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Message Digest
Volume 28 : Issue 213 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Re: Cellphone tower coverage Qs
Re: Cellphone tower coverage Qs
Re: Cellphone tower coverage Qs
Re: Skype apparently threatens Russian national security
Re: Per Call Block *67, the FCC and Vonage.
Re: Per Call Block *67, the FCC and Vonage.
Re: Cell-phone generation increasingly disconnected
Re: Skipping the announcement (was Re: Pop song)
Re: The trouble with hooking up
Re: FON, was The trouble with hooking up
Verizon WiFi
'Take Back the Beep' Campaign
Re: 'Take Back the Beep' Campaign
Re: 'Take Back the Beep' Campaign
Re: 'Take Back the Beep' Campaign
Re: 'Take Back the Beep' Campaign
'Take Back the Beep' Campaign
Re: 'Take Back the Beep' Campaign
Re: 'Take Back the Beep' Campaign
Re: Cell-phone generation increasingly disconnected
Re: Cell-phone generation increasingly disconnected
Re: The trouble with hooking up
Re: What is this device called
====== 27 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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===========================
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and the name of our lawyer, and other stuff of interest.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 02 Aug 2009 19:50:40 -0700
From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Cellphone tower coverage Qs
Message-ID: <4A765080.70207@thadlabs.com>
On 8/2/2009 7:07 PM, Robert Bonomi wrote:
> In article <4A6FBBF0.1050606@thadlabs.com>,
> Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com> wrote:
>
> [[.. munch ..]]
>
>> ..... It's odd (to me) the FCC wouldn't have ALL
>> cellphone (tower) transceivers in their database given how tightly they
>> seem to regulate the spectrum.
>
> The _tower_sites_ database is just that. It idents the places where special
> construction has gone on. RF 'towers' are not subject to local zoning, etc.
> restrictions -except- as the Feds allow. (Ask _any_ community that has tried
> to 'outlaw' ham radio antennas :)
I'm not disputing what you wrote, but my observations locally differ. It seems
every time a communications tower is proposed it has to be reviewed and signed-
off by the local cities after public review as I read in the local newspapers.
With that written, when I erected this tower http://thadlabs.com/PIX/LX200/
in 1967, no permits were required. A neighbor has a similar tower and AFAIK no
permit was required. Neither of us have been hassled over our towers to date.
A HAM friend, John Cronin (K6LLK, http://www.mvara.com/), erected a 100'
tower for his HAM rig and I don't recall him ever mentioning any legal or
other hassles.
It still seems truly odd the FCC would regulate (and place in the database)
the tower structure and not the actual carriers' (cell phone) transceivers.
> You have to get "permission" from the Feds to build a tower (over a specified
> height) in the first place. And (again, over specified height) 'operate' that
> tower in accord with Fed requirements (mostly as regards lighting the
> structure).
Just curious: do you have any why the Feds, and not local governments (with
the exception I noted above), are the regulators of the structures? I'm not
having any success Googling an answer to this question.
I fully understand why the FCC would regulate devices using radio spectrum
in compliance with international agreements.
> Once constructed, you can hang pretty much _any_ other transmitting/receiving
> gear off it without needing any additional 'permission' as regards the tower.
> If it is TX gear that requires a license, yes, you do still have to get that
> operating license -- but the 'transmitter/antenna location' part of that license
> application is just a formality; consisting essentially of "on the site of
> {callsign} transmitter/antenna".
I'm still bewildered why the FCC wouldn't insist knowing the locations of all
carriers' cell phone transceivers regardless of tower or other mounting. :-)
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 02 Aug 2009 23:28:48 -0700
From: Alan W <me@here.there.everywhere>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Cellphone tower coverage Qs
Message-ID: <h560h3$3bo$1@news.eternal-september.org>
On 8/2/2009 7:07 PM, Robert Bonomi wrote:
>
> The _tower_sites_ database is just that. It idents the places where special
> construction has gone on. RF 'towers' are not subject to local zoning, etc.
> restrictions -except- as the Feds allow. (Ask _any_ community that has tried
> to 'outlaw' ham radio antennas :)
>
...
> Once constructed, you can hang pretty much _any_ other transmitting/receiving
> gear off it without needing any additional 'permission' as regards the tower.
> If it is TX gear that requires a license, yes, you do still have to get that
> operating license -- but the 'transmitter/antenna location' part of that license
> application is just a formality; consisting essentially of "on the site of
> {callsign} transmitter/antenna".
>
That's not entirely true. In Saratoga (and probably other cities too),
any cell tower that's visible to the public has to get a city permit,
and go through a public meeting for approval. Even a change to an
existing tower as small as modiying the shape of the antenna panels or
the size of a visible equipment cabinet has to go back through the
permit process.
They can - and have - refused to allow antennas in certain locations
that were considered eyesores. But they can't refuse based on any
technical concerns, the FCC doesn't allow that.
Ham antennas are different - the FCC specifically requires local zoning
codes to allow them.
***** Moderator's Note *****
Ham antennas _are_ different, but (much as we hams may wish
otherwise), local governments are only required to make reasonable
accomodations for ham antennas: the FCC doesn't usurp local
authorities outright. Moreover, ham operators have _no_ relief from
the provisions of "CC&R" agreements, which are becoming the norm on
nearly all new construction, and which routinely forbid exterior
antennas. Paradoxically, the FCC _has_ usurped CC&R restrictions on TV
antennas, feeling that the public's right to watch the Bachelor show
is more important than contractual restrictions against eyesores.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2009 13:03:47 -0700
From: Steven <diespammers@killspammers.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Cellphone tower coverage Qs
Message-ID: <h57g9c$e8m$1@news.eternal-september.org>
Alan W wrote:
> On 8/2/2009 7:07 PM, Robert Bonomi wrote:
>
> Ham antennas are different - the FCC specifically requires local
> zoning codes to allow them.
>
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>
> Ham antennas _are_ different, but (much as we hams may wish
> otherwise), local governments are only required to make reasonable
> accomodations for ham antennas: the FCC doesn't usurp local
> authorities outright. Moreover, ham operators have _no_ relief from
> the provisions of "CC&R" agreements, which are becoming the norm on
> nearly all new construction, and which routinely forbid exterior
> antennas. Paradoxically, the FCC _has_ usurped CC&R restrictions on TV
> antennas, feeling that the public's right to watch the Bachelor show
> is more important than contractual restrictions against eyesores.
In 1960 in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, I challenged
the CC&R at my parents home for my radio antenna/tower. I first went
before the city Council, [but] that did no good, so next we went to
court: I won that case and my tower stayed. I took it down when I
moved years later. In 1971, after the Sylmar earthquake [I] helped
many people keep in contact with other parts of the company, so the
neighbors were happy and never said a word about the tower again.
Working for GTE at the time, I was working around the clock, but
managed to find time.
--
The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today?
(c) 2009 I Kill Spammers, inc, A Rot in Hell. Co.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 02:56:23 +0000 (UTC)
From: David Lesher <wb8foz@panix.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Skype apparently threatens Russian national security
Message-ID: <h55jkn$ab6$1@reader1.panix.com>
bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) writes:
[Clipper]
>Since the 'back door' could be 'boarded up', as it were -- and thus rendered
>'unusable' to law-enforcement -- the political backing for the government-
>created methodology evaporated. The fact that it was 'breakable' with a
>"reasonable" amount of computing effort -- when an 'unconventional' attack was
>employed -- meant that -nobody- would voluntarily trust anything sensitive to
>it.
>And _that_ was what really killed Clipper.
That was surely the biggest nails but there were others. It was
very expensive to deploy, and of limited throughput. In short,
its bang/buck ratio sucked.
What Matt's work also did was [that it] shined enough daylight in [so]
that not [only] his cracks, but [those] others [had found] as well,
got impossible to handwave away.
--
A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 02 Aug 2009 21:59:41 -0700
From: Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Per Call Block *67, the FCC and Vonage.
Message-ID: <29udm.58303$ZN.29782@newsfe23.iad>
hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> On Aug 2, 4:14 pm, Sam Spade <s...@coldmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Anyone here have any thoughts, comments, or ideas?
>
>
> I don't understand why they can't block caller-ID.
>
> In my humble opinion (IMHO), many of the VOIP providers are able to
> discount their services because they take shortcuts with the results
> as you describe.
I don't see that exception in the FCC regulation. ;-)
>
> However, call-block is a dubious feature. My cell phone came with it
> as the default setting and I found it necessary to have them disable
> it. Almost everyone I call won't accept blocked calls.
>
I seldom have a need to use it, but when I do I expect it to work as the
law requires.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 02 Aug 2009 22:37:22 -0700
From: Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Per Call Block *67, the FCC and Vonage.
Message-ID: <mIudm.211366$Ta5.58353@newsfe15.iad>
hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> In my humble opinion (IMHO), many of the VOIP providers are able to
> discount their services because they take shortcuts with the results
> as you describe.
Then again, *67 and *82 are mandated by the FCC to be free of all charges.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:01:35 +1000
From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Cell-phone generation increasingly disconnected
Message-ID: <pan.2009.08.03.08.01.34.224147@myrealbox.com>
>>***** Moderator's Note *****
.....
> Now, our society is, IMNSHO, approaching a state of catatonic
> schizophrenia, with everyone so intent on waiting for everyone else to
> ring their Pavlovian bell that we're no longer capable of original thought
> or well-considered action. We have substituted speed for sagacity,
> immediacy for insight, and expediency for experience.
I don't really know why all the fanatical anti-western fundamentalists are
bothering with their terror campaigns to try and kill off western society,
it is quite possible that we are all heading down a path of "teching"
ourselves to death anyway!
If they want victory and control of the planet, they might as well just
wait until our brains explode from self-inflicted information overload (on
the assumption that the machines haven't taken over by then anyway).
--
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, 3 Aug 2009 02:07:05 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joseph Singer <joeofseattle@yahoo.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Skipping the announcement (was Re: Pop song)
Message-ID: <998994.95064.qm@web52712.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Sat, 01 Aug 2009 03:43:49 -0400 tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> wrote:
> One five-second component of my own OGM has always been:
> "No collect or 3rd party billings, please."
> Perhaps that's because my first answering machine purchase was for
> the purpose of putting an end to multiple 3rd party billings
> "authorized" during moments when no one was actually at home to
> authorize them. :-) (That strategem worked, BTW.)
It shouldn't have to be there at all since you can tell your LEC to
put blocks on your line to prohibit third party billing or collect.
The only addition you might want to add to your outgoing announcement
might be to inform your caller how to immediately go direct to leave a
message on your voicemail (or if you have an answering machine.)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 05:47:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: "harold@hallikainen.com" <harold@hallikainen.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: The trouble with hooking up
Message-ID: <70852140-bb36-4377-8680-d42e65b5b6d6@k13g2000prh.googlegroups.com>
Over the years, I've heard of various free municipal wifi projects
failing. There's one a few miles from where I live (http://www.cityoflompoc.com/lompocnet/). I've heard they've had growing
pains, but guess it's working ok now. It's not free, but certainly low
cost.
One approach to free wifi is a community funded (instead of government
funded) project like Fon (http://www.fon.com). Fon offers free access
to its members who provide access to other members. For non-members,
it offers low cost access (something like $4 per day). IF there were a
very large number of users, this could be quite useful for travelers.
When I've been traveling, though, I've generally not found Fon access
points, or, those that I found were dead (I could see the SSID but
could not reach the Internet).
Another interesting approach for travelers is what Starbucks offers.
If you get a Starbucks card, you get something like two hours a day of
access to AT&T wifi network per day for free. You have to do some
transaction on the card within the past month (putting money on the
card or spending it). I was in San Francisco (where I found the dead
Fon access points). My Starbucks account had expired. I bought a cup
of coffee and had access within a couple minutes.
So, I'm not convinced government funded wifi is a great idea. It's a
good project for a non-profit to take on, perhaps getting right of way
access from the government.
Harold
------------------------------
Date: 3 Aug 2009 20:01:33 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: FON, was The trouble with hooking up
Message-ID: <20090803200133.90287.qmail@simone.iecc.com>
>One approach to free wifi is a community funded (instead of
>government funded) project like Fon (http://www.fon.com). Fon offers
>free access to its members who provide access to other members. For
>non-members, it offers low cost access (something like $4 per
>day). IF there were a very large number of users, this could be quite
>useful for travelers. When I've been traveling, though, I've
>generally not found Fon access points, or, those that I found were
>dead (I could see the SSID but could not reach the Internet).
It helps to have a large rich sponsor. Fon works great in the UK,
because British Telecom builds it into the routers they give to their
DSL users. I just had to check a box on one of their web pages to opt
into it. The implementation was very nice, it was a completely
separate wifi network from my regular one, with preemptable capped
bandwidth.
R's,
John
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 09:17:59 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Verizon WiFi
Message-ID: <p062408b0c69c936b6026@[10.0.1.3]>
Verizon Brings Free Wi-Fi to Millions of Broadband Customers
http://forums.verizon.com/t5/Verizon-at-Home-Blog/Verizon-Brings-Free-Wi-Fi-to-Millions-of-Broadband-Customers/ba-p/59727#A76
More About Verizon WiFi
http://forums.verizon.com/t5/Verizon-at-Home-Blog/More-About-Verizon-WiFi/ba-p/60312#A103
How to Install Verizon Wi-Fi on Your Computer
http://forums.verizon.com/t5/Verizon-at-Home-Blog/How-to-Install-Verizon-Wi-Fi-on-Your-Computer/ba-p/61014#A122
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 09:26:26 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: 'Take Back the Beep' Campaign
Message-ID: <p062408b3c69c9540ce30@[10.0.1.3]>
JULY 30, 2009, 12:27 PM
'Take Back the Beep' Campaign
Update | 11:17 p.m. AT&T's Mark Seigel has asked that complaint
messages be sent to a different e-mail address, provided below.
Update | 7:50 p.m. Will England of Sprint says the company has now
created a brand-new customer forum dedicated to this topic.
Update | 5:19 p.m. T-Mobile had deleted hundreds of complaints on
this topic from its forum, and even blocked any new messages
containing the word "beep." But it has now created a new forum just
for complaints on this topic, linked below.
Over the past week, in The New York Times and on my blog, I've been
ranting about one particularly blatant money-grab by American
cellphone carriers: the mandatory 15-second voicemail instructions.
Suppose you call my cell to leave me a message. First you hear my own
voice: "Hi, it's David Pogue. Leave a message, and I'll get back to
you"-and THEN you hear a 15-second canned carrier message.
* Sprint: "[Phone number] is not available right now. Please leave a
detailed message after the tone. When you have finished recording,
you may hang up, or press pound for more options."
* Verizon: "At the tone, please record your message. When you have
finished recording, you may hang up, or press 1 for more options. To
leave a callback number, press 5. (Beep)"
* AT&T: "To page this person, press five now. At the tone, please
record your message. When you are finished, you may hang up, or press
one for more options."
* T-Mobile: "Record your message after the tone. To send a numeric
page, press five. When you are finished recording, hang up, or for
delivery options, press pound."
(You hear a similar message when you call in to hear your own
messages. "You. Have. 15. Messages. To listen to your messages, press
1." WHY ELSE WOULD I BE CALLING?)
I, the voicemailbox owner, cannot turn off this additional greeting
message. You, the caller, can bypass it, but only if you know the
secret keypress-and it's different for each carrier. So you'd have to
know which cellphone carrier I use, and that of every person you'll
ever call; in other words, this trick is no solution.
[UPDATE: Apple iPhone owners don't hear these instructions--Apple
insisted that AT&T remove them. And Sprint already DOES let you turn
off the instructions message, although it's a buried, multi-step
procedure, which you can read in the comments below.]
These messages are outrageous for two reasons. First, they waste your
time. Good heavens: it's 2009. WE KNOW WHAT TO DO AT THE BEEP.
Do we really need to be told to hang up when we're finished!? Would
anyone, ever, want to "send a numeric page?" Who still carries a
pager, for heaven's sake? Or what about "leave a callback number?" We
can SEE the callback number right on our phones!
Second, we're PAYING for these messages. These little 15-second waits
add up-bigtime. If Verizon's 70 million customers leave or check
messages twice a weekday, Verizon rakes in about $620 million a year.
That's your money. And your time: three hours of your time a year,
just sitting there listening to the same message over and over again
every year.
In 2007, I spoke at an international cellular conference in Italy.
The big buzzword was ARPU-Average Revenue Per User. The seminars all
had titles like, "Maximizing ARPU In a Digital Age." And yes, several
attendees (cell executives) admitted to me, point-blank, that the
voicemail instructions exist primarily to make you use up airtime,
thereby maximizing ARPU.
Right now, the carriers continue to enjoy their billion-dollar scam
only because we're not organized enough to do anything about it. But
it doesn't have to be this way. You don't have to sit there, waiting
to leave your message, listening to a speech recorded by a
third-grade teacher on Ambien.
Let's push back, and hard. We want those time-wasting, money-leaking
messages eliminated, or at least made optional.
...
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/the-mandatory-15-second-voicemail-instructions/
***** Moderator's Note *****
Let's all do our part: just as soon as I find out what the "magic"
keypress is, I'm modifying my voicemail message to say "This is Bill
Horne, press <whatever it is> to record, or wait for the useless
message that <my carrier> puts on here to eat up your time."
Bill Horne
Moderator
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2009 06:56:56 -0700
From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: 'Take Back the Beep' Campaign
Message-ID: <4A76ECA8.6070600@thadlabs.com>
On 8/3/2009 6:39 AM, Monty Solomon wrote:
> [...]
> http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/the-mandatory-15-second-voicemail-instructions/
>
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>
> Let's all do our part: just as soon as I find out what the "magic"
> keypress is, I'm modifying my voicemail message to say "This is Bill
> Horne, press <whatever it is> to record, or wait for the useless
> message that <my carrier> puts on here to eat up your time."
Found them here:
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/how-to-bypass-stupid-voicemail-instructions/
Quick summary:
* for Verizon
1 for Sprint
# for AT&T
# for T-Mobile
I had to scroll down past the article cited by Monty to find the URL to
the bypass article.
***** Moderator's Note *****
I just tried using an Octothorpe to "Pound out" of the greeting on my
Virgin Mobile phone, and it worked: since Virgin Mobile resells
Sprint's network, I also tried the "1" mentioned above, and found that
"1" _also_ worked. I suggest Virgin Mobile customers advise callers to
press "1", since "pound sign" may be a Virgin Mobile option, and it's
best to keep things simple.
BTW, Mr. Pogue published _two_ articles, the first about his campaign
to eliminate unneeded announcements during voice mail greetings, and
then a follow-up about the aftereffects of the first article.
Part 1: http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/the-mandatory-15-second-voicemail-instructions/
Part 2: http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/take-back-the-beep-part-ii/
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:39:37 -0400
From: Matt Simpson <net-news69@jmatt.net>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: 'Take Back the Beep' Campaign
Message-ID: <net-news69-A87F21.11393703082009@news.toast.net>
In article <p062408b3c69c9540ce30@[10.0.1.3]>,
Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> (quoting David Pogue) wrote:
> Second, we're PAYING for these messages. These little 15-second waits
> add up-bigtime. If Verizon's 70 million customers leave or check
> messages twice a weekday, Verizon rakes in about $620 million a year.
> That's your money. And your time: three hours of your time a year,
> just sitting there listening to the same message over and over again
> every year.
I don't quite understand how the companies think they profit from this,
unless they're in collusion with each other to help each other.
The pointless voicemail instructions don't generate revenue for the
company hosting the voicemail; they generate revenue for the caller's
company.
For example, I use my ATT phone to call a Verizon customer. I get his
voice mail, and listen to the worthless instructions. I might have to
pay ATT for the time I spend listening to them, but Verizon doesn't get
a cent. So why would Verizon want to keep their equipment tied up
playing instructions to rack up my charges on ATT?
It appears that the way a company could benefit from its own voice mail
instructions are when the caller is also one of their customers. And,
with the prevalence of free mobile-to-mobile plans for customers on the
same network, they probably don't even benefit in this case.
So it would seem that the extended voice mail instructions don't benefit
the company that has them; they only benefit other customers. Unless
there is some kind of mutual back-scratching agreement, it seems that
there is no financial incentive for the companies to keep doing this.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2009 09:03:12 -0700
From: Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: 'Take Back the Beep' Campaign
Message-ID: <4TDdm.43421$8l4.40566@newsfe10.iad>
Monty Solomon wrote:
>
> * AT&T: "To page this person, press five now. At the tone, please
> record your message. When you are finished, you may hang up, or press
> one for more options."
My wife and I have two phones on a family plan in California.
Mine is an iPhone, so there is no carrier message taggeed to my greeting.
Her's is an old Motorola so tagged to her personal greeting is a very
short "To page this person, press five now." Even that doesn't make
sense, though, because there is no way to page her.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 19:54:01 +0000 (UTC)
From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman)
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: 'Take Back the Beep' Campaign
Message-ID: <h57f8p$19f8$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>
In article <4TDdm.43421$8l4.40566@newsfe10.iad>,
Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com> wrote:
>My wife and I have two phones on a family plan in California.
>Her's is an old Motorola so tagged to her personal greeting is a very
>short "To page this person, press five now." Even that doesn't make
>sense, though, because there is no way to page her.
How so? I use an eight-year-old StarTAC and it's certainly possible
to page me through it. (I don't have a text-messaging plan so these
are fairly expensive, and since I can't respond I discourage people
from doing so.)
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | The real tragedy of human existence is not that we are
wollman@csail.mit.edu| nasty by nature, but that a cruel structural asymmetry
Opinions not those | grants to rare events of meanness such power to shape
of MIT or CSAIL. | our history. - S.J. Gould, Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 09:26:26 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: 'Take Back the Beep' Campaign
Message-ID: <p062408b4c69c95d4f0c4@[10.0.1.3]>
JULY 31, 2009, 3:27 PM
Take Back The Beep, Part II
Wow, what a ride.
On Thursday, on this blog, in my e-mail column and on Twitter, I
launched "Take Back the Beep," a national campaign to restore your
time and money from the country's cellular carriers. I'm referring,
of course, to the obnoxious, drawn-out, 15-second instructions that
Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile tack on to your own voice mail
greeting. You know: "To page this person, press 5. When you have
finished recording, you may hang up. To leave a callback number,
press 1," etc.
The response has been amazing. Gizmodo, Engadget, Consumerist,
Technologizer and other blogs joined me in the cause. Radio stations
called for interviews. And above all, readers responded, flooding the
carriers with such a volume of complaints, three out of the four
wound up setting up special channels to accommodate it all.
Here are the latest links where you can complain:
* Verizon: Post a complaint here: http://bit.ly/FJncH.
* AT&T: Send e-mail to: customerissues@attnews.us.
* Sprint: Post a complaint here: http://bit.ly/9CmrZ
* T-Mobile: Post a complaint here: http://bit.ly/2rKy0u.
Along the way, a few interesting developments.
...
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/take-back-the-beep-part-ii/
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:21:31 -0400
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: 'Take Back the Beep' Campaign
Message-ID: <JsqdnZlRMLbxb-vXnZ2dnUVZ_sudnZ2d@speakeasy.net>
Monty Solomon wrote:
> JULY 31, 2009, 3:27 PM
>
> Take Back The Beep, Part II
>
> Wow, what a ride.
>
> On Thursday, on this blog, in my e-mail column and on Twitter, I
> launched "Take Back the Beep," a national campaign to restore your
> time and money from the country's cellular carriers. I'm referring,
> of course, to the obnoxious, drawn-out, 15-second instructions that
> Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile tack on to your own voice mail
> greeting. [snip]
> http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/take-back-the-beep-part-ii/
For Virgin Mobile, the magic keypress is either the Octothorpe
or the number '1'. Since Virgin Mobile uses the Spring network, I
recommend using '1' to keep it simple.
I've modified my voice-mail announcement to speed up the process, and
I ran into a _very_ interesting twist. Mr. Pogue's second blog entry
mentions this as a Sprint option, but FYI, you can also disable the
instructional announcements on Virgin Mobile voice mail.
There was also an option to suppress the playback of the
number-called-from and time-of-message announcements that used to
precede every message during playback: some people want these, so it's
not just a profit pack for the carriers, but they're much more likely to
stretch your cellular bill, since I think most people call for messages
from their cell phone, not from their office or home. I disabled the
feature, since I can call up the information on a per-message basis anyway.
I propose Horne's corollary to Pogue's campaign: I suggest that all
cell phone users make it a habit to check their messages from home or
work (landline) phones, so that we're not burning up minutes listening
to messages. This is a good idea because:
1. At home or work, you have access to your computer or a pad of
paper, and you can write down the important stuff before
deleting the message, thus saving time both by not having to
listen to it again, and also by being able to delegate tasks
right away.
2. The cellular carriers will notice a drop in their income, and
investigate, and figure out that they've been angering their
customers for a long time.
HTH. HAND.
Bill Horne
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:53:24 -0700
From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: 'Take Back the Beep' Campaign
Message-ID: <4A7707F4.3020906@thadlabs.com>
On 8/3/2009 8:13 AM, Bill Horne wrote:
> [...]
> I propose Horne's corollary to Pogue's campaign: I suggest that all
> cell phone users make it a habit to check their messages from home or
> work (landline) phones, so that we're not burning up minutes listening
> to messages. This is a good idea because:
>
> 1. At home or work, you have access to your computer or a pad of
> paper, and you can write down the important stuff before
> deleting the message, thus saving time both by not having to
> listen to it again, and also by being able to delegate tasks
> right away.
>
> 2. The cellular carriers will notice a drop in their income, and
> investigate, and figure out that they've been angering their
> customers for a long time.
> [...]
Heh!
What I really, really wish is that (cell phone) messages could be,
say, emailed as an audio attachment for several reasons:
1. storage for any number of future purposes, and
2. ability to enhance an inaudible or whatever message using tools
on one's computer.
Item (2) was easy to do with asterisk VoIP and I've had to process
garbled and/or inaudible messages for intended recipients more than once.
asterisk stores voice mail as both *.WAV and *.GSM files along with a
*.TXT file containing the caller's CID, date/time and duration.
There are times when a caller also using a cell phone may be in a noisy
or even windy location and post-processing is needed to clarify the voice
information.
Thinking back over the years, I've only encountered 3 good voice mail
systems: PacBell's Centrex, Nortel's NorStar BCM, and asterisk, though
my Bogen "Friday" was a very decent and featureful answering machine.
AT&T Mobility's voice mail system is the worst I've ever had the displeasure
of using, and it's my only gripe with their service.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 14:50:08 +0000 (UTC)
From: ranck@vt.edu
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Cell-phone generation increasingly disconnected
Message-ID: <h56tf0$3e1$1@solaris.cc.vt.edu>
Wesrock@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 8/1/2009 1:17:21 PM Central Daylight Time,
> dannyb@panix.com writes:
> > Seems to me the same claims were made regarding prohibiting
> > smoking in airplanes, bars, restaurants, and stores.
> That's why it had to be banned in all bars at once, all resaurants at
> once and all stores at once.
That is the claim that the bar and restaurant owners make.
I'm not convinced their argument holds water. Maybe.
To my knowledge no one has tried setting up a cell phone
dead zone on purpose (save for some special cases of secure
facilities) and advertising the fact. I really don't see
why new movie theatres don't do it. Restaurants are a bit
different, and I really don't mind cell phones there, but
some do. I would not avoid a restaurant because my cell
phone didn't work there. I'm not afraid to be out of touch
for an hour or two. I could even see some places advertising
it as a feature, "come enjoy our elegant, cell phone free,
environment."
Bill Ranck
Blacksburg, Va.
------------------------------
Date: 3 Aug 2009 12:46:34 -0400
From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey)
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Cell-phone generation increasingly disconnected
Message-ID: <h5749a$d60$1@panix2.panix.com>
David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> wrote:
>
>A MRI's Faraday Cage may help with the transient spike it generates, but
>it does little for the massive localised static magnetic field these
>things have.
It does nothing for any magnetic field because it's not supposed to. Faraday
cages act only on the E field.
>I once had a room full of PCs near a couple of these things, and you could
>never get CRT monitors working correctly because of the magnetic field. I
>wondered about the effect this sort of field had on the humans who worked
>in the same area every day of the week (well before the cellphone
>user concerns of RFI exposure came to the fore).
The cage exists to keep the noise from those PC and all the other electronic
equipment from leaking into the MRI sensors.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 12:35:06 -0500
From: John Mayson <john@mayson.us>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: The trouble with hooking up
Message-ID: <6645152a0908031035g2dc584bem1f1b45539f9646ac@mail.gmail.com>
On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 10:13 AM, Doug McIntyre<merlyn@dork.geeks.org> wrote:
>
> There was a company that tried to deploy something like that around
> here in St. Louis Park, MN. After putting in about 30% of the network,
(snip)
> Maybe in a sunny area it would do better, but we get decent enough sun
> during non snowy months.
I didn't think Minnesota ever got any sun? :-)
I lived in Texas, so my thoughts might be skewed. More and more I'm
seeing solar panels attached to various lights and signs and such, so
it must work fine here. But a hotspot might draw a little too much, I
don't know.
John
--
John Mayson <john@mayson.us>
Austin, Texas, USA
------------------------------
Date: 3 Aug 2009 14:44:57 -0400
From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey)
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: What is this device called
Message-ID: <h57b79$20e$1@panix2.panix.com>
Tom Horne <hornetd@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>I'm afraid that customizing chip logic is beyond my skill set. I was
>hoping, vainly it seems, that there existed some box that took in a loop
>supervised phone line and a supply of some form of power and put out a
>voice pair, dry closure on ring, and some means to signal the outside
>lines supervision state.
Sounds like a toggle switch and a repeat coil to me. What precisely are
you trying to do?
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
------------------------------
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