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Message Digest
Volume 28 : Issue 180 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Re: Number length, was Goodbye to copper?
Re: Number length, was Goodbye to copper?
Re: Number length, was Goodbye to copper?
Re: OT: IFRAME exploit was: Re: Goodbye to copper?
Re: Cable TV Broadcast Retransmission Consent Feuds "Ease Up"
Re: Goodbye to copper?
Re: NANP ten digit dialing, was Goodbye to copper?
Copper wire thefts from cellphone towers
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Date: Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:31:55 -0500
From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Number length, was Goodbye to copper?
Message-ID: <HKednTgabJ-GYNHXnZ2dnUVZ_qSdnZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications>
In article <c5e.5a28effe.377ab41f@aol.com>, <Wesrock@aol.com> wrote:
>In a message dated 6/29/2009 11:07:32 AM Central Daylight Time,
>hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes:
>
>> Many private PBX vendors were unprepared, in a variety of ways, to
>> properly track rapid new code assignments and get their PBX tables
>> properly updated.
>
>Why should PBX's have tables or any information about what area codes
>exist? As a general rule, I mean, unless they have their own private
>systems and private lines that they want certain area codes routed
>over?
There are lots of reasons. e.g.:
You may have trunk service from multiple carriers, with different
rates to common destinations -- you want to route the call via the
'cheapest' carrier, obviously.
You may have multiple 'local' area-codes, and want people to be able
to do 'local' dialing but *not* be able to dial 'long distance'
calls. or international calls.
You may want to restrict access to '900' type numbers, because they
can cost a *lot* extra. (Care to guess how much in charges a few
employees can run up, when they discover they can call dial-a-porn
from the phone in the break room?)
You may have multiple locations, in multiple area-codes, and implement
an 'integrated dialing plan' where you can reach a desk at a remote
location _without_ dialing the full phone number. This does not
require dedicated trunks between locations, it can be done over the
PSTN, with appropriate digit absorption and insertion in the dialing
process. *BUT*, you gotta know which area-code to insert for a
cross-NPA call. :)
The more 'smarts' you have in the local equipment, the more
flexibility you have in controlling operations. Many people don't
"absolutely NEED" all of that flexibility, but a surprisingly large
number _can_ "put it to good use" (i.e., do things that save
themselves money) to greater or lesser degree.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 19:29:14 EDT
From: Wesrock@aol.com
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Number length, was Goodbye to copper?
Message-ID: <bef.48e62cd0.377e9cca@aol.com>
In a message dated 7/1/2009 5:42:14 PM Central Daylight Time,
thad@thadlabs.com writes:
> And for those scratching their head about "billing location", I mean
> the cellphone-equivalent location of a CO for toll-charge
> determination.
A "rate center," which may or may not be the location of a CO.
Wes Leatherock
wesrock@aol.com
wleathus@yahoo.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:20:41 -0700
From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Number length, was Goodbye to copper?
Message-ID: <4A4D7909.8050108@thadlabs.com>
On 7/2/2009 7:58 PM, Wesrock@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 7/1/2009 5:42:14 PM Central Daylight Time,
> thad@thadlabs.com writes:
>
>> And for those scratching their head about "billing location", I mean
>> the cellphone-equivalent location of a CO for toll-charge
>> determination.
>
> A "rate center," which may or may not be the location of a CO.
Thank you for the terminology clarification! Learn something new every
day -- that's why I've been mostly a lurker here for several decades. :-)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:33:07 -0500
From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: OT: IFRAME exploit was: Re: Goodbye to copper?
Message-ID: <A8mdnTEEz4-uTtHXnZ2dnUVZ_jKdnZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications>
In article <h2gvhk$n4o$1@reader1.panix.com>,
danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com> wrote:
>In <f8adnVw7y_6zJtbXnZ2dnUVZ_s6dnZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications>
>bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) writes:
>
>>In article <op.uwc8zcy5o63xbg@acer250.gateway.2wire.net>,
>>tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> wrote:
>
>>> One just needs a "no IFRAMES, please" option in one's browser.
>>> Which browsers, apart from IE, offer such an option?
>
>>The latest version of the NoScript plug-in for Firefox does. <grin>
>
>Otoh, the latest version of Firefox is "location aware", and
>can send that info (of where you are) to a website on request.
>
>Yes, it's "opt in", but that's for today. Wat'cha wanna bet there
>will soon be other programs using this info w/o your knowledge...
Well, since Firefox is 'open source', it's pretty well guaranteed that there
will always be a way to turn this "feature" off -- if its not in the stock
distribution then there _will_ be an add-on to do it.
BTW, it isn't just Firefox. Google makes the same capability available
for MS-Internet Explorer, and for embedded IE for a bunch of mobile devices
with 'Gears' installed.
Google's entire 'Gears' project is also open-source, so, if anybody decides
to do a 'always on' variation, it is a safe bet that some 'rebel' will build
an add-on to disable it. <grin>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 16:14:58 +0000 (UTC)
From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Cable TV Broadcast Retransmission Consent Feuds "Ease Up"
Message-ID: <h2ime1$do3$1@news.albasani.net>
Neal McLain <nmclain@annsgarden.com> wrote:
>This article (including comments from me writing as texascableguy)
>continues at:
>http://www.multichannel.com/article/talkback/295393-Retrans_Feuds_Ease_Up.php
>In 1992, Congress enacted the Cable Television Consumer Protection and
>Competition Act of 1992. This act gave broadcast station licensees
>control over cable-system carriage of their signals. Under this Act,
>each licensee has the right to choose two options with respect to any
>give cable system:
>- MUST CARRY: The cable system must carry the signal under technical
>rules specified by the FCC. However, the station cannot charge for the
>use of its signal.
>- RETRANSMISSION CONSENT: The cable system is required to obtain the
>permission of the licensee. The licensee is free to demand compensation
>or impose other requirements.
>Most large regional independent stations and major network affiliates
>usually elect retransmission consent. Less popular stations usually
>elect must carry.
How do these rules apply to each multi-plexed programming stream of a
digital broadcaster choosing [to invoke the] "must carry" [option]? Or
does it apply only to the the first subchannel? If that subchannel is
HD and the cable system offers HD channels, must it be carried as HD?
An independent broadcaster in Chicago owns a full power license and
several low power licenses. It has mixed and matched programming over
the years, typically introducing new program concepts on one of the
low power stations before simulcasting it or moving it [to] a
subchannel of the full power digital station.
Does simulcasting via one of their low power stations give them additional
clout when negotiating carriage because the law gives them additional
privileges for owning more licenses? They've complained for years that
DTV and Dish won't carry all programming streams, even the ones simulcast
on one of the low power stations.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 16:37:09 +0000 (UTC)
From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Goodbye to copper?
Message-ID: <h2innk$gvt$1@news.albasani.net>
PV <pv+usenet@pobox.com> wrote:
>Dan Lanciani <ddl@danlan.com> writes:
>>>You are absolutley correct with regards to regulation of services, not
>>>facilities/technologies. How a circuit is designed and how it is carried to
>>>the subscriber is not a tariff item, unless the customer is an IEC or CLEC.
>>Aren't tariffs (in at least some areas) fairly explicit about the interface
>>at the demark point, though? Does POTS as typically tariffed allow the
>>telco to require the customer to supply power for their equipment?
>Also, wouldn't a copper drop be outside of the demarc anyway? What
>business is it of the customers if they clip it? If it's ever needed again,
>it will be the telco's job to put in a new one. There is no good reason
>that they should be forced to maintain redundant cable runs.
>I don't see this being any different than a cable company removing the run
>to your house if you drop their service. Who cares? I'd rather that they do
>that, because it's going to need to be replaced if needed again after years
>of non-use anyway. *
I agree with you. Yank out unused drops. Insullation exposed to the
elements has limited life. Install new for new subscriber.
Where I live, years ago, the phone company did a seriously messed up
installation of the drop serving my apartment. Instead of following
the path of electric lines and entering the basement through that wall,
it enters under a porch and through a tube that does a very nice job
of channeling rainwater into the building. I'm not a subscriber, so
I wish they'd remove it. One of the two pairs in that drop is still
live! Strangely, there's unused vertical conduit on the outside of the
building near the drop for electricity, so I would imagine that it was
installed for telephone many years ago.
Cable technicians are notorious for bad work. My building has two
units. The cable drop serving the other unit went bad. Then the service
to my unit went bad. A technician on my service call discovered that
service to the other unit was now being split off the drop to my unit. The
technician on the service call to the other unit hadn't replaced the
bad drop! She wasn't trained in replacing drops and so she ordered work
to be performed by another installer. That guy installed a new drop to
my unit but refused to remove the bad drop.
A few weeks ago, a new couple moved into the other unit and subscribed
to cable. They changed some of the cable runs on the outside of the
building. Rather than clipping them directly to the masonery, they tied
them to the bad drop. A few days later, the clips holding the bad drop
to the brickwork came off the wall and it's all hanging loose.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:03:00 -0500
From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: NANP ten digit dialing, was Goodbye to copper?
Message-ID: <SdOdnfcSwb75mdDXnZ2dnUVZ_sKdnZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications>
In article <khL1m.797$Ei4.512@newsfe13.iad>,
Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com> wrote:
>John Levine wrote:
>
>>>Again, a person is a person and despite all the arguments along these
>>>lines, many (many) other countries have managed such a change without
>>>too much trouble at all - certainly far less trouble than the
>>>opponents of theses things said would occur.
>>
>>
>> Once again, you are (wilfully?) missing the main point. The
>> technology in North American phone switches is different from that in
>> the rest of the world.
>>
>> The inter-switch signalling in Australia was already set up to handle
>> numbers of differing lengths, so it was not a big deal to change
>> lengths of numbers incrementally, since those longer numbers didn't
>> affect the switches that don't handle the numbers being changed. In
>> North America, the 3+3+4 format is wired into the hardware (and now
>> into the switch software.) Like it or not, longer numbers will
>> require changes to every phone switch in the continent. That's the
>> real issue, not the consumer answering machines, stationery, and other
>> junk.
>>
>> We'll have to make numbers longer at some point, perhaps 30 years from
>> now, and the telcos are thinking about how to do it, but it'll be a
>> huge project.
>>
>> R's,
>> John
>>
>The hard-wired switches are gone from the U.S. and (for the most-part)
>Canada.
>
>How long have we had stored program controlled end office switches now?
>They became common by 1980. And, they enabled subscriber dialing of
>international numbers of varying length with delimiting by timeout or
>DTMF "#"
>
*sigh* The 3+3+4 number format 'logic' is embedded *VERY* deeply into the
architecture of the software of the aforementioned 'stored program controlled'
C.O. switches in the U.S. Data structures (e.g. routing tables) are sized
based on the 'assumption' of that format; code 'assumes' _fixed_length_
break-out of the sections of the full number; etc., etc., ad nauseum.
It's like the Y2K issue -- making the individual changes was generally _not_
a big task (although there were exceptions to that); *FINDING* all the places
where things had to be changed was a whole nuther matter.
The 3+3+4 number format _is_, for practical purposes, "hard wired" into the
control program software. It isn't that the switch "can't handle it (a longer,
differently formatted number)" -- it *can*. *All* modern switches are required
to accept dialed-digit strings of at least 16 (19??) characters. *BUT* they
"don't know what to do with it" other than hand the entire thing off (what is
called an 'opaque' object -- don't know, nor care, anything about the internal
structure) to a 'foreign' switch based on the first (up to 4) digits after
the international-dialing prefix. A local CO probably doesn't even look at
_those_ digits, it sees the international ("011") prefix, and "passes the buck"
to the toll tandem, which may do minimal parsing of the country-code (if
nothing else to determine whether to route via East or West Coast, or towards
Central/South America.
There's also more than 'just' the C.O. switch that has to be considered.
Courtesy of 'local number portability', there is a database look-up ("dip")
that has to be done for effectively every call, to find out 'where' that
must be sent for delivery. That database, for performance reasons, requires
a fixed-length 'key' (the phone number) field. Increasing the size of the
key is a relatively minor task, but it requires a 'flag day' cut-over, *AND*
assurance that the protocol for querying the database can handle the extra
digit(s) properly.
Also, significant parts of the _hardware_ design are also predicated on
certain economies based on the specific _scale_ of the elements in th 3+3+4
design. This constrains 'where and how' you can stick extra digits into the
dial-string.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 07:35:08 -0700 (PDT)
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Copper wire thefts from cellphone towers
Message-ID: <4c617302-b7ed-4efc-907d-b33bac75f768@l28g2000vba.googlegroups.com>
The Phila Inqr reported that people were arrested stealing copper wire
from a cell phone tower.
See: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20090702_3_held_in_theft_of_copper_wires_from_phone_tower.html
Apparently they were stealing lightning protection wire which would
not immediately affect service or cause an alert. But of course if
lightning hit the tower it'd get knocked out.
Copper and other metallic scrap is selling at a high price and people
are stealing it.
In the 1970s, the Bell System began to pre-wire new houses, putting 4
conductor wire in each room in case a telephone extension would be
subsequently desired. I wonder how much unused copper wire is out in
homes and businesses.
I don't believe Bell ever removed wire, including thick multi-
conductor cables, from a business that disconnected its internal phone
system; sometimes they even left behind key telephone units. However,
scrap wire in new installations and in central offices was always
savevd and recovered.
Is the standard today 6 conductor? Is that wasteful of conductors?
------------------------------
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