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The Telecom Digest for June 16, 2014
Volume 33 : Issue 107 : "text" Format
====== 32 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Date: 15 Jun 2014 00:32:39 -0000
From: "John Levine" <johnl@iecc.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Questioning the wisdom of permitting texting to E911 services
Message-ID: <20140615003239.5397.qmail@joyce.lan>
>> 878787 is a short code. These 5 and 6 digit numbers are sold by CTIA
>> (the cellular trade group) and respected by US carriers.
>
>Hi Fred,
>
>Thank you VERY MUCH for that information! What you wrote strongly
>suggests these "short codes" are profit-motivated by the CTIA and
>used presumably by infrequent callers to the codes' service(s).
No, not at all. Short codes are wildly popular. They're typically
used by businesses who use them to brand services or sometimes
promotional campaigns.
>> It is annoying that if you don't subscribe to a texting plan, you are
>> charged to receive texts, not just send them. So jackass marketers can
>> run up your phone bill with text spam.
>
>I've been fortunate receiving only one or two spam texts a year, and
>calling AT&T Wireless' accounting results in a billing adjustment.
I used to care about the money, but since my prepaid phone currently
has 2153 text credits that I'm unlikely to use in the year before the
credit expires, now it's just the annoyance of having the phone buzz
and wasting my time deleting it.
R's,
John
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 13:32:21 -0400
From: Julian Thomas <jt@jt-mj.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Questioning the wisdom of permitting texting to E911 services
Message-ID: <38645186-279C-4818-8780-BB260DA7AEBE@jt-mj.net>
On 14 Jun 2014, at 13:18, Fred Goldstein <fg_es@ionaryQRM.invalid> wrote:
>
> It is annoying that if you don't subscribe to a texting plan, you are
> charged to receive texts, not just send them. So jackass marketers can
> run up your phone bill with text spam.
If you are willing to forgo all texting, you can probably have the carrier
block it. If you do that, there are alternative texting apps available - they
assign you a number dedicated just for texting.
jt
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 10:52:33 -0400
From: John Thompson <jthompson@youcant.mail.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Odds of Aereo prevailing about 30 percent, analyst says
Message-ID: <jthompson-D04CAF.10523215062014@[78.46.70.116]>
In article <lnhv89$1hf5$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>,
wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) wrote:
> >"Go straight to cable." It sounds so simple. CBS may find that it's not so
> >simple to negotiate carriage agreements with hundreds of cable TV Companies,
> >each of which has its own ax to grind.
>
> Hundreds? How about five? Comcast, Cox, Charter, Bright House, and
> (for now) Time Warner. Are there any important markets where one of
> those companies does not control the market for wireline cable TV?
> Remember that CBS doesn't care about market #150.
Yes. Columbus, OH, market ranking 32.
Forever and ever Columbus had the traditional setup of TW handling one
side of town, and another player handling the other side of town. Then
the other player was bought by Insight, then recently TW bought Insight.
So TW is doing what it can to be "the one".
But: During all of this over the last 15-20 years, AT&T went in with a
huge bang with their Americast--and they overlaid cable in the ENTIRE
city, over both sides of town, and competed with both established
players.
Then Americast sold to Wide Open West when the economy started going
down, and Wide Open West bought themselves--CHEAP--an entire citywide
infrastructure and continued to run TV/broadband service to consumers.
Then the original Wide Open West sold to investors and became WOW. So
today Columbus has TW/Insight, which is all TW now, and WOW running side
by side.
Then five or more years ago AT&T went back into the market with their
fiber based Uverse, again covering the entire city because they were
already there at every residence with the last mile copper phone lines.
So today Columbus has THREE hardwire TV/broadband/phone competitors
running through the backyards of every resident.
We now return to the ongoing Aereo discussion.
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 23:09:53 -0400
From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Questioning the wisdom of permitting texting to E911 services
Message-ID: <189ehfm88g4uw.npk5wnfg9s42$.dlg@40tude.net>
On Sat, 14 Jun 2014 16:41:40 -0700, Thad Floryan wrote:
> On 6/14/2014 10:18 AM, Fred Goldstein wrote:
>> On 6/13/2014 8:37 PM, Thad Floryan wrote:
>>> On 6/13/2014 11:12 AM, Rob Warnock wrote:
>> ..
>>>> The 878787 is just the (pseudo-)phone number you send the text
>>> Now THAT is what I don't understand: 878787 as a pseudo-phone
>>> number.
>>>
>>> For normal voice cellphone usage, a full and correct phone number
>>> is required to route a call to its proper destination. I have no
>>> issue with placing BART's (or anyone else's) phone number in my
>>> phone's "phonebook" (aka "contact list").
>>>
>>> So who, or what, is routing 878787 to BART? Would all carriers
>>> in the USA (or even worldwide) route 878787 to BART?
>>
>> 878787 is a short code. These 5 and 6 digit numbers are sold by CTIA
>> (the cellular trade group) and respected by US carriers.
>
> Hi Fred,
>
> Thank you VERY MUCH for that information! What you wrote strongly
> suggests these "short codes" are profit-motivated by the CTIA and
> used presumably by infrequent callers to the codes' service(s).
>
> I've begun additional research for my own learning here:
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTIA_%E2%80%93_The_Wireless_Association
>
>
> and a friend responded in email with this comment:
>
> The carrier(s) translate the 878787 short code to the full E.164
> number in the U.S. Which carriers will be determined by
> geographic area and desired coverage, so, for example, don't
> expect the BART code to automatically work in Oklahoma.
>
> Aha! Another texting factoid that's NOT well documented.
>
> "E.164" didn't ring a bell (no pun); searching found these 4 items:
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.164
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_number_mapping
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.214
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_country_calling_codes
>
>
> which, in summary. "... define the numbering plan for the world-wide
> public switched telephone network (PSTN) and some other data networks."
>
> Learn something new every day! :-)
>
>>> ...
>>> I try to persuade folks not to text me because it costs me. I
>>> wasn't concerned with the cost when I was working (I'm now
>>> retired) because I always programmed servers at all my client
>>> and employer sites to send a message to my cell phone when
>>> anomalies were automatically detected (e.g., water from a
>>> leaking HVAC, overtemp alert, power failures, and more) and I'd
>>> simply expense the cost of the alert to the client or employer.
>>
>> It is annoying that if you don't subscribe to a texting plan, you are
>> charged to receive texts, not just send them. So jackass marketers can
>> run up your phone bill with text spam.
>
> I've been fortunate receiving only one or two spam texts a year, and
> calling AT&T Wireless' accounting results in a billing adjustment.
>
> Thad
A few other "short codes", valid at least on the T-Mobile cellular network
(but probably on other USA cellular networks as well) include 4664, 46645,
and 466453 all of which are (or were) for addressing SMS messages to
Google, 7726 to which to forward SMS spam, and 227663 for texting the bank
card provider Capital One. (Do you see the mnemonics GOOG, GOOGL, GOOGLE,
SPAM, and CAP ONE in there?) HTH. Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.
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