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The Telecom Digest for December 19, 2010
Volume 29 : Issue 342 : "text" Format

Messages in this Issue:

Re: History--Eight Digit US telephone numbers?(Richard)
Your Apps Are Watching You(Monty Solomon)
Phone-Wielding Shoppers Strike Fear Into Retailers(Monty Solomon)
Re: History--Eight Digit US telephone numbers?(Wes Leatherock)
Re: History--Eight Digit US telephone numbers?(Wes Leatherock)


====== 28 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2010 23:06:05 -0800 From: Richard <rng@richbonnie.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: History--Eight Digit US telephone numbers? Message-ID: <1tlog6thn0itkrft65ju2btk7jsfp6b8te@4ax.com> On Fri, 17 Dec 2010 13:38:09 -0600 (CST), jsw <jsw@ivgate.omahug.org> wrote: >The story I heard and believed was that Ma Bell did not embrace >STEP technology because they did not want to pay royalties to >Strowger and company. Beginning in 1965, I lived in Salem, NH and worked in the Lawrence, MA area. Both Salem and Lawrence were NE Telephone and both had step offices. Both cwntral offices allowed last-5-digit dialing when calling phone in the same respective city. Both 5- and 7-digit dialing worked. In Salem, the office codes were 893 and 898. So a call to 898-8123 could be dialed as 88123. Then, the NH PUC ordered that our local area include Nashua, NH, with office codes begining with 88 (882, 883, ... 888, 889). To make this work, NE Tel had to change the Salem numbers of the form 898-8xxx to 893-0xxx, so that any dialing beginning with 88 would be directed to Nashua. 5-digit dialing still worked from Salem to Salem. In Lawrence, the office codes began with 68 (681, 682, etc.) 5-digit dialing existed for a long time. Some long time residents were so used to the 5-digits that they would give their number as "68 (pause) 23456" instead of "682 (pause) 3456". Dick
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2010 15:17:07 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Your Apps Are Watching You Message-ID: <p06240831c932c57bd733@[192.168.180.133]> WHAT THEY KNOW Your Apps Are Watching You By SCOTT THURM and YUKARI IWATANI KANE December 18, 2010 Few devices know more personal details about people than the smartphones in their pockets: phone numbers, current location, often the owner's real name-even a unique ID number that can never be changed or turned off. These phones don't keep secrets. They are sharing this personal data widely and regularly, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found. An examination of 101 popular smartphone "apps"-games and other software applications for iPhone and Android phones-showed that 56 transmitted the phone's unique device ID to other companies without users' awareness or consent. Forty-seven apps transmitted the phone's location in some way. Five sent age, gender and other personal details to outsiders. The findings reveal the intrusive effort by online-tracking companies to gather personal data about people in order to flesh out detailed dossiers on them. Among the apps tested, the iPhone apps transmitted more data than the apps on phones using Google Inc.'s Android operating system. Because of the test's size, it's not known if the pattern holds among the hundreds of thousands of apps available. ... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704694004576020083703574602.html The Journal's Cellphone Testing Methodology http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704034804576025951767626460.html What Can You Do? Not Much http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703929404576022140902538236.html What They Know - Mobile http://blogs.wsj.com/wtk-mobile/ What They Know http://online.wsj.com/public/page/what-they-know-digital-privacy.html
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2010 15:27:19 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Phone-Wielding Shoppers Strike Fear Into Retailers Message-ID: <p06240833c932c924b2cf@[192.168.180.133]> TECHNOLOGY Phone-Wielding Shoppers Strike Fear Into Retailers By MIGUEL BUSTILLO And ANN ZIMMERMAN DECEMBER 15, 2010 Tri Tang, a 25-year-old marketer, walked into a Best Buy Co. store in Sunnyvale, Calif., this past weekend and spotted the perfect gift for his girlfriend. Last year, he might have just dropped the $184.85 Garmin global positioning system into his cart. This time, he took out his Android phone and typed the model number into an app that instantly compared the Best Buy price to those of other retailers. He found that he could get the same item on Amazon.com Inc.'s website for only $106.75, no shipping, no tax. Mr. Tang bought the Garmin from Amazon right on the spot. "It's so useful," Mr. Tang says of his new shopping companion, a price comparison app called TheFind. He says he relies on it "to make sure I am getting the best price." Mr. Tang's smartphone reckoning represents a revolution in retailing-what Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Chief Executive Mike Duke has dubbed a "new era of price transparency"-and its arrival is threatening to upend the business models of the biggest store chains in America. Until recently, retailers could reasonably assume that if they just lured shoppers to stores with enticing specials, the customers could be coaxed into buying more profitable stuff, too. Now, marketers must contend with shoppers who can use their smartphones inside stores to check whether the specials are really so special, and if the rest of the merchandise is reasonably priced. ... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704694004576019691769574496.html
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2010 17:48:29 -0800 (PST) From: Wes Leatherock <wleathus@yahoo.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: History--Eight Digit US telephone numbers? Message-ID: <659278.41182.qm@web111701.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> --- On Fri, 12/17/10, jsw <jsw@ivgate.omahug.org> wrote: > I'm starting to wonder if the HOllis-5 office was manual. Did panel > switchgear store the entire phone number before acting on it, or > did it translate the exchange and then route the rest of the dial > pulses to the desired exchange? I understand your point of the > frames, but perhaps only the incoming storage register had to be > larger. > > It acted as soon as it had enough information to act. This was very > innovative for the technology of the day. > > IIRC, the action on the dialed digits was somewhat overlapping on > panel. It was definitely not direct control by any means. If you > would dial slowly when calling one panel office from another, you > could often make out the sounds of the progress through the switch > train. The cadence of the sounds was quite different when calling a > #1 or #5 crossbar from a panel office than it was when calling > another panel office, and this made it somewhat easy to tell which > offices were panel and which were crossbar. I thought panel offices used revertive pulsing, i.e. after the full number was dialed the distance office started pulsing back to the originating office until the originating office said "stop" and went on to the next digit similarly. The first No. 1 crossbar offices were arranged to simulate panel offices in their signalling, leading to the apparent absurity of two No. 1 crossbar offices each simulating panel's revertive pulsing. The first No. 1 crossbar was intended for use in an all-panel environment. Wes Leatherock wleathus@yahoo.com wesrock@aol.com
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2010 17:57:58 -0800 (PST) From: Wes Leatherock <wleathus@yahoo.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: History--Eight Digit US telephone numbers? Message-ID: <52339.79333.qm@web111719.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> --- On Fri, 12/17/10, jsw <jsw@ivgate.omahug.org> wrote: {...] > I guess they did eventually employ SxS for many smaller communities > in their service areas, and even some mid-size cities as well, with > Des Moines being an example. How about Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, Oklahoma City, Fort Worth, Tulsa, Wichita, Little Rock. Wes Leatherock wleathus@yahoo.com wesrock@aol.com
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End of The Telecom Digest (5 messages)

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