The Telecom Digest for October 16, 2010
Volume 29 : Issue 278 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
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Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 18:11:25 -0600
From: Fred Atkinson <fatkinson.remove-this@and-this-too.mishmash.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: IVR Hell
Message-ID: <20101015001232.62827.qmail@gal.iecc.com>
At 02:42 PM 10/14/2010, you wrote:
>And one service that has developed this to a fine art is satellite
>radio, XM and Sirius, now a monopoly. It's easy to add a service,
>but nearly impossible to stop or change a service and/or billing.
>
>Fortunately, satellite radio is not a necessity of life.
>
>--
>Paul
>
>***** Moderator's Note *****
>
>XM and Sirius have combined? What did they do with the spare
>satellites?
>
>Bill Horne
>Moderator
Paul,
Not quite. Though they are now both owned by the same
company, they are still operating as separate systems.
They intend to merge them but not as yet. You can't
activiate a Sirius radio from an XM account or vice versa. They are
working towards changing it so it doesn't matter which type of
account or which type of radio.
I just purchased a new Honda Fit. The Dealer promised to
put an aftermarket XM Radio in it. I specified XM.
He had heard about the merger and assumed that there was no
difference between XM and Sirius. Not quite.
So guess what was in my new car when I arrived to pick it
up? You guessed it! Sirius.
I had to explain to him why it was a problem as I had an XM
account and not a Sirius account.
He let me use his office phone. I called Sirius to see
about getting an account (they are more expensive, by the way). When
they told me that they required auto pay, I told them that I wouldn't
subscribe if that was required. The radio never got activated. I've
had problems with auto pay in the past.
Additionally, the installer obviously wasn't a true
professional and I didn't find that out until the next morning. When
I drove through the window service place where I get my decaffeinated
and bagel on the way to work the next morning, I tried to put the
coffee cup in the cup holder.
The control head was mounted so that it completely blocked
use of the cupholders on the transmission hump. I spilled coffee
all over my pants on the way to work because I had to hold the coffee
cup in my hand while driving.
I emailed the salesman and told him that radio had to go. I
also told him that a true professional wouldn't have performed an
installation like that. I recommended that he not let that installer
put radios in his customer's vehicles again.
He told me to go to Best Buy and get what I wanted. He let
me return the Sirius radio to him and he sent me a check in refund.
I activated XM in my car that evening on my existing account.
By the way, XM gives discounts for multiple radios on your
account. So if you have other family members that want one, you save
money per radio. I don't know if Sirius does that or not.
Fred
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 01:50:10 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: The Intimate Social Graph
Message-ID: <p06240822c8dd9b0bcfc8@[192.168.180.230]>
The Intimate Social Graph
How private are the most private communications you have on social
networking sites?
by Keith Dawson
October 14, 2010
For a number of years I have had a privacy concern that is just now
beginning to peep into view on the Internet at large. Around 2001 I
spent some time in a casual multiuser game hosted by PopCap. It
featured a way that two players could chat in a private space while
playing the game. The game was centrally hosted: each user's local
Java applet talked with a PopCap server, so every keystroke typed in
those private conversations was sent up to the server and back out to
the other party's client. I wondered at the time: were those
conversations being stored? How about the metadata describing which
players talked privately with which others, and how often? If so,
then from what I observed, the resulting log files could have kept an
army of divorce lawyers gainfully employed for years to come.
Fast-forward to 2010. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and MySpace each
sit on a rapidly expanding treasure-trove of data about the users who
frequent their services. Aspects of this data have value to different
audiences. Knowledge of users' interests, likes, and enthusiasms
clearly is coveted for targeting advertising. Knowledge of the users'
"social graphs" -- who connects to whom and in what manner of
relationship -- may be of interest to social science researchers, and
occasionally to law enforcement. But what of the "intimate social
graph?" All these services allow users to communicate privately with
one another. The social networking services store not only the graph
metadata (who communicates with whom and when), but also the content
of these private communications. What happens when government agents
-- or divorce lawyers -- come calling?
...
http://www.itworld.com/legal/124032/the-intimate-social-graph
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 01:01:14 -0700
From: Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: No dial tone, no service, no respect -- not even for Alexander Graham Bell descendant
Message-ID: <s-2dnYryvunXlyXRnZ2dnUVZ_sOdnZ2d@giganews.com>
GlowingBlueMist wrote:
>
> Later when my father called to have the power restored to the house four
> truck loads of people arrived on site. All but two were just standing
> around watching while two technicians actually did the work...
>
Sounds like the model for California state government.
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:22:03 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Farewell, GOOG-411
Message-ID: <p06240828c8de0592db95@[192.168.180.230]>
Farewell, GOOG-411
David Pogue
OCTOBER 14, 2010
Oh, it's a sad day in techland.
On Nov. 12, Google will turn off 800-GOOG-411 forever.
It was one of the best, juiciest, most useful services in all
phonedom. It didn't cost anything. It didn't require a smartphone.
Its accuracy was uncanny.
In case you missed it, GOOG-411 is a free, voice-activated
directory-assistance service. You say the business name or category
you want-"Freestyle Gym," "taxi," "Sakura restaurant," "hospital,"
whatever - and the city and state. In one second, the guy's voice
starts reading a list of the best eight results.
You interrupt him by saying, "number two" or whatever. Then you can
say "details" to hear him read you the address and phone number. Or
you can say "text message" to have him text you the information. But
if you just hang on, he connects your call for free.
You never actually hear the phone number. But why should you care?
You just want to call the place, right? It's like having a little
assistant dude back at HQ connecting your calls - and if you're
driving, which you often are when you use this service, never once
did you take your eyes off the road. Or even write anything down.
People who knew about GOOG-411 adored it. But Google is about to turn
it off forever.
The blog gives no explanation. Instead, it simply says "Goodbye to an
old friend" and suggests that you use one of Google's voice-driven
tools on an Android cellphone instead.
Well, that's great if you have an Android cellphone. What about the
95 percent of us who don't?
I asked Google why Google pulled the plug. The PR person's (non)-reply:
...
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/farewell-goog-411/
***** Moderator's Note *****
I don't think it's that great. The service requires that you give it
a lot of info, and often requires repeats, and then runs down a list
of "the top eight possibilities" - but once you choose one, there's no
way to go back and try another without redialing and repeating all the
info again.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 21:50:58 +0000 (UTC)
From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: IVR Hell
Message-ID: <i97u02$29ee$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>
In article <Xns9E11A9FA7D931Senex@188.40.43.230>, Bill Horne wrote:
>***** Moderator's Note *****
>
>XM and Sirius have combined? What did they do with the spare
>satellites?
There's nothing spare about them. Both of the XM satellites are
required to operate the "XM" service, and all of the Sirius satellites
(there are more of them as they are in a non-geosynchronous orbit) are
required to operate the "Sirius" service. In Canada, the company is
in two different partnerships with Canadian companies to provide
service there. They never made good on the legal requirement to have
"interoperable" receiver designs back when the services started, so to
shut down one set of satellites would orphan half their customer base
(and their churn is bad enough as it is).
They have different sports programming on the two systems: XM has
baseball and hockey, Sirius has football and NASCAR, IIRC. Selected
games from each service are available on the other for and additional
subscription fee.
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wollman@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
***** Moderator's Note *****
I didn't know that Sirius was using Low Earth Orbit satellites: how
many birds do they have in their constallation?
And, why did XM decide that the Clarke Belt was "close enough"?
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:18:44 -0500
From: "David" <someone@somewhere.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: IVR Hell
Message-ID: <i99nsb$8b5$1@news.eternal-september.org>
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>
> I didn't know that Sirius was using Low Earth Orbit satellites:
> how
> many birds do they have in their constellation?
>
> And, why did XM decide that the Clarke Belt was "close enough"?
For Sirius, they have three. Look up 'Tundra orbit' for details. As
to your second question, I have no idea, but the Clarke Belt is a long
haul and I do not know how they get enough signal from there for it to
work with the tiny receive antennas they use.
David
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 13:52:05 +1100
From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: IVR Hell
Message-ID: <pan.2010.10.15.02.52.04.560670@myrealbox.com>
On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 20:21:22 +0100, Stephen wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 10:37:19 -0400, Randall
> <rvh40.remove-this@and-this-too.insightbb.com> wrote:
>
> [Moderator snip]
>
>>In my experience the companies providing the worst "IVR Hell" experience
>>are those with monopolies either de jure or de facto.
>>
>>If Wal*Mart makes it too much trouble to buy groceries from them,
>>there's a Meijer next door who'll be happy to have my trade. If I have
>>an issue with my electrical bill, I can't really give my business to
>>their competitor.
>
> The UK has a deregulated electricity (and gas) market. You can do
> exactly that.
>
> The companies all have to deal with the specific regional common carrier
> that still own the distribution network though.
Same in my state in Australia, and the customer service the various
retailers provide is a factor in people choosing (and staying with) them.
Any company treating their customers poorly with bad phone support soon
gets bad publicity and their competitors benefit.
I thought that the USA was the home of competition, why isn't this sort of
thing available?
--
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, 15 Oct 2010 07:27:58 +0200
From: Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam1002@zugschl.us>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: IVR Hell
Message-ID: <i98op0$180$1@news1.tnib.de>
Randall <rvh40.remove-this@and-this-too.insightbb.com> wrote:
>IVRs have two purposes. One is to assist callers with easy
>solutions to common problems to avoid having to pay Rajiv^H^H^H^H^H
>"Roger" to talk with them, and the other is to adversively condition
>callers so they'll be more reluctant to call for help the next time.
They're doing the latter pretty well without IVR. I recently called
Lenovo for assistance since I didn't find any BIOS file for my
wife's Ideapad on the Lenovo web site (no, not even the one that was
on the unit when it was delivered), and wanted to know whether I was
too stupid to search.
The hotline agent told me that the only resource he had would be the
same web site that was also accessible to me.
>Call centers are run on statistics, and one "good" statistic is the
>percent of callers who hang up before speaking with a CSR, minus the
>percent of callers who hung up once and called back in a short period.
Another experience I had recently was the call center of a bank, which
had me in an IVR for two minutes and one second before automatically
hanging up on me (billed by the minute, of course).
>If Wal*Mart makes it too much trouble to buy groceries from them,
>there's a Meijer next door who'll be happy to have my trade. If I
>have an issue with my electrical bill, I can't really give my
>business to their competitor.
Then we're one step further. In Germany, you can choose your provider
of electricity from a vast range. However, the company owning the
wires in the streets still gets a more than fair share of the money
you pay.
Greetings
Marc
--
-------------------------------------- !! No courtesy copies, please !! -----
Marc Haber | " Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header
Mannheim, Germany | Beginning of Wisdom " | http://www.zugschlus.de/
Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fon: *49 621 72739834
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 17:32:19 -0700
From: Richard <rng@richbonnie.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: History--old MIT dial-up directory
Message-ID: <gk6fb614tiiit0am41c71l8bm56vani4le@4ax.com>
On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 11:16:52 -0700 (PDT), Lisa or Jeff
<hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>On Oct 13, 1:02 pm, Richard <r...@richbonnie.com> wrote:
>
>> I worked for AT&T at the time of divestiture. Employees were given
>> at no cost up to 2 Western Electric phones currently in their
>> homes. I received stickers to put on the bottoms of my phones to
>> denote that they were now my property. I don't know if the offer
>> included all employees, or just management and engineers (I was one
>> of the latter).
>
>Thanks for the historical insight.
>
>The old Bell System gave its employees discounts on phone service*.
>I don't know if the baby Bells or LD carriers do so.
My recollection is: Before divestiture, AT&T gave free long distance
(inter-operating company) to employees of the AT&T mother company and
Long lines. The operating companies (New England Tel, etc.) gave free
local service and toll calls handled entirely within their territory
to their employees and retirees.* I didn't get any discount because I
worked for Bell Labs and Bell Labs was not an operating company.
After divestiture, I got the following discount off my AT&T phone
bill: first $25 free, plus 50% off the remainer up to $100 bill (max
discount $67.50). After I retired in 1990, I still got the discount.
Later, AT&T spun off Western Electric to Lucent. Because I had worked
at the Merrimack Valley, MA labs doing design for manufacture, my
pension and health coverage was assigned to Lucent. Lucent, not being
an operating company, could not give me a discount on phone service.
But they did increase my pension by $25/month to compensate. It
appears on my pension stub as a separate item "Special Benefit."
* For example, my aunt was retired from NE Tel and lived in
Massachusetts. She could make free toll calls to me in New Hampshire,
because it was all NE Tel territory.
Dick
***** Moderator's Note *****
That's long gone in New England: as a Verizon retiree, I get a ~$20
credit for my phone bill each month, but it doesn't cover any calls
outside my LATA, and the credit is limited and can't be applied to any
of the "discount" plans that would include a wider calling area.
I had the line restricted to my _contiguous_ calling area, and I use
Google Voice for everything that Verizontal would usually charge me
for.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 15:21:26 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joseph Singer <joeofseattle@yahoo.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: What is a "female-specific mobile handset"?
Message-ID: <669088.46455.qm@web52701.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Tue, 12 Oct 2010 19:59:45 -0700 Richard <rng@richbonnie.com> wrote:
> Apparently marketers think that women would like an item colored
> pink. They even make guns with a pink color:
> http://www.thegunsource.com/category/2580_Pink_Pistols.aspx?w=%2BCJWDALnoPg
Well, bringing this back to telecom there's this:
Hello Kitty Lineman's Handset Telephone
http://www.kittyhell.com/2009/01/27/hello-kitty-linemans-handset-telephone/
or:
http://goo.gl/aRyP
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:47:27 -0400
From: Randall <rvh40.remove-this@and-this-too.insightbb.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Giving out your phone number
Message-ID: <6158C1C3-0EF0-4FA5-852C-4D2AE386E762@insightbb.com>
> From: Randall <rvh40.remove-this@and-this-too.insightbb.com>
> To: redacted@invalid.telecom-digest.org.
> Subject: Re: Giving out your phone number
> Message-ID: <73BAD020-B2DC-4106-807B-F293190BABAA@insightbb.com>
>
> On Oct 14, 2010, at 3:20 AM, Telecom Digest Moderator wrote:
>
>> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>>
>> Give me a little credit: this is, after all, a telecom forum.
>>
>> I give out the busy-test number at a Boston-area CO.
>
> (502)555-1212 works, too.
>
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>
> 502-555-1212 is an "automated directory assistance" number.
And it has hte additional advantage of being a toll number, caller pays.
Sortof the same idea as the old trick of taping postage-paid return
envelopes to bricks, to be sent back to junk mailers at their cost.
(I'm told that this no longer works. More's the pity).
***** Moderator's Note *****
And did the envelope contain a note saying "You deserve a brick today"?
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 13:40:58 -0500
From: "Michael G. Koerner" <mgk920@dataex.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Happy anniversary cellphone!
Message-ID: <_eqdnZGZ6Y2rPSXRnZ2dnUVZ_rOdnZ2d@ntd.net>
On 2010.10.14 13:03:53, Lisa or Jeff wrote:
> On Oct 13, 12:38 pm, Joseph Singer<joeofseat...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> First commerical cellphone service launched October 13, 1983 by
>> Ameritech in Chicago. (Was it Ameritech or had it already changed from
>> being Illinois Bell?)
>
> Would anyone know how much it cost for the equipment, installation,
> and service back then, and how did the prices compare to traditional
> mobile phone service?
>
> I think "brick" and "bag" cell phones were out fairly early, but I
> believe most initial cellular phone installations were in-car units,
> just like the older mobile units. I remember a Bell Atlantic store
> had a garage as part of it for car installations.
>
> It didn't take long for the prices to drop to very reasonable levels.
> My first cell phone account gave me a Motorola flipset for free for
> $20/month for low offpeak usage. For me it was a good deal, though
> peak use was 75c/minute and roaming was $1.00/minute. I got for
> urgent use and it worked fine for that.
>
> I recall watching a rerun of an old '90210' episode* and the character
> was driving his car while talking on the phone. The handset was
> corded and connected to the dashboard. It was strange seeing that
> given what we have today.
I also recall the scene in the movie Patriot Games (1992) where Ryan's wife
was being pursued on a freeway and took a call on the car's corded cell phone.
Anyone else recall being oooohhed and aaaahhhed by cell phones back then? Car
phones were such a status symbol during the mid-late 1980s and into the early
1990s that I remember that at the time someone was selling fake cell phone
antennae that could be mounted on the back windows of cars.
--
___________________________________________ _______________
Regards, | |\
| | | | |\
Michael G. Koerner May they | | | | | | rise again!
Appleton, Wisconsin USA | | | | | |
___________________________________________ | | | | | | _______________
***** Moderator's Note *****
Since AMPS ran at about 800 MHz, a quarter wave antenna would have
been about 3.7 inches high. Of course, the first cellular antennas
were much longer than that, with the now-famous "coil" in the middle
that told everyone the car contained a cellular phone.
Electrically, useless. For marketing, a stroke of genius.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 10:56:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joseph Singer <joeofseattle@yahoo.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: XM Radio and Serius merger
Message-ID: <812029.70255.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Bill Horne, moderator of Telecom Digest/CDM exclaimed:
> XM and Sirius have combined? What did they do with the spare
> satellites?
"On February 19, 2007, Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio
announced a merger that would combine the two radio services and
create a single satellite radio network in the United States."
"The two parent companies completed their merger (technically the
acquisition of XM by Sirius) on July 29, 2008."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius_XM_Radio#Merger_history
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:28:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joseph Singer <joeofseattle@yahoo.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Old directory covers
Message-ID: <782607.94399.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
http://johngall.blogspot.com/2010/10/remember-phone-books.html
TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecom-
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End of The Telecom Digest (14 messages)
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