The Telecom Digest for September 25, 2010
Volume 29 : Issue 258 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
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Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 21:06:03 -0700
From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: AT&T instrumental in cosmic microwave background discovery in 1964
Message-ID: <4C9C23AB.2010401@thadlabs.com>
On 9/23/2010 3:04 PM, AES wrote:
> In article <4C9AA2D5.4020606@thadlabs.com>,
> Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com> wrote:
>
>> " On May 8th I traveled to New Jersey to see the horn antenna
>> " with which Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered the
>> " cosmic microwave background in 1964, establishing the reality
>> " of the Big Bang. The horn is frequently mentioned and pictured
>> " in histories of science and astronomy, it's a registered
>> " National History Landmark, and I figured it was time I had a
>> " look at it. The experience left me disconcerted.
>> "
>
> A bit more detail is given in slides 18-23 of a 14 MB PDF at:
>
> http://www.stanford.edu/~siegman/aes_laser_history_talks/AES%20Laser%20History%20Talk%202010%20AFOSR%20Wash%20DC%2071pp.pdf
>
> [I'm not certain this is the exact horn used by Penzias and Wilson, but
> if not, then it's a slightly earlier horn and microwave solid-state
> maser system also at Holmdel. Also the masers in the cutaway drawings
> are from my lab at Stanford University, but are very similar to those
> that Bell Labs was making about the same time.
That's a fascinating overview of laser history and several of the
slides reminded me of something bizarre regarding telephony.
Trans-oceanic telephone cabling used to be humongous in girth and I
was amazed such cabling even existed. Later, the original cabling
was replaced with its fiber counterparts and strange cuts/disconnects
began plaguing the system in the vicinity of Hawaii.
Long story short, the fiber replacement cables are relatively small
diameter and within the jaw capacity of great white sharks who are
also able to sense electrical fields. The story I heard has the sharks
becoming angry with the electrical fields surrounding the cable (the
electrical power is needed for fiber repeaters) and they'd bite down on
it/them thus severing the cabling. Newer replacement cabling has shields
to thwart sharks.
An article here reveals that great white sharks annually migrate between
Hawaii and Northern California per "a landmark study released last year
by Stanford University":
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/15/MN9P1FA20L.DTL
And per Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_white_shark:
" [...]
" Great white sharks, like all other sharks, have an extra sense
" given by the Ampullae of Lorenzini, which enables them to detect the
" electromagnetic field emitted by the movement of living animals. Every
" time a living creature moves it generates an electrical field and great
" whites are so sensitive they can detect half a billionth of a volt.
" Even heart beats emit a very faint electrical pulse. If close enough
" the shark can detect even that faint electrical pulse.
So the story of great white sharks severing the transoceanic cabling
seems credible.
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 00:07:02 -0500
From: Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon now demanding surcharges to pay them...
Message-ID: <9PqdnRXWb5VrrAHRnZ2dnUVZ_omdnZ2d@posted.visi>
On 9/22/2010 1:05 PM, Robert Bonomi wrote:
> Chances are good that that policy is contrary to VZ's agreement with the
> credit-card companies. EVERY merchant account I've seen expressly forbade
> "charging extra" for payment by credit-card. Complaints to the card issuer
> could put VZ at risk of losing the ability to take credit card payment
> _at_all_. Wonder how they'd like -that-. <evil grin>
>
> CC issuers really don't like it when merchants do things like that.
Do they really care that much? It seems common. Maybe the big
merchants get an exception? (Where I am, the electric utility charges
~$4 extra to pay online by cc, though they seem to do it through a
link to a different website, whether that's an outside vendor or just
a misdirection.)
Dave
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 00:22:10 -0500
From: Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon now demanding surcharges to pay them...
Message-ID: <-eqdnaQMM9EeqAHRnZ2dnUVZ_tOdnZ2d@posted.visi>
On 9/23/2010 6:50 PM, Robert Neville wrote:
> bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote:
>
>> Chances are good that that policy is contrary to VZ's agreement
>> with the credit-card companies. EVERY merchant account I've
>> seen expressly forbade "charging extra" for payment by
>> credit-card...
> While that used to be true in the US, the children in the current
> administration decided they know better and overruled those rules:
>
> http://www.bankrate.com/financing/credit-cards/what-the-dodd-frank-act-means-for-you/
>
>
I'm not sure that link applies. It says:
> Payment networks also can't restrict retailers from offering
> incentives for using any general form of payment over another, such
> as cash instead of cards, or debit cards instead of credit cards.
> Basically, merchants can offer discounts as long as they those
> discounts don't discriminate towards cards issued by particular
> financial institutions.
It entitles merchants to offer discounts for particular types of
payment, but doesn't mention surcharges.
Of course, IANAL and the effect might be different from what it appears.
Dave
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 02:12:23 -0700
From: Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon now demanding surcharges to pay them...
Message-ID: <F8GdnQuCmIjl9gHRnZ2dnUVZ_vSdnZ2d@giganews.com>
John Levine wrote:
>>I doubt they would charge if you pay using a major bank's online bill
>>payment service. The bank pays the large vendors via the automated
>>clearing house (ACH, or electronic debit) and small vendors via bank check.
>
>
> Probably not, but then you don't get a month's float, the ability to
> challenge wrong payments, and the various rebates, air miles, and
> other trinkets that credit cards offer.
>
> R's,
> John
>
>
>
Month's float isn't worth the effort these days.
As to wrong payments (charges?) you don't pay the bill by on-line
banking if there is a dispute. All the other "goodies" to which you
refer do come at a price.
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 08:01:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Hacker gets ten years for service theft
Message-ID: <f52135e4-d742-468d-96d7-f68afec3aeaa@l17g2000vbf.googlegroups.com>
nj.com reported that a Miami man was sentenced to 10 years in prison
today for running a computer hacking scheme that stole more than $1
million in long-distance internet telephone service from companies.
for full article please see:
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/09/hacker_gets_10_years_for_phone.html
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 20:59:18 -0700
From: Richard <rng@richbonnie.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: 1930, when the US Senate tried to ban dial telephones
Message-ID: <8e8o9692794s6ofiphhiorgvl8abskmo13@4ax.com>
On Fri, 24 Sep 2010 09:56:28 +0800, John Mayson <john@mayson.us>
wrote:
>Reminds me of the arguments about why mere citizens should not be
>allowed to pump their own gas in a couple of US states. Or of the
>California assemblywoman who, in response to GMail, wanted to forbid
>computers from reading any part of an email.
New Jersey and Oregon still forbid citizens pumping their own gas.
http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100727/NEWS/7270320
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 16:05:29 +1000
From: David Clayton <dcstar@NOSPAM.myrealbox.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon now demanding surcharges to pay them...
Message-ID: <pan.2010.09.24.06.05.27.215726@NOSPAM.myrealbox.com>
On Thu, 23 Sep 2010 17:50:55 -0600, Robert Neville wrote:
> bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote:
>
>>Chances are good that that policy is contrary to VZ's agreement with the
>>credit-card companies. EVERY merchant account I've seen expressly
>>forbade "charging extra" for payment by credit-card. Complaints to the
>>card issuer could put VZ at risk of losing the ability to take credit
>>card payment _at_all_. Wonder how they'd like -that-. <evil grin>
>>
>>CC issuers really don't like it when merchants do things like that.
>
> While that used to be true in the US, the children in the current
> administration decided they know better and overruled those rules:
>
>
http://www.bankrate.com/financing/credit-cards/what-the-dodd-frank-act-means-
for-you/
Why do people think they have an entitlement to one particular payment
method that may be convenient for them personally, but incurs additional
costs compared to other methods?
If a company (telephone or whatever) determines that something costs more,
then are not they entitled to recover those costs directly from those who
incur them? If they don't then it obviously means that other customers of
that company are unfairly subsidising them when they pay with lower cost
alternatives for exactly the same service/product.
In the ideal world people using the same service would have to pay the
exact difference in costs for the various methods of payment but in
reality most companies try to hide some of this for the sake of
simplicity, but their comes a time in highly competitive industries where
this sort of cross-subsidisation isn't sustainable (or appropriate).
I used to work in the retail area and it wasn't really fair to charge
cash customers the same as credit card customers - especially when some
cards incurred significant extra fees because they were tied to reward
schemes where the issuing banks would charge the merchant extra fees to
recover these costs.
When you are looking at gross margins of just a few percent, then a Credit
Card fee of 1% or so on sales becomes a significant factor in the
viability of a business.
--
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: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 06:53:42 -0700 (PDT)
From: Lisa or Jeff <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon now demanding surcharges to pay them...
Message-ID: <93ff416c-e328-4830-a55f-679888e9651d@l17g2000vbf.googlegroups.com>
On Sep 23, 8:41 pm, Wes Leatherock <Wesr...@aol.com> wrote:
> > CC issuers really don't like it when merchants do things like
> > that. [surcharges]
> The recent consumer protections for credit card users specifically
> prohibit those provisions in merchant constracts.
I think the way merchants get around that is by using an outside
vendor to process the credit card payment. The fee is paid to the
separate vendor, not the merchant.
I still pay my bills by mailing in a check. I don't like the idea of
allowing them automatic pay direct from my checking account. While
foul-ups are rare, they do happen and I don't want some huge chunk of
money taken out until the billing dispute is resolved.
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 07:06:33 -0700 (PDT)
From: annie <dmr436@gmail.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: TV comedy about outsourced telephone call center
Message-ID: <bff02668-bced-4c67-8292-516c36d6c565@u13g2000vbo.googlegroups.com>
Having people lose their jobs to a low-price outsourcer in India is
not funny, sorry! :(
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