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The Telecom Digest for April 22, 2010
Volume 29 : Issue 111 : "text" Format

Messages in this Issue:
 Re: Security                                                                (David Clayton)
 Re: Phone in one hand, ticket in the other                                  (Lee Choquette)
 Re: More teens are texting, 75% have cell phones                           Kenny McCormack)
 Re: More teens are texting, 75% have cell phones                                     (Jeff)
 Illinois Commerce Commission approves sale of VZ (GTE/Contel) to Frontier  (Mark J. Cuccia)
 Re: Toll-Free 855 Coming Soon ...                                             (Neal McLain)


====== 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: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:50:52 +1000 From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Security Message-ID: <pan.2010.04.21.07.50.50.41645@myrealbox.com> On Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:34:52 -0400, Anonymous wrote: > In thirteen years of IT work, I had reason to know things about different > networks. For one, the login/password on EVERY server in the offices of > EVERY agent for a nationwide insurance company is "Admin/PassWord", or > something similar. ....... > Surely my experience is roughly typical - unless I just happened to hit > the ONLY insecure systems in the country? > > Given that there is effectively no security on many or most of the > networks connected to the Internet - why is there not more havoc created > by either people who wish us ill or perhaps bored teenagers or Russian > cyber-criminals? I used to work with Nortel PBX's, and the number of installations that still had the "0000" master password (way after initial install) was frightening. "Toll fraud" used to be a big issue before all this new-fangled Internet stuff became prominent, it was no surprise (to me, at least) that both things were/are happening. -- 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: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:25:32 +0000 (UTC) From: Lee Choquette <leec@xmission.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Phone in one hand, ticket in the other Message-ID: <hqncec$8sf$1@news.xmission.com> In article <4BC20AC4.6060308@thadlabs.com>, Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com> wrote: >http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/feds-fund-distracted-driving-traps/ >[...] >Some police officers say enforcement is difficult because, for instance, >it can be difficult to tell the difference between a motorist texting >or dialing a phone, an act not prohibited under any law. Is dialing a phone safer than talking? I would intuitively think it's less safe. (Presumably these officers are excluding hands-free voice dialing.) Of course one should base law on real data and not intuition. >Studies have shown that drivers talking on a cellphone face four times >the crash risk of someone not talking on a cellphone, and that the >risks at least double when a motorist is texting. Nothing is said about dialing. Did the studies show it was relatively safe, contrary to intuition? Lee
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:33:23 +0000 (UTC) From: gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: More teens are texting, 75% have cell phones Message-ID: <hqnju3$j4f$1@news.xmission.com> In article <f84c5107-2297-457f-896f-424eec3543b9@j12g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>, <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote: > Article on MSNBC about teens and cellphones: see: > http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36650790/ns/technology_and_science-wireless/ Is this in the category of: Water is wet? -- (This discussion group is about C, ...) Wrong. It is only OCCASIONALLY a discussion group about C; mostly, like most "discussion" groups, it is off-topic Rorsharch [sic] revelations of the childhood traumas of the participants...
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:50:47 -0700 (PDT) From: Jeff <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: More teens are texting, 75% have cell phones Message-ID: <3988956e-978f-4f97-b5bf-f4a5c82af0e9@r1g2000yqb.googlegroups.com> On Apr 21, 3:33 pm, gaze...@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) wrote: > > Article on MSNBC about teens and cellphones: see: > >http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36650790/ns/technology_and_science-wireless/ > Is this in the category of: Water is wet? No, it is not. The article is comprehensive and goes into detail about trends in cellphone use; not only who is using them, but what they're using them for. It has numerous statistics broken down by year, function (ie voice, text, etc), and age group. --Jeff.
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:09:56 -0700 (PDT) From: "Mark J. Cuccia" <markjcuccia@yahoo.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Illinois Commerce Commission approves sale of VZ (GTE/Contel) to Frontier Message-ID: <62639.93281.qm@web31101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> On Wednesday 21-April-2010, the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) approved the sale of remaining legacy GTE and GTE-once-Contel in the state of Illinois still held by VeriZon, to Frontier. This makes Illinois the eighth of the nine states required to approve of the transfer of VeriZon landline operations in some or most of up to 15 states across the US. NOTE that each state agencies' approval only applies to their own state, and is NOT binding one way or the other on what happens to any other state where VeriZon is selling exchange areas to Frontier. The West Virginia Public Service Commission still needs to approve of the sale of VeriZon to Frontier in its state. In this case, the sale is not of any GTE or Contel, but rather the entire BOC, legacy Bell Atlantic/ C&P-of-West-Virginia, from VeriZon to Frontier. Whether or not the WV-PSC approves, a decision is expected during May or June 2010. The Federal Communications Commission also needs to approve of the proposed transaction before any of it (all or part) can actually take effect. The Federal Trade Commission has already approved of the sale. Frontier's shareholders have also approved, but approval from VeriZon's shareholders is not required. The FCC is expected to give an announcement of whether or not it approves probably AFTER West Virginia has made its announcement. My understanding is that this is NOT an "all or nothing" deal, with the exception of the approvals from the Federal agencies. Each state is responsible ONLY for its own jurisdiction, with no direct effect on any other states' situations (with one exception to be mentioned below). Two/three years ago, with the sale of legacy BOC NYNEX/NET&T in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont from VeriZon to FairPoint, ALL THREE states' regulatory agencies had to approve before ANY of the deal could be considered effective, however -- as well as the FCC/etc. There was an Administrative Law Judge in Illinois who a couple of months ago recommended that the ICC reject the VeriZon/Frontier transaction. This was NOT binding, as seen by the ICC's unanimous decision today to approve of the VeriZon/Frontier sale, which applies ONLY to Illinois as well. (Some news items appeared to state that the Illinois ALJ's decision applied to the entire deal, and also appeared to state that the judge's decision was a binding rejection of the entire deal, which it is NOT in both cases! There is one small case where the sale of an exchange area in one state is dependent on that of an adjacent state, and that involves the Crows-Hematite VA ratecenter, which is at the VA/WV state-line border. The customers in this ratecenter get their dial-tone from VZ/BA/C&P-WV's White Sulphur Springs WV c.o.switch. The West Virginia PSC still has to approve of the sale of legacy BOC C&P-WV from VeriZon to Frontier before anything can continue forward w/r/t Crows-Hematite VA. Frontier does have a filing before the Virginia State Corporation Commission to takeover operation (rates, tariffs, etc) of the Crows-Hematite VA from VeriZon, assuming that the WV-PSC approves of the sale of legacy BOC C&P-WV from VeriZon to Frontier. Of course, ALL of this also still requires approval of the FCC! An ICC Press Release has been uploaded to their website, dated today, Wednesday 21-April-2010: http://www.icc.illinois.gov/downloads/public/Frontierrn%20(2).doc The actual order hasn't yet been uploaded to the ICC website as of the time that I'm preparing this posting, but the main page for this docket/case involving VeriZon and Frontier in Illinois (Case 09-0268) can be found at: http://www.icc.illinois.gov/docket/casedetails.aspx?no=09-0268 with relevant documents found at: http://www.icc.illinois.gov/docket/Documents.aspx?no=09-0268 When Wednesday's actual ICC order is finally issued and uploaded to their website, probably later on Wednesday night, it will likely be available from the "documents" page. Mark J. Cuccia markjcuccia at yahoo dot com Lafayette LA, formerly of New Orleans LA pre-Katrina
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:23:47 -0700 (PDT) From: Neal McLain <nmclain@annsgarden.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Toll-Free 855 Coming Soon ... Message-ID: <90bd90fa-db9e-4aa6-bd8f-f928bc2e589a@j21g2000yqh.googlegroups.com> On Apr 17, 6:43 pm, dwolf...@panix.com (David Wolff) wrote: > Disney is so big, I wondered why they bothered with the "W" in > 407-WDISNEY instead of forcing the entire US phone system to allow them > to use a six-digit subscriber # (407-DISNEY). If they're that big, they could get their own area code. According to areacode-info.com, 642 is available. Then their main number could be 642-539-6687. Neal McLain
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End of The Telecom Digest (6 messages)

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