidiary of Hutchison Telecom, built the first GSM wireles... Taiwan Operator Deploys Multi-Network Platform http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14894.php Azaire Networks has announced today that Taiwan's Chunghwa Mobile Business Group, part of Chunghwa Telecom, will deploy it' IP Converged Network Platform (IP-CNP). With the IP-CNP, Chunghwa Mobile will provide its subscribers seamless services across... Qualcomm Announces Platforms for Long-Term Wireless Roadmap http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14899.php Qualcomm has announced its DMMX (DO Multicarrier Multilink eXtensions) and HMMX (HSDPA Multicarrier Multilink eXtensions) platforms to support the long-term roadmaps of EV-DO and HSDPA. The DMMX and HMMX platforms will not only significantly improve ... [[Financial News]] Virgin Mobile To Invest In 2nd Half Customer Growth http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14878.php Virgin Mobile Holdings Group PLC, the U.K. mobile telecommunications services provider, Thursday said it will step-up investment in customer acquisition in the second half after first-half results showed strong revenue growth. ... Virgin Mobile Hasn't Been Approached About A Takeover http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14880.php Virgin Mobile Holdings PLC, the U.K. mobile telecommunications services provider, Thursday said it hasn't received any takeover approaches. ... Vodafone CEO Takes "Full Responsibility" For Share Drop http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14886.php Vodafone Group PLC Chief Executive Arun Sarin took responsibility Thursday for the market reaction that earlier this week caused the company to lose more that 10% of its share value. ... Consortium Makes Formal Danish Telecom TDC Bid - Reports http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14887.php COPENHAGEN (AP)--A group of private equity firms have made a formal bid for Denmark's leading telecom operator, TDC A/S, news reports said Thursday. ... Exec says Russia's VimpelCom in talks to buy CIS cell operators soon http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14888.php Russia's second-largest mobile operator VimpelCom is holding negotiations on purchasing some mobile operators in the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS, and one of the deals may be closed by the end of this year, VimpelCom's Vice President ... CEO sees VimpelCom's 2005 capex down on yr to $1.58 bln http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14891.php The capital expenditures of Russia's second-largest mobile operator VimpelCom are expected to decrease to about U.S. $1.58 billion this year from $1.68 billion in 2004, VimpelCom's CEO Alexander Izosimov told reporters Thursday. ... [[Handsets News]] Russian customs says mobile handset imports soar year-to-date http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14883.php Official mobile handset imports to Russia have risen to over 10 million units since the beginning of the year, Director of the Federal Customs Service Alexander Zherikhov said at a conference Thursday. ... Nokia Executive Sees 3 Billion Mobile Phone Users Worldwide By '10 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14885.php TUNIS (AP)--The number of people worldwide using mobile phones will likely reach 3 billion by 2010, a Nokia Corp. executive said Thursday. ... [[Legal News]] Widow of NTP Founder Pens Angry Letter To U.S. Senators http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14882.php The widow of NTP Inc. founder Thomas Campana has written a letter to two Illinois senators complaining about the "gross injustice" that she is suffering at the hands of the U.S. government. ... PRESS: UK court freezes Alfa's 25% in Russia's MegaFon http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14892.php The U.K.'s Privy Council of the House of Lords has frozen a 25.1% stake in Russia's third largest mobile operator MegaFon, indirectly owned by Alfa Group, Kommersant business daily reported Thursday. ... [[Mobile Content News]] Cingular Unveils New Web Interface For Mobile Phones http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14879.php In an effort to make surfing the Web easier, Cingular Wireless will unveil a new Internet interface for its cell phones. ... NBC Sports Plans Mobile Games http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14897.php NBC Sports and Abandon Mobile have announced that three new NBC Sports-branded mobile game titles will be available on more than 125 types of mobile handsets across most major service providers starting in early 2006.... [[Network Contracts News]] Motorola Wins Uzbek GSM Contract http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14896.php Motorola has won a three-year frame agreement with MCT Corp. to expand the network of MCT's joint venture GSM network operator, Coscom across Uzbekistan, including its capital Tashkent. The network deployment is currently underway and will continuall... [[Personnel News]] Motorola Director Dies Unexpectedly http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14895.php Motorola has announced the sudden death yesterday morning of Geoffrey Frost, executive vice president and Motorola's chief marketing officer. Geoffrey joined Motorola in 1999 and was instrumental in defining Motorola's brand mission. His legacy is a ... [[Regulatory News]] Ofcom Starts Review Of Spectrum Used By Analog TV http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14881.php Ofcom, the U.K. telecommunications and media regulator, Thursday launched a review of the spectrum used by analog television, prior to the completion of the switch over to digital television. ... French Regulator Cuts SMS Text-Messaging Charge http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14889.php French electronic communications regulator ARCEP said Thursday it has decided to lower the wholesale charge for SMS text messaging interconnection through France's three mobile telecom operators to EUR0.043 per SMS from EUR0.05336, retroactive to Jul... Russia's official denies NTC may get GSM license on Nov 28 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14890.php Russia's State Radio Frequency Commission does not plan to make a decision on awarding a GSM 1800 license for operation in the Far-East Federal District to New Telephone Company, or NTC, at its meeting on November 28, Andrei Beskorovainy, director of... [[Statistics News]] Brazil 10-Months Mobile Phone Client Levels Up 15.6 Million -Anatel http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14884.php Brazilian mobile phone companies added 15.6 million customers in the first ten months of 2005, bringing the total subscriber base to 81.24 million consumers, telecommunications regulator Anatel said Thursday. ... [[Technology News]] Can WiMAX Live up to the Hype? http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14898.php Over the last few years, WiMAX has been hyped as the broadband wireless technology of the future, providing a single solution for a variety of applications, including last-mile fixed broadband access, wireless backhaul for cellular phone sites and as... ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 12:33:53 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Cisco to buy Scientific-Atlanta USTelecom dailyLead November 18, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/yncsatagCxBiqFKGHA TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Cisco to buy Scientific-Atlanta BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Alltel to acquire Midwest Wireless * Nokia: 3 billion cell phones users by 2010 * NTP plan would exempt government workers from BlackBerry shut-off * TDC receives bid from buyout group USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Voice Over IP Crash Course by Steven Shepard TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * IBM rolls out IMS products * Analyst: Google Base will create new Web VOIP DOWNLOAD * FCC's CALEA expansion proves unpopular * Report: IPTV infrastructure spending poised for big jump REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Kathleen Abernathy to leave FCC in December Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/yncsatagCxBiqFKGHA ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 11:03:44 -0800 Subject: Telecom Update #506, November 18, 2005 From: Angus TeleManagement Group Reply-To: Angus TeleManagement Group ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 506: November 18, 2005 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: ** 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/ ** NEC UNIFIED SOLUTIONS: www.necunifiedsolutions.com ** ROGERS TELECOM: www.rogers.com/solutions ** VONAGE CANADA: www.vonage.ca ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** Ottawa Tables Internet Wiretap Law ** Feds Propose Giving CRTC Fining Power ** High-Speed Mobile Data Expands ** MTS Offers $15 Long Distance ** Via Rail to Extend Onboard Wi-Fi ** PBX Sales--Who's on First? ** Rogers Fights New Brunswick over Right-of-Way Fees ** SBC Purchase of AT&T Gets Final OK ** Rogers Software Offers Electronic Clipboards ** Bell Reduces Western Staff ** RIM Says Patent Workaround Is Ready ** Rogers Cutting Off Usenet ** Cygnal Names New CEO ** New CEO at Minacs ** UBS Records Sales Growth ============================================================ OTTAWA TABLES INTERNET WIRETAP LAW: A bill tabled by the federal government would require Internet Service providers to include interception capability (wiretap access) on new technology, and to give the names, addresses, and phone numbers of customers to law enforcement agencies on request. ** Bill C-74, the "Modernization of Investigative Techniques Act," received first reading in the House of Commons on November 15. www.parl.gc.ca/PDF/38/1/parlbus/chambus/house/bills/government/C-74_1.PDF FEDS PROPOSE GIVING CRTC FINING POWER: On November 13, Industry Minister David Emerson introduced Bill C-73 to amend the Telecom Act. ** The bill would authorize the CRTC to levy fines for violations of CRTC decisions or the Telecom Act--up to $15 million for carriers, and up to $50,000 for individuals. ** It would allow the CRTC to share confidential information with the Competition Commissioner in certain circumstances. www.parl.gc.ca/LEGISINFO/index.asp?Lang=E&query=4581&Session=13&List=toc HIGH-SPEED MOBILE DATA EXPANDS: Bell Mobility and Telus Mobility are playing leapfrog in deploying high-speed cellular data communications based on Evolution Data Optimized technology. This week, Telus announced EVDO availability in Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. And Bell, which announced EVDO a week earlier in Toronto and Montreal, this week added Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton to its serving areas. MTS OFFERS $15 LONG DISTANCE: Manitoba Tel customers who subscribe to two or three of MTS TV, MTS High Speed Internet or MTS postpaid cellular can now add unlimited wireline long distance in Canada and the U.S. for $15 a month. ** The Manitoba telco says it now has 50,000 television subscribers in Winnipeg. VIA RAIL TO EXTEND ONBOARD WI-FI: Via Rail plans to offer Wi-Fi service to all customers on its trains and in 22 stations in the Windsor-Quebec corridor by November 2006, using technology installed by Parsons Corp. Partial service began in 2004. Price: $8.95/day or $46/month. PBX SALES--WHO'S ON FIRST? Cisco says a new research report shows that it is now "the number one supplier in the global enterprise voice market including both Internet Protocol (IP) and traditional circuit-based systems." And Avaya says a new report shows that it is "the global market leader in Enterprise Internet Protocol Telephony Revenues and Port Shipments." ** Some readers may be surprised to learn that both claims are based on the same report, published this week by Synergy Research Group. ROGERS FIGHTS NEW BRUNSWICK OVER RIGHT-OF-WAY FEES: Rogers Communications has asked the CRTC to block the New Brunswick Dept. of Transportation from charging fees for Rogers' cables that are supported on Aliant and N.B. Power poles in DOT rights-of-way. The DOT claims the CRTC has no jurisdiction. www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2005/8690/r28_200512972.htm ROGERS SOFTWARE OFFERS ELECTRONIC CLIPBOARDS: Rogers Communications now offers mForms software that permits small business field staff to access work orders and other forms on wireless devices. Price: $125 per user per month. SBC PURCHASE OF AT&T GETS FINAL OK: The California Public Utility Commission has approved SBC Communications' purchase of AT&T. This is the final approval needed for completion of the US$16 billion deal. It had already been approved in 36 other states and by two federal agencies. ** SBC has said it will change its name to AT&T when the acquisition is complete. BELL REDUCES WESTERN STAFF: Bell Canada has cut 100 jobs from its western Canadian operations, partly as a result of integrating 360networks, which it bought last year. (See Telecom Update #435) RIM SAYS PATENT WORKAROUND IS READY: Research In Motion says it has completed a BlackBerry software upgrade that would enable it to maintain service in the event that a U.S. court issues an injunction against BlackBerry sales in that country. (See Telecom Update #505) ** RIM has sued the maker of Cranberry business software for trademark infringement. Another RIM suit has convinced a New Jersey toymaker to rename handheld devices called StrawBerry, BlueBerry, etc. ROGERS CUTTING OFF USENET: Beginning December 15, Rogers High Speed Internet service will no longer include access to Usenet. The company says newsgroups, once the most popular medium for on-line chat and information sharing, have "largely been replaced by blogs, instant messaging, personal Web pages and other tools." CYGNAL NAMES NEW CEO: Cygnal Technology has appointed Jos Wintermans as CEO. Wintermans, CEO of Rogers Cable in 1998-99, replaces Gerald Hurlow, who continues as Cygnal's Chairman. NEW CEO AT MINACS: Bruce Simmonds, founder and former CEO of a major golf course company and former CFO of his family's Pickering-based electronics business, has been named CEO of call centre service bureau operator Minacs Worldwide. Founder Elaine Minacs will continue as Executive Chair. UBS RECORDS SALES GROWTH: Unique Broadband Systems, which bought a majority interest in Look Communications last year, reports revenue for the year ended August 31 of $38 million, 17% more than the previous year. The net loss was reduced by two-thirds, to $4.3 million. (See Telecom Update #434) ============================================================ HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-mail ianangus@angustel.ca and jriddell@angustel.ca =========================================================== 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 late Friday afternoon each week at http://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 http://www.angustel.ca/update/privacy.html. =========================================================== COPYRIGHT AND CONDITIONS OF USE: All contents copyright 2005 Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. All rights reserved. For further information, including permission to reprint or reproduce, please e-mail jriddell@angustel.ca. 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: Patrick Townson Subject: A Question Please About my Purchase Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 19:55:54 -0600 I wound up purchasing a Nokia 6340i 'unlocked' phone on EBay for about $35.00 using a 'Buy it Now' button and sent them a letter asking when it would be sent out and how to use it, I got back this reply: > It will work for cingular. Just insert your SIm card and you should be = > ready to go. > Thank you, > D&R Wholesale ----- Original Message ----- From: Patrick Townson To: auctions@thecellshop.net Cc: david@thecellshop.net Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2005 1:52 PM Subject: A question please about my purchase > Using the 'Buy Now' arrangement I just now bought and paid for a Nokia > 6340i cell phone. Transaction #2R3490342F972910F $16.99 plus shipping > and insurance total $36.97 > Please confirm a couple things for me: > When is it expected to arrive? > I presently have cell service from Cingular Wireless. This new phone > will work on Cingular? Is there any sort of 'unlock key' or 'unlock > code' I will need to use, or just insert the SIM? > Will I need to report this to Cingular Wireless to get it changed > over on their records to be associated with my current cell phone > number? Another email from them said it had shipped Thursday afternoon and should arrive by Monday or Tuesday at the latest. It said the (S)ubscriber (I)nformation (M)odule had all the information required for Cingular -- assuming I had an account there, which I do -- and it was just a matter of taking the SIM out of the one phone and putting it in the other phone. Now, if I can figure out how to open this new phone I have now (Nokia 6010) *get the SIM out*, open the new phone (Nokia 6340i when it gets here) and put the SIM in the new phone I guess I should have it made. No need to say a word to Cingular Wireless either way, _is that correct_? But I may wind up going to the dealer where I first got put onto GSM and have him do it for me. PAT ------------------------------ From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Subject: Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 20:48:14 -0000 Organization: Widgets, Inc. In article , DevilsPGD wrote: > In message > bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote: >> In article , >> CharlesH wrote: >>> Thor Lancelot Simon wrote: >>>> I would stay away from the 900Mhz phones for a few reasons. First, >>>> the only multi-line phones available in 900Mhz are notoriously >>>> unreliable. Second, eavesdropping on many 900Mhz phones, even modern >>>> ones, is trivial. >>> How does one eavesdrop on a Digital Spread Spectrum (DSS) 900MHz >>> cordless phone? I would have thought that with the spreading code >>> being changed every time the phone is put into the base, they would be >>> essentially uncrackable, like CDMA cell phones. >> The phone and the base station have to negotiate the spreading code >> used for each session. If you can eavesdrop on that negotiation, you >> _can_ predict the frequency hops, rendering it 'trivial' to track as a >> third-party listener. > Sure, except that the negotiation is typically performed by the base > and handset via a wired connection OR at extremely low power (since it > only happens when they're physically connected) What happens if you turn the handset off, then back on, when it is _out_ of the base? ------------------------------ From: Dan Oldenburg Subject: Last Laugh! Bitch Dog Gets Cable Subscription Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 14:19:23 -0600 http:// washingtonpost.com Demonizing the Customer Some Company Help Staffs Disdain the People They Serve By Don Oldenburg Washington Post Staff Writer Find yourself muttering the "I'm mad as hell and not going to take it anymore" consumer mantra more often lately? Since misery loves company, check out this bizarre episode from the Customer Service Encounters of the Worst Kind folder. It's a case about one company even misery may have trouble loving. When LaChania Govan couldn't get her cable-TV's digital recorder working, the 25-year-old working mother complained to Comcast Corp., her cable company. More than 40 times over four weeks she phoned Comcast's customer-service department asking for help. "Calling Comcast became my second job," says the Elgin, Ill., consumer. "I had to ensure the cordless phone was fully charged and the kids were content -- and I sat and called, I cooked and called, I cleaned and called, and just called." Govan says she was disconnected repeatedly, transferred to the Spanish-speaking customer queue (not her language), put on hold, transferred to technicians who didn't have a clue, "and so on and so on." Eventually she reached a "savior," that gem of a service rep everyone hopes to reach. The rep sent a technician to replace Govan's cable box at no charge and credited Govan with a month of service. Case closed, right? If only. When Govan's next monthly Comcast bill arrived in the mail, it was addressed to "Bitch Dog." Go ahead, rub your eyes in disbelief, then read again. Govan says her initial reaction was "come on, you have to be kidding me!" Then, she felt "shocked and appalled," she says. The Chicago Tribune scooped the story in mid-August, and follow-ups have appeared in the Trib, the Associated Press, MSNBC and elsewhere. Govan's case has become something of a cause clbre bringing to a head the rage consumers increasingly feel toward inept and uncaring customer service -- and now vice versa. "The demonization of customers is not an uncommon or rare event, but getting caught demonizing the customer as this company did is really rare," says Scott M. Broetzmann, president of Customer Care Measurement & Consulting, which recently released its annual Customer Rage Survey (see the Oct. 30 column, " 'Service' That's Anything But"). Customer service personnel commonly "ventilate" about customers they deal with all day, he says, but seldom to the customer's face. When one of his clients held sensitivity training for its customer-service employees, asking them to draw pictures of their customers, most of the drawings were "hideous, grotesque," he says. There's even a Web site called http://Customerssuck.com (slogan: "The customer is never right!") where "frontline retail types" tell their horror stories. "It's a high-stress job," says Broetzmann, not making excuses, just stating the fact. Govan, you should know, is a customer-service rep herself. She works for a credit card company and has been in the business for six years. That training helped keep her from flying off the hook through the incident. When you hear what she thinks customer service ought to be about, you may wonder why Comcast doesn't hire her. Customer service "means to me being friendly, helpful and respectful," says Govan. "I know how it feels to be a customer service rep and [to be] a consumer on the other end. You do not have to settle for less, and you do not have to be mistreated." To Comcast's credit, the supervisor to whom Govan first told the story was aghast, offered her two months of free service and promised to investigate. When the initial story ran in the Trib, a Comcast executive left an apology on Govan's answering machine. In a later conversation with Govan, he apologized again and offered six months' free service to make amends -- which Govan has refused. Comcast, she says, "has to accept the fact that they have humiliated me, not just by the bill" but by the fact that people associate her with this story. "It affects everyone around me and my children." Comcast reportedly fired two customer-service employees connected to the incident and changed rules to allow only supervisors to change customer names on billings. "This goes beyond losing your temper and saying something you wish you kept to yourself," says Cheryl Reed, spokeswoman for Consumers for Cable Choice Inc. (CCC), an Indianapolis alliance of consumers, advocacy groups and other organizations founded in June to promote fair prices, choices and better service in the cable TV marketplace. Inspired by Govan's story, CCC last month launched the http://MyCableNightmare.com Web site as a consumer grievance forum encouraging cable customers to voice their frustrations. "We're not anti-cable, we're anti- bad cable," says Reed, adding that Govan's story and those on the site are indicative of an industry problem -- no competition in cable, video and broadband services is why cable's prices are skyrocketing and customer service is hitting rock bottom. "Consumers need a better deal, and competition by its very nature will give them a better deal." But one disclosure is needed: When CCC got started last summer, it received a $75,000 start-up grant from Verizon Communications Inc., a telephone company that has a vested interest in promoting changes in regulations to open the cable marketplace to competition. "We are quite open that we have accepted industry funding," says Reed, adding that 38 member groups and organizations also supply support. "We don't care who provides the competition that will give consumers a better product and better price ... but we're passionate about having competition." Got questions or comments? A consumer complaint? A helpful tip? E-mail details toconsumer@washpost.comor write to Don Oldenburg, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071. Because of the volume of mail, personal replies are not always possible. 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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 ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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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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 V24 #524 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 18 23:12:20 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 5162D14E2E; Fri, 18 Nov 2005 23:12:20 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #525 Message-Id: <20051119041220.5162D14E2E@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 23:12:20 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.3 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 18 Nov 2005 23:11:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 525 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Online Daters Sue Matchmaking Sites For Fraud (Martha Graybow) Google Now Permits Web Sites to Sign up Advertisers Directly (E. Auchard) Microsoft Employee Sentenced to Prison For Theft (Elizabeth Gillespie) Technology Summit Wraps up in Tunisia (Matt Moore) Apple iTunes Security Flaw Discovered (Monty Solomon) Lingo Phone Can't Port Number (Rik) Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset (DevilsPGD) Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: Verizon and Caller ID (Steven Lichter) Re: A Question Please About my Purchase (John Levine) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martha Graybow Subject: Online Daters Sue Matchmaking Sites For Fraud Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 20:51:12 -0600 By Martha Graybow It's not easy finding love in cyberspace, and now some frustrated online daters say they were victims of fraud by two top Internet matchmaking services and have taken their complaints to court. Match.com, a unit of IAC/Interactive Corp., is accused in a federal lawsuit of goading members into renewing their subscriptions through bogus romantic e-mails sent out by company employees. In some instances, the suit contends, people on the Match payroll even went on sham dates with subscribers as a marketing ploy. "This is a grossly fraudulent practice that Match.com is engaged in," said H. Scott Leviant, a lawyer at Los Angeles law firm Arias, Ozzello & Gignac LLP, which brought the suit. Match "promotes the policies of integrity to protect members, and yet they themselves, we allege, are misleading their entire customer base," he said. The company said it does not comment on pending litigation. But Match spokeswoman Kristin Kelly said the company "absolutely does not" employ people to go on dates with subscribers or to send members misleading e-mails professing romantic interest. The company has about 15 million members worldwide and 250 employees, she said. In a separate suit, Yahoo Inc.'s personals service is accused of posting profiles of fictitious potential dating partners on its Web site to make it look as though many more singles subscribe to the service than actually do. Yahoo spokeswoman Rochelle Adams said the company had no comment on the lawsuit. The suits, which both seek class-action status, came as growth in the online dating industry has slowed, although Web matchmaking still remains a big business. U.S. consumers spent $245.2 million on online personals and dating services in the first half of 2005, up 7.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the Online Publishers Association. That's a slower growth rate compared with several years ago. At the same time, competition among online dating services is fierce, with some sites offering newfangled features such as extensive compatibility surveys to match up people with similar temperaments and outlooks. ALLEGATIONS OF 'DATE BAIT' The Match lawsuit was filed earlier this month in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles by plaintiff Matthew Evans, who contends he went out with a woman he met through the site who turned out to be nothing more than "date bait" working for the company. The relationship went nowhere, according to his suit. Evans says Match set up the date for him because it wanted to keep him from pulling the plug on his subscription and was hoping he'd tell other potential members about the attractive woman he met through the service, according to Leviant. His lawyers said Evans, of Orange County, California, was not available to comment, but described him as a working professional in his 30s. Leviant said his client found out about the alleged scam after the woman he dated confessed she was employed by Match. The lawsuit also claims the company violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, a law best known for being used in prosecuting organized crime. The Yahoo suit was filed last month by Robert Anthony, of Broward County, Florida. The suit, brought in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, accuses the company of breach of contract, fraud and unfair trade practices. Anthony's lawyer, Peter McNulty of the McNulty Law Firm in Bel Air, California, did not respond to requests for comment. Another complaint against Yahoo -- although not yet formalized in a lawsuit contends that some men pose as females on the Yahoo Romance and Personals site and attempt to lure other males to meet them resulting in attempts to molest the 'innocent' teenage males. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For a humorous look at this problem, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/honesty.html for two cartoons which illustrate the problems with 'internet chat'. ------------------------------ From: Eric Auchard Subject: Google Now Permits web Sites to Sign up Advertisers Directly Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 20:52:20 -0600 Google lets Web sites sign up advertisers directly By Eric AuchardFri Nov 18, 5:29 PM ET Advertisers wishing to place ads on Google-supported Web sites can sign up directly on those sites, the Web search leader said on Friday, in a move analysts said addresses concerns about its growing advertising clout. The company said the new feature, known as Onsite Advertiser Sign-up, will help Web site publishers connect with a wider range of small advertisers when using Google's behind- the-scenes ad management system. Previously, advertisers seeking to market on Web sites using Google's syndicated AdSense advertising system had to enroll through Google's AdWords program and list sites where they wished their ads to be featured. The instant sign-up feature ties site owners and advertisers by giving Web publishers more direct control over how advertisers select ads on particular sites. In turn, site owners and Google each receive a cut of resulting ad sales. Gary Stein, an analyst with Jupiter Research in San Francisco, said Google has faced mounting competition as it seeks to attract and keep thousands of publishers in its AdSense advertising syndication program. "It is a message to publishers that you can still own and manage your own advertising relationships," Stein said. "They don't have to all be mediated by Google." Rivals Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news), Kanoodle and others appeal to Google's Web site publishers by questioning how much control they want to cede to Google to manage the publishers ties to its own advertisers. Web site publishers often use a variety of different ad networks on different portions of their sites and decide which one to use based on customer returns, Stein said. AdSense, which allows Web site publishers to run keyword text or image ads through a system managed by Google, has become a phenomenally popular way for sites to generate revenue from each ad clicked on by site visitors. Google receives 99 percent of its revenue from advertising sales. A little less than half of the Mountain View, California-based company's revenue comes from Google-run advertising on other companies' Web sites. The new feature is designed to allow Web sites to sign up smaller advertisers while leaving the headaches of managing the production and billing process to Google's automated software. But how Google manages its ad system remains something of a mystery to its customers, Stein said. While Yahoo and Kanoodle have sought to make their ad systems more transparent to publishers, Google keeps key details of how its system runs secret from customers and asks them to trust that it markets ads in an even-handed fashion. Advertisers wishing to advertise directly on a Web sites using the syndicated Google advertising program can click on an "Advertise on This Site" link that takes them to a Google page where they can create an AdWords ad for the specific Web site. Ads created through Onsite Advertiser Sign-Up will compete in the same auction as all other Google ads. The new feature is an extension of Google's site-targeted advertising, which was launched earlier this year. More information on the onsite advertising program will be available at http://www.google.com/services/oasu/. Google shares, which topped $400 for the first time on Thursday, dipped $3.24, or 0.8 percent to close at $400.21 in Friday trading on Nasdaq. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. ------------------------------ From: Elizabeth M. Gillespie Subject: Microsoft Employee Sentenced to Prison in Software Theft Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 20:53:29 -0600 By ELIZABETH M. GILLESPIE, Associated Press Writer A federal judge sentenced a former Microsoft Corp. employee on Friday to four years in prison for illegally selling millions of dollars of company software. Finn W. Contini, 37, of Redmond, pleaded guilty in January to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and four counts of money laundering. He admitted ordering 2,700 pieces of software worth about $7 million through Microsoft's internal ordering program, which he then sold for a personal profit of $2.3 million. Prosecutors argued that Contini recruited others to take part in the scheme, referring to it as 'theft ring' and calling him the ringleader. "We dispute the characterization he was a ringleader in any way," Contini's attorney, Ralph Hurvitz, said Friday. Three other employees were sentenced earlier this year. Robert Howdeshell, 40 of Puyallup, was sentenced to two years and three months in prison. Alyson Clark, 38, of Normandy Park, and Christine Hendrickson, 34, of Bothell, each got five months in prison and five months of home confinement. According to prosecutors, they used an Internet-based system that allows Microsoft employees to order software for business purposes at no personal cost. They then manipulated the system to prevent e-mail notices of their orders from being sent to their supervisors or managers. Microsoft said it made changes to make the system more secure in mid-2002. As part of a plea agreement reached earlier this year, Contini agreed to forfeit more than $1.7 million in assets he acquired with money from the sales scheme, including four properties in Washington and Oregon, a 2003 Toyota Highlander, a 2002 Honda Civic, silver and gold coins, and more than $188,000 in bank accounts and currency. Contini worked at Microsoft from September 1999 until he resigned in February 2002. In addition to prison time, U.S. District Judge John Coughenour ordered Contini serve three years of supervised release and pay $7.1 million in restitution. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more news headlines and stories, go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ From: Matt Moore Subject: Technology Summit Wraps up in Tunisia Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 20:55:18 -0600 By MATT MOORE, Associated Press Writer A crucial summit on expanding Internet access around the world ended Friday with a firm promise to narrow the digital divide -- but little in government funding to make it happen. The World Summit on the Information Society originally was conceived to raise consciousness about the divide between the haves and have-nots, and to raise money for projects to link up the global village, particularly Africa and Asia and South America. But instead, it was overshadowed by a lingering resentment about who should oversee the domain names and technical issues that allow people from Pakistan to Peru surf Web sites for information, news and consumer goods. Negotiators from more than 100 countries had agreed -- some rather resentfully -- on the eve of the meeting to leave the United States in charge of the Internet's addressing system, averting a U.S.-EU showdown at this week's U.N. technology summit. But resentment over perceived U.S. control persisted, and participants left with few concrete pledges of financial help. "ICANN has promised and promised and promised, and it's not the first time that they have promised this," said Diallo Mohamadou, a telecommunications consultant from Senegal. "In 2000, they promised to connect all the small villages far away from the big cities in Africa to the Internet. Five years later and nothing has happened. ICANN and the United States Department of Commerce have deceived us repeatedly. " Participants said more than 200 new initiatives were unveiled at the summit, but no exact dollar amount, said T. Kelly, head of the strategy and policy unit for the Geneva-based ITU. "We currently have over 200 entries in the golden book and many of them are multimillion dollar," he told reporters. Some of the initiatives announced at the summit include programs to set up centers to teach information technology with the idea of having them, in turn, teach it to more students, in a bid increase countries' homegrown talent; a low-cost mobile phone to expand the number of cell phone users worldwide; and a US$100 (euro85) laptop announced by John Negroponte of the MIT Media Lab, which aims to ship 1 million units by the end of next year and sold to governments at cost for distribution to school children and teachers. Richard D. McCormick, former chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce, said private industry must work in concert with governments to narrow the divide, adding: "Now the real work begins." "Now it's up to governments, business, interest groups and the scientific and technical communities to take this freedom and opportunity to improve the lives of every person on this planet," he said. "If we can do that, there will be no losers - everybody wins." Yoshio Utsumi, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, which helped oversee the summit, urged participants to follow through on agreements made this week. "It is not the end, just the beginning, but the homework is enormous," Utsumi said. "The summit itself ended, but many, many meetings, action and partnership programs must start." Despite the pledges to expand access and lower costs, some warned that it would take not just commitments of money, but time and resources. "People can see the light at the end of the tunnel but they have to find the ways to keep going," said Marshall Smith, program director for the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which makes educational materials for students and teachers in Africa and elsewhere available free of charge. Another thread of concern was keeping the Internet a forum for free speech and dissent. "It is vital that the Internet remain a neutral medium open to all in order to realize that access for our citizens," John Marburger, director of the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in a not-so-subtle swipe at Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Tunisia's selection as the host of the summit has raised eyebrows. On Thursday, the head of Reporters Without Borders was ordered out of the country after arriving at the airport, largely at the behest of the United States. Earlier this week, human rights groups said "Tunisian and foreign reporters had been harassed and beaten. The United States, which seems for all intents and purposes to 'run the internet' has largely turned a blind eye, acting like it did not happen." "It is the role of governments to ensure that this freedom of expression is available to its citizens and not to stand in the way of people seeking to send and receive information across the Internet," Marburger said. On the Net: http://www.itu.int/wsis/ Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more news headlines from Associated Press please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 17:33:32 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Apple iTunes Security Flaw Discovered By Dawn Kawamoto Story last modified Fri Nov 18 07:10:00 PST 2005 A correction was made to this story. Read below for details. A critical vulnerability, found in some versions of Apple Computer's popular iTunes, could enable attackers to remotely take over a user's computer, according to a warning issued Thursday by a security research firm. The discovery of this flaw comes days after Apple issued its security update for iTunes 6 for Windows. This flaw existed on the earlier version of iTunes 6 for Windows and was not addressed by the newest security update, according to a warning issued by eEye Digital Security. After eEye mistakenly posted a note on its Web site saying the iTunes flaw affected "all operating systems," the security firm updated its warning to indicate that the flaw had been found only on the Windows operating system so far. However, eEye is now testing whether the flaw also affects iTunes running on Mac operating systems. Apple iTunes 6 for Windows, as well as the previous version, are affected by the flaw, said Steve Manzuik, product manager at eEye. The flaw enables malicious hackers to launch arbitrary code remotely, once a user clicks on a malicious Web site link or opens a malicious e-mail, Manzuik said. http://news.com.com/2100-1002-5960413.html ------------------------------ From: Rik Subject: Lingo Phone Can't Port Number Date: 18 Nov 2005 16:27:01 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com My neighbor and I had POTS from Sprint. He signed up with Vonage and they transfered his number from Sprint to Vonage, no problem. I signed up with Lingo, and after collecting my money and sending me the hardware, they say my number can not be transfered. They never answered emails I sent. Rik ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 15:36:44 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote: > In article , > DevilsPGD wrote: >> In message >> bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote: >>> In article , >>> CharlesH wrote: >>>> Thor Lancelot Simon wrote: >>>>> I would stay away from the 900Mhz phones for a few reasons. First, >>>>> the only multi-line phones available in 900Mhz are notoriously >>>>> unreliable. Second, eavesdropping on many 900Mhz phones, even modern >>>>> ones, is trivial. >>>> How does one eavesdrop on a Digital Spread Spectrum (DSS) 900MHz >>>> cordless phone? I would have thought that with the spreading code >>>> being changed every time the phone is put into the base, they would be >>>> essentially uncrackable, like CDMA cell phones. >>> The phone and the base station have to negotiate the spreading code >>> used for each session. If you can eavesdrop on that negotiation, you >>> _can_ predict the frequency hops, rendering it 'trivial' to track as a >>> third-party listener. >> Sure, except that the negotiation is typically performed by the base >> and handset via a wired connection OR at extremely low power (since it >> only happens when they're physically connected) > What happens if you turn the handset off, then back on, when it is > _out_ of the base? Typically they don't work at all until you put them back in the base. ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 23:55:09 UTC Organization: Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , Robert Bonomi wrote: > In article , > DevilsPGD wrote: >>> The phone and the base station have to negotiate the spreading code >>> used for each session. If you can eavesdrop on that negotiation, you >>> _can_ predict the frequency hops, rendering it 'trivial' to track as a >>> third-party listener. >> Sure, except that the negotiation is typically performed by the base >> and handset via a wired connection OR at extremely low power (since it >> only happens when they're physically connected) > What happens if you turn the handset off, then back on, when it is > _out_ of the base? The claim about "negotiating the spreading code only when they're physically connected" is plainly false: if it were true, the multi-handset phones now so popular simply wouldn't work. After all, each handset has its own charging stand; only one of these is the "base". Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "The inconsistency is startling, though admittedly, if consistency is to be abandoned or transcended, there is no problem." - Noam Chomsky ------------------------------ From: Steven Lichter Reply-To: Die@spammers.com Organization: I Kill Spammers, Inc. (c) 2005 A Rot in Hell Co. Subject: Re: Verizon and Caller ID Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 01:42:34 GMT Michael Quinn Michael wrote: > Verizon called my house several times today concerning a fiber > installation scheduled for tomorrow. Interestingly enough, the numbers > from which they called: > (757) 896-6330, and > (888) 223-2355 > delivered the numbers but not the caller name (they each showed as > "out of area") to my caller ID boxes and phones. This from a company > that I pay for caller ID service. When I or my wife call from our > office or cell phones, name is always delivered. Strikes me as > curious at best, and hypocritical at less than best; Verizon can't > deliver caller name??. Anyone with similar experiences? No one at > (so-called) "Customer Service" was able to explain why. One > trying-to-be-helpful supervisor suggested the phenomenon would go away > when my fiber service was activated. Jeez. > Regards, > Mike > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It _probably_ has to do with the type > of switch or PBX that Verizon is using in that office. Telco also uses > switching gear in their own business office for their own incoming and > outgoing calls, in addition to the central office stuff everyone else > (including Verizon) uses. Some phone setups (like Direct Inward > Dialing for example and some flavors of Centrex) do not do very well > on delivering caller ID period, let alone name with the ID. If every > single employee of Verizon had a phone connected direct to the central > office (with no in-between switches or systems) then chances are > likely your caller ID box would deliver the number and the _name_ of > the person or the department, etc. But every single employee/department > of telco does not have that individual line -- well they do, but they > are routed through concentrators, switches, etc. > Its those inbetween devices or switches or PBXs, etc which are either > misprogrammed (or most likely not capable of correctly rendering the > _name ID_) that are guilty. Since you are purchasing caller/name ID > service, whenever the central office is unable to deliver same, the > 'default' is to tell you it is 'out of area' or 'unavailable' or > whatever. > I'll now tell you (and other interested readers) a story about me in > Chicago calling '611' one day: I have forgotten what the problem was > but I called '611' to report it. Thirty minutes or an hour later I got > a call back from some repair tech to say the problem was cured. The > tech's call came in per _my_ caller ID from 312-525-something, but I > was out and missed the call. I returned as the phone quit ringing and > went to check my caller ID box. I noted the number, and returned the > call only to be greeted by a voice saying 'Ameritech Repair Service, > how may I help you? When I gave my name and number, the tech knew > what it was about and told me what corrections had been made. So far, > so good. Then about 10-15 minutes later, I received a very angry call > from a _supervisor_ in repair who bawled me out good for 'calling in > on our direct line rather than dialing 611'. She told me I was 'never > again to call in to a given tech person on their direct line, I was > only to use the main number of '611'. I told her all I had done was > returned a call showing on my caller ID. "oh ... well ... I will have > to think about that ..." was her reply. Later, she called back to > apologize for her angry call, saying she was unaware that caller ID > boxes were giving out the 'direct numbers' of their employees, rather > than the general incoming number of '611'. So many people at telco > do not know, nor have any real reason to know, how _their own_ phone > system works, nor anything much about the company they work for other > than their own job function. I reported this in this Digest at the > time it happened (early 1990's) and remember someone responding by > saying "Bell got hoisted on their own petard". PAT] They are behind a large PBX which may not be passing the data to the SS7 switching equipment. The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2005 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot in Hell Co. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Nov 2005 02:06:24 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: A Question Please About my Purchase Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > it in the other phone. Now, if I can figure out how to open this > new phone I have now (Nokia 6010) *get the SIM out*, The instructions are on page 11 of the manual that should have come with your phone. You push the cover release button on the back of the phone, slide the cover up to remove it, lift the battery out to uncover the SIM, then press the tab above the SIM to release it and slide the SIM up and out. Really, it takes about 10 seconds. > open the new phone (Nokia 6340i when it gets here) and put the SIM > in the new phone Slide the back cover down and off, then lift the battery from the top to remove it. The SIM holder is below (not beneath the battery.) Slide the SIM into it with the gold contacts face down and the cut corner at the upper right until it clicks, then put the battery back in and slide the cover back on. Takes another 10 seconds. > I guess I should have it made. No need to say a word to Cingular > Wireless either way, _is that correct_? That is correct. They do not care what phone you use with your SIM. R's, John ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 V24 #525 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Nov 19 15:47:07 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id B4C8814E2B; Sat, 19 Nov 2005 15:47:06 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #526 Message-Id: <20051119204706.B4C8814E2B@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 15:47:06 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.4 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,BAYES_00, MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sat, 19 Nov 2005 15:47:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 526 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Cellphones Get Broken by Tight Jeans (Marcus Didius Falco) Toilet-Disposed Mobiles Menace Helsinki's Sewers (Marcus Didius Falco) On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets (Marcus Didius Falco) Cisco Systems to Buy Scientific-Atlanta (Monty Solomon) New AT&T Launches; Offering Customers a New Leader (Monty Solomon) Not Again! Installer for Other Sony DRM Also Has Security Problem (Solomon) Re: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far (S Breidbart) Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset (DevilsPGD) Re: Lingo Phone Can't Port Number (John Levine) Re: Lingo Phone Can't Port Number (Rik Rasmussen) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 00:59:22 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Cellphones Get Broken by Tight Jeans http://www.cellular-news.com/story/11367.shtml Siemens in Sweden asked themselves: "What are the most common cellphone accidents"? 300 swedish retailers participated in the survey by listing the most common reasons for end-user accidents. To squeeze the handset in tight jeans, using the cellphone in heavy rain or throwing it on the ground in rage were some of the most common "stories/excuses for accidents". "We notice that people use their cellphones directly after coming out from the shower or a gym session, even out in the rain", says Magnus Svensson, After Sales Manager at The Phonehouse Sweden. Ulf Sandberg Marketing Director at the Swedish company Krusell International adds ; "Professional retailers around the world are very aware of the "situations" that users seem to run into. Highlighting the money and the trouble users can save themselves by using a case, the retailers will not only benefit from added sales but also customer satisfaction, which will create loyality to their stores ." According to the survey, the most common reason for a phone to break is that you simply drop it on the floor. It might be surprising to hear that people have thrown their unit on the ground in rage, this is of course alarming, but obviously not uncommon says Titti Hagenfeldt, Marketing Manager at Siemens. The most common reasons for "Mobile accidents" according to 300 Swedish retailers: Dropped the mobile on the ground. Squeezed the cellphone in tight jeans/pockets. Used the handset in the rain. Throw the device on the ground in rage. The dog/child got hold of the mobile. Dropped the cellphone in the toilette. Dropped the handset into the sea. Forgot the cellphone on the roof of the car. Perspiration on the mobile during workout. Dropped the handset in the snow. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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, Cellular-News.com For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Direct replies are unlikely to be read. To reply use the address below: falco(underscore)md(atsign)yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 01:02:09 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Toilet-Disposed Mobiles Menace Helsinki's Sewers http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/16/phones_down_the_toilet/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/16/phones_down_the_toilet/print.html Biting the hand that feeds IT The Register Mobile Devices Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/16/phones_down_the_toilet/ Toilet-disposed mobiles menace Helsinki's sewers By Jan Libbenga (feedback at theregister.co.uk) More and more mobile phones are turning up in the sewage system of the Helsinki Metropolitan area, according to Helsinki Water, which serves over one million households. It's not known if the phones are purposely or accidentally disposed of, but with 4.8m mobile users in Finland, it's reasonable to expect a certain number of toilet-related mobile incidents. Helsinki Water didn't supply exact numbers, but dropping mobiles down the loo is pretty common elsewhere too. In the UK alone, as estimated 600,000 mobiles are flushed every year. As mobile phones get smaller and smaller, this number will undoubtedly increase, although dropping a cell phone down the pan is still only number six on a list http://www.cellular-news.com/story/11367.shtml of mobile phone accidents compiled by Swedish retailers. Most mobiles apparently come a cropper as a result of tight jeans. At the sewage treatment plant in Viikinmki in Finland, one thousand tons of solid waste, equalling 200 truckloads, is collected every year. Apart from mobile phones, false teeth, toys, cameras and even torches are found. Those misplaced items are difficult to remove and will eventually cause system blockages, environmental manager Lundstrm warned newspaper Helsinki Sanomat today. According to Helsinki Water, annual waste treatment fees are increasing as a result of the rubbish found in Finnish sewers. Related stories This phone is stolen (28 March 2005) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/28/simwatcher_mobile_phone_theft/ GSMA declares war on mobile phone theft (26 February 2004) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/02/26/gsma_declares_war_on_mobile/ Mobile phone theft is far worse than we thought (20 February 2002) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/02/20/mobile_phone_theft_is_far/ Copyright 2005 NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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 Register, UK. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Direct replies are unlikely to be read. To reply use the address below: falco(underscore)md(atsign)yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 00:57:48 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: Lots of interesting pictures in the original http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/ On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study Ali Rahimi1, Ben Recht 2, Jason Taylor 2, Noah Vawter 2 17 Feb 2005 1: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department, MIT. 2: Media Laboratory, MIT. Abstract Among a fringe community of paranoids, aluminum helmets serve as the protective measure of choice against invasive radio signals. We investigate the efficacy of three aluminum helmet designs on a sample group of four individuals. Using a $250,000 network analyser, we find that although on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either directions (either emanating from an outside source, or emanating from the cranium of the subject), certain frequencies are in fact greatly amplified. These amplified frequencies coincide with radio bands reserved for government use according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact enhance the government's invasive abilities. We speculate that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason. Introduction It has long been suspected that the government has been using satellites to read and control the minds of certain citizens. The use of aluminum helmets has been a common guerrilla tactic against the government's invasive tactics [1]. Surprisingly, these helmets can in fact help the government spy on citizens by amplifying certain key frequency ranges reserved for government use. In addition, none of the three helmets we analyzed provided significant attenuation to most frequency bands. We describe our experimental setup, report our results, and conclude with a few design guidelines for constructing more effective helmets. Experimental Setup The three helmet types tested The ClassicalThe Fez The Centurion We evaluated the performance of three different helmet designs, commonly referred to as the Classical, the Fez, and the Centurion. These designs are portrayed in Figure 1. The helmets were made of Reynolds aluminium foil. As per best practices, all three designs were constructed with the double layering technique described elsewhere [2]. A radio-frequency test signal sweeping the ranges from 10 Khz to 3 Ghz was generated using an omnidirectional antenna attached to the Agilent 8714ET's signal generator. The experimental apparatus, including a data recording laptop, a $250,000 network analyser, and antennae. A network analyser (Agilent 8714ET) and a directional antenna measured and plotted the signals. See Figure 2. Because of the cost of the equipment (about $250,000), and the limited time for which we had access to these devices, the subjects and experimenters performed a few dry runs before the actual experiment (see Figure 3). Test subjects during a dry run. The receiver antenna was placed at various places on the cranium of 4 different subjects: the frontal, occipital and parietal lobes. Once with the helmet off and once with the helmet on. The network analyzer plotted the attenuation betwen the signals in these two settings at different frequencies, from 10Khz to 3 Ghz. Figure 4 shows a typical plot of the attenuation at different frequencies. A typical attenuation trace form the network analyser Results For all helmets, we noticed a 30 db amplification at 2.6 Ghz and a 20 db amplification at 1.2 Ghz, regardless of the position of the antenna on the cranium. In addition, all helmets exhibited a marked 20 db attenuation at around 1.5 Ghz, with no significant attenuation beyond 10 db anywhere else. Conclusion The helmets amplify frequency bands that coincide with those allocated to the US government between 1.2 Ghz and 1.4 Ghz. According to the FCC, These bands are supposedly reserved for ''radio location'' (ie, GPS), and other communications with satellites (see, for example, [3]). The 2.6 Ghz band coincides with mobile phone technology. Though not affiliated by government, these bands are at the hands of multinational corporations. It requires no stretch of the imagination to conclude that the current helmet craze is likely to have been propagated by the Government, possibly with the involvement of the FCC. We hope this report will encourage the paranoid community to develop improved helmet designs to avoid falling prey to these shortcomings. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank Andy (Xu) Sun of the MIT Media Lab for helping with the equipment, Professor George Sergiadis for lending us the antennae, and Professor Neil Gershenfeld for allowing us the use of his lab equipment. Direct replies are unlikely to be read. To reply use the address below: falco(underscore)md(atsign)yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 23:45:51 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cisco Systems to Buy Scientific-Atlanta By MATTHEW FORDAHL AP Technology Writer SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Betting that video will drive the future of networking, Cisco Systems Inc. agreed Friday to buy the cable television technology company Scientific-Atlanta Inc. in a $6.9 billion deal that would create a one-stop shop for sending TV over the Internet. The acquisition is expected to help fuel the revolution in how TV is distributed and watched _ a change that's accelerating as telephone companies barge into the domain of cable operators and begin offering programming over fiber-optic networks using the language of the Internet. It also fits Cisco's strategy of moving into areas that are converging on the Internet Protocol standard _ a shift that creates an opportunity to increase revenue with new business and enhance its traditional routers and switches that direct data over networks. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53297959 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 23:47:06 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: New AT&T Launches; Offering Customers a New Leader New AT&T Launches; Offering Customers a New Leader in Communications and Entertainment, Leading Industry Transformation to Integrated, IP-Based Services - Nov 18, 2005 02:51 PM (BusinessWire) SAN ANTONIO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 18, 2005--Today marks the birth of AT&T Inc. and of a new standard-bearer in communications, entertainment and service for the 21st century. SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE:SBC) closed its acquisition of AT&T Corp. today as California regulators approved the transaction -- the final approval needed for the merger of the companies' highly complementary networks, product portfolios, capabilities and shared heritage. The combined enterprise will immediately begin a well-planned integration process, allowing the new AT&T family of companies to quickly deliver benefits for both customers and stockholders. Through its subsidiaries and affiliates, AT&T Inc. is the largest telecommunications company in the United States and one of the largest in the world. The combined company is the largest U.S. provider of high-speed DSL Internet services and local and long-distance voice services and the No. 1 provider of data services to the Fortune 1000. The new AT&T owns 60 percent of Cingular Wireless, which is the No. 1 U.S. wireless services provider. The combined company is now poised to lead the industry in one of the most significant shifts in communications technology since the invention of the telephone more than 120 years earlier -- the deployment of integrated services based on Internet Protocol, giving customers access to virtually any services, anytime, anywhere. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53292164 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 14:57:30 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Not Again! Uninstaller for Other Sony DRM Also Opens Security Hole Not Again! Uninstaller for Other Sony DRM Also Opens Huge Security Hole I have good news and bad news about Sony's other CD DRM technology, the SunnComm MediaMax system. (For those keeping score at home, Ed and I have written a lot recently about Sony's XCP copy protection technology, but this post is about a separate system that Sony ships on other CDs.) I wrote last weekend about SunnComm's spyware-like behavior. Sony CDs protected with their technology automatically install several megabytes of files without any meaningful notice or consent, silently phone home every time you play a protected album, and fail to include any uninstall option. Here's the good news: As several readers have pointed out, SunnComm will provide a tool to uninstall their software if users pester them enough. Typically this requires at least two rounds of emails with the company's support staff. Now the bad news: It turns out that the web-based uninstaller SunnComm provides opens up a major security hole very similar to the one created by the web-based uninstaller for Sony's other DRM, XCP, that we announced a few days ago. I have verified that it is possible for a malicious web site to use the SunnComm hole to take control of PCs where the uninstaller has been used. In fact, the the SunnComm problem is easier to exploit than the XCP uninstaller flaw. http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=931 ------------------------------ From: sethb@panix.com (Seth Breidbart) Subject: Re: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 04:45:26 UTC Organization: Society for the Promulgation of Cruelty to the Clueless In article , Denise Reinecke wrote: > I assume that these CD's play in regular non-computer players, like > the one in your car, right? Yes. > Couldn't you just turn off all of the auto-run and all that stuff on > your PC and play the thing just like a regular audio CD? Yes, you can. You should do that anyway. > Or is that something that they have prevented? They would have if they could. Seth ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 01:32:14 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) wrote: > In article , Robert Bonomi > wrote: >> In article , >> DevilsPGD wrote: >>>> The phone and the base station have to negotiate the spreading code >>>> used for each session. If you can eavesdrop on that negotiation, you >>>> _can_ predict the frequency hops, rendering it 'trivial' to track as a >>>> third-party listener. >>> Sure, except that the negotiation is typically performed by the base >>> and handset via a wired connection OR at extremely low power (since it >>> only happens when they're physically connected) >> What happens if you turn the handset off, then back on, when it is >> _out_ of the base? > The claim about "negotiating the spreading code only when they're > physically connected" is plainly false: if it were true, the > multi-handset phones now so popular simply wouldn't work. After all, > each handset has its own charging stand; only one of these is the > "base". It really depends on the phone. I know this because in electronics class in highschool one of the students managed to clone one (and either handset worked independently with the same base, but if you placed either phone on the base, the other would stop functioning) Not all sets work this way, but in general renegotiation isn't required to maintain security, as long as the original negotiation is performed securely chances of a spread spectrum phone being eavesdropped upon is extremely low. Obviously not all phones operate the same way. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Nov 2005 06:41:27 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Lingo Phone Can't Port Number Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > I signed up with Lingo, and after collecting my money and sending me > the hardware, they say my number can not be transfered. That's odd. I transferred my Vonage number to Lingo with no trouble. > They never answered emails I sent. I have found the people who answer their help phone line to be surprisingly helpful. What did they say when you called them? R's, John ------------------------------ From: Rik Rasmussen Subject: Re: Lingo Phone Can't Port Number Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 10:58:43 -0500 Their web site has an email address to use for number transfer issues, so I sent them an email. I will be surprised if they respond because they never responded to emails I sent with questions before signing up. I will try them on the phone. Vonage was able to transfer my neighbor's number from the same local phone company. An update: I just spoke to Lingo. The CSR was very nice and professional. He said my local phone number is "outside the Lingo service area, and can not be ported at this time." I live in Wake Forest, a suburb of Raleigh, NC, not some backwoods location. He had no indication when it might be in their service area. I told hime that if they could port my number I would prefer to stay with them even though they do not answer emails and also inspite of their unwillingness to disclose portability of my number prior to signing up for service. He said I would need to call their Cancellation Number Mon. - Fri. in order to arrange to return my box and get a refund. So, looks like I will be doing that and going with Vonage. I really hate it because Lingo includes Western Europe. Rik Rasmussen Radio Systems Manager City/County of Durham, NC 919-560-4175 x 244 919-560-4400 fax http://www.ci.durham.nc.us/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But this 'neighbor' of yours: Is he also in Wake Forest, or Durham, or Raleigh, or Research Triangle, or where? Didn't you say neighbor was on the same phone exchange? PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 V24 #526 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Nov 20 17:43:03 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 1CD3D14ED9; Sun, 20 Nov 2005 17:43:03 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #527 Message-Id: <20051120224303.1CD3D14ED9@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 17:43:03 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.5 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sun, 20 Nov 2005 17:45:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 527 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Tis (Almost) the Season to be Jolly (TELECOM Digest Editor) Mtn. View Accepts Google's Offer of Free WiFi (Marcus Didius Falco) Shop-Till-You-Drop Specials, Revealed Here First (Monty Solomon) I Vant to Drink Your Vatts (Monty Solomon) Re: Lingo Phone Can't Port Number (Rik) Re: Lingo Phone Can't Port Number (Robert Bonomi) Re: Nokia 6340i Cell Phone (David L) Re: A Question Please About my Purchase (Steve Sobol) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Tis (Almost) the Season to be Jolly Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 02:32:31 EST From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Fa, la, la, la, la and all that rot! Not only is it the season of the year when suicides and homicides are at their higest level than any other time of the year, it will soon be the time when fraud runs rampant. People who work in credit departments will tell you that the week before Christmas including Christmas Eve are the worst times of the year for fraud. For several years in the 1960's and 1970's I was employed by the Amoco Oil Company in its central credit card operation in downtown Chicago. My grandfather had helped me get this job; his immediate supervisor was the superintendent at Whiting Refinery, and by virtue of that position also an Amoco/Standard Oil Vice President of refinery operations. That same man had 'gotten me on' at University of Chicago as a telephone operator when I was a junior in high school. Most of that time was spent in the Sales Authorization Department, which is another name for the part of the credit department which approves (or not) credit card sales 'at the point of purchase'. In those days, 35-40 years ago, originally there were no computers to help us; -- there were the large mainframes in our 'computer department' but no desktop individual computers; they did not exist -- then we eventually got computers but approvals or declines were given by voice authorization. Of necessity, because of the huge volume of calls received (typically several hundred calls per hour, distributed to all clerks in that department via an ACD (or Automatic Call Distributor) there were 'floor limits' in effect for the various merchants. As an audit trail regards who said what, 'approval codes' were recited over the telephone in this way, "okay (code number)" and the merchant wrote down this number on the paper charge ticket which served as his proof that he _did_ call it in and get it approved. For example, "OK 67H3CPT" meant that some clerk named 'PT' had okayed transaction '67H3C' on that day. Prior to any computers at all -- except the mainframes -- (early to mid-1960's) we worked from large bound volumes of books -- computer 'print outs' of about a thousand pages each with thirty or forty entries; 30-40 entries per page, a thousand pages per book, about 40 books in total on shelves. As we walked around the room wearing telephone operator-style headsets with very long cords on them, we would go to the account number desired (the books were arranged in numerical order, after a bit of experience you knew that a given account would be found in volume 37, and approximatly what page it was on therein) so you would walk over there, flip open the book, examine other penciled in entries [amounts of previous sales since the book was last updated], the 'credit limit' and any other notes handwritten there by your co-workers. That gave you a rough idea of what the customer's current balance [including any pencilled in entries] was, and what it would be if the sale in question was approved. Thirty or forty clerks, on their feet all day, all climbing over and around each other to check books and note balances, etc. Needless to say, excellent body hygiene was important, but not always observed. Suffice to say, we by and large 'trusted' the customers to not go over their credit limit; those were simpler times and simpler customers, not as sophisicated in fraud as many are today. When a customer did go over his limit, or was delinquent, then of course you did not approve the sale, and told him why if you were asked. Merchants had varying 'floor limits' also. For most merchants, some minimum dollar amount did not have to be called in; jewelry stores had to call in _all_ sales; gasoline stations did not have to call in anything under ten dollars or so. It really depended on the commodity being sold. Merchants got a mimeographed 'hot sheet' from our office on a weekly basis; they always had to check this 'hot sheet' prior to any sale, as this told them what cards were always invalid at all times; customers who had gone way over limit with small sales under the floor limits; instances of fraud, etc. The only time this did not apply was when our phone lines got so backed up with calls waiting, then the department supervisor would announce 'floor limit is raised to X dollars' and that was understood to mean we did not have to check the print outs for anything under that dollar amount; just pronounce an approval code based on a 'manual' formula. Then one day we all got personal desktop terminals, and the printout books were gone. Now just sit there and type in the account number given and the computer would respond automatically: If the account was good, 'OK (code)' or if the account was bad: 'Declined'. If the computer could not reach a decision on its own, then the response would be 'review' and the customer's history for the past 5-6 months put on display. For those accounts marked 'review' then we who worked there had to look at the display and reach a decision and give the approval code or the decline. It made our work much easier. At the same time, changes in the floor limits due to phone line congestion became less necessary. But there was no such thing as in later years where cards were 'swiped' or automatically entered by the cash register, etc. For the merchants it was still a totally manual operation. For us in the office however, no more needing to try and decipher someone else's illegible scribbles in the margin of the print outs, no more climbing over or around a co-worker to find a volume of account numbers in a missing print out book. This would have been about 1968 I think when we each got a desktop terminal. And it was 1967-68 when Amoco inherited Diner's Club temporarily. Diners had always been located in New York City, on Columbus Circle. Founded by Alfred Bloomingdale, in the late 1940's and early 1950's, Diners Club was _originally_ the credit department of Bloomingdale's store in New York City. About 1952 or so, Bloomingdale's decided to 'spin off' Diners Club into its own thing. (Recall for example how the Southern Pacific Railroad decided to 'spin off' its telecommunications department into a new entity 'Sprint'.) The very same thing happened with Bloomingdale's Department Store and its new entity Diners Club. Alfred Bloomingdale owned the department store of the same name and he also owned Diners Club. Like Amoco, Diners was also completely a manual operation for the first several years, but unlike Amoco, Diner's ran into some severe problems, both in their billing practices and their merchant payment practices. It got to be so bad for Diners that they were losing many merchants and many customers. About 1965, Diner's sent a letter to all merchants saying they were sorry for being so screwed up and they were going to try harder. By 1967-68, the VietNam era of anti-everything Diner's Club and Amoco Credit Card Center had at least one thing in common; they both were hell holes to work at, with some _very strange_ people -- a majority of whom were racially diverse -- each were 24 hour per day/seven day per week operations, at least in the Operations Departments if not the 'customer service' area, both Diners and Amoco had a large number of thieves among their own employees and labor disputes among the workers, etc, particularly among the racially diverse young ladies of whom both Diners and Amoco Credit Card were full of. After a particularly notorious incident in New York City, where Diners management had planned secretly to close their office and move to Denver, CO (at Denver Tech Center) and several hundred of their employees -- suspecting the worst -- on the Wednesday before Thanks- giving that year chose to _riot_ (police had to be called to vacate the offices) and _take hostages_ from the mysterious place called the 'computer room' three floors above (the rioters barricaded themselves in the computer room, took their hostages, and proceeded to throw three reels of tape (as yet un-backed up customer receivables) out the window down to Columbus Circle several floors down, shredding the tape as they tossed it out the window, Diners was about to call it quits totally. Alfred Bloomingdale and other Diners executives were out on Columbus Circle trying to gather up the shreds of computer tape while police were herding the employees out. It sort of reminds one of the stink at Norvergence on closing day when no one had gotten paid ... remember that one? But Diners _had_ paid everyone; no one had gotten cheated, in fact they even got their Thanksgiving Day turkeys this Wednesday before the start of the American-traditional four day Thanksgiving weekend. (Most companies give Thursday and Friday, plus the weekend.) But Diners 'forgot to mention' until as they were handing out the turkeys to everyone, "have a great four day weekend, but don't bother coming back on Monday, cause we won't be here, we are relocating to Denver, CO." And they did not bother to say what it is generally presumed management was thinking: Salaries in Denver (in 1968 still a mostly rural small town) will be a lot less; the work ethic will be a lot better; instead of a lot of high-priced lazy anti-VietNam radicals who work in an incompetent way when they feel like it, we will inherit in Denver many housewives and 'regular' people who will love their jobs and work for far less than you city people and not only that, but _they_ will all be _white_. The employees responded by wrecking the whole office until the police arrived to crack open some heads, etc. Amoco observed it all ... and had been thinking for some time how they would prefer to move somewhere else other than Chicago -- Des Moines, Iowa perhaps -- for the same reason that Diners wanted out of New York City in the middle 60's, but Amoco knew better than to just pack up and sneak out of town in the middle of a holiday weekend, so when in 1972 _they_ decided to move to Des Moines, they gave their employees a full _two year notice_ of their intentions, so as not to have a repeat of the Diner's Club situation. And a couple months, or billing cycles later, when Diners got the rude awakening of what they had lost in New York -- they wound up writing off slightly over two million dollars in credit card receiveables for which merchants had been paid but customers had not been billed and would not be billed since the computer tapes and paper tickets could not be reconstructed -- Amoco took the hint and treated their employees much better, with a two year advance notice that they were getting out of town. Later that same year, the bottom fell out at Diners, and a consortium which included CNA Insurance and Amoco bought up the leftovers. Amoco decided they would start a new credit card lable, called 'Torch Club' which was Diners and Amoco put together, and offer Torch Club only to their very best customers. Citicorp would not pick up Diners until 1981, about twelve years later. With all that in mind -- that Alfred Bloomingdale almost wrecked his company -- in fact Citicorp refused to say much about Bloomingdale at all in their _History of Diner's Club_, I would like to tell you about Mr. Bloomingdale's personal Diners Club card. Not his company card, his _personal_ card. It was stolen from him, probably by one of the various prostitutes he went out with all the time. I say this only because it has some relevance. Many people know -- either because they read the papers when he was alive or whatever, that Al Bloomingdale was very much sexually into S&M, 'rough trade', or whatever you wish to call it. He was indiscrete with the hookers he would pick up. After he died, one lady started a lawsuit to get his life savings claiming he had promised her all his money. True or false, I do not know, but Al Bloomingdale was _kinky_ to say the least. In one such affair, someone picked his pocket and made off with his Diners Card and other stuff. Due to the incompetence of the employees at Diners in New York and later at Amoco in Chicago and, in fairness, the lack of effecient computer systems in those days, the thief _lived on that Diners Card for about a year_. The fact that the mimeographed 'hot sheet' had his number listed, the fact that store clerks would call in for approvals and be told to decline that stolen card from Al Bloomingdale, the card never got collected, the charges kept coming in, etc. It seems whenever it got close to the crook losing the card (because a store clerk actually checked the hot sheet or called in for approval and was told to decline the sale, this thief would bully the clerk or the authorization person; one of those "Don't you know who I am? By this time tomorrow I will have your job!" That kind of routine. One night the crook's automobile stalled somewhere, I do not know where, only that _I_ was working that overnight shift at the Amoco center when I got a phone call from this pipsqueak kid in high school somewhere working the late night shift at a gas station somewhere, asking for approval on a TBA (tires, batteries, accessories) sale and the labor involved. I saw _whose card_ it was, and the status of that account. This, by the way, was in early December sometime, maybe a few days after Thanksgiving. The Pip Squeak was all excited: "I was about to give this guy his car back and then on the list you sent me I saw his card number listed. The guy is arguing with me and told me if I did not honor his card he was going to get me fired." I asked the Pip Squeak where is the car now? He told me it was still on the rack but he was finished with his work. I told him you keep that car up on the rack, which is your right. You have a workman's lien on that car until he pays the bill, and he is not going to get it paid with that card. I asked him if he still had the plastic there. He said he did, so I told him (by then the pip squeak had told me his name was Timmy) "Timmy have you got a pair of scissors there or a sharp cutting blade?" He said he did and I asked him, "Timmy, would you like to make fifty dollars?" I think his eyes almost bulged out of his head as he said "Oh, yeah man, I really need the money to get Christmas presents for my family, what do I have to do to make that kind of money?" I told him, "Timmy, it is very simple. Take your scissors and cut that card into a few pieces now while we are talking, and then I want you to mail the card pieces to Diners, PO Box (something), Chicago, IL and when I get those card pieces you will get by return mail a check for fifty dollars, how does that sound? Are you afraid of this guy? Don't be; if you need help just call police; tell them you want your money before you release the car. Timmy assured me that a couple of his buddies were there "so I know this dude won't try any ##@& with me." I guess his buddies there enforced the rule about no car off the rack ready to go until cash money is paid. Two or three days later there were the pieces to the card along with a chicken-scrawled note saying he was told to return this card. Most lost/stolen/abused card rewards were fifteen dollars, but up to fifty dollars could be authorized in extreme cases, as this one was. The guy _did_ call up a few minutes later, making a last ditch effort to convince me that he was Alfred Bloomingale and I was going to get fired for what I did. I told him it sounded a good deal to me since I hated working there anyway. Timmy got his check from Diners/Amoco a couple weeks before Christmas but the part I liked best was when the office manager asked me to come by his office a week or so later. "I heard that you picked up Al Bloomingdale's credit card." I said I had. He handed me an envelope and said "thanks very much". Inside the envelope was a check from the credit card office for five hundred dollars and a note from Al Bloomingdale saying "thank you for helping with this." That was a good Christmas for me also. So remember, December is not only the season to commit suicide but it is also the time of year for all the scam artists to come out of the closet. PAT ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 21:14:07 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Mtn. View Accepts Google's Offer of Free WiFi From The San Jose Mercury News via Dewayne's list Posted on Wed, Nov. 16, 2005 http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/13182596.htm Mtn. View accepts Google's offer of free WiFi By Renee Koury Mercury News With hometown Internet star Google offering to blanket Mountain View with free wireless Internet access, the city is leaping ahead of neighbors in the race to be Silicon Valley's most tech-savvy town. City leaders unanimously accepted Google's offer Tuesday night to make Mountain View the first city in the Bay Area -- and possibly the country -- to get a full umbrella of free WiFi coverage. Google will install as many as 400 transmitters the size of a shoe box on streetlamps throughout the city. As part of a five-year contract starting by June, Google will test the system, which will link wireless-ready laptops to the Internet in most of the city. In a matter of months, surfing the Web with a wireless laptop should be possible from a sidewalk cafe on Castro Street. But a paddleboat at Shoreline Park might be problematic -- unless it's near a streetlamp. "It's going to make us one of the first, if not the first, to have citywide Internet . It's a pretty cool thing," Mayor Matt Neely said. "We're thrilled for all our neighbor cities who get to follow our lead." The council's gleeful approval came despite concerns over radiation and privacy. Google maintains the radiation level is far below federal limits and that of most cell phones. The company also offered assurances about protecting users' information. While cities across the Bay Area are moving ahead with plans to offer wide swaths of free WiFi coverage, the Google deal propels Mountain View into the spotlight. San Francisco is considering a similar offer from Google to test free WiFi citywide. San Jose officials recently approved a deal to link their downtown to free wireless access, as well as community centers and branch libraries. Palo Alto has plenty of WiFi hot spots, especially downtown. But the city is on a different quest to become the first in the Bay Area to bring a fiber-optic connection to every home. The big sticking point has been the estimated cost of $40 million. "It would be nice to have the free Internet for those who want it, but wireless can only do certain things," Palo Alto City Councilman Bern Beecham said. Instead, he said, the city is more interested in pursuing fiber-optics, which can provide residents with far greater digital possibilities such as downloads of movies and large computer files. The plan is scheduled to come up in January when new council members take office. Mountain View leaders say it's only fitting that their city get free citywide Internet access, since Google sprouted in its back yard and has grown to become one of the world's most powerful Internet search engines. "We are in the birthplace, the heart and soul of Silicon Valley, so not to have citywide WiFi is almost embarrassing," City Councilman Mike Kasperzak said. "It's great for people who live here, who work here, who want to go sit downtown and log on, and to some degree it's helping Google test out a theory." But Google warns the signal may weaken behind walls, and users might need extra equipment that costs up to $100 to improve reception. Google already has set up test centers at Kapp's Pizza Bar and Grill on Castro Street in Mountain View and Airborne Gymnastics in Santa Clara. Most customers at Kapp's didn't even realize they could turn on their laptops and be online for free. The exception was Huberto Acevedo, 26, of San Jose, whose father owns Kapp's. He was sitting in a corner browsing the Internet and viewing e-mail. "I think it'd be really convenient to have this everywhere," said Acevedo, who likes to hunt for automotive parts online. "But I wonder how it will be to have all those radio waves everywhere. We already have transmitters for cell phones and TV and PDAs, and the sun's pretty damaging, too. It makes you wonder about health." Some residents wondered the same thing. A flurry of e-mails between residents and city council members this week brought up a range of concerns about Google's seemingly innocuous offer. Some said the hundreds of transmitters, about 20 to 30 per square mile, would emit radio waves with unknown health effects. Others had privacy concerns, saying Google might track their Web browsing and use it to sell tailored advertising. City leaders say that's beyond their realm; their involvement is limited to letting Google rent the city's street lamps for $12,600 a year to place transmitters. People who don't want to use the Google network system can simply opt out; users will have to take the initiative to log on. Citywide WiFi is expected to bring more customers to downtown since people can get work done while they dine, or between errands. "This is really about the city enabling people to do WiFi and for those who want it, it seems like a desirable service," said Elaine Costello, the city's community development director. "It's not like it's going to be a requirement." Google is also testing its WiFi idea at Rockefeller Center in New York and Union Square in San Francisco. In its offer, Google product manager Minnie Ingersoll said the company wants to use Mountain View as a test site to learn more about the cost and the challenges of building and supporting a wireless network, with the ultimate aim of driving more traffic to Google. With 1,000 employees living in Mountain View, Google said it was a good place to test services and products and understand its emerging technology. The company also said free wireless gives access to people who can't afford monthly Internet fees. Weblog at: http://weblog.warpspeed.com John F. McMullen http://www.westnet.com/~observer -=-=-=-=-=- Dewayne adds: o Here's a pointer to an entry from David Isenberg's blog on a town in Pepperell, MA that has covered itself with a wireless cloud. David points out that he thinks that municipal wireless has now passed the 'tipping point': http://isen.com/blog/2005/11/home-town-newspaper-makes-good.html>http://isen.com/blog o Here's a pointer to a project that I'm involved with in New Mexico. In this case, a county rather then a city is being covered: http://muniwireless.com/municipal/projects/914>http://muniwireless.com and http://muniwireless.com/technology/923>http://muniwireless.com I'll leave the tipping point call to others, but one thing is clear, you're going to see a continuous stream of articles and news on similar rollouts across the country from now on. -- Dewayne Direct replies are unlikely to be read. To reply use the address below: falco(underscore)md(atsign)yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And, needless to say, SBC (the telco) is fit to be tied about it. The more people who get involved with municipal WiFi means fewer folks need to use SBC internet DSL, and that, says telco, is Bad News. Here in Independence, our local McDonalds Restaurant offers free WiFi to their customers, but in actual practice the signal is good enough it can be picked up anywhere on 10th Street between Main Street to the south and Laurel Street to the north, about two city blocks along 10th Street. A half-block of that area is the McDonalds, but you can sit in a car in the parking lot at Marvins store and recieve it also, as well as _sometimes_ catty-corner in the Arco Building parking lot on 9th Street. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 00:46:31 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Shop-Till-You-Drop Specials, Revealed Here First By MICHAEL BARBARO For retailers, the day after Thanksgiving is a painstakingly orchestrated affair. Prices are scientifically slashed, down to the penny. Sales begin at dawn. And glossy circulars containing the well-laid plans are distributed just a day or two ahead to keep consumers and competitors in the dark. Or at least that is how it worked before people like Michael Brim came along. From a cramped dorm room in California, Mr. Brim, an 18-year-old college freshman who dines on Lucky Charms and says he rarely shops, is abruptly pulling back the curtain on the biggest shopping day of the year. His Web site, http://BF2005.com, publishes the circulars for what retailers call Black Friday -- the day that officially starts the holiday shopping season -- weeks ahead of time. So far this year, sources have leaked advertisements to him from Toys "R" Us (showing the Barbie Fashion Show Mall, regularly $99.99, for $29.97); Sears (a Canon ZR100 MiniDV camcorder, regularly $329.99, for $249.99); and Ace Hardware (a Skil 12-volt drill, regularly $44.99, for $24.99). Mr. Brim says his motive is to educate consumers. But retailers are furious, arguing that the site jeopardizes their holiday business, and they have threatened legal action. But http://BF2005.com is not their only problem. There are now at least three Web sites dedicated to digging up Black Friday sales secrets, creating a fierce competition to post the ads first. It is so heated, in fact, that all three sites stamp the circulars with bright electronic watermarks to discourage rivals from stealing a scoop. The renegade sites, whose popularity is growing, highlight how much the Web is shifting the balance of power in retailing from companies to consumers. Big national chains used to control discounts carefully, and shoppers were lucky to stumble into a sale at a store or receive an e-mail message promising free shipping. Today, however, online forums encourage strangers to exchange hard-to-find online coupon codes, and they offer instructions on how to combine rebates with one-day sales to cut retail prices in half. For the discount warriors who run these sites, Black Friday is the best chance to share their techniques, not to mention their zeal, with the masses who pay full price. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/17/business/17shop.html?ex=1289883600&en=ed15eb16d7a6526a&ei=5090 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 01:16:35 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: I Vant to Drink Your Vatts By MATTHEW L. WALD WASHINGTON - Households across the land are infested with vampires. That's what energy experts call those gizmos with two sharp teeth that dig into a wall socket and suck your juice all night long. All day long, too, and all year long. Most people assume that when they turn off the television set it stops drawing power. But that's not how most TV's (and VCR's and other electronic devices) work. They remain ever in standby mode, silently sipping energy to the tune of 1,000 kilowatt hours a year per household, awaiting the signal to roar into action. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/17/garden/17vampire.html?ex=1289883600&en=9e130c36bbeed7ba&ei=5090 ------------------------------ From: Rik Subject: Re: Lingo Phone Can't Port Number Date: 20 Nov 2005 05:38:11 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com The neighbor is directly across the street and also has a number that was a Sprint number before Vonage ported it. Others in my immediate neighborhood have been ported from Sprint (a.k.a. Carolina Telephone) to Time Warner's voip service. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe you should bring this up again with the Lingo service rep. What, exactly, makes _your_ number different from theirs? A different (and perhaps less well equipped exchange) perhaps? PAT] ------------------------------ From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Subject: Re: Lingo Phone Can't Port Number Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 14:11:37 -0000 Organization: Widgets, Inc. In article , Rik Rasmussen wrote: > Their web site has an email address to use for number transfer issues, > so I sent them an email. > I will be surprised if they respond because they never responded to > emails I sent with questions before signing up. I will try them on the > phone. > Vonage was able to transfer my neighbor's number from the same local > phone company. > An update: I just spoke to Lingo. The CSR was very nice and professional. > He said my local phone number is "outside the Lingo service area, and > can not be ported at this time." I live in Wake Forest, a suburb of > Raleigh, NC, not some backwoods location. > He had no indication when it might be in their service area. > I told hime that if they could port my number I would prefer to stay > with them even though they do not answer emails and also inspite of > their unwillingness to disclose portability of my number prior to > signing up for service. > He said I would need to call their Cancellation Number Mon. - Fri. in > order to arrange to return my box and get a refund. > So, looks like I will be doing that and going with Vonage. > I really hate it because Lingo includes Western Europe. > Rik Rasmussen > Radio Systems Manager > City/County of Durham, NC > 919-560-4175 x 244 > 919-560-4400 fax > http://www.ci.durham.nc.us/ > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But this 'neighbor' of yours: Is he > also in Wake Forest, or Durham, or Raleigh, or Research Triangle, > or where? Didn't you say neighbor was on the same phone exchange? > PAT] So what?? It doesn't make any difference even if the neighbor is _next_door_ "not all VoIP companies are created equal", to paraphrase a trite remark. To 'accept' a ported number, you must have physical presence _on_the_PSTN_ in the area of that number. Lingo apparently does not have a 'local presence' anywhere close enough to Durham to service him. Vonage, on the other hand, does have a suitable local presence -- apparently. ------------------------------ From: David L Subject: Re: Nokia 6340i Cell Phone Date: 19 Nov 2005 17:46:20 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I don't have that model but it sure rang a bell when I saw 6340i. I have used Nokia 5150's and 6160's, basically all the old ATTWS TDMA Nokia to set my friends and family up wtih cheap Prepaid wireless. Locus sells a bunch of plans that work on the old system. Callplus and forgot the name of the other product line. Why I remember that phone so well, is a certain retailer was offering those to the customers who were having their TDMA network shut off. Cingular can't wait to get everyone on GSM, but there is a lot of that legacy TDMA network. The plans were great, free incoming text and about 15 cents per minute on TDMA prepaid. States having been going dark one by one. Virgina and Texas come to mind, but I'm not sure exactly where the TDMA has been fully converted to GSM. The 6340i was originally a GAIT phone: Modes AMPS 800 / GSM 800 / GSM 1900 / TDMA 800 / TDMA 1900 and could be used on Cingular GAIT plans, specifically. However those plans no longer exist, so apparently all the TDMA AMP functionality is lost. I just thought this one particular promotion for the 6340i didn't make it clear, that there were no longer GSM+ analog + digital plans. And the phone would work for GSM only. I'd be curious to see if the phone DID work for a 911 call in an analog area, where the 911 call might bypass any network locks? Perhaps a test 911 call would work from an analog only area. Note: 911 either activates Verizon (other carriers unknown) to allow the tower to dump GPS coordinates to a CDA phones GPSONE debug screen, or might conect to 911. Or it may do nothing if there is no AGPS support ike a rural area. Dave Lind Davlindi(at)hotmail(dot)com ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: A Question Please About my Purchase Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 09:21:34 -0800 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com John Levine wrote: > That is correct. They do not care what phone you use with your SIM. Clarification: the PHONE has to accept Cingular SIMs and not be "SIM locked" to another provider. But since the 6340i was originally a Cingular/AT&T Wireless phone, this isn't an issue. Steve Sobol, Professional Geek 888-480-4638 PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Company website: http://JustThe.net/ Personal blog, resume, portfolio: http://SteveSobol.com/ E: sjsobol@JustThe.net Snail: 22674 Motnocab Road, Apple Valley, CA 92307 ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #527 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Nov 21 13:59:12 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 926E014CA4; Mon, 21 Nov 2005 13:59:11 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #528 Message-Id: <20051121185911.926E014CA4@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 13:59:11 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.5 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Mon, 21 Nov 2005 13:58:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 528 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AIM Worm Spreads; Getting Worse (Matthew Broersma) Mirrors to Banish Town's Winter Darkness (George Jahn) Broadband Service Ready to Board Corporate Jets (Roger Yu) New AT&T Stakes Future on Internet (USTA Daily Lead) Technology Lets High-End Hotels Anticipate Guests' Whims (Monty Solomon) How to Tame an Inflated Entertainment Budget (Monty Solomon) How Google Tamed Ads on the Wild, Wild Web (Monty Solomon) City to Use Cameras in Bid to Fight Crime / Chinatown (Monty Solomon) Is it Time to Buy That 50-Inch Plasma TV? / Prices Dropping (Monty Solomon) Cellular-News For Monday 21st November 2005 (Cellular-News) Re: Nokia 6340i Cell Phone (John Levine) Re: Alger Hiss et al. (Henry) Re: Mtn. View Accepts Google's Offer of Free WiFi (harold@hallikainen.com) Re: Lingo Phone Can't Port Number (John Levine) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Broersma Subject: AIM Worm Spreads; Worse Than Expected Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 10:47:23 -0600 Matthew Broersma, Techworld.com The W32/Sdbot-ADD worm infecting some users of AOL Instant Messenger is more dangerous than previously thought, and more persistent than ever in spreading, according to Facetime Security Labs, the researchers who discovered the worm in October. The rootkit installed by the worm, lockx.exe, is allowing systems to be further compromised by a group of attackers based in the Middle East, according to Facetime researchers. The attackers are installing additional malicious code capable of stealing personal information, according to the group. At least tens of thousands of systems appear to be infected, Facetime said. The company's president and chief executive, Kailash Ambwani, said that the network of infected machines could, like other large botnets, be used to carry out denial of service attacks against particular Web sites. "We have delivered detailed research information to the U.S. federal authorities and are fully cooperating with their efforts," Ambwani said in a statement. Facetime has published an online scanning tool that can detect and disable lockx.exe, the company said. How Worm Works The worm attacks via AIM, asking users to open a link, apparently at the request of one of the user's "buddies" or contacts. Clicking on this the initiates infection sequence, which starts with the dropping of a number of adware files, and the rootkit software itself, lockx.exe. Once on the PC, the malware attempts to shut down antivirus software, install software that allows the PC to be remotely controlled by IRC, and open a backdoor for future attack. It also contains an SMTP engine with which to collect email addresses. Facetime's newer research has found that lockx.exe is being actively used as a backdoor to install additional malware on systems. The additional malware can steal usernames, passwords,and other information, and can be controlled via the IRC messaging system, Facetime said. One of the files installed via lockx.exe, called ster.exe, specifically allows attackers to upload, download and monitor the infected PC, said Facetime. Other files allow theft of Outlook Express passwords, keystroke logging, and launching additional attacks on Web sites or networks. A group in the Middle East appears to be behind the additional malware, according to Facetime. The group has compromised servers in various countries around the world to distribute the new malware. Ambwani noted that the Instant Messenger progam of America Online (AIM) should generally be regarded as dangerous because of the 'hospitality' it shows to W-32/sdbot-ADD and its rootkit 'lockx.exe'. He recommended scans to search for and destroy this worm, as soon as possible. As always, avoid opening attachments from strangers, and often times even people you know will unwittingly pass it along. Copyright 2005 PC World Communications, Inc. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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 Communications. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: George Jahn Subject: Mirrors to Banish Town's Winter Darkness Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 10:43:32 -0600 By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer The sun has stopped shining in Rattenberg. But with the aid of a few mirrors, the winter darkness that grips this small town could soon be brightened up with pockets of sunshine. That's because sun is plentiful less than 10 minutes' walk from the town and from Rat Mountain, the 3,000-foot hill that blocks its sunlight between November and February each year. The solution: 30 heliostats, essentially rotating mirrors, mounted on a hillside to grab sunshine off reflectors from the neighboring village of Kramsach. Bartenbach Lichtlabor GmbH, the Austrian company behind the idea, has already used mirrors for lighting projects around the world -- sunshine into European basements and railroad stations or nighttime illumination of a mosque in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia. It says the reflector technology is now advanced enough to justify the company's first attempt to bring sunshine into a village. It's costly, however. The European Union is footing half the $2.4 million bill, and the company says it will pay the $600,000 cost of planning the project, gambling that success will attract more business. "I am sure we will soon help other mountain villages see the light," says Markus Peskoller, Lichtlabor's director. In the Tyrol region of the Alps alone, about 60 communities suffer the same fate in winter as Rattenberg. Peskoller says about six other towns in Austria and neighboring Switzerland have expressed interest. The technology requires pinpoint beaming, and even the most modern mirrors have slight distortions and are vulnerable to strong winds. Peskoller says those problems can be compensated for. But it would take a mirror the size of a football field to light up all of Rattenberg, "and we cannot cover the mountain with mirrors to bathe the whole town in light," he says. So Lichtlabor plans to create about a dozen "hotspots" -- areas not much bigger than a front yard scattered through the town, where people can gather and soak up rays. The mirrors would also reflect at various times of day onto building facades to show daylight slowly turning to dusk. Rattenberg was built between the hill to the south and the Inn River to the north starting in the 1300s for protection against marauders. Back then, lack of sunshine was a small price to pay for relative security. But as such dangers diminished, dozens more settlements sprang up. Some, like Kramsach, are just half a mile away and all enjoy a few hours of sun on a clear winter's day. Rattenberg's demographics reflect the pull of the sun. The town 25 miles east of Innsbruck is Austria's smallest_ and getting smaller. Its population has dropped by about 20 percent to 440 in the last two decades, and both Peskoller and Mayor Franz Wurzenrainer attribute that at least in part to lack of sunshine. The mayor remembers how in the 1950s, when not everyone had a car, townspeople would trek over the bridge on the Inn River to Kramsach on a Sunday "to tank up on some sun." In a poll of four years ago, about 50 percent of Rattenbergers listed lack of winter sunlight as their biggest disadvantage. "We all complain, although those who have lived here into old age can put up with the problem," says Maria Auer, 91. "But the young folks are moving away." Christine Margreiter runs a florist's shop in town but lives in a sunnier town nearby where she makes up for sunless weekdays by hiking and gardening. "It's unpleasant to come here for me," she says. "Dark and cold." On the Net: Bartenbach Lichtlabor GmbH: http://www.bartenbach.com Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. More news reports from Associated Press at: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ From: Roger Yu Subject: Broadband Servic Ready to Board Corporate Jets Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 10:49:14 -0600 By Roger Yu, USA TODAY Executives who travel on corporate jets may soon be finding in-flight high-speed Internet a common feature. Only Annapolis, Md.-based Arinc is on the market now with a broadband service for corporate jets. But competition is set to intensify in 2006. . Radio equipment maker Rockwell Collins and aviation giant Boeing have teamed to introduce theirs next spring. . Inmarsat, a British avionics maker that now has a dial-up-speed Internet service for corporate jets, will roll out a broadband product later in the year. Special plane antennas link to satellites to provide the Internet access. Driving the new interest providing the service in the corporate jet market: . Productivity. High-level executives can ill afford to be away from the Internet, particularly e-mail, for long flights. "It's become an extension of office," says corporate pilot Mike Moore, who flies a Gulfstream G4 for a West Coast technology firm. . Cost. The service remains costly, but it's coming down. Howard Lewis of Satcom Direct, a reseller of in-flight Internet and phone services, estimates hardware and installation of the current Inmarsat service can cost up to $400,000. A connection runs about $8 a minute. Initially, broadband equipment is unlikely to be cheaper, though per-minute rates will be less, says Lewis. . Technology. The new generation of services will be much improved, says Steve Pope, an editor at Aviation International News. Initially, only the owners of large jets -- such as Gulfstream G450, Bombardier Global 5000 and Dassault Falcon -- will buy, he says. The tail-mounted antennas are too big from smaller jets. . Airlines. The market is flat for commercial jets, diverting suppliers' interest to business jets. Connexion by Boeing, the aerospace giant's wireless unit, has managed to attract some foreign airlines like Lufthansa and Singapore to the broadband service it rolled out in 2004. About 100 foreign commercial airplanes have been outfitted. So far, financially struggling U.S. carriers have not offered in-flight broadband, though United has plans to offer it by the end of 2006. Including Inmarsat's dial-up-speed service, an estimated 600 corporate jets now have Internet service. Arinc executive Bob Thompson estimates about 1,500 corporate jets - about 17% of corporate jets worldwide - have tail sections large enough for the current technology. As the size of antennas shrink with technological improvements, he says, the market for broadband will expand. "After a year or two, the number of business jets (with broadband Internet) will far outstrip the number of commercial airlines," says Thompson. Copyright 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more news headlines from USA Today, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/internet-news.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 12:59:26 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: New AT&T Stakes Future on Internet USTelecom dailyLead November 21, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/yrkIatagCyeYqFPkKi TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * New AT&T stakes future on Internet BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Skype inks marketing deal with RadioShack * Telcos eye Africa amid signs of growth * Analysis: IPTV deals on the horizon * AT&T updates logo for modern telecom era * Judge's ruling favors Nextel Partners USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Subscribing to USTelecom dailyLead was smart. Joining USTelecom is even smarter HOT TOPICS * SBC's CFO talks strategy with BusinessWeek * Startup exits stealth mode to announce fixed-mobile solution * Sony launches Internet phone service * Cisco to buy Scientific-Atlanta * Telstra announces IP, 3G roadmap TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Verizon Wireless, Disney team up for "Lost" mobisodes * AtomShockwave debuts ad network Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/yrkIatagCyeYqFPkKi ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:14:46 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Technology Lets High-End Hotels Anticipate Guests' Whims By KEN BELSON When regulars like Dr. Laurence Wiener check into the Mandarin Oriental in Manhattan, they get more than a smile from the concierge and a mint on their pillow. Dr. Wiener's hotel room knows how warm he likes it -- 68 degrees. It welcomes him with a personal message on his television set. It even loads his most frequently dialed numbers onto the phone. And the bellhop did not have to do a thing. At the Mandarin and other high-end hotels, new computer systems that connect individual rooms to network servers can now keep track of guests' preferences and change the room conditions automatically. These "smart" systems can learn whether a frequent guest likes the lights dimmed, the curtains closed or the room toasty warm. They can also personalize the electronics in the room so that John Coltrane, for instance, greets jazz buffs when they enter their rooms. And sensors in refrigerators alert maids when the minibar is running low on soda. While much of the underlying technology is not new, it is still rare in private homes because the equipment is expensive, especially the controllers that connect all the devices. But by incorporating such technology into their guest rooms, luxury hotels are starting to provide a glimpse of what networked homes may look like over the next decade. The backbones of these smart rooms are the data networks that hotels are installing to carry phone calls, video and Internet connections. The networks, for example, make it possible to offer Internet television services that store programs on servers and let guests watch shows on demand (a guest from Chicago could watch a Cubs game in London or Tokyo). The networks also allow hotels to connect the lights, air-conditioners and other room devices to a central computer so they can be remotely monitored or controlled. As the price of this technology declines, some homes could start to look like these smart rooms. Already, more than 35 percent of American households have broadband lines, and developers are integrating home servers and high-speed cables into high-end new homes. In time, appliances linked to such home networks could be programmed to adjust to a homeowner's likes and dislikes. Companies like Crestron already sell controllers that automate and centralize control of electronics and appliances. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/16/technology/16hotels.html?ex=1289797200&en=407f73f556fcd20f&ei=5090 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:21:41 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: How to Tame an Inflated Entertainment Budget Your Money By DAMON DARLIN You probably spend more on entertainment than you do on groceries, clothing or gasoline. If you don't believe it, take a few minutes to total your monthly costs, starting with the services that have you locked in: basic cable television, and any premium channels, like HBO or Showtime; Netflix to rent videos; TiVo for digital recording; your high-speed Internet connection; and perhaps, satellite radio and streaming music like Yahoo Music. You are already up to about $200 a month, or $2,400 a year. Don't forget your iTunes music and video downloads, plus magazines, movie rentals, movie tickets, live shows and sporting events. Add in your cellphone and any of its video, data and premium content. The average American spends more on entertainment than on gasoline, household furnishings and clothing and nearly the same amount as spent on dining out, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among the affluent, the 20 percent of households with more than $77,000 a year in pretax income, more money is spent on entertainment - $4,516 a year - than on health care, utilities, clothing or food eaten at home. The average income of households in that quintile is a little more than $127,000. Because they account for a disproportionate share of spending in the economy, they are the group that trend watchers and marketers focus on. (From the unexplained fact department: People in the western part of the country spend about 20 percent more on entertainment than the national average, the government statisticians also show.) Over the last 10 years, outlays for entertainment outpaced overall expenditures. Spending on health care and education, which almost doubled in that period, grew faster. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/19/business/19money.html?ex=1290056400&en=971361775bc0c739&ei=5090 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:36:30 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: How Google Tamed Ads on the Wild, Wild Web Digital Domain By RANDALL STROSS FIVE years ago, Web advertisers were engaged in an ever-escalating competition to grab our attention. Monkeys that asked to be punched, pop-ups that spawned still more pop-ups, strobe effects that imparted temporary blindness - these were legal forms of assault. The most brazen advertiser of all, hands down, was X10, a little company hawking security cameras, whose ubiquitous "pop under" ads were the nasty surprise discovered only when you closed a browser window in preparation for doing something else. Today, Web advertisers by and large have put down their weapons and sworn off violence. They use indoor voices now. This is a remarkable change. Thank you, Google. Without intending to do so, the company set in motion multilateral disarmament by telling its first advertisers in 2000: text only, please. No banner ads, no images, no animation. Just simple words, which would go either at the very top of the page, above the search results or, alternatively, as the experiment evolved, at the far right. These "sponsored links" had to conform to strict limits on length and aggressiveness in punctuation and phrasing. If you wanted to claim in your ad that you were the "best," you had to display the third-party authority that authenticated the claim. Google introduced these ads at the very moment when X10 ads were strewn like chewed gum on every square of sidewalk. X10's pop-unders were accepted at mainstream sites run by companies including Microsoft, Yahoo and The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/20/business/yourmoney/20digi.html?ex=1290142800&en=8dfa1d5415f0b05d&ei=5090 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 21:56:10 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: City to Use Cameras in Bid to Fight Crime City to use cameras in bid to fight crime Chinatown, other sites to get device By Suzanne Smalley, Globe Staff By January, Boston will install about 40 sophisticated surveillance cameras in Chinatown, along Boston Harbor, and in high-crime areas, probably including Dorchester, Mattapan, and Roxbury. Mayor Thomas M. Menino said yesterday he believes the digital cameras can be an effective tool against crime. "Any technology or any operation that we can use that will help us combat violence in the streets of our city, we're going to look at very seriously," he said in an interview. Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole said yesterday that the city eventually plans to link its cameras with others already in transportation hubs, housing developments, and private businesses to help stem a surge in crime. "We hope to be creative," she said in an interview. "If the drug unit wants to monitor cameras in the areas where there's been drug activity, they can do that." The cameras to be installed in coming weeks were purchased for and used during the Democratic National Convention in July 2004, but have been shelved since. Police originally said the cameras would go up in Chinatown in February. The delay, officials said, involved getting permission from businesses and homes to mount the cameras, as well as the technical difficulties of wiring the cameras. Civil libertarians, however, said Boston should keep the cameras on the shelf. Sarah Wunsch, a staff lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said yesterday that cameras have not been effective in combating crime in Britain, where they have been commonplace since the 1990s. She also said the public should be concerned about the cameras' power to give the government more information on individual habits. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/11/19/city_to_use_cameras_in_bid_to_fight_crime/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:57:31 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Is it Time to Buy That 50-Inch Plasma TV? / Prices Dropping Is it time to buy that 50-inch plasma TV? Prices have steadily fallen on HDTV models with new brands and increased production By Keith Reed, Globe Staff Should you or shouldn't you this holiday season? New brands, deep discounts, and increased production are pushing prices of high-definition television sets even lower this year. Consider: Circuit City is offering a 42-inch Samsung plasma for $2,700, slashing $800 off the regular price, and Best Buy is peddling newcomer Maxent's 42-inch, HD-ready plasma for $1,800. And last month, Fujitsu of America rolled out rebates of $500 or $1,000 on each purchase of its high-end plasma models. "There's more players in the market, there's more display technologies, and if you look at most of the manufacturers' lines, we're seeing less standard definition and a lot more high definition being produced," said Joni Blecher, an analyst at technology and consumer research firm Jupiter Research in New York. Since HDTV technology hit the mass market in the late 1990s, the average cost -- especially for lightweight, flat-panel models -- has fallen by several thousands of dollars. Last year, the average sale price of HDTV sets dropped to $1,416.90, nearly 11 percent less than in 2003 and 55 percent cheaper than in 1998, according to Consumer Electronics Association, an Arlington, Va., trade group. Analysts say HDTV prices have continued to decrease considerably this year. Twelve percent of American households had at least one high-definition television at the end of last year, but that is projected to double to more than a quarter of US homes by the end of 2006, according to Jupiter's latest report on the topic. Much of the growth, the report said, will be fueled falling prices. And prices don't have to go that low for people to take the HDTV plunge. Among consumers who plan to buy a high-definition set in the next 12 months, the largest chunk -- 42 percent -- said their budget for the purchase was between $1,001 and $2,500, according to Jupiter data. Twenty-two percent planned to spend between $500 and $1,000, and only 4 percent planned to spend more than $5,000. No wonder HDTVs will account for more than 70 percent of television sales by 2010 the study estimated. Another reason: Congress intends to shut off traditional analog signals in 2009, forcing broadcasters to transmit in a digital format. HDTV is by far the clearest and most popular of digital standards. http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2005/11/20/is_it_time_to_buy_that_50_inch_plasma_tv/ ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Monday 21st November 2005 Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 07:44:18 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com ====================================================================== [[3G News]] Denmark Invites Bids For 3G License http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14904.php Denmark's National IT and Telecom Agency Friday published an invitation to companies to bid for a fourth third-generation mobile telecom license. ... Austria's First 3G Videomail Service http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14910.php Hutchison 3G Austria (H3G) says that it will launch the first mobile Videomail service in Austria one month ahead of Christmas, just in time to send festive video-greeting to friends and relatives. The service is facilitated by LogicaCMG's uOne solut... Lithuania to Award 3G Licenses http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14912.php Lithuania's Communications Regulatory Authority (RRT) has announced a public tender for granting 3G licenses, using the "beauty contest" method. The tender shall be aimed at identifying three winners which will be granted the right to use radio frequ... Motorola Shows Upgraded 1xEV-DO System http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14913.php Motorola has unveiled its prototype CDMA 1xEV-DO Rev. A solution. With downlink speeds of up to 3.1 Mbps and uplink speeds of up to 1.8 Mbps, CDMA 1xEV-DO Rev. A provides new capability for operators to offer enhanced services such as simultaneous vi... [[Financial News]] KPN Acquires Assets From Photo Chain Kral http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14900.php KPN says that it has reached an agreement with the receivers about the acquisition of important assets from the bankrupt photo chain Kral. ... Deutsche Telekom: No Concrete Plan For Any US Buy Now http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14902.php Deutsche Telekom AG said Friday it isn't considering large acquisitions in the U.S., but could be interested in small regional mobile operators. ... Alltel In Pact To Buy Midwest Wireless For $1.075 Billion http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14903.php Alltel Corp. agreed to buy rural wireless carrier, Midwest Wireless, for $1.075 billion in cash. ... Telecom Italia: Brazil Unit EBITDA Margin Over 30% - Chairman http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14905.php Telecom Italia sees its Brazilian mobile phone unit reaching a margin on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization above 30% but under 40%, its chairman said Friday. ... Sprint, Nextel Partners Must Reveal Appraisal Numbers http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14906.php A Delaware judge Friday said Sprint Nextel Corp. and Nextel Partners Inc. must reveal the numbers their appraisers come up with in a duel over how much Sprint must pay for the 68% of Nextel Partners that it does not own. ... FOCUS: Russia's VimpelCom Q3 results solid, not spectacular http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14907.php Russia's second-largest mobile operator VimpelCom posted financial results Thursday for July-September, as calculated under U.S. GAAP, with the company's net profit jumping 93% on the year to U.S. $194.8 million and revenue increasing 50.5% on the ... [[Mobile Content News]] I-Mode Launched in Singapore http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14909.php DoCoMo has reported that Singapore's StarHub launched its i-mode service over the weekend. The service, which will be offered over StarHub's GPRS and W-CDMA networks, marks the opening of the 15th market for i-mode, following Japan, Germany, the Neth... Developing an Anti-Virus Program for Smartphones http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14911.php Kaspersky Lab has launched a pilot project aimed at providing antivirus protection for smartphones. This new service, which is already being offered to OEM partners, precedes the release of Kaspersky Anti-Virus Mobile, a universal antivirus solution ... Little Britain on Little Screens http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14914.php ROK Player has signed a licensing deal with BBC Worldwide, the BBC's commercial arm, adding to the company's portfolio of entertainment content with two cult comedies. The arrangement sees Matt Lucas and David Walliams' hilarious and often risquit... [[Network Contracts News]] Ericsson In Deal With Sun Cellular http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14901.php Swedish telecommunications equipment maker Telefon AB LM Ericsson Friday said it has extended its managed service partnership with Sun Cellular to include Ericsson's hosted enterprise solution for push e-mail and Personal Information Management, or P... No Escape from Cellphones While On a Cruise http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14915.php SeaMobile has signed an agreement with Silversea Cruises to enable mobile phones to work when out at sea. The first Silversea ship to deploy the SeaMobile services will be the Silver Whisper. Passengers and crew aboard the ship will be able to use th... [[Network Operators News]] Virgin Mobile Expands Retail Presence http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14916.php Virgin Mobile UK has said that it is opening 12 further Virgin Mobile concessions in WHSmith High Street stores, creating 36 new jobs. These 12 new concessions take Virgin Mobile's presence in WHSmith High Street stores to 19, following a successful ... [[Statistics News]] Increasing Numbers of Women See Their Mobile as a 'Lifestyle Tool' http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14908.php According to a study commissioned by Mobilkom Austria, for 44% of women, their mobile is a "status symbol" - Far more women than men never switch their mobile off - The reason: they want their friends and family to be able to reach them - Manufacture... ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 2005 03:43:39 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Nokia 6340i Cell Phone Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > The 6340i was originally a GAIT phone: Modes AMPS 800 / GSM 800 / GSM > 1900 / TDMA 800 / TDMA 1900 and could be used on Cingular GAIT plans, > specifically. > However those plans no longer exist, ... You can't sign up for them any more, but for those of us on a GAIT plan, we can stay on it indefinitely. These days my phone goes into TDMA mode very infrequently. The last time was in a marginal area near Alexander Bay on the US/Canada border even though both Cingular and Rogers had GSM nearby. R's, John ------------------------------ From: henry999@eircom.net (Henry) Subject: Re: Alger Hiss et al. Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 09:13:42 +0200 Organization: Elisa Internet customer Henry wrote: > wrote: >> A single person from Syracuse NY, who owned some grocery stores, >> somehow managed to terrify the film/radio/TV business into firing >> fingered communists. > Oops, you've lost me now. Who's this, then? Laurence Johnson was his name. I just chanced upon this Molly Ivins story, which fortuitously answers my question. Since you didn't really know either, I thought I'd share. > An outfit of professional commie-hunters called AWARE, Inc., run by a > guy named Vincent Hartnett ... to vet performers for commie > sympathies ... > Should a network or agency refuse to play along, Hartnett's friend > Laurence Johnson, a grocery magnate from upstate New York, > would pull the sponsor's products from his grocery shelves until they > caved in. http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=2081 cheers, Henry ------------------------------ From: harold@hallikainen.com Subject: Re: Mtn. View Accepts Google's Offer of Free WiFi Date: 21 Nov 2005 08:33:23 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Does anyone know how Google or other wide area 802.11 systems are tying the whole thing together and getting the system on the internet? I can imagine a mesh network with a bunch of links to the internet (perhaps wired, perhaps point-to-point radio). I visualize such a network like the surface of a tent with internet backhauls as poles holding the tent up and the wireless access points along the surface of the tent. Communications that needs to go to the outside internet works its way to the nearest pole. My question is: What is the ratio of wireless access points to links to the internet? How are these links done (point to point radio, fiber, twisted pair telco, etc.)? Another question ... How will they limit spammers from using the access? Harold FCC Rules updated daily at http://www.hallikainen.com ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 2005 03:56:15 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Lingo Phone Can't Port Number Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > The neighbor is directly across the street and also has a number that > was a Sprint number before Vonage ported it. Others in my immediate > neighborhood have been ported from Sprint (a.k.a. Carolina Telephone) >to Time Warner's voip service. The problem is that Lingo uses Level3 which has numbers in a lot of nearby rate centers, but not his. Vonage uses another CLEC, probably Telcove, which has a different set of rate centers. R's, John ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 V24 #528 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Nov 22 15:05:47 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 38D3814EDF; Tue, 22 Nov 2005 15:05:47 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #529 Message-Id: <20051122200547.38D3814EDF@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 15:05:47 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.5 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Tue, 22 Nov 2005 15:06:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 529 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Online Crooks Now Concentrating on Media Players, Software (Reuters News) Google $3 Million Donation to Library of Congress (Eric Auchard) Taiwan Assigning VOIP Numbers (David Sims) Infected Email Pretending to be Telecom-digest.Org (jmeissen@aracnet.com) Verizon to Launch FiOS TV in Herndon; First Rollout in East (Monty Solomon) The Lasting Impact of Sony's Rootkit (Monty Solomon) Sony BMG Sued Under Anti-Spyware Laws (Monty Solomon) Verizon Wireless Brings BroadbandAccess to BlackBerry 7130e (Monty Solomon) TiVo to Bring TV to iPod and PSP (Monty Solomon) RadioShack Brings Skype-Ready Products to Customers Nationwide (M Solomon) Motorola and Skype Bring Mobility to Internet Voice (Monty Solomon) AOL Introduces New AIM Triton Service (Monty Solomon) Cellular-News for Tuesday 22nd November 2005 (Cellular-News) Sprint Nextel Buys Alamosa (USTA Daily Lead) Re: Tis (Almost) the Season to be Jolly (Lisa Hancock) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Online Crooks Concentrate on Media Players and Software Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 10:49:53 -0600 Online criminals shifted their attacks in 2005 from computer operating systems such as Windows and others to media players and software programs, according to a study released on Tuesday. Among the software programs that attackers are now targeting are anti-virus software as well as programs used to listen to online audio and video programing, according to the SANS Institute, a nonprofit research group based in Bethesda, Md. Attackers are changing their targets after Internet service providers and operating systems designers such as Microsoft started shoring up their systems following a barrage of worms, viruses and other online threats in recent years. The group's "SANS Top20" report identifies the 20 most targeted software flaws that criminals use to infiltrate computers. Top Windows vulnerabilities include Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer Web browser and Windows Office and Outlook Express. The report also listed Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh operating system as a top vulnerability among Unix operating systems. Apple's OS X operating system is based on Unix, a heavy-duty operating system used principally in corporate data centers and high-powered computers. Network devices such as routers and switches that direct Internet traffic also are being targeted, SANS said. Cisco Systems Inc. made the list with its "IOS" router product line. "Network devices often have on-board operating systems and can be programmed like computers," the group said in a statement. "Compromises of network devices can provide attackers one of the most fruitful platforms for eavesdropping and launching targeted attacks." SANS released the study in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Computer Emergency Response Team, the UK's National Infrastructure Security Co-Ordination Center and Canada's Cyber Incident Response Center. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Eric Auchard Subject: Google $3 Million Donation to Library of Congress Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 10:51:37 -0600 By Eric Auchard Library of Congress plans world digital library The U.S. Library of Congress is kicking off a campaign on Tuesday to work with other nation's libraries to build a World Digital Library, starting with a $3 million donation from Google Inc.. Librarian of Congress James Billington said he is looking to attract further private funding to develop bilingual projects, featuring millions of unique objects, with libraries in China, India, the Muslim world and other nations. This builds on major existing digital documentary projects by the Library of Congress -- one preserving an online record of Americana and another documenting ties between the United States and Brazil, France, the Netherlands, Russia and Spain. "The World Digital Library is an attempt to go beyond Europe and the Americas ... into cultures where the majority of the world is," Billington told Reuters in a telephone interview. As an example, Billington said the Library of Congress is in discussions with the national library of Egypt to include a collection of great Islamic scientific works from the 10th through the 16th Century in the World Digital Library. "We are trying to do a documentary record of other great cultures of the world. How much we will be able to do will depend on how many additional partners we attract," he said. Over the past decade, the American Memory Project of the Library of Congress has digitized more than ten million items to create a documentary record of Americana. A link is located at: http://www.loc.gov/memory/ . These include manuscripts, maps, audiovisual recordings, cartoons, caricatures, posters, documentary photographs, music, and, to a lesser extent, historic books. The World Digital Library would draw on a similar variety of multimedia objects. A second project, known as the Global Gateway and introduced in 2000, involves collaborations with five national libraries in Europe and Brazil that focus on documenting ties between each of those countries and U.S. culture. Please go to: http://international.loc.gov/intldl/find/digital_collaborations.html/ GLOBAL CULTURES By contrast, the World Digital Library will focus on creating records of global cultures. The Library of Congress will contribute its own body of works to a blended collection with other countries. More than half of the printed volumes in the Library of Congress are in languages other than English. "It will deal with the culture of those people rather than with our contacts as Americans with those cultures," Billington said. Web search company Google has agreed to work with the Library of Congress on developing standards for indexing the digital collections and by providing computer equipment. The Library of Congress push adds momentum to a variety of competing projects by leading Internet companies and some of the world's greatest libraries to make available online a range of historic literature, audio recordings and film archives. The plans unveiled over the past year mark the most sustained drive yet to make good on the vision of Internet pioneers to open the world's library collections to a global online audience. The dream suffered from a lack of funding and the distractions of the dot-com era's get-rich-quick schemes. Among these are a major push by Google with five major academic libraries to digitize their book collections. Meanwhile, the Open Content Alliance, backed by Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp., the non-profit Internet Archive and other major libraries, is looking to create an online clearinghouse for historic books, audio and films. The Google Print project has been met with lawsuits by the New York-based Authors Guild and five U.S. publishers who are seeking to block Google's plan to create an online card catalog of copyright works in the collections of its library partners. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: David Sims Subject: Taiwan Assigning VOIP Numbers Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 10:41:45 -0600 VoIP News: Taiwan Assigning VoIP Numbers, Skype In Radio Shack, India's Legalization By DAVID SIMS TMCnet CRM Alert Columnist VoIP news you may have missed over the weekend: Taiwan's Directorate-General of Telecommunications announced that they will allow voice over the Internet protocol users to be assigned a phone number, a move the China Post says makes it seem that "the high age of Web communication is on the doorstep." The soon-to-be assigned numbers will start with 070, the Post says, followed by eight other digits: "With the number, users will be able to call from their cellphones or regular phones to an Internet phone without the need of a computer." Taiwanese telecom service operators can now acquire a license to own multiple sets of Internet phone numbers so long as their applications are approved. 100 million sets of numbers have been open for acquisition, the Post says, adding that "once they own these numbers, service providers are entitled to resell them to their customers." ZDNet reported that Skype Technologies is dipping its toe in the U.S. retail store market, as they're expected to announce today that they've struck a partnership with consumer electronics chain RadioShack. More than 3,000 RadioShack locations nationwide on Monday "will begin offering the Skype Starter Kit, which includes the software that enables a customer to use Skype's free computer-to-computer telephone service, a headset and 30 minutes of Skype's premium service, with which a user can call a landline or cell phone," ZDNet cites company executives saying. India's Economic Times says the recent liberalization of India's net telephony "may not result in a substantial reduction in tariffs for national long-distance calls," but remains "good news for enterprises as well as consumers." Apart from the obvious reduction of costs, consumers can "look forward to more net telephony-driven applications such as integration of audio, video and text," the journal says. Rajiv Sharma, CEO, AirTel-Enterprise Services tells the journal that "tariffs are already at very low levels and in the short run, they are unlikely to dip further. But in the long run, with the entry of more players and competition, rates will drop." IP applications, not simply lower-priced calls, are seen as driving the adoption of VoIP in the Indian consumer market: "With lower local tariffs, the driver for IP telephony will be advanced IP applications. For instance, integration between audio, video and text, voice workflows based on IVR, etc.," Alok Shende, who heads the telecom practice at Frost & Sullivan, India tells the Economic Times. With its "newly found legal status," voice quality too is expected to improve, as Sharma says: "It will cease to be a matter of concern following the introduction of new norms. With regulation in place, quality will improve." David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles please visit David Sims' columnist page. Copyright 2005 Techonology Marketing Corporation (TMC) NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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, Technology Marketing Corporation. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@aracnet.com Subject: Infected Email Pretending to be Telecom-Digest.org Date: 21 Nov 2005 21:49:14 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com I just wanted to let the readers know that there's at least one virus that's sending infected emails pretending to be bounced mail from telecom-digest.org. Looking at the headers it's pretty obvious that it's not legitimate: Received: from lijikdads.org (cpc2-ipsw3-3-1-cust37.colc.cable.ntl.com [86.9.22.37]) The body of the message says: > Subject: smtp mail failed > From: Admin@telecom-digest.org > This_is_an_automatically_generated_Delivery_Status_Notification. > SMTP_Error_[] > I'm_afraid_I_wasn't_able_to_deliver_your_message. > This_is_a_permanent_error;_I've_given_up._Sorry_it_didn't_work_out. > The_full_mail-text_and_header_is_attached! And then there's a zip file attached with a nice .exe inside it. John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for the warning, John, many readers may not have known about this clown. I knew about it, but since I get about a dozen per day of the same notices either from 'Administrator' or 'MIT Administrator' or 'Account Review Team' (or some equally bogus) mail sender, always to advise me that (a) "he/she/it" has observed that a large amount of spam has been sent from my account, or (b) that mail which I sent had virus in it, or (c)mail I received had virus in it, and my account 'is going to be cancelled unless I fill out the enclosed form to reinstate myself' (the enclosed form has an .exe in it of course requesting passwords, etc) I just junk them without comment. After all, one of our readers here reminds me from time to time that "we cannot dictate what other sites send out in email" and since he is prone to be vicious and order me to "never contact him again" when I have complained about it in the past, I do not say much about it. All I can suggest -- until/unless/if/when laws are passed/enforced which flatly forbid (I suggest with punishment of death) sending out that sort of crapola -- that users _never_ open any attachment received in email without first inspecting it very closely. Which, exactly, is worse, the spammers, scammers, phishermen or their apologists on the net I do not know. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 15:36:50 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon to Launch FiOS TV in Herndon; First Rollout in East New Digital Video Service Harnesses Speed and Capacity of Fiber-Based Broadband With Power of Broadcast to Offer Consumer Choice in TV HERNDON, Va., Nov. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- The future of television arrives this week in this northern Virginia community, when Verizon unveils Verizon FiOS TV over its revolutionary fiber-optic network here. Herndon is the second community to date in which Verizon is offering FiOS TV. The service debuted Sept. 22 in Keller, Texas, and customer sales there have been strong. Verizon plans to make FiOS TV available in the future in other communities in Virginia and across the company's service territory. Information on packages and prices is available at http://www.verizon.net/fiostv . Herndon-area customers also can call 1-800-964-3194 to see if they're able to order FiOS TV. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53334011 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 17:16:30 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Lasting Impact of Sony's Rootkit Appeared in the Toronto Star on November 21, 2005 as Sony Incident Wakeup Call For Regulators Appeared on the BBC Online on November 21, 2005 as Sony's Long-Term Rootkit Woes Sony BMG, the world's second largest record label, has for the past three weeks been the subject of a corporate embarrassment that rivals earlier public relations nightmares involving tampered Tylenol and contaminated Perrier. While in the short-term one of the world' s best-known brands has suffered enormous damage (particularly given that unlike in the Tylenol case the damage is self-inflicted), the longer-term implications are even more significant - a fundamental re-thinking of policies toward digital locks known as technological protection measures (TPMs). The Sony case started innocently enough with a Halloween-day blog posting by Mark Russinovich, an intrepid computer security researcher. Russinovich discovered his own tale of horror -- Sony was using a copy-protection TPM on some of its CDs that quietly installed a software program known as a "rootkit" on users' computers. The use of the rootkit set off alarm bells for Russinovich, who immediately identified it as a potential security risk since hackers and virus writers frequently exploit such programs to turn personal computers into "zombies" that can send millions of spam messages, steal personal information, or launch denial of service attacks. Moreover, attempts to uninstall the program proved difficult, as either his CD-Rom drive was no longer recognized or his computer crashed. Although users were presented with a series of terms and conditions that refer to software installation before launching the CD, it is safe to assume that few, if any, realized that they were creating both a security and potential privacy risk as well as setting themselves up for a "Hotel California" type program that checks in but never leaves. While Sony and the normally vocal recording industry associations stood largely silent -- a company executive dismissed the concerns stating that "most people don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it" -- the repercussions escalated daily. One group identified at least 20 affected CDs, including releases from Canadian artists Celine Dion and Our Lady Peace. Class action lawsuits were launched in the United States, a criminal investigation began in Italy, and anti-spyware companies gradually updated their programs to include the Sony rootkit. Nearly two weeks after the initial disclosure, Sony finally issued a half-hearted apology, indicating that it was suspending use of the TPM and issuing a software patch to remove the rootkit. http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1015 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 21:52:45 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Sony BMG Sued Under Anti-Spyware Laws By LIZ AUSTIN Associated Press Writer AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Sony BMG Music Entertainment's troubles over anti-piracy technology on music CDs deepened Monday as Texas' attorney general and a California-based digital rights group said they were suing the music company under new state anti-spyware laws. The Texas lawsuit said the so-called XCP technology that Sony BMG had quietly included on more than 50 CD titles leaves computers vulnerable to hackers. Sony BMG had added the technology to restrict to three the number of times a single disc could be copied, but agreed to recall the discs last week after a storm of criticism. The Electronic Frontier Foundation said Sony BMG needs to further publicize the recall and compensate consumers for costs associated with removing the software, an onerous process. It was filing a lawsuit in California Superior Court in Los Angeles. When XCP-enabled discs are loaded into a computer _ a necessary step for transferring music to Apple Computer Inc.'s iPods and other portable music players _ the CD installs a program that restricts copying and makes it extremely inconvenient to transfer songs into the format used by iPods. Critics say consumers aren't adequately told what the program actually does. Security researchers say XCP is spyware because it secretly transmits details about what music the PC is playing. Manual attempts to remove the software, which works only on Windows PCs, can disable the PC's optical drive. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53359405 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 21:59:26 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon Wireless Brings BroadbandAccess to New BlackBerry 7130e Verizon Wireless Brings BroadbandAccess to New BlackBerry 7130e With Tethered Modem Capabilities BEDMINSTER, N.J. & WATERLOO, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 21, 2005-- New BroadbandAccess Connect Service Bundles Tethering Option in Verizon Wireless' Voice, Data Plans Verizon Wireless and Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq RIMM)(TSX:RIM), today introduced the BlackBerry 7130e(TM), the first BlackBerry(R) handset that takes advantage of Verizon Wireless' BroadbandAccess service on the company's Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) network. Coupled with Verizon Wireless' new BroadbandAccess Connect pricing, the BlackBerry 7130e delivers all the popular e-mail and data capabilities available with the BlackBerry wireless platform and can also serve as a modem for customers who want to use the device to connect their laptop with Verizon Wireless' BroadbandAccess service. With BroadbandAccess Connect, customers can use their BlackBerry 7130e as a modem for downloading large documents to a laptop at speeds averaging 400 to 700 kbps on Verizon Wireless' BroadbandAccess service that covers more than 140 million Americans in 171 major metropolitan areas. BroadbandAccess Connect is available for $15 with any Verizon Wireless BlackBerry voice and unlimited data plan beginning at $79.99; or $30 with the purchase of a BlackBerry data-only plan for $49.99. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53335335 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 21:56:52 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: TiVo to Bring TV to iPod and PSP TiVo to Provide New Capability for Quick and Easy Transfer of Viewer's Favorite TV Shows to iPod or PSP ALVISO, Calif., Nov. 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO), creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders, today announced an enhancement to its current TiVoToGo feature that will allow TiVo subscribers to easily transfer recorded television programming to their Apple iPod or PSP devices. The enhancement will include exclusive capabilities such as TiVo auto-sync that will allow subscribers to choose if they want new recordings of their favorite programs easily transferred to their portable devices via their PC. Every morning the devices can be loaded with new programs recorded the night before. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53330883 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 22:02:55 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: RadioShack Brings Skype-Ready Products to Customers Nationwide; RadioShack Brings Skype-Ready Products to Customers Nationwide; RadioShack Becomes First U.S. Retailer to Offer Skype Services and Hardware, Including Motorola, Linksys, Logitech and Skype Starter Packs FORT WORTH, Texas & LUXEMBOURG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 21, 2005--RadioShack Corporation (NYSE:RSH) and Skype, the Global Internet Communications Company, today announced an agreement to distribute Skype-certified hardware and software in approximately 3,500 RadioShack stores. This makes RadioShack the first U.S. retailer to offer this new Internet phone service. According to Skype officials, Skype has successfully brought free Internet calling to over 66 million people around the world since its launch in 2003, with an average of 175,000 new people joining each day. People with Internet connectivity can load Skype's free software enabling unlimited, high-quality voice calls to other Skype users anywhere in the world. Unlike other Internet phone services, Skype's unique software resides directly on a computer or mobile device to facilitate communications. Skype runs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Pocket PC platforms. Skype also offers premium services providing enhanced functionality for its users to make calls to regular phones for as little as two cents a minute. This agreement with RadioShack supports Skype's growing presence in the U.S. market as a leading Internet communications company. RadioShack's convenient network of neighborhood stores staffed by knowledgeable sales associates will help expose Skype's unique worldwide free call service to a broad new audience of potential customers. Further, these retail stores will provide consumers with a place to shop for new Skype-certified products such as the Motorola Wireless Headset and Internet Calling Kit - the world's first Skype-certified Bluetooth offering. Skype-certified phones and headsets at RadioShack include: -- New Motorola H500 Bluetooth headset and PC850 USB Adapter bundled in the Internet Calling Kit - a RadioShack limited exclusive with a suggested price of $99.99 -- Linksys CIT200 Skype-enabled Cordless Internet Telephony Kit with a suggested price of $129.99 (with a limited time $15 mail-in rebate) -- Logitech Premium USB Headset 250 with a suggested price of $39.99 -- VoIP Voice Cyberphone K USB Internet phone with a suggested price of $39.99 -- Skype Starter Packs: the Skype Starter Pack, priced at $4.99 until Dec. 24, 2005, allows anyone to get started with free Skype software, a Skype-enabled headset and 30 SkypeOut minutes to call any number anywhere in the world - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53333728 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 22:04:09 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Motorola and Skype Bring Mobility to Internet Voice Motorola and Skype Bring Mobility to Internet Voice Communications With Bluetooth(R) Wireless Technology New Motorola Wireless Internet Calling Kit - a Skype-certified Bluetooth offering -- now available at RadioShack retailers nationwide LIBERTYVILLE, Ill., and LUXEMBOURG, Nov. 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT), a global leader in wireless communications, and Skype, a global Internet communications company, today announced the first Skype-certified Bluetooth headset solution in America, the Motorola Wireless Internet Calling Kit. Available at 3,500 RadioShack stores nationwide, the Motorola Wireless Internet Calling Kit enables Skype users to experience the freedom of wireless while making free, unlimited voice calls over the Internet*. Comprised of a Motorola H500 Bluetooth Headset and PC850 PC Adapter, the Motorola Wireless Internet Calling Kit also includes 30 free SkypeOut minutes so users can make Skype calls to mobile and landline phones without additional charges. To experience wireless communications, users plug in the Motorola PC850 PC Adapter to equip traditional laptops and PCs with Bluetooth technology, load the required software onto the PC and follow a simple, step- by-step procedure to establish the cordless connection between the PC and Motorola H500 headset**. The Motorola Wireless Internet Calling Kit is the latest offering from Motorola and Skype. Leveraging Motorola's strength in seamless mobility, advanced technologies, devices and accessories along with Skype's rapidly- growing global user base and rich voice and messaging communication tools, the companies aim to provide greater connectivity options and access for Skype's more than 66 million registered worldwide users. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53336732 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 08:02:14 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AOL Introduces New AIM Triton Service DULLES, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 22, 2005--America Online, Inc.: Integrated Communications Service Features Instant Messaging, Free Email and SMS Mobile Texting as Well as Voice and Video Chat Services Delivers Next Generation Tools and the Industry's First IM-Based Address Book to the 70 Percent* of Online Americans That Now Use Instant Messaging AOL today announced the official launch of its new AIM Triton service. Available for download on AIM.com ( www.aim.com ), the AIM Triton service is an integrated communications client that offers instant messaging, free email and SMS mobile texting as well as voice and video chat services. In an industry first, the AIM Triton service also features a Plaxo-enabled AIM Address Book and gives users one-click access to the AOL Explorer, AOL Mail, AIM Mail, AIM Talk, and AOL Radio services. It also offers anywhere access to AOL's new TotalTalk VoIP calling service, making the AIM service the new 'front door' to digital communications. System Requirements: The AIM Triton service requires Microsoft Windows XP or Windows 2000. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53366189 ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Tuesday 22nd November 2005 Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 07:34:58 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com [[3G News]] O2 Optimizes its Irish 3G Network http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14925.php Actix has announced that O2 Ireland has selected it's 3G performance engineering solutions, backed by Actix training and engineering services, to optimize its 3G network. O2 Ireland cited the maturity of Actix' solution including its ability to handl... [[Financial News]] Sprint Nextel To Buy Alamosa Holdings For $4.3 Billion http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14919.php Sprint Nextel Corp. agreed to buy Alamosa Holdings Inc. for about $4.3 billion, including the assumption of about $900 million of debt. ... EU Antitrust Chief: Unsure She Will Review Telefonica-O2 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14921.php European Union antitrust Commissioner Neelie Kroes Monday said she hadn't decided whether she or one of her peers would review Spanish firm Telefonica SA's $31.4 billion takeover bid for O2 PLC. ... [[Handsets News]] LG Heads Up Mobile Device User Satisfaction Index http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14927.php Strategy Analytics has published a report which analyzes mobile device buyer satisfaction across 20 critical product attributes in the US and W. Europe. LG owners reported the highest satisfaction ratings in 17 out of 19 categories in Western Europe ... Motion Sensitive Phone for Vodafone http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14929.php Vodafone Japan says that it has completed development of the Vodafone 804SH, a new 3G model by Sharp, which will be marketed in Japan from mid-January 2006. The 804SH is a Mobile Wallet ("Osaifu-Keitai") compatible handset with an embedded Mobile Fel... [[Interviews News]] FOCUS:France Telecom CFO To Pitch Change In Cash Policy http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14920.php France Telecom is looking to give more money to shareholders to address a credibility gap that's caused the company's stock to lag the sector. ... [[Legal News]] Ukraine's court rejects tax service's claims against Ukrtelecom http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14923.php Ukraine's Kiev Arbitration Court has rejected the State Tax Service of Ukraine's back tax claims worth over 800 million hryvnas against national telecommunications company Ukrtelecom, Ukrtelecom's press office said Monday. ... [[Mobile Content News]] Crazy Frog Cleans Up its Subscription Services http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14926.php Jamster, the company responsible for "that annoying thing" -- namely the Crazy Frog ringtone franchise has announced the roll out of a new global brand campaign, simplified subscription plans and a parental control service. The brand campaign launched... [[Network Contracts News]] Virgin Mobile Secures Distribution Deal http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14928.php Virgin Mobile USA has signed an agreement to expand its handset distribution from 700 7-Eleven stores to 5,300 locations nationwide. Virgin Mobile is a joint venture between Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Sprint, and has more than three milli... [[Offbeat News]] People Hoard Skinny Jeans and Cellphones http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14924.php A new report has found that nearly half of those surveyed (45%) said they were hoarding old cell phones in their homes. But when asked if they knew they could recycle their used rechargeable batteries and old cell phones, almost three-quarters (71%) ... [[Regulatory News]] Russia's Reiman sees caller-pays principle regulations soon http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14918.php All necessary regulations for the introduction of the Calling Party Pays (CPP) principle in Russia are expected to be approved in early 2006, Russian IT and Telecommunications Minister Leonid Reiman said, ITAR-TASS reported Monday. ... [[Statistics News]] China Unicom Adds 1.22 Million Subscribers In October http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14917.php Mobile-phone operator China Unicom Ltd. said Monday it added 1.22 million subscribers in October, bringing its total customers to 125.37 million. ... Retailer Euroset sees 87% mobile penetration in Russia by year-end http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14922.php The penetration of mobile services in Russia is expected to reach 87% by the end of the year, Russia's largest mobile handset retailer Euroset said in a report released Monday. ... ------------------------------ From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Sprint Nextel buys Alamosa Date: 22 Nov 2005 12:00:00 EST USTelecom dailyLead November 22, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/yusYatagCyjmqFwugx TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Sprint Nextel buys Alamosa BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * AT&T beefs up retail presence * Verizon to launch IPTV in second Virginia town * Consortium to lay undersea cable on Africa's east coast * Ericsson mulls China acquisitions * Report: Handset sales surge USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Find IMS, Fixed Mobile Convergence, IPTV Solutions at TelecomNEXT TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Report: VoIP ICs poised for big growth REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * House passes DTV bill Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/yusYatagCyjmqFwugx ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Tis (Almost) the Season to be Jolly Date: 22 Nov 2005 10:19:12 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > For several years in the 1960's and 1970's I was employed by the Amoco > Oil Company in its central credit card operation in downtown Chicago. In those days business purposely located such operations downtown so as to be close to a wide source of labor. These days business put those operations in rural areas to get cheap labor or even overseas. > Most of that time was spent in the Sales Authorization Department, > which is another name for the part of the credit department which > approves (or not) credit card sales 'at the point of purchase'. In > those days, 35-40 years ago, originally there were no computers to > help us; -- there were the large mainframes in our 'computer > department' but no desktop individual computers; they did not exist -- Desktop inquiry terminals and supporting on-line processing existed since the early 1960s but it was extremely costly. The most well known example is SABRE reversation system IBM built for American Airlines. Terminals were modified Selectric typewriters and function pads. Most large operations worked exactly as you described--clerks with headsets running around checking large books or tubfiles of index cards. We take modern stuff for granted but back in 1970 the terminal itself, wiring and hardware to connect to the mainframe, on-line disk storage, programs to take inquiries, do a lookup, and return the response, and the mainframe itself were all extremely expensive. It took some years until the costs of each of those components came down enough to justify replacing a staff of clerks. The programming of on-line functions was extremely complicated in those days. > Suffice to say, we by and large 'trusted' the customers to not go > over their credit limit; those were simpler times and simpler > customers, not as sophisicated in fraud as many are today. Unlike today's general purpose credit cards, a consumer was limited how wild they could get with a gasoline credit card. You only can fill up your tank so much or buy so many batteries or tires. Some gas cards had special features, like Gulf was accepted at Holiday Inns, but that was relatively limited, and not practical for a street thief. In 1979 I was driving a lot and got several oil company cards for convenience. In buying gas, the guy would just check a little booklet of stop orders. In having repairs done, the man would call it in. I dropped the cards when they charged extra to buy gas with them. My cards were stolen from my car and I reported them before they could be used. (Oddly the thief left behind an envelope containing cash.) Some months later the oil company called me about a charge made for a battery to see if I made it (I didn't), but I had cancelled the card so I wasn't responsible. I suspect they had more of a problem with deadbeats running up big bills and sloppy stations not calling in purchases. Companies liked issuing credit cards because they made money two ways: 1) People spent more using a card than they do with hard cash, and 2) interest charged on payments spread out over time was very high (as it is today). > The employees responded by wrecking the whole office until the > police arrived to crack open some heads, etc. Incidents like that were not uncommon in those days and gave management pause. What management realized as a result was they were sitting on time bombs and didn't want any part of it. Quietly and discretely, here and there, offices were moved out of the city to perhaps the suburbs or a more distant rural area. As technology improved, telephone tie-line costs went down and they had more flexibility in locating call centers. The biggest issues to management were work-ethic and radicalism. Management didn't like their center shut down every other day because the streets were blocked for some protest march, a critical utility was on strike, or workers in a nearby building were rioting or demonstrating. Obviously management didn't like pickets in front of their own building. Also, high taxes and 'pressured contributions' for radical social causes didn't help either. The protest and riots ended up being counter productive in many cases (social activists go nuts when I say their work hurt more than it helped). Instead of improving conditions for the masses, the companies just left altogether leaving the masses unemployed. Most companies did this long after a protest action so the two wouldn't be linked together. These departures were a factor in the decline of NYC and other cities in the 1970s. It became a viscious cycle feeding on itself. To this day many companies fear working in cities or old suburban areas because they don't want the aggravation of activist employees or external social agitators, etc. American business can be very ruthless and plenty of employers want every ounce of blood, sweat and tears they can suck out of you. It is true plenty of businesses of this nature exploited the masses in the cities. But many businesses are not like that at all and do treat their employees very well. It is also true that the labor force of many business -- good or bad -- was just as bad and ripping off their employer big time. Who started it is tough to say in many cases. Unfortunately the end result was lose-lose -- the workers lost their jobs and the employer endured the cost of relocation or went out of business altogether. I know of a steel mill that once had 10,000 workers and how has 300 with little future. The union controlled that mill by brute force. If a foreman pushed his workers to work, his tires would get slashed. Then his car would end up in the steel tank. Then he would end up in the steel tank. The productivity was attrocious. The company has essentially abandoned the mill and 9,000 people lost their jobs. The union is damn proud of everything it did. > I asked the Pip Squeak where is the car now? He told me it was > still on the rack but he was finished with his work. I told him you > keep that car up on the rack, which is your right. You have a > workman's lien on that car until he pays the bill, and he is not > going to get it paid with that card. I asked him if he still had > the plastic there. He said he did, so I told him (by then the pip > squeak had told me his name was Timmy) "Timmy have you got a pair of > scissors there or a sharp cutting blade?" He said he did and I > asked him, "Timmy, would you like to make fifty dollars?" I think > his eyes almost bulged out of his head as he said "Oh, yeah man, I > really need the money to get Christmas presents for my family, what > do I have to do to make that kind of money?" Cool! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Neither Amoco Credit Card nor Diners's Club (at least in those days) were union shops. The refineries were of course unionized, but Amoco worked very hard to keep them out of the offices. Typically, Amoco's procedure was to pay and treat the office workers _as though they belonged to a union_ even though they did not. Wages and benefits at the credit card office were quite good. Diners did the same thing; two weeks vacation after a year, three weeks after five years, good medical benefits, a great 401-K plan (both Amoco and Diners paid dollar for dollar into the plan, matching their employees 'savings' dollar for dollar); the catch was if you quit before the 401-K (or whatever it was called in those days) had matured the employee got _none_ of the company's share. Yet even with a _two year_ notice that the credit card office planned to move out of town (half moved to Raleigh, NC; the other half to Des Moines, IA) employees were not happy. Even with an already sweetened pot, the company sweetened it a bit more at that point: Within a day or two or a week of announcing their plans to move out of Chicago, the smartest and most useful employees had already quit and split for other work. Amoco's response was "if you remain in our employ, show up for work on time each day and do not get fired until _we_ say you are no longer needed you will get a bonus: a thousand dollars for each year of service you have put in and an extra 500 dollars. So new workers who started after that point were promised at least a 500 dollar bonus for staying until the bitter end. Each person who quit prematurely (in order to get a jump on an unemployed labor pool two years later) had to be replaced of course. Over that next two years, those of us who stuck it out until the end got those bonuses, all of the 401-K money in our accounts (and the company's share) and a few other perks as well. But oooh, la la! You talk about a hell hole of a place to work at, it got much, much worse toward the end. The 'temporary' employees hired in the last two years in Chicago were absolutely dorks. There was the time the Remittance Department clerks went 'on strike' for a few days: A dozen young ladies who's job was to slice open remittance envelopes, stack the checks in one pile and the remittance coupons in the other pile, keeping them in order for the combination microfilm/check endorsement machines so the end result was a microfilm of remittance coupons and checks went through in the same order (the films for later reference, each check 'endorsed' "Pay to order of Payee named within; Diners/Amoco/Torch" and the date and the 'batch number' on the reverse side to get taken to First National Bank, at the rate of five or six hundred checks per clerk every few minutes after they had been balanced. One day, they walked off the job and stood in front of our building at 165 North Canal Street with 'picket signs' saying "Credit Card is unfair to workers". First day on the street, management peered out of upstairs windows snickering about it. Second day, management was a little more concerned; all those checks, money orders, etc stacking up inside not getting processed. Third day, bank showed deposits were down a little and headquarters called over and asked 'where the hell is all the money for this month?' Amoco (the corporate offices) looked for that two or three million dollars in deposits each day; they were not coming in. Management person decided better go see what the ladies want, and went to talk to them on the street. It turns out they wanted _new chairs and desks_ to sit at; nothing more nor less. The new chairs and desks were delivered the next day. Amoco had hoped to hold out with all the old junky furniture there on Canal Street until the move to Iowa was completed. No such luck. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 V24 #529 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Nov 23 01:40:43 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id F129214D46; Wed, 23 Nov 2005 01:40:42 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #530 Message-Id: <20051123064042.F129214D46@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 01:40:42 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.5 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: R TELECOM Digest Wed, 23 Nov 2005 01:41:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 530 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Hollywood and BitTorrent Reach Agreement (Gary Gentile) CBS and Google in Talks About Video Search (Kenneth Li) Moving Up the Phone Chain (Dan Tynan) Ten to Avoid - The Worst Products of 2005 (Jim Louderbach) Disability Groups Call for Telecom Legislation (Nigel Allen) Media Services Registration With PBX (Hemal Shah) Re: Grandpa Gets Sued Over Grandson's Downloads From Net (Seth Breidbart) Re: Showdown with USA Over Internet Control (Seth Breidbart) Re: Tis (Almost) the Season to be Jolly (Lisa Hancock) Re: Spyware Maker Sues Detection Firm (Seth Breidbart) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gary Gentile Subject: Hollywood and BitTorrent Reach Agreement Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 23:06:36 -0600 By GARY GENTILE, AP Business Writer In a deal aimed at reducing illegal Internet traffic in pirated films, Hollywood reached an agreement Tuesday with the creator of the popular file-sharing software BitTorrent. The agreement requires 30-year-old software designer Bram Cohen to prevent his Web site, bittorrent.com, from locating pirated versions of popular movies, effectively frustrating people who search for illegal copies of films. BitTorrent must remove Web links leading to illegal content owned by the seven studios that are members of the Motion Picture Association of America. "BitTorrent Inc. discourages the use of its technology for distributing films without a license to do so," Cohen said in the statement. "As such, we are pleased to work with the film industry to remove unauthorized content from bittorrent.com's search engine." MPAA Chief Executive Dan Glickman declared, "They're leading the way for other companies by their example." The agreement represents the latest effort by the entertainment industry to discourage illegal Internet downloads. It also demonstrates Cohen's sensitivity toward Hollywood's piracy problems, making him potentially more attractive to studios for future deals related to movie downloads. Cohen disclosed in September his company had raised $8.75 million in venture funding to develop commercial distribution tools for media companies. The BitTorrent technology pioneered by Cohen -- and used by an estimated 45 million people -- assembles digital movies and other computer files from separate bits of data downloaded from other computer users across the Internet. Its decentralized nature makes downloading more efficient but also frustrates the entertainment industry's efforts to find and identify movie pirates. The agreement with Cohen would not prevent determined Internet users from finding movies or other materials using tools or Web sites other than Cohen's, but it removes one of the most convenient methods people have used. On the Net: BitTorrent: http://bittorrent.com Motion Picture Association: http://mpaa.org Associated Press Writer Ted Bridis in Washington contributed to this report. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. More AP news headlines at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ From: Kenneth Li & Michele Gershberg Subject: CBS in Talks With Google For Video Search Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 22:59:53 -0600 By Kenneth Li and Michele GershbergTue Nov 22, 2:36 PM ET U.S. television network CBS is in discussions with Internet media company Google Inc. for video search and on-demand video, CBS chairman Leslie Moonves said on Tuesday. Viacom-owned CBS, which is in the process of splitting itself apart from the faster growing MTV cable networks and Paramount film studios, is seeking other distribution outlets for its top ranked shows including the CSI franchise. "We're talking to them about a whole slew of things including video-on-demand, including video search," Moonves told Reuters in an interview regarding Google, ahead of Reuters's Media and Advertising Summit next week. Such talks are occurring across the media industry at a time when entertainment companies are wary of new technologies like the Internet and video games that appear to siphon off consumers of traditional media. Moonves, however, said he saw more opportunities on the Internet to boost CBS's reach and bottom line. CBS's discussions have not been restricted to Google and have also included talks with Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news), although no deals have yet been struck. "They need our content, we need their technology," he said, referring to broader discussions with Internet companies. "We argue about which is more important. I think ultimately my content, no matter how you get it, content is still the most important thing." In September, Viacom's UPN television network struck a deal with Google to offer exclusive video streams of its "Everybody Hates Chris" comedy show. The premier show was offered for four days at Google Video service. Google is just one of a handful of big Internet companies that seek to offer video programming on the Web. Yahoo is seeking to license more video for its service. But finding a way for media and Internet companies to work together has not been without snafus. Shortly after Google debuted its video search in June, copyrighted videos from random users crept onto the service, drawing the ire of the very media companies Google aimed to attract. Google removed the videos after a few days. Then there's digital video recording technology company TiVo Inc., whose early plans to let some of its customers send recorded videos directly to Apple Computer Inc.'s new iPod digital media player could set the stage for the next copyright fight. "There's some intellectual property questions about the situation," Moonves said about TiVo's plans. What's certain is big media needs to offer legitimate alternatives. "Video on the Internet is taking off like mad," said Josh Bernoff, an analyst at Forrester Research, which has reported that about 46 percent of online households were already watching videos. Eyeing how the music industry's slow reaction to new technology ravaged sales, U.S. television networks have been busier experimenting online, Moonves said. "They'd be better off moving as quickly as possible to embrace these technologies," Bernoff added about television networks. MORE VOD WITH LES More shows are expected to be offered to cable, satellite television and wireless services as well, Moonves said. CBS announced a one-year deal to let Comcast Corp. cable customers view episodes of some of its shows at the click of their remote for 99 cents earlier this month. Moonves, who is also co-chief operating officer of Viacom, said the company was in talks with satellite television operator DirecTV Group Inc. for similar deals, although he did not specify when, or if, any deal would be struck. "We've spoken with DirecTV, sure," he said. "I think you'll see more and more of those deals happening along the way, as well as you'll see more and more deals like ABC did with the iPod." Although Moonves did not address discussions with Apple's iTunes service, which began selling episodes of ABC's "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" in October, sources have said the two are in discussions. Viacom's widely held class b shares rose 3 cents to $33.67 on the New York Stock Exchange in afternoon trading. Google shares rose $6.03, or 1.47 percent to $415.39 on Nasdaq. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Dan Tynan Subject: Moving Up the Phone Chain Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 23:02:49 -0600 By Dan Tynan Once upon a time, you carried a cell phone because you wanted to talk to other people without being tethered to a land line. Now the notion of merely talking while you're walking seems almost quaint. Today's top cell phones are more like pocket-size computers -- you can send e-mail, surf the Web, manage your schedule, snap photos, play games, and a whole lot more for just a few pennies a minute. As a result, cell phones are no longer one-size-fits-all. They vary widely in features, functionality, and cost. So if you're thinking of swapping out your tired old mobile phone for a slick new cell, you've got to figure out exactly what type of phone user you really are. To help you choose, we've divided the world into five types of mobile mavens, each of whom needs a slightly different kind of phone. But before you dive in, here are a few things to keep in mind. Nearly all phones are exclusive to a particular carrier. For example, if you want the Blackberry 7520, you'll have to be a Nextel subscriber; Motorola Razr fans need to sign up with Cingular. (Notable exceptions: Aficionados of the Palm Treo 650 and Nokia N-Gage can order them from multiple carriers.) In addition, prices for the same phone can vary wildly depending on where you buy it and what kind of plan you get, says Allan Keiter, president of MyRatePlan.com. Getting a phone with a two-year plan can knock 50 percent or more off the unit's retail price, but also locks you into technology that will quickly feel outdated. On the other hand, if you're upgrading your phone without also upgrading your plan, don't expect any discounts. Prices for the same phone also vary depending on whether you buy directly from the wireless carrier, an independent dealer, or an online retailer. Sites like MyRatePlan.com, Phone Scoop, and Wirefly offer interactive guides that let you sort phones by features and find the cheapest sources for them. Keiter advises consumers to find a carrier that offers good coverage in the areas where they're likely to use the phone, pick the phone they want, and then choose from the plans available for each phone. Now, on to a healthy dose of self-reflection. What kind of phone user are you? The Family Guy (or Gal) Profile: You don't travel much, but you need to be reachable when you're away from the house. More important, you want to keep track of other family members -- like your spouse, kids, or aging parents -- so you will probably want multiple phones. In short, you're looking for a model that's like you: maybe not the most stylish or hippest thing on the block, but rock-solid, dependable, and affordable. The features you want: You probably don't need a Web-enabled phone or one that checks e-mail, but if you've got teenage kids you'll want one that at least offers text messaging (virtually all phones do these days). A press-to-talk (walkie-talkie) feature comes in handy if you need to reach the kids when they're playing down the street or you want to find them in a crowded mall without using up your minutes. If you're buying a phone for your parents -- or you're getting on in years yourself -- you may actually want a bigger model like the Nokia 6019i (through U.S. Cellular) or Audiovox SMT5600 (Cingular) with a screen that's easier to read and buttons that are easier to push. That argues against the more-expensive, though sexier, flip and slider models. Larger phones also tend to have slightly better reception, though your mileage may vary. Price range: $50 to $150 The plan for you: Look for a mobile-to-mobile plan that lets you call others on the same network for free. If you just want to use the phone in town, a local calling plan will probably give you more minutes for your money, but you can really rack up the charges if you use it on the road. The Restless Commuter Profile: You spend big chunks of each day waiting--for buses, cabs, trains; in grocery stores, hair salons, traffic. You're easily bored, but you don't want to carry six different devices in your pocket. What you want is a phone that doubles as an entertainment device. The features you want: The kind of phone you get depends on how you like to waste -- er, spend -- your free time. If you want to surf while you wait, a full Web browser is essential--and fairly easy to find on most phones. Java-based phones typically come with a handful of games and the ability to download more, but serious players will want to take a gander at Nokia's N-Gage (Cingular, T-Mobile), which is essentially a handheld game machine with a phone inside. You can even play against other nearby N-Gage users via a Bluetooth connection. Like to rock out? Motoro Cingular, comes with a miniature IPod able to store 100 tunes. Generic MP3 players and FM radios are starting to show up in a wide range of mobile phones, and there's a slew of cells such as the LG Electronics VX9800 and Audiovox 8940 (both from Verizon) coming down the pike that feature multiple channels of TV content (see "Moving Pictures"). Price range: $150 and up The plan for you: Look for a high-speed data plan for downloading games and Web surfing. Adding TV will generally run you another $10 a month. The Raving Fashionista Your profile: For you, style is substance. It doesn't matter what you say, as long as you look good saying it. And not only does your phone need to be sleek, small, and able to enhance your outfit, it also has to be fun to use. So when you're out at a rave, you want a phone that lets you send a text message, snap a picture, then e-mail it to a friend or post it to your mobile blog. The features you want: There's probably no cooler gadget anywhere than the Motorola Razr V3 (Cingular). Just a half-inch thick, the Razr's top flips up to reveal a crisp, 2.2-inch color screen and a flat keypad outlined in neon blue. With LG's MM535 multimedia phone, available from Sprint, the screen slides up to reveal the keypad, while the Sony Ericsson S710a (Cingular) offers a unique swivel design. All offer relatively high-res 1.3-megapixel cameras that can capture still images or video, as well as messaging and e-mail programs. Price range: $200 and up The plan for you: Look for a low-cost media plan that lets you send a fixed number of text and picture messages for a flat monthly rate. The Road Warrior Your profile: You're a busy executive who needs to stay in constant touch. You spend your life going from meeting to meeting and airport to airport, but the world will stop turning if you're away from your cell phone or e-mail for more than half an hour. You need a phone that lets you be all thumbs -- but in a good way. The features you want: For you, e-mail and messaging are more important than voice, so you've got to have a QWERTY keypad. This phone will do double duty as your personal data assistant, which means you'll need a sophisticated scheduler, a copious address book, a to-do list manager, full browser capabilities, and the ability to view and edit documents. You won't need a camera, but you will need to sync with your PC via a USB or Bluetooth connection, and because such phones are awkward to talk into, you'll probably want a wireless Bluetooth headset. Style? Forget about it. These devices are really more like laptop substitutes. In short, you're looking for units like the Treo 650 (available from Cingular, Sprint, or Verizon), Audiovox 6600 (Sprint or Verizon), BlackBerry 7100g (Cingular), Samsung i730 (Verizon), or the T-Mobile Sidekick II. Price range: $200 to $600 The plan for you: In addition to voice minutes, you'll want a heavy-duty high-speed data plan. They generally start at around $40 a month. Your profile: You don't just go on trips, you go on expeditions. For you, "crossing the pond" is like taking a puddle jumper. Even if you remain largely in the continental United States, you spend more time in hotels than your average bellhop. You need a phone designed for the long haul. The features you want: If you travel outside the United States, look for a GSM phone that switches between multiple frequencies, such as the 850-MHz band used in the United States and Canada, and the 900-, 1800-, and 1900-MHz bands used virtually everywhere else. T-Mobile's Motorola V330 and Cingular's HP iPaq 6510 both operate on all four frequencies. You'll likely go a long time before seeing an AC outlet, so you'll want a phone with longer battery life; for example, the Sony Ericsson S710a (Cingular) is rated at 420 minutes of talk time and 300 hours of standby. If you're constantly visiting new cities, or want people to be able to find you easily, consider a unit with a Global Positioning System transponder built in, such as the BlackBerry 7520 (Nextel), which can pinpoint your location on a map and provide driving directions. Price range: $200 to $600 The plan for you: GPS services generally add $10 to $15 to your monthly bill. And take a good long look at those overseas long-distance charges -- you could end up paying more than a buck a minute in some places. Award-winning journalist Dan Tynan writes the Gadget Freak column for PC World and TechSmart for Attache magazine. His new book,Computer Privacy Annoyances(O'Reilly Media 2005), may someday be available on your cell phone (but probably not). Copyright 2005 Yahoo Tech Tuesday NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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.com For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Jim Louderback Subject: Ten to Avoid -- The Worst Products of 2005 Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 23:04:19 -0600 by Jim Louderback It's the holiday season, time to pick up gifts for family and friends. We bring you the best stuff year-round, but often quality is in short supply this time of year. For you last-minute shoppers, here's my annual list of the ten worst products of the year-as scored and reviewed by PC Magazine Labs. These may all look shiny and sharp on the shelves, but each one is fundamentally flawed. You've been warned! 10. Oakley Thump: If you've overdone it with the eggnog, a $500 pair of sunglasses with a built-in MP3 player might seem a divine combination. It's not. The poorly fitting earbuds chafe, the glasses feel flimsy, and the style is dated. And what happens if you want to rock out at night? Unless you're buying for Bono, pick up an iPod shuffle and a pair of Revos for half the price. 9. Voodoo Doll D210: If you give someone this zippy breadbox-sized PC, they'll be sticking pins in your effigy all year-and you'll be out more than 3,000 smackeroos, too. Voodoo crammed two CPUs and two hard drives inside, but left out the keyboard, mouse, and monitor. If you buy one anyway, get a pair of industrial-strength ear protectors too, as it whines like a 747 taxiing for takeoff. 8. H2i SimplyTouch OpticalBar: Turn any monitor into a touch screen! That's the promise; the reality is different. The OpticalBar sits atop your monitor and tracks your finger as you touch special parts of the screen. Alas, it works more slowly than the midnight shift at an all-night diner, and often gets your order wrong, too. Opt for a tablet notebook instead. 7. ROKR E1: The Oakley Thump of the mobile phone set; at least it's a decent phone. The hype around "The First iTunes Phone" created unfulfillable expectations. It's not as polished as an iPod, and its oddly limited music storage makes a mediocre player even worse. Glacially slow music-transfer speeds put the final nail in this coffin. Sony Ericsson sells a much better MP3-phone combo, but I suggest a shuffle and a RAZR phone: Cheaper-and better, too. 6. Cinego D-1000: It slices! It dices! It projects your DVDs onto the wall! You might be tempted by this combination front-projector and DVD player, but stay away. Marred by a minuscule remote, nasty interface, and terrible video quality, it'll be quickly relegated to the garage or eBay. For budget home theater, hold out for HP's ep9010 combo, or pick up a cheaper projector and a DVD player for less. 5. PQI mPack P800 Media Player: Looking for a portable music and video player? The mPack looks attractive-you can record video and FM radio directly, and it even includes a CompactFlash slot. But playback is a problem. Even with the most recent flash update, fast-forward and rewind simply do not work, despite the manual's direction. The screen is terrible, the interface abysmal, and the physical buttons erratic. Apple's video iPod, the Creative Zen Vision, and anything from Archos deliver a better experience for less. 4. Dual XNAV3500P: Even alpha males can use a little GPS assistance now and then. This hybrid car and portable mapping system seems solid-until you start using it. Marred by an awful interface and a poor data-entry keypad, it failed our tests. Pick up a TomTom GO, or give an IOU for Garmin's amazing Nuvi, debuting here in January. 3. PepperPad: Following in the footsteps of the Audrey, Netpliance, and NIC, this is an Internet bubble failure five years too late. More expensive than a laptop, with a battery life measured in minutes, and a tiny 8- by 6-inch touch screen, this home Internet tablet has few redeeming features. Unless you're a fan of freaky keyboards, opt for a cheap tablet PC instead. 2. Sony S2 Sports Network Walkman NW-S23: Pity poor Sony. It invented the Walkman and then squabbled as Apple stole its lunch. This player finally supports MP3 files, yet it lacks so much else that it's hardly worth the price. With ergonomics straight from a Klingon warship, balky software, and a poor display, this one deserves a place in the remainder rack. Again, you're better off with a shuffle. And now, the moment you've all been waiting for ... the worst product of the year-and from a surprising source. 1. Samsung Digimax V700: Samsung can seemingly do no wrong these days. The company has supplanted Sony as the top electronics brand, exuding both quality and cool. We hope this terrible digital camera is an aberration, not a sign of things to come. With slow performance, lousy auto-exposure, and some shutter lag, this 7.1-megapixel camera never should have been released. Compact cameras from Canon, Sony and Nikon are far better-even if they do cost a bit more. Copyright 2005 Ziff Davis Inc. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 17:46:11 -0500 From: Nigel Allen Subject: Disability Groups Call for Telecom Legislation The following press release was issued by the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) at http://www.nad.org I thought that the press release might be of interest to Telecom Digest's readers. Disability Groups Call for Telecom Legislation SILVER SPRING, Md., Nov. 22 -- The National Association of the Deaf (NAD), joined by other disability organizations listed at the end of this press release, called upon Congress to enact legislation mandating disability access to Internet-based products and services by the end of this Congress. The nation needs broadband, everywhere, now, and at affordable rates -- this is true for no one more than people with disabilities. Following up on testimony presented at last week's hearing before the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, given by NAD governmental affairs consultant Frank Bowe and delivered on behalf of 16 national, state and local organizations of, by, and for people with disabilities, Kelby Brick, NAD Director of Law and Advocacy, said: "People with disabilities use communications technologies every day that were not even in existence at the time our nation's communications laws were last amended. The 1996 Telecommunications Act did not contemplate instant messaging, email, video relay, peer-to-peer video or such handheld devices as the Firefly and the Tictalk. Although the 1996 Act contained disability provisions for access to telecommunications products and services, it was mainly limited to those used with the public switched telephone network, not the Internet. As a result, people with disabilities will only gain equal access to today's communications infrastructure and services if Congress acts to extend these protections to Internet-enabled products and services." Individuals are urged to contact their representatives in Congress by taking action at: http://www.nad.org/BroadbandBillAction Dr. Bowe testified on behalf of the Alliance for Public Technology, the American Association of People with Disabilities, the American Council of the Blind, the American Foundation for the Blind, the Association of Late-Deafened Adults, the California Coalition of Agencies Serving the Deaf, Hard of Hearing, Inc., Communication Services for the Deaf, the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Consumer Advocacy Network, the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Service Center Inc., Inclusive Technologies, the National Association of the Deaf, the Northern Virginia Resource Center for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Persons, Self Help for Hard of Hearing People, TDI/Telecommunications for the Deaf Inc., WGBH National Center for Accessible Media, and the World Institute on Disability. In his November 9, 2005 testimony, and in response to questions posed by Subcommittee Chair Fred Upton (Republican - MI), Dr. Bowe said that the disability community wants legislation sooner rather than later: "The Nation urgently needs a coherent broadband policy. Critical to these improvements are the disability consumer protections contained in the staff draft." Dr. Bowe further noted that communications manufacturers and service providers have had ten years to become familiar with the accessibility needs of Americans with disabilities. The House staff discussion draft would extend the same accessibility requirements to new Internet-enabled products and services. Because today's communications products and services make extensive use of software, and are rapidly upgraded, he said, the disability community believes that making these accessible to and useable by people with disabilities will be neither costly nor technologically demanding if done during the design stage. Dr. Bowe concluded his testimony by stating: "Critically important disability access provisions will come about only if Congress enacts an updated framework for telecommunications." Today, our organizations reiterate his words and call for immediate Congressional action to guarantee access to all of the exciting and innovative Internet-enabled products and services that are entering the marketplace, as well as many sure to follow in the coming years. The disability organizations below have joined in the request to the U.S. Congress: Alliance for Public Technology American Association of People with Disabilities American Foundation for the Blind Association of Late-Deafened Adults California Coalition of Agencies Serving the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Communication Services for the Deaf National Association of the Deaf National Council on Independent Living Northern Virginia Resource Center for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Persons Self Help for Hard of Hearing People TDI WGBH National Center for Accessible Media World Institute on Disability About the NAD The National Association of the Deaf (NAD), founded in 1880, safeguards the civil rights of deaf and hard of hearing Americans. As a national federation of state association, organizational and corporate affiliates, the advocacy work of the NAD encompasses a broad spectrum of areas including, but not limited to, accessibility, education, employment, healthcare, mental health, rehabilitation, technology, telecommunications, and transportation. The NAD website http://www.nad.org has a wealth of advocacy information and resources. ------------------------------ From: Hemal.Shah@MatrixTeleSol.com Subject: Media Services Registration with PBX Date: 22 Nov 2005 21:24:16 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello everyone, I have a following query. (1) Is there any protocol available by which third party vendor's Media Server can Register with PBX/Switch? (2)How Media server inform PBX about the type of Media Services it uses? Thanking you in advance ... Hemal Shah ------------------------------ From: sethb@panix.com (Seth Breidbart) Subject: Re: Grandpa Gets Sued Over Grandson's Downloads From Net Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 01:20:23 UTC Organization: Society for the Promulgation of Cruelty to the Clueless In article , David Clayton wrote: > On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 20:02:21 -0600, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal wrote: >> Illegal downloading costs the movie industry an estimated $5.4 billion a >> year, she said. > Yep, you can guarantee that every illegally downloaded movie/song etc. > directly results in lost revenue, because those naughty people would have > paid for it anyway ... not! And at full list price, disregarding the fact that they already had the DVD which they bought at a huge discount (because all DVDs sell well below list). Seth ------------------------------ From: sethb@panix.com (Seth Breidbart) Subject: Re: Showdown with USA Over Internet Control Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 02:11:41 UTC Organization: Society for the Promulgation of Cruelty to the Clueless > "This is such a sideshow debate," said Oxford University professor > Jonathan Zittrain. "If you couldn't find IBM at ibm.com, what would > you do? You would Google it, and there you'd be." And you would find Google how? > Some countries worry that the United States could use this system to > effectively "unplug" a nation from the Internet by redirecting its > country code. And some countries (or, more likely, the reporter) are idiots, because removing my domain's registration wouldn't unplug me at all. It would just make my stuff a little harder to find. (But anybody can register a .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and many countries don't care who registers in their domains, either (e.g. .tv).) > Experts say that would be difficult to pull off because > it would require thousands of computer administrators across the globe > to cooperate. For a value of "thousands" closer to a dozen. Or, perhaps, one. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It seems to me that the USA is being > sort of high and mighty on this matter. Just as the USA pays little or > no attention to what other countries want or do with their two-letter > TLDs such as .uk, .gr, and others, why would they now start worrying > about what a UN-controlled body said regards (for example) China being > the controller or Germany or UK? Wouldn't we still continue to do as > we pleased anyway? PAT] With .us we would. But what happens when such an international body decides to globalize censorship? Say, it decides you lose your domain if you host reporting that didn't come from a "licensed reporter"? Right now, such a country can possibly act against domains in its tld, and sites within its borders. Someone trying to remove a foreign .com domain for that will just get laughed at. Seth [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, to me it is sort of a toss-up. Which to you is more opressive? Tons of spam and scam and phishing each day via a coordinator (ICANN) who essentially turns a blind eye to the mess that the internet has become in the past decade, or some _other_ coordinator who *might or might not* attempt to exercise some censorship on a few web sites here and there. Might or might not ... but would most assuredly instruct registrars and ISPs under them to clamp down HARD on spammers, etc. I always laugh when I hear people complain that some other administrator would (gasp!) probably censor users and sites, all the while going ho-hum and shrugging their shoulders while scammers, scammers and phishermen have almost shut us down now, so fearful are many users to sign their real email addresses or participate in any real, meaningful way. I mean, even if it is true that ICANN is sort of backed into a corner with the contracts they have out on the net now, even asking them to give favorable consideration to eventually phase out their existing contracts in favor of differnet ones just gets a blank stare in return. Some of us would just as soon take our chances with someone else running things. That is why I feel the arguments about how 'some other organization in charge might be censors, etc' are so bogus. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Tis (Almost) the Season to be Jolly Date: 22 Nov 2005 13:47:34 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Neither Amoco Credit Card nor > Diners's Club (at least in those days) were union shops. ... > Typically, Amoco's procedure was to pay and treat the office workers > _as though they belonged to a union_ even though they did not. Wages > and benefits at the credit card office were quite good. Working conditions have changed a lot for such workers between 1970 and today; these include telco employees. Back in 1970 jobs such as a corporate credit card center, back office for a major bank or corporation, or the Bell System had the following advantages and disadvantages compared to other jobs in that era: Advantage: 1) Better working conditions: Often those jobs were downtown which was deemed a more presitigous and pleasant place to work. Often those jobs were in modern or modernized office buildings in air conditioned offices in pleasant surroundings with the latest tools. In contrast other clerical white collar jobs would be in industry, such as in a factory or warehouse. Often the office was not air conditioned (except for the big boss), and while perhaps the office was nicer than the shop floor, it still was an industrial atmosphere in an industrial neighborhood. That meant noise, dust, dirt, smells, and a 'tougher' atmosphere. Work hours and office life was more regimented, such as punching a time clock. 2) Stable employment: The large corporations and the phone company generally were rather stable and layoffs for back office employees were not as common as for industrial workers. The phone company particularly was known for stability (other than Western Electric which did have layoffs). An industrial employer could suddenly shut down for a while for a variety of reasons and office staff were out as well. 3) Better benefits: The large corps tended to give better benefits, such as an hour for lunch instead of a half hour, etc compared to a factory which might be strictly hourly. Disadvantage: 1) Boring work: The large corp back offices had highly repetitive work with little change. Not much chance for promotion. In contrast, working in an industrial site might have much more variety--you'd post checks in the morning but send out letters in the afternoon. 2) Low pay: Factories tended to pay more. This was offset by job insecurity and less benefits. For some people in the short term the higher factory pay won out. With the demise of the old Bell System and growth of powerful computers and phone lines, the traditional back office has been greatly changed. Much of that work is greatly centralized. For instance Bell in Phila had several neighborhood centers just within the city to handle service rep work. Now, all that work, not only for Phila but the whole state has been consolidated and moved out far away (WVa?). The back office is consolidated into massive call centers, highly regimented and less pleasant than in the past. Computers count your keystrokes, errors, and bathroom breaks and people are watched very closely. The old call centers expected production, but were resonably pleasant places. The new ones are much tougher. You sit at your cube and stare at your terminal and that's it. You do what the terminal says you do. Unions got too much power in the 1970s and priced themselves -- and the workers they represented -- out of job. But now the companies have too much power and the pendulum has swung the other way. I think these centralized "boiler rooms" need union representation -- modern unions looking out for modern issues. Sadly many of the old unions, while realizing they have to move into new industries, are still fighting the battles of the 1930s and they turn prospective members off with their rhetoric. (A union organizer came to us (white collar workers) and talked to us like we were still in 1875 coal mines like the Molly Maguires. Our working conditions were greatly improved beyond that.) In the old days there were companies like the old Bell System where a person could go and have a job for life and a pension without killing themselves in the process. They wouldn't get rich, but they'd have security. That's very important to some people. Sadly, today few such jobs exist. In the old days there were riskier jobs, such as in industry or in high tech start up companies. Workers in such places could get a lot more money but have no security. Today, we have the worst of both worlds -- no security with low pay and lousy benefits. ------------------------------ From: sethb@panix.com (Seth Breidbart) Subject: Re: Spyware Maker Sues Detection Firm Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 02:21:46 UTC Organization: Society for the Promulgation of Cruelty to the Clueless In article , Jim Haynes wrote: > From slashdot today, says RetroCoder, a spyware maker, is suing > Sunbelt Software, makers of an anti-spyware program. RetroCoder > claims that their end user license agreement forbids using the program > in "anti-spyware research" and therefore detecting it violates the > agreement. > Once again, the inmates are running the asylum. Only if RetroCoder _wins_ the lawsuit. Seth ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #530 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Nov 23 16:15:24 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 1817D14F86; Wed, 23 Nov 2005 16:15:24 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #531 Message-Id: <20051123211524.1817D14F86@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 16:15:24 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.5 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Wed, 23 Nov 2005 16:15:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 531 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Zombies Boost New Sober Variant (Paul F. Roberts) Bogus Email Contains New Sober Worm (Associated Press News Wire) Spammers/Scammers/Phishermen do Not Take Holidays (Jonathan Stempel) Change of rslade@sprint.ca Email Address (Rob Slade) Re: Showdown with USA Over Internet Control (C.W.) Old Teletype Machine (Richard Mogford) VoicePulse Owns Your Number (Fred Atkinson) Cellular-News for Wednesday 23rd November 2005 (Cellular-News) Cisco Teams With ZTE (USTelecom dailyLead) I am Beginner (vigneswaranj@gmail.com) CSTA Protocol stack (Hemal.Shah@MatrixTeleSol.com) Re: Hollywood and BitTorrent Reach Agreement (Paul Vader) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Paul F. Roberts Subject: Zombies Boost New Sober Variant Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 12:42:34 -0600 Paul F. Roberts - eWEEKTue Nov 22, 1:23 PM ET Anti-virus and e-mail security companies warned Internet users Tuesday about a new variant of the Sober worm that was flooding e-mail servers around the world, with help from zombie machines infected by earlier editions of the same worm. Sober.AG is the latest in a long line of mass e-mail worms. It appeared Monday, after machines infected with older variants began spamming out the new version in a massive e-mail flood. The e-mail messages use a variety of subterfuges to trick recipients into opening the virus attachment, including messages that pretend to come from the FBI and CIA, security firms said Tuesday. E-mail security vendor MessageLabs of New York City said it blocked more than 2.7 million e-mail messages with the new Sober variant since around 7 p.m. GMT on Monday in what it called a "major offensive." Symantec Corp. rated the worm, which it dubbed "Sober.X," a "Level 3" threat on a scale of one to five. The company has received more than 1,600 samples of the worm from corporations and 300 from consumers, Symantec said in an e-mail statement. For advice on how to secure your network and applications, as well as the latest security news, visit Ziff Davis Internet's Security IT Hub. Sober worms are nothing new, but the latest variant is much more widely distributed than other recent versions because it is being sent out, simultaneously, from countless other Sober-infected machines, or "bots," said Symantec. The new worm also uses a variety of enticing messages, in both German and English, to trick users. Messages that appear to come from the FBI or CIA tell users that their IP address has been logged on "more than 30 illegal Websites," and asks them to open an attached file containing a "list of questions." Opening the file launches the Sober worm and infects the computer, anti-virus vendors said. Other e-mail campaigns containing the Sober.AG worm promise recipients a glimpse of videos of jet-setters Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie if they open the file, according to an e-mail alert from Computer Associates International Inc. The FBI issued a statement Tuesday warning the public to avoid falling for the scam. Anti-virus vendors advised customers to update their anti-virus signatures and to be wary of scam e-mail messages. Check out eWEEK.com's Security Center for the latest security news, reviews and analysis. And for insights on security coverage around the Web, take a look at eWEEK.com Security Center Editor Larry Seltzer's Weblog. Copyright 2005 Ziff Davis Inc. Content originally published in Ziff Davis Media publications is the copyrighted property of Ziff Davis Media. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Associated Press News Wire Subject: Bogus Emails Contain New Sober Worm Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 12:41:22 -0600 Austria's equivalent of the FBI said Tuesday that it is investigating a flurry of bogus e-mails sent in its name to people in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. The Federal Criminal Investigations Office said the e-mails warn recipients that they are illegally in possession of pirated software, and that the messages contain the computer-crippling "Sober" worm. The agency warned people who receive the e-mails not to open the attachments, and said it has nothing to do with their circulation. An investigation is under way, the agency said. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more news headlines from Associated Press please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ From: Jonathan Stempel Subject: Spammers/Scammers/Virus Writers Do Not Take Holidays Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 12:43:44 -0600 By Jonathan Stempel Consumers who shop and bank online believe criminals have no plans to take any holidays this season. A survey released this week by computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc. shows that while three-quarters of adult holiday shoppers who use computers plan to buy some gifts online, 67 percent fear that criminals are lurking to steal their personal identification data. Eighty-three percent say ID theft poses a bigger threat around the year-end holidays. Yet these same consumers expect companies to protect them. Eighty percent say they would switch or consider switching banks if they learned their personal data were stolen, lost or shared without their consent. About 90 percent say retailers that compromised data could lose their business. "Consumers are trying to move past the fear," Sara Gates, Sun's vice president of identity management, said in an interview. "Awareness about online identities is higher than we thought. The onus is on companies to increase confidence." The survey was conducted after a year of high-profile incidents in which data for at least 50 million Americans, including U.S. senators and Air Force officers, were stolen, lost or improperly accessed. Ten million Americans a year are ID theft victims, the Federal Trade Commission estimates. Around the holidays, criminals have millions of potential targets. The Conference Board on Tuesday said 34 percent of all consumers will buy gifts on the Internet, up from 33 percent last year, with books, clothing, shoes, toys, movie videos and DVDs, and music CDs the top stocking-stuffers. Meanwhile, an ABC News survey released on Wednesday estimates 31 percent of Americans will shop online, with higher income and better-educated consumers the most likely to do so. JupiterResearch, a unit of Jupitermedia Corp., expects U.S. holiday online sales to rise 18 percent this year to $26 billion. WHO'S TO BLAME? Criminals hunting for credit card numbers and passwords are developing more sophisticated means of thievery. Regulators are trying to fight back, ordering banks by late 2006 to tighten online access, often by requiring two forms of identification. For some, fighting back is overdue. According to the Sun survey, just 30 percent of consumers say it is OK for banks to use social security numbers as the main form of identification. One in three say they have been victims of ID theft, or know people who have. On the other hand, 44 percent say most ID theft victims are probably careless. Some are. It is well-known that many criminals successfully "phish" for victims by sending e-mails, often larded with grammar and spelling mistakes, that encourage victims to dispense their personal data on real-looking Web sites. Translation: Consumers should not give out personal data when contacted by strangers. Protections on real Web sites vary. Citibank, Bank of America, Chase, Wachovia and Wells Fargo, for example, post larger, more prominent security notices on their home pages than Wal-Mart, Home Depot, eBay and Amazon.com do. Unfortunately, sophisticated criminals have graduated to keylogging, where they monitor victims' Web use and keystrokes, and "pharming," where they silently redirect computer users to fake Web sites. This activity can be tough to detect. Many politicians have had enough. A handful of ID theft bills are pending in Congress, though opponents say some would block many states from enforcing even tougher laws. The Sun survey was conducted by Harris Interactive, which polled 2,062 adults online between November 1 and 3. The ABC News survey was conducted by TNS, which polled 1,003 adults by phone between November 16 and 20. The surveys' margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 10:51:33 -0800 From: Rob Slade Subject: Change of rslade@sprint.ca Email Address Reply-To: rMslade@shaw.ca Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User After over a decade of dialup speeds, missed messages, no filtering (in my line, that might have been a good thing), unreliable servers, and tech support that answered every single query with, "Well, you'll have to tell me your username and password for me to check that," I have finally had enough. I know it sometimes doesn't show it on the mailing list postings, but my ISP address has been the world's most recognizable Sprint.ca address, rslade@sprint.ca. It's going bye-bye. Almost immediately. It will, in fact, be used as a spam/email virus honeytrap by a security company. I have Internet service through Shaw, now. I did *NOT* manage to get rslade@shaw.ca, which ticks me off no end. I had to take rMslade@shaw.ca. (I have created a bunch of others, including cissp@shaw.ca and also p-1@shaw.ca, which partially made up for not getting rslade.) So, now I have to go through the process of telling everyone. (I also have to go through the process of getting the change made on Yahoo, and that is turning out to be not quite as easy as they let on.) ====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer) rslade@vcn.bc.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca rslade@sun.soci.niu.edu The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it - John Gilmore http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev or http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 01:07:40 -0600 From: C.W. Reply-To: temp18@thewolfden.org Organization: TWD Subject: Re: Showdown with USA Over Internet Control TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to a message: > [*TELECOM Digest Editor's Note*: Well, to me it is sort of a toss-up. > Which to you is more opressive? Tons of spam and scam and phishing > each day via a coordinator (ICANN) who essentially turns a blind eye > to the mess that the internet has become in the past decade, or some > _other_ coordinator who *might or might not* attempt to exercise some > censorship on a few web sites here and there. Might or might not ... > but would most assuredly instruct registrars and ISPs under them to > clamp down HARD on spammers, etc. I always laugh when I hear people > complain that some other administrator would (gasp!) probably censor > users and sites, all the while going ho-hum and shrugging their > shoulders while scammers, scammers and phishermen have almost shut us > down now, so fearful are many users to sign their real email addresses > or participate in any real, meaningful way. I mean, even if it is true > that ICANN is sort of backed into a corner with the contracts they > have out on the net now, even asking them to give favorable > consideration to eventually phase out their existing contracts in > favor of differnet ones just gets a blank stare in return. Some of us > would just as soon take our chances with someone else running things. > That is why I feel the arguments about how 'some other organization in > charge might be censors, etc' are so bogus. PAT] I'll ignore the ignorance behind what you're suggesting is the cause of spam, and just include a quote that is applicable to you personally: Those willing to give up a little liberty for a little security deserve neither security nor liberty. - Benjamin Franklin [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Like yourself, I will also excuse your ignorance. Your old, tired, worn out quote from Benjamin Franklin is very good, but not really applicable in this instance. It presumes (as may have been true in BF's lifetime), that America is _absolutely free and full of liberty and security_ and that other places are not, ergo, if we don't do it "the American way" we will automatically lose at least some of our security and some of our liberty, and by extension, deserve to have neither. Aside from the fact that I am not sure at all the citizens of England, Australia, Switzerland, Canada, and many other countries would agree with your claims that people making my suggestions about 'internet governance' are _ignorant_ ,it is also true, I hope you would agree, that the good old US of A. is hardly the place it was when Ben Franklin penned his thoughts. While it is also true that USA does not directly, willfully or purposely, limit our thoughts and speech (not that often, anyway, only when it suits their purpose and political objectives), a number of former netizens have bailed out over the years -- in effect been censored -- because of the abundance of crime on the net. They won't speak up, at least in any effective way by signing their names/email addresses since they do not want to be victimized by spammers, scammers, etc. There are many users who would qualify for Ben Franklin's scorn by their reliance upon _filtering techniques_; they'd rather tolerate losing a few valid pieces of email rather than risk being terrorized by a few other email 'writers', i.e. phishermen sticking their noses into places where they do not belong, crackers who rape databases, and would-be 'businesmen' who spam the hell out of them every day. Aside from the fact that email filtering is by and large quite ineffectual in the long run, let's look at the present 'internet governance' who makes such tactics necessary: You would probably blame the spammers, the scammers, etc for 'making it necessary'. They no more make it necessary than the animal welfare shelters make it necessary to neuter dogs and cats. The animal's own nature and instincts make those actions required. Ditto spammers, scammers, and phishermen. It is their nature to behave as they do, they know no better. Groups such as ICANN (to make an illustration) refuse to do a thorough abatement of the insects plaguing us; I suggest that other 'governors' might do better. If these other governors turn out to be as rotten and ineffecient as ICANN has been, then we can replace them also, until we find a governor we do like. You sir, seem to be making the arrogant assumption that the governor we presently have is the only one who won't harm us by his actions. (And puh-leeze, no more wimpering about how ICANN is 'only involved with technical standards and has no control otherwise'; that has been discredited now so often it is no longer funny at all, if it ever was.) One's actions can be by deliberate commission, as I suspect you agree would be the case with certain countries in Asia or the middle east. One's actions can also be by neglect. ICANN, by its neglect has done as much to 'censor' internet as many countries in Asia could do it they tried. So I will be happy and blissful in my ignorance and you can be happy and blissful in your arrogance. There are no guarentees of liberty and freedom either way we go, so I will go one direction while you toss about Franklin's quoto to your heart's desire. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 08:13:56 -0800 From: Richard Mogford Subject: Old Teletype Machine Hi, We have an old teletype machine that we are trying to give away. It is located in Walnut Creek, CA. Attached is a picture of it. It is a model MT-5 "Morse to Teletype Code Translator." Can you help me locate someone who might be interested in taking it? Is there some way to post an ad on your site or in your Digest? Thanks, Richard [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I was unable to get your .jpg to translate corectly for this _text_ digest. If you would be so kind to take a photo of the machine, put it on a link at your site, and write again, mentioning the link, I will be happy to mention your offer again. Or, send me a link to the .jpg and I will 'right click it' and make a web page for you here. Thanks. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Voicepulse Owns Your Number Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 14:45:16 -0500 When I moved to NC, I wanted to use Vonage (as I was using them in SC and I was pleased with the service). Unfortunately, they did not provide numbers to this area. I found Voicepulse as an alternative VOIP provider. I've had some problems with their service and they've shown a complete lack of interest in fixing them. The one that annoys me the most is still not fixed. The first couple of problems I tried to escalate and was told that there was no one to escalate to because the next level was the CEO of the company and he wouldn't talk to me. They only fixed that problem because I wouldn't lay off demanding to speak with him unless they did. So, our friend Jason put me in touch with Carolina Net. I've got their phone installed and put in a request to report my NC number to it. Voicepulse says that they own the number. Apparently they have some legalese that says they won't release it to another carrier. I went to considerable trouble getting that number listed with Verizon's directory assistance and I feel that number belongs to me. I've sent Voicepulse notice that I expect them to release my number. They say they will not. In fact, they called me just a few minutes ago and said that the porting request from Carolina Net would be declined. I'm looking for recourse and I'm not interested in hearing that there is no recourse. Can anyone here make some suggestions as to most effective avenue to pursue? Fred Atkinson ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Wednesday 23rd November 2005 Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 10:17:11 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com [[3G News]] Vodafone's 3G Service Subscribers In Japan Top 2 Million http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14930.php Vodafone Group PLC's Japanese unit said Tuesday the number of subscribers to its third-generation mobile telephone services has topped 2 million, about three years after the service's launch. ... Thai NTC Says 3G Licence Criteria To Be Ready By End-Dec http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14931.php Thailand's National Telecommunication Commission, or NTC, reiterated Tuesday that the long-awaited criteria for licenses to provide third generation telecom services will be set by the end of December. ... 3G the Trigger to Wider Consumer Smart Phone Adoption - report http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14938.php According to IDC, the Western European mobile phone market (consisting of traditional mobile phones and converged devices) maintained healthy double digit growth in 3Q05 as shipments increased by 16% year on year and 5% sequentially to reach 39.5 mil... UMTS TD-CDMA Expansion in Indonesia http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14942.php Indonesia's netZAP has awarded Alcatel a contract for commercial expansion of its trial network in Jakarta. Alcatel will design and roll-out the network with UMTS TD-CDMA equipment from IPWireless. The network is scheduled for completion before year ... [[Financial News]] Russia's VimpelCom gets $250 million syndicated loan http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14935.php Russia's second-largest mobile operator VimpelCom signed an agreement on November 18 to attract a U.S. $250 million 3-year syndicated loan, the company's press office said Tuesday. ... [[Handsets News]] US Customers Not Happy with Phone Shops http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14937.php According to a new report from The NPD Group, American consumer satisfaction with the wireless retail shopping experience is low across the board, with only 24% of recent mobile phone purchasers stating that they had an excellent or good experience. ... [[Legal News]] Russian court rejects SMARTS claim against Duma deputy http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14934.php The Moscow Arbitration Court on Tuesday rejected a lawsuit filed by Russian telecommunications operator SMARTS against Sergei Chaplinsky, a deputy in Russia's State Duma. The State Duma is Russia's lower house of parliament. ... [[Messaging News]] 'Redberry' Flourishes: Push-Email Enters Chinese Market http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14940.php Facio Software and Digital China have recently signed a long-term agreement to market Facio's "Uni PushMail" service. The first wave of Daxian CU-928 Pocket PC phones bundled with Uni PushMail software has started pouring into the market.... Report Child Sickness by SMS http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14943.php Parents in Sweden today want to communicate with their children's day care centre and school through electronic channels, while decision-makers in Swedish municipalities believe in sending information through traditional channels such as letters. The... [[Mobile Content News]] Mobile Gambling to Hit Mass-Market Next Year http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14936.php A new report from visiongain says that the mobile gambling market is poised for rapid expansion as gambling operators develop their remote operations. Companies in the m-gambling value chain are beginning to position themselves and mobile gambling wi... [[Network Contracts News]] Huawei Signs Global Supplier Deal With Vodafone http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14932.php Huawei Technologies, Tuesday said it has signed a global agreement with U.K.-based mobile telecommunications giant Vodafone Group PLC for the future supply of network infrastructure equipment. ... [[Regulatory News]] Russian official sees technical regulation for mobile networks soon http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14933.php Russia's IT and Telecommunications Ministry is currently drafting regulations on technical requirements for mobile telecommunication networks, Deputy IT and Telecommunications Minister Boris Antonyuk said at a roundtable arranged by the antimonopol... Thai Handsets Disconnected http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14941.php In Thailand, over 100,000 unregistered PrePay phones were disconnected from their networks last week after their owners had failed to register their ownership with the mobile network operators. The requirement was imposed in the three Southern provin... [[Statistics News]] Infrastructure Market Posts Gains on Strong Sales of GSM and WCDMA Equipment http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14939.php Dell'Oro Group has reported that the total mobility infrastructure market grew 6% in the third quarter of 2005 compared to the same quarter in 2004, on strong sales of GSM/GPRS/EDGE and WCDMA equipment.... Motorola Handset Most Desired for Xmas Shopping http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14944.php Smarter.com, the online shopping site has conducted a survey into what US customers list as their most desired presents for this Holiday Season. Identifying search and shopping patters from their network of online shopping and coupon websites, the Sm... [[Technology News]] Vodafone Accelerates Operators' Onslaught on Fixed Voice Revenues http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14945.php Vodafone's newly enhanced ZuHause home zone service in Germany is one of a growing number of examples of mobile operators aggressively targeting fixed voice revenue, according to a new report published by Analysys. According to the report, the majori... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 12:22:55 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Cisco Teams With ZTE USTelecom dailyLead November 23, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/yXqkatagCymvfBDevs TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Cisco teams with ZTE BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * RIM projects fewer subscriber additions * Cablevision vs. Verizon: Battle intensifies over NYC suburbs * SGO enlists Pannaway to roll out video service * Japan's mobile phone market prepares for shake-up USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * VoIP for Dummies TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Verizon sees great promise in FTTH * Media giants face competition in online video arena * How IPTV will benefit telcos REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * BitTorrent to reduce access to illegal downloads EDITOR'S NOTE * The dailyLead will not be published Thursday or Friday Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/yXqkatagCymvfBDevs ------------------------------ From: vigneswaranj@gmail.com Subject: I am Beginner Date: 22 Nov 2005 22:38:29 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hi, I am a beginner in intelligent networks , kindly anybody send me tutorials of IN, I want to know the concept of charing in wireless intelligent network (CDMA). With regards, vicky ------------------------------ From: Hemal.Shah@MatrixTeleSol.com Subject: CSTA Protocol Stack Date: 23 Nov 2005 02:10:54 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello everyone, Can anyone suggest me a vendor from whom I can get CSTA protocol stack. Thanking in advance ... hemal shah ------------------------------ From: pv+usenet@pobox.com (Paul Vader) Subject: Re: Hollywood and BitTorrent Reach Agreement Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 17:00:41 -0000 Organization: Inline Software Creations Gary Gentile writes: > In a deal aimed at reducing illegal Internet traffic in pirated films, > Hollywood reached an agreement Tuesday with the creator of the popular > file-sharing software BitTorrent. And Bram is laughing behind their back. What a bunch of nitwits. > The agreement requires 30-year-old software designer Bram Cohen to prevent > his Web site, bittorrent.com, from locating pirated versions of popular > movies, effectively frustrating people who search for illegal copies of > films. Ineffectively, they mean! What gave them the idea that bittorrent.com was the only place to get torrent files, or even a major place? * * PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something like corkscrews. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #531 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Nov 24 01:40:36 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id D2C4114DAE; Thu, 24 Nov 2005 01:40:35 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #532 Message-Id: <20051124064035.D2C4114DAE@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 01:40:35 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.8 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, MAILTO_TO_REMOVE,SEDUCTION autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 24 Nov 2005 01:43:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 532 Inside This Issue: Happy Thanksgiving Day! Personal Computers Enlisted to Fight AIDS (Reuters News Wire) Meet Jane Geek (Pallavi Gogoi) Microsoft Reports Isolated Xbox Glitches (Associated Press News Wire) Skype - H.323 or SIP (Lasse) WSJ Guide to the Blogs Insiders Read to Stay Current (Monty Solomon) GAIT vrs. GSM and Other Cell Phones (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: Voicepulse Owns Your Number (Ken Abrams) Re: Voicepulse Owns Your Number (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Showdown with USA Over Internet Control (nospam4me@mytrashmail.com) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Personal Computers Enlisted in AIDS Research Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 22:16:57 -0600 A new project in the fight against AIDS will tap into the unused power of individual and business computers to help research and identify drugs used to combat the HIV virus. An Internet-based initiative, called FightAIDSatHome, aims to enlist about 100,000 computer users to donate the use of their machines when they would otherwise be idle. Participants' machines can request data from a central server, process it and send back the results. The organizers hope to develop new chemical strategies to treat HIV-infected individuals, according to the San-Diego based Scripps Research Institute, which is behind the effort. By being able to tap into a vast reservoir of computer processing power, researchers will be able to approach problems more aggressively and quickly, Scripps said. It is the second research project using the network of computers, called the World Community grid, which is funded by IBM. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This seems to be a very useful project; I hope some readers will decide to help with it. There was a project going on (maybe still is?) where computers were enlisted during off-hours to listen to random radio static from outer space and attempt to find some intelligence in it all. Is that project still going on? This latest effort, to find some cure for AIDS seems to be worthwhile also. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Pallavi Gogoi Subject: Meet Jane Geek Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 22:18:19 -0600 By Pallavi Gogoi Managers from Dell Inc.'s marketing and public relations staff flew from their Round Rock (Tex.) headquarters to New York earlier this year to meet with editors and sales reps at a dozen publications. Their mission wasn't too surprising: Get editors to print more about their computers, televisions, and pocketPCs. It was the choice of magazines that was unusual, including Oprah Winfrey's O at Home, Ladies' Home Journal, and CosmoGIRL -- not exactly publications on the company's regular radar screen, despite the obviously large number of women tapping keyboards in offices and cafes. In barely six months, though, Dell's laser printer, plasma TV, and notebook computer were featured as must-haves in gift guides in shelter magazines Real Simple and O at Home. And in August, CosmoGIRL gave Dell's 700m, 4-lb. notebook a "kiss of approval." Dell isn't the only consumer electronics giant to have slept through the alarm when it comes to realizing that women are as interested as men in personal computing and home entertainment. RadioShack and Best Buy recently begun to make big changes to their marketing plans, store designs, and products with women in mind. In an effort to avoid commodity status in crowded categories like TVs and PCs, they have dug deeper into customer's heads. Marketing executives noticed that women are much more involved in buying electronic gadgets but are completely underserved. Indeed this year, for the first time, women are expected to outspend men in the $122 billion market, according to the Consumer Electronics Assn. It didn't take long, once it tuned in, for Dell to register that women are its fastest-growing customer group and key to its growth strategy, especially as it branches out to TVs and MP3 players. Its own research in 2004 showed women made up half of its buyers and were as likely as men to prefer buying PCs online. So besides the women's magazines, Dell is running ads on women-centric cable-TV channels such as Oxygen and Lifetime Television. It also placed a Dell TV and laptop on the set of Martha Stewart's new NBC daytime show. Before that, says Bobbi Dangerfield, director of customer experience, "you wouldn't have seen any Dell ads on these women's channels." Blame the male geek culture at digital hardware marketers for ignoring women in the past. As recently as early 2003, Samsung Electronics tested its phones, TVs, and home theaters with all-male focus groups. Today, the company makes sure half its reviewers are women. The payoffs: Samsung designed its DuoCam -- the first two-lens digital camera and camcorder -- after women reported they liked to record "life events" both in photographs and video but didn't like to lug around two gadgets. The camera recently became lighter by 40%, again the result of female feedback. Chief Purchasing Officer Samsung has bested its rivals in design awards the past two years, an accomplishment that Peter Weedfald, senior vice-president for sales and marketing at Samsung Electronics America Inc., attributes to listening to women. "Have you ever heard a man say: 'I wish they would change the design and color of this product and make it easier to use?"' Demographics have a role to play in this shift. Women now head 33 million households, up from 21 million in 1980. Their buying power has grown, too. In the past three decades, men's median income has barely budged, up just 0.6%, while women's has soared 63% (though women still earn less than their male counterparts -- 78 cents for every dollar a man gets). And women need plenty of computing power given they are starting businesses at twice the rate of men, according to the Center for Women's Business Research. The digital home has also come to confer on women the role of chief purchasing officer of computing and entertainment gear. They're judging the user-friendliness of computers and wireless networks just as they would stoves and refrigerators. "Last week my 11-year-old came in and said she needed a JumpDrive to transfer digital files back and forth from school, and who buys it? My wife," says Paul Rand, chief development and innovation officer at communications firm Ketchum (NYSE:OMC - News), which led a standing-room-only marketing-to-women forum at the Consumer Electronics Show last February. Best Buy has caught on to the women's digital mind-set, too, launching its "Jill Initiative" to focus on what women want. "Jill," according to the retailer, is a time-pressured suburban mom who prefers shopping at Target Corp. because of its focus on style, over, say, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. In the past year, Best Buy relaunched 60 stores, changing their look with pastel colors rather than the chain's traditional dark-blue and yellow scheme to create a more soothing experience. Personal shopping advisers whisk mostly female shoppers around the stores, steering clear of tech jargon. "The language of bits and bytes is a thing of the past," says Ketchum's Rand. A Best Buy salesperson doesn't talk megapixels but instead asks if a digital camera is primarily for still photos or soccer games and if buyers plan to print their own photos. Remote Fix-It Women are far less likely than men to feign understanding of new technology, and thus they expect a high level of customer service. So Best Buy launched the Geek Squad service, whose men and women in white shirts and ties go so far as to offer home visits in a white-and-orange Volkswagen Beetle to fix, upgrade, and install hardware and software. Dell, meanwhile, last week rolled out Dell On Call, which allows its help desk to take over a computer remotely and fix it for customers who sign on. Perhaps consumer electronics marketers wouldn't have taken so long to appreciate women if they had a few more in their ranks. Dell, for one, laments that women are only a third of its management ranks. Last March it held a diversity summit with 30 other companies to form a strategy to attract more women as employees, not just customers. "It's important that our employees reflect our customer base," says Stephanie Mims, senior manager of global diversity at Dell. Some may view these efforts as pandering, the way auto makers in the 1950s tried pitching cars with matching handbags. But some see clear differences between the genders. RadioShack Chief Marketing Officer Don Carroll says women behave differently from their first step in the store, based on studying his in-store-motion cameras. "Men look left and right, identify their product, and head towards it, but women really shop the store before reaching their goal," says Carroll. He's changing lighting at the company's 5,000 outlets and making the stores less cluttered, a leading complaint among women and a move that will no doubt make it easier for men to shop as well. It's Mother, it seems, who knows best in the gadget aisle. Copyright 2005 BusinessWeek Online. All rights reserved. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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, Business Week Online. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Asociated Press News Wire Subject: Microsoft Reports Isolated Xbox Glitches Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 22:19:17 -0600 Microsoft Corp. said Wednesday it had received isolated reports of technical problems with its popular new Xbox 360 videogame system. Some owners complained that their systems were crashing during game play, sometimes with error messages popping up. On http://www.xbox-scene.com, a site dedicated to Xbox gaming, a member called jsgongwon reported that he could not finish the first lap of "Project Gotham Racing 3." "It's a few reports of consoles here and there not working properly," said Molly O'Donnell, a spokeswoman for Microsoft's Xbox division. "It's what you would expect with a consumer electronics instrument of this complexity .... par for the course." Gaming fanatics lined up for hours Monday to be among the first to purchase the next-generation system, which was in short supply despite its starting price tag of $299.99. Microsoft hopes to sell 2.5 million to 3 million of the new systems in the first 90 days. O'Donnell urged anyone with Xbox problems to call 1-800-4myXbox or go to http://www.xbox.com. If the problems can't be resolved immediately, Microsoft said it will pay to ship the console overnight to a repair center, overnight it back once it's fixed, or ship a replacement. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more Associated Press news reports, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ Reply-To: Lasse From: Lasse Subject: Skype - H.323 or SIP Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 00:47:54 +0100 Organization: TDC Totalloesninger Hi all you gurus, Does anyone know if Skype is based on the H.323 protocol family -- or the more modern SIP protocol?. Lars Kalsen PS: You might also review: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype Vi leverer viden! Lars Kalsen IT-consultant, Cand. scient. & HD IT-gruppen Brorsonsvej 19 9490 Pandrup Lars.Kalsen@itgruppen.dk www.itgruppen.dk tel: fax: mobile: +45 96 73 01 02 +45 96 73 00 31 +45 40 15 66 02 Add me to your address book ... Want a signature like this? Greetings from Denmark! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 17:22:49 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: WSJ Guide to the Blogs Insiders Read to Stay Current What the In-Crowd Knows From Hollywood to Wall Street, Our Guide to the Blogs Insiders Read to Stay Current November 16, 2005; Page D1 (See Corrections & Amplifications item below.) The music industry has one, Wall Street bankers have several and even CPAs have come around. No self-respecting industry these days is without a must-read blog. Although they vary wildly on fine points like accuracy, they are now so widely read that it's assumed anybody in the business is up to speed on the latest postings. For outsiders, they are also a window into the inner workings, preoccupations and gossip of fields ranging from real estate to mergers and acquisitions. http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB113210326581498377-hYdxWrJpCM7l9BnBsozDM5Qf__U_20061123,00.html ------------------------------ Subject: GAIT vrs. GSM and Other Cell Phones Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 22:43:52 EST From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Some of you may recall last week here I made some inquiries about my original cell phone (Nokia 5165) and my new cell phone (Nokia 6010). My complaint was that (a) none of my accessories from the 5165 would fit on the 6010, and (b) when using the 5165 I generally got a stronger signal. I mentioned my complaints here, and John Levine suggested trying to purchase a Nokia 6340-i on E-Bay or wherever. I did get one on E-Bay for the grand total of $15.00 (fifteen dollars), in very good condition I might add. Not knowing that much about these things my next inquiry was about the SIM card. If I inserted the SIM card which came with the 6010 into the newer 6340-i would I need to report this to Cingular, or just use it as is? Everyone said it will work fine, no hassles, Cingular does not care what you use, etc. So when the E-Bay purchase showed up a couple days ago, first thing I tried were my various accessories, car kit, headphone, Cell Socket, etc. Everything fit togehter okay, and it all worked fine _with the exception of Cell Socket (6340-i fit in it okay but something was different about the pin outs so it would _not_ charge the 6340 nor allow the other main function of cell socket (use of regular phones around house in place of cellular). But not so bad, two out of three accessories worked fine. Then I tried making an actual _phone call_ on the 6340. By coincidence I guess I was within range of a GSM tower, the phone call worked fine, although the signal strength was much less than usual. Later in the day I went outside and it worked fine on a call there also, but again, very poor signal strength. Turned off the phone, went to bed, went outside today over in the direction of Walmart, the other side of town. Tried to make a call to get the cab driver to come pick me up to go back home. Tried several times; kept getting the little jingle and the message, "We do not recognize your cellular number, if this is an error or you are a new customer, please call us, etc. Got back home, called Cingular and asked them what was up. YES, they said, put the SIM card in your phone and it should work fine, but you should have called us to let us know and change your ESN, etc on our records, that is, if you want a _wider_ coverage area. Why? Well because, she said, what you have is a GAIT phone (which I think means [G]SM, {A]mps [I]teroperability [T]eam. For those phones, and considering the area you are in (mostly rural), you are still quite frequently going to get the 'older style' service. Instead of having a phone good for only one class of service or the other, the phone you bought is good for all kinds of service. She then launched into a discussion (and make a reference to a web site to look at yet!) to read about these GAIT phones. She discussed how this type of phone will 'seamlessly' go between 800-1900 and work 'wherever you are at'. I asked her, is this phone, the Nokia 6340-i that I got on E-Bay in essence then a 'world phone'? Well, not quite, she said, but it does insure that _anywhere_ you go in North America you will always get someone's tower, either Cingular or whoever. And she said it would work in many other countries as well, 'just not everywhere'. The map she referred me to on the net was for North America and it showed coverage _everywhere_ except a couple of tiny 'no coverage' areas in Idaho and British Columbia. She said the GAIT style of phone was intended to be a 'transitional' thing between GSM and AMPS. I said I must have scored pretty well, gettng an unlocked one for fifteen dollars. She agreed that was true. I mentioned that my old Nokia 5165 always got great signal strength, why not this new GAIT phone. She said to give her my ESN as well as my IME number and the phone's serial number. I did so, and presto, about a minute later my phone chirped at me and said in a screen message to 'recycle power'. I did so, and the signal strength shot up quite high and has been there since. She did mention that with 'regular' GSM I got wireless internet at no additional charge on minutes because they measured it by the kilobytes used rather than in minutes, but with GAIT it would cost me $3.99 per month _and_ the minutes of usage as well, but 'considering you have 5000 minutes of overnight usage, you could stay on internet all night long for the $3.99 per month.' I guess my question would be, are you familiar with this GAIT thing as a 'transitional' thing between GSM and other types of cell service and do you have any experience with it? PAT ------------------------------ From: Ken Abrams Subject: Re: Voicepulse Owns Your Number Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 00:06:21 GMT Fred Atkinson wrote > So, our friend Jason put me in touch with Carolina Net. I've got > their phone installed and put in a request to report my NC number to > it. > Voicepulse says that they own the number. Apparently they have some > legalese that says they won't release it to another carrier. I went > to considerable trouble getting that number listed with Verizon's > directory assistance and I feel that number belongs to me. Just because you FEEL that way doesn't make it true! VOIP is, for the most part, not defined by law or regulation. It is not "real" phone service and it is not "real" internet service. It is an implementation of a technology that was never meant to be used for Public Switched Telephone service. It has been a virtual gold mine for those selling the (so called) service and a nightmare for anyone who expects "real" phone service. You have discovered yet another "glitch" with VOIP in that the regulations covering number portability for land-line and cellular phone companies don't (necessarily) apply to VOIP providers ... and they want to keep it that way because it would cost them multi-millions of dollars to participate, both in technology costs and administrative costs. Caveat Emptor. IMHO, you are kicking a dead horse. Rather than waste your time and energy fighting a loosing battle with Voicepluse, you need to "take a chill pill", do a realistic assessment of your needs and plan for something different. Take your lumps and move on. You should have asked about number portability BEFORE making all those other arrangements ... not AFTER. ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Voicepulse Owns Your Number Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 04:10:40 GMT Fred Atkinson wrote: > So, our friend Jason put me in touch with Carolina Net. I've got > their phone installed and put in a request to report my NC number to > it. > Voicepulse says that they own the number. Apparently they have some > legalese that says they won't release it to another carrier. I went > to considerable trouble getting that number listed with Verizon's > directory assistance and I feel that number belongs to me. > I've sent Voicepulse notice that I expect them to release my number. > They say they will not. In fact, they called me just a few minutes > ago and said that the porting request from Carolina Net would be > declined. > I'm looking for recourse and I'm not interested in hearing that there > is no recourse. Can anyone here make some suggestions as to most > effective avenue to pursue? Fred, you can file a complaint with the FCC electronically (online), by mail, by email, or by fax: http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/complaints.html . It can't hurt and it might just help. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD (USA) (Replace "example.invalid" with "com" in my address.) ------------------------------ From: nospam4me@mytrashmail.com Subject: Re: Showdown with USA Over Internet Control Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 00:42:20 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC So what would you have ICANN do about spam and other forms of anti-social net behavior? From what I see, about all ICANN has authority over is the DNS Roots and the top level domains. Herb Oxley From: address IS Valid. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: ICANN _does_ deal with the DNS Roots and the top level domains, but part of that dealing includes the fact that _all registrars_ must go through ICANN and are forced to require of all web sites that they sign a contract turning final control of their web sites over to ICANN. You, as a web site owner must agree that ICANN's word is final and that disputes are to be settled by an arbitrator ICANN chooses. If ICANN decides you are a cybersquatter (which is to say that you have taken a name for your web site which _they_ (ICANN, in their sole discretion) thinks would be better off assigned to someone else, they can -- and have -- taken it away and given it to the recipient of _their_ choice. Yes, you can demand arbitration and go to some expense to defend your right to the web site name, but it is a vain effort on your part. Either you as a web site owner, or the registrar, or some other person is required to pay a sum of money to ICANN for their 'administrative fees' for the priviledge of being allowed to have a web site (even though they at ICANN can take it back from you as they wish.) Nota Bene: their 'administrative fees' typically include a trans-global 'working vacation' in some esoteric spot two or three times per year. Earlier this year, for example, they held a conference in some remote area of Argentina. All of their staff packs up and goes to wherever this spot is. It wouldn't occur to them to have their 'working vacation' in the USA. Also, they are a bit (to say the least!) evasive about their plans for the net over the years past. In 1994 for example, they had a meeting at which Vint Cerf presided, in which he tslked with much pride about how the net would become a commercial endeavor. It was like a call-in conference; I called in as many netizens did, was pretty much ignored in the question/answer session, but finally I was able to get a word in edgewise, after Mr. Cerf had talked for 30-45 minutes about his visions for the 'new net' (the one that Vice-President Al Gore spoke so lovingly of [thus the fallacy several years ago that Al Gore had 'invented the internet']) and I asked Mr. Cerf "what about us little guys, who run not-for-profit web sites, mailing lists, etc? What is _our place_ on this new commercial internet you have planned?" Mr. Cerf thought about it for a minute or so, and his reply was "that is a good question, I do not know where or how you guys will fit into the picture." (click, and cut me off the phone.) I still remember, to this day, how evasive he was in answering me, given the elaborate answers he had for all the corporate interests who were present at that meeting, and the politicians, etc. I guess he still hasn't figured out where we fit in, or if we do at all. Since about 1995, after he had been given about a year or so to think on "where you guys will fit in" I wrote him off as a simple traitor to the rest of the net. _Yes_ he has done a lot in the history of the net. _Yes_ he is a very intelligent person, but he is still a traitor where most of the rest of us are concerned. Also, in the late 1990's, there was a period of a few years where ICANN was perpetually broke, out of cash money. Mr. Cerf somehow or another convinced his employer at that time -- MCI, itself a bunch of bums with its 'creative accounting' scandal a couple years ago, to 'loan' a substantial amount of money -- two or three million dollars -- to ICANN for one of their 'working vacations'. I do not think ICANN ever did pay it back, which I guess is neither here nor there, except that MCI had their eyes set on taking over the commercial aspects of the net for themselves at one time in those days, and they hired Vint Cerf to be their mouthpiece for that endeavor, giving him some sort of flaky title or another: vice-president of some esoteric function. He was there for several years, tapping MCI for money to give ICANN for their international vacations, etc, then shortly before MCI went belly up after that accounting scandal he left there and is now at Google in a highly placed position, more than likely to sodomize them from time to time on ICANN's behalf. So what do Google and the late MCI both have in common? Well they both lust after commercial control of the net and they both have (or had) Vint Cerf in their employ on account of his reputation, his intelligence, his history from the early years. But I digress: what would _I_ have them do? That was your question? Well, if ICANN is going to remain at least for the time being as the de-facto governor of the net (and again guys, puh-leeze do not start that whimpering about ICANN's role, no one is fooled any longer) then I would suggest that as soon as it is administratively convenient to do so, they begin amending their contracts which all of us have to sign firmly denouncing and repudiating spam/scam/phishing and all that stuff. Their contracts which we all have to sign now giving ICANN the ultimate authority and say-so or risk being taken to arbitration and sent afterward to burn in hell-fire can be amended or rewritten to deal with the problem of insect abatement. Let them push it off on the registrars if they wish; let the registrars in turn push it off on the large ISPs; just do it. Let's hear our governor -- if it wishes to remain our governor -- firmly renounce and repudiate all that stuff. If they try it and it fails, well that's another matter. But now we hear nothing from them except they are going on another vacation and need more money and that their monthly meeting minutes will be late getting up on their web site. Why do I feel Vint Cerf and Esther Dyson would never go along with this proposal? PAT ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 V24 #532 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Nov 24 21:10:41 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 9563F14E02; Thu, 24 Nov 2005 21:10:40 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #533 Message-Id: <20051125021040.9563F14E02@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 21:10:40 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.3 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 24 Nov 2005 21:13:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 533 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson EU Committee Approves Telecom Data Storagte Rules (Huw Jones) Partnerships in Online Travel Searches Are Key to Survival (Kyle Peterson) Many Went Online For Hurricane News (Anick Jesdanun) Cellular-News for Thursday 24th November 2005 (Cellular-News) Re: Lingo Phone Can't Port Number (Rik) Re: Voicepulse Owns Your Number (Steve Sobol) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Huw Jones Subject: EU Committee Approves Telecom Data Storage Rules Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 19:29:29 -0600 By Huw Jones A European Union parliament committee voted on Thursday to keep details of all EU-wide telephone calls and Internet use for six months to a year to help combat terrorism and serious crime. Telecoms firms typically store data for three months for billing customers, but some member states such as Britain want data to be kept for much longer. The European Parliament's civil liberties committee voted by 33 to eight in favor of the new rules, with five abstentions. The full Parliament will vote on the measures in December, and member state approval will also be needed before the rules become law. Alexander Alvaro, the German liberal legislator in charge of the bill in parliament, said after the vote that a more balanced text had emerged, compared with what the European Commission proposed and with what some member states want. "Everything that makes this directive proportionate and balanced is now in, especially concerning the limitation of data types, limitation on storage period, safeguards on access and sanctions," Alvaro told Reuters after the vote. "It had a two-thirds majority in committee, and I think this is a quite realistic estimation for plenary too," Alvaro added. "Now Council (member states) will have to move." FLASHPOINTS Britain, the current EU president, wants rules on retaining telephone and Internet usage details agreed between member states and the parliament by the end of the year. Britain sees the rules as an important way to tackle terrorism and other serious crime, made more urgent after the deadly bomb attacks on Madrid last year and on London in July. In Thursday's vote, the committee also voted that member states should reimburse telecoms firms for the additional costs of complying with the new rules. The lawmakers also voted in favor of inserting a new provision in the bill to ensure "effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties" for infringements of the rules. The committee also agreed that only a judge could authorize access to telephone and Internet traffic, a condition absent in the Commission proposal. "The Council has about 10 key flashpoints. They have problems with the costs, the limitations on types of data, and they have problems with access to data and the sanctions," Alvaro said. Details on a fixed-line call would include name and address of caller, number dialed, name and address of the receiver, the date and the start and completion times of the call. Details of a mobile phone call would include the subscriber's identity number or SIM card and the location at the start of the call. Internet data would include the IP address of the computer, telephone number of connection to Internet, name and address of the subscriber and the date and time of logging in and off. The committee voted to make it optional to record information about uncompleted calls, while the Council would like that to be mandatory. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Kyle Peterson Subject: Partnerships are Key to Online Travel Search Survival Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 19:31:06 -0600 By Kyle Peterson The online travel search market is fast filling up with Web sites offering the cheapest bookings, and experts warn that the smaller entrants without partnerships with major service providers are sure to fail. Unlike full-service online travel agencies such as Expedia Inc. that sell tickets and make reservations, travel search engines sniff out bookings and direct users to Web sites where they can make purchases. Some travelers use search engines to avoid booking fees that travel agencies charge. The newest breed of these businesses are the so-called meta-search sites that present users with lists of bookings for comparisons. The trouble is that too many sites are doing the same thing and too few travelers care, according to Henry Harteveldt at Forrester Research. "There is a glut. They're not working," Harteveldt said. "Our research indicates these meta-search sites just aren't gaining any traction." Data from Forrester shows that only 6.5 percent of travelers who planned trips online used travel search engines to plan a trip, compared with 44 percent who used a travel agency. About 27 percent of travelers researched trips using general search engines such as Google and Yahoo!. And 25 percent looked at sites hosted by travel service suppliers such as airlines and hotels. "The truth is that meta-search really doesn't matter," Harteveldt said. An Internet search for "travel search engines" yields dozens of results, including not only well-known brands like Expedia and Orbitz, which is owned by Cendant Corp., but also a slew of names like AllCheapFares, Kwikfly and Travel Now. Experts say the travel search market is reaching a point where competitive pressures threaten to smother start-ups before they can get a toe hold. "I think it's going to be a lot tougher road for some of the new companies to try their hand at travel search," said Phil Carpenter, vice president of corporate marketing at search engine SideStep. "I think it's getting really challenging for new players to enter the space." Carpenter said the key to success is in partnerships with big-name travel suppliers and other travel service companies. Only then will users be confident that they are getting access to the best deals possible, he said. SideStep, a leader in travel search, just this month announced deals with Hilton International, Amazon.com and American Airlines. SideStep searches more than 100 Web sites for travel bargains. But the company is not alone in that approach and faces competition from search engines like Kayak.com and Yahoo! FareChase. Other competitors include general search engines. Meanwhile, online travel agencies such as Expedia and Priceline.com, which made their reputations locating cheap fares, are adapting to the new competitive environment by personalizing research and bookings instead of relying solely on finding low prices. The agencies hope to expand their businesses by addressing all travel needs and making recommendations. "The online travel agencies haven't really felt the pinch," said Lorraine Sileo, an analyst at PhocusWright, a travel research company. She said the newest crop of travel search sites are a bigger threat to each other than to established travel agencies. Still, the appeal of ad revenue, lucrative partnerships or a buyout remain key motivators for people looking to jump on the travel search gravy train. What's more, e-commerce trends suggest their optimism is not misplaced. Data from Forrester Research showed that in 2005, travel has been the largest sales category in online commerce with $62.8 billion of the total sales of $172.4 billion. The travel component on Web commerce is expected to account for $119.1 billion of a total $328.6 billion by 2010, Forrester said. SideStep's Carpenter said there is still money to be made in the online travel industry as long as a company has an innovative approach and the funds to carry out a vision. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Anick Jesdanun Subject: Many Went Online For Hurricane News Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 19:32:45 -0600 By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer More than half of U.S. Internet users went online for news and information about Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the vast majority having visited the Web sites of traditional news organizations such as CNN and MSNBC, a study finds. Of the Americans who went online for news, 14 percent went to an international news source such as the BBC's Web site. "The fact that you had this U.S. domestic crisis and people turning to international news sources is interesting," said John Horrigan, associate director for research at the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which released the survey findings Thursday. "There were certainly commentators worldwide shocked that this sort of thing was going on in America, and I would imagine some people decided to see firsthand what commentators and news sites overseas were saying," he said. Though nearly three-quarters of the online consumers of hurricane news went to the Web site of a major U.S. news organization, 54 percent did turn to an alternative source, including international outlets, Web journals or nonprofit relief organizations. Some people went to multiple sources, so the totals exceed 100 percent. According to Pew, 9 percent of Internet users say they made donations online for hurricane relief and 5 percent say they used the Internet to organize their own relief efforts. Twenty-four percent sent e-mails or instant messages on the storm, and 9 percent went online to check on the safety of a loved one. Four percent said they posted comments, links or pictures to a bulletin board, chat room or Web journal. The random, telephone-based survey of 1,577 Internet users was conducted in September. The margin of sampling effort is plus or minus 3 percentage points. Pew found little difference in news consumption by dial-up and high-speed broadband users, even though online tasks are typically done in greater numbers by the broadband set. "This modest anomaly is probably attributable to the strong desire for lots of information in the face of such a large natural disaster," the report says. "Established media organizations covered Katrina and Rita heavily and it is no surprise a large majority of Internet users turned to them online." On the Net: http://pewinternet.org Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Thursday 24th November 2005 Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 07:22:05 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com [[3G News]] Russian government to award 3G license through tender http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14952.php The Russian government plans to award licenses for third generation (3G) mobile services through tenders, Kommersant business daily reported Wednesday, citing draft rules for holding auctions and tenders of frequencies for mobile services. ... [[Financial News]] Telephone & Data, US Cellular To Delay 3Q Results Release http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14946.php Telephone & Data Systems Inc. and U.S. Cellular Corp. will further delay reporting third-quarter results so they can complete previously disclosed restatements. ... Samsung Elec To Provide Foundry Service To US Qualcomm http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14947.php Qualcomm Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. have agreed to form a partnership whereby the South Korean company will provide made-to-order chips to the U.S. wireless chipset maker, the companies said in a joint press release Wednesday. ... Research In Motion Cuts 3Q, 4Q Subscriber Additions View http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14951.php Research In Motion Ltd. lowered its outlook for third and fourth quarter subscriber additions but backed its revenue guidance for the two quarters. ... Russian mobile operator MTS sees revenue up 25% on year in 2005 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14955.php Russia's largest mobile operator Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) expects its revenue to increase 25% on the year to U.S. $4.86 billion this year, MTS President Vasily Sidorov told reporters Wednesday. ... Russia's MTS to replace Sistema in bidding for Turkey's Telsim http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14957.php Russia's largest mobile operator Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) will take the place of AFK Sistema and bid for Turkey's second-largest mobile operator Telsim, MTS' President Vasily Sidorov told reporters Wednesday. ... [[Handsets News]] Russia's Svyaznoi handset retailer shuts bulk department http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14953.php Russian mobile handset and services retailer Svyaznoi has closed down its wholesale department, the company's Press Secretary Yelena Nogotkova said, Biznes daily reported Wednesday. ... [[Interviews News]] Informa: 2006 A "Watershed" Year For Mobile Phone Industry http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14949.php Research company Informa Telecoms & Media, part of Informa PLC, Wednesday said 2006 will be a "watershed" year as mobile phone operators change their strategies in response to a number of major threats. These include high subscriber acquisition costs... [[Legal News]] Russian court unfreezes 100% of SMARTS' shares http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14956.php Russia's regional court in St. Petersburg ruled to unfreeze 100% of SMARTS' shares, SMARTS' public relations department said Wednesday. ... [[Mobile Content News]] ITV Signs Content Deal With 3 UK For Mobile Portal http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14950.php ITV PLC, the U.K.'s largest commercial broadcaster, Wednesday said it has signed a deal with 3 UK, a mobile telecommunications subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., to offer its most popular shows to mobile phone users via an online portal. ... [[Network Contracts News]] Nokia Gets GSM Network Expansion Order In Thailand http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14948.php Finland's Nokia Oyj said Wednesday it has signed a deal with Advanced Info Service Plc, one of Thailand's leading mobile phone service operators. ... Ericsson Signs 2 Contracts With Digicel In Caribbean http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14954.php Sweden's Telefon AB LM Ericsson Wednesday said it has received two new GSM/EDGE contracts from Digicel Group, a telecommunications company in the Caribbean. ... ------------------------------ From: Rik Subject: Re: Lingo Phone Can't Port Number Date: 24 Nov 2005 05:45:08 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Follow up: Lingo Customner Service was very professional and gave me a Cancellation Number to call. I did and that person was also very professional. I am shipping the box back to them and they say on receipt of the box, they will issue a refund. Both people I spoke to were aware that Lingo would email me a link to a survey and seemed to be trying to insure I wopuld give them a good review, which I did. It seems they do have an effort to insure their CSR's are professional. I will keep a check on them to see if they get a Point of Presence in my exchange. Rik Rasmussen ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Voicepulse Owns Your Number Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 10:12:47 -0800 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Michael D. Sullivan wrote: > Fred, you can file a complaint with the FCC Which will be ignored, since the FCC doesn't regulate VoIP. Steve Sobol, Professional Geek 888-480-4638 PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Company website: http://JustThe.net/ Personal blog, resume, portfolio: http://SteveSobol.com/ E: sjsobol@JustThe.net Snail: 22674 Motnocab Road, Apple Valley, CA 92307 ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #533 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 25 19:44:48 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 5DE3B14E75; Fri, 25 Nov 2005 19:44:47 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #534 Message-Id: <20051126004447.5DE3B14E75@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 19:44:47 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.1 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR,NO_COST autolearn=unavailable version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 25 Nov 2005 19:45:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 534 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson US Moves Forward on Data Privacy (Monty Solomon) Lycos Loses Dutch ID Disclosure Case (Monty Solomon) Amazon Triumphs in 1-Click Patent Defense (Monty Solomon) EFFector 18.39: Are You Infected with Sony-BMG's Rootkit? (Monty Solomon) EFFector 18.40: Announcement Monday on EFF's Plans re: Sony BMG (M Solomon) Telecom Update #507, November 25, 2005 (Angus TeleManagement Group) Our New Classified Advertisements Area (TELECOM Digest Editor) Auto Call Forward (asdf) Cellular-News for Friday 25th November 2005 (Cellular-News) Bidfraud Website "Grand Opening" - Read For Capabilities (Stop Fraud) Re: Showdown with USA Over Internet Control (jmeissen@aracnet.com) Re: Showdown with USA Over Internet Control (asok101@hotmail.com) Re: Voicepulse Owns Your Number (DevilsPGD) Re: Voicepulse Owns Your Number (harold@hallikainen.com) Re: GAIT vrs. GSM and Other Cell Phones (John Levine) Re: Los Angeles Numbering, 1940s (Chris Williams) Re: Old Teletype Machine (Dan Lanciani) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 10:19:19 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: US Moves Forward on Data Privacy Draft law heads for full Senate hearing By OUT-LAW.COM Published Friday 25th November 2005 14:43 GMT A draft US law to increase the security and privacy of personal information held by companies took a step forward last week, when it was approved by the influential Senate Judiciary Committee. The bill includes a duty to disclose security breaches. The draft Personal Data Privacy and Security Act of 2005 will now move forward to a full Senate hearing. The bill, sponsored by Senators Arlen Specter and Patrick Leahy, will ensure that companies with databases containing personal information on more than 10,000 US citizens establish and implement data privacy and security programs and vet third-party contractors hired to process data. Under the bill, data brokers will generally be required to let individuals know what information is held about them and, where appropriate, allow individuals to correct demonstrated inaccuracies. They will also be obliged to notify law enforcement agencies, consumers and credit reporting agencies when digitised sensitive personal data has been compromised. http://www.theregister.com/2005/11/25/us_data_privacy/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 10:11:24 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Lycos loses Dutch ID disclosure case Bad day for whistleblowers too? By Jan Libbenga After almost three years of long-lasting legal procedures, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled today that Dutch ISP Lycos must reveal the name of an anonymous website owner who ridiculed a part-time stamp trader. However, there is little Lycos can disclose other than a fake address that the website owner once provided. Dutch citizen Bernard Pessers traded postage stamps through eBay and was accused of fraud by an anonymous Lycos member on his home page. Pessers demanded the closure of the site and told Lycos that he also wanted to know the identity of its member. When Lycos refused, Pessers took the ISP to court. After the initial verdict, Lycos handed over the data, but when the address turned out to be wrong, Pessers started another procedure to force Lycos to find the correct information. That demand was turned down in court, but this was in turn overruled by the Dutch Appeals Court. Lycos then took the case to the Dutch Supreme Court. The so-called Lycos-Pessers defence, which has dragged on for years, has attracted attention from legal experts worldwide. The Supreme Court today for the most part followed the opinion of the Dutch Advocate General, who earlier this year argued that ISPs in some cases can indeed be sued over the identity of their members to pursue a civil action against someone who's anonymous. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/25/lycos_lose_iddisclosure/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 10:22:53 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Amazon Triumphs in 1-Click Patent Defense IPXL appeal rejected By OUT-LAW.COM Published Friday 25th November 2005 14:51 GMT Amazon.com has successfully defended a claim that its famous 1-Click payment feature infringed another company's patent for an electronic fund transfer or transaction system. IPXL Holdings had been seeking around $50 million in damages. http://www.theregister.com/2005/11/25/amazon_patent_triumph/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 16:06:20 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 18.39: Are You Infected with Sony-BMG's Rootkit? EFFector Vol. 18, No. 39 November 11, 2005 editor@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 355th Issue of EFFector: * Are You Infected with Sony-BMG's Rootkit? * Sony-BMG Rootkit: EFF Collecting Stories, Considering Litigation * News Website Can Keep Domain Name After Trademark Fight * PATRIOT Alert: A Battle Won, but Urgent Action Still Needed * Passing the Buck: or, the Printer as a Fine French Wine * Anti-Cell Phone Tracking Judicial Revolution Spreads to NYC * Non-Profit Coalition Wins Challenge to Federal Watch-List Policy * miniLinks (9): DRM This, Sony! * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/18/39.php ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 16:06:26 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 18.40: Announcement Monday on EFF's Plans re: Sony BMG EFFector Vol. 18, No. 40 November 18, 2005 editor@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 356th Issue of EFFector: * Announcement Monday on EFF's Plans re: Sony BMG * Revolt in Congress Against PATRIOT "Compromise" * Diebold Attempts to Evade Election Transparency Laws * Guide for Student Bloggers Helps Kids Speak Out * Join Our Bloggers' Campaign - Help EFF Help You * Help Us Bust the Clear Channel Patent * CopyNight Reminder - Tuesday, November 22 * miniLinks (10): TV Networks say Digital Recorders Raise Viewership * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/18/40.php ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 11:06:15 -0800 Subject: Telecom Update #507, November 25, 2005 From: Angus TeleManagement Group Reply-To: Angus TeleManagement Group ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 507: November 25, 2005 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: ** AVAYA: www.avaya.ca/ ** BELL CANADA: www.bell.ca ** CISCO SYSTEMS CANADA: www.cisco.com/ca/ ** ERICSSON: www.ericsson.ca ** MICROSOFT CANADA: www.microsoft.com/canada/telecom/ ** MITEL NETWORKS: www.mitel.com/ ** NEC UNIFIED SOLUTIONS: www.necunifiedsolutions.com ** ROGERS TELECOM: www.rogers.com/solutions ** VONAGE CANADA: www.vonage.ca ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** Telus to Merge Wireline and Wireless ** TWU Members Accept Telus Contract ** Ottawa Funds Four Broadband Projects ** CRTC Calls Cellcos on Carpet Over Privacy ** Telecom Legislation Doomed ** Kingston Hospital Installs Integrated Wireless ** Aliant Mobility Offers Push-to-Talk ** New COO at Telecom Ottawa ** CRTC Turns Down Telus-Videotron Fibre Swap ** Quebec ISPs Challenge Bell DSL Rates ** Bell & Rogers Exceed Spectrum Limits ** RIM Plans Support Centre in Halifax ** Mitel Opens B.C. Sales Centre ** Yet Another Teleglobe Suit Against BCE ** Bell to Retail Virgin Mobile's Phones ** Yak Promises Unlimited Long Distance ** Videotron Extends Telephone Service ** Cisco Buys Toronto IP-Provisioning Assets ** MDA, Com Dev Divide Up Space Technology Unit ** Telecom Update's Newest Sponsor ============================================================ TELUS TO MERGE WIRELINE AND WIRELESS: Telus Mobility and Telus Communications are being merged into a single operating structure. The company says this will help to "leverage the ongoing convergence between wireless and wireline technology." Telus will continue to release separate financial reports for wireless. ** Hughes St. Pierre, head of Telus Quebec, is retiring. ** Wade Oosterman, expected by many to take over Telus Mobility following George Cope's departure (see Telecom Update #502), is "in discussions" with CEO Darren Entwistle about his future. TWU MEMBERS ACCEPT TELUS CONTRACT: Members of the Telecommunications Workers Union have voted to accept a new five-year contract with Telus. Of 10,566 members who cast ballots, 64.1% voted in favor. OTTAWA FUNDS FOUR BROADBAND PROJECTS: The federal government this week announced funding for four projects that will extend high-speed Internet access to rural and remote communities in various parts of Canada. ** $9.72 million from the National Satellite Initiative to Falcon Communications, which is owned by six indigenous peoples' organizations, to extend service to 31 aboriginal communities in the Northwest Territories. ** $735,527 from the Broadband for Rural and Northern Development (BRAND) Pilot Program to extend service to 21 communities in the Portneuf area of Quebec. ** $973,592 from the BRAND Pilot Program to the Matawa First Nations Management organization, located in Thunder Bay, to extend service to eight communities in the Nishnawbe Aski Nation territory. ** $591,677 from the BRAND Pilot Program to the Community Futures Development Corporation of Boundary Area to extend service to 23 communities in south-central British Columbia. CRTC CALLS CELLCOS ON CARPET OVER PRIVACY: The November 21 issue of Maclean's reported that a U.S. data broker was able to obtain telephone call records of Canada's privacy commissioner, among others. The CRTC has ordered Bell, Telus, and Rogers to investigate this incident, and to report by November 28 on what privacy safeguards were in place at the time, as well as any additional safeguards that they are implementing. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Letters/2005/lt051118.htm TELECOM LEGISLATION DOOMED: It seems very likely that a new federal election will be called next week. That will kill all pending legislation, including C-37, which would have established Do-Not-Call rules for telemarketers; C-73, which would have given the CRTC the power to impose fines; and C-74, which would have established rules for Internet wiretaps (see Telecom Update #503 and #506). TELECOM LEGISLATION DOOMED: It seems very likely that a new federal election will be called next week. That will kill all pending legislation, including C-37, which would have established Do-Not-Call rules for telemarketers (see Telecom Update #503) and C-73, which would have given the CRTC the power to impose fines (see Telecom Update #506). KINGSTON HOSPITAL INSTALLS INTEGRATED WIRELESS: Kingston General Hospital has launched a Wi-Fi system that integrates wireless devices with point-of-care computers and provides mobile patient data access and data entry. The system, installed by Bell Canada, also provides wireless phone and Internet access in patient-care areas. ALIANT MOBILITY OFFERS PUSH-TO-TALK: Aliant now offers a push-to-talk mobile service, using the brand name 10-4. The service, which requires special handsets, costs $15/month in addition to a regular rate plan. (See Telecom Update #473) NEW COO AT TELECOM OTTAWA: Tom Moss, who previously held positions at AT&T Canada, Bell Canada, and Rogers Telecom, has been named Chief Operating Officer of Telecom Ottawa, a subsidiary of Ottawa Hydro. He replaces Dave Dobbin, who left to join Toronto Hydro Telecom in August. (see Telecom Update #491) CRTC TURNS DOWN TELUS-VIDEOTRON FIBRE SWAP: The CRTC has refused to approve fibre-swap and fibre-lease agreements between Telus and Videotron. The CRTC says that any provision of dark fibre by Telus must comply with its optical fibre tariffs. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Orders/2005/o2005-387.htm QUEBEC ISPs CHALLENGE BELL DSL RATES: A coalition of 15 Quebec ISPs has complained to the CRTC that Bell Canada's retail DSL rates undercut the wholesale rates they must pay in order to provide an equivalent service, and that other Bell practices are causing them harm. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2005/8622/q18_200513566.htm BELL & ROGERS EXCEED SPECTRUM LIMITS: Industry Canada has informed Rogers and Bell Canada that, by pooling wireless broadband spectrum holdings in their Inukshuk joint venture (see Telecom Update #497), they exceed the 100 MHz spectrum limit in 27 instances. They have until December 15 to tell the Ministry how they will comply with their licence conditions. http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/insmt-gst.nsf/en/sf06076e.html RIM PLANS SUPPORT CENTRE IN HALIFAX: Research In Motion plans to establish a technical support operations centre in Halifax next year. The company says the centre will eventually employ up to 1,200 full-time IT people. ** Nova Scotia will provide a performance-based payroll rebate of up to $14 million plus $5 million in recruitment and training incentives. MITEL OPENS B.C. SALES CENTRE: Mitel Networks has opened a "solutions showcase" and support centre for its Western Canada operations in Burnaby, B.C. YET ANOTHER TELEGLOBE SUIT AGAINST BCE: The Plan Administrator of Teleglobe Inc. is suing BCE and seven former Teleglobe directors for $3 billion, alleging that they "oppressed" Teleglobe when it was a BCE subsidiary. BCE, which faces other Teleglobe-related suits, said the lawsuit is "without merit." (See Telecom Update #372, 435) BELL TO RETAIL VIRGIN MOBILE'S PHONES: Bell Canada is now offering Virgin Mobile cellphones and accessories in its retail stores across Canada. (See Telecom Update #471) YAK PROMISES UNLIMITED LONG DISTANCE: Yak Communications says that in January it will launch a new service offering unlimited long distance calling in Canada and the U.S. for $24.99 a month. The service will use VoIP network facilities provided by Las Vegas-based CommPartners Inc. VIDEOTRON EXTENDS TELEPHONE SERVICE: Videotron has begun offering local telephone service to residents of the North Shore of Montreal. CISCO BUYS TORONTO IP-PROVISIONING ASSETS: Toronto-based Digital Fairway Corp. has sold its IP Telephony Provisioner product and development team and other assets to Cisco Systems for US$15.25 million. MDA, COM DEV DIVIDE UP SPACE TECHNOLOGY UNIT: MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates of Richmond B.C. is buying the Montreal division of EMS Technologies, and selling the unit's space-related assets to Com Dev International for $5 million. TELECOM UPDATE'S NEWEST SPONSOR: We're very pleased to welcome Microsoft Canada as a sponsor of Telecom Update. They join the distinguished group of companies whose generous support allows us to continue publishing Canada's most widely read telecom newsletter at no charge to subscribers. ** Sponsors have no influence on the editorial content of Telecom Update, which is solely the responsibility of Angus TeleManagement Group. ============================================================ HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-mail ianangus@angustel.ca and jriddell@angustel.ca =========================================================== 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 late Friday afternoon each week at http://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 2005 Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. All rights reserved. For further information, including permission to reprint or reproduce, please e-mail jriddell@angustel.ca. 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. ============================================================ ------------------------------ Subject: Our New Classified Advertisements Area Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 16:37:09 EST From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Starting officially on December 1, but open now for you to review and make postings in at no charge are the TELECOM Digest Classifieds, also known as Operator Pat's Bulletin Board. You'll find it at http://telecom-digest.org/classified.html You can post or respond to telecom-related postings by others relating to items for sale, (want to buy) and/or Help Wanted (and Looking for Work). It works like any other newspaper classified ads section and it is free until December 1, then a voluntary donation will be requested of one dollar per line/month, using the PayPal logo. Feel free to buy/sell/seek employment in this new section each day. You control how long the ad stays up, just like with newspapers. If the item is sold or no longer available, please use the provision to erase it. I hope this will be a useful feature. PAT ------------------------------ From: asdf Subject: Auto Call Forward Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 19:38:32 -0500 Organization: Optimum Online I know of a feature that when you want incoming calls forwarded to let's say your cellular you can reconfigure the office phone. However you have to be onsite to do so. But what if you can't get to the phone. Is there a way of doing this remotely or is there some kind of auto call forward feature so that if line goes down the system automatically forwards incoming calls to the cellular. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You did not say what is your telco in your community, but many/most telcos offer a version of 'remote call forwarding' which allows you to call into a specified number and then enter a password followed by _the number you wish to forward_ and give it the usual *72/*73 commands at that point. To prevent others from forwarding (or turning off the forwarding) against your will it is passworded. The number you dial into may or may not be on the same exchange as your number, but it is on the _same switch or ESS machine._ The number you dial into is sort of a 'terminal' (like a central office technican would use in the office) to deal with your phone remotely. But it is very limited in its command set; you can do *72 or *73 (whatever code turns on and off call forwarding) and not much else. I used to have that on my Illinois Bell line in Chicago. The idea is that people leave home, _then_ discover they forgot to forward their phone. I think when I lived in Chicago I dialed something like 312-334-9995 or similar, but no where close to my own number. After a ring or two and a click it answered by asking for 'my number' (and then upon entering same) it asked for 'password' and upon getting that it asked for 'command?' I could enter *72 or *73 (which in Chicago in those days was turn on/off call fowarding) and in the case of *72 the number to which calls were to be forwarded, ten-digit format. It then quoted back audibly what it had done, asked for approval, and disconnected. Other 'star commands' (*60 *67, *71, *77, etc) were ignored. I do not think it was called 'remote call forwarding' since that is the name of the service set up to automatically forward your calls to some long distance point. Perhaps it was 'remote forwarding' (without the word 'call'). You would have to ask around. If you have two actual phone lines and numbers (not just a virtual number like 'call waiting') I think you can now purchase ( http://sandman.com for example) a gizmo to do the same thing. A teeny little box with a plug in for each of the modular cords (for your two lines); you call in on one of the lines and use it to manipulate what you want the other line to do. I suggest you write to mike@sandman.com to get more specifics on this. Maybe when you write to Mr. Sandman you could cut and paste your inquiry and my response so he has a better idea what you want. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Friday 25th November 2005 Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 07:39:58 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com [[3G News]] 3G Operator Selects QoS Platform http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14975.php CommProve has won a contract to monitor the 3G network deployed by Italy's WIND. The operator will integrate CommProve's GSP (General Statistical Package) into its network to deliver continuous performance measurements, information that will enable t... 3G Coverage for Salzburg http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14978.php mobilkom austria has announced the launch of a full-coverage high-speed mobile network in Salzburg. Coverage for 98.22% of Salzburg's population will be achieved with the help of an intelligent combination of 3G transmission technologies UMTS and EDG... [[Financial News]] Ericsson Acquires Australian Systems Integration Co TUSC http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14965.php Sweden's Telefon AB LM Ericsson Thursday said it has bought TUSC, an Australian company with around 80 employees, specialized in systems integration for telecommunications, utilities and enterprises. ... Swiss Cabinet Aims To Clear Path For Swisscom Sale http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14966.php The Swiss cabinet aims to clear the path for a sale of its majority stake in telecommunication company Swisscom. ... ABN, Goldman Sachs, UBS Win Telstra Sale Mandate http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14968.php Unveiling one of the world's most prestigious investment banking mandates, the Australian government said Thursday ABN AMRO, UBS, and Goldman Sachs will coordinate next year's A$34 billion (US$25 billion) privatization of Telstra Corp. TELUS To Merge Wireless, Wireline Segments http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14969.php TELUS Corp. plans to merge its wireless and wireline segments into a single operating structure that incorporates the company's customer-facing business units, technology infrastructure and operations and shared services. ... PRESS: Russia's MTS may get control of Kyrgyzstan's Bitel soon http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14970.php Russia's largest mobile operator Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) may get control over Kyrgyzstan's Bitel mobile operator by the end of this year, three sources close to the deal said, quoted by Vedomosti business daily Thursday. ... FOCUS:France Telecom's 06 Guidance In Question http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14971.php France Telecom may have to cut its medium-term revenue guidance, not because its growth strategy is flawed, but because its guidance is out of line with expectations. ... Russian mobile stocks weak this year but still attractive http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14972.php The stocks of Russia's leading mobile operators MTS and VimpelCom have underperformed the broader market so far this year and are unlikely to provide investors extraordinary returns anytime soon, analysts said. ... China's Huawei sees Russian sales up, at $310 mln this year http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14973.php China's telecommunications equipment producer Huawei expects its sales in Russia to rise to U.S. $310 million this year, compared with $262 million in 2004, the director of the company's Moscow office said Thursday at a meeting of the antimonopoly ... [[Handsets News]] DoCoMo Develops Child-Friendly Handset http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14976.php Japan's DoCoMo says that it has developed a child-friendly 3G mobile phone, the FOMA SA800i. In addition, DoCoMo has established the Kids' Advisory Board of people with expertise in children's issues, who will advise the company on the development of... [[Network Contracts News]] Nokia Gets $141 Million Contract From Bharat Sanchar Nigam http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14967.php Finnish telecommunications equipment maker Nokia Corp. Thursday said it has received a contract worth around $141 million from Indian telecommunications company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. for a GSM/EDGE and GPRS network expansion project in North Indi... Alcatel Wins Russian GSM Contract http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14974.php Alcatel has signed a contract with the Russian regional operator, SMARTS to extend SMARTS GSM/GPRS network in the Povolzhie region. Thanks to the implementation of this project, SMARTS will be able to optimize its existing mobile infrastructure, to d... [[Reports News]] Operators Must Build Trust With MNCs to Secure Future Revenues http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14977.php Mobile operators are failing to address the pain points for multinational companies (MNCs), according to a recent survey by Ovum and the Enterprise VPN User Association (EVUA). As a result, they risk losing out to System Integrators (SI) and fixed op... [[Statistics News]] MTN Reports 20 Million Subscribers http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14979.php South Africa's MTN Group has reported that it now has over 20 million subscribers. The company also reported that its revenue increased by 25.2% toUS$2.6 billion, excluding the revenue contributed by the new acquisitions, revenue increased by 22.3%. ... [[Technology News]] Successful pilot test of integrating mobile and IP telephony in Denmark http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14980.php The first phase of TeliaSonera's pilot test of the UMA concept in Denmark, which combines mobile and IP calls in one and the same solution, have been executed with excellent results, and will now proceed to the next phase .... ------------------------------ From: Stop Fraud Subject: Bidfraud Website "Grand Opening" -- Read Inside for capabilities Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 12:48:33 GMT Organization: Road Runner After 1000 plus hours in development - Bidfraud.com is "breathing." http://www.bidfraud.com Features: Capable of archiving ebay auction transactions locally on our server. This is important, as ebay deletes transactions every few months. It is as simple as entering an ebay item number when creating a report. Example of archived ebay page: http://www.bidfraud.com/cachedpages/6113839605/alouette-amusement/6113839605.html The above archived page, while it still exists at bidfraud.com, no longer exists at ebay.com . Report templates contain an area to write a narrative as well as an interface to upload as many as 10 images/files (word & excel, etc.) The use of pictures as well as other supporting documents will help to substantiate & validate a claim. Example of report with pictures: http://www.bidfraud.com/example.php Easy search interface capable of finding a suspect by user name, email or item number at various sites. Simple private messaging, including a chat system are provided. Registration is Free. Easy to use interface. If you wish to advertise on the site, it is free, but space is limited. Please use contact page on www.bidfraud.com to make a request. Example of ad layout/dimensions: http://www.bidfraud.com/ads.htm Next time you leave negative feedback at ebay or any other site, please reference them to bidfraud. Thank you. ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@aracnet.com Subject: Re: Showdown with USA Over Internet Control Date: 25 Nov 2005 05:00:30 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com In article , TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: ICANN _does_ deal with the DNS Roots > and the top level domains, but part of that dealing includes the fact > that _all registrars_ must go through ICANN and are forced to require > of all web sites that they sign a contract turning final control of > their web sites over to ICANN. You, as a web site owner must agree > that ICANN's word is final and that disputes are to be settled by > an arbitrator ICANN chooses. Wow. I'm afraid you're overstating things a bit. ICANN's arbitration authority is over the domain name. Period. It has nothing to do with the content hosted at any site. They have no control over any website (other than their own), simply the name by which it's referenced. > I would suggest that as soon as it is administratively convenient to > do so, they begin amending their contracts which all of us have to > sign firmly denouncing and repudiating spam/scam/phishing and all that > stuff. 90% (or more) of the sort of email you are referring to originates from virus infected home computers or compromised servers. You can blow all the hot air and pass all the legislation you want, but there's not a lot that it will accomplish regarding stopping it. And the phishing sites that the mails connect you to, and that collect the information, are typically unauthorized processes running on similarly infected or compromised systems. Or sites running on hosting company servers that typically only last a day or so before their nature is discovered and they're shut down. You might as well ask ICANN to outlaw computer viruses. It's essentially the same thing, and would be about as effective. John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I would not ask, nor expect them to 'outlaw' viruses or spam. I would ask them to specify plainly with no hesitation where they stand on that stuff, and at least attempt to punish those sites where spam/scam/phishing seem to be the total reason for their existence. Just as they now do not hesitate to kill those domain names which may or do violate laws on trademarks (for example ICANN will close your site in a minute if you assume a name which is intended to capitalize (or make money) from a 'recognized' business (just try for example to start a site called 'redcrosscharity.com' or 'disneeworld.org' or such. (Note my obvious typing errors; that is how a scammer intending to confuse people into giving money might do it. Believe me you, if those somehow slipped past the registar and Red Cross or Disney complained to ICANN about it, those names would be gone, instanter. My favorite real life example was the black lady who started a social issues web site to discuss the accomplishments of black Americans. Her mistake was in taking the domain name African-Americans on Line or AAOL.org. She meant well by it, but when aol.com found out about it she was dead meat. (The real) aol.com could not get her to change _her_ name so they went to ICANN, got her placed in arbitration and let ICANN do her in instead. She woke up one day and found her domain name missing from root. She appealed to her ISP, which passed the buck to the registrar, which in turn bucked it up the line to ICANN; they told her flat out that (anything)AOL or AOL(anything) was reserved, could not be used, etc, and that ended the discussion. I am only suggesting that ICANN should take that firm stance with 'certain' sites and after due dilegence and investigation 'excommunicate' those guys in the same way. And if the ISP, who is the closest to the action won't purge itself of that nuisance, then dump him also. Let it work its way down from ICANN through the registrar level to the ISP, and so on. If ICANN started making a lot of noise on the problems of the net these days -- really raising hell Mother Jones style -- it _would_ make a difference. All be gone today, tomorrow, or next week or next year?; probably not. But if ISPs (the closest ones to the action as we know) understood with no doubt in their mind that their own status was in jeopardy if they permitted that customer to remain on board, things would be begin to change radically. It would be a lot like now, where individual netters decide to cut off entire blocks of IP numbers pissing off a large number of users in order to pressure someone down the line to sacrifice some nuisance on their system, but unlike now, where the pissed off users (coming from either direction) simply route around the troubled spot, it would carry a lot more weight if ICANN went down the line and started blitzing one ISP after another until they all woke up, and did so with the legal authority of those contracts they are so fond of making us all sign. And if the ISP closest to the action stalled or would not cooperate, then maybe we need to decide what to do about you as the _registrar_ and find someone who can obey rules instead. But ICANN is _not about_ to amend their contracts, now or in the future, to either pronounce spam/scam to be a scourge or take any action against it. That would be contrary to what Vint Cerf and Esther Dyson envision the net to be. PAT] ------------------------------ From: asok101@hotmail.com Subject: Re: Showdown with USA Over Internet Control Date: 25 Nov 2005 10:49:47 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Andy Sullivan wrote: > By Andy Sullivan > The United States is headed for a showdown with much of the rest of > the world over control of the Internet. President Bush says he doesn't > care. > Countries like China, Brazil and Iran don't like the fact that the > world's only superpower oversees the system that guides traffic across > the global computer network, and have pushed for an international body > to take over that role. The actual specifications for directing internet connections are somewhat simple and therefore US claiming control over it is ridiculous. Just like telephone connections are not controlled any more by one entity, we sure can decentralize internet control. In the meanwhile the open-source community can try to comeup with some kind of protocols which will give the user the ability to choose internet control the way they want it. If many people start using these new ways what can USA do ? We have already seen the power of p2p protocols!!! It is the content that is important in the internet. How to get to that content is not that difficult and should not fall under the power of any greedy entity. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I quite agree that method would be best. We do not see one giant telco running telecom. We see many telcos doing their thing; what prevents any of them from disconnecting all the others (of which they disapprove)? The simple fact that the users would not permit it. People have grown accustomed to calling all over the world and won't have it any other way. So whether they like to or not, the telcos all cooperate with each other. Why don't we hear the same wimpering about telco that we now hear all the time about internet, i.e. 'we must have one governor lest another governor is likely to squelch speech and thoughts.' Well, the hell you say! That nonsense comes from the same people who are likely in the next minute to tell us how they would 'route around' whatever ills behooved them. If every country in the world had its own 'internet governor' then the governors would damn well cooperate with one another or be put out of office (however each country decided to do that.) I wouldn't even really object to ICANN as the 'default' governor in the USA as long as we all were free to move to other domains outside its reach if we wished to do so. What I do object to is the loose and freewheeling way ICANN runs things except when one of their larger constituents bosses _them_ around. Remember, Vint Cerf back in 1994 did make a perfectly glowing speech about the 'new internet' which was on the way, so we know where he stands on the nuisances. PAT] ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Voicepulse Owns Your Number Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 19:46:24 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message Steve Sobol wrote: > Michael D. Sullivan wrote: >> Fred, you can file a complaint with the FCC > Which will be ignored, since the FCC doesn't regulate VoIP. They do regulate the PSTN network though, so although they might not regulate the VoIP side of things, but they might help you transfer a PSTN number from one PSTN carrier to another PSTN carrier. ------------------------------ From: harold@hallikainen.com Subject: Re: Voicepulse Owns Your Number Date: 25 Nov 2005 09:49:19 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Except, of course, for VoIP and E911. See http://www.hallikainen.com/FccRules/2006/9/ Harold ------------------------------ Date: 25 Nov 2005 02:42:45 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: GAIT vrs. GSM and Other Cell Phones Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > I guess my question would be, are you familiar with this GAIT thing > as a 'transitional' thing between GSM and other types of cell service > and do you have any experience with it? It's just what Cingular said, the phone does GSM, TDMA, and AMPS. The SIM is just for GSM, so for TDMA and AMPS they need to know the ESN of the phone. I didn't realize that they'd turn on TDMA service on a GSM account. I'll call them tomorrow and see if they'll enable my wife's phone for TDMA as well. R's, John [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The Cingular lady would not commit to it either way, except to say to me that 'in rural areas, still in transition' they more or less had to do it or wind up writing off a lot of their customer base. I know that when I first got the Nokia 6010, because of my geographic location (southeast side of town and relatively close to a GSM tower [but not _all_ that close] I was able to use GSM with no hassles. But, the first time I got in the taxicab and had Jeff (our taxi driver here in town) take me out to the 'west side' (west Main Street, sort of around Austins, our notorious 'hard acid rock', semi-gay bar) the phone quit working on GSM and instead told me it could not find a tower. When I took the 6310-i in that same direction (but before reporting my ESN, IME and 'serial number' to Cingular) the phone did 'seamlessly slide over' to the proper band to use and instead of getting no signal at all, I got the jingle and 'we do not recognize your number' message. When I got back home, the phone tried 'seamlessly' swapping back and forth and I sometimes got out, but when the GSM tower was booked up, I would get that jingle tone as the phone tried work on the nearest TDMA tower it could find. Before I knew this, I was ready to throw in the towel and send the new 'gate' phone back in the mail. When the Cingular lady told me 'even with a GSM phone and a SIM card, it is a good idea to call us anyway and turn in your ESN in order to get _full coverage_ with your phone, then I understood what she meant. Before, I just thought she was being nosy by telling me I should always call to report the ESN. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 22:22:42 -0600 From: Chris Williams Organization: Software Consulting & Design Subject: Re: Los Angeles Numbering, 1940s Hi Tim, What a surprise to be reading along in comp.dcom.telecom and see someone mention California Drip and Tinkle. I grew up in Monrovia also (MSH '65). I can remember back in very early 1950s we had an AE-40 and to call my aunt and uncle in Highland Park we had to get the long distance operator by dialing 110. When were you in Monrovia? Regards, Chris Williams ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 18:51:15 EST From: Dan Lanciani Subject: Re: Old Teletype Machine That reminds me ... I have a model 26 if anyone is interested. Located in Gloucester, MA. Shipping is probably prohibitive ... Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #534 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Nov 26 13:38:15 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id D09CB14E17; Sat, 26 Nov 2005 13:38:14 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #535 Message-Id: <20051126183814.D09CB14E17@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 13:38:14 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.0 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, MAILTO_TO_REMOVE,NO_COST,WORK_AT_HOME autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sat, 26 Nov 2005 13:40:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 535 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Internet Saves Woman in Diabetic Coma (Associated Press/Information Week) Firm Wants to Rid Net of Suffixes (Lucas van Grinsven) Web Site Offers Saddam Uniform For Sale (Reuters News Wire) Online Retailers Await Cyber Monday (Lisa Baertline) Sweden Plans to Bring Expo to Internet (Tommy Grandell) Obsessive Coupon Disorder / Web's Extreme Bargain Hunters (Monty Solomon) New Online Auction Site (Sam) Re: Los Angeles Numbering, 1940s (Steven Lichter) Re: Auto Call Forward (Wesrock@aol.com) Re: Personal Computers Enlisted in AIDS Research (David Wolff) Re: Skype - H.323 or SIP (jhblee@gmail.com) Our New Classified Advertisements Area (TELECOM Digest Editor) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Information Week Subject: Internet Saves Woman in Diabetic Coma Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 11:18:15 -0600 Internet Allows Sons To Rescue Mother By The Associated Press InformationWeekFri Nov 25, 4:04 PM ET OSLO, Norway (AP)--A Web camera in a Norwegian artist's living room in California allowed her sons in Norway and the Philippines to see that she had collapsed and call for help, one of the sons said last week. Karin Jordal, 69, collapsed Thursday in her living room in Pinon Hills, California, and was motionless on a couch when her son Tore in the Philippines checked in through the Internet. "He tried to call her, and got no answer," Tore's brother, Ole Jordal, said by telephone from the western Norway city of Bergen. "He had also tried to call the police and ambulances (in California) but couldn't get through." Ole Jordal said his brother then called him in Norway, as he and his wife, Tammy, originally from Long Island, New York, were having breakfast. "My wife is American and she knew exactly whom to call for help," he said. "It took five or 10 minutes for the ambulance personnel to arrive." He said the family was on the verge of tears when they watched on the Web camera as ambulance personnel assisted their diabetic mother, who is recovering in the Desert Valley Hospital in California. "I thank that camera and my sons for my life," Karin Jordal told the Norwegian newspaper Bergens Tidende by telephone from her hospital bed. She has lived in the U.S. and Spain on and off for the past 15 years. Ole Jordal said low blood sugar caused his mother's collapse, and that she would be allowed to go home after a few days in the hospital. He said the family set up Web cameras in their homes because of the high cost of staying in touch by telephone when they live so far apart. "But now I see the Internet as a way to save lives. It's also a wonderful tool for people who live alone in some remote area, and might need help," he said. The mother had been unconscious for about two hours before her sons checked in, so there was also an element of luck, since they only use the camera a few times a week. Copyright 2005 CMP Media LLC. ------------------------------ From: Lucas van Grinsven Subject: Firm Wants to Rid Net of Suffixes Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 11:16:18 -0600 By Lucas van Grinsven, European Technology Correspondent A Dutch technology company has breathed life into a project to rid the Internet of suffixes such as .com, and instead offer single names which can be countries, company names or fantasy words. Such a system, which enables countries, individuals and firms to have a Web address which consists of a single name, offers flexibility and is language and character independent. "The plan is to offer names in any character set," said Erik Seeboldt, managing director of Amsterdam-based UnifiedRoot. UnifiedRoot offers practically unlimited numbers of suffixes, unlike the short list of suffixes currently in use. Its offer is different from other "alternative root" providers such as New.net which offers to register names in front of a small range of new suffixes, such as .club and .law. "We've already had thousands of registrations in a single day," said Seeboldt after the official opening of his 100-strong company which has installed 13 Internet domain name system (DNS) root servers on four continents. Dutch airport Schiphol is one of the early customers. Registering a name costs $1,000 plus an annual fee of $240. Companies can then invent additional Web site addresses in front of their top-level domain (TLD) name, such as flights.schiphol or parking.schiphol. Critics argue alternative root companies such as UnifiedRoot introduce ambiguity because they bring a new set of traffic rules to the Web which are, certainly in the beginning, only recognized by a limited number of computers around the world. "Those who claim to be able to add new 'suffixes' or 'TLDs' are generally pirates or con-men with something to sell," said Paul Vixie, who sits in several committees of the California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) with day-to-day control of the Web, on his CircleID blog. WELCOME Others, however are more appreciative and welcoming. "The existence of alternate roots, and the possibility of new ones, provides a useful competitive check on ICANN," said Jon Weinberg, a member of ICANNwatch which keeps a critical eye on ICANN. ICANN is overseen by the U.S. Department of Commerce and operates the root servers of the Internet which guide all Web traffic. The organization also determines which top-level domains are recognized by those root servers. At the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society earlier this month, many countries said they wanted to take part in the governance of ICANN. But the United States would not give up control. UnifiedRoot plans to take advantage of unhappiness about ICANN by offering geographic locations for free to countries, regions and cities. If alternative root companies want their TLDs recognized by computers around the world, they need to circumvent ICANN by pointing every single Internet computer around the world to their own root servers -- which contain a copy of ICANN's root server plus the addition of own-made TLDs. A quicker way to change the settings in individual computers is by closing deals with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) which can change the settings for all their subscribers. UnifiedRoot has already clinched deals with most ISPs in Turkey. ISP Tiscali is also a UnifiedRoot client. To avoid conflicts between TLDs from UnifiedRoot and ICANN, the Dutch company will not register existing ICANN TLDs. UnifiedRoot took over from a Dutch company called UNIDT which launched the initial plan for TLDs last year, but which relied on a network of root servers controlled by individuals. This made the network vulnerable to manipulation or even criminal attack directing Internet surfers to fake Web sites. "The network has not been abused, but this was a mistake," said Marty van Veluw, the founder and manager of UNIDT who sold his client base and some other assets to UnifiedRoot. "UnifiedRoot has understood that the network needs to be 100 percent reliable, and they put a new one in place," he said. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Wed Site Offers Saddam Uniform For Sale Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 11:09:30 -0600 A U.S. auction house is trying to sell one of Saddam Hussein's military uniforms online, calling it an "ultimate artefact" of the U.S. war in Iraq. Manion's International Auction House ( http://www.manions.com ) is offering the olive green dress uniform, complete with Saddam's special rank on its shoulder straps, at a starting price of $5,000 (2,915 pounds), but expects it to sell for much more. "We have only seen one other Hussein uniform here at Manion's, and it realized over $20,000 at auction," the auctioneer says on its Web site. The company says the uniform was obtained by a soldier in the U.S. army's Third Infantry Division after American troops seized Baghdad airport in April 2003. According to the military orders governing U.S. forces in Iraq, soldiers are forbidden from taking any artefacts or souvenirs from the country except in very rare circumstances, a U.S. military spokeswoman said on Saturday. Manion's said it would give a proportion of the proceeds from the sale to charity. Bidding closes on December 1. There have been no bids so far. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Baertlein Subject: Online Retailers Await 'Cyber Monday' Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 11:11:06 -0600 By Lisa Baertlein U.S. online holiday sales are expected to hit nearly $20 billion this year and should take off on Monday, when consumers return to work and their fast Internet connections after the long Thanksgiving weekend. "Cyber Monday," the term coined for the Monday after Thanksgiving, comes on the heels of the busy "Black Friday" shopping day when many brick-and-mortar retailers begin turning a profit. The good news for online shoppers this year, is that "Cyber Monday" is becoming the Web shopping equivalent to "Black Friday" when retailers launch major sales and discounts to drive traffic, analysts said. Consumers are seen spending $19.6 billion on non-travel goods on U.S. Internet sites during November and December, up 24 percent from $15.8 billion during the same period last year, according to comScore Networks. That accounts for less than 5 percent of total holiday sales in the United States but excludes large corporate purchases and sales on auction sites like eBay Inc., the most popular shopping site on the Web. "Most people who shop online do it at work, not at home," despite rising rates of high-speed home Internet connections, said Jay McIntosh, Americas director of retail and consumer products at Ernst & Young. Work connections tend to be faster than those at home, he said. While companies like Amazon.com were first to make a splash selling online, traditional retailers have helped to drive sales with investments in their own Web sites and by offering consumers the chance to return Web purchases at physical stores, McIntosh said. Concerns about returns and the inability to touch and feel items are major issues now for consumers who in recent years had listed security as a top Web-shopping worry, he said. Massive site outages, which dampened online holiday shopping in its early years, are now uncommon. Still, some shoppers were reporting on Friday that online ordering was temporarily unavailable on Best Buy Co. Inc.'s Web site. A spokeswoman said the company had been limiting the number of connections to its site due to heavy traffic following the debut this week of Microsoft Corp's Xbox 360 video game console, for which Best Buy is the retail launch partner. FREE SHIPPING RULES While today's Web shoppers are wooed by conveniences such as avoiding store lines and driving costs, as well as price-comparison tools offered by Shopping.com, Shopzilla, Yahoo Shopping and Google's Froogle, a survey from online retailer association Shop.org said the biggest draw was free shipping offers. Jupiter Research analyst Patti Freeman Evans said consumers will be more concerned about prices this year due to higher home heating costs and added that many shoppers believe they can find better deals online because there is more choice. "Pricing online is competitive. Sometimes you can get better deals online, sometimes you can get them in stores with sales and coupons and rebates," she said. (Additional reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston) Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Tommy Grandell Subject: Sweden Plans to Bring Expo to Internet Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 11:12:26 -0600 By TOMMY GRANDELL, Associated Press Writer There won't be any cotton candy, but most other treats of a world fair would be available in an Internet version of the global exposition being prepared in Sweden. The Swedish government and the organization responsible for running the World Expo want to attract younger people and others without the means to travel across the globe to visit a fair, officials said Friday. They hope to have it up and running in three years. "With an Internet World Expo, it might be possible to reach target groups that are not interested in world expositions designed the way they are today," said project leader Staffan Bjorck at the Swedish Foreign Ministry. The Paris-based Bureau International des Expositions, or BIE, the governing body of international expos, has pledged euro200,000 to get the project started, and the Swedish government is expected to do the same, Bjorck said. Organizers envision virtual pavilions from more than 100 countries, but it is not yet known if USA will participate. "The site will be an encyclopedia of different countries, their cultures, traditions and music," said Bjorck, who is also vice president of BIE. "Imagination is the only limit to the country presentations." Each member's contribution would be vetted by the BIE, in the same manner that physical pavilions are approved by the body. Major World Expos are typically arranged every fifth year and run for half a year. Some 22 million people visited the Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan, which ended its six-month run in September. The next World Expo will be held in Shanghai, China, in 2010, with an estimated 70 million visitors. The Internet World Expo would complement the physical fair, but would run continuously and be updated with new themes. National pavilions would be based on their physical counterparts, but the virtual exhibition would also feature music, games, e-learning, an exposhop and opportunities for dialogue and chat. "It will open the doors of an exhibition to everybody worldwide, even if it is not possible to say now how many people would 'visit' this Expo," the BIE's Information and Communication Committee said in a Nov. 15 document approving the project. Organizers hope that more than 40 million people worldwide will visit the site daily, with the target group being people ages 15-24. "However, the exhibition will of course be open to everyone, and will no doubt attract a considerably broader group," Bjorck said. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more headlines news and stories from Associated Press, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html (and) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 02:58:32 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Obsessive Coupon Disorder / How the Web's Extreme Bargain Hunters VIRTUAL REALITY By STEVE STECKLOW Obsessive Coupon Disorder How the Web's extreme bargain hunters get deep discounts -- or even make a profit -- when they buy While millions of American shoppers seem willing to risk stampedes next Friday to get something on sale, Heather Wilde says she plans to sleep in. She belongs to a virtual community of extreme bargain hunters who know the best deals are online every day -- and go to elaborate lengths to find them. They've learned how cryptic codes like H2MAB5 can knock 15% off purchases at a major children's clothing retailer. They do their online shopping via special money-saving Web sites that offer rebates at hundreds of retailers, including Lands' End, Saks Fifth Avenue and Apple Computer. They share information on how to "stack" mail-in rebate forms, allowing them at times not only to get stuff like Sony Ericsson cellphones free, but actually make hundreds of dollars doing so. Which somehow seems appropriate given all the work serious online bargain hunting can entail. http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB113234748894101688-GwNwJWgHDWPvvBbqKlELZocf3fo_20061126.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 03:19:25 +0100 From: Sam Subject: New Online Auction Site I've just found http://www.billgoods.com It's a brand new online auction site, you can put your auction in 1760 categories, every seller and bidder must check! Free listing and many other things ... bid this online auction now ! snipe it. ------------------------------ From: Steven Lichter Reply-To: Die@spammers.com Organization: I Kill Spammers, Inc. (c) 2005 A Rot in Hell Co. Subject: Re: Los Angeles Numbering, 1940s Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 01:06:28 GMT Chris Williams wrote: > Hi Tim, > What a surprise to be reading along in comp.dcom.telecom and see > someone mention California Drip and Tinkle. I grew up in Monrovia also > (MSH '65). I can remember back in very early 1950s we had an AE-40 and > to call my aunt and uncle in Highland Park we had to get the long > distance operator by dialing 110. When were you in Monrovia? > Regards, > Chris Williams Since you did not quote the message and it has been a couple of weeks, I don't know if you mean me or not. I started in San Fernando/Granada Hills with CW&T in 1967 just as it was being merged into General Telephone of Calif. I worked in Monrovia/Hasting Ranch in 1968/1969. The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2005 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot in Hell Co. ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 20:31:33 EST Subject: Re: Auto Call Forward In a message dated Thu, 24 Nov 2005 19:38:32 -0500, asdf I know of a feature that when you want incoming calls forwarded > to let's say your cellular you can reconfigure the office phone. > However you have to be onsite to do so. But what if you can't get to > the phone. Is there a way of doing this remotely or is there some kind of > auto call forward feature so that if line goes down the system > automatically forwards incoming calls to the cellular. I believe the service you are looking for is called "Remote Access to Call Forwarding" (RACF). I first heard of it from a woman active in a largely volunteer organization where different volunteers took turns answering the calls when there was no one in the non-profit's office. She was looking for a way to change what number the call was forwarded to when the designated volunteer changed so that no one would have to go to the office to change the destination number. The service was not offered when she first made the request, but it became an offering a year or two later and the organization promptly subscribed to it. There was a monthly charge, but as I recall at that time it was pretty modest. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: dwolffxx@panix.com (David Wolff) Subject: Re: Personal Computers Enlisted in AIDS Research Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 02:44:12 UTC Organization: Public Access Networks Corp. In article , Reuters News Wire wrote: > A new project in the fight against AIDS will tap into the unused power > of individual and business computers to help research and identify > drugs used to combat the HIV virus. > An Internet-based initiative, called FightAIDSatHome, aims to enlist > about 100,000 computer users to donate the use of their machines when > they would otherwise be idle. I just checked the web site http://www.fightaidsathome.org . They support various Windows OSes, and Real Soon Now Linux, but not any Mac OS. So non-Windows users, don't waste your time at this time. Thanks -- David (Remove "xx" to reply.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It is too bad that other OSes are not available now, but there are still plenty of Windows users, and I hope everyone who can do so will get involved in this effort to fight AIDS. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jhblee@gmail.com Subject: Re: Skype - H.323 or SIP Date: 26 Nov 2005 04:21:00 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com To my understading Skype is *a* form of SIP. I am not sure if it is 100% SIP but definitely the protocol resembles more of SIP than H323. One SIP provider can actually run IVR for calls from Skype clients, so I guess this is more likely so. Lasse wrote: > Hi all you gurus, > Does anyone know if Skype is based on the H.323 protocol family -- or > the more modern SIP protocol?. > Lars Kalsen > PS: You might also review: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype > Vi leverer viden! Lars Kalsen IT-consultant, Cand. scient. & HD IT-gruppen > Brorsonsvej 19 9490 Pandrup Lars.Kalsen@itgruppen.dk www.itgruppen.dk tel: > fax: mobile: +45 96 73 01 02 +45 96 73 00 31 +45 40 15 66 02 Add me to your > address book ... Want a signature like this? > Greetings from Denmark! ------------------------------ Subject: Our New Classified Advertisements Area Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 16:37:09 EST From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Starting officially on December 1, but open now for you to review and make postings in at no charge are the TELECOM Digest Classifieds, also known as Operator Pat's Bulletin Board. You'll find it at http://telecom-digest.org/classified.html You can post or respond to telecom-related postings by others relating to items for sale, (want to buy) and/or Help Wanted (and Looking for Work). It works like any other newspaper classified ads section and it is free until December 1, then a voluntary donation will be requested of one dollar per line/month, using the PayPal logo. Feel free to buy/sell/seek employment in this new section each day. You control how long the ad stays up, just like with newspapers. If the item is sold or no longer available, please use the provision to erase it. I hope this will be a useful feature. PAT ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 V24 #535 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Nov 27 19:50:31 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 6593714E45; Sun, 27 Nov 2005 19:50:30 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #536 Message-Id: <20051128005030.6593714E45@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2005 19:50:30 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.2 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, NO_COST autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sun, 27 Nov 2005 19:51:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 536 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Web Site Operators Guilty of Phishing (Associated Press News Wire) China Plans to Put Man on Moon by 2020 (Min Lee) Our New Classified Advertisements Area (TELECOM Digest Editor) Wireless Moves the Cash Register Where You Are (Monty Solomon) Sick of Automation? Dial 0 For Human (Monty Solomon) Communities Using Reverse 911 to Notify Residents of Emergencies (Solomon) Sony BMG DRM Info and Litigation Pages (Monty Solomon) Seeking External Ringer with Crescendo (Jeff Sutter) CFP: IEEE Services Computing (SCC 2006) (Mailing List Webmaster) Re: Personal Computers Enlisted in AIDS Research (Gene S. Berkowitz) Re: Auto Call Forward (DevilsPGD) John Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby (Patrick Townson) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Associated Press News Wire Subject: Web Site Operators Guilty of Phishing Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 15:40:28 -0600 Web Site Operators Admit Role In Phishing Ring The scammers got at least 1.5 million stolen credit card numbers and caused more than $4 million in losses, federal prosecutors said. By The Associated Press http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=174400097 NEWARK, N.J. (AP)--Six more people pleaded guilty Thursday to operating a Web site that investigators claimed was one of the largest online centers for trafficking in stolen identity information and credit cards. With others who pleaded guilty in recent weeks, that brings to 12 people who acknowledged roles with the site, http://www.shadowcrew.com, which had about 4,000 members who dealt with at least 1.5 million stolen credit card numbers and caused more than $4 million in losses, federal prosecutors said. "The losses incurred were to the issuing banks and MasterCard, Visa, American Express, who reimbursed those who were victimized by these crimes," Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Dowd said. Eight of those who pleaded guilty were among 19 in the United States and abroad who were indicted in October 2004 after federal agents gained control of the site during a yearlong undercover investigation by the Secret Service and other agencies. Of the remaining 11, five are fugitives and six still have charges pending. The other four who pleaded guilty were among eight people charged by a federal complaint. The site used techniques such as "phishing" and spamming to illegally obtain credit and bank card information, which were used to buy goods on the Internet. Phishing scams use e-mails that appear to come from banks or other financial institutions to induce recipients to verify their accounts by typing personal details -- credit card information, for example -- into a Web site disguised to appear legitimate. Because sex-oriented web sites are frequently chosen for use as scam sites -- because of their overall popularity -- it is recommended that you be very cautious in providing any financial details to sex-based web sites. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more news and headlines from Associated Press, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html (or) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/TDNewsradio.html (or) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ From: Min Lee Subject: China Plans to Put Man on Moon by 2020 Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2005 15:35:48 -0600 By MIN LEE, Associated Press Writer Fresh from its second manned space mission, China's space program wants to be able to put a man on the moon and build a space station in 15 years, an official said Sunday. "I think in about 10 to 15 years, we will have the ability to build our own space station and to carry out a manned moon landing," said Hu Shixiang, deputy commander of China's manned space flight program. But the goal is subject to getting enough funds from the government, Hu said, explaining that the space program must fit in the larger scheme of the country's overall development. Hu was in Hong Kong with the two astronauts who conducted China's second successful manned space mission in October. He spoke during a televised question-and-answer session with executives from various television stations and newspapers. Nie Haisheng and Fei Junlong circled Earth for five days aboard the Shenzhou 6 capsule, traveling 2 million miles in 115 hours, 32 minutes. China's first manned mission was in 2003, when astronaut Yang Liwei orbited for 21 1/2 hours. China wants to master the technology for a space walk and docking in space by 2012, Hu said. He said China was developing its space program at its own pace, not in competition with the United States. "It's not the competition of the Cold War era," he said. Hu stressed China's intention to use space exploration for peaceful ends, saying the government "is willing to work hard with people around the world for the peaceful use of space." He said Chinese space officials want to study the possibility of making rockets with the capacity to carry spacecraft weighing 27.5 tons -- three times the capacity of their existing rockets -- but the government hasn't approved the funding. Hu dismissed suggestions the space program is too costly for a country that, despite rapid economic growth, is still struggling to eradicate rural poverty. He noted the recent space mission cost $111.4 million, compared to the $23.5 billion that China spent on combating pollution last year. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. Check out http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/ for our full range of extra features, audio feeds and other interesting things. ------------------------------ Subject: Our New Classified Advertisements Area Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2005 16:37:09 EST From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Starting officially on December 1, but open now for you to review and make postings in at no charge are the TELECOM Digest Classifieds, also known as Operator Pat's Bulletin Board. You'll find it at http://telecom-digest.org/classified.html You can post or respond to telecom-related postings by others relating to items for sale, (want to buy) and/or Help Wanted (and Looking for Work). It works like any other newspaper classified ads section and it is free until December 1, then a voluntary donation will be requested of 25 cents per word/month, using the PayPal logo. Feel free to buy/sell/seek employment in this new section each day. You control how long the ad stays up, just like with newspapers. If the item is sold or no longer available, please use the provision to erase it. This has changed! I posted it earlier saying one dollar per line then a user pointed out that the number of lines you type in will vary from one editor program to another. But based on the columns formatted in the classified section and the type font, it appears three to five words per 'line' is likely. I hope this will be a useful feature. PAT ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2005 00:20:21 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Wireless Moves the Cash Register Where You Are By JENNIFER A. KINGSON When Michelle Dub, a golf instructor in Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif., finishes a lesson, she whips out her BlackBerry wireless device -- to schedule the next appointment, sure, but also to swipe the student's credit card for payment right there on the driving range. It takes only a few seconds, and it saves Ms. Dub a trip to the bank to deposit a check or a fistful of cash. Plus, her clients like it. "They're just surprised -- they're like, 'Wow, you're a techno-wizard,' " she said. The novelty may soon wear off. Plumbers, limousine drivers, flea market proprietors and merchants of all sizes and stripes are beginning to take credit and debit cards in odd places, often using nothing more than an ordinary cellphone and a card swipe attachment, or a handheld device with a built-in swipe slot. Now that wireless networks span the nation and devices that tap into them are cheap and reliable, expectations for the technology are running high outside these niches. Already in some restaurants a waiter will swipe a credit card tableside (a practice that is widespread in Europe), and some car rental companies use hand-held devices to check people out when they return cars. A day could soon come when a clerk at a large department store will ask customers in the aisle if they would like to check out there, or a shopping cart at the grocery will have a built-in scanner and card reader. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/26/business/yourmoney/26swipe.html?ex=3D12906= 61200&en=3De4bd50eec718fea2&ei=3D5090 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2005 01:09:20 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Sick of Automation? Dial 0 for Human By Bruce Mohl, Globe Staff The frustration is all too familiar: Call a company's customer service line, and chances are you'll have a hard time reaching a human. Paul English of Arlington got tired of dealing with computerized voice systems and decided there was only way around it: He would put together a cheat sheet. It started small, with the 10 companies that frustrated him the most. But the list started growing after the 42-year-old software engineer posted it on his website earlier this year and invited readers to make their own contributions. He now has tips for quickly reaching an actual person at 108 companies. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/11/06/sick_of_automation_dial_0_for_human/ http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/11/06/a_brief_cheat_sheet/ http://www.paulenglish.com/ivr/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2005 01:23:04 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Communities Using Reverse 911 to Notify Residents of Emergencies By David Tirrell-Wysocki, Associated Press Writer CONCORD, N.H. --If this service had been available in 1775, Paul Revere might not have had to make his famous ride. He could have had the constabulary pick up their Colonial telephones, record "The Regulars are coming!" and push a button. It's called Reverse 911, and more and more New Hampshire communities are using it to warn residents of everything from fugitives on the loose to potential flooding or missing children. "The uses are only limited by the creativity of the people using it," said Derry Fire Lt. Brett Scholbe. Instead of making individual telephone calls or using a bullhorn or public address speaker to warn of danger, a dispatcher records a short message, tells a computer who needs to hear it and sends it on its way. The system, which is growing in popularity nationwide, can make hundreds of calls an hour, directed to specific neighborhoods, downtown businesses, specified groups of people such as emergency responders or an entire community. http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2005/11/25/communities_using_reverse_911_to_notify_residents_of_emergencies/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2005 11:49:50 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Sony BMG DRM Info and Litigation Pages Groklaw page on Sony BMG DRM issues and litigation http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20051122010323323 EFF Files Class Action Lawsuit Against Sony BMG Sony BMG Litigation and Rootkit Info http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/Sony-BMG/ A Spotters' Guide to XCP and SunnComm's MediaMax http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/Sony-BMG/guide.php ------------------------------ From: Jeff Sutter Subject: Seeking External Ringer With Crescendo Date: 26 Nov 2005 14:19:55 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello, Telecom Gurus. My aging father spills his drink every time the phone rings. He's going deaf and blind, but refuses to turn the ringer down from "747" to "air horn". I've seen in alarm clocks and cell phones, where ringing volume starts softly, and rises over time. But I've yet to find an external ringer for a landline that does the same. Any suggestions are appreciated, as they would save weekly trips to the dry cleaners. (Visual ringers (strobes) and vibrators induce the same panic response.) Cheers, Jeff ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2005 16:40:41 -0500 Subject: CFP: IEEE Services Computing (SCC 2006) From: Mailing List Webmaster CALL FOR PAPERS 2006 IEEE International Conference on Services Computing (SCC 2006) =================================================================== Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of IEEE Computer Society! September 18-22, 2006, Hyatt Regency at O'Hare Airport, Chicago, USA http://conferences.computer.org/scc/2006 Theme: Services, Solutions, and Business Models of Services Computing Sponsored by IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Services Computing (tab.computer.org/tcsc) The 2006 IEEE International Conference on Services Computing (SCC 2006) is celebrating the 60th Anniversary of IEEE Computer Society! Building on its great success in 2004 and 2005, SCC 2006 continues to bridge the gap between Services Computing and Business models with an emerging suite of ground-breaking technology that includes service-oriented architecture, business process integration and management, grid/utility/autonomic computing and mobile computing such as ad-hoc networks (MANETs). SCC 2006 will be co-located with the 2006 IEEE International Conference on Web Services (ICWS 2006), the 30th Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC 2006), and the 2006 IEEE Workshops on Software Technology and Engineering Practice (STEP 2006). IEEE Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) Industry Summit and IEEE International Services Computing Contest will be featured at this joint event. The theme of SCC 2006 is "Services, Solutions, and Business Models of Services Computing" Services Computing, as a new cross discipline, addresses how to enable IT technology to help people perform business processes more efficiently and effectively. At the core of a business model is a set of processes that jointly help yield a profit in an organization. As we can see, Services Computing currently shapes the processes of business modeling, business consulting, solution creation, service delivery, and software architecture design, development and deployment. The global nature of Services Computing leads to many opportunities and few challenges and creates a new networked economic structure for supporting different business models. SCC 2006 has the following three major research tracks: Foundations of Services Computing, Services-Centric Business Models, and Business Process Integration and Management. Authors are invited to submit original, unpublished research papers that are not being considered in another forum. Manuscripts will be limited to 8 (IEEE Proceeding style) pages and be printed on 10 or 11 size font. Please follow the IEEE Computer Society Press Proceedings Author Guidelines to prepare your papers. Electronic submission of manuscripts (in PDF or Word format) is required. Detailed Instructions for electronic paper submission, panel proposals, tutorial proposals, and review process can be found at http://conferences.computer.org/scc/2006/. At least one author of each accepted paper is required to attend the conference and present the paper. The enhanced version of the selected papers published in SCC 2006 will be invited for publication in the International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management (IJBPIM), the International Journal of Web Services Research (JWSR), the International Journal of Grid and Utility Computing (IJGUC), and possibly other reputable journals. One Best Paper award and 1-3 Best Student Paper Awards will be presented by SCC 2006. The first author of the best student papers should be full-time student. Topics of interest include, but are NOT limited to, the following: Foundations of Services Computing: - Services Science - Services Modeling and Implementation - Services Delivery, Deployment and Maintenance - Services Value Chains and Innovation Lifecycle - Services-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Industry Standards and Solution Stacks - Services-based Grid/Utility/Autonomic Computing - Services Computing in Mobile Ad-hoc NETworks (MANETs) - Services Level Agreements (SLAs) Negotiation, Automation and Orchestration - Services Security, Privacy and Trust - Quality of Services (QoS) and Cost of Services (CoS) - Ontology and Semantic Web for Services Computing - Case Studies in Services Computing Services-Centric Business Models: - Business Services Analysis, Strategy, Design, Development and Deployment - Service-Oriented Business Consulting Methodology and Utilities - Intra- or Inter- Enterprise for Business-to-Business Services Control - Services Revenue Models, e.g., Fee-for-Transaction and Fee-for-Service. - Services Strategic Alliance and Partners - Services Network Economic Structures and Effects - Ontology and Business Services Rules - Trust and Loyalty in Services-Centric Business Models - Cultural, Language, Social and Legal Obstacles in Services-Centric Business Models - Commercialization of Services Computing Technologies - Industry Services Solution Patterns - Case Studies in Services-Centric Business Models Business Process Integration and Management: - Mathematical Foundation of Business Process Modeling, Integration and Management - Business Process Modeling Methodology and Integration Architecture - Collaborative Business Processes - Extended business collaboration architecture and solutions - Business Process-Based Business Transformation and Transition - Enabling Technologies for Business Process Integration and Management - Performance Management and Analysis for Business Process Inte- gration and Management - Security, Privacy and Trust in Business Process Management - Return On Investment (ROI) of Business Process Integration and Management - Requirements Analysis of Business Process Integration and Management - Enterprise Modeling and Application Integration Services, e.g. Enterprise Service Bus - Case Studies in Business Process Integration and Management Important Dates: Abstract Submission Deadline: January 16, 2006 Paper Submission Due Date: January 16, 2006 Decision Notification (Electronic): April 24, 2006 Camera-Ready Copy & Pre-registration Due: May 31, 2006 General Chairs of SCC 2006: Hemant Jain, Wisconsin Distinguished Professor; Tata Consultancy Services Professor, School of Business Administration, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, USA Zhiwei Xu, Professor, Institute of Computing Technology (ICT), China Liang-Jie (LJ) Zhang, Research Staff Member, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, USA Program Committee Chairs: J. Leon Zhao, Ph.D., Professor and Honeywell Fellow, Eller College of Management, The University of Arizona, USA M. Brian Blake, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057 Program Committee Vice-Chair: Patrick C. K. Hung, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Faculty of Business and Information Technology University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT), Canada Workshop Chairs: Malu G. Castellanos, Ph.D. Researcher, Intelligent Enterprise Technologies Lab Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, USA Jian Yang, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Department of Computing Macquaire University, Australia Industry Track Chairs: Michael Maximilien, Ph.D. Research Staff Member, Almaden Services Research Group IBM Almaden Research Center, USA IEEE SOA Industry Summit Chairs: Ali Arsanjani, Ph.D. Chief Architect, SOA and Web services Center of Excellence IBM Global Services, USA Tony Shan Lead Systems Architect Wachoiva Bank, USA Tutorial Chairs: Schahram Dustdar, Ph.D. Professor, Information Systems Institute Vienna University of Technology, Austria Andreas Wombacher, Ph.D. PostDoc Fellow, Department of Computer Science University of Twente, The Netherlands Job Fair Chair: Sandeep Purao, Ph.D. Associate Professor, School of Information Sciences and Technology The Pennsylvania State University, USA Panels Chair: Frank Ferrante, Ph.D. Editor in Chief, IEEE IT Professional Magazine IEEE, USA Hsing Kenny Cheng, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Department of Decision and Information Systems University of Florida, USA Ling Liu, Ph.D. Associate Professor, College of Computing Georgia Institute of Technology, USA Work-in-Progress Chair: Zhi-Hong Mao, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Pittsburgh, USA Publicity Chairs: Steve Miller, Ph.D. Dean, the School of Information Systems Singapore Management University, Singapore Jeff Voas, Ph.D. Director, Systems Assurance Science Applications International Corporation, USA Elena Ferrari, Ph.D. Professor, Dipartimento di Scienze della Cultura, Politiche e dell'Informazione University of Insubria at Como, Italy Publication Chair: Zhixiong Chen, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Mathematics and Computer Information Science Macy College, USA IEEE APSCC 2006 Liaison: Hai Jin, Ph.D. Dean and Professor, School of Computer Science and Technology Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China IEEE Services Computing Contest Chairs: Zhixiong Chen, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Mathematics and Computer Information Science Macy College, USA Charles A. Shoniregun, Ph.D. Programme Leader for MSc TM, School of Computing & Technology University of East London, UK Yuan-Chwen You, Ph.D. Founder Creative Entrepreneurship Consulting Inc., Taiwan Technical Program Committee: Wil van der Aalst (Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, the Netherland) Sheikh Iqbal Ahamed (Marquette University, USA) Anne H. Anderson (Sun Microsystems Laboratories, USA) Akhilesh Bajaj (The University of Tulsa, USA) Roger Barga (Microsoft Research, USA) Krishna Bhagavatula (Tata Consultancy Services, USA) Martin Bichler (Technische Universitat Munchen, Germany) Paul Buhler (College of Charleston, USA) Rajkumar Buyya (The University of Melbourne, Australia) Guoray Cai (Pennsylvania State University, USA) Wentong Cai (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) Jiannong Cao (Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong) Rong N. Chang (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, USA) Kaushal Chari (University of South Florida, USA) Guoqing Chen (Tsinghua University, China) Jian Chen (Tsinghua University, China) Kenny Cheng (University of Florida, USA) Lucy Cherkasova (HP Laboratories, USA) S.C. Cheung (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong) William Cheung (Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong) Roger Chiang (University of Cincinnati, USA) Dickson K.W. Chiu (Dickson Computer Systems, Hong Kong) Cecil Eng Huang Chua (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) Farhad Daneshgar (University of New South Wales, Australia) Haluk Demirkan (Arizona State University, USA) Jorg Desel (The Catholic University of Eichstatt-Ingolstadt, Germany) Schahram Dustdar (Vienna University of Technology, Austria) Opher Etzion (IBM Research Laboratory in Haifa, Israel) Ming Fan (University of Washington, USA) Weiguo Fan (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA) Michael Goul (Arizona State University, USA) Dominic Greenwood (Whitestein Technologies AG, New Zealand) Minyi Guo (University of Aizu, Japan) Hakan Hacigumus (IBM Almaden Research Center, USA) Yanbo Han (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) Kees van Hee (Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, the Netherland) Alan Hevner (University of South Florida, USA) Peter Hrastnik (E3 Competence Center, Austria) Michael N. Huhns (University of South Carolina, USA) Kazuo Iwano (IBM Tokyo Research Lab, Japan) Stefan Jablonski (Friedrich-Alexander University, Germany) Varghese S. Jacob (University of Texas at Dallas, USA) Daniel S. Katz (JPL/Caltech, USA) Roger King (University of Colorado at Boulder, USA) Jeffrey T. Kreulen (IBM Almaden Research Center, USA) Akhil Kumar (Penn State University, USA) Dongwon Lee (Penn State University, USA) Yann-Hang Lee (Arizona State University, USA) Minglu Li (Shanghai Jiao Tong University, USA) Ying Li (IBM China Research Lab, China) Min Luo (IBM Global Services, USA) Sanjay K. Madria (University of Missouri-Rolla, USA) Leo Mark (Georgia Tech, USA) E. Michael Maximilien (IBM Almaden Research Center, USA) Rob Mikula (The MITRE Corporation, USA) Vojislav Misic (University of Manitoba, Canada) Prasenjit Mitra (Pennsylvania State University, USA) Aris M. Ouksel (The University of Illinois at Chicago, USA) Srinivas Padmanabhuni (Infosys Technologies Limited, India) Dunlu Peng (Fudan University, China) Trung Pham (DIcentral Corporation, USA) Thomas E. Potok (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA) Sudha Ram (University of Arizona, USA) Berthold Reinwald (IBM Almaden Research Center, USA) Norbert Ritter (University of Kaiserslautern, Germany) Dumitru Roman (University of Innsbruck/DERI Innsbruck, Austria) Matti Rossi (Helsinki School of Economics, Finland) Steve Ross-Talbot (Pi4 Technologies, UK) Dmitri Roussinov (Arizona State University, USA) Josef Schiefer (Vienna University of Technology, Austria) Ming-Chien Shan (HP Laboratories, USA) Venky Shankararaman (Singapore Management University, USA) Benjamin Shao (Arizona State University, USA) Jun Shen (University of South Australia, Australia) Charles Shoniregun (University of East London, UK) Keng Siau (University of Nebraska at Lincoln, USA) Giri K. Tayi (State University of New York at Albany, USA) Zhong Tian (IBM Beijing Research Lab, China) Kwok Ching Tsui (HSBC, Hong Kong) Vijay Vaishnavi (Georgia State University, USA) Kaladhar Voruganti (IBM Almaden Research Lab, USA) Cho-Li Wang (University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong) Kanliang Wang (Xian Jiaotong University, USA) Xiaoling Wang (Fudan University, China) Mathias Weske (University of Potsdam, Germany) Andreas Wombacher (University of Twente, the Netherlands) Carson Woo (University of British Columbia, Canada) George Yee (National Research Council, Canada) Dongsong Zhang (University of Maryland at Baltimore County, USA) Jia Zhang (Northern Illinois University, USA) Yanchun Zhang (Victoria University, Australia) Yanqing Zhang (Georgia State University, USA) Huimin Zhao (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA) Jing Zhao (China University of Geosciences, China) Aoying Zhou (Fudan University, China) Lina Zhou (University of Maryland at Baltimore County, USA) Dan Zhu (Iowa State University, USA) Technical Steering Committee: Carl K Chang (Iowa State University, USA) Ephraim Feig (Kintera Inc, USA) Hemant Jain (University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee , USA) Frank Leymann (University of Stuttgart, Germany) Minglu Li (Shanghai Jiaotong University, China) Jeffrey Tsai (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA) Calton Pu (Georgia Tech, USA) Zhiwei Xu (Institute of Computing Technology (ICT), China) Liang-Jie Zhang (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, USA) For any enquires, please e-mail to the Program Committee Vice-Chair Patrick C. K. Hung via patrick DOT hung AT uoit DOT ca. ------------------------------ From: Gene S. Berkowitz Subject: Re: Personal Computers Enlisted in AIDS Research Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 17:23:41 -0500 In article , dwolffxx@panix.com says: > In article , Reuters News Wire > wrote: >> A new project in the fight against AIDS will tap into the unused power >> of individual and business computers to help research and identify >> drugs used to combat the HIV virus. >> An Internet-based initiative, called FightAIDSatHome, aims to enlist >> about 100,000 computer users to donate the use of their machines when >> they would otherwise be idle. > I just checked the web site http://www.fightaidsathome.org . They > support various Windows OSes, and Real Soon Now Linux, but not any Mac > OS. So non-Windows users, don't waste your time at this time. > Thanks -- > David > (Remove "xx" to reply.) > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It is too bad that other OSes are not > available now, but there are still plenty of Windows users, and I > hope everyone who can do so will get involved in this effort to > fight AIDS. PAT] Of course, if they had just used BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing), they would have compatibility with many OSes, and it would allow you to divide your machine's idle time among several research groups, including SETI@home, protein folding, climate change, and high-energy physics. Gene ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Auto Call Forward Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 20:42:06 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message asdf wrote: > I know of a feature that when you want incoming calls forwarded > to let's say your cellular you can reconfigure the office phone. > However you have to be onsite to do so. But what if you can't get to > the phone. Is there a way of doing this remotely or is there some kind of > auto call forward feature so that if line goes down the system > automatically forwards incoming calls to the cellular. TELUS has a feature called "Advanced Call Forwarding" that has a touch-tone controlled voice driven interface that lets you call forward calls based on time of the day and/or caller number. You can enable or disable it remotely. It's virtually impossible for a telco to automatically forward incoming calls when a line goes down -- There's not really such a thing as a line going down, unless the entire CO goes down, in which case call forwarding typically fails. ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: John Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2005 17:00:00 EST Just as a historical note, it was forty-two years ago this weekend (Thanksgiving weekend, 1963) that President Kennedy was gunned down in a motorcade in Dallas, TX. Dallas police almost immediatly thereafter (a matter of an hour or so) arrested Lee Harvey Oswald and charged him with the crime. If you were alive, I am sure you may remember what you were doing when you saw it happen on television or heard about it. I had been working as a volunteer for the Chicago Public Library and had prepared (with some helpers) a documentary and 'virtual tour' of the library's programs and facilities. (In those days they were located at Randolph Street and Michigan Blvd. downtown.) Our documentary film had been set to air on Sunday morning on Channel 9 WGN-TV at 11:00 AM the week before, but in those earlier days of commercial TV, things did not always work as they should and the stations would now and then go off the air for repairs, etc. That is what happened that week, and the fellow I worked with at WGN-TV said 'do not worry that they were off the air that day for some unscheduled maintainence; what we will do is move all the programs scheduled for today (including my documentary on the Library) up to next Sunday, at the same time'. Well, we know what happened the next Sunday ... Actually, Friday about 11:00 AM at the moment of his assassination, I was enjoying a brunch with some friends; the television was on and some game show (I forget which one) was on the air; one of those games where you spin a wheel and get whatever prize is associated with the place where the wheel stops. I do recall that Bob Barker was the host. It played idly in the background, while we chatted and ate. It had been on the air a few minutes and was interuppted by a news bulletin saying that 'shots had been fired in a motorcade in Dallas; they were not sure if anyone was hurt or not.' Back to the game show. Then within a minute or so, a second bulletin came across; indeed, 'someone' had been shot; they were trying to get all the details; it might have been the president. Back to the game show. A minute or two later, another news bulletin; shots _had_ been fired, apparently President Kennedy had been hit, the motorcade had been suspended and he was being taken to the Parkland Hospital in Dallas. Back to the game show for all of thirty or forty seconds, then a final interupption in the day's events: it was true, Kennedy had been shot, was rushed to the hospital, police were looking for the guy who did it, and the news department there at CBS would now take over. By that point, we were all giving our attention to the TV set. All television and radio stations began total coverage of the events in Dallas; all the talking heads were chattering non-stop all that day and night, plus _all day_ on Saturday. People were in quite a state of shock, to say the least. We saw the airplane coming back from Dallas with the president's body, and all the official mourning by his wife and his child, etc. By Saturday night, the talking heads had more or less run out of things to chatter about (after about 36 hours non-stop) and the television stations changed to the scene at the US Capitol where Kennedy's body was laying in state, and just focused on that for the rest of the Saturday overnight hours, playing somber music, and watching the crowds of people passing by to look at him and pay their respects. I got a phone call from the program producer at WGN-TV saying their intention was to go back onto 'regular programming' early Sunday morning. (In those days at least, television stations usually signed off the air about midnight or 1:00 a.m. then returned to the air at whatever time their morning shows went on, typically 6:00 or 7:00 AM, as did most radio stations; no laws about it; just not enough overnight listeners/viewers to make it worthwhile. I think WGN-TV was the first among them to go to 24/7 programs, maybe in late 1970's, and where it was customary for stations to sign on and sign off with their 'official, FCC-mandated announcements' [and usually play the national anthem at opening and closing time each day] once WGN-TV went 24/7 sometime in the late 1970's they began making their FCC-mandated announcements just once daily, along with the national anthem, at 5 AM most days; 8 AM on Sundays; 8 AM being the time on Sunday they started their 'broadcast day'.) So, said the producer, be sure to tell everyone to tune in tomorrow morning, your documentary program will be on as planned, although one week late. Sure enough, Sunday morning at 11 AM we got together for another brunch and had the television tuned in on Channel 9. And, we got on the air just as announced. For all of about two minutes, until 11:02 or 11:03 AM, then we were cut off by another news bulletin: "As you know, a Mister Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in the shooting of President Kennedy" (by the tone of their voice we knew that the person making the announcement knew little or nothing about Oswald) "and Mister Oswald is going to be transferred from the Dallas City Jail to the county jail or perhaps into FBI custody. We are going to switch to our affiliate station in Dallas; our staff of reporters there want to know more about why he did this." Immediatly the picture changed to the lobby of the Dallas City Jail where a number of people were crowding around. The reporter, all excited, said "oh look, here he comes now, they are leading him down the hallway to where the police car is waiting to take him to jail; I sure hope we can ask him about this." Crowds of people pushing around, reporter walks up to Oswald eagerly and starts asking him "oh, Mr. Oswald, what did you do this for?" or some words to that effect, as we see Oswald close up facing the camera, possibly he is going to explain if he did it or not and if so, why. But Oswald did not get a chance to answer; at that same instant, Jack Ruby appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, we see him angrily confront Oswald and everyone in the nation who was watching it as it happened on TV saw Ruby stick that gun in Oswald's side and say, "You rotten son of a bitch! You killed the president, now I am going to kill you!" Bang ... Police officers grabbed Ruby, took away his gun and took him into custody. Ruby did not resist at all; he was proud of what he had done; wanted everyone to see his work. Oswald fell over dead on the spot. Ruby, a nightclub/restaurant owner in Dallas was there ostensibly with coffee and sandwiches for the police officers, which is why he was allowed to move freely about the jail. In those days, those times, things were _a lot_ different than today. Needless to say, our documentary show never did get back on the air, that day, or any other day. The entire day was taken over at that point by the talking heads of news, who for several hundred times, roughly every two or three minutes ("in case you missed it when it aired") kept showing over and over and over and over, that movie of Jack Ruby killing Oswald. But other than the original showing, later viewers only got to see Jack Ruby's angry, contorted face and his lips moving angrily but _silently_ (out of respect I guess to FCC sensibilities at that time, they blitzed his voice out) and Oswald falling over dead. Smart lip readers probably figured it out. All the stations were still showing that Ruby/Oswald clip at midnight or whenever they signed off for the day. There have been numerous theories about _why_ Kennedy was shot, and if indeed Oswald _was_ the shooter or not. Many people claim he was not guilty, and have various ideas about the rationale. Some contend that Ruby was used to silence Oswald. My documentary movie about the Chicago Public Library never did get aired. PAT ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #536 ****************************** Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #537 Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 14:55:00 EST TELECOM Digest Mon, 28 Nov 2005 14:55:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 537 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson SBC Recast as AT&T; Another Brave New World (James R. Hood) Singapore Scientists Embrace Plan for Cyberhugs (Reuters News Wire) Supreme Court to Hear E-Bay Patent Appeal (Tim Dobbyn) Momentum Grows to Meld Tech Platforms (Bruce Meyerson) CFP: IEEE Web Services (ICWS 2006) (IEEE CFP) Cellular-News for Monday 28th November 2005 (Cellular-News) NYPost Article About VZ Cramming (Danny Burstein) Competitors Challenge MapQuest (Monty Solomon) Verizon Tests Super-Fast DSL as it Rolls Out Fiber Optics (Monty Solomon) Town Answers Call of Future / Internet Replaces 'Archaic' (Monty Solomon) Leaving Vonage, Want to keep number (cliff@thesolutioncafe.com) Re: Auto Call Forward (harrisloeser@yahoo.com) Re: John Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby (Lisa Hancock) Re: John Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby (Henry) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James R. Hood <consumeraffairs@telecom-digest.org> Subject: SBC Recast as ATT; Another Brave New World Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 11:21:19 -0600 By James R. Hood, ConsumerAffairs.Com In an odd twist on the prodigal son tale, regional telephone giant SBC Communications, created in the 1984 break-up of AT&T, has completed its $16.5 billion acquisition of AT&T and adopted its once-spurned parent's name. "We are ready to meet the needs of a new generation of customers in a new era of communications and entertainment," Edward Whitacre Jr., chairman and chief executive of SBC, said in a statement. Though AT&T is seen by many as damaged goods, it maintains a hefty share of big-business clients and is an internationally recognized brand, unlike SBC, an aggressive but bland local telephone provider operating mostly in the South and Midwest. Verizon, another AT&T spin-off, is buying MCI, historically AT&T's primary competitor in the long-distance business. Both SBC and Verizon have been aggressively building their high-speed Internet and wireless businesses and are thirsting to muscle in on the video delivery business now largely dominated by cable companies. They'll also be pushing Internet telephone services, commonly known as VoIP. Although it's SBC that bought AT&T, the new company already looks a lot like the old AT&T when it talks of moving into the video business without going through the arduous, expensive and time-consuming franchise process required of cable systems. It's a throwback to the way in which AT&T tried to sneak into the local telephone business in the 1990s, when it wrestled Congression into passing legislation that required local telephone companies to lease their local lines to AT&T at heavily discounted rates. P.S., AT&T's lobbying prowess proved a lot better than its marketing skills and the local phone initiative was a flop. 1,000 TV Channels! As usual in such deals, there is much talk about the wondrous things to come. In this case, SBC/AT&T executives are waxing poetic about "new technology" that will supposedly enable the "new" AT&T to deliver more than 1,000 channels of television programming. The company's publicists are also effusive about such potentially vaporous services as Google-style targeted advertising, TV content beamed to cell phones and movies-on-demand, something that's been just around the corner since at least the early 1980s. The "new" AT&T is also opening a retail push in some areas. New AT&T stores popped up in a few malls, offering various gadgets, including online gaming. The company is also opening kiosks in Best Buy, CompUSA and Cingular Wireless stores. In a marketing maze only the image-mad AT&T could navigate, Cingular Wireless, owned jointly by SBC (oops, AT&T) with BellSouth, will begin offering cell phone service under the AT&T name to its business customers. Meanwhile, customers who not long ago had AT&T Wireless service are still being hounded to "convert" from their old AT&T plan to a Cingular plan. Some of them will now, presumably, be encouarged to switch from their old AT&T plan to the, uh, new AT&T plan. Copyright 2003-2005 ConsumerAffairs.Com Inc. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Reuters News Wire <reuters@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Singapore Scientists Embrace Plan for Cyberhugs Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 11:32:06 -0600 Singapore scientists looking for ways to transmit the sense of touch over the Internet have devised a vibration jacket for chickens and are thinking about electronic children's pyjamas for cyberspace hugs. A wireless jacket for chickens or other pets can be controlled with a computer and gives the animal the feeling of being touched by its owner, researchers at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) told Monday's edition of The Straits Times. The next step would be to use the same concept to transmit hugs over the Internet, it said. "These days, parents go on a lot of business trips, but with children, hugging and touching are very important," the paper quoted NTU Associate Professor Adrian David Cheok as saying. NTU is thinking of a pyjama suit for children, which would use the Internet to adjust changes in pressure and temperature to simulate the feeling of being hugged. Parents wearing a similar suit could be "hugged" back by their children, the paper said. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Tim Dobbyn <reuters@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Supreme Court to Hear E-Bay Patent Appeal Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 11:33:36 -0600 By Tim Dobbyn The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday that it would consider an appeal by online auctioneer eBay Inc. in its patent battle with MercExchange, a developer of e-commerce technology. At issue for the justices is whether an appeals court erred in finding that a permanent injunction barring use of a technology must generally be issued once infringement of a valid patent has been determined. In its appeal, eBay said the ruling reduced a trial court judge's discretion to exceptions involving national health and handed a club to companies that buy patents to make infringement claims. The justices will hear arguments in the case most likely in March or April, with a decision expected by the end of June. The high court said it would reconsider its precedents, including one from 1908, on when it is appropriate to grant an injunction against a patent infringer. MercExchange had argued against Supreme Court review, saying the principles involved in the case were well established. In 2003 a federal court ordered eBay to pay Virginia-based MercExchange $29.5 million for infringing two e-commerce patents that MercExchange charged were key to eBay's "Buy it Now" feature, which handles fixed-price sales. Such sales accounted for about 31 percent of the total value of goods sold on eBay in the fourth quarter of 2004. But the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia declined to issue a permanent injunction. In March, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled one of MercExchange's patents was invalid and trimmed the damages against eBay to $25 million but reversed the lower court's denial of MercExchange's request for a permanent injunction against eBay. In addition, eBay says the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued an initial ruling rejecting all of the claims of the patents at the center of the case. The eBay case has attracted interest among those who believe it has become too easy to hold businesses hostage through patent suits. A group of 35 patent law professors filed a friend of the court brief arguing that an entitlement to an injunction allows unscrupulous patent owners to threaten products that are predominantly noninfringing. A computer chip, they noted, may include 5,000 different inventions. (Additional reporting by James Vicini) Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Bruce Meyerson <ap@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Momentum Grows to Meld Tech Platforms Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 10:45:01 -0600 SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/1700AP_Melded_Telecom.html Momentum grows to meld tech platforms By BRUCE MEYERSON AP BUSINESS WRITER NEW YORK -- As easy as it is to connect these days by Internet, cellular, Wi-Fi and plain old telephones, the networks that make all that possible can't communicate well with one another. Technological standards vary from network to network. The traditional phone system and the Internet use completely different protocols. Even a single mobile provider's voice calls and data services are largely separate and incompatible. Now there's momentum building for a new standard that could enable network operators to bridge these gaps, opening the way for melded services such as simultaneous walkie-talkie and video exchanges between a cell phone and a landline. If only it were that simple. The standard -- Internet Protocol for Multimedia Subsystems, or IMS for short -- is only a springboard for convergence between future services, not today's, nearly all of which would need to be adapted or replaced over time to enable them to intermingle. From simple phone calls, voice mail and call waiting, to wireless text messaging and multimedia downloads, most existing telecom services were designed to perform their specific functions as if walled off into distinct silos on the network. It matters little that most network traffic is now digital. For example, despite the growth of phone services based on Internet standards -- known as Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP -- most wireline and wireless calls aren't transmitted in IP from start-to- finish; calls get converted to traditional phone protocols on either or both ends. And while a growing number of non-voice services are IP-based, interspersing their digital packets down a shared network pipe, many applications still need to create a virtual "session," not unlike the path of a regular phone call, between a user's device and the network. IMS attempts to knock down these silos by introducing a common interface for creating sessions. That way, data can be intertwined or bridged across networks to different devices. The technology has been generating buzz within the industry for several years, but recently took a big leap off the drawing board with a series of contract awards by some of the largest U.S. telephone companies. Earlier this month, BellSouth Corp. announced it was buying IMS network systems from Lucent Technologies Inc. Two weeks earlier, AT&T Inc. and Cingular Wireless, which is co-owned by AT&T and BellSouth, also signed on to buy Lucent's IMS technology. Lucent, still struggling through a migraine-size hangover from the dot-com-telcom bust, acknowledged during its latest earnings report that IMS wouldn't be generating any meaningful revenue in the near future, but the contracts amount to a substantial endorsement of the company's technology. So far, only a smattering of foreign operators and one major U.S. company, Sprint Nextel Corp., have begun deploying IMS, and largely in a way that's invisible to customers. Sprint, for example, rolled out a walkie-talkie service, ReadyLink, for its cell phones in 2003 using a pre-standard version of IMS. But ReadyLink differs little from the non-IMS "push-to-talk" from other cell phone providers, offering none of the multimedia combinations IMS can enable. In fact, when Sprint's recently acquired sister company, Nextel, added a new photo-sharing component to its pioneering push-to-talk service earlier this month, it did so without the purported magic of IMS. Like just about every existing cell phone application, Nextel's walkie-talkie feature was essentially created in a software vacuum, programmed with no emphasis on interoperability with other services. So while IMS might make it easier to write a walkie-talkie program from scratch and add new features down the road, Nextel has to consider the millions of customers already using its very popular non-IMS service. "You don't want to fix something that's not broken," said Rob Prudhomme of inCode, a wireless industry consulting firm. Carriers "have a lot of services running before IMS, so their challenge is how to migrate all the services they already have to IMS without incurring a huge cost." Likewise, though Sprint used IMS for ReadyLink, the company relied on proprietary technologies for the photo services it launched a year earlier, making integration into a "push-to-photo" capability like Nextel's more complex. Such complications make IMS a commitment best suited for major network overhauls -- which may help explain why Sprint, AT&T and Cingular are now venturing down that path. All three have placed big-money bets on next-generation network technologies. Sprint, which is rolling out a speedier wireless data technology called EV-DO, expects to use IMS as the underpinning for some ambitious new services bridging cell phones and televisions as part of the company's new alliance with four of the nation's biggest cable TV providers. The new capabilities, expected to arrive by mid-2006, include using a cell phone to view live TV broadcasts, check the program listings, program a digital video recorder, or even watch programs stored on that DVR. Back in the living room, set-top boxes might be equipped for push-to-talk conversations with cell phone users. Sprint also plans to use IMS to add desktop business capabilities to cell phones. At AT&T, the IMS foray comes amid a vast upgrade of the company's local telephone network so that it can deliver television and an array of interactive services using a new Internet-based technology called IPTV. But in a telling sign, AT&T says IMS will not be the special sauce behind the interactive features when the service first launches in 2006. Likewise, Cingular is making its long-awaited foray into the push-to-talk market with a service based on a non-IMS technology from Kodiak Networks. "Most equipment has not yet been tested in a real-world setting, to prove that it meets operators stringent requirements for reliability," analysts at Forrester Research say in new report that predicts IMS won't be widely adopted until 2009. "Today, carriers like Sprint, that are public about strategic IMS commitments, must deploy non-IMS services until products exist and are proven." Copyright 2005 Associated Press Copyright 2005 Seattle P-I NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more headlines from Associated Press please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ Reply-To: cfp@servicescomputing.org From: IEEE CFP <cfp@servicescomputing.org> Organization: IEEE ICWS-SCC 2006 Subject: CFP: IEEE Web Services (ICWS 2006) Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 17:02:47 GMT CALL FOR PAPERS 2006 IEEE International Conference on Web Services (ICWS 2006) Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of IEEE Computer Society! September 18-22, 2006, Hyatt Regency at O'Hare Airport, Chicago, USA http://conferences.computer.org/icws/2006 Sponsored by IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Services Computing (tab.computer.org/tcsc) The 2006 IEEE International Conference on Web Services (ICWS 2006) will be part of the IEEE Computer Society Congress on Software Technology and Engineering Practice (CoSTEP), celebrating the 60th Anniversary of IEEE Computer Society! ICWS 2006 organizing committee invites you to participate in the fourth year of ICWS in Chicago, USA on 18-22 September 2006. ICWS has been a prime international forum for both researchers and industry practitioners to exchange the latest fundamental advances in the state of the art and practice of Web Services. ICWS also aims to identify emerging research topics and define the future of Web Services. Over the past four years, ICWS has grown steadily, attracting over 200 participants on a regular basis. ICWS 2005 was held on July 11-15, 2005 in Orlando, Florida, USA; ICWS 2004 was held on July 6-9, 2004 in San Diego, California, USA; ICWS 2003 was held on June 23-26, 2003 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. ICWS 2006 will be co-located with the 2006 IEEE International Conference on Services Computing (SCC 2006), the 30th Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC 2006), and the 2006 IEEE Workshops on Software Technology and Engineering Practice (STEP 2006). IEEE Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) Industry Summit and IEEE International Services Computing Contest will also be featured at this joint event. The technical program will include refereed paper presentations, panels, and poster sessions in both research and industry tracks. Workshops and tutorials will run before and throughout the conference. ICWS 2006 program seeks original, unpublished research papers reporting substantive new work in various aspects of Web services. Papers must properly cite related work and clearly indicate their contributions to the field of Web services. Topics of interest include but not limited to: * Mathematical Foundations for Web Services Computing * Web Services-based Service Oriented Architecture * Web Services Modeling * Web Services Standards and Implementation Technologies * Web Services Specifications and Enhancements (e.g., UDDI, SOAP, WSDL) * Web Services Discovery * Web Services Composition and Integration * Web Services Invocation * QoS for Web Services (e.g., security, privacy, reliability, performance, fault tolerance, etc.) * Web Services Assessment (i.e., validation & verification) * Web Services-based Testing Methodologies * Web Services-based Software Engineering * Web Services-based Project Management * Semantic Web Services * IT Infrastructure Management for Web Services * Solution Management for Web Services * Multimedia Web Services * Web Services-based Business Process Management * Web Services-based Mobile Computing * Web Services-based Grid Applications (e.g. OGSA) * Domain Specific Web Services Applications and Solutions All submitted manuscripts will be peer-reviewed by at least 3 program committee members. Accepted papers will appear in the conference proceedings in both hardcopy and on-line version published by the IEEE Computer Society. Extended versions of selected best papers published in the ICWS 2006 will be invited for publication in the International Journal of Web Services Research (JWSR), the International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management (IJBPIM), and the International Journal of Grid and Utility Computing (IJGUC). Both the ICWS Proceedings and JWSR are included in EI Compendex. Submitted manuscripts will be limited to 8 (IEEE Proceedings style) pages and required to be formatted using the IEEE Proceedings template. Electronic submission of manuscripts (in PDF or Word format) is required. Detailed instructions for electronic paper preparation and submission, panel proposals, tutorial proposals, and review process can be found at http://conferences.computer.org/icws/2006/. At least one author of each accepted paper is required to register for the conference and present the paper. One Best Paper award and between one to three Best Student Paper Awards will be granted at ICWS 2006. The first author of the best student papers must be full-time student. If your paper is application or solution oriented, you can consider submitting it to ICWS 2006 Industry Track via its dedicated online submission and review system. Manuscripts submitted to the Research Track focusing on application or solution descriptions may be recommended to the Industry Track for further considerations. Submitted papers with novel ideas but not accepted by the Research Track and Industry Track due to space limitation may also be recommended to the Work-in-Progress Track. Important Dates: Abstract Submission Deadline: January 16, 2006 Paper Submission Due Date: January 16, 2006 Decision Notification (Electronic): April 24, 2006 Camera-Ready Copy Due Date & Pre-registration Due: May 31, 2006 General Chairs: Liang-Jie (LJ) Zhang, Ph.D., IBM T.J. Watson Research, USA, zhanglj AT us.ibm.com Frank Leymann, University of Stuttgart, Germany, frank.leymann AT informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Program Chairs: Ephraim Feig, Ph.D., Kintera, Inc., efeig AT kintera.com Anup Kumar, Professor, CECS Department, University of Louisville, USA, ak AT louisville.edu Program Vice Chair: Jia Zhang, Ph.D., Northern Illinois University, jiazhang AT cs.niu.edu Workshop Chairs Malu G. Castellanos, Ph.D. HP Laboratories, USA Jian Yang, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Macquaire University, Australia Industry Track Chair Wu Chou, Ph.D. Avaya Labs Research, Avaya, USA IEEE SOA Industry Summit Chairs Ali Arsanjani, Ph.D. Chief Architect, SOA and Web Services Center of Excellence IBM Global Services, USA Tony Shan Lead Systems Architect, Wachoiva Bank, USA Tutorial Chairs Schahram Dustdar, Ph.D. Professor, Vienna University of Technology, Austria Andreas Wombacher, Ph.D. PostDoc Fellow, University of Twente, The Netherlands Job Fair Chair Sandeep Purao, Ph.D. Associate Proessor, Pennsylvania State University, USA Panel Chairs Frank Ferrante Editor in Chief, IEEE IT Professional Magazine, USA Ling Liu, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA Hsing Kenny Cheng, Ph.D. Associate Professor, University of Florida, USA Work-in-Progress Chair Graciela Gonzalez, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Sam Houston State University, USA Publicity Chairs Jeff Voas, Ph.D. Director, Systems Assurance Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), USA Elena Ferrari, Ph.D. Professor, University of Insubria at Como, Italy Steve Miller, Ph.D. Professor, Dean of the School of Information Systems Singapore Management University, Singapore Publication Chair Haifei Li, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Union University, USA IEEE APSCC 2006 Liaison Hai Jin, Ph.D. Professor and Dean, School of Computer Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China IEEE Services Computing Contest Chairs Zhixiong Chen, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Mercy College, USA Charles A. Shoniregun, Ph.D. University of East London, UK Yuan-Chwen You, Ph.D. Founder, Creative Entrepreneurship Consulting, Inc., Taiwan Program Committee: Grigoris Antoniou (University of Crete/Institute of Computer Science FORTH, Greece) Mikio Aoyama (Nanzan University, Japan) Ali Arsanjani (IBM Global Services, USA) Malcolm Atkinson (University of Edinburgh, UK) Boualem Benatallah (University of New South Wales, Australia) Elisa Bertino (Purdue University, USA) Ken Birman (Cornell University, USA) Athman Bouguettaya (Virginia Tech., USA) Paul Buhler (College of Charleston, Charleston, SC USA) Christoph Bussler (Cisco Systems, USA) Jorge Cardoso (University of Madeira, Portugal) Malu G. Castellanos (HP Labs, USA) Jeane Chen (Kintera, USA) Ying Chen (IBM China Research Lab, China) Wu Chou (Avaya Labs Research, Avaya , USA) Alok Choudhary (Northwestern University, USA) Vassilis Christophides (University of Crete/Institute of Computer Science FORTH, Greece) Umeshwar Dayal (HP Labs, USA) Stefan Dessloch (Kaiserslautern University of Technology, Germany) Asuman Dogac (Middle East Technical University, Turkey) Jiang Du (Queensland University of Technology, Australia) Schahram Dustdar (Vienna University of Technology, Austria) Phillip Ein-Dor (Tel-Aviv University, Israel) Vadim Ermolayev (Zaporozhye State University, Ukraine) Dieter Fensel (DERI, Ireland & University of Innsbruck, Austria) Elena Ferrari (Politiche e dell'Informazione, University of Insubria at Como, Italy) Marcus Fontoura (Yahoo Research, USA) Piero Fraternali (Politecnico di Milano, Italy) Casey K. Fung (Boeing Phantom Works, USA) Martin Gaedke (University of Karlsruhe, Germany) George M. Galambos (IBM Canada) Shahram Ghandeharizadeh (University of Southern California, USA) Graciela Gonzalez (Sam Houston State University , USA) Vijay K. Gurbani (Lucent Technologies/Bell Labs Innovations, USA) Abdelsalam (Sumi) Helal (University of Florida, USA) Alan R. Hevner (University of South Florida, USA) Michael N. Huhns (University of South Carolina, USA) Rick Hull (Lucent Technologies, Bell Labs, USA) Patrick C. K. Hung (University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada) Varghese S. Jacob (University of Texas at Dallas, USA) Hemant Jain (University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, USA) Ralph Johnson (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA) Anupam Joshi (University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA) Roger (Buzz) King (University of Colorado at Boulder, USA) Hiroyuki Kitagawa (University of Tsukuba, Japan) Domenico Laforenza (Information Science and Technologies Institute (ISTI), USA) Herman Lam (University of Florida, USA) Konstantin Läufer (Loyola University Chicago, USA) M. Lenzerini (DIS Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica, Italy) Frank Leymann (University of Stuttgart, Germany) Haifei Li (Union University, USA) Wei Li (Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) Geng Lin (Cicso Systems, USA) Ling Liu (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA) Bertram Ludaescher (University of California at Davis, USA) J.P. Martin-Flatin (UQAM, Canada) XS (Xin Sheng) Mao (IBM China Software Development Laboratory(CSDL), China) Hiroshi Maruyama (IBM Research, Japan) Carolyn McGregor (University of Western Sydney, Australia) Dennis McLeod (Univeristy of Southern California, USA) Hong Mei (Beijing University, China) Xiannong Meng (Bucknell University, USA) Dejan S. Milojicic (HP Laboratories, USA) Simanta Mitra (Iowa State University, USA) Tadao Murata (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA) Jeff Offutt (George Mason University, USA) Thomas E. Potok (Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL), USA) Thierry Priol (Inria, France) Calton Pu (Georgia Tech, USA) Norbert Ritter (University of Hamburg, Germany) Dumitru Roman (University of Innsbruck / DERI Innsbruck, Austria) Steve Ross-Talbot (Enigmatec Corporation, Germany) Atul Sajjanhar (School of Information Technology, Australia) Vipul Shah (Tata Consultancy Services America, USA) Amit Sheth (University of Georgia, USA) Simon Shim (San Jose State University, USA) Munindar P. Singh (North Carolina State University, USA) Il-Yeol Song (Drexel University, USA) Judith Stafford (Tufts University, USA) Rudi Studer (University Karlsruhe, Germany) Jianwen Su (University of California at Santa Barbara, USA) Stanley Su (University of Florida, USA) Katia Sycara (Carnegie-Mellon University, USA) Stephan Tai (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, USA) Jeffrey Tsai (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA) Jeffrey Voas (Science Applications International Corporation, USA) Graham Williams (Togaware, Australia) Joseph Williams (Microsoft, USA) Stephen J.H. Yang (National Central University, Taiwan) Clement Yu (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA) Liang-Jie Zhang (IBM T.J. Watson Research, USA) Yanchun Zhang (Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia) Hong Zhu (Oxford Brookes University, UK) Technical Steering Committee: Carl K Chang (Iowa State University, USA) Ephraim Feig (Kintera Inc, USA) Hemant Jain (University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee , USA) Frank Leymann (University of Stuttgart, Germany) Calton Pu (Georgia Tech, USA) Ming-Chien Shan (Hewlett-Packard, USA) Jeffrey Tsai (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA) Liang-Jie Zhang (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, USA) ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Monday 28th November 2005 Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 07:41:38 -0600 From: Cellular-News <dailydigest@cellular-news-mail.com> Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com [[3G News]] Hutchison's 3 Italia Listing Likely Delayed http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14986.php 3 Italia, the Italian mobile phone business controlled by Hutchison Whampoa Ltd, said in a statement that its initial public offering would likely be delayed until the first quarter of 2006. ... EDGE Coverage Expanded in Bulgaria http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14991.php Bulgaria's M-Tel has started offering EDGE services in ten new cities, expanding coverage to another 20% of the Bulgarian population. As of November 25, 2005, besides Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Bourgas and the bigger sea resorts and populated areas along... Testing HSDPA in Hungary http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14992.php Hungary's Pannon GSM has launched trials of a HSDPA network in Budaors. Pannon GSM is commissioning the HSDPA service in its live network in Buda?first. Coverage will be extended to downtown Budapest within a few days. The service will be availabl... South Korean 3G Roaming Expanded http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14995.php South Korea's SK Telecom has announced the launch of its WCDMA Automatic Roaming Service in Italy and France. Like the existing CDMA Automatic Roaming service, SK Telecom subscribers traveling to these countries can now send and receive WCDMA cellula... [[Financial News]] 3 Telecom Cos Bid For Alltel's Local Phone Lines - Report http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14981.php Three telecommunications companies have entered final negotiations to acquire a collection of local telephone access lines from Alltel Corp., the Arkansas-based wireless group, for as much as US$10 billion, the Financial Times reported Friday. ... Swiss Government: To Block Swisscom Taking Over Foreign Cos http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14982.php The Swiss government plans to block any foreign acquisitions by telecommunications company Swisscom AG for the time being, Dieter Leutwyler, a spokesman for the Finance Ministry said Friday. ... Chile Entel: No Contacts With Mexico's Carlos Slim -Report http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14985.php Chilean telecommunications company Empresa Nacional de Telecomunicaciones SA hasn't been approached by Mexican entrepreneur Carlos Slim, local business paper Diario Financiero reported Friday, citing company sources. ... Russia's SMARTS RAS Jan-Sep net profit soars to 188 mln rubles http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14987.php The net profit of Russian regional mobile operator SMARTS rose to 188.942 million rubles in January-September from 28.3 million rubles in the same period of 2004, as calculated under Russian Accounting Standards, or RAS, the company said Friday. ... [[Legal News]] TeliaSonera: Ruling On Fees May Help In Other Disputes http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14984.php TeliaSonera hopes to settle several interconnection fee disputes with rival telecommunications operators after a court ruled in its favor in on disagreement this week, a lawyer for the company said Friday. ... [[Messaging News]] Record Numbers of SMS's Sent in the UK http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14997.php The UK's Mobile Data Association (MDA) has reports that a new record has been set in the UK, with a staggering 2.9 billion SMS's being sent during last month and an average of 93.5 million text messages sent per day. Person-to-person texts sent acros... [[Network Contracts News]] Ericsson In Hosted Ringback Tones Deal With 3 Italy http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14983.php Swedish telecommunications equipment maker Telefon AB LM Ericsson Friday said it has entered a five-year agreement with 3 Italy for hosted ringback tones, based on Ericsson's Personalized Greeting Service. ... Expanding Mobile Coverage in Greenland http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14994.php Siemens is supplying high-speed Internet technology and new mobile communication technology to Greenland. Government-owned telecommunication operator Tele Greenland has entrusted Siemens with the task of supplying and building the technology. This ca... [[Network Operators News]] Safaricom Denies Vodafone Asset Swap Rumours http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14993.php Kenya's Safaricom has refuted media claims speculating on a possible African portfolio switch by Vodafone in favour of South African operator Vodacom. Safaricom CEO Mr Michael Joseph has dismissed as untrue, news wire media reports quoting his Vodaco... Verizon Completing Florida Upgrade http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14998.php Verizon Wireless says that it is nearing completion of a US$250 million enhancement to its Florida digital wireless network in 2005. The investment includes adding and updating transmission sites and other technology to improve call quality, increase... [[Offbeat News]] 75 Years of International Phone Calls http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14996.php Telecom New Zealand celebrated the 75th anniversary of its first international phone call over the weekend. Three quarters of a century ago Sir Apirana Ngata made history when he spoke by phone to the then Acting Australian Prime Minister J. E. Fento... [[Personnel News]] Vodafone CEO Retires http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14990.php Alexander Schuit, who has been interim Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Vodafone Netherlands since April 2005 will be retiring. Guy Laurence, currently Global Terminals & Consumer Marketing Director at Vodafone Group, has been appointed as the new CE... [[Regulatory News]] Cellular Liberalization Drives Entire Telecoms Market - report http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14989.php After the successful partial privatization of Omantel, and the successful entrance of a second cellular operator, Oman's telecom market is ripe for further liberalization in the coming two years. The Arab Advisors Group projects Oman's total cellular... [[Statistics News]] Mobile Online Gaming in the APEJ Region Poised For Steady Growth http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14988.php According to a new study from IDC, mobile online gaming in the APEJ region will continue to grow at a steady pace, capturing the interest of providers as a potential revenue-generating service. The key factors contributing to the industry's developme... ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein <dannyb@panix.com> Subject: NYPost Article About VZ Cramming Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 04:52:45 -0500 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC PHONY-CALL SCAM By RICH CALDER November 28, 2005 - It pays to scrutinize your telephone bill - just ask Robert Bell. The 60-year-old financial analyst recently spotted an unexpected $7.22 charge on his Verizon bill. It was for an eight-minute collect call made in September from an Annapolis, Md., payphone to his home office in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Bell says he and his family never accepted -- or were even asked to accept -- the phantom call. [ snippety snip. rest of article gives plenty of additional examples along with VZ's comment that they know nutting about any such complaints ... despite documen- tation...] "If they were knowingly gaming their customer base with fraudulent charges, the senior management of Verizon should be wearing handcuffs and orange jump suits," Bell said. rich.calder@nypost.com http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/58209.htm _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2005 23:00:08 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Competitors Challenge MapQuest By CATHERINE TSAI AP Business Writer DENVER (AP) -- Initially, the great thing about Internet mapping programs was their swiftness and ease for obtaining directions, printing them and driving the course you plotted. Now those Web maps can travel with you, too. And get updated on the road. And, on some wireless handhelds, show you exactly where you are and if, say, an Ethiopian restaurant is anywhere near. MapQuest Inc., acquired by America Online Inc. in 2000, was the first mover and remains tops in Internet cartography as it heads toward the 10th anniversary of its Web site in February. "As Google is to search, MapQuest has been to mapping and driving directions," said Greg Sterling of The Kelsey Group, which researches electronic directories and local media. But a bevy of deep-pocketed competitors threatens. "Google, Yahoo and MSN are certainly on (its) heels," Sterling said. "MapQuest is in danger if (it doesn't) continue to innovate." Of all people going to mapping sites, 71 percent visited MapQuest.com in September, roughly even from a year ago, according to comScore Media Metrix. Yahoo Inc. drew 32 percent, also about the same as last year, while new arrival Google Inc. had a 25 percent share. (The numbers do not add up to 100 percent because some people visit multiple sites.) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53480383 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 01:08:49 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Verizon tests super-fast DSL as it also rolls out fiber optics By Keith Reed, Globe Staff Verizon Communications Inc. is going back to the future in the race to be the cutting-edge provider of broadband. The telecommunications giant, currently trying to bring high-speed fiber-optic lines into customers' homes, is also testing a super-fast version of its digital subscriber line technology, which delivers Internet services over old-fashioned twisted copper telephone lines. Verizon is testing DSL with download speeds double their current limits in some of its employees' homes in Texas. If the service proves popular among its workers, Verizon could crank up its high-speed residential connections from their current download speed limit of 3 megabits per second to as much as 7.1 megabits per second. The DSL upgrade, reported by Cnet last week, comes as Verizon is also rolling out FiOS, its fiber-optic offering that is the backbone for the company's new venture to provide video service, in competition with cable companies. FiOS offers download speeds 10 times faster than DSL's current quickest speed. It can also deliver cable television and even home phone service over the same line at the same time. The fiber service would eliminate the need for the copper wires that currently carry Verizon's phone and Internet service. Verizon spokeswoman Sharon Beadle acknowledged that FiOS is a more powerful service, but said a DSL upgrade would give many of its customers the option of quicker connections now, while the company undergoes the laborious process of stringing thousands of miles of fiber-optic lines. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/11/28/verizon_tests_super_fast_dsl_as_it_also_rolls_out_fiber_optics/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 02:47:58 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Town Answers Call of the Future / Internet Replaces 'Archaic' Phones By Matt Carroll, Globe Staff The town of Milton has switched to Internet-based phone technology in Town Hall, joining Hingham as one of the first municipalities in the region to make the leap to a system on the cutting edge of communication technology. The move was designed to eventually save money, but it also solves a more immediate problem: it had become increasingly difficult to find people who could repair what had become an archaic phone system, said town officials. Milton Town Administrator David A. Colton said he expected savings of about $300 or $400 a month. The system cost about $40,000 to install. "We had to get a new phone system because the old system was defunct," said Colton. "It was old and archaic. . . . It was very expensive to call a service guy." There is an added benefit for residents: The new system allows for quick changes so a town can, for example, set up a flu hot line ''in 20 minutes," said Steve Becker, Hingham's manager of information services. It couldn't be done before. The system is called VoIP, or "voice over Internet protocol." It uses the same underlying technology as the Internet. With VoIP, the person making the call does not notice anything different. He or she gets the same dial tone and the phone generally looks the same, explained Michael E. Roberts, chairman of Milton's Technology Committee, which helped the town make the switch. But underneath the surface, the technology is very different from old phone lines. The caller's words are digitized and disassembled into packets of information that are sent whizzing across the Internet. At the other end, the packets are reassembled into speech. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/11/27/town_answers_call_of_the_future/ ------------------------------ From: cliff@thesolutioncafe.com Subject: Leaving Vonage, Want to Keep Number Date: 28 Nov 2005 09:59:41 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I have a Vonage assigned number and BellSouth is unable to take it over because they don't have an exchange in my area that matches my Vonage number. I was informed that I could switch it to a cellular phone plan as they can take over any number without relying on physical exchange programming. Is there any other way I can keep my Vonage number using something like a call forwarding service without having to pay $50/month (business) for Vonage? Thanks, Cliff ------------------------------ From: harrisloeser@yahoo.com Subject: Re: Auto Call Forward Date: 28 Nov 2005 10:10:18 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com This is a standard feature on some business class VoIP based unified communications packages. In CallTower's outsourced implementation of Cisco VoIP, users can create a series of forwarding "locations" with the various phone numbers where they might like to get their calls (weekend house, cell phone, home office, etc) the user, using an on line private portal interface can select individual locations to receive forwarding, or have calls route o one after the other. The selection and sequence are infintely adjustable over the web interface. This is efficient, useful and can be a career saver in the event of a physical disaster of any kind. Harris Loeser www.calltower.com hloeser@calltower.com 415-869-8979 > I know of a feature that when you want incoming calls forwarded > to let's say your cellular you can reconfigure the office phone. > However you have to be onsite to do so. But what if you can't get to > the phone. Is there a way of doing this remotely or is there some kind of > auto call forward feature so that if line goes down the system > automatically forwards incoming calls to the cellular. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You did not say what is your telco in > your community, but many/most telcos offer a version of 'remote call > forwarding' which allows you to call into a specified number and then > enter a password followed by _the number you wish to forward_ and give > it the usual *72/*73 commands at that point. To prevent others from > forwarding (or turning off the forwarding) against your will it is > passworded. The number you dial into may or may not be on the same > exchange as your number, but it is on the _same switch or ESS > machine._ The number you dial into is sort of a 'terminal' (like a > central office technican would use in the office) to deal with your > phone remotely. But it is very limited in its command set; you can do > *72 or *73 (whatever code turns on and off call forwarding) and not > much else. I used to have that on my Illinois Bell line in > Chicago. The idea is that people leave home, _then_ discover they > forgot to forward their phone. I think when I lived in Chicago I > dialed something like 312-334-9995 or similar, but no where close to > my own number. After a ring or two and a click it answered by asking > for 'my number' (and then upon entering same) it asked for 'password' > and upon getting that it asked for 'command?' I could enter *72 or *73 > (which in Chicago in those days was turn on/off call fowarding) and in > the case of *72 the number to which calls were to be forwarded, > ten-digit format. It then quoted back audibly what it had done, asked > for approval, and disconnected. Other 'star commands' (*60 *67, *71, > *77, etc) were ignored. > I do not think it was called 'remote call forwarding' since that is > the name of the service set up to automatically forward your calls to > some long distance point. Perhaps it was 'remote forwarding' (without > the word 'call'). You would have to ask around. If you have two actual > phone lines and numbers (not just a virtual number like 'call waiting') > I think you can now purchase ( http://sandman.com for example) a gizmo > to do the same thing. A teeny little box with a plug in for each of > the modular cords (for your two lines); you call in on one of the > lines and use it to manipulate what you want the other line to do. I > suggest you write to mike@sandman.com to get more specifics on this. > Maybe when you write to Mr. Sandman you could cut and paste your > inquiry and my response so he has a better idea what you want. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: John Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby Date: 27 Nov 2005 19:06:16 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Recently PBS aired a documentary on how the news media -- print and TV -- covered the Kennedy visit to Dallas, the subsequent assasinations, and follow up. They showed reporters broadcasting considerable utterly wrong information because they were in such a hurry to put anything out over the air. They interviewed upset bystanders who gave notoriously inaccurate accounts. That remains one of the big problems of "instant" TV journalism, such as the cable news channels. They're in such a hurry to get something out over the air they fail to check the story and get the TOTAL picture. Partial pictures are very misleadings. Don't report an "explosion" until you know exactly what exploded and the severity. I remember all local stations in my city suspended normal broadcasts (at a juicy time) to show a gas main break. The first few seconds were interesting as the flames were shooting high into the air. But after that it was meaningless. As it turned out, there were no injuries to anyone and very little properly damage (the fire was in the middle of an intersection). Certainly a news story, but not worth pre-empting other shows for. Obviously the news directors jumped on the pictorial aspect, rather than the _journalistic_ aspect. That's what scary about TV news -- it focuses on the PICTURE, not the STORY. In the 1960s, street protesters learned to create good TV pictures that made them appear to be far more influential than they really were. Great propaganda. As to all the theories about the killings, one of my co-workers insists I (as a child) was clearly visible standing in the background in Dallas and obviously had some part. That makes about as much sense as any other theory. A few years ago Newsweek did a feature story on this. While the official version doesn't have the elements of conspiracy and intrigue that the theories have, Newsweek demonstrated that the official story was very thoroughly substantiated by the evidence. I do feel, however, that had Kennedy lived, his legacy would be far different than the beloved place he occupies in our history. He was gone and Johnson was the one to escalate in Vietnam, push through civil rights legislation and massive social spending. It was Kennedy's "best and brightest" who stayed on under Johnson, and I think Kennedy would've pushed as hard in Vietnam as Johnson did, with the same domestic turmoil. ------------------------------ From: henry999@eircom.net (Henry) Subject: Re: John Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 13:23:08 +0200 Organization: Elisa Internet customer Patrick Townson <ptownson@telecom-digest.org> wrote: > Just as a historical note, it was forty-two years ago this weekend > (Thanksgiving weekend, 1963) ... Sorry, PAT. It was the week before Thanksgiving. The assassination was on a Friday and I was in school. There is no school on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Ergo... Cheers, Henry [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe you are correct; it was a long time ago (as you and I both know in our ancient ages!) Something I am not clear on, however: Thanksgiving is always a variable date holiday. It _always_ comes on Thursday, but is it the _last_ Thursday in November or the _fourth_ Thursday in November (sometimes there are five Thursdays.)? I know that now and again merchants complain when there is a 'late Thanksgiving' as they get 'cheated' out of a week of Christmas sales. What is the exact rule? And do you remember when Memorial Day used to _always_ be May 30, no matter what day of the week it was? If it came on Sunday sometimes, then we kids in school felt 'cheated' because we did not get an extra holiday from school. But if it fell on Wednesday, our parents felt 'cheated' since it was impossible to drive any distance on holiday and get back home on the same day (so as to not miss next day's work or kid's school day, etc.) PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 ! ************************ Visit http://www.mstm.okstate.edu and take the next step in your career with a Master of Science in Telecommunications Management (MSTM) degree from Oklahoma State University (OSU). This 35 credit-hour interdisciplinary program is designed to give you the skills necessary to manage telecommunications networks, including data, video, and voice networks. The MSTM degree draws on the expertise of the OSU's College of Business Administration; the College of Arts and Sciences; and the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology. 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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 V24 #537 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Nov 28 23:51:38 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id BF80314F38; Mon, 28 Nov 2005 23:51:37 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #538 Message-Id: <20051129045137.BF80314F38@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 23:51:37 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.1 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, BIZ_TLD,MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Mon, 28 Nov 2005 23:53:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 538 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Cybercrime Yeilds More Cash Than Drugs (Suhail Karem) Man Arrested, Accused of Starting Fake Site, Fake Story (Associated Press) FTC Says Spam Email Filters Getting Smarter, But so is Spam (Reuters News) ICANN Examines Single Letter Domain Names (Anick Jesdanun) Deadline For VOIP 911 Passes (Jennifer C. Kerr) You Are Exposed / When Even the Privacy Commissioner's Cellphone (Solomon) TiVo Announces First Advertising Search Product for Television (M Solomon) What Happened to Amanda Voicemail Company? (aadler@ctvi.com) WKMG Report: Web Sites Offer Private Cell Phone Information (Dave Garland) N.C. Judge Declines Protection for Diebold (Monty Solomon) Expensive Cell Phone Rates (Lisa Hancock) Re: John Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby (Henry) Re: John Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby (Paul) Re: John Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby (Robert Bonomi) Re: JFK Assassination (Anthony Bellanga) Holiday Observances Phone Rates (was Re: Kennedy) (Lisa Hancock) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Souhail Karam Subject: Cybercrime Yeilds More Cash Than Drugs Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 20:49:40 -0600 By Souhail Karam Global cybercrime generated a higher turnover than drug trafficking in 2004 and is set to grow even further with the wider use of technology in developing countries, a top expert said on Monday. No country is immune from cybercrime, which includes corporate espionage, child pornography, stock manipulation, extortion and piracy, said Valerie McNiven, who advises the U.S. Treasury on cybercrime. "Last year was the first year that proceeds from cybercrime were greater than proceeds from the sale of illegal drugs, and that was, I believe, over $105 billion," McNiven told Reuters. "Cybercrime is moving at such a high speed that law enforcement cannot catch up with it." For example, Web sites used by fraudsters for "phishing" -- the practice of tricking computer users into revealing their bank details and other personal data -- only stayed on the Internet for a maximum of 48 hours, she said. Asked if there was evidence of links between the funding of terrorism and cybercrime, McNiven said: "There is evidence of links between them. But what's more important is our refusal or failure to create secure systems, we can do it but it's an issue of costs." McNiven, a former e-finance and e-security specialist for the World Bank, was speaking in Riyadh on the sidelines of a conference on information security in the banking sector. Developing countries which lack the virtual financial systems available elsewhere are easier prey for cybercrime perpetrators, who are often idle youths looking for quick gain. "When you have identity thefts or corruption and manipulation of information there (developing countries), it becomes almost more important because ... their systems start getting compromised from the get-go," she said. "Another area that begins to expand is human trafficking and pornography because both of these become so much available once you have a communication ability," McNiven said. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Associated Press News Wire Subject: Man Arrested, Accused of Starting Fake Web Site, Story Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 20:52:22 -0600 Police arrested a former computer programmer Monday for allegedly publishing a fabricated news article on a fake Yahoo Japan news Web site saying China had invaded the Japanese island of Okinawa. Metropolitan Police arrested Takahiro Yamamoto, 30, on suspicion of violating patent laws, said a police spokesman who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing departmental policy. The office said Yamamoto allegedly accredited the fake article to Kyodo News Agency and published it on an Internet site that he had designed to look like Yahoo Japan Corp.'s news site. The story was written in Japanese with a dateline "America, Oct. 18 Kyodo" followed by a headline saying "Chinese Military Invades Okinawa," the police said. Police had confiscated Yamamoto's personal computer and analyzed the data stored in it. Kyodo said both it and Yahoo had filed complaints to police in October. The Web site was accessed 66,000 times until it was taken down on Oct. 19, Kyodo said, quoting police. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo operates the world's leading Internet portal. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. for more news headlines from Associated Press, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html (or) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/TDNewsradio.html (or) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ From: Reuters News Wire Subject: FTC Says 'Spam' Email Filters Getting Smarter, But so is Spam Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 20:48:19 -0600 E-mail "spammers" are aggressive as ever, and smarter too, but Internet providers are getting better at blocking junk messages before they reach users' inboxes, according to a U.S. Federal Trade Commission study released on Monday. The FTC found that spammers continue to "scrape" e-mail addresses from the Web using automated programs that look for the telltale "@" sign. But up to 96 percent of those messages were blocked by the two Web-based e-mail providers used by the FTC in its test. The FTC did not say which providers it used in its study. "This encouraging result suggests that anti-spam technologies may be dramatically reducing the burden of spam on consumers," the report said. The FTC noted that Internet providers still must bear the burden of filtering out those messages. Consumers can stay off spammers' lists by writing out their addresses in an alternate syntax if they must post them online, the FTC said. Writing an e-mail addresses as "janedoe (at) isp (com)" rather than "janedoe@isp.com" will fool most spammers' harvesting programs, the FTC said. E-mail addresses posted on test Web sites were likely to attract spam, but those posted on blogs, chat rooms or other online forums were less likely to become spam magnets, the FTC said. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Anick Jesdanun Subject: ICANN Examines Single-Letter Domain Names Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 20:50:56 -0600 By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer Although Internet domain names may be getting longer or more complex as Web sites creatively squeeze into the crowded ".com" address space, most single-letter names like "a.com" and "b.com" remain unused. That may soon change as the Internet's key oversight agency considers lifting restrictions on the simplest of names. In response to requests by companies seeking to extend their brands, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers will chart a course for single-letter Web addresses as early as this weekend, when the ICANN board meets in Vancouver, British Columbia. Those names could start to appear next year. But the transition won't be easy -- and it could lead to six-figure sales of this new online real estate, akin to opening New York's Central Park to development. "Obviously this is a valuable commodity," said Kurt Pritz, ICANN's vice president for business operations. "How would the name be sold?" Names are normally released on a first-come, first-served basis for $10 or less, a policy that favors those who have written programs to automatically and frequently check for a name's availability. Auctioning names to the highest bidder is one possibility. ICANN also must decide whether companies need to seek such names individually if they want them across all suffixes, including ".com," ".info" and ".biz." Single-letter names under ".com," ".net" and ".org" were set aside in 1993 as engineers grew concerned about their ability to meet the expected explosion in demand for domain names. They weren't sure then whether a single database of names could hold millions -- more than 40 million in the case of ".com" today. Six single-letter names already claimed at the time -- "q.com," "x.com, "z.com," "i.net," "q.net," and "x.org" -- were allowed to keep their names for the time being. One idea was to create a mechanism for splitting a single database into 26 - one corresponding to each letter. So instead of storing the domain name for The Associated Press under ".org," it would go under "a.org." In other words, "ap.org" would become "ap.a.org." Now, engineers have concluded that won't be necessary. They have seen the address database grow to hold millions of names without trouble, so they are now willing to let go of the single-letter names they had reserved. (There are no immediate plans to release two-letter combos that have been reserved under some suffixes -- they were set aside not for technical reasons but to avoid confusion with two-letter country-code suffixes such as ".fr" for France.) Meanwhile, a handful of companies have asked ICANN to free up the single characters. Overstock.com Inc., for instance, prefers a single-letter brand of "o.com" because its newer businesses no longer fit its original mission of providing discounts on excess inventory. The ICANN board must now decide whether and how to release the names. At its meeting Sunday, it could ask staff to come up with a proposal or refer the matter to an ICANN committee for further study. Matt Bentley, chief executive of domain name broker Sedo.com LLC, said single-letter ".com" names could fetch six-figure sums, and a few might even command more than $1 million from some of the Internet's biggest companies. Yahoo Inc. applied for a trademark to "y.com" this year. "Obviously there's nothing more exquisite than names that are in extremely rare supply like that," Bentley said. "They would have a lot of cachet as a brand name. I could see there would be tons of demand." Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Jennifer C. Kerr Subject: Deadline For VOIP 911 Passes Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 20:53:25 -0600 By JENNIFER C. KERR, Associated Press Writer Companies that provide Internet-based phone service could be barred from signing up new customers in at least some areas for failing to meet a federal mandate to provide reliable emergency 911 service in all their markets. The deadline to show the government where enhanced 911, or E911, is available was Monday. However, companies and the Federal Communications Commission were tightlipped, refusing to disclose details of compliance reports. It was widely expected that no company would meet the deadline since the FCC had given them only 120 days to comply. The VON Coalition, an industry group, has said as much. The coalition did its own survey and estimated that about two-thirds of Internet phone users would have enhanced 911 by the deadline. House and Senate lawmakers had urged FCC Chairman Kevin Martin to be more flexible, giving the companies more time and more tools to speed deployment, but no announcement of an extension was issued Monday by the FCC. Citing public safety concerns, the FCC in May ordered companies selling Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, to ensure that callers can reach an emergency dispatcher when they dial 911. The dispatchers also must be able to tell where callers are located and the numbers from which they are calling. VoIP providers were told that if they failed to meet the deadline they could no longer market their services or accept new customers in areas that didn't have enhanced 911. They will not have to disconnect current customers who don't have full 911 service, as some providers had feared. David Kaut, a telecom analyst at Legg Mason, said VoIP companies will take a hit if the FCC follows through on its threat. "If you can't add customers in, say, a third of your territories, that's a significant part of the market where you are all of a sudden capped," said Kaut. "These are supposed to be growth companies." Vonage and AT&T declined to comment on their compliance levels. Vonage, the largest provider, has about 1 million customers while AT&T offers service to about 57,000 customers through its CallVantage service. SunRocket, which has more than 50,000 subscribers nationwide, said it had equipped 96 percent of its customers with full 911 services. FCC spokesman David Fiske declined to discuss possible enforcement actions against offending companies. "At this stage," he said, "the agency is focused on the compliance filings by VoIP providers." Voice over Internet Protocol shifts calls from wires and switches, using computers and broadband connections to convert sounds into data and transmit them via the Internet. In many cases, subscribers use conventional phones hooked up to high-speed Internet lines. But the service can often be mobile, too, making it difficult to ensure that the call goes to the correct local emergency center. There are about 3.6 million VoIP users in the United States. Of those, about half get their service from cable TV companies who already provide enhanced 911 capabilities. Other providers offer a 911 service that directs emergency calls to a general administrative number, but those lines haven't always been staffed around the clock. The order applies to companies selling VoIP service that uses the public phone network to place and terminate calls. On the Net: Federal Communications Commission: http://www.fcc.gov VON Coalition: http://www.von.org/ Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. More news headlines from Associated Press with NPR Audio: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/KOSU.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 18:02:15 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: You Are Exposed / When even the Privacy Commissioner's Cellphone When even the privacy commissioner's cellphone records are available online, we've all got security problems. JONATHON GATEHOUSE November 21, 2005 Jennifer Stoddart is a dedicated public servant who has spent years -- first working for the province of Quebec, and since 2003 as the federal privacy commissioner -- trying to protect Canadians' personal information from prying governments and greedy businesses. A lawyer by trade, she has impeccable qualifications for the job, with a strong background in constitutional law and human rights. But there's a point to be made about the type of highly confidential data that can be obtained by anyone with an Internet connection and a credit card, and Stoddart has the misfortune of being the perfect illustration. Not that she's pleased about it. Her eyes widen as she recognizes what has just been dropped on the conference table in her downtown Ottawa office -- detailed lists of the phone calls made from her Montreal home, Eastern Townships' chalet, and to and from her government-issued BlackBerry cellphone. Her mouth hangs open, and she appears near tears. "Oh my God," she says finally. "I didn't realize this was possible. This is really alarming." http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/canada/article.jsp?content=20051121_115779_115779 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 22:08:19 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: TiVo Announces First Advertising Search Product for Television Offering Will Allow Viewers to Seek Ads That Provide Relevant Product Information Interpublic Media, OMD, Starcom Mediavest Group and The Richards Group to Participate in Development Along With Comcast Spotlight ALVISO, Calif., Nov. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO), the creator and a leader in advertising solutions and television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), today announced that it plans to offer the first television-based advertising search solution in Spring 2006. Leveraging TiVo's television search capabilities that enhance the TV viewing experience, the new product will deliver relevant, targeted advertising to subscribers that want to view particular advertising categories. Leading media and advertising agencies including Interpublic Media, OMD, Starcom Mediavest Group and The Richards Group, as well as Comcast Spotlight, the advertising sales division of Comcast Cable, have worked with TiVo to provide their expertise in the development of this revolutionary product. Agency research and development techniques will contribute in determining relevant categories of interest, such as automotive, travel, telecommunications, and consumer packaged goods, as well as determine relevant pricing models. Today television advertising is almost entirely delivered when adjacent to mass programming. For the first time, advertisers will have the ability to deliver television advertising, on demand and targeted to consumers, without the limitations of traditional television media placement. Advertisers will be able to reach viewers in the market for a certain product or service. Ads will be delivered to subscribers who can conduct a search for a product by category or associated with keywords, utilizing the same revolutionary keyword search techniques offered with Internet advertising, resulting in increased relevancy for the consumer, as well as efficient, measurable results for the advertiser. This new advertising approach presents an opportunity for TiVo(R) service subscribers to search for relevant information on products or services that match their needs. The heightened viewer experience that the new offering is intended to provide will deliver non-intrusive, relevant, interactive advertising, on a opt-in basis. TiVo subscribers, if they choose to use the search capability, will retain control over their viewing experience through the creation of a viewer contributed profile via the set-top box that will enable them to receive advertisements based on their interests. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53486811 ------------------------------ From: aadler@ctvi.com Subject: What Happened to Amanda Voicemail Company? Date: 28 Nov 2005 18:22:51 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Are they still in business? All day today their lines were down. ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: WKMG News Report: Web Sites Offer Private Cell Phone Information Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 15:34:03 -0600 Organization: Wizard Information Web Sites Offer Private Cell Phone Information A [WKMG TV] Problem Solvers investigation has discovered that several Web sites will sell the last 100 phone numbers you have dialed to anyone who knows your phone number. The report found that sites like Locate Cell will sell the private phone numbers for about $100. Once the fee is paid on the Web sites, anyone can get access to the phone numbers, including bank, doctor and work numbers, Local 6 News reported. The Web sites are not illegal, according to the report. http://www.local6.com/money/5416040/detail.html http://www.locatecell.com/celltoll.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:40:23 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: N.C. Judge Declines Protection for Diebold By GARY D. ROBERTSON Associated Press Writer RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- One of the nation's leading suppliers of electronic voting machines may decide against selling new equipment in North Carolina after a judge declined Monday to protect it from criminal prosecution should it fail to disclose software code as required by state law. Diebold Inc., which makes automated teller machines and security and voting equipment, is worried it could be charged with a felony if officials determine the company failed to make all of its code _ some of which is owned by third-party software firms, including Microsoft Corp. _ available for examination by election officials in case of a voting mishap. The requirement is part of the minimum voting equipment standards approved by state lawmakers earlier this year following the loss of more than 4,400 electronic ballots in Carteret County during the November 2004 election. The lost votes threw at least one close statewide race into uncertainty for more than two months. About 20 North Carolina counties already use Diebold voting machines, and the State Board of Elections plans to announce Thursday the suppliers that meet the new standards. Local elections boards will be allowed to purchase voting machines from the approved vendors. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53510127 ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Expensive Cell Phone Rates Date: 28 Nov 2005 12:52:54 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I was thinking about upgrading my ancient cell phone, but I am put off by the high monthly rates. I'd end up paying double for less service. My present plan is $20/month with 200 free offpeak minutes. Perfect for me. A new plan would require buying a new telephone set with many features I don't need nor want and then paying $40 per month to get about the same amount of free airtime. The only advtg would be that peak time and roaming would be cheaper than now, but I don't use the phone during peak time nor roam now. Further, their definitions of "roaming" seem very vague. They (all the carriers) give you a map with a solid color, a pale color and white. The solid color apparently is full service, but not guaranteed since it may be through another contracted party. That in itself is confusing. The pale color is particular confusing. I was surprised at the many white spots (no service) in reasonably developed areas. Apparently one still needs a dual mode phone that can do analog as well as digital since not areas have working digital and you need analog. That troubles me since I'm most likely to need my cell phone work when I'm in an isolated area (ie a car breakdown in a rural location). I thought by now all reasonably developed areas of the U.S. were fully digitally served. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I use Cingular Wireless, and am on the $29.95 per month plan with about 400 daytime minutes and more than I would ever use nighttime minutes. The important thing is get the 'rollover' plan where unused minutes keep stacking up until you use them. If you can find a 'GAIT' style phone, literally the entire USA is covered with no roaming fees nor long distance fees. PAT] ------------------------------ From: henry999@eircom.net (Henry) Subject: Re: John Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:57:05 +0200 Organization: Elisa Internet customer > Patrick Townson wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > Thanksgiving is always a variable date holiday. It _always_ comes > on Thursday, but is it the _last_ Thursday in November or the > _fourth_ Thursday in November (sometimes there are five Thursdays.)? By definition, it's the fourth. That's usually the last but, as you note, some years there are five. Cheers, Henry ------------------------------ From: Paul Subject: Re: John Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 20:12:43 UTC Organization: Me henry999@eircom.net (Henry) wrote in news:telecom24.537.14@telecom- digest.org: > Patrick Townson wrote: >> Just as a historical note, it was forty-two years ago this weekend >> (Thanksgiving weekend, 1963) ... > Sorry, PAT. It was the week before Thanksgiving. > The assassination was on a Friday and I was in school. There is no > school on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Ergo... > Cheers, > Henry > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe you are correct; it was a long > time ago (as you and I both know in our ancient ages!) Something I am > not clear on, however: Thanksgiving is always a variable date holiday. > It _always_ comes on Thursday, but is it the _last_ Thursday in > November or the _fourth_ Thursday in November (sometimes there are > five Thursdays.)? I know that now and again merchants complain when > there is a 'late Thanksgiving' as they get 'cheated' out of a week > of Christmas sales. What is the exact rule? And do you remember when > Memorial Day used to _always_ be May 30, no matter what day of the > week it was? If it came on Sunday sometimes, then we kids in school > felt 'cheated' because we did not get an extra holiday from school. > But if it fell on Wednesday, our parents felt 'cheated' since it was > impossible to drive any distance on holiday and get back home on the > same day (so as to not miss next day's work or kid's school day, etc.) > PAT] Either way, Thanksgiving 1963 was on the fourth, and last, Thursday: http://www.lawlib.state.ma.us/ExecOrders/eo45.txt ------------------------------ From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomni.com (Robert Bonomi) Subject: Re: John Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 23:34:27 -0000 Organization: Widgets, Inc. In article , Henry wrote: > Patrick Townson wrote: >> Just as a historical note, it was forty-two years ago this weekend >> (Thanksgiving weekend, 1963) ... > Sorry, PAT. It was the week before Thanksgiving. > The assassination was on a Friday and I was in school. There is no >school on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Ergo... > Cheers, > Henry > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe you are correct; it was a long > time ago (as you and I both know in our ancient ages!) Simple fact-checking would show that Kennedy died on November 22, 1963. A 1963 calendar shows: November 1963 S M Tu W Th F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 November 21, the Thursday before the shooting, was only the *third* Thursday of the month. > Something I am > not clear on, however: Thanksgiving is always a variable date holiday. > It _always_ comes on Thursday, but is it the _last_ Thursday in > November or the _fourth_ Thursday in November (sometimes there are > five Thursdays.)? A Google search for "thanksgiving holidy date" would answer your question, *without* a need to clutter up the telecom newsgroup with off-topic , irrelevant, jabber. Per federal legislation enactged in 1941, in the U.S.A., Thanksgiving is the FOURTH THURSDAY in November. > I know that now and again merchants complain when > there is a 'late Thanksgiving' as they get 'cheated' out of a week > of Christmas sales. What is the exact rule? Set by law. Take it to a legal discussion group. :) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 14:36:39 -0700 From: Anthony Bellanga Just as a historical note, it was forty-two years ago this weekend > (Thanksgiving weekend, 1963) that President Kennedy was gunned down > in a motorcade in Dallas, TX. Actually, it was the weekend before Thanksgiving weekend of 1963. Kennedy was shot on Friday 22 November 1963, the funeral being on Monday 25 November 1963. You still had three more days until 1963's Thanksgiving on Thursday 28 November 1963. > [...] Friday about 11:00 AM at the moment of his assassination, The assassination occurred at approximately 12:30pm (afternoon) Central Standard Time, in Dallas TX (same time zone as Chicago), give or take a few minutes. The radio and television networks started breaking into local programming (or in the case of CBS Television, broke into the live network presentation of "As the World Turns" for the Eastern and Central time zones, CBS-TV breaking into whatever network reruns were airing earlier in the morning (clock time) on the Pacific Coast along with whatever NBC-TV and ABC-TV were also airing on the West Coast at 10:30am PST), with the first bulletins, approximately 1:35pm EST, 12:35pm CST, 11:35pm MST, 10:35pm PST, give or take some minutes. With the technology of the day, the first news bulletins on the TV-side were simply "slide-cards" for the video (CBS NEWS BULLETIN, etc), with a voice-over (newsman Walter Cronkite for CBS-TV, perennial announcer Don Pardo for NBC-TV). Vacuum tube technology was still in use to a great extent (even though the three Bell Labs physicists who won the Nobel Prize has invented the transistor back in 1948), and the TV networks didn't keep the newsroom live cameras warmed up until about a half-hour before their evening newscasts, although they did have a small studio for their afternoon five-minute newscast updates following "To Tell the Truth" (CBS) or "The Match Game" (NBC). They did have "slide cards" set up being scanned by live video-cams specifically designed for 16-mm or 35-mm motion picture film or slides. But it wasn't until later on into the incident, after the first slide-card/voice-over bulletins, that the three TV networks could go fully live with video of a newsman or announcer, and even later until they could get everything hooked up to have reports live from Dallas TX. Some of NBC's "we switch you now to our NBC-TV affiliate, WBAP-TV Ft.Worth/Dallas for another report", were actually telecast and fed in living color. NBC-TV's own reports from New York and Washington DC were in Black & White, but the pick-ups from WBAP-TV Ft.Worth/Dallas (at least the first few) were in color. A lot of credit has to be given to the newsmen with the three TV networks, the four radio networks (don't forget about Mutual), the wire services (AP, UPI, etc), and... AT&T and its Bell operating companies (and various independent connecting carriers) for their fast work in gathering the news and reporting it to the best of their ability considering the technology of the day, and for the technical resources (co-ax, microwave, etc) as well. And not to forget the local radio and TV stations (both network affiliates and independent stations), as well as the staffs of the major newsmagazines and local newspapers throughout the country for their newsgathering and reporting, based on what we "knew" at that time. - Anthony Bellanga ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Holiday Observances Phone Rates (was Re: Kennedy) Date: 28 Nov 2005 12:39:31 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > And do you remember when Memorial Day used to _always_ be May 30, no > matter what day of the week it was? If it came on Sunday sometimes, > then we kids in school felt 'cheated' because we did not get an > extra holiday from school. But if it fell on Wednesday, our parents > felt 'cheated' since it was impossible to drive any distance on > holiday and get back home on the same day (so as to not miss next > day's work or kid's school day, etc.) PAT] Some years ago they passed a Monday holiday law, switching the date of a number of national holidays so they would always be on a Monday, creating a three day weekend. That includes Martin Luther King Day, Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, and Columbus Day. Veteran's Day, Independence Day, Christmas, and New Years remain observed on their actual day. Thanksgiving and Labor Day were already on day of week. Roughly speaking, workers have seen a gradual cutback in the number of holidays they get a day off from work. There were always the big 5--NY, Memorial, Independence, Labor, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, that everyone got off (except critical personnel). Over time, some employers began to give off Washington's birthday, King's birthday and Veteran's Day in addition. More generous employers threw in Columbus Day and Good Friday. Historically, if a major holiday fell on the weekend, the nearest Monday or Friday would be given off. Nowadays employers seem a lot tighter and grant only the major day off. Many retailers are open on holidays, even Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, and expect people to work. The phone company would grant weekend rate reductions on certain major holidays. However, when a day was celebrated on an alternate day (such as everything being closed on Monday July 5 in celebration of Independence Day instead of on Sunday 7/4), the phone company did not give discounts on the alternate day, weekday rates were charged which could be steep. Today, I've discovered cell phone companies are very tricky when it comes to giving weekend rates during holidays. My own plan is supposed to do that, but I've learned that in practice they don't and I must call and complain if I make a day call on a major holiday (because my day rate is very steep I have to be watch). I notice today's ads have no asterisk on weekends denoting what holidays constitute weekend rates, if any. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #538 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Nov 30 01:22:13 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id B4B6414F06; Wed, 30 Nov 2005 01:22:12 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #539 Message-Id: <20051130062212.B4B6414F06@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 01:22:12 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.3 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Wed, 30 Nov 2005 01:23:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 539 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson FCC May Block Vonage From Accepting New Customers (Jennifer C. Kerr) Municipal WiFi For New Orleans (Reuters News Wire) SEC Proposes Internet E-Proxy Posts (Reuters News Wire) IEC and IEEE Team up For EntNet at Broadband World Forum 2006 (Lisa Reyes) Cellular-News For Tuesday 29th November 2005 (Cellular-News) Report: TDC Close to Deal (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: Leaving Vonage, Want to Keep Number (John Levine) Re: JFK Assassination (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jennifer C. Kerr Subject: FCC May Block Vonage From Accepting New Customers Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 22:51:30 -0600 By JENNIFER C. KERR, Associated Press Writer Vonage Holdings Corp., the nation's largest provider of Internet phone service, could be barred from signing up new customers in many markets because it failed to meet the deadline to provide reliable emergency 911 service to all subscribers. The Federal Communications Commission gave Vonage and other companies that sell Internet-based phone service 120 days to comply with its order requiring enhanced 911, or E911, in all their service areas. The deadline to show the government where E911 is available was Monday. House and Senate lawmakers had urged FCC Chairman Kevin Martin to give companies more time and more tools to speed deployment, but no extension was granted. In its compliance report to the FCC, Vonage said only 26 percent of its customer base had full E911 services. The company _ which has more than 1 million subscribers _ said it was capable of transmitting a call back number and location for 100 percent of its subscribers, but that it still was waiting for cooperation from competitors that control the 911 network. AT&T declined to comment on its compliance levels before filing its report with the FCC. Calls to the company on Tuesday were not immediately returned. AT&T offers Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, to about 57,000 customers through its CallVantage service. SunRocket, which has more than 50,000 subscribers nationwide, said it had equipped 96 percent of its customers with full 911 services. The VON Coalition, an industry group, had estimated that overall about two-thirds of Internet phone users would have enhanced 911 by the deadline. Citing public safety concerns, the FCC in May ordered companies selling Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, to ensure that callers can reach an emergency dispatcher when they dial 911. The dispatchers also must be able to tell where callers are located and the numbers from which they are calling. VoIP providers were told that if they failed to meet the deadline they could no longer market their service or accept new customers in areas that didn't have enhanced 911. They will not have to disconnect current customers who don't have full 911 service, as some providers had feared. FCC spokesman David Fiske declined to discuss possible enforcement actions against offending companies. 'At this stage,' he said, 'the agency is focused on the compliance filings by VoIP providers.' David Kaut, a telecom analyst at Legg Mason, said VoIP companies will take a hit if the FCC follows through on its threat. 'If you can't add customers in, say, a third of your territories, that's a significant part of the market where you are all of a sudden capped,' said Kaut. 'These are supposed to be growth companies.' Voice over Internet Protocol shifts calls from wires and switches, using computers and broadband connections to convert sounds into data and transmit them via the Internet. In many cases, subscribers use conventional phones hooked up to high-speed Internet lines. But the service can be mobile, making it difficult to ensure that the call goes to the correct local emergency center. There are about 3.6 million VoIP users in the United States. Of those, about half get their service from cable TV companies that already provide enhanced 911 capabilities. Other providers offer a 911 service that directs emergency calls to a general administrative number, but those lines haven't always been staffed around the clock. The order applies to companies selling VoIP service that uses the public phone network to place and terminate calls. On the Net: Federal Communications Commission: http://www.fcc.gov VON Coalition: http://www.von.org Copyright 2005, The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more news from Associated Press please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Hurricane Ravaged New Orleans Getting Municipal WiFi Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 22:56:25 -0600 Hurricane-stricken New Orleans is largely destroyed and abandoned, but city officials said on Tuesday it will soon have universal wireless Internet service. A free, municipally-run Wi-Fi system has begun operation in the French Quarter and central business district and should cover the entire city within a year, Mayor Ray Nagin said in a statement. "We are among the first cities to feature a city-wide wireless network and that's especially important to the recovery of our community," he said. Much of the equipment for the system has been donated by private companies, including Intel Corp, Tropos Networks and Pronto Networks, the city said. Only about 10 percent of New Orleans' pre-storm population of half a million people has returned since Hurricane Katrina struck on August 29 and flooded 80 percent of the city. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Reuters News Wire Subject: SEC Proposes Internet 'E-Proxy' Posts Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 12:38:59 -0600 U.S.-listed corporations would be allowed to post proxy statements on Web sites instead of sending the bulky annual documents through the mail, under a plan proposed on Tuesday by federal regulators. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission voted 5-0 to put the plan out for a 60-day public comment period, with a final vote by the commission expected to follow later. Aimed at saving postage and printing costs, the so-called "e-proxy" measure is also seen as a way to possibly cut the costs to shareholders of mounting proxy contests and giving them more power to challenge corporate managers. "Studies show that today 75 percent of Americans now have access to the Internet and this percentage is rising steadily ... The percentage of investors with Internet access is even higher," said SEC Chairman Christopher Cox at a meeting. Under the proposed rule, investors would still have to get written notice in the mail that a proxy statement was available online. In addition, investors wishing to continue receiving printed proxy statements could ask for them. The SEC requires corporations to issue a range of disclosures and documents to the agency and investors, including annual and quarterly reports and proxies. Proxy statements contain information about matters to be decided by shareholder votes, such as director nominations and resolutions, as well as disclosures of senior executive pay. They are distributed before annual shareholder meetings. The present system of mailing out proxies is costly, but past efforts to reform it have been stymied by concerns that on-line distribution could exclude off-line investors. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Reyes Subject: IEC and IEEE Team up For EntNet at Broadband World Forum Americas 2006 Date: TUE, 29 NOV 2005 12:12:52 -0600 Reply-To: lreyes@iec.org Contact: Lisa Reyes
Phone: 1+312+559+3325
E-Mail: lreyes@iec.org CHICAGO November 29, 2005 The International Engineering Consortium (IEC) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) announced their continued partnership to bring EntNet to the first-ever Broadband World Forum Americas 2006, last night in a signing ceremony during the 2005 IEEE Globecom conference in St. Louis, Missouri. Providing enterprise practitioners, business owners, researchers, designers, developers, integrators, and technical leaders with solutions to the latest in communications technology, the IEC and IEEE's EntNet will focus on enterprise network requirements and technology evolutions. IEC Senior Director John Janowiak commented on the continued relationship: The International Engineering Consortium has enjoyed a long and productive relationship with the IEEE. Both organizations strive to serve the industry's continuing education needs through quality programs such as EntNet. The educational program will reveal details on cutting-edge technology important to enterprise, such as implementing IMS, wireless communication, real-time enterprise challenges, enterprise Web services, advanced VoIP technologies, quadruple play, interoperability and integration of enterprise networks and services, and more. The IEEE;s Dr. Shri Goyal, director of meetings and conferences, added, "The unique IEEE ComSoc and IEC partnership facilitates serving both the technical and practitioner community, utilizing the technological innovations for business applications and pitching it to business leaders. Our successful collaboration on the Enterprise Networking and Services Conference, EntNet, is a testimonial to this win-win strategy. We look forward to continued success!" Through each of its sessions, EntNet will show businesses how to cut operations costs, increase profit margin, gain in employee productivity, and increase efficiency in information and communications efforts. For EntNet's sixth year in existence, previously at SUPERCOMM, the IEC and the IEEE have once again teamed up to bring visionaries, vendors, practitioners, and technology experts to one symposium. The continued relationship allows EntNet to return for industry professionals at the first-ever 2006 Broadband World Forum Americas, which will provide networking opportunities and present services issues and solutions. The business- and technology-oriented panels, workshops, and tutorials fulfill the IEC and IEEE's commitment to education and progress in technology and business. For more information, please visit http://www.iec.org or contact Lisa Reyes at +1-312-559-3325 or lreyes@iec.org About Broadband World Forum Americas The first-ever Broadband World Forum Americas debuts September 11-14, 2006 at the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre in Vancouver, British Columbia. With TELUS as the official sponsor, the event completes the Broadband Series, which includes Broadband World Forum Europe (the 2005 Madrid event drew nearly 6,000 industry professionals to register) and Broadband World Forum Asia. For more information, please visit http://www.iec.org/events/2006/bbwf_americas/ About the IEC The International Engineering Consortium (IEC) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to catalyzing technology and business progress worldwide in a range of high-technology industries and their university communities. Since 1944, the IEC has provided high-quality educational opportunities for industry professionals, academics, and students. In conjunction with industry-leading companies, the IEC has developed an extensive, free on-line educational program. The IEC conducts industry-university programs that have substantial impact on curricula. It also conducts research and develops publications, conferences, and technological exhibits that address major opportunities and challenges of the information age. More than 70 leading high-technology universities are IEC affiliates, and the IEC handles the affairs of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association and Eta Kappa Nu, the honor society for electrical and computer engineers. The IEC also manages the activities of the Enterprise Communications Consortium. For more information, http://www.iec.org About the IEEE: The IEEE (I-triple-E) is a nonprofit, technical professional association of more than 365,000 individual members in approximately 150 countries. The full name is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., although the organization is most popularly known and referred to by the letters I-E-E-E. Through its members, the IEEE is a leading authority in technical areas ranging from computer engineering, biomedical technology, and telecommunications to electric power, aerospace engineering, and consumer electronics, among others. The IEEE promotes the engineering process of creating, developing, integrating, sharing, and applying knowledge about electro and information technologies and sciences for the benefit of humanity and the profession. For more information, please visit http://www.ieee.org ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Tuesday 29th November 2005 Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 07:37:53 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com [[ 3G ]] Nokia Trialling 3G Push-to-Talk http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15010.php Nokia and 3 Scandinavia are trialling Nokia Push to talk over Cellular (PoC) service in the Swedish market. The trial is initially targeted to business users. Nokia will provide selected push to talk handsets, including Nokia 6280, for potential use ... [[ Financial ]] India Government Official: Taiwan Company Plans $1 Billion Investment http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14999.php A Taiwan-based telecommunications equipment maker is planning to set up a manufacturing facility in India, possibly involving an investment of over $1 billion, a senior government official said Monday. ... Russia's MTS to invest at least $500 mln in UMC in 2006 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15003.php Investments of Russia's largest mobile operator Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) in the development of its wholly owned subsidiary Ukraine's Mobile Communications, or UMC, are expected to amount to at least U.S. $500 million in 2006, MTS President Vas... Russia's Alfa Group gets 13.22% in Turkey's Turkcell http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15004.php Russia's Alfa Group has completed the purchase of a 49% stake in Turkey's Cukurova Group, getting indirect control of 13.2% in Turkey's leading mobile operator Turkcell Iletsim Hizmetleri, Alfa Telecom said in a statement Monday. ... WSJ: TDC Close To Deal To Be Bought By Private Equity Group http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15005.php Danish telecommunications operator TDC is close to an agreement to be bought by a group of five private equity funds for roughly $12 billion, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal, in what would be the largest takeover of its k... Telecom Egypt Shares To Sell At EGP14.80 In IPO -Ministry http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15006.php The Egyptian Telecommunications Ministry said Monday that shares of state-owned telecommunications company, Telecom Egypt, would be sold for the price of 14.80 Egyptian pounds ($1=5.77EGP) a share in an initial public offering. ... [[ Handsets ]] Pantech Launches 5-Megapixel Camera Phone http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15011.php South Korea's Pantech has announced two new handsets, the IM-8600 5 mega-pixel camera phone and the IM-8700 F2F ('face-to-face') telephony handset. The IM-8600 is a rotating clamshell 5 mega-pixel camera phone with Meca Shutter camera technology from... [[ Interviews ]] African operators need to know their subscribers to keep churn down http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15007.php African operators that want to keep churn rates within their subscriber bases at a low level need to focus their energies on building closer relationships with their subscribers, customer segmentation strategies and the development of premium service... [[ Legal ]] TeliaSonera decides to take legal actions against Russia's Alfa http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15001.php Swedish telecommunications operator TeliaSonera AB is initiating legal actions against Russia's Alfa Group as well as in Turkey claiming Cukurova Holding has made an unauthorized transfer of around U.S. $135 million from bank accounts of Turkcell Ile... [[ Messaging ]] Telecom Argentina, Research In Motion Open BlackBerry Service http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15002.php Research In Motion and Telecom Personal, the mobile subsidiary of Telecom Argentina, are launching the wireless BlackBerry platform in Argentina, the two companies announced in a joint statement Friday. ... E-mail and SMS simplify contacts with nursing homes http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15008.php Family members want to use SMS and e-mail messages to reach and maintain contact with personnel working with home-help services and the care of the elderly. These are some of the findings of a survey that TeliaSonera has conducted to poll 6,000 priva... [[ Network Contracts ]] Nokia: ICD Launched In India With IDEA Cellular http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15000.php Finland's Nokia said Monday it and IDEA Cellular, a leading mobile operator in India, have launched Nokia's Intelligent Content Delivery System solution on all IDEA's mobile networks across India. ... MTS Signs 3 African Contracts http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15009.php MTS - Mer Telemanagement Solutions has signed an agreement with an unnamed provider of converged networking solutions to provide turn-key solutions for 3G Mobile, fixed and interconnect billing to carriers in three African countries. The networking s... Syniverse to Provide Wireless Clearinghouse Services for Vodafone http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15013.php Syniverse Technologies says that it has secured a worldwide contract to provide GSM data clearinghouse services to Vodafone Group. Under the terms of the multi-year agreement, Vodafone has designated Syniverse as its data clearinghouse and the author... [[ Regulatory ]] Switzerland Offering 3 BWA Licenses http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15012.php Switzerland's telecoms regulator, Ofcom has announced plans for an auction of three BWA licences. The Federal Office of Communications (Ofcom) will be holding the auction on behalf of ComCom. In principle, any company can apply for the licences which... [[ Reports ]] Mobile CRM to Account for 20% of Total CRM Revenues by 2010 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15014.php According to a new report from visiongain, the market for mobile CRM finally started to gain traction in 2004 and this has continued through 2005. Although still a nascent market, mobile CRM should be reasonably robust on a global scale by 2007. The ... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 13:50:13 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Report: TDC Close to Deal USTelecom dailyLead November 29, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/zckIatagCysufBjhkm TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Report: TDC close to deal BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Report: VoIP system sales growing fast * Court halts merger between DT, T-Online * FCC expected to back "a la carte" cable pricing USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Learn about IMS, Fixed Mobile Convergence, IPTV Solutions and Save $300 HOT TOPICS * Cisco teams with ZTE * How IPTV will benefit telcos * Cablevision vs. Verizon: Battle intensifies over NYC suburbs * Verizon sees great promise in FTTH * Verizon to launch IPTV in second Virginia town TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * FLO Forum approves Qualcomm mobile video technology * TI unveils W-CDMA chip REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * New Orleans plans free Wi-Fi service * Loans for rural broadband services hard to obtain * Most VoIP providers thought to have missed E911 deadline EDITOR'S NOTE * Publication notice Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/zckIatagCysufBjhkm ------------------------------ Date: 29 Nov 2005 06:08:59 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Leaving Vonage, Want to Keep Number Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > physical exchange programming. Is there any other way I can keep my > Vonage number using something like a call forwarding service without > having to pay $50/month (business) for Vonage? Find another cheaper, better VoIP carrier that offers service in the same rate center and port your number there. I had no trouble porting my Vonage number to Lingo, for example. It is my understanding that you don't have to port a biz number as a biz number unless you want to list it in the phone book with a business name. R's, John ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: JFK Assassination Date: 29 Nov 2005 07:21:42 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Anthony Bellanga wrote: > Vacuum tube technology was still in use to a great extent (even > though the three Bell Labs physicists who won the Nobel Prize has > invented the transistor back in 1948)... Inventing the transistor was one thing. Being able manufacture it as a reliable and inexpensive product was a difficult long task. According to the IBM history, at first transistors were made by hand -- someone jiggled the cat whiskers and watched a scope until the proper effect was created. Obviously very expensive and error prone way to go. Even after automation yields of working transistors were low. IBM research not only was developing new computers to use transistors, but also new technology to manufacture transistors and circuit cards. IBM failed to patent or license the manufacturing technology not realizing how valuable it was and let its subcontractors take it and re-use it. (Kind of like PC-DOS). The end result was that until the late 1950s, transistors cost more than tubes. Another issue was the learning curve. Electronic engineers by that point had long experience with vacuum tubes--they knew what they could and could not do and their operating characteristics. After the war, both the television and computing engineers extensively studied and developed circuits using tubes and were hesitent to go off on something new and different. Not all circuits were convertable to transistors, especially back then. I understand to this day electronic guitar amplifier still use tubes. The president of IBM went around with the new transistor portable radios and had to give an order that all new computers would be built with transistors instead of tubes. One of IBM's early efforts was a transistorized punched card calculator (IBM 608/609) which was more of a prototype and test bed rather than a commercial product. One popular IBM product, the 650 computer, was made with tubes and remained in production until 1962. Obviously tubes still played a large part in the electronics world at that time. It is not surprising that TV equipment still contained many tubes. It would do so for a number of years. My impression is that these days the life cycle of broadcast equipment is relatively short and TV stations and networks replace their gear every few years. However, I suspect back in the 1960s the gear was relatively much more expensive and had a longer life cycle. I don't know how anyone on TV could stand the lights. I know it was dangerous to look directly into them, but even ignoring them they were awfully powerful and hard on the eyes. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #539 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Nov 30 02:08:30 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 9FF3914F8A; Wed, 30 Nov 2005 02:08:29 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #540 Message-Id: <20051130070829.9FF3914F8A@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 02:08:29 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.3 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Wed, 30 Nov 2005 02:10:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 540 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Talking Back To the Junk Fax (Monty Solomon) Disney Uses iPods for Ads / Media Giant and Clear Channel (Monty Solomon) Rumor: Reborn Mac Mini Set to Take Over the Living Room (Monty Solomon) Sony's Escalating "Spyware" Fiasco (Monty Solomon) When is TDMA Being Phased Out? ( http://www.interpage.net ) Re: What Happened to Amanda Voicemail Company? (aadler@ctvi.com) Re: Hollywood and BitTorrent Reach Agreement (Seth Breidbart) Re: Voicepulse Owns Your Number (Seth Breidbart) Re: Holiday Observances Phone Rates (was Re: Kennedy) (Seth Breidbart) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 22:39:56 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Talking Back To the Junk Fax By Don Oldenburg Washington Post Staff Writer All righty then, enough pleading! As promised, here are some solutions for desperate fax machine owners who are sick and tired of screeching junk-fax transmissions in the middle of the night, junk faxes bogarting their machines during work hours, and junk faxes using their printer ink and paper to deliver unsolicited, unwanted, cheesy advertisements. For many home fax machine owners, the junk-fax pandemic has grown into an annoyance equivalent to telemarketing at its worst -- before the National Do Not Call Registry struck a blow for privacy and sanity. These dastardly faxed commercials typically break federal law. Like spammers, junk-faxers broadcast the same message to millions of fax machine numbers at once. And more often than not, the faxes promote scams not worth the paper they're printed on. Early last month, the Consummate Consumer was inundated with complaints about junk faxes following the junk-fax column ("Your Machine Is Spewing Again," Sept. 25) and asked readers to share solutions for stopping the menace -- short of hammering the fax machine with a Louisville Slugger. The result? Good news, sufferers! Solutions R Us! The best of them: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/28/AR2005112800642.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 22:47:58 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Disney Uses iPods For Ads / The Media Giant and Clear Channel The media giant and Clear Channel deliver promotional videos to the video iPod. Walt Disney studios and media conglomerate Clear Channel said Monday they're starting to advertise movies and other content over video-enabled portable players like the iPod, marking a growing trend of using the Internet for promotional purposes. Media giant Disney and Clear Channel, which owns 1,200 radio stations in the United States, will become the first major media companies to deliver their promotional videos to the new iPods. Disney plans to offer full-screen, theater-quality video content from its upcoming release of fantasy film The Chronicles of Narnia directly to PCs and video-enabled iPods. Viewers will be able to download and transfer trailers, clips, interviews, and other film content to their PCs and their iPods from the Internet channel on the film's official website. Disney has already gotten into selling video content online with a partnership with Apple that allows viewers to buy clips of shows like Desperate Housewives produced by Disney-owned network ABC at Apple's iTunes Music Store (see Apple Up 9% After Video iPod). Video is the latest medium for content owners to advertise their wares. Its growing popularity appears to be evident in Apple's launch of video on its iTunes last month with 1 million clips sold in the first 20 days of its launch (See Apple: 1M Videos in 20 Days). Spending on online video advertising is expected to triple in the next two years, rising to about $640 million, according to research firm eMarketer. By 2010, it could hit $1.5 billion. http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=14612 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 22:50:59 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Rumor: Reborn Mac Mini Set to Take Over the Living Room Road to Expo: Reborn Mac mini set to take over the living room By Ryan Katz, Senior Editor Think Secret November 29, 2005 - Apple's Mac mini will be reborn as the digital hub centerpiece it was originally conceived to be, Think Secret sources have disclosed. The new Mac mini project, code-named Kaleidoscope, will feature an Intel processor and include both Front Row 2.0 and TiVo-like DVR functionality. http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0511macmini2.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 23:15:45 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Sony's Escalating "Spyware" Fiasco News Analysis By Lorraine Woellert Sony's Escalating "Spyware" Fiasco Along with lawyers, prosecutors, and furious fans, artists are joining the backlash against the label for slipping a hidden, anti-theft program into users' computers Van Zant's Get Right with the Man CD was released in May, but six months later it still was doing better-than-respectable business on Amazon.com (AMZN ). The album ranked No. 887 on the online retailer's list of music sales on Nov. 2. Then news of the CD's aggressive content safeguards -- a sub-rosa software program incorporated courtesy of Sony BMG -- exploded on the Internet. To prevent audiophiles from making multiple copies of the CDs, Sony (SNE) had programmed the Van Zant disk, and dozens of others, with a hidden code called a "rootkit" that secretly installs itself on hard drives when the CDs are loaded onto listeners' PCs. Soon enough, hackers began designing viruses to take malicious advantage of the hidden program, and a Sony boycott had begun (see BW Online, 11/17/05, "Sony's Copyright Overreach"). GROWING OUTRAGE. Overnight, Get Right with the Man dropped to No. 1,392 on Amazon's music rankings. By Nov. 22 -- after the news made headlines and Sony was deep into damage control, pulling some 4.7 million copy-protected disks from the market -- Get Right with the Man was even further from Amazon's Top 40, plummeting to No. 25,802. The wrath of fans killed Sony's CD copy controls, with the company pulling 52 titles off retail shelves, beginning the week of Nov. 14. But the wrath of bands could be far worse for the company -- and for efforts to protect content in general. Singers and songwriters are increasingly expressing frustration at devices used by record companies to protect digital content from widespread theft that results when CDs are copied repeatedly or popular tracks are given away on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, such as LimeWire and BitTorrent. Sony's misstep has been bad for the company -- and its effects could spread much further, should the consumer outcry gain traction with the recording artists who need to keep their fans happy if they want to sell records. http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2005/tc20051122_343542.htm ------------------------------ From: http://www.interpage.net Subject: When is TDMA Being Phased Out? Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 22:20:22 GMT Hello, Does anyone have the schedule for when the different Cingular/ATT markets are phasing out TDMA? Please let me know or where to find that information. Thanks, Mayur Deshmukh Interpage Network Services, Inc. mayurXYZZTOP@interpage.net [to email me, remove the CAPS] http://www.interpage.net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The word from Mike Alexander, Cingular Wireless customer service/sales manager here in Independence is that it will s-l-o-w-l-y disappear a tower at a time. I switched my personal phone from TDMA to GSM just two weeks ago, when it got to the point the 'bars' were not as high as they had been and more often than not a call attempt had to be made two or three times before it would go through. The phone was still _usable_ but it made me nervous seeing only two or three bars on the left (signal reception) side of the display, and after dialing and not hearing the ringing tone in the usual one or two seconds I would look at the display and see a message saying 'redialing'. He told me 'you can keep on using that older phone as long as you want, but eventually it will be seeking a signal from a tower in Caney or Coffeyville. I've got a nice new Nokia 6010 you can have with a new contract if you want.' So I decided to bite the bullet and go with it. He also pointed out that 'this area code 620 is eventually all going to be GSM and then for a good signal if you have a prepaid phone the company will put you out of Wichita (area 316). I also have a prepaid spare phone, Nokia 5165 now, and Cingular insisted _it_ had to be in the 316 area. There was a time here, until two or three years ago that we were entirely in 316, even for landlines. PAT] ------------------------------ From: aadler@ctvi.com Subject: Re: What Happened to Amanda Voicemail Company? Date: 29 Nov 2005 15:21:53 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com OK ... they are up today. Must have been an issue with their carrier. ------------------------------ From: sethb@panix.com (Seth Breidbart) Subject: Re: Hollywood and BitTorrent Reach Agreement Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 00:30:56 UTC Organization: Society for the Promulgation of Cruelty to the Clueless In article , Paul Vader wrote: > Gary Gentile writes: >> The agreement requires 30-year-old software designer Bram Cohen to prevent >> his Web site, bittorrent.com, from locating pirated versions of popular >> movies, effectively frustrating people who search for illegal copies of >> films. > Ineffectively, they mean! What gave them the idea that bittorrent.com > was the only place to get torrent files, or even a major place? * At least they don't require bittorrent to install a rootkit on every machine that uses it. (Not that they could, but they'd probably try if it hadn't already proven too embarrassing.) Seth ------------------------------ From: sethb@panix.com (Seth Breidbart) Subject: Re: Voicepulse Owns Your Number Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 00:43:25 +0000 UTC Organization: Society for the Promulgation of Cruelty to the Clueless In article , Fred Atkinson wrote: > I've sent Voicepulse notice that I expect them to release my number. > They say they will not. In fact, they called me just a few minutes > ago and said that the porting request from Carolina Net would be > declined. > I'm looking for recourse and I'm not interested in hearing that there > is no recourse. Can anyone here make some suggestions as to most > effective avenue to pursue? Port it to a landline carrier, then port it to Carolina net. Numbers port only between carriers that have agreements, and VOIP carriers tend not to have agreements with each other. They all have agreements with the local landline companies in order to be able to _take_ numbers. Seth ------------------------------ From: sethb@panix.com (Seth Breidbart) Subject: Re: Holiday Observances Phone Rates (was Re: Kennedy) Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 03:36:39 UTC Organization: Society for the Promulgation of Cruelty to the Clueless In article , wrote: > Some years ago they passed a Monday holiday law, switching the date of > a number of national holidays so they would always be on a Monday, > creating a three day weekend. That includes Martin Luther King Day, > Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, and Columbus Day. The Monday Holiday Law predates Martin Luther King Day. > Roughly speaking, workers have seen a gradual cutback in the number of > holidays they get a day off from work. There were always the big > 5--NY, Memorial, Independence, Labor, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, 1 2 3 4 5 6 > that everyone got off (except critical personnel). For a large value of 5. Seth ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #540 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Nov 30 15:33:42 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 9BB5E14F42; Wed, 30 Nov 2005 15:33:41 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #541 Message-Id: <20051130203341.9BB5E14F42@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 15:33:41 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.3 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Wed, 30 Nov 2005 15:34:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 541 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Class Action Lawsuit Against SBC by Its Employees (Cohen, Millstein) WSIS Report - ccTLD Problems Linger (Ronda Hauben) Report: Security Flaw Allows Wiretaps to be Evaded (harold@hallikainen.com) Cyberspace Assistance to Kashmir Earthquake Victims (Terry Friel) Google Sees Advertisers Devoting More Money to Online Ads (Eric Auchard) TDC Recommends $12B Takeover Offer (USTelecom dailyLead ) Cellular-News for Wednesday 30th November 2005 (Cellular-News) Verizon GTE Merger -- How Did it go? (Lisa Hancock) Re: When is TDMA Being Phased Out? (Lisa Hancock) Re: JFK Assassination (George Mitchell) Re: Voicepulse Owns Your Number (Scott Dorsey) Re: Showdown With USA Over Internet Control (Scott Dorsey) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cohen, Millsteien, et al Subject: Class Action Lawsuit Against SBC by Its Employees Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 01:34:58 -0600 Lawsuit Concerning Elimination and Reduction of SBC Telephone Concession Plan Benefits Filed On Behalf of Current and Former Employees and Retirees of SBC, Ameritech, Pacific Telesis and Southern New England Telephone. Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll, P.L.L.C. has filed a complaint against SBC Telecommunications (and its predecessors) concerning the management of and the reduction of benefits by the SBC Telephone Concession Plan. This lawsuit alleges that SBC violated nearly every provision of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act ("ERISA") governing defined benefit plans with respect to the SBC Telephone Concession Plan (the "Plan") by failing to treat the provision of the Telephone Concession to retirees as an ERISA covered employee benefit plan. This lawsuit seeks a determination that the Plan is a defined benefit pension plan covered by ERISA, seeks to reform the Plan so that it complies with ERISA and also seeks to restore telephone concession benefits to retirees and other employees of SBC (and its predecessors and/or affiliates) who were vested in the Plan pursuant to ERISA which SBC has attempted to eliminate or reduce. This lawsuit is filed on behalf of the following groups of retirees and employees: (1) Retirees of SBC or a predecessor of SBC (including, but not limited to Ameritech, Pacific Telesis and Southern New England Telephone) who were entitled to receive received the Telephone Concession Benefit after they retired; or (2) Current or former employees of SBC with more than five years of service during the time that SBC had a policy to provide employees with a Telephone Concession Benefit upon retirement. If you are a current, former or retired employee of SBC (or its predecessors and/or affiliates) who are receiving or did receive the telephone concession benefit, or you have information which might assist us in the prosecution of these allegations, please contact one of the following persons: R. Joseph Barton, Esq. jbarton@cmht.com Jill Soroka jsoroka@cmht.com Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll, P.L.L.C. 1100 New York Avenue, N.W., Suite 500 Washington, D.C. 20005 Telephone: 888-240-0775 or 202-408-4600 The law firm of Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll, P.L.L.C., is a nationally recognized plaintiffs' class action law firm and has significant experience in representing employees injured by corporate misconduct. The firm's reputation for excellence has been recognized on repeated occasions by courts which have appointed the firm to lead positions in complex multi-district or consolidated litigation. Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll's ERISA practice is headed by Marc I. Machiz, formerly the Department of Labor's chief ERISA lawyer. Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll, P.L.L.C. 1100 New York Ave. NW, Ste 500, West Tower Washington, D.C. 20005 T: 202.408.4600 F: 202.408.4699 E: info@cmht.com Copyright 2005 CMHT ------------------------------ From: Ronda Hauben Subject: WSIS Report - ccTLD Problems Linger Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 15:53:26 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC I recently returned from the WSIS meeting in Tunis and found it a very interesting experience. The ICANN problem, however, remains unsolved. My article in OhmyNews discusses some of the problem outstanding with the ccTLD's and ICANN. "WSIS Proves a Summit of Unsolved Solutions" http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=260786&rel_no=1 excerpt: "A criticism of ICANN is that it focuses on commercialization issues, rather than internationalization issues. Instead of extending ccTLDs to include other alphabets like Chinese, ICANN focuses on the interests of the trademark holder community." "It was clear from the Tunis Summit that the frustration expressed by governments around the world that was not addressed, will continue to impact Internet governance developments in various ways." Best wishes, Ronda ronda.netizen@gmail.com http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/ ------------------------------ From: harold@hallikainen.com Subject: Security Flaw Allows Wiretaps to be Evaded, Study Finds Date: 30 Nov 2005 08:31:46 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com From Benton Communications Headlines (http://www.benton.org). SECURITY FLAW ALLOWS WIRETAPS TO BE EVADED, STUDY FINDS [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: John Schwartz and John Markoff] The technology used for decades by law enforcement agents to wiretap telephones has a security flaw that allows the person being wiretapped to stop the recorder remotely, according to research by computer security experts who studied the system. It is also possible to falsify the numbers dialed, they said. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/30/national/30tap.html?pagewanted=all (requires registration) This is the first I'd heard of the "c-tone'. Harold FCC Rules updated daily at http://www.hallikainen.com ------------------------------ From: Terry Friel Subject: Cyberspace Comes to Aid of Kashmir Earthquake Survivors Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 12:33:04 -0600 By Terry Friel As Pakistan and India were still floundering to respond in the early hours after the Kashmir quake, a convoy laden with supplies snaked its way along the debris-cluttered road to one of the worst-hit areas in Pakistan. The mission of mercy began with a simple SMS in Islamabad. The armies and emergency services of India and Pakistan were caught largely off guard by the October 8 quake that killed more than 73,000 and made millions homeless, but new technology is allowing ordinary people to step in and help in a major way. "(The) army has been very inefficient and poor with their response and efforts," said Zohare Haider, a project coordinator at Nortel in Islamabad who helped organize that early convoy and has been arranging more support since through his Web log, or blog, Shakethequake (http://zohare.blogspot.com). "The Sunday after the quake, a friend sent an SMS saying we should get together and help out," wrote Haider, replying to an Internet message. ""We all met at his house ... and that's when things just went out of control." Haider has now quit Nortel to work for a relief agency. Within hours, the group had scraped together 12 truckloads of food, blankets, medicine and supplies and almost 30 million Pakistani rupees and were on their way to Balakot in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. DONATIONS BY SMS Spurred by the success of blogs on the Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, bloggers have opened up new sites to raise and channel donations, coordinate efforts on the ground and match volunteers and donors with aid groups and projects. SMS, or text messaging, has also been used for everything from coordinating aid to letting people in the United States make donations a few cents at a time and have it added to their monthly cellphone bill. Blogs such as Quakehelp http://quakehelp.blogspot.com have had tens of thousands of hits, many in the early days of the Kashmir disaster. Postings range from NGOs calling for volunteers and doctors to discussions on the best material for winter shelters and appeals for more supplies. Contributors include aid groups and ordinary Net surfers. Because they act in a way like community noticeboards, putting people in touch with each other, bloggers say they have no way of knowing how much aid they raise. It is not the first time blogs have helped in the wake of a major disaster. They were prominent after the tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. Many of those behind Kashmir quake blogs also blogged the tsunami, Katrina and Hurricane Rita. Mumbai-based writer Peter Griffin, one of a loose group from around the world that set up Quakehelp, said their Katrina blog drew more than a million hits a day at its peak. "I'd put that down to the much higher Internet access in the USA," he said. The sensitivities involved in Indian and Pakistani Kashmir, where both armies are faced off over a ceasefire line, have made aid work harder, bloggers say. "The information hasn't been easy to find," said Griffin. "It's a sensitive area politically and a remote, almost hostile land." Quake survivors in Indian and Pakistani Kashmir complain official aid was slow to reach them in the critical early days and some say their armies were too slow to respond. But the armies were also hopelessly short of resources for dealing with a disaster on such a colossal scale, as well as being badly hit by casualties themselves, and have been praised by aid agencies for the way they have built up their efforts. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Eric Auchard Subject: Google Sees Advertisers Devoting More to Budget Online Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 12:34:46 -0600 Google sees advertisers devote more budget online By Eric Auchard2 hours, 22 minutes ago Corporate marketers have made online advertising a standard part in media budgets as online spending looks set to accelerate further in 2006, Google Inc.'s North American sales chief said late on Tuesday. Tim Armstrong, Google's advertising sales vice president, said in an interview before the Reuters Media and Advertising Summit that 2005 marked the turning point when advertisers switched from testing to investing in the decade-old medium. "There is robust interest in online advertising and that interest is now turning into real dollars," Armstrong said, noting that market analysts are predicting a banner 2005 year with forecasts ranging from $10 billion to $15 billion. "The experimenting and testing phase begun in the 1990s has ended. Corporate ad buyers are investing now," he said. Jupiter Research estimates the U.S. online advertising market will grow 28 percent over last year, to $11.9 billion in 2005 to $13.6 billion in 2006 and $15.1 billion in 2007. By contrast, Google, which dominates the fast-growing market for keyword-search advertising, has been growing at three times the industry rate, or around 100 percent a year. Industry estimates put Google's market share at 30 percent of overall online ad spending, with as much as 40 percent of the category it dominates -- paid search. Armstrong said two factors are driving the race to boost budgets. Consumer adoption of the Web has far outpaced advertisers commitment to the medium. More recently, Madison Avenue executives have begun advising clients to close the gap by committing more dollars online, Armstrong said. The budget shift is benefiting not just Google but Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, he said. The acceleration of online ad budgets can be measured by the increasing number of companies marketing through online channels, the growing number of divisions within each company using the online medium and the percentages committed online relative to other media, the Google executive said. While estimates vary, analysts believe around 5 percent of U.S. advertising dollars will be spent online this year, up from around 2 percent just a couple of year ago. In short order, 10 percent or more could move online, analysts say. "Some are putting 10 percent or even more than 10 percent of their 2006 budgets into online," Armstrong said. By no means all companies are at this stage, he said but the tide has turned. Google is making progress on its strategy expanding beyond keywords to offer advertising anywhere, Armstrong said. "We started with text, we now offer graphic ads and are moving into print advertising," Armstrong said. Google has been selling print advertisements in a select number of technology trade publications and are talking to major publishers about expanding this approach across a variety of niche markets. Video advertising will be a natural extension of these existing efforts, part of Google's long-term strategy to offer relevant advertising wherever possible. Google's accelerating growth is being driven by brand advertising and site-targeting campaigns that extend beyond its core keyword advertising business, Armstrong said. Executives of the Mountain view, California company have previously said that more than 25 of the top 100 online advertisers are using its site targeting tools, which allow advertisers to create custom ad campaigns on hundreds of the most relevant sites to a specific message. Armstrong declined to say how many more of these major advertisers had adopted its site-targeting tools, saying only that, "We have seen continued growth within those major advertisers." (For other news from the Reuters Advertising and Media Summit, click on http://today.reuters.com/summit/SummitInfo.aspx?name=MediaSummit05&pid=500 ) Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. See our new Classified Advertising Section in the Digest at: http://telecom-digest.org/classified.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 12:50:37 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: TDC Recommends $12B Takeover Offer USTelecom dailyLead November 30, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/zikIatagCyxsBJbzuF TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * TDC recommends $12B takeover offer BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Cingular links wireless service with AT&T's local phone service * AT&T to sponsor U.S. Olympic Team in 2006, 2008 * Intel announces Viiv partners * High-ranking Nortel executives leave company USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * 2005 USTelecom Industry Directory TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Analysis: Next 12 months could be big for IMS * Battle for control of the digital living room * Report sees acceleration of switch to mobile, VoIP services REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * FCC to take a second look at a la carte cable pricing * Vonage among companies that missed Monday's E911 deadline Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/zikIatagCyxsBJbzuF ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Wednesday 30th November 2005 Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 07:44:30 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com [[ 3G ]] India Min:To Decide On 3G Spectrum Allocation By March http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15019.php The Indian government expects to decide by March whether to allow local telecommunications companies to offer third generation, or 3G, mobile phone services, said Communications and Information Technology Minister Dayanidhi Maran Tuesday. ... Ericsson's HSDPA Now Used In 15 Countries http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15022.php Telefon AB LM Ericsson said Tuesday its third-generation wireless technology upgrade solution HSDPA is now in operation in 15 countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and North America. ... Chinese Academy Buys 3G Test Tool http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15026.php Dilithium Networks says that CATR (China Academy of Telecommunications Research of M.I.I.), the national telecom research institution of the Chinese government, has purchased the DNA (Dilithium Networks Analyzer), a 3G protocol analysis and test tool... [[ Handsets ]] Ningbo Bird Secures Indian Handset Distribution Deal http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15025.php China's Ningbo Bird has announced the formal launch of its GSM handsets under the brand name of Bird in western India from Ahmedabad in Gujarat. Targeting the low-end customers, the company has launched seven new GSM mobile phones priced starting fro... Nokia Adds WLAN to Smartphone http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15028.php Nokia has added WiFi connectivity to its existing PDA handset, the Nokia 9300. The Nokia 9300i incorporates WLAN connectivity with a full keyboard, 65,536-color screen, support for a broad range of enterprise email solutions and an attachment viewer.... Top Selling Handsets in November http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15029.php The Swedish manufacturer of carrying cases for portable electronics, Krusell, has released their "Top 10" list for November 2005. No changes at the top of this month's list from Krusell. Stable Sony Ericsson W800 will probably stay even for... [[ Legal ]] Government Fines KT KRW2.8 Billion For "Unfair" Mobile Resale Practice http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15017.php The South Korean government has fined KT Corp., South Korea's largest fixed-line operator, KRW2.8 billion ($1=KRW1,036) for "unfair" practices related to the resale of mobile phones. ... Vodafone to sue Russian company for brand violation http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15020.php The U.K.'s telecommunication company Vodafone Group plans to start court proceedings against Russia's Vodafone Telecom to regain the right to use its trademark in Russia, Vedomosti business daily reported Tuesday quoting Vodafone Group's Spokesman Bo... Alfa Group says not seeking to raise stake in Turkcell http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15021.php Russia's Alfa Group (ALFAGP.YY) said Tuesday it isn't seeking to increase its 13.22% stake in Turkey's mobile-phone operator Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS (TKC). ... [[ Mobile Content ]] Network Operators Dominate Mobile Games Sales - report http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15024.php As several mobile games publishers announce their intentions to launch direct-to-consumer sales of mobile games, M:Metrics says that it has found that the vast majority of mobile game consumers rely on their carriers to inform their mobile game purch... [[ Network Contracts ]] Orange Inks Deal With Cingular For Business Customers http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15016.php Orange, the mobile telecommunications arm of France Telecom, Tuesday said it has signed a deal with U.S. mobile operator Cingular Wireless to provide multinational business customers with better international services. ... New Orleans Mayor Launches Free Internet Wireless System http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15023.php NEW ORLEANS (AP)--Hurricane-ravaged New Orleans is starting the U.S.'s first free wireless Internet network owned and run by a major city, a move aimed at boosting the city's stalled economy, Mayor Ray Nagin announced at a news conference Tuesday. ... Nokia Wins Indonesian GSM Contract http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15027.php Indonesia's Indosat has chosen Nokia to expand its GSM network in Bali and Java, excluding Jabotabek (Jakarta and surrounding areas), with radio network and circuit and packet switched core networks. Nokia will also supply cellular transmission for E... [[ Statistics ]] Mexico's 3Q Telecom Sector Growth Is Fastest In 5 Years http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15015.php Mexico's telecommunications industry grew at its fastest pace in five years during the third quarter, the sector regulator said Monday. ... African Americans and Hispanics Lead Mobile Culture http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15030.php When it comes to the use of enhanced mobile features such as texting and downloading ringtones, African Americans and Hispanics lead the market, a national study finds. "If you want to know where mobile technology is going, watch these two groups of ... [[ Technology ]] Texas Instruments Unveils New Chips For Advanced Phones http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15018.php DALLAS (AP)--Texas Instruments Inc. says it is testing two new semiconductor chipsets that could mark the next step in making so-called third-generation mobile phones more affordable and widely available. ... ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Verizon GTE Merger -- How Did it Go? Date: 30 Nov 2005 07:35:52 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com A while back Verizon (formerly Bell Atlantic and Nynex NY Telephone et al) acquired GTE -- General Telephone & Electronics local phone companies. GTE was the biggest of the "independents", that is, local telephone companies not affiliated with the Bell System. I was wondering how well the integration of GTE into Verizon was working. The former Bell System was heavilly standardized, down to the pens on desktops. Most equipment came from Western Electric and usually (though not always) was the same throughout the country. By equipment I mean switchgear, carrier technology, and local loop plant (and pay phones). Also, business practices were somewhat consistent, such as rate plans and service representative styles. In contrast, I don't know how much GTE was standardized. For one thing, GTE was made up of smaller local independent companies acquired or traded over the years. In the 1970s, many local companies "swapped" exchanges so as to give each other contiguous areas instead of a patchwork for more efficiency. GTE owned a supplier, Automatic Electric. However, I wonder if GTE was so strictly wedded to AE as was Bell to Western. In other words, over the years perhaps equipment from other suppliers was used as well. My impression was that GTE was always more "informal" and less rigid than the Bell System in doing things. (Just as Remington Rand/Sperry Univac was much more informal than IBM in the computer industry). A key difference between Bell and GTE was that overall GTE (and the other independents) tended to serve much less densely populated areas. A map of Pennsylvania shows half the land mass of the state served by "independents" yet the vast majority of phones were under Bell control. Historically, Bell gained control of the cities and nearby suburbs while the independents were generally left with the rural areas (there are some exceptions). I wonder if this characteristic has impacted the merger. Merging two dis-similar organizations can bring down both if not done carefully. The Penn Central Railroad is the classic example of how not to do a merger. In more recent years, megarailroad and airline mergers have had troubles too. [public replies, please] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: When is TDMA Being Phased Out? Date: 30 Nov 2005 07:24:37 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The word from Mike Alexander, Cingular > Wireless customer service/sales manager here in Independence is that > it will s-l-o-w-l-y disappear a tower at a time. I switched my > personal phone from TDMA to GSM .... Could someone describe what is "TDMA" and "GSM" in layman's terms? I presume these are communication protocols and are not compatible with each other. Is one analog? Do other carriers (ie Verizon) use them or other protocols? Does Verizon have any protocols that are going away? I guess now there are three big cellular companies -- Verizon, Cingular, and VoiceStream? Is Sprint still independent or did they merge? I get the impression all three companies are actually a hodgepodge of smaller companies they acquired and merged into along the way. That means service quality of a particular carrier will vary greatly from one part of the country to another, just as landline service varies greatly. (In Verizon particularly which is made up of many different companies). [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Sprint merged with Nextel recently, or bought them out, one or the other. Nextel at present is totally useless around this area in Kansas; however Sprint is a big thing. I suppose the merger will bring Nextel around here soon. PAT] ------------------------------ From: George Mitchell Subject: Re: JFK Assassination Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 10:53:48 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > It is not surprising that TV equipment still contained many tubes. It > would do so for a number of years. And still does. Perhaps you're familiar with the cathode ray _tube_? -- George Mitchell ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Voicepulse Owns Your Number Date: 30 Nov 2005 14:09:31 -0500 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Steve Sobol wrote: > Michael D. Sullivan wrote: >> Fred, you can file a complaint with the FCC > Which will be ignored, since the FCC doesn't regulate VoIP. They do regulate number assignment, though. I don't think the issue itself is VoIP-related, to be honest. --scott ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Showdown with USA Over Internet Control Date: 30 Nov 2005 14:08:16 -0500 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) wrote: > So what would you have ICANN do about spam and other forms of > anti-social net behavior? The same thing that SRI did, before ICANN existed. Disconnect sites that refuse to control their problem customers. Very simple. The reason that spam exists is because some ISPs permit it. The reason that some ISPs permit it is because backbone sites permit it. Shutting off connectivity to kornet and thrunet would about halve the spam problem, right there. If backbone sites took spam seriously, it would go away. If ICANN took spam seriously, backbone sites would have to. wrote: > I'm afraid you're overstating things a bit. > ICANN's arbitration authority is over the domain name. Period. It > has nothing to do with the content hosted at any site. They have > no control over any website (other than their own), simply the > name by which it's referenced. Yes. They can say "your service is not appropriate and therefore we refuse to allow bulkemail.com (a former uunet customer) to receive DNS." Furthermore, they can shut off the uunet dns until uunet gets their spam problem under control. JUST like Postel did with problem customers back in the days when he ran the name server. scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: __Thank you very much__ for speaking the truth on this, something which seems to be in very short supply where the liars at ICANN and their mouthpiece Vint Cerf are concerned. I have said time and time again that spam could be cut back considerably if ICANN would just make it happen. But ICANN and Vint Cerf are not about to make that happen; their preference, (and the loud mouths of their choir of apologists) _like_ seeing the internet gradually being converted to a totally commercial thing. When did Postel pass? Was it 1993 or 1994? They couldn't wait to get the net out of his hands and into theirs. I know that about that time, their flunkies, the International Telecom Union (ITU) decided to start humoring (and attempting to bribe?) people like myself with gobs of money to sing to their tune. ITU promptly started sending me $500 per month and they did so 'faithfully' every quarter -- 3 months, $1500 -- clear up through the end of 1999 when they saw I would not be quiet and do things their way. Then a message or two they considered to be particularly outragous appeared here and bingo! that was it for my 'sponsorship'. That monthly hush money started about the time that I was on that long distance telephone conference call with Vint Cerf and asked him what the hell was going to happen to us little users who only wanted to use the net for its originally intended purpose? Cerf had no answers but then shortly thereafter the money started showing up here. Nah ... don't count on anything but spam, scam and more deterioration of the net as long as ICANN is our governor. It just won't happen. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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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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 V24 #541 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Dec 1 01:25:32 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id AD04F14E4F; Thu, 1 Dec 2005 01:25:31 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #542 Message-Id: <20051201062531.AD04F14E4F@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 01:25:31 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.9 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAD_CREDIT, BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 1 Dec 2005 01:28:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 542 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Microsoft Lets Consumes Try New Security Services (Michael Kahn) BlackBerry Maker Urged to Settle Dispute (Monty Solomon) Skype 2.0 Offers Free Video Calling (Monty Solomon) Implementation Date of Automatic Elevators (Lisa Hancock) Re: Security Flaw Allows Wiretaps to be Evaded, Study Finds (Michael Quinn) Re: When is TDMA Being Phased Out? (John Levine) Re: When is TDMA Being Phased Out? (Jim Burks) Re: Verizon GTE Merger -- How Did it Go? (Wesrock@aol.com) Re: Verizon GTE Merger -- How Did it Go? (Steven Lichter) Re: WSIS Report - ccTLD Problems Linger (John Levine) Re: JFK Assassination (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com) Re: Voicepulse Owns Your Number (John McHarry) Re: Showdown with USA Over Internet Control (Mark Crispin) Re: Showdown with USA Over Internet Control (Seth Breidbart) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Kahn Subject: Microsoft Lets Consumers Try New Security Service Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 22:47:44 -0600 By Michael Kahn Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday started giving computer users the chance to test its new security service as the world's largest software maker took its biggest step yet into the lucrative consumer security market. The company is making its Windows OneCare Live service available for free in a "beta," or test version, to help it work out any potential problems before the product's likely introduction next year. The service, which offers anti-virus, firewall, backup and recovery, as well as personal computer maintenance, will eventually be available for a subscription fee, said Microsoft spokeswoman Samantha McManus. The company has not yet determined how much it will charge. "This is the first major step for Microsoft into the consumer security market," McManus said, noting about 15,000 customers have been taking part in a limited test since June. The security service is part of the company's Windows Live strategy announced on November 1 aimed at competing with challengers such as Google, Yahoo and Salesforce.com, which have used the Web to quickly and easily deliver new products and services to customers. Windows Live is a free Web-based service in which individual users can sign up for a "live" home page that pulls in constantly updating content from a range of information sources including Web searches, e-mail, syndicated headlines from other sites and photos and audio from across the Web. With the service, the Redmond, Washington-based company also plans to wade into the fast-growing consumer security market dominated by companies like Symantec Corp. and McAfee Inc.. Microsoft has already introduced its Windows Live Safety Center service allowing consumers to go to a Web site to have their computers scanned for viruses and cleaned of them, McManus said. The Windows Live Safety Center service is a one-time fix requiring consumers to go back to the Web site while OneCare Live provides constant and more comprehensive protection against viruses and other security threats. She also said the aim of OneCare Live was not to take customers from companies such as Symantec and McAfee but rather to win over the estimated 70 percent of consumers who do not have anti-virus software or do not keep it updated. Still, the company said running more than one anti-virus software program at a time on a personal computer would end up bogging down any protection and actually leave computers less secure. This means customers might have to choose between Microsoft and another vendor. "They end up getting in each other's way and you end up having less," McManus said. "The goal with OneCare is you probably won't need new offerings." Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 18:48:21 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: BlackBerry Maker Urged to Settle Dispute By STEPHANIE STOUGHTON AP Business Writer RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- A federal judge moved a step closer Wednesday to reissuing an injunction that threatens BlackBerry e-mail service in this country, placing more pressure on the wireless device's maker, Research In Motion Ltd., to settle the patent case. The judge rejected RIM's bid to enforce a preliminary $450 million settlement reached earlier this year with NTP Inc., a small firm that has convinced a jury that BlackBerry infringes on its patents for wireless communication. In another blow to RIM, U.S. District Judge James R. Spencer turned down the Canadian company's request to delay the case pending final word from the U.S. patent office, which has preliminarily rejected the patents at the heart of the lawsuit. With those issues out of the way, Spencer next plans to address damages and, once again, an injunction would force RIM to halt BlackBerry service in the United States. After a jury decided against RIM in 2002, Spencer held off on the injunction pending appeals. Analysts and industry observers say RIM, based in Waterloo, Ontario, will likely be forced to settle the lawsuit for as much as $1 billion. Still, some also say RIM's hands aren't completely tied; it's also somewhat unlikely NTP would want to force a shutdown, a scenario that could leave it with a smaller payoff. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53574955 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 01:00:09 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Skype 2.0 Offers Free Video Calling By BRUCE MEYERSON AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) -- Skype is upgrading its popular Internet telephone service to add video calling and a toolbar for Microsoft Outlook to find and dial contacts with a click. The long-promised "2.0" edition was launched Thursday by Skype, which was acquired last month by Internet auctioneer eBay Inc. for an eye-popping $2.6 billion. While the Windows download is available to any user, the application is actually a Beta version, meaning the company is still tweaking the software into a final edition. Skype did not provide a timetable for the final edition or the planned release of a version for the Macintosh operating system from Apple Computer Inc. The video feature will not cost extra, so Skype's trademark computer-to-computer calls will remain free (Fees apply to calls to traditional and cell phones). Users would need to attach a digital camera to their computers, though some laptops hitting the market have built-in cameras. To that end, Skype also announced partnerships to sell webcams made by Logitech International SA and Creative Labs Inc. The new edition of Skype also features a new search box to type in names or numbers and pull up matching entries in the user's address book, as well as an installable toobar to perform the same function within the Outlook e-mail program from Microsoft Corp. The upgrade also includes more features and personalization options such as ringtones and special icons to let others see a user's mood on their buddy lists. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53580333 ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Implementation Date of Automatic Elevators? Date: 30 Nov 2005 21:40:14 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com We tend to forget these days that elevators once had operators. Pressing the call button displayed a signal in the car and the operator took the car to the location. In the 1960 movie "The Apartment", the fancy modern office building had elevator operators, and one operator figured prominently in the plot. "The Day The Earth Stood Still" was on tonight (early 1950s) and they travelled in an automatic elevator. I thought they didn't come out until the late 1950s. I remember in some late 1950s buildings the buttons were touch sensitive, you just touched them (no pressing) and they registered. Many office buildings and department stores maintained operators well into the 1970s. Automatic elevators require some logic, not only to start and stop the car and position it properly, but also to respond to floor calls and cabin settings. In office buildings, there was logic to move cars to meet peak needs, such as up in the morning and down in the afternoon. That was available by the early 1960s. The Bell System had a particular model telephone set for elevator use, designed to squeeze into a box. Today the phones are auto dial intercoms. They make me nervous because I wonder if someone will always answer at the other end or a machine will pick up requiring the pressing of tone keys, obviously not possible on a sealed autodialer unit. BTW, "The Day The Earth Stood Still" is an excellent movie. Shows how paranoid people can get. It was done in B&W and B&W films had to make good use of lighting. Shadows and texture were very carefully utilized to give film depth and character, that is something sometimes lost in color. "The Apartment" is an excellent movie, too. Good satire of bullpen office life. The office machines may be different, but the atmosphere hasn't changed much. Good scene of someone using a keyset, the line buttons lamps worked exactly in relation to the hookswitch, even flickering a bit when the phone was gently hung up; that's rare. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Security Flaw Allows Wiretaps to be Evaded, Study Finds Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 16:16:35 -0500 From: Michael Quinn My understanding is that the "c-tone" is the same as that generated by the "C" button of the A-B-C-D/FO-F-I-P column found on old DoD precedence-equipped touch-tone AUTOVON phones. The C or I (for "Immediate" precedence) button delivers a DTMF pair of 852 and 1633 KHz. Ping me off net for some AUTOVON phone pics. Mike quinnm@bah.com > From: harold@hallikainen.com > Subject: Security Flaw Allows Wiretaps to be Evaded, Study Finds > This is the first I'd heard of the "c-tone'. > Harold ------------------------------ Date: 30 Nov 2005 22:11:57 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: When is TDMA Being Phased Out? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Could someone describe what is "TDMA" and "GSM" in layman's terms? They're two different digital mobile protocols that are technically fairly similar, but incompatible with each other. The practical difference is that GSM phones use a SIM chip and TDMA phones don't. You can move your SIM chip to any GSM phone and it'll work. Switching TDMA phones requires help from the carrier to reprogram the phone and put the new phone's serial number into the switch. Outside of the Americas and Japan, most mobile systems in the world are GSM, and GSM systems are very well integrated. I have SIM chips from Switzerland and Luxembourg, and if I put one of them into my phone, by golly, you can call it on my Swiss or Lux phone number (forwarded to the US at great expense to me, of course.) At the moment I'm in Vancouver, so I bought a prepaid GSM SIM with a Vancouver number to use while I'm here. > I get the impression all three companies are actually a hodgepodge of > smaller companies they acquired and merged into along the way. That > means service quality of a particular carrier will vary greatly from > one part of the country to another, just as landline service varies > greatly. (In Verizon particularly which is made up of many different > companies). That's true, they're all working on it to integrate their networks and make them work more consistently. Most of the recent merges have been between networks with the same technology, e.g., Cingular and AT&T were both TDMA moving to GSM, so the phones all work, but sometimes they think they're roaming. Sprint and Nextel is different, the technologies are completely incompatible and it remains to be seen if they're going to migrate Nextel's iDen customers to Sprint's CDMA network, move to CDMA in Nextel's band (which propagates better than Sprint's) or what. R's, John ------------------------------ From: Jim Burks Subject: Re: When is TDMA Being Phased Out? Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 01:38:52 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com wrote in message news:telecom24.541.9@telecom-digest.org: > Could someone describe what is "TDMA" and "GSM" in layman's terms? I > presume these are communication protocols and are not compatible with > each other. Is one analog? TDMA, GSM and CDMA are all digital cellular standards, concerning signaling, call control, etc. None of them are compatible with each other. All of them work on various frequencies (800, 850, 900, 1800, 1900 mhz) in various parts of the world. Analog cellular is called 'AMPS'. Current (old) NexTel uses iDen. It's not used much anywhere else and NexTel is phasing it out with the Sprint merger. But, it does push-to-talk really well. TDMA is being phased out quickly as the Cingular / ATT Wireless merger goes through, though it is still available in almost every area. Europe and most of the world outside the US use GSM. GSM uses SIM cards to carry the subscriber information (phone number, etc.). If you switch your SIM card into another phone, your number and account go with it. If you travel internationally, you can also use your fancy US handset with a local SIM card and pay local in-country rates (but calls won't be forwarded from your US number). > Do other carriers (ie Verizon) use them or other protocols? Does > Verizon have any protocols that are going away? GSM = Cingular ,T-Mobile, Vodaphone CDMA = Verizon Wireless, Sprint TDMA = Cingular, ATT Wireless (legacy) AMPS = all right now, going away before 2010 Most handsets work on ONE of these protocols. New handsets now are either GSM only or CDMA only. The are also frequently locked to a single carrier. The better GSM handsets are tri-band or quad-band (more frequencies). This will allow them to roam in many parts of the world. Older handsets were either GSM / AMPS, TDMA / AMPS or CDMA /AMPS to use as areas built out digital coverage. Nokia built one line that was GSM / TDMA / AMPS (all three) for Cingular and ATTws. Verizon offers a CDMA / GSM combo handset for world travelers, but it's much more expensive than most, for the same features. > I guess now there are three big cellular companies -- Verizon, Cingular, > and VoiceStream? Is Sprint still independent or did they merge? No, really four: Cingular (with ATTws), Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint (with NexTel). VoiceStream either became T-Mobile or was acquired by Verizon (not sure which). > I get the impression all three companies are actually a hodgepodge of > smaller companies they acquired and merged into along the way. That > means service quality of a particular carrier will vary greatly from > one part of the country to another, just as landline service varies > greatly. (In Verizon particularly which is made up of many different > companies). Exactly. They also use various frequencies in different parts of the country. Cingular uses 850 and 1900 mhz. There are also a number of regional carriers. Also coming up are MVNOs -- marketing companies without networks. These include Virgin Mobile, TracFone (pay as you go) and there are many others coming online in the next 18 months. It will be like the CLEC expansion. Many names, all using a few networks. Most MVNOs right now are using Sprint. Which carrier is right for you? Glad you asked. It depends on where you live, work and travel. In the Northeast, Verizon Wireless does quite good. If you travel internationally, pick a GSM carrier (Cingular, T-Mobile) and you can roam most places in the world. If you live in a big city, Sprint and T-Mobile are a little cheaper, but if you travel out of the cities and off the freeways, you're out of luck. If you live in the wilds of Montana or Arizona, look on eBay for a 3 watt analog bag phone. They have MILES more range. If you stay in the same town all the time, some of the local / regional carriers offer real unlimited usage (day, night, weekend). Jim Burks Memphis, TN ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 16:07:45 EST Subject: Re: Verizon GTE Merger -- How Did it Go? In a message dated 30 Nov 2005 07:35:52 -0800, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes: > A while back Verizon (formerly Bell Atlantic and Nynex NY Telephone et > al) acquired GTE -- General Telephone & Electronics local phone > companies. GTE was the biggest of the "independents", that is, local > telephone companies not affiliated with the Bell System. > I was wondering how well the integration of GTE into Verizon was > working. > The former Bell System was heavilly standardized, down to the pens on > desktops. Most equipment came from Western Electric and usually > (though not always) was the same throughout the country. By equipment > I mean switchgear, carrier technology, and local loop plant (and pay > phones). Also, business practices were somewhat consistent, such as > rate plans and service representative styles. The standardization certainly existed, but it was by no means total. I don't remember anything about pens on desktops, for example. Rate plans certainly varied all over the place. Message rate service was the only service offering in many places; but in most places it was optional and flat rate service was chosen by a very large majority of customers. After the breakup in 1984, the Bell operating companies were in a stampede to find other suppliers that Western Electric. W.E. was in the unfamiliar position of having to compete for business, and other manufacturers got a lot of the Bell business, including C.O. gear and outside plant. Carrier technology was pretty common across many telephone companies, with many circuits and systems jointly owned with the independent companies owning the pnysical plant and terminal gear in its territory and the Bell company the same in its territory. Compatible gear was available from numerous independent suppliers. W.E. gear, usually made to specs furnished by Bell Labs, was designed with the idea it would be in place for many years and was built to extremely high standards. This was particularly true of customer premises equipment, where the local telco provided all the maintenance -- on-premises maintenance. The cost of a repair call, whether for a simple telephone set or a massive centrex or PBX, was high, and it made sense to build the equipment to last. When customers were permitted and then required to buy and maintain their own equipment, this no longer made sense, particular for such simple gear such as a telephone set. > A key difference between Bell and GTE was that overall GTE (and the > other independents) tended to serve much less densely populated areas. > A map of Pennsylvania shows half the land mass of the state served by > "independents" yet the vast majority of phones were under Bell > control. Historically, Bell gained control of the cities and nearby > suburbs while the independents were generally left with the rural > areas (there are some exceptions). I wonder if this characteristic > has impacted the merger. An effect of this in rapidly growing areas was the the independents, frequently bought up by GTE, owned the areas of high-growth, high-income in the suburbs. Some of this places where this was particular noticeable was in the Southern California area (General of California was larger than at least a couple of the Bell operating companies and attracted some senior Bell executives to fill high-level vacancies), Dallas (Irving, Las Colinas where many corporate headquarters are located, Plano, much of Carrolton and numerous others). In the Tulsa area, General, later GTE, owned the Broken Arrow exchange which served not only the growing and high-dollar limits of its namesake city but also well into the adjoining similar territory in the municipal limits of Tulsa. (As an aside, Bell speakers at the national level were wont to extol the virtues of a single nationwide long distance network by noting that you could reach even such remote places as Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, which always made us in Oklahoma snicker because it was about as non-remote a place as anywhere in the country. They probably meant Broken Bow, a place that would more or less fit the "remote" description and was served by a well run, locally-owned, non-GTE independent.) Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: Steven Lichter Reply-To: Die@spammers.com Organization: I Kill Spammers, Inc. (c) 2005 A Rot in Hell Co. Subject: Re: Verizon GTE Merger -- How Did it Go? Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 01:59:35 GMT hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > A while back Verizon (formerly Bell Atlantic and Nynex NY Telephone et > al) acquired GTE -- General Telephone & Electronics local phone > companies. GTE was the biggest of the "independents", that is, local > telephone companies not affiliated with the Bell System. > I was wondering how well the integration of GTE into Verizon was > working. > The former Bell System was heavilly standardized, down to the pens on > desktops. Most equipment came from Western Electric and usually > (though not always) was the same throughout the country. By equipment > I mean switchgear, carrier technology, and local loop plant (and pay > phones). Also, business practices were somewhat consistent, such as > rate plans and service representative styles. > In contrast, I don't know how much GTE was standardized. For one > thing, GTE was made up of smaller local independent companies acquired > or traded over the years. In the 1970s, many local companies > "swapped" exchanges so as to give each other contiguous areas instead > of a patchwork for more efficiency. > GTE owned a supplier, Automatic Electric. However, I wonder if GTE > was so strictly wedded to AE as was Bell to Western. In other words, > over the years perhaps equipment from other suppliers was used as > well. My impression was that GTE was always more "informal" and less > rigid than the Bell System in doing things. (Just as Remington > Rand/Sperry Univac was much more informal than IBM in the computer > industry). > A key difference between Bell and GTE was that overall GTE (and the > other independents) tended to serve much less densely populated areas. > A map of Pennsylvania shows half the land mass of the state served by > "independents" yet the vast majority of phones were under Bell > control. Historically, Bell gained control of the cities and nearby > suburbs while the independents were generally left with the rural > areas (there are some exceptions). I wonder if this characteristic > has impacted the merger. > Merging two dis-similar organizations can bring down both if not done > carefully. The Penn Central Railroad is the classic example of how > not to do a merger. In more recent years, megarailroad and airline > mergers have had troubles too. > [public replies, please] By the time of the merger GTE was pretty standard. It for the most part was installing Nortel and Lucent switches. Also GET merged AE with Western Electric long before the merger and now it is wholly owed by Lucent with support for the GTE 5, but that is really it. To me a retired GTE employee the merger was a complete mistake, as you said they are dis-similar, GTE always had large amounts of money and no debt, now the company has a lot of debt and its stock is in the dumps. I have done contract work for Verizon in Washington State, Oregon as well as California and it still seems to be running about the same, it is run by regional Presidents. The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2005 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot in Hell Co. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Nov 2005 21:57:18 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: WSIS Report - ccTLD Problems Linger Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > A criticism of ICANN is that it focuses on commercialization issues, > rather than internationalization issues. Instead of extending ccTLDs > to include other alphabets like Chinese, ICANN focuses on the > interests of the trademark holder community." That's odd. At this very moment there is a six hour long session at the Vancouver ICANN meeting discussions international character sets in domain names. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Let's see how they get with it. I'd not be surprised if like so many proposals given to them, they didn't just shelve it or send it to some committee for examination and effectively, burial. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: JFK Assassination Date: 30 Nov 2005 13:59:21 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com George Mitchell wrote: > And still does. Perhaps you're familiar with the cathode ray _tube_? How soon will that be replaced by cheaper plasma, LCD, etc? They're still making CRT monitors and TV sets for now, but eventually the more modern devices will come down in price. ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Voicepulse Owns Your Number Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 01:51:22 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 00:43:25 +0000, Seth Breidbart wrote: > Port it to a landline carrier, then port it to Carolina net. Numbers > port only between carriers that have agreements, and VOIP carriers > tend not to have agreements with each other. They all have agreements > with the local landline companies in order to be able to _take_ > numbers. Are you sure about that? Last I knew, most of the routing in LNP areas was in the ILEC's SCPs. Since they assign blocks of numbers, for which they charge everyone else, I would have thought they make the decision on whether a port request is legitimate and should be honored. ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: Re: Showdown with USA Over Internet Control Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 16:17:35 -0800 Organization: Networks & Distributed Computing I know that I am making a mistake by contradicting the tin-foil hat crowd in public, but this latest bit of nonsense from Scott and Pat was far over the top. On Wed, 30 Nov 2005, Scott Dorsey wrote: > The same thing that SRI did, before ICANN existed. Disconnect sites > that refuse to control their problem customers. SRI *never* managed the Internet (or the ARPAnet before it). The only thing that was at SRI was the Network Information Center (NIC) which held the RFCs, the "official" (but widely disregarded) host table, and later the master files for the root. That all ended over 15 years ago. The management of the network was in the hands of the US Department of Defense, which could (and *did*) disconnect sites which failed to toe the line. The first erosion of this was when ARPAnet and Milnet split about 20 years ago, with DoD running Milnet as before and the rump ARPAnet being run by civilian branches of the US government. The National Science Foundation (NSF) took over that authority when NSFnet started about 18 years ago; and promptly refused to exercise it. NSF presently took itself out of the loop in favor of for-profit entities, and the US government disclaimed any authority over who could connect to the network (there was quite a bit of discussion when China was connected). Then nobody ran the network. > Very simple. The reason that spam exists is because some ISPs permit it. > The reason that some ISPs permit it is because backbone sites permit it. People who use such phrases as "very simple" tend to have more hot air than knowledge at their disposal. > Shutting off connectivity to kornet and thrunet would about halve > the spam problem, right there. Bullshit. Not just bullshit, but irresponsible and smacking of racist bigotry. Refer to: http://www.spamhaus.org/statistics/networks.lasso MCI is #1, more than two and a half times greater than #2 (SBC). Kornet is down at #9, and thrunet isn't in the top 10. More to the point, http://www.spamhaus.org/statistics/countries.lasso shows that the USA is the #1 spam origin country, at five times #2 (China) and nine times #3 (South Korea). > If ICANN took spam seriously, backbone sites would have to. More bullshit. ICANN has no authority to decide who is or is not connected. Much of the paranoia about the US government and the Internet has been over the specious claim that the US government would attempt to exercise such authority over foreign networks. Never mind that the US government essentially gave up any pretense of such authority in the early 1990s. The US government will not pull the plug on Iran or North Korea, much less South Korea. It needs to be emphasized to the international community (who have expressed worries about the possibility of the US government pulling plugs) that Scott and Pat are cranks whose opinions are not taken seriously by either the US government or the US Internet community. > Yes. [ICANN] can say "your service is not appropriate and therefore we > refuse to allow bulkemail.com (a former uunet customer) to receive > DNS." Furthermore, they can shut off the uunet dns until uunet gets > their spam problem under control. Please point to the clause in ICANN's charter from the US DOC that gives it that remarkable level of authority. > JUST like Postel did with problem customers back in the days when he > ran the name server. I knew Jon Postel personally. He did no such thing. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: __Thank you very much__ for speaking > the truth on this, something which seems to be in very short > supply where the liars at ICANN and their mouthpiece Vint Cerf are > concerned. Pat, take off your tin foil hat. It isn't shielding you from the "rays". If anything, it's amplifying them. By using TELECOM as your personal political forum, you are ruining its credibility and usefulness as a resource. > I have said time and time again that spam could be cut > back considerably if ICANN would just make it happen. Repeating nonsense "time and time again" does not make it true. -- 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: How _very_ typical it is, that when one disagrees with these 'experts' they respond furiously, with insult after insult. Mark, are you _certain_ (as your .sig notes) that 'science does not emerge from voting, party politics or public debate'? How odd ... considering the number of scientists in the employ of various government agencies, and universities, etc. But thanks very much for writing. I needed the abuse today. PAT] ------------------------------ From: sethb@panix.com (Seth Breidbart) Subject: Re: Showdown with USA Over Internet Control Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 02:15:23 UTC Organization: Society for the Promulgation of Cruelty to the Clueless In article , Patrick Townson noted in response to an article by Andy Sullivan wrote: > Andy Sullivan writing for Reuters, quoted Commerce Secretary Michael > Sullivan in TD V24_#515: > Where spam and scam are concerned, ICANN almost treats it as just an > abberation, something out of the blue which 'coincidentally' happens > and that we users should not be concerned; after all, the 'experts' > will cure it for us if they decide it needs curing, and we can > always 'filter' our email, and run virus scanners galore, isn't that > sufficient? And they do not want to make things _too easy_ to filter > out; that might make the internet useful for average, everyday > citizens once again. Is that why ICANN kicked AOL off the Internet? > Considering the huge amount of spam and cybercrime on the internet > these days, I really have to wonder why the USA thinks it would be > so awful having an 'oppressive government' involved in running things. > Isn't the amount of spam and cybercrime we have now oppressive enough > in its own right? Could (for example) China or Iraq make things any > worse? In some ways they might make things _better_. Considering how friendly a lot of Chinese networks are to spammers, I think it very unlikely they'd make things better. In article , Scott Dorsey wrote: > wrote: >> So what would you have ICANN do about spam and other forms of >> anti-social net behavior? > The same thing that SRI did, before ICANN existed. Disconnect sites > that refuse to control their problem customers. ICANN doesn't have control over the wires. > Very simple. The reason that spam exists is because some ISPs permit it. > The reason that some ISPs permit it is because backbone sites permit it. > Shutting off connectivity to kornet and thrunet would about halve > the spam problem, right there. Good idea. > If backbone sites took spam seriously, it would go away. If ICANN took > spam seriously, backbone sites would have to. Why would they have to? > wrote: >> I'm afraid you're overstating things a bit. >> ICANN's arbitration authority is over the domain name. Period. It >> has nothing to do with the content hosted at any site. They have >> no control over any website (other than their own), simply the >> name by which it's referenced. > Yes. They can say "your service is not appropriate and therefore we > refuse to allow bulkemail.com (a former uunet customer) to receive > DNS." Sure. So spammers would use even more throwaway domains than they do now. > Furthermore, they can shut off the uunet dns until uunet gets > their spam problem under control. Not likely; besides, how much does uunet actually need the domain? (All of their customers who are likely to go to it get DNS through UUNET so they'd get there anyway.) > I have said time and time again that spam could be cut back > considerably if ICANN would just make it happen. But how could it do that? > But ICANN and Vint Cerf are not about to make that happen; their > preference, (and the loud mouths of their choir of apologists) > _like_ seeing the internet gradually being converted to a totally > commercial thing. There's nothing wrong with it being commercial; somebody has to _pay_ for all the wires, after all. Seth [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Two comments, Seth ... _when_ did ICANN 'kick AOL off the internet'? And, if as you claim, 'ICANN has no control over the wires' then how come if I do not sign their contract when requested, granting them ownership and sole arbitrator privleges over the name 'telecom-digest.org' they can refuse to allow me to be on the net? I would say that if I am required to sign a contract which 'allows me' to use my name and make speeches on the net, then the person or entity who makes that requirement has a lot of control over the net, wouldn't you? And what real problem would there be, in the process of handing out those contracts to sign in which I must agree to certain things to _amend_ those contracts to include things dealing with spam/scam, etc? Everyone has to sign one of those contracts every so often, don't they? So when they renew their name every so many years, what if certain statements regards spam were put in that contract with the same provisions otherwise: pay us our money and sign this agreement? But since Vint Cerf and ICANN are _purely_ into looking after USA commercial interests I doubt they would go along with that at all. Oh, Seth, do you know where I could get a .gif or .jpg of a little man, preferably both cranky and a crank with a tin foil hat? I may start a movement here called 'tin foil hat pride'? And I would put a little script under him saying "I wanted to use the net in peace and quiet, but today (date) I had to toss (number of) spams and (number of ) virii and (number of) scams before I could start my work. The (number of) slots would increment all the time. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #542 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Dec 1 15:55:25 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 7440514D5A; Thu, 1 Dec 2005 15:55:24 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #543 Message-Id: <20051201205524.7440514D5A@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 15:55:24 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.0 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, BIZ_TLD,MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 1 Dec 2005 15:58:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 543 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AT&T, BellSouth Debut Yellowpages.com Venture (Reuters News Wire) Skype Introducs Web-Based Calling Feature (Eric Auchad) French Mobile Phone Cartel Faces Big Fine (Laurence Frost) Skype Adds Video to VoIP Service (USTelecom DailyLead) Cellular-News for Thursday 1st December 2005 (Cellular-News) Verizon, GTE, Contel, Alltel, etc. was Re: TDMA Phased Out?) (A Bellanga) Re: Holiday Observances Phone Rates (was Re: Kennedy) (Anthony Bellanga) Re: Showdown with USA Over Internet Control (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: JFK Assassination (Scott Dorsey) Re: WSIS Report - ccTLD Problems Linger (Scott Dorsey) Re: FCC May Block Vonage From Accepting New Customers (Antwain Barbour) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Reuters News Wire Subject: AT&T,BellSouth Debut Yellowpages.com Venture Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 13:22:38 -0600 Telephone operators BellSouth Corp. and AT&T Inc. unveiled their improved online directory, Yellowpages.com LLC, on Thursday, going head-to-head against Internet heavyweights Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. BellSouth and SBC Communications Inc., now part of AT&T, joined together last year to buy Yellowpages.com and combine their own telephone directory services for an online service. Phone companies have long been the key providers of local business information directories that are traditionally printed on yellow paper. "This is a significant milestone for us -- and the industry -- as we remain dedicated to providing the most logical source for advertisers and consumers who are increasingly searching the Internet for local information, said Charles Stubbs, president and CEO of Yellowpages.com, in a statement. But the once sleepy market is emerging as a key battleground as major Internet firms see local search as a way to move beyond traditional Web search by helping people find details of businesses such as nearby restaurants and shops. One analyst said he believed that Yellowpages.com may have an edge over Web rivals in local search because they already have up-to-date databases with local information and a long-standing presence in local markets. "I think you're going to see a neck-and-neck battle between Yellowpages.com and the search engines, but the search engines are going to be trying to catch up," said David Goddard, an analyst at publishing research firm Simba Information. "Google and Yahoo are not anywhere near having the kind of database that a yellow pages publisher already has," he added, also noting that Yellowpages.com is an easy Web address for consumers to remember. Yellowpages.com said the revamped site has new, more powerful search capabilities. For example, consumers can search by key word, business name or business type and refine their results by expanding or narrowing their searches. For now, Yellowpages.com expects to compete with Yahoo and Google. But Goddard said it makes sense for the two camps to work together eventually. "One way or another, what you have here is one company that has the traffic, the other that has the database. Different agreements are going to happen over the years," he said. SBC Communications is also expected to replace the "SBC" trading symbol with AT&T's "T" symbol as the stock market opens on Thursday. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Eric Auchard Subject: Skype Offers Web Video Phone Calling Feature Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 13:24:28 -0600 By Eric Auchard Skype, the international Web calling phenomenon acquired by eBay Inc., said on Thursday it is adding high-resolution video picture phone features to its free telephone replacement service. Version 2.0 of the Skype software at http://www.skype.com aims to make it easier for customers to sign up and use its phone-over-Internet services, which are free on computers and offer low per-minute charges when calling conventional phones. In addition, Six Apart, the top maker of Web blog software based in San Francisco, has agreed to embed links to Skype as an option for millions of users of its Typepad blog service, the two companies said. The new Skype software also will allow users of the popular Microsoft Outlook e-mail management software to install a browser-based toolbar that offers instant links to Skype and notifications when other Skype users are online. "Video calling has come of age," Skype vice president of marketing Saul Klein said of the new feature. The deal with Six Apart will enable Web users to place instant Web-based phone calls to bloggers via Skype, further enhancing the two-way nature of blog communications. The option of adding Skype will be available early next year on Typepad, and eventually on Live Journal, a second blogging service from Six Apart with which nearly 9 million blogs have been created, the companies said in a statement. "This allows you to see a button on a blog and start talking to the person who publishes that blog," Mena Trott, co-founder and president of Six Apart, said in a phone interview. "That is the next step in blogging." Logitech and Creative, which collectively sell around two-thirds of the world's webcams -- the miniature cameras used for video conferencing via computer -- have agreed to distribution partnerships with Skype. For quality video calls, users need to use a broadband connection. Skype's long-rumored upgrade to video phone calling capabilities competes with computer instant messaging services that also offer video phone calling features, including Microsoft MSN and America Online's AIM service. The upgraded Skype software also features "mood indicator" software that allows users to let their contacts signal whether they are happy, sad, listening to music, available or busy and other phone personalization features. These include ring tones to alert Skype users to callers and customizable personal images, known as avatars, for which users will pay around $1 a piece. Among the companies supplying avatars are American Greetings and U.K.-based Weemees. Skype and Logitech plan to jointly market Skype Video and Logitech webcams and telephone headsets worldwide, engaging in regional promotions and direct outreach to Logitech customers and Skype users, Logitech said in a separate statement. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But, Skype is not first with video software for telecom applications. On my very old Win 95 computer, (the first one I had, the Toshiba Satellite 220) there was a piece of software which did video over phone using Logitech cameras. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Laurence Frost Subject: French Mobile Phone Cartel Faces Big Fine Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 13:27:03 -0600 By LAURENCE FROST, AP Business Writer French antitrust authorities slapped record fines on the country's mobile operators Thursday after a four-year investigation found that Orange, SFR and Bouygues illegally shared sales data and conspired to undermine competition. The networks were ordered to pay a combined 534 million euros ($628 million) -- the largest penalty ever imposed by France's Competition Council and Europe's second-largest antitrust fine. All three vowed to appeal. In a 90-page report, the watchdog said the operators had shared "precise and confidential" commercial information every month for six years and had even agreed to freeze their market shares in 2000-2002, easing competitive pressure on prices. "The existence of this collusion has been established through the recovery of serious, precise and consistent evidence, including handwritten documents explicitly mentioning an 'agreement' between the three operators," the regulator said. France's main consumer organization, UFC-Que Choisir, said it now plans to sue for damages estimated at 50 euros to 80 euros ($59 to $94) per mobile subscriber. UFC filed a complaint against all three networks in 2002, a year after the antitrust authority launched its own probe. The decision is potentially embarrassing for Finance Minister Thierry Breton, who took over as chairman and chief executive of Orange parent France Telecom SA in 2002, a year before the illegal information exchanges stopped. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin came to Breton's defense Thursday when asked whether the minister's former France Telecom role -- relinquished earlier this year -- could undermine his position. "That has absolutely nothing to do with it," Villepin said. "Thierry Breton is doing a great job as finance minister and he will continue doing his job." Orange vowed to appeal its 256 million euros ($301 million) fine, the largest of the three, describing the penalty as "unfounded and excessive." Vivendi Universal SA's SFR and Bouygues SA's telecoms division also said they plan to challenge their respective penalties of 220 million euros ($259 million) and 58 million euros ($68 million) in the appeal courts. During the investigation, the three mobile networks admitted sharing confidential sales data, arguing unsuccessfully that it had not distorted competition and that they had not sought to freeze market share. But investigators found an incriminating paper trail, including a handwritten note seized from the office of SFR General Manager Pierre Bardon that mentions Michel Bon, Breton's France Telecom predecessor, and Orange France CEO Didier Quillot. "Michel Bon via D. Quillot is OK to renew the 2000 market-share agreement in 2001," reads the note, as transcribed in the Competition Council report. Documents recovered from France Telecom, including notebooks kept by Quillot, also referred to the deal as a "market-share Yalta" - an apparent reference to the 1945 conference that paved the way for Europe's postwar carve-up between East and West. Quillot, who still heads Orange France, declined to comment through a spokesman. The market-share deal was concluded at a time when sales were slowing on the maturing French mobile market, the regulator said, leading to "increased prices" for consumers as operators sought to squeeze profit growth from existing clients instead of new subscribers. The three operators began exchanging sales data three years earlier, in 1997, and stopped the practice only in late 2003, in response to the antitrust probe. The total fines announced Thursday are the second-largest in European antitrust history. In 2001, the European Commission fined eight drug companies a combined 855 million euros (then worth $755 million) for price-fixing. U.S. shares of France Telecom, each worth one ordinary share, rose 39 cents to $25.38 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. U.S. shares of Vivendi Universal rose 73 cents o $29.68 on NYSE. Associated Press Writers Matt Moore in Frankfurt, Aoife White in Brussels, Toby Sterling in Amsterdam and David Ariel in Rome contributed to this report. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more news headlines from Associated Press please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 13:01:19 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Skype Adds Video to VoIP Service USTelecom dailyLead December 1, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/zmyAatagCzbbfBrmiP TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Skype adds video to VoIP service BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Court ruling a blow to BlackBerry maker RIM * Telecoms ponder fate of their landlines * Report: Wireless carriers cut churn rate by 11% * Comcast to raise prices by 6% USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * The Essential Guide for All Telecom Users TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * TiVo launches interactive services * Verizon Wireless to use Qualcomm's FLO for mobile video * Voice mail fails to catch fire in China REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * AT&T throws weight behind a la carte cable TV * BellSouth CTO proposes priority system for Internet Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/zmyAatagCzbbfBrmiP ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Thursday 1st December 2005 Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 09:50:16 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com [[ 3G ]] Ericsson Works With MTN South Africa On 3G Combinations http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15031.php Telefon AB LM Ericsson said Wednesday it and MTN South Africa are first in demonstrating how third generation networks using WCDMA technology enable new mobile broadband services as well as a cost efficient fixed broadband alternative, when combining... Nokia Completes High Speed HSDPA Call In China http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15033.php Finland's Nokia Oyj wednesday said it has successfully completed a High Speed Downlink Packet Access call at its facilities in Beijing, China. ... Doubling the Speed of HSDPA Networks http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15046.php Bytemobile says that the newest version of optimization software is showing a two-fold speed improvement on HSDPA networks. The software-based solution, called the Optimization Services Node (OSN), specifically enhances each data packet and enables m... [[ Financial ]] Private-equity Firms Offer $12B For Danish Telecom TDC http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15035.php A group of private-equity firms led by Apax Partners Worldwide and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts has agreed to buy telecoms operator TDC for $12 billion, though the Danish company said it'd like to receive even more. ... Cingular Tests Calling Plan With AT&T Local Phones http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15037.php Cingular Wireless is testing a plan that provides unlimited calls between its mobile service and AT&T Inc.'s local phone service in a move to bundle its services closer together, Cingular said on its Web site. ... NTC Sees TDC As Growth Platform; Could Make Buys http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15038.php Nordic Telephone Co. intends to use TDC as a platform for growth and will probably embark on acquisitions through the company to help drive that growth, a member of the NTC group said Wednesday. ... FOCUS: Russia's Alfa Group holds keys to Ukrainian mobile market http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15041.php PREMIUM - The Ukrainian mobile market is maturing quickly and may soon see the arrival of Russia's Alfa Group as the key player, as the company looks to consolidate the stake it holds in four out of five Ukrainian GSM operators. Alfa Group's aggressive behav... [[ Handsets ]] Indian Handset Sales to Soar http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15045.php BIS Shrapnel has forecasted that the number of cellular handsets sold in India to hit 38.5 million units (including replacement and grey handsets) in 2006, recording an impressive growth of 26% over this year's sale.... [[ Legal ]] Research In Motion Loses Latest Patent Appeal http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15042.php Research In Motion Ltd. has failed to persuade a federal judge to enforce a tentative $450 million settlement with a company that's sued to stop the developer of the popular Blackberry from sellings its handheld e-mail devices. ... [[ Messaging ]] Telefonica Moviles, RIM To Launch BlackBerry Service In Latam http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15039.php Spanish mobile phone operator Telefonica Moviles SA said Wednesday it will launch Research in Motion Ltd.'s wireless BlackBerry platform in 13 Latin American countries. ... Missed Call Service for Tunisian Operator http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15047.php Cellicium says that the Tunisia based GSM operator, Tunisiana has launched it's `Please Call Me' interactive USSD service for pre-paid users. This service enables pre-paid customers lacking credit to send a free SMS message requesting to be called by... [[ Mobile Content ]] A Spring, A Spring, A Wonderful Thing, Everyone Knows It's Slinky! http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15043.php AG Interactive has announced that images and sounds of Slinky, The Original Walking Spring Toy, are now available for mobile phones and online platforms. The new content includes emoticons, backgrounds and wallpapers, winks, avatars, screensavers, ri... Crazy Frog Displaced by Baaarmy Sheep http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15051.php The Crazy Frog's Christmas single - Jingle Bells -gets its first UK airplay today and is widely tipped to become a music chart Christmas number one. But the "Baarmy Sheep" of the Lake District are launching a pre-emptive strike by making their own ve... [[ Network Contracts ]] Ericsson To Provide Solution To SunCom Wireless In US http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15034.php Sweden's Telefon AB LM Ericsson Wednesday said U.S. operator SunCom Wireless Holding Inc. has selected Ericsson's Mobile Softswitch solution for its next generation core. ... Russia's MegaFon says now has 1,500 base stations in MLA http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15040.php The number of base stations of Russia's MegaFon subsidiary Sonic Duo in the Moscow Licensed Area (MLA) amount to 1,500 as of now, up from 1,300 base stations in August, the company said Wednesday. ... [[ Offbeat ]] PrePay Phone Helps Fund the Nelson Mandela AIDS Foundation http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15050.php South Africa's Vodacom has launched a PrePay handset in association with the Nelson Mandela Foundation to raise funds for fighting HIV/AIDS. Through this joint initiative Vodacom will be selling a 46664-branded Vodacom Prepaid Starter Pack in what is... [[ Personnel ]] Hutchison 3G Director Resigns http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15048.php Hutchison 3G UK has announced that Gareth Jones will be stepping down from his role as Chief Operating Officer at the end of 2005. Gareth joined 3 in May 2003 and as COO has overseen the sales, customer service and marketing departments. He was broug... [[ Regulatory ]] Russia's Moscow, many regional phone codes to be changed Thursday http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15036.php The Moscow city telephone area code, 095, is to be replaced by 495 on Thursday, the IT and Telecommunications Ministry said in a ruling approved August 3. ... [[ Technology ]] Nokia To Cooperate With PLDT In The Philippines http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15032.php Finland's Nokia Oyj said Wednesday it and telecommunications provider Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, PLDT, have set up a Next Generation Network Laboratory to develop and test end-to-end Fixed-Mobile Convergence services prior to their c... Improving Camera Phone Photos in Dim Light http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15044.php Agilent Technologies has shown off an innovative image pipe processor that allows mobile phone and computing devices to take lifelike, rich color photos in all lighting conditions. The image pipe is integrated in Agilent's new family of system-on-chi... Altobridge Split-BSC Solution Cuts Remote GSM Costs http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15049.php ip.access says that Altobridge, a developer of mobile systems for remote communications, is launching a low-cost satellite backhaul solution for the provision of remote cellular coverage using ip.access nanoBTS picocells. The new solution enables mob... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 03:29:35 -0700 From: Anthony Bellanga Subject: Verizon, GTE, Contel, Alltel, etc. (When is TDMA Being Phased Out?) PAT: PLEASE DO *NOT* display my email address anywhere! Thanx! Jim Burks wrote: > Lisa Hancock wrote: (snip) >> I guess now there are three big cellular companies -- Verizon, >> Cingular, and VoiceStream? Is Sprint still independent or did >> they merge? > No, really four: Cingular (with ATTws), Verizon, T-Mobile and > Sprint (with NexTel). VoiceStream either became T-Mobile or was > acquired by Verizon (not sure which). There is a fifth nationwide (or maybe nearly nationwide?) wireless provider in the US, and that is Alltel. A great deal of what is now Verizon Wireless at one time was part of Alltel, but Alltel still does exist. Voicestream changed into T-Mobile. I understand that there was even a name used prior to being called Voicestream but I can't remember what it was. As for a good deal of what had been Alltel at one time becoming part of Verizon Wireless around 2000, also remember that when GTE was taking over Contel in the early 1990s, they had to sell off landline services in certain states or portions of states, possibly to comply with various FTC or DOJ anti-trust things. Citizens Telephone and Alltel were the two companies that GTE sold legacy GTE and legacy Contel landline markets (sometimes entire states) to. But also at the very same time, GTE took over some of Alltel landline territory. It was almost as if GTE and Alltel "traded off" some landline areas. When Bell Atlantic / NYNEX took over GTE / Contel in 2000 to become Verizon, in addition to the Wireless consolidations that happened first (including some of Alltel wireless becoming Verizon, though not all of what was Alltel wireless was merged into Verizon wireless, there is still a great deal of Alltel that is still on its own), there were legacy GTE (and old legacy Contel) landline areas which Verizon again sold off. This included all of GTE Alaska which was sold to about five small local independent telcos that had always been in Alaska; a good deal of GTE in the Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico areas being sold into a new spin-off called Valor; parts of old GTE being sold to various existing smaller independent telcos here and there, as well as part of old GTE or Contel being sold to CenturyTel and again to Citizens and Alltel. More recently Verizon sold off old GTE Hawaiian Telephone to the Carlyle Group, and Telus in Canada bought back Verizon's shares which date back to when GT&E owned the British Columbia Telephone Company and the Quebec Telephone Company in eastern Quebec. In early 2004, Verizon also announced that it wanted to sell off all legacy New York Tel outside of the New York City Metro Area (LATA 132), but those plans have been cancelled. But Alltel still has a wireless operation. And more recently, when AT&T-Wireless was being sold to Cingular (owned 60% by SBC now known as AT&T, and 40% by BellSouth and HQ'd in BellSouth's Atlanta), remember how some customers were "turned over" to Alltel wireless! There are still several smaller regional and local cellular companies in the US. MOST of them do have contracts with the major national providers for roaming purposes, but a lot of them are strictly local or regional providers for those who really don't travel much (i.e., they don't need to roam), and thus might be able to provide cheaper monthly rates! But as for the major providers, note how all of them are also associated with incumbent landline telcos, except for T-Mobile. Cinuglar (SBC/AT&T and BellSouth) Verizon Alltel Sprint (now including Nextel) However, with the Sprint-Nextel merger, they have announced that Sprint is keeping Long Distance and wireless, but are going to sell-off or spin-off their (incumbent) local telephone operations, to some yet to be announced entity and name/logo. The local telco operations is what Sprint claims was "100+ years of service", being the old United Telephone, and also Centel (Central Telephone), the latter being merged into Sprint-United in the early 1990s. - Anthony Bellanga ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 02:23:14 -0700 From: Anthony Bellanga Subject: Re: Holiday Observances Phone Rates (was Re: Kennedy) PAT: DO NOT DISPLAY my email address whatsoever anywhere in this post! Seth Breidbart wrote: > Lisa Hancock wrote: >> Some years ago they passed a Monday holiday law, switching the >> date of a number of national holidays so they would always be >> on a Monday, creating a three day weekend. That includes >> Martin Luther King Day, Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, >> and Columbus Day. Veteran's Day, Independence Day, Christmas, >> and New Years remain observed on their actual day. Thanksgiving >> and Labor Day were already on day of week. > The Monday Holiday Law predates Martin Luther King Day. >> Roughly speaking, workers have seen a gradual cutback in the >> number of holidays they get a day off from work. There were >> always the big 5 that everyone got off (except critical personnel): >> (1) NY, (2) Memorial, (3) Independence, (4) Labor, (5) Thanksgiving, >> and (6) Christmas. > For a large value of 5. >> Over time, some employers began to give off Washington's birthday, >> King's birthday and Veteran's Day in addition. More generous >> employers threw in Columbus Day and Good Friday. >> Historically, if a major holiday fell on the weekend, the nearest >> Monday or Friday would be given off. >> Nowadays employers seem a lot tighter and grant only the major day >> off. Many retailers are open on holidays, even Thanksgiving, >> Christmas, and New Years, and expect people to work. I guess it depends on who you work for or what type of business or work you do. And aren't there certain labor laws requiring time and a half or similar for (non-union) employees who have to work on certain declared *National* (not "just" Federal) Holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Independence Day, and maybe Labor Day? (the original "big five", which does not include Memorial Day, Columbus Day, Veterans' Day, Presidents' Day (which was originally known as George Washington's Birthday), and in more recent years mlk day). >> The phone company would grant weekend rate reductions on certain >> major holidays. However, when a day was celebrated on an alternate >> day (such as everything being closed on Monday July 5 in >> celebration of Independence Day instead of on Sunday 7/4), the >> phone company did not give discounts on the alternate day, weekday >> rates were charged which could be steep. Telephone rate structures have never been fixed in stone. And remember that there are different rate strctures depending on the location (jurisdiction) of the calling and called parties (intra-state vs. inter-state, and if intra-state, which state; US-to-Canada, US-to- Alaska/Hawaii/Puerto Rico/etc; US-to-International outside of Canada, etc). "Holiday" rate structures (as well as Evening, Night, Weekend discounts) could vary as to the nature of the Holiday, and the start and stop time of the discounted period could vary depending on the jurisdiction of the call. And things were not always consistant if you were accepting a collect call (the rate period was determined at the time of the party *placing* the call, NOT the time of the person *receiving* the call even though the latter is PAYING for the call, similarly on 3rd Party billing, the rate period is determined not by the time of that 3rd person accepting the billing, but by the time of the person *placing* the call), or coin paid calls (mostly obsolete or totally morphed now a days since AT&T no longer handles coin sent paid traffic and the local Bells have been squeezed out by COCOTs), or person to person billing, time-and-charges quotes, etc. There could be significant inconsistancies as to how rate periods and Holiday rates applied to calls that weren't completely dialed as 1+ DDD by the customer with no operator assistance, from a regular residential or business line. And Bell or Telco was always filing new tariffs with state and federal regulators modifying this or that. What I remember is the structure as it applied roughly from the mid-1970s through the mid-1990s, approximately twenty years. And this is the AT&T US Interstate Plan for calls originating form the Continental US. By the mid-1980s, it also included calls TO such points as Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands, and also included calls originating from those non-CONUS points if they were TO points within CONUS (but not necessarily to another non-CONUS point except for calls between Alaska and Hawaii which eventually became known as basic interstate). Most other carriers also copied the time periods that AT&T had filed for as well, in the post-divestiture period. However, with the 1996 Telecom Law, things began to change dramatically for all carriers including AT&T, MCI, Sprint. Weekday/Daytime period (the most expensive) Mon-Fri 08-AM to 05-PM Weekday/Evening period (the MID-range) Sun-Fri 05-PM to 11-PM Night/Weekend period (the lowest rates) ALL Nights 11-PM to 8-AM and ALL WEEKEND LONG starting at 11-PM Fri continuing all the way through (NOTE) 05-PM SUNDAY (when EVENING rates would kick-in) Until around the early 1980s, a call which started in one rate period but continued into another rate period would be charged at the rates of the period that the call originally began. Thus, a call begun at 4:58pm Sun-Fri would be charged at DAY rates until the call was terminated. However, a call begun at 7:58am Mon-Fri or 4:58pm on Sunday would be charged at NIGHT/WEEKEND rates until the call was terminated. I can remember having major troubles with all circuits busy trying to place interstate toll calls on Sunday afternoons after 4:30pm back in the early 1980s -- everyone else just like me was trying to get their calls started before 5pm at which time the higher (mid-range) rates would then kick-in until 11pm when the night/weekend rates would come back. In the early 1980s, all of this changed. AT&T began charging the rate period in effect for whatever minutes the call included. If you started your call at 4:58pm M-F, you started off paying the highest Day rate, but once 5pm came about, the charges went down to evening rate during the call in progress. Holiday rates were identical to EVENING (mid-range) rates, NOT the least expensive Night/Weekend period. At least this is how it all was in the mid-1970s thru mid-1990s period. Of course, if that Holiday (observed) was on a weekend (until 5pm on a Sunday), you did get your cheapest weekend rate. (or night rate for that day at any time from Midnight until 8am or 11pm to Midnight on that Holiday regardless of which day of week the Holiday observed fell on). Maw Bell did recognize the Federal "Holiday Observed" or "make-up" for when a Holiday itself fell on a Sat/Sun. Bell did give you the mid-range Evening (Holiday) rate on Monday 26 December or Monday 27 December (i.e., Christmas falling on a Sat/Sun), and the like. AT&T recognized only the "Big Five" Holidays for "Holiday Rates" (identical to Evening Mid-range rates) for inter-state US calls, i.e., Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Independence Day, and Labor Day for the longest. I believe that the US Federal Government or Presidential Decree/Order, etc. identifies these as "National" Holidays. The other four-later-five are "Federal" Holidays which apply to Federal Government employees although many state/local governments and some private sectors have also now included as well. AT&T (and possibly MCI and Sprint) began to include these four-later-five as well by 1990, for Holiday (Evening) rates. These inlcude Columbus Day, Veteran's Day, Presidents' Day, and later on mlk day. Presidents' Day was originally George Washington's Birthday, which *was* the ONLY Federal Holiday to honor a *specific* individual by *NAME*. It was "morphed" into Presidents' Day sometime in the 1980s (IIRC), to honor Lincoln (also with a February Birthday) and "all" of the presidents of the US. So, after a while, even the Father of Our Country lost out on the day *specifically* dedicated to him, while at about the same time this mlk gets a federal holiday by name. Anyhow, AT&T (and possibly MCI and Sprint) began to observe all ten national/federal holidays collectively, as "Evening/Holiday" rates, by about 1990. But with the 1996 Telecom Law, everything that we had become comfortable with (especially after having adjusted to the 1984 divestiture) began to change again. AT&T's basic rate structures began to change significantly, yet at the same time, if you know how to choose/dial "wisely", you'll find that toll rates overall have decreased signficantly. And while you might lash-out at Cellular companies, Long Distance Carriers, and even local telcos, if you do your homework (and yes, it can be tedious), you can get very good savings and discount plans on ALL of your telecom services, even better than it was in the stable "good old days" of Maw Bell in the 1970s and early (pre-divestiture) 1980s. - Anthony Bellanga ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: Showdown with USA Over Internet Control Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 11:30:06 UTC Organization: Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , Scott Dorsey wrote: > wrote: >> So what would you have ICANN do about spam and other forms of >> anti-social net behavior? > The same thing that SRI did, before ICANN existed. Disconnect sites > that refuse to control their problem customers. SRI never did that. There is no "internet backbone", and "backbone sites" were never effective at cutting off access to problem sites even when most email moved by UUCP and there _was_ such a backbone. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "The inconsistency is startling, though admittedly, if consistency is to be abandoned or transcended, there is no problem." - Noam Chomsky ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: JFK Assassination Date: 1 Dec 2005 13:49:21 -0500 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) wrote: > a reliable and inexpensive product was a difficult long task. > According to the IBM history, at first transistors were made by hand > -- someone jiggled the cat whiskers and watched a scope until the > proper effect was created. Obviously very expensive and error prone > way to go. These were point-contact transistors. > Even after automation yields of working transistors were > low. IBM research not only was developing new computers to use > transistors, but also new technology to manufacture transistors and > circuit cards. IBM failed to patent or license the manufacturing > technology not realizing how valuable it was and let its > subcontractors take it and re-use it. (Kind of like PC-DOS). For the most part, the Mesa process that made mass production of consistent transistors possible was the result of research done at Fairchild. It is true that there was a lot of work being done by the IBM T.J. Watson Research center on transistor fabrication. And it is true that all of that research got used by IBMs competitors long before IBM. This is, however, pretty much the story of everything that was developed at Watson, from sealed hard disks to RISC. IBM was never good at developing products out of their own research. But the IBM semiconductor research at the time was not really all that important in the grand scheme of things. > The end result was that until the late 1950s, transistors cost more > than tubes. For a lot of applications, this remained the case until the early seventies. For power RF applications, it remained the case until about five years ago. > The president of IBM went around with the new transistor portable > radios and had to give an order that all new computers would be built > with transistors instead of tubes. One of IBM's early efforts was a > transistorized punched card calculator (IBM 608/609) which was more of > a prototype and test bed rather than a commercial product. Yes, but don't forget that the Univac Solid-State computer came out before IBM built anything practical. Univac was using Philco transistors of somewhat doubtful characteristics as I recall. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: WSIS Report - ccTLD Problems Linger Date: 1 Dec 2005 13:53:47 -0500 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Ronda Hauben wrote: > I recently returned from the WSIS meeting in Tunis and found it a > very interesting experience. > The ICANN problem, however, remains unsolved. I don't see what the _ICANN_ problem actually is. ICANN does not actually have very much control over the root nameservers, thanks to Jon Postel's foresight. They don't have anywhere near the amount of control they claim to have. I think if it came down to the wire, the folks running the servers would be willing to buck ICANN if they had to. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: AntwainBarbour Subject: Re: FCC May Block Vonage From Accepting New Customers Date: 30 Nov 2005 06:55:47 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I'm impressed that SunRocket reached 96% whereas it seems Vonage only covered 26% of their customers. It will be interesting to see how the FCC handles those with large discrepancies. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #543 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Dec 2 15:25:45 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id BCD8514F90; Fri, 2 Dec 2005 15:25:44 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #544 Message-Id: <20051202202544.BCD8514F90@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 15:25:44 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.0 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, BIZ_TLD autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 2 Dec 2005 15:26:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 544 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Let us Take [CATV-Based] IP and Make it Wireless (Neal McLain) T-mobile, was: Verizon, GTE, etc, etc (Danny Burstein) Verizon to Offer Service for Cell Phones (Monty Solomon) Telecom Update #508, December 2, 2005 (Angus TeleManagement Group) Cellular-News for Friday 2nd December 2005 (Cellular-News) Juniper Snags IPv6 Deal in China (USTA Daily Lead) Re: Holiday Observances Phone Rates (was Re: Kennedy) (Bob Goudreau) Re: Holiday Observances Phone Rates (was Re: Kennedy) (Lisa Hancock) Re: JFK Assassination (Paul Coxwell) Re: JFK Assassination (Lisa Hancock) Re: Personal Computers Enlisted in AIDS Research (Steve Stone) Re: Verizon GTE Merger -- How Did it Go? (Steve Sobol) Re: When is TDMA Being Phased Out? (Lisa Hancock) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Neal McLain Subject: Let us Take [CATV-Based] IP and Make it Wireless Reply-To: nmclain@annsgarden.com Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2005 12:28:15 -0500 Crossposted from SCTE list: From: Dean F. Meece Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2005 6:50 PM Subject: Let us take IP and make it Wireless. Now. Discussion for the SCTE floor: "Let us take IP and make it Wireless. Now." There is a great paradox to the MSO vs. CLEC race to deliver ridiculous IP speeds to the customer's house. We are constructing the infrastructure to remove the middle man from the video delivery business or phone business -- with the very thing we race to achieve. In the end, we may just be the pipe that delivers IP as fast as possible to the consumer. A utility like water, gas and power, not a tollbooth for content providers to get on our delivery network. What does this mean? A massive attack on our bottom line. Think about college kids and teenagers, they're always the earlier adopters to technologies that will overtake the big picture business model within a generation. In case you need some frame of reference for what kind of a tidal wave is coming and industry shift is about to happen, look into periodicals and newspapers profitability and subscriber rates. People under 30 do not read _print_ newspapers and magazines very much. If they do, they don't pay for them or it's because they don't have IP handy. Maybe your kid is the exception to the rule, but the trend is massively in retreat right now. They read them online, they get their media downloaded to their PDA's, or their laptops or PSP's or IPOD's now. Check out Audible.com -- you can get your daily news downloaded in MP3 format, and play it on your car as you drive to work on your MP3 player. Environmentalists can cheer, but newspaper/periodical businesses are about to be destroyed. Exit middleman stage right. How does the MSO still win here in this model? We deliver the IP. Need another middleman analogy to the power of IP content delivery? CD's, DVD's manufacturing and retail distribution. Exit middleman again. We may have dealt the first blow by burying Blockbuster with VOD, but the next revolution is slowly taking up positions around us within the last few months. And it's gunning right at our VOD and Linear video distribution systems. Apple finally has a feather in its cap that can pay the bills, keep the lights on and then some. They've turned themselves into the 21st century CD manufacturing and delivery system or "tollbooth" for audio content. Eliminating the physical CD and the retail stores that sell them. Now -- they're doing it with Video, completely skipping our entire VOD distribution system. You can download shows and watch them anywhere, anytime, provided you have an IP connection. Maybe it's low bit rate today, but it's just a matter of time, with faster IP that we provide them, they too can deliver HD content to the consumer over IP. And their business model is -- imagine this -- profitable. How does the MSO still win here in this model? We deliver the IP. As soon as the downstream speeds we provide a customer cross the 19Mbps threshold, what's to stop a content provider from delivering assets directly to the consumer in real time, or near real time? It's not the "oh that will be ridiculously poor looking content because it's so grainy and low BW" argument -- it will be HD over IP right to the termination device. What about MPEG4? When the compression models are even better, and require even LESS downstream BW to deliver that same first class content. Why couldn't someone use their off-the-shelf DVR with an IP back end that works off our DOCSIS modem to get video assets on demand? Keep thinking about how the under 30 crowd operates. They're already doing these things. Look at the business models emerging around us: The IPOD can now download video over IP, that you can watch "anywhere" or plug into a display device and watch it -- On Demand. The PSP (PlayStation Personal) is 802.11 enabled to stream video from a base station you hook up off your TV, that you can control remotely. Just like a sling box. This model, is one step removed from needing the set top box, eventually -- it will be IP to the PSP, they could charge for assets. Just like VOD. Skipping our VOD model, just using IP. The set top, is about to go DOCSIS in a big way, all IP, or even Multicast IP to the set top. Young people want their Television On Demand, and increasingly -- so do the elders as they continue to adopt. How they get it will just be an IP pipe in the end. The younger the end user, the more likely they will be getting their video from one of the new IP based delivery methods and not subscribing to bloated pricey cable packages. Sure, the prevailing MSO delivery model right now is easy to use, it's perfect for everyone from 10 to 100 (the 90-100 crowd is still crowing about the set top complexity) but that comfort level with "we'll do everything for you TV" is undergoing a massive transformation right now. The under 30's, are spoon fed computers and web gui's from birth. And really when you think about it, how different is our guide from a snazzy website or LCD interface on a gaming device? Actually, I'd choose the gaming interface any day over our guide... How does the MSO still win here in this model? We deliver the IP. So now let me put the second half of this out there -- to do so, I want to use Telephony as an example. Why did payphone go out as a profitable business? Why did people stop getting 2nd and 3rd lines? Wireless, Cell phones saved the CLEC's who adopted wireless first and bet on the future of wireless telephony. The CLEC's that were smart enough to transform their business in time so that they remained the tollbooth of telephone. We lost that race I think in the end, landline telephony is on it's way out eventually. It will take time (a long time), but the prevailing model will be wireless, and it will be profitable as it is today. Voice and print "media" is always going to lead Video in technology migrations. Simply because of how many bits it takes to move it from point A to B in a digital world. The prevailing models are definitely maturing for the future of print and audio delivery. Where is Video going? It's next in line, and our number is about to be up. So how does the MSO still win here when we are neck and neck with FIOS for providing breakneck IP speeds to the customer? We deliver Wireless IP to the consumer NOW. BW over Cell phone networks is miserable, 3G speeds aren't going to be delivering VOD assets any time soon, probably never. Cell phone towers are never going to be closer to customers than the HFC network, which touches about 90% of the places people live and work. Everyone is right there, right on our HFC plant w/ massive BW to set free. That's a position the CLEC's would love to be in with that kind of horsepower. And we have it today, we don't have to spend 10 years and billions of dollars to do this. So as the CLEC's drive PON to everyone's house, and lose the ability to put active devices all over the place. We need to take our edge and put wireless out there. And we can't wait any longer. Or another business model is going to come up around us, and turn MSO's into an IP based utility, where other folks will call out the prices for content and were just the vehicle to get it from A to B. What if the Google WiFi model works? Wireless everywhere, ad based revenue for wireless IP, surely they need a backbone for this infrastructure, but our take of the pie won't be for content. It will be wholesale BW. Let us not go the way of Newspapers, Blockbuster and CD retailers - we must take IP and make it wireless, at high BW speeds, so that we can remain the tollbooth for content, so that people will pay to get their content on our superior IP networks. Worst case, even if we are the wholesale BW company when the game finally finishes this chapter, at least we'll have won because we took that BW and gave it to people wirelessly, regardless of the victorious content tollbooth model. Dean F. Meece Systems Engineer Comcast ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: T-Mobile, was: Verizon, GTE, etc, etc Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 20:55:58 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In Anthony Bellanga writes: [ snip ] > Voicestream changed into T-Mobile. I understand that there was even a > name used prior to being called Voicestream but I can't remember what > it was. Going back in time, there was Omnipoint in the (roughly) northeastern US (parts of Pa., NJ, NY, and new England). I have a faint memory of them also holding licenses in Florida. There was also Western Wireless in the Pacific Northwest. Western merged/bought up Omnipoint as well as a few small facilities here and there. Soon afterwards, Deutche Telecom (German based) bought up Western and added more licenses. Net result (name wise) East Coast: Omnipoint -> Voicestream -> T-Mobile West Coast: Western Wireless -> Voicestream -> T-Mobile (minor disclosure: user and also shareholder in T-Mobile) _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 17:14:54 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon to Offer Service for Cell Phones By BRUCE MEYERSON AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) -- Verizon Wireless has signed on as the first cellular carrier that will offer a broadcast TV network for mobile phones that Qualcomm Inc. plans to launch in late 2006. The companies declined to say Thursday what programming might be featured over the MediaFLO system, which will be broadcast to mobile phones over a different portion of the wireless spectrum than cellular calls and data services. Cellular operators in a handful of other countries already feature TV from a separate wireless network, using technologies from Qualcomm rivals such as Nokia Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. Mobile users in South Korea, one of the most advanced markets, can now watch broadcasts via both satellites and terrestrial towers like those that will be used by Qualcomm. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53606601 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 10:43:54 -0800 Subject: Telecom Update #508, December 2, 2005 From: Angus TeleManagement Group Reply-To: Angus TeleManagement Group ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 508: December 2, 2005 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: ** AVAYA: www.avaya.ca/ ** BELL CANADA: www.bell.ca ** CISCO SYSTEMS CANADA: www.cisco.com/ca/ ** ERICSSON: www.ericsson.ca ** MICROSOFT CANADA: www.microsoft.com/canada/telecom/ ** MITEL NETWORKS: www.mitel.com/ ** NEC UNIFIED SOLUTIONS: www.necunifiedsolutions.com ** ROGERS TELECOM: www.rogers.com/solutions ** VONAGE CANADA: www.vonage.ca ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** BCE Gives Up Control of Globemedia ** MTS Allstream to Lay Off 750 ** Numbers Going Fast in 519 ** Do-Not-Call Bill Slips Under the Wire ** Two Senior Execs Leave Nortel ** Judge Throws Out RIM/NTP Settlement ** Bell Wants Fast Decision on Winback Rules ** MTS--Tariff All 900 Services ** Bell Must Provide Full LNP on DV Lite ** Yukon ISPs Want Price Cut for Internet Gateway ** SR Telecom Delisted from Nasdaq ** BCE Opposes Income Trust Request ** Indian Cable Maker to Locate in Canada ** New Orleans Plans Free Wi-Fi ** Managing Telecom in the IP World ============================================================ BCE GIVES UP CONTROL OF GLOBEMEDIA: BCE Inc. says it will be $1.3 billion richer after reducing its share of Bell Globemedia from 68.5% to 20%. Under the proposed deal, which requires approval from the Competition Bureau and the CRTC, the Thomson family's Woodbridge Company will increase its holding from 31.5% to 40%, and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and Torstar Corporation will each acquire 20%. ** Bell Globemedia owns the Globe and Mail, the CTV television network, and 15 specialty channels. BCE bought CTV for $2.3 billion in 2000, then combined it with Globe and Mail assets acquired from Thomson to establish Globemedia, which was promoted as the key element in BCE's "convergence" strategy. MTS ALLSTREAM TO LAY OFF 750: Manitoba Telecom plans to eliminate 750 to 800 jobs, 12% of its total staff. MTS's Allstream unit will absorb 80% of the cuts, most of which will take place in the first half of 2006. The layoffs are part of the company's Transition Phase II Plan, which aims to cut expenses by at least $100 million over the next two years. NUMBERS GOING FAST IN 519: The latest survey by the Canadian Numbering Administrator predicts that all phone number prefixes in area code 519 will be in use by December 2006, eight months earlier than previously forecast. Relief is on the way: a new area code, 226, will begin serving the area in October 2006. ** The December 14 meeting of the 519 Relief Planning Committee will consider whether new number conservation measures are required. DO-NOT-CALL BILL SLIPS UNDER THE WIRE: As we predicted last week, bills regarding Internet wiretaps and the CRTC's power to impose fines died on the order paper when Parliament was dissolved. But we were wrong about the telemarketing Do-Not-Call bill, C-37--it has received royal assent, and now only requires proclamation by Cabinet to become law. ** We expect the CRTC to issue a Public Notice regarding implementation of the Do-Not-Call List early in 2006. TWO SENIOR EXECS LEAVE NORTEL: Nortel Networks Chief Research Officer Brian McFadden, and Sue Spradley, President of Global Services and Operations, have resigned after 28 and 18 years with the company, respectively. JUDGE THROWS OUT RIM/NTP SETTLEMENT: A U.S. judge has ruled that the March 2005 deal settling the patent dispute between Research In Motion and NTP Corp. is unenforceable. Judge James Spencer also denied RIM's request to stay proceedings while the U.S. Patent Office completes a review of NTP's claims. ** RIM won another favourable preliminary patent office ruling this week, but Judge Spencer says it may be years before the patent office takes action. ** NTP is now expected to ask for an injunction to halt RIM sales in the U.S. (See Telecom Update #506) BELL WANTS FAST DECISION ON WINBACK RULES: Bell Canada has asked the CRTC to stay the "winback rules" in Bell's territory immediately, pending the Commission's decision on whether the rules violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Bell also wants the Commission to issue its final decision by January 11. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2005/8680/b2_200513707.htm MTS -- TARIFF ALL 900 SERVICES: MTS Allstream has asked the CRTC to require all carriers who provide 900 services to do so under an approved tariff, to ensure that consumer safeguards are enforced. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2005/8622/m59_200513962.htm BELL MUST PROVIDE FULL LNP ON DV LITE: The CRTC has given Bell Canada six months to implement full number portability for customers switching to Digital Voice Lite, for both primary and secondary numbers, and for out-of-territory as well as in-territory numbers. In the meantime, Bell must amend its Digital Voice Lite tariff to make clear that only in-territory primary numbers can be ported. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Orders/2005/o2005-397.htm YUKON ISPs WANT PRICE CUT FOR INTERNET GATEWAY: Two Yukon ISPs have asked the CRTC to order Northwestel to provide its wholesale Internet Gateway service under an approved tariff, and to immediately reduce the price by 25%. The ISPs say Northwestel, which currently provides this service to ISPs without a tariff, is charging unreasonably high rates to connect to the Internet backbone. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2005/8622/y3_200514225.htm SR TELECOM DELISTED FROM NASDAQ: Montreal-based fixed wireless supplier SR Telecom has been delisted from Nasdaq for failing to maintain an adequate share price and shareholders' equity. SR's shares have lost 90% of their value in the past year. (See Telecom Update #490) BCE OPPOSES INCOME TRUST REQUEST: A small BCE shareholder has asked for the company's conversion into an income trust. BCE says the conversion would not be in its best interests. INDIAN CABLE MAKER TO LOCATE IN CANADA: Kavveri Telecom Products Ltd, a telecom cable manufacturer based in Mumbai, India, said this week that it plans to invest US$2.5 million to create a subsidiary in Canada. No further details were announced. NEW ORLEANS PLANS FREE WI-FI: New Orleans says it will provide free wireless Internet access covering the entire city within a year. The Wi-Fi network, part of an effort to attract businesses and residents back to the devastated city, is already operational in the central business district, the French Quarter, and the warehouse district. MANAGING TELECOM IN THE IP WORLD: Henry Dortmans, President of Angus Dortmans Associates, will examine the challenges posed to IT leaders by current changes within the telecom industry at a half-day seminar sponsored by Avaya in Toronto December 8. For information or to register, call Josie Paoletta, 905-474-6969 or jpaoletta@avaya.com. ============================================================ HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-mail ianangus@angustel.ca and jriddell@angustel.ca =========================================================== 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 late Friday afternoon each week at http://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 http://www.angustel.ca/update/privacy.html. =========================================================== COPYRIGHT AND CONDITIONS OF USE: All contents copyright 2005 Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. All rights reserved. For further information, including permission to reprint or reproduce, please e-mail jriddell@angustel.ca. 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. ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Friday 2nd December 2005 Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 09:40:43 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com ====================================================================== [[ 3G ]] Sweden has the best 3G coverage in Europe http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15072.php Sweden's telecoms regulator, the PTS says that the country has the best 3G coverage in Europe -- stating that 85% of the Swedish population has 3G coverage. The UK and Italy have the second and third best coverage in Europe. They have approximately 75... Eurotel Launches 3G Network in Czech Republic http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15073.php The Czech Republic's Eurotel Praha launched its UMTS network yesterday. This is one year earlier than Eurotel committed to in its UMTS license. No extra activation is needed to enter the world of UMTS customers only need a Eurotel SIM card and a UM... [[ Financial ]] Novator Bids For Bulgaria's BTC - CEEMarketWatch http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15057.php Bulgarian telecommunications firm BTC said Thursday that Novator, an Icelandic company controlled by billionaire Thor Bjorgolfsson, has made an offer to buy BTC and its mobile phone arm, VivaTel, CEEMarketWatch reported Thursday. ... Russia's Alfa Telecom changes name, looks for foreign partner http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15058.php Russia's Alfa Telecom, which manages the telecommunications assets of its parent company Alfa Group, has changed its name to Altimo and is looking for a global partnership, Altimo said in a press release Thursday. ... FOCUS: Phones4U Sale Offers Scope To Emulate Carphone Warehouse Retail Chain http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15062.php PREMIUM - Private equity buyers are jostling for Caudwell Group, the owner of the U.K.'s second-largest mobile phones retailer Phones4U, as they look for exposure to the fast-growing mobile phone market in an otherwise depressed retail sector. ... MTS Belarus' subscriber base up to 2 mln people as of December 1 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15063.php The subscriber base of Belarusian-Russian joint venture Mobile TeleSystems, or MTS Belarus, increased 3.4% in November to 2 million subscribers as of December 1, a spokesperson with the company told Prime-Tass Thursday. ... [[ Handsets ]] Nokia To Expand Mobile Device Production In China http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15053.php Finnish telecommunications equipment maker Nokia Corp. Thursday said it plans to expand its mobile device production in Dongguan, China. ... Nokia President: Success In Handset Business Harder To Achieve http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15065.php PREMIUM - It is becoming harder to succeed in the handset business, according to Nokia Corp. President and Chief Operating Officer Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, but the executive continues to believe Nokia will take market share in 2006. ... Thee New 3G Phones from Nokia http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15070.php Nokia has shown off three new phones, one specially designed for Vodafone and two general 3G handsets, including the first designed to operate at the USA's 1900Mhz 3G band. "With the introduction of the Nokia 6282 phone, we are helping to make the pr... [[ Legal ]] Samsung Pleads Guilty In Chip Price-Fixing Scheme http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15052.php SAN FRANCISCO (AP)--Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., the world's largest maker of memory chips, pleaded guilty Wednesday to a charge it participated in a price-fixing conspiracy that damaged competitors and increased computer prices. ... Vivendi's Mobile Unit SFR To Appeal Antitrust Fine http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15054.php Vivendi Universal's mobile phone unit SFR said Thursday it will appeal the decision of France's antitrust regulator to fine the company EUR220 million for price-fixing. ... PRESS: Russian prosecutors start forgery case in SMARTS deal http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15059.php Russia's Samara Region Prosecutor's Office has initiated a criminal case for the document forgery that prevented the re-registration of regional mobile operator SMARTS from a closed joint stock company into an open joint stock company, Vedomosti bu... Orange, SFR, Bouygues Fined For Market Collusion http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15060.php rench competition authorities on Thursday fined the country's three largest cell phone companies, Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom, a cumulative 534 million euros ($629 million) for collusion. ... IPOC says Altimo shouldn't count on 25% in MegaFon in its plans http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15064.php Russia's Altimo, formerly Alfa Telecom, should not count on a 25.1% stake in Russia's third largest mobile operator MegaFon in its business development plans, Bermuda Islands-based IPOC International Growth Fund said in a press release Thursday. IP... [[ Mobile Content ]] Verizon Wireless Plans Mobile TV Service http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15071.php Qualcomm and Verizon Wireless have jointly announced that Qualcomm and its subsidiary MediaFLO are working together to launch mobile TV services over the MediaFLO network in approximately half of the markets already covered by Verizon Wireless' CDMA2... [[ Network Contracts ]] Alcatel Wins Pakistani GSM Contract http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15066.php Alcatel has been awarded a new GSM mobile network expansion and modernization by Paktel Ltd, the Pakistani incumbent owned by Millicom International Cellular (MIC). The multi-million Euro contract will be executed over 3 phases covering the 4 provinc... Nokia Wins GSM Contract in Colombia http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15069.php Nokia and Telef Mes have agreed to provide a complete GSM system deal to TelefaMes Colombia which includes GSM radio access and MSC Server System (MSS), giving Telefa Mes the chance to broaden its service offering to its cus... [[ Network Operators ]] New GSM Network Launched in Bolivia http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15068.php Millicom International Cellular has announced the launch of GSM services in Bolivia under the Tigo brand, including GPRS, Edge, MMS and e-pin (electronic top-up). Marc Beuls, President and Chief Executive Officer of Millicom said: "Our operation in B... [[ Personnel ]] T-Mobile UK Managing Director McBride To Join Amazon UK http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15055.php T-Mobile International, the mobile telecommunications arm of Deutsche Telekom, Thursday said Brian McBride, the managing director of its struggling U.K. division, will leave the company at the end of the year. ... [[ Regulatory ]] EU Telecom Regulators Favor Old Monopolies -Report http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15061.php Regulators are failing to inject much-needed competition into Europe's telecommunications sector by favoring former state-owned monopolies, a report issued Thursday by an industry lobby group shows. ... [[ Reports ]] Will Cellular Carriers Commit to M2M? http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15067.php Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications occupy a special place in the cellular market. Machines that could use intelligent peer-based communication are said to outnumber the world's human cellular-user population by orders of magnitude. Yet financial... Wireless Providers Making Modest Progress in Improving Customer Service http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15074.php Wireless service providers are having some success in reducing customer service churn and complaint rates, but they still have significant challenges ahead, reports In-Stat. About one in eight wireless customers considered their wireless carrier's cu... [[ Statistics ]] Gartner Says Worldwide Camera Phone Sales Reach 300 Million In 05 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15056.php Gartner Thursday announced that worldwide sales of camera phones will reach 295.5 million in 2005. This represents 38 of total worldwide mobile phone sales, up from 14% in 2004. ... ------------------------------ From: USTelecom DailyLead Subject: Juniper Snags IPv6 Deal in China Date: Fri, Dec 2 2005 14:00:00 CST USTelecom dailyLead December 2, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/zqvMatagCzfawhQUkv TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Juniper snags IPv6 deal in China BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Cablevision's Dolan backs a la carte pricing * Report: European regulators fail to promote telecom competition * Nokia projects strong growth in mobile market USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Order Today! Newton's Telecom Dictionary -- 21st Edition TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Will video calling ever catch on? VOIP DOWNLOAD * Report: Nortel leads IP PBX market in North America * Tech basics: VoIP session border controllers * Nomadic VoIP providers struggle with E911 rules REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * U.S. Patent Office rejects NTP patent * Illinois court ruling a victory for AT&T * Telstra wants Australia to overhaul telecom rules Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/zqvMatagCzfawhQUkv ------------------------------ From: Goudreau_Bob@notchur.biz Subject: Re: Holiday Observances Phone Rates (was Re: Kennedy) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 16:27:43 -0500 [PAT, please obscure my email address as usual. Thanks.] Anthony Bellanga wrote: > Presidents' Day was originally George Washington's Birthday, which > *was* the ONLY Federal Holiday to honor a *specific* individual by > *NAME*. What about Columbus Day? It became a federal holiday in the 1960s, and it honors a specific individual by (one form of his) name. > It was "morphed" into Presidents' Day sometime in the 1980s > (IIRC), to honor Lincoln (also with a February Birthday) and "all" of > the presidents of the US. So, after a while, even the Father of Our > Country lost out on the day *specifically* dedicated to him, while at > about the same time this mlk gets a federal holiday by name. The "Presidents' Day" claim is incorrect. The federal holiday has never been known by that name and is still "Washington's Birthday". See http://www.snopes.com/holidays/presidents/presidents.asp for details. Bob Goudreau Cary, NC ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Holiday Observances Phone Rates (was Re: Kennedy) Date: 2 Dec 2005 09:05:01 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Anthony Bellanga wrote: > Weekday/Daytime period (the most expensive) > Mon-Fri 08-AM to 05-PM > Weekday/Evening period (the MID-range) > Sun-Fri 05-PM to 11-PM > Night/Weekend period (the lowest rates) > ALL Nights 11-PM to 8-AM > and ALL WEEKEND LONG starting at 11-PM Fri continuing all the way > through (NOTE) 05-PM SUNDAY (when EVENING rates would kick-in) IIRC, the above three-tiered rate structure began in the 1970s when discounts for dialed-direct service was introduced. Prior to that time I believe there were only two rate periods, day and evening/weekend, the minimum charge was 3 minutes, and station-to-station calls were all the same price whether dialed yourself or had operator assistance (payphone, collect, 3rd party bill, time& charges, credit card, 3 min notify, busy verify). Person-to-person remained higher. In those days it was typical for a large business to get T&C for all toll calls, and the PBX operator had to place them. Some businesses mandated person-to-person for all calls. Person calls didn't start charging until the specific requested party answered the phone. In a business, this could mean a wait of a few minutes while a secretary paged the desired the person, so it could made sense. You could also make a person-to-person collect call, which meant the receiver had to pay the higher rate. In those days "long distance calling" was serious business and usually got attention. The new structure was a big change. They added a "night" class which was originally after midnight (I don't think it originally included weekends). The evening and night rates had deeper discounts, but you had to dial direct. (If you did not have DDD in your area or had trouble placing the call, you still got the discount). Pay phones didn't get the discount. The minimum time was also now 1 minute. I remember waiting up till midnight to make use of the deep discount. Later on it was moved earlier to 11pm and weekends were added and the discounts were even better. I know definitely Sunday evenings were at the cheapest rate, it was later on that they bumped Sunday evenings to "evening" rate because so many people made toll calls at that time. I believe around that time inward (800) and outward WATS lines appeared. As time went on rates dropped for DDD calls but went up for operator handled calls, either station or person. I believe oper calls paid the full initial charge but got an offpeak discount, if appropriate, on additional minutes. If you had trouble and needed oper assistance, too bad, you bad the higher rate. > Holiday rates were identical to EVENING (mid-range) rates, NOT the > least expensive Night/Weekend period. At least this is how it all was > in the mid-1970s thru mid-1990s period. I believe originally holiday rates were the lowest weekend rates, then went up to evening rates, about the same time Sunday evening went from "weekend" to "evening". > But with the 1996 Telecom Law, everything that we had become > comfortable with (especially after having adjusted to the 1984 > divestiture) began to change again. AT&T's basic rate structures began > to change significantly, yet at the same time, if you know how to > choose/dial "wisely", you'll find that toll rates overall have > decreased signficantly. Yes and no. Basically it all became a single number -- one rate per minute any time for any DDD call. But you might have to pay a monthly carrying charge on top of toll calls. For people calling in the day time to very distant places this was a big savings. For people calling during weekends to short distant places it was a big INCREASE. For people using pay phones or traditional calling cards it was a HUGE increase. > ... And while you might lash-out at Cellular > companies, Long Distance Carriers, and even local telcos, if you do > your homework (and yes, it can be tedious), you can get very good > savings and discount plans on ALL of your telecom services, even > better than it was in the stable "good old days" of Maw Bell in the > 1970s and early (pre-divestiture) 1980s. Again, yes and no. At home I now have unlimited national. It doesn't really save me any money; I was getting killed on short haul toll calls and regional service. Under the pre-divesture rate structures I'd be paying a lot less. The "homework" is EXTREMELY TEDIOUS. (Shouting intentional). It is greedy price gouging, pure and simple. Generally, convenience stores (ie 7-11, Wawa) charge more than supermarkets for many products. One canned item is $1.29 at the supermarket and $1.89 at the convenience store. But a toll call from home might be 35c a minute while at a payphone will be $10.00 a minute. That's utterly absurb and gouging. When my mother was taken to the emergency room (no cell phones allowed!), I used my calling card on the pay phone with my LD carrier to notify family, and I was billed $20.00 for each call. Sorry, but under the circumstances I didn't have time or inclination to worry about pre-paid calling cards, using the right LD carrier code, etc. When I got the bill I complained loudly and took the charges off. Most people probably just pay them. In the convenience store or supermarket the price of every item is clearly marked on the shelf. Indeed, many consumer advocates want prices marked right on the item itself like in the old days. Yet there are NO rate cards on a pay telephone and today you can't call the operator and get the rate in advance like the old days. Why aren't the telephone carriers required to be as clear about their toll charges are as stores are about their products? I know immediately up front what my convenience store will charge me. I don't know about public toll calls. That sucks. I don't mind paying a premium for making a calling card or cash toll call from a public phone, but I resent being gouged. I resent needing to spend my free time doing all this "tedious homework". The rate structures are very fluid and it's a constant battle to keep up. Big banks are no better, always changing the service fees on your account. Government regulation had a lot of flaws, but companies are taking advtg of the lack of regualation and intentionally terribly confusing fee schedules to cheat the public. ------------------------------ From: Paul Coxwell Subject: Re: JFK assassination Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2005 00:08:12 +0000 > Inventing the transistor was one thing. Being able manufacture it as > a reliable and inexpensive product was a difficult long task. > According to the IBM history, at first transistors were made by hand > -- someone jiggled the cat whiskers and watched a scope until the > proper effect was created. Obviously very expensive and error prone > way to go. Even after automation yields of working transistors were > low. IBM research not only was developing new computers to use > transistors, but also new technology to manufacture transistors and > circuit cards. IBM failed to patent or license the manufacturing > technology not realizing how valuable it was and let its > subcontractors take it and re-use it. (Kind of like PC-DOS). > The end result was that until the late 1950s, transistors cost more > than tubes. The earliest transistors were the "point contact" type, and made on a base of germanium rather than the silicon which everybody associates with transistors these days. Semiconductor diodes were made the same way, not really dissimilar to the "cat's whisker and crystal" diodes which had been in use as radio detectors for many years. It was a little later that "junction" diodes and transistors appeared to eliminate the cat's whisker approach, although the point-contact transistor still had certain advantages over junction types for some applications. > Another issue was the learning curve. Electronic engineers by that > point had long experience with vacuum tubes--they knew what they could > and could not do and their operating characteristics. After the war, > both the television and computing engineers extensively studied and > developed circuits using tubes and were hesitent to go off on > something new and different. The vacuum tube and the bipolar transistor do indeed have very different operating characteristics which require something a different approach to design and servicing. The tube, for example, is an inherently high-impedance device, whereas the transistor operated with much lower impedances. Even the polarities of DC voltages and currents could be off-putting. Many of earlier transistors were the PNP type, which means that the main supply rail is NEGATIVE. Engineers used to years of dealing with tube circuits with POSITIVE B+ supplies suddenly had to start thinking about all the supply, biasing, etc. polarities in a circuit in reverse. Somewhat ironically, the field-effect transistor which was developed some years later actually has characteristics which more closely match those of tubes in many ways. > Not all circuits were convertable to transistors, especially back > then. I understand to this day electronic guitar amplifier still use > tubes. > It is not surprising that TV equipment still contained many tubes. It > would do so for a number of years. In the early days, transistors were suitable for low power applications at relatively low frequencies. They could handle neither high frequencies nor high powers effectively. It's easy for people nowadays to think of the transistor as heralding the space age, for example, and without the low-power consumption and miniaturization of transistors, some of the early satellite projects such as Telstar would have been impossible. Yet at the same time, those projects could not possibly have worked without the continued use of thermionic devices, such as the TWT (Traveling Wave Tube) used to provide the high power signals for transmission at the extremely high frequencies involved. Transistors at that time were simply not capable of providing the power needed at those frequencies. In domestic equipment, TV sets employed tubes well into the 1970s, and even the early 1980s in some cases. Hybrid sets gradually became quite common from the 1960s onward, with transistors being used in the small signal stages (I.F. amplifiers, AGC circuits, sync separator, etc.) and tubes for the parts of the circuit which demanded higher power (line output, frame output, final video amplifier, etc.) or, in the early days, which had to handle high frequencies (e.g. the UHF tuner). And of course, the thermionic tube never really went away completely even after all those high-power stages became transistorized, for the cathode-ray tube itself is just a special type of vacuum tube. -Paul ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: JFK Assassination Date: 2 Dec 2005 08:24:47 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Scott Dorsey wrote: >> According to the IBM history, at first transistors were made by hand >> -- someone jiggled the cat whiskers and watched a scope until the >> proper effect was created. Obviously very expensive and error prone >> way to go. > These were point-contact transistors. At that time they were experimenting with different kinds of transistors -- pnp, npn, the semi-conductor material, etc. The IBM history "IBM's Early Computers" by Bashe et al goes into some detail on this. BTW, in the late 1940s they had trouble with vacuum tubes for digital applications. What would work fine in audio was not good enough for digital. IBM spent a lot of time developing specs and considered making its own tubes, but the tube makers were able to meet the needs. > For the most part, the Mesa process that made mass production of > consistent transistors possible was the result of research done at > Fairchild. IBM spent considerable efforts on this, the above book describes it. I do believe, however, it was more on the packaging of the transistors on cards than making the transistors themselves; IBM bought transistors from others at that time. But IBM did research the manufacturing process too. > It is true that there was a lot of work being done by the IBM T.J. > Watson Research center on transistor fabrication. And it is true that > all of that research got used by IBMs competitors long before IBM. > This is, however, pretty much the story of everything that was > developed at Watson, from sealed hard disks to RISC. IBM was never > good at developing products out of their own research. Well, the IBM history (and also "IBM's System 360" book) might have a bit of bias since they were written by the research people. However, it does seem that Tom Watson Jr drastically improved the research environment and many useful products came out of it. They invented the disk drive, and developed cost-effective packaging for semi-conductors (SMS cards and later SLT chips) that allowed IBM to take the lead of the industry from a losing position. I do recommend the two above books on IBM (published by MIT Press). Much interesting technical information. There's a third, "Building IBM" by Emerson Pugh which is a good summary history of the company. > Yes, but don't forget that the Univac Solid-State computer came out > before IBM built anything practical. Univac was using Philco > transistors of somewhat doubtful characteristics as I recall. When did the "Solid State" computer come out? Was that the "Univac III"? Philco made its own computers, too. At some point Ford Motor Co took them over and the name Philco has faded from the scene. They made consumer electronics but I didn't think their quality was as good as other brands. ------------------------------ From: Steve Stone Subject: Re: Personal Computers Enlisted in AIDS Research Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2005 01:37:12 GMT The concept of using spare cpu cycles to rid the world of bad things is a great idea but I ran into a minor issue. A similar project being run during "idle" times caused my laptop computer to run at max performance mode when I walked away for a meeting for an hour. This resulted in warping of the soft clear plastic mat on my desktop. Put a couple of books under your laptop if you run these programs. Steve ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Verizon GTE Merger -- How Did it Go? Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 18:00:07 -0800 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Wesrock@aol.com wrote: > An effect of this in rapidly growing areas was the the independents, > frequently bought up by GTE, owned the areas of high-growth, > high-income in the suburbs. Some of this places where this was > particular noticeable was in the Southern California area (General of > California was larger than at least a couple of the Bell operating > companies and attracted some senior Bell executives to fill high-level > vacancies) SoCal is still pretty well divided between Verizon and SBC. San Diego and its suburbs and Los Angeles and *its* suburbs differ by neighborhood (or so it seems). Up here, the Victor Valley is Verizon, while 90 minutes west of my house, the Antelope Valley is SBC. Steve Sobol, Professional Geek 888-480-4638 PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Company website: http://JustThe.net/ Personal blog, resume, portfolio: http://SteveSobol.com/ E: sjsobol@JustThe.net Snail: 22674 Motnocab Road, Apple Valley, CA 92307 ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: When is TDMA Being Phased Out? Date: 2 Dec 2005 09:19:12 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Thanks for your information! Some more questions if I may. Jim Burks wrote: > New handsets now are > either GSM only or CDMA only. The are also frequently locked to a > single carrier. The better GSM handsets are tri-band or quad-band > (more frequencies). This will allow them to roam in many parts of the > world. Does this mean a cell phone bought today won't have analog capability as a backup if the digital signal isn't available? When buying a cell phone, how can one tell what the handset can do? The clerks at cell phone kiosks will say anything to get a sale. > If you live in a big city, Sprint and T-Mobile are a little cheaper, > but if you travel out of the cities and off the freeways, you're out > of luck. What happens -- the phone is dead? That doesn't sound good. > If you live in the wilds of Montana or Arizona, look on eBay for a 3 > watt analog bag phone. They have MILES more range. > AMPS = all right now, going away before 2010 It seems the main carriers, at least in my area, will not accept a new customer with a bag phone or any analog phone. There have been news reports that people in remote areas can only get service with the high powered bag phone and they're having problems as carriers phase out analog. What will happen in those areas? There were many news reports that digital signals had lots more "dark spots" than analog signals did, even in well developed areas (or because of well developed areas). Public safety new digital radio systems had lots of complaints, cops were carrying their own cellphones in case their police radio failed them. Have these problems been resolved? I was on a train recently and my fellow passengers lost service in a particular area, but my old analog phone was still working. Thanks again for your help. [public replies please} ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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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End of TELECOM Digest V24 #544 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Dec 3 00:47:42 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id CF22F14FE4; Sat, 3 Dec 2005 00:47:41 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #545 Message-Id: <20051203054741.CF22F14FE4@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2005 00:47:41 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.2 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, BIZ_TLD,DEAR_SOMETHING autolearn=no version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sat, 3 Dec 2005 00:50:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 545 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Yahoo Uses Online Behavior to Target Ads (Reuters News Wire) Lawsuit Accuses AOL of Illegal Billing (Jim Suhr) Microsoft Works on Comcast Email Problem (Associated Press News Wire) textually.org: "Smog" From Mobile Phones (Marcus Didius Falco) textually.org: French Mobile Phone Firms Fined (Marcus Didius Falco) T-Mobile, was: Verizon, GTE, etc, etc (Bob Goudreau) NEC Electra 616 Technical Specs (Mario Gomikian) Who Owns the Music? (Michael Quinn) Re: When is TDMA Being Phased Out? (John Levine) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Yahoo Uses Online Behavior to Target Ads Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 22:28:36 -0600 Yahoo Inc. aims to boost the effectiveness of its advertising -- and rates -- by targeting ads to users based on their surfing behavior on its site, the company's advertising sales chief said on Thursday. "The new, new thing at Yahoo, even though we've had variations of this, is getting much more into behavioral targeting," Yahoo Executive Vice President Greg Coleman told the Reuters Media and Advertising Summit in New York. Search functions on Yahoo and rival Google Inc base ad placement on words searched, but the Yahoo behavioral targeting would use other factors. The Web portal company does not give personal information to advertising clients but tracks a few types of behavior by its users, including search queries, movement through Yahoo sites and the specific ads clicked. That lets it decide on the fly what ads are most appropriate for a user. For instance, a person who searches for information on cars is likely to be sent an auto ad, Coleman said. Traditionally, Yahoo's advertising targeting have focused on customer demographics or geographic location instead of behavior. Advertisers will pay more for placement of the right ad at the right time at the right place, said Coleman, who emphasized that the targeting would be done anonymously based on behavior. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Jim Suhr Subject: Lawsuit Accuses AOL of Illegal Billing Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 22:31:06 -0600 By JIM SUHR, AP Business Writer A lawsuit seeking to potentially cover hundreds of thousands of America Online Inc. subscribers accuses the Time Warner Inc. unit of illegally billing customers by creating secondary accounts for them without their consent. The lawsuit, filed last month in St. Clair County Circuit Court on behalf of 10 AOL customers in six states, claims the company confused and deceived customers about the charges, stalled them from canceling unauthorized accounts and refused to return questioned fees. "AOL exploits its subscribers' confidential billing information to unlawfully generate additional revenue by charging subscribers for additional membership accounts that they neither order nor request," the lawsuit alleges, calling the scheme "common, uniform and continuing." The lawsuit, seeking class-action status, mirrors more than a dozen other actions that have been pending in state and federal courts throughout the country, said Stuart Talley, a Sacramento, Calif., attorney representing the plaintiffs in the Illinois lawsuit. All of the federal cases were consolidated in California two years ago, Talley said. Nicholas Graham, an AOL spokesman, said the Dulles, Va.-based company considers the Illinois lawsuit "a legal rehash that has as much legal value as refiling your personal income taxes from four years ago." "The important thing is that we deny the allegations now as we've done several times, and we will defend this case as we have other cases accordingly," he said, noting that AOL "takes extraordinary efforts to resolve any issues the members raise." "We have safeguards in place now that prevent unauthorized charges, and we have credit and refund policies that do justice to the consumer," he said. The lawsuit also names ICT Group Inc., a Newtown, Pa.-based outsourcing company AOL retained to respond to customer complaints and billing matters. Messages with ICT seeking comment were not immediately returned Friday. Plaintiffs include an Illinoisan, two Californians, three Tennesseans, a West Virginian, two Alabamans and a New Yorker. No hearing date has been set on the Illinois case, which accuses AOL of violating Illinois' Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act. The latest lawsuit alleges that AOL misrepresented that subscribers may add up to seven different screen names to a membership account for free. But AOL "in many instances" spun off those screen names into additional membership accounts without the subscribers' knowledge, then charged and collected a separate monthly fee for each account. The company requires members to pay charges and fees by credit card, electronic withdrawals from their bank accounts or by adding to their telephone bills, giving subscribers no opportunity to review a bill before making a payment, the lawsuit claims. To maintain its customer base, according to the lawsuit, AOL has instructed customer-service contractors such as ICT to prevent AOL subscribers from canceling their accounts "at all costs" and to resist giving refunds. Customers who complain are offered at least one month of free AOL Internet service instead of refunds or credits, while "unsatisfied customers who insist on canceling or terminating their AOL memberships are obstructed and delayed from doing so," the lawsuit claims. New York-based Time Warner -- the world's largest media company -- has been holding exploratory talks with companies including Microsoft Corp. about a potential investment in or sale of AOL, which has become a hot property because of its booming advertising sales and ability to draw in large audiences online. AOL long was seen as a drag on Time Warner due to the steady decline of the dial-up Internet access business. But in recent months AOL successfully has been revamping its business model, moving away from the subscription business and selling more online advertising. On the Net: America Online, http://www.aol.com ICT Group Inc., http://www.ictgroup.com Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more headline news from Associated Press please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ From: Associated Press News Wire Subject: Microsoft Works on Comcast Email Problem Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 22:33:03 -0600 Microsoft Corp. said Friday that some people who use its Hotmail and MSN e-mail services are not receiving e-mail sent from Comcast Corp. accounts and other Internet service providers. Brooke Richardson, a group product manager with Microsoft's MSN online division, said the problem appears to be due to an increase in e-mail volumes, which it is attributed in part to the Sober Internet worm. She said the high volumes are causing e-mail to either be delayed or not make it to MSN and Hotmail users at all. Richardson said the problem began earlier this week. She would not name the other Internet service providers besides Comcast whose users were encountering the same problem. She also couldn't say when the problem would be fixed. "Our hope is that things get better in the coming day or days, but we don't have exact details," she said. Comcast spokeswoman Jennifer Khoury said the problem is primarily affecting Comcast e-mail being sent to the MSN and Hotmail accounts, and that other e-mail is getting to recipients without delay. She said the company is working with Microsoft to resolve the problem, "but right now we do not know what the problem is." Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more news from Associated Press, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html (or) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/TDNewsradio.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2005 20:50:44 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: textually.org: "Smog" From Mobile Phones http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2005/12/010787.htm "Smog" from mobile phones makes you suicidal Cell phones have been blamed for many ills, including http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/cat_health_issues_and_sms_alerts. htm http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/001977.htm making children fat, http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/001632.htm causing poor sleep, http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/001631.htm making one senile', http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/001673.htm leading to a sex disease or, http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/000032.htm bringing on Alzheimer's -- even Electromagnetic "smog" from mobile phone networks and whitegoods could affect mood and behaviour, a psychiatrist says, reports http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/microwaves-govern-us/2005/11/30/1133311107131.html Sydney Morning Herald via http://www.theinquirer.net/?article28047 Inquirer. Michael Berk, of the University of Melbourne, has found a link between the suicide rate and increases geomagnetic storms, triggered by solar flares. Professor Berk, who treats patients with bipolar disorder, analysed suicides in Australia from 1968 to 2000 and matched them to data on solar flares. The finding meant it was feasible that electrical and communications equipment could affect mood, Professor Berk said, though not inevitably for the worse." John McGrath, professor of psychiatry at the University of Queensland, said the finding was important but it was hard to know how magnetism might biologically affect suicidal behaviour." *** 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 your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owners, as listed with each item shown. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Direct replies are unlikely to be read. To reply use the address below: falco(underscore)md(atsign)yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2005 20:53:56 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: textually.org: French Mobile Phone Firms Fined http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2005/12/010788.htm December 01, 2005 French mobile phone firms fined Three of France's leading mobile phone firms have been fined a total of 534m euros ($630m) after being deemed guilty of market collusion, reports the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4487430.stm . "France's Competition Council concluded that Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom shared commercial information between themselves, distorting competition. The three firms have denied that they compared and fixed their prices. The Council said the three firms had regularly exchanged commercial information about the mobile market between 1997 and 2003. This enabled the firms to protect their position in the market, the Council said, to the detriment of consumers. Their actions had caused "significant damage" to the economy, it added. " *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owners, textually.org For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Direct replies are unlikely to be read. To reply use the address below: falco(underscore)md(atsign)yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk ------------------------------ From: Bob Goudreau Subject: T-Mobile, was: Verizon, GTE, etc, etc Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 23:01:43 -0500 Danny Burstein wrote: [PAT, please anonymize my email address as always.] >> Voicestream changed into T-Mobile. I understand that there was even a >> name used prior to being called Voicestream but I can't remember what >> it was. > There was also Western Wireless in the Pacific Northwest. > Western merged/bought up Omnipoint as well as a few small facilities > here and there. > Soon afterwards, Deutche [sic] Telecom [sic] (German based) bought > up Western and added more licenses. The real story is a bit more convoluted than that. Various sources on the web, such as http://www.businessweek.com/it100/2005/company/WWCA.htm and http://www.publicintegrity.org/telecom/analysis/CompanyProfile.aspx?HOID=911 shed more light on it. In brief, Voicestream was spun off from Western Wireless in 1999. Deutsche Telekom later purchased Voicestream and rebranded it as T-Mobile. Meanwhile, Western Wireless itself continued to exist as a regional carrier until being acquired earlier this year by Alltel. Bob Goudreau Cary, NC ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 17:36:29 ART From: Mario Gomikian Subject: NEC Eelectra 616 Technical Specs Dear Sirs: I would appreciate you to send me technical data, specifications and wiring info on the telephone system (NEC Electra 616), or if there is someplace on the net which may have information on it. We are a non profit organization (EET2 Tres de Febrero, a highschool, I mean), and though I know the system above is rather obsolete, this is the only way we have to communicate. Thanks in advance. I really appreciate any and all responses, Yours sincerely, Mario Gomikian 1GB gratis, Antivirus y Antispam Correo Yahoo!, el mejor correo web del mundo Abr tu cuenta aqu ------------------------------ Subject: Who Owns the Music? Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 18:33:33 -0500 From: Michael Quinn Michael The recent discussions about Sony led to some interesting discussions among my colleagues about the used CD market: - if I buy a new CD, I am presumably entitled to record it for local (computer/IPOD/backup/whatever) use. If I do that, am I (legally or otherwise) prohibited from reselling or giving away the CD? There is a huge used CD market out there. And my kids keep taking my Frank Sinatra and Pink Floyd CDs. - if I resell or give away the CD, what about the next buyer/owner -- is he or she entitled to record it, as above, and then pass it on to the next user? - if I made a recording of the originally purchased CD, may I bequeath that to the above mentioned kids? The point may be moot -- one of our Thanksgiving dinner companions suggested that in 5-10 years, CDs will be as obsolete as 8-track tapes, and that all storage will be on volatile media (flash drives, virtual drives, external hard drives, etc); I for one am going to miss the album notes and lyrics, but hell, they'll be on-line as well. Thoughts invited. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Dec 2005 01:28:21 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: When is TDMA Being Phased Out? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Does this mean a cell phone bought today won't have analog capability > as a backup if the digital signal isn't available? Yes. > When buying a cell phone, how can one tell what the handset can do? > The clerks at cell phone kiosks will say anything to get a sale. Look at the manual, either in the box with the phone, or get the model number and look it up on the manufacturer's web site. >> If you live in a big city, Sprint and T-Mobile are a little cheaper, >> but if you travel out of the cities and off the freeways, you're out >> of luck. > What happens -- the phone is dead? That doesn't sound good. T-Mobile will roam to Cingular, particularly if you have a dual-band phone. Sprint, you lose. > There were many news reports that digital signals had lots more "dark > spots" than analog signals did, even in well developed areas (or > because of well developed areas). That's more an 850 vs 1900 mhz issue than analog vs digital. Modern phones are all 750mw, old bag phones went up to 3w, but in developed areas, dead spots are due to shadows, not tower distance. Regards, 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 ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #545 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Dec 3 15:38:31 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 3BFED14ECD; Sat, 3 Dec 2005 15:38:30 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #546 Message-Id: <20051203203830.3BFED14ECD@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2005 15:38:30 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.1 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sat, 3 Dec 2005 15:35:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 546 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Wasps Could Replace Bomb, Drug-Sniffing Dogs (Elliott Minor) Grateful Dead Drop Ban After Fan Revolt (Michael Kahn) Security Firm to Investigate Iraq Video Clips (Reuters News Wire) School Psychologist's Student Records Accidentally Posted Online (Solomon) Google Search and Seizure (Monty Solomon) Re: Who Owns the Music? (Gordon Burditt) Re: Who Owns the Music? (Steven Lichter) Re: Who Owns the Music? (jmeissen@aracnet.com) Re: T-Mobile, was: Verizon, GTE, etc, etc (Steve Sobol) Re: When is TDMA Being Phased Out? (Jim Burks) Re: When is TDMA Being Phased Out? (Steve Sobol) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elliott Minor Subject: Wasps Could Replace Bomb, Drug-Sniffing Dogs Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2005 13:00:39 -0600 By ELLIOTT MINOR, Associated Press Writer Trained wasps could someday replace dogs for sniffing out drugs, bombs and bodies. No kidding. Scientists say a species of non-stinging wasps can be trained in only five minutes and are just as sensitive to odors as man's best friend, which can require up to six months of training at a cost of about $15,000 per dog. With the use of a handheld device that contains the wasps but allows them to do their work, researchers have been able to use the insects to detect target odors such as a toxin that grows on corn and peanuts, and a chemical used in certain explosives. "There's a tremendous need for a very flexible and mobile chemical detector," said U.S. Department of Agriculture entomologist Joe Lewis, who has been studying wasps since the 1960s. "Our best devices that we have currently are very cumbersome, expensive and highly fragile." The "Wasp Hound" research by Lewis and University of Georgia agricultural engineer Glen Rains is part of a larger government project to determine if insects and even reptiles or crustaceans could be recruited for defense work. That project has already resulted in scientists refining the use of bees as land-mine detectors. Through the years, Lewis and a USDA colleague, J.H. Tumlinson, discovered that a tiny, predatory wasp known as microplitis croceipes had relied on odors to locate nectar for food and hosts for its eggs - caterpillars that damage crops. While they don't sting humans, the female wasps use their stingers to deposit eggs inside caterpillars, producing larvae that eventually kill the caterpillars. The scientists also discovered that plants being attacked by the caterpillars give off SOS scents to attract the all-black wasps and that the quarter-inch-long insects could be trained to associate other odors with food and prey. "They have to be good detectors because their whole survival depends on it," Lewis said. Rains said the wasps can be trained to detect a specific odor very quickly. The researchers expose hungry wasps to the target odor, then let them feed on sugar water for 10 seconds and then give them a one-minute break. After three repetitions of sniffing and feeding, the wasps associate the odor with feeding. Since the scientists couldn't put leashes on their trained wasps, they needed a way to contain them while monitoring their reactions to odors. Enter the Wasp Hound -- a 10-inch-long plastic cylinder made of PVC pipe with a hole in one end and a small fan on the other. Inside is a Web camera that connects to a laptop computer for monitoring the behavior of five wasps housed in a transparent, ventilated capsule. When the wasps detect a target odor, they converge around the vent, creating a mass of dark pixels on the computer screen. Otherwise, they just hang out inside the capsule. They can work for as long as 48 hours, then they're released to live out their remainder of their two-to three-week life span. "What we have ... is a technology-free organism that you can quickly program and use in a highly mobile way," said Lewis, who believes the Wasp Hound could be used to search for explosives at airports, locate bodies, monitor crops for toxins and detect diseases such as cancer from the odors in a person's breath. "They're very cheap to produce and very sensitive," Rains said of the wasps. "Dogs take months to train and they need a specific handler. Wasps can be trained on the spot." Rains believes the Wasp Hound could be available for sale in three to five years. He and Lewis are still exploring ways to breed more wasps and to train hundreds simultaneously. "We've done enough on it to know it's technically feasible to do that," Lewis said. "It's just a matter of completing and refining the methodology." Lewis believes many other types of invertebrates -- bees, other types of parasitic insects, even water bugs -- can be trained to sniff out trouble. "It's opened a whole new resource for invertebrates as biological sensors," he said. Other scientists also are working to harness the sniffing power of insects. In 2002, the Pentagon considered fitting sniffer bees with transmitters the size of a grain of salt to locate explosives and relay that information wirelessly to laptop computers. A British firm, Inscentinel Ltd., sells trained bees and mini-hives where the insects' response to scents from natural and man-made chemicals can be monitored. The company says the system can be used to screen for explosives, drugs, chemical weapons, land mines and for food quality control. Jerry Bromenshenk, a research professor at Montana State University, is using bees for mine detection. The bees congregate over mines or other explosives and their locations are mapped using laser-sensing technology. "Insects and their antennae have an olfactory system that is pretty much on a par with a dog," Bromenshenk said. "They're a whole lot more plentiful and a lot less expensive to come by." Bromenshenk said bees may be more appropriate for open areas, while the Wasp Hound may be better in buildings. "The difference is that we let our bees free fly," he said. "That's not good in confined areas like an airport." On the Net: Bee Alert Technology Inc.: http://www.mea-mft.org/hiednews8.htm Inscentinel Ltd.: http://www.inscentinel.com/ Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more news headlines from Associated Press please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ From: Michael Kahn Subject: Grateful Dead Drops Download Ban After Fan Revolt Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2005 13:02:10 -0600 By Michael Kahn Facing a revolt by its famously faithful fans, The Grateful Dead backed away on Thursday from a move to block "Deadheads" from downloading the jam band's concert recordings for free. The San Francisco Bay-based band had asked an independently run Web site to stop making thousands of the group's recordings available for free download. But the founder and director of the Web site http://www.archive.org Brewster Kahle, said in an online posting on Thursday that bootleg audience copies of the band's concerts had been restored for free downloading. That reversal came after fans, known as Deadheads, reacted angrily to reports the group had asked the site to halt swapping of Grateful Dead shows. Many saw that request as a betrayal, since the band had always encouraged fans to tape its concerts and then trade the tapes for free. Some also threatened to stop buying merchandise in an online petition that quickly garnered more than 5,000 signatures. "It appears doing the right things for the fans has given way to greed," the fan petition said. Bass player Phil Lesh posted an apologetic message on his own Web site saying he did not know the band had asked operators of the site to take down the recordings. "I do feel that the music is the Grateful Dead's legacy and I hope that one way or another all of it is available for those who want it," Lesh wrote. Grateful Dead spokesman Dennis McNally said a major concern for the band was that trading music over the Internet did not create the same sense of community as trading tapes in person. "There was a consensus to address this issue and it got addressed," he said. "We are confronting an entirely new set of circumstances with moving new music around, and we are struggling with it like a lot of others." The booming popularity of digital music and the market now led by Apple Computer Inc. with its "a la carte" music purchasing service and popular iPods has made free downloading over the Web a tricky issue for bands like the Grateful Dead. During its heyday, the band became one of rock's most successful touring acts by playing improvisational concerts that varied nightly and which spurred fans to eagerly collect and trade tapes of shows. The band, which traditionally put an emphasis on touring rather than recording and selling records, generated millions of dollars of revenue from their shows. But with the 1995 death of lead singer and guitarist Jerry Garcia, band members no longer keep up such an active tour schedule, making the Internet an important source of revenue. The Grateful Dead, which first gained fame with its free-form psychedelic style during the 1960s in San Francisco, offers its music on the Apple iTunes service as well as its own Web site. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Security Firm to Investigate Iraq Video Clips Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2005 12:57:32 -0600 A British security firm operating in Iraq has launched an investigation to find out if any of its employees were involved in video clips which appear to show Iraqi civilians being shot at. Aegis, which won a $293 million contract from the U.S. government last year to operate in Iraq, said in a statement its inquiry would "investigate whether the footage has any connection with the company." The video clips have been posted on the Internet in recent days. One of them is still visible on a company Web site http://www.aegisIraq.co.uk while others have been shown by British television broadcasters. The clips appear to show civilian cars being shot at on roads in Iraq. One shows two cars veering off a road after being shot at from somewhere near the camera and another shows an unmarked car smashing into another. Gunshots can be heard on the clips. "Should any incident recorded on the video footage have involved Aegis personnel, this ... will be subject to scrutiny (by the company)," Aegis said. Aegis is contracted to provide a range of services to the U.S. govern- ment including the protection of civilians and soldiers traveling in Iraq. It says its rules of engagement "allow for a structured escalation of force to include opening fire on civilian vehicles under certain circumstances." Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2005 13:47:29 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: School Psychologist's Student Records Accidentally Posted Online SALEM, Mass. -- A school psychologist's records detailing students' confidential information and personal struggles were accidentally posted to the school system's Web site and were publicly available for at least four months. A reporter for The Salem News discovered the records last week and alerted school officials, the newspaper said in a story Friday. To protect students' privacy, the newspaper said it withheld publishing the story until the documents were removed from the Internet, which occurred Wednesday. The psychological profiles, some dating back more than a decade, contained children's full names, birthdays and, in many instances, IQ scores and grades, the newspaper said. Some reports detailed information about depression, drug use, and physical or sexual abuse. http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2005/12/02/school_psychologists_student_records_accidentally_posted_online/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2005 13:45:50 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Google Search and Seizure By Robert Kuttner | December 3, 2005 THE NEW York Times recently reported that in a North Carolina strangulation-murder trial, prosecutors introduced as evidence the fact that the defendant's Google searches had included the words 'neck' and 'snap.' The Times noted that the evidence had come from the defendant's home computer, but could just as easily have come from Google. Google's whole business-model includes keeping track of users' searches by putting 'cookies' (tracking devices) on users' own computers, and then using the results to customize ad offerings that pop up when we use their ingenious free search service. In the era of the misnamed USA Patriot Act, which allows warrantless police searches that are not even disclosed to the target, Google plus Dick Cheney is a recipe for undoing the liberties for which the original patriots of the American Revolution bled and died. Under the Patriot Act, anyone suspected of enabling terrorism can be subjected to these fishing expeditions. Depending on a prosecutor's whims, that includes all of us. In the 18th-century era of star-chamber courts and despotic monarchs, the US Constitution put an end to government as prosecutor, judge, and jury. Unreasonable searches and seizures were explicitly prohibited by the Sixth Amendment. People (not just citizens) were guaranteed the right to confront their accusers and to know the charges against them. There were no 'national security' loopholes. Google's internal slogan is, charmingly, "Don't be evil." Well, the interaction of cyber-snooping and the unreasonable searches authorized by the Patriot Act is pure evil. Herewith an idea that I am putting into the public domain, which could make some computer-whiz a billionaire: One of Google's competitors could guarantee users of its search engines that all data keeping track of searches will be permanently discarded after 24 hours. The search process could still learn a broad pattern of users' purchasing tastes, if we wish to be party to a bargain of being marketed to in exchange for the convenience of free searches. The same libertarian computer entrepreneur could offer e-mail software, in which old messages are permanently erased unless the user deliberately opts to retain them. Google, like Microsoft and IBM before it, may be the current market leader in whiz-bang technology based on sheer inventive genius. But if Google is not careful, some competitor with a genuine regard for privacy could displace it. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/03/google_search_and_seizure/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have very mixed feelings about 'cookies'. There are times, that like 'speed dialing' on my phone and 'automatic call back' that they are tremendously helpful. I know I very much enjoy automatically filling in the blanks on forms I must deal with on the computer because a 'cookie' or a file somewhere on my system has the information available because some other computer put it there. But, as the author notes, if your computer is for some reason or another confiscated or otherwise compromised, there can be hell to pay. Why should telco be allowed to sell 'speed dialing' or 'automatic redial' and 'authmatic callback' but Google not be allowed to deposit cookies (the very same thing really) out of some privacy concerns? It comes down to whether or not it is a good idea to have repetitive information on your systems or not. PAT] ------------------------------ From: gordonb.2asgo@burditt.org (Gordon Burditt) Subject: Re: Who Owns the Music? Date: Sat, 03 Dec 2005 07:02:37 -0000 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com > The recent discussions about Sony led to some interesting discussions > among my colleagues about the used CD market: I have a number of floppy disks labelled "Sony". Do I have to worry about rootkits? Actually, they may have been purchased before the invention of rootkits. > - if I buy a new CD, I am presumably entitled to record it for local > (computer/IPOD/backup/whatever) use. If I do that, am I (legally or > otherwise) prohibited from reselling or giving away the CD? Yes you are prohibited from reselling it or giving away the original, unless you include all your copies in the sale, or destroy them. > There is a huge used CD market out there. And my kids keep taking my > Frank Sinatra and Pink Floyd CDs. > - if I resell or give away the CD, what about the next buyer/owner -- > is he or she entitled to record it, as above, and then pass it on to > the next user? Yes, provided she/he/it passes on all the copies or destroys them. > - if I made a recording of the originally purchased CD, may I bequeath > that to the above mentioned kids? Yes, provided you pass on all the copies or destroy them. > The point may be moot -- one of our Thanksgiving dinner companions > suggested that in 5-10 years, CDs will be as obsolete as 8-track > tapes, and that all storage will be on volatile media (flash drives, > virtual drives, external hard drives, etc); I for one am going to miss > the album notes and lyrics, but hell, they'll be on-line as well. It is extremely difficult to design DRM to stop only *illegal* copying, and Sony doesn't appear to have that as a goal. It will probably try to globally erase all copies of a song a few days before a re-release of it, just to increase sales. Gordon L. Burditt ------------------------------ From: Steven Lichter Reply-To: Die@spammers.com Organization: I Kill Spammers, Inc. (c) 2005 A Rot in Hell Co. Subject: Re: Who Owns the Music? Date: Sat, 03 Dec 2005 14:29:55 GMT Michael Quinn Michael wrote: > The recent discussions about Sony led to some interesting discussions > among my colleagues about the used CD market: > - if I buy a new CD, I am presumably entitled to record it for local > (computer/IPOD/backup/whatever) use. If I do that, am I (legally or > otherwise) prohibited from reselling or giving away the CD? There is > a huge used CD market out there. And my kids keep taking my Frank > Sinatra and Pink Floyd CDs. > - if I resell or give away the CD, what about the next buyer/owner -- > is he or she entitled to record it, as above, and then pass it on to > the next user? > - if I made a recording of the originally purchased CD, may I bequeath > that to the above mentioned kids? > The point may be moot -- one of our Thanksgiving dinner companions > suggested that in 5-10 years, CDs will be as obsolete as 8-track > tapes, and that all storage will be on volatile media (flash drives, > virtual drives, external hard drives, etc); I for one am going to miss > the album notes and lyrics, but hell, they'll be on-line as well. > Thoughts invited. Common sense should tell you that if you sell/give away the CD you should delete any copies you have of it. That is the same rule for computer software, you have the right to make a copy but once you no longer own the original, you have to delete any copies you have for backup. The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2005 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot in Hell Co. ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@aracnet.com Subject: Re: Who Owns the Music? Date: 3 Dec 2005 18:49:52 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com In article , Michael Quinn Michael wrote: > The recent discussions about Sony led to some interesting discussions > among my colleagues about the used CD market: > - if I buy a new CD, I am presumably entitled to record it for local > (computer/IPOD/backup/whatever) use. If I do that, am I (legally or > otherwise) prohibited from reselling or giving away the CD? It's really quite simple. If you no longer own the original media then you are not allowed to retain copies of/from that media. You should either transfer the copies with the original, or destroy them. Otherwise it's really no different than making copies of other people's media for your own use. John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: T-Mobile, was: Verizon, GTE, etc, etc Date: Sat, 03 Dec 2005 10:05:35 -0800 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Danny Burstein wrote: > Net result (name wise) > East Coast: Omnipoint -> Voicestream -> T-Mobile > West Coast: Western Wireless -> Voicestream -> T-Mobile > (minor disclosure: user and also shareholder in T-Mobile) WW was originally GSM? I thought WW switched from TDMA to CDMA before being bought by Alltel. Western Wireless also bought the CellularONE brand from SBC after SBC merged its cellular operations with BellSOUTH, and some CellularONE affiliates went TDMA >> GSM. Western Wireless C1 did not migrate to GSM. Some others did (Dobson C1, for example). What you're talking about must have happened before everything I just described. Steve Sobol, Professional Geek 888-480-4638 PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Company website: http://JustThe.net/ Personal blog, resume, portfolio: http://SteveSobol.com/ E: sjsobol@JustThe.net Snail: 22674 Motnocab Road, Apple Valley, CA 92307 ------------------------------ From: Jim Burks Subject: Re: When is TDMA Being Phased Out? Date: Sat, 03 Dec 2005 13:45:14 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com wrote in message news:telecom24.544.13@telecom-digest.org: > Thanks for your information! Some more questions if I may. > Jim Burks wrote: >> New handsets now are >> either GSM only or CDMA only. The are also frequently locked to a >> single carrier. The better GSM handsets are tri-band or quad-band >> (more frequencies). This will allow them to roam in many parts of the >> world. > Does this mean a cell phone bought today won't have analog capability > as a backup if the digital signal isn't available? Unless the phone is analog/GSM or analog/CDMA, it won't have any analog capability as backup. On the other hand, analog is being phased out sometime before 2010. Right now, the FCC requires > When buying a cell phone, how can one tell what the handset can do? > The clerks at cell phone kiosks will say anything to get a sale. Pick your phone (or at least narrow the models) BEFORE going to the store. Go to the Nokia, Motorola, LG and Samsung websites and pick out what features are important to you. Then determine what models have those features. The websites tell you what carrier has those phones. Then, go to the carrier store. If they don't have the handset you want, ASK. If the Nokia site says Cingular carries the 6xxx handset you want, and the store guys act ignorant, call the 800#. They frequently have more phones in stock at the central depots than the stores. I invested in a high-end Smartphone (Symbian OS, camera, GSM, Bluetooth, EDGE) because I plan to use the same carrier for three years and the same phone. I've been very happy with it - but I've never seen it in a store and none of the clerks know what Symbian is. But, I can use it with a headset or my car kit, it has every contact I might ever need in it, stores a bunch of pictures, downloaded games (Solitare) and, best of all, I can use as a digital modem for the PC at about 56k (using EDGE GPRS data service) without a cable, as the PC is Bluetooth. On the other hand, at the time (a year ago) it cost me $199 where I could get a simple handset for free. In the US markets, the handset makers are slaves to the carriers, since they subsidize the handset to the tune of $100-200 each, and require a 1-2 year contract. In the UK and Europe, people go to Nokia stores, buy handsets and then get service from someone. >> If you live in a big city, Sprint and T-Mobile are a little cheaper, >> but if you travel out of the cities and off the freeways, you're out >> of luck. > What happens -- the phone is dead? That doesn't sound good. Yes, the phone is, for all intents and purposes DEAD. When you get no bars of signal, you can't make a call. Cellular is NOT a 'cover the US' technology. Neither are SkyTel 2-way. If you must have coverage EVERYWHERE, get a satellite phone (www.iridium.com), but they are horribly expensive for everyday use. >> If you live in the wilds of Montana or Arizona, look on eBay for a 3 >> watt analog bag phone. They have MILES more range. >> AMPS = all right now, going away before 2010 > It seems the main carriers, at least in my area, will not accept a new > customer with a bag phone or any analog phone. There have been news > reports that people in remote areas can only get service with the high > powered bag phone and they're having problems as carriers phase out > analog. What will happen in those areas? Some of those areas will be out of luck as analog is removed. But, just because carriers won't activate a new analog-only phone doesn't mean it can't be used. One of the little secrets that the cellular carriers DON'T tell you is that an unactivated phone can ALWAYS dial 911. If you're looking for pure emergency service, get one and leave it in your car trunk (with the cigarette lighter adapter, as the battery will be run down). Get it out and plug it in when you need help. The same goes for a old digital handset, except for range (remember the car cord)! The carriers don't tell you this, as some percentage of their paid market is for emergency use only, and if they publicized that, it would go away. > There were many news reports that digital signals had lots more "dark > spots" than analog signals did, even in well developed areas (or > because of well developed areas). Public safety new digital radio > systems had lots of complaints, cops were carrying their own > cellphones in case their police radio failed them. Have these > problems been resolved? > I was on a train recently and my fellow passengers lost service in a > particular area, but my old analog phone was still working. As John points out, most of this is due to the 850 vs. 1900 mhz difference. All non-bag/non-car handsets have the same 600mw output. No one ever (to my knowledge) built a 3w transmitter to hold against your head. Why are they phasing out analog? Spectrum usage: they can support more users on a tower, or on a group of frequencies using GSM or CDMA than they can with AMPS. Remember that the frequency auction for the 1900mhz PCS space raised $Billions for the US Government (selling what is already public). That's another reason the FCC is pushing for digital TV. They are going to reclaim some of the UHF spectrum, once the conversion is mandatory and complete, and auction it off for big $$. Fraud: it's much easier to clone an AMPS phone than a GSM or CDMA one. It's also harder for them to figure out it's been cloned. The only thing that's saving their bacon is that fewer and fewer calls are analog, so any fraud stands out more in the pattern. ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: When is TDMA Being Phased Out? Date: Sat, 03 Dec 2005 10:07:12 -0800 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com John Levine wrote: > T-Mobile will roam to Cingular, particularly if you have a dual-band > phone. Sprint, you lose. Sprint will roam to other CDMA providers. Steve Sobol, Professional Geek 888-480-4638 PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Company website: http://JustThe.net/ Personal blog, resume, portfolio: http://SteveSobol.com/ E: sjsobol@JustThe.net Snail: 22674 Motnocab Road, Apple Valley, CA 92307 ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #546 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Dec 4 16:01:41 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id B1C1C14F8E; Sun, 4 Dec 2005 16:01:40 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #547 Message-Id: <20051204210140.B1C1C14F8E@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 16:01:40 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.7 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, HOT_NASTY autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sun, 4 Dec 2005 16:05:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 547 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson No Decision Yet by ICANN on Sex Domain (Allan Dowd) EU Expecting a Rush on '.eu' Domain Names (Ellen Spongenberg) IE Flaw Lets Hackers Phish Using Google Desktop (Robert McMillan) Internet Ad Growth Pressures TV Ads to Change (Peter Henderson) Rising Internet Addiction on Par With Drug Use (Andrew Gumble) Parents, Beware Kids Space on Net (Betty White) Sprint PCS Handset Updates (Eric Friedebach) Re: Who Owns the Music? (Lee Hollaar) Re: Who Owns the Music? (Robert Bonomi) Bye Bye BlackBerry? (Monty Solomon) Snared in the Web of a Wikipedia Liar (Monty Solomon) Faster is Better When Schools Spread Word (Monty Solomon) Re: Auto Call Forward (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Allan Dowd Subject: No Decision Yet by ICANN on Sex Domain Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 13:08:59 -0600 By Allan Dowd The fate of the proposed .xxx Internet domain for sex sites, which has drawn fire from U.S. conservative groups and resistance by the Commerce Department remains in limbo, according to the head of the group that oversees the Web domain system. Paul Twomey, president of the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers said on Thursday the group is still awaiting the recommendations of an advisory committee reviewing the proposal, and has no plans to make a decision at ICANN's meeting this week in Vancouver. ICANN announced in June it would move ahead with plans to evaluate establishing a sex-site domain, but the proposal hit a snag in August when the U.S. Commerce Department asked for more time to hear objections. The review committee, made up of representatives from the United States and other governments, has not told ICANN's board specifically what objections are holding up the process but that it needs more time to review the material, Twomey said. He could not say when the Governmental Advisory Committee would be ready. The .xxx domain -- which would be like the .com or .net at the end of an Internet address -- has been pitched by ICM Registry Inc., a private company that has said it could run it as sort of an online red-light district that would enable people to easily find pornography on the Web, or filter it out. Critics such as the Family Research Council, a conservative U.S.-based religious group, complain that creating the .xxx domain would only legitimize the porn industry, and not make it easier to avoid sexual content on the Web. Some critics of the present system have stated the opposite is true: By not having an '.xxx' domain for sex it becomes much harder to avoid sexual content on the Web; '.xxx' could be filtered, after all. The case has also been seen as a test of ICANN's independence from the U.S. government, which has fought off efforts to turn control of the Internet traffic system over to an international body. ICANN, a California-based non-profit group, cannot make changes to the domain-name system -- which matches Web site names to numerical addresses that computers can read -- without the approval of the U.S. Commerce Department. Syracuse University professor Milton Mueller said the United States has compromised its neutrality over the assignment of domains by intervening in the .xxx case. He said Washington has been lobbying other governments to oppose the plan. "If ICANN caves in to this pressure, it reveals to the world that it really is just a plaything of the U.S. administration, and the U.S. reveals to the world that it is able and willing to abuse its power over ICANN," Mueller said. (Additional reporting by Andy Sullivan in Washington) Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Helena Spongenberg Subject: EU Expects a Rush for '.eu' Domain Name Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 13:17:38 -0600 By HELENA SPONGENBERG, Associated Press Writer The European Union expects a surge of applications next week when its ".eu" regional domain name opens for registration. "I expect a real rush, several hundred thousand in the first few days," EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding told reporters Thursday. "European companies should waste no time and register for the new `.eu' domain name." Reding and other supporters believe such a domain will help promote European identity and create greater visibility for pan-European e-commerce. Currently, businesses must use domains for their particular country, such as ".fr" for France, or a global one like ".com," which is seen by some as mostly a U.S. suffix. Registration for ".eu" names begins on Dec. 7 at 10 a.m. GMT, and such names can be used immediately. For the first two months, only certain rights holders such as registered trademark owners, public bodies and companies can register. On Feb. 2, ".eu" opens up to family names. General registration begins April 7 on a first-come, first-served basis. Reding said the restricted periods were needed "to reduce considerably the risk of cyber-squatting" - the illicit use of domain names for fraudulent use. Such periods, known as sunrise, are typical these days as new domains get introduced. The ".eu" domain name will be run by EURid, a private European nonprofit group. About 750 licensed resellers will accept registrations on EURid's behalf. Registrations are limited to people who live in the EU and to companies with headquarters or branches inside the 25-nation bloc. Prices are expected to range from euro80 to euro140 ($94 to $164) during the sunrise periods. They should drop to euro25 to euro30 ($29 to $35) once regular registration begins. There are about 250 domain names on the Internet, but they are typically assigned by country or territory. The Internet's key oversight agency, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, made an exception because EU is on a special "reserved" list kept by the International Organization for Standards, a worldwide standardization body. ICANN also is considering a ".asia" name for that continent. On the Net: http://www.eurid.eu Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. For more news from Associated Press, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html or http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ From: Robert McMillan Subject: IE Bug Lets Hackers Phish With Google Desktop Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2005 22:34:15 -0600 Robert McMillan, IDG News Service A bug in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser gives phishers a way to scan the hard drives of Google Desktop users, according to an Israeli hacker. Because of a flaw in the way IE processes Web pages, a malicious Web site could use the attack to steal sensitive information like credit card numbers or passwords from the hard drives of its visitors. "Google Desktop users who use IE are currently completely exposed," wrote hacker Matan Gillon in an e-mail interview. "An experienced attacker can covertly harvest their hard drives for sensitive information such as passwords and credit card numbers. Since Google also indexes e-mails which can be read in the Web interface itself, it's also possible to access them using this attack." The Details Gillon has posted an extensive description of how such an attack would work, along with a proof of concept exploit, on his blog. The IE bug concerns the way Microsoft's browser processes Web page layout information using the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) format. The CSS format is widely used to give Web sites a consistent look and feel, but attackers can take advantage of the way that IE processes CSS to get Google Desktop to reveal sensitive information. Hackers would first need to trick users into visiting a malicious Web site for the attack to be successful, Gillon says. The attack works with IE 6 and Google Desktop version 2, and may also work on other versions of Microsoft's browser, but not on non-Microsoft browsers like Firefox or Opera, he adds. Turn Off JavaScript Users can nullify the attack by turning off JavaScript in their browsers, Gillon says. This can be done by disabling "Active scripting" in IE's Internet Options menu. JavaScript is a popular scripting language used by Web developers to make their sites more dynamic. Users need to be particularly wary of the Web sites they visit these days, because of another unpatched IE vulnerability that could be used to take over a user's PC. Hackers posted sample code that exploited this problem over a week ago, and Microsoft said that hackers are already using the code in attacks. As with the new CSS problem, users must first be tricked into visiting a malicious Web site for this IE bug to be exploited. Some security experts believe that Microsoft is in the process of rushing out a patch to fix this problem before these attacks become more widespread. These attacks can also be avoided by disabling JavaScript in IE, or by using an alternative browser. Microsoft executives were unavailable to comment on the CSS bug, but a spokeswoman for the company's public relations agency said the issue is being investigated. Microsoft is not aware of any attacks resulting from the hole, she said. Copyright 2005 PC World Communications, Inc. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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 Communications. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Peter Henderson Subject: Internet Ad Growth Pressures TV to Change Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2005 22:29:35 -0600 By Peter Henderson Internet advertisers and marketing professionals have a message for television networks: get ready to change the way you work. As Internet advertising grabs a bigger share of marketing budgets and ad agencies tailor spots to a new medium where attention spans can be measured in split seconds, television networks will have to adjust, executives told the Reuters Media and Advertising Summit this week. "We believe the Web site will ultimately replace the 30-second commercial as the central expression of the brand ... The TV commercial over time will become more of a way to simply send people to your Web site," said Brian McAndrews, chief executive of Internet marketing company aQuantive Inc.. Television accounts for roughly two-thirds of major companies' advertising budgets, and that could shrink to about one-half in three years, according to David Verklin, chief executive of online media buying company Carat Americas, a unit of Aegis Group Plc. A main driver of that change will be online advertising, he said, which should see its share of spending roughly double from about 8 percent now, as companies pay more attention to the Web's ability to tailor messages to individual consumers and to track response. Web video advertisements will be about 10 seconds long, and mobile advertising on cell phones and other devices would be a similar length, he projected. Verklin, like a number of executives, predicted that television would begin to look like the Internet, perhaps adding clickable Web sites in place of commercials. The element of interaction could increase the older medium's ability to reach smaller, self-selecting groups of clients, he added. "My vision of the future has more advertisers on TV than ever before," he said. 30 SECONDS IS TOO LONG That could be a sea change for advertisers who have embraced the video possibilities on the Web largely by running 30-second commercials made for television. Charlie Rutman, chief executive of Havas Advertising's media buyer, MPG North America, said that failings in the standard commercial itself were also driving change. "Is the 30-second commercial considered as effective as it was five years ago? I don't think it is. That's why people have an appetite to look elsewhere," he said. Greg Coleman, new global advertising sales chief at Yahoo Inc., agreed that the Web needs promos shorter than 30 seconds, which then might spill back into television. "Will the networks allow for a five-second blast or a 10-second spot? It's going to be interesting to see how traditional media will bend and work with the new world," he said. "I think they are going to have to rethink how ads are placed throughout programming." Widely agreed upon by marketing executives interviewed by Reuters is that ad creativity needs a shot in the arm, especially with the advent of new media formats. "I think the majority of ads are just dull and mind-numbing," said David Droga, outgoing chief creative officer of the Publicis advertising network. "There is a parallel world out there which is 'ad-land.' I don't know anybody who lives in that world." Droga, who is starting his own company, DrogaFive, with backing from Publicis, said ads need to be more creative and better suited to brands they represent. "Anyone can be edgy, but if it is not in sync with the brand, it is just wasted money," he said. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Andrew Gumbel Subject: Rising Internet 'Addiction' on Par With Drug Use Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 13:12:18 -0600 By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles Mental health professionals in the United States have highlighted the emergence of a new psychiatric problem on a par with alcoholism, drug abuse or obsessive gambling: internet addiction disorder. It occurs when an American office worker who should be focussing on the tasks at hand is spending hours playing fantasy football on the computer instead. Or when an executive is so attached to his handheld device that he checks it last thing at night and then consults it the moment he opens his eyes in the morning. Some people spend so much time online that they stop going out, their marriages break up and they are overwhelmed by depression and suicidal feelings. According to estimates in The New York Times yesterday, as many as 10 per cent of the 189 million internet users in the US could be addicted. Hilarie Cash, who heads Internet/Computer Addiction Services in Redmond, near Seattle, has identified a specific chemical rush -- a dopamine high -- which can be generated by even something as simple as receiving an email. She told The New York Times that she has seen instances of anxiety and depression in her patients. Other internet addiction experts have developed 12-step programmes to wean people off their online habit, or started support groups for the addicts' spouses. There are many definitions of internet addiction disorder. One by Jennifer Ferris, a psychologist from Virginia, points to seven telltale signs such as a thirst for ever more time spent online, trembling or even involuntary finger movements when the users is away from the computer, dysfunctions in day-to-day relations with friends and co-workers and, at the extreme, the loss of a job or a marriage because of excessive internet use. However, other professionals argue that internet addiction is merely a new platform for other pathologies such as gambling or obsession with pornography. Internet use is on the rise. A report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project this year found that more than half of American teenagers were online every day, compared with 42 per cent five years ago. And its economic impacts are now being quantified. The business consultants Challenger, Gray & Christmas recently estimated that American fantasy football alone was costing US employers $200m in lost productivity every season. Mental health professionals in the United States have highlighted the emergence of a new psychiatric problem on a par with alcoholism, drug abuse or obsessive gambling: internet addiction disorder. It occurs when an American office worker who should be focussing on the tasks at hand is spending hours playing fantasy football on the computer instead. Or when an executive is so attached to his handheld device that he checks it last thing at night and then consults it the moment he opens his eyes in the morning. Some people spend so much time online that they stop going out, their marriages break up and they are overwhelmed by depression and suicidal feelings. According to estimates in The New York Times yesterday, as many as 10 per cent of the 189 million internet users in the US could be addicted. Hilarie Cash, who heads Internet/Computer Addiction Services in Redmond, near Seattle, has identified a specific chemical rush -- a dopamine high -- which can be generated by even something as simple as receiving an email. She told The New York Times that she has seen instances of anxiety and depression in her patients. Other internet addiction experts have developed 12-step programmes to wean people off their online habit, or started support groups for the addicts' spouses. There are many definitions of internet addiction disorder. One by Jennifer Ferris, a psychologist from Virginia, points to seven telltale signs such as a thirst for ever more time spent online, trembling or even involuntary finger movements when the users is away from the computer, dysfunctions in day-to-day relations with friends and co-workers and, at the extreme, the loss of a job or a marriage because of excessive internet use. However, other professionals argue that internet addiction is merely a new platform for other pathologies such as gambling or obsession with pornography. Internet use is on the rise. A report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project this year found that more than half of American teenagers were online every day, compared with 42 per cent five years ago. And its economic impacts are now being quantified. The business consultants Challenger, Gray & Christmas recently estimated that American fantasy football alone was costing US employers $200m in lost productivity every season. Copyright 2005 Independent News and Media Limited NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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, Independent News and Media Limited. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Betty White Subject: Parents, Beware Kids Space on Internet Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 13:14:40 -0600 Everyone needs their own "space." It sparks emotional and spiritual wellness, medicates the inner sense of self-concept and self-esteem, and allows time to rest and regroup from the demands of today's ever-challenging world. However, after a recent sojourn I took to the adolescent-laden Web site MySpace.com, I have to wonder if -- in this case -- having individual space comes at too high a cost. For those unfamiliar with MySpace, the fourth most viewed site on the Internet in the United States, having a posting on the site is the hottest craze among young adults, teenagers and the even younger group of "tweens." To some of our children in these groups, being on MySpace is as essential as sporting the newest cell phone or having a portable DVD player to watch movies during the car trek home. So what's the issue with this technology-based trend? The views I garnered during my informal fact-finding mission differ greatly, depending on where you sit. To many students, membership in MySpace is harmless. It's simply a forum to post data about life happenings and pictures, make new "friends" via the chat rooms, use instant messaging options and download the sweetest music jamming the airwaves. And, in concept, it is, indeed, harmless. Much like the diaries or journals of yesteryears that many of us kept under lock and key about our daily personal feelings while growing up, MySpace is a forum for personal expression and creativity. But, when dissected, it clearly is also much more. Although the site claims to have a webmaster who patrols the technology domain, pages that have nude photos, graphic language and sexual innuendo are allowed and appear to be more the norm than the exception. This, coupled with provocative pictures of partially clothed teens and those showing what appears to be underage drinking and drug usage that I have seen stretch the very essence of our cherished constitutional right to freedom of speech. Perhaps most disturbing is that interwoven among the countless html pages -- both the innocent and the not so innocent -- is a clear subculture or "underworld" where many of our youngsters seem to take on an alter ego. From my navigating throughout the site, the foul language and distasteful pictures aren't confined to students with a certain GPA, family composition or socioeconomic standing. Another troubling find is the cyber bullying and rampant entries that sully the reputation of students' schools, classmates, peers, parents and even teachers. And, although the site tells those under 16 years of age to "Go away," I know countless 12-, 13-, 14- and 15-year-olds who lie about their age and are daily users. Although MySpace does allow our youth a forum to discuss feelings and problems, commiserate with each other and solicit words of support, its unregulated, unstructured and generally rule-less format opens a zone of danger to our children who don't understand the power of the free and uninhibited expression they are wildly wielding. It falls to parents and educators to teach and demand respectable and honorable boundaries that are defined with responsibility, integrity and a caring maturity. I strongly urge all parents to get a better understanding of what constitutes individual "space." Besides the harm and dishonor they bring to themselves, their schools, friends and families, and the scars of regret they may suffer in the future, our youth are open game for sexual predators lurking in cyberspace to take advantage of them. Betty White is principal of Sacred Hearts Academy, an all-girls school in Kaimuki. She wrote this commentary for The Advertiser. COPYRIGHT 2005 The Honolulu Advertiser, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** 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, Honolulu Advertiser / Gannett Company. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Eric Friedebach Subject: Sprint PCS Handset Updates Date: 3 Dec 2005 13:53:32 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Calling Sprint PCS customer service (* 2) I heard a recording telling me to wait for an update to the handset, a Samsung APH-620/VGA-1000. That took about a minute before I was in queue for a human. Any idea what that was? Kind of reminded me of the old AOL updates that would get shoved down the pipe to me ten years ago when I was trying to log off. AOL didn't charge for the online time, but I was paying LD with my 14.4 modem! Eric Friedebach /Jaywalking in Dallas/ ------------------------------ From: hollaar@antitrust.cs.utah.edu (Lee Hollaar) Subject: Re: Who Owns the Music? Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2005 14:43:26 MST Organization: School of Computing, University of Utah In article gordonb.2asgo@burditt.org (Gordon Burditt) writes: >> - if I buy a new CD, I am presumably entitled to record it for local >> (computer/IPOD/backup/whatever) use. If I do that, am I (legally or >> otherwise) prohibited from reselling or giving away the CD? > Yes you are prohibited from reselling it or giving away the original, > unless you include all your copies in the sale, or destroy them. 1. The presumption that you are entitled to record it for local computer use isn't supported by the copyright statute. There are special rules for non-commercial duplication of audio works (see 17 USC 100 1001 and 1008), but they are of limited scope because of some particular definitions. 2. There is no general backup right in the copyright statutes. There is one for "computer programs" in 17 USC 117, but again there is a particular and narrow definition for computer programs. And you have to be the owner of the copy of the computer program, not a licensee. 3. Any justification for the copying would have to be a "fair use" argument under 17 USC 107. Since you are copying a creative work in its entirety, you'd lose on factors (2) and (3), and since you are somewhere between commercial and educational, factor (1) is probably neutral. That leaves factor (4) (effect on the potential market for the work) having to be strongly in your favor. And since your keeping of a copy after transferring the CD to another clearly displaces a sale, it's hard to see how you would win on that factor. 4. The rule about destroying or transferring all copies when the original is transferred comes from 17 USC 117, and is limited to computer programs. But it is at least an indication of what should be done if there is to be at least some illusion of a fair use. ------------------------------ From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomni.com (Robert Bonomi) Subject: Re: Who Owns the Music? Date: Sun, 04 Dec 2005 00:59:33 -0000 Organization: Widgets, Inc. In article , Michael Quinn wrote: > The recent discussions about Sony led to some interesting discussions > among my colleagues about the used CD market: > - if I buy a new CD, I am presumably entitled to record it for local > (computer/IPOD/backup/whatever) use. Your "right" to do that is actually _very_ limited. Not as limited as the record companies would _like_ you to believe, but very limited nonetheless. > If I do that, am I (legally or otherwise) prohibited from reselling > or giving away the CD? There is a huge used CD market out > there. And my kids keep taking my Frank Sinatra and Pink Floyd CDs. You are not prohibited from "reselling or giving away", the CD, but,_IF_ _YOU_DO_THAT_, then any copies of that music that remain in your possession are *illegal* copies, and you are subject to copyright infringement action for the possession thereof. > - if I resell or give away the CD, what about the next buyer/owner -- > is he or she entitled to record it, as above, and then pass it on to > the next user? *WHILE* and _only_ while they are in possession of the CD, they can make limited copies for *limited* reasons allowed by copyright statute. > - if I made a recording of the originally purchased CD, may I bequeath > that to the above mentioned kids? The limited rights you have are 'indivisible' from the physical product you purchased. Anything derived from that product must go _with_ that product. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 01:45:19 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Bye Bye BlackBerry? By IAN AUSTEN OTTAWA, Dec. 2 - What if your BlackBerry screen went dark? To executives like Douglas M. Steenland of Northwest Airlines, the idea of doing business without a BlackBerry is about as appealing as reverting to rotary dial phones and Telex machines. "It's the proverbial blessing and curse," Mr. Steenland said of his BlackBerry, which sends e-mail messages wirelessly. "It's a blessing because it liberates you from the office. It's a curse because there's no escape." That is why there was so much anxiety throughout corporate America over this week's news that a long-running patent infringement battle between the maker of BlackBerry, Research In Motion, and NTP, a tiny patent holding company, might cause a service shutdown, perhaps within a month. Indeed, the prospect of life without BlackBerries is so frightening to Northwest -- a heavy user if ever there was one -- that the airline immediately demanded a conference call with R.I.M. executives and one is scheduled for Tuesday. "Everybody here hopes that somebody else will fix the problem," said Andrea F. Newman, Northwest's senior vice president for government relations. "But no one really knows what the problem is or what it will take to fix it." R.I.M., which is based in Waterloo, Ontario, promises it has a solution that will keep its beloved BlackBerries humming even in the face of an injunction. While most analysts view the prospects of a shutdown as unlikely, they have little faith in the proposed solution, which has potential legal pitfalls of its own. What's more, the history of the struggle between the companies means that no outcome is certain. (R.I.M. declined to comment.) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/03/technology/03blackberry.html?ex=1291266000&endf205fd24ccb8593&ei=5090 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 14:50:46 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Snared in the Web of a Wikipedia Liar Rewriting History -- Snared in the Web of a Wikipedia Liar By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE December 4, 2005 ACCORDING to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, John Seigenthaler Sr. is 78 years old and the former editor of The Tennessean in Nashville. But is that information, or anything else in Mr. Seigenthaler's biography, true? The question arises because Mr. Seigenthaler recently read about himself on Wikipedia and was shocked to learn that he "was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John and his brother Bobby." "Nothing was ever proven," the biography added. Mr. Seigenthaler discovered that the false information had been on the site for several months and that an unknown number of people had read it, and possibly posted it on or linked it to other sites. If any assassination was going on, Mr. Seigenthaler (who is 78 and did edit The Tennessean) wrote last week in an op-ed article in USA Today, it was of his character. The case triggered extensive debate on the Internet over the value and reliability of Wikipedia, and more broadly, over the nature of online information. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/weekinreview/04seelye.html?ex=1291352400&en=6a97402d6595c6f1&ei=5090 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 13:43:47 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Faster is Better When Schools Spread Word By Ron DePasquale, Globe Correspondent School officials in several of Boston's western suburbs are using new communications systems that allow them to make hundreds, or even thousands, of phone calls to parents almost instantaneously. Proponents of the 'school-to-home' communications systems, which are seeing use by a growing number of districts nationwide, say they can be invaluable in reaching out to parents for both routine messages and in emergencies. "It's quite a remarkable system. It's really something special. There's the security of parents knowing what's going on right away," said Wrentham's superintendent, Mick Janelli. Plainville and Weston are also using the systems. School officials record a message. The systems can then forward that message to everyone in the school community or subsets of people, school officials said. If a school bus breaks down, for example, the school can notify just those parents affected. Last-minute reminders for field trips, PTO meetings, or parent-teacher conferences can also be sent, instead of being forgotten in a 7-year-old's backpack. Teachers who are driving a long commute to work on a snowy day can be called on their cellphones and told that school has been canceled. Officials said the systems could also be helpful in case of emergencies, such as an attack on a school or a health emergency. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/12/01/faster_is_better_when_schools_spread_word/ ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Auto Call Forward Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Sun, 04 Dec 2005 15:18:01 GMT > I know of a feature that when you want incoming calls forwarded > to let's say your cellular you can reconfigure the office phone. > However you have to be onsite to do so. But what if you can't get to > the phone. Is there a way of doing this remotely or is there some kind of > auto call forward feature so that if line goes down the system > automatically forwards incoming calls to the cellular. "Remote Call Forwarding." I used it for a while in Boston, with mixed results. I could forward my calls remotely (from my home phone), but sometimes the system just didn't work and callers got a fast busy. Better solutions are: 1. A virtual number or VoIP number that you can forward. These are widely available on the Web. 2. A cell phone that you keep with you that you can forward. The basic idea is that you give out the virtual number (or web number, or cell phone number) and forward that number to wherever you are. -Joel ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Free 35mm lens & digital camera reviews: http://www.exc.com/photography ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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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End of TELECOM Digest V24 #547 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Dec 5 00:17:04 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 577B015034; Mon, 5 Dec 2005 00:17:04 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #548 Message-Id: <20051205051704.577B015034@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 00:17:04 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.1 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Mon, 5 Dec 2005 00:17:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 548 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Theaters Agree to Help Visually, Aurally Handicapped Users (Mike Gormley) Engineered Blankets Reach Disaster Victims (Bruce Smith) Madison Avene Faces Google Fears (Eric Auchard) Comcast Plans 6% Rate Hike / Increase Comes as Phone Firms (Monty Solomon) The Globe's Future in WiFi (Monty Solomon) Re: Who Owns the Music? (DevilsPGD) Re: Voicepulse Owns Your Number (DevilsPGD) Re: Sprint PCS Handset Updates (Steve Sobol) Re: Satellite GPS Can Locate Wireless Phones Within 15 Feet (ptownson) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Gormley Subject: Theaters Agree to Help Visually, Aurally Handicapped People at Movies Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 21:41:36 -0600 By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press Writer Did you catch the new movie that everyone's talking about at school and at work? If you're visually or hearing impaired, there's a good chance you couldn't. But that's slowly changing. Nationwide, more than 150 movie theaters have added special systems to help the deaf, hard of hearing, blind or visually impaired, according to the nonprofit National Center for Accessible Media. Most of those theaters are in major cities that made the move voluntarily, but states are now putting pressure on theater chains to spread the technology much farther or risk discrimination lawsuits. In New Jersey, four movie theater chains agreed under pressure last year to install deaf-captioning technology in theaters statewide. The attorney general filed a discrimination complaint against a fifth chain that didn't go along. A similar deal being announced in New York on Monday involves eight national theater chains. The chains agreed to implement technology to help the visually and hearing impaired enjoy movies in 140 theaters across the New York state - up from about a dozen now. "Movies are an important part of popular culture," said New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. "Every adult and child should be able to enjoy a film with family and friends, especially during the holiday season." Like those in the New Jersey agreement, the New York theaters will add Rear Window captioning, in which hearing disabled customers can use an acrylic panel to read captioning projected from the back of the theater. They also will provide listening devices more compatible with hearing aids; most headsets used now for the disabled only amplify a movie's soundtrack. Thirty-eight of the New York theaters will provide on-screen captioning of some movies and headsets that offer descriptive narration of films under the deal. Representatives of Loews Entertainment Cineplex, AMC Entertainment and Regal Entertainment Group, three of the largest chains, didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. Email and phone messages left Friday were not returned by the others. In addition to Loews, AMC and Regal, the deal was agreed to by Carmike Cinemas, Clearview Cinemas, Dipson Theatres, National Amusements and Zurich Cinemas. The American Foundation for the Blind said the measures are good for everyone involved - by making theaters accessible, more customers will come. "It's not only seeing it, it's understanding it," said Joseph Gordon of Self Help for Hard of Hearing People in New York City. He said people with even moderate hearing difficulties have trouble distinguishing between words like "tomato" and "potato." "I think it's an extremely isolating factor," Gordon said. He said 2 million New Yorkers have hearing difficulties. Spitzer, who is running for governor in 2006, said he started negotiating with the theater chains after receiving complaints from disabled New Yorkers. The complaints appeared to show potential violations of state and federal laws against discrimination against disabled people, said Dennis Parker, chief of the attorney general's Civil Rights Bureau. "It's not just being able to see a movie," Parker said. "It's the social situations ... the talk around the water cooler, and kids' conversations about movie openings." On the Net: New York attorney general: http://www.oag.state.ny.us National Center for Accessible Media: http://ncam.wgbh.org/mopix/nowshowing.html Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. For more Associated Press headlines go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/TDNewsradio.html ------------------------------ From: Bruce Smith Subject: Engineered Blankets Reach Disaster Victims Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 21:43:55 -0600 By BRUCE SMITH, Associated Press Writer A lightweight, non-woven blanket engineered by a South Carolina company is keeping disaster victims dry and warm from the Gulf Coast to the mountains of Pakistan to the tsunami-ravaged areas of Southeast Asia. The blanket developed by the Polymer Group Inc. is warmer than traditional blankets woven of cotton or wool. One side is soft and provides comfort next to the body; the other has a backing to provide a barrier from moisture, dirt and debris. Unlike other blankets, the "All Day, Every Day" blanket sheds water so it dries more quickly and needs less water to clean, an important feature in disaster areas. "These people are typically out of their homes and are sitting on the ground in an open environment," said Cliff Bridges, a spokesman for the company's Chicopee division, which makes the blankets. "The last thing you want to do is wrap yourself in a product that is going to hold water because water is probably the biggest vector of bacteria and fungus, which can cause disease." Polymer Group is among the world's largest manufacturers of non-woven materials used in everything from baby wipes to packaging materials. It had about $850 million in sales last year, operates 21 plants in 10 countries and employs 3,200, according to the corporate Web site. Polymer Group was developing a blanket for emergency medical use when Church World Service asked whether the company could develop a covering that could be used in disasters in tropical areas. Polymer worked for several months with Church World Service, a relief ministry of 36 denominations, said Rick Augsburger, the agency's deputy director. "We feel what we have come up with is an extremely useful and versatile blanket that provides great comfort to people who have lost everything," he said. Over six decades, the agency has shipped millions of blankets to disaster areas worldwide where a simple blanket is important. "It's protection," Augsburger said. "It's heat and warmth, and it's also a comfort." Because Polymer's blanket is about a third the weight of a traditional wool blanket, relief agencies can ship more for the same cost. The company was working on that blanket about the time of last year's massive tsunami, and thousands were shipped to Southeast Asia and again to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. The new coverings were distributed to people evacuated to the Astrodome in Houston. The Polymer Group itself has donated tens of thousands of the blankets, which are not for sale to the general public. "We're at the point now where we're trying to produce as much of this as we can," said James Schaeffer, the company's chief executive officer. "We would have donated more to Pakistan, but we didn't have more on hand. We shipped most to the tsunami and Katrina." The company is developing a new blanket with a thin coating of aluminum applied to the backing. The coating reflects the sun's ultraviolet rays, keeping disaster victims cooler in warm weather. Earthquake victims on a cold mountain side can reverse the blanket so the coating acts as an insulator, retaining body heat. A disposable heating pad can be used for more warmth, Bridges said. Those blankets are not yet available, but next year Polymer will unveil them at trade shows in the United States and Europe. The company has not announced a price. Schaeffer said the company is planning how many of the blankets it will produce next year. If next year is like this one, the demand will be high. "It's been an unprecedented year of need," Bridges said. On the Net: Polymer Group Inc.: http://www.polymergroupinc.com/ Church World Service: http://www.churchworldservice.org/ Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Eric Auchard Subject: Madison Avenue Faces Google Fears Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 21:45:11 -0600 By Eric Auchard Google Inc.'s search for revenue beyond its wildly popular pay-per- click advertising system has everyone from publishers to phone companies unnerved by the seemingly endless scope of the Web leader's ambitions. Nowhere is this more closely felt than Madison Avenue, where the advertising industry sees Google encroaching on turf ad agencies and media buyers have considered their own for much of the past century. Seeking to diversify its revenue base, Google has begun offering advertisers a set of free marketing analysis tools to help customers boost how much they spend on text ads carried by Google.com or affiliated sites. It is selling ads in print publications and expected to move into branded, graphical ads. These moves, which some see as competing with systems offered by independent companies and ad agencies themselves, has provoked grumbling among many in the advertising industry. "There is an inherent conflict of interest there," said Brian McAndrews, chief executive of aQuantive Inc., a company that is both a big buyer and reseller of Google advertising but also a rival supplier of ad measurement tools. "Am I going to use Google to measure my search results on Microsoft and Yahoo? Am I going to use Google to measure my advertising results on ESPN?" McAndrews asked rhetorically during the Reuters Media and Advertising Summit on Thursday. The company is the top independent supplier of ad-buying tools advertisers use to buy online ads on Google's ad network as well as Yahoo, Ask Jeeves and other networks. Wall Street analysts estimate that about 5 percent of the $10 billion spent on online ads runs through aQuantive's system. "From a consumer perspective, Google is all good," Merrill Lynch analyst Lauren Rich Fine said in a recent note to clients. "However, Google is starting to attract negative publicity (tied to) its foray into other mediums." His argument that Google's encroachment into other businesses, including the large advertising agencies, drove Google shares down 4.7 percent last Monday, its biggest percentage loss in a year. The stock has since recovered most of its losses, closing at $417.70 on Friday, but the debate over Google's power to transform whole industries only continues to grow. GOOGLE GOBBLES GROWTH The success of Google's keyword search system among advertisers has in just a few years spawned a niche industry known as search engine optimization (SEO) made up of tech-savvy marketers who help companies find ways to insure their Web sites feature at the top of Google searches and ads. "Google needs this ecosystem," New York-based Susquehanna Financial analyst Marianne Wolk said of the web if ad agencies, marketing support firms and other industry organizations that help advertisers make use of Google ads. David Verklin, chief executive of Carat Americas, the largest independent media services company in North America, with $6 billion in customer billings, said Google has the power to create new businesses, but also tear them down. IProspect, a unit of Carat, is one of the search marketers who have prospered on the back of Google's success. Companies like Motorola Inc. pay iProspect to target ads tied to 300 words associated with Motorola wireless products, he said. Verklin complains Google has begun charging marketing firms like his own $50,000 a month to use Google's ad buying system. "We're going to try and convince (Google) we think that's a bad idea," Verklin said. "I don't want to have to use one tool to manage Google and my own tool to manage Yahoo and Ask Jeeves and everyone else," he said of conflicts between ad systems. Advertisers are spooked by the idea of relying entirely on Google to deliver their ads and want independent ways to shop around for the best price and the greatest exposure, he said. Google hears the growing drumbeat of criticism. Executives say they must do a better job of clarifying their aims. "When the business was just about ads it was pretty straightforward," Marc Leibowitz, Google's director of strategic partnerships, said in a recent interview. "There's this notion that Google has a grand master devious plan" to put ad agencies and publishers out of business, Leibowitz said. "Nothing could be further from the truth. "We see ourselves in a symbiotic relationship with them." (For other news from the Reuters Media and Advertising Summit, please double-click on: http://today.reuters.com/summit/SummitInfo.aspx?name=MediaSummit 05&pid=500 ) Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 22:23:11 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Comcast Plans 6% Rate Hike / Increase Comes as Phone Firms Increase comes as phone firms prepare to enter cable market By Keith Reed, Globe Staff It's that time of year again: Cable rates are going up. Comcast Corp., the nation's biggest cable television provider, is planning a 6 percent increase, raising the average cost of its most popular package, the $45 expanded basic tier, by about $2.70 a month. The change will take effect Jan. 1. A spokeswoman yesterday said the final rate for Comcast's 1.5 million customers in Massachusetts has not yet been set. The increase is no surprise; cable bill increases in winter are as common as children writing letters to Santa Claus. But this year, it could carry more significance because cable companies are staring down the barrel of their biggest potential competition in years from phone companies such as Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. Those firms are on the verge of rolling out video services that will compete with the cable firm's offerings. The competition could trigger a price war, if not change the pricing model entirely. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/12/03/comcast_plans_6_rate_hike/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 22:32:50 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Globe's Future in WiFi THE OMBUDSMAN By Richard Chacn, Globe Ombudsman I ARRIVED at South Station Wednesday morning near the end of the rush hour commute. I took a seat in the main concourse, opened my laptop computer, and within moments saw a small part of the Globe's future. My computer, which is equipped with a wireless antenna, grabbed on to a signal inside the cavernous room that led to a page full of information about South Station -- its train schedules, restaurants, history, and comments from other people who pass through the building. The website, which works only inside the station, was created and sponsored by the Globe; it is one of several high-tech projects intended to demonstrate that even as the newspaper loses circulation, it is searching hard for ways to hold on to readers. We've all heard the apocalyptic predictions: Newspapers are dinosaurs, destined to be lost eventually to the speed and technological breadth of the Internet. Some readers have asked about the Globe's online efforts. Here is a quick look beyond the tar pit at how the newspaper is trying to keep up with the times. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/04/= the_globes_future_in_wifi/ ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Who Owns the Music? Date: Sun, 04 Dec 2005 20:27:53 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message Steven Lichter wrote: > Common sense should tell you that if you sell/give away the CD you > should delete any copies you have of it. That is the same rule for > computer software, you have the right to make a copy but once you no > longer own the original, you have to delete any copies you have for > backup. Common sense may tell you that, but in my jurisdiction you'd be very wrong. Of course, common sense would tell you that when I burn my own singing to a CDR, I shouldn't have to pay the music industry. Since I do one, I do the other without any moral or ethical objection. Before posting legal advice please take the time to investigate where the person asking the question is located since their jurisdiction may have vastly different rules then yours. ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Voicepulse Owns Your Number Date: Sun, 04 Dec 2005 20:27:53 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message sethb@panix.com (Seth Breidbart) wrote: > In article , Fred Atkinson > wrote: >> I've sent Voicepulse notice that I expect them to release my number. >> They say they will not. In fact, they called me just a few minutes >> ago and said that the porting request from Carolina Net would be >> declined. >> I'm looking for recourse and I'm not interested in hearing that there >> is no recourse. Can anyone here make some suggestions as to most >> effective avenue to pursue? ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Sprint PCS Handset Updates Date: Sun, 04 Dec 2005 15:40:14 -0800 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com > Calling Sprint PCS customer service (* 2) I heard a recording telling > me to wait for an update to the handset, a Samsung APH-620/VGA-1000. > That took about a minute before I was in queue for a human. > Any idea what that was? Yes, an update to the Preferred Roaming List, which specifies which networks the phone is allowed to use. Always includes the carrier's own networks, and includes roaming networks selected by the carriers - usually the networks run by companies with which your carrier has the most favorable roaming agreements. This is a CDMA thing. So you'll have PRLs on Verizon, Sprint, Alltel/Western Wireless and US Cellular phones, as well as phones from a few smaller CDMA carriers, GSM uses a different system to identify where the phone is allowed to be used. Steve Sobol, Professional Geek 888-480-4638 PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Company website: http://JustThe.net/ Personal blog, resume, portfolio: http://SteveSobol.com/ E: sjsobol@JustThe.net Snail: 22674 Motnocab Road, Apple Valley, CA 92307 ------------------------------ From: ptownson@telecom-digest.org Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 00:00:00 EST Subject: Re: Satellite GPS Can Locate Wireless Phones Within 15 Feet About six years ago in this Digest, Arthur Ross responded to Bud Couch discussing Satellite GPS and its use with wireless phones and E-911 service. Can I please get an update now at the end of 2005 and how this technology might be put to use with the dilemma VOIP service finds itself in; locating the person and place of trouble? PAT Date: Mon, 5 Jul 1999 15:35:04 -0700 From: Arthur Ross Subject: Re: Satellite GPS Can Locate Wireless Phones Within 15 Feet Bud Couch wrote: > The FCC would never dare to mandate this "feature" -- the ability to > track individual citizens without either their knowledge or consent. > Both the legal and political outcry would be immediate and effective. > Did someone of social and political naivete come up with this on their > own, or was it a sub-rosa suggestion from the NSA or one of the other > spook agencies? We'll probably never know, but it makes no difference; > the techniques should not have been thought out by Lucent engineers, > and the concept should have been quashed by Lucent management. Sorry, that's EXACTLY what they have done. I personally believe that there originally was no nefarious motive on the part of the FCC, but, as Lauren pointed out elsewhere in that same issue of TD, there is all sorts of potential for mis-use and abuse, both in real time and after-the-fact -- "usage creep." From CFR 47 20.18, 10-1-98 Edition: "(e) Phase II enhanced 911 services. As of October 1, 2001, licensees subject to this section must provide to the disignated Public Safety Answering Point the location of all 911 calls by longitude and latitude such that the accuracy for all calls is 125 meters or less using a Root Mean Square (RMS) methodology." The full text of CFR 47, and other FCC documents and proceedings can be found on the FCC website (http://www.fcc.gov). Some recent remarks by the Chairman of the Wireless Bureau (also from FCC website): Remarks of Tom Sugrue Chief, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Federal Communications Commission 911 Critical Issues Forum Integrating Transportation, EMS and 9-1-1: A Vision for the Future Alexandria, Virginia May 21, 1999 As prepared for delivery. Thank you very much for your kind introduction. I would especially like to thank you on behalf of Chairman Kennard. He appreciated the invitation to join you today and regretted the fact that other commitments kept him from being here. Moving forward on public safety programs such as wireless E911 is one of the Chairman's highest priorities. Exactly two years ago today, on May 21, 1997, at a meeting very like this one, the FCC joined NHTSA and Dr. Martinez to issue a call to action for implementation of wireless enhanced 9-1-1. Emergencies occur where there are people, not necessarily where there are phone lines. Because wireless phones can travel wherever we do, wireless 9-1-1 has proved to be the greatest advancement in public access to emergency services since the birth of 9-1-1 itself in 1968. Wireless 9-1-1 has saved countless lives and brought help to millions of people over the years. But, as we recognized in our call to action, a great deal of planning and work were needed to make wireless technology a more effective component of the overall system of providing help in emergencies. For example, if you call 9-1-1 today on a wireless phone, the 9-1-1 dispatcher will not know where you are, where help is needed. You must be able to describe your location, or at least where to begin looking, before help can arrive. This can delay and vastly complicate the work of emergency response teams. A week ago today, for instance, a man not far from here in Fairfax was traveling only as far as from his home to a nearby gas station on a riding lawn mower. It overturned in a ditch and trapped him underneath. He managed to use his cellular phone to call 9-1-1, help eventually arrived, and he escaped without serious major injury. But it took scores of police, aided by a helicopter, almost an hour to find him. If the 9-1-1 dispatcher had known the location of his phone, help could have arrived much faster, and that help could have been, not scores of police, but a single officer. And not a fleet of vehicles and a helicopter, but one squad car and an ambulance. When we joined with NHTSA in 1997, we reported that 47 million Americans had wireless phones and they made 59,000 emergency calls each day. Today, the American desire for mobility and communication has proved so powerful that the number of wireless phones has grown by 57% to over 74 million. And the use of those phones to seek emergency help has grown even faster. In just those two years, the volume of wireless 9-1-1 calls has increased by 66%, to over 98,000 calls every day. Those calls are saving lives, bringing help to people in need, and preventing crime. As we saw most recently and tragically in Littleton, Colorado, the wireless phone has become for many Americans, including our children, the lifeline to help in any emergency. At the FCC, we have adopted a number of rules designed to improve wireless 9-1-1 service. For example, our rules require that the wireless carriers handle all 9-1-1 calls and route them to the 9-1-1 center designated by state and local public safety authorities. And just last week, the FCC adopted rules requiring manufacturers to modify analog cellular handsets to help improve 9-1-1 call completion, allowing 9-1-1 calls to be handled by either cellular carrier. That proceeding addressed the "dead zone" problem, in which callers may find themselves unable to complete 911 calls because their preferred cellular provider does not provide service in a particular geographic area. The rules we adopted last week will help to improve this situation by facilitating completion of 911 calls by the other cellular carrier. This proceeding prompted much debate, and the Commission -- working in concert with consumer groups, the public safety community, the cellular industry, and handset manufacturers -- was able to craft a flexible policy which will improve wireless 911 call completion by requiring handset manufacturers to use any one of three approved call completion modes, at their discretion. In addition, in what is commonly referred to as Phase1 of our wireless E911 rules, covered carriers are required, as of April 1 1998, to provide automatic number identification (ANI) and cell site information for 911 calls to PSAPS. In what is referred to as Phase II of our rules, effective October 1, 2001 all covered carriers will be required to identify the location of mobile units making 911 calls within a radius of no more than 125 meters. Unfortunately, Phase I deployment has been slow, and some difficult issues have arisen as we prepare for Phase II. In addition to the development of effective location technology, wireless E911 requires funding mechanisms, upgrading of 9-1-1 equipment to understand and use wireless location information, coordination with local telephone carriers and their existing 9-1-1 databases, and the management of emergency systems to make rapid and effective use of this information. Many technical, legal, and regulatory questions will need to be resolved. To take one example, we need to be sure that our rules permit the most effective technologies to be used to provide location information, whether that technology resides in the wireless network, the handset, or both. We should encourage our inventors and entrepreneurs to surprise us once again with their innovations and creativity in developing wireless location technology. These efforts are only one aspect of the Commission's efforts to apply wireless technology to public safety needs. The Commission will conclude a proceeding this year which may allocate additional spectrum to help meet the communications needs of emergency service agencies. The Commission is also currently studying the Transportation Department's request to establish an abbreviated three-digit dialing code that would allow consumers to access intelligent transportation systems nationwide. Wireless technology can also be used, under our safety warning system rules adopted earlier this year, to alert motorists to hazardous road and driving conditions. Jim Schlichting, Deputy Chief of the Wireless Bureau, will be participating on a panel following this session, and will provide more information on the range of activities we are undertaking in this area. The Commission will once again need to reach out to all the critical parts of the community represented here today to turn the promise wireless E911 into lifesaving reality. And we are working diligently to do precisely that. For example, we are planning to sponsor a forum in the near future to examine the technical issues of wireless automatic location information. We expect to pursue other efforts in the very near term to seek input from the essential participants in wireless E911 to resolve these issues. With wireless E911 in place, calls can be routed to the right 9-1-1 center, which can then quickly dispatch the help that is needed, and only the help that is needed, to exactly the right place. That is the promise of wireless E911. But it will remain only a promise unless we succeed in making wireless E911 an integrated part of public safety programs. NHTSA is to be complemented for taking a leadership role in promoting such an integrated nationwide public safety system, with programs such as its emergency medical services agenda for the future and its trials of automatic crash notification systems. These and other initiatives can improve the safety of our highways, and indeed of our lives wherever we might be. We have made progress in that direction since our call to action with NHTSA two years ago, but far more remains to be done. By the time E911 Phase II is scheduled to be implemented in 2001, there will be over 100 million wireless phones in use in the United States. In just a few more years, it is likely that there will be more wireless than wireline phones. We can expect equally rapid growth in wireless 9-1-1 calls. This means that the importance of adapting emergency services to wireless E911 will continue to grow as well. We at the FCC are resolved to continue working with NHTSA and NENA to apply wireless technology to the improvement of public safety. In particular, we recently invited Dr. Martinez to participate in a Commission meeting next month dedicated to wireless issues, to help ensure that the vital role of wireless in emergency services and public safety is given the attention it deserves. To Dr. Martinez, NENA and to all of you here, representing some of the many organizations that must work together to realize this vision, we urge you to continue the vital work of making America a better and safer place. Thank you for the opportunity to address you this morning. ******** End of Remarks by Tom Sugrue ******** -- Dr. Arthur Ross 2325 East Orangewood Avenue Phoenix, AZ 85020-4730 Phone: 602-371-9708 Fax : 602-336-7074 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Can Dr. Ross or other readers update us on this technology and how it might be used with VOIP if possible? PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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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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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V24 #548 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Dec 5 16:20:13 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id B8CD214E1B; Mon, 5 Dec 2005 16:20:10 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #549 Message-Id: <20051205212010.B8CD214E1B@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 16:20:10 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.3 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, CELL_PHONE_IMPROVE autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Mon, 5 Dec 2005 16:20:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 549 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Executive Has an Answer to Phone System Cheat Sheet (Monty Solomon) Don't Call It Spyware (Monty Solomon) Using Two ADSL Internet Connections Simultaneously (jonfklein@gmail.com) Overnight Circus on USA Television (Hazma Hendavi) Problems With Modifying Greeting in Partner II VS mail R1.0 (nusource) Box to Redirect Incoming Call and Redial to Outgoing Number (Chasman) Cellular-News for Monday 5th December 2005 (Cellular-News) Verizon to Unload Directory Unit (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: Satellite GPS Can Locate Wireless Phones Within 15 Feet (nospam4me) Re: Who Owns the Music? (Steven Lichter) Re: Who Owns the Music? (Scott Dorsey) Re: Voicepulse Owns Your Number (Carl Drueckhammer) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 00:40:20 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Executive Has an Answer to Phone System Cheat Sheet By Bruce Mohl, Globe Staff Paul English can add this to his cheat sheet on how to reach a human on a computerized phone system: have a story in the newspaper. English, the subject of a Nov. 6 Globe article, has caught the attention of Michael Zirngibl, chief executive of Angel.com, one of the leading makers of automated voice systems. Zirngibl, whose McLean, Va., firm's clients includes Adidas, Kellogg's and the US Army, applauded English's efforts on behalf of consumers but said there were a lot of things wrong with his approach. English, a 42-year-old Arlington software engineer, made headlines with his personal website, http://paulenglish.com which houses a cheat sheet that tells people how to reach a human on the voice systems of more than 100 companies. Zirngibl said such systems often help consumers more efficiently than live agents. To show that automation can be good and turn English's assault into a business opportunity, Zirngibl put out his own cheat sheet for businesses on how to create customer-friendly systems. Among the tips: never hide the option for speaking to a live agent and never require callers to repeat personal information once they reach a human being. http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2005/12/02/executive_has_an_answer_to_phone_system_cheat_sheet/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 01:01:14 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Don't Call It Spyware Three years ago the company was considered a parasite and a scourge. Today it's a rising star -- selling virtually the same product. How a pop-up pariah won the adware wars. By Annalee Newitz Wired Issue 13.12 December 2005 Back in 2002, Gator was one of the most reviled companies on the Net. Maker of a free app called eWallet, the firm was under fire for distributing what critics called spyware, code that covertly monitors a user's Web-surfing habits and uploads the data to a remote server. People who downloaded Gator eWallet soon found their screens inundated with pop-up ads ostensibly of interest to them because of Web sites they had visited. Removing eWallet didn't stop the torrent of pop-ups. Mounting complaints attracted the attention of the Federal Trade Commission. Online publishers sued the company for obscuring their Web sites with pop-ups. In a June 2002 legal brief filed with the lawsuit, attorneys for The Washington Post referred to Gator as a "parasite." ZDNet called it a "scourge." Today Gator, now called Claria, is a rising star. The lawsuits have been settled -- with negligible impact on the company's business -- and Claria serves ads for names like JPMorgan Chase, Sony, and Yahoo! The Wall Street Journal praises the company for "making strides in revamping itself." Earlier this year, The New York Times reported that Microsoft came close to acquiring Claria. Google acknowledges Claria's technology in recent patent applications. Best of all, government agencies and watchdog groups have given their blessing to the company's latest product: software that watches everything users do online and transmits their surfing histories to Claria, which uses the data to determine which ads to show them. Apart from plush new offices at the northern edge of Silicon Valley, it's remarkable how little the latter-day Claria differs from the old Gator. It's true that the company has toned down its most aggressive tactics. Journalists, watchdogs, and regulators seem mollified. For the most part, though, the company is in the same business as before, courting the same customers and selling a product that does the same thing in the same ways. Claria wears in a sharp suit and has a scrubbed face and coiffed hair -- but it still looks a lot like Gator. CEO Scott VanDeVelde doesn't deny this. "I don't feel like there's a need to wipe the slate clean," he says. "Our technologies are dead center of where the market is going." The spyware wars are over -- and spyware has won. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.12/spyware.html ------------------------------ From: jonfklein@gmail.com Subject: Using Two ADSL Internet Connections Simultaneously Date: 5 Dec 2005 10:25:24 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Here is the problem, I have two telephone lines. I want to make both of these lines ADSL connections to the internet and use these connections to provide internet access to several wireless laptop computers. A maximum of about 20 laptops would be connected to the system at once. I would like the laptops to be able to use both lines simultaneously so that I don't have one line overloaded and one underloaded (ie: I want to balance the traffic on the lines at any given time). Anyone have any suggestions on how to set up something like this? -Jonathan ------------------------------ From: Hazma Hendawi Subject: The Saddam Overnight Circus on Television Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 12:29:35 -0600 Saddam: 'I Am Not Afraid of Execution' By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer Saddam Hussein told the judge at his trial Monday that "I am not afraid of execution" during a chaotic court session in which the first witness took the stand and testified that the former president's agents carried out random arrests, torture and killings. The outburst was one of several by Saddam or his co-defendants at the trial that also saw a brief walkout by his defense lawyers. At one point, Saddam appeared to threaten the judge, saying: "When the revolution of the heroic Iraq arrives, you will be held accountable." Chief Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin replied: "This is an insult to the court. We are searching for the truth." Earlier, however, Saddam told the court he understood the pressures upon the judges and defended his actions. He and his seven co-defendants could be executed if convicted on the charges stemming from the deaths of more than 140 Shiites in 1982. Before the trial adjourned until Tuesday, Saddam repeatedly interrupted testimony and appeared to try to rally Iraqis against the U.S. occupation. "This game must not continue, if you want Saddam Hussein's neck, you can have it!" Saddam said. "I have exercised my constitutional prerogatives after I had been the target of an armed attack. "I am not afraid of execution," said Saddam, who then addressed the judge, saying, "I realize there is pressure on you and I regret that I have to confront one of my sons. But I'm not doing it for myself. I'm doing it for Iraq. I'm not defending myself. But I am defending you." When the first witness Ahmed Hassan Mohammed spoke, Saddam told him: "Do not interrupt me, son." "If it's ever established that Saddam Hussein laid a hand on any Iraqi, then everything that witness said is correct," he said. He also told the court that he "would like (the witness) to be examined by an independent medical institution." Amin had a difficult time keeping order during several clashes between the witnesses and the accused, with Saddam and his co-defendant and half brother, Barazan Ibrahim, gesturing and shouting together. In one instance, Saddam pointed to the sky with his right hand while he held Islam's holy book, the Quran, in his left. "Everyone must remain calm and be civil," he said repeatedly. At one point, Saddam and Ibrahim became so angry while Saddam sparred verbally with the judge and a second witness, Jawad Abdul-Azziz Jawad, that guards tried to calm them. Ibrahim smacked them on the hands with a notebook. Saddam himself became so angry that he threw some papers he was holding, and they eventually landed on the floor. Earlier, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who is helping represent Saddam, sought to address the court, touching off an argument that led to the walkout by the defense team. Amin at first said only Saddam's chief lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, could speak. Amin said the defense should submit its motion in writing and warned that if the defense walked out then the court would appoint replacement lawyers. After the defense lawyers left, Saddam, shaking his right hand, told the judge: "You are imposing lawyers on us. They are imposed lawyers. The court is imposed by itself. We reject that." Saddam and Ibrahim then chanted "Long live Iraq, long live the Arab state." Ibrahim stood up and shouted: "Why don't you just execute us and get rid of all of this!" When the judge explained that he was ruling in accordance with the law, Saddam replied: "This is a law made by America and does not reflect Iraqi sovereignty nor values." It was the third court session in the trial of Saddam and seven co-defendants -- accused in the 1982 killings after an assassination attempt against the president in Dujail -- where Saddam at times appeared to be in control of the court as much as the presiding judge. After the lawyers spoke, Mohammed began his emotional but often rambling testimony. He said that after an assassination attempt on Saddam, security agencies took people of all ages, from 14 to more than 70. They were tortured for 70 days at intelligence headquarters in Baghdad before being moved to Abu Ghraib prison where the abuse continued, he said. "There were mass arrests. Women and men. Even if a child was 1-day-old, they used to tell his parents, 'Bring him with you,'" Mohammed said. He said he was taken to a security center where "I saw bodies of people from Dujail." "They were martyrs I knew," Mohammed said, giving the names of the nine whose bodies were there. The second witness, Jawad, who was only 10 when the assassination attempt occurred, testified how Iraqi troops used helicopters to attack the city and bulldozers to destroy the fields. Jawad said Saddam's regime killed three of his brothers, one before the assassination attempt and two after. When al-Dulaimi asked how someone who was 10 could remember such details, Jawad said "a 3-year-old child remembers a lot. An elementary school student does not forget if a teacher slapped him in the face. I live a catastrophe." After the walkout and a 90-minute recess to resolve the issue, the court reconvened and Amin allowed Clark and ex-Qatari Justice Minister Najib al-Nueimi to speak on the questions of the legitimacy of the tribunal and safety of the lawyers. "Reconciliation is essential," Clark told the court. "This trial can either divide or heal. And unless it is seen as absolutely fair, and as absolutely fair in fact, it will irreconcilably divide the people of Iraq." At that point, the judge reminded Clark that he was to speak only about the security guarantees for the defense lawyers -- two of whom have been assassinated since the trial began Oct. 19. Clark then said all parties were entitled to protection, and the measures offered to protect the defense and their families were "absurd." He said that without such protection, the judicial system would collapse. Al-Nueimi then spoke about the legitimacy issue, arguing that court is not independent and was in fact set up under the U.S.-led occupation rather than by a legal Iraqi government. He said the language of the statute was unchanged from that promulgated by the former top U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, and was therefore "illegitimate." "The illegitimate American bastards are trying to run this court just as they tried to take over our country," Saddam noted in agreement, as he held his Quran in the air to illustrate his message. The first witness had exchanged insults with Ibrahim, Saddam's half brother, telling him "you killed a 14-year-old boy." "To hell," Ibrahim replied. "You and your children will be the ones to burn in hell," the witness replied. The judge then asked them to avoid such language and to address their exchanges to him rather than each other and the audience. As the testimony continued, Saddam's lawyers objected that someone in the visitors' gallery was making threatening and obscene gestures directed to Saddam, and should be removed. Ibrahim leapt to his feet, spat in the direction of the gallery, and shouted, "There are your criminals." The judge ordered the person removed from the gallery and questioned, and this in turn caused more commotions among the participants in the trial and the observors. "Who is to be on trial here," they asked. Mohammed, fighting back tears, described how there had been "random arrests in the streets, all the forces of the (Baath) party, and Thursday became 'Judgment Day' and Dujail has become a battle front." "Shootings started and nobody could leave or enter Dujail. At night, intelligence agents arrived headed by Barazan" Ibrahim, he said. Ibrahim interrupted him at one point, saying: "I am a patriot and I was the head of the intelligence service of Iraq." At the start of Monday's session, Saddam walked into the court with a smile, carrying a copy of the Quran and greeted everyone there, his lawyers, the prosecutors, and the audience. From time to time, he would glance at his Quran, as though preparing to give a sermon. Most of the defendants and several of the defense lawyers, including Clark, and members of the audience stood up out of respect when Saddam entered, and again when he would read out loud from the Scripture. (Quran). Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Because the trial of Saddam Hussein (or Sodomy Insane as he is sometimes referred to) is news of importance to USA citizens and due to the time difference, his trial is being carried live on several USA news stations, such as Cable News Network and MSNBC. As a result, it is aired on television beginning at about 2 AM Central USA time until about 5 AM. According to their laws, _only the judge_ is permitted to ask questions. Prosecution and defense alike must submit questions to the judge, who, if he is in agreement that the question is proper, then asks it of the defendant (in this case, Saddam) or the witness who was called to testify. Like the USA, Iraq bars the use of cameras in the courtroom except by special arrangement. What they _are permitting_ is one camera making a video tape to be used with a twenty minute delay. (I assume they may wish to edit it as they go along.) So what you will see on American television is videotape of the event, 20-minute segements of tape, at about 20 minute delays throughout the night. Sunday night/Monday morning was the _third_ court session; the first 'meaningful' session (the two earlier sesssions were more 'technical' and 'procedural' in nature; the lawyers presenting to the judge who would be their witnesses, and asking for the continuance, etc, and of course, Saddam fussing with the judge and the lawyers, etc. Now they have Saddam sitting there on trial. It sort of reminds one of a modern hybrid of the Joe McCarthy debacle in 1949-50 on television and the Jerry Springer show. If you happen to wake up at 3 AM turn on MSNBC and watch the show for yourself. PAT] ------------------------------ From: nusource Subject: Problems With Modifying Greeting in Partner II VS Mail R1.0 Date: 4 Dec 2005 22:33:10 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I tried to modify greeting message using <777> and got busy signal. System was powered off for about 2 months, and was able to change greeting prior to power off. Had reset by #505 7 and unassigned and reassign again. Can anyone help? ------------------------------ From: Chasman Subject: Box to Redirect Incoming Call and Redial to Outgoing Line Date: 5 Dec 2005 06:37:52 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I want to figure a simple way of being able to dial in on one work number and then dial out on another work line. The reason is that I want to be able to call international from my cell phone really cheaply or free. So I want to make a local call to my office and then reroute that call somehow through my VOIP phone to wherever I want to dial. This way I get the benifit of really cheap rates. Thanks for any ideas. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The device you want is known as a 'call extender' or 'WATS extender'. The name comes mainly from many years ago when long distance calls were quite expensive but using the office 'WATS line' allowed a long distance call to be 'free'. Essenti- ally, call in on a local line, get hooked either to a PBX-type line from whence you would dial the WATS code (then out on WATS) or else just connect direct to the WATS line itself. A smart user would always have a passcode request in there somewhere, to avoid having the WATS (or other network services) abused. I got one of these devices once from Mike Sandman http://sandman.com and after a bit of tweaking it worked reasonably well. You can adjust it via a capacitor on the top so it knows when to answer the incoming line and how long to hold the line open, and when to disconnect it. The prototype Mike let me use was easy enough to adjust the cap for pickup and disconnect and wait to restart. But the volume level was not very good, at least on my prototype (some manufacturer was trying to talk Mike into reselling these devices), and I do not think they ever got the volume level adjusted as desired. It would not make a lot of difference on good quality WATS lines or a decent PBX, etc. The transmission level would go down a little, but you could live with it. However, I was trying to use mine to connect landline, via a PBX to a VOIP line outbound, and this was _before_ (or maybe still?) VOIP was able to share bandwidth with computers, etc on internet and sound good quality. So I had two problems: VOIP outbound (with the older style Vonage TA's) sounded dreadful, IMO, and the 'call extender' didn't help it any. Commercial or industrial grade call extenders used to be quite expensive; you had to be able to amortize its cost versus your toll charges; now the cost for a unit is almost nothing; but then again, so are toll charges, even international ones. You might check with Mike Sandman (mailto: mike@sandman.com) or check his web site http://sandman.com and find out if the transmission quality problems have been corrected, and does he still have those little units. (About the size of a package of cigarette, weight a couple ounces; just plug an incoming and and outgoing line into it.) PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Monday 5th December 2005 Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 09:39:49 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com [[3G News]] Ukraine's Ukrtelecom gets 3G license without tender http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15079.php Ukraine's fixed-line telecommunication provider Ukrtelecom received Thursday a license for operation in UMTS/WCDMA third generation (3G) standard without a tender, Ukraine's National Commission for Communications Regulation (NKRS) said in a stateme... Morgan Stanley: America Movil Plans 3G Technology In 07 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15082.php America Movil, Latin America's largest wireless telephony concern, plans to launch third-generation technology in 2007 when it expects handset prices to be lower, investment bank Morgan Stanley said Friday. ... Industry Sees Brazil's Telecom Watchdog Rushing Into 3G http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15083.php PREMIUM - Third generation wireless technology is proving to be a big deal in Brazil - but not because everyone wants video on their mobile phones. ... EDGE Launched by South African Operator http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15095.php South Africa's third mobile operator, Cell C has launched an EDGE upgrade to its GSM network. Cell C 's network provide s EDGE coverage to 90% of metropolitan areas. Said Talaat Laham, Cell C Chairman and CEO: "We are delighted to be launching our mo... [[Financial News]] Nokia Says Co Holds 20% Cost Advantage Over Rivals http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15076.php Nokia Corp. holds a cost advantage of more than 20% over its closest competitor, said Chief Financial Officer Rick Simonson. ... Hong Kong New World Extends Exclusive Merger Talks With Telstra http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15077.php New World Development Co. said Friday it has agreed to extend for two weeks exclusive talks with Australia's Telstra Crop. to finalize a deal to merge their Hong Kong-based mobile phone service providers. ... Swiss Government:Swisscom Board To Hold Off Buying Any Incumbent http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15081.php The Swiss government Friday said Swisscom AG has agreed to hold off any decisions about buying any foreign company that's legally obliged to provide its country with telecommunication services until the government has revamped Swisscom's strategic go... NTL, Virgin Mobile In Merger Talks - Sources http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15089.php U.K. entrepreneur Richard Branson will this week launch an attempt to merge his Virgin Mobile Holdings (U.K.) PLC telecommunications unit with NTL Inc to create a GBP4.5 billion communications business, people familiar with the matter said Sunday. ... [[Handsets News]] TELECOM REPORT: Wireless Phones As Status Symbols http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15087.php It's not enough any more to make wireless phones that are easy to use, work well and have great features. Now more than ever, customers also want "cool" phones that cater to their self-image. ... Emblaze Gains African Handset Distribution Partner http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15092.php Emblaze Mobile says that it has signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Blue Tech Africa, a subsidiary of the Managed Enterprises Incorporated group, which will see its handsets introduced to key African markets during 2006. BlueTech will pro... [[Legal News]] EU, Austria Settle Dispute Over Mobile Antenna Tax http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15078.php Austria and the European Commission Friday settled a dispute over a proposed tax on antennas used to relay signals for mobile networks. ... PRESS: Russia telecommunication ministry eyed in German probe http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15080.php A money-laundering scandal that started in Germany has spread to other countries and now implicates a top Russian official who is a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, say law-enforcement officials with knowledge of the situation, The Wall Street... Alamosa Discloses Derivative Suit Tied To Sprint Nextel Merger http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15085.php Alamosa Holdings Inc. disclosed Friday that a purported shareholder derivative class action was filed in the District Court of Lubbock County, Texas, related to the company's impending merger with Sprint Nextel Corp. ... Qualcomm Refutes Korean License Report http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15094.php Qualcomm has stated that the claims in a Korea Times article from last Thursday indicating that certain Korean manufacturers' obligations to pay royalties to Qualcomm under their respective license agreements will expire in 2006 for sales in Korea an... [[Mobile Content News]] Retro Children's Cartoons Appear on Mobiles http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15090.php Celador International has secured the mobile rights to design a range of mobile content based around the childrens television cartoon series, Roobarb & Custard. The company has tapped edpic to develop the mobile content on their behalf. London-based ... [[Network Operators News]] Alltel Sells Assets and Cellular One Brand Name http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15091.php Dobson Communications has agreed to purchase the Cellular One brand from Alltel. Dobson is a provider of wireless phone services to rural markets in 16 states and has been a primary licensee of the Cellular One brand, which was owned by Western Wirel... Telering shops to be renamed as Sonera Piste shops http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15096.php TeliaSonera has announced that the name and visual identity of the Finnish Telering chain is to be changed to Sonera Piste. By the end of the year, 56 shops will be under the new name and the chain will grow in size at the beginning of the year 2006.... Bulgarian Operator Upgrades Completed http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15097.php The Bulgarian GSM operator, Mobitel says that it has completed several upgrades to its network and can now support up to 5 million subscribers. The company currently has 3.5 million customers. Beside that every year M-Tel puts on air hundreds of new ... UAE Operator Expands into Sudan http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15098.php The UAE based telecoms operator, Etisalat has helped a Sudan based landline operator set up facilities and commence operations in the country. The company has a 40% holding in the country's second landline operator, Canar Telecommunications which was... [[Personnel News]] Nortel Ex-CEO Entitled To Get $2 Million Lump-Sum Severance http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15086.php Nortel Networks Corp. said Friday that former Vice Chairman and Chief Executive William A. Owens is entitled to a $2 million lump-sum payment equivalent to two years of salary. ... [[Statistics News]] Belarus MDC subscriber base up to 1.760 million as of Dec 1 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15088.php The subscriber base of Belarus mobile phone operator Mobile Digital Communications, or MDC, rose 3.2% in November to 1.760 million people as of December 1, a spokesperson with the company told Prime-Tass Thursday. ... Top ten in mobile phone sales in Telia stores in November http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15093.php In November, the Samsung SGH-X640 mobile phone bubbled up Telia's top ten list by leaping all the way to second place. The list was again topped by the Nokia 5140i, while the Nokia 3120 slipped down to fourth place and is no longer one of the three b... [[Technology News]] Ericsson Introduces Software For Mobile TV http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15075.php Swedish telecommunication equipment maker Telefon AB LM Ericsson Friday said it is introducing a client software that enables easy channel surfing for mobile television. ... Cingular To Launch Push-To-Talk Phone Service http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15084.php Cingular Wireless plans to launch a push-to-talk phone service which integrates walkie-talkie and cellular technology across its network. ... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 12:07:38 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Verizon to Unload Directory Unit USTelecom dailyLead December 5, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/zvyAatagCzjdipbkES TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Verizon to unload directory unit BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * U.K.'s NTL may buy part of Virgin Mobile * WWP raises $25.5M in funding round * Swisscom halts Eircom bid * Technicians take on new challenges in fiber era USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Now in the Telecom Bookstore: Introduction to IP Television HOT TOPICS * Skype adds video to VoIP service * FCC expected to back "a la carte" cable pricing * Report: VoIP system sales growing fast * High-ranking Nortel executives leave company * Telecoms ponder fate of their landlines TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Cisco unveils new IP equipment REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Analysis: A la carte debate could get messy Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/zvyAatagCzjdipbkES ------------------------------ From: nospam4me@mytrashmail.com Subject: Re: Satellite GPS Can Locate Wireless Phones Within 15 Feet Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 15:36:04 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC For VOIP, I think it would be necessary for either the terminal adapter (TA) or the host PC (soft-TA) to have a GPS receiver built into it to be able to do E-911. A way this could be helpful is if when the TA first connects to the VOIP switch, it sends its GPS coordinates; the switch could then reply with a list of phone numbers corresponding to the closest 911 call center. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Herb Oxley From: address IS Valid. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have been told GPS does not work that well _inside a house or an office_; that its optimal use is when attached to an outside thing. Most VOIP set ups are indoors, are they not? What advantage and disadvantage would there be to equipping VOIP terminal adapters either with a small antenna capable of receiving GPS coordinates (although you might have to mount the GPS receiver either next to a window or preferably _outside_ with a wire running in to the TA itself)? Or, another approach might be for the TA unit to 'listen' for '911' being dialed, and then instantly breaking the connection and redialing 911 via a landline phone nearby? Or, have the 911 interception be done at the local ISP (whose lines you were on anyway) and have the ISP forward your call to the local 911 authorities along with its records of who you were, where you were at, etc? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steven Lichter Reply-To: Die@spammers.com Organization: I Kill Spammers, Inc. (c) 2005 A Rot in Hell Co. Subject: Re: Who Owns the Music? Date: Mon, 05 Dec 2005 05:20:46 GMT DevilsPGD wrote: > In message Steven Lichter > wrote: >> Common sense should tell you that if you sell/give away the CD you >> should delete any copies you have of it. That is the same rule for >> computer software, you have the right to make a copy but once you no >> longer own the original, you have to delete any copies you have for >> backup. > Common sense may tell you that, but in my jurisdiction you'd be very > wrong. > Of course, common sense would tell you that when I burn my own singing > to a CDR, I shouldn't have to pay the music industry. > Since I do one, I do the other without any moral or ethical objection. > Before posting legal advice please take the time to investigate where > the person asking the question is located since their jurisdiction may > have vastly different rules then yours. I was not posting legal advice and besides this has to to with Federal Law!! Read the other postings that came before mine and after. Also title 17 of the US Code which others have listed is really open on that, since as was said it covers mostly software, not music, but the lines are mixed now with all the online access to music and video. The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2005 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot in Hell Co. ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Who Owns the Music? Date: 5 Dec 2005 10:57:28 -0500 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) > - if I buy a new CD, I am presumably entitled to record it for local > (computer/IPOD/backup/whatever) use. If I do that, am I (legally or > otherwise) prohibited from reselling or giving away the CD? Yes. You can think of the original media as holding the license for your use of the material. You own the media, you do not own all rights to the material on it. But possession of the media gives you limited rights of use (as written on the back of the disk). If you sell the media, you are also selling your rights to use the material on it. --scott NOT FOR PUBLIC PERFORMANCE OR BROADCAST: LICENSED ONLY FOR USE ON PHONOGRAPHS IN HOMES "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Voicepulse Owns Your Number Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 15:24:47 -0500 From: Carl Drueckhammer Contact the FCC's Consumer Center toll-free at 888-CALL-FCC (888-225-5322): www.fcc.gov/cgb/NumberPortability/ Certain rural wireline carriers may have waivers of the porting requirement from state commissions. Customers of these carriers therefore may be unable to port their number to a new carrier. If you are unable to port your number for that reason, you should contact your state commission for further information. You might also reference "Rules and Regulations of the North Carolina Utilities Commission", chapter 17, "Provision of Local Exchange and Exchange Access Competition", Rule R17-5, number portability and number assignment: http://www.ncuc.commerce.state.nc.us/ncrules/chap17.htm#rule_17-5 The North Carolina Utilities Commission, Consumer Services Division, can be reached at 919-733-9277. Carl Drueckhammer > In message sethb@panix.com (Seth > Breidbart) wrote: >> In article , Fred Atkinson >> wrote: >>> I've sent Voicepulse notice that I expect them to release my number. >>> They say they will not. In fact, they called me just a few minutes >>> ago and said that the porting request from Carolina Net would be >>> declined. >>> I'm looking for recourse and I'm not interested in hearing that there >>> is no recourse. Can anyone here make some suggestions as to most >>> effective avenue to pursue? ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 V24 #549 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Dec 6 14:15:42 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id B7F2A14D52; Tue, 6 Dec 2005 14:15:41 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #550 Message-Id: <20051206191541.B7F2A14D52@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 14:15:41 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.9 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, BIZ_TLD,MAILTO_TO_REMOVE autolearn=no version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Tue, 6 Dec 2005 14:15:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 550 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Pity the Poor Phone Company (Scott Bradner) Time Warner and Microsoft Near an Ad Deal (Reuters News Wire) Strowger Switch Identification? (Dave Hunter) IIR's Revenue Management 2006 (Cellular-News) Will Going to Higher Speed RoadRunner Offering Help Vonage? (pattyjamas) FTC Do Not Call List (Felix Tilley) Default COCOT Behavior (Michael Helmeste) Cellular-News For Tuesday 6th December 2005 (Cellular-News) Re: Using Two ADSL Internet Connections Simultaneously (Brad Houser) Re: Using Two ADSL Internet Connections Simultaneously (Robert Bonomi) Re: Using Two ADSL Internet Connections Simultaneously (Vcc Ground) Re: Using Two ADSL Internet Connections Simultaneously (David Quinton) Re: Satellite GPS Can Locate Wireless Phones Within 15 Feet (DevilsPGD) Re: Satellite GPS Can Locate Wireless Phones Within 15 Feet (G Welsh) Re: Box to Redirect Incoming Call and Redial to Outgoing Line (GlowingBlue) Re: Don't Call It Spyware (Steve Sobol) Re: Executive Has an Answer to Phone System Cheat Sheet (DevilsPGD) Re: Who Owns the Music? (DevilsPGD) Re: Box to Redirect Incoming Call and Redial to Outgoing Line (NOTvalid) Telecoms Turn Attention to Converged Services (USTA Daily Lead) Last Laugh! Simpson's Episode With Stamp Museum (davidesan) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Scott Bradner Subject: Pity the Poor Phone Company Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 10:42:44 -0600 This story appeared on Network World at http://www.networkworld.com/columnists/2005/120505bradner.html 'Net Insider Pity the poor telephone company? By Scott Bradner, Network World, 12/05/05 From a distance it looks like a good time to be a traditional phone company in the United States. The FCC has given these companies an open license to exploit their dominant market positions. The U.S. House and Senate are running down a path to empower them to destroy the Internet. The International Telecommunication Union's standards division is defining technology that will let phone companies block "free" use of "their" networks by interlopers such as Google and Vonage. Billions of dollars are being spent on takeovers and being poured into deploying new video services. But maybe things are not as rosy as they seem. I'm writing this just as SBC's $16 billion takeover of AT&T has been consummated, and as Verizon's $8.5 billion buyout of MCI is getting the last of the state approvals. That is a lot of money being spent to buy up failing long-distance companies just as the whole concept of long-distance is in its dying days. If Congress continues on the path it is on, we will soon get a new telecom regime that will let the big telcos and cable companies block third-party use of the Internet connections that their customers buy from them, all in the name of protecting their networks and helping law enforcement. Unless something drastic happens, this will destroy the Internet, at least for most residential and small-business users. But since most residential users think the Internet is just the Web, most of them will not notice unless they have subscribed to non-carrier VoIP services. Small-business owners are likely to notice quite well their reduced options for alternate phone service. At the same time, the technology that enables the phone companies to offer extensive video services is well-enough developed for them to start widespread deployment and thus have a hook into tens of billions of dollars of cable TV revenue. Sounds like a great time to be a phone company. But things may not be quite as great as they appear. More and more, residential users are dumping their landline phones in favor of cell phones. Once the cell-phone E911 service becomes generally deployed, many more customers will follow them. The In-Stat research group reports that close to 10% of the U.S. population already uses a cell phone as their primary line, and that over half are willing to consider the option. There goes the cream of the residential phone business -- unless you happen to have a wireless division. And even when that is the case, there is a lot of competition, so the profits will be a lot less. Businesses are moving in droves to VoIP, with ZDNet Research reporting that 75% of them have tried it out and 75% of those who adopted it like what they got. And there is no requirement that a business get its VoIP from the carrier that provides its Internet connectivity or even from a carrier at all. Then there is the video dream. Verizon is spending billions of dollars to bring fiber to the home so that it can offer what residential users already have from cable TV and satellite companies -- hundreds of channels with little on them and video-on-demand. The New York Times reports that content owners want more from you phone companies than they get from your competitors, and your competitors can always reduce their fees to match anything you can do. Maybe it's not a great time to be a phone company after all. Disclaimer: It's (almost) always a great time for Harvard to be Harvard, but the above muse is my own. Bradner is a consultant with Harvard University's University Information Systems. He can be reached at sob@sobcomcom. All contents copyright 1995-2005 Network World, Inc. http://www.networkworld.com NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Time Warner and Microsoft Near an Ad Deal Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 11:00:35 -0600 Time Warner Inc is closing in on a deal with Microsoft Corp. to team up on an online advertising service to compete with Google Inc, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the talks. The paper said the two companies were now focusing on a deal that would combine their advertising-related assets, with little or no money changing hands. It said they expected to reach an agreement before the end of the year, but that it was still possible that Time Warner's America Online unit could strike a deal with competitor Google instead. Time Warner has been holding talks with both Microsoft and Google over AOL, sources familiar with the situation have told Reuters and other media. Sources familiar with the matter had said that Time Warner's initial discussions included the possible sale of a stake in the Internet unit, but recent media reports said that the two likely buyers may be backing away from such an investment in favor of smaller-scale partnerships with AOL. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who has been critical of Time Warner's strategy, has also said that he would hold Time Warner board members personally responsible if they forged a deal for AOL that valued the Internet provider too cheaply. The Journal said that, under negotiations between Time Warner and Microsoft, AOL would drop Google as its main Internet search provider and switch to Microsoft's MSN service. Under their current agreement, Google derived about 11 percent of its first-half revenue from AOL, which also generates substantial revenue from the contract. The Journal said Microsoft and Time Warner are also negotiating to create a joint advertising sales force to sell online ads across both the AOL unit and Microsoft's MSN. Both services would remain under the control of their current owners, according to the report. People familiar with the talks told the newspaper that the companies expected to announce a deal by the third week of December. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2005 10:04:45 -0400 From: Dave Hunter Subject: Strowger Switch Identification? Hi all! I know, I know, Strowger is dead. Yesterday in the mail I received a Northern Electric Strowger switch unit, with the following numbering inside: ED3286-31 GD WD NE-585D Does anyone have the specs for this switch? I suspect it is a connector -- would this be correct? The contact bank is missing, and the wipers have been all but destroyed by being shipped unprotected, but even if it is unuseable, it would still make a nice visual display unit for the museum if I can find a stand for it ... Dave The Telephone on Prince Edward Island: http://www.islandregister.com/phones/phones.html The Telephone Museum of Prince Edward Island: http://www.islandregister.com/phones/museum.html Free Admission - Call (902) 651-2762 to arrange a visit! ------------------------------ Subject: IIR's Revenue Management 2006 Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 21:27:37 -0600 From: Cellular-News IIR's Revenue Management 2006 23-26 January 2006 Radisson SAS, Nice France http://www.iir-events.com/IIR-Conf/page.aspx?id=367 I am delighted to announce that the brochure for this year's Revenue Management 2006 is available for you to download at http://www.iir-events.com/IIR-Conf/page.aspx?id=369 As you will see, this year's event boasts 18 SERVICE PROVIDER case studies from key players including: *BT * Vodafone UK * China Unicom * Telecom Italia * T-Online International * T-Mobile UK * Iceland Telecom * * The Carphone Warehouse * Eurotel * Cellcom * Qwest Communications * Telenor International Mobile * Sprint * VimpelCom * *MTN Group * mobilkom austria * Telkom SA * Cable & Wireless * IIR's Revenue Management, 23-26 January 2006, will enable you to progress your revenue, risk and credit management strategies to identify new areas for revenue grow whilst safeguarding against fraud and revenue loss from next generation networks and services. For full details of the speakers, topics and event sponsors, please see http://www.iir-events.com/IIR-Conf/page.aspx?id=367 To download the event brochure visit http://www.iir-events.com/IIR-Conf/page.aspx?id=369 To register for this event please call our Customer Services department on +44(0)207 915 5055, email registration@iir-conferences.com or register online at http://www.iir-events.com/IIR-Conf/page.aspx?id=368 Please quote CG2250CNEM when you register. ------------------------------ From: pattyjamas@gmail.com Subject: Will Going to Higher Speed RoadRunner Offering Help Vonage? Date: 5 Dec 2005 15:46:50 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Will going to higher speed RoadRunner offering help Vonage? Have had Time Warner Road Runner (roadrunner) for years and added Vonage a few days ago. Had a few disconnects (fast busy), a tiny bit of echo (can live with), and today there was a 30 second period where the caller could not hear me. I also have a wireless router-Linksys WRT54GS (ver 4 firmware) but it is inactive about 90% of the time. By inactive, I mean, no one is using it except a few hours a week (Tivo and my laptop). Would it behoove me to go to the highest (faster) bandwidth Road Runner for $20 more to assist with any issues with Vonage?? Thank you, Patty ------------------------------ From: Felix Tilley Subject: FTC Do not Call List Date: Mon, 05 Dec 2005 19:41:16 -0700 Organization: i.delete.spammers.int I called 1-888-382-1222. After I entered my phone number, the voice said the calls would stop in 3 weeks, My understanding is that it is 3 months. Felix Tilley MAJ, LARTvocate Fanatic Legions 1-800-555-LART ------------------------------ From: A Reader Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com [[ 3G ]] Telecom Italia, Samsung To Trial 4G Mobile Handsets http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15104.php Telecom Italia said Monday its mobile unit, TIM, signed an agreement with Samsung Electronics Co. to run trials of the new wireless broadband mobile phones -fourth-generation mobile handsets -at the Turin 2006 Winter Olympics. ... Nokia Powers Eurotel's WCDMA Network, Makes HSDPA Tests http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15105.php Finland's Nokia Oyj Monday said it is powering Eurotel Praha spol. s.r.o.'s third generation WCDMA network in the Czech Republic, after successfully testing the network in October and after entering a deal in September to provide the core networks. ... Operators Protest At Ukrtelekon's 3G License Award http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15110.php Ukraine's two top cellular operators, Kyivstar and UMC, Monday said they had written to the President objecting to state-owned operator Ukrtelekom receiving a 3G license without a tender. ... Huawei Wins New Zealand 3G Agreement http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15111.php China's Huawei Technologies says that it has been selected by Econet Wireless New Zealand as the latter's strategic partner for WCDMA networks deployment. This is the first 3G network deployed by EWNZ in New Zealand, and is the first 3G network for i... [[ Financial ]] NTL Mulls 323P Offer For Virgin Mobile http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15099.php NTL said Monday that further to recent press speculation, it has approached Virgin Mobile regarding a potential offer to combine ntl and Virgin Mobile. ... Swisscom To Draw Up New Corporate Plan After Government Veto http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15101.php Swisscom Monday said it will draw up a new corporate strategy after the Swiss government's veto on foreign acquisitions late November. ... T-Mobile Confirms Support For Possible NTL, Virgin Deal http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15102.php T-Mobile International AG Monday said it would support a deal under which Virgin Mobile Holdings (U.K.) PLC, would merge with U.K. cable operator NTL Inc. ... LONDON MARKETS: Virgin Mobile Rivals Lower On Possible NTL Deal http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15103.php Virgin Mobile surged in London on Monday, but other telecoms lost ground, after NTL sparked bidding war hopes and raised competitive fears by saying that it may buy the company for $1.4 billion. ... Vodafone Confirms Bid Submitted For Turkey's Telsim http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15106.php U.K.-based telecommunications firm Vodafone Group PLC Monday said it has submitted a sealed bid to buy Turkish mobile telecom operator Telsim Mobil Telekomunikasyon. ... [[ Legal ]] Executive says Telenor may take legal action vs VimpelCom soon http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15108.php Norway's telecommunications company Telenor may take legal action against Russia's second-largest mobile operator VimpelCom for its acquisition of Ukrainian Radiosystems (URS) after it has received a response from VimpelCom's management, Senior Vic... Russian IT sector regulator Reiman denies WSJ article http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15109.php Russian Information Technology and Communications Minister Leonid Reiman Monday said an article written about him by The Wall Street Journal was "initiated by an unprincipled investor." ... [[ Mobile Content ]] Mobile Marketing Across Borders - report http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15113.php Marketing initiatives targeting the mobile consumer must integrate communications and content in order to have the greatest impact, according to a study published this week by researchers at the International University of Japan. Based on the results... 3D Pac-Man Game for Mobile Phones http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15114.php Namco Europe's Web & Mobile Content division has announced the launch of PAC-MANIA, the 3D sequel to the world famous video game PAC-MAN. In PAC-MANIA, PAC-MAN can jump in all four directions. Competitors now have to keep an eye out for bonus fruits ... [[ Network Contracts ]] WiMAX Network Planned for Finland http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15115.php Omnitele says that it has been contracted by two local Finnet group telephone companies, Mikkelin Puhelin and Kajaanin Puhelinosuuskunta, to carry out the radio network planning of the first two extensive WiMAX-implementations in the world.... [[ Offbeat ]] T-Mobile Paints a Plane http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15118.php T-Mobile has taken to painting an entire plane to advertise their German network. The company is re-branding an Airbus A319 operated by the German low-cost carrier, Germanwings with its colour scheme and logo. The "Spirit of T-Mobile", as the jet is ... [[ Personnel ]] Vodafone Chairman to Step Down Next Year http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15119.php Vodafone has announced that the company Chairman, Lord MacLaurin will be retiring next July. He will be succeeded as Chairman by Sir John Bond, currently Group Chairman of the banking group, HSBC Holdings and a non-executive director of Vodafone. Sir... [[ Regulatory ]] Russia Min: VimpelCom Has Priority For Far East Frequency http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15107.php OAO Vimpel Communications will be given top priority when new frequencies become available in Russia's far east, Russian Information Technology and Communications Minister Leonid Reiman said Monday. ... Indian Interconnection Congestion Alarming - report http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15117.php The Indian telecoms regulator, TRAI has been monitoring mobile network congestion at the interconnection points between the operators. The operators are required to achieve a benchmark of ... [[ Statistics ]] Vodafone Portugal Claims 50% 3G Market Share http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15120.php Vodafone Portugal says that it recently exceeded the figure of 4 million customers registered with its mobile network, an increase of around 12% over the last 12 months. The number of customers in the Portuguese mobile market grew by around 8% in the... [[ Technology ]] NEC Electronics Develops Advanced Chip Production Tech http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15100.php NEC Electronics Corp. said Monday that it has developed advanced technology to produce semiconductors with circuit widths as narrow as 55 nanometers. ... Fujitsu Develops GaN HEMT Technology for Base Station Amplifiers http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15112.php Fujitsu Laboratories has announced the development of the world's first gallium nitride (GaN) high electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) with insulated gates capable of practical output levels of 100 watts (W) or higher. By reducing gate leakage curren... Keep Your Mobile Number When Using Laptop VoIP Services http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15116.php Tatara Systems has launched a mobile VoIP solution to enable nomadic VoIP services using a subscriber's mobile phone number across any IP network, with the first application as an integrated laptop solution for mobile operators. Tatara has entered ma... ------------------------------ From: Brad Houser Subject: Re: Using Two ADSL Internet Connections Simultaneously Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 15:55:39 -0800 Organization: Intel Corporation Reply-To: bradDOThouser@intel.com On 5 Dec 2005 10:25:24 -0800, jonfklein@gmail.com wrote: > Here is the problem, > I have two telephone lines. I want to make both of these lines ADSL > connections to the internet and use these connections to provide > internet access to several wireless laptop computers. A maximum of > about 20 laptops would be connected to the system at once. I would > like the laptops to be able to use both lines simultaneously so that I > don't have one line overloaded and one underloaded (ie: I want to > balance the traffic on the lines at any given time). > Anyone have any suggestions on how to set up something like this? > -Jonathan You should look for a router that does per-packet load balancing. Brad Houser ------------------------------ From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomni.com (Robert Bonomi) Subject: Re: Using Two ADSL Internet Connections Simultaneously Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2005 00:50:05 -0000 Organization: Widgets, Inc. In article , wrote: > Here is the problem, > I have two telephone lines. I want to make both of these lines ADSL > connections to the internet and use these connections to provide > internet access to several wireless laptop computers. A maximum of > about 20 laptops would be connected to the system at once. I would > like the laptops to be able to use both lines simultaneously so that I > don't have one line overloaded and one underloaded (ie: I want to > balance the traffic on the lines at any given time). Without assistance from the 'other end' of the DSL lines, you cannot reliably accomplish load balancing. Absent some 'special' arrangements, each DSL line will have it's own address space. When a laptop connects to the wireless LAN, you can assign it an address from one space or the other, and _attempt_ to balance things by using addressing from the 'least busy' (at that time) circuit. *BUT* the traffic loads can change _while_ that address is assigned to that laptop. Now, if you're using NAT/PAT on a per-connection-to-the-outside-world basis, the *same* problem can occur -- the "window of vulnerability" is merely "somewhat" narrower. 'Flipping' a laptop from one address-space to the other one is fraught with peril -- even if it occurs 'between' connections to the outside world, there may be a 'logical session' involved that spans those connections. Having the IP address of the machine change _during_ the "session" MAY fatally confuse the machine on the other end. Now, *IF* there are ways to control the type of traffic to/from those laptops, then with _sufficient_knowledge_ of what they are doing, you can come somewhat closer to being able to do 'dynamic' balancing of your circuit utilization. It's *really* easy, if you have 'co-operating' smarts on the far end of the lines -- postulating that both lines go to the _same_ place, that is. :) ------------------------------ From: Vcc Ground Subject: Re: Using Two ADSL Internet Connections Simultaneously Date: 6 Dec 2005 00:14:17 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I believe you need a router that does WAN interface bonding (akin to ISDN B-channel BONDING) using ML-PPP or something. Anyway, this is my assumption: don't know for sure if such bonding is possible with asynchronous links like ADSL. As far as I know bonding is possible in synchronous DSLs like HDSL/SDSL/G.Shdsl. Hope I am not wrong and it helps. ------------------------------ From: David Quinton Subject: Re: Using Two ADSL Internet Connections Simultaneously Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2005 08:50:56 +0000 On 5 Dec 2005 10:25:24 -0800, jonfklein@gmail.com wrote: > Anyone have any suggestions on how to set up something like this? I am no expert, but why not bond them? do this in the UK. Locate your Mobile phone: Great gifts: ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Satellite GPS Can Locate Wireless Phones Within 15 Feet Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2005 02:37:47 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to nospam4me@mytrashmail.com : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have been told GPS does not work that > well _inside a house or an office_; that its optimal use is when > attached to an outside thing. Most VOIP set ups are indoors, are they > not? Given enough time, a highend GPS receiver can typically get a lock almost anywhere that gets sunlight. Since I suspect most VoIP gear is installed and left in place most of it's life, so it would probably work most of the time. I've never had a problem getting a GPS lock on a $90 bluetooth GPS receiver in a hotel, or even in most offices, so I suspect it's doable. It might take a few minutes to get a lock, but not being able to make a 911 call for several minutes after an ATA is powered up shouldn't be a big deal. Who wants another $90-$200 added to their VoIP gear's price simply for the convenience of not having to type your address into a website? > Or, another approach might be for the TA unit to 'listen' > for '911' being dialed, and then instantly breaking the connection and > redialing 911 via a landline phone nearby? If you're wanting to roll this out, and assuming that your ISP actually knows where you are. Many people VoIP over dialup on a very regular basis (PPPoE), which doesn't give the ISP any clue about where you're actually located, but they can still get you to the right call center which is all the current proposals really attempt to do anyway. This could be implemented relatively easily with existing infrastructure if everybody cared enough to make it work. Establish a domain, lets call it example.com since this is an example. You could perform a DNS lookup of a magic keyword "local.example.com" which participating ISPs would CNAME to the correct city/state/country's location. The default record (in example.com's zone, for non-participating ISPs) would route you to a call center equipped to put you in touch with correct emergency services providers. Anycast could be used to assist routing for non-participating ISPs. When you dial 911 (or 112), your ATA would lookup local.example.com and connect the call to the appropriate location. The DNS records returned could be in the form of "TXT PSTN +1.4035551234" (meaning that the call needs to be terminated like any other VoIP to PSTN call) or "TXT 1.2.3.4" forms, where protocols are assigned and managed by the central authority controlling this system. The VoIP adapter would also have the ability to perform lookups for city.state.country.manual.example.com records, to provide the information for a specific locality rather then an unknown/generic record. An ATA might not be able to use this, but a PC-driven emergency system could. It would also allow a user to specify the appropriate call center by city name (for travelers who don't want to rely on local ISPs). Since DNS is hierarchical, the number of segments could vary, it could get as detailed as suburb.city.state.country if needed, the word "rural" could be used instead of a city if applicable, or a ZIP code lookup could be done by looking up 12345.zip.country.manual.example.com" If the VoIP adapter isn't capable of performing the lookup it would get passed up to the VoIP provider (when applicable) and the VoIP provider could route it based on account information if applicable. The advantage of this system is that it takes very little additional infrastructure, DNS access is basically a given already, plus it allows an ISP to mirror the zone so things still work when the base provider is down (so a DDoS won't take out 911 for the entire VoIP network) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One question ... you stated above that 'many people use VOIP over dialup frequently', and that confuses me. I _thought_ the idea of VOIP was to be able to avoid (for whatever reason) telco landlines. And frankly, although VOIP works over a dialup line just as it does with broadband, I really did not think that dialup was 'wide enough' of fast enough to do a very good job. I know that even with a bigger pipe (let's say, for example, DSL or cable internet) if you get too much traffic on the line at one time (for example two or three computers all going at once), as they all contend for space in the pipe, times get tough. And this is what I thought was a chronic condition when using something like dialup to feed your VOIP. Assuming that is not correct, then why wouldn't one simply use the telephone (on the dialup line) to call 911 and eliminate all the subsequent steps in the interim you propose? Now assuming dialup is _not_ a feasable way to run VOIP and that you are using broadband as I (most people?) do; you _still_ have some ISP don't you? In my instance, it is Cableone.net, (a national ISP just like aol.net or others.) Can't they be used -- assuming they would cooperate, etc -- to intercept any '911 dialing' on the VOIP line and route it back to local authorities, etc? The local ISP would be in the best position to know where to route the call, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Geoffrey Welsh Subject: Re: Satellite GPS Can Locate Wireless Phones Within 15 Feet Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 11:35:02 -0500 Organization: UseNetServer.com nospam4me@mytrashmail.com wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have been told GPS does not work that > well _inside a house or an office_; that its optimal use is when > attached to an outside thing. Most VOIP set ups are indoors, are they > not? What advantage and disadvantage would there be to equipping VOIP > terminal adapters either with a small antenna capable of receiving GPS > coordinates (although you might have to mount the GPS receiver either > next to a window or preferably _outside_ with a wire running in to the > TA itself)? How many people would do it? Not many, I fear. > Or, another approach might be for the TA unit to 'listen' > for '911' being dialed, and then instantly breaking the connection and > redialing 911 via a landline phone nearby? I know many people who don't have landlines because they use cellphones; surely many VOIP users won't have landlines, either. Maybe the FCC should mandate extremely low-cost 'emergency only' landlines?!? > Or, have the 911 interception be done at the local ISP (whose lines > you were on anyway) and have the ISP forward your call to the local > 911 authorities along with its records of who you were, where you > were at, etc? PAT] If you never moved from your original ISP, your VOIP provider would already have your address and be able to provide it to the 911 authorities... and that would be simpler (& cheaper) than having ISPs intercept calls. How about having TAs that 'remember' their last GPS reading (e.g. in NVRAM)? When in buildings where GPS doesn't work, it would at least remember the position of the entrance to the building. There are situations where the TA would be shielded from GPS for long distances (e.g. subway rides) and, if the user doesn't need to step outside after those trips, this locating system would not work. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine whether this is more effective or more harmful than any other proposal (or the status quo.) Geoffrey Welsh Never leave until tomorrow what can wait until next week. ------------------------------ From: GlowingBlueMist Subject: Re: Box to Redirect Incoming Call and Redial to Outgoing Line Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 18:33:10 -0600 Organization: Octanews "Chasman" wrote in message news:telecom24.550.6@telecom-digest.org: > I want to figure a simple way of being able to dial in on one work > number and then dial out on another work line. > The reason is that I want to be able to call international from my > cell phone really cheaply or free. So I want to make a local call to > my office and then reroute that call somehow through my VOIP phone to > wherever I want to dial. This way I get the benifit of really cheap > rates. > Thanks for any ideas. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The device you want is known as a > 'call extender' or 'WATS extender'. The name comes mainly from many > years ago when long distance calls were quite expensive but using the > office 'WATS line' allowed a long distance call to be 'free'. Essenti- > ally, call in on a local line, get hooked either to a PBX-type line > from whence you would dial the WATS code (then out on WATS) or else > just connect direct to the WATS line itself. A smart user would always > have a passcode request in there somewhere, to avoid having the WATS > (or other network services) abused. I got one of these devices once > from Mike Sandman http://sandman.com and after a bit of tweaking it > worked reasonably well. You can adjust it via a capacitor on the top > so it knows when to answer the incoming line and how long to hold the > line open, and when to disconnect it. The prototype Mike let me use > was easy enough to adjust the cap for pickup and disconnect and wait > to restart. But the volume level was not very good, at least on my > prototype (some manufacturer was trying to talk Mike into reselling > these devices), and I do not think they ever got the volume level > adjusted as desired. It would not make a lot of difference on good > quality WATS lines or a decent PBX, etc. The transmission level would > go down a little, but you could live with it. However, I was trying to > use mine to connect landline, via a PBX to a VOIP line outbound, and > this was _before_ (or maybe still?) VOIP was able to share bandwidth > with computers, etc on internet and sound good quality. So I had two > problems: VOIP outbound (with the older style Vonage TA's) sounded > dreadful, IMO, and the 'call extender' didn't help it any. > Commercial or industrial grade call extenders used to be quite > expensive; you had to be able to amortize its cost versus your toll > charges; now the cost for a unit is almost nothing; but then again, > so are toll charges, even international ones. You might check with > Mike Sandman (mailto: mike@sandman.com) or check his web site > httpw://sandman.com and find out if the transmission quality > problems have been corrected, and does he still have those little > units. (About the size of a package of cigarette, weight a couple > ounces; just plug an incoming and and outgoing line into it.) PAT] You might want to check out the DialMate CM1003 at http://www.woodtel.com/CM1003f.html. They were flashing a price around $130 when I last looked. You can read the user manual at http://www.woodtel.com/cm1003.html for more information. ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Don't Call It Spyware Date: Mon, 05 Dec 2005 18:51:23 -0800 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Monty Solomon wrote: > Three years ago the company was considered a parasite and a scourge. > Today it's a rising star In whose opinion? (Not mine.) Steve Sobol, Professional Geek 888-480-4638 PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Company website: http://JustThe.net/ Personal blog, resume, portfolio: http://SteveSobol.com/ E: sjsobol@JustThe.net Snail: 22674 Motnocab Road, Apple Valley, CA 92307 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Nor mine. There is no such thing as the rehabilitation of a spyware/spam company. PAT] ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Executive Has an Answer to Phone System Cheat Sheet Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2005 02:08:10 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message Monty Solomon wrote: > To show that automation can be good and turn English's assault into a > business opportunity, Zirngibl put out his own cheat sheet for > businesses on how to create customer-friendly systems. Among the tips: > never hide the option for speaking to a live agent and never require > callers to repeat personal information once they reach a human being. Personally, I repeat information exactly one time. If that representative cannot tell me how to get to a human and bypass the system next time, they will either transfer me to a manager that will give me that information or they will close my account. That being said, I rather prefer automated systems for a lot of queries, if I have a choice of any automated system or a person I'll almost always take the automated system. However, when I do need to go beyond the scripted voice system, I want more then a meat-driven voice response system (in other words, they need to think, not follow a script) and they need to have the information I already gave the system. You'll notice differences in companies though. If you call my power company, the first words out of the IVR system tell you that no human is available, when a human will next be available, then it offers to help you automatically (and their automated system is great, you can actually move service with it in some cases, and I have *never* repeated anything to a human that the system already asked me) This is great, if I know that the system can't help me (or if I happened to be too ignorant to use an automated system), I can hang up right now. Alternatively, if I want something the system can do, I can still do it. Oh yeah, it will also put me through to a voicemail or let me request a callback. If you swear at it, you get a rep right away too :) If you call my telco, even if the very first button you push tells the system with 100% certainty that you will need to speak to a person, it still needs your phone number, and account type (didn't I just give you my phone number? Ever hear of a database?) and a few other details before it can tell you that the department you need is closed, then it hangs up. No voicemail. Oh, and if you swear at it, it doesn't understand. This benefits the company because they can get stats about who is calling and why, so they can look at what areas would be served by longer operating hours, at the expense of wasting a bunch of my time only to not even try to help me. It's about corporate attitude. It's possible to make very smart, very adaptive phone systems which can address many/most calls, but it needs to be done with the customer in mind, not as a cost savings measure for the company (the cost savings come due to lower employee costs, but that should not be a primary goal) ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Who Owns the Music? Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2005 02:08:10 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message Steven Lichter wrote: > DevilsPGD wrote: >> Common sense may tell you that, but in my jurisdiction you'd be very >> wrong. > I was not posting legal advice and besides this has to to with Federal > Law!! Read the other postings that came before mine and after. Also > title 17 of the US Code which others have listed is really open on > that, since as was said it covers mostly software, not music, but the > lines are mixed now with all the online access to music and video. And if the US were the whole world, I might care about your federal laws. Since it's not, I don't. ------------------------------ From: NOTvalid@Queensbridge.us Subject: Re: Box to Redirect Incoming Call and Redial to Outgoing Line Date: 6 Dec 2005 08:12:20 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com A WATS extender is a good opportunity for phreaks. On my cell I use OneSuite. Incredibly low long distance phone rates. As low as USA-Canada 1.9CPM! Hong Kong 2CPM. Works as prepaid phone card. PIN not needed for calls from home or cell phone. Compare the rates at https://www.OneSuite.com/ No monthly fee or minimum. Use Promotion/SuiteTreat Code: "FREEoffer23" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 13:06:39 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Telecoms Turn Focus to Converged Services USTelecom dailyLead December 6, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/zAhUatagCznffBxeIs TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Telecoms turn focus to converged services BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Analysis: Virgin deal would give NTL quadruple play * Verizon's directory auction likely to draw a crowd * Ericsson wins major deal with Britain's 3 * Time Warner Cable tops 1M VoIP subscribers USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Buy Now: Telecom Management Crash Course TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * MCI takes security to the next level * At long last, Qualcomm joins Wi-Fi Alliance REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * TWC opposes a la carte Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/zAhUatagCznffBxeIs ------------------------------ From: davidesan@gmail.com Subject: Last Laugh! Simpson Telecom Reference Date: 6 Dec 2005 09:23:26 -0800 On this past week Simpson's the family is visiting a new stamp museum. Push a button and the stamp tells you why that person was honored by a stamp. The Alexander Graham Bell stamp said: "I invented the telephone." Which was followed immediately by with "No you didn't I did!" from the Elisha Gray stamp. Bell then told Gray to look at the patent number, and then something suitably irreverant which I can no longer remember. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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. 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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 V24 #550 ******************************