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Message Digest
Volume 28 : Issue 283 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
radio (cellular) propogation, was: NYPD knows ..
Re: radio (cellular) propogation, was: NYPD knows ..
Re: radio (cellular) propogation, was: NYPD knows ..
New top-level domain names are coming
Re: New top-level domain names are coming
Re: New top-level domain names are coming
New Internationalized domain names are coming
Re: New Internationalized domain names are coming
Re: New Internationalized domain names are coming
Re: New Internationalized domain names are coming
Re: New Internationalized domain names are coming
Re: NYPD knows who you've been talking to. And where you've been..
Re: NYPD knows who you've been talking to. And where
Re: NYPD knows who you've been talking to. And where
Re: NYPD knows who you've been talking to. And where you've been..
Re: NYPD knows who you've been talking to. And where you've been..
311 service a 'disaster', councillor says
Telephone number spoofing
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Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:34:28 +0000 (UTC)
From: danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: radio (cellular) propogation, was: NYPD knows ..
Message-ID: <hb4ggk$65$1@reader1.panix.com>
In <1a947660-d352-425f-be24-6f05871de40d@j4g2000yqa.googlegroups.com> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes:
[snip]
> I often originate cell phone calls from the exact same static
> physical location. Yet on the bill three different tower locations
> (towns) are shown for the various calls. That is, the same location
> is handle by at least three different towers in different towns, and
> probably more.
> On the road, I once made a call and it was shown as carried by a
> tower in a town 30 miles away.
Otoh, this can come in handy when, for example, you're in Canada near
Niagara Falls and you "force" the phone to use the US based tower so
you don't get hit with the international roaming rates.
(You can do this with the GSM system by telling your phone to register
with the T-Mobile signal as opposed to it grabbing the closer Canadian
"Rogers" tower. Don't know if you can work similar tricks with the
others).
--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:33:47 -0500
From: John Mayson <john@mayson.us>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: radio (cellular) propogation, was: NYPD knows ..
Message-ID: <6645152a0910140933p35b4aa51n9acf6c5aea5276de@mail.gmail.com>
In the mid-1990's I was driving east on I-10 in Columbia County,
Florida. There was a huge crash in the westbound lanes. I called
9-1-1 to report it, but had no signal. I kept trying and finally
reached a 9-1-1 center in Jacksonville, some distance away from my
location and quite a distance from the crash site. I explained to her
about the crash and all she could do was give me the direct phone
number of the Columbia County Sheriff's Office. She claimed to have
no way to contact them herself nor could she contact the Florida
Highway Patrol. I thought both of her excuses were rather thin. But
I was amazed my cellular signal made it so far.
John
--
John Mayson <john@mayson.us>
Austin, Texas, USA
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:00:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: radio (cellular) propogation, was: NYPD knows ..
Message-ID: <c7cda21a-43d0-416d-986b-c4b983b8a273@k17g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>
On Oct 14, 8:34 am, danny burstein <dan...@panix.com> wrote:
> Otoh, this can come in handy when, for example, you're in Canada near
> Niagara Falls and you "force" the phone to use the US based tower so
> you don't get hit with the international roaming rates.
That is a good thing to know how to do.
With my old analog phone the 'home' region was rather small (unlike
today), and roaming was $1/minute. However, the phone had a distinct
easy-to-see yellow blinking light that flashed if roaming was on.
The literature warned that service boundaries were not exact.
Sometimes the same location near the boundary would be roaming, other
times not. At the time all I could do is drive closer to home to get
away from the roaming territory if I wished to make a call. (Back
then the phone plan was priced for urgent calls and used mostly as
such but the monthly fee was very low.)
I don't know if modern phones display an icon when roaming, but for us
old folk those icons are very tiny, hard to see and hard to
distinguish. I miss the simplicity of my old analog phone but I do
like the very light weight and extra features (like alarm clock and
speakerphone) of the modern phone.
(I just got a new phone, an LG simple model, and I hope it works out
better than the Motorola did).
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:12:35 -0400
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: New top-level domain names are coming
Message-ID: <Y5SdnQxe-oXVd0jXnZ2dnUVZ_oydnZ2d@speakeasy.net>
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has
announced more progress toward the issuance of Generic Top-Level Domain
name (gTLD) domains. These new top-level domains will give applicants
the chance to have a corporate trademark or community name as the last
item in an Internet address: for example, instead of sears.com or
fsf.org, the new gTLD program would allow addresses such as sales.sears
or emacs.fsf.
Details are at
http://www.icann.com/en/announcements/announcement-04oct09-en.htm
I'm curious what others think about how, or if, this will affect telecom.
--
Bill Horne
(Filter QRM from my address for direct replies.)
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:42:10 -0400
From: Telecom Digest Moderator <telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom.csail.mit.edu>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: New top-level domain names are coming
Message-ID: <4AD661D2.5080505@speakeasy.net>
I asked the ICANN media contact, Michele Jourdan, to answer some questions
about the new generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) process. Below are her
responses on behalf of ICANN.
The process for resolving trademark disputes in domain names is
already in place, and there are precedents to guide ICANN or other
mediators in those cases. I don't think trademarks will be a problem.
However, when trademarks aren't at issue, I predict some fights that
may take years to resolve. As you can see by my questions to
Ms. Jourdan, I think there will be disputes based on moral grounds,
national histories, and religious objections.
Here are a few of the trigger-points I predict:
* Who "owns" the generic name of a religion? For example, can the
Vatican prevent a renegade priest from registering "catholic"? Could
one Yearly Meeting of The Religious Society of Friends claim
"quaker" over the other Quaker meetings?
* Will pornographers be allowed to register TLDs such as "sex"? Don't
laugh: this may be the thorniest problem of all, since it touches so
many hot buttons.
* Will former national identities be off limits? In other words, will
governments-in-exile or expatriates get to register the former names
of countries which are now recognized by other names?
* What about geological or other scientific names which suggest, but
do not agree with, national boundaries? Could Israel claim rights to
'arabia' since it's located on the arabian (tektonic) plate?
* How about political labels, past and present? Is Cuba entitled to
claim "socialism"? Will the American Green party fight it out with
the French Green party?
* How about tribal, ethnic, or other groups that are at odds with
existing governments? Will "basque" become a TLD even though Spain
says the Basques are Spanish?
Well, you get the idea. This is going to be a mapmaker's nightmare.
Bill Horne
Moderator
P.S. I've got dibs on "horne": my email will be wildbill@horne in
2012. ;-)
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: Please comment for an upcoming article
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:50:13 -0700
From: Michele Jourdan <michele.jourdan@remove-this.icann.org>
To: Bill Horne <bill.remove@horne.remove.net>
CC: Brad White <Brad.White@remove-this.icann.org>
References: <4AD5E870.1080300@horne.net>
Hello Bill,
Below are the answers to your questions.
Thank you!
Michele
QUESTIONS
1. If someone wants to register a new top level domain, e.g.,
"horne", must they use a registrar to do it, or can they apply to
ICANN directly?
The process for applying for a new gTLD is described in detail in the
"Applicant Guidebook." (See,
http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/comments-3-en.htm#files for
Guidebook and associated material.) Applicants will apply directly to
ICANN for a top-level domain.
2. Will all registrars have an equal chance of registering any given
TLD, assuming there are no trademark issues?
The rules for structural / organizational separation between TLDs and
registrars are currently being discussed in the community. Different
models are being proposed. There are sessions planned to continue public
discussion on this issue: an ICANN webinar scheduled for Monday 19
October (you can reserve a place) and a public workshop in the ICANN
Seoul meeting scheduled for 26 October.
3. If there are conflicts (again, not involving trademark rights),
how will they be resolved?
There are several dispute resolution procedures embedded in the process
including a process for objecting to applications on certain limited
grounds (Module 3 of the Guidebook) and a process for resolving
contention between identical and similar applied-for strings (Module 4
of the Guidebook).
4. Will there be any restrictions placed on gTLD registrations based
on moral, religious, or national identity criteria?
A. Would a gTLD of "america" or "palestine" or "rhodesia" be
allowed?
To the extent your question is about country and territory names: a
process in Module 2 defines which geographical terms (as TLDs) require
the approval of the relevant government.
B. Would a gTLD of "sex" or "porno" be acceptable?
See the objection based dispute resolution process in Module 3.
Particularly take note of the section on Morality and Public Order
objections -- where objections are made by parties outside of ICANN.
These disputes will be resolved outside of ICANN, by independent dispute
resolution providers.
C. Could an individual or corporate applicant not associated
with any religion be granted a gTLD such as "catholic" or
"protestant" or "unitarian"?
Yes. Again, these applications can be objected to by parties with
standing. The community based objection might be used by community
representatives asserting that the applied-for name is a
mis-appropriation of their community label (community based objection,
Module 3).
5. Will gTLD's require changes to the existing DNS structure?
No. ICANN has undertaken 'root zone scaling' studies that will recommend
among other things, that root zone growth performance will be affected
by rate as growth even more than absolute growth and root zone
performance should be monitored to provide early warning to address any
potential performance degradation.
6. Will gTLD's require revisions to existing DNS software, such as bind?
No. However, while IDNs have no significant impact on the DNS,
applications will need to be modified so that they display IDNs in the
appropriate character sets
Ms. Michele Jourdan
Corporate Affairs
ICANN
Ph: +1-310-301-5831
E: michele.jourdan@remove-this.icann.org
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:05:02 +0000 (UTC)
From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman)
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: New top-level domain names are coming
Message-ID: <hb600e$1v0u$1@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>
In article <4AD661D2.5080505@speakeasy.net>,
Telecom Digest Moderator <telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom.csail.mit.edu> wrote:
>No. However, while IDNs have no significant impact on the DNS,
>applications will need to be modified so that they display IDNs in the
>appropriate character sets
Or not, of course. Administrators will generally want to disable IDN
on their own systems (although of course users are expected to want
them) so that they can handle and respond to attacks coming from
sites using foreign character repertoires.
-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
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:27:48 -0400
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: New Internationalized domain names are coming
Message-ID: <6fudnZ3BNeRpcEjXnZ2dnUVZ_uSdnZ2d@speakeasy.net>
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has
announced more progress toward the issuance of Internationalized
country-code Top Level Domain names (IDN ccTLDs).
The new internationalized domain names will allow domain names to be
written and displayed with something other than the Latin alphabet
that has been required up until now. In other words, Russians will get
domain names written with Cyrillic characters, Saudis with Arabic, etc.
Details are at
http://www.icann.com/en/announcements/announcement-04oct09-en.htm
I'm curious what others think about how, or if, this will affect
telecom. The first question that comes to mind is to ask if every
Internet DNS daemon will have to be upgraded.
--
Bill Horne
(Filter QRM from my address for direct replies.)
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:07:50 -0700
From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: New Internationalized domain names are coming
Message-ID: <4AD5F756.20400@thadlabs.com>
On 10/14/2009 8:27 AM, Bill Horne wrote:
> The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has
> announced more progress toward the issuance of Internationalized
> country-code Top Level Domain names (IDN ccTLDs).
>
> The new internationalized domain names will allow domain names to be
> written and displayed with something other than the Latin alphabet
> that has been required up until now. In other words, Russians will get
> domain names written with Cyrillic characters, Saudis with Arabic, etc.
>
> Details are at
> http://www.icann.com/en/announcements/announcement-04oct09-en.htm
>
> I'm curious what others think about how, or if, this will affect
> telecom. The first question that comes to mind is to ask if every
> Internet DNS daemon will have to be upgraded.
This may be a twofold mixed blessing (sort of tongue in cheek):
1. isolates the English-speaking world from the rest of the world (re:
all the spammers in China, Korea, Russia, Nigeria. etc.), and
2. automatically blocks IFRAME (and other) exploits directing browsers
to malware sites in China, Russia, etc. due to the failure of (old)
DNS lookups resolving to domains using a non-Latin character set.
Like it or not, English is the de facto language of science and computing
and anyone using a non-Latin alphabet is shooting themselves in the foot
as far as I'm concerned.
***** Moderator's Note *****
I don't see how: the new system will allow domain names to be
presented in other languages, but it won't preclude users who speak
other languages from using the Latin alphabet as well as their own.
Of course, domain names in character sets other than Latin will be
readable in any email or nntp client capable of supporting the
appropriate character set, most likely UTF-8, so I don't think there
will be any shortage of sights with IFRAME exploits.
Am I missing something?
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:58:38 GMT
From: "Tony Toews \[MVP\]" <ttoews@telusplanet.net>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: New Internationalized domain names are coming
Message-ID: <mmecd5dfs32vc0tahndf3f5jmmhdp6o1bi@4ax.com>
Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> wrote:
> The first question that comes to mind is to ask if every Internet
> DNS daemon will have to be upgraded.
I'm not a DNS expert nor do I pretend to be one. However there was
just a very signifant security hole plugged abuot a year ago in the
DNS servers around the world. Quite impressive actually how all the
major software vendors got together and fixed the problem in secrecy.
Thus there isn't much creaky, ancient DNS software. I hope.
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/
For a free, convenient utility to keep your users FEs and other files
updated see http://www.autofeupdater.com/
Granite Fleet Manager http://www.granitefleet.com/
Date: 15 Oct 2009 01:48:15 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: New Internationalized domain names are coming
Message-ID: <20091015014815.73167.qmail@simone.iecc.com>
> The first question that comes to mind is to ask if every Internet
> DNS daemon will have to be upgraded.
No, IDNs are carefully designed so that the server software doesn't
have to change at all. The internal codes are all of the form "XN--",
followed by an ASCII-encoded version of the string which DNS servers
handle without trouble. Most browsers are also already IDN compliant
-- try, for example, http://xn--80aidorb.com/ which should show you
some parked Russian pages.
The software that still needs to be upgraded is all of the other stuff
that handles domain names, most notably e-mail where the standards for
non-ASCII addresses have yet to be written.
R's,
John
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:03:04 -0700
From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: New Internationalized domain names are coming
Message-ID: <4AD69EF8.2030309@thadlabs.com>
On 10/14/2009 6:48 PM, John Levine wrote:
>> The first question that comes to mind is to ask if every Internet
>> DNS daemon will have to be upgraded.
>
> No, IDNs are carefully designed so that the server software doesn't
> have to change at all. The internal codes are all of the form "XN--",
> followed by an ASCII-encoded version of the string which DNS servers
> handle without trouble. Most browsers are also already IDN compliant
> -- try, for example, http://xn--80aidorb.com/ which should show you
> some parked Russian pages.
>
> The software that still needs to be upgraded is all of the other stuff
> that handles domain names, most notably e-mail where the standards for
> non-ASCII addresses have yet to be written.
Copy'n'pasting the URL above into a browser's (Firefox, Safari, Opera,
even IE8) URL box caused the browser to visited a page as you described.
Clicking on the URL inline in your message caused all my email clients
to state (paraphrased) "the URL is not valid and cannot be loaded".
Unless there's something I'm not seeing (or understanding), the intent
of the (new) proposed change is to permit someone to enter a URL in
Cyrllic directly ("HaNDeM.com" (найдем.com)), so who/what/when
converts it to the Latinized "xn--80airorb.com" ?
I don't see this being a smooth transition next month at all, and it will
be unusable for those without the appropriate language fonts installed,
especially when many/most mail transport agents assume ISO-8859-1 character
encoding AFAIK.
***** Moderator's Note *****
I just tested the URL with Thunderbird, and clicking on it brought up
the web page. Please note, however, that I added the "http://" in
front of John's domain example, so that (most) news readers and email
clients would show it as a clickable link. If that wasn't the right
thing to do, my apologies to John.
N.B.: Since the "official" charset of The Digest is ISO-8859-1, and your
post uses utf-8, I can't tell if your example will render correctly in
all readers.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:08:23 -0700 (PDT)
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: NYPD knows who you've been talking to. And where you've been..
Message-ID: <6100a8b0-59b2-4625-9f43-301830db7651@o10g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>
On Oct 10, 3:05 pm, bon...@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote:
> Well, if you mean the 1950's or so, that may have been correct.
> ANYTHING with 'Centrex'-type capabilities could generate SMDR-type
> records for every call, incoming or outgoing. If a switch can do it
> for Centrex service, it can do it for all users as well. And,
> historically, _did_. And still does.
As an aside, Centrex could be provided by either crossbar or step-by-
step, though not panel. Wiring SxS to be Centrex was not hard to do
(see the Bell Labs history Vol II), but of course features were
limited. Our system had ONI to record the calling number, but only
for toll calls, not local calls. The answering switchboard was a old
style cord board, I think a 603.
One characteristic of the early Centrex was manual call transfer. If
an extension flashed the switchhook, the attendant would come on and
handle the transfer; later Centrex gave a dial tone and allowed the
extension to dial it themselves. That may have required ESS for
"Centrex II".
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:55:40 EDT
From: Wesrock@aol.com
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: NYPD knows who you've been talking to. And where
Message-ID: <c22.6b798f2a.3807befc@aol.com>
In a message dated 10/14/2009 2:37:27 PM Central Daylight Time,
hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes:
> As an aside, Centrex could be provided by either crossbar or
> step-by-step, though not panel. Wiring SxS to be Centrex was not
> hard to do (see the Bell Labs history Vol II), but of course
> features were limited. Our system had ONI to record the calling
> number, but only for toll calls, not local calls. The answering
> switchboard was a old style cord board, I think a 603.
One of the first uses of a Centrex-like service was "in-dialing" to
military bases. At Fort Sill, Oklahoma, site of the Artillery School,
they simply gave it a prefix that trunked right into the
military-owned and -maintained SxS switch.
Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio had it a few months earlier.
Anyone who ever tried to reach someone at a military base before that
service went into operation will appreciate what an advance it was.
Wes Leatherock
wesrock@aol.com
wleathus@yahoo.com
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:39:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: NYPD knows who you've been talking to. And where
Message-ID: <7f24ce9a-75c4-4f1d-ae1a-14667051bf4b@l2g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>
On Oct 14, 7:55 pm, Wesr...@aol.com wrote:
> Anyone who ever tried to reach someone at a military base before that
> service went into operation will appreciate what an advance it was.
A family member worked at a military base served by a PBX and we never
had any problems. I visited the switchboard room and it was very
professional. There were no reports of problems calling other
installations.
They used Autovon regularly, but just as a national dialing method via
regular phones.
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:50:08 -0700 (PDT)
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: NYPD knows who you've been talking to. And where you've been..
Message-ID: <2d57a1d0-05b3-4adc-ac74-b5034b968755@g23g2000vbr.googlegroups.com>
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>
> Freak circumstances abound in the radio world, and it's entirely
> possible that a cell site that's not physically "closest" to a phone
> might be the one with the best signal strengh.
On the topic of freak radio transmission, I heard a story that I
wonder is true or possible: (it happened about 20-30 years ago).
The Phila transit system had a radio system for supervisors, as did
most carriers. One day the dispatcher received a call that went
something like this:
"This is the J line car, we are derailed".
"Huh? J is a bus route. Where are you"
"Market Street"
"Huh? What are you doing there?"
It turned out the Phila dispatcher was getting a car, through a freak
radio disturbance, from a San Francisco streetcar which happened to
use the same frequency.
Was it possible for the radio systems of 30 years ago to freakishly
propagate coast-to-coast? Frankly it sounds a bit far fetched to me.
Note in those days the radios on the supervisors' cars used those big
whip antennas and perhaps more power than units of today, and the base
antennas were large towers.
***** Moderator's Note *****
Vehicles that have large 'whip' antennas - the kind with a large
spring at the bottom - are using the "VHF-Low" band, which spans ~30
to ~50 MHz. Since this band is subject to a variety of
over-the-horizon propagation affects, and (according to Wikipedia)
1979 was near the high point in the sunspot cycle, it's very possible
that someone in Pennsylvania was talking to someone in California.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: 14 Oct 2009 21:10:15 -0400
From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey)
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: NYPD knows who you've been talking to. And where you've been..
Message-ID: <hb5spn$pun$1@panix2.panix.com>
<hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>
>It turned out the Phila dispatcher was getting a car, through a freak
>radio disturbance, from a San Francisco streetcar which happened to
>use the same frequency.
>
>Was it possible for the radio systems of 30 years ago to freakishly
>propagate coast-to-coast? Frankly it sounds a bit far fetched to me.
>Note in those days the radios on the supervisors' cars used those big
>whip antennas and perhaps more power than units of today, and the base
>antennas were large towers.
Happens all the time with low-band VHF. Two things happen, first of all
signals get ducted between two moist layers of air with a dry layer of
air separating them. Secondly, every 11 years there is a major sunspot
peak and the ionosphere gets active enough to reflect low band VHF.
Back in 1978 there were folks on the east coast getting TV
interference which turned out to be the BBC. NTSC [i.e., US] sets
couldn't lock up on the signal but you could tune the audio in clearly
with a little tweaking of the fine tuning control.
We should be seeing another nice peak in another four or five years,
depending on how things go.
-scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:02:20 GMT
From: "Tony Toews \[MVP\]" <ttoews@telusplanet.net>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: 311 service a 'disaster', councillor says
Message-ID: <gcecd5thk5pi8pj0el1tgii3nejsbis3bq@4ax.com>
Wait-times for operators sometimes 30 minutes
By Gordon Kent, Edmonton Journal September 23, 2009
Delays of up to half an hour before callers can reach the city's 311
operators have helped make the service a "disaster" since it started
last December, Coun. Kim Krushell says.
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/service+disaster+councillor/2027743/story.html
I'm told, although the story doesn't mention this, that the city moved
operators from areas such as transit and utilities to man the 311
system. As a result the operators are now getting calls outside their
area of expertise but they are learning the other areas.
The city is now asking the callers which service they are requesting
information [about,] and routing the callers to operators who have more
expertise in that area. Thus, presumably, their calls will take less
time.
This also means that now, for example, the transit information line,
which has been moved to the 311 number, is now available 24 hours a
day rather than the 6 am to midnight [period during which] it was
previously available.
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: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:05:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: Tom Horne <hornetd@gmail.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Telephone number spoofing
Message-ID: <e353bdfc-d4a4-4271-9338-eee00e3b5aec@v36g2000yqv.googlegroups.com>
Can anyone explain, using [layman's] terminology, how callers get
their phone number to show up as [that of] another subscriber or a
non-existent telephone number? What would be the cost of putting an
end to this capability? Does anyone know of a cost-effective way of
avoiding receiving calls that are falsely numbered?
I often get such calls at the fire house where I volunteer, from bill
collectors and sales types. I only learn they are spoofed when I try
to call back to get them to take the number off of their database. I
get to turn those over to Department of Information Systems Technology
(DIST) personnel and they must do something about them because I get
very few repeats.
Obviously there has to be some way to put a stop to this nonsense.
The real question is how much will it cost and who will pay.
--
Tom Horne
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End of The Telecom digest (18 messages)
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