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Message Digest Volume 28 : Issue 261 : "text" Format Messages in this Issue: You Aren't Alone If You Hate Voicemail; Witness The 'Rebirth' Occurring Now Re: What could/would cause a SIM card to belly-up? Re: What could/would cause a SIM card to belly-up? Re: What could/would cause a SIM card to belly-up? Unredacted Response by Google Regarding Google Voice for iPhone Application "If it's a phone, it's a phone." Re: What if People Don't Take the Bait to Go Paperless? Re: What if People Don't Take the Bait to Go Paperless? Re: What if People Don't Take the Bait to Go Paperless? Re: Whoops! Students 'Going Google' Get to Read Each Other's Emails Re: What if People Don't Take the Bait to Go Paperless? Re: What if People Don't Take the Bait to Go Paperless? ====== 28 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson 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 herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. 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. Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 01:39:28 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: You Aren't Alone If You Hate Voicemail; Witness The 'Rebirth' Occurring Now Message-ID: <p06240893c6dcc1b25f99@[10.0.1.3]> You Aren't Alone If You Hate Voicemail; Witness The 'Rebirth' Occurring Now Voicemails are becoming a dying breed as new technologies transcribe voice to text, and email, Twitter and text messages become an easier and more instant way to communicate. American Public Media's Marketplace reported the growing trend in a radio report yesterday. What they found is that in some cases, voicemail never even left the ground. In fact, Lehman Brothers was one phone call away from being rescued through a private bailout, but Warren Buffett admits it never happened because he didn't know how to check his voicemail. Not to mention, on many occasions, carriers have told me that the number one reason people call customer care is to learn how to set up their voicemail box. ... http://moconews.net/article/419-you-arent-alone-if-you-hate-voicemail-witness-the-rebirth-occurring-now/ Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 23:28:19 -0700 From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: What could/would cause a SIM card to belly-up? Message-ID: <4AB71D03.80009@thadlabs.com> On 9/20/2009 9:06 PM, tlvp wrote: > On Sat, 19 Sep 2009 23:17:38 -0400, Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com> wrote: > >> On 9/19/2009 8:59 AM, John Levine wrote: >>> SIM cards sometimes just fail. >>> >>> If you take your phone into an AT&T store, they should give you >>> a new SIM at no charge. Before you leave, be sure the SIM and >>> phone work, and also be sure that they didn't also change your >>> service plan or its expiration date. >> >> Thank you for the excellent advice! >> >> For the curious, the local AT&T Store had a queued service line, >> and after I reached the front it took only seconds to receive a new >> free SIM card and test call my phone. All info in the phone, even >> the list of incoming calling numbers, was preserved. Amazing. >> >> The service rep returned the original SIM card to me, but it's >> probably not worth trying to open it and see what's in there given >> it's hardly more than a thumbnail-sized sliver of cardboard. > > You're lucky, Thad: some phones' "internal" phone books are actually > written to the SIM, ensuring that the entries aren't "lost" when > transferring the SIM to a new handset. Same for their SMS messages. Sigh, I wrote too soon after realizing I didn't have to buy a new phone. Some numbers are, in fact, stored in the phone along with a bunch of other things, but most numbers were on the SIM. I suppose I should consider myself lucky to get 5+ years' use out of one SIM. I didn't realize how many times the SIM gets re-written in normal operation, and that's what wore it out. Even when no calls have been made or received, "something" gets written and that's what happened to me: the phone was OK when I went to sleep for the night, then 3 hours later it beeped, awakening me, and displayed "Check SIM". I'm still looking for a SIM card reader that won't destroy the SIM. With that, it should be easier to backup/restore SIM data than the poor software from Motorola (similar to how I remove a CF card from any of my DSLRs and place it in a card reader to transfer pictures rather than connect the DLSR directly over USB) -- using the CF in a reader is akin to using it simply as a removable disk (vs. the complex and kludgy USB camera interface)). User reports of many/most SIM card readers are horrible from what I've seen so far, and those whose specs seem good are located in the far east (per a whois) and don't sell over the web as far as I can tell from their webpages. Does anyone here have a recommendation for a SIM card reader? Date: 21 Sep 2009 16:27:13 GMT From: Doug McIntyre <merlyn@geeks.org> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: What could/would cause a SIM card to belly-up? Message-ID: <4ab7a961$0$28112$8046368a@newsreader.iphouse.net> Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com> writes: >Some numbers are, in fact, stored in the phone along with a bunch of >other things, but most numbers were on the SIM. The SIM can only store a small set of numbers, compared to the size of most phone's Addressbooks. It can also only store a few items of info. While the SIM's phonebook entries are nice to carry over a few entries, most people have alot more info and way more entries than can be stored on the SIM card now. All the addressbook numbers that carried over for you were stored in your phone's memory.. >I suppose I should consider myself lucky to get 5+ years' use out of >one SIM. I didn't realize how many times the SIM gets re-written in >normal operation, and that's what wore it out. Even when no calls >have been made or received, "something" gets written and that's what >happened to me: the phone was OK when I went to sleep for the night, >then 3 hours later it beeped, awakening me, and displayed "Check SIM". Yes, info gets written out to the SIM card (ie. call logs). Mine is still going at 5 years+ now. Don't expect it to last forever, although its gone through a few phones already. >I'm still looking for a SIM card reader that won't destroy the SIM. >With that, it should be easier to backup/restore SIM data than the >poor software from Motorola (similar to how I remove a CF card from >any of my DSLRs and place it in a card reader to transfer pictures >rather than connect the DLSR directly over USB) -- using the CF in a >reader is akin to using it simply as a removable disk (vs. the >complex and kludgy USB camera interface)). This is where things aren't going to work for you. The SIM card is not static storage. It has a processor on it with a crypto engine, as well as some storage. You can read the information off of it, but you can't duplicate it, nor create a copy of it. It sounds like you want to create yourself a backup plan in order to restore data, but going to the store is your only way to get a working SIM again. All the contact list info is really stored in your phone memory instead. >User reports of many/most SIM card readers are horrible from what >I've seen so far, and those whose specs seem good are located in the >far east (per a whois) and don't sell over the web as far as I can >tell from their webpages. >Does anyone here have a recommendation for a SIM card reader? http://www.adafruit.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=27&products_id=101&zenid=d22be06f9b529959582bef135603ddde Although you'd have to do some soldering on the kit there. ***** Moderator's Note ***** Please tell us how the encryption engine prevents duplicating the SIM. TIA. Bill Horne Moderator Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:55:11 -0400 From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: What could/would cause a SIM card to belly-up? Message-ID: <op.u0mx99zoo63xbg@acer250.gateway.2wire.net> On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:49:50 -0400, Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com> wrote: > On 9/20/2009 9:06 PM, tlvp wrote: >> On Sat, 19 Sep 2009 23:17:38 -0400, Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com> wrote: >> >>> On 9/19/2009 8:59 AM, John Levine wrote: >>>> SIM cards sometimes just fail. >>>> >>>> If you take your phone into an AT&T store, they should give you >>>> a new SIM at no charge. Before you leave, be sure the SIM and >>>> phone work, and also be sure that they didn't also change your >>>> service plan or its expiration date. >>> >>> Thank you for the excellent advice! >>> >>> For the curious, the local AT&T Store had a queued service line, >>> and after I reached the front it took only seconds to receive a new >>> free SIM card and test call my phone. All info in the phone, even >>> the list of incoming calling numbers, was preserved. Amazing. >>> >>> The service rep returned the original SIM card to me, but it's >>> probably not worth trying to open it and see what's in there given >>> it's hardly more than a thumbnail-sized sliver of cardboard. >> >> You're lucky, Thad: some phones' "internal" phone books are actually >> written to the SIM, ensuring that the entries aren't "lost" when >> transferring the SIM to a new handset. Same for their SMS messages. > > Sigh, I wrote too soon after realizing I didn't have to buy a new phone. > > Some numbers are, in fact, stored in the phone along with a bunch of > other things, but most numbers were on the SIM. > > I suppose I should consider myself lucky to get 5+ years' use out of > one SIM. I didn't realize how many times the SIM gets re-written in > normal operation, and that's what wore it out. Even when no calls > have been made or received, "something" gets written and that's what > happened to me: the phone was OK when I went to sleep for the night, > then 3 hours later it beeped, awakening me, and displayed "Check SIM". > > I'm still looking for a SIM card reader that won't destroy the SIM. > With that, it should be easier to backup/restore SIM data than the > poor software from Motorola (similar to how I remove a CF card from > any of my DSLRs and place it in a card reader to transfer pictures > rather than connect the DLSR directly over USB) -- using the CF in a > reader is akin to using it simply as a removable disk (vs. the > complex and kludgy USB camera interface)). > > User reports of many/most SIM card readers are horrible from what > I've seen so far, and those whose specs seem good are located in the > far east (per a whois) and don't sell over the web as far as I can > tell from their webpages. > > Does anyone here have a recommendation for a SIM card reader? There's just the barest of chances your AT&T store may have one they'll let you use on premises. Or they may offer what T-Mobile included in the package when they sent new T-Mo SIM cards for our two phones (and a request that we replace the old SIMS with the new ones), viz., a SIM copier, with slots for origin and target SIMS, and a START button for starting the copying process. Of course, if your handset thinks the SIM is flaky, such a copier may well think so, too :-{ . Still, worth asking about ... . Good luck! And cheers, -- tlvp -- Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 01:12:20 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Unredacted Response by Google Regarding Google Voice for iPhone Application Message-ID: <p06240892c6dcbb0ad029@[10.0.1.3]> http://wireless.fcc.gov/releases/9182009_Google_Filing_iPhone.pdf Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:48:15 +1000 From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: "If it's a phone, it's a phone." Message-ID: <pan.2009.09.21.06.48.13.865527@myrealbox.com> *************************************************************************** * PLEASE put "" in your subject line! * *************************************************************************** http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/cartech/sat-nav-apps-could-be-heading-for-a-dead-end-20090918-fv1v.html Sat nav apps could be heading for a dead end STEPHEN HUTCHEON September 21, 2009 - 11:22AM Strict new road rules relating to the use of mobile phones by drivers are threatening to kill the burgeoning market in apps and services that enable smartphones to be used as satellite navigation systems. The legal changes will affect iPhones that use apps made by TomTom, Navigon and Sygic; Nokia phones using its Ovi Maps; Telstra phones using its Whereis Navigator GPS service and any other service or software that enables a mobile phone to be used as an in-car navigation device. [Moderator snip] Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 05:24:43 -0700 From: Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: What if People Don't Take the Bait to Go Paperless? Message-ID: <9gKtm.182367$O23.109897@newsfe11.iad> Monty Solomon wrote: > http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/business/20digi.html > > Digital Domain > What if People Don't Take the Bait to Go Paperless? > > By RANDALL STROSS > The New York Times > September 20, 2009 > > IN August, T-Mobile got serious about paperless billing. It started > charging a $1.50 monthly fee on all accounts that continued to > receive a paper bill. > > Large companies would love to use paperless billing rather than the > mail: it reduces their costs and at the same time allows chest > thumping about being green. But offering their customers positive > sweeteners hasn't been very effective. T-Mobile tried another tack: a > stick instead of a carrot. What woe it brought upon itself, however, > when it told customers it was time to switch or pay up. > > Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company > Indeed it would be time to switch, carriers that is. This paperless stuff translated from PC to English states, "We want you to print the statement instead of us." Try going to an IRS audit with your paperless statements. Or, try to convince your outside auditors to reveiw your paperless statements. Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:34:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Joseph Singer <joeofseattle@yahoo.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: What if People Don't Take the Bait to Go Paperless? Message-ID: <73577.75315.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Sun, 20 Sep 2009 21:17:35 -0400 Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> gave us snippets from a NY Times article: > In August, T-Mobile got serious about paperless billing. It started > charging a $1.50 monthly fee on all accounts that continued to > receive a paper bill. > > Large companies would love to use paperless billing rather than the > mail: it reduces their costs and at the same time allows chest > thumping about being green. But offering their customers positive > sweeteners hasn't been very effective. T-Mobile tried another tack: a > stick instead of a carrot. What woe it brought upon itself, however, > when it told customers it was time to switch or pay up. First, let me preface this by saying that I've been with T-Mobile (or its predecessor VoiceStream) for 9+ years and on the whole I've been very pleased with the offering of service as well as their customer care. I was not pleased when I heard that they were going to mandate a fee for receiving paper bills I complained loudly to customer care. Didn't matter they were poised to charge "$3.49" for me to receive a detailed bill. I did not give in and I was determined that if push came to shove that I would pay the $3.50 for paper detailed billing. Not because I have spare $3.50 to pad T-Mobile's bottom line, but just being totally frustrated trying to get the information that was on my paper bills on line. Whoever designed their web access needs to do it over again. The present interface is really krappy. If T-Mobile made some action like giving us a credit for not using paper billing that would be acceptible. Just forcing people to do it or else is heavy-handed since we can see the only reason they're doing it is to feed their bottom line. It's not to be environmentally conscious. Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:16:47 EDT From: Wesrock@aol.com To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: What if People Don't Take the Bait to Go Paperless? Message-ID: <d57.34a61ed7.37e9716f@aol.com> In a message dated 9/21/2009 9:54:41 AM Central Daylight Time, sam@coldmail.com writes: > Indeed it would be time to switch, carriers that is. > > This paperless stuff translated from PC to English states, "We want > you to print the statement instead of us." > > Try going to an IRS audit with your paperless statements. Or, try > to convince your outside auditors to reveiw your paperless > statements. I was in the hospital and then in a recovery facility for a couple of months earlier this year. From that experience I would never change to paperless statements. My bills would have been overdue, maybe some of them cut off and my credit ruined by the time I got out and felt well enough to use my computer again. But my family brought my paper bills by and wrote out paper checks for them and I was able to sign them. I know the cost of printing and mailing the bills is an expense creditors would like to be rid of. But no thanks. It's not so much the cost of pinting the bills but the cost of postage and mailing. Note that the mailing itself is a separate cost than the postage. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 08:23:21 -0700 From: AES <siegman@stanford.edu> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Whoops! Students 'Going Google' Get to Read Each Other's Emails Message-ID: <siegman-CC82E0.08225121092009@news.stanford.edu> In article <p0624088bc6dc41078c06@[10.0.1.3]>, Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> wrote: > While the glitch itself was minor and was fixed in a few days, the > real concern - at least at Brown - was with how Google handled the > situation. Without communicating to the internal IT department, > Google shut down the affected accounts, a decision which led to a > heated conversation between school officials and the Google account > representative. I'd sure as h-ll hope so!! In my academic department our 700+ undergraduate and graduate students have been sternly told that our official medium of communication to them, to transmit all important academic announcements, policy changes, requirements, deadlines, notices, and the like to them is email -- and _they_ (not us) are responsible for having a working email address, and for keeping our copy of that email address up to date. ***** Moderators Note ***** No offense, but I think that's an interesting ... theory. When I was an MP in Vietnam, the company First Sergeant would post notices on the company bulletin board, which all personnel were required to read every day. Several of the junior enlisted men - myself included - would, on occasion, be rudely awakened for company assemblies, either because we had forgotten to read the bulletin board, or because we had worked the night shift and gotten back after dark and didn't have a flashlight handy. About midway through my tour, we got a new First Sergeant: a grizzled old veteran, near to retirement, who had seen it all. From then on, no one missed an assembly: "top" would simply post the notices on the mirrors in the latrine. The moral of the story is that you'd be well advised to put important news in plain sight in places where your students have to go, not just where you want them to be. You may want students to keep you apprised of their current email address, but the objective is to get the message across. Bill Horne Moderator Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:40:23 GMT From: "Tony Toews \[MVP\]" <ttoews@telusplanet.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: What if People Don't Take the Bait to Go Paperless? Message-ID: <p00gb59pshodiofr3o7r50fvhga3ne25h7@4ax.com> Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> wrote: > Large companies would love to use paperless billing rather than the > mail: it reduces their costs and at the same time allows chest > thumping about being green. But offering their customers positive > sweeteners hasn't been very effective. T-Mobile tried another tack: > a stick instead of a carrot. What woe it brought upon itself, > however, when it told customers it was time to switch or pay up. Canada Post has been offering something similar for a number of years now. http://www.epost.ca/main/en/home.shtml And you can store the bills for up to seven years which is the length of time the Cdn tax authorities want you to keep documents. So, if you are being audited, then you could likely give the tax folks your account and password so they could check the bills themselves. Let them print out the bills themselves. I'd be interested in this but only if the billing company reduces my bill accordingly. It'd have to be at least $1 per month preferably $2. If they want to increase my bill to continue to ship snail mail, well, then I'd be upset. Tony -- Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/ Granite Fleet Manager http://www.granitefleet.com/ Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 03:10:23 +0000 (UTC) From: danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: What if People Don't Take the Bait to Go Paperless? Message-ID: <h99f6v$pug$2@reader1.panix.com> In <p00gb59pshodiofr3o7r50fvhga3ne25h7@4ax.com> "Tony Toews \[MVP\]" <ttoews@telusplanet.net> writes: [ snip... regarding e-bills and web site retrieval ] >Canada Post has been offering something similar for a number of years >now. http://www.epost.ca/main/en/home.shtml And you can store the >bills for up to seven years which is the length of time the Cdn tax >authorities want you to keep documents. So, if you are being audited, >then you could likely give the tax folks your account and password so >they could check the bills themselves. "Risks Digest", a periodic compilation of, well, Risks in computing and related endeavors, has had many a reference to the problems people have in getting this information. Typical issue: you move your phone service to a different provider and the first one closes your account. Can you still get that info? Guess what the answer usually is... Same, by the way, with banks. >I'd be interested in this but only if the billing company reduces my >bill accordingly. It'd have to be at least $1 per month preferably >$2. If they want to increase my bill to continue to ship snail mail, >well, then I'd be upset. The experiences in the US under the Old "One Bell System, It Works" are educational in this manner. It used to be, yes, children, that "information" ("directory assistance") was free, and you call dozens or even hundreds of times/month. Then New York Telephone cut it down to (iirc) six free calls/month, then a charge of $0.10 each, but gave everyone a credit of $0.30 so you could actually make nine calls. (numbers from memory but the sequence should be right). After a couple of years they got rid of the credit, so you were down to six "free" calls. Then they reduced the number of them to three. And nowadays, it's zero. Oh, and at various steps along the way the charge went from $0.10 to, umm, whatever it is now. ($0.75? to be honest I'm not sure; I haven't used DA in a decade). And for doubly good measure they left DA from pay phones, at least for local assistance, "free". Well, until about five years ago. -- _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] 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 some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. The Telecom Digest is moderated by Bill Horne. Contact information: Bill Horne Telecom Digest 43 Deerfield Road Sharon MA 02067-2301 781-784-7287 bill at horne dot net Subscribe: telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=subscribe telecom Unsubscribe: telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=unsubscribe telecom This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Copyright (C) 2009 TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of The Telecom digest (12 messages)