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Message Digest
Volume 28 : Issue 165 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Re: parity of service, was ANI vs. Caller ID
Re: parity of service, was ANI vs. Caller ID
Re: ANI vs. Caller ID
Re: ANI vs. Caller ID
Re: Pulse vs. touch tone, was ANI
Re: ANI vs. Caller ID
Re: ANI vs. Caller ID
Re: Usenet newsgroups
Re: Usenet newsgroups
Re: Usenet newsgroups
Re: Usenet newsgroups
Re: Pulse vs. touch tone, was ANI
Re: Pulse vs. touch tone, was ANI
Re: Pulse dialing overhead, was: ANI vs. Caller ID
Re: ANI vs. Caller ID (fwd)
====== 27 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:50:42 -0700 (PDT)
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: parity of service, was ANI vs. Caller ID
Message-ID: <e5545c68-90bb-4e7c-b7fc-1a48e42ddb79@y7g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>
On Jun 14, 11:42 am, John Levine <jo...@iecc.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:08:37 -0700 (PDT), hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>> However, the books I referred to in an earlier discussion said the
>> newcomers offered nothing better.
>
> Putting nonsense in a book doesn't make it true.
Could you name some other published books with a different point of
view?
> Oh, man, I don't know where to start. Back in the old regulated days,
> everything was priced by its "value" rather than its cost,
_All_ businesses try to charge for _value_ rather than cost, if they
can get more money for an item. For instance, new medicationss under
patent are priced very high until a generic or alternative comes out
that undercuts them. They say generic brand aspirin is the same as
national brand aspirin but national brand costs more. (AFAIK, aspirin
is very cheap to make.)
With phones, they say text messaging is cheaper to handle than voice
traffic, yet most cellphones give a better deal to voice users than
text users, charging for texting unless one upgrades to an expensive
plan. Thus, they're charging for _perceived value_. If teenagers
ever get bored with texting, watch the price drop.
------------------------------
Date: 17 Jun 2009 15:57:40 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: parity of service, was ANI vs. Caller ID
Message-ID: <20090617155740.3991.qmail@simone.iecc.com>
>> Putting nonsense [about ILECs providing better service than their
>> competitors] in a book doesn't make it true.
>
>Could you name some other published books with a different point of
>view?
Not offhand. On the other hand, I don't see why one would prefer
claims in some unnamed book to the observable fact that all over the
counrtry the ILEC's share of phone lines is shrinking.
>> Oh, man, I don't know where to start. Back in the old regulated days,
>> everything was priced by its "value" rather than its cost,
>
>_All_ businesses try to charge for _value_ rather than cost, if they
>can get more money for an item.
Hmmn. Two days ago you said that in the old days phone users paid for
the cost of the services they use. Now you're agreeing with me that
they didn't.
If we review our Economics 101, in a competitive market, marginal
price meets marginal cost, with the difference between the price and
the "value" kept by buyers as consumer surplus. (This is one of the
good things about markets.) Sellers can only keep the price way above
cost if there are market distortions, e.g., price regulation or
monopoly power. Deregulation has had the predictable effect of
increasing the prices of stuff that used to be deliberately
underpriced, e.g. residential POTS, and decreasing the prices of stuff
that used to be deliberately overpriced, e.g. long distance.
>With phones, they say text messaging is cheaper to handle than voice
>traffic, yet most cellphones give a better deal to voice users than
>text users, charging for texting unless one upgrades to an expensive
>plan.
Right. This leads us to the not very surprising conclusion that US
mobile carriers don't compete very hard on price. Here in the UK they
do compete on price, there are all sorts of really cheap text bundles,
and the overall cost of mobile service is (to my surprise) less than
in the US with the exception of the monopoly-priced calls from
landline to mobile.
R's,
John
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:54:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: ANI vs. Caller ID
Message-ID: <2958872d-31e5-4d41-88e0-6fb3ff7052ec@z14g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>
On Jun 15, 2:43 pm, bon...@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote:
> Your experience apparently extends only to residential service.
>
> Believe me, business service _is_ different.
The business services in many cities and suburbs that I know of, pay
only one message unit, untimed, for local calls. In a city like
Philadephia, that would include the whole city. Obviously there may
be other cities that time even local calls.
In any event, I doubt many businesses today have rotary phones, and if
they do, they're not used very often. (eg an old store open
irregularly, or an old dial phone in a back room.)
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:51:34 EDT
From: Wesrock@aol.com
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: ANI vs. Caller ID
Message-ID: <bf1.55d31747.376ae996@aol.com>
In a message dated 6/17/2009 10:55:03 AM Central Daylight Time,
hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes:
> In my opinion, the present arrangements are broken and indefensible.
> I think the Federal Trade Commission ought to order that the
> carriers block spoofing on the grounds it is fraud. It's no
> different than when the FTC orders a company to stop deceptive
> advertising.
How about the privacy of communications? I don't really want my
carrier or ISP from looking into my private affairs, which they have
to do to see what is going on.
Wes Leatherock
wesrock@aol.com
wleathus@yahoo.com
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:15:02 -0700 (PDT)
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Pulse vs. touch tone, was ANI
Message-ID: <aa969879-4fbc-4292-9939-e50a8ab3b7f8@3g2000yqk.googlegroups.com>
On Jun 16, 2:57 pm, Sam Spade <s...@coldmail.com> wrote:
> What do you say to the argument about the cost of assigning real-time
> priorities to the switch's CPU? The gentleman who commented on that
> seem to have a great grasp of the concept.
I'm not sure what you mean by "assigning real time priorities". In
computers, task-switching priority assignment is a built-in integral
part of the multi-tasking process, so it's already there. Also, many
people have commented, I'm not sure which person you're referring to.
> Either hardware has to be present to buffer the origination dial pulsing
> or the switch has to "see" it as it's happening. I suppose the call
> program could create a software file each time someone goes off-hook but
> that would represent processor time as well.
In the time even an automatic dialer could input a Touch Tone number,
the computer could be executing many other instructions. But often
times it's a human tapping slowly on the keypad. Thus, the switch
computer has to always be ready regardless what is entered.
I'm pretty sure a software entry is made everytime someone goes off-
hook so as to have a tracking record of the call as it makes its way
through the switch, waiting for the other party to answer, talking,
and disconnecting. Remember, the switch is handling many calls at
once.
I suspect the percentage of rotary-pulse calls placed through a switch
(of all calls placed) is extremely low today. That means their impact
on the switch is miniscule. It'd be like shooting a paper clip at a
tank, the armour is so thick and the paper clip so thin it isn't
noticed.
Now, in the old days, the difference might have been more
significant. HOWEVER, electronics were terribly expensive in the old
days and the cost of Touch Tone receivers/converters were very
expensive. Actually, they were so expensive Western developed several
models, expensive ones for heavy duty busy switches, and cheaper ones
for PBXs and low volume Step exchanges. The Bell Labs history (Vol 2)
goes into detail on this.
Cheap electronics--which allows for cheap terminal equipment--is a big
reason that long distance calling is so inexpensive today.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:45:24 -0800
From: John David Galt <jdg@diogenes.sacramento.ca.us>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: ANI vs. Caller ID
Message-ID: <h193mq$ifi$1@blue.rahul.net>
Adam H. Kerman wrote:
> The term "spoofing" has been used inaccurately throughout this subthread.
> Caller-defined Caller-ID isn't spoofed unless a number has been input
> that isn't a line number subscribed to at that call center's location
> (or perhaps at another call center of that company). If another number
> was input that's subscribed to by an unrelated telephone subscriber,
> then spoofing rises to the level of forgery. And if it's done for the
> purpose of initiating a scam, it's fraud.
If it's done for the purpose of preventing you from successfully filtering
out unwanted calls, that's fraud too. "Meaningless" numbers qualify, IMO.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 06:52:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: ANI vs. Caller ID
Message-ID: <d977d2e4-9e2c-47da-b502-4042938d3f17@h11g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>
On Jun 17, 8:31 am, John David Galt <j...@diogenes.sacramento.ca.us>
wrote:
> If it's done for the purpose of preventing you from successfully filtering
> out unwanted calls, that's fraud too. "Meaningless" numbers qualify, IMO.
I appreciate the many views people have contributed to this
discussion.
In my opinion, the present arrangements are broken and indefensible.
I think the Federal Trade Commission ought to order that the carriers
block spoofing on the grounds it is fraud. It's no different than
when the FTC orders a company to stop deceptive advertising.
------------------------------
Date: 17 Jun 2009 09:07:58 -0400
From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey)
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Usenet newsgroups
Message-ID: <h1apre$q9$1@panix2.panix.com>
In article <y1TXl.12989$im1.12538@nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com>,
Steven Lichter <diespammers@ikillspammers.com> wrote:
>Koos van den Hout wrote:
>
>[Moderator snip]
>
>> Running a news-server at a university is a (very) small part of my job (and
>> our user community is not prone to spamming). I think there would be a
>> market for text-only Usenet service, authenticated (to make spammers
>> traceable) and for a modest price.
>
>There is a system being tested which they clain will do away with spam,
>I'm waiting to see it.
It's called 'cleanfeed' and we've run it for years. It's remarkably
effective. It needs careful setup and some reasonable attention, but it
does a remarkable job of discarding multiposts, spam, binaries posted to
discussion groups, etc. I can't imagine Usenet without it.
Occasionally when I need to look up long-expired articles I will use the
Google web interface, and I am always blown away by the huge amounts of
spam postings that Google picks up (the majority of which sadly originate
from Google as well). I don't see any of that stuff here, thanks to
cleanfeed.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:45:39 -0700
From: Steven Lichter <diespammers@ikillspammers.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Usenet newsgroups
Message-ID: <W49_l.39$OF1.9@nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com>
I finally got an official e-mail from AT&t stating they were doing away
with their USENET servers as of July 15,2009.
I also received an e-mail from Motzarella saying that on July 1, 2009
they were replacing their 5 servers with 3 new one. I configured
today and all seems to be good. I wonder why?
--
The Only Good Spammer is a Dead one!! Have you hunted one down today?
(c) 2009 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot In Hell Co.
------------------------------
Date: 17 Jun 2009 09:10:04 -0400
From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey)
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Usenet newsgroups
Message-ID: <h1apvc$nq8$1@panix2.panix.com>
In article <bf0615e4-41eb-4172-bd18-8f826f94e453@q2g2000vbr.googlegroups.com>,
<hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>On Jun 10, 10:15 am, tlvp <PmUiRsGcE.TtHlEv...@att.net> wrote:
>
>> Worse, those who *post* from the googlegroups web-access Usenet system
>> are likely *not* to be seen by purists (using "real" newsreaders, and
>> fed by "real" nntp-servers) who filter out all posts (many of which
>> tend, in fact, to be phish or other spam) emanating from googlegroups.
>
>Google has instituted filters. Is spam and the like a problem from
>Google-Usenet _today_?
Yes. Looking over my server logs for the past nine hours, I would say
about 90% of the stuff that the server filters have discarded is stuff
that came from google. That's in terms of number of messages, though,
not kilobytes.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
***** Moderator's Note *****
Are you checking "From:" fields, or actual IP addresses? Almost all
spammers forge the From: field to avoid getting caught by MTA's that
check for valid addresses.
If you check IP addresses, you may find that Google isn't the source.
Bill Horne
Temporary Moderator
------------------------------
Date: 17 Jun 2009 13:48:57 -0400
From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey)
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Usenet newsgroups
Message-ID: <h1baa9$e2r$1@panix2.panix.com>
Scott Dorsey <kludge@panix.com> wrote:
>
>Yes. Looking over my server logs for the past nine hours, I would say
>about 90% of the stuff that the server filters have discarded is stuff
>that came from google. That's in terms of number of messages, though,
>not kilobytes.
>***** Moderator's Note *****
>
>Are you checking "From:" fields, or actual IP addresses? Almost all
>spammers forge the From: field to avoid getting caught by MTA's that
>check for valid addresses.
>
>If you check IP addresses, you may find that Google isn't the source.
Neither one, I am looking at the path field which shows where the message
is injected from. The crap from google comes up with all sorts of different
stuff in the From: field, because it's injected by all sorts of different
people with different accounts.
Hell, for a while we had a huge flood of junk from Google, all advertising
web pages hosted on blogspot.com, which seems to be run by Google and which
has no valid abuse address. I think we stuck a rule in there to just drop
everything from Google mentioning blogspot.com, which seems a little extreme
but frankly it's a wonder folks are even willing to carry postings from
Google these days.
The scary part is that most of the Google users appear to believe that
Google Groups is some sort of proprietary messaging system or a web blog
of some kind, and Google seems to encourage this. Take a look at the
interface and there is no mention of Usenet or newsgroups at all. I think
this in part is helping to encourage their spam issues.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 06:49:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Pulse vs. touch tone, was ANI
Message-ID: <968eb71d-3a31-4994-820f-69196693680b@h11g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>
On Jun 15, 9:33 pm, Sam Spade <s...@coldmail.com> wrote:
> This is probably true today. But, when the premium was being charged
> the predominant switches were the 5XBAR and 1 or 1A ESS. Both had
> origination hardware that had to be held on the line longer to accept
> dial pulse.
In the No. 5 crossbar, only the receiving register was occupied while
the customer was dialing. Once dialing was completed, the receiving
register was released for other calls, and the other components of
common control were brought in.
Telephone equipment, then and now, is a series of tradeoffs. For
example, while multiplexing saved line costs, it had terminal
(multiplexing equipment at each end) costs. Depending on the
circumstances, it may have been cheaper to run basic lines between two
points rather than use carrier lines. (Today terminal costs are much
lower).
The Bell System recognized that Touch Tone made better use of receiver
registers. However, back then, the cost of providing Touch Tone
service exceeded the savings it permitted. (They anticipated that
would change in the future).
Note that crossbar and ESS supported faster 20 pulse/second dials,
which would've made better use of registers. Certain subscribers
(operators on big PBXs) had them, but the vast majority did not. One
would think it would've been to everyone's advantage to give all
crossbar and ESS customers 20 pps dials, but they obviously chose not
to. (This was discussed on this group a while back.)
Also note that even in Step, the equipment is doing stuff 'behind the
scenes' as a subscriber is dialing.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:03:36 -0700
From: Richard <rng@richbonnie.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Pulse vs. touch tone, was ANI
Message-ID: <tcli35truc9umaimtegko2pl0440ob7nd9@4ax.com>
On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:54:19 -0400 (EDT), hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>Telephone equipment, then and now, is a series of tradeoffs. For
>example, while multiplexing saved line costs, it had terminal
>(multiplexing equipment at each end) costs.
An extreme example of this: In the 1950's, for the TAT-1 transoceanic
telephone cable, the terminal equipment would connect a user to one of
the undersea voice circuits only when there was actual speach on the
circuit in that direction. The path was disconnected not only when
the other person was speaking, but also whenever an active speaker
paused for a second. This process was called Time Assignment Speech
Interpolation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-assignment_speech_interpolation
They also used 3 kHz channel spacing rather than the normal (for land
systems) of 4 kHz.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:48:56 -0500
From: Michael Grigoni <michael.grigoni@cybertheque.org>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Pulse dialing overhead, was: ANI vs. Caller ID
Message-ID: <4A38F448.9030201@cybertheque.org>
Robert Bonomi wrote:
<snip>
> I repeat, "FALSE TO FACT".
>
> First, there is _NO_ repetitive 'scanning of all lines' for
> on-/off-hook status. That approach is TOO *DAMN* EXPENSIVE (in terms
> of resource consumption) to be practical.
>
> I'm not going to go into all the gory details, but the basic outline of
> switch architecture is that it has some functions that *must* be done
> at specific time intervals. These are 'real-time' tasks. Each of these
> tasks has the exclusive, and *un-interruptible* use of the CPU until it
> finishes its processing. Obviously, these routines are written to use
> as little CPU as possible, and return control to the scheduler. "Bigger"
> real-time tasks are broken down into "whatever" number of smaller pieces
> as are needed to get the execution time of each individual piece under
> the size of the real-time scheduling 'slot.
<snip>
I have no knowledge of the RTOS or operating code in WECO switches,
however I have programmed hard realtime systems and know that the best
use of slots is for coding shared DSP tasks (such as filters) which
run to completion or exit early to give more time to background tasks,
and that pulse decoding, whether for bit-banging a serial interface or
interpreting dial pulses from a telephone line can be handled by a
properly managed priority interrupt system and do not consume realtime
slots. I can't imagine that modern switch hardware would have any
overhead issues with dial pulse decoding. Even 'asterisk' supports it
without caveats on FXS hardware that detects it. Any perceived cost to
an operating company regarding time to complete a call is also
probably a red herring in today's environments. BTW, a polled
environment is more deterministic and may well be the method of choice
for scanning lines in a truly hard realtime implementation, and with
modern hardware may well require less machine cycles than an
interrupt-driven method (it would be my choice if designing a switch).
N.B. All of the automated environmental alert boxes that I have, from
a variety of vendors, use pulse dialing and do not even offer DTMF.
Michael
***** Moderator's Note *****
I'm sorry to say that I don't know the internal architecture of the
#5 ESS or the DMS-100. I invite CO Engineers to clarify the design
goals and tradeoffs involved here.
Bill Horne
Temporary Moderator
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:31:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: jmeissen@aracnet.com
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: ANI vs. Caller ID (fwd)
Message-ID: <20090617203143.56958340A9@john>
Dave Close <dave@compata.com> wrote:
> The term "spoofing" has been used inaccurately throughout this subthread.
> Caller-defined Caller-ID isn't spoofed unless a number has been input
> that isn't a line number subscribed to at that call center's location
> (or perhaps at another call center of that company). If another number
> was input that's subscribed to by an unrelated telephone subscriber,
> then spoofing rises to the level of forgery. And if it's done for the
> purpose of initiating a scam, it's fraud.
>
> If a meaningless string of digits was input, say 9 digits in lieu of 10
> or nonexistant area code-prefix combination, nothing has been spoofed.
According to Merriam-Webster, a definition of 'spoof' is 'deceive', and
the defintion of 'deceive' is "to cause to accept as true or valid what
is false or invalid"
So it seems to me that most, if not all, of the uses of the term
"spoofing" have been accurate so far.
------------------------------
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