TELECOM Digest Fri, 6 May 2005 23:15:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 201 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #480, May 6, 2005 (John Riddell) Swedish Raid on ISP Called Major Blow to Piracy (Lisa Minter) Big Brother Isn't Here Yet (Eric Friedebach) 1A2 Help Requested (Matt) Review of Ameritech History Book (Thank You) (Brian_Coffey@nps.gov) Closed Captioning (was How is Weather Channel Data....) (Neal McLain) Re: Who Gets to See the E-mail of the Deceased? (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com) Re: Who Gets to See the E-mail of the Deceased? (Robert Bonomi) Re: Here's how Vonage-Verizon E-911 Will Work (Barry Margolin) Michigan Senate Technology And Energy Committee Meeting (Jack Decker) 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; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #480, May 6, 2005 Date: Fri, 6 May 2005 15:04:32 -0400 From: John Riddell ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 480: May 6, 2005 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: ** ALLSTREAM: www.allstream.com ** AVAYA: www.avaya.ca/en/ ** BELL CANADA: www.bell.ca ** CISCO SYSTEMS CANADA: www.cisco.com/ca/ ** ERICSSON: www.ericsson.ca ** MITEL NETWORKS: www.mitel.com/ ** SPRINT CANADA: www.sprint.ca ** UTC CANADA: www.canada.utc.org/ ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** Nortel Sales Down From Last Year ** CRTC VoIP Decision Due Next Week ** CallNet to Acquire GT Assets in NB, NS ** Rogers Leads in New Wireless Sales ** Labor War Heats Up at Telus ** Telus Announces 3G Wireless Plans ** Bell Meets First SuperNet Target ** Qwest Abandons Attempt to Buy MCI ** Primus Canada Up to 40,000 Local Lines ** SaskTel Chooses Alcatel for Converged IP ** FCC Chair Wants 911 on Internet Phones in Four Months ** Aliant: Revise Our Quality Reports, Too! ** ITU Plans European Show ** First Quarter Financial Reports BCE Profits Steady Telus Profits Double MTS Net Income Rises Call-Net Makes Gains NORTEL SALES DOWN FROM LAST YEAR: Nortel Networks reports fourth quarter revenues of US$2.62 billion, up 20% from the preceding quarter but down 20% from the same period a year ago. Net income of $133 million was down 75% from a year ago. Enterprise sales in 2004 were 9% less than the previous year, and made up about a quarter of total revenues. CRTC VoIP DECISION DUE NEXT WEEK: The CRTC's long-awaited decision on the regulatory framework for Voice over IP services in Canada is scheduled for release next Thursday, May 12. Next week's Telecom Update will provide a summary. CALLNET TO ACQUIRE GT ASSETS IN NB, NS: Call-Net has agreed to acquire virtually all of the former Group Telecom's intercity and local networks in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, along with certain switching and network equipment, from Bell Canada for $12.6 million. (see Telecom Update #435) ** Call-Net has also paid Bell $1.7 million toward an option to purchase over 90% of the remaining GT network in Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador by the end of 2006, for a maximum price of $22.4 million. ROGERS LEADS IN NEW WIRELESS SALES: Cellco results for the first quarter show Rogers with a net gain of 89,200 new wireless subscribers. Telus Mobility grew by 80,200, Bell Mobility by 37,000. Bell says its results reflect the cancellation of 45,000 non-paying accounts. ** Subscriber totals as of March 31: Rogers 5.58 million; Bell 4.96 million; Telus 4.02 million. LABOR WAR HEATS UP AT TELUS: The battle between Telus and its employees organized in the Telecommunications Workers Union escalated again this week. Recent developments: ** Telus announced that it will stop deducting union dues from employees' wages and cease remitting the dues to the TWU. ** The TWU launched a Web-based campaign against Telus, and is urging the federal Minister of Labor to press Telus to settle. See www.anotherwrongnumber.com ** The TWU is questioning the legality of the election of directors held at this week's Telus AGM. A TWU member ran for the board, but the chair disallowed proxy votes for him. TELUS ANNOUNCES 3G WIRELESS PLANS: Telus Mobility says it plans to launch EVDO service, which transports data at "Third Generation" rates of up to 2 Mbps, in selected markets across Canada in the first quarter of 2006. (See Telecom Update #462) BELL MEETS FIRST SUPERNET TARGET: By April 30, Bell Canada had connected 421 of 429 communities to Alberta SuperNet, meeting the target set by the Alberta Government. The eight remaining will be connected when weather permits. (See Telecom Update #470) ** Bell and its partner, Axia NetMedia, aim to have the majority of government facilities connected to the network by June 30 and to complete construction by September 30. QWEST ABANDONS ATTEMPT TO BUY MCI: This week, MCI accepted Verizon's US$26 per share acquisition offer, although it was $4 less than Qwest's. Qwest has pulled out of the bidding, saying it is "no longer in the best interests of shareowners, customers, and employees to continue in a process that seems to be permanently skewed against Qwest." PRIMUS CANADA UP TO 40,000 LOCAL LINES: Virginia-based Primus Telecommunications Group says its Canadian subsidiary had 40,000 residential lines in service by March 31. About 90% of the new local customers take a Primus LD plan as well. SASKTEL CHOOSES ALCATEL FOR CONVERGED IP: SaskTel has chosen Alcatel, one of its long-standing data network suppliers, to equip the telco's IP network with the Alcatel 7450 Ethernet switch and 5620 Service Aware Manager. FCC CHAIR WANTS 911 ON INTERNET PHONES IN FOUR MONTHS: Published reports say the U.S. Federal Communications Commission will vote May 19 on a proposal to require providers of Internet telephone services to route 911 calls directly to the appropriate emergency lines by the end of September. The proposal is said to be supported by the new FCC Chair, Kevin Martin. ALIANT: REVISE OUR QUALITY REPORTS, TOO! Aliant has asked the CRTC to exclude some of its Quality of Service results from the calculations that require it to pay refunds to customers for poor service. Aliant wants to exclude results for 4Q 2004 and 1Q 2005 that it says were affected by last year's strike, which lasted from April 23 to September 20. ** Telus made a similar request last week. (See Telecom Update #479) ITU PLANS EUROPEAN SHOW: Two years ago, the International Telecommunications Union decided to move its flagship Telecom World trade show and conference from Switzerland to Hong Kong in 2006. The ITU now says it will add a new event, Telecom Europe, to its schedule for 2007-2008. The date and location remain to be determined. ** May 17 is World Telecommunications Day, marking 140 years since the formation of the ITU. FIRST QUARTER FINANCIAL REPORTS: ** BCE Profits Steady: BCE's revenues of $4.86 billion were 4.8% higher than a year ago; profits were $474 million, compared with $470 million in 1Q04. Bell Globemedia's sales rose 4.1%; Bell Canada's, 2.5%. Wireless revenues rose 9.5%, and data revenues rose 6.6%. ** Telus Profits Double: Telus net income of $242 million was 139% higher than during the same quarter last year; net income rose 9.5% to $1.97 billion. Data sales rose 11%. Wireless revenue rose 19% and now makes up 38% of Telus's overall sales. ** MTS Net Income Rises: Manitoba Telecom's profits of $42.5 million were 34.1% higher than a year ago, excluding one- time events. Revenues of $495.1 million were up 135% from a year ago, which did not include Allstream. Sales of the Manitoba division rose 5.3%; those of the national division were similar to the previous two quarters. ** Call-Net Makes Gains: In Q1 2005, Call-Net revenue grew 7% compared to Q1 2004, to $216 million. EBIDTA, cash flow and gross margins increased. Fifty-six percent of revenue in the quarter were from non-long distance business. Net loss was $13 million, down from $30 million a year ago. Call-Net added 30,000 new local lines in the quarter, to total 336,100 residential and 159,000 business lines. HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-mail ianangus@angustel.ca and jriddell@angustel.ca HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR UNSUBSCRIBE) TELECOM UPDATE is provided in electronic form only. There are two formats available: 1. The fully-formatted edition is posted on the World Wide Web late Friday afternoon each week at www.angustel.ca. 2. The e-mail edition is distributed free of charge. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to: join-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.com To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to: leave-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.com Sending e-mail to these addresses will automatically add or remove the sender's e-mail address from the list. Leave subject line and message area blank. We do not give Telecom Update subscribers' e-mail addresses to any third party. For more information, see www.angustel.ca/update/privacy.html. COPYRIGHT AND CONDITIONS OF USE: All contents copyright 2005 Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. All rights reserved. For further information, including permission to reprint or reproduce, please e-mail rosita@angustel.ca or phone 905-686-5050 ext 500. The information and data included has been obtained from sources which we believe to be reliable, but Angus TeleManagement makes no warranties or representations whatsoever regarding accuracy, completeness, or adequacy. Opinions expressed are based on interpretation of available information, and are subject to change. If expert advice on the subject matter is required, the services of a competent professional should be obtained. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 May 2005 19:56:47 EDT From: Lisa Minter Subject: Swedish Raid on ISP Called Major Blow to Piracy By Steve Gorman LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The U.S. film industry on Friday hailed a raid by Swedish police against an Internet service provider as a major blow to European piracy of movies and music on the Web. The raid was carried out a week ago Thursday at the Stockholm offices of Bahnhof, Sweden's oldest and largest ISP, which U.S. copyright protection experts have considered a haven for high-level Internet piracy for years. "This was a very big raid," said John Malcolm, worldwide anti-piracy operations director at the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which represents Hollywood's major studios. "The material that was seized contained not only evidence of a piracy organization operating in Sweden but of online piracy organizations operating throughout all of Europe," he told Reuters. Bahnhof, the first major ISP raided by the Swedes without advance notice, was home to some of the biggest and fastest servers in Europe, the MPAA said in a statement. Authorities in Sweden seized four computer servers -- one reputed to be the biggest pirate server in Europe -- containing enough digital film and music content for up to 3-1/2 years of uninterrupted play, the organization said. Malcolm said authorities in Scandinavian countries had been reluctant to take such action in the past but were recently cracking down on piracy. About 20 individuals suspected of Internet piracy have been the targets of smaller raids by Swedish authorities during the past month. The servers seized during the operation contained a total of 1,800 digital movie files, 5,000 software application files and 450,000 digital audio files -- amounting to 23 terabytes of data. The MPAA says the film industry loses $3.5 billion a year to videotapes and DVDs sold on the black market, but it has no estimate for how much Internet piracy costs the industry. Reuters/VNU NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, Reuters Limited. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Eric Friedebach Subject: Big Brother Isn't Here Yet Date: 6 May 2005 13:22:22 -0700 Arik Hesseldahl, 05.06.05, Forbes.com NEW YORK - There's an old saying that goes, "Gentlemen don't read other gentlemen's mail." It's attributed to President Herbert Hoover's Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson, who in 1929 shut down the office in the U.S. State Department responsible for breaking codes to read messages sent between embassies of other countries and their capitals. It didn't take long for the government to realize that eavesdropping on the communications of other countries and even its own citizens is a necessary evil in a dangerous world. Government surveillance is a sensitive topic, fraught with a good deal of paranoia and a lot of misunderstanding. I was reminded of this when someone with whom I trade e-mail sent an article noting that the number of court-ordered phone wiretaps is on the rise. The Administrative Office of U.S. Courts tracks statistics on wiretaps ordered by judges at the state and federal levels on an annual basis in order to report them to Congress. The headline on most stories detailing the report was that the overall number of wiretaps was up 19%. The friend who sent the story used this in part to bolster her side of a long-simmering discussion about how the U.S. is morphing into Oceania, the surveillance-obsessed nation described in George Orwell's 1984. "Hogwash," I said, and promptly tore into the numbers. Federal and state judges approved 1,710 wiretaps covering wire, oral and electronic communications in 2004, none of which were related to terrorism investigations, for which an additional 1,754 warrants were issued last year according to a separate report put out by the U.S. Department of Justice. So last year's grand total was 3,464 wiretaps approved for all state and federal investigations. That works out to less than one tapped phone line for every 100,000 people in the U.S. Compared to other countries, the U.S. is significantly more conservative in ordering wiretaps for criminal investigations. http://www.forbes.com/technology/2005/05/06/cx_ah_0506diglife.html Eric Friedebach /An Apollo Sandwich from Corky & Lenny's/ ------------------------------ From: Matt Subject: 1A2 Help Requested Date: 6 May 2005 13:42:34 -0700 All, I googled this group and found some questions, slightly related to mine, but not exactly, and all 3 or 4 years old. Also, I apologize if I munge some terms. So -- the story. The old 6 button western electric wink/blink/flash business phones have always fascinated me. Don't ask me why ... I dunno. Currently I don't have any "new" phones at home ... Over the years I have found them all to be crap for one reason or another, regardless of price, and have bought several of the old 60s/70s style phones to replace them. I was amazed how much I prefer the sound of the old style ringer to the glitzy electronic chirp I'd gotten used to. So now, the grumpy old man in me is satisfied. But the geek in me isn't. So, on to the next step -- installing one of the 6 button business phones at home. (I don't/won't have multiple lines. All 5 buttons will tie to the same number, or perhaps I'll use some of them for intercom functionality, etc. one day). I'm bidding on some manuals that apparantly go very deeply into the operation and wiring of this type system -- but in the chance I lose the auction, I was hoping to get some help here. Can anyone break down, at a high level, the components I will need to get something like this working? I know I need the phone itself, and it has to have the 25 pair amphenol connector on it. And I know I need a 1A2 Keyset Unit. And this is where things get fuzzy for me. When someone says 1A2 keyset unit -- does that automatically infer all the pieces that go with it? For example, I know there are various cards, which enable certain options, and so, there must also be a power supply to power the cards. Is this all self contained within what is called a KSU? Are there other pieces to a 1A2 KSU I need to know about? For example, do I need to get some punchdown blocks that go in between the phones and the KSU? I guess my problem is I don't know what to ask -- because I don't know what I'm doing. I'll continue searching the web to learn more, and in the meantime, if anyone could provide some links (Surely I'm not the only one to do this?), or perhaps offer comments, I'd be most appreciative. Thanks, Matt ------------------------------ Subject: Ameritech Book Review (Thank You) From: Brian_Coffey@nps.gov Date: Fri, 6 May 2005 16:25:48 -0400 Thanks for the nice review of our "Snapshots in Time." When I was hired as an intern by Bill Cauglin to catalog the Ohio Bell collection, it seemed both sad and crazy that those picture might be doomed to sit on shelves. The prototype for that book were simple 3-ring binders with copies of photos and some captions. We took the Illinois binder to the State Fair and sent one to the Ohio Ameritech office. I feel so happy that we were able to use those photos for something educational, and, we hope for the old "Bell Heads," something inspirational. I later presented a paper "From Princess to Coquette: The Role of the Telephone in The American Home," at the American Poplular Culture Conference. It was about how AT&T used a propaganda blitz to convince people to get a second phone, and the eventual demise of the Dreyfuss designs and the last gasp of design that gave us the "Design Line." Thanks again. BRIAN F. COFFEY LCS COORDINATOR SERO/CRD 404-562-3117 EXT. 642 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As I mentioned to you in private email, you are quite welcome. And it appears nothing has been said about that book for several months, so a refresher review might be in order: Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 23:35:50 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org TELECOM Digest Sun, 22 Feb 2004 23:35:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 87 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: A Photographic History of Ameritech (TELECOM Digest Editor) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:57:22 EST From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Book Review: A Photographic History of Ameritech Did you know 'Ameritech' originally stood for '(AM)erican (I)nformation (TECH)nologies, Inc.? You will learn that and a lot more in a recent book "A Photographic History of Ameritech". Subtitled 'Snapshots in Time', this photgraphic essay of the companies which make up the present day north-central region of SBC is a brilliant presentation of how our past evolved into our present. Written and compiled by William D. Caughlin, the manager of Ameritech Corporate Archives, with co-authors Brian F. Coffey and Ilana N. Pergam, this 200-page large size paperback book uses pictures to tell the story of the history of telephone service from its beginning in 1876 through the end of 1999, when Ameritech (or Illinois Bell as most of us knew it) became part of SBC, or what we knew as Southwestern Bell. When Alex Bell invented the telephone in March, 1876, many considered it just a novelty, an electrical toy. Everyone -- at least all readers of this Digest -- are aware of how Western Union essentially thumbed its nose at the invention, a snub that about a century later would put it out of business, along with email showing up a few years later. The Chicago Telephonic Exchange was founded on June 26, 1878 to serve the needs of Chicago businessmen. When the general public also wanted phone service, the Chicago Telephonic Exchange merged with a competitor to form the Chicago Telephone Company, in business from 1881 through 1920 to provide local service around the city. About the same time, (1883-1920) Central Union Telephone Company started offering service in other parts of northern and central Illinois. Actually ahead of Chicago by about 9 months (it started in October, 1877) was the Michigan Telephone and Telegraph Construction Company, which was the nation's first Bell Operating Company. Like Chicago, their first interest was private line service for businesses, but on August 5, 1878 the Detroit Telephonic Exchange opened for business. During 1879, telephone exchanges were established in several towns throughout Michigan, and after two years, in 1881, these various Michigan exchanges were affiliated in the Michigan Bell Telephone Company, and two years following that, in 1883 (through 1904) the Michigan Telephone Company was formed. Then comes January, 1879 and the Columbus, Ohio Telephone Exchange. By the end of 1879, there were cities all over Ohio with phone service. It was about that time, that telephone switchboards were started. In the earliest days telephones were all connected directly to each other: in other words if company A had a phone and company B had a phone and Company C wanted to talk to A and B they had to have two telephones, one each to A and B. Multiply that by the number of companies in Chicago alone and you can see why the skies overhead were black with telephone wires running in all directions. Most companies had a phone to most other companies, so typically there were wires running through the air everywhere. Ditto in Detroit, Cleveland and elsewhere. In March, 1879, Ameritech's first predecessor in Indiana -- the Indiana District Telephone Company began operations in Indianapolis. It eventually became part of the Central Union Telephone Company and had phone exchanges all over the state. Milwaukee's first switchboard opened in 1879, and in July, 1882 (through 1983) the Wisconsin Telephone Company was incorporated to serve that state. These five companies -- Central Union, Chicago Telephone, Cleveland Telephone, Michigan Telephone and Wisconsin Telephone became known as Associated Companies in the Bell System, and that is what this photographic essay is all about: The 1876 through 1999 period as those five companies were born, developed, merged then merged again and (as Ameritech) had still another merger into Southwestern Bell Telephone Company which then changed its name into SBC. The rapid expansion of telephone service in those early years brought with it the need for many skilled employees, especially operators. Although the first operators were young men, it soon became apparent that the subscribers preferred women in this role. Women soon became the switchboard operators, and men handled installation and maintain- ence. But around 1972, the companies began once again employing young men as operators in Directory Assistance and elsewhere. Page 139 in this book shows a young man at work in Directory Assistance in Dayton, Ohio. Caughlin and his associates picked through nearly one hundred thousand pictures in their archives and present several hundred of them in this fascinating book along with some text to place all the pictures in context. The book is broken into several parts, covering these periods of time: 1876-1899 1900-1939 1940-1969 1970-1999 and in addition a section is devoted to Ameritech's lineage. You may wish to order one or more personal copies for your library. The SBC Archives and History Center is pleased to offer the book entitled, Snapshots in Time: A Photographic History of Ameritech. This 192-page soft-cover book chronicles the evolution of telecommunications in the SBC Midwest (former Ameritech) five-state region through select historical images. It offers more than 225 captioned photos of switchboard operators, crews with their vehicles and technicians testing central office equipment. The book begins with an 1876 portrait of Alexander Graham Bell and ends in 1999, on the eve of the SBC/Ameritech merger. The cost for each book is $25.00, plus $4.95 for shipping. To order, fill out the form below. If you have questions, please call Bill Caughlin at (210) 524-6192. Or send him an e-mail at wc2942@sbc.com --------------------------------------------------------------- ORDER FORM FOR Snapshots in Time: A Photographic History of Ameritech NAME __________________________________________________ BUSINESS UNIT ________________________________________ ADDRESS _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ CITY _________________________ STATE _____ ZIP __________ PHONE NUMBER (______)_________________________ I would like to order _______ copy(ies) each at $25.00, plus $4.95 shipping, for a total of _____________. No cash, please. Make your check or money order payable to SBC Services, Inc. and send it to: SBC Archives and History Center 7990 IH-10 West Floor 1 San Antonio, Texas 78230 [TELECOM Digest Editor's 1994 Note: This review will go in the Telecom Archives section on history for future reference. You may wish to visit the history section in the archives http://telecom-digest.org and check out several interesting files there about the history of the telephone, etc. I am in the process now of attempting to establish an online museum of telephone history with pictures, etc. I'll need readers help to do it however. PAT ] Then, the next day, the author wrote with some corrections and further comments which appeared in V23_#88 Re: Book Review Corrections, Comments (Bill Caughlin) From: William D. Caughlin Subject: Author's Feedback on Book Review Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 11:13:49 -0600 Dear Patrick: Many thanks for your splendid review. It should spur a lot of interest in the book published in September 1999. We had already received five prior orders because of your earlier mass e-mail. I have two minor quibbles, though, about your review: (1) the book's primary title is 'Snapshots in Time,' while the subtitle is 'A Photographic History of Ameritech;' and (2) the official name of Ameritech between 1983 and 1991 was American Information Technologies Corporation. There was no "Inc." in it. Ameritech Corporation (the official name beginning in 1991) merged in October 1999 with SBC Communications Inc. (the holding company formerly known until 1995 as Southwestern Bell Corporation, or simply SBC). Southwestern Bell Telephone Company was just one of the many subsidiaries of parent SBC. Today, the former is called SBC Southwest. As part of the process to create a unified national brand, in December 2002, Ameritech became known as SBC Midwest and the former Illinois Bell (a.k.a. Ameritech Illinois) was rebranded as SBC Illinois. At the same time, the holding company Pacific Telesis Group (acquired by SBC in April 1997) became SBC West. And later, Southern New England Telecommunications Corporation (acquired in October 1998), parent of SNET, was simply renamed SBC East in January 2004. In fact, the former Bell Operating Companies in the 13 SBC states are now doing business as: SBC California, SBC Connecticut, SBC Indiana, SBC Missouri, SBC Texas, and so on. Ours is a very complicated industry, and so all the mergers and name changes tend to make things unclear. Finally, I was the manager of the *former* Ameritech Corporate Archives. That entity moved in June 2002 from Chicago to San Antonio, and is but one collection (out of five) in the present SBC Archives and History Center. Thank you again for sharing my book with your readers. I hope they will like it as much as you. Regarding our archival photos, we have digitized about 250 images (out of 200,000), which are currently mounted on the SBC Archives and History Center Intranet website, launched in December. Pending legal approval, we hope to make the site accessible to SBC retirees through the retiree portal. But reproduction of individual photos outside SBC requires license agreements approved by the Legal Dept. SBC doesn't want its copyrighted photos ending up in uncontrolled ventures without its permission. William D. Caughlin Corporate Archivist SBC Archives and History Center 7990 IH-10 West, Floor 1 San Antonio, Texas 78230 Tel: (210) 524-6192 Fax: (210) 321-5577 E-mail: wc2942@sbc.com ======= (End of 1994 notes) ====== So, readers, if you missed this review in the Digest a year ago and would be interested in a fascinating pictorial history of Illinois Bell, use the coupon above to order your copy for $25.00 from the SBC Archives, and Mr. Caughlin's office. And thank _you_, Mr. Coffey for the reminder to tell new readers of this Digest about it once again. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 04 May 2005 22:37:17 -0500 From: Neal McLain Subject: Closed captioning (was How is Weather Channel Data....) PAT wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Regards closed caption, since I > sometimes these days do not hear as well as I would like, I > frequently leave closed caption turned on (it is an on/off > option on my television set) even though I am also using sound > as well (closed caption allows me to keep up with words I miss > or do not understand occassionally.) But has anyone else > noticed how they really _blow it bad_ sometimes, with trash > symbols instead of the words, etc,... The "trash symbols" you see are the result of corrupted CC data. In an NTSC video signal, the CC data is encoded on Line 21 of the picture raster (if you slightly underscan your TV set, you can see it dancing along at the top of the screen as a horizontal line of black and white dots and dashes). It other words, the CC data is part of the video signal, not a separate data stream. Consequently, it's subjected to all of the various degradations that also affect the video signal: noise, distortion, non-linear heterodyning, scrambling/descrambling, interference from outside sources. Furthermore, if the video signal is sent digitally (as on digital cable or DBS), Line 21 is sampled right along with the rest of the video. Even if the sampling data stream is error-corrected, the underlying CC data is not. > ... or sometimes just approximations of the phrases used > instead of the actual words? Sometimes this is done intentionally; sometimes not. An ad libbing speaker often speaks in a hesitant manner, sometimes repeating himself or inserting extraneous or meaningless words. An effective closed-caption track captures the essential meaning of the speaker's words, but it isn't necessarily a literal word-for-word transcription. Indeed, a word-for-word transcription can be difficult to follow, and sometimes downright annoying (it certainly isn't necessary to transcribe every "...uh...uh..."). > And in the case of VCR or DVD movies, I assume the closed > caption is just encoded right on the finished product, is that > correct? Yes. It's also true of prerecorded network programming; in fact, it's true of just about everything you see on television except live or live-delayed programming. I once observed a captioner at work at the National Captioning Institute; at the time of my visit, he was captioning a sitcom. He already had the original script as a text file; his job was to copy the script to the CC track, match it to the sound track, and modify it if necessary (as he explained, actors who really know their roles tend to adlib their lines, especially in sitcoms). I was amazed at how fast he worked: fingers flying across a standard PC keyboard, one eye on the video monitor, one eye on the text monitor, half-listening to the sound track. I asked, how he could do it so fast? He just shrugged and said "all sitcoms are alike" -- once you know the basic rhythm, you just know intuitively where to insert the CC data. > And if it is a 'live program' such as a newscast instead of > some pre-recorded stuff, it appears they also create the > closed caption live, since it drags behind the audio by a few > seconds. PAT] During live events, CC data is created on-the-fly using the same 22-key "stenotypes" that court reporters use. Some community colleges now teach stenotyping, emphasizing the training for, and the future job prospects of, both court reporting and closed captioning. Of course, doing this type of work accurately requires more than just stenotyping: it also requires knowledge of the subject at hand. Court reporters obviously have to understand legal terminology; closed-captioners have to understand the terminology of whatever they're transcribing. Inevitably closed-captioners make mistakes. Among my favorites: Senator Daniel Anyway of Hawaii Felix Mendel's son a feat snobs John Maynard Cain Nevertheless, considering the vast range of topics that closed-captioners have to deal with, I think they do an amazing job. Neal McLain [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Your comment about transcribing an extemporaneous speaker was a good one. For a few years in my former life in Chicago, IL I had a job of tape-recording then transcribing a lecture series given at the Chicago Public Library. It was stressed to me, 'do not transcribe him literally, transcribe what he _meant_.' So I would listen to the tape three or four times, jotting down some notes. Then I would listen to the tape again, and type it up mostly 'word for word' (these notes were given out to persons who requested them later on), but I would *make complete sentences* where the speaker had made partial sentences; I would eliminate the extraneous 'ah, um' things. But then before I took the finished transcription to be mimeographed in a large quantity, I took my finished product to the speaker and said "if this correctly states your lecture, _please sign off on it for me_" then when the speaker and myself were in agreement (we almost always were), then I would get the copies run off. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Who Gets to See the E-mail of the Deceased? Date: 6 May 2005 14:03:22 -0700 Justin Time wrote: > The issue that needs to be resolved is if the ownership of the data, > residing on the company's (in this particular case - Yahoo!) belongs to > the sender or is it the property of the equipment provider? Seems to me it is clear the email is the property of whomever is paying the bill for email service. In the case of a worker, it is his employer. In the case of someone on their own, it is that person. Keep in mind ISPs have denied any responsibility for illegal activity transmitted over their systems -- if you download illegal stuff, you're in trouble, not your ISP. Accordingly, the ISP has no property interest in transmissions. Actually, this particular issue seems to be more of 'privacy'. But as mentioned, this is by no means a new issue. Once you're dead (or incapcitated) your affairs revert to legally designated people. As mentioned, the discovery of old love letters has had devastating results. Indeed, our nation's history was directly affected by such a case. FDR had an affair with a woman, and later on Eleanor discovered the old love letters. Their relationship remained strained forever more and more of a business partnership than a marriage. Note that the US Post Office will deliver mail addressed to a decedent to an executor unless officially notified otherwise by the executor. Mail is not automatically returned unless there is no one to accept it. If there is held mail (ie for a signature), the executor or POA is authorized to sign and receive it. > If I am _renting_ the use of the computer then the computers output > should belong to me. As I mentioned, Yahoo is not liable if you use their facilities for illegal stuff, thus they can't claim any interest in your mailings. The area of law is not "property ownership" but rather IIRC "bailments" where someone else is entrusted to hold your property, such as a safe deposit box at a bank. When you die, your executor has the right to open your safe deposit to inventory the contents (sometimes the state will order this done to get their inheritance tax cut) and then distribute or sell the contents per your will. Bailment law has been around forever and there are numerous case histories. Undoubtedly something close to today's issue can be found. > If I am employed on the farm and work with your tools, then I > suppose the crops are yours also. But not if the machinery, etc is > under my exclusive control for some period of time. PAT] The crops would belong to the property owner even if you used your own tools to harvest them. Basically it would depend on the agreement you had with the farmer for your compensation for work and equipment. Now Congress or the states could, if they chose, pass specific laws and exemptions from general practice for electronic communications. But until they do so, existing precedents apply. IMHO the email provider showed disrespect to the decedent's family for failing to provide with what was clearly lawfully theirs. From the point of view of the family, I'd be pretty annoyed. Again, if you have stuff you don't want others to see, don't use email. I just got burned with that--someone who promised me clearly they wouldn't forward my email went ahead and did so anyway ("oh, sorry, I forgot".) No great harm done since I was careful what I said originally, but it still proves the point. EMAIL IS NOT PRIVATE. ------------------------------ From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Subject: Re: Who Gets to See the E-mail of the Deceased? Date: Sat, 07 May 2005 00:40:38 -0000 Organization: Widgets, Inc. In article , Lisa Hancock wrote: > Lisa Minter wrote: >> by Susan Llewelyn Leach Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor >> It's an old story with a heart breaking twist. A young marine is >> killed in the line of duty in Iraq and his parents, in their sorrow, >> request all his belongings, including his correspondence -- in this >> case, his e-mail. > The e-mail should be treated no differently than any other personal > belongings and they revert to the next of kin or recipients specified > in a will. "Not exactly." ALL the property and "personal belongings" of the deceased belong to the ESTATE of the deceased. Until properly distributed to the inheritors -- either in accordance with a distribution schedule specified in a will, or according to statutory specifications. > This really should be a no-brainer, and the parents should not have > had to go court to get what was rightfully theirs. It _is_ a no-brainer. and the parents went about things the *wrong* way. > There is nothing special about e-mail that make them any different > than any other very personal belongings, such as a diary or account > statements. All of these pass on to an estate via the executor or > next of kin. Everything passes _into_ the ESTATE, and is distributed from there to the inheritors. All that had to happen was for the _executor_ of the estate to contact the Internet company, providing the *COURT*AUTHORIZATION* that (a) certifies that the person *is*, in fact, deceased, and (b) gives them, _as_executor_, access to any/all property belonging to the deceased. The family did _not_ have such documentation, when the original request was presented. The Internet company quite _rightfully_ refused to turn over the property of another person, on the "say so" of an unknown party, who was claiming that the account holder was deceased. [[.. munch ..]] > In the event there is any legally confidential material in an email > account, the estate executor would be responsible to care for it just > as he would any confidential documents found within an estate. Eureka! That's right. But it was *not* the _executor_ that made the request to the Internet company. Hence the "difficulties". > Senders of sensitive information by email have often been told that > email is not private and to be cautious. >> The Internet company refuses to give out the marine's password, saying >> that would violate its privacy rules. > To do that the Internet company would have to have explicitly had a > contract clause stating it would destroy all stored email upon the > death of a subscriber in all cases. Wrong. Until the "Internet company" has _proof_ in their hands that the requesting party is *legally*authorized* to have access, their responsibility is to (a) the account holder, and (b) if the account holder is deceased, to the _estate_ of the account holder. They must be notified _by_the_estate_ "agent" -- the executor -- if ownership of the property has been transferred to another. As the parents did *NOT* present a claim that they were acting 'on behalf of' THE ESTATE OF THE DECEASED, *their* request -- made in their own persona -- was properly denied. "Even if" they claimed that the estate executor had authorized the request, a denial was still proper. The Internet company must hear it directly from the executor -- not mere 'hearsay' that the executor authorized the action. [[.. munch ..]] > It doesn't work that well. Your personal effects automatically > revert to your family or estate unless you explicitly give > instructions otherwise. This is the way it always worked. BZZZT! Such effects belong to the ESTATE. Unconditionally. Which is responsible for distributing them according to law, and _maybe_ the specifications of a will. > The executor of an estate is duty bound to ascertain all assets and > personal property of a deceased and distribute per the will. > Accordingly, the executor needs access to anything and everything > belonging to the deceased. If no executor was appointed, that would > to next of kin with the same rights of access. Wrong. Next of kin does *NOT* have any legal "rights of access". "Next of kin" is simply the statutory 'default' beneficiary of the estate, absent other distribution requirements (statutory, or the "express wishes" of the decedent). In an "informal" settlement of an estate, if *nobody*objects*, and there are no "recorded" title matters involved, the various parties can just 'divvy things up' amongst themselves. However, if _anybody_ says "no", then the formal processes *are* required. That's what happened here. The mail-provider said "No. We require the _formal_ process." They were entirely _correct_ to do so. Just for one extreme hypothetical -- suppose that the soldier had had a falling-out (entirely on _his_ side) with the family and did not want them to have *anything* of his. That he had left a will to that effect with the military -- naming his new girlfriend (of whom the family knew nothing) as his *sole* beneficiary. Now, what happens if the Internet company did give the parents access to his account, and _later_ the executor demands access/control. HOW does the Internet company explain to the executor that they "gave away" that account, and the mail in it, to somebody else? Yes, it _looks_ "cold and uncaring", but the Internet company DID THE RIGHT THING here. The emotional appeal of "but, we're his _PARENTS_!" does not substitute for the _legal_ authority to access another's private property. Even if that person is deceased. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I would think however, that if the 'internet company' later got in a legal hassle about this -- let's say for example, tomorrow I showed up at the ISP's office with my properly notorized papers as the executor of the soldier's estate and asked them where is my email, and made a legal stench because they (ISP) had already given it away to someone else, they (ISP) could make a reasonable defense: "We acted in good faith; not knowing of any other executor to the estate. Typically for unmarried young soldiers who die in combat, their parents _are_ the executors, and in good faith we worked with them on that basis." I think that would hold up if the ISP were to get sued, since it is unreasonable the ISP as one of its obligations is to search for other executors. But ... I got these stories out of order. About two weeks ago I published a report from Associated Press on this self-same soldier and the parents grievances with the ISP: In that version from AP last month the _ISP_ had handed over the mail to the parents who (at that point) had started sorting it out for the scrapbook collage the mother wanted to make. Much ado about nothing it seems. After the soldier's father had sorted through a couple thousand plus pieces of email (the build up between the time of his death, the parents starting their inquiry, Yahoo finally obeying the court order, etc), it turns out the _real_ saveable email from his buddies, girl friends, etc amounted to _five_ pieces of mail; _huge_ loads of spam, unsolicited porn, etc made up the rest -- the majority -- of it. Not being particularly internet-savvy, the father had spent several days _actually reading through each of the propositions_ -- commercial and err, 'otherwise' that had stuffed this kid's email box before finally throwing up his hands in disgust; five email letters, a couple thousand pieces of trash ... had it been _me_ or most of you, if the subject line had not given it away, the first two or three words of the text would have been sufficient to cause it to get bashed. Poor parents! What _must_ they think of us here on the net these days. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: Here's how Vonage-Verizon E-911 Will Work Organization: Symantec Date: Fri, 06 May 2005 20:47:21 -0400 In article , John Levine wrote: >> While the process documented mirrors the process for traditional >> landline phones, it doesn't address what happens when the VoIP user >> takes their phone someplace else and then calls 9-1-1. Which center >> is called? The one for their home of record or the one serving the >> hotel/motel/grandma's house? > What kind of nitwit would go to all of the effort of booting up a VoIP > phone in those circumstances rather than using the POTS phone next to > the bed? > The VoIP E911 issue only really matters for people using VoIP as a > primary home phone, and it is my distinct impression that those phones > rarely move. I think people are expecting more and more users to start doing VoIP on mobile devices, replacing cellphones. So their VoIP phone will be hanging on their belt, always on and looking for open WiFi hotspots to connect through. Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Fri, 06 May 2005 18:00:10 -0400 Subject: Michigan Senate Technology And Energy Committee Meeting Thought some of you might want to know about this committee meeting - I would guess that Commissioner Chappelle will be making a pitch for more regulatory authority over VoIP by the MPSC, given their recent order. (Forwarded message:) Date: Fri, 06 May 2005 16:12:23 -0400 From: "Chris Kelley" Subject: T & E Committee Meeting Notice, 05-11-05 THE SENATE TECHNOLOGY AND ENERGY COMMITTEE SENATOR BRUCE PATTERSON CHAIRMAN MAY 6, 2005 NOTICE OF SCHEDULED MEETING DATE: Wednesday, May 11, 2005 TIME: 3:00 p.m. PLACE: Room 210, Farnum Building, 125 W. Allegan Street, Lansing, MI 48933 PHONE: Christopher Kelley (373-7350) Committee Clerk AGENDA SB 334 Sen. Patterson Public utilities; electric utilities; annual approval for a low income and energy efficiency factor regarding a distribution service; provide for. Discussion of the Michigan Telecommunications Act Presentations by Commissioner Laura Chappelle, M P S C; Consumers' Energy; and Shpigler Group on Broadband over powerlines And any other business to come properly before the Committee. Individuals who wish to bring written testimony need to supply a minimum of twenty copies for distribution. __________________________________________________ In the spirit of compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), individuals with a disability should feel free to contact the Office of the Secretary of the Senate by phone [(517) 373-2400] or by TDD [(517) 373-0543] if requesting special services to effectively participate in the meeting. How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #201 ****************************** TELECOM Digest Sun, 8 May 2005 19:51:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 202 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Unbrand America Causes a Mess on the Net Over Weekend (Patrick Townson) Big Media Companies Weigh Blog Strategies (Lisa Minter) Jail for 'Robin Hoods' Who Cost Microsoft Millions (Lisa Minter) Municipal Report: Fiber Kung-Fu in the Bayou (Jack Decker) Phisher Price: Phishing on E-Bay During the Holidays (e.lamb) Re: Wireless Headsets for Cordless Phones ? (SELLCOM Tech support) Re: Who Gets to See the E-mail of the Deceased? (Robert Bonomi) 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; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patrick Townson Subject: Unbrand America Causes Mess on the Net Over Weekend Date: Sun, 8 May 2005 17:01:57 -0500 Hi Everyone, Telecom and dozens (maybe hundreds) of other newsgroups have been spammed by Unbrandamerica.org. The NNTP server used for this spam is under jurisdiction of Asian Pacific Network. However the server's address is not registered with APN and so is not in their database, so it appears they may have used an unregistered open server or something of that kind to send their spam. Somehow they were able to bypass the Moderators of newsgroups and post directly to telecom and other groups. I did NOT approve any of their spam messages for posting to telecom. Unbrandamerica.org appears to be part of or associated with Adbusters.org. Here is what Adbusters says about themselves on their web site: "We are a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age. Our aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21st century." They have a magazine which they describe as "Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Adbusters is a not-for-profit ... magazine concerned about the erosion of our physical and cultural environments by commercial forces. Our work has been embraced by organizations like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, has been featured on MTV and PBS...." They also have what they call The Culture Jammers Network "We are a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age. Our aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21st century. We believe culture jamming can be to our era what civil rights was to the '60s, what feminism was to the '70s, what environmental activism was to the '80s. It will alter the way we live and think. It will change the way information flows, the way institutions wield power, the way TV stations are run, the way the food, fashion, automobile, sports, music and culture industries set their agendas. Above all, it will change the way meaning is produced in our society." These radicals appear to have no concept of common courtesy or decency, only caring about imposing their radical ideas on everyone, even to the extent of engaging in illegal activities in order to accomplish their goals. Unfortunately, because of the way usenet works, there is little we can do to delete their spam from the net. Once a piece of spam is accepted and posted on a usenet server, it is almost instantaneously propogated to hundreds of news servers around the world, and there is no way we can recall those posts, except 'cancels' one by one . It's kind of like gossip -- once you have passed on a bit of gossip, there is no way of getting it back. Those Unbrandamerica messages were NOT approved by newsgroup moderators for posting, nor do we in any way endorse the garbage they are preaching. Please accept our apologies. All we can suggest to do is to ignore those posts, and continue to cancel them as we find them. Oddly, there were certain newsgroups which got hit the worst; many of the Christnet groups were hit very hard, along with some of the social issues forums. Other newsgroups that the Unbrandamerica people approve of did not get hit as badly. Perhaps the Unbrandamerica people realize that while not exactly sympathetic to them, there are _many_ netters who think 'nothing can be done about spam' and that we have to tolerate it, and the same netters insist in their delusions that 'no one wants anything different than it is.' Maybe someday there _will_ be some major changes on the net, with or without the cooperation of the guys who keep claiming 'nothing can be done, this is an anarchy' and all that talk. I sure hope so for one. PAT ------------------------------ Date: 08 May 2005 15:11:30 -0700 From: Lisa Minter Subject: Big Media Companies Weigh Blog Strategies Are the newspapers being to feel a squeeze from the internet? And what about the cable news operations? Some of them were just a little shocked to read the recent survey results showing that many Americans who _were_ spending an hour or so each day either in front of the television for news or buried behind their newspapers reading it have now chosen to instead read blogs and news feeds on the internet instead. The newspapers of course chant their ongoing mantra, 'But who edits it and approves it prior to publication?' Well, that's a no-brainer. The people themselves atttend to that. And oooh, that makes the television and newspapers editorial people so angry. "What do you mean, we no longer control what they see and read? Who is going to buy what our sponsors have for sale?" Read about some of it here: Big media companies weigh blog strategies http://story.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050506/wr_nm/column_pluggedin_dc ------------------------------ Date: 08 May 2005 15:12:36 -0700 From: Lisa Minter Subject: Jail For 'Robin Hoods' Who Cost Microsoft Millions Robin Hood, according to legend, took from the rich and gave to the poor. Microsoft has been particularly hard hit from this, and has decided to strike back. http://story.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050506/wr_nm/tech_internet_dc ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Sat, 07 May 2005 21:35:21 -0400 Subject: Municipal Report: Fiber Kung-Fu in the Bayou I'm passing this along only to highlight the sort of dirty tricks and deceptive tactics that the phone and cable companies will resort to when trying to keep out municipal broadband. http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/63279 Municipal Report Fiber Kung-Fu in the Bayou Written by Karl Bode When Comcast and SBC wanted to convince three Illinois cities to vote against running their own fiber, they conducted "push polls" designed to shape voter perception, not gauge it. This, combined with more than a quarter million dollars in often misleading local marketing, helped "educate" voters that they should stay out of the broadband business. That public relations victory was a model for a battle that's now brewing in Lafayette, Louisiana. The Illinois surveys, which we were the only outlet to get a copy of, contained questions like "Should tax money be allowed to provide pornographic movies for residents?" As explored by Mother Jones recently, they played an integral part in defeating the initiative twice (See our interview with local leader Ed Hodges). It later turned out that SBC spent $192,324 on defeating the ballot measure, while Comcast spent $89,740. Fiber for our Future, the community group pushing the initiative, spent $4,325. Not months after the first vote failed, the Illinois area in question saw Comcast rate hikes as high as 33% in some neighborhoods. Now the city of Lafayette, Louisiana is preparing to vote on a non-tax (revenue bonds) based fiber network. Cox and Bellsouth, as recently explored by USAToday, have been fighting this plan tooth and nail. Their efforts have included not-so-veiled threats (the Independent) that BellSouth could pull a local wireless call-center (1,300 local employees) if the plan moved forward. They've also trotted out not-so-independent policy groups like the Heartland Institute (also a big player in killing the Illinois project) to try and convince locals that the enterprise is akin to capitalistic cancer. Heartland's warning comes despite the fact the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce, some 2,400 businesses strong (ironically including Cox), studied the local impact of the plan for a year and came out in favor of it. After considerable legal wrangling, BellSouth and Cox managed to get the fiber plan put to a vote. There's no great love of Democratic process here; the providers wisely know that they can easily win in public relations politics, usually by outmanning and outfunding their opponents. As the incumbent PR campaign ramps up in Lafayette ahead of the July vote, push polls have again emerged as a tactic of choice. According to the Advocate, locals are amazed at some of the questions being asked. One local Louisiana television channel quotes several local residents, one of whom claims they were told by a pollster: "if the government controls the cable TV, you may not be able to watch TV except on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 'cause they could ration your TV watching." Lafayette's fiber plan goes to a vote on July 16. The Lafayette Chamber of Commerce research into the plan is available here for those interested. Arguments for the project can be found at the Lafayette Pro-Fiber website. Arguments against the project can be found at the Fiber411 website. Article + reader comments at: http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/63279 How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: elamb.security@gmail.com Subject: Phisherprice: Phishing on Ebay During the Holidays Date: 8 May 2005 16:13:28 -0700 A hacker tried to get a free phone using a phishing technique that I had never heard of. The phisher used a Western Union Auction Money order form (a fake number) and actually sent me the fedex lable and had fedex come to my house to pick up the phone. Even though I didn't have the cash for the phone yet. The Phishing exploit relies on the buyers greed and the feverish haste of holiday spending. Here is the phishing exploit in detail: http://elamb.blogharbor.com/hacked/phisherprice.htm rob http://elamb.org ------------------------------ From: SELLCOM Tech support Subject: Re: Wireless Headsets for Cordless Phones ? Organization: www.sellcom.com Reply-To: support@sellcom.com Date: Sun, 08 May 2005 18:12:23 GMT kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) posted on that vast internet thingie: > You can get cordless phones with headsets and body packs. Hello > Direct has a couple models. That might be closer to what you're > wanting. Plantronics has a nice wireless headset that is at 900mhz. Steve at SELLCOM http://www.sellcom.com Discount multihandset cordless phones by Panasonic 5.8Ghz 2line; TMC ET4300 4line Epic phone, OnHoldPlus, Brickmail voicemail Brick wall "non MOV" surge protection. Firewood splitters www.splitlogs.com If you sit at a desk www.ergochair.biz. New www.electrictrains.biz ------------------------------ From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Subject: Re: Who Gets to See the E-mail of the Deceased? Date: Sun, 08 May 2005 20:25:15 -0000 Organization: Widgets, Inc. In an addendum to article , PAT noted: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I would think however, that if the > 'internet company' later got in a legal hassle about this -- let's say > for example, tomorrow I showed up at the ISP's office with my properly > notorized papers as the executor of the soldier's estate and asked > them where is my email, and made a legal stench because they (ISP) > had already given it away to someone else, they (ISP) could make a > reasonable defense: "We acted in good faith; not knowing of any other > executor to the estate. Typically for unmarried young soldiers who > die in combat, their parents _are_ the executors, and in good faith > we worked with them on that basis." I think that would hold up if > the ISP were to get sued, since it is unreasonable the ISP as one of > its obligations is to search for other executors. You're right on one thing. It is *NOT* the ISP's duty to 'search out' other executors. It is their duty to act *only* _with_ the "properly desigated" executor. Which requires _proof_ of the appointment to that position. Which comes only from the court. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. 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Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #202 ****************************** TELECOM Digest Mon, 9 May 2005 18:00:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 203 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Microsoft Changes Mind Again on GLBT Employees (Lisa Minter) Appeals Court Tosses FCC's Broadcast Flag Rule (Lisa Minter) Intel's CEO Claims WiMAX Competitive With DSL, Cable (Lisa Minter) Name Twin's Misdeeds Plague a Good Driver (Monty Solomon) Early 'True' National Direct Long Distance Dialing? (Lisa Hancock) Phone Line on cat 5 10-Base-T Ethernet? (Paul Robinson) DTMF Ring Tone Midi File (dlois@aol.com) Mobile Phone TV Set For Primetime (Telecom dailyLead from USTA) The Only Exciting Thing In Tech? (Eric Friedebach) Re: Who Gets to See the E-mail of the Deceased? (Justin Time) Re: Who Gets to See the E-mail of the Deceased? (Lisa Hancock) Re: Unbrand America Causes Mess on the Net Over Weekend (Steve Sobol) Re: 1A2 Help Requested (Lisa Hancock) Re: Sprint/PCS Lousy Web Interface (D.M. Hendricks) Telecom Digest 800 Business Directory (Robert Pierce) Alcatel Reminder (Simon Templar) 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; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lisa Minter Subject: Microsoft Changes Mind Again on GLBT Employees Date: Sun, 8 May 2005 20:56:19 -0500 By SARAH KERSHAW Microsoft, faced with unrelenting criticism from employees and gay rights groups over its decision to abandon support of a gay rights bill in Washington state, reversed course again yesterday and announced that it was now in support of the bill. Steve Ballmer, the company's chief executive, announced the reversal in an e-mail message sent to 35,000 employees in the United States. "After looking at the question from all sides, I've concluded that diversity in the workplace is such an important issue for our business that it should be included in our legislative agenda," Mr. Ballmer said. He added: "I respect that there will be different viewpoints. But as C.E.O., I am doing what I believe is right for our company as a whole." Long known for its internal policies protecting gay employees from discrimination and offering them benefits, Microsoft sparked an uproar when officials decided to take a "neutral" stance on the antidiscrimination bill this year, after having supported it the two previous years. Critics, including employees who said they were told that Microsoft would back the bill, said the decision to withdraw support had been made under pressure from a local evangelical preacher who threatened to boycott the company if it supported the legislation this year. Company officials have disputed the accusation. The bill, which would have extended protections against discrimination in employment, housing and other areas to gay men and lesbians, failed by one vote on April 21. But it is automatically up for a new vote next year because bills introduced in the Washington Legislature are active for two years even if they are voted down the first time. After the defeat, Mr. Ballmer sent an e-mail message to company employees, defending the decision to withdraw support. In that note, Mr. Ballmer said that he and Microsoft's founder, Bill Gates, personally supported the measure but felt the company needed to focus its legislative efforts on measures that had a more direct connection to their business. In yesterday's message Mr. Ballmer suggested that employees' responses had helped persuade Microsoft officials to renew their backing of the measure. More than 1,500 employees signed an internal petition demanding that the company support the bill, and scores wrote in protest to Mr. Ballmer and Mr. Gates. A Microsoft executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that senior company officials met after Microsoft's widely publicized turnaround on the bill prompted an uproar, and that they had decided to change the company's stance because of pressure from employees. "This issue got attention at the highest levels of the company in a way it didn't before," said the executive, who did not attend the meeting but was briefed on it. "It was a rocky path, but we got to the right place." Some lawmakers had said that Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., could have lent crucial backing to the legislation through influence on lawmakers representing Redmond and the suburbs outside Seattle. In explaining why the company had not supported the bill this year, Mr. Ballmer and other Microsoft officials had said over the last two weeks that they were re-examining their legislative priorities and debating when and whether to become involved in public policy debates. Gay rights groups said they were contacted by Microsoft officials before Mr. Ballmer's statement was publicly released. They applauded the decision. "We're very happy," said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay advocacy group. Mr. Solmonese met recently with several Microsoft employees after he learned of the earlier decision not to back the bill, which was first disclosed by The Stranger, an alternative weekly newspaper in Seattle. The Microsoft officials, Mr. Solmonese said, "took it very seriously." "They said that there had been a huge outpouring of concern via e-mail, both internally and externally," he said. Ed Murray, an openly gay state legislator from Seattle and a sponsor of the bill, said of the company's reversal: "I think it's important. It sent a message that this issue is not simply a so-called social issue or cultural war issue, but it's an issue that is good for business, and it's an issue that business considers important." But the company's decision disappointed others, including Microsoft employees who belong to the Antioch Bible Church in Redmond. The church is led by the Rev. Ken Hutcherson, who met with Microsoft officials twice about the bill and claimed to have persuaded them to change their position on it. "I feel that it's been kind of a stressful day," said a Microsoft employee who is a member of the church and who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I feel that it was wrong for the company to say that they will be supporting issues such as this. Businesses should not actually be publicly taking a stance on that, regardless of their internal policies." The employee, who has worked at Microsoft for four years, said the company should "stay out of it" when it comes to the debate over gay rights. Dr. Hutcherson, whose church offices are near Microsoft's headquarters, said earlier that he believed his boycott threat had persuaded Microsoft not to support the bill. He did not respond to messages left yesterday on his cellphone and at his office. Microsoft responded that "Dr. Hutcherson will have to do what he feels is best regards boycotts, etc." and we will do what we feel is best to protect all our employees." Steve Lohr contributed reporting for this article. Copyright 2005 New York Times Company NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Appeals Court Tosses FCC's Broadcast Flag Rule Date: Sun, 8 May 2005 21:00:15 -0500 By Peter Kaplan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Friday struck down a Federal Communications Commission rule designed to limit people from sending copies of digital television programs over the Internet. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the FCC had "exceeded the scope of its delegated authority" with the 2003 rule, which would have required TV set manufacturers to start using new anti-piracy technology by July 1. "We can find nothing in the statute, its legislative history, the applicable case law, or agency practice indicating that Congress meant to provide the sweeping authority the FCC now claims over receiver apparatus," the three-judge appeals court panel said in its opinion. FCC officials have said copyright protections were needed to help speed the adoption of digital television, which offers higher-quality signals and broadcasters said they would ask Congress to step in to address the matter. The music industry has been plagued by consumers copying and sharing songs for free over the Internet, violating copyright laws. Hollywood wants to prevent similar problems with its programs as it rolls out more digital content. "Without a 'broadcast flag,' consumers may lose access to the very best programming offered on local television," said National Association of Broadcasters President Edward Fritts. "We will work with Congress to authorize implementation of a broadcast flag..." The FCC declined to comment. The NBC Universal television network also argued the decision would hurt consumers. "Today's court ruling imposes crippling restraints on the FCC's ability to effectively support the development of a safe, sustainable marketplace for the creation and distribution of digital TV broadcasting," said the network, a unit of General Electric Co. Under the FCC rule, programers could attach a code, or flag, to digital broadcasts that would, in most cases, bar consumers from sending unauthorized copies over the Web. The regulation required manufacturers of television sets that receive digital over-the-air broadcast signals to produce sets that can read the digital code. Consumers could record and copy shows but would have been limited from sending them. Opponents complained the rule could raise prices to consumers and would set a bad precedent by allowing broadcasters to dictate how computers and other devices should be built. The ruling brought praise from the American Library Association and other non-profits who brought the court challenge. They said the broadcast flag rule "seriously undermined" educators rights to distribute digital material. "This is a big victory for consumers and libraries," the association's Washington office director, Emily Sheketoff, said in a statement. A spokesman for the Motion Picture Association of America, which backed the restriction, was not immediately available for comment. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Intel's CEO Says WiMAX Competitive With DSL, Cable Date: Sun, 8 May 2005 21:02:56 -0500 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Intel Corp. Chief Executive Craig Barrett said on Friday that new wireless high-speed data technologies would be competitive with Internet links provided by cable and phone companies. Intel, the world's largest chip maker, is pushing WiMAX, which would provide high speed data over areas as large as a small city, as a way to spread cheap yet ubiquitous wireless broadband access. Intel is hoping to replicate the success it had in popularizing the short-range wireless WiFi standard popular in airports and coffee shops. In a conference call with Reuters reporters, Barrett said most telephone digital subscriber lines and cable broadband connections were not fast enough. "Most of us who have DSL or cable at home do not have good broadband but kind of half-ass broadband, which doesn't really allow for good streaming video or that kind of stuff," he said. Few home broadband connections today offer higher download speeds than five megabits per second, and Barrett said good broadband -- which would be capable of delivering high-quality video transmission -- should be able to move at least 10 megabits per second. WiMAX, which should be capable of 50 megabits to 100 megabits per second, is "significantly better than what we typically look at with DSL and cable," Barrett said. "I think that will be very competitive with those technologies, and especially where those technologies aren't built out, in rural areas. "Will it compete with wired access? Absolutely. Will it be perhaps the only broadband solution you have in some areas? Absolutely, especially in rural areas." With Intel's muscle behind the WiMAX push, some 240 companies have joined the industry group developing WiMAX standards and equipment. Sprint Corp., and Intel said on Thursday they would cooperate on WiMAX tests. Intel expects the first commercial trials of WiMAX early next year, with different variations of the technology for mobile users available for trials by early 2007. Intel and others envision WiMAX equipment installed outside homes and business, linking up with base stations hosted by fixed-line telecommunications operators. A short-range, Wi-Fi signal, or perhaps an Ethernet cable, would bring the Internet to individual PCs in the home. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 May 2005 22:09:36 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Name Twin's Misdeeds Plague a Good Driver Again, Registry's mixup triggers bid to pull license By Ralph Ranalli, Globe Staff Nearly everyone has to share a name with someone, somewhere. David Edward Greene just wishes his counterpart hadn't been such a nightmare on the roadways. For the third time in 10 years, Greene, who lives in Arlington, is facing torment as his license comes due for renewal. The Registry of Motor Vehicles has sent him notice that it is about to revoke his license because of unresolved out-of-state driving offenses. That means Greene, a driver with one ticket in 25 years, has to prove he is not David Eugene Greene of Florida, who has the same birthdate but is a convicted sex offender whose license was revoked for multiple drunk driving arrests and court defaults. Previously, Greene of Arlington has presented a range of documentation, including a letter from Florida motor vehicle officials to prove he is not a scofflaw from the Sunshine State. In the past, Massachusetts officials eventually granted him a new license -- although once it happened after he inadvertently drove for several weeks with a revoked license, risking arrest and the impoundment of his car if he was pulled over. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/05/03/name_twins_misdeeds_plague_a_good_driver/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This type of thing used to happen a lot in Chicago, when the Cook County States Attorney would issue a warrant for someone with a very common name. Now in recent years, when a person (who is _NOT_ the wanted person) gets arrested and hassled, they are permitted to apply for a boilerplate letter which announces to one and all this particular [common name] is not wanted by law enforcement _at this time_. And it gives a phone number to call for verification. The common name person is 'encouraged' to carry this letter in his possession (his wallet perhaps) at all times, and present it to arresting officers, in the event of a mixup on his social security number or other details. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Early 'True' National Direct Long Distance Dialing? Date: 9 May 2005 08:00:52 -0700 Everyone knows that Englewood NJ was the site of the first subscriber based Direct Distance Dialing, where the phone user could dial directly himself long distance calls to other parts of the country. This was in the early 1950s. However, a review of the booklet given to Englewood subscribers shows that only a few major cities were dialable. While a considerable amount of population was reachable, a considerable amount of the country's physical area was not directly diable and an operator was still required. I was wondering how long it took for most of the country (ie all cities and most suburban areas) to be able to _receive_ directly dialed calls from subscribers. That is, how long did it take for Englewood to be able to dial more places? Also, I was wondering how long it took for other towns to get DDD? Was in phased in immediately after Englewood on a continuous basis, or did they wait a while and see how Englewood worked out before proceeding further? My guess is that it took until at least 1960 for all of this to happen. A great many small towns did not have full 7 digit phone numbers. These had to be assigned to every town, and more significantly, the intermediate switchgear set up to 'know' all the new addresses. (For many years, small towns could continue dialing 5 digits for local calls and needed only 7 digits for long distance). Also, there were considerable manual exchanges that had to be cut over to dial, and differing dialing patterns of independent and co-op phone companies. Anyone familiar with the expansion of DDD in the 1950s? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well yeah, I remember a few cuts to dial from manual service, and the pattern in how it was done was sort of erratic, IMO. It was always on a Saturday at 2:00 AM as I recall in each community but getting the Rate/Route tables updated sometimes got done whenever. Often times also, the operators would call Rate/ Route for instructions and get told something like it was areacode plus (fixed three digit exchange) plus 4-D. And you, the user could in fact dial it in that way and get through, mostly, usually, but sometimes not. Some places that were in GTE territory had tie-lines to a large Bell city, such as (comes to mind) Lafayette, Indiana and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Both towns were 7-D at that point, and the former was right in the center of the 317 area, but Rate/Route would say 'it is NOT area 317, it is 'Lafayette, Indiana'. A lot of the smaller towns were in fact dialable _within their own towns_ but with some dialing pattern which would not work from anywhere else. So to call to Lafayette from Chicago, you had to ask your operator for 'long distance' and when she answered then ask for Lafayette (number). Even though it was seven digits; then she would 'ring-down' to Lafayette and repeat the requested number when the distant operator answered. I remember going to Lafayette to see a friend of mine once and while there I asked if I could call back to Chicago. He said it was okay, 'but you have to dial the operator to reach it'. I did, and when the operator answered I asked for 'Chicago, areacode 312' and the operator cut me off at that point saying "I do not know anything about it being 312, that's not how we do it." She did the same ring-down routine, but this time at least it kept on ringing forever; just like trying to call a middle east country in those days; the operator only answered when she got ready, etc. In my case it rang, and rang, and rang and rang ... finally the Lafayette operator pulled the plug and said to me "I am sorry sir, Chicago is not answering right now; please try later" (??!!!?) Locally in Chicago, even though every exchange in town was dialable, to call Northern Indiana (Whiting, East Chicago, Hammond area were still manual) we had to dial 511 (from Chicago exchanges) to reach the Hammond operators, 711 to reach the East Chicago, Indiana operators, and 911 to get the Whiting operator. To reach my grandfather in his office at the Standard Oil Refinery in Whiting, I had to dial 911 and wait (there was no audible ringing signal in my ear) while the line 'clicked' a couple times then the old biddy operator would scream at me 'Whiting!' and one could at that point either ask for the 'official' number which as '2111' or more commonly just ask for 'Whiting Refinery' or 'Refinery'; the operator knew what was wanted and made the connection. My grandfather had two phones on his desk; one was the PBX phone on the refinery switchboard, the other was a 'direct outside line' but it was a Chicago 312 number, a 'foreign exchange' tie-line thing. I think actually he had a six-button, five-line phone, one button of which was his private line with the Chicago number on it, and one or two of the buttons were extensions from the refinery PBX. On the PBX, dialing '8' got you a Chicago dial tone, dialing '7' got you a dialtone from the 'StanoTel' network, but when you dialed '9' you had to just sit there and wait until the old biddy came on and screamed 'Whiting!' at you then tell her what you wanted. And of course '0' got the refinery operator. I was at his house overnight when Whiting was cut to dial, and I wanted to test it out for sure. The telephone man had already put dials on all the phones with a note saying 'dial not operational until (some date) at 2:00 AM.' So, about 1:58 AM I lifted the receiver, told the lady to give me '1234' which was the number for the local movie house recorded message of coming attractions. I tried it again at 2:00 AM exactly and got no answer at all. At 2:01 I lifted the receiver again, got dial tone, and dialed 659-1234 and got the movie house hotline again directly. Just to satisfy my curiosity more, then I dialed 659-2111, it rang a couple of times and a lady answered saying 'Standard Oil Refinery'. So I knew it was going to work as they claimed. Hammond had 'gone dial' about a year before Whiting and although in Hammond, once it was dial, you still had to dial 911 and have the biddy answer you; Whiting was able to call Hammond numbers direct. When you told her the Hammond number that you wanted, you would then hear a very fast beep, beep, beep, boop sound and the number you wanted would start ringing. Same thing in Chicago, but a few years earlier; I had some friends who could dial me direct, but I had to use the operator to call them; that was about 1950 or so, where Hammond/Whiting was about 1956/1960. PAT] ------------------------------ From: paul@robinson-telephone.com Subject: Phone Line on cat 5 10-Base-T Ethernet? Date: 9 May 2005 08:55:21 -0700 I'm a little bit new to the actual specifications of hardware operations so this is something I wanted to ask because it seems to be the case according to what I've read. (I've been primarily a software person myself.) I understand that standard 4-pair wire (cat 5) running data at 10mbps does not use the blue/white and blue pair (wires 4 and 5), which is typically the standard color for running a phone line along an ethernet wire. If this is correct, is it possible to run a standard analog phone line over cat 5 ethernet sold in hardware or computer stores, simply by connecting to the blue & blue/white pair and using that? Since the wire is typically twisted pairs, I had the impression this was possible without crosstalk between either the ethernet and the phone line. Also, if the network cards being used are of the typical 10/100 type that sell these days for $20 or less, or are included on the motherboard of the user's PC, does that mean you can't do this because 100mbps will use all 4 pairs, or is it that you can run 100mbps service over the other pairs and it won't really use the inner blue-blue/white pair? The things I have read indicate there are two types of 100mbps service, 100Base-T, 100Base-T4 and 100Base-T8, where 100base-T8 uses all of the wires in a 4-pair ethernet cable, and 100-Base-T4 uses only two of the pairs. How would I know which is being used in ordinary connections? This also seems to imply that the other pair (wires 7 & 8) is also available for use as phone service, conceivably implying you can run 100mbps ethernet and two analog phone lines on the same 4-pair cable without problems or interference. I'd like to know if this is the case. Paul Robinson Paul@robinson-telephone.com ------------------------------ From: douis@aol.com Subject: DTMF Midi File Date: 9 May 2005 14:19:31 -0700 Is it possible to create a dtmf midi file for use on a project and experiment using a dtmf ringtone? Can you have or create a dtmf ring tone ? Can this be done and if so how or where can I get this done? Any info or help would be appreciated. Many thanks! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 12:54:32 EDT From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA Subject: Mobile Phone TV Set For Primetime Telecom dailyLead from USTA May 9, 2005 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=21430&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Mobile phone TV set for primetime BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Some MCI shareholders may oppose Verizon deal * Cablers make inroads with digital phone services * Intel's chief touts WiMAX USTA SPOTLIGHT * At SUPERCOMM: Register today for the IP Video Conference HOT TOPICS * Report: FCC chief seeking E911 requirement for VoIP * Verizon raises offer for MCI * Sprint, Intel announce WiMAX partnership * Qwest drops MCI bid * Korea: World's first TV service for cell phones begins EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * Special report looks at cutting-edge wireless technologies * Mediacom ups top speed to 10 Mbps REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Court rejects FCC broadcast flag rule Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=21430&l=2017006 ------------------------------ From: Eric Friedebach Subject: The Only Exciting Thing In Tech? Date: 9 May 2005 10:20:14 -0700 Lisa DiCarlo, 05.09.05, Forbes.com NEW YORK - Still using your cell phone just to make phone calls? How passe. If the seers are correct, within a year your cell phone will be capable of live television, music downloads and playback, videogames, storing movie clips and viewing everything from photo albums to digital home movies. In short, more than you may have ever thought possible. Of course, there are high hurdles to clear before all this great stuff happens -- complex rights agreements, conflicting technology standards and the sometimes fractious relationship between carriers and content providers -- but everyone involved has a stake in making it work. How big a stake? It's almost too big to put a number on. Pacific Crest Securities, which hosted a mobile entertainment conference in New York on May 6, believes the sector will be the next driver for growth in the technology industry, and the dominant investment opportunity for the next decade. http://www.forbes.com/2005/05/09/cx_ld_0509mobile.html Eric Friedebach /An Apollo Sandwich from Corky & Lenny's/ ------------------------------ From: Justin Time Subject: Re: Who Gets to See the E-mail of the Deceased? Date: 9 May 2005 06:22:51 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Pat stated: > TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Ignoring for a minute those situations > where the computer belongs to the company and the worker _should be_ > attending to the business of his employer. In those cases I do agree > the computer's output should belong to the employer. I am thinking > now instead of those cases where one has an account with an ISP such > as Yahoo for example: If I am _renting_ the use of the computer then > the computers output should belong to me. Another example might be > I live on a farm and rent or lease a machine to plant my crops. Now > my crops grow and are harvested. Do the crops belong to you since I > rented the machinery from you to do my work? If I am employed on the > farm and work with your tools, then I suppose the crops are yours > also. But not if the machinery, etc is under my exclusive control for > some period of time. PAT] I will try to address some of your more relevant points. I am thinking now instead of those cases where one has an account with an ISP such as Yahoo for example: If I am _renting_ the use of the computer then the computers output should belong to me. The issue here is the intellectual property. The output of the computer belongs to you. You are free to take it with you and do with it as your heart desires. The other side of the coin is the data you leave on the rented computer. It does not belong to you. It is the property of the machine owner. All those temporary files Microsoft creates and stashes where only the programmer knows are not yours once you leave the machine and return it to its owner. A case in point is the example of rental machines at Kinko's. Some of us may remember a few years ago the problem of some people who rented machines at Kinko's were finding confidential and personal information that had been left by prior users. There are also instances where these "public" machines have been siezed with a warrant for evidence of illegal activities. The entire point being the owner of the machine has the ownership of your intellectual property -- in this case Yahoo! and the email files -- because you left them on their machine. If you had taken them with you, or deleted them, then the owner of the machine would not have your intellectual property. Then Pat wrote: > Another example might be I live on a farm and rent or lease a > machine to plant my crops. Now my crops grow and are harvested. Do > the crops belong to you since I rented the machinery from you to do > my work? And the answer to this is if you left your crop in the machine, then yes, it is theirs. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And of course, Lisa Hancock responded that the crops actually belong to the owner of the land. I was assuming I owned the land and had gone to the 'rent-a-tractor' place before starting my work. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Who Gets to See the E-mail of the Deceased? Date: 9 May 2005 07:49:40 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Robert Bonomi responded to Lisa Hancock: >> The e-mail should be treated no differently than any other personal >> belongings and they revert to the next of kin or recipients specified >> in a will. > "Not exactly." ALL the property and "personal belongings" of the > deceased belong to the ESTATE of the deceased. Until properly > distributed to the inheritors -- either in accordance with a > distribution schedule specified in a will, or according to statutory > specifications. My point was that it be handled like any other personal effects, not the fine points of estate law. I was disagreeing with those web enthusiasts as described in the original post who didn't want the email released at all. Keep in mind that many estates are settled without probate and court orders. Getting that stuff is expensive and not worth it if the estate is small, such as often in the case of a young person. > All that had to happen was for the _executor_ of the estate to contact > the Internet company, providing the *COURT*AUTHORIZATION* that (a) > certifies that the person *is*, in fact, deceased, and (b) gives them, > _as_executor_, access to any/all property belonging to the deceased. > The family did _not_ have such documentation, when the original > request was presented. I would presume the family presented a death certificate which is normally issued upon death. As I mentioned above, going to court for probate and documentation is expensive. For a person without any significant estate this could be a waste of money. > Eureka! That's right. But it was *not* the _executor_ that made the > request to the Internet company. Hence the "difficulties". If there is no will, the next of kin (as defined by law) becomes by default the executor. I would suspect military documentation provided that information. > As the parents did *NOT* present a claim that they were acting 'on > behalf of' THE ESTATE OF THE DECEASED, *their* request -- made in > their own persona -- was properly denied. Do we know that for sure? I would agree that if the parents just merely showed up with no documentation that their request should be denied. However, I presume there is official military documentation stating next of kin and so forth and they could've presented that. ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Unbrand America Causes Mess on the Net Over Weekend Date: Sun, 08 May 2005 21:54:20 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Patrick Townson wrote: > Telecom and dozens (maybe hundreds) of other newsgroups have been > spammed by Unbrandamerica.org. The NNTP server used for this spam is > under jurisdiction of Asian Pacific Network. IP address? > Somehow they were able to bypass the Moderators of newsgroups and post > directly to telecom and other groups. I did NOT approve any of their > spam messages for posting to telecom. It's actually pretty easy to do if you know how. JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638) Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / sjsobol@JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED "The wisdom of a fool won't set you free" --New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle" ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: 1A2 Help Requested Date: 9 May 2005 12:01:06 -0700 Matt wrote: > And I know I need a 1A2 Keyset Unit. And this is where things get > fuzzy for me. The Antique Telephone Collectors Assocation (ATCA) and Telephone Collectors International (TCI) would be the places to contact for assistance with this type of thing. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can tell this much; no one,but no one tampers with or tries to rewire the inside of a 1A2 phone. The wiring is just too complex. All the rewiring is done in the box on the wall where there is room to move your arms and fingers, _not_ in the phone itself. PAT] ------------------------------ From: D. M. Hendricks Subject: Re: SprintPCS Lousy Web Interface Date: 9 May 2005 13:10:47 -0700 Steve Sobol wrote: > D. M. Hendricks wrote: >> It's good to know that Sprint cares so much about fraud prevention. >> Why is it so terribly difficult to find out who called me? > All US carriers except Cingular have the wrongheaded idea that when > someone calls their customer, the caller has a right to privacy. Screw > that -- you have no such right when I'm paying per minute for you to > call me. If on a landline with a flat monthly fee, that's > different. Not on a cell phone where I have to count airtime > minutes. But again, Cingular is the only carrier in the industry with > a clue regarding incoming call details. Yeah, I think this is wrong too. Good to hear I'm not the only one ;) I didn't know Cingular printed incoming calls on your statement. I'll hafta check them out when my plan expires. However, I've had my fair share of problems with SBC and AT&T in the past, so we'll see ... ------------------------------ Subject: Telecom Digest 800 Business Directory Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 17:03:02 -0400 From: Robert Pierce Pat, please remove my e-mail address from this posting. Thanks. I just received a telemarketing call -- on my _cell_ phone. It was a recorded message offering me a chance for a free cruise. Just what I wanted! I called the number they gave me -- (800) 664-0366 -- and talked to Dean (no last name) of Intellegent Alternatives. He pleasantly informed me in his accented English that 1) _He_ didn't call me, someone else in his company did; and 2) It is not illegal to telemarket to cell phones. Also, if I had any comments about their marketing practices, his supervisor was not available, but I could call (858) 452-3585 and speak to someone there. If any of your gentle readers would like a chance for a cruise, they can call (800) 664-0366 and talk to the dear folks there. I hear they love to talk. Rob [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A cruise sounds like a nice deal. The last time I went on a nice boat trip was years ago when we went on the Chesapeake and Ohio ferry across Lake Michigan from Milwaukee to a place in Michigan where we stayed all night at a motel then came back on the boat the next day. Do you think they could arrange that for me again at 800-664-0366 or would it be better if I talked to the supervisor at 858-452-3585? Any of you guys who check it out please report back here on it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Simon Templar Subject: Alcatel Reminder Date: 8 May 2005 20:41:47 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hi guys, Just a reminder about http://alcatel.gadot.net : forums and knowledge base about the system ! Simon ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #203 ****************************** TELECOM Digest Mon, 9 May 2005 23:30:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 204 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Naval Cybercafes Help Sailors/Soldiers/Marines Stay in Touch (L. Minter) Cell Phone Taxes (Lisa Minter) Free Municipal WiFi for Castro Area GLBT People (Lisa Minter) Spyware ... Ugh (bob@coolgroups.com) 3rd International Conference on Mobile Systems, Apps (Danielle Young) Re: SprintPCS Lousy Web Interface (Steve Sobol) Re: Who Gets to See the E-mail of the Deceased? (Robert Bonomi) Re: Phone Line on cat 5 10-Base-T Ethernet? (Robert Bonomi) Re: 1A2 Help Requested (Tim@Backhome.org) 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; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lisa Minter Subject: Naval Cyber Cafes Help Sailors/Soldiers/Marines Stay in Touch Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 20:11:23 -0500 By SUSANNE M. SCHAFER, Associated Press Writer Mon May 9, 1:27 PM ET CHARLESTON NAVAL WEAPONS STATION, S.C. - Since the Navy began setting up "Internet cafes" for soldiers overseas to keep in touch with their loved ones, almost 200 of the high-tech tents have sprung up in war zones. Two years ago, civilians working for the Navy started the $20 million program to set up communications systems -- basically tents with 20 laptop computers and eight telephones -- as a morale boost for Army soldiers stationed in Iraq. Now there are 183 of the sites in Iraq, four in Afghanistan and even two aboard oil platforms in the Persian Gulf that are manned by the U.S. military, said project manager and retired Marine Steve Rhorer. "I manage it all from here," he says, opening his arms wide during a recent interview in his small office cubicle at the military base just a few miles up the river from historic downtown Charleston. Rhorer is part of the Navy's research and development arm known as SPAWAR, which designs and installs communications gear and maintains other high-tech items for many government agencies that involve gleaning battlefield intelligence, surveillance information or support for military aircraft control towers. The mobile communication stations were developed here. Each unit is contained in a 640-square-foot tent outfitted with printers, air conditioning, generators and satellite communication sets. Each site is designed to serve about 1,000 soldiers. Rhorer said his unit hopes to begin sending smaller tents to more remote areas of Iraq and Afghanistan to serve groups of 400 to 500 soldiers. "We want to expand. We are looking at half-size cafes," he said. The cyber cafes' No. 1 enemy isn't insurgent attacks; it's the dust, Rhorer said. "The dust is just a killer. You are involved in constant preventive maintenance," he said. Showing how the Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol system works, Rhorer dialed up a co-worker in Iraq, Troy Caffey, a civilian with 31 years in the Navy. Caffey, who spoke from a site north of Baghdad, said he's pleased the systems have helped soldiers stay in contact with their families and friends. "In all the years I was in the Navy, there was a lot of separation anxiety. I don't feel any of that here at all," he said. In recent years, e-mail communication has become easier for sailors on some larger ships and at some high-tech military bases around the world, but it was not available to most soldiers in the field. Caffey said the cafe at his base is very busy. Even at 4 a.m., "there's always someone here. ... This place is in constant use 24 hours a day," he said. The e-mail service is free and phone calls cost about 4.7 cents a minute. Soldiers can pay by credit card or families can prepay for them. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Some long time readers will recall that the time I moved from Chicago back home here to Kansas I had a job for a few months as a civilian employee for the U.S. Army in Junction City, Kansas working at Fort Riley where I was teaching some guys _how_ to operate/maintain cybercafes. This was in 1999, or prior to the most recent conflict. Even back then, the Army wanted to make the transition to email/internet where the soldiers were concerned. The Army wanted some 'internet experts' (I guess they thought I was one) to teach the guys what to do, so they in turn could show new recruits in overseas bases, etc. Then my brain had to blow apart in November of that year, sort of like the exploding frogs in Belgium last month, so that ended my role in it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: City, State Cell Phone Taxes on the Rise Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 20:12:43 -0500 By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY Mon May 9, 6:20 AM ET Cell phone users are being hit by new taxes as state and local governments scramble to replace declining tax revenue from traditional phones. The new charges are adding $2 to $10 or more a month to cell phone bills on top of existing federal and state taxes and fees for emergency 911 communications. Examples: . Thirty-two of Virginia's 39 cities have levied cell phone taxes since the Legislature approved the tax in 2003. Most recently: Alexandria approved a $3-a-month tax last week. . Baltimore added a $3.50 monthly tax in September. . Oregon's Legislature is considering a 5% tax, the Missouri Legislature a 3% or 4% tax. Many state and local governments consider new cell phone taxes necessary to recoup money lost from a drop in the number of standard wired phones. The number of wired phone lines nationwide fell from 167 million in 2000 to 132 million in 2004, the Federal Communications Commission reports that cell phone subscribers rose from 109 million to 182 million during that time. The wireless industry says cell phones are already taxed heavily and often unfairly. The industry is funding a Web site -- www.stopaddingtomybill.com -- as part of its lobbying effort to squelch the new taxes. "People can just look at their cell phone bill and see the taxes are already excessive," says Joseph Farren, spokesman for CTIA - The Wireless Association, an industry trade group. He says taxes accounted for about $9 of the average $51 monthly cell phone bill last year. Farren says the "watershed event" that started the new round of taxation was Pennsylvania's approval of a 5% cell phone tax in 2003. Other state and local governments have followed suit or are considering it. State and local governments have long taxed land-line telephones, but cell phones had escaped most of these taxes. An exception: In California, about 160 local governments have cell phone taxes, including 10% in Los Angeles and 7.5% in San Francisco. "The question is, does it make sense to treat one phone differently from another?" asks Ken Fellman, mayor of Arvada, Colo., a Denver suburb, and head of a telecommunications committee for the National League of Cities. Wireless companies say they shouldn't be treated the same as old phone companies because they are not monopolies and do not use public rights of way for phone lines. "The wireless industry has never been a utility and shouldn't be treated that way," Farren says. But local governments are changing tax laws to reflect changes in the economy. cell phone revenue grew from $56 billion in 2000 to $102 billion in 2004. During that time, land-line revenue dropped from $228 billion to $197 billion, the Telecommunications Industry Association says. Independence, Missouri will collect $1.75 million in taxes next year from land-line phones, down from a peak of $2.4 million in 2002. "A phone is a phone is a phone," city councilman Jason White says. "A cell phone company doing business in our community should pay the same taxes." Cell phone taxes earmarked for emergency services are rising quickly, too. West Virginia last week doubled the state's 911 service fee on cell phones to $3 per month. Copyright 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, Gannett/USA Today. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: The Castro Goes Wireless Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 19:29:33 -0500 By Ryan Wylie, 365Gay.com Waiting for an email from Mr Right? Want to check out the latest news from 365Gay.com? Want to do it while you shop or sip a latte in the Castro? Now you can. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and AnchorFree Wireless have unveiled a free wireless Internet (Wi-Fi) hotzone in the heart of San Francisco's Castro District, the world's famous gay and lesbian community. Consumers can access the Internet wirelessly at no cost indoors and outdoors along the commercial segment of Castro Street. "We are pleased to support the efforts of AnchorFree to bring all citizens access to free wireless broadband services," said Mayor Gavin Newsom. "This new service will certainly benefit citizens, visitors and businesses in the Castro further encourage technology innovation in San Francisco." "San Francisco's Castro area is an ideal location to blanket with free wireless Internet access", said David Gorodyansky, President of AnchorFree Wireless. "It is a tech-savvy district with lots of foot traffic and is filled with vibrant cafes, restaurants and bars. We are delighted to have our presence in such a well known community." AnchorFree has completed Intel's Centrino mobile technology compatibility testing through the Intel Wireless Verification Program (WVP), helping to ensure consumers can enjoy the productivity and lifestyle advantages of Wi-Fi technology within AnchorFree's Wi-Fi hotzones. "As a participant in Intel's wireless verification program, AnchorFree has tested its Wi-Fi service for compatibility with common configurations of notebook PCs based on Intel Centrino mobile technology, Intel's premier technology for wireless mobile computing," said Karen Regis, director of marketing programs for Intel's Mobile Platforms Group. "By providing consumers with free wireless Internet connectivity in San Francisco's Castro District, AnchorFree helps enhance the 'unwired' experience for Intel Centrino mobile technology users, connecting them back to their work place as well as their family and friends." In April of 2005, AnchorFree launched twin Wi-Fi hotzones in San Francisco's Marina District. The Marina area is located approximately 5 miles from the Castro District. Copyright Gay.com 2005 NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. Also see http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/gaynews.html for more gay.com articles. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, Gay.com For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: bob@coolgroups.com Subject: Spyware ... Ugh! Date: 9 May 2005 15:46:45 -0700 I just got infected with some evil spyware that keeps going to http://www.clicksearchclick.com/free.php Does anyone know how to get rid of this thing? I can't find any info on it on Google or any search engine. It's killing me ... Adaware and Spybot both did nothing against it. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You might check out what I use in such an emergency: Google for something called 'Hijack This'. I have used 'Hijack This' a couple times and it works pretty well. You have to download it from the net and install it, then on your request, it puts up a list of your program files and their associated entries from the Windows Registry. On your command, it takes the files involved and pulls them out, then rebuilds your registry. Did Adaware or Spybot even find it (but then ignore it) or not find it at all? Even if you find and erase some of that stuff, if it is in the registry it may well come to life again after a reboot. So, let 'Hijack This' snatch it out of the registry totally. By the way, that program 'Hijack This' should not be used carelessly or casually. Truth be told, it scares the hell out of me. You can also use the Windows program 'regedit' (type that at a command prompt in DOS) if you know for certain what files you want and how to use it. You should _never_ get into the Windows registry without professional guidance as needed, and always be prepared for the worst when you do such an emergency procedure. You've been warned. Of course, a _real-man_ would know how to deal with the registry, and anyway, 'no one on the net (or so a _real-man_ would tell you), want any changes made on the Internet to eliminate the folks who write those spyware things' ... 'Its an anarchy, you know' they proudly proclaim as most of us struggle to keep up and running most days. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 15:20:24 -0700 From: Danielle Young Subject: 3rd International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, MobiSys '05 Join us in Seattle, June 6-8, 2005, for innovative, significant research in the area of mobile and wireless systems. MobiSys 2005 will bring together engineers, academic and industrial researchers, and visionaries for 2.5 exciting days of sharing and learning about this fast-moving field. The conference will feature refereed paper presentations, a poster and demo session, a keynote address by Rick Rashid of Microsoft Research, and a plenary session with Alfred Spector of IBM Research. Workshops: MobiSys 2005 is co-located with two workshops for highly focused discussions of new and emerging topics: = EESR '05: Workshop on End-to-End, Sense-and-Respond Systems, Applications, and Services = WiTMeMo '05: International Workshop on Wireless Traffic Measurements and Modeling: Both workshops will take place Sunday, June 5, 2005. Registration for workshops is separate from MobiSys 2005 registration. To ensure a productive workshop environment, attendance will be limited. ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: SprintPCS Lousy Web Interface Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 16:10:44 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com D. M. Hendricks wrote: > Yeah, I think this is wrong too. Good to hear I'm not the only one ;) > I didn't know Cingular printed incoming calls on your statement. I'll > hafta check them out when my plan expires. However, I've had my fair > share of problems with SBC and AT&T in the past, so we'll see ... I was corrected a while ago ... according to someone else, T-Mobile does too. Everyone *should.* :) JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638) Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / sjsobol@JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED "The wisdom of a fool won't set you free" --New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle" ------------------------------ From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Subject: Re: Who Gets to See the E-mail of the Deceased? Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 00:37:12 -0000 Organization: Widgets, Inc. In article , wrote: > Robert Bonomi responded to Lisa Hancock: >>> The e-mail should be treated no differently than any other personal >>> belongings and they revert to the next of kin or recipients specified >>> in a will. >> "Not exactly." ALL the property and "personal belongings" of the >> deceased belong to the ESTATE of the deceased. Until properly >> distributed to the inheritors -- either in accordance with a >> distribution schedule specified in a will, or according to statutory >> specifications. > My point was that it be handled like any other personal effects, not > the fine points of estate law. I was disagreeing with those web > enthusiasts as described in the original post who didn't want the > email released at all. > Keep in mind that many estates are settled without probate and court > orders. Getting that stuff is expensive and not worth it if the > estate is small, such as often in the case of a young person. (A) That stuff is _not_ expensive. court costs are generally in the very low 3 figures, _at_most_. (B) "informal" settlement works *ONLY*IF* nobody objects. As soon as any 'involved party' raises an objection, or demands the formal procedures, the informal techniques are no longer a viable option. Those who insist on employing them in the face of opposition, are _personally_ legally liable for not using the formal procedures. If the objection comes from a beneficiary of the estate, or a creditor thereof, those who take property from the estate "without benefit of formal procedure" can find themselves subject to criminal action (for 'theft'), as well as civil suit to recover the value of the stolen property. >> All that had to happen was for the _executor_ of the estate to contact >> the Internet company, providing the *COURT*AUTHORIZATION* that (a) >> certifies that the person *is*, in fact, deceased, and (b) gives them, >> _as_executor_, access to any/all property belonging to the deceased. >> The family did _not_ have such documentation, when the original >> request was presented. > I would presume the family presented a death certificate which is > normally issued upon death. Which doesn't prove "boo" as regards who is the authorized agent of the estate, and the only party legally entitled to access to the property of the decedent. > As I mentioned above, going to court for probate and documentation is > expensive. For a person without any significant estate this could be > a waste of money. >> Eureka! That's right. But it was *not* the _executor_ that made the >> request to the Internet company. Hence the "difficulties". > If there is no will, the next of kin (as defined by law) becomes > by default the executor. I would suspect military documentation > provided that information. FALSE TO FACT. Statute prescribes who (defining 'kin' relationships) is the _inheritor_ of the proceeds of the estate of an intestate (that means 'died without leaving a will') decedent. Statute does _not_ define a 'default' executor. >> As the parents did *NOT* present a claim that they were acting 'on >> behalf of' THE ESTATE OF THE DECEASED, *their* request -- made in >> their own persona -- was properly denied. > Do we know that for sure? I would agree that if the parents > just merely showed up with no documentation that their request > should be denied. However, I presume there is official military > documentation stating next of kin and so forth and they could've > presented that. Any such presentation of documentation to anyone outside of that military organization would be greeted with (effectively) laughter. Such a designation means *absolutely*nothing* to anyone other than the party _to_whom_ that designation was made. When a member of the military designates, _to_that_military_, whom they wish that organization to consider to be their 'next of kin', that designation applies *ONLY* to actions involving that military organization. As in, "who should be notified in an emergency", "who should be consulted for certain kinds of decisions, if/when you are unable to make them", etc. Such a designation has *NOTHING* to do with who obtains _ownership_ of any physical property that belongs (belonged) to the decedent. The _only_ document that specifies that is a "will" -- and which may, or may *not*, take precedence over statutory specifications. (In some states, a wife, for example, may "elect against the will", and get the statutory share of the estate, regardless of express provisions in the will.) The only means for formally transferring ownership of property that belonged to the decedent is 'probate'. Something as simple as ownership of a car requires probate -- to get the owner's name on the title straightened out. Note: it is _entirely_ within the realm of reason for an individual to designate several *different* persons as 'next of kin' in different contexts. It happens _fairly_frequently_ in the real world. ------------------------------ From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Subject: Re: Phone Line on cat 5 10-Base-T Ethernet? Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 00:56:32 -0000 Organization: Widgets, Inc. In article , wrote: > I'm a little bit new to the actual specifications of hardware > operations so this is something I wanted to ask because it seems to be > the case according to what I've read. (I've been primarily a software > person myself.) > I understand that standard 4-pair wire (cat 5) running data at 10mbps > does not use the blue/white and blue pair (wires 4 and 5), which is > typically the standard color for running a phone line along an > ethernet wire. Correct. > If this is correct, is it possible to run a standard analog phone line > over cat 5 ethernet sold in hardware or computer stores, simply by > connecting to the blue & blue/white pair and using that? Since the > wire is typically twisted pairs, I had the impression this was > possible without crosstalk between either the ethernet and the phone > line. Yup. This is *expressly* part of the original design. > Also, if the network cards being used are of the typical 10/100 type > that sell these days for $20 or less, or are included on the > motherboard of the user's PC, does that mean you can't do this because > 100mbps will use all 4 pairs, or is it that you can run 100mbps > service over the other pairs and it won't really use the inner > blue-blue/white pair? Nope. Standard 100mbit Ethernet uses the same 4 wires, and those four wires only. There are some early 'non-standard' 100mbit implementations that did use all 8 wires. Most common was one with 'VG' as the last part of the protocol name. Also, beware of "100Base-TX". that trailing 'X' is signficant. > The things I have read indicate there are two types of 100mbps > service, 100Base-T, 100Base-T4 and 100Base-T8, where 100base-T8 uses > all of the wires in a 4-pair ethernet cable, and 100-Base-T4 uses only > two of the pairs. How would I know which is being used in ordinary > connections? Virtually everything 100mbit on the market (in recent history) uses only the standard 4 wires that plain old 10mbit Ethernet uses Note: _gigabit_ Ethernet, aka "1000mbit Ethernet" is a different story. it _does_ use all 8 wires. As far as I know anything that advertises itself as 10/100mbit Ethernet will use only the 4 wires used by 10mbit. > This also seems to imply that the other pair (wires 7 & 8) is also > available for use as phone service, conceivably implying you can run > 100mbps ethernet and two analog phone lines on the same 4-pair cable > without problems or interference. I'd like to know if this is the > case. Yes. ------------------------------ From: Tim@Backhome.org Subject: Re: 1A2 Help Requested Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 18:16:36 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to the original query: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can tell this much; no one,but no > one tampers with or tries to rewire the inside of a 1A2 phone. The > wiring is just too complex. All the rewiring is done in the box on > the wall where there is room to move your arms and fingers, _not_ > in the phone itself. PAT] No doubt. No one ever changed the wiring within a 1A2 or 10A2 set, with the expection of installing a buzzer for intercom. But, that wasn't really rewiring; rather loosing a couple of screws to overlap u-connectors. And, no one in the field re-wired a 1A2/10A2 KSU, other than to restrap the tie down wiring to change features, etc. Ain't computers great?! TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I really do not think anything much can be done inside those phones without a lot of grief that cannot be done better and quicker at the punchdown block on the wall. I've done 'stuff' inside those phones but mainly things like remove or re-arrange the ball-bearings under the push buttons so I could get two or more buttons to stay down at one time. And once I converted a five- line six-button phone with a hold button into a three line phone with three associated hold buttons by using two of the line strips for each line, so that three buttons merely put a short on each of the associated three lines, and re-arranging the ball-bearings as needed. This was circa 1975. It was not a fun project. That was the day I vowed never to take one of those 1A2 phones apart again. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #204 ****************************** TELECOM Digest Tue, 10 May 2005 02:30:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 205 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Internet Attack Called Broad and Longlasting by Investigators (L Minter) Talking About Bloggers (Lisa Minter) ACL in Avaya Gateways (JRRJR) Re: Who Gets to See the E-mail of the Deceased? (Lisa Hancock) Re: Phone Line on cat 5 10-Base-T Ethernet? (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: Name Twin's Misdeeds Plague a Good Driver (DevilsPGD) 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; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lisa Minter Subject: Internet Attack Called Broad and Longlasting by Investigators Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 23:49:59 -0500 By JOHN MARKOFF and LOWELL BERGMAN SAN FRANCISCO, May 9 - The incident seemed alarming enough: a breach of a Cisco Systems network in which an intruder seized programming instructions for many of the computers that control the flow of the Internet. Now federal officials and computer security investigators have acknowledged that the Cisco break-in last year was only part of a more extensive operation -- involving a single intruder or a small band, apparently based in Europe -- in which thousands of computer systems were similarly penetrated. Investigators in the United States and Europe say they have spent almost a year pursuing the case involving attacks on computer systems serving the American military, NASA and research laboratories. The break-ins exploited security holes on those systems that the authorities say have now been plugged, and beyond the Cisco theft, it is not clear how much data was taken or destroyed. Still, the case illustrates the ease with which Internet-connected computers -- even those of sophisticated corporate and government networks -- can be penetrated and also the difficulty in tracing those responsible. Government investigators and other computer experts sometimes watched helplessly while monitoring the activity, unable to secure some systems as quickly as others were found compromised. The case remains under investigation. But attention is focused on a 16-year-old in Uppsala, Sweden, who was charged in March with breaking into university computers in his hometown. Investigators in the American break-ins ultimately traced the intrusions back to the Uppsala university network. The F.B.I. and the Swedish police said they were working together on the case, and one F.B.I. official said efforts in Britain and other countries were aimed at identifying accomplices. "As a result of recent actions" by law enforcement, an F.B.I. statement said, "the criminal activity appears to have stopped." The Swedish authorities are examining computer equipment confiscated from the teenager, who was released to his parents' care. The matter is being treated as a juvenile case. Investigators who described the break-ins did so on condition that they not be identified, saying that their continuing efforts could be jeopardized if their names, or in some cases their organizations, were disclosed. Computer experts said the break-ins did not represent a fundamentally new kind of attack. Rather, they said, the primary intruder was particularly clever in the way he organized a system for automating the theft of computer log-ins and passwords, conducting attacks through a complicated maze of computers connected to the Internet in as many as seven countries. The intrusions were first publicly reported in April 2004 when several of the nation's supercomputer laboratories acknowledged break-ins into computers connected to the TeraGrid, a high-speed data network serving those labs, which conduct unclassified research into a range of scientific problems. The theft of the Cisco software was discovered last May when a small team of security specialists at the supercomputer laboratories, trying to investigate the intrusions there, watched electronically as passwords to Cisco's computers were compromised. After discovering the passwords' theft, the security officials notified Cisco officials of the potential threat. But the company's software was taken almost immediately, before the company could respond. Shortly after being stolen last May, a portion of the Cisco programming instructions appeared on a Russian Web site. With such information, sophisticated intruders would potentially be able to compromise security on router computers of Cisco customers running the affected programs. There is no evidence that such use has occurred. "Cisco believes that the improper publication of this information does not create increased risk to customers' networks," the company said last week. The crucial element in the password thefts that provided access at Cisco and elsewhere was the intruder's use of a corrupted version of a standard software program, SSH. The program is used in many computer research centers for a variety of tasks, ranging from administration of remote computers to data transfer over the Internet. The intruder probed computers for vulnerabilities that allowed the installation of the corrupted program, known as a Trojan horse, in place of the legitimate program. In many cases the corrupted program is distributed from a single computer and shared by tens or hundreds of users at a computing site, effectively making it possible for someone unleashing it to reel in large numbers of log-ins and passwords as they are entered. Once passwords to the remote systems were obtained, an intruder could log in and use a variety of software "tool kits" to upgrade his privileges -- known as gaining root access. That makes it possible to steal information and steal more passwords. The operation took advantage of the vulnerability of Internet-connected computers whose security software had not been brought up to date. In the Cisco case, the passwords to Cisco computers were sent from a compromised computer by a legitimate user unaware of the Trojan horse. The intruder captured the passwords and then used them to enter Cisco's computers and steal the programming instructions, according to the security investigators. A security expert involved in the investigation speculated that the Cisco programming instructions were stolen as part of an effort to establish the intruder's credibility in online chat rooms he frequented. Last May, the security investigators were able to install surveillance software on the University of Minnesota computer network when they discovered that an intruder was using it as a staging base for hundreds of Internet attacks. During a two-day period they watched as the intruder tried to break into more than 100 locations on the Internet and was successful in gaining root access to more than 50. When possible, they alerted organizations that were victims of attacks, which would then shut out the intruder and patch their systems. As the attacks were first noted in April 2004, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, found that her own computer had been invaded. The researcher, Wren Montgomery, began to receive taunting e-mail messages from someone going by the name Stakkato -- now believed by the authorities to have been the primary intruder -- who also boasted of breaking in to computers at military installations. "Patuxent River totally closed their networks," he wrote in a message sent that month, referring to the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland. "They freaked out when I said I stole F-18 blueprints." A Navy spokesman at Patuxent River, James Darcy, said Monday said that "if there was some sort of attempted breach on those addresses, it was not significant enough of an action to have generated a report." Monte Marlin, a spokeswoman for the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, whose computers Stakkato also claimed to have breached, confirmed Monday that there had been "unauthorized access" but said, "The only information obtained was weather forecast information." The messages also claimed an intrusion into seven computers serving NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. A computer security expert investigating the case confirmed that computers at several NASA sites, including the propulsion laboratory, had been breached. A spokesman said the laboratory did not comment on computer breaches. Ms. Montgomery, a graduate student in geophysics, said that in a fit of anger, Stakkato had erased her computer file directory and had destroyed a year and a half of her e-mail stored on a university computer. She guessed that she might have provoked him by referring to him as a "quaint hacker" in a communication with system administrators, which he monitored. "It was inconvenient," she said of the loss of her e-mail, "and it's the thing that seems to happen when you have malicious teenage hackers running around with no sense of ethics." Walter Gibbs, in Oslo, and Heather Timmons, in London, contributed reporting for this article. Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. See http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/nytimes.html for the daily newspaper. Go to http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/chatpage.html to join in a discussion 24/7 relating to the obnoxious and malicious behavior of hackers and spammers. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, New York Times Company. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Would you believe I actually get messages here from readers who try and tell me "there is no mutual agreement on the net as to what consititutes 'malicious behavior' on the net". My God, how blind can they be? If this story from the NY Times over the weekend is not an example of maliciousness personified, then I don't know what is. Maybe among _their_ friends there is no consensus, but that is their fault, not mine. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Talking About Bloggers Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 23:54:28 -0500 By TOM ZELLER Jr. DON'T ask Nick Denton, publisher of Gawker Media and its growing list of popular Web logs, about his empire. "People come up to me as if it's witty and say, 'How is the empire going?' " Mr. Denton said, "which is pretty pathetic." Don't ask him about his business plan, either. He says he never had one. The only reason he formed the company, he said, was to make his network of blogs -- which includes Gawker, the flagship chronicle of Manhattan news and gossip; Fleshbot, the thinking person's diary of smut; and about 10 other titles -- more attractive to advertisers. "It doesn't help with readers," he said. "It's actually a disadvantage, because it looks corporate." At a time when media conferences like "Les Blogs" in Paris two weeks ago debate the potential of the form, and when BusinessWeek declares, as it did on its May 2 cover, that "Blogs Will Change Your Business," Mr. Denton is withering in his contempt. A blog, he says, is much better at tearing things down -- people, careers, brands -- than it is at building them up. As for the blog revolution, Mr. Denton put it this way: "Give me a break." "The hype comes from unemployed or partially employed marketing professionals and people who never made it as journalists wanting to believe," he said. "They want to believe there's going to be this new revolution and their lives are going to be changed." For all of the stiff-arming and disdain that Mr. Denton brings to the discussion of this nonrevolution, however, there is no question that he and his team are trying to turn the online diarist's form -- ephemeral, fast-paced and scathingly opinionated -- into a viable, if not lucrative, enterprise. Big advertisers like Audi, Nike and General Electric have all vied for eyeballs on Gawker's blogs, which Mr. Denton describes as sexy, irreverent, a tad elitist and unabashedly coastal. He says that there is no magic behind Gawker Media, his three-year-old venture based in New York. To his mind, it is built around a basic publishing model. But like it or not in the overheated atmosphere of blog-o-mania, Mr. Denton, 38, remains one of the most watched entrepreneurs in the business. If his reluctance to be interviewed is theater, it is deft theater. A British expatriate and former Financial Times reporter, Mr. Denton is tall, slim, and salt-and-pepper handsome, with the slightly embarrassed air of someone who invested in the dot-com boom and came out unscathed. (He made millions in two previous ventures -- including a company called Moreover Technologies, an online news aggregator that presaged the twitchy, check-this-out linking that now make blogs de rigueur reading for desk jockeys worldwide.) STRIDING toward the unadorned third-floor TriBeCa loft that is the closest thing to a Gawker nerve center, Mr. Denton reiterated, in a polite, sometimes halting staccato that often fades into a string of inaudible syllables, that he would not discuss money. He declined to say if Gawker was profitable, or how much he paid Gawker's dozen or so bloggers -- editors, as the company calls them. He fired up a Marlboro Light and, hustling across Canal Street, chattered obliquely about overhead (minimal in the blogging business), libel (always a concern) and Fred Durst. In March, Mr. Durst, the Limp Bizkit front man, sued Gawker, among other sites, for linking to a sex video in which he appeared. "Honestly, though, we don't know why you're so mad at us," Gawker's editor, Jessica Coen, sneered in a March 4 entry. "The situation is really rather simple. Someone sent us a link to a video of your penis, we went into shock, and we shared it with the world for about two hours. Then we wept, found God, took a hot bath, and removed the video from our site." Mr. Durst eventually dropped the suit. A grueling climb led to the quiet, whitewashed loft space where a few Gawker Media hands -- including Lockhart Steele, the company's managing editor, and Gina Trapani, the editor of one of the company's newest blogs, Lifehacker -- were plucking away at laptops. (Gawker shares the space with another blogger, Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan of Apartment Therapy.) Mr. Steele, who joined the company in February, is the den mother for Gawker's far-flung collection of bloggers and is in near constant communication with them throughout the day via Instant Messenger. About half of the editors live in New York. The rest are distributed around the country. In California, Mark Lisanti edits Defamer, the Los Angeles counterpart to Gawker, and in Colorado, Brian D. Crecente edits one of the newer sites, Kotaku, dedicated to video games. In New Orleans, John d'Addario edits Fleshbot, while Ana Marie Cox covers political gossip from Washington on Wonkette. Each editor is under contract to post 12 times a day for a flat fee, Mr. Steele said. (Gawker has two editors and now posts 24 times a day.) It is best to have eight posts up before noon, if possible, to keep readers coming back, he said. The editors scan the Web for the best tidbits. Readers, and apparently even published authors, send in tips. When a Gawker site highlights articles from, say, The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times, it is likely, both Mr. Steele and Mr. Denton said, that the article's author sent an e-mail message to Gawker pointing out its existence. (This reporter's naiveté about this process was met with gentle laughter.) Site traffic is a particular obsession. Gawker draws just over a million unique visitors a month; Fleshbot, the most popular site, lures nearly twice that number, and Gizmodo, a site dedicated to gadgets, roughly 1.5 million. All editors can earn bonuses if they manage to generate spikes in traffic -- say, with a link to the latest Paris Hilton crisis or Fred Durst's anatomy. Ms. Trapani's hour-by-hour traffic statistics serve as the desktop image on her computer. "It's extremely fast paced," she said. "It's a lot of output. Some days it's overwhelming without a doubt. Other days it goes really smoothly if I get some good reader tips and there's something great going on." Like Mr. Denton, she was careful not to discuss specifics of Gawker's business, including how much its editors are paid. But a published interview with Mr. Steele earlier this year provides some insight. Bloggers are paid a set rate of $2,500 a month, he told a digital journalism class at New York University taught by Patrick Phillips, the editor and founder of I Want Media, a Web site focusing on media news. Critics of the blog movement wonder whether the hoopla over the commercial viability of blogs -- particularly as publishing ventures -- is overstated. "Blogs primarily excel at marketing and promotion for companies or individuals," Mr. Phillips of I Want Media said. "I think blogging can catapult unknown writers, and it can give them a platform if they're talented. But as a stand-alone business, I think the jury is still out on that." Mr. Denton, who says that no one, least of all him, is becoming rich publishing blogs, would seem to agree with that notion. It's not about the money, he said -- or about corrupting the art of the blogger. "If someone is saying that we publish according to a routine of at least 12 posts a day and begin in the morning and if someone is sick we replace them, then I plead guilty," he said. "We believe in regular posting schedules." But he also says that nothing he is doing prevents other blogging models from taking shape, or independent bloggers from logging on and doing what they have always done. "Some of my own favorite sites are ones that have no consistency beyond the wit and charm of the writer," he said. "There's room for both." And there is, apparently, a ceiling on Gawker's expansion. Last month, the company started Sploid, a Drudge-like headline news blog with a tabloid look, and Mr. Denton says two more titles are planned for the short term, although he would not be specific about the particular consumer itches he'll be scratching this time. Having covered everything from BlackBerries to Beltway gossip, it's hard to imagine what else looms, but he said writers had already been lined up. That will bring the number of titles to 14, and Mr. Denton indicated that 17 seemed a good stopping point, if for no other reason than that is the number of titles published by Condé Nast. He also plans to reintroduce Gawker's "blog of blogs," called Kinja - a service that even Mr. Denton says was rather badly deployed and even more awkwardly explained in its original form. A team of programmers has been working for the last two years to revamp the service, which allows users to explore and scan their favorite blogs in one place. The new version will be ready in about a month. SO, onward goes the nonrevolution. "If you take the amount of attention that has been devoted in the last year to Web logs as a business and something that's going to change business and compare that with the real effect and the real money, it's totally disproportionate," Mr. Denton said, "in the same way all the coverage of the Internet in the late 90's was out of whack. "There are too many people looking at blogs as being some magic bullet for every company's marketing problem, and they're not," he added. "It's Internet media. It's just the latest iteration of Internet media." Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: JRRJR Subject: ACL in Avaya Gateways Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 22:06:02 -0500 Organization: Cox Communications I want to regulate the IP addresses that have access to AVAYA WEB Admin Interface. Does anyone have step by step instructions on how to? If I read AVAYAs docs properly, the web admin for G350 goes over port 80 (like all web traffic). Please advise. rick.rodriquez@cox.net ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Who Gets to See the E-mail of the Deceased? Date: 9 May 2005 20:45:18 -0700 Justin Time wrote: > The issue here is the intellectual property. The output of the > computer belongs to you. You are free to take it with you and do with > it as your heart desires. The other side of the coin is the data you > leave on the rented computer. It does not belong to you. It is the > property of the machine owner. All those temporary files Microsoft > creates and stashes where only the programmer knows are not yours once > you leave the machine and return it to its owner. > A case in point is the example of rental machines at Kinko's. Some of > us may remember a few years ago the problem of some people who rented > machines at Kinko's were finding confidential and personal information > that had been left by prior users. There are also instances where > these "public" machines have been siezed with a warrant for evidence > of illegal activities. The entire point being the owner of the > machine has the ownership of your intellectual property -- in this > case Yahoo! and the email files -- because you left them on their > machine. If you had taken them with you, or deleted them, then the > owner of the machine would not have your intellectual property. I do not believe the above is correct. Again, the idea of leaving property in the care of another is nothing new, it is covered under the section of law known as bailments. That law defines the duties of holders of property relative to costs and abandonment of property. The owner of a machine never had the ownership of your personal property when you're using his machine or even if you abandon it on his machine. I want to point out there is no such thing as "finders keepers". If you lose something, you have not lost ownership in it, and someone finding it does not gain ownership in it. For example, if the doors of an armoured truck break open and the money flies out (which has happened several times), it is theft to keep any such money you find and people have gone to jail taking such money. One person who found a large sum of money in the street and kept it went to jail because he failed to make a reasonable effort -- such as reporting the find to the police. The police had a report of the missing money and would've matched it to the owner. As to intellectual property, this isn't anything new either. Say I go to a library and write up notes on paper, then leave the papers in a book: Those papers remain my property. JT mentioned internal temporary files -- qsuch things probably never were a person's property in the first place because of their temporary nature. However files I create would be my property. Now if the computer use was intended to be temporary, the owner would have no obligation to maintain files after I've gone -- they could run an automatic sweep. But if someone comes in asking for a file and it happens to be still available on the computer, they are entitled to get their file back. I do not believe the owner of any machine ever has ownership of your property that you're running on it, any more than the landlord of your apt has any ownership interests in your furniture kept in an apt you're renting from him. If I leave an expensive coat at a restaurant, that coat still belongs to me -- the restaurant owner cannot simply give it away and must hold it for a period of time for me to return to claim. Bailment law defines what the hold period would be and the proper care the owner must exercise while holding the coat. Obviously I can't show up five years later and claim it. If I checked the coat in their checkroom, they shouldn't store it next to the stove where grease will splatter on it, but on the other hand, they don't need to store it in a climate controlled vault either. As to seizing _anything_ for a criminal investigation, property ownership is irrlevent except to state who receives the search warrant. If the cops think there's evidence in a restaurant to catch a criminal who frequents that restaurant, they will search the restaurant and its fixtures. As to finding confidential information, it is theft to use such information, in some cases a very serious felony. As to a computer rental place, it may be necessary for the store to automatically clean the file space (as my public library does between users) or alert customers to do so. A public service has a duty to take _reasonable_ precautions to protect its customers, just like the restaurant must make a reasonable effort to protect an expensive overcoat left behind, and just as a checkroom won't hang up checked coats in the back alley in the rain. Generally, when such reasonable precautions are taken there is no further liability. Some rental agreements expressly limit or even deny liability -- you see signs in restaurants "not responsible for lost or stolen items". ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: Phone Line on cat 5 10-Base-T Ethernet? Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 04:04:38 UTC Organization: Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , Robert Bonomi wrote: > In article , > Also, beware of "100Base-TX". that trailing 'X' is signficant. That's wrong. All 100Mbit Ethernet on copper -- now that 100VG/AnyLan is rather definitively dead, and excluding a few oddities like shielded twisted pair -- is "100baseTX". Gigabit on copper, however, is just "1000baseT". Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "The inconsistency is startling, though admittedly, if consistency is to be abandoned or transcended, there is no problem." - Noam Chomsky ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Name Twin's Misdeeds Plague a Good Driver Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 22:46:17 -0600 Organization: Disorganized In message TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Monty Solomon : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This type of thing used to happen a lot > in Chicago, when the Cook County States Attorney would issue a warrant > for someone with a very common name. Now in recent years, when a > person (who is _NOT_ the wanted person) gets arrested and hassled, > they are permitted to apply for a boilerplate letter which announces > to one and all this particular [common name] is not wanted by law > enforcement _at this time_. And it gives a phone number to call for > verification. The common name person is 'encouraged' to carry this > letter in his possession (his wallet perhaps) at all times, and > present it to arresting officers, in the event of a mixup on his > social security number or other details. PAT] While that might help reduce the inconvenience, it sure would reduce the chances of getting lucky with a kidnap and unlawful detainment civil suit after the fact. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2004 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE JUST 65 CENTS ONE OR TWO INQUIRIES CHARGED TO YOUR CREDIT CARD! REAL TIME, UP TO DATE! SPONSORED BY TELECOM DIGEST AND EASY411.COM SIGN UP AT http://www.easy411.com/telecomdigest ! ************************ Visit http://www.mstm.okstate.edu and take the next step in your career with a Master of Science in Telecommunications Management (MSTM) degree from Oklahoma State University (OSU). This 35 credit-hour interdisciplinary program is designed to give you the skills necessary to manage telecommunications networks, including data, video, and voice networks. The MSTM degree draws on the expertise of the OSU's College of Business Administration; the College of Arts and Sciences; and the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology. The program has state-of-the-art lab facilities on the Stillwater and Tulsa campus offering hands-on learning to enhance the program curriculum. Classes are available in Stillwater, Tulsa, or through distance learning. Please contact Jay Boyington for additional information at 405-744-9000, mstm-osu@okstate.edu, or visit the MSTM web site at http://www.mstm.okstate.edu ************************ In addition, gifts from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert have enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #205 ****************************** TELECOM Digest Tue, 10 May 2005 15:14:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 206 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Hit "*" for More Options (Jack Decker) BT Objects to US Telco Mega-Mergers (Jack Decker) Ethernet Services Market Poised For Boom (Telecom dailyLead from USTA) STP Vendors (tnerber@gmail.com) Re: The Only Exciting Thing In Tech? (Tony P) Re: 1A2 Help Requested (Tony P.) Re: 1A2 Help Requested (Carl Navarro) 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; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jack Decker Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 08:08:09 -0400 Subject: Hit "*" for More Options http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,1059204,00.html By Owen Thomas, May 09, 2005 When Mark Spencer was starting a Linux company six years ago, he had $4,000 and some cheap, leftover hardware from a company where he had interned during college. His first conundrum: How were customers going to call him? A private branch exchange -- the specialized hardware that routes calls around an office -- was going to set him back $6,000. So Spencer decided to program his own Linux-based PBX. "Telecom was not really our core business," he says. But he released the software as open-source, and as contributions of code started coming in, Asterisk was born. Today, his company, now called Digium, focuses entirely on developing Asterisk and selling related hardware and software. He won't disclose the revenue of his closely held company, but he says it is profitable. The success of Asterisk shows the growing power of open-source. Digium could have tried to roll out its own proprietary PBX -- and likely would have been crushed by the likes of Avaya, Cisco, and Nortel. But by sharing his code, Spencer has created an ecosystem full of niches waiting to be filled. That should keep his phones ringing for quite a while. Full story at: http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,1059204,00.html How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 10:09:36 -0400 Subject: BT Objects to US Telco Mega-mergers http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=2BB6940A-C7DB-4C00-BDED-62115F6C129A Concerns over the competitive impact of the proposed mergers of AT&T and SBC Communications and MCI and Verizon Communications are increasing, with BT Group and the New York attorney general among the latest object. 10 May 2005, 09:38 GMT - BT met with US Federal Communications Commission staff late last week to ask the regulator block the two mergers, saying that they would create a "classic duopoly" in the telecommunications market, and consolidate control of the internet backbone. The UK incumbent carrier said the mergers "will significantly impede effective competition, resulting in higher prices, lower quality and reduced innovation for business customers", according to a FCC filing released yesterday AT&T is being acquired by SBC for $16bn, while Verizon is currently the approved frontrunner to pick up MCI for $8.5bn, a drastic consolidation of the US carrier market that needs separate regulatory approval before they can be closed. According to BT, allowing the SBC-AT&T merger would give the merged company the ability to "abuse its dominance" over the local loop. This would be compounded, the company said, by a simultaneous Verizon-MCI deal. [.....] New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, known as one of the fiercest consumer rights activists in elected office in the US, did not object to the mergers outright, but asks the FCC consider two potential problems that mirror BT's concerns. First, Spitzer said Verizon should be forced to offer naked DSL, that is broadband internet connectivity without the requirement to take phone service, if it buys MCI. It should also be dissuaded from preferentially routing IP over MCI's internet backbone, Spitzer said. Combined, BT's "duopoly" would control over half of the internet's backbone assets, Spitzer claimed. Also expressing some concern over the deals is Vonage Holdings, the private company that is becoming a bit of a player in the voice over IP space. Full story at: http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=2BB6940A-C7DB-4C00-BDED-62115F6C129A ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 12:48:10 EDT From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA Subject: Ethernet Services Market Poised for Boom, Report Says Telecom dailyLead from USTA May 10, 2005 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=21459&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Ethernet services market poised for boom, report says BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Verizon launches marketing campaign for TV service * Symbian phone shipments jump 180% * Report: For telecom, more subscribers aren't growing revenue * Qwest offers VoIP USTA SPOTLIGHT * USTA's VoIP Webinar Series: Now Available On Demand! EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * The mobile phone revolution * Reality-TV czar Mark Burnett stages online-only bout REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Cisco code theft part of broader hacker attack * MCI settles Mississippi tax claims * Advocacy groups form coalition to urge Telecom Act rewrite Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=21459&l=2017006 Legal and Privacy information at http://www.dailylead.com/about/privacy_legal.jsp SmartBrief, Inc. 1100 H ST NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20005 ------------------------------ From: tnerber@gmail.com Subject: STP Vendors Date: 10 May 2005 05:41:30 -0700 Hello, I am trying to find a list of STP Vendors. The only one I am familier with is Tekelec but there must be many others. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks, tnerber at gmail dot com ------------------------------ From: Tony P Subject: Re: The Only Exciting Thing In Tech? Date: 10 May 2005 09:48:16 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com The only flaw I see in this logic is that they assume everyone wants to watch television on a screen that's < 2" diagonal. Or play games for that matter. Give me a roll up OLED screen and I might start to consider it, but I'm a purist who believes a phone is a phone, though I do like SMS. But then, I don't want to carry a cell phone. It is nothing but an interruption. Unfortunately the job requires it. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: 1A2 Help Requested Organization: ATCC Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 07:12:59 -0400 In article , Tim@Backhome.org says: > TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to the original query: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can tell this much; no one,but no >> one tampers with or tries to rewire the inside of a 1A2 phone. The >> wiring is just too complex. All the rewiring is done in the box on >> the wall where there is room to move your arms and fingers, _not_ >> in the phone itself. PAT] > No doubt. No one ever changed the wiring within a 1A2 or 10A2 set, with > the expection of installing a buzzer for intercom. But, that wasn't > really rewiring; rather loosing a couple of screws to overlap > u-connectors. > And, no one in the field re-wired a 1A2/10A2 KSU, other than to > restrap the tie down wiring to change features, etc. > Ain't computers great?! > TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I really do not think anything much can > be done inside those phones without a lot of grief that cannot be done > better and quicker at the punchdown block on the wall. I've done > 'stuff' inside those phones but mainly things like remove or > re-arrange the ball-bearings under the push buttons so I could get two > or more buttons to stay down at one time. And once I converted a five- > line six-button phone with a hold button into a three line phone with > three associated hold buttons by using two of the line strips for each > line, so that three buttons merely put a short on each of the > associated three lines, and re-arranging the ball-bearings as > needed. This was circa 1975. It was not a fun project. That was the > day I vowed never to take one of those 1A2 phones apart again. PAT] At least you could modify a 2565 or 565 type set. Modifying a 7406, 8410 or 6408 is almost completely out of the question. I note the OP is a fan of modern phone system, as am I. But there is one tiny little problem. Our PRI between our two switches regularly goes down for anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes. This seems to occur most between 8:30AM and 9:00AM and then again between 2:00PM and 2:30PM. Verizon claims they can't figure it out. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In that case, next month when it is time to pay the bill is tell Verizon "I can't figure out where I left my purse and money." PAT] ------------------------------ From: Carl Navarro Subject: Re: 1A2 Help Requested Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 08:27:41 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com On Mon, 09 May 2005 18:16:36 -0700, Tim@Backhome.org wrote: > TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to the original query: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can tell this much; no one,but no >> one tampers with or tries to rewire the inside of a 1A2 phone. The >> wiring is just too complex. All the rewiring is done in the box on >> the wall where there is room to move your arms and fingers, _not_ >> in the phone itself. PAT] > No doubt. No one ever changed the wiring within a 1A2 or 10A2 set, with > the expection of installing a buzzer for intercom. But, that wasn't > really rewiring; rather loosing a couple of screws to overlap > u-connectors. > And, no one in the field re-wired a 1A2/10A2 KSU, other than to > restrap the tie down wiring to change features, etc. > Ain't computers great?! > TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I really do not think anything much can > be done inside those phones without a lot of grief that cannot be done > better and quicker at the punchdown block on the wallI The 10-button sets were the most fun, because you had tons of room. True, most of the surgery involved adding things like bells, buzzers, flash buttons and speakers, and removing screws from the keystrips for signal buttons, but sometimes you had to field replace a keystrip, tone pad/dial, or a network module. Or in the case of the last Comdials, whole circuit boards. I still may have some of those items in the corner of my warehouse :-). Carl Navaro [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For a good time, try adapting a six- button/five-line phone to use the little twist knob up in the left corner of the dial plate for something or another. You know, the little twist knob which (on a two line phone with mechanical hold) would switch between lines when you lifted the plunger on the left side of the switchhook. Many folks had those in their homes for two lines, but they did not realize the twist knob actually had a _third_ position as well: turn it sideways or up and down to select the desired line, but depress it as well (it was spring loaded and only would stay down if you held it). On those phones, where red/green in the cable was line one, and yellow/black was line two, the blue/ white was the third position output. Pressing down on that twist knob was often times used to (a) ring an intercom buzzer manually, or (b) apply ground as needed on a ground-start line. Those little plungers built into the left side of the switchhook had various jobs also. On two line phones with mechanical hold, they were used to short the pair _not_ being used, to keep it on 'hold' while you were talking on the other line. When the little plunger was used as an 'exclusion key', lifting it up would disconnect all the other instruments which were in series behind it. To make that happen you came from the demarc in to that phone _first_, wired it up, _then_ took the wire back out to the demarc and went to the other phones on the line. I also sometimes saw the little twist knob used to feed (or not) the operator headset jack built into the back of the six button phones, and sometimes the little plastic plunger in the switchhook was used to activate a monitoring line to a speaker (or a combination speakerphone/monitoring unit). The switchhooks of course are spring loaded also to make them pop up and down, but the ones used in connection with twist knobs could additionally be pulled up a bit further as needed. And here is a good project with a two-line twist button phone: Take a little neon bulb, the kind that only flashes when it gets 90 volts of current. Open the two line phone plastic case and mount that neon bulb inside right next to the plastic twist/turn knob. Attach the wires to one of the pairs. Now put the phone back together and dial the number associated. Watch the neon bulb flash in cadence with the ringing signal. If you get really cagey, you can attach the neon in a way that when you are on one line or the other, the _alternate_ line will feed the neon bulb, so that if you get a second call in the midst of it, instead of a loud ring to disturb you, all you will see is that twist knob blinking at you as the _alternate, not currently in use_ line is 'ringing'. Sort of an elegant 'beehive lamp' IMO. I haven't had one of those two-line or five-line phones around for many years. They can be such fun projects to work on, at least the two-line phones. I wish I could find one around somewhere. Trying to work inside the six-button phone itself was enough to make any sane person go crazy, so you can imagine what it did to me. How in the hell I got all the way to 1999 in my life without my head exploding is beyond me. I was due for it years before it happened when I contemplate some of the phones I messed around with. On the other hand, at the inside terminal block, if you could say to yourself 'line, light, hold' over and over as you counted by threes down the block in there, you had it made. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/ (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from * * Judith Oppenheimer, President of ICB Inc. and purveyor of accurate * * 800 & Dot Com News, Intelligence, Analysis, and Consulting. * * http://ICBTollFree.com, http://1800TheExpert.com * * Views expressed herein should not be construed as representing * * views of Judith Oppenheimer or ICB Inc. * ************************************************************************* ICB Toll Free News. Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2004 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE JUST 65 CENTS ONE OR TWO INQUIRIES CHARGED TO YOUR CREDIT CARD! REAL TIME, UP TO DATE! SPONSORED BY TELECOM DIGEST AND EASY411.COM SIGN UP AT http://www.easy411.com/telecomdigest ! ************************ Visit http://www.mstm.okstate.edu and take the next step in your career with a Master of Science in Telecommunications Management (MSTM) degree from Oklahoma State University (OSU). This 35 credit-hour interdisciplinary program is designed to give you the skills necessary to manage telecommunications networks, including data, video, and voice networks. The MSTM degree draws on the expertise of the OSU's College of Business Administration; the College of Arts and Sciences; and the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology. The program has state-of-the-art lab facilities on the Stillwater and Tulsa campus offering hands-on learning to enhance the program curriculum. Classes are available in Stillwater, Tulsa, or through distance learning. Please contact Jay Boyington for additional information at 405-744-9000, mstm-osu@okstate.edu, or visit the MSTM web site at http://www.mstm.okstate.edu ************************ In addition, gifts from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert have enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #206 ****************************** TELECOM Digest Tue, 10 May 2005 18:19:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 207 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Cisco Says Swede Arrested in Hacking Incident (Lisa Minter) Power Outage Causes E-Bay to Shut Down (Lisa Minter) Microsoft Phone Software Runs Hard Drives (Lisa Minter) Actor Morgan Freeman Wins Cybersquatting Case (Lisa Minter) Avaya Emergency Help Needed (Jason Kolb) Re: 1A2 Help Requested (Scott Dorsey) Re: 1A2 Help Requested (Matt) Re: STP Vendors (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: STP Vendors (John McHarry) 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; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: Cisco Says Swede Arrested in Hacking Incident Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 15:37:48 -0500 By Andy Sullivan and Niklas Pollard WASHINGTON/STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Cisco Systems Inc. said on Tuesday authorities in Sweden had detained a person for stealing its source code, the basic instructions for the machines that direct Internet traffic around the globe. "We are aware that a person has been detained in Sweden related to the IOS source code theft and are encouraged by this action," the San Jose, California, company said in a statement. Swedish police have declined to say whether their investigation of a 16-year-old boy is related to a May 2004 incident that exposed the inner workings of Cisco's Internetworking Operating System, or IOS. Police in Uppsala, a university town north of Stockholm, said on Tuesday they had been contacted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation about a teenager already in trouble with the law in Sweden for allegedly hacking into university computers. Swedish police said the teenager, whom they would not identify by name, had been questioned about hacker attacks on Uppsala University computers, but had not been arrested. "We have not received any formal request from (U.S. authorities) to question or apprehend the 16-year-old," Uppsala police spokesman Christer Nordstrom said. "But I can confirm that there has been an exchange of information with the FBI." The New York Times reported that the Cisco theft was part of a broader hacking campaign that targeted computer systems run by U.S. universities and government agencies. Several supercomputer labs in April 2004 reported that computers connected to the high-speed TeraGrid network had been breached. A spokeswoman for the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico confirmed that the facility had experienced an intrusion around the time that Cisco reported its breach, but said no sensitive information was obtained. "Basically, they got into some local weather forecasts," spokeswoman Monte Marlin said. Source code, the underlying blueprint of computer software, determines how programs work. Companies like Microsoft Corp. zealously guard their source code because they consider it the lifeblood of their business. Cisco said last May that portions of its IOS source code had been copied from its internal systems and posted on a foreign Web site for several days, where presumably other hackers could examine it closely for security flaws. The company said at the time that the breach would not put customers' equipment at risk. The FBI said in a statement it had been working with authorities in Sweden and Great Britain to track down the culprit. "As a result of recent actions, the criminal activity appears to have stopped," it said. Authorities in Great Britain arrested a 20-year-old man last September in connection with the Cisco hacking, but no charges have been filed. (Additional reporting by Reuters Stockholm bureau) Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. To discuss this news with other readers, go to our conference area: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/chatpage.html ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: Power Outage Causes E-Bay Shutdown Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 15:36:09 -0500 SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Web marketplace eBay Inc. said on Tuesday that its site was temporarily down worldwide on Monday evening due to a power outage at a primary hosting facility in the San Francisco area. The outage at the facility run by Qwest Communications International Inc., shut down eBay's site for 100 minutes starting at 7:30 p.m. PDT Monday (0230 GMT Tuesday). A company spokesman said eBay had restored global access to virtually all of the functions on its site within three hours. EBay said in a message to users that it will issue credits and listing extensions as per company policy. In an unrelated event, the site for eBay's PayPal online payment service was down for nearly 30 minutes on Monday evening due to a hardware failure in its Denver data center. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: Microsoft Phone Software Runs Hard Drives Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 15:33:01 -0500 By Reed Stevenson SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. , on Tuesday released a new version of its mobile phone software with the ability to run miniature hard drives and new features like a walkie-talkie style "push-to-talk." The world's largest software maker has struggled in the mobile phone world but sees a chance to unseat entrenched rivals such as market leader Symbian Ltd. with Windows Mobile 5.0. "We've made a heck of a lot of progress," Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said in an interview, "I think we've learned a lot." The maker of the Windows computer operating system launched a mobile phones unit about five years ago. The cell phone market is a fragmented collection of wireless carriers, handset makers and other technology providers that need to work together to deliver closely integrated products and services and Microsoft made a rocky start. "With carriers launching higher speed networks the business case for more advanced devices is starting to make more sense," said Hugues De La Verne, analyst at researcher Gartner Group. Microsoft's share of the mobile device software market is estimated at 16 to 18 percent, while Symbian is seen having a 61 to 71 percent market share. Symbian, created in 1998, is half-owned by Finland's Nokia, as well as handset makers Siemens, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which owns the Panasonic brand. DECENT CHANCE Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft said that 40 hardware makers are shipping devices so far using its Windows Mobile software. In the United States, however, phones running Windows Mobile, which Microsoft calls Smartphones, have been overshadowed by hot-selling devices such as Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry wireless e-mail devices as well as PalmOS-based phones such as the Treo. Microsoft said Windows Mobile 5.0 would let e-mails pop up on a user's phone as they arrive. The software will also work with "push-to-talk" features, which allows phone users to chat walkie-talkie style, by pushing a button when they want to talk to another party. Support for hard drives could also turn phones into multimedia devices that could store music and video, potentially taking the of a separate cell phone and a separate digital music device, such as Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod music player. Microsoft said that it expects phones running the new mobile software to be offered by carriers within the next few months. Moreover, faster speeds on cell phone networks also mean that users will have better access to online e-mail, data and content that will provide a stronger incentive for them to upgrade to more advanced phones. (Additional reporting by Sinead Carew in New York). Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: Actor Morgan Freeman Wins Cybersquatting Case Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 15:33:54 -0500 GENEVA (Reuters) - American actor Morgan Freeman, winner of this year's best supporting actor Oscar for his performance in "Million Dollar Baby," won a cybersquatting case in a ruling by an international arbitrator Tuesday. Freeman was found to have common law rights to the contested Internet domain name (morganfreeman.com), which had been registered by a Saint Kitts and Nevis-based web site operator. The operator, identified as Mighty LLC, misused the celebrity's trademark to lure surfers to its web site in "bad faith," independent arbitrator Peter Nitter said in a ruling. The ruling was announced by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a United Nations agency which promotes protection of trademarks and patents, and whose arbitration center resolves disputes over domain names. Freeman, who has appeared in more than 50 films in a career spanning four decades, joins the ranks of entertainers including Julia Roberts, Spike Lee, Madonna and Eminem who have won their cases under WIPO's fast-track, low-cost procedure. Ownership of the domain name is transferred within 10 days unless the loser launches a court case challenging the decision. Freeman won his first Oscar in February for his supporting role in the boxing drama "Million Dollar Baby," which also won Oscars for best director, best picture and best actress. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I only wish I had the financial wherewithall to file suit against the guy who is cybersquatting on the domain name I used for a several years (internet-history.org). The _very day_ that that the domain name slipped away by accident the fellow (in Geneva, CH of all places) grabbed it, knowing full well it was in use. He knew what he was doing ... and I thought that the .org domain was such that his porn and commercial stuff would not be allowed (which is true if you look at the PIR charter). But it seems the PIR charter, etc is subservient to the ICANN rules, and ICANN could give a damn less about regular web sites; their whole thing is the large, commercial sites. I wish I had the money to get a lawyer who would dismantle the whole setup. Alternatly, the guy who is cybersquatting on internet-history.org said he would 'gladly' release it back to me if I would pay his blackmail rate of eight hundred dollars (and of course the fees the ICANN pirates would charge in addition.) PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jason Kolb <jason.kolb@gmail.com> Subject: Avaya Emergency Date: 10 May 2005 13:04:21 -0700 Well, Avaya has gotten me into a bind. Maybe somebody out there has run into this before, it's worth a shot :) We have an internal outsourcer running Avaya IP phones and an S8300 with SLP. In the states, we have an S8700 that we need to use to run the IP phones (the S8300 is failover). Unfortunately and unavoidably we are getting latency times of about 315ms roundtrip to the remote site. This seems to be on the verge of acceptable, because the IP phones can sometimes register, but other times we are receiving an error "2011 IP FURQ-NoQ931 msg rcvd Force Unregistration Request". It seems to be extremely random. We called Avaya and it they said the registration confirmation is not getting from the phone back to the 8700 in a timely mannger. There are absolutely no firewall restrictions of any kind between the phone and the 8700. So what I'm left with is either finding a way to MAKE this work, or putting a bunch of really expensive equipment up on eBay :( We are looking for a way to override this behavior, either by extending the timeout or forcing the phone to register somehow. By the way, I'm willing to pay for advice that works ... Thanks for any help you can offer!! Jason Kolb jason.kolb at gmail dot com ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: 1A2 Help Requested Date: 10 May 2005 14:58:24 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Tony P. <kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net> wrote: > Our PRI between our two switches regularly goes down for anywhere from > 30 seconds to 5 minutes. This seems to occur most between 8:30AM and > 9:00AM and then again between 2:00PM and 2:30PM. Verizon claims they > can't figure it out. Clock slip? --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: Matt <mattmorgan64@msn.com> Subject: Re: 1A2 Help Requested Date: 10 May 2005 12:06:55 -0700 Thanks all, for the comments, links etc -- I've gotten several replies from the people in this group via email. My KSU should be here tomorrow ... and the phones to follow shortly. There is a bunch of the 25 pair cable up in the attic of the building I work in; I even found one with a female connector on one end. Now I'm shopping for a good punchdown tool. Looks like it's going to be the most expensive part of this whole endeaveor (Phone: $45. KSU: $55. Punchdown tool: $65 - 75). Ah well, thats life. ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: STP Vendors Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 19:03:25 UTC Organization: Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article <telecom24.206.4@telecom-digest.org>, <tnerber@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello, > I am trying to find a list of STP Vendors. The only one I am familier > with is Tekelec but there must be many others. Any suggestions would > be helpful. The big vendors in the market used to be Tekelec and DSC. DSC was eaten by Alcatel, if I remember right -- but Tekelec had just rolled out new products that were more or less wiping the floor with everyone else, integrating enough SCP functionality into their Eagle STP to do local number portability and a range of other high-volume applications. Of course there were other platforms out there like the Lucent one, mostly deployed at AT&T, and Nortel's offering, about which I know very little -- and there were actually a few networks out there using Tekelec's MGTS SS7 test appliance as an STP, which is a little crazy but I've seen it work. That was almost 10 years ago, about when I got out of the SS7 business. I am not sure what's happened since then (I'd assume further consolidation, as well as probably some business siphoned off by SS7 over IP type boxes) and in fact I'd be curious to know. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "The inconsistency is startling, though admittedly, if consistency is to be abandoned or transcended, there is no problem." - Noam Chomsky ------------------------------ From: John McHarry <jmcharry@comcast.net> Subject: Re: STP Vendors Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 20:53:48 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net On Tue, 10 May 2005 05:41:30 -0700, tnerber wrote: > Hello, > I am trying to find a list of STP Vendors. The only one I am familier > with is Tekelec but there must be many others. Any suggestions would > be helpful. Nortel and Lucent made them at one time. I don't know if they still do. DSC was a major player before they were acquired by Alcatel. I don't know if they still are. Don't expect much from the major European vendors; they use F links there. Does anyone know why the US went with STPs instead of F links? Last I knew, the Europeans thought it was because of a lack of processing power in the 1AESS, but the Americans mostly thought the reason Europe didn't was the hop by hop setup used there. Neither answer is very satisfactory. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #207 ****************************** TELECOM Digest Wed, 11 May 2005 02:49:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 208 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Firefox Has Hassles Just Like Internet Explorer (Lisa Minter) Child Porn Getting _Much Worse_ on Net (Lisa Minter) Live Child Molestation on Net For All to Watch (Lisa Minter) Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? (Jack Decker) US Signal Introduces Quality of Service Enhancement to (Jack Decker) Re: STP Vendors (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: Actor Morgan Freeman Wins Cybersquatting Case (Fred Atkinson) Re: 1A2 Help Requested (Tony P.) 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; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lisa Minter Subject: Firefox Has Hassles Just Like Internet Explorer Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 17:32:58 -0500 Firefox Vulnerable to Malicious Code Writers By Jennifer LeClaire LinuxInsider "It's a non-issue whether or not Microsoft is a larger target than Mozilla," said Jupiter Research analyst Joe Wilcox. "The point isn't why your city is getting bombed instead of someone else's. It's what do you do about your city getting bombed." Sanity while working in Windows: MKS Toolkit products enable you to preserve your investments in UNIX/Linux software. Click here to learn more. Security firm Secunia is reporting two "extremely critical" flaws in Mozilla's Firefox. The vulnerabilities can be exploited by malicious people who wish to take control of victims' computers. The Mozilla Foundation is aware of the two flaws. The organization said there are currently no known active exploits of these vulnerabilities, although a "proof of concept" has been reported. Mozilla said changes to its update Web service have been made to mitigate the risk of an exploit. "Mozilla is aggressively working to provide a more comprehensive solution to these potential vulnerabilities and will provide that solution in a forthcoming security update," said Mozilla executives in a security alert. Unprotected, Unverified The first problem is that "IFRAME" JavaScript URLs are not properly protected from being executed in context of another URL in the history list, Secunia said. This can be exploited to execute arbitrary HTML and script code in a user's browser session. The second problem is input passed to the "IconURL" parameter in "InstallTrigger.install()" is not properly verified before being used. Secunia said this can be exploited to execute arbitrary JavaScript code with escalated privileges via a specially crafted JavaScript URL. Successful exploitation requires that the site is allowed to install software. Bombs are Falling Jupiter Research analyst Joe Wilcox told LinuxInsider that there will always be flaws in software, and arguments about why hackers target certain browsers are ongoing all the time. The true test is how effectively open source responds to the threats compared to its commercial counterparts. "It's a non-issue whether or not Microsoft is a larger target than Mozilla," Wilcox said. "The point isn't why your city is getting bombed instead of someone else's. It's what do you do about your city getting bombed. During World War II, Winston Churchill could have talked about how London was a bigger target than New York City. But what would such an argument have meant to Londoners during blackouts?" A Temporary Fix Secunia also said a combination of the two vulnerabilities could be exploited to execute arbitrary code. The firm also claims that the exploit code is publicly available. The vulnerabilities have been confirmed in version 1.0.3. Other versions may also be affected. A temporary fix has been added to the sites "update.mozilla.org" and "addons.mozilla.org." Mozilla said users can further protect themselves by disabling JavaScript. With the bombs falling on Firefox and the anticipation surrounding Microsoft's Longhorn beta release this summer, some have wondered whether the popular open-source browser could lose its momentum. Wilcox doesn't think so. "There are plenty of people using Internet Explorer despite security flaws," he said. "So if you use that as a metaphor for Firefox, then the increase of the flaws may not have an immediate impact." Copyright 2005 ECT News Network, Inc. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Kiddie Porn Problem Severe, Expert Sees it Worsening Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 18:08:43 -0500 Posted by Robert T DeMarco on 05/04/05 Last year 705 children in the U.S. were abducted by a mouse. That's how Andrew Oosterbaan, chief of child exploitation and obscenity for the U.S. Department of Justice, described the luring of children through the Internet for sexual meetings with adults. Oosterbaan was the guest speaker at a one-day symposium hosted by Microsoft at the University of Toronto. It brought together international lecturers, police, lawyers, social workers and psychiatrists in an effort to find better ways to protect children from internet predators. "The problem is becoming more severe," Oosterbaan said. "The marketplace is diversifying." The Internet and cheap digital camera technology have provided those inclined to abuse children with the technology to become international producers and distributors of child abuse images, Oosterbaan said. KIDS AS COMMODITY He said "children are viewed as a commodity and will be victimized as a commodity," and he saw that first hand in Miami, where he worked with the U.S. Attorney's office for 10 years before taking his recent position in Washington. SEX IN PLAYGROUNDS Oosterbaan said school police in Miami-Dade County monitor online chat sites and have observed adult predators asking very young children at schools "to have sex with them in the playground areas." And Oosterbaan said the victims are getting younger. "Now we are seeing babies whereas before, 10 to 15 years ago, at the outside, the youngest might have been 12," Oosterbaan said. Later this spring a report will be put together from the presentations and discussions at yesterday's symposium in an effort to further evaluate options for strengthening laws in Canada to protect children. It is estimated one in five children will view some form of child abuse image when they log on to the internet. Police are now using the Child Exploitation Tracking System, designed by Microsoft Canada and Toronto Police, to tackle the growing problem of online child exploitation. In 2003, Toronto police estimate they seized more than two million images and videos of child sexual abuse. Copyright 2005 Watch Right. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I know that you -- like myself -- probably looked askance at the claim in the article about the kids who this happens to getting younger, but in the next report today from Lisa about the Internet Slum, she reports on a woman who fondled a little boy _on camera_ for all to watch in a Yahoo Group. Some who watched the spectacle included a Naperville, IL police officer who know is assigned almost entirely to the Internet Kiddie Porn patrol. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Woman Allegedly Fondles Toddler on Camera in Chat Room Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 18:15:50 -0500 BY ANDY KRAVETZ AND KAREN McDONALD Peoria, Illinois Journal Star PEORIA - A 21-year-old Minonk woman faces federal charges after being arrested for allegedly showing live video on the Internet of her fondling a naked 16-month-old boy that she was baby-sitting. Taylor A. March of 719 Oak St. was arrested Monday evening at her home, hours after she allegedly posted the video in a Yahoo! chatroom, "Preteen Sex on Camera." March had been baby-sitting six other children -- all of whom were girls. The children ranged in age from 16 months old up to 8 years old. When she was arrested, only the 16-month-old child was at her home. The other children were not present when the alleged crime occurred, said Woodford County sheriff's Detective Terry Glaub. The Sheriff's Department and State's Attorney's Office plan to conduct interviews with those children to determine whether any other crimes occurred. The State's Attorney's Office also is reviewing the case for possible local charges, officials said. "It wasn't long and drawn out. It's nice to get a perpetrator like that off the streets," Woodford County Chief Deputy Darren Evans said. March faces a single charge of "knowing use (sic) a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing visual depictions of such conduct." U.S. District Judge Joe B. McDade ordered her held in custody of the U.S. Marshals pending a bond hearing Thursday morning. If convicted, March faces up to 15 years in prison. Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Keith said authorities are examining March's computer. According to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court, March had logged into the chatroom and began chatting about having sex with children. At some point, she aimed a Web camera toward her so the others in the room could see her. The complaint alleges March began to change the child's diapers in view of the camera. She then allegedly touched and masturbated the child as the Web camera sent live video to other chatroom members, the complaint states. March had been caring for the boy since late last year. She does not have any children of her own and is not related to any of the children she baby-sat, Glaub said. "Our concern was to expedite this case to ensure the child wasn't in harm's way," Glaub said. An undercover Naperville police officer captured the Internet video and informed authorities here, the complaint states. Copyright 2005 Peoria Journal-Star NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Do you recall an old saying from years ago when movie/show people talked about 'sort of racy', x-rated movies and one of their citerion was always "Will it play in Peoria?" Well this 'movie' not only played in Peoria but was created in Peoria. And when someone asks why is this sort of malicious behavor allowed on the internet, _someone_ always hastens to tell us that 'there is no consensus on the net for what is malicious.' And if we wish to listen to them rattling on and on, they will tell us how this is an anarchy, how the internet does not really exist, that it is only a collection of sites and how we dasn't interfere with a private site and whatever trash and scams they send out. And of course they insist that 'no one is in charge of anything' and further ...'that is the way that everyone wants it to be.' The hell they say! I say this: if ICANN is going to throw their weight around and purport to be the people in charge (which effectively they do with their lop-sided contracts that _everyone_ has to sign, then Vint Cerf and Esther Dyson and their gang should come back off of vacation in Argentina (or wherever they are this week) and write up new and meaningful contracts which everyone has to sign (ICANN has had no trouble making that happen up to now and I am _certain_ they can phase it in; but that's the catch, the joke is on you, me and other netters. Vint Cerf cont- tributed more to the advancing Internet Slum than anyone else out there. And I guess they are not going to back down, but neither am I. So you little precious ones who get so offended when you are told what a mess this net has gotten to be, and that many of you were and are responsible for it, write yourself a Perl script (or use the one I put here the other day for what's-his-name) and just begin skipping over the Editor Notes. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 22:39:33 -0400 Subject: US Signal Introduces Quality of Service Enhancement to Prioritize http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/05-10-2005/0003592291&EDATE= US Signal Introduces Quality of Service Enhancement to Prioritize VoIP, Other IP Traffic Across its Network http://www.ussignalcom.com Enhanced SLA, Four Data Priority Levels Delivered By Latest Cisco Technology GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., May 10 /PRNewswire/ -- US Signal today announced the introduction of a new Quality of Service (QoS) product enhancement that gives its IP/Internet managed service customers the ability to prioritize VoIP, video and other critical data applications across the entire US Signal IP network. Grand Rapids, Mich.-based US Signal said QoS is available to its Internet customers who utilize US Signal to manage connectivity. For customers selecting the QoS product option, US Signal will install and manage a Cisco state-of-the-art Integrated Services Router at a customer's location to classify and route data traffic as required by the customer's applications. The US Signal QoS enhancement was developed in response to assisting customer deployment of VoIP solutions and the resulting need to prioritize VoIP data packets. The Company noted that customers are increasingly moving to optimize their internal networks to give priority to VoIP data up to the edge of their Internet connection. Available May 1, the QoS enhancement extends that optimization across US Signal's core network. The QoS offering also comes with an enhanced Service Level Agreement (SLA) that sets high-level performance standards, including "five 9s" of network reliability, as well as stringent metrics for latency, packet loss and jitter. The US Signal network, the largest in the Midwest, includes a total of nearly 3,000 route miles of long-haul fiber connecting first-, second- and third-tier markets in Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. It also includes more than 500 miles of fiber optic metro rings around 14 high-growth cities and 75 on-off ramps, comprised of major carrier hotel locations and incumbent telephone company central offices. "We are pleased to be able to bring this advanced QoS enhancement to our growing list of IP customers utilizing or considering VoIP, as well as those looking to leverage additional data stream-critical tools such as video streaming and video conferencing," said US Signal's vice president of sales and marketing, Stephen Oyer. "Our utilization of Cisco's 1841 router allows us to offer four distinct classes of data performance to customers, giving them value-based QoS options today that can also scale with the customer as they grow. US Signal's QoS is also backed by one of the strongest SLA's in the industry, demonstrating our confidence in our performance." About US Signal US Signal (http://www.ussignalcom.com ) is a full-service fiber optic solutions provider, offering a wide range of telecommunications solutions to wholesale customers and channel partners. The Company has built and developed one of the most comprehensive fiber optic networks in the Midwest. As a full- service solutions provider, US Signal offers unlimited high-speed capacity, dark fiber and collocation services, and also works with customers to design and build new network construction projects. SOURCE US Signal Web Site: http://www.ussignalcom.com ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: STP Vendors Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 00:28:30 UTC Organization: Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , John McHarry wrote: > Does anyone know why the US went with STPs instead of F links? Last I You've got the question backwards; the network architecture originated in the US, and was adapted by the Europeans to more nearly approximate their hop-by-hop analog interoffice signaling. F links are, in essence, wasteful; generally they lead to a significant surplus of signaling bandwidth at some points in the network and periodic deficits elsewhere. It is also somewhat easier to engineer a heavily redundant signaling architecture -- particularly in the tree-structured EO and tandem voice network US carriers inherited from Bell -- if you physically separate packet switching for the signaling links from the actual presence of voice trunk groups between switches. Finally, it's noteworthy that other network protocol suites (e.g. IP, XNS, SNA) generally distinguish between the routing and end-host functions; certainly most stacks can do both, but a really high performance router, for most protocols, doesn't make a great end host, and vice versa. Why expect it to be different for SS7? You don't _need_ all the baggage of a voice switch along for the ride if your intent is to just forward signal units, and dispensing with it means reduced cost and size, which means you can have more message routers and more links on those routers, which means you can have a more redundant network. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "The inconsistency is startling, though admittedly, if consistency is to be abandoned or transcended, there is no problem." - Noam Chomsky ------------------------------ From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Re: Actor Morgan Freeman Wins Cybersquatting Case Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 20:56:44 -0400 > GENEVA (Reuters) - American actor Morgan Freeman, winner of this > year's best supporting actor Oscar for his performance in "Million > Dollar Baby," won a cybersquatting case in a ruling by an > international arbitrator Tuesday. > Freeman was found to have common law rights to the contested Internet > domain name (morganfreeman.com), which had been registered by a Saint > Kitts and Nevis-based web site operator. If this is true, then why isn't the domain registered to anyone right now? I would think it should be registered to Morgan Freeman at this point. I imagine that this would set a precedent to protect actors (and other artists) name(s) on the Internet, rather than each having to file a case each time. He is a pretty good actor, by the way. I really enjoyed his peformance in 'The Shawshank Redemption'. Fred ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: 1A2 Help Requested Organization: ATCC Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 22:05:19 -0400 In article , kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net says: > In article , Tim@Backhome.org > says: >> TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to the original query: >>> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can tell this much; no one,but no >>> one tampers with or tries to rewire the inside of a 1A2 phone. The >>> wiring is just too complex. All the rewiring is done in the box on >>> the wall where there is room to move your arms and fingers, _not_ >>> in the phone itself. PAT] >> No doubt. No one ever changed the wiring within a 1A2 or 10A2 set, with >> the expection of installing a buzzer for intercom. But, that wasn't >> really rewiring; rather loosing a couple of screws to overlap >> u-connectors. >> And, no one in the field re-wired a 1A2/10A2 KSU, other than to >> restrap the tie down wiring to change features, etc. >> Ain't computers great?! >> TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I really do not think anything much can >> be done inside those phones without a lot of grief that cannot be done >> better and quicker at the punchdown block on the wall. I've done >> 'stuff' inside those phones but mainly things like remove or >> re-arrange the ball-bearings under the push buttons so I could get two >> or more buttons to stay down at one time. And once I converted a five- >> line six-button phone with a hold button into a three line phone with >> three associated hold buttons by using two of the line strips for each >> line, so that three buttons merely put a short on each of the >> associated three lines, and re-arranging the ball-bearings as >> needed. This was circa 1975. It was not a fun project. That was the >> day I vowed never to take one of those 1A2 phones apart again. PAT] > At least you could modify a 2565 or 565 type set. Modifying a 7406, 8410 > or 6408 is almost completely out of the question. > I note the OP is a fan of modern phone system, as am I. But there is one > tiny little problem. > Our PRI between our two switches regularly goes down for anywhere from > 30 seconds to 5 minutes. This seems to occur most between 8:30AM and > 9:00AM and then again between 2:00PM and 2:30PM. Verizon claims they > can't figure it out. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In that case, next month when it is > time to pay the bill is tell Verizon "I can't figure out where I left > my purse and money." PAT] Well, it is a state agency I work for and it would be relatively easy to sic PUC after Verizon. I just might do that. In article , kludge@panix.com says: > Tony P. wrote: >> Our PRI between our two switches regularly goes down for anywhere from >> 30 seconds to 5 minutes. This seems to occur most between 8:30AM and >> 9:00AM and then again between 2:00PM and 2:30PM. Verizon claims they >> can't figure it out. > Clock slip? That's my gut feeling on it. I've tried explaining that to Verizon but it just falls on deaf ears. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And their request for payment should likewise fall on deaf ears for a few months. And when you get tired of playing that game after a few months, _then_ sic the government on them as you indicated above. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #208 ****************************** TELECOM Digest Wed, 11 May 2005 18:20:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 209 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson America OnLine to Unveil Free Email Service (Lisa Minter) Microsoft Will Expand MSN in China (Lisa Minter) Big Providers Add Record Broadband Subs in Q1 (Telecom dailyLead USTA) Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? (Lisa Hancock) Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: Who Gets to See the E-mail of the Deceased? (Lisa Hancock) Re: Spyware ... Ugh! (bob@coolgroups.com) Re: Kiddie Porn Problem Severe, Expert Sees it Worsening (NOTvalid) 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; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lisa Minter Subject: America OnLine to Unveil Free Email Service Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 14:00:03 -0500 By Kenneth Li NEW YORK (Reuters) - America Online will begin offering a free e-mail service on Wednesday tied to its popular instant messaging service, ahead of a big relaunch of its free AOL.com Web site later this year. AOL's free Web-based e-mail service is nearly a decade behind Microsoft's Hotmail service and several years behind a Yahoo E-mail offering. But the online division of Time Warner Inc. is betting that the combination of e-mail with its ubiquitous instant messaging software (AIM) will create a more powerful service combining all electronic and phone messages. AOL will integrate its recently launched digital phone service this fall, when the AIM software will be rewritten, allowing users to retrieve voice mail, e-mail and instant messages from any computer. "AOL is a bit late to the Web mail game, but it's not too late," said Joe Laszlo, a senior analyst at Jupiter Research. "It's a question of integrating different communications channels together giving them an opportunity to go a bit further than anyone else has gone." The once prominent provider of paid online services will offer free e-mail to 20 million active users of the free AOL Instant Messenger as a test before it's final launch about a month later. The e-mail service, which offers 2 gigabytes of free storage space, will be subsidized by banner advertisements that run alongside the e-mail screens, similar to other free Web-based e-mail services. AOL's new AIM Mail service is part of an ambitious plan to overhaul its business model to focus on freely available services and programming from one that depends on subscription revenue. The move is a dramatic reversal from its previous strategy, built around assembling the most compelling package of Internet programming in order to get subscribers to pay about $20 a month for dial-up Internet service. AOL has been losing subscribers to phone and cable companies offering high speed Internet packages. At the same time, AOL's advertising revenue has exploded, jumping 45 percent in its most recent first quarter from a year ago, prompting the Internet service to rethink its strategy last year. "It's a part of our broader 'Audience' strategy that takes advantage of the significant increases in advertising, search and e-commerce on the Internet," said Chamath Palihapitiya, vice president and general manager of AIM at AOL. AOL will be up against Yahoo Inc., at which e-mail services accounted for 53.2 percent of traffic to all Web mail services in the week ended May 7, according to measurement firm Hitwise. It will also be up against Google Inc. Google's e-mail service, Gmail, helps marketers target e-mail users by serving ads linked to key words in e-mail text. Google uses technology to sift through e-mail for relevant text and has said no humans actually read users' e-mail. "That's creepy," Palihapitiya said, referring to Google's use of technology to target e-mail users with ads. AOL has a lucrative partnership with Google, which provides the search engine foundations of AOL's search site. An AOL executive said AIM Mail will also include junk e-mail fighting features, like AOL. AIM users will automatically qualify for an account using their current AIM user name. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Microsoft Will Expand MSN in China Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 14:01:29 -0500 By Reed Stevenson and Doug Young SEATTLE/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. said on Tuesday it would form two new ventures for its MSN Internet service in China, becoming the latest player to expand in the crowded market. The deals will allow Microsoft to offer "the full gamut of what a true Internet portal should be" in China, said Bruce Jaffe, a Microsoft, chief financial officer of the MSN division. "We have been looking at China for quite some time," he said. Microsoft already offers MSN services such as Hotmail and Messenger services in Chinese, but the new joint venture will offer more communication, information and content beginning this spring, the company said. Microsoft also said that it would buy assets from Chinese mobile phone software provider TSSX to offer MSN-based services to China's 340 million mobile phone users. China is the world's second-largest Internet market with 94 million users at the end of 2004, a number expected to rise to 134 million by the end of this year, according to official data. Microsoft -- which already operates a China site at china.msn.com -- is a relative bit player in a market where Yahoo Inc. eBay Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and InterActiveCorp have made a string of acquisitions. Google Inc. said on Wednesday it got a business license for China and bought a China-based Web domain. Microsoft's late entry, coupled with its strategy of working with relatively unknown partners, means it could face a tough time gaining traction, said one analyst who spoke on condition his name not be used. "If you look at what Yahoo has done ... they had to pay quite a significant sum of money" to acquire an existing search engine in China, he said. "This may be a better way in China -- to take over a key player in a particular area." The entry into the mobile services market would put Microsoft competition with a host of homegrown start-ups such as Sina Corp., Sohu.com Inc., Linktone Ltd. and Tom Online Inc. Those companies rose to profitability -- and saw their shares soar as well -- by offering short messaging services (SMS) over mobile phones. but many have lately fallen out of favor amid a government-led cleanup of the industry. Microsoft has long seen China as a key growth market, but also a headache because of widespread software piracy and copyright issues. Censorship has been a major problem for many Internet players, who voluntarily block searches and other links to sensitive subjects like the Falun Gong spiritual movement and the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protestors in Tiananmen Square. Microsoft and Beijing have become closer in recent years, with the Redmond, Washington-based company opening up a research lab in Beijing in 1998. Microsoft formed one of the two ventures, an MSN China joint venture, with government-operated Shanghai Alliance Investment Ltd. (SAIL) to develop MSN products and services more closely tied to China. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 12:50:21 EDT From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA Subject: Big Providers Add Record Broadband Subs in Q1 Telecom dailyLead from USTA May 11, 2005 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=21483&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Big providers add record broadband subs in Q1 BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Microsoft unveils Windows Mobile 5.0 * Analysis: Small VoIP providers may feel heat as market grows * FTTH connections surge since September 2004 * Comcast sees growth ahead * Cisco reports earnings USTA SPOTLIGHT * Newton's Telecom Dictionary -- 21st Edition EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * Yahoo! Music Unlimited offers tunes for less * Nike launches interactive Times Square billboard REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Editorial: Telecom market has changed Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=21483&l=2017006 Legal and Privacy information at http://www.dailylead.com/about/privacy_legal.jsp SmartBrief, Inc. 1100 H ST NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20005 ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? Date: 11 May 2005 06:58:18 -0700 The difficulties won't "derail" VOIP. The VOIPS will have to spend some money maintaining the appropriate customer databases and then develop a protocol to transmit that information 911 centers. That requires some cost and effort, but it is not impossible as long as the VOIP owners understand and accept their responsibility and liability in this matter. I suspect it will increase the cost of providing VOIP service and raise fees a bit, but since the protocols and databases should be standardized, the computer costs could be spread out among many VOIP customers, so it won't be a big deal. What I think a concern should be is service reliability. On the next virus/worm attack when the Internet is flooded with messages and intermediate switching/relay points can't keep up, it's possible VOIP telephone service won't be available or be difficult to use. I don't know how VOIP handles "traffic jams" where packets are delayed en route. Also, if some business which is dependent on VOIP for its voice has major server problems will voice traffic be disrupted? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Lisa, since we are chatting about 'service reliability' and how important it is, what about when a place like California has an earthquake now and then, or now and then in New York City when an airplane crashes into a tall building and all the people get excited and stirred up and all everyone jumps on the phone at one time bringing the phone system to a screaming halt with all the dialtone missing and the switching capacity totally used up? Or, about every 14-15 years on average when a telco central office burns down, and there is no phone service at all for a few weeks or months, i.e. New York City, middle 1970's; Hinsdale (Chicago), Illinois in 1988. Telco has been known to have its share of 'traffic jams' also, so my question is, considering how many business places are dependent on telco, how do they manage to get by when telco has an incident like that? You know, I guess, that the events in NYC on 9-11-01 damn near wrecked the central office serving lower Manhattan from the size and fury of the 'traffic jam' as people found out what was happening. Do we dare trust something like telco when reliability is important? PAT] ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 20:56:30 UTC Organization: Public Access Networks Corp. In article , Jack Decker wrote: > The big problem for VoIP providers is that there is no easy 911 > solution. I think we've been around this block a few times before. The big problem for VoIP providers whose financial models rely on avoiding the cost of regulation imposed on traditional providers (rather than on the inherent efficiency of packet voice) is that there is no *free* 911 solution. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "The inconsistency is startling, though admittedly, if consistency is to be abandoned or transcended, there is no problem." - Noam Chomsky ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Who Gets to See the E-mail of the Deceased? Date: 11 May 2005 07:32:47 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I still don't think we know the actual details in this particular case. IMHO, the email holder was being too tight about this, legally or not (see below). We don't know if the family's "court order" was from probate or litigation. Robert Bonomi wrote: >> Keep in mind that many estates are settled without probate and court >> orders. Getting that stuff is expensive and not worth it if the >> estate is small, such as often in the case of a young person. > (A) That stuff is _not_ expensive. court costs are generally in the very > low 3 figures, _at_most_. I am not a lawyer. However, after handling two estates I have a bit of experience. Many lawyers told me probate is expensive and to be avoided if possible. Our family was quoted $1,000 in legal fees (ten years ago) to handle a very simple of estate (no car, no real property, just some bank accounts). We ended up doing it ourself. > (B) "informal" settlement works *ONLY*IF* nobody objects. As soon as > any 'involved party' raises an objection, or demands the formal > procedures, the informal techniques are no longer a viable option. > Those who insist on employing them in the face of opposition, are > _personally_ legally liable for not using the formal procedures. > If the objection comes from a beneficiary of the estate, or a > creditor thereof, those who take property from the estate "without > benefit of formal procedure" can find themselves subject to > criminal action (for 'theft'), as well as civil suit to recover > the value of the stolen property. Basically true. However, the value and contents of the estate plays a big part of this. If there's real estate or a business involved, you'll need official documentation to legally transfer titles or sell. But for an elderly person who say is in a nursing home with little property left, or a young person killed in the service, there simply may not be enough assets to even cover the cost of probate. Anyone can certainly file a civil suit, but the value in question must be significant to justify the cost of litigation. On the flip side, sometimes people with substantial estates and duly executed wills still run into litigation as beneficiaries feel they're were cheated out of their perceived rightful share. Many estates have been ruined as litigation dragged on for years. >> I would presume the family presented a death certificate which is >> normally issued upon death. > Which doesn't prove "boo" as regards who is the authorized agent of > the estate, and the only party legally entitled to access to the > property of the decedent. I thought more about it and in some cases a death certificate is all that is needed. Been there/done that, with the above two estates. I conducted numerous transactions submitting only the death certificate or even only a copy of the newspaper's obituary notice. Certain property by law automatically defaults to someone else in the event of death, and no probate certificate is necessary. A common example is joint bank accounts and husband and wife. > Such a designation has *NOTHING* to do with who obtains _ownership_ of > any physical property that belongs (belonged) to the decedent. The > _only_ document that specifies that is a "will" -- and which may, or > may *not*, take precedence over statutory specifications. (In some > states, a wife, for example, may "elect against the will", and get the > statutory share of the estate, regardless of express provisions in > the will.) Again, in practice when there is a very modest amount of property at issue, the above is not closely adhered to. I don't know military procedure, but given the reality of life risk in military service, I still presume that they provide soldiers with appropriate documentation that is acceptable to outsiders. Naturally I recommend consulting an attorney for such matters. But like anything else, fees can vary tremendously and getting several opinions from recommended attorneys is a good idea. Setting up joint title to some property will be helpful but that has its risks. (In my state, the joint title saved 50% of the inheritance tax and eased probate.) (But other setups can waste money. I know a fellow who borrowed money from his mother for his mortgage. He insisted it be recorded. When she died, that became part of her official estate and the probate taxes on the mortgage, recording payoff fees, etc., were steep. He spent $20,000 on legal fees alone and that was 20 years ago). [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When my maternal grandfather died in the early 1960's my grandmother had us drive her to the bank the next morning (before any notices got in the papers, etc.) so she could clean out their safe-deposit box. _After_ she had gone in the vault room and taken the contents of their box, then on the way out the door she stopped and mentioned to the bank clerk "you know, my husband passed away yesterday evening." The bank clerk's response was "well, I certainly wish you had told me that _before_ you went into the safety-deposit box." Grandmother replied, "I am sure you do, but it is too late now." She had been a joint tenant with rights of survivorship in the box, but did not want to mess around with any paperwork the bank or taxman might have later requested. PAT] ------------------------------ From: bob@coolgroups.com Subject: Re: Spyware ... Ugh! Date: 11 May 2005 12:22:54 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Did they change the name of Hijack This to Alertspy or is Alertspy something else? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have never heard of 'AlertSpy'; I know nothing about it. I first became aware of 'Hijack This' when I had a similar problem. A program I knew nothing about was causing my computer to try and go to a certain site immediatly on boot up. Trouble is, the site had been discontinued, so all I would ever get was a 404 message (immediatly on boot up, without even asking for the URL.) I zapped the mysterious program but then on bootup it was right back there doing its thing again, time after time. A friend of mine said we would have to go kill it in the registry where it was hiding, always looking for a way and time to restart itself. He told me where to find Hijack This on the net; I got it and installed it. It gives you many warnings in the process of installation, essentially telling you if you don't know what you are doing, to get back out of the way and find a _real-man_ to do the job. My friend talked me through it over the phone, and once the proper registry entry had been located and deleted, that was the last of the problem; at that point, following the hijacking process, I had to turn the computer off, wait a couple minutes then turn it back on. I thought to myself at the time the spammers/hackers/whoever who go and deliberatly tamper with your system registry in the process of installing their crap should be ashamed of themselves. But my friend pointed out 'this is the internet. There has been no shame around here in years ...' When I first told my friend about the mess I was certain I would have to do a fresh install of Windows to get rid of it. But Hijack This cured it all, and even rebuilt the registry in the process. PAT] ------------------------------ From: NOTvalid@surplus4actors.INFO Subject: Re: Kiddie Porn Problem Severe, Expert Sees it Worsening Date: 11 May 2005 10:43:43 -0700 In NYC one of the local radio stations, WQHT jokes about child slavery. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Sounds pretty sick to me, but I have never heard the station so cannot comment on the 'jokes' nor their context. All anyone can really comment on is what they, themselves have experienced: In my case, my sister (18 years younger than myself; I grew up as an 'only child' until I was 18) ran away from home when she was 15; went to live in Orlando, FL where she promptly got the first 'job' which came to mind; between that and her cocaine addiction she was essentially a 'child slave'. Between her several stays in the Orange County Jail over the years variously for prostitution and drug abuse she would call us collect or write letters now and then. Now, in the past year, neither mother nor myself have heard from her; she might be dead, or might be alive, living with someone, we have no clue. Some of you may recall Bill Pfieffer from before his passing: He was the Airwaves.com moderator and the Usenet rec.radio.broadcasting guy. He ran away from home when he was 12 years old from an abusive environment. He was searching for his true parents, who had abandoned him years before. Needless to say, like many young guys he fell into the same trap as my sister did. Bill _always_ ran the Amber Alert javascript on his web site (and its predecesser program "Have you Seen Me?") because he knew as I know, what an insidious evil the problem of missing children (often times in sexual/drug slavery) can be. Call the radio station: tell them its nothing to joke about. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #209 ****************************** TELECOM Digest Thu, 12 May 2005 18:20:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 210 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson SBC, Vonage Feud Over '911' Service (Jack Decker) SBC to Offer E911 Access to VoIP Providers? Oh yea? I Want (Jack Decker) Vonage Changes 911 to Opt-Out (Jack Decker) Broadvoice Blames Problems on Telecom Carrier (Jack Decker) AOL Jumps Into Free E-Mail Business (Monty Solomon) MITC Starts SpotNet, Offering Low Cost Hotspot Services (dg@mitc.net) Mass. AG Pulls a Spitzer Versus Spammers (Danny Burstein) How is a Number Switched (AT&T to Vonage)? (Dennis G. Rears) Setting up an Automated RSS Feed (TELECOM Digest Editor) PRI Problems (was Re: 1A2 Help Requested) (Justa Lurker) Web Phone (MarcoSoul@gmail.com) Cegetel, Neuf to Merge (Telecom dailyLead from USTA) Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? (AES) Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? (Lisa Hancock) Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? (lookemintheye) Re: Any Free VoIP Internet-to-Telephone Calling Left? (suburbperson) Re: Spyware ... Ugh! (jmeissen@aracnet.com) 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; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jack Decker Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 00:29:57 -0400 Subject: SBC, Vonage Feud Over '911' Service http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-COYC1115851648806.html Technology Daily By Chloe Albanesius SBC Communications Wednesday unveiled an enhanced 911 service for Internet telephony customers -- an offering that voice-over-Internet protocol provider Vonage immediately characterized as half-baked. Vonage requires its customers to request activation of its 911 service; in some cases, it directs those customers with activated 911 service who call for help to unmanned emergency facilities. This policy has created controversy in several states due to recent episodes in which customers in distress were either met with a recorded message saying their phone did not provide 911 services or were directed to the voice mail of local police administrative offices. SBC's service would provide VoIP providers such as Vonage with access to its E911 database, allowing VoIP customers to reach a live operator when dialing 911. But Vonage contended that SBC's offering would be useless for the 40 percent of its customers who travel with their VoIP service. "SBC offered a fixed solution, which would only work for local phone numbers," said Brooke Schulz, vice president of communications at Vonage. "The problem is that the 911 network in this country ... only knows and understands local phone numbers." If a Vonage customer with a Washington, D.C. 202 area-code number traveled to New York, plugged into the network and called 911, the 911 system would cancel out the call because it is coming from a 202 number, Schulz said. Full story at: http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-COYC1115851648806.html How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 10:45:56 -0400 Subject: SBC to Offer E911 Access to VoIP Providers? Oh Yea? I Want http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=410 Oh Yea? I want these 12 questions answered first. -Posted by Russell Shaw @ 4:19 am Sorry, but I am still skeptical over the timing and scope of SBC's announcement yesterday that, the company has plans that in the words of my colleague Alorie Gilbert will help Internet phone companies "offer more reliable 911 services for their subscribers." While SBC says that the service will permit emergency dispatchers to see the address and call-back numbers of VoIP callers at fixed locations, that's just not enough. It seems that the media are adapting a fawning attitude toward these pronouncements on the part of Qwest, Verizon, BellSouth and SBC. They are not asking the tough questions. But I will. That's why you've come here. Full story at: http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=410 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, Vonage claims about 40 percent of its customers travel with their adapters at hand. Still, that leaves about 60 percent of its customers who should get along nicely with this effort. If Vonage is typical of all VOIP, then having 60 percent plus or minus of all customers 'cut over' to valid, working E-911 does sound like a good accomplishment. And even with my cell phone, I know there are many places I could travel (obviously in 'roaming' mode) where the 911 service would be flaky at best. So I don't know what Russell Shaw is complaining about. 60 percent is a great start if they can make it happen. And who knows ... in the next few years maybe the local ISPs can be convinced to intercept 911 calls coming over VOIP and instead of sending them where the adapter box says for them to go, the local ISP (in the area you are traveling in) can begin routing those calls to a local PSAP, which is still not the best, but it would resolve the issue for another 90-95 percent of the travelers (those who can speak up and explain themselves when the local [substitute PSAP] answers the line. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 10:49:36 -0400 Subject: Vonage Changes 911 to Opt-Out http://www.tmcnet.com/tmcnet/articles/2005/vonage-voip-911-opt-out.htm By David Sims, TMCnet CRM Alert Columnist Tired of state attorney generals threatening lawsuits over its 911 offerings, VoIP provider Vonage Holdings Corp. said it will change its registration process to make 911 services an opt-out rather than an opt-in option, according to wire service reports this morning. Vonage chief executive Jeffrey Citron said the company would change its registration procedures to the opt-out format "sometime this summer," as part of an overall revamping of the company's 911 services implementations. Vonage is currently facing lawsuits from several states over both the advertisment and implementation of its 911 services, which some states claim are misleading. CEO Citron said Vonage's conversations with the Texas attorney general led him to believe that changing 911 from opt-in to opt-out was a way to make progress on resolving Texas's issues with Vonage's publicity material and business practices. Full story at: http://www.tmcnet.com/tmcnet/articles/2005/vonage-voip-911-opt-out.htm [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am not sure that is going to be an improvement. At least now, (with opt-in) if a person takes the messages he receives seriously and makes an effort to get 911 turned on, as I did, he is going to have at least some working knowledge of the limitations of the system. The hassle now are those people who 'just assume VOIP works like any other phone'. Most of the time, those people know from nothing, all of a sudden have an emergency and dial into 911, find it unavailable then the VOIP carrier catches hell for it. At least VOIP can now respond, "We _told_ you and you agreed to our terms." The people who 'just assume' are still going to be around, but VOIP really does leave itself open for a lawsuit when they begin to contend (by making it an opt-out function) that VOIP is 'just like any other phone', when in fact 911 will possibly be the critical distinction why it is not. Now the dummies can truthfully say "you never told me". I hope, for legal reasons, VOIP holds off on the conversion between opt-in/opt-out until they have so throughly and completely tested it under stressful conditions that they _know_ it will work for the largest number of their customers. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 00:38:43 -0400 Subject: Broadvoice Blames Problems on Telecom Carrier http://voxilla.com/voxstory163.html Business By CAROLYN SCHUK for VOXILLA.COM Significant service outages that BroadVoice customers have been experiencing for a week is the result of an unresolved 12 month dispute with one of the provider's carriers, according to a letter of apology to Broadvoice customers by company President & CEO David Epstein. The carrier, though not named by Epstein, is Bermuda-based Global Crossing. Beginning on May 6, about 7,000 BroadVoice customers lost all of their inbound service and experienced interruptions to their outbound service, the letter states. The dispute involves the carrier's charges. "Even though BroadVoice has received bills from the carrier that inflated charges due by over 44% and, in some cases, reflected rates that are 13 times the contracted rate," says Epstein's letter, "BroadVoice has paid 100% of the undisputed charges." [...] Recent reports indicate that other Global Crossing customers, including several VoIP providers, have complained about unusually high charges from the company for international call termination and other services. Full story at: http://voxilla.com/voxstory163.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 02:36:07 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AOL Jumps Into Free E-Mail Business By ANICK JESDANUN AP Internet Writer NEW YORK (AP) -- Its subscription business in decline, America Online Inc. is launching yet another product on the open Web: a free, ad-supported e-mail service tied to its instant-messaging platform. Users of AOL Instant Messenger will be able to send and receive mail with "aim.com" addresses using their existing AIM screen names. Initially, users will need the latest version of AIM software, available as a "beta" test download for Windows computers beginning Wednesday. Ultimately, they'll be able to send and receive mail from any Web browser. Each account comes with 2 gigabytes of storage _ comparable with Google Inc.'s Gmail and more generous than the free offerings from Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s Hotmail and even AOL's flagship subscription service. And unlike AOL's main accounts, which keep new messages for 27 days and messages already read for up to a week unless users actively save them, AIM mail never expires. AIM mail will also incorporate a few features unique to AOL until now: The ability to check whether AOL and AIM recipients have opened a message and to delete an unopened message from the recipients' inbox (This won't work with e-mail sent to users of other services). The Web-based interface will also have drag-and-drop capabilities, allowing users to sort mail without having to check multiple boxes and hit a "move" button. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=49066326 ------------------------------ From: dg@mitc.net Subject: MITC Starts SpotNet, Offering Low Cost Hotspot Services Date: 12 May 2005 03:22:23 -0700 SpotNet http://www.trans-it.biz offers standalone hotspot equipment for public places like restaurants, hotels, marina's and cafe's, offering them the possibility to charge for public wireless access by using just their Paypal account. SpotNet does not require expensive billing software or signup with third parties offering back office services for hotspots, instead it fully relies on Paypal's web billing system which is basically free. ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: Mass. AG Pulls a Spitzer Versus Spammers Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 00:38:55 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC (Mass.) Attorney General Tom Reilly today obtained an emergency court order shutting down dozens of websites allegedly operated by a sophisticated ring of Boston area 'spammers' who transmit millions of unsolicited, deceptive e-mail messages to lure consumers into buying unapproved drugs, pirated software, and pornography. ..... Ag Reilly added, 'This type of spam is more than just an annoyance to consumers. It poses a real danger to people who may be folled into buying counterfeit version of precription drug or unwittingly open e-mail links to sexually explicit websites.' ..... According to AG Reilly's complaint, Kuvayev' scheme involves a complicated web of Internet sites and domain names selling a variety of illegal products including counterfeit drugs, pirated software, pornography, mortgage loans, and phony designer watches. While the exact number of e-mails the defendants have sent out is unknown, they are likely reponsible for disseminating hundreds of millions of unsolicited messages ... rest at: http://www.ago.state.ma.us/sp.cfm?pageid=986&id=1416 ------------------------------ From: Dennis G. Rears Subject: How Is a Number Switched (AT&T to Vonage)? Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 22:36:54 -0400 Organization: Optimum Online I switched from my local phone service to Vonage in January. I am completely happy with the service and have had no problem with it. I was able to keep my number and the transfer took only 20 days. I recommended the service to my dad and he switched. He had a lot of problems with the number transfer. He had AT&T for both local and long distance. I don't have the exact dates so I will make them up. On day 22 of his service his phone jacks went dead and he was informed via email that the switchover of his phone number to Vonage had taken place. The problem is/was that if anyone outside of Vonage called him, they would get the message that the phone number was disconnected. Since I am on Vonage, I was able to call him with his original phone number. The number was (856) 23X-XXX. This persisted for 18 days. I suspect the problem is not with Vonage but with the entity that manages the North American databases. Can someone explain to me what the technical process is for switching over and what may have happened? Dennis P.S. This is my first post to the Telecom digest in a decade. Hi Pat, I'm glad that you are still moderating this forum. BTW, you might remember me as drears@pica.spam.army.mil [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I sure do remember you, Dennis! While you were around here before in the early/middle 1990's you started a mailing list of your own on computer privacy. I remember helping you get it started. (_BIG_ hug!) What have you been doing with yourself since 1994-95? Whatever happened with your computer privacy mailing list? And yes, I am still around, as thick-skinned as ever, maybe even more radical than before. I know some of these guys will be _so happy_ to see me die or otherwise retire; they'll be able to get back to business as usual. In the meantime, yeah I am still here, and please don't stay away for another decade (another big hug!) ... But let's get on to your questions today: AT&T is not, never was a _local_ telco or operating company. They got into the business of local service doing like Prairie Stream, Gage, and several other companies; they broker or lease all the equipment -- a UNI-P sort of deal -- from whomever the 'carrier of record' is in your area. For me here in southeast Kansas it is of course Southwestern Bell. So when your father tried to 'port' his number over to Vonage, he had to go through an extra step: He told AT&T (as a local carrier in this instance) what he wanted; _they_ in turn had to tell the 'true' telco in your area (SBC, I assume; they are gradually gobbling up the entire world). In the Chinese telephone of him telling AT&T and AT&T telling the local telco, I suspect someone 'misunderstod' what was wanted. Assuming you were with a 'local carrier of record' all along, that extra step of the UNI-P CLEC telling the ILEC what was wanted was eliminated. Your father had it happen though. You said 'his phone jacks went dead ...' (but apparently the telephone adapter of Vonage continued to work). I suspect that your 'local ILEC bozos of record' either accidentally on on purpose failed to send (yet further) notice on this to the administrators of the records and tables for the North American Numbering Plan. To all the telephone central offices of the world, when they loaded the tables with the revised information, father no longer existed because ILEC showed it as a disconnect rather than a transfer. When telephone users attempted to reach your father, _their_ central office looked in its tables and and said he no longer existed. How did you find out the problem? You may have tried from your bozo-co landline (if you still have one) and got the not in service message, then you tried from your Vonage line and got through just fine. I had that happen to me once. I tried at my office (using our default carrier, Illinois Bozo-co) to reach a number in a small town in northern Wisconsin. I got intercepted repeatedly. Then I tried it again, but dialing 10222 first (MCI) and got through okay. Ditto Sprint. The lady I spoke to in the Wisconsin town told me that 'often times my friends in the Chicago area cannot reach me'; she did not know why. I chatted with one of Bozo's service reps; she said she thought she knew the problem, but would have someone call me back a bit later. In about 30 minutes, I got a call from a guy who works for AT&T who was in Denver, CO. I told him about the various reps who had been unwilling to listen to me or help. He said he knew about those things (either missing table entries or typographical errors in the tables which get sent out to all the central offices) and "they will listen to me, they will do as I say; try again after about 2 AM tomorrow morning when the new tables get downloaded; it will get corrected." I did _not_ get up at 2 AM to test it (after all, I am no longer a kid who lays awake all night to play with my [or other guy's] phones), but when I did try it the next day, yes, it worked just fine, on the various carriers as well as my default Illinois Bozo-Co.) You said 'the problem persisted for 18 days' and I assume you mean that after 18 days everyone could get through once again, regardless of the bozo -- err -- carrier of record they chose to use. It definitly sounds to me like an error when the tables got downloaded (the night after your father was first notified that he had been ported to Vonage.) Vonage (all VOIP carriers actually) would be doing the world a big favor by terminating an 800 number on their switch in their office) which people could use to get into the 'Vonage system' (or whichever VOIP) so people could make a call totally via Vonage to test these things out as needed. Remember when cell phones had two ways to reach 'roaming numbers'? You could try to dial direct into the number and hope to get through _or_ you could dial a number in the community where the person was roaming; the cellular switch assigned the user a 'temporary local number' for that purpose. Maybe they still do. Anyway Dennis, I hope this answered your question a little, and please don't wait another decade before you write again. Your freind, Patrick. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Setting up an Automated RSS Feed Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 23:15:14 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Do any Digest readers know how to go about setting up an _automated_ RSS feed? I would make this Digest available using RSS if I knew how to do it. If so, could you please email me? I will really appreciate your help. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ From: Justa Lurker Subject: PRI Problems (was Re: 1A2 Help Requested) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 01:03:30 GMT >>> Our PRI between our two switches regularly goes down for anywhere from >>> 30 seconds to 5 minutes. This seems to occur most between 8:30AM and >>> 9:00AM and then again between 2:00PM and 2:30PM. Verizon claims they >>> can't figure it out. >> Clock slip? > That's my gut feeling on it. I've tried explaining that to Verizon but > it just falls on deaf ears. Can you be more precise about what PRI "goes down" means ? I guess that could be interpreted a lot of different ways. When the trouble happens, are calls in progress affected, or do they stay up while "new" calls in one direction or another are blocked ? Have you monitored the PRI line at your end with a suitable analyzer so you can see what is happening at the various layers (or does your switch provide any detailed debugging trace) ? For example, does something strange happen down at Layer 1 (physical layer) when the problem occurs ... loss of pulses, loss of framing, excessive bit errors, T-1 alarm conditions, whatever ? Do the ESF Performance Monitoring history data show anything (I assume it is running over a B8ZS ESF T-1 with some sort of PM functionality at each end)? Is there a smart jack involved, and/or any LEDs to take a look at? Or is some trouble occurring at Layer 2 (link layer) with the LAPD protocol causing the D-channel to appear 'down' ? How about Layer 3 (network layer) ... are you seeing any incriminating result codes during the failure ? While the problem exists, does the Verizon switch busy out your lines to incoming calls ? Surely their 5E or DMS or SC or GTD or whatever must maintain (or they can selectively enable) some sort of event log for your line. Although I suppose a timing/sync problem with clock slippage **might** be the culprit, it's funny that it only manifests itself twice a day rather than constantly [for severe uncontrolled slips] or at evenly-spaced intervals throughout the day & night [for less frequent slips]. Of course, the toughest part is getting through to talk to someone at Verizon who even has a clue what you're talking about. If you're lucky enough to get to talk one-on-one with one of the switch techs or craft or engineers who can log into a maintenance console and knows what a PRI ISDN line really is, then usually you'll make some progress getting it resolved in fairly short order. Finally it may be worth checking with the folks in comp.dcom.telecom.tech to see what they think/suggest about your problem. ------------------------------ From: MarcoSoul@gmail.com Subject: Web Phone Date: 12 May 2005 09:32:51 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello. I have been trying to do some research on exactly how Companies such as www.ingenio.com use technology to connect people on the phone and charge them fees. Are there programs or frame works on the internet that any of you heard about. I would like to know how I could set up a similar system myself that would connect two people together -- almost like a virtual total phone or a virtual party line. I appologize if I don't make much sense. Thank you. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have thought about that a couple times myself; setting up on the Digest web pages a 'virtual phone booth' where users could make calls to whoever. But I have never gotten anywhere with that idea. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 13:08:01 EDT From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA Subject: Cegetel, Neuf to Merge Telecom dailyLead from USTA May 12, 2005 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=21534&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Cegetel, Neuf to merge BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Canada's Rogers buys Call-Net * SBC to offer 911 service to VoIP providers * Details of 21CN deals still emerging * 3G U.S. adoption hinges on pricing, services * Fiber glut remains for various reasons USTA SPOTLIGHT * Hear Telecom Crash Course author Steven Shepard at Telecom Engineering Conference @ SUPERCOMM EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * RealNetworks enters mobile game arena REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Alliance urges lawmakers to consider VoIP security in Telecom Act review Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=21534&l=2017006 ------------------------------ From: AES Subject: Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 15:39:08 -0700 Organization: Stanford University To recap a speculative post I made some time back, seems to me that at least in those (quite widespread) situations where copper (or cable, or fiber) connections to business and residential premises already exist, or will continue to be created: a) VOIP telephone service totally without 911 could be the norm. b) All of the existing "hardwired connections" could continue to exist (including copper pairs included in or installed with fiber or TV cables), but would extend only to the telco (or cable, or fiber) "central office" and not be expected to provide any telco service beyond that point. c) These would however provide the hard-wired connections not just for "911" services (activated perhaps by "pushbuttons" or the equivalent in the hardwired premises), but also for many other kinds of related security services (fire alarms, home security systems, home control systems, alarm bracelets for the elderly, "iPots", etc), provided by vendors who would take over the wiring infrastructure, and very possibly some or all of the CO facilities, from the telco. Utility meter reading via these hardwired connections would be another potential user -- not to mention DSL for those cases where cable, fiber or wireless didn't provide the broadband services to a given premises. I appreciate there are many sunk costs, vested interests, and so on in this whole infrastructure, so it may not be obvious how to get from here to there; but if the vast majority of telephone traffic ended up on VOIP, wouldn't this make some sense, and in fact, maybe be the way in which you'd set up new green-field developments? ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? Date: 11 May 2005 19:36:55 -0700 TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Lisa Hancock: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Lisa, since we are chatting about > 'service reliability' and how important it is, what about when a place > like California has an earthquake now and then, or now and then in New > York City when an airplane crashes into a tall building and all the > people get excited and stirred up and all everyone jumps on the phone > at one time bringing the phone system to a screaming halt with all > the dialtone missing and the switching capacity totally used up? Or, > about every 14-15 years on average when a telco central office burns > down, and there is no phone service at all for a few weeks or months, I think you're making an "apples vs. oranges" comparison that isn't valid. First off, major diasters like you describe are very rare. And if they do occur, I suspect VOIP lines will be just as jammed as conventional phone lines. There are switching buildings housing nothing but servers and data lines that are vulnerable to fires and disaster just like phoneco offices. Second and more importantly, service problems with the Internet are much more common. Every so often some glitch causes havoc and makes the newspapers. More frequently are localized problems and response time troubles. Frequently I don't get an answer from an email and then I learn my correspondent's company had server problems and nothing went in and out. Many people use cable TV lines for broadband service, and they complain during certain times service gets slow, such as when kids come home from school and bang away. How does VOIP fare in such times? ------------------------------ From: lookemintheye Subject: Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? Date: 12 May 2005 10:25:52 -0700 Not all Service Providers are scrambling. The better business oriented VOIP service providers are diligently maintaining phone location databases that interface with their switches and provide correct and normal location info to 911 dispatchers. I am with CallTower, who is a 5 year old VOIP unified communications company. We are oriented toward companies with 11 - 1000 employees and in our agreement with our customers, is a clause to be initialed that the customer must inform us if they move one of our Cisco phones to other premises. And when our customers move office premises, we update our location database and do it with pride and accuracy. While our service product is designed to deliver Fortune 500 feature sets to smaller businesses, and our high value product allows us to incur the expense of accurately maintaining our 911 database, we would welcome strong guidelines that require others to do the same. The cost of inaccurate (or missing) 911 location info is not only potentially life-threatening to VOIP users, it loads additional cost onto the emergency response system. Thanks for listening. harris Jack Decker wrote: > http://voxilla.com/voxstory162.html > Regulation > By CAROLYN SCHUK > for VOXILLA.COM > In recent months, 911 has quickly become a VoIP industry hot button, > and a major headache to service providers who have enjoyed a largely > regulation-free business environment absolving them of the need to > provide emergency calling services similar to those required of > landline telephone providers. > But the climate is rapidly changing and VoIP service providers are > scrambling to find solutions to the 911 dilemna. And, with the threat > of federal regulation requiring VoIP providers to quickly implement > 911 service looming, some providers are saying they will be forced to > severely limit their service markets. One major operator, AT&T, says > it may have no choice but to pull the plug on current customers. > A recent allegation that an infant in Florida died after her mother > could not reach an emergency services operator through the family's > Vonage service, and lawsuits against Vonage by state attorney generals > in Connecticut, Michigan and Texas over the company's 911 limitations, > have put a lot of heat on all US-based VoIP service providers. > Adding to their new difficulties is a recent significant change in > composition of the Federal Communications Commission. When led by > former Chairman Michael Powell, the FCC maintained a hands-off > approach to IP telephony. But in March, President Bush appointed the > less VoIP-friendly Kevin Martin to replace Powell, and when the > commission next meets on May 19th, it is poised, for the first time, > to directly regulate VoIP by requiring providers in the US to offer > emergency calling services through traditional 911 systems. > The big problem for VoIP providers is that there is no easy 911 > solution. > Full story at: > http://voxilla.com/voxstory162.html > How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: > http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html > If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ Reply-To: From: Subject: Re: Any Free VoIP Internet-to-Telephone Calling Left? Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 01:13:50 -0500 John R. Levine wrote in message news:d5uoq0$ntj$1@xuxa.iecc.com: >> what I am after, is free PC to *TelePHONE* calling. > I'd be surprised if you could find anything. Sending calls to the > phone network costs real money, and the dot.com free money bubble > is long over. > There's plenty of services that will do outgoing calls pretty cheap, > like 2 cpm. Skypeout is an obvious choice, although I've had voice > quality problems with them. > If you plan to make a whole lot of > calls, one of the flat rate plans from a VoIP carrier like > Broadvoice or Packet8 would probably be your best bet. > R's, John Thanks, John I figured it would be pretty unlikely to find anything decent that was truly free for PC-to-telephone calling. Yet, the dot.com free money bubble, I thought that had burst in 2000 or so. I'm surprised that there was anything left in 2002 when I arrived into the world of VoIP -- guess it was trickling off by then. I think I'm going to try SkypeOut, Broadvoice and Packet8, and any others that get mentioned later. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You might also look at Free World Dialing (FWD) which not only has PC to PC free dialing all the time, but I have found you can prefix the dialing string with *1 (the USA country code) and make calls to toll free USA phones anywhere, plus which now and again the FWD people give away 'holiday gifts' of free calling anywhere in the USA or to certain countries. Add to that the fact that you can easily get one-way incoming lines at no charge to be attached to your FWD number. I have a couple of those in the 360-227 office (somewhere in Washington State) which ring through to the FWD phones on one of my laptops. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@aracnet.com Subject: Re: Spyware ... Ugh! Date: 12 May 2005 16:29:24 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com In article , wrote: > Did they change the name of Hijack This to Alertspy or is Alertspy > something else? No. Although certain spyware will try to prevent you from finding it. It is always available here: http://www.merijn.org/ Or, as it says on that page," Can't reach this page from a CWS infected computer? Try using http://216.180.233.162/~merijn/index.html." I've found it to be invaluable. I've used it enough that I can now recognize what doesn't belong without asking for help. But if you haven't used it before, read the FAQ! And then visit the forums. john- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for that helpful tip on where to find 'HiJack This'. I think it is really pathetic how so many viruses these days as their first order of business when they land on your computer is set about trying to prevent you from being able to reach AdAware and/or Spybot, and now, apparently, HiJack This as well. A virus got into my Windows 2000 one day which absolutely forbade me to download the latest definitions file through Spybot. I had to load a brand new copy of Spybot on another computer, then transfer it in to the (combo) Win2000/Linux machine with all the new definitions intact. The net, they say, is supposed to be so much fun for everyone. How do people actually use it without getting attacked daily from so many directions by malware? Oops, I almost forgot: Many netters tell us 'there is no consensus on what constitutes malicious behavior, and there is no way to stop it, and anyway no one (read this as _my friends_) want anything different.' Sigh ... PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #210 ****************************** TELECOM Digest Fri, 13 May 2005 17:03:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 211 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Canadian Telecom Update #481 (John Riddle) Front Lines - May 13 Issue(Jonathan Marashlian) FAQ: How Real ID Will Affect You (Monty Solomon) GSM Roaming (Graham Gower) AT&T-Cingular-Alltel; They Broke MY Contract! (Steve) Do Cell Phones Still Offer "A" and "B" Carriers? (Lisa Hancock) CRTC Reins in Major Carriers on VoIP (Jack Decker) SBC Joins VoIP E911 Club (Jack Decker) Cell Phone as (Only) Home Service (Ken Abrams) Gates: Mobile Phones Will Supplant iPod (Telecom dailyLead from USTA) Re: AOL Jumps Into Free E-Mail Business (nstrom@ananzi.co.za) Re: Spyware ... Ugh! (nstrom@ananzi.co.za) Re: Setting up an Automated RSS Feed (nstrom@ananzi.co.za) Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? (Dean M.) Last Laugh! Telco Smears Other Telcos on Moral Issues (Lisa Minter) 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; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #481, May 13, 2005 Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 14:52:20 -0400 From: John Riddell ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 481: May 13, 2005 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: ** ALLSTREAM: www.allstream.com ** AVAYA: www.avaya.ca/en/ ** BELL CANADA: www.bell.ca ** CISCO SYSTEMS CANADA: www.cisco.com/ca/ ** ERICSSON: www.ericsson.ca ** MITEL NETWORKS: www.mitel.com/ ** SPRINT CANADA: www.sprint.ca ** UTC CANADA: www.canada.utc.org/ ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** CRTC Keeps VoIP Under Local Service Rules ** Telcos Outraged, Competitors Happy ** Rogers to Buy Call-Net ** 2004 Telecom Statistics Ready Next Week ** FCC to Consider VoIP-911 Rules ** Nortel Unveils New Small-Office IP-PBX ** VoIP Boosts Videotron Telecom ** CRTC Proposes Price Cap Extension ** Shaw, Bell VoIP Services Under Review ** Ottawa Launches Spectrum Policy Review ** BlackBerry Adds a Million Subscribers ** Cisco Telecom Sales Up 35% ** Mail Boxes Etc. to Offer Wi-Fi ** Conference Marks 20 Years of Cellphones ** More Cellphones Than Citizens in Ten Countries ** Vote Now for CATA Innovation Awards CRTC KEEPS VoIP UNDER LOCAL SERVICE RULES: CRTC Telecom Decision 2005-28, released yesterday, rejects arguments by Bell and Telus that VoIP-based local telephone services are, or should be, forborne from regulation. With two Commissioners dissenting, the Commission ruled that Voice over IP services come under the same regulatory framework as circuit-switched services. Key rulings include: ** The incumbent telcos must file tariffs for "in-territory" local VoIP services, at rates that at least cover costs, and must comply with existing rules on bundling and winback promotions. "In-territory" is defined by the customer's phone number. ** Cablecos that offer local phone service must register as Competitive Local Exchange Carriers and comply with all CLEC obligations. ** Incumbent telcos and CLECs must allow VoIP customers equal access to all long distance service providers. Resellers are not bound by this rule. ** Incumbent telcos and cablecos must amend their wholesale broadband tariffs to allow ISPs and other resellers to provide VoIP over these connections. www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2005/dt2005-28.htm TELCOS OUTRAGED, COMPETITORS HAPPY: Industry responses to the CRTC's VoIP decision depended, for the most part, on whether the responder was an incumbent phone company or not, but the division was not clear-cut: ** Most incumbent phone companies were outraged. Bell, Telus, Aliant, and SaskTel all said they will appeal the decision. Bell's Lawson Hunter called the ruling "an historic mistake," and Janet Yale of Telus said the CRTC "chose to look backward and to impose restrictions from the past that are no longer relevant." ** However, MTS Allstream said the decision is "good for consumers and competition" because it limits the ability of "dominant providers like Bell Canada ... to stamp out their smaller rivals." ** The cable industry and most IP telephony providers also said the decision will prevent the telcos from crushing new entrants. ** Montreal-based BabyTel said the CRTC should regulate services offered by the cablecos, not just the telcos. ** The Coalition for Competitive Telecommunications criticized the CRTC's "intrusive regulatory approach," and called the decision "bad news for business." ROGERS TO BUY CALL-NET: Rogers Communications has agreed to buy Call-Net Enterprises, the parent of Sprint Canada, in a share swap valued at approximately $330 million. The deal, which could close as early as July 1, will give Rogers some 600,000 consumer and business customers across Canada. ** Sprint Canada will probably be rebranded with the Rogers name. ** Rogers says that when it deploys its cable telephony service some of Call-Net local service customers will be migrated to that platform. 2004 TELECOM STATISTICS READY NEXT WEEK: The Monday, May 16, edition of Statistics Canada's "Daily" will summarize telecom industry statistics for Q4 2004. The full report will be available later in the week. FCC TO CONSIDER VoIP-911 RULES: The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will hold a public meeting on Thursday May 19 to consider E911 requirements for IP-ba telephone services. (See Telecom Update #480) ** Last week a Florida couple said that their three-month-old daughter died because a 9-1-1 call on a Vonage phone was routed to an admin phone in the sheriff's office, which was closed for the day. NORTEL UNVEILS NEW SMALL-OFFICE IP-PBX: On May 27 Nortel Networks will launch Business Communications Manager 50, an IP-based phone system targeted at offices with fewer than 50 users. It can support up to 80 extensions. VoIP BOOSTS VIDEOTRON TELECOM: Quebecor's Videotron Telecom unit had first-quarter revenues of $23.6 millthan the same period last year. The company attributes the gain in part to Videotron's consumer VoIP service, which now has 23,000 subscribers. Videotron Telecom is being integrated into Videotron Ltee this year. ** CEO Pierre Karl Peladeau says Quebecor will offer wireless service this year. CRTC PROPOSES PRICE CAP EXTENSION: The CRTC has invited comments on extending the current price cap regime for the major incumbent telcos, as well as for Telebec and Telus Quebec, by two years. A review at that time would allow the Commission to take into account the impact of VoIP competition and the framework for local service forbearance, to be decided in 2006. To participate, notify the CRTC by June 2. www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Notices/2005/pt2005-3.htm www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Notices/2005/pt2005-4.htm SHAW, BELL VoIP SERVICES UNDER REVIEW: The CRTC has resumed consideration of Telus's complaint that Shaw is not complying with CLEC obligations (see Telecom Update #475) and the complaints by Cogeco, Quebecor, and the CCTA that Bell's Digital Voice service violates Commission rules (see Telecom Update #476). Both disputes had been suspended pending the release of the VoIP decision. OTTAWA LAUNCHES SPECTRUM POLICY REVIEW: The federal government has begun a full review of Industry Canada's spectrum policy, and is inviting public comment. A public consultation paper has been posted on Industry Canada's website. http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/insmt-gst.nsf/en/sf08383e.html BLACKBERRY ADDS A MILLION SUBSCRIBERS: Research In Motion's BlackBerry platform now has three million users worldwide, after adding a million subscribers in six months. BlackBerry is now sold at 50,000 retail outlets. CISCO TELECOM SALES UP 35%: Cisco Systems' results for the quarter ending April 30 show a 35% rise in telecom revenues compared to the same period a year ago. Net income of US$1.41 billion was up 17%. Overall sales were $6.19 billion, up 2.1% on the quarter and 10.1% on the year, which was about half the rate of increase recorded during the preceding year. MAIL BOXES ETC. TO OFFER WI-FI: Mail Boxes Etc. is equipping most of its 275 Canadian centres with Wi-Fi Internet access for business travelers. Bell Canada, which is partnering with Boldstreet Wireless to provide the service, hopes to enlist other carriers to bill usage to cellphone accounts. CONFERENCE MARKS 20 YEARS OF CELLPHONES: Mobile Telephony in Canada, a conference organized by the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association on June 8 in Ottawa, will mark the twentieth anniversary of the introduction of cellular service in Canada. http://www.cwta.ca MORE CELLPHONES THAN CITIZENS IN TEN COUNTRIES: TeleGeography says that at the end of 2004 in Luxembourg there were four wireless accounts for every three inhabitants. Ten countries, including Germany, exceeded 100% wireless penetration. Canada edged past 50% penetration early this year. VOTE NOW FOR CATA INNOVATION AWARDS: The Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance will hold its twentieth annual Innovation Awards Gala June 21 at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa. Online voting for the awards, offered in five categories, closes on May 20. www1.cata.ca/cata/news/awards/innovation/innovnominate2005.cfm HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-mail ianangus@angustel.ca and jriddell@angustel.ca HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR UNSUBSCRIBE) TELECOM UPDATE is provided in electronic form only. There are two formats available: 1. The fully-formatted edition is posted on the World Wide Web late Friday afternoon each week at www.angustel.ca 2. The e-mail edition is distributed free of charge. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to: join-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.com To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to: leave-telecom_update@nova.sparklist.com Sending e-mail to these addresses will automatically add or remove the sender's e-mail address from the list. Leave subject line and message area blank. We do not give Telecom Update subscribers' e-mail addresses to any third party. For more information, see www.angustel.ca/update/privacy.html. COPYRIGHT AND CONDITIONS OF USE: All contents copyright 2005 Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. All rights reserved. For further information, including permission to reprint or reproduce, please e-mail rosita@angustel.ca or phone 905-686-5050 ext 500. The information and data included has been obtained from sources which we believe to be reliable, but Angus TeleManagement makes no warranties or representations whatsoever regarding accuracy, completeness, or adequacy. Opinions expressed are based on interpretation of available information, and are subject to change. If expert advice on the subject matter is required, the services of a competent professional should be obtained. ------------------------------ From: Jonathan Marashlian" Subject: The Front Lines - May 13, 2005 Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 14:38:09 -0400 Organization: The Helein Law Group http://www.thefrontlines-hlg.com/ The FRONT LINES http://www.thlglaw.com/ Advancing The Cause of Competition in the Telecommunications Industry FCC DENIES SBC FORBEARANCE PETITION; CITES PROCEDURAL FLAWS AND LACK OF EVIDENCE In an Order released May 5, 2005, the Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") denied a Petition, filed by SBC Communications ("SBC") in February of last year, in which SBC requested forbearance from Title II common carrier regulation applicable to "IP Platform Services," which SBC defined as "those services that enable any customer to send or receive communications in IP format over an IP platform, and the IP platforms on which those services are provided." The FCC found that it would be inappropriate to grant SBC's petition because it asks the Commission to forbear from requirements that may not even apply to the facilities and services in question. The FCC also found that SBC's petition and the evidence in support thereof were not sufficiently specific to enable the Commission to determine whether the requested forbearance satisfies the requirements of section 10. Although SBC's petition asked the FCC to forbear from applying Title II of the Act to IP Platform Services, SBC did not concede in its petition that Title II currently applies to such services. SBC thus acknowledges, in its forbearance petition that the Commission has not yet decided the extent to which IP-enabled services are covered by Title II and its implementing rules. In its Order, the FCC concluded that SBC's petition was procedurally flawed because section 10 neither contemplates nor permits grants of forbearance relating to obligations that "may or may not" apply to the telecommunications carrier or telecommunications service at issue. The FCC also denied SBC's petition for the independent reason that it was not sufficiently specific to determine whether the requested forbearance satisfied the requirements of section 10. According to the FCC, "we are unable to determine with certainty which services and facilities SBC's petition is meant to cover, as well as the specific statutory and regulatory provisions from which SBC seeks forbearance." Without a clear understanding of the scope of the petition, the FCC stated that it could not determine whether SBC's request for forbearance satisfied the criteria of section 10(a) and that granting SBC's petition under such circumstances would create regulatory uncertainty. Similarly, SBC stated that its petition was intended to apply only to the "common carrier" provisions of Title II, but, according to the FCC, SBC never clearly identified which specific provisions of Title II for which forbearance was sought. According to the FCC, the degree of uncertainty with respect to the intended scope of SBC's petition would make it difficult, if not impossible, to determine that the three prongs of section 10(a) had been satisfied. For all these reasons, the FCC denied SBC's forbearance petition. NECA PROPOSED TRS FUND CARRIER CONTRIBUTION The FCC announced NECA's proposed Telecommunications Relay Service ("TRS") Fund contribution factor for the period beginning July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2006. NECA proposed a carrier contribution factor of 0.00528, and a fund size requirement of $413.3 million. The proposed factor reflects a significant increase over the current factor, which is $0.00356. TRS contributions are calculated based on interstate and international telecommunications end user revenue, as reported in interstate service providers' FCC Form 499-A. FCC SEEKS COMMENTS ON PETITION TO PREEMPT STATE REGULATION OF TELEMARKETING The FCC is requesting comments on an April 29, 2005, petition filed by a coalition of 33 organizations, including trade associations, individual companies, and non-profit entities engaged in interstate telemarketing activities ("Joint Petitioners"). The Joint Petition raises issues concerning the scope of the FCC's jurisdiction over interstate telemarketing calls under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act ("TCPA"). In particular, Joint Petitioners ask the Commission to issue a ruling declaring the Commission's exclusive regulatory jurisdiction over interstate telemarketing calls and barring state regulation of such calls. Joint Petitioners assert that, in the TCPA, Congress sought to "establish uniform national standards that balance the concerns of consumers with the legitimate interests of telemarketers." According to Joint Petitioners, states have adopted and proposed "divergent rules applicable to interstate telemarketing that undermine the desired uniform federal regulatory regime." Citing dozens of existing and proposed state laws that differ from the Commission's TCPA rules and that do not distinguish between intrastate and interstate telemarketing calls, Joint Petitioners contend that these state regulations place "undue and at times impossible compliance burdens on interstate telemarketers, and lead[] state courts in enforcement actions to.impose substantial fines on telemarketers for interstate calls expressly permitted by the federal rules." To resolve this situation, Joint Petitioners ask the FCC to assert its federal authority to preempt state laws and regulations which conflict or are otherwise not in keeping with the federal program adopted pursuant to the TCPA. Comments on the Petition are due 30 days after publication of the FCC Notice in the Federal Register. FCC INITIATES RULEMAKING TO ESTABLISH NEW PER CALL PAYPHONE COMPENSATION RATE In a further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding payphone services, the FCC is seeking current and accurate data on the average number of compensable dial-around calls made from payphones on a monthly basis in order to establish a new per call payphone compensation rate. In its First Payphone Order, the FCC fixed the default compensation rate at $0.35 per call. This rate was recently increased to $0.494. Data submissions in the form of Comments on the NPRM are due June 27, 2005 with Replies due July 25, 2005. FCC IMPLEMENTS MANDATORY ELECTRONIC FILING FOR ALL INTERNATIONAL SERVICES On May 11, 2005, the FCC ordered the implementation of mandatory electronic filing for all international services. Electronic filing has been the method of choice for many applicants since establishment of the FCC's internet-based filing systems more than six years ago. According to the FCC, the transition to mandatory electronic filing for all international services will enable the Commission to further streamline its filing processes, reduce unnecessary costs associated with processing paper filings, and respond more efficiently to evolving user needs. The FCC's Order applies to applications and associated filings in connection with: section 214 authorizations; cable landing licenses; accounting rate changes; assignment of data network identification codes; recognized operating agency status; assignment of an international signaling point code; and foreign carrier notifications. The requirement for electronic filing will take effect in several phases. First, mandatory electronic filing of applications for international telecommunications services that can currently be filed via IBFS will take effect following a 60-day transition period that will begin this Spring. These include: * applications for initial International Section 214 Authority * assignments and transfers of existing International Section 214 * Authority requests for Special Temporary Authority related * to International Section 214 Authority * applications for a new Submarine Cable Landing License * new or modified international Accounting Rate Change filings * requests for initial assignment of Data Network Identification * Codes notifications of Foreign Carrier Affiliation * requests for Recognized Operating Agency status * request for initial assignment of an International Signaling Point * Code Next, in cases where electronic forms are not currently available, mandatory electronic filing will be phased-in as IBFS is enhanced to accept the filings. As each new electronic form is available, the International Bureau will release a public notice announcing the start of a 60-day transition period, after which only electronic filings will be accepted. Paper filings made after the close of the transition period will be returned to applicants without processing. ==================================== The Front Lines is a free publication of The Helein Law Group, LLP, providing clients and interested parties with valuable information, news, and updates regarding regulatory and legal developments primarily impacting companies engaged in the competitive telecommunications industry. The Front Lines does not purport to offer legal advice nor does it establish a lawyer-client relationship with the reader. If you have questions about a particular article, general concerns, or wish to seek legal counsel regarding a specific regulatory or legal matter affecting your company, please contact our firm at 703-714-1313 or visit our website: http://www.thlglaw.com/ The Helein Law Group, LLP 8180 Greensboro Drive, Suite 700 McLean, Virginia 22102 THLG Affiliations: http://www.voicelog.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 01:29:49 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FAQ: How Real ID Will Affect You By Declan McCullagh What's all the fuss with the Real ID Act about? President Bush is expected to sign an $82 billion military spending bill soon that will, in part, create electronically readable, federally approved ID cards for Americans. The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the package -- which includes the Real ID Act -- on Thursday. What does that mean for me? Starting three years from now, if you live or work in the United States, you'll need a federally approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments, or take advantage of nearly any government service. Practically speaking, your driver's license likely will have to be reissued to meet federal standards. The Real ID Act hands the Department of Homeland Security the power to set these standards and determine whether state drivers' licenses and other ID cards pass muster. Only ID cards approved by Homeland Security can be accepted "for any official purpose" by the feds. ... http://news.com.com/2100-1028-5697111.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Times are getting tough all over in this country; all I can say is I am _so glad_ that over the next ten to fifteen years, as the United States sinks deeper and deeper into trouble and strays further and further away from the type of life I remember here, I will probably be dead and not have to deal with it. Do not misunderstand; I do not intend to off myself, I'll just let nature takes its normal course, but I am very fearful about how 'things will be' for the younger guys forty or fifty years from now, assuming the United States is still around, with about half the population in prison and the other half employed to guard them, etc. The laws will be _so restrictive_; social security will be a thing of the past, etc. I guess you saw in the papers or on the computer yesterday that the FBI arrested _three dozen_ individuals, mostly American soldiers (National Guardsmen mostly) _and several border patrol agents _and_ several law enforcement officers in a 'drug sting on the Nexican/US border. Things are getting so depressing everywhere one goes in this country these days. I agree with the words of Johann Sebastian Bach in his work "Come Sweet Death, Come Blest Repose". Some days it couldn't be soon enough for me. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Graham Gower Subject: GSM Roaming Date: 12 May 2005 20:31:01 -0700 Do switching centres lookup a person's phone in the local VLR before searching for its HLR? e.g., If my friend from Sydney calls me when I get off the plane (at Sydney airport), does the switching centre realise that I'm already connected to the local VLR, or will it try to find me via my HLR instead? Would this happen often enough for it to be a worthwhile optimisation? Graham ------------------------------ From: Steve Subject: AT&T - Cingular - Alltel; They Broke MY Contract! Date: 12 May 2005 21:04:23 -0700 I am apparently one of those "unlucky few" who got switched from AT&T to Alltel (via Cingular). Though I wasn't very happy with AT&T to begin with, I was happy to find that Cingular bought them out, given Cingular's rollover, roaming, and other options. Unfortunately, I then discovered that I was nothing more than an asset that was being sold to Alltel. All-WHO?! All I want to know is if anyone has successfully used this MESS as an excuse to terminate service w/o a fine. As far as I'm concerned, my contract was with AT&T, NOT Alltel (or even Cingular for that matter). I was not warned about Alltel and (like most people), believed all the hoopla that I was now a Cingular customer, with all the associated benefits. This thing smells like class-action lawsuit to me!!! Disgusted in Oklahoma. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think what you will find is the contract you signed at some point or another expressly gives _them_ the right to assign your contract. It did not give _you_ any rights like that however; just AT&T. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Do Cell Phones Still Offer "A" and "B" Carriers? Date: 13 May 2005 07:41:58 -0700 As mentioned on this newsgroup, in the early days of cell phones, users could switch their phones from their primary carrier to the alternate carrier serving their area (originally there were two). I wonder in practice how many people bothered to do that; indeed if they knew that option was available. Do today's cell phones have any option to do that? ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 11:22:12 -0400 Subject: CRTC Reins in Major Carriers on VoIP http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050512.wvoipgm0511/BNStory/Technology/ By SIMON TUCK Thursday, May 12, 2005 Updated at 10:10 PM EDT From Friday's Globe and Mail Canada's telecommunications regulator ruled Thursday that the country's dominant phone companies will not be able to set their own prices for on-line telephone services, part of its effort to create more competition and lower prices in the budding market. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission rejected the arguments of the country's largest telephone companies Bell Canada and Telus Corp., who had argued that voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) should be left unregulated like other Internet applications. Instead, the commission decided that it would regulate the large phone companies' prices in the VoIP market, preventing them from cutting rates to keep out rivals at least until there is legitimate competition in local phone services. The large phone companies' challengers, however, such as upstarts and cable companies, will not have their VoIP prices regulated, as The Globe and Mail reported last week. CRTC chairman Charles Dalfen said the market could reach an acceptable level of competition within the next two years. "This is precisely the moment when Canada needs a regulatory framework that will provide the quickest road to competition," Mr. Dalfen said. Bell and Telus reacted harshly to the ruling, and they plan to appeal the decision to the federal cabinet and may launch legal challenges. Full story at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050512.wvoipgm0511/BNStory/Technology/ How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 11:47:48 -0400 Subject: SBC Joins VoIP E911 Club http://www.telecomweb.com/news/1115924718.htm SBC has become the latest -- and last -- of the so-called Baby Bells to publicly agree to provide E911 services to VoIP carriers. The Baby Bells run the vast majority of all E911 services in the United States. SBC had been known to be working with VoIP carrier Vonage on E911, but reportedly the two have been dickering over technical and business details. Speculation is that SBC didn't want to announce E911 services until it had resolved the issues with Vonage, but recent events have overtaken the carrier. Last week BellSouth said that it would provide E911 service to VoIP providers. That announcement came shortly after Vonage announced it had cut an E911 pact with Verizon (Initial reports in TelecomWeb had indicated that Verizon was providing E911 only to Vonage, but Verizon has since informed us that the offer is open to all VoIP carriers). Qwest, too, has acknowledged tests with Vonage and reportedly agreed to provide E911 to all providers. Full story at: http://www.telecomweb.com/news/1115924718.htm ------------------------------ From: Ken Abrams Subject: Cell Phone as (Only) Home Service Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 19:09:11 GMT Does anything like this exist: Cordless home phone equipment that uses a cell phone as the network connection? More specifically, I would like to be able to plug my cell phone into a stand at home that charges it AND extends the service to two (or more) cordless extensions. Seems like this would be easy to do using the headset contacts on the cell phone. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It _is_ easy to do, and requires just a few pieces of equipment. You want to get a device referred to generically as a 'Cell Socket' (but various companies making them refer to them under different names). The best supplier I know of on this is Mike Sandman mailto: mike@sandman.com or his catalog at http://www.sandman.com . The pinouts on a cell phone (as well as the general shape and size is such that there is _no_ standardization. Mike can tell you more about this and if it is possible to get a 'cell socket' device for your particular make/model of cell phone. You can reach his office at 630-980-7710 in the Chicago area. *Have your phone make/model/type/serial number handy when you call or write him.* (That's how varied the devices are). If you can find one, then you set the cell phone in its cradle, plug the modular jack into an idle wall jack somewhere, and telephone instruments plugged in the line elsewhere give dial tone, and you dial calls in the normal way. On mine, you then press the '#' key at the end of the dialing string and that functions as the cell phone's 'send' key. When not in use, the cell socket keeps the cell phone charged. Also, on mine, -- used in the old Nokia 5100/6100 'series' of phones -- there is an external antenna connection which it helps to use. I would say you can usually get by with one or two external phones; don't press your luck; the REN is not all that high. What I did, because of my disability and I need to have phones around every few feet it seems, is I plugged the output of the Cell Socket into my mini-PBX. I go 'off hook' on the cell socket (and thus the cell phone) by dialing '7' from any phone in my house. (Dialing '8' uses my Vonage/VOIP line; dialing '9' uses my SBC/Prairie Stream landline.) Plus which, as sort of icing on the cake, the various extensions around my house can dial each other using the format '100' through '105', or the 'operator' by dialing '0' but I rarely use any of that stuff. Whatever you do, though, the Cell Socket is *easily offended*, just like the VOIP telephone adapters. _Make certain_ there is no 'live' dial tone from somewhere that might come in contact with Cell Socket. If it does, you'll lose your new toy in a minute, and maybe your cell phone as well, if the backwash gets that far up the line before you catch it. You may need a couple of modular patch cords for convenience, Mike has those also as needed. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 12:31:12 EDT From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA Subject: Gates: Mobile Phones Will Supplant iPod Telecom dailyLead from USTA May 13, 2005 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=21574&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Gates: Mobile phones will supplant iPod BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Report: Alcatel to stop development of IPTV product * Dell may link laptops, mobile phone networks * Major MCI shareholders oppose Verizon deal * T-Mobile USA reports earnings USTA SPOTLIGHT * See USTA's Small Company Summit Presentations Online -- Free EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * Microsoft unveils next-generation Xbox VOIP DOWNLOAD * Cisco, British Airways sign VoIP deal * Canadian regulators rule in favor of VoIP upstarts * Chip makers team up to develop VoIP chips REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Locating many wireless 911 callers remains a problem Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=21574&l=2017006 Legal and Privacy information at http://www.dailylead.com/about/privacy_legal.jsp SmartBrief, Inc. 1100 H ST NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20005 ------------------------------ From: nstrom@ananzi.co.za Subject: Re: AOL Jumps Into Free E-Mail Business Date: 13 May 2005 06:27:15 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Monty Solomon wrote: > By ANICK JESDANUN AP Internet Writer > NEW YORK (AP) -- Its subscription business in decline, America Online > Inc. is launching yet another product on the open Web: a free, > ad-supported e-mail service tied to its instant-messaging platform. > Users of AOL Instant Messenger will be able to send and receive mail > with "aim.com" addresses using their existing AIM screen names. Can't AOL screen name holders already get free webmail using their screenname @netscape.net? ------------------------------ From: nstrom@ananzi.co.za Subject: Re: Spyware ... Ugh! Date: 13 May 2005 06:31:30 -0700 bob@coolgroups.com wrote: > Did they change the name of Hijack This to Alertspy or is Alertspy > something else? Nope; it's still Hijack This and is available at http://www.merijn.org/. Note that the official Hijack This page has the following to say: -- snip -- April 22, 2005: Just a short note on the domain HIJACK-THIS.NET: this is not mine! It has been registered by an affiliate of XoftSpy (who are also on the Rogue Antispyware List on SpywareWarrior.com) and they are luring people into downloading their software believing it is HijackThis. Also, they have registered a few AdWords at Google leading to the same result. We'll see where this goes. In the meantime, if you want to download any of my programs, the official domain is and always will be www.merijn.org. -- snip -- The domain hijack-this.net is hyping some "Alert Spy" product; this must be where you got tricked. Anyways, on the topic of Spyware, I use AdAware and Spybot S&D and recommend them both. Sometimes one catches something that the other doesn't. Also keep in mind that if you have spyware in memory, it often can't be removed until you reboot your computer into safe mode. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And for a long time, they were each accusing the other one of being a spy because the characteristics in each. But a warning when you first start either program tells you about that propensity they have and how to deal with it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: nstrom@ananzi.co.za Subject: Re: Setting up an Automated RSS Feed Date: 13 May 2005 06:40:03 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > Do any Digest readers know how to go about setting up an _automated_ > RSS feed? I would make this Digest available using RSS if I knew > how to do it. If so, could you please email me? I will really > appreciate your help. I'm not sure if this helps, but the new Google Groups interface provides Atom feeds for the usenet version of the digest; see here: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.dcom.telecom/about The feed seems to work for me as a live bookmark in Firefox; note that the links point to the messages on groups-beta.google.com and not the archives on telecom-digest.org. (As an aside, I personally hate the new Google Groups interface and still use the old interface which is still accessible via some tricks.) ------------------------------ From: Dean M. Subject: Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 16:42:32 GMT AES wrote in message news:telecom24.210.13@telecom-digest.org: > To recap a speculative post I made some time back, seems to me that at > least in those (quite widespread) situations where copper (or cable, > or fiber) connections to business and residential premises already > exist, or will continue to be created: > a) VOIP telephone service totally without 911 could be the norm. > b) All of the existing "hardwired connections" could continue to exist > (including copper pairs included in or installed with fiber or TV > cables), but would extend only to the telco (or cable, or fiber) > "central office" and not be expected to provide any telco service > beyond that point. > c) These would however provide the hard-wired connections not just for > "911" services (activated perhaps by "pushbuttons" or the equivalent > in the hardwired premises), but also for many other kinds of related > security services (fire alarms, home security systems, home control > systems, alarm bracelets for the elderly, "iPots", etc), provided by > vendors who would take over the wiring infrastructure, and very > possibly some or all of the CO facilities, from the telco. Utility > meter reading via these hardwired connections would be another > potential user -- not to mention DSL for those cases where cable, > fiber or wireless didn't provide the broadband services to a given > premises. > I appreciate there are many sunk costs, vested interests, and so on in > this whole infrastructure, so it may not be obvious how to get from > here to there; but if the vast majority of telephone traffic ended up > on VOIP, wouldn't this make some sense, and in fact, maybe be the way > in which you'd set up new green-field developments? I'm a little perplexed by your speculation. Why would a move to VoIP have anything to do with killing off use of cable/fiber/copper for telco services? Are you predicting a move to a completely wireless service provision or am I just misunderstanding your comments? And if indeed you are predicting a move to an entirely wireless world, why are you portraying VoIP as the cause for this? Can you elaborate? Dean ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Last Laugh! Christian Telco in Gay Smear Allegations Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 12:00:42 -0500 Unholy marketing department By Nick Farrell: Thursday 12 May 2005, 10:28 A CHRISTIAN TELCO in Oklahoma, has been drumming up business by smearing its rivals on moral affairs. United American Technologies has been billing itself as "the only carrier that is taking an active stand against same sex marriages and hardcore child pornography." According to the Wonkette, here, its sales and marketing division has been even more explicit to customers who ring them up with questions. One of Wonkette's readers asked the outfit if AT&T sponsors child pornography and was told no, but MCI did. The sales person made the outrageous suggestion that MCI has "a paedophile Web site for men who love boys" based in Montreal. Verzon, said United American Technology, trains its employees to accept the gay and lesbian lifestyle. Without a trace of irony, the salesman agrees with the caller that, "God hates AT&T, MCI, and Verizon". You can here recordings of the conversations here and here. Caller Eugine Mirman is clearly having a bit of fun with the very straight UAT marketing salesperson. Apparently the company is doing quite well with more than 2000 people switching a month, which says some people obviously think it is important to have a right-wing phone company. A cut of the proceeds helps fund conservative political campaigns, via a 527 called "Faith Family and Freedom" created by the Republican floor leader of the Oklahoma House of Representatives. However, it will be interesting to see how long it all lasts, briefs for MCI and Verizon should be in a holding pattern as we speak. Copyright 2005 Breakthrough Publishing Ltd. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, Breakthrough Publishing Ltd/Inquirer. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Neither Lisa nor myself could find where the .wav files (indicated by 'here' and 'here' above) went to. If you are reading the text-based mailing list of this Digest, you may wish to look up the web site for the (British) Inquirer, read the article and see if you can locate the missing .wav files. It should make good listening. Too bad these folks were not around when AT&T _was_ sliding into this territory a little. Remember a few years ago when the big deal on chat/sex telephone lines was 'this is a free call; all you pay is toll charges'. The catch was, it was always _overseas, international_ toll, in some god-forsaken backward island country somewhere, or so they claimed in the process of re-routing the call. You _had_ to place the call over AT&T; they used T-1 lines to reroute you and deliver your call as needed. Of course the chat was 'free', AT&T made its money from the sheer volume of inbound traffic diverted to it and the associated tolls. In their ads, AT&T had clever ways of parsing the number they gave you to call supposedly so you would not discover it was the country code for Guyana or wherever. In the ads, always with an S&M overtone, we'd see these 'Mistresses' or gay 'masters' with the proper boots, leather clothing, whips, etc. And the text would be something like "Reach Out and Touch a New Friend" and AT&T's helpful advice, 'this is a free call; no charge for chat; just pay tolls'. AT&T learned years ago there was a lot of money to be made from 'obscene' long distance calls which went on for an hour or so per call all night long, commonly known as 'phone sex'. Had the very conservative (it would appear) United American Technologies and their right wing allies been around in the late seventies when long distance phone sex chat was so common, they'd have had a field day making accusations against AT&T, Sprint, MCI and others. I wonder if any of those people even remember the reputation 'area code 900' had when it was in the news so much 20 years ago? Geeze, and _you_ thought the net was wide-open wild-west territory. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. 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Contact information is not sold, rented or leased. One click a day feeds a person a meal. Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2004 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE JUST 65 CENTS ONE OR TWO INQUIRIES CHARGED TO YOUR CREDIT CARD! REAL TIME, UP TO DATE! SPONSORED BY TELECOM DIGEST AND EASY411.COM SIGN UP AT http://www.easy411.com/telecomdigest ! ************************ Visit http://www.mstm.okstate.edu and take the next step in your career with a Master of Science in Telecommunications Management (MSTM) degree from Oklahoma State University (OSU). This 35 credit-hour interdisciplinary program is designed to give you the skills necessary to manage telecommunications networks, including data, video, and voice networks. The MSTM degree draws on the expertise of the OSU's College of Business Administration; the College of Arts and Sciences; and the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology. The program has state-of-the-art lab facilities on the Stillwater and Tulsa campus offering hands-on learning to enhance the program curriculum. Classes are available in Stillwater, Tulsa, or through distance learning. Please contact Jay Boyington for additional information at 405-744-9000, mstm-osu@okstate.edu, or visit the MSTM web site at http://www.mstm.okstate.edu ************************ In addition, gifts from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert have enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #211 ****************************** TELECOM Digest Sat, 14 May 2005 06:19:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 212 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Yahoo Gets Sued Over Candyman Child Porn Site (Lisa Minter) Senate Technology & Energy Committee Meeting Scheduled 5-18-05 (Decker) PESQ Testing Software Cost (wle) Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? (AES) Re: Setting up an Automated RSS Feed (Isaiah Beard) Re: Do Cell Phones Still Offer "A" and "B" Carriers? (John Levine) Re: Do Cell Phones Still Offer "A" and "B" Carriers? (NOTvalid@surplus) Re: FAQ: How Real ID Will Affect You (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com) Re: Vonage Changes 911 to Opt-Out (Mark Peters) Re: AT&T - Cingular - Alltel; They Broke MY Contract! (Steve Sobol) Re: GSM Roaming ({{{{{Welcome}}}}) Re: Last Laugh! Christian Telco in Gay Smear Allegations (Pete Romfh) Re: Last Laugh! Christian Telco in Gay Smear Allegations (Linc Madison) 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; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lisa Minter Subject: Yahoo Gets Sued Over Candyman Child Porn Site Date: Sat, 14 May 2005 03:05:48 -0500 SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A minor and his parents have filed a $10 million lawsuit against Yahoo Inc. and a man who once operated a Yahoo Groups site where members traded child pornography. The lawsuit, filed on May 9 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, charged that Yahoo breached its duties by allowing co-defendant Mark Bates and others to share child pornography on a site, called Candyman, that Mister Bates created and moderated via the Yahoo Groups service. Yahoo spokeswomen Mary Osako said the company had not been served and did not comment on pending litigation. Mister Bates pleaded guilty in 2002 to setting up the Candyman group site for the trade and distribution of child pornography, the Houston Chronicle reported at the time. The site attracted several thousand users and was in operation for two months before Yahoo closed it down in February, 2001. Pornographic photos of the plaintiff -- who is using the name little Johnny Doe -- were taken and posted to the Candyman site by a neighbor, said the lawsuit, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters. Among other things, the plaintiffs alleged that Yahoo was aware of the activity on the site and that it took no action to block or remove the pornographic images of little Johnny Doe and other children Doe's who were in the pictures also. Attorneys familiar with cases involving online service providers said the Communications Decency Act generally shielded Web sites from responsibility for material posted by users. "Unless the plaintiff has very concrete proof that Yahoo knew that this group contained child pornography, it's very likely that Yahoo will not be liable," said John Morris, staff counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington. "We believe that they knew, and at a minimum didn't exercise reasonable care on their sites," said Adam Voyles, the plaintiffs' lead attorney for little Johnny and the other Doe children. "After all, thousands of uploads/downloads of kiddie porn to it each day." A child pornography investigation led by the FBI and dubbed Operation Candyman targeted Yahoo Groups users and resulted in the arrest of more than a thousand people in the United States. With the arrest of Mister Bates and many participants, others were frightened and ran off and as of yet have not identified, according to FBI, who stated 'Candyman was the largest raid of its kind ever.' Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, Reuters News Limited. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Sat, 14 May 2005 03:44:05 -0400 Subject: [VoIP News] Senate Technology & Energy Committee Meeting 5-18-05 The notice (converted to plain text) is below. Note that a "Discussion of Voice Over Internet Protocol and 911" is on the agenda. THE SENATE TECHNOLOGY AND ENERGY COMMITTEE SENATOR BRUCE PATTERSON CHAIRMAN 505 FARNUM P.O. BOX 30036 LANSING, MICHIGAN 48909-7536 PHONE: (517) 373-7350 FAX: (517) 373-9228 May 13, 2005 NOTICE OF SCHEDULED MEETING DATE: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 TIME: 300 p.m. PLACE: Room 210, Farnum Building, 125 W. Allegan Street, Lansing, MI 48933 PHONE: Christopher Kelley (373-7350) Committee Clerk AGENDA HCR 8 Rep. Schuitmaker A concurrent resolution to urge the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission to extend the operating license of the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant. HCR 9 Rep. Proos A concurrent resolution to urge the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission to extend the operating license of the D.C. Cook Nuclear Power Plant. SB 334 Sen. Patterson Public utilities; electric utilities; annual approval for a low income and energy efficiency factor regarding a distribution service; provide for. Discussion of Voice Over Internet Protocol and 911. And any other business to come properly before the Committee. Individuals who wish to bring written testimony need to supply a minimum of twenty copies for distribution. In the spirit of compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), individuals with a disability should feel free to contact the Office of the Secretary of the Senate by phone [(517) 373-2400] or by TDD [(517) 373-0543] if requesting special services to effectively participate in the meeting. How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: wle Subject: PESQ Testing Software Cost Date: 13 May 2005 12:47:52 -0700 Does anyone have an idea what the OPERA test system from Opticon costs with the hardware [pc]? Thx, wle. ------------------------------ From: AES Subject: Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 16:44:39 -0700 Organization: Stanford University In article , Dean M. wrote in response to AES proposal regarding VOIP and 911 service: > I'm a little perplexed by your speculation. Why would a move to VoIP > have anything to do with killing off use of cable/fiber/copper for > telco services? Are you predicting a move to a completely wireless > service provision or am I just misunderstanding your comments? And if > indeed you are predicting a move to an entirely wireless world, why > are you portraying VoIP as the cause for this? Can you elaborate? > Dean Apologies if I'm not making myself clear. 1) It seems likely that in the not too distant future telephone service will be almost entirely provided by (or thru) VOIP. And, there seem to be real technical difficulties -- in particular serious "caller location identification" difficulties -- associated with providing 911 service to VOIP phones. Therefore I'm trying to envision a future situation (admittedly hypothetical at this point) in which telephone service will no longer necessarily be directly linked to 911 service, and a telco connection will no longer be presumed (or legally required) to include 911 capability -- or alternatively where 911 emergency response to calls from a given location will no longer necessarily be provided or connected to emergency providers through the telephone network. 2) As a prelude to this, I'm noting that I, and many other residences and businesses, will likely in the near future obtain our telephone service and also our broadband Internet access either via a cable connection, or via a neighborhood or municipal wireless service, or via a cell phone connection, or via a fiber-to-the-premises connection, rather than via a conventional twisted-pair telephone wire to our premises. If (or rather when) that happens I, and many others, will no longer need those copper telephone wires (twisted pairs) that currently come directly from a telco central office (CO) into our homes or businesses. (Of course if our broadband Internet connection happens to be DSL we will continue to need that telephone twisted pair, though we won't need classic phone service on that wire any more, unless we're really backward and still use a modem.) 3) Nonetheless, all the current telephone twisted pairs between premises and telco COs will continue to exist, unless they're deliberately ripped out or allowed to deteriorate. And even for new homes and buildings ("greenfields construction") there's no technical reason that similar twisted pairs can't be brought into these new premises as part of the cable TV connection, or the fiber, or even just the electrical power wiring. 4) So, let's think about how we might use these existing and any new copper twisted pairs, not for telephone any more, but for other "utility" purposes -- possibly including a new kind of 911 service. In fact, let's refer to these wires, beginning at that point in time, not as "telephone wires" but as "utility service wires". 5) So, here are just some off the cuff thoughts as to useful services that could be provided over these utility wires, earning income for some utility service provider in the process: a) The telco won't be able to get income any more from selling telco service over it's telephone wires -- pardon me, utility wires -- and it therefore won't need banks of telephone switches to service those wires in its CO any more. So, maybe it will sell all this infrastructure to "utility providers", or maybe it will go into the "utility" business itself. b) One utility service could be a variant of 911 service. That is, in case of an emergency instead of dialing 911 you just push a red alarm button on a kind of intercom box in your house or office and it connects you over the utility wires to your "utility CO" (which was once your telco CO). This utility CO then connects you -- perhaps automatically -- to the 911 emergency dispatch setup in your town. c) Or, maybe you still dial 911 on your VOIP phone -- but instead of treating this as a VOIP call, your PC connects it to the utility wires, which are still connected into your home LAN. (If you move your VOIP phone to a new location in another town, and connect it to the PC in the new location, that PC will still do the right thing for your VOIP call.) d) Using add'l hardware and working with the utility service provider, your local gas, electric and water providers will read your meters, not by some "dial-in" call on the VOIP network, but by a hard-wired connection over the utility service wires. e) Commercial "always on" burglar alarm and security services can be provided over the utility wires by security services that work with or are part of the utility service providers. f) Ditto fire alarm services. g) The emergency medical pushbutton gadget that your elderly grandma, who lives alone, wears on her wrist to call for help could communicate not over her VOIP telephone service, but over the utility service system. And so on for lots and lots of other things. (And note that one of the featured advantages of VOIP telco service is that you can take your VOIP phone with you and get into the Internet anywhere -- but these local utility services are inherently local in character, and are much better hardwired into a *local* structure, with no need for the Internet.) 6) Bottom line: I recognize there would be lots of thorny problems (including major economic and public policy issues) in getting from the systems we have now to some new scheme like this; and very likely some downsides and practical problems that I haven't even thought of. But just maybe, at some point, the very tight connection between telephone service and 911 emergency service that we're so familiar with now could evolve so that 911 and telco were more or less completely de-linked, with both needs met in innovative and more effective new ways. I'm just trying to do some thinking about how that might happen. So, comments welcomed ... ------------------------------ From: Isaiah Beard Subject: Re: Setting up an Automated RSS Feed Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 14:36:10 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > Do any Digest readers know how to go about setting up an _automated_ > RSS feed? I would make this Digest available using RSS if I knew > how to do it. If so, could you please email me? I will really > appreciate your help. > Patrick Townson http://www.myrsscreator.com/ Unfortunately their website is a bit "flash"y (as in heavy use of Macromedia products), but they do offer a tool that purports to automate the creation and dissemination of rss feeds. E-mail fudged to thwart spammers. Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply. ------------------------------ Date: 13 May 2005 22:55:38 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Do Cell Phones Still Offer "A" and "B" Carriers? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Do today's cell phones have any option to do that? None that I've seen. Typically the A carrier is TDMA or GSM, and the B carrier is CDMA, so if you forced the phone to the other one it'd have to fall back to analog and cellco's don't like that. Ten years ago when I had an analog car phone I would force it to switch all the time when I was on trips because I knew that the non-default carrier had a better roaming deal. R's, John ------------------------------ From: NOTvalid@surplus4actors.INFO Subject: Re: Do Cell Phones Still Offer "A" and "B" Carriers? Date: 13 May 2005 19:33:49 -0700 > wonder in practice how many people bothered to do that; indeed if they > knew that option was available. I did it whenever someone asked to use my phone. I would switch it to other carrier and say "talk as long as you want" follow the intructions, it will be collect or credit card. > Do today's cell phones have any option to do that? My current Virgin Mobile phones only get the Virgin[SPCS] network. -- Incredibly low long distance phone rates, as low as USA-Canada 1.9CPM! Works as prepaid phone card. PIN not needed for calls from home or cell phone. Compare the rates at https://www.onesuite.com/ No maintenance or connection fee or minimum. Use promotion code "034720367" for some FREE time. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Minter) Subject: Re: FAQ: How Real ID Will Affect You Date: 13 May 2005 14:07:47 -0700 Monty Solomon wrote: > What does that mean for me? Well, right now we're seeing whole airline flights disrupted because a person on board _might_ be a terrorist: "BANGOR, Maine (AP) -- An Air France jetliner en route from Paris to Boston was diverted to Maine to check on a passenger with nearly the same name and birthdate as a person on a no-fly list suspected of terror connections, officials said. "You had a match of the name save for slight deviation in spelling and the exact date of birth," said Mark Hatfield, spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration. (http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Flight-Diverted.html) So, if your name happens to be the same or nearly the same as a terrorist or fugitive, you're in trouble. It means there will be increased risk that you, as an innocent person, will be locked up because of mistaken identity or false/malicious charges. This will happen because as you go about your daily business, your name will be frequently checked against fugitive, terrorist, and pvt sector risk lists. If there is even a fuzzy match, a red flag will go up and your desired transaction will be held up. If you're lucky, your official ID will be scrutizined, perhaps your picture compared sent in and compared against a database, and after a wait of an hour or so, you'll be cleared to proceed (assuming there is nothing nasty or outstanding about you). But if you're unlucky, the police will be called and you will be removed in handcuffs. You will sit in a jail cell without any outside contact until they get around to determine you aren't the terrorist or serial killer the match-up suggested you were. It's happened that fingerprints came over the fax fuzzy, so you just might match them and will be in even worse trouble. Keep in mind this isn't just government. The private sector keeps many more lists and is quite sloppy about accuracy and security. If there's a fuzzy match, you might not get arrested, but you won't do your banking or be able to cash a check, get a job, rent an apt, do anything with a credit card, etc. until the mess is cleared up. You may need to hire a lawyer at big bucks to unfreeze everything and prove to them -- at your own expense on your own time -- that you're you and who they fear you are. Back in school they'd threaten us with darkening our "permanent record" with a discipline infraction. Well, today we all do have that 'permanent record' and have no control over what goes on it nor who may see it (except we OURSELVES can't look at it or even know who has it). The new laws will require checking that permanent record much more often than now and increasing the risk of flagging. As all of us go through life, we have our share of problems. A bitter divorce or romance breakup. Fired from a job. Fight in a bar. Dispute with our landlord. Disputes with our neighbors. Thanks to modern LAWS all of these incidents are carefully tracked on our permanent record and may come back to haunt us. (And give our creditors an excuse to charge us more!) Sadly, controls are weak and inaccurate and malicious info can be added as well. As mentioned, we don't even know the companies who keep this stuff and we can't get at it. ------------------------------ From: Mark Peters Subject: Re: Vonage Changes 911 to Opt-Out Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 16:10:08 -0500 A big problem is visitors, especially children who have been taught to dial 911 in case of an emergency. A device that looks like a phone and provides dial tone is expected to behave like a phone which includes 911. 911 should not be opt-in or opt-out. 911 should be there. E911 is the goal. If there is the possibility of having children visit the house, how do you propose instructing the visiting children that the phones do not work properly in emergencies? How do you check that these children really understand the difference in the phones? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am not sure that is going to be an > improvement. At least now, (with opt-in) if a person takes the > messages he receives seriously and makes an effort to get 911 turned > on, as I did, he is going to have at least some working knowledge of > the limitations of the system. The hassle now are those people who > 'just assume VOIP works like any other phone'. Most of the time, those > people know from nothing, all of a sudden have an emergency and dial > into 911, find it unavailable then the VOIP carrier catches hell for > it. At least VOIP can now respond, "We _told_ you and you agreed to > our terms." > The people who 'just assume' are still going to be around, but VOIP > really does leave itself open for a lawsuit when they begin to contend > (by making it an opt-out function) that VOIP is 'just like any other > phone', when in fact 911 will possibly be the critical distinction > why it is not. Now the dummies can truthfully say "you never told me". > I hope, for legal reasons, VOIP holds off on the conversion between > opt-in/opt-out until they have so throughly and completely tested it > under stressful conditions that they _know_ it will work for the > largest number of their customers. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: AT&T - Cingular - Alltel; They Broke MY Contract! Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 14:50:04 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Steve wrote: > I am apparently one of those "unlucky few" who got switched from AT&T > to Alltel (via Cingular). Though I wasn't very happy with AT&T to > begin with, I was happy to find that Cingular bought them out, given > Cingular's rollover, roaming, and other options. > Unfortunately, I then discovered that I was nothing more than an asset > that was being sold to Alltel. All-WHO?! Alltel, the fifth or sixth largest carrier in the country. You probably aren't aware of them because they primarily serve smaller cities. > All I want to know is if anyone has successfully used this MESS as an > excuse to terminate service w/o a fine. As far as I'm concerned, my > contract was with AT&T, NOT Alltel (or even Cingular for that matter). What is Alltel doing that is so horrible that you want to cancel, or are you just ranting because you're not a Cingular customer? > I was not warned about Alltel and (like most people), believed all the > hoopla that I was now a Cingular customer, with all the associated > benefits. This thing smells like class-action lawsuit to me!!! Please. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think what you will find is the > contract you signed at some point or another expressly gives _them_ > the right to assign your contract. It did not give _you_ any rights > like that however; just AT&T. PAT] Yes, the cell phone contracts generally allow companies to assign contracts to third parties. Read your original contract. JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638) Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / sjsobol@JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED "The wisdom of a fool won't set you free" --New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle" ------------------------------ From: {{{{{Welcome}}}}} Subject: Re: GSM Roaming Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 23:38:50 +0100 Thus spaketh Graham Gower: > Do switching centres lookup a person's phone in the local VLR before > searching for its HLR? > e.g., If my friend from Sydney calls me when I get off the plane > (at Sydney airport), does the switching centre realise that I'm > already connected to the local VLR, or will it try to find me > via my HLR instead? > Would this happen often enough for it to be a worthwhile optimisation? > Graham http://www.mobileshop.org/howitworks/roaming.htm ------------------------------ From: Pete Romfh Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Christian Telco in Gay Smear Allegations Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 23:07:42 -0500 Organization: Not Organized TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Lisa Minter: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Neither Lisa nor myself > could find where the .wav files (indicated by 'here' and > 'here' above) went to. If you are reading the text-based > mailing list of this Digest, you may wish to look up the > web site for the (British) Inquirer, read the article and > see if you can locate the missing .wav files. It should > make good listening. Here's the link to that audio file. It's hilarious. Pete Romfh, Telecom Geek & Amateur Gourmet. promfh at hal dash pc dot org [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: _Where_ is the link, Pete? That's the same thing that Lisa got; copy the file out and nothing is there. 'Here' just turns out to be a blank space. In the next message, Linc Madison did his homework and entered the URL manually, so it could not get away. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Christian Telco in Gay Smear Allegations Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 14:04:02 -0700 From: Linc Madison Reply-To: lincmad@suespammers.org Organization: California resident; nospam; no unsolicited e-mail allowed In article , Lisa Minter wrote: > Unholy marketing department > By Nick Farrell: Thursday 12 May 2005, 10:28 > A CHRISTIAN TELCO in Oklahoma, has been drumming up business by > smearing its rivals on moral affairs. The original article, with links intact, can be found here: The MP3 files mentioned in the article can be found here: I think this one is good fodder for my new blog, "The Third Path," http://3rdpath.blogspot.com . I'll be discussing politics, the media, and, yes, occasionally even telecom ... Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * lincmad@suespammers.org * primary e-mail: Telecom at LincMad dot com All U.S. and California anti-spam laws apply, incl. CA BPC 17538.45(c) This text constitutes actual notice as required in BPC 17538.45(f)(3). DO NOT SEND UNSOLICITED E-MAIL TO THIS ADDRESS. You have been warned. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you for going to that effort, Linc. And, good luck with your new blog. I hope you are around with it many years from now. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. 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Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2004 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE JUST 65 CENTS ONE OR TWO INQUIRIES CHARGED TO YOUR CREDIT CARD! REAL TIME, UP TO DATE! SPONSORED BY TELECOM DIGEST AND EASY411.COM SIGN UP AT http://www.easy411.com/telecomdigest ! ************************ Visit http://www.mstm.okstate.edu and take the next step in your career with a Master of Science in Telecommunications Management (MSTM) degree from Oklahoma State University (OSU). This 35 credit-hour interdisciplinary program is designed to give you the skills necessary to manage telecommunications networks, including data, video, and voice networks. The MSTM degree draws on the expertise of the OSU's College of Business Administration; the College of Arts and Sciences; and the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology. 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Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #212 ****************************** TELECOM Digest Sun, 15 May 2005 02:20:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 213 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Microsoft to Offer Anti-Virus Software, Service (Lisa Minter) Verizon FiOS (William Cousert) Re: Do Cell Phones Still Offer "A" and "B" Carriers? (Michael Sullivan) Re: Do Cell Phones Still Offer "A" and "B" Carriers? (Steven M. Scharf) Re: How Is a Number Switched (AT&T to Vonage)? (Tony P.) Re: Setting up an Automated RSS Feed (Steve Sobol) Re: Last Laugh! Christian Telco in Gay Smear Allegations (Steve Sobol) Re: Last Laugh! Christian Telco in Gay Smear Allegations (Pete Romfh) 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; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com> Subject: Microsoft to Offer Anti-Virus Software, Service Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 00:18:11 -0500 Microsoft Corp. , the world's largest software maker, unveiled on Thursday plans to launch a computer subscription service that would include anti-virus and security updates for personal computers. The Redmond, Washington-based software giant said it will initially distribute the new service, called "Windows OneCare" among its employees this week and will offer a trial, or beta, service for PCs running Windows later this year. Users would pay a yearly fee for the subscription. In addition to providing anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall protection, Windows OneCare will also include tools to keep PCs maintained for optimal performance and back up key data. Microsoft did not say how much it expected to charge for the service, which had been expected for a while by the security software community. Microsoft acquired anti-virus technology from GeCAD Software Srl., a Romanian software company, in 2003 to develop its own software. A major security-focused update to Windows XP, called Service Pack 2, was delivered last year. Such efforts have hit the shares of major security software vendors. McAfee Inc.'s shares are down 13 percent so far this year while Symantec Corp.'s stock has declined 28 percent in the same period. "We're designing the service so it will continually update and evolve over time," Ryan Hamlin, Microsoft's general manager of the Technology Care and Safety Group said in a statement. Nearly all of the major anti-virus security programs are designed to be updated regularly over the Internet for a monthly or yearly fee, so that they can cope with new virus threats as they appear. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ From: William Cousert <williamcousert@gmail.com> Subject: Verizon FiOS Date: 14 May 2005 13:03:35 -0700 I have a few qestions about Verizon's new FiOS service. It was recently installed in my neighborhood and I'm thinking about switching over from Comcast. 1. Does Verizon offer Usenet access with their accounts? Comcast only offers a limited amount of bandwidth for Usenet and charges extra if you exceed it. 2. Can I connect without using MSN? 3. I have three computers. Will they charge me extra for the additional IP's? If so, how much? 4. Can I run a personal server? I'd like to be able to host my own home page on it, as well as a message board. What about game servers (quake 3, etc.)? 5. Will they offer cable tv services? I'd like to dump Comcast completely. Will they have video on demand? 6. 15/2 service costs $49.95 per month. 30/5 costs $199.95 per month. Twice the bandwidth, four times the price. Why such a big jump in price? Can you get two 15/2 packages and join them together (remember shotgun modems? You could have two 56k modems work as one)? 6a. Does the $199.95 package give you the right to run servers? Maybe that's the reason for the big increase? 7. Can FiOS handle higher speeds in the future, or will they need to replace the fiber once again when the next leap in speed comes? 8. Has anyone in this group made the jump from Comcast to FiOS? What do you think so far? Thanks, -William Cousert ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan <userid@camsul.example.invalid> Subject: Re: Do Cell Phones Still Offer "A" and "B" Carriers? Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 03:45:45 GMT John Levine wrote: >> Do today's cell phones have any option to do that? > None that I've seen. Typically the A carrier is TDMA or GSM, and the > B carrier is CDMA, so if you forced the phone to the other one it'd > have to fall back to analog and cellco's don't like that. My CDMA/Analog Kyocera 7135 can choose A preferred or B preferred; it can also be set to analog only or digital only. Obviously, it won't work on TDMA or GSM, but can be used on a manually forced analog A or B. Not that I would have any interest in doing so, however, because I would prefer to have more than a minute or two of battery life. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD (USA) (Replace "example.invalid" with "com" in my address.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Is the battery drain _that_ dramatic between analog and digital (you said 'prefer to have more than a minute or two of battery life'). PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steven M. Scharf <scharf.steven@linkearth.net> Subject: Re: Do Cell Phones Still Offer "A" and "B" Carriers? Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 03:53:56 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net John Levine wrote: >> Do today's cell phones have any option to do that? > None that I've seen. Typically the A carrier is TDMA or GSM, and the > B carrier is CDMA, so if you forced the phone to the other one it'd > have to fall back to analog and cellco's don't like that. > Ten years ago when I had an analog car phone I would force it to > switch all the time when I was on trips because I knew that the > non-default carrier had a better roaming deal. There are quite a few areas with two TDMA and two AMPS networks. Depending on the phone, it can be easy or difficult to switch it between networks. Some phones require being hooked up to a computer to be switched, and some can be programmed over the air. In areas where both Cingular and AT&T have TDMA networks, the networks are still separate (labeled orange for Cingular, blue for AT&T, but it is still A & B for AMPS). I've recently activated several old TDMA phones for use on Beyond Wireless (http://gobeyondwireless.com) or CallPlus. These have to be phones that were either previously on the AT&T TDMA network, or that can be reprogrammed over-the-air. I.e., they can't activate a locked Cingular TDMA phone that can't be reprogrammed over the air. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. <kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net> Subject: Re: How Is a Number Switched (AT&T to Vonage)? Organization: ATCC Date: Sat, 14 May 2005 11:45:02 -0400 In article <telecom24.210.8@telecom-digest.org>, drears@runningpagespam.org.lga.highwinds-media.com says: > I switched from my local phone service to Vonage in January. I am > completely happy with the service and have had no problem with it. I > was able to keep my number and the transfer took only 20 days. I > recommended the service to my dad and he switched. He had a lot of > problems with the number transfer. > He had AT&T for both local and long distance. I don't have the > exact dates so I will make them up. On day 22 of his service his > phone jacks went dead and he was informed via email that the > switchover of his phone number to Vonage had taken place. The problem > is/was that if anyone outside of Vonage called him, they would get the > message that the phone number was disconnected. Since I am on Vonage, > I was able to call him with his original phone number. The number was > (856) 23X-XXX. This persisted for 18 days. I suspect the problem is > not with Vonage but with the entity that manages the North American > databases. Can someone explain to me what the technical process is > for switching over and what may have happened? > Dennis > P.S. This is my first post to the Telecom digest in a decade. Hi > Pat, I'm glad that you are still moderating this forum. BTW, you > might remember me as drears@pica.spam.army.mil Let me dispel the myths about why number transfers take so long. I find it infinitely amusing that a cell phone can be transition within 48 hours, as can a land line when going regulated carrier to regulated carrier. There is nothing technical about it. Instead it is foot dragging by the incumbent carriers, nothing more. The same thing is happening with E-911. There isn't a true technical reason why E-911 can't work with VoIP. Instead, the incumbents tend to control E-911 systems in most places and you guessed it, they drag their feet. ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol <sjsobol@JustThe.net> Subject: Re: Setting up an Automated RSS Feed Date: Sat, 14 May 2005 14:57:28 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Isaiah Beard wrote, responding to TELECOM Digest Editor who asked: >> Do any Digest readers know how to go about setting up an _automated_ >> RSS feed? I would make this Digest available using RSS if I knew >> how to do it. If so, could you please email me? I will really >> appreciate your help. > http://www.myrsscreator.com/ > Unfortunately their website is a bit "flash"y (as in heavy use of > Macromedia products), but they do offer a tool that purports to > automate the creation and dissemination of rss feeds. There are a lot of blogging programs that have RSS feeds as one of their features. I use http://www.blogcms.com/ but that's far from the only one. JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638) Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / sjsobol@JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED "The wisdom of a fool won't set you free" --New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle" [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am in the process of getting an RSS feed set up now for the Digest. You can examine what has been done thus far at http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol <sjsobol@JustThe.net> Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Christian Telco in Gay Smear Allegations Date: Sat, 14 May 2005 14:56:46 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Linc Madison wrote: >> A CHRISTIAN TELCO in Oklahoma, has been drumming up business by >> smearing its rivals on moral affairs. I bet they advertised themselves as being good Christians, too. I know many people who are God-fearing, moral people who generally choose to Do the Right Thing. A large number of them are Christian. These *real* Christians don't have to advertise how wonderful they are. Whenever I see a business owner who feels the need to advertise that he or she is a Good Christian(tm), that business owner falls to the bottom of my list of choices for whatever good or service I'm shopping for. In my experience, people who feel the need to crow "Jesus loves me because I'm a wonderful person who never does anything wrong" are usually hiding something. JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638) Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / sjsobol@JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED "The wisdom of a fool won't set you free" --New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle" ------------------------------ From: Pete Romfh <promfhTAKE@OUThal-pc.org.invalid> Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Christian Telco in Gay Smear Allegations Date: Sat, 14 May 2005 07:23:05 -0500 Pete Romfh wrote: > TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Lisa Minter: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Neither Lisa nor myself >> could find where the .wav files (indicated by 'here' and >> 'here' above) went to. If you are reading the text-based >> mailing list of this Digest, you may wish to look up the >> web site for the (British) Inquirer, read the article and >> see if you can locate the missing .wav files. It should >> make good listening. > Here's the link to that audio file. It's hilarious. > Pete Romfh, Telecom Geek & Amateur Gourmet. > promfh at hal dash pc dot org > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: _Where_ is the link, Pete? > That's the same thing that Lisa got; copy the file out > and nothing is there. 'Here' just turns out to be a blank > space. In the next message, Linc Madison did his homework > and entered the URL manually, so it could not get away. > PAT] In my case it was a defect in the Keyboard-Chair interface device. Some adjustments are being made this morning. #print <wry grin> ; OOPS! #include <strong coffee> ; before posting. =;) Pete Romfh, Telecom Geek & Amateur Gourmet. promfh at hal dash pc dot org ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. 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Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #213 ****************************** TELECOM Digest Sun, 15 May 2005 17:03:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 214 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Microsoft, Sun, Pursue Gap-Bridging Product Plans (Lisa Minter) EFFector 18.13: Action Alert - Protect Public Weather Data!! (M Solomon) EFFector 18.14: Action Alert - Support DMCA Reform - (Monty Solomon) Traveller Seeks Phone Advice (D. Dude) Re: Vonage Changes 911 to Opt-Out (DevilsPGD) Re: Vonage Changes 911 to Opt-Out (Lisa Hancock) Re: Verizon FiOS (Steve Sobol) Re: FAQ: How Real ID Will Affect You (DevilsPGD) Re: Microsoft to Offer Anti-Virus Software, Service (P Thompson) Re: Microsoft to Offer Anti-Virus Software, Service (Wolfgang Rupprecht) Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? (Lisa Hancock) Re: Jail For 'Robin Hoods' Who Cost Microsoft Millions (Henry Schaffer) 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; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lisa Minter Subject: Microsoft, Sun, Pursue Gap-Bridging Product Plans Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 14:14:04 -0500 PALO ALTO (Reuters) - Former bitter rivals Microsoft Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. on Friday said they were nearly ready to release products that help bridge the gap between their operating systems, a result of their legal settlement more than a year ago. Microsoft, the world's largest software company and Sun, a maker of network computers, servers and software, in April 2004 agreed to settle a years-long battle, with Microsoft paying $2 billion to Sun to resolve the dispute in a 10-year technical collaboration agreement. Sun had charged Microsoft with anti-competitive behavior. The two companies announced new plans that would allow a Web-based single sign-on between systems that use both Microsoft and Sun software, potentially eliminating the need for multiple user names and passwords for different computer systems and software programs. "These are huge messages to our employees and to our customers that we're working together," Sun Chief Executive Officer Scott McNealy said in a joint news conference with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in Palo Alto, California. Microsoft and Sun will ultimately submit the new specifications to a standards organization for finalization and for ratification as industry standards. Ballmer and McNealy also said the two are working together on systems management software that will allow interoperability between their operating systems and management software. As part of that effort, the firms are collaborating on the development of WS-Management, a Web services specification co-authored by Microsoft, Intel Corp. and other companies that defines a single protocol to meet systems management requirements spanning different types of hardware, operating systems and applications. "We've been hard at work, the two companies, for a year," said Ballmer. "We're poised to leave the computer lab now and enter the marketplace." Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 02:23:03 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 18.13: Action Alert - Protect Public Weather Data!! EFFector Vol. 18, No. 13 April 28, 2005 donna@eff.org In the 329th Issue of EFFector: * Action Alert - Protect Public Weather Data! * Alert Update - National ID and Trademark Bills Still Moving * California Anti-RFID Bill Gains Momentum * EFF Responds to Apple's Arguments in Online Journalism Appeal * Law Firm Shows Ignorance of the Law in Anonymous Email Case * BayFF Event: Explore the World of Anonymous Online Communication, May 10 * MiniLinks (15): Breaking the Stupidity Pact * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/18/13.php ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 02:24:02 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 18.14: Action Alert - Support DMCA Reform - Help Pass HR EFFector Vol. 18, No. 14 May 5, 2005 donna@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 330th Issue of EFFector: * Action Alert - Support DMCA Reform - Help Pass HR 1201! * CA Alert - Keep RFIDs Out of California IDs! * EFF Editorial: The Right Way to Fight Spyware * EFF Announces New Activism Coordinator * BayFF Event: Explore the World of Anonymous Online Communication, May 10 * MiniLinks (10): Sensenbrenner Tells EU Not to Put RFIDs in Passports * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/18/14.php ------------------------------ From: D. Dude Subject: Traveller Seeks Phone Advice Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 11:58:23 GMT Organization: Global Dial Pty Ltd Hi, I'm planning on traveling to the US and Europe in the near future so I'd appreciate some recommendations on which providers I should use for cell service and phone/calling cards. Pre-paid, since I assume I'm ineligible for credit, but I would consider allowing a provider to directly bill a credit card number (if they can be trusted). I don't have a SSN, or permanent US/European address if that matters. Services that require a minimum of pre-paid credit or offer wider coverage would be better. My calls would be a mix of local and long-distance including international. Having the option of toll-free access for the calling card would probably be useful, if that is not a given for US calling cards (it is not in Australia but we have larger local call areas). I would expect that my cell usage would be fairly low, limited mostly to receiving calls. For the US, I'd like to have service in Hawaii, California, New York, and the New England states. I'll pretty much be sticking to major cities and the more touristed parts of these states. I don't have a phone suitable for the US, so your recommendations for a specific technology (CDMA, GSM etc) and a low cost handset (or rental) would be welcome. WAP support would be plus if compatible with the cheapest plans. A phone suitable for an elderly person with poor eye-sight and dexterity, would be another plus, but not essential. Offers for loaners or purchase of this phone would also be welcome. For Europe, I'm planning on visiting the continent mainly to EU states. Thanks for any help, D. ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Vonage Changes 911 to Opt-Out Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 00:33:41 -0600 Organization: Disorganized In message Mark Peters wrote: > A big problem is visitors, especially children who have been taught to > dial 911 in case of an emergency. A device that looks like a phone and > provides dial tone is expected to behave like a phone which includes > 911. 911 should not be opt-in or opt-out. 911 should be there. E911 is > the goal. Agreed -- But how is the child better served if 911 connects them to a call center which might not even be in the same state, and all they know is that they're at dad's house? Having 911 (or better, E911) for a fixed location VoIP device is already being implemented by many/most carriers that sell a non-portable solution. However, making roaming 911 work is a challenge which won't be overcome easily unless you can force users to enter a current valid address whenever they move the VoIP device. It's virtually impossible to get reliable GPS signals indoors, so it simply isn't feasible for the device to do the trick itself. Cell phones at least have a fixed location of the tower, which can give the call center a rough idea of where the problem is, but VoIP doesn't even have that advantage. I don't know about anybody else, but I'd rather have 911 return a "Stop, this phone is not equipped to dial 911. Please use another phone to dial 911" error message rather then have someone get routed to a 911 call center that can't help them -- At least knowing that no help is coming gives them a chance to obtain assistance elsewhere. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wonder how this scheme would work ... any calls to 911 from a VOIP get intercepted by the broadband ISP who is handling the connection. The IP address in use (and its physical address) get transmitted 'like ANI' to the local police. The 'ANI-like' information passed along (from wherever) to the PSAP identifies it as a VOIP from address (registered with the ISP for the IP street address.) Am I correct in my assumption that most stationary computers with broadband stay in the same place and they are almost always on the same IP address as well? I know in my instance I have been 24.xxx.xxx.xxx for however long, here at the same street address, etc. Can't those two items (IP and street address) often as not be matched? PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Vonage Changes 911 to Opt-Out Date: 15 May 2005 11:33:40 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Mark Peters wrote: > A big problem is visitors, especially children who have been taught > to dial 911 in case of an emergency. A device that looks like a > phone and provides dial tone is expected to behave like a phone > which includes 911. 911 should not be opt-in or opt-out. 911 should > be there. E911 is the goal. It's not just children. From reading messages in the newgroup, it appears that the technocrats assume everybody out there is as tech-savy as they are. The reality is that the vast majority of the people have no clue as to what VOIP even is, let alone how it works or its limitations. To expect another person to know the phone isn't 911 equipped is ludicrous. The goal of 911 is to have a universal help number so a stranger/outsider can get help quickly in an emergency. ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Verizon FiOS Date: Sat, 14 May 2005 23:09:08 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com William Cousert wrote: > 6. 15/2 service costs $49.95 per month. 30/5 costs $199.95 per > month. Twice the bandwidth, four times the price. Why such a big jump > in price? Can you get two 15/2 packages and join them together > (remember shotgun modems? You could have two 56k modems work as one)? They probably figure 30/5 will be much more heavily used. They're billing based on the average amount of bandwidth they expect to be used, and I'm pretty sure they figure 30/5 will be used primarily be really, really heavy users. > 6a. Does the $199.95 package give you the right to run servers? Maybe > that's the reason for the big increase? I'm thinking it has to be. > 8. Has anyone in this group made the jump from Comcast to FiOS? What > do you think so far? I'd like to get it. Keep in mind that, as a friend of mine who is a retired telecomm guy pointed out, once you go FiOS, neither you nor any future occupant of your home will be able to get copper from Verizon. They disconnect the copper PERMANENTLY. You can request that your POTS line not be disconnected, but you have to specifically request it. And I doubt Verizon will give you the option if you don't. JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638) Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / sjsobol@JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED "The wisdom of a fool won't set you free" --New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle" ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: FAQ: How Real ID Will Affect You Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 00:33:42 -0600 Organization: Disorganized In message hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote: > As all of us go through life, we have our share of problems. A bitter > divorce or romance breakup. Fired from a job. Fight in a bar. > Dispute with our landlord. Disputes with our neighbors. Thanks to > modern LAWS all of these incidents are carefully tracked on our > permanent record and may come back to haunt us. (And give our > creditors an excuse to charge us more!) Sadly, controls are weak and > inaccurate and malicious info can be added as well. As mentioned, we > don't even know the companies who keep this stuff and we can't get at > it. Sure -- I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm willing to deal with the resulting fallout if I get in a fight in a bar or with my landlord or whatever. What I'm not willing to deal with is the same fallout because somebody else (with the same name) had one of the above issues happen. In this respect, a universal ID is a good thing, names simply aren't unique enough. Whether the other issues are significant enough to be concerned about or not is another question altogether, but in my opinion, the benefit outweighs the risk right now. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 09:30:29 CDT From: P Thompson Subject: Re: Microsoft to Offer Anti-Virus Software, Service On Sun, 15 May 2005, TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > From: Lisa Minter > Subject: Microsoft to Offer Anti-Virus Software, Service > Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 00:18:11 -0500 > Microsoft Corp. , the world's largest software maker, unveiled on > Thursday plans to launch a computer subscription service that would > include anti-virus and security updates for personal computers. Expect to see it hawked mercilessly by the M$ monopoly marketing juggernaut. Expect some security update or service pack for IE will reset your home page to a page hawking the new service. Then another will place an icon for a trial version on your desktop. Undoubtably MSN will mention it on every page. The other vendors and consumer choice are screwed. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Microsoft to Offer Anti-Virus Software, Service From: wolfgang+gnus20050515T122844@dailyplanet.dontspam.wsrcc.com Organization: W S Rupprecht Computer Consulting, Fremont CA Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 20:22:23 GMT > Microsoft Corp. , the world's largest software maker, unveiled on > Thursday plans to launch a computer subscription service that would > include anti-virus and security updates for personal computers. I supposed fixing the underlying security problems with their software would be asking too much? I guess it is much more profitable to sell cheese-cloth operating system software and then sell subscriptions to fix-up software that deals with the after effects of the security penetrations. Thanks to Microsoft's shoddy software practices, I'm once again being hammered with bounces from viruses running on MS-windows boxes. What makes this one special? It seems that the latest virus is spewing out neo-nazi rantings. Imagine my joy when I see that my email address was being attached to such hate-mongering messages. Do I really need the worry that someone unfamiliar with reading email headers got one of these messages and thinks I really wrote it? Worse yet, what about worrying about someone in the effected group showing up at my door with a handful of their closest friends? I don't exactly keep my contact details a secret. It is a shame that the forgery victims of these messages can't all get together and collectively sue the pants off of Mr Gates' company for criminal negligence. I don't see how this is much different from the Pinto case where the auto manufacturer saved a (very small) bit of money by not cutting the ends of some bolts off. They knew quite well that those bolts would puncture the fuel tank in the event of a rear-end collision, but simply ignored the problem. How long has Microsoft known about their virus problems and how stupid an idea it is to allow a user to click on a program sent to them in the mail in order to have it installed in their system. Why is this still not fixed? -- Wolfgang S. Rupprecht http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/ ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? Date: 15 May 2005 11:29:15 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com AES wrote: > 1) It seems likely that in the not too distant future telephone > service will be almost entirely provided by (or thru) VOIP. And, > there seem to be real technical difficulties -- in particular serious > "caller location identification" difficulties -- associated with > providing 911 service to VOIP phones. What time frame do you mean by "not too distant future"? Why do you think all telephone service will go over VOIP? To do so would require every home and business to have broadband service and the capacity isn't out there to accomodate that. Many areas are offered broadband, but if _everyone_ used it the trunks would be flooded and unusuable; indeed, the cable company has some capacity problems now. Remember, in many places you do not have a private copper pair from your home/business to the central office -- but at some point your line goes into a modern day 'concentrator/ multiplexor' (or maybe even an old style one), and the consolidated trunk only has limited capacity. If everyone were to have broadband, more trunk capacity would be required. Now the phone companies have been installing more capacity which is how more people can get DSL with better speeds than the past, and they're trying out "FIOS" (see other thread). But a broadband connection, by definition, is "broad" and requires more capacity than a POTS line. There's also a heck of a lot of old or very old "drop lines" from the telephone pole to the subscriber that might suffice for POTS calls but not for broadband work. Who will pay to upgrade, esp when many subscribers might not want broadband? > Therefore I'm trying to envision a future situation (admittedly > hypothetical at this point) in which telephone service will no longer > necessarily be directly linked to 911 service ... I strongly doubt that. Public policy has been completely the opposite -- to provide universal 911 service and upgrade all services to provide the enhanced features (911 originally not that sophisticated.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I would think if it ever got that critical (where 'everyone' went with VOIP instead of landline) the VOIP administrators would develop the equivilent of the 'Erlang tables' in an effort to develop the amount of capacity needed to keep up with it. Telcos today, or anytime in the past, would never have been able to keep up if _everyone_ wished to be connected _all_ the time. Telcos place their bets on the fact that at any typical time of day/day of week, _maybe_ one or two percent of their subscribers are actually using the phone. At 'busy hours' _maybe_ eight or ten percent of the subscribers are on the phone, in a residential setting at least, possibly fifteen percent in a business setting. If they develop capactity to deal with their 'busy hour' they generally have it made. Why do you feel VOIP would be any different? I cannot imagine the _ratios_ would be much different than they are now. I understand eight percent of a small handful is still much less than eight percent of a nation-full, but I suspect as they need it, they will 'develop' more capacity in the form of bandwidth. Telco engineers quite familiar with Erlang can tell you, this is Tuesday, 10 AM, therefore there are X persons using the phone and be rather accurate in their statement. I am sure VOIP, as it matures will be the same way. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hes@unity.ncsu.edu (Henry E Schaffer) Subject: Re: Jail For 'Robin Hoods' Who Cost Microsoft Millions Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 19:04:50 +0000 (UTC) Organization: North Carolina State University In article , Lisa Minter wrote: > Robin Hood, according to legend, took from the rich and gave to > the poor. Microsoft has been particularly hard hit from this, > and has decided to strike back. > http://story.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050506/wr_nm/tech_internet_dc The description given always says things like "The cost of their activities run into very many millions in lost profit ... the losses are incalculable," This is usually (always?) calculated by taking the list price of the software, multiplying it by the maximum estimate of the total number of copies that might have been distributed illegally and publishing the result. Of course, this usually (always?) seriously overstates the loss. The estimate of the number of copies is usually taken as the top it might have been -- i.e. the number distributed is usually considerably lower. Furthermore, a lot of the copies distributed aren't used. Additionally, even if it is used -- it shouldn't count unless the person would have bought the software absent the illegal copy. (There is *no* lost profit in a teenager's illegal CDROM copy of an expensive piece of commercial software -- if the teen couldn't have afforded to purchase that software.) The overstatement of the loss continues with the use of the list price of the software, because software is usually sold at a discount from list. So to be honest (this isn't a consideration when one is trying to get a lot of PR :-) the minimum sales price (or perhaps even the average) should be used. -- --henry schaffer hes _AT_ ncsu _DOT_ edu ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. 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Townson Senate Tech & Energy Committee Proposed VoIP 911 Resolution (J Decker) Canada Regulates ILEC VOIP Pricing (Jack Decker) BellSouth Sells Cellcom Stake (Telecom dailyLead from USTA) Original Definition of 'Class 5' (soren.telfer@gmail.com) Very Early Modems (Lisa Hancock) Re: Traveller Seeks Phone Advice (Mark Crispin) Re: Traveller Seeks Phone Advice (John Levine) Re: Traveller Seeks Phone Advice (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Traveller Seeks Phone Advice (Justin Time) Re: Traveller Seeks Phone Advice (Joseph) Re: Vonage Changes 911 to Opt-Out (DevilsPGD) Re: Vonage Changes 911 to Opt-Out (Dave Garland) Re: Vonage Changes 911 to Opt-Out (Robert Bonomi) 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; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jack Decker Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 12:19:25 -0400 Subject: Senate Tech & Energy Committee Proposed VoIP 911 Resolution [Forwarded message:] Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 11:51:40 -0400 From: "Chris Gillett" Subject: Senate Tech & Energy Committee We will likely be looking at a resolution much like the one attached at this Wednesday's committee hearing. It will be submitted for introduction tomorrow, and then officially introduced on Wednesday. Please let me know if you have any thoughts or concerns with this resolution. Thank you! Mr. Chris Gillett Legislative Director Senator Bruce Patterson P.O. Box 30036 Lansing MI 48909 517-373-7350 517-373-0753 (direct) 1-866-262-7307 517-373-9228 (fax) 517-281-8431 (cell) [Text of attached resolution follows:] ***Draft1*** Senator Patterson offered the following concurrent resolution: Senate Concurrent Resolution No. A concurrent resolution to urge the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to use its authority post haste to require that VOIP service providers make enhanced 9-1-1 emergency services available to all customers. Whereas, Access to enhanced 9-1-1 emergency services is vital to the health and safety of Michigan's citizens. Enhanced 9-1-1 emergency services route 9-1-1 calls to the designated dispatch center for the caller's location, provide the caller's name, call back number, and location, even when the caller cannot speak; and Whereas, The public has an expectation that by dialing 9-1-1 they will immediately reach a trained responder who can provide emergency assistance, regardless of the type of phone service and whether it operates on the public switched telephone network, wireless networks, or the Internet; and Whereas, Many VOIP service providers offer a very limited level of 9-1-1 service or they offer no 9-1-1 service at all. Additionally, there is a very real likelihood that a 9-1-1 call from a VOIP telephone will be lost, delayed, or misrouted; and Whereas Significant growth in the use and availability of VOIP telephony services, which may be indistinguishable from traditional public switched telephone services, is expected in the near future. More than four hundred vendors are now selling VOIP; and Whereas, The FCC has declared that a certain type of VOIP service is not subject to traditional state public utility regulation. The FCC nullified a state attempt to require a VOIP service provider to offer emergency 9-1-1 service comparable to that provided by incumbent phone companies. The FCC makes clear that it, and not state commissions, has the responsibility and obligation to decide whether certain regulations, including enhanced 9-1-1 rules, apply to Internet Protocol-enabled services like VOIP. Recognizing that the FCC has the power to preempt state regulations that thwart or impede federal authority over interstate communications; now, therefore, be it Resolved, by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that we urge the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to use its authority post haste to require that VOIP service providers make enhanced 9-1-1 emergency services available to all customers; and be it further Resolved, that copies of this resolution be transmitted to the Federal Communications Commission. R 0186'05 How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home: http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/ ------------------------------ From: Jack Decker Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 12:24:34 -0400 Subject: Canada Regulates ILEC VOIP Pricing http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=73831&site=lightreading Canada Regulates ILEC VOIP Pricing The Canadian telecommunications regulatory agency ruled last Thursday that the country's ILECs must get regulatory approval on pricing for VOIP products. But the VOIP offerings of the country's startups, CLECs, and cable companies are immune (see Rogers Picks Sigma for VOIP and MetaSwitch Lands Canadian Deals). The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) ruled that VOIP is more like a telephone service than a data service and must be regulated as such. The ruling comes as Canada's VOIP market is getting its legs, and it may have serious impact on which industry and which companies take an early lead in the competition for users (see Nortel Comments on VOIP). In its ruling the commission sought to prevent Canada's ILECs from forcing smaller players out of the market by selling VOIP service at bargain basement prices (see VOIP for Life?). The ILECs hold a strong position in the Canadian marketplace, controlling 97 percent of the country's wireline telephone business. The commission also rejected forbearance requests from BCE Inc. (Bell Canada) and Telus Corp. The two said they will immediately appeal the CRTC's decision. Full story at: http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=73831&site=lightreading ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 12:28:58 EDT From: Telecom DailyLead From USTA Subject: BellSouth Sells Cellcom Stake Telecom dailyLead from USTA May 16, 2005 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=21606&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * BellSouth sells Cellcom stake BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * ECI snaps up Laurel Networks * Qwest could bid again for MCI * Telcos fight to get their ads on cable systems * DSL port shipments rise 6% in Q1 * AOL Europe plans home phone service for U.K. USTA SPOTLIGHT * USTA's VoIP Webinar Series: Now Available On Demand! HOT TOPICS * Ethernet services market poised for boom, report says * Gates: Mobile phones will supplant iPod * Big providers add record broadband subs in Q1 * Report: For telecom, more subscribers aren't growing revenue * Mobile phone TV set for primetime EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * Report predicts VDSL boom * Internet TV narrowcasters bet on large audiences REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Mobile phone taxes help cities close budget gaps * India mulls giving away free 3G licenses Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=21606&l=2017006 ------------------------------ From: soren.telfer@gmail.com Subject: Original Definition of 'Class 5' Date: 16 May 2005 05:44:52 -0700 Can someone point me to a technical document that 'defines' class 5 switch functionality? Does one exist? I somewhat understand the historical development, but I'm interested in some text, preferable from Bell. Thanks in advance. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Very Early Modems Date: 16 May 2005 13:14:42 -0700 In the IBM history series by Pugh et al, they said IBM converted punched cards to paper tape for transmission in the 1940s. My guess is that that particular transmission used telegraph TTY lines (not voice) of either AT&T or Western Union. Recall that AT&T maintained telegraph long distance lines as part of carrier long distance circuits. Because of the low bandwidth, a telegraph channel could be carried on the low end of a carrier channel. Accordingly, no modulation was required and thus no modem needed. It was also said IBM limited development in this area to avoid annoying AT&T who was IBM's best customer. However, in the 1950s, IBM developed card-to-card directly without paper tape and "over AT&T lines". Modems were developed to take good advtg of the available bandwidth (about 1200 baud). Undoubtedly the equipment and implementation was developed in close cooperation with AT&T. I was wondering if the modems in that application were supplied by IBM (who appears to have developed the technology) or by AT&T. My understanding that AT&T's "Dataset" modem-telephones didn't come out until the 1960s. Comments by anyone familiar with pre-1960 data communications would be greatly appreciated. ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: Re: Traveller Seeks Phone Advice Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 14:15:15 -0700 Organization: University of Washington On Sun, 15 May 2005, D. Dude wrote: > Hi, I'm planning on traveling to the US and Europe in the near future > so I'd appreciate some recommendations on which providers I should use > for cell service and phone/calling cards. I assume that you are from Australia. If your Australian cell phone is an unlocked "tri-band" or "quad-band" phone (that is, with GSM 900/1800/1900 or GSM 850/900/1800/1900) then you can use your Australian cell phone in the USA and Europe. All you need to do is buy a prepaid SIM card in from a cell phone provider in the country that you are visiting. For the USA, the big two GSM providers are T-Mobile and GSM. If your Australian cell phone is unlocked, but just dual-band (GSM 900/1800) then it is useless in the USA but you can use it in Europe. You will have to buy a phone in the USA. If your Australian cell phone is locked, see if you can get your Australian carrier to unlock it for you. Of course, if you do not mind paying exhorbitant roaming charges, you can use your Australian SIM card in the USA and Europe. Presumably, you're asking about pre-paid service so you don't have to pay roaming. Ask your Australian carrier for more details. Foreign roaming rates start at about US $1.25/minute, but if you only make one or two calls that would be cheaper than buying a pre-paid SIM. If you find that you must buy a prepaid phone in the USA, there are several carriers which offer prepaid service and cheap prepaid phones. You can buy prepaid phones at many places, including grocery and convenience stores, but activating the service may be difficult. As elsewhere in the world, the social problems caused by anonymous prepaid phones have caused many USA carriers to require some form of identification for their prepaid customers. Basically, they want some means of identifying the user of the phone in case the phone becomes involved in illegal activities. This is not just the USA; Japan, Canada, and the UK are also adding identification requirements. So, your best bet is to go to a company-owned cell phone shops, explain that you're a foreign tourist (have your passport handy) and ask if they will sell you a phone. Pay with a credit card; that serves as excellent identification. Alternatively, if you have a friend in the USA, ask that friend to buy the phone for you and register it in his name. Assuming that you're buying a phone in the USA, I would recommend against the GSM carriers. GSM is primarily an urban service in the USA, and coverage can be spotty or non-existant outside of the large cities. On the other hand, it sounds like that's more or less where you'll be the entire time. I recommend Verizon as having the best overall coverage; they are the largest CDMA network. Try to buy a phone with dual CDMA/analog coverage. Although analog is rapidly becoming less important than it once was, there are still analog-only parts of the USA. You'll find that the topic of which carrier is the best is rather hotly debated. Verizon is more expensive than the others, and has a somewhat stodgy reputation. Verizon certainly has data acces, but you may have to buy a somewhat more expensive phone. AFAIK, Virgin resells SPRINT (Verizon's primary CDMA competitor) service and has good pricing on both phones and service. I don't care for SPRINT as a company, but that's my own prejudice. There are also some companies (e.g. Tracfone) that sell cheap analog-only phones or TDMA phones. For a short-term visit this is a good deal, but both analog and TDMA are on their way out. Forget WAP or any other data access with these. Another reason for going with Verizon is you buy a phone in the USA is that a US GSM 1900 phone is of no use outside of the USA and Canada. A US CDMA phone, on the other hand, *is* useful in a few other countries besides the US, including Korea and China. Verizon does *not* lock their phones (the security code is 000000) so the phone can be reprogrammed and used in other countries. The other carriers lock their phones. I would recommend against rental. Renting is almost always much more expensive then buying a throwaway prepay phone, and the pre-minute rate isn't much less than roaming. By the way, if you ever find yourself visiting Japan, I recommend going with Vodafone. They're the most gaijin-friendly of the Japanese cell phone companies, being a foreign-owned company. Correction to previous message: the two big GSM carriers in the US are T-Mobile and Cingular. -- Mark -- http://staff.washington.edu/mrc Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. Si vis pacem, para bellum. ------------------------------ Date: 16 May 2005 01:34:18 -0000 From: John Levine Subject: Re: Traveller Seeks Phone Advice Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Hi, I'm planning on traveling to the US and Europe in the near future > so I'd appreciate some recommendations on which providers I should use > for cell service and phone/calling cards. > For the US, I'd like to have service in Hawaii, California, New York, > and the New England states. I'll pretty much be sticking to major > cities and the more touristed parts of these states. In the US, you have to get the phone from whoever sells the prepaid service. You'd think you could just buy a SIM if you have a GSM phone, but you can't. The best known is Tracphone which sells its phones at stores like K-Mart and Walmart, but they're kind of pricey. I see that Cingular, one of the big two carriers will sell you a prepaid phone for $30 and either charge you 25 cents/min or $1/day and 10 cents/min. They have a very large coverage area these rates should apply. Verizon also has a prepaid plan called Inpulse with decent rates but all the phones are expensive. Another possibility is Virgin Wireless which resells prepaid Sprint service. In the U.S. you pay for incoming as well as outgoing calls, since unlike in oz the caller doesn't pay extra to call a mobile. For a calling card, poke around on the net and look for one with prices you like. The cards you buy on the net are almost without exception virtual, i.e., rather than sending you a plastic card, they just give you the access 800 number and your account number, so you can buy one before you go. Most cell phones include the whole country in their local calling area, so you only need the calling card for international calls, or if you happen to be near a regular phone and the calling card rate is cheaper. But don't forget the per-call surcharge of about 50 cents that they all charge if you call from a payphone. > For Europe, I'm planning on visiting the continent mainly to EU > states. Oh, that's much easier, since Europe is all GSM 900/1800 just like Australia. Buy yourself an unlocked phone before you go and bring it along. (I got mine on eBay.) When you get to Europe, just buy a prepaid SIM. Any SIM you buy in any European country will work all over Europe, but the rates are higher if you roam into other countries. A typical prepaid SIM costs E40 and comes with E15 of credit, so when you go to another country you'll have to figure out whether it's worth paying the cost for a new SIM to get in-country rates. Regards, John Levine johnl@iecc.com Primary Perpetrator of The Internet for Dummies, Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, Mayor "More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly. ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Traveller Seeks Phone Advice Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 05:44:00 GMT D. Dude wrote: > Hi, I'm planning on traveling to the US and Europe in the near future > so I'd appreciate some recommendations on which providers I should use > for cell service and phone/calling cards. You apparently will be coming from Australia. How long are you planning to be in the U.S. and in Europe? In which European countries will you be traveling, and for how long? There are different answers to your questions depending on how long you will be in various places. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD (USA) (Replace "example.invalid" with "com" in my address.) ------------------------------ From: Justin Time Subject: Re: Traveller Seeks Phone Advice Date: 16 May 2005 05:50:24 -0700 Well, a GSM tri or quad band would work in all instances. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Traveller Seeks Phone Advice Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 07:13:40 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Sun, 15 May 2005 11:58:23 GMT, D. Dude wrote: > Hi, I'm planning on traveling to the US and Europe in the near future > so I'd appreciate some recommendations on which providers I should use > for cell service and phone/calling cards. For US and European travel you'll need a GSM carrier. In the US that would be either cingular or T-Mobile. > Pre-paid, since I assume I'm ineligible for credit, but I would > consider allowing a provider to directly bill a credit card number (if > they can be trusted). I don't have a SSN, or permanent US/European > address if that matters. It's likely that you'll be relegated to prepaid if you cannot qualify for US credit or you may be asked to plunk down a hefty deposit. > Services that require a minimum of pre-paid credit or offer wider > coverage would be better. My calls would be a mix of local and > long-distance including international. For the US calling with cingular or T-Mobile prepaid long distance is included. International calling while available is likely not an economical way to call using your mobile phone. > Having the option of toll-free access for the calling card would > probably be useful, if that is not a given for US calling cards (it > is not in Australia but we have larger local call areas). I would > expect that my cell usage would be fairly low, limited mostly to > receiving calls. Toll-free is generally not free with mobile in the US and will use minutes just like regular calls. > For the US, I'd like to have service in Hawaii, California, New York, > and the New England states. I'll pretty much be sticking to major > cities and the more touristed parts of these states. Cingular and T-Mobile would both work in major cities in the places you've named. > I don't have a phone suitable for the US, so your recommendations for > a specific technology (CDMA, GSM etc) and a low cost handset (or > rental) would be welcome. WAP support would be plus if compatible with > the cheapest plans. A phone suitable for an elderly person with poor > eye-sight and dexterity, would be another plus, but not essential. You don't indicate what (if anything) you use for service in your home country. > Offers for loaners or purchase of this phone would also be welcome. Keep in mind that if you are using Cingular or T-Mobile T-Mobile only uses GSM 1900 while cingular uses both GSM 850 and GSM 1900 (depending on where you are in the US.) > For Europe, I'm planning on visiting the continent mainly to EU > states. You can also get prepaid for 5 to 20 Euros including a small amount of calling time. ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Vonage Changes 911 to Opt-Out Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 18:28:47 -0600 Organization: Disorganized In message TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to DevilsPGD : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wonder how this scheme would work ... > any calls to 911 from a VOIP get intercepted by the broadband ISP > who is handling the connection. The IP address in use (and its > physical address) get transmitted 'like ANI' to the local police. The > 'ANI-like' information passed along (from wherever) to the PSAP > identifies it as a VOIP from address (registered with the ISP for the > IP street address.) Am I correct in my assumption that most stationary > computers with broadband stay in the same place and they are almost > always on the same IP address as well? I know in my instance I have > been 24.xxx.xxx.xxx for however long, here at the same street > address, etc. Can't those two items (IP and street address) often as > not be matched? PAT] IP and street address? -- Only your ISP can match it, and then, only to your billing records which may or may not be accurate. If the user is dialing up, what you need is the ANI information of their dialup, along with the E911 lookup of *that* ANI information. If the user is on a fixed broadband service, you can at least take a stab at pointing an address. However, with most PPPoE broadband networks, you can take your VoIP gear anywhere on that ISP's network and connect up, and the broadband provider won't know the difference. With DHCP, they can probably tell, but most ISPs only note where the lease is given out -- You can actually move to another location and reconnect without renewing your lease and depending on the configuration of the network, it will work. It gets more complex then that, not all "retail" ISPs actually have any equipment, much of the time they lease access from a wholesale provider in the area. This is especially true of dialup, but it happens with broadband too (Think @Home as the best example), which means that there is another layer of obfuscation since the connectivity provider may not know your name or phone number, and depending on the setup, may not even have a physical address (cable networks, for instance, don't need any setup from the cable plant in the area to establish a connection, 100% of the work is done from the end user's location and can be done by a completely different service company.) Lastly, there is the privacy issue -- Once ISPs have the infrastructure to instantly provide a name+address+whatever that matches to an ISP, how long before law enforcement demands access to that database? Without warrants, in the name of fighting Bin Laden or Saddam or whoever is annoying the-powers-that-be today, of course. Next the MPAA+RIAA will be demanding access to this information. Then Microsoft will tuck a note into the EULA that they reserve the right to look up this information when you activate Windows. Next will be collection agencies and repo agents, and we know how good at noticing that a phone number was reassigned they are -- How long before you get a phone number which was reassigned from a deadbeat and a repo man shows up and steals your car thinking it was the previous owner of the phone number? And all of this is assuming that thousands of ISPs cooperate in implementing the system securely and that it never gets compromised. "Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong" -- Dennis Miller. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Dialup (56K) generally is too slow to work with VOIP. And if you _were_ using dialup and needed to call police, why wouldn't you just disconnect the modem and make your call to the police instead? And regards all the 'other people' who might wish to get your physical address, if they need to go through the ISP (instead of a regular criss-cross directory which is easier) the ISP would still require the 'other people' to get a court order wouldn't they? And upon getting the court order and returning with it to the ISP, then the ISP would give them the same information as now, matching when possible, traffic records of IP address to real party, etc. PAT] In message hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > Mark Peters wrote: >> A big problem is visitors, especially children who have been taught >> to dial 911 in case of an emergency. A device that looks like a >> phone and provides dial tone is expected to behave like a phone >> which includes 911. 911 should not be opt-in or opt-out. 911 should >> be there. E911 is the goal. > It's not just children. > From reading messages in the newgroup, it appears that the > technocrats assume everybody out there is as tech-savy as they are. > The reality is that the vast majority of the people have no clue as to > what VOIP even is, let alone how it works or its limitations. To > expect another person to know the phone isn't 911 equipped is > ludicrous. The goal of 911 is to have a universal help number so a > stranger/outsider can get help quickly in an emergency. Sure, but at least a competent adult will hear and understand the warning that this phone can't dial 911 and will go elsewhere for help. Again, it's better to provide no appearance of help then the appearance of assistance when no help is coming. There is nothing wrong with telling the drowning man you can't save him, but if you tell him you WILL save him and he stops screaming for help (expecting you to save him) and you don't, you're guilty of criminally negligent homicide. Same principle here: If I call 911 and say "Help my house is on fire, I'm trapped in my bedroom with the guy from chainsaw massacre, my wife is giving birth, and 'I've fallen and I can't get up'" and the 911 operator says that someone is on the way, I'll wait for help. Meanwhile, the 911 operator was three states away and just sent the fire department, police, an ambulance, and a guy with a 2x4 to the wrong house and I'm left to burn, get sliced up, get my wife pissed off because I don't know what I'm doing, and left writhing on the floor. On the other hand, if I am immediately informed that no help is coming, I'll know that I either need to use a lifeline and call a friend for help, scream for the audience (neighbours?) to help me, escape myself, or that I AM the weakest link. 911 for everyone, everywhere, is a great idea. However, it's at direct odds with mobile VoIP unless you can force people to enter their current address when they move the device. Vonage's 3-10 business day wait before changes are reflected doesn't help either, but it's still not reasonable that I will update my address twice a day as I carry my VoIP hardware from my house to my office and back again. Something needs to be done, but frankly, I'm not seeing the solution even with a relative infinite amount of money. ------------------------------ From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: Vonage Changes 911 to Opt-Out Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 16:54:29 -0500 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when PAT wrote: > Am I correct in my assumption that most stationary computers with > broadband stay in the same place. Probably, mostly, but maybe not forever. Don't forget wireless. > and they are almost always on the same IP address as well? That very much depends on the ISP. Mine (DSL) does, but a client's (DSL through a different ISP) changes IP every few days. Many cable systems change IP number periodically. Sometimes getting a fixed IP is an extra-cost option. But you can't count on it as a default. ------------------------------ From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Subject: Re: Vonage Changes 911 to Opt-Out Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 05:02:15 -0000 Organization: Widgets, Inc. In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wonder how this scheme would work ... Executive summary: Not very well. > any calls to 911 from a VOIP get intercepted by the broadband ISP > who is handling the connection. And if there is a VPN/tunnel involved? say, to a head-end halfway across the country. "OOPS!" applies. > The IP address in use (and its physical address) get transmitted > 'like ANI' to the local police. The 'ANI-like' information passed > along (from wherever) to the PSAP identifies it as a VOIP from > address (registered with the ISP for the IP street address.) So now, the local ISP, who is *NOT* the VoIP provider, is responsible for handling the 911 type call? What if they don't have VoIP equipment? Or are you proposing a 'surcharge' on basic ISP service, to pay for the extra cost of having VoIP support there, "just in case" the customer decides to do VoIP at a later date? Or is the ISP just supposed to 'eat' this 'cost of doing business'? Are you proposing that each ISP run a "Carnivore"-type tap on all customer traffic, being prepared to 'transparently' intercept any SIP session set-up that invokes 911? Or that all existing VoIP "phone" software be modified to give 'special' handling to 911 calls? If the latter, how does the phone know _which_ ISP -- as in "what IP address to use" is handling the connection? How does it pick up that information? Especially if it is a 'mobile' device? Do we now have to specify: IP/address, netmask, gateway, *and* '911 VoIP' server when setting up a network connection? > Am I correct in my assumption that most stationary > computers with broadband stay in the same place and they are almost > always on the same IP address as well? No. The last part is an invalid assumption. Some ISPs that forbid servers routinely re-assign DHCP addresses. As in "every few hours", to "every few days". Some even do it based on the amount of inbound traffic. Yes, they can track down "who was using what address, when" at any given point in time in the (relatively recent) past. *NO*, the information is not necessarily readily available in real-time. (Sometimes the latency is days, sometimes it is into the next month.) The info doesn't _have_ to be delayed, It's a matter of how the existing infrastructure is designed. And whether the infrastructure is 'theirs', or 'leased' from an infrastructure provider. Where data is delayed, things could be redesigned so that data was available in real-time. *BUT* there are costs associated with doing that. In some cases, _big_ costs. Which "somebody" has to pay for. Whereupon the question becomes "who pays?" If a provider is *NOT* offering VoIP services, why should *they* incur the costs for supporting VoIP 'emergency call' infrastructure? The "easy" solution is a two-part one. Part 1: The VoIP 'head end' tracks the 'most recently used' IP address for each customer. _EVERY_TIME_ the customer IP address changes, the phone goes *out*of*service* with a notice that the customer must update their "calling location". Possibly with an added hook that if the phone has been 'off line' for some non-trivial period, that when it goes back 'on line', the customer is queried (in an automated fashion) to confirm that they are still at "thus and such location"; where "thus and such" is the previously specified location for the phone. Part 2: The VoIP 'head end' maps the various 'calling locations' to the appropriate PSAP, upon need. Add an option for the customer to intentionally _not_ specify his location, but which also totally disables 911 calling. This protects his 'privacy' at the expense of his safety, but it is the customer's decision. The last part of the puzzle is ensuring that the customer is aware that the "location information" provided is used for "emergency calls" and that deliberately providing FALSE information can (and probably _will_) lead to criminal prosecution if emergency services are directed to an incorrect location as a result of said false information. There is already existing enforcement mechanism for this -- "filing a false police report", etc. > I know in my instance I have been 24.xxx.xxx.xxx for however long, > here at the same street address, etc. Can't those two items (IP and > street address) often as not be matched? PAT] An ISP knows the physical location where _their_service_ is delivered to. They have *NO*WAY* of knowing "if", or "how much" of a network lies behind the point to which they deliver service. For an extreme case, that customer could have a satellite 'uplink' dish, which is down-linked half-way around the world. Now, silly as it sounds, something that "works right" 98% of the time, but "invisibly" does the _wrong_ thing the other 2% of the time is *worse* that something that 'almost never' gets it right. An essential element of a 911 'locator' system it that it either gives a 'right answer', or it gives *NO* answer. "Wrong answers" are simply not acceptable -- wrong answers (a) delay the response to the location where it is needed, *and* (b) tie up resources that may be needed to respond to a 'real' emergency. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well ... regards your first point, of a 'tunnel' to some remote place, do you remember when 'Foreign Exchange Service' (or FX) was quite common? You picked up a phone with FX on it and got dial tone 'locally' from the distant city? There were two reasons people got that service: one, they wanted their customers to have a 'local' (in customer's community) office to deal with for customer's convenience in reaching them. There is a company here in Independence now which has an FX line from Tulsa, OK. When I worked for Amoco in the 1960's, our (admittedly huge) PBX allowed me to dial various three digit codes and get local dial tone from those places. I don't know if telco offers those any longer; they seem to prefer 'virtual' FX now. I know in Amoco's instance, one of the three digit 'tie-line codes' on the PBX produced dialtone from _London, England_ and another tie-line brought back dial tone from somewhere in the middle east, Kuwait I think. The other reason companies used those FX tie lines was because someone had calculated the expense involved in long distance calling to those points, and _despite_ the expenses for 'mileage' and other charges associated with telco running that wire, they calculated it was still _cheaper_ for the company to use them instead of the best laid WATS plans or direct dialing plans. I guess if your business involves calling London or Kuwait a dozen or more times daily, and talking for hours on end, it may make better sense economically to have an FX tie-line, even if the cost of that line is a 'mere' ten-thousand dollars per month or so from telco. So, one day in my office, a masked man breaks in, and waving his gun around, he announces, "I am going to rob all the cashiers and rape all the men". I say, 'oh no you are not!' and rush to my phone to call the police. But in my haste I grab up the FX tie-line phone and dial '911' -- (or as Bonomi would say, ooops) ... -- and wind up lodging my complaint with the police in Kalamazoo and Timbuck also. If a _real man_ does not know where his broadband service is out of, then he has no business calling the police to start with, does he? PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. 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Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #215 ****************************** TELECOM Digest Mon, 16 May 2005 19:35:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 216 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: The Essential Guide to Telecommunications (eric.garulay) Re: Verizon FiOS (Robert Bonomi) Re: Verizon FiOS (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Verizon FiOS (Joe Morris) Re: Verizon FiOS (Lisa Hancock) Re: FAQ: How Real ID Will Affect You (John R. Levine) Re: FAQ: How Real ID Will Affect You (Lisa Hancock) Re: Do Cell Phones Still Offer "A" and "B" Carriers? (Michael Sullivan) Re: Do Cell Phones Still Offer "A" and "B" Carriers? (Isaiah Beard) Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? (DevilsPGD) Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? (Lisa Hancock) Re: Will 911 Difficulties Derail VoIP? (Dean M.) Re: Microsoft to Offer Anti-Virus Software, Service (Thomas A. Horsley) Re: Traveller Seeks Phone Advice (Mark Crispin) Re: Vonage Changes 911 to Opt-Out (AES) Re: AT&T - Cingular - Alltel; They Broke MY Contract! (Isaiah Beard) Re: Closed Captioning (was How is Weather Channel Data) (Dave Thompson) 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; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: eric.garulay@pearsoned.com Subject: Book Review: The Essential Guide to Telecommunications, 4th Edition Reply-To: eric.garulay@pearsoned.com Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 17:14:42 EDT NEW BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT The Essential Guide to Telecommunications Fourth Edition--By Annabel Z. Dodd, (ISBN 0131487256) The superior resource on diverse telecommunications technologies! Pub Date 6/26/05 The Essential Guide to Telecommunications is the world's #1 non-technical guide to the telecommunications industry. Writing in plain English, lead ing telecom consultant Annabel Dodd has completely updated this fourth ed ition to reflect the vast changes in the industry. Dodd explores the new competitive forces, critical industry issues and important technologies that impact network security, reliability and the pace of innovation. The fourth edition of this best-selling guide will cover all the major developments which have occurred in the telecom world in the past 3 years. I look forward to speaking with you about excerpts, reviews and author interview opportunities. Please feel free to contact me as necessary. Cheers, Eric Garulay ------------------------------ From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Subject: Re: Verizon FiOS Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 03:47:12 -0000 Organization: Widgets, Inc. In article , William Cousert wrote: > I have a few qestions about Verizon's new FiOS service. It was > recently installed in my neighborhood and I'm thinking about switching > over from Comcast. > 1. Does Verizon offer Usenet access with their accounts? Comcast only > offers a limited amount of bandwidth for Usenet and charges extra if > you exceed it. Did you ask Verizon? What did they say? Do you figure that "somebody else" knows better about their offering than they do? Do you think it's possible that what is available to somebody else, at a different location may be different than what is available at your location? > 2. Can I connect without using MSN? See above. > 3. I have three computers. Will they charge me extra for the > additional IP's? If so, how much? See above. > 4. Can I run a personal server? I'd like to be able to host my own > home page on it, as well as a message board. What about game servers > (quake 3, etc.)? See above. > 5. Will they offer cable tv services? I'd like to dump Comcast > completely. Will they have video on demand? Check your crystal ball. > 6. 15/2 service costs $49.95 per month. 30/5 costs $199.95 per > month. Twice the bandwidth, four times the price. Why such a big jump > in price? Have you ever heard the phrase "what the market will bear" ? The answer to _any_ question on "why do they price it like that?" is always_ "because they think people will pay it." > Can you get two 15/2 packages and join them together > (remember shotgun modems? You could have two 56k modems work as one)? Do you have two fiber lines? (Do you remember running two 56k modems on _one_ phone line)? > 6a. Does the $199.95 package give you the right to run servers? Did you ask Verizon? If not, _why_not_? > Maybe that's the reason for the big increase? Maybe. And maybe not. > 7. Can FiOS handle higher speeds in the future, or will they need to > replace the fiber once again when the next leap in speed comes? Yes. One of the above is definitely true. ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Verizon FiOS Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 05:04:22 GMT William Cousert wrote: > I have a few qestions about Verizon's new FiOS service. It was > recently installed in my neighborhood and I'm thinking about switching > over from Comcast. > 1. Does Verizon offer Usenet access with their accounts? Comcast only > offers a limited amount of bandwidth for Usenet and charges extra if > you exceed it. Yes, Verizon has very good Usenet access. It was terrible a few years ago, but was upgraded to excellent quality about a year ago. Officially, retention is 6 months for most non-binary groups. There are glitches, inevitably, but I am very pleased with it; I access it via DSL, but the same 30,000+ groups are available from the same servers to FIOS customers. There are no Usenet bandwidth limits and no extra charges, a significant difference from Comcast for some users. Verizon also maintains a closed set of newsgroups (0.verizon.*) accessible only from Verizon residential broadband customers, with a few minor exceptions. These are filled with ranting, trolls, complaints, occasionally appreciative posts, suggestions, etc. (not all that different from elsewhere on Usenet) -- and Verizon's news administrators participate, list newly available groups, etc. Several Verizon Online employees also participate on their own time and provide useful advice. > 2. Can I connect without using MSN? Yes. > 3. I have three computers. Will they charge me extra for the > additional IP's? If so, how much? You can't get additional IPs, if Verizon's DSL practices extend to FIOS. Use a router and you can connect as many computers as you want for personal/family purposes. Verizon will even provide a wireless router, if you want it; otherwise use whatever you want on your own dime. > 4. Can I run a personal server? I'd like to be able to host my own > home page on it, as well as a message board. What about game servers > (quake 3, etc.)? I don't know how the terms of service for FIOS differ from DSL, but the DSL terms of service officially prohibit servers. From what I understand from the Verizon newsgroups, however, this is mainly intended to apply to high-bandwidth and commercial servers. I haven't heard of any action taken against people informally hosting games. As to websites, no. Verizon (in most regions) blocks port 80, which effectively means you can't host a website on your PC, unless you use an alternate port and a dynamic DNS redirection service. Verizon offers customers space for a website on its servers, but the unanimous opinion of users is that the website service sucks raw eggs big time. Get a web hosting account on a shared server for a few bucks a month from any number of companies, register a domain name, and use the webhost as your email provider, too. I use http://www.thehostgroup.com to host my email and web pages for less than $10 per month, and there are many cheaper companies, too. One reason to use an outside service for email is that Verizon's email sucks. They have blocked incoming email from huge swathes of Europe, for example, in a fruitless effort to avoid spam, and Verizon is on some blacklists due to zombie machines sending spam, so it would be wise not to depend on its email service. Verizon does not block outgoing port 25, so you can use your hosting company's smtp server without problems. > 5. Will they offer cable tv services? I'd like to dump Comcast > completely. Will they have video on demand? My understanding is that Verizon plans to offer fiber-based TV service, but it may or may not be available when you get FIOS, because of the regulatory situation. (Verizon either has to get a Cable TV authorization where is provides service or get the FCC to determine that some particular configuration of fiber-based TV doesn't constitute cable TV and is therefore exempt from local CATV regulation.) Verizon's game plan is to allow you to dump Comcast, and I have to assume they will have video on demand. They would be idiots not to (not that that ever stopped a telco ...). > 6. 15/2 service costs $49.95 per month. 30/5 costs $199.95 per > month. Twice the bandwidth, four times the price. Why such a big jump > in price? Can you get two 15/2 packages and join them together > (remember shotgun modems? You could have two 56k modems work as one)? Dunno. > 6a. Does the $199.95 package give you the right to run servers? Maybe > that's the reason for the big increase? Dunno. > 7. Can FiOS handle higher speeds in the future, or will they need to > replace the fiber once again when the next leap in speed comes? An optical fiber can handle almost infinitely higher speeds than 15 or 30 MB/s. I have no doubt that Verizon will increase speeds as the demand for higher speed grows and competitive sources for such speed come into being. My DSL service started as 640K/128K for $59.95 per month in 1999. Using the same wires, I now get 3M/768K for $29.95 per month. As FIOS and digital cable/Internet subscribers use more and more bandwidth to watch multiple simultaneous video channels per household as well as engage in high-bandwidth online activities, I'm sure Verizon will offer speed upgrades. If the DSL example holds, it will double speeds every few years for the same price. > 8. Has anyone in this group made the jump from Comcast to FiOS? What > do you think so far? I haven't had the opportunity yet, although the fiber is in place. The customer's posting on 0.verizon.fios seem to be relatively satisfied. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD (USA) (Replace "example.invalid" with "com" in my address.) ------------------------------ From: Joe Morris Subject: Re: Verizon FiOS Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 12:59:46 UTC Organization: The MITRE Organization William Cousert writes: > I have a few qestions about Verizon's new FiOS service. It was > recently installed in my neighborhood and I'm thinking about switching > over from Comcast. Comments below based on the Verizon DSL service, probably applicable to FIOS as well but no warranties, express or implied [etc] ... > 1. Does Verizon offer Usenet access with their accounts? Comcast only > offers a limited amount of bandwidth for Usenet and charges extra if > you exceed it. Obviously (I hope) not *every* USENET newsgroup is carried, but they seem to carry most of the ngs that aren't blatantly illegal. No limitations on usage. > 2. Can I connect without using MSN? I last connected to MSN while working on the technical beta for Windows 95, and then only as part of the beta...and I have absolutely no intention of ever doing so again. In other words, yes. > 3. I have three computers. Will they charge me extra for the > additional IP's? If so, how much? You get one IP per account, and using only one IP at a time is part of your TOS. You are explicitly permitted to connect any number of machines to Verizon through that single IP address using a NAT device. > 4. Can I run a personal server? I'd like to be able to host my own > home page on it, as well as a message board. What about game servers > (quake 3, etc.)? Gray area. The TOS forbids both business and personal servers, but there seems to be some wiggle room based on interpretations by some of Verizon's comments. I've not needed to look into this so I'm not speaking from experience. > 5. Will they offer cable tv services? I'd like to dump Comcast > completely. Will they have video on demand? Reportedly yes but not at present (other than some possible testbed areas) AFAIK. > 6. 15/2 service costs $49.95 per month. 30/5 costs $199.95 per > month. Twice the bandwidth, four times the price. Why such a big jump > in price? Can you get two 15/2 packages and join them together > (remember shotgun modems? You could have two 56k modems work as one)? The price will be lower if you get it as part of a package with local landline service. My *guess* about the nonlinear price structure is that the provisioning of the residential lines is set up with the assumption that most users won't have any nonbusiness need for anything above 15, so the additional work and equipment required to support a line at 30/5 justifies a premium price. Also, by the time you're using 30 MB/sec it's not unreasonable for VZ to wonder if the customer is trying to run a business interface on a residential circuit. > 6a. Does the $199.95 package give you the right to run servers? Maybe > that's the reason for the big increase? Can't say ... but if the 199.95 figure is for *business* service then I would expect no restriction on running a server. > 7. Can FiOS handle higher speeds in the future, or will they need to > replace the fiber once again when the next leap in speed comes? I don't know what specific fiber they're using, but 15 MB/sec is unlikely to be more than a small fraction of its potential. Joe Morris ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Verizon FiOS Date: 16 May 2005 08:04:46 -0700 William Cousert wrote: > I have a few qestions about Verizon's new FiOS service. Could you tell us what Verizon said in response to your questions? > 1. Does Verizon offer Usenet access with their accounts? > 2. Can I connect without using MSN? > 3. I have three computers. Will they charge me extra for the > additional IP's? If so, how much? > 4. Can I run a personal server? I'd like to be able to host my own > home page on it, as well as a message board. What about game servers > (quake 3, etc.)? > 5. Will they offer cable tv services? I'd like to dump Comcast > completely. Will they have video on demand? I had heard they'll send "Direct TV" over it, but aren't sure. ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: FAQ: How Real ID Will Affect You Date: 15 May 2005 20:28:07 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > What I'm not willing to deal with is the same fallout because somebody > else (with the same name) had one of the above issues happen. > In this respect, a universal ID is a good thing, names simply aren't > unique enough. Gosh, I love people's naive belief in technology. You know the acronym GIGO, which stands for Garbage In, Gospel Out? That's what Real ID is. Mixups will still happen, because the people maintaining the files and databases will be the exact same sloppy error-prone people who maintain them today. The cost of getting a fake Real-ID license will continue to be the price of bribing the most corrupt person in some state's DMV. The difference will be that it'll be far harder to get mistakes fixed, because now everyone will know that licenses are perfect, so if the computer says that you are a crook, it must be right and you're just lying. R's, John ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: FAQ: How Real ID Will Affect You Date: 15 May 2005 20:44:22 -0700 DevilsPGD wrote: > Sure -- I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm willing to deal with the > resulting fallout if I get in a fight in a bar or with my landlord or > whatever. I don't know your personal circumstances, but I can't help but wonder if you don't realize the long term import of the situation. If you're young or single, it may not seem like a big deal. But life can surprise us as we get older. Things that were easy and we took for granted can become difficult. We may find ourselves out of job for an extended period of time and in debt, for example -- I've seen it happen to many good people. Anyway, when money and circumstances are tight, the last thing you need is someone throwing up a 10 year old incident in your face. You'll be even more upset if the facts are wrong but you can't challenge them. "Bait and switch" works on prospective employees and vendors, too. You're offered a job. You walk in on your first day and they "discovered" something in your past, which nullifies the employment offer. Oh, but maybe they'll still hire you, but at a lesser title and pay. If you're hard up for a job, you're screwed and have to take what you're given. There are unscrupulus managers and owners out there who will pull that stuff, especially in a lousy economy where job seekers are vulnerable and mgmt is under pressure to keep their budget low. When I entered the job market, I talked to some sleazy employers, but fortunately at that time it was a good job market and I had the capability to turn and walk away. Today the market isn't so good and kids coming out of school are loaded with debt. > What I'm not willing to deal with is the same fallout because somebody > else (with the same name) had one of the above issues happen. > In this respect, a universal ID is a good thing, names simply aren't > unique enough. First off, no matter how responsible we are, EVERYONE of us has some skeleton in our closets. Many times it was not at all our fault, but the skeleton is there just the same. Other time