31 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981
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The Telecom Digest for August 22, 2012
Volume 31 : Issue 201 : "text" Format
====== 31 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Bill Horne 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
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owner.
Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be
sold or given away without the explicit written consent of the owner of
that address. 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.
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Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2012 23:43:01 -0500
From: gordonb.q31vc@burditt.org (Gordon Burditt)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: AT&T sets deadline for 2G sunset in 4 years
Message-ID: <QcKdnYxmb6JIjK7NnZ2dnUVZ_vKdnZ2d@posted.internetamerica>
>>> AT&T sets deadline for 2G sunset in 4 years
> I still have and use my RAZR V3 solely for telephony which is all I need
> since I have more computers in my home office than do most small offices
> and businesses. In other words, I have no need for a smartphone or any
> texting or mapping or app capabilities at.
So what's the bottom line? Assuming all the other cellphone providers
follow suit, is my Motorola RAZR V3 going to be unusable junk in 4
years? How about if I only care about voice?
I actually haven't used it much since I upgraded to a Blackberry,
but it occasionally has been lent out as a 911-only phone. I won't
be that upset if it becomes useless, but it seems a waste for people
who don't need or want smartphones, apps, web browsing, etc.
Gordon L. Burditt
Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2012 19:57:32 -0400
From: Barry Margolin <barmar@alum.mit.edu>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Converting Lat/Long from degrees-minutes-second to decimal degrees
Message-ID: <barmar-282A21.19573220082012@news.eternal-september.org>
In article <k0sebh$ldi$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>,
wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) wrote:
> In article <E1T3Iqi-0003JI-1V@telecom.xen.prgmr.com>,
> <bill@horne.VALID-IF-THIS-IS-ELIDED.net> wrote:
> >Here's a great FCC site that converts Latitude and Longitude in
> >Degrees, Minutes, and Seconds to or from Decimal Degrees.
> >
> >http://transition.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/DDDMMSS-decimal.html
> >
>
> Of course, with no disrespect to Dale Bickel, it's also trivial to do
> with a calculator.
And if you don't need much precision, it's not too hard to do in your
head. 10 minutes is .167, 20 minutes is .333, 30 minutes is .5, etc.
--
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2012 18:13:41 -0600
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Converting Lat/Long from degrees-minutes-second to decimal degrees
Message-ID: <k1187l$eak$1@dont-email.me>
On 8/20/2012 5:57 PM, Barry Margolin wrote:
> In article<k0sebh$ldi$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>,
> wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) wrote:
>
>> In article<E1T3Iqi-0003JI-1V@telecom.xen.prgmr.com>,
>> <bill@horne.VALID-IF-THIS-IS-ELIDED.net> wrote:
>>> Here's a great FCC site that converts Latitude and Longitude in
>>> Degrees, Minutes, and Seconds to or from Decimal Degrees.
>>>
>>> http://transition.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/DDDMMSS-decimal.html
>>>
>>
>> Of course, with no disrespect to Dale Bickel, it's also trivial to do
>> with a calculator.
>
> And if you don't need much precision, it's not too hard to do in your
> head. 10 minutes is .167, 20 minutes is .333, 30 minutes is .5, etc.
I think you guys want to drag out the slipstick that's on display, IIRC,
in the M.I.T. AI Lab: the one that's mounted in the fire-extinguisher
case, with the label that says
"*In*Case*of*Power*Failure,*Break*Glass*".
(Pause for laughter to finish).
Now, I agree that, if I were the captain of a square-rigger rounding the
Horn (pun intended), I might want to have an Astrolabe on hand, or to
have the table of logarithms memorized the way Bowditch did it.
I am, however, only occasionally in need of such expertise, and I'm
content to let a machine do the calculation for me. The late Michael
Crichton (1942-2008) was on my side: he wrote an essay about why he
flunked a math course at Harvard Medical school because he refused to do
calculations by rote after calculators had been invented.
OBTelecom: There was a researcher at Bell Labs who pointed out that
measures of traffic load for exchanges could be done more simply (and
faster) by merely recording the power consumed by an office during the
desired time period. He was told that it would take too much effort to
retrain workers who were used to tallying call counts and using Poisson
tables.
Bill
--
Bill Horne
(Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2012 09:06:48 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Don't download that app: US presidential candidates will STALK you with it
Message-ID: <p062408a9cc58d75c09d5@[10.0.1.9]>
Don't download that app: US presidential candidates will STALK you with it
Romney mobe application even requests permission to record audio ...
By John Leyden
The Register
20 August 2012
Security researchers have uncovered privacy shortcomings in the
mobile applications offered by both the Barack Obama and Mitt Romney
presidential campaigns.
The campaign teams of the incumbent US President and his Republican
challenger have each released apps for both iOS and Android, in good
time for the election on November 6.
Experts at GFI Software looked at the Android versions of both apps,
discovering both to be surprisingly invasive.
Obama for America and Mitt's VP request permissions, access to
services and data and capabilities beyond their core mandate.
For example, each of the apps features the ability to cross-post on
users' behalf and report back to base. One app even has a tool to
encourage users to go canvassing on behalf of the candidate, which in
GFI's test directed Obama supporters to an unsafe part of a US town -
just north of downtown Clearwater, Florida.
Both Android apps slurp the details of users' contacts and log
location data, as a rundown by GFI on both apps and the permissions
they seek explains. The Romney app even requests permission to record
audio for unspecified (and so-far unactivated) purposes.
...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/20/us_pres_campaign_mobile_app_privacy/
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2012 20:55:06 -0400
From: redacted@invalid.telecom-digest.org
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Another chapter in history
Message-ID: <E1T3zDu-0000NU-3Z@telecom-digest.org>
Today marks the start of the thirty-second year of continuous publication
for the Telecom Digest.
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 Bill Horne. All the contents
of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in
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and that of the original author.
The Telecom Digest is moderated by Bill Horne.
This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm-
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published continuously since then. Our archives are available for
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