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Message Digest Volume 28 : Issue 49 : "text" Format Messages in this Issue: Re: TTY 33 and 35 case and cover composition? Re: TTY 33 and 35 case and cover composition? Re: Renewing cellphone contract--what to get? Cable Modems Re: Dial-up still popular FCC releases on-line DTV reception tool Re: TTY 33 and 35 case and cover composition? Re: 911 service not prepared for new generation of pranksters Re: 911 service not prepared for new generation of pranksters Re: 911 service not prepared for new generation of pranksters Re: Renewing cellphone contract--what to get? ====== 27 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== 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, and other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 22:20:53 -0600 From: "Kenneth P. Stox" <stox@sbcglobal.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: TTY 33 and 35 case and cover composition? Message-ID: <CRqml.10770$8_3.4680@flpi147.ffdc.sbc.com> Steve Stone wrote: >> As an aside, I see the PC "mother of aperture" differently when it >> comes to communications. Early PCs were $1,000, and a modem wasn't >> include and was extra................... > > The first IBM PC I purchased in early 1980s was over $3,000. > Two 360k floppy drives, 32k of memory, and an EGA color display. > Top of the line. If memory serves correct, pardon the pun, 32K was only available on the shortly lived cassette model. 64K was standard, and I believe required, for the diskette based versions with the top of the line being 128K on the mother board. The EGA display was much later, it was announced along with the AT. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:47:15 +1100 From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: TTY 33 and 35 case and cover composition? Message-ID: <pan.2009.02.17.06.47.14.566810@myrealbox.com> On Mon, 16 Feb 2009 21:50:29 -0500, Steve Stone wrote: >> As an aside, I see the PC "mother of aperture" differently when it comes >> to communications. Early PCs were $1,000, and a modem wasn't include >> and was extra................... > > The first IBM PC I purchased in early 1980s was over $3,000. Two 360k > floppy drives, 32k of memory, and an EGA color display. Top of the line. > My Osbourne Executive (circa 1982) cost me more than that! (I still have it at the bottom of a cupboard - it still boots!). The amount of computing equipment I could get today for the same value of cash is staggering......... -- Regards, David. David Clayton Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 21:08:53 -0800 From: Steven Lichter <diespammers@ikillspammers.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Renewing cellphone contract--what to get? Message-ID: <pyrml.13090$D32.7644@flpi146.ffdc.sbc.com> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > My cellphone contract will expire soon. I'm happy with the telephone > set, plan, etc. and don't want to change anything. > > It is a cheap plan. Can I ask the carrier for any 'giveaways" to keep > me as a customer? What are some things carriers typically give > customers to get them to renew? As mentioned, I don't want a new > handset. But I'd like a new battery for the phone, a case, or a car > charger. (The phone battery lasts about 90 minutes talk time between > charges, which seems low to me.) > > Under my previous cellphone plan, when it expiried it went month-to- > month, same terms, but I could cancel at any time. I wonder if the > current plan will automatically formally renew and become a new > contract for another full term. > > Thanks. > > [public replies please] > You should not have a problem leaving it from month to month; I did that with Sprint, but if they decide to make changes to t he plan you are using and you have not contract, then you will have you plan changed. They might offer you case to stay with them; Sprint did with me, I kept the handset I had and just agreed to a 2 year contract, later on my set went bad and they replaced it for free with an updated version. Batteries, chargers and the such are really cheap on eBay. -- The Only Good Spammer is a Dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2009 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot In Hell Co. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:37:40 -0600 From: Neal McLain <nmclain@annsgarden.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Cable Modems Message-ID: <499A5B34.4000405@annsgarden.com> Moderator's Note: Set for separate threading due to different subject matter. (bh) [In a thread on Model 32 and 33 Teletype machines,] hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > In my opinion, the real driver of the communication revolution > was the huge decline in the price of central data servers > (computers) and communication lines. Cheap servers made it > possible for people to afford to offer useful information > on-line, and, to do so in a very user-friendly format. Cheap > communications made it possible to provide full scale > interconnections between servers and the users, and again, to > do it in a user-friendly format. As a former cable guy, Lisa's comment "... huge decline in the price of ... communication lines" prompts me to write about something that's been on my mind for a decade: the cable TV industry's early efforts to offer internet service. The initial effort was led by @Home Network, a company founded and funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the same Silicon Valley VC that had originally funded Netscape. @Home's initial efforts were successful, and the major cable TV retailers all signed up. Numerous pundits had a field day: That brain-dead cable TV industry is actually planning to offer internet service? The pundits fell into two camps: - "They'll never make it work." This camp claimed that the industry would never be successful, pointing out, among other things, that the 5-40 MHz return band was too vulnerable to RF interference. Stewart Alsop, in a famous 1997 Fortune editorial, noted that "Cable Modems are a Fantasy" (written, as it happens, about the same time that Fortune's sister company Time Warner Cable was gearing up to offer internet service). http://tinyurl.com/d2h5ep - "They'll never be able to handle the load." This camp claimed that the industry's network could not handle the anticipated number of subscribers. This camp also cited the 5-40 MHz return band, claiming that the industry would never be able to solve the interference problem. Others claimed that the cost of connecting to the internet would kill the idea; one editorial even claimed that every cable company would need an OC12 just to handle the load. It other words, one camp claimed the industry wouldn't get any business and the other claimed that it would get too much business. One of my former associates, referring to the latter camp, noted: "well, I sure hope we have that problem!" A few years later, @Home went bankrupt, and cable TV companies introduced their own versions of internet service. @Home was a noble effort, but IMO it failed for two reasons: - It tried to become a "portal" like AOL and CompuServe. At one point, it even bought an electronic greeting card company. - It was too successful in building a workable product. After a few years of using @Home, cable companies began to think, "this stuff isn't that difficult, so why are we paying @Home to do something we can do ourselves?" Now, a decade later, equipment specs have been standardized and numerous manufacturers make "cable modem termination system" (CMTS) equipment for headend installation. Just about every cable TV retailer in the country now offers some sort of internet service. As long as the RF network is properly maintained (correct signal levels and stringent control of ingress/egress), the CMTS runs with little attention. Modem manufacturers have proliferated too, and the modems themselves have gotten easier to use. Many cable TV retailers now offer install-it-yourself modem kits. Except in cases of signal failure, most service problems can be resolved by rebooting the modem. Of course, the industry still faces problems today. In my experience, the biggest problems are slow response in some geographic locations, and lack of service in rural areas. In most cases, the slow-response problem is caused by congestion upstream of the cable TV headend. Maybe there's not enough capacity in the connection between the headend and the internet (usually a T1 or a T3), or maybe it's farther upstream. Lack of internet service in rural areas parallels a similar problem the industry faced in the 1980s: lack of video services in rural areas. The rise of DBS (DirecTV and Dish) has largely resolved the video problem, but the lack of internet service continues to be a public-relations headache. Perhaps the recently-passed stimulus package will provide the REA with funds and authority to assist cable TV retailers extend their internet services. As for Alsop's famous editorial, perhaps he should have checked his sources. He notes, "The show operators said that the local phone companies could not provide enough bandwidth for all the cable-modem demos. Uh-huh. Right." Well, that was the problem. The exhibits on the convention floor were connected to a LAN that was supposed to be connected to the internet, probably by a T1 or a T3. Whatever it was, it wasn't there: the local phone company didn't get it installed in time. Neal McLain ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:35:12 -0500 From: Matt Simpson <net-news69@jmatt.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Dial-up still popular Message-ID: <net-news69-0BC423.09351217022009@news.toast.net> Those customers currently on dial-up by choice (as opposed to those who have no decent broadband option) may be hesitant to pay the additional cost to move to broadband. But I don't think it's likely that many broadband customers will drop back to dial-up to cut costs. Assuming most broadband customers also have cellphones, I think those looking to cut costs might cut off their landlines before they drop their broadband service. And for those who are already landline-free, the cost of a new landline plus dialup service is probably higher than their broadband bill. ***** Moderator's Note ***** There's another option, and it's available, paradoxically, because of the success of wideband offerings: cash-strapped homeowners may also share high-speed connections with their neighbors. Savvy college studends and urban dwellers have, for years, been enjoying free Internet access by "poaching" WiFi connections from their neighbors. Even ADSL lines in the bottom speed tier have enough bandwidth to serve two or more homes, so many users who find an open WiFi hotspot just hook on and don't bother to get their own lines. In fact, my ISP (Speakeasy, one of the more cluefull outfits) will even give me a discount and bill my neighbors directly if I sign them up to share my ADSL line! The industry has run a semi-successful campaign to make home users aware of the dangers of open hotspots, encouraging those with wireless LANs to turn on encryption, but it's only a rear-guard action: users with older Access Points that support only "WEP" encryption are just putting up an electronic "No Trespassing" sign by turning WEP on, since the encryption algorithm is ineffective and was cracked years ago, so almost anyone who is "in the business" can get by WEP barriers with little trouble. Even when homeowners with more recent equipment are able to user the more robust "WPA" method, they're usually willing to share costs, so when a neighbor who's out of work approaches them, an offer of ten or twenty dollars a month (in cash) is all it takes to close the deal. Bill Horne Temporary Moderator ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:59:43 -0600 From: Neal McLain <nmclain@annsgarden.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: FCC releases on-line DTV reception tool Message-ID: <499B415F.9080901@annsgarden.com> The FCC has released a new on-line DTV reception tool determine what DTV stations will likely be received at a particular address after the DTV transition. The tool will provide an educated guestimate by signal strength. If you click on a station's call sign, you'll find technical data about estimated signal strength in +/- dBm, direction to the tower; and pre- and post-channel numbers. If you look at the map after selecting a station, a tower icon will pop up showing the approximate transmitter location. The tool uses Google Maps technology, so you can click and drag the location icon to a different location to do a A-B comparison. The results will update automatically. http://www.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/maps/ Thanks to Jonathan L. Kramer of CableTV.com for this information. Neal McLain ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 10:32:20 -0800 (PST) From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: TTY 33 and 35 case and cover composition? Message-ID: <abfc43f9-0512-4880-b82d-5c08b2f3ef0d@i38g2000yqd.googlegroups.com> On Feb 16, 10:09 pm, Jim Haynes <hay...@giganews.com> wrote: > It seems to have been government policy to keep WU with exactly one foot > in the grave at all times.  Oslin also argues government favoritism toward > ITT. Certainly seems that way. ITT came under scandal in the late 1960s. In the 1960s, federal and state regulators were generally very happy with the Bell System/AT&T as it was. Their overriding goal was universal service, meaning cheap entry-level phone service for all. Official policy was to cross subsidize, so that high volume, very profitable toll lines paid the same rate as low volume, high expense toll lines, and premium offerings cross-subsidized bare bones service. This plan worked because over the years the percentage of Americans who had telephone service continually grew upward. Generally, the regulators were opposed to outside "competition" because they wanted no cream-skimming; cream-skimming would wreck the cross subsidy model. Later, MCI came along and used the court system to overturn official policy and let MCI skim the cream; to get the good without the obligations for the bad. It seems, from Oslin's book, that the Federal Govt expected WU to meet all sorts of "public obligations" which were very expensive. But WU didn't have the [highly profitable other businesses] in which to do it. Oslin also admits WU made business decisions along the way, which is why I suspect WU missed the boat in the 1960s. > Or didn't dare to rock the boat.  W.U. could have handled voice over its > microwave network, could have done essentially what MCI did.  But MCI > had to go through a bruising court fight to get Bell to connect to their > customers. I can't help but wonder if AT&T would've given WU as hard a time as they gave [MCI]. MCI was obviously a major threat to AT&T, [and] AT&T saw them for what they really were - ... cream-skimmers, playing by free market when to their advantage, playing [as] a regulated [public utility], when to their advantage. WU, in contrast, was a mature company seeking a much more limited area (MCI claimed to want to offer ONLY private line point- to-point service in ONE corridor, but then promptly changed its plans to be switched in multiple corridors. WU would've been strictly private line). The WU Tech Rev has an article on WU's private line voice service. How extensive it was I have no idea. In the 1960s very large companies were making use of AT&T "SCAN" networks which were private lines switched by the commercial network. (In a business, a centrex telephone set would have two exchanges, one the internal, one the external. To call another telephone, one would dial 8, the internal exchange, and the 4 digits; this would route the call to the location and telephone.) I suspect these SCAN networks, which allowed all phones in a business to participate, were more desirable than a WU special phone line. Also, I strongly suspect Bell's local terminal connections for WU were not voice grade, but lower grade narrow bandwidth lines suitable only for low speed teletype (per Stone's book). That makes it less of a threat. > As Oslin poiints out, charging telegrams to telephone bills was > something that originated back when AT&T had acquired a controlling > interest in W.U. > We can only speculate what would have happened if AT&T had not been > forced to divest its W.U. stock shortly afterward.  We might have > had an integrated and rational voice and record communications > business in this country. Given AT&T's record of public service, I'd say we would've had a superior and more cost effective record communications network, and improvements in voice communications, too. In the old days, piggybacking teleprinter signals over a voice line was very efficient due to different bandwidths, so a better use of the old network would've been easy. Data communications evolved over the 4k bandwidth of voice lines, but a separate pulse network could've evolved designed best for data. I suspect data communications, even high speed high accuracy digital transmission lines would've been developed much sooner as an integrated outgrowth of record communication needs. Cheap cost effective (albeit slower) facsimile may have been available sooner than it was. Of couse, the flip side is this is that AT&T would've been an even bigger company than it was. Over the years, a great many politicians, regulators, and activists deeply resented and attacked AT&T _solely_ on account of its bigness. As a defense to the general public, AT&T could say "we don't do everything, there is, after all, Western Union" and take some of the heat off. Actually, one major complaint was AT&T's ownership and sole-source through Western Electric, something AT&T would not give up. But I think in reality AT&T's real strength came out of its national network and ownership of all the phone companies, not Western Electric, and it could've safely divested WE (not Bell Labs) and still gotten high quality gear. I'll note, though, one thing WE did do for AT&T which was to provide a layoff base; during lean times WE would lay off workers when regular Bell companies were very hesitant to do so. Anyway, a divested WE could've thrived not only making the best telephone gear, but also using its electronic skills to make other high quality products for industry. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:49:59 GMT From: Tom Horne <hornetd@verizon.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: 911 service not prepared for new generation of pranksters Message-ID: <bPJml.92$Ez6.47@nwrddc02.gnilink.net> ranck@vt.edu wrote: > hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: >> On Feb 4, 11:39??am, Monty Solomon <mo...@roscom.com> wrote: >>> Prank callers are using VoIP and caller ID spoofing services to pull > >> First, I don't believe 911 (or inward 800) use 'caller id', but rather >> a more secure ANI to get the calling number. > > I wondered the same thing. Of course, the 911 center probably gets > the ANI of the land line that connects the VOIP call to the network. > That is certainly legitimate, and it shouldn't take much to identify > the VOIP interconnect numbers in a given 911 service area. > >> Third, I believe almost all 911 centers record all calls and have done >> so for years. Thus, pranksters leave some identification behind. > > It should not be too hard to back track from the ANI of the interconnect > with time and date info to the actual caller for prank calls. I'd > be more concerned about *real* emergency calls, and getting real > address information. If the ANI just identifies some interconnect > facility in some switch room, that's not too useful. If the call > center *also* gets 'caller id' info with the real caller's address > then that's sort of OK, and I wonder if not being 'caller id' > capable is the thing that makes some centers unready. > > A few well publicized presecutions of VOIP companies that fail > to cooperate with 911 centers to identify pranksters should put > a stop to most of it. It wouldn't take much programming effort > to disallow ANI/caller id spoofing on any call to 911. > > Bill Ranck > Blacksburg, Va. > Bill They use the ten digit out of area lines at the 911 center to transmit their false calls. Maybe Bill, who worked a lot on signaling system seven, can educate us on what it might take to nail down the callers actual identity. As just one firefighter rescuer I worry a lot more about calls not getting through then about pranksters but if the problem gets more common they will strain resources badly. -- Tom Horne "This alternating current stuff is just a fad. It is much too dangerous for general use." Thomas Alva Edison ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:58:14 GMT From: Tom Horne <hornetd@verizon.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: 911 service not prepared for new generation of pranksters Message-ID: <WWJml.94$Ez6.63@nwrddc02.gnilink.net> danny burstein wrote: > In <gmf2il$9a9$3@solaris.cc.vt.edu> ranck@vt.edu writes: > [ snip ] > >> A few well publicized presecutions of VOIP companies that fail >> to cooperate with 911 centers to identify pranksters should put >> a stop to most of it. It wouldn't take much programming effort >> to disallow ANI/caller id spoofing on any call to 911. > > The PSAPS (Public Safety Answering Positions, AKA 911 centers) > and their political overlords aren't entirely blameless here. > > It should be trivial, and should be mandatory... that any call > coming into a PSAP from a "questionable", for want of a better > term, source, get a Big Note on the screen saying something > like "this caller is from a questionable source. Make sure > you triple check any and all info". > > While that wouldn't eliminate all spoofs, it would dramatically > reduce the concerns. > > Alas, 911 centers are woefully underfunded. In most localities > there's a "911 surcharge" that's added to phone lines, supposedly > to be dedicated to the PSAPs and their upkeep. > > (Let's leave aside the whole issue of whether there even > should be such a special charge as opposed to funding from > the regular tax revenue stream). > > In reality, in the vast majority of cases, that money simply > goes into a general gov't fund and gets diverted as the winds > blow that day. > > Danny That's a hot button issue with me. My county has both the 911 surcharge income and a dedicated fire tax but the council pours it all into the general fund and tries to make the public believe that they will have to cut fire and rescue service if they cannot charge for ambulance service or the voters will not agree to a tax increase and on and on... The bottom line is that politicians despise dedicated revenue that they cannot spend how they please and will use any trick they can to turn it into general fund money to make it suitably fungible. -- Tom Horne "This alternating current stuff is just a fad. It is much too dangerous for general use." Thomas Alva Edison ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 23:35:46 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: 911 service not prepared for new generation of pranksters Message-ID: <c6ednaD_48C-DQbUnZ2dnUVZ_oninZ2d@speakeasy.net> Tom Horne wrote: > That's a hot button issue with me. I apologize: I forgot that I had closed this thread. FWIW, I rejected a different post by my brother, in a different thread which was also closed, but I had a brain freeze on this thread. "They say the memory is the second thing to go". Bill -- Bill Horne Temporary Moderator Telecom Digest (When sending a post to the digest, please put "" {without the quotes but _with_ the brackets} at the end of your subject line, or I may never see your mail. Thanks!) (Remove QRM from my address for direct replies.) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:50:41 -0500 From: "r.e.d." <red-nospam-99@mindspring.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Renewing cellphone contract--what to get? Message-ID: <wd6dnRnjmN4IGAbUnZ2dnUVZ_sudnZ2d@earthlink.com> <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote in message news:18a8bc03-8f71-47e6-9147-8c1e64dc7245@w35g2000yqm.googlegroups.com... > My cellphone contract will expire soon. I'm happy with the telephone > set, plan, etc. and don't want to change anything. > > It is a cheap plan. Can I ask the carrier for any 'giveaways" to keep > me as a customer? What are some things carriers typically give > customers to get them to renew? As mentioned, I don't want a new > handset. But I'd like a new battery for the phone, a case, or a car > charger. (The phone battery lasts about 90 minutes talk time between > charges, which seems low to me.) > > Under my previous cellphone plan, when it expiried it went month-to- > month, same terms, but I could cancel at any time. I wonder if the > current plan will automatically formally renew and become a new > contract for another full term. > > Thanks. > > [public replies please] Don't know what you pay now or how much you call, but prepaid may be a good option. Not hard to get 10 cents/minute. Or less than $10 month if you don't call much. T-Mobile has a $100/year prepaid plan for 1000 minutes. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecom- munications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition 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. The Telecom Digest is currently being moderated by Bill Horne while Pat Townson recovers from a stroke. Contact information: Bill Horne Telecom Digest 43 Deerfield Road Sharon MA 02067-2301 781-784-7287 bill at horne dot net Subscribe: telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=subscribe telecom Unsubscribe: mailto:telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=unsubscribe telecom 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 The Telecom digest (11 messages) ******************************