From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jun 30 00:15:55 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 412D614CA4; Thu, 30 Jun 2005 00:15:55 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #301 Message-Id: <20050630041555.412D614CA4@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 00:15:55 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-1.4 required=2.0 tests=BAYES_00,MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR, MSGID_FROM_MTA_SHORT autolearn=no version=2.63 X-Spam-Level: Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 30 Jun 2005 00:15:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 301 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson T-Mobile, Google Partner Up For Mobile Internet (Telecom dailyLead USTA) CFP: IEEE in Cooperated International Conference (Conference Secretary) Mediacom (Fred Atkinson) Telecom-Priv/Computer Privacy Digest (was Re: VOIP?) (Dennis G. Rears) Re: CVS Limits ExtraCare Info Access After Expose (Lisa Hancock) Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. (John McHarry) Re: 50 Year Unisys Employee Retires (Tony P.) Re: Where to Buy a Cellular Phone Jammer? (DevilsPGD) Re: Western Union History (Wesrock@aol.com) Re: DSL Speed (Dave Grebe) Spam? Yeah, Probably. Five Bucks Cash For You (JohnW@clientbonus.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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 13:33:34 EDT From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA Subject: T-Mobile, Google Partner up For Mobile Internet Telecom dailyLead from USTA June 29, 2005 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=22714&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * T-Mobile, Google partner up for mobile Internet BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Broadband price wars heat up * Verizon seeks slice of music phone market * Hughes expands satellite broadband footprint * Covad picks Samsung for LPVA rollout USTA SPOTLIGHT * Two Days left to Save $300 on your TELECOM '05 EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * Cell phone providers embracing P2P * Bugs Bunny and friends go wireless REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * FCC seeks "parity" in broadband regulation Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=22714&l=2017006 ------------------------------ From: Conference Secretary Subject: CFP: IEEE in Cooperated International Conference on Computational Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 12:30:33 +1000 CALL FOR PAPERS International Conference on Computational Intelligence for Modelling, Control and Automation 28 - 30 November 2005 Vienna, Austria http://www.ise.canberra.edu.au/conferences/cimca05/ In co-operation with: IEEE Computational Intelligence Society Conference Proceedings will be published as books by IEEE in USA Sponsored by: European Society for Fuzzy Logic and Technology - EUFLAT International Association for Fuzzy Set in Management and Economy - SIGEF Japan Society for Fuzzy Theory and Intelligent Informatics - SOFT Taiwan Fuzzy Systems Association - TFSA World Wide Web Business Intelligence - W3BI Hungarian Fuzzy Association - HFA University of Canberra Jointly with International Conference on Intelligent Agents, Web Technologies and Internet Commerce http://www.ise.canberra.edu.au/conferences/iawtic05/ Honorary Chair: Lotfi A. Zadeh, University of California, USA Stephen Grossberg, Boston University, USA The international conference on computational intelligence for modelling, control and automation will be held in Vienna, Austria on 28 to 30 November 2005. The conference provides a medium for the exchange of ideas between theoreticians and practitioners to address the important issues in computational intelligence, modelling, control and automation. The conference will consist of both plenary sessions and contributory sessions, focusing on theory, implementation and applications of computational intelligence techniques to modelling, control and automation. For contributory sessions, papers (4 pages or more) are being solicited. Several well-known keynote speakers will address the conference. Conference Proceedings will be published as books by IEEE (The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering) in USA and will be index world wide. All papers will be peer reviewed by at least two reviewers. Topics of the conference include, but are not limited to, the following areas: Modern and Advanced Control Strategies: Neural Networks Control, Fuzzy Logic Control, Genetic Algorithms and Evolutionary Control, Model-Predictive Control, Adaptive and Optimal Control, Intelligent Control Systems, Robotics and Automation, Fault Diagnosis, Intelligent agents, Industrial Automations Hybrid Systems: Fuzzy Evolutionary Systems, Fuzzy Expert Systems, Fuzzy Neural Systems, Neural Genetic Systems, Neural-Fuzzy-Genetic Systems, Hybrid Systems for Optimisation Data Analysis, Prediction and Model Identification: Signal Processing, Prediction and Time Series Analysis, System Identification, Data Fusion and Mining, Knowledge Discovery, Intelligent Information Systems, Image Processing, and Image Understanding, Parallel Computing applications in Identification & Control, Pattern Recognition, Clustering and Classification Decision Making and Information Retrieval: Case-Based Reasoning, Decision Analysis, Intelligent Databases & Information Retrieval, Dynamic Systems Modelling, Decision Support Systems, Multi-criteria Decision Making, Qualitative and Approximate-Reasoning Paper Submission Papers will be selected based on their originality, significance, correctness, and clarity of presentation. Papers (4 pages or more) should be submitted to the following e-mail or the following address: CIMCA'2005 Secretariat School of Information Sciences and Engineering University of Canberra, Canberra, 2616, ACT, Australia E-mail: cimca@canberra.edu.au Electronic submission of papers (either by E-mail or through conference website) is preferred. Draft papers should present original work, which has not been published or being reviewed for other conferences. Important Dates 31 August 2005 Submission of draft papers 30 September 2005 Notification of acceptance 21 October 2005 Deadline for camera-ready copies of accepted papers 28-30 November 2005 Conference sessions Special Sessions and Tutorials Special sessions and tutorials will be organised at the conference. The conference is calling for special sessions and tutorial proposals. All special session proposals should be sent to the conference chair (by email to: masoud.mohammadian@canberra.edu.au) on or before 5th of August 2005. CIMCA'05 will also include a special poster session devoted to recent work and work-in-progress. Abstracts are solicited for this session. Abstracts (3 pages limit) may be submitted up to 30 days before the conference date. Visits and social events Sightseeing visits will be arranged for the delegates and guests. A separate program will be arranged for companions during the conference. Further Information For further information either contact cimca@ise.canberra.edu.au or see the conference homepage at: http://www.ise.canberra.edu.au/conferences/cimca05/default.htm Organising Committee Chair: Masoud Mohammadian, University of Canberra, Australia International Program Committee: H. Adeli, The Ohio State University, USA W. Pedrycz, University of Manitoba, Canada A. Agah, The University of Kansas, USA T. Fukuda, Nagoya University, Japan J. Bezdek, University of West Florida, USA R. C. Eberhart, Purdue University, USA F. Herrera, University of Granada, Spain T. Furuhashi, Nagoya University, Japan A. Agah, The University of Kansas, US E. André, Universität Augsburg, Germany A. Kandel, University of South Florida, USA J. P. Bigus, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, USA J. Liu, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong A. Namatame, National Defense Academy, Japan K. Sycara, Carnegie Mellon University, USA B. Kosko, University of Southern California, USA T. Baeck, Informatic Centrum Dortmund, Germany K. Hirota, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan E. Oja, Helsinki University of Technology, Finland H. R. Berenji, NASA Ames Research Center, USA H. Liljenstrom, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden A. Bulsari, AB Nonlinear Solutions OY, Finland J. Fernandez de Cañete, University of Malaga, Spain W. Duch, Nicholas Copernicus University, Poland E. Tulunay, Middle East Technical University, Turkey C. Kuroda, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan T. Yamakawa, Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan J. Liu, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong A. Namatame, National Defense Academy, Japan A. Aamodt, Norwegian University of Science & Technology, Norway International Liaison: Canada and USA Liaison: Robert John, De Montfort University, UK Nasser Jazdi, Institut für Automatisierungs- und Softwaretechnik, Germany Europe Liaison: Dr. Eng. Djamel Khadraoui, Centre de Recherche Public, Luxembourg Frank Zimmer, SES ASTRA, Luxembourg Asia Liaison: Renzo Gobbin, University of Canberra, Australia R. Amin Sarker, ADFA, Australia Local Arrangements and Public Relation: Zohreh Pahlavani, AVIP, Austria C Meier, Australia Publicity: C. Meier, Australia Zohreh Pahlavani, AVIP, Austria Publication: Masoud Mohammadian, Australia In cooperation with: University of Canberra, (Masoud Mohammadian) Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, (José-Luis Fernández-Villacañas Martín) University of Guelph, (Simon X. Yang) ------------------------------ From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Mediacom Reply-To: fatkinson@mishmash.com Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 03:03:13 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Does anyone know if Mediacom blocks ports 80, 20, 21, 23, 25, and/or other signficant ports? Fred Atkinson ------------------------------ From: Dennis G. Rears Subject: Telecom-Priv/Computer Privacy Digest (Was Re: Started Using VOIP?) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 23:17:57 -0400 Organization: Optimum Online wrote in message news:telecom24.297.10@telecom-digest.org: > TELECOM Digest Editor wrote in message > It's only been a couple of weeks since I last posted as opposed to a > decade for my previous post. Thanks for remembering me. It is > through this digest that I got my interest stoked in telephony. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And I notice it did not take you > another decade to write to me again, and for that I thank you! But > you never did tell me if you were still in the Milwaukee area, nor > whatever happened to your newsgroup/Digest. PAT] Warning: This is more history than telecom related. Historical accuracy may be clouded ... I forget the dates but it was around 1988-1990. I started the telecom-priv digest to offload the discussion in TELECOM Digest about caller-id and blocking. A lot people back then did not know that 800 numbers returned ANI (Now we have 800/888/877/866) and had no idea that ANI (Automated Number Identification) existed. They thought that if they blocked caller-id it would also block the 800 service. My idea at the time was to separate the privacy issues of telecom from the technical issues. At that time I was a subscriber to the TELECOM and RISKS digest. Just as the TELECOM digest was an offshoot of an old USENET group (help me out on this one Pat), I had always wanted to start my own maillist so I volunteered to set up telecom-priv which at that time was email only. Also by doing this I had telephone access to Pat which he rarely gave to any TELECOM Digest subscriber. I barely knew the difference between tip and ring at the time. Just to set the stage for where the internet was at that time (1988???) . At that there was no web, DNS had just replaced the hosts.txt file for network resolution. The major tcp/ip protocols were smtp, ftp, telnet, rcmds and nntp. Gopher and WAIS were just coming on line at this time. Nothing was encrypted; everything was sent in the clear. Sun had just released the SUN4 architecture. The "ARPANet" had only a few years ago been separated into the internet and MILnet. Prior to this to be on the ARPANet you needed to be a military, university, or commercial entity dedicated to R&D. UUCP and BITnet were still major players. There were Bitnet and UUCP email gateways where you could transverse networks but only for email; no other UDP or TCP traffic. Most people only had terminals connected to an internet connected machine. Only scientists and engineers had directly connected internet nodes. And only a few.... Pat graciously gave me his UNIX shell scripts to send out a digest and I monkeyed around with my mail system which was not sendmail but MMDF, a mail system developed at the University of Delaware and University college of London (UCL) with major enhancements by Mike Muuss et friends at the Ballistic Research Lab (BRL) at Aberdeen, MD. Everything was BSD UNIX, SUNOS was just coming out After a couple of years I decided to morph the telecom-priv to the computer-privacy digest. At that time I finally had USENET access and software to create email->USENET traffic. Since it was a moderated group all submissions would be by email so I did not need a USENET->email gateway. I did the RFD and call for votes and had the newsgroup comp.privacy.society and comp-privacy maillist created. I believe this was done circa 1992. My goal was to have a forum to discuss how technical advances affected privacy not about privacy in general. I invested a lot of my time to this forum but was not happy in the direction it was taking. I remember a candidate for some CA office complaining that I was censoring him because I denied his post. I had always wanted the forum to be about how technology affected privacy not privacy itself. I was also busy at my job (An Army civilian Computer Engineer) and as an Army Reserve Officer. After five years of moderation duties I asked for volunteers to take on the job of moderation. Len Levine, a professor at the University of Wisconsin took over. My only request (not requirement) was that I would be offered the moderator position when he was done. He offered it to me a few years ago but I couldn't do it. I am now cursed/blessed with the black box known as Windows which is even more worthless than VMS for scripting. Pat, I think it is because of Len that you thought I was in Milwaukee. I have never been in that area. The closest I have been is Rock Island, IL. I have been at ORD at least 30 times but never to Chicago. I have been in Morris County, NJ since 1983. My other claim to fame is I created the page on the web (1991) about running. It was called the running page. You can look at it now at http://www.runningpage.com/rpage (Now a historical site). One thing that is amazing to me is we did what we did out for the love of it. Now everything is about money. You asked and I gave you a long answer. If you liked this long winded post I will do another on my mobile phone experience in Australia in 2002 (hint.. a 20 minute call from Melbourne to NJ was 1/4 the cost of a 5 minute call from Perth to Sydney). Dennis (note to Pat. Please correct for errors....) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Your recollection is quite accurate. I had assumed _you_ were in Milwaukee because Len Levine is/was around there. I do not know how I got confused on that. And yes, we did all our stuff on the net in those days out of love and personal interest in our topics. Someone once said 1994 was the final year of the net as we knew and loved it. I do know that year as when all the strangers started moving into our e-village. Yes, tell us about your mobile phone experience, and thanks once again for the old memories. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: CVS Limits ExtraCare Info Access After Expose Date: 29 Jun 2005 20:21:10 -0700 I have a CVS card. I purposely misspelled my name and gave as little information as possible to protect my privacy. I've done likewise on other store cards, though I avoid them if possible. The discounts aren't as good as claimed. You do get a lot of coupons when you make a purchase, but the terms of the coupons are so restrictive -- products you don't want, minimum purchase, or too short a time frame, that in most cases they have no value. I guess it saves me about $10-$20 a year. Does ANYONE out there care about privacy? Back when I started privacy of client/customer accounts was paramount. Not because the law said so (though it did), but because it was the right thing to do. In a large computer center, one couldn't just go into data files without authorization. Files that left the building were controlled. Who the heck are the turkeys designing the open systems of today? ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 02:27:58 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net On Wed, 29 Jun 2005 05:54:31 -0700, Joseph wrote: > http://www.rcrnews.com/news.cms?newsId=23199 > FCC Re-iterates Cell-Phone Jammers Are Illegal > WASHINGTON-People who want to use cell-phone jammers to get rid of > annoying mobile-phone use should think again. It is against the > law. Those found using, selling, manufacturing or distributing > cell-phone jammers could be subject to an $11,000-per-day fine and > seizure of their equipment by the United States Marshals, warned the > Federal Communications Commission. The law should be modestly amended to declare those using cellphones in theaters, churches, and other places of public assembly outlaws subject to pummeling by the inconvenienced other inmates of such assembly. Exception might be made for surviving, on duty, emergency personnel. ;^) ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: 50 Year Unisys Employee Retires Organization: ATCC Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 17:15:23 -0400 In article , kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net says: > In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com > says: >> The Philadelphia Inquirer did a feature article on a man, age 68, who >> was retiring from Unisys after 50 years of service. (He started with >> Unisys precedessor Burroughs). >> It's extremely rare today for someone to work 50 years for the same >> corporation. In 1986 Unisys had 123,000 employees, now it has 36,400. >> Only 15% of Americans 65 and over are still working and the average >> person retiring today has been with his employer 10 years, not 50. > I'm a state employee. Our legislature just handed us a bon mot that says > most of us won't be able to retire until 70, and at that we won't get > the same benefit as those before us. > It's funny -- our director of finance is retiring end of this year. We > were joking about it. I said she should be happy that we're financing > her retirement. My boss said she should invite us over for the dinner > we paid for. It was too funny but demonstrated that retirement systems > are in fact Ponzi Schemes. >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One important reason companies do not >> keep around 40-50 year employees any longer is because that employee's >> benefits package is usually so extravagant. For example, I recall one >> fellow who had worked for Standard Oil more than twenty years back in >> the 1960's, when I was there. Working there that long, he was >> entitled to five weeks paid vacation every year, and first choice of >> the available times for vacation. He _always_ managed to parlay that >> five week vacation into _six_ weeks by scheduling his vacation times >> around weeks which had holidays in them, which entitled him to an >> extra vacacation day. For example, vacation during the week which >> contained Memorial Day, also the week which contained Independence Day >> and Labor Day got him _three extra days_ right there. So he would then >> take those three extra days vacation and either use them for the >> Monday <-> Wednesday of Thanksgiving Week when the entire office got >> two days (Thursday and Friday) off anyway. Or, depending on how the >> calendar worked out that year, maybe he would take those three days >> during Christmas/New Years week. >> Needless to say, Standard Oil got quite annoyed at having to legally >> pay him for not being there for large gaps of time. Eventually, they >> had a whole bunch of people in that situation and of course, if you >> can find an excuse for letting the person go, then you also have to >> pay them for the _company's share_ of their 401-K plan or whatever, >> _plus_ their severance pay, _plus_ their pension, etc. And there is >> absolutely no reason a good supervisor cannot find an excuse -- _any_ >> lawful excuse will do, to can you if they wish to do so. That is one >> reason most companies do not like to have employees around that long; >> to their way of thinking, the person has gotten just to expensive for >> them. > Hell, with the comp time I generate I get about 6 weeks a year. U.S. > employers are very stingy about time off. All comes down to that > Calvinist work ethic. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think you meant to say the > 'Protestant Work Ethic' instead of 'Calvinist'; but anyway, don't > be so harsh with John Calvin. He was an 'okay' guy ! PAT] No, it was Calvin who gave us that work ethic and stark lifestyle. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, John Calvin was a protestant and big in the Reformation movement in 16th century Switzerland, and considered to be the father of the modern day 'Christian Reformed Church' as it is known in the USA today. He did have a very stark lifestyle to be sure, and encouraged it among his followers. PAT] ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Where to Buy a Cellular Phone Jammer? Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 17:08:52 -0500 Organization: Disorganized In message Joseph wrote: > On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 05:11:46 GMT, Dale Farmer > wrote: >> Except it doesn't work. Better to put scanners up and listen to their >> transmissions. > Which with digital encryption will be a mighty task! Not really -- No "scanning" involved, law enforcement can legally tap the connection (which is done after decryption). ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 19:29:32 EDT Subject: Re: Western Union History In a message dated 29 Jun 2005 06:21:17 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes: >> W.U. operated a lot of local telegraph offices long after they had >> ceased to pay for themselves. In some cases the FCC required the >> company to keep the offices open. W.U. should have had a plan to >> convert them to contract agencies; although the best way to do this >> would probably involve having the agencies use TWX. > I suspect it was both FCC and unions that forced the local offices to > stay open. Ironically, I am not aware of any pressure on the Bell > System to provide or not provide public business offices. In the late 1940s my father's business took on the additional duty of being a Western Union agent in Perry, Oklahoma (pop. about 5,000), when the company-owned office closed. So I had some experience in handling telegrams and money orders, although the money order was not the center of the W.U. business as it became later. We shared a pair out of Oklahoma City with the W.U. company-owned office inside the Conoco refinery and offices in Ponca City. Most of the business on the wire was from and to that office. (High-volume W.U. users got company-owned branches; low-volume users might have a WUX printer, which of course they operated themselves.) The agency I am familiar with in Perry, Oklahoma, had a selective signaling device which was not especially reliable or practical, although if you were near enought you could count the clicks and respond. Telegrams were sent and received on the gummed paper tape that was then stuck down on the telegram form manually and was the normal medium used for telegrams in those days. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: Dave Grebe Subject: Re: DSL Speed Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 00:08:27 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net >> I wonder how they're modulated. > Can any other reader answer this question? Quadrature modulation using many channels. Look here: http://www.alleged.com/info/dsl2/ Dave Grebe ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 17:07:04 -0800 From: JohnW@clientbonus.com Reply-To: Subject: Spam? Probably, But Interesting: 5 Bucks Cash For You 5 dollars cash for five simple drop-down box selections. All you have to do is go to the page below, select the 5 boxes and then reply to this email with the 1st word that appears on the following page. You will automatically receive your $5 via PayPal to your email address. It's that easy! http://gong.usersmile.com/imp/c?c=3&m=54&e=614273 To extract your record: http://gong.usersmile.com/imp/u?m=54&e=614273 257 Lyons Ave. Suite 619, Newark, NJ 07112 ------------------------------ 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 #301 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jun 30 17:33:09 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 7B24114FE0; Thu, 30 Jun 2005 17:33:09 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #302 Message-Id: <20050630213309.7B24114FE0@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 17:33:09 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-0.9 required=2.0 tests=BAYES_00,DO_IT_TODAY, MSGID_FROM_MTA_SHORT autolearn=no version=2.63 X-Spam-Level: Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 30 Jun 2005 17:33:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 302 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Protecting Your Good Name from Identity Theft (Lisa Minter) Use of IP Telephony Surged in Sweden in 2004 (Lisa Minter) Michigan and Utah Launch Email Registries (Lisa Minter) Digital Move Will Blank 80 Million TV Sets (Lisa Minter) Vodafone, Microsoft Forge Wireless Message Deal (Telecom dailyLead USTA) Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. (mc) Re: Western Union History (Jim Haynes) Re: Using Comcast to Host Web Site (Rob Stampfli) 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: Protecting Your Good Name From Identity Theft Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 23:29:35 -0500 By Linda Stern WASHINGTON (Reuters) - By now you know that 40 million credit card account numbers are flying around the underground economy. They were set free when hackers implanted a virus in the computers operated by CardSystems, a Tucson-based credit card processing firm, and they were actually let loose way before consumers were let in on the breach recently. It was the latest in a series of security flubs from companies including ChoicePoint, which collects and supplies financial data, DSW Shoe Warehouse and others. It revealed that consumers could not only lose their financial identities, they could be in the dark about it. It took almost a month from the time CardSystems said they discovered the breach until the public was made aware. Somebody could be using your credit card right now, and how would you know it? "This news is just the tip of the iceberg," said Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a California-based consumer information and advocacy organization. Yet Givens and others do not believe consumers should panic. Instead, they should seek to maintain that careful balance between recognizing the possibility of identity theft without overreacting and denying themselves the convenience of credit card shopping. "Consumers should not at this time be canceling card accounts as a preventive measure," said Givens. Here's how to protect yourself without going back to a cash-only lifestyle: -- Don't panic and don't stop using your credit card or shopping online. Credit cards come with two levels of protection: Federal law prohibits consumers from losing more than $50 to theft or fraud, and the card issuers step in and cover that $50. If your card number does get stolen, you won't be out any money. Your issuer can give you a new number. -- Don't wait to get your statement to see if your card is being used. If you haven't already set your credit card accounts up for online and phone access, do so. Then you can go online between statement dates and check to make sure nobody else is posting charges to your account. -- Look for small, inconsequential charges. Most credit card thieves test the card with a small purchase to see if it works. -- Control your own paperwork. Most credit card thefts do not occur when techies figure out how to hack your card company. They occur when retail employees or shoppers pull carbons out of trash cans or find payment stubs and the like. Keep control of your receipts and keep control of your cards. If you lose the actual plastic card, check to make sure that you aren't being charged for gasoline you didn't buy. Many card thieves make their first purchase a pay-at-the-pump gasoline buy; that way if the card gets rejected they can hop in their car and leave without talking to a cashier. -- Consider giving up your debit card. Those debit cards which look like VISAs and MasterCards and do not require a pin number, can be dangerous. That's because they draw directly from your checking account. And while the banks that issue them tend to guarantee that they will indemnify you from fraud and will replace any lost money within hours, it can still take some time to clear up the account. While it does, you can be bouncing rent checks, car payments and anything else that comes out of your checking account. "I've talked to people where the institution doesn't believe them and the funds take a month," says Givens. "Frankly, I don't advise using debit cards." If you have good credit and financial discipline, you can just use a credit card for your everyday purchases and then pay that off once a month from your checking account. -- Check your credit report. Unless you live in the Northeast, you can already get one free credit report a year. On September 1, even Northeasterners will be eligible. Find it at http://www.annualcreditreport.com. If someone has used your card, it might show up in extra inquiries or mistakes in your credit report. -- Read your mail. At least one California lawyer, Ira Rothken, is trying to make a class-action suit out of the recent security breach. If you are a member of a class that has been wronged, you should receive notification. Even if you're not in a position to join a suit, you might get notification from your bank about security breaches or new procedures. Linda Stern is a freelance writer. Any opinions in the column are solely those of Ms. Stern. You can e-mail her at lindastern@aol.com 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: Use of IP Telephony Surged in Sweden in 2004 Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 23:31:00 -0500 The number of people making phone calls via the Internet more than doubled in Sweden in 2004, the country's telecoms regulator said on Wednesday. Its report on the telecommunications market for last year said 80,800 people had Internet Protocol phone call subscriptions, compared with 38,400 in 2003. "Not all telephone clients are linked to networks which offer IP-based calling, but the potential client base is rising as more operators are starting to offer IP-based phoning," the PTS regulator said. It said broadband operator Bredbandsbolaget, recently bought by Norway's Telenor (TEL.OL), had most IP telephony clients. At the end of 2004, there were 25 operators offering IP calls, versus 10 to 15 at the end of the previous year. Nordic giant TeliaSonera (TLSN.ST) has said that IP telephony is one of the challenges it has to deal with in its home markets. 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: Michigan and Utah Launch Email Registries Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 23:34:16 -0500 By DAVID EGGERT, Associated Press Writer Two states are on the verge of trying to block porn and other inappropriate messages sent to children through e-mail, but critics question how the laws will be enforced and predict they could have unintended consequences. Michigan and Utah have until Friday to create and operate registries of e-mail addresses similar to "do-not-call" lists. Businesses will have to buy copies of the registries and face prison time and fines if they send e-mail to any addresses that parents submit. The registries also can include instant-message addresses, cell phones and pager numbers. Parry Aftab, an Internet safety expert with WiredSafety.org, said the laws were well-intentioned but flawed. "Anytime anyone starts collecting lists of children, it's subject to hacking and misuse," Aftab said. "The last thing I want is anyone to have a large database of children." As with other Internet laws, critics say the registries probably won't have much effect -- largely because anti-spam laws have been difficult to enforce. Spam often originates from outside the country and from other states. The Institute for Spam and Internet Public Safety, which runs conferences and other programs on e-mail marketing, is concerned that commercial e-mailers don't know about the laws. "We've talked with several top-tier e-mail marketing firms and e-mail service providers and they were all just stunned to learn that they need to start scrubbing their mailing lists against these registries next month or face criminal sanctions," said Anne Mitchell, the group's president. 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. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Digital Move Will Blank up to 80 Million TV Sets Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 23:36:43 -0500 Consumer advocates on Wednesday warned that up to 80 million television sets could go dark after a transition to digital broadcast signals and said the government should help owners get special converter boxes. About 15 percent of U.S. households rely on over-the-air television signals, and about 39 percent of households have at least one television that is not connected to satellite or cable television service, according to a survey by Consumers Union and the Consumer Federation of America. Congress and the Federal Communications Commission are trying to speed the broadcast industry's transition from analog signals to digital ones to free up valuable spectrum. Lawmakers are considering legislation that would set Jan. 1, 2009, as the deadline for finishing the switch. "The first rule Congress must abide by is do no harm to consumers," said Gene Kimmelman, public policy director for Consumers Union. "We can only support a hard date transition if the costs are not borne by consumers who have done nothing wrong and just want their TVs to work." He suggested that the government should subsidize converter boxes for most of those television sets, potentially costing more than $3.5 billion. Industry estimates put the cost of converter boxes at about $50 each. The Consumer Electronics Association has projected a smaller number of television sets -- 33.6 million -- would be affected by the switch. "The (consumer groups') survey appears to assume that any TV not connected to cable or satellite is connected to a broadcast antenna," said Michael Petricone, CEA vice president for technology policy. He said millions of sets are used only for video games and movies. Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives put off a hearing until later this summer to consider digital television legislation, in part because of a dispute over a subsidy plan for aiding homes that rely only on over-the-air broadcasts. Most expect a subsidy program would be funded with the proceeds of auctioning off the old analog broadcast airwaves. 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: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 13:29:01 EDT From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA Subject: Vodafone, Microsoft forge wireless messaging deal Telecom dailyLead from USTA June 30, 2005 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=22761&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Vodafone, Microsoft forge wireless messaging deal BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Motorola sets sights on Japan * Nortel shareholders express frustration at meeting * Report: Today's customers want control over communications experience * Phone, cable company spots spur ad growth USTA SPOTLIGHT * Order Today! Newton's Telecom Dictionary -- 21st Edition EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * Nextel tests wireless broadband REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Transition to new Internet protocol lags * Lawrence Lessig: Grokster decision "a pretty significant defeat" Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=22761&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: mc Subject: Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 01:08:03 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) > The law should be modestly amended to declare those using cellphones > in theaters, churches, and other places of public assembly outlaws > subject to pummeling by the inconvenienced other inmates of such > assembly. Exception might be made for surviving, on duty, emergency > personnel. ;^) Here I think there is a market for cell phone *detectors*. Cell phones transmit every few minutes even when you're not making or receiving a call, in order to keep the tower apprised of where they are. "Turn off your cell phone" could have more teeth if equipment were in use to detect cell phones that were still turned on. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Western Union History Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 19:17:36 GMT In article , wrote: > hard. But I wish I knew more about their microwave system -- what it > did for them and what it didn't. The Telecom archives contain Western Union Technical Review, which gives pretty good coverage of their microwave system, its beginnings, and its eventual expanse. jhhaynes at earthlink dot net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And readers can also check out the 23 year run of Western Union Technical Review. The entire collection is on file in our archives http://telecom-digest.org/archives PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Using Comcast to Host Web Site From: restamp@hotmail.com (Rob Stampfli) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 21:07:44 GMT Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com In article , William Warren wrote: > Comcast has been blocking port 80 (HTTP) for a while now, and they've > recently started blocking port 25 (SMTP) as well. IMNSHO, it's only a > matter of time before they start blocking all syn packets and charging > extra for ANY incoming connection, but for now you can do it with some > workarounds. With cable's relatively limited upload speed, I can readily understand blocking inbound port 80, where the traffic distribution is highly skewed towards outbound packets. But why inbound port 25? It can't be to prevent spam from infected PCs since they don't use it. Inbound port 25 can only be used to receive mail and one could argue that whether you receive your mail via SMTP (port 25), or POP or IMAP or otherwise, the bits have to eventually flow in one way or another. So, why block port 25? The only answer I can come up with is "just for spite". For that matter, the whole concept of "no servers" has always seemed flawed to me: Technically, sshd and telnetd are servers. Does Comcast really desire to have a policy of preventing one from contacting a home machine when they are travelling? Rob Stampfli ------------------------------ 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 #302 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jun 30 23:03:37 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 06E6C14FE9; Thu, 30 Jun 2005 23:03:37 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #303 Message-Id: <20050701030337.06E6C14FE9@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 23:03:37 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-1.7 required=2.0 tests=BAYES_00,MSGID_FROM_MTA_SHORT autolearn=no version=2.63 X-Spam-Level: Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 30 Jun 2005 23:04:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 303 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Congressman Lends a Helping Hand to SBC (Lisa Minter) SBC Voices Two Approaches to Video (Lisa Minter) Municipal Broadband Brouaha: Tech Firms Caught in the Middle (L Minter) Congressman Ensign Also Generous to SBC (Lisa Minter) Feds Raid Piracy and Warez Distributors (Lisa Minter) US Says to ICANN: We Are Not Giving up Root (Lisa Minter) 'TimeShare Spammer' Pleads Guilty (Lisa Minter) Re: Protecting Your Good Name From Identity Theft (Steve Sobol) Re: Using Comcast to Host Web Site (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. (Carl Zwanzig) Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. (Walt Howard) 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: Congressman Lends a Helping Hand to SBC Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 17:12:33 -0500 Special To Insider Update --- Rep. Sessions Lends A Hand To SBC By David Hatch Texas-based SBC Communications has plenty at stake with its telecommunications business these days: The Bell company is seeking approval to merge with AT&T, and is planning to deploy a nationwide Internet-based television service to compete with cable. The company also is fighting efforts by cities to build their own high-speed Internet networks. On that front, SBC has a friend in Rep. Pete Sessions, a Texas conservative Republican with professional and political ties to the firm. In late May, Sessions introduced legislation that would ban municipal broadband networks in areas where companies such as SBC offer similar services. SBC supports the bill, but spokesman Kevin Belgrade said the issue goes beyond any one company. Sessions, a House Rules Committee member, does not sit on any panels that regulate communications -- but his ties to SBC are as thick as Texas sagebrush. He was an executive with Southwestern Bell Telephone, SBC's precursor, for 16 years, and his wife, Juanita (Nete) Sessions, is a vice president for billing with SBC. During the 2003-2004 election cycle, individuals and political action committees associated with SBC were Sessions' third largest donor, contributing $23,750, according to the watchdog Center for Responsive Politics. PACs operated by Verizon Communications -- another Bell firm that opposes most municipal networks but that has not taken a stance on Sessions' measure -- also gave Sessions $9,000, according to the Federal Election Commission. And the U.S. Telecom Association, whose members include the Bells, gave another $2,000. Sessions also revealed in a 2003 financial disclosure that he owned between $1,001 and $15,000 in SBC assets at the end of 2003. He held the same amount of assets in Verizon and BellSouth, and up to $1,000 in AT&T, SBC's merger partner. Sessions' calendar year 2004 disclosure will be released Wednesday. Juanita Sessions, meanwhile, held SBC stock options valued between $500,001 and $1 million through the end of 2003, and additional assets in BellSouth and SBC valued from $1,001 to $15,000 each. She also had an investment worth up to $1,000 in WorldCom, since renamed MCI. Supporters of government broadband say localities simply want to offer inexpensive connectivity to low-income and inner-city residents who cannot otherwise afford it -- or who might get bypassed by other providers. Harold Feld, a senior vice president at the Media Access Project, a public-interest law firm, said municipalities make investments "all the time" to improve citizens' lives. "Let local people decide how to spend local dollars," he said. Sessions spokeswoman Gina Vaughn said municipal networks discourage competition by forcing companies to compete with the government. She said Sessions wants localities to spend taxpayer dollars on more urgent needs. Sessions' bill was referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Joe Barton, another Texas Republican. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, PACs and individuals associated with SBC were the fifth biggest contributor to Barton's 2004 campaign, giving a total of $15,000. Copyright 2005 by National Journal Group Inc. The Watergate 600 New Hampshire Ave., NW Washington, DC 20037 202-739-8400 fax 202-833-8069 National Journal's Insider Update is an Atlantic Media publication. 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, Atlantid Media, National Journal Insider Update. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: SBC Voices Two Approaches to Video Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 17:10:40 -0500 By Drew Clark The Bell companies' entry into the video marketplace has the potential to shake the cable, satellite and broadcasting businesses, and SBC Communications has been aggressive on the policy questions it raises. But SBC has been saying different things about its Internet-protocol television (IPTV) to different audiences. As the company has suffered policy and public-relations setbacks, it has changed its message to suit its needs. Company executives have offered different stances on: whether the company will provide a la carte, or channel-by-channel, programming; whether it must pay franchise fees to local governments; and how much it will build out its high-speed Internet service. The company also is defining itself as a cable provider not under telecommunications law but under copyright law -- further tangling the policy issues surrounding Bell entry into the video marketplace. Some of SBC's divergent messages have been delivered at almost exactly the same time but to different audiences. At the June SuperComm telecommunications conference in Chicago, a company executive dismissed the a la carte approach to a content-centered audience while a higher-level group president promoted that model to a group of policy officials. On Monday, at a downstairs conference session devoted to IPTV and heavy with officials from the movie and television industries, Vice President Jeff Weber said SBC's technology would uniquely utilize digital video recorders and high-definition television. "Which is all different than saying we are going to do something crazy like a la carte or something that is completely and totally disruptive in the marketplace," he said. "We can't, because our content providers won't allow it, and I'm not sure it would make sense even if they did." Upstairs, at a policy session the same day, SBC Group President Forrest Miller told a different story. "We know that consumers want more choices in video," including different packages than are currently available from existing cable "tiers," he said. "We believe in a consumer-driven market." Last year, SBC executives including CEO Ed Whitacre spoke favorably of offering consumers more choice in their television network selections, but they have not been as vocal on the subject this year. Companies that provide pay television to cable and satellite, like Walt Disney's ESPN and Time Warner's HBO, do not favor the a la carte approach. Asked about the discrepancy, SBC spokesman Michael Balmoris said Wednesday that pricing and features for its bundles of video programming have yet to be determined. "Since it does use Internet protocol, there are many more functionalities," he said, adding that packages could encompass a la carte offerings. It may be necessary to package programming differently in order to get consumers to switch from cable television to Bell television. "The first thing I would do if I were the phone company is to offer a family-friendly tier," said Robert Clasen, CEO of the Starz cable network. "If you have a family-friendly tier, you would have friends in Washington." Copyright 2005 by National Journal Group Inc. The Watergate 600 New Hampshire Ave., NW Washington, DC 20037 202-739-8400 fax 202-833-8069 National Journal's Insider Update is an Atlantic Media publication. 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, National Journal Group; Atlantic Media. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: The Municipal Broadband Brouhaha: Tech Firms Caught in Middle Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 17:07:01 -0500 By Drew Clark Cities and counties that want to offer high-speed, Internet-based communications have been fighting regional Bell telecommunications and cable companies on the state level, and now the battle is erupting on the national stage. For local governments, public interest groups and the technology community, permitting such municipal broadband is a no-brainer. "It makes no sense for us to be wasting our time and energy fighting battles when the country has such a challenge to get broadband to everyone," said Jim Baller, an attorney for the municipalities -- citing a call by President Bush for universal and affordable broadband by 2007. Baller has helped to spearhead a new group called the Community Broadband Coalition. Until recently, the debate has occurred primarily in the states -- 14 of which have imposed some legal barriers to state-run municipal service. Two rival pieces of federal legislation have been introduced: In the House, H.R. 2726, which would bar states from allowing municipal broadband in areas served by the private sector; and in the Senate, S. 1294, which would bar states from opposing government-run broadband if municipalities do not discriminate against private competitors. Some see the conflicting bills as pressuring tech companies to choose between some big customers -- the Bells and cable companies -- and a market opportunity that may be growing, but that is not fully ripe. Wireless Life for Municipal Movement Early conflicts over municipal broadband centered on the availability of fiber-optic lines to homes. But wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi have breathed new life into the movement. Although fiber-optic cables have far greater capacity -- including the ability to offer multi-channel video -- stringing them to homes costs more than $1,000 on average. Philadelphia is planning a metropolitan-area Wi-Fi network that it believes it can create for $25 per home. Once in place, the city believes it can wholesale its service to commercial providers for $9 a month. That does not sound attractive to Verizon Communications and Comcast, which sell high-speed Internet service for prices ranging from $20 to $45 a month. Both companies supported telecom legislation last December in Pennsylvania barring municipal broadband projects. After complaints from public interest groups, an exception was granted for Philadelphia. This year, Colorado, Florida and Nebraska put restrictions on municipal networks in their states, although similar measures were defeated in Illinois, Iowa and Texas. "Cable operators are not uniformly opposed to all municipal broadband projects, but they do have serious reservations about local governments investing increasingly scarce taxpayer dollars for telecommunications services already being provided by the private sector with state-of-the-art technology," said Brian Dietz, a spokesman for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association. "We believe there are many other ways to speed the deployment of broadband, like creating a regulatory climate that encourages investment and innovation," added Allison Remsen, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Telecom Association. "With telecom networks, government intervention could chill private investment and further delay new services for consumers. When government-owned networks are used, presumably as a last resort, the networks should be regulated and taxed like private carriers." Tech Firms Stuck in the Middle Technology companies eager to see more widespread adoption of Internet computing have generally favored doing something to promote broadband. They have sought tax credits for broadband deployment, as well as deregulation of traditional telecom rules when it comes to broadband -- stances favored by the Bells. But the tech firms also have promoted municipal networks. Dell, Intel, the political fundraising group Technet and the High-Tech Broadband Coalition -- which articulated a position against state laws as recently as March -- are among the companies and groups supporting municipal broadband initiatives. In the Texas battle that peaked over the Memorial Day weekend, Intel and Dell vigorously fought legislation supported by two Bell companies, SBC Communications and Verizon Communications. The unsuccessful final bill attempted to grant telecom providers the ability to offer statewide cable television franchises and also would have extended an existing ban on municipal telephone and cable systems to broadband. "Michael Dell lobbied this personally down in Texas, and was pretty critical in stemming the tide," said Mark Uncapher, vice president of the Information Technology Association of America. The Texas-based Dell Corp. is an ITAA member. ITAA, the electronics group AeA and the Fiber-to-the-Home Council were among the 40 groups that signed onto the Community Broadband Coalition, which released its list of signers as a means of showcasing its support for the Senate bill (sponsored by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.). The High-Tech Broadband Coalition thus far has taken no position on the legislation. "Intel will be taking a position on federal legislation shortly," said Peter Pitsch, director of communications policy for the semiconductor firm, which is a major supporter of Wi-Fi and a member of several of the associations that comprise the coalition. "We will continue to oppose state prohibitions on municipal broadband but recognize that municipalities should operate in a non-discriminatory and completely neutral fashion." Pressured By Bells And Cable? An association of several leading tech associations that includes the Business Software Alliance, the Information Technology Industry Council, and the Telecommunications Industry Association -- the broadband coalition organized itself in 2002 to lobby for deregulation at the FCC. In 2003, it joined with the Fiber-to-the-Home Council in a friend-of-the-court brief for the Missouri Municipal League in a Supreme Court case about the right of municipalities to deploy broadband networks. The court held 8-1 in March 2004 that the 1996 Telecommunications Act does not pre-empt states from regulating the conduct of its own municipalities. "I think it is embarrassing that you are publicly filing a Supreme Court brief and then stepping back from legislation that generally supports that position," said an industry source close to the coalition. Baller and others believe more tech companies soon will publicly support federal legislation promoting municipal networks. A good percentage of revenue for telecommunications manufacturers comes from Bell carriers, making manufacturers wary of alienating key customers. "Municipalities are saying, 'We want no limits on our ability to offer broadband,' and industry is saying, 'We can't prohibit you from the market, but you are going to participate on the same terms and conditions we are in the market,'" said William Kovacs, vice president, of technology and regulatory affairs for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. As with Baller, Kovacs sees a parallel in the country's experience with rural electrification and municipal solid waste treatment, which are provided by both the private sector and by municipal governments. Supporters of community broadband also are promoting the words of an unlikely ally: Bush. In a speech on June 24, 2004, he cited a Wi-Fi project in Spokane, Wash., "that allows users within a hundred-block area of the city to obtain wireless broadband access. Imagine if you're the head of a Chamber of Commerce of a city, and you say, 'Gosh, our city is a great place to do business or to find work. We're setting up a Wi-Fi hot zone, which means our citizens are more likely to be more productive than the citizens from a neighboring community.' It's a great opportunity." Copyright 2005 by National Journal Group Inc. The Watergate 600 New Hampshire Ave., NW Washington, DC 20037 202-739-8400 fax 202-833-8069 National Journal's Insider Update is an Atlantic Media publication. 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, National Journal Group, Atlantic Media. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Congressman Ensign Also Helping SBC Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 17:08:45 -0500 Ensign Measure Would Restrict Municipal Broadband Networks By David Hatch Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., is drafting restrictive language on the creation of municipal broadband networks that might blunt efforts by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., to allow localities to offer low-cost wireless or wireline service. Ensign, who favors a pro-business agenda as chairman of the Senate Commerce Technology Subcommittee and the Senate Republican High Tech Task Force, will insert his provisions into a comprehensive deregulatory telecommunications bill he is drafting, aides said. McCain and Lautenberg introduced their bill last Thursday. The conflicting bills address one of the most heavily lobbied issues in this year's rewrite of 1996 telecommunications law -- whether municipalities can compete with private enterprise and offer broadband services. The high-stakes question -- millions of dollars in fees might be lost by Internet providers such as SBC if local governments are given a chance to serve some customers -- has already resulted in backroom maneuvering and changes in loyalty. Congressman Ensign's broadband provisions would prohibit government-sponsored networks except in instances of a "true market failure," said Jack Finn, his spokesman. He added that the senator thinks "private enterprise and the free market should prevail." Ensign said late last week he is working with the High Tech Broadband Coalition, which represents more than 12,000 corporations, on his provisions. That came as a surprise to some backers of the McCain-Lautenberg bill, who said the coalition had backed their approach and helped shape the language. The coalition's members include the Consumer Electronics Association, Information Technology Industry Council, Business Software Alliance, Semiconductor Industry Association, Telecommunications Industry Association and National Association of Manufacturers. Sources in industry and government said tech and telecom companies are willing to appease Ensign because they stand to gain on a bevy of issues through his draft. The coalition counters that it never formulated a position on the McCain-Lautenberg bill. "We have not seen the bill or been approached to endorse it," said ITI spokesman Adam Kovacevich, speaking for the coalition. "I have had zero communications with Sen. McCain and Sen. Lautenberg," added David Peyton, spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers, whose members include Verizon and SBC. "The NAM has done nothing on this issue." But a staffer for Lautenberg said executives identifying themselves as coalition representatives helped draft the bill and indicated they would back it. "As late as last Monday, members of the coalition were working with Sen. Lautenberg's office," said Alex Formuzis, the senator's spokesman. He noted that the coalition was involved "from the start." A "Dear Colleague" from Lautenberg in May also suggests the coalition was receptive to the approach. The letter cited the High Tech Broadband Coalition by name and urged lawmakers to support the bill. An attached policy statement with the coalition's logo noted: "No statewide statutory barriers to municipal participation, whether explicit or de facto, should be erected." The sentence was underlined for emphasis. Coalition sources emphasized that the coalition did not explicitly say in the letter or attachment that it endorsed the McCain-Lautenberg bill. The statement was prepared in response to developments at the state level, they said, adding that the coalition has not developed a position on a federal solution. "That was an inappropriate use of the document," said NAM's Peyton. An industry source said representatives of companies in the coalition "were involved with McCain and Lautenberg throughout," but did not officially represent the coalition. The source added that some coalition members said they were pressured by Ensign's office to back away from the McCain-Lautenberg proposal, a contention that Ensign flatly denied. "I don't know where you're getting your information," the senator said in a brief interview late last week. "You're not getting it right." McCain and Lautenberg now must proceed without a substantial block of industry support, a potentially huge blow for their just-introduced measure. The developments underscore the shifting alliances and horse-trading that is taking place as lawmakers consider a broad rewrite of the 1996 telecommunications law. The Community Broadband Coalition, a comparatively smaller group representing mostly watchdogs and cities, endorses the McCain-Lautenberg approach. "We're supporting any legislative effort that can move broadband forward," said Jim Kohlenberger, an organizer of the group. McCain and Ensign insisted they are not competing with each other on municipal broadband. "We're working with Sen. McCain. We'll continue to do that. We consider him a very good ally on the Commerce Committee," Ensign said. McCain added: "I respect the leadership position that Sen. Ensign plays on all of these issues, including telecom reform. We work together." Copyright 2005 by National Journal Group Inc. The Watergate 600 New Hampshire Ave., NW Washington, DC 20037 202-739-8400 fax 202-833-8069 National Journal's Insider Update is an Atlantic Media publication. 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, National Journal Group, Atlantic Media. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Feds Crack Down on Piracy Sites and Warez Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 16:46:06 -0500 Feds Target Internet Piracy Organizations By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer The government announced Thursday an 11-nation crackdown on Internet piracy organizations responsible for stealing copies of the latest "Star Wars" film and other movies, games and software programs worth at least $50 million. FBI agents and investigators in the other nations conducted 90 searches, starting Wednesday, arresting four people, seizing hundreds of computers and shutting down at least eight major online distribution servers for pirated works. The Justice Department "is striking at the top of the copyright piracy supply chain -- a distribution chain that provides the vast majority of illegal digital content now available online," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said. Called Operation Site Down, the crackdown involved undercover FBI operations run out of Chicago, San Francisco and Charlotte, N.C., and included help from authorities in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom. Those arrested were Chirayu Patel, 23, of Fremont, Calif.; David Fish, 24, of Watertown, Conn.; Nate Lovell, 22, of Boulder, Colo.; and William Veyna, 34, of Chatworth, Calif. The four were charged with violating federal copyright protection laws. All are alleged to be members of "warez" groups, a kind of underground Internet co-op that is set up to trade in copyrighted materials. Warez (pronounced "wares") groups are extraordinarily difficult to infiltrate because users talk only in encrypted chat rooms, their computer servers require passwords and many are located overseas. The FBI set up its own servers and lured warez members to store pirated material on them, according to the U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco. The investigations targeted "release groups," the original sources of pirated works that can be distributed worldwide in hours. Among the warez groups targeted are RiSCISO, Myth, TDA, LND, Goodfellaz, Hoodlum, Vengeance, Centropy, Wasted Time, Paranoid, Corrupt, Gamerz, AdmitONE, Hellbound, KGS, BBX, KHG, NOX, NFR, CDZ, TUN and BHP. Those groups are believed responsible for stealing and distributing copyrighted works, including "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith," "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," Autodesk's Autocad 2006 and Adobe's Photoshop software. The bootlegged software often is made available to popular file-sharing networks, where it can be easily downloaded for free, said Michael DuBose, a Justice lawyer who prosecutes cyber crimes. But mass producers of pirated materials in Asia and elsewhere also use warez groups as suppliers, DuBose said. Studies of Internet piracy have estimated losses to the movie industry alone at $3.5 billion to $5.4 billion annually. President Bush signed a new law last month setting tough penalties of up to 10 years in prison for anyone caught distributing a movie or song or warez to deal with same before its commercial release. On the Net: Justice Department: http://www.usdoj.gov Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of 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. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: US Says to ICANN: We Are Not Giving up Root Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 16:47:52 -0500 U.S. Won't Cede Control of Net Computers By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer The U.S. government said Thursday it would indefinitely retain oversight of the Internet's main traffic-controlling computers, ignoring calls by some countries to turn the function over to an international body. The announcement marked a departure from previously stated U.S. policy. Michael D. Gallagher, assistant secretary for communications and information at the U.S. Commerce Department, shied away from terming the declaration a reversal, calling it instead "the foundation of U.S. policy going forward." "The signals and words and intentions and policies need to be clear so all of us benefiting in the world from the Internet and in the U.S. economy can have confidence there will be continued stewardship," Gallagher said in an interview with The Associated Press. Government officials had in the past indicated they would one day hand control of the 13 "root" computer servers used to direct e-mail and Web traffic to a private organization with international board members, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. "It's completely an about-face if you consider the original commitment made when ICANN was created" in 1998, said Milton Mueller, a Syracuse University professor who has written about policies surrounding the Internet's root servers. ICANN officials had no immediate comment. The announcement comes just weeks before a U.N. panel was to release a report on Internet governance, addressing oversight of the root servers, among other things. Some countries have sought to move oversight to an international body, such as the U.N. International Telecommunication Union, although the U.S. government has historically had that role because it funded much of the Internet's early development. Ambassador David Gross, the U.S. coordinator for international communications and information policy at the State Department, insisted the announcement was unrelated to those discussions. But he said other countries should see the move as positive because "uncertainty is not something that we think is in the United States' interest or the world's interest." 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. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: "Timeshare Spammer' Pleads Guilty Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 16:52:23 -0500 By GREG BLUESTEIN, Associated Press Writer A man known as "The Timeshare Spammer" said Thursday he will plead guilty to one count of violating anti-spam laws, marking one of the first prosecutions using the federal statute. Peter Moshou, 37, of Auburndale, Fla., could face up to three years in prison for violating a federal anti-spam law. Prosecutors say Moshou sent millions of unsolicited commercial e-mails using Atlanta-based EarthLink's network. The messages, sent throughout 2004 and 2005, were about brokerage services for people interested in selling their timeshares. EarthLink filed a civil lawsuit against Moshou in January after the company detected a massive influx of spam in its system and later handed its investigation over to federal prosecutors. On Thursday, as Moshou awaited a first hearing with U.S. Magistrate Gerrilyn Brill, he did not seem like a man who could face prison time and a fine of up to $350,000 for sending the spam e-mails. Wearing a striped shirt and tennis shoes, Moshou idly chatted with prosecutors about spam attempts, laughing as one joked about spamming ploys. But when the court hearing began, no one on either side of the counsel table was laughing; Magistrate Brill spoke frankly and said 'some of you think it is a joke, I do not think it is funny at all.' "Internet spam is more than just an annoyance," said U.S. Attorney David Nahmias. "It is criminal." EarthLink says the e-mails falsify "from" addresses, use deceptive subject lines, fail to identify the sender and fail to provide an electronic unsubscribe option, among other violations. Those requirements are part of the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003. Spammers who violate the rules face possible prison time and criminal fines of up to $250,000 for individuals and $500,000 for an organization. Moshou's case is among the first prosecutions using the federal law, said Larry Slovensky, EarthLink's assistant general counsel. The first criminal conviction under the federal law was believed to be in September 2004, when Nicholas Tombros, of Marina del Rey, Calif., pleaded guilty of using unprotected wireless networks to send more than 100 unsolicited adult-themed e-mails from his car. Moshou's case marks the second high-profile prosecution EarthLink has helped secure. After the Internet service provider in 2003 won a $16.4 million judgment against Howard Carmack, the so-called Buffalo Spammer, the company turned its evidence over to New York prosecutors. In May 2004, Carmack was sentenced to up to seven years in prison for sending 850 million junk e-mails through accounts he opened with stolen identities. Moshou was expected to enter his guilty plea at 4 p.m. Thursday before U.S. District Judge Richard Story. 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. ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Protecting Your Good Name From Identity Theft Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 15:34:33 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com > Here's how to protect yourself without going back to a cash-only > lifestyle: > -- Don't panic and don't stop using your credit card or shopping > online. Credit cards come with two levels of protection: Federal law > prohibits consumers from losing more than $50 to theft or fraud, and > the card issuers step in and cover that $50. If your card number does > get stolen, you won't be out any money. Your issuer can give you a new > number. That's right, folks, you aren't liable. Only the merchant gets screwed. The merchant is out whatever money was charged. If I sound rather irritated about that, it's just because I am. > -- Control your own paperwork. Most credit card thefts do not occur > when techies figure out how to hack your card company. They occur when > retail employees or shoppers pull carbons out of trash cans or find > payment stubs and the like. Keep control of your receipts and keep > control of your cards. Sure, but how about criminal penalties for the idiot CC processors who have the data and aren't protecting it? How about helping to protect the people who are accepting credit cards from fraud? The whole system sucks butt for anyone whose company accepts credit cards. Even now, nothing is being done. The processors and other companies holding this sensitive data are dragging their feet. Why should they care? > If you lose the actual plastic card, check to make sure that you > aren't being charged for gasoline you didn't buy. Ferchrissakes -- if you lose the card, call the bank immediately! They'll disable the card and then NO ONE will lose money because the thief will try to get the card processed and the transaction will be declined. And ... check to make sure you aren't being charged for ANYTHING you didn't buy. I don't have a credit card right now ... but transactions on my checking account, including Visa check card transactions, do show up on my bank's website very, very quickly. Sometimes within minutes! (I use Bank of America.) > -- Read your mail. At least one California lawyer, Ira Rothken, is > trying to make a class-action suit out of the recent security > breach. If you are a member of a class that has been wronged, you > should receive notification. Even if you're not in a position to join > a suit, you might get notification from your bank about security > breaches or new procedures. Yeah. Hm. I wonder how ideological Rothken is. He stands to make a ton of money if the class is certified. I don't know him and don't want to impugn him, but class actions are losing propositions for everyone *except* the attorneys. Sorry if I sound aggravated. This mess could have been prevented a long time ago. No one gave a damn, least of all Visa and Mastercard and the processors, because they could always get the money back from someone else to give to the cardholder. Am I angry? You bet I am. I don't currently accept credit cards using a separate merchant account (though that may change in the near future), but I have in the past ... and I accept credit cards right now through PayPal. As a merchant, I've always stood to lose more than anyone else. Personally, I *almost* hope a lot of people stop using credit cards. That would be a wonderful thing. It would be a wake-up call to the people running the credit card associations, the banks and the processors. Unfortunately, it might have some rather negative impacts on the economy, so ... well, I did say ALMOST. Posted to Telecom Digest. CC'd to the original author. JustThe.net - Steve Sobol / sjsobol@JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Coming to you from Southern California's High Desert, where the temperatures are as high as the gas prices! / 888.480.4NET (4638) "Life's like an hourglass glued to the table" --Anna Nalick, "Breathe" ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Using Comcast to Host Web Site Date: Fri, 01 Jul 2005 00:50:25 GMT Rob Stampfli wrote: > In article , William Warren > wrote: >> Comcast has been blocking port 80 (HTTP) for a while now, and they've >> recently started blocking port 25 (SMTP) as well. IMNSHO, it's only a >> matter of time before they start blocking all syn packets and charging >> extra for ANY incoming connection, but for now you can do it with some >> workarounds. > With cable's relatively limited upload speed, I can readily understand > blocking inbound port 80, where the traffic distribution is highly > skewed towards outbound packets. But why inbound port 25? It can't > be to prevent spam from infected PCs since they don't use it. Inbound > port 25 can only be used to receive mail and one could argue that > whether you receive your mail via SMTP (port 25), or POP or IMAP or > otherwise, the bits have to eventually flow in one way or another. > So, why block port 25? The only answer I can come up with is "just > for spite". I suspect it's *outbound* port 25 that is blocked, to prevent zombie machines and active spammers from using their own SMTP servers to send email directly to their victims' ISPs' MTAs. Many ISPs block outbound port 25, requiring most users to go through the ISP's SMTP server to send email, which can have limits imposed in an effort to deter spam. It could also be a block of inbound port 25, to prevent zombie machines from acting as open relay SMTP servers, but if outbound port 25 is blocked, those zombies couldn't send the mail that is sent to them for relaying, so there is no need to block inbound port 25. > For that matter, the whole concept of "no servers" has always seemed > flawed to me: Technically, sshd and telnetd are servers. Does Comcast > really desire to have a policy of preventing one from contacting a > home machine when they are travelling? I suspect the "no servers" rule is like the rule against going 56 in a 55 zone, the rule against loitering, or the rule against parking too close to or too far from the curb -- it allows selective prosecution, so to speak. It gives the ISP an excuse to terminate a spammer or zombie owner without having to prove much of anything, because it could make the same finding against anyone. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD (USA) (Replace "example.invalid" with "com" in my address.) ------------------------------ From: zbang@radix.net (Carl Zwanzig) Subject: Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. Date: Fri, 01 Jul 2005 01:19:40 -0000 Organization: RadixNet Internet Services John McHarry wrote: > The law should be modestly amended to declare those using cellphones > in theaters, churches, and other places of public assembly outlaws > subject to pummeling by the inconvenienced other inmates of such > assembly. Exception might be made for surviving, on duty, emergency > personnel. ;^) Unfortunately, it's proven difficult, if not impossible, to legistate taste, politeness, tact, or morality. OTOH, I wouldn't mind a slide flashing up on the screen saying "Turn your d*nm phone off!!" the first time one rings. z! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Our local movie theatre, the Independence Cinema (actually four areas to view four different movies which are playing at any given time stresses the 'no cell phones' rule quite extensively before each movie starts (as part of the coming attractions, cartoons and messages from local advertisers.) They show a movie patron smoking a cigarette, his feet on the seat in front of him, and talking on a cell phone; all of which, they explain, are no-no. All three of these activities are inconsiderate of other patrons. "This will be your only warning; If you do these things, we will be forced to ask you to leave the theatre (here we see a manager/usher/whomever approach the offensive patron and lead him away), and that would ruin the movie for you, your friends and our other patrons. HAVE CELL PHONES TURNED OFF OR SILENCED. If you must make/receieve an emergency call, please deal with it in the lobby." PAT] ------------------------------ From: whoward@login2.srv.ualberta.ca (W Howard) Subject: Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 02:48:56 UTC Organization: University of Alberta In article , Joseph wrote: > http://www.rcrnews.com/news.cms?newsId=23199 > FCC Re-iterates Cell-Phone Jammers Are Illegal > WASHINGTON-People who want to use cell-phone jammers to get rid of > annoying mobile-phone use should think again. It is against the > law. Those found using, selling, manufacturing or distributing > cell-phone jammers could be subject to an $11,000-per-day fine and > seizure of their equipment by the United States Marshals, warned the > Federal Communications Commission. Of course they say that. And every once in a while they dust off their announcement that broadcasting more than 5 watts on a CB radio is illegal and subjects the operator to fines and seizure of their equipment too. But they don't actually do it. They're stretched thin already trying to figure out where telecommunications is going so they can stay a little ahead of it, and they just don't bother with "crimes" that do not involve substantial amounts of money. IMHO, the preaching without the enforcement weakens repect for everything they do. If you don't have enough resources to enforce a law, better you don't have the law either. But nobody in Washington can imagine just removing a law, without replacing it with a more complicated one. >> Walt ------------------------------ 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 #303 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jul 1 15:00:03 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id C272314F29; Fri, 1 Jul 2005 15:00:02 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #304 Message-Id: <20050701190002.C272314F29@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 15:00:02 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-0.8 required=2.0 tests=BAYES_00,MSGID_FROM_MTA_SHORT, WORK_AT_HOME autolearn=no version=2.63 X-Spam-Level: Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 1 Jul 2005 15:00:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 304 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Pakistan's Internet Links Still Out (Lisa Minter) Opera Signs Deal With Motorola (Lisa Minter) Swedes Undeterred by Internet Piracy Laws (Lisa Minter) Slingbox Review (Monty Solomon) Device Lets You Watch Shows on Home TV, TiVo, Elsewhere (Monty Solomon) Nokia 9300 Review (Monty Solomon) Children Get Protection From Email in Michigan (Lisa Minter) BellSouth Ramps up Fiber Rollout (Telecom dailyLead from USTA) Annoyances ... (was: Cellular Jamming? Think Again.) (Al Gillis) Re: Using Comcast to Host Web Site (Robert Bonomi) Re: Congressman Lends a Helping Hand to SBC (Steve Sobol) Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. (Michael D. Sullivan) Employment Opportunity: Data Entry - Contract Job (untitleearthlink@aol) Last Laugh! We Are Going to Eat From WHAT? (Patrick Townson) 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: Pakistan's Internet Links Still Out Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 09:51:40 -0500 By Robert Birsel Lisa note: On Monday they said this would only be quite temporary and that internet service would take 'three days' to restore. Now today, Friday, we hear that the problem is a bit more complicated. Lisa ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A faulty fibre-optic cable that virtually crippled Internet access in Pakistan has damaged the country's fledgling call center business but new links should reassure investors, an industry official said on Friday. The submarine cable, Pakistan's sole international cable link for data and the Internet, developed a fault late on Monday, causing many businesses across the country to grind to a halt on Tuesday. Back-up satellite links restored some Internet access later in the week. "We're trying to do some damage control," Abdullah Butt, president of the Association of Call Center Operators of Pakistan, told Reuters. "Definitely, international investors might think that Pakistan does not have adequate back-up," he said. Pakistan Telecommunication Co Ltd, which operates the faulty link, says a repair ship is on its way to the site and the problem should be resolved by early next week. [Lisa: didn't they say that last Monday?] In the meantime, it has provided business, including call centers, with back-up satellite links. Two new links, one a submarine cable and the other a land link with neighboring India, are due to come on stream this year. Butt said he was urging authorities to speed up work on the new links but some damage had already been done. A British company operating in India is reconsidering a $10 million investment in Pakistan because of this week's communications melt-down, Butt said. "They are reconsidering Pakistan as an option because they think Pakistan does not have an alternative link," he said. He declined to reveal the name of the British company but said he was trying to persuade it to go ahead with the project. Pakistan has 25 call center operators employing up to 2,000 people, with a combined revenue of up to $15 million a year. Butt had entertained visions of attracting business away from India, where he said taxes on the business are rising, and he had targets of an industry with annual revenue of up to $60 million employing 10,000 people within a year or two. But this week's problems have raised questions about the existing business, as well as future operations. One blessing was that this week's communications nightmare came when the call center business was just getting going. "I'm not losing hope," Butt said. "Right now, Pakistan does not have a place on the global map of out-sourcing so the impact has not been that great." Had the communications break-down come after a few years of investment and growth, that would have been disastrous, he said. For now, Butt is pinning the hopes for his industry on the two new international data and Internet links: "We foresee in the very near future things will be much better." 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: Do you recall 18 years ago, in May, 1988 when Illinois Bell had that fire in Hinsdale, IL which put them out of business for a long time? Bell's original 'guesstimate' for restoration of service was 'three or four days' which turned into a month. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Norway's Opera Software Signs Motorola Phone Deal Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 11:36:29 -0500 Norwegian Internet browser firm Opera Software has agreed with U.S. mobile phone group Motorola expand an existing contract and license its browser for Motorola phones for three years, Opera said on Friday. "The contract is of strategic importance to Opera as it will significantly increase the company's market share in the mobile browser market," Opera Software ASA said in a statement. Opera has also licensed its small-screen browser to other mobile handset manufacturers, including Nokia and Sony Ericsson. Opera will receive a royalty payment per mobile phone sold, it said. "Opera will make its mobile phone browser available on all major operating systems supported by Motorola, including Linux, Windows Mobile, Symbian, BREW and Motorola's P2K," Opera said. 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: Swedes Undeterred by Online Piracy Ban Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 11:37:59 -0500 By MATTIAS KAREN, Associated Press Writer Unless Swedes have suddenly changed their habits, about one in 10 became a criminal on Friday when a ban on sharing copyrighted music and movies over the Internet took effect at midnight. Swedes are among the most prolific file-sharers in the world. Industry groups estimate that about 10 percent of Sweden's 9 million residents freely swap music, games and movies on their computers, making the Scandinavian country one of the world's biggest copyright violators. The new law, which follows a European Union directive, took effect a day after the U.S. government announced an 11-nation crackdown on Internet piracy organizations responsible for stealing copies of the latest "Star Wars" film and other movies, games and software programs. The Swedish ban also comes just days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the entertainment industry can file piracy lawsuits against technology companies caught encouraging customers to download copyrighted material for free over the Internet. Globally, the movie industry alone is estimated to be losing $3.5 billion to $5.4 billion a year to Internet piracy. Many industry experts say that Swedes -- normally law-abiding, but very tech-savvy -- have grown so lax about copyright infringement that any regulation is likely to be useless. "A law in itself changes nothing," said Henrik Ponten, a spokesman for Antipiratbyran, a Swedish lobbying group waging a fierce campaign against the file-sharers. "There is nothing that indicates that (file-sharers) would change their behavior." Previously, it had only been illegal in Sweden to make pirated material available online for others to download via so-called peer-to-peer networks. While such behavior is rampant here, no one has been convicted of doing it. However, a court is expected to make the first ruling in such a case later this year. A 27-year-old man was charged in March with making a Swedish movie available for download from his home computer. If convicted, he could face two years in prison. But if he is merely fined, it will likely serve as a green light for small-time pirates, as police and prosecutors normally won't spend resources on crimes that only warrant a fine. And while most political parties backed the new law, Justice Minister Thomas Bodstrom has signaled that chasing downloaders will still not be a priority for police, unless the volume is massive. "It would be just as unreasonable to dedicate large police resources to investigate single cases of downloading as it would be to prioritize shoplifting cases ahead of robberies," Bodstrom wrote in an op-ed article shortly before the law was passed. Antipiratbyran and similar organizations in other countries have been tracking file-sharers online and sent out warning letters to people who make illegal material available from their computers. Seven of every 1,000 Swedes has received such a letter, for a total of more than 60,000. That's a much higher per capita rate than in any other country. The average is about two per thousand, Ponten said. "Sweden really is a paradise for pirates," he said. "We're getting very weak signals from society that copyright should be valid on the Internet." While the Antipiratbyran's aggressive pursuit of file-sharers has been a deterrent to some, it also has fueled a public backlash, as many see the group's warning letters as harassment. Hackers attacked the agency's Web site in March. It's still down. More than 4,000 people reported Antipiratbyran to the Swedish Data Inspection Board, claiming the agency misused personal information by collecting IP addresses and online aliases. The inspection board agreed, and the lobbying group has stopped sending out warning letters to file-sharers. 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. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 23:46:07 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Slingbox Review Slingbox By Bill Howard Sling Media's Slingbox scratches an itch you may not yet have. This technically impressive set-top box compresses and transfers live TV, satellite, or DVR video from your home to a computer anywhere in the world, all without requiring a PC to be up and running at home, and with minimal quality loss. Why, however, would you want to do that, when there's a TV in virtually every hotel room and friend's house around the world? It turns out there are some useful reasons as you dig deeper. But dig you must. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1833045,00.asp ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 23:46:12 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Device Lets You Watch Shows on a Home TV, TiVo From Elsewhere By WALTER S. MOSSBERG Most people understand the concept of time shifting for television shows. Using a digital video recorder, such as a TiVo, or a videocassette recorder, you can record a TV program for viewing at a time that is more convenient for you. But there is another idea for making TV watching convenient that is less well known. It is called "place shifting." Place shifting allows viewers to watch TV shows they receive at home in other locations, and on devices other than their TV sets. Unlike time shifting, which has been around for decades, place shifting is just getting going. A few portable video players are available, but they can't play live TV, only shows recorded on special TiVo models or relatively expensive TV-capable "Media Center" PCs. And they are clumsy to use. Today, however, place shifting of TV shows takes a big leap forward. A Silicon Valley start-up company called Sling Media is introducing a $250 gadget it calls a "personal broadcaster." This small device, named the Slingbox, can beam any live TV show coming into your home to an Internet-connected Windows PC anywhere in the world. It also allows you to remotely watch shows you have recorded at home on a TiVo or other digital video recorder. The Slingbox gives you full control of your home TV and digital recorder even if you are thousands of miles away. You can change channels, use the program guide, and perform any action on the menus of your TV or recorder just as if you were sitting in front of your set. The home TV doesn't even have to be on at the time. And, best of all, the Slingbox is just a piece of hardware, not a service. It is a small silver box that simply sits between your cable or satellite receiver and your home broadband Internet connection and pumps your TV programs out via the Internet. It doesn't require a TiVo, and it works with a standard Windows PC. There are no periodic fees to pay, no membership is required and no advertisements are beamed at you other than the normal commercials that appear in the TV programs. All you shell out is the $250 for the device itself. Starting today, it will be available at CompUSA and Best Buy stores, and at those companies' Web sites. http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20050630.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 00:03:39 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Nokia 9300 Communicator Review Review by Michael Oryl Nokia's 9000 series Communicator devices have always had a few things in common. They've had big displays, full QWERTY keyboards, and they were huge. The Nokia 9500, a current model in Nokia's lineup, still fits that description. But with the 9300, things are starting to change. The 9300 still has a big display and a QWERTY keyboard, but it isn't exactly huge -- especially when compared to earlier models, as you will see. http://www.MobileBurn.com/review.jsp?Id=1459 ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Parents Can Sign up Kids to Not Get E-Mail Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 11:40:17 -0500 By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN, Associated Press Writer Starting Friday, parents can sign up for what Michigan officials say is the nation's first registry aimed at keeping spammers from sending children inappropriate e-mail. The new law bans sending messages to children related to such things as pornography, illegal or prescription drugs, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, firearms or fireworks. Parents and schools will be able to register children's e-mail addresses. "From my perspective as a parent, I'm horrified by what comes in" to her three children's e-mail accounts, Gov. Jennifer Granholm said during a news conference Thursday. "This will put an end, we hope, to inappropriate e-mail getting to our children." Signing up for the registry is free, and parents soon will be able to add their children's instant message IDs, mobile phone numbers, fax numbers and pager numbers. E-mail senders must comply with the new law by Aug. 1. Violators face up to three years in jail or fines up to $30,000 if convicted of breaking the law, and could face civil penalties of up to $5,000 per message sent. Some Internet safety experts have said anti-spam laws have been difficult to enforce and others worry the lists will give hackers a way to get access to a large database of children. Public Service Commission Chairman Peter Lark said safeguards, including encryption of e-mail addresses and other information, will keep the Michigan registry secure. Utah is getting ready to set up a similar registry for children there. On the Net: http://www.michigan.gov/protectmichild 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: I wonder what would be the result in a case like this: I have a fourteen year old nephew who lives in Chicago but (among other things) has an email address from a Michigan ISP. I am seriously thinking about making him the _email coordinator_ for TELECOM Digest; that is, forwarding all Digest email through him via his Michigan email address. When the email hits his box, it will be reforwaded on to me, of course, after judicious picking through of the pieces which are spam. I would have him listed on the 'do not email' list. Heck, maybe we could cut corners if Kansas passed such a law or maybe Massachusetts. So, there would be a jillion plus one pieces of email spam each day. All the spam and porn would be automatically forwarded to the appropriate state enforcement authorities for prosecution and hopefully fine collections. What would be the success rate? Maybe one percent? I really would not care; at one percent success, an occassional -- very occassional -- conviction and share of the proceeds in the fines collected would be worth the little effort it would take to forward my spam box each day to the state authorities. I think a 'do not email' list is a great idea, as long as the states or federal government intends to share (at least a little) the loot they can collect by enforcement based on my complaints of course. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 12:33:42 EDT From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA Subject: BellSouth Ramps up Fiber Rollout Telecom dailyLead from USTA July 1, 2005 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=22795&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * BellSouth ramps up fiber rollout BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Sprint, Motorola team up in wireless broadband test * AT&T shareholders approve SBC merger * Cingular encourages customers to "Take a Shot" USTA SPOTLIGHT * USTelecom Webinar: Challenges and Opportunities in a Post-Brand X World * TelecomNEXT: An International Focus EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * Smart phones come of age VOIP DOWNLOAD * Canada's Rogers offers VoIP service * Startup wins E911 patent * Cablevision links VoIP to home security systems REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Congress may exempt telcos from TV franchise rules * Lawmakers stand up for rural communities * Ebbers to surrender assets for settlement fund * U.S. hunts Web pirates at home, abroad EDITOR'S NOTE * The dailyLead will not be published on Monday, Independence Day. 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: Al Gillis Subject: Annoyances ... (was: Cellular Jamming? Think Again.) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 20:37:14 -0700 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Carl Zwanzig wrote in message news:telecom24.303.10@telecom-digest.org: > John McHarry wrote: Snip, SNip ... > Unfortunately, it's proven difficult, if not impossible, to legistate > taste, politeness, tact, or morality. OTOH, I wouldn't mind a slide > flashing up on the screen saying "Turn your d*nm phone off!!" the > first time one rings. > z! Sometimes, when I'm dreaming, I wish for a small electronics package in my trunk with a button on the dashboard that, when activated, will seek out and irreparably smoke any receiver, amplifier and speaker that is causing loud THUMP, THUMP, THUMP sounds within an 800 yard radius, I pray for this device in particular when I'm next to them at a long stop light! ------------------------------ From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) Subject: Re: Using Comcast to Host Web Site Date: Fri, 01 Jul 2005 04:11:21 -0000 Organization: Widgets, Inc. In article , Michael D. Sullivan wrote: > Rob Stampfli wrote: >> In article , William Warren >> wrote: >>> Comcast has been blocking port 80 (HTTP) for a while now, and they've >>> recently started blocking port 25 (SMTP) as well. IMNSHO, it's only a >>> matter of time before they start blocking all syn packets and charging >>> extra for ANY incoming connection, but for now you can do it with some >>> workarounds. >> With cable's relatively limited upload speed, I can readily understand >> blocking inbound port 80, where the traffic distribution is highly >> skewed towards outbound packets. But why inbound port 25? It can't >> be to prevent spam from infected PCs since they don't use it. Inbound >> port 25 can only be used to receive mail and one could argue that >> whether you receive your mail via SMTP (port 25), or POP or IMAP or >> otherwise, the bits have to eventually flow in one way or another. >> So, why block port 25? The only answer I can come up with is "just >> for spite". > I suspect it's *outbound* port 25 that is blocked, to prevent zombie > machines and active spammers from using their own SMTP servers to send > email directly to their victims' ISPs' MTAs. Many ISPs block outbound > port 25, requiring most users to go through the ISP's SMTP server to > send email, which can have limits imposed in an effort to deter spam. > It could also be a block of inbound port 25, to prevent zombie > machines from acting as open relay SMTP servers, but if outbound port > 25 is blocked, those zombies couldn't send the mail that is sent to > them for relaying, so there is no need to block inbound port 25. Unfortunately, that is *NOT* true. Spammer use of "asymmetric routing" has shown there _is_ a need for blocking inbound port 25, as well. >> For that matter, the whole concept of "no servers" has always seemed >> flawed to me: Technically, sshd and telnetd are servers. Does Comcast >> really desire to have a policy of preventing one from contacting a >> home machine when they are travelling? I can't speak for Comcast specifically, but (at least some) other providers with a 'no servers rule' *do* intend that, as well as prohibiting the 'bandwidth hogging' uses like a music download service.. ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Congressman Lends a Helping Hand to SBC Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 21:20:16 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Lisa Minter wrote: > In late May, Sessions introduced legislation that would ban municipal > broadband networks in areas where companies such as SBC offer similar > services. SBC supports the bill, but spokesman Kevin Belgrade said the > issue goes beyond any one company. Sessions is obviously bought and paid for. I thought the point of all of the anti-trust legislation last century was to *avoid* creating monopolies. > Juanita Sessions, meanwhile, held SBC stock options valued between > $500,001 and $1 million through the end of 2003, Someone should bring this to the attention of the SEC ... JustThe.net - Steve Sobol / sjsobol@JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Coming to you from Southern California's High Desert, where the temperatures are as high as the gas prices! / 888.480.4NET (4638) "Life's like an hourglass glued to the table" --Anna Nalick, "Breathe" ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. Date: Fri, 01 Jul 2005 04:27:27 GMT W Howard wrote: >> FCC Re-iterates Cell-Phone Jammers Are Illegal > > Of course they say that. And every once in a while they dust off > their announcement that broadcasting more than 5 watts on a CB radio > is illegal and subjects the operator to fines and seizure of their > equipment too. But they don't actually do it. They're stretched thin > already trying to figure out where telecommunications is going so they > can stay a little ahead of it, and they just don't bother with > "crimes" that do not involve substantial amounts of money. The FCC has engaged in a number of enforcement actions against outfits selling or using cellphone jammers. Google jammer site: http://fcc.gov. > IMHO, the preaching without the enforcement weakens repect for > everything they do. If you don't have enough resources to enforce a > law, better you don't have the law either. But nobody in Washington > can imagine just removing a law, without replacing it with a more > complicated one. Who said anything about removing a law or replacing one? Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD (USA) (Replace "example.invalid" with "com" in my address.) ------------------------------ From: UntitleEathlink@aol.com Subject: Employment Opportunity: Data Entry - Contract Date: 1 Jul 2005 06:10:20 -0700 A technical support position is available for a work at home situation. This is a full time position, where you will be receiving support help from email. Group Ware design are looking for suitable data input clerks to work on a regular basis. The type of work involves inputing data into a database such as Lotus Approach or Microsoft Access. Updates can range from 200 to 3000 entries. Please forward your resume. Initial one year contract. Pay Based On Qualifications. Min. Pay $14.50 -hr. Email Amy At: WorkPlus2@aol. com Web Site: http://www.untitled-works.com ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: Last Laugh! We're Going to Eat Out of a WHAT? Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 09:44:43 -0500 It may take a strong stomach to eat curry or chocolate ice cream out of a toilet bowl, but a commode-themed restaurant in Taiwan does booming business serving up just that. The Martun, or toilet in Chinese, restaurant in the southern port city of Kaohsiung boasts lengthy queues on weekends as diners wait for a toilet seat in its brightly colored tile interior. Food arrives in bowls shaped like Western-style toilets or Asian-style "squat pots." Manager Hung Lin-wen said the original inspiration came from a toilet-shaped spaceship in a Japanese cartoon. The theme has attracted droves of novelty-seeking young people who come to play with their food and gross out their friends. "We think the theme is special, and the food is tasty," Hung said. But no matter how delicious, a few customers still find the combination a little hard to swallow. "The taste is good, but I still feel disgusted when I look at it," said diner Lin Yu-may. 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: And this concept, of food served out of a toilet bowl was the basis for a type of mini-computer terminal device now under construction, soon to be in beta-testing. The round bowl is the screen and keyboard; the computer guts are where the device (if it were an actual toilet) drains out, connecting to the sewer. The user sits there facing the bowl, and calls up Usenet messages, email and web sites; staring at the bowl (screen) as writings, pictures and other illustrations are presented on demand. The 'enter' key, appropriatly enough is entitled 'flush', and you use the flush key for what you deposit there and what otherwise backs up at you. 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 #304 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jul 1 23:26:12 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 0095E15016; Fri, 1 Jul 2005 23:26:11 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #305 Message-Id: <20050702032611.0095E15016@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 23:26:11 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-1.7 required=2.0 tests=BAYES_00,MSGID_FROM_MTA_SHORT autolearn=no version=2.63 X-Spam-Level: Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 1 Jul 2005 23:25:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 305 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson From our Archives: 19th Century Telegraphers (TELECOM Digest Editor) Policy Post 11.16: Open CRS Web Site Shows Great Demand (Monty Solomon) Policy Post 11.17: Supreme Court Rules Grokster Liable (Monty Solomon) EFFector 18.19: EFF Publishes Legal Guide for Bloggers (Monty Solomon) EFFector 18.20: EFF Supporters Slam Congress to Stop (Monty Solomon) EFFector 18.21: Supreme Court Ruling Will Chill Technology (M Solomon) PFIR Statement on Adult Content Regulations; Broader Impacts (M Solomon) Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. (mc) Question About Annoying Phone Calls; Please Any Info (Xxjessi77xx@aol) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 22:14:35 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: From Our Archives; 19th Century Telegraphers For your reading this holiday weekend, a book review first published here in this Digest in October, 1992, presented by Jim Haynes, dealing with 19th century telegraphers. Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 00:11:49 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210150511.AA11371@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: ptownson@gaak.LCS.MIT.EDU Subject: 19th Century Telegraphers (Book Review) Status: R Date: Thu, 15 Oct 00:10:00 GMT Reply-To: TELECOM Moderator Organization: TELECOM Digest I received this interesting book review in my mail today and thought it worthwhile sharing with TELECOM Digest readers. PAT From: haynes@cats.UCSC.EDU (Jim Haynes) Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 18:20:09 -0700 Subject: 19th Century Telegraphers (Book Review) Book Review The American Telegrapher: a social history 1860-1900 Edwin Gabler Rutgers University Press, 1988 ISBN 0-8135-1284-0 (hardbound), 0-8135-1285-9 (paperback) I seem to read a lot of books which are at the same time both interesting and tedious. This is one such book. Written by an academic historian for reading by other academic historians, it is long on footnotes, theories, and statistics and short on flesh-and-blood storytelling; yet there is enough of the latter to entertain the casual reader. Part I of this review is an attempt to convey the general message of the book. Part II is for fun: a selection of stories about the lives and times telegraphers a century ago. Part I There are five chapters: a history of the Great Strike of 1883 as an introduction to the world of the operators; a description of the telegraph industry and especially Western Union; a social portrait of the telegraphers; a study of women telegraphers; and a summary of the labor movement and politics of telegraphers. An epilogue compares the situation of telegraphers in the 1880s with that of the air traffic controllers a hundred years later. Telegraph and railroad companies following the Civil War represented an entirely new kind of business, one in which the company's assets are strung out for hundreds or thousands of miles with offices and employees sprinkled along the lines. There were other affinities between the two kinds of companies. Railroads used telegraphy to support their own operations. Railroad rights-of-way were ideal places to run telegraph lines, affording easy access for construction and maintenance at a time when there were few roads. Telegraph business was likely to be found in the same places the railroads served. In many small towns the railroad station served as the public telegraph office, as there was not enough telegraph business to support an office for telegraph alone. Some railroads such as B & O operated their own public telegraph businesses. (cf. Southern Pacific a century later getting into the communications business.) Other railroads had contract arrangements with the telegraph companies, principally Western Union, for use of rights of way, interconnection of circuits, and providing public telegraph service at the railroad stations. These new kinds of businesses needed a new kind of management. The military became their model. Many of the top managers were alumni of the Civil War military telegraph system. The companies had divisions, rule books, general orders and special orders, and chains of command. Management style was authoritarian. As is the case with some companies today, the telegraph and railroad companies then were headed by a mixture of people who knew the business and those who were primarily financial wizards. Telegraph operators represented the beginning of a new social class, the lower-middle-class white-collar employees of large corporations. Many were the children of farmers or of city blue-collar workers. A great many were of Irish lineage. For all of these telegraphy offered a step up the social ladder as well as an escape from hard physical labor and city slums or rural isolation. Telegraphy was an occupation open to women, although the majority of operators were male (and, like the women, young and unmarried). The national economy was fairly flat or even deflationary during the period 1860-1890. Western Union profits rose handsomely throughout the period. The operators did not share in this prosperity. For one thing, there was an oversupply of them. First-class operators, who could send and receive thirty to forty words per minute for hours on end, were assigned to press and market reporting circuits. They could command pay two to three times as great as that of the second-class operators who made up the bulk of the force. Many operators learned the craft by hanging around small railroad and telegraph offices; others worked their way up from messenger and clerk jobs in larger offices; still others were trained at a number of schools that sprang up around the country. Most of the latter seem to have been disreputable if not completely fraudulent, operating for profit and promising high pay and mobility to rural youth. They were the century-ago counterparts of the for-profit data processing schools of our own times, the kind that advertised on matchbook covers and turned out an oversupply of under-qualified graduates for high tuition fees. Another financial problem for the telegraphers resulted from their new social class. Telegraphers' pay was on a par with that of skilled blue-collar workers; but their living expenses were greater. With the move to suits and ties and shined shoes they felt a need to live in middle-class housing, eat middle-class meals, and partake of middle-class entertainments. A few of the operators' perceptions of mistreatment by the companies were more apparent than real. The 1840s through 1860s had been a period when telegraphy was just getting started. Job opportunities were abundant and promotions were rapid. As the industry matured there were fewer spectacular success stories; telegraphy even seemed to be a dead-end job. Other complaints had a more solid foundation. Mergers of telegraph companies eliminated jobs. An economic downturn in the 1870s caused Western Union to institute across-the-board salary reductions, which were partially offset by monetary deflation. Operators tended to move around a lot, which allowed the company to hire cheaper replacements for those who left. The first attempt of telegraph workers to organize was the National Telegraphic Union of 1863. This was more of a mutual benefit society than a labor union. It provided members with sickness and funeral benefits and aimed to elevate the character of the members and promote just and harmonious relations with employers. With conditions for telegraphers growing worse after the Civil War the Telegraphers' Protective League was formed in 1868 as a very different kind of organization. It was a secret organization, because there was nothing at the time to protect its members from the unbridled power of their employers. Rather than relieving the sick and burying the dead it proposed to raise the members to a financial position in which they could take care of themselves. The TPL felt strong enough by January, 1870 to risk a strike against Western Union. It failed after about a week. There were just too many operators seeking work, especially in the winter season; the company was too strong; and the union was too poorly organized. The operators' situation continued to deteriorate through the 1870s as Western Union reduced wages, the number of would-be operators increased, and the company absorbed its competitors. An attempt to form another union in 1872 fizzled. In 1881 Jay Gould took over Western Union, moving the company closer to being a true national monopoly. By the summer of 1882 a number of regional labor organizations put aside their differences to form the Brotherhood of Telegraphers of the United States and Canada under the aegis of the Knights of Labor. The Brotherhood, unlike its predecessors, accepted the female operators as members. In July, 1883 the Brotherhood presented a list of grievances to Western Union and some other firms, hoping for at least a compromise settlement and at worst a short strike. When the company made no meaningful concessions the telegraphers walked out on July 19. At first things looked good for the Brotherhood. About three fourths of Western Union operators honored the strike. Public opinion was much on the side of the telegraphers, at least to the extent that it was against the side of Jay Gould and the W.U. monopoly. One competing telegraph company settled quickly with the union; and another (B & O) came close to, but never close enough. Union leaders worked hard to keep the public on their side, urging the strikers to be models of dignity and sobriety. The women were as valiant as the men, if not more so, in upholding the strike. Still, public sympathy did not feed the hungry; and the strike dwindled until it was officially called off August 17. Operators wishing to return to work had to sign a pledge of loyalty; those considered militant unionists were blacklisted by the company. Still, it appears the company was somewhat humbled by the power of the union and made a few concessions to the operators. Failure of the strike led to some ill feeling in the larger labor movement. The telegraphers accused the Knights of insufficient support; the Knights leadership felt the telegraphers had acted impulsively and without sufficient preparation. The Brotherhood soon withdrew from the Knights; and union activity reverted to local groups. Yet by 1885 there was a new organization, the Telegraphers' Union of America, which rejoined the Knights in 1886. This seems to have faded away by the early 1890s along with the Knights. Railroad telegraphers formed the Order of Railway Telegraphers in 1886. An Order of Commercial Telegraphers was formed in 1890 but never amounted to much, and allied itself with the railway telegraphers in 1897-98. The next attempt to form a union didn't happen until 1907, with the Commercial Telegraphers' Union of America, which also suffered disaster in a strike against Western Union. Gabler concludes with a discussion of a number of labor and political issues affecting telegraphers. One of the Brotherhood's demands had been equal pay for equal work, male and female. This seems to have been widely hailed as the Right Thing to do. I wonder whether the male telegraphers supported the demand because it was right; or if they supported it because they knew if the companies had to pay men and women the same they would hire only men. Some wanted a craft union, with membership limited to telegraphers, with an apprenticeship program that would raise the quality of operators while reducing their numbers. There was some interest in government licensing of operators. Others favored an industrial union, open to all Western Union employees. Some objected to the secret fraternal rites that were a feature of the Knights of Labor; Catholic workers were forbidden to become members of secret organizations of any kind. The operators wanted to protect their new middle-class image by being models of respectability and sobriety; some of the linemen on the other hand had no scruples about cutting wires to increase pressure on the companies during a strike. Some felt that telegraphy should be a government monopoly, as was and still is the norm in Europe. Some saw salvation in a worker-owned cooperative, if they could only convince the banks or the government to put up the money necessary to establish the system. Others sought to improve the status of the working classes through political action; quite a number were attracted to the United Labor Party of Henry George. A hundred years later issues like these are still with us. Part II Dr. Gabler had access to a vast amount of material: census records, archives of the telegraph companies, contemporary newspaper accounts, magazines published for the edification and amusement of operators, and even novels in which telegraphers were used as characters. The footnotes and bibliography take up 48 pages. One page in the book is an illustration of advertisements in a telegraphers' magazine of 1883. They include a book on shorthand, a book of money-making secrets, a book on the mysteries of love-making, a book on fortune telling, watch charms with microscopic pictures, a book of advice to the unmarried, a package of stationery, a book on politeness, a book of letters for all occasions, playing cards with marked backs, a book of magic tricks, a book on business, and a book on ballroom dancing. The theme is that these appealed to working-class young adults who felt a need to learn how to behave properly as members of the middle-class. A number of telegraph operators rose to prominence. Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie are the best known; Theodore N. Vail was a founder of AT&T; others found success in business or politics; and almost all the upper management of Western Union was drawn from the ranks of operators. In 1885 there were five doctors and one dentist moonlighting as telegraph operators -- maybe medicine and dentistry didn't pay all that well in those days. Thomas Edison, as a young telegrapher in the 1860s, would work a full day and then stay in the office at night, listening to a press circuit to get high speed code practice. Later he worked the Boston end of a New York circuit with an operator named Jerry Borst. Operators formed friendships with their counterparts at the other end of the wires. The telegraph companies insisted that operators should work at whatever circuits they were assigned. Edison and Borst conspired to change three characters of the code, so that nobody else could copy their transmissions and they could always work together. Cockroaches were such a problem in the office that Edison devised a bug zapper to protect his lunch from the little beasties. Friendships over the wires were nourished during lulls in traffic by exchanges of jokes and local news, and by checker games. Sometimes love and courtship blossomed too. At other times operators were rude to one another. On one occasion two operators got so angry at each other that they arranged to meet at a town halfway between their posts and settle the matter with fists at 1:00 AM. "Salting" (sending too fast for the receiving operator) was a frequent source of irritation. Salting was also part of the common practice of hazing new operators. Operators frequently got privileges, such as free passes to theaters and on trains. With the chronic oversupply it was common for operators to travel back and forth across the country looking for work, or for better conditions. Operators didn't get vacations, paid or otherwise; but in the summer months telegraph offices would open in the resort towns where the rich took their vacations, and operators could find work there. In 1883 Western Union employed 444 telegraphers in New York City, 96 in Boston, 88 in St. Louis, and 83 in Chicago. This seems to support a conjecture of mine that W.U. was weakened all its life by overattention to serving New York City and insufficient effort to develop the business in other parts of the country. There was friction between the city operators and the rural operators. The city operators were proud of their skills, and wanted to move the traffic. They resented they way country operators would frequently interrupt transmissions. The country operators, usually working in railroad depots, countered that telegraphy was but a small part of their duties. They had to answer questions from the public, sell tickets, meet trains, tend switches and signals, handle freight, and keep the lamps burning. They commonly worked shifts as long as twelve or even sixteen hours. Development of duplex and then quadruplex operation greatly increased the pressure on operators, as the receiving operators could not interrupt the senders. Gender stereotyping held that only male operators had the stamina to handle these heavily-loaded circuits; yet the book cites a number of examples of women who worked these circuits. Women were consistently paid less than men. The companies were well aware that women were a bargain compared with men, and continually tried to replace men with women. Nellie Welch had full charge of the telegraph office in Point Arena, California in 1886. She was eleven years old. Western Union and the Cooper Union Institute in 1869 jointly started a free eight-month telegraphy course for women. It lasted through the early 1890s, turning out about 80 graduates a year. They would first take non-paying jobs assisting regular operators, and then be hired as operators on lightly loaded city circuits. This school was much despised by men for its contribution to the oversupply problem, thought it probably hurt the opportunities for women more than those for men. Beginner and less-skilled operators were called "plugs" or "hams." (Note the endless controversy over the origin of the term "ham" for amateur radio operators.) The schools that turned out these operators were called "plug factories." Craft magazines sought to shame operators who taught telegraphy. They were urged to pass on the secrets of Morse only to brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters. At least one railroad operator quit his job rather than cooperate with a student placed with him by the company. ---------------- [Moderator's Note: My thanks for this very interesting article. Digest readers are encouraged to send book reviews and other special articles like this to Telecom for distribution on the net. PAT] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: (in 2005) Another article about Nellie Welch (the 11 year old in 1886 who operated the telegraph office) told of how she was _very quick_ at sending and recieving messages; how in her 'spare time' she also wrote and sold stage coach tickets and tended to the horses. That particular combination telegraph office/ stage coach 'way station' was also a place where the stage coach drivers would exchange their horses for a fresh team of horses to continue their journey. Nellie would unhitch the team of horses, take them in the stable to be fed, watered and 'bedded down' until the animals started their trip back to where they came from the next day. Then she would take a fresh team out, hook them to the stage coach. That was also a change place for the stage coach drivers, who sometimes stayed there overnight while some other driver took the stage coach on to wherever. Assisted by her mother and her invalid father, she was the principal 'bread winner' in the little family. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 20:41:16 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Policy Post 11.16: Open CRS Web Site Shows Great Demand CDT POLICY POST Volume 11, Number 16, June 30, 2005 A BRIEFING ON PUBLIC POLICY ISSUES AFFECTING CIVIL LIBERTIES ONLINE from THE CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY AND TECHNOLOGY CONTENTS: (1) Open CRS Web Site Shows Great Demand for Congressional Reports (2) Background on Access to Congressional Research Service Reports (3) Legislative Efforts on Access to CRS Reports (4) Next Steps for Open CRS http://www.cdt.org/publications/policyposts/11/17 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 20:41:16 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Policy Post 11.17: Supreme Court Rules Grokster can be Liable CDT POLICY POST Volume 11, Number 17, July 1, 2005 A BRIEFING ON PUBLIC POLICY ISSUES AFFECTING CIVIL LIBERTIES ONLINE from THE CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY AND TECHNOLOGY CONTENTS: (1) Supreme Court Rules Grokster can be Held Liable For Inducing Infringement (2) Lower Court Rulings on Grokster Remain Crucial (3) Congressional Implications and the Overall Digital Copyright Debate http://www.cdt.org/publications/policyposts/11/17 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 20:41:16 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 18.19: EFF Publishes Legal Guide for Bloggers EFFector Vol. 18, No. 19 June 16, 2005 donna@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 335th Issue of EFFector: * EFF Publishes Legal Guide for Bloggers * BayFF on Bloggers' Rights, July 19 * Why Isn't Secure Flight Grounded? * Popcorn and Free Speech: EFF Co-Presents "The Front," July 24 and August 2 * EFF Offers Security Training for Organizers, June 29 * EFF Seeks Experienced, Dynamic Membership Coordinator * MiniLinks (11): How I Became the Subject of a Secret Service Investigation * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/18/19.php ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 20:41:16 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 18.20: EFF Supporters Slam Congress to Stop the EFFector Vol. 18, No. 20 June 22, 2005 donna@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 336th Issue of EFFector: * Action Update: EFF Supporters Slam Congress to Stop the Broadcast Flag * Internet Entrepreneur Joe Kraus Joins EFF Board * Upholding the Legality of Reverse Engineering: Judges Weigh Issues in Eighth Circuit Videogame Case * EFF Joins Battle to Protect the Right to Read Anonymously, Publishers' Rights * EFF Seeks Experienced, Dynamic Membership Coordinator * MiniLinks (12): Software Patents, J'Accuse! * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/18/20.php ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 20:41:16 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 18.21: Supreme Court Ruling Will Chill Technology EFFector Vol. 18, No. 21 June 27, 2005 donna@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 337th Issue of EFFector: * Supreme Court Ruling Will Chill Technology Innovation * A Reader's Guide to the Grokster Ruling * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/18/21.php ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 20:47:17 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: PFIR Statement on Adult Content Regulations and Broader Impacts PFIR Statement on Adult Content Regulations and Broader Impacts http://www.pfir.org/statements/adult-content-regulations July 1, 2005 The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has promulgated and is about to begin enforcing a set of regulations known as "18 U.S.C. 2257" which relate to record-keeping requirements for a broad range of "adult content" in virtually all media, including print, video, film, Web sites, etc. Summary, detail, and other data regarding these regulations are viewable at: http://my.execpc.com/~xxxlaw/2257Tables5.24.05.htm ("Technical" View) and: http://www.openmindmedia.com/records/ ("Layman's" View) While the ostensible intent of 2257 is the laudable goal of protecting minors from abuse and exploitation, it appears that the regulations' very wide scope will have a chilling effect on all U.S. entities who deal in even peripherally-related materials that are viewed as objectionable under "lowest-common-denominator" definitions. Presumably this very wide impact is viewed as a positive attribute of the regulations by their framers. However, this is a matter that goes far beyond the limited confines of adult entertainment. Regardless of how one feels about pornography or adult-oriented content in general, the precedent set by these regulations should set off alarm bells for everyone who "publishes" *any* sort of materials -- however exotic or mundane they might be in any form of media, including virtually all Web site operators. The use of administrative regulatory frameworks in this manner to "control" otherwise legal materials has set the stage for the application of the same reasoning to entities who aren't such easy targets as adult content producers. Will well-heeled copyright interests now insist that regulations be drafted requiring that all U.S. Web sites -- containing any form of content -- maintain detailed records of permission to display *every* article, graphic, and photo, to proactively ensure no possible violation of copyright or other intellectual property rights? If such rules work against adult content sites, the temptation to apply similar reasoning and techniques much more comprehensively will be very intense indeed. While such an approach might appear logical from the standpoint of protecting intellectual property, the effects would likely be devastating for the interchange of information and legally-protected speech. The presence of complex record-keeping requirements can easily discourage the publication or display of completely legal and non-infringing materials by many (especially smaller) entities, simply because the burden of compliance will be too great and the risks of error too onerous. Such a deleterious effect would dramatically skew the balance toward what amounts to an assumption of wrongdoing, which is essentially contrary to American traditions of free speech rights. At the very least, such dramatic shifts should only be the result of full, detailed, and open legislative processes, not the spawn of regulatory fiat. Today the regulations relate to adult content. But the pattern set by 18 U.S.C. 2257 could soon affect the speech rights of us all, even if watching old reruns of "I Love Lucy" is the closest many of us routinely get to adult entertainments. --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein lauren@pfir.org or lauren@vortex.com or lauren@eepi.org Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 http://www.pfir.org/lauren Co-Founder, PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org Co-Founder, EEPI - Electronic Entertainment Policy Initiative - http://www.eepi.org Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com DayThink: http://daythink.vortex.com ------------------------------ From: mc Subject: Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 18:45:02 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory http://www.speedfactory.net > Of course they say that. And every once in a while they dust off > their announcement that broadcasting more than 5 watts on a CB radio > is illegal and subjects the operator to fines and seizure of their > equipment too. But they don't actually do it. They're stretched thin > already trying to figure out where telecommunications is going so they > can stay a little ahead of it, and they just don't bother with > "crimes" that do not involve substantial amounts of money. You haven't been reading the news on www.arrl.org, have you? ------------------------------ From: Xxjessi77xx@aol.com Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 15:25:07 EDT Subject: Question About Annoying Phone Calls - Please, any Info Hi, lately for the last few days I've been getting calls from this number: 215-320-0424 I looked up the number online and it brought me to your web site where it said and it gave the number that had been calling me -- (Academy Services Nuisance Calls 215-320-0424)-- I was wondering if you can give me any info about this number or the person calling me? Should I have my company block this number from calling me or what? Please let me know anything. Thanks. -Jessica [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: We had someone else a few weeks ago complain about that number. Your recourse might be to subscribe to a telco service to block numbers from unwanted calls. (You may already have it on your line). You dial *60 (or 60# in some places) then follow the recorded prompts you are given. You'll be allowed to dial in the number to be blocked, or dial #01 to block the last call received, even if you do not know who it was. I have been getting calls from 310-566-1083 which always blocks the name of the caller, but dialing it reaches something called 'Girls Gone Wild'. I also have *77 service, which blocks people who deliberatly do *67 to hide themselves. When I just now tried your 215-320-0424 I got some mysterious message that I had reached 'Academy Services' and to enter the desired extension number, or 'hold for an operator'. I decided to hold, it started ringing again and another recording came on telling me I had reached 'extension 5067' and to leave my name and _phone number_ so my call could be immediatly returned. It smelled like some collection agency to me; I gave 'it' (the recorded message when I was requested to speak) my usual salutation under those circumstances (a loud, rather offensive belch) and disconnected. Of course _I_ did *67 first before the dialing string. Since my latest call from 310-566-1083 arrived at a most inopportune moment (I was seated in my bathroom and came rushing to the phone only to hear the silence) I've decided to add that number to my own repretoire of unwanted callers. I hope this helps you a little. 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 #305 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Jul 3 17:32:41 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id C0F9D1508B; Sun, 3 Jul 2005 17:32:40 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #306 Message-Id: <20050703213240.C0F9D1508B@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2005 17:32:40 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Status: No, hits=1.0 required=2.0 tests=BAYES_00,LONG_DISTANCE, MAILTO_TO_REMOVE,MSGID_FROM_MTA_SHORT autolearn=no version=2.63 X-Spam-Level: * Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sun, 3 Jul 2005 17:32:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 306 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Supplemental Grounding Electrodes (Choreboy) ATT Merger (Lisa Minter) NASA Fireworks Tonight! (Lisa Minter) Facebook an Internet Sensation on Campus (Lisa Minter) Test May Measure Student's Web Wisdom (Lisa Minter) Congress Passes Fax Bill to Create EBR Exemption (Monty Solomon) Yellow Pages at eBay (Dandino) Calling Packet8 Virtual Office Users (Chasman) DO NOT! DO NOT Use Cingular Go Phone (shwekhaw) Re: DSL Speed (Choreboy) Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. (W Howard) Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. (DevilsPGD) Ombudsman on N. Korea Food Story (alan@bloomfieldpress.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: Choreboy Subject: Supplemental Grounding Electrodes Date: Sun, 03 Jul 2005 00:00:49 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Ten years ago I happened to discover a potential of 0.25 VAC between the grounding electrode under my electrical entrance and the one under my telephone entrance. To protect my computer from lightning, I bonded them with twenty feet of wire. It paid off in 1998 when lightning struck a tree thirty feet from my electrical entrance. I was online and suffered no damage. A telco man restored service by replacing a fuse on the utility pole. When I asked the company's policy on bonding, he beat around the bush twenty minutes before saying the electrical code required it but the telco didn't like it because they would have to replace more fuses. Neighbors went online five years ago. Each time they've lost a modem or surge protector, they have asked me for an explanation and I've told them ground surges will keep getting them until they clamp a wire between their phone and power electrodes. They have always ignored my advice. I was online Monday during a quiet rain when lightning hit my chimney, blowing masonry and shingles sixty feet in all directions. My screen froze with a weird tint, but things were fine when I restarted. My neighbors weren't so lucky. Their phone electrode is 40 yards from my chimney. Their power electrode is 10 yards farther. They lost a modem, a satellite dish, and two telephones. Instead of demanding that I explain it again, they asked the telco to send a rep. He told them their ground is fine. My neighbors are pleased because this proves I have always been wrong. Article 250.54 of the NEC says local supplemental grounding electrodes (such as the one for phone service) must be bonded to the primary electrode. Where does the NEC apply? According to what the telco man admitted seven years ago, I assume our county code says the same thing. Is this a recent addition to the NEC? How is a citizen supposed to find out local code requirements? How is a citizen supposed to know his electrodes are not bonded or that it's necessary? If the telco assures a customer that there is nothing wrong with grounding which in fact is a code violation, does the telco have any liability? ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: AT&T Shareholders OK Acquistion by SBC Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2005 10:43:05 -0500 (AP) A bid to create one of the world's largest phone companies vaulted another hurdle Thursday as AT&T Corp. investors approved SBC Communication Inc.'s $16 billion acquisition at what will likely be the legendary company's final annual shareholder meeting. Nearly all the shares cast as votes approved the deal, though investors holding nearly 30 percent of AT&T's stock did not vote at all. The merger still requires regulatory approvals at the federal and state level, though the companies expect to complete the transaction by late 2005 or early 2006. SBC shareholders are not required to vote on the acquisition since the number of SBC shares being issued as payment for AT&T's stock amounts to less than a 20 percent increase in SBC's outstanding shares. The vote to end AT&T's 130-year run as an independent company proved bittersweet for some shareholders and employees at the meeting. Many said they recognized the deal was necessary, yet criticized AT&T management actions as damaging. AT&T, based in Bedminster, N.J., has seen its core long-distance business shrink dramatically amid growing competition from Bell rivals like SBC, cell phones and newer technologies such as Internet-based calling. "We can't go it alone because of bad management, because of regulatory constraints, because of divestiture," AT&T manager Lani Flesch of Chicago said after the meeting as her eyes welled with tears. "We could have had it all and instead we're being bought." San Antonio-based SBC, the local Bell for most of the Midwest and Southwest, expects to eliminate 13,000 jobs after the merger. The marriage of the rivals, announced in January, would add corporate services and a national fiber-optic network to the list of businesses where SBC holds a dominant industry role. It is already the largest or second-largest U.S. provider of local, long distance, wireless and Internet services. AT&T investors are slated to receive 0.77942 of a share of SBC common stock and a cash dividend of $1.30 for each share of AT&T they hold. SBC's stock closed Thursday at $23.75 a share, down 19 cents, so the deal now values AT&T's stock at about $19.80 per share. That's about 4 percent higher than AT&T's current share price, which fell 22 cents Thursday to close at $19.04 on the New York Stock Exchange. AT&T Chief Executive David Dorman told shareholders the merger is a strategic combination that will create a diversified company that can compete globally. "It is our view that the AT&T-SBC merger creates greater opportunity for shareholder value in the long term," he said. Some rivals and consumer advocates have opposed the merger as well as the proposed purchase of MCI Inc. by Verizon Communications Inc., arguing that the elimination of two major competitors from the market will lead to higher prices, less innovation and fewer product alternatives. AT&T Chief Financial Officer Thomas Horton said after the meeting that as the industry restructures, consumers will see more choices from companies offering a variety of services. The merger has won regulatory approval in 26 states and still needs the OK from 10 additional states and the federal government. On the net: AT&T: http://www.att.com SBC: http://www.sbc.com (c) 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. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: NASA Fireworks Display Planned for Sunday Night/Monday Morning Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2005 16:55:57 -0500 Two reports this weekend of the 'fireworks' display NASA has planned for us Sunday overnight/Monday morning. ========================================== NASA Readies Space Probe to Blast Comet By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer It's a space mission straight out of Hollywood -- launch a spacecraft 268 million miles so it can aim a barrel-sized probe toward a speeding comet half the size of Manhattan and smash a hole in it. But that's what NASA expects its Deep Impact mission to do this weekend, with a goal of viewing the icy core of a comet that may hold cosmic clues to how the sun and planets formed. It's not without challenges. To ensure a bull's-eye hit -- and a spectacular Independence Day fireworks display in space -- several things must happen just right. Around 2 a.m. EDT Sunday, the Deep Impact spacecraft must release the 820-pound copper "impactor" on course for a collision expected 24 hours later with the comet Tempel 1. Scientists are confident they will be able to position the probe in the onrushing comet's path, though that calls for precise maneuvers that the probe must execute without help from mission control. Once on auto-pilot, the probe has up to three chances before the collision to fire its thrusters to adjust its flight path for a direct strike. "To hit the nucleus of a comet is a little bit like a baseball player trying to hit a knuckleball," said Dave Spencer, mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which is in charge of the $333 million project. Comets are blobs of ice and dust that orbit the sun and were born about 4.5 billion years ago -- nearly the same time as the solar system itself. When a cloud of gas and dust condensed to form the sun and planets, comets formed from what was left over. Scientists hope studying them will provide clues to how the solar system formed. Tempel 1, their specimen, is a pickle-shaped comet that travels in an elliptical orbit between Mars and Jupiter. After springing the probe, the mothership must slightly change course and stake out a prime seat 5,000 miles from the collision, which is expected around 1:52 a.m. EDT Monday. The comet, hurtling through space at a relative speed of 23,000 mph, will run over the probe with energy similar to exploding nearly 5 tons of dynamite. All the while, a camera on the impactor will be shooting pictures as it heads toward its doom, as will the mothership from afar. Little is known about comet anatomy, so it's unclear what exactly will happen when Tempel 1 is hit. Scientists expect the collision to spray a cone-shaped plume of debris into space. The resulting crater could be anywhere from the size of a house to a football stadium, and be between two and 14 stories deep. "We still don't know what this comet holds in store for us," said Rick Grammier, Deep Impact project manager. Scientists will work feverishly to download data from the spacecraft before it makes its closest approach to the comet less than 15 minutes after impact. Their worry is that Deep Impact could be damaged by flying debris, risking the valuable data. A trio of space telescopes - the Hubble, Chandra X-ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope - and dozens of ground observatories will also view the collision and aftermath. So will amateur astronomers in the western United States and Latin America, who should be able to view the impact through their own telescopes. It will not be visible in the eastern United States and upper Midwest. Launched in mid-January from Cape Canaveral, Fla., Deep Impact sent images of the comet's nucleus for the first time last month from a distance of 20 million miles away. It also witnessed two outbursts of ice from the comet -- not a major concern to scientists who have plenty else to worry about. On the Net: Deep Impact mission: http://www.nasa.gov/deepimpact Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. ======= The second report on the expected fireworks; will you be watching it happen? =========== NASA Releases Probe to Collide With Comet By ALICIA CHANG PASADENA, Calif. - A NASA space probe was bearing down on its comet target Sunday in a mission scientists hope will end with a cataclysmic crash -- and new insights into the origins of the solar system. The 820-pound copper probe was on course to intercept the comet Tempel 1 to smash a hole in it so scientists can get their first peek at the heart of one of these icy celestial bodies. Comets are the leftover building blocks of the solar system, which formed when a giant cloud of gas and dust collapsed to create the sun and planets. Because comets were born in the system's outer fringes, their cores still possess some of the primordial ingredients and studying them could yield clues to how the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago. The "impactor" probe separated from the Deep Impact spacecraft early Sunday and began a 500,000-mile suicide dive toward the sunlit section of Tempel 1, a pickle-shaped comet half the size of Manhattan and 83 million miles away from Earth. Workers in the mission control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena erupted in applause shortly after the separation. "The release went very well," said project manager Rick Grammier. "Half of the hurdles are over." Meanwhile, the mothership fired its thrusters to slightly change course and stake out a front-row seat 5,000 miles from the high-speed collision, which is expected to occur at 1:52 a.m. EDT Monday. The probe will switch to autopilot two hours before Monday's encounter, relying on computer software and thrusters to steer itself into the path of the onrushing comet. If the probe's maneuvers are off, the comet could miss and the mission would fail. As Tempel 1 closes in at a relative speed of 23,000 mph, the probe should beam back unprecedented pictures of its target in near real-time until it is run over. If all goes to plan, the mothership will record the crash and resulting crater with its high-resolution telescope. About 15 minutes after impact, the craft will make its closest flyby of the comet nucleus, approaching within 310 miles. Scientists expect it will be bombarded with flying debris and will stop taking pictures, turning on its dust shields for protection. NASA's brigade of space-based observatories, including the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope, also will be pointing toward the comet to record the impact. Professional astronomers from dozens of observatories in 20 countries also will observe the crash. Little is known about comet anatomy, so it's unclear what exactly will happen when Tempel 1 is hit. Scientists expect the collision will spray a cone-shaped plume of debris into space. The resulting crater can range anywhere from the size of a large house to a football stadium and be between two and 14 stories deep. The probe's anticipated impact could cause the comet to shine brighter than normal and sky-gazers may be able to see celestial fireworks with a telescope in parts of the Western United States and Latin America. Deep Impact blasted off in January from Cape Canaveral, Fla., for its six-month, 268 million-mile journey. In what scientists say is a coincidence, the spacecraft shares the same name as the 1998 movie about a comet that hurtles toward Earth. Discovered in 1867, Tempel 1 moves around the sun in an elliptical orbit between Mars and Jupiter every six or so years. In April, the 1,300-pound spacecraft took its first picture of Tempel 1 from 40 million miles away, revealing what amounts to a celestial snowball. Last month, still 20 million miles away, scientists saw the solid core of Tempel 1 for the first time. On the Net: Deep Impact mission: http://www.nasa.gov/deepimpact 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. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Facebook an Internet Sensation on Campus Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2005 16:58:48 -0500 By SORAYA NADIA McDONALD, Associated Press Writer Pamela Elder, a junior at Georgia State University, got hooked when she found some old high school classmates. Next she used the online yearbook of yearbooks to track down people she hadn't seen since grade school. No wonder the Facebook is an Internet sensation at campuses across the nation. Constantly updated by its 2.8 million registered users at more than 800 colleges and universities, the Facebook takes the local malt shop social nexus of the 1950s and makes it universal. Started by three Harvard sophomores in February 2004 as an online directory to connect the higher education world through social networks, the Facebook now registers more than 5,800 new users a day. "It becomes part of your daily routine. It's e-mail, the news, the weather, Facebook," said Lucas Garza, a senior from San Antonio studying aerospace engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Users of Facebook, http://www.thefacebook.com, can post a photo and a profile of themselves for free. The profiles include as little or as much information as the user desires, including basic biographies, lists of hobbies and interests, even home address and cell phone number. Users control who can see their profiles -- from only friends to all other users. Other users can then search the profiles for classmates, childhood acquaintances, people who share common interests. When users identify someone on the site they'd like to meet, they can ask to be designated as a "friend," a characteristic of other social networking Web sites such as Friendster or LinkedIn. Facebook friend requests can come from anyone on the site, including "some random drunk person you met at a party whose name you don't remember," said Garza, who has 143 "friends" on Facebook. The site has become so ubiquitous among college students that they tell others to "facebook" them -- to look them up on the site. Browsing it is known simply as "facebooking." Site creators Mark Zuckerberg, Chris Hughes, and Dustin Moskovitz were roommates at Harvard when they designed Facebook so fellow Harvard students could get to know those living in other dorms. (The name comes from the real-life books of freshmen's faces, majors and hometowns that many colleges distribute to incoming students). The Web site proved so popular that the trio made it available to students at Columbia, Stanford and Yale within a month. With Facebook's success, Moskovitz and Zuckerberg left Harvard to run it as a 10-person company out of Palo Alto, Calif. Moskovitz had been studying economics; Zuckerberg, computer science and psychology. Hughes, a history and literature major, is studying abroad in Paris. "It's all at once a 'real-world' job and something surreal," Hughes said. "Instead of entering a company and working your way to the top, Mark has created something that has allowed him to start right off in the CEO seat." Hughes said Facebook turns a profit, mostly from advertising. He refused to disclose the private company's earnings. Besides corporate advertisers, Facebook users purchase "announcements" -- ads that can be seen only by students from the same school. They range from campaign posters for student government positions to fliers about upcoming parties. They cost $9 to $15 apiece; the smaller the school, the cheaper the announcement. Investments have boosted Facebook, too. Silicon Valley venture capital firm Accel Partners put in $13 million; PayPal founder Peter Thiel recently invested $500,000. Users can register on the site only with a college e-mail adndress, which serves as verification that users are students. Once registered, the .edu address becomes a user ID. More than 60 percent of the site's users log in daily during the school year, and about half log in daily over the summer, Hughes said. Marketers who target students love the site, said Robin Raskin, a technology consultant whose three college-age children are all Facebook users. "You've got this great, great group. You know their demographic, you know how much disposable income they have, you know what they spend it on, and now you've got them in one place," Raskin said. "It's great for anybody who wants to talk to the youth audience, and that is why investors have run to give Facebook some money." Another result, however, is that students should be cautious about putting personal information on the site, said Raskin, a former editor of PC Magazine. "You think you're safe because of this .edu address, but anybody can get in there who wants to," said Raskin, adding she knows corporate marketers who have "infiltrated" the site. Many alumni get .edu e-mail addresses from their alma maters, allowing them to get on Facebook. Marcia Ammons, a Georgia State senior from Carrollton, Ga., swears by Facebook. She has two close friends on campus she first met on the Web site. "It's hard to find people with similar interests on a big campus," Ammons said. "We're so spread out ... you can put up party fliers in the Rec Center but half the people won't know about it because they won't see them." Garza uses Facebook to find people in his classes to compare notes and homework, since a single class at Georgia Tech can have up to 500 students. During last year's presidential campaign, he used the site to find students with similar views. His profile included quotes from George Orwell and links to his personal Web site. Students also meet on the site through groups, virtual clusters of users at the same school with a common interest. Ammons is a member of the "Wal-Mart Lovers" and "Rec Center Junkies" groups. Garza is in the "Anti-Leaf Blower Society" and "Ipodilicious," a collection of Ipod fans. Entirely new social protocols have formed around Facebook. One surrounds confirming friend requests. For some, a person's friend count is a social barometer. Says Hilton Gray, a 2003 graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and avid facebooker: "I know a few people who like the attention of it all, so they try to rack up as many friends as possible." 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. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Test May Measure Student's Web Wisdom Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2005 17:00:13 -0500 By MICHELLE LOCKE, Associated Press Writer Students apply to college online, e-mail their papers to their professors and, when they want to be cheeky, pass notes in class by text-messaging. But that doesn't necessarily mean they have a high Internet IQ. "They're real comfortable instant-messaging, downloading MP3 files. They're less comfortable using technology in ways that require real critical thinking," says Teresa Egan of the Educational Testing Service. Or as Lorie Roth, assistant vice chancellor of academic programs at California State University puts it: "Every single one that comes through the door thinks that if you just go to Google and get some hits -- you've got material for your research paper right there." That's why Cal State and a number of other colleges are working with ETS to create a test to evaluate Internet intelligence, measuring whether students can locate and verify reliable online information and whether they know how to properly use and credit the material. "This test measures a skill as important as having mathematics and English skills when you come to the university," says Roth. "If you don't come to the university with it, you need to know that you are lacking some skills that educated people are expected to have." A preliminary version of the new test, the Information and Communication Technology Literacy Assessment, was given to 3,300 Cal State students this spring to see how well it works, i.e. testing the test. Individual scores aren't being tallied but campuses will be getting aggregate reports. Next year, the test is expected to be available for students to take on a voluntary basis. Cal State is the lead institution in a consortium which includes UCLA, the University of Louisville, the California Community College System, the University of North Alabama, the University of Texas System and the University of Washington. Some of the institutions involved are considering using the test on incoming students to see if they need remedial classes, says Egan, ETS' project manager for the Information and Communication Technology Literacy Assessment. Other schools are thinking about giving the test as a follow up to communications courses to gauge curricula efficiency. Robert Jimenez, a student at Cal State-Fullerton who took the prototype test this spring, gives it a passing grade. "It was pretty good in that it allowed us to go ahead and think through real-life problems." Sample questions include giving students a simulated page of Web search results on a particular subject and asking students to pick the legitimate sources. So, a question on bee sting remedies presents a choice of sites ranging from ads to a forum for herb treatments to (the correct answer) a listing from the National Institutes of Health, identifiable by having "nih" in the URL (site address) along with the ".gov" suffix that connotes an official government listing. High tech has been a fixture of higher ed for some years. A 2002 report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 79 percent of college Internet users thought the Internet had a positive impact on their academic experience. More than 70 percent used the Internet more than the library and 56 percent said e-mail improved their relationships with professors. Of course, some of those text-messaging students are still being taught by professors whose idea of a personal data assistant is a fresh pad of Post-Its. "The problem with technology and education is how do you fit the new technology into existing curriculum lesson plans. You can't add more class time and it's much easier to just keep teaching the way you were," says Steve Jones, a co-author on the Pew study and a communications professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Jones folds lessons on Internet use into his classes. And he doesn't mince words about students who try the "click, copy and paste" approach to homework. "I tell the students, 'Some of you are going to put off this paper until the night before. You're going to go to Google, type in search words and just look at the top five hits and use those. I'm going to grade you on this. I'm going to look at these sources and so let's talk about how to evaluate sources.'" Which doesn't necessarily mean they all "suddenly become fabulous information evaluators and seekers, but it gives them a little bit of an idea that this isn't something that's apart from learning." Jones also finds himself learning from students, who are trying out new things like blogs and collaborating with other students online to create new sources of information. He thinks assessing students' Internet skills could be useful in figuring out ways to help them do better research but cautions that it's tough to test on something as changeable as the Internet. Roth notes that the bulk of the assessment focuses on critical thinking skills, being able to analyze the legitimacy of Web sites, and knowing the difference between properly cited research and plagiarism, things that "haven't changed very much since I enrolled in college in 1969." For today's students, working on the Net means not having the safety net of references vetted by campus librarians. But Roth isn't nostalgic. "Anybody want to go back to the bad old days when you had manual typewriters, and you had to get up and walk to the library to look up something?" she says with a laugh. "I don't think so." On the Net: http://www.calstate.edu http://www.ets.org/ictliteracy/ Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2005 17:07:31 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Congress Passes Fax Bill to Create EBR Exemption By: Scott Hovanyetz Senior Reporter Congress passed a bill that would permanently allow an existing business relationship exemption for commercial faxes, a victory for business media and nonprofit organizations that say they need to fax subscribers and members. The House of Representative's approval of the bill by voice vote yesterday followed the Senate's passage by unanimous consent June 24. It now remains for President Bush to sign the bill into law. According to American Business Media, a trade press association, Bush is expected to sign the bill this week. http://www.dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=33223 ------------------------------ From: Dandino Subject: Yellow Pages at eBay Date: 2 Jul 2005 05:06:22 -0700 Does eBay evolve into the advertising market? (the serious one) [url]http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=102333&item=5594068066&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW[/url] ------------------------------ From: Chasman Subject: Calling Packet8 Virtual Office Users Date: 2 Jul 2005 14:18:29 -0700 I am currently using an in-house IVR put together with tape and glue. I would rather use something that did not require hardware on our end and my maintenance. We use Vonage phones and they work well as we can blind transfer between them. However we drop one call out of 20 which is a pain. What I want to know is how sophisticated is the IVR on the virtual office. I need to basically be able to have some one choose between support, sales or a name directory and then do a call hunt on support or sales. That's can we do it and do it reliably? Regards, Chas ------------------------------ From: shwekhaw Subject: DO NOT! DO NOT Use Cingular Go Phone Date: 2 Jul 2005 15:05:53 -0700 DO NOT USE CINGULAR GO PHONE!! I had a lot of problems with GO Phone and know another two people who are getting ripped off. I bought the phone early June 2005. They told me no roaming charges free long distance and I pay just 10 cent a minute and $1 on a day I use the phone. So I bought it from my TX home. Then I visited to CA and I could not use the phone. I tried calling my friend with cingular plan who was sitting next to me. His phone rang but got disconnected right after he answered. It said "check service status" even though signal was very strong. I tried several times sine I pay nothing if I call within cingular network. Guess what! They charged me $1.30 for every try I made even though connection did not last one second. Basically I could not use the phone the whole time i was visiting there. It was so much trouble. When I called customer service they are very rude. They told me I could not use the phone anymore since my $25 balance was depleted. They ignored the fact that the balance was depleted due to overcharges and not bother looking into it the problem. I had to call customer service several times (at least 5 times) hoping somebody will notice the problem. I was told that technician will look into it and call me back. And they never call me back! Finally I called again and talked to supervisor directly (I had to beg to talk to supervisor). I obtained detail billing and calculated total charges which is not summing up to the balance I added. When I point this out, she, who was in total denial about their problems, said it was just a glitch in their system and agreed to make balance adjustment. A glitch! A glitch that took away $25 balance was not noticeable to several people in customer service department! Were they just trained how to ignore their problem and how to make customers miserable. I cannot return the phone since it is over 30 days now so I am stuck with the phone. They still not acknowledging the problem that I cannot use the phone in CA even though I should be able to according to their plan description. Be aware guys. If you are patient and can spend a lot of time calling customer service to get your money back, you are sure to lose your money with this Cingular plan. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You could have been telling my story. I have _two_ Cingular phones; the one works okay with an _Independence, KS_ 620-330 number. The other phone is a former AT&T (now Cingular Prepaid phone I think it is called 'Free to Go'.) Both phones are the older digital Nokia 5165 phones, the difference is only that one is prepaid via AT&T, the other is a 'regular' cell phone. Starting Friday, the prepaid phone quit fuctioning. It has a Wichita KS 316-841 number on it, with, I might add, twenty dollars in credit. Cingular customer service, which appears to be located in India these days, absolutely insisted I could not have a prepaid wireless phone since they had no wireless coverage in my area. They said "as soon as you get back in the Wichita area, your phone will start working again." I asked them if that was so, then (if the towers could not reach me) why wasn't voice mail kicking in to take the messages? They just kept repeating their stupid answer: because we have no service in your area. I finally said 'being an ignorant ##*@ based in your native land somewhere, you probably would not know much about our cell phones here.' They had just a few minutes earlier taken a twenty five dollar payment from my credit card. Those Cingular/AT&T/SBC customer service reps are so incredibly stupid it is beyond my comprehension. I said well, if you do not have service in my area, then please arrange to refund the twenty dollars you just now took on my account. And wouldn't you know it, the sweet dear little Indian lady who referred to herself as 'employee ID 627' insisted 'we do not give any refunds on prepaid service'. You will this time, I told her, Small Claims Court here in Montgomery County is just four block down the street from my house, and I do not have to sue you in California or Texas or India or wherever, _I just sue your local resale agent here in Independence_. Hopefully your superiors will screw up and not make any response to the suit. She finally came up with a post office box address (no phone nor fax nor email address available) for some entity called 'Cingular Free to Go' in Anaheim Hills, CA and I fired off a letter to them yesterday making demand for the return of my money _or_ preferably, a working phone with my 316-841 number since someone else told me the only service they will now initiate in 620 is GSM. I will tell you, if Ignorance was Bliss, then Cingular customer service people would be the happiest in the world. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Choreboy Subject: Re: DSL Speed Date: Sat, 02 Jul 2005 19:02:35 -0400 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Dave Grebe wrote: >>> I wonder how they're modulated. >> Can any other reader answer this question? > Quadrature modulation using many channels. Look here: > http://www.alleged.com/info/dsl2/ > Dave Grebe Wow! No wonder most people don't go into detail! Here's a quote from the introduction: "Although many system designers are competent and comfortable with DSP and all things digital, they often find their understanding of analog issues to be a bit rusty when it comes to implementing the physical connection to and from the telephone line." nmclain@annsgarden.com wrote: > Choreboy wrote: >> A carrier vor V.90 must have some very precise modulation. It's >> amazing that an 8kHz sampling can capture it well enough to be >> useful. > Frequently it can't, which is why your modem downgrades to a slower > speed. >>> All of these noise sources collectively impair the ability of the loop >>> to carry DSL signals. >> Local loop cables (trunk cables?) seem to deteriorate. Phone men seem >> to look for available pairs when customers complain of noise. I >> wonder if voltage from nearby lightning strikes might cause pinhole >> damage to the insulation of twisted pairs, and over the years it gets >> hard to find a good pair. > Nearby lightning strikes likely would do a lot more than cause > "pinhole damage." But you're right about telco cables deteriorating > over time. Water intrusion can cause severe interference ("every time > it rains, I get static on my telephone!"). I wonder if old cables have been analyzed to see why they went bad. Lightning-related voltage spikes can damage semiconductors although the damage may not be apparent. I wonder if that could happen to the insulation on telephone conductors. >> Load coils might be one reason a particular phone sounds distorted at >> a particular location. > I doubt that, but I guess it's possible. If the capacitance were lumped, it and an inductor would form a tuned tank. I suppose it's about the same with distributed capacitance. The tank would have high impedance at one frequency and lower impedance at higher or lower frequencies. The broadness of the curve would depend on the resistance in the coil and maybe in the line. An uneven frequency response could make it hard to recognize who's calling or understand his words. >> Across the street, a small trunk line (cable with lots of wire >> pairs) comes from the aerial terminal down a couple of feet to a >> fusebox on the utility pole. (I think the telco calls them something >> besides fuses.) The drop cables come out of that box. Probably >> just a junction box. After lightning knocked out my phone service, a telco man opened the box and replaced what he called a fuse. Those fuses have another name I can't remember. >>>> Think what would have happened if RG-59 hadn't been invented. >>>> Everybody would have used RG-6, which looks nearly the same but >>>> attenuates uhf much less. With better reception there would have >>>> been more uhf stations and less demand for cable. >>> As a former cable guy, I don't agree with that. Many UHF stations >>> depended on cable TV systems to distribute their signals throughout >>> their "specified zones" (which, back in the '60s and '70s, was a >>> 35-mile radius around the city of license). This was particularly >>> true in mountainous areas where cable T systems carried UHF signals >>> to specified-zone communities that were beyond the reach of their >>> transmitters. >> With a bow-tie antenna, a good UHF amp, a rotator, and RG-6U, we could >> receive so many channels that we weren't interested in cable. > Well, obviously you don't live in a place like Mahanoy City > Pennsylvania, Tuckerman Arkansas, or Astoria Oregon -- places where it > simply isn't possible to get any station -- UHF or VHF -- off the air. > Cable TV started in all three of those communities in 1948, and all > three still claim to have been first. > Neal McLain > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And don't forget Independence, KS where > until cable came along (via Time Warner in the 1980's) our television > reception consisted of TWO channels; channel 6 and channel 9, but only > one of those two if you wanted a good picture. Most people had very > _high_ antennas on their house if they wanted television, and they > compromised by using a 'rotor' attached to their TV set to turn the > rooftop antenna one way or the other. If they could not afford the > rotor, then they left the antenna turned sort of in the middle and > lived with that. We got one station from Tulsa, Oklahoma (80 miles > almost straight south) and one station from Joplin, Missouri (90 > miles more or less straight east.) Around here, 'big city' (as in > presence of television stations) means Wichita, KS which is 110 miles > northwest, or Topeka KS which is about 150 miles straight north, and > we could not get those stations very well at all in those days. PAT] In 1956 I moved to Rutland VT, in a valley. We had three floors above the basement, and the peak of our slate roof may have been forty feet above the ground. On the peak was a mast with guy wires. There were three antennae on the mast, one pointed to Burlington 70 miles away, on to Albany 90 miles away, and one to Boston 160 miles away. Three cables led from the antennae to a switch on the back of the TV. The snow was bad all year. Community cable, with an antenna mast on a nearby mountain, was discussed. A year or so later, Lucky 13 started in Albany. In spite of the distance and the mountains, it came in without snow. I heard no more about community cable. I don't know how much it cost to operate a small UHF station, but in Rutland I think it could have been started and operated much cheaper than cable. The audience would probably have needed something besides a loop on their TV, and I suppose advertising would have had to support it. ------------------------------ From: whoward@login2.srv.ualberta.ca (W Howard) Subject: Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2005 02:56:58 UTC Organization: University of Alberta In article , mc wrote: >> Of course they say that. And every once in a while they dust off >> their announcement that broadcasting more than 5 watts on a CB radio >> is illegal and subjects the operator to fines and seizure of their >> equipment too. But they don't actually do it. They're stretched thin >> already trying to figure out where telecommunications is going so they >> can stay a little ahead of it, and they just don't bother with >> "crimes" that do not involve substantial amounts of money. > You haven't been reading the news on www.arrl.org, have you? You are right, I hadn't. So I went and did. Seven enforcement letters over the course of a week is what I found. I could find you the evidence for seven enforcement letters about every seventy seconds along any stretch of freeway near any major city. So my use of "never" was inaccurate; in a tiny fraction of the cases, somebody from the FCC attempts to enforce the regulations. It's still such a tiny fraction as to have negligible effect, and I doubt that the stern warnings about possessing/using cellphone jammers will be followed up with enough enforcement to make a difference there either. And I stand by my claim that the govt in general would have at least more respect if they didn't write laws/regulations that they won't enforce in any meaningful way. >>Walt ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. Date: Fri, 01 Jul 2005 22:56:34 -0500 Organization: Disorganized In message mc wrote: >> The law should be modestly amended to declare those using cellphones >> in theaters, churches, and other places of public assembly outlaws >> subject to pummeling by the inconvenienced other inmates of such >> assembly. Exception might be made for surviving, on duty, emergency >> personnel. ;^) > Here I think there is a market for cell phone *detectors*. Cell > phones transmit every few minutes even when you're not making or > receiving a call, in order to keep the tower apprised of where they > are. "Turn off your cell phone" could have more teeth if equipment > were in use to detect cell phones that were still turned on. How do you figure? My phone *never* gets turned off. Period. Not in theatres, not in churches, not in other places of public assembly. Never. However, I do set it on do not disturb (Which is a profile I created, is completely silent, does not vibrate, and routes all calls to voicemail (although it does still log them on my caller ID) Why don't I turn it off? Well, in short, I want the calls logged on my caller ID. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2005 16:48:08 -0400 From: alan@bloomfieldpress.com Subject: Ombudsman on N. Korea Food story [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: An interesting essay on why so many of us have very little trust in the so-called 'mainstream' media. You know, the ones that are supposed to be so precious and so good, compared to all us imbeciles on the internet doing our thing. PAT] The Uninvited Ombudsman: An observation for news-media people in general -- July 2, 2005 Dear Editor, Cities nationwide just got short but saturation coverage of the "U.S. gives 50,000 tons of food to N. Korea" story. I got it from six outlets in Phoenix. Not surprisingly, all the versions were nearly identical. That's because the propagated story was a straight government handout, with no actual reporting involved. There in a nutshell is why we, the people, no longer trust you, the news media, as much as we used to, or would like to. In my "state" newspaper, The Arizona Republic, the two paragraphs began, "The Bush Administration announced ..." and "The White House said ..." pretty much like every other version. It was the same where you live, right? Your comrades aren't even pretending to report, or displaying even rudimentary curiosity. It's pure government lapdog, zero public watchdog. You only say you're a watchdog. Even the most frenzied writer or editor, with no legwork at all, could do some head math and find that though it sounds so magnanimous, it's not. Think -- Americans often eat meals that weigh a pound. If you could just subsist on one pound daily, the hundred million pounds would feed the 22 million communist subjects for 4-1/2 days. Many Americans would prefer that you ask the hardball questions, like, "Why does the executive branch think it has legitimate power to "donate" so much of our money to, well, anyone?" Aren't you the least bit curious how much money the public treasury loses in the deal? What sort of discount does one get on a million pounds of groceries? News orgs obviously ripped and ran -- took the handout without thought. It's become your job. What kind of food is it? Fresh produce or rice? Who sold it (and got all the cash)? You don't know (or care, we imagine), because from writer to publisher you seem content as a government tool. It's what you do. You haven't even questioned your source, "the wire." You never do. You believe it's truth. Pravda. We're wise to you. ------------------ The kind of food is important, and meaningful. What's really happened here is that government people made a deal with food people to take my money, and your money, and buy a mountain of food. This way, the food people get a lot of money, and their books look good this month. Most people do not realize that when we "give aid" we are often just pouring money into private hands. Salaries and overheads are covered by money taken personally from me and you under the guise of fair taxation. The government didn't announce that part, doesn't want you thinking about the man behind the curtain. The media is then complicit in the widely propagated announcement. Itsa complex. We might start believing you again when your stories start looking like the rewrite below. But then we'd be informed, and the public could start owning its government again, instead of the other way around. Most people do want this, but the political left (a euphemism for socialist-style governance) fundamentally opposes such empowerment. The news coverage and slants we get speak for themselves. "Cambpell's soup concluded a deal today to sell ten million cans of chicken soup to the U.S. Dept. of Magnanimous Giveaways, putting the company's books firmly in the black this quarter, The Arizona Republic has learned. Floundering recently, stock price for the parent food conglomerate jumped six percent on the news. The food, paid for with taxpayer's money, will be given to the communist North Korean ruling clique. Although the White House labeled the giveaway a "humanitarian gesture," it is presumed that strings are attached, and sources close to dictator Kim Jong-il said in 2002 he plans to create a nuclear crisis for leverage with us. At least five other food producers have made similar government deals, to raise the 100 million total pounds promised in this controversial 'donation'." Same word count. Everyone who has hopes that the news media will straighten up and become a watchdog again, raise your hands. See? Few hands go up. Time to change. ========================== FYI: The original, with no byline (presumably because no reporter had a hand in its creation) was attributed simply "Wire Services": U.S. to Give 50,000 Tons of Food Aid to N. Korea (6/23/05) Washington -- The Bush Administration announced Wednesday that it will donate 50,000 tons of food aid to North Korea, just days after the reclusive state indicated a willingness to return to regional talks over its nuclear program. The White House said the aid is a humanitarian gesture unrelated to the political climate or to the potential for renewed talks. At the same time, officials declined to comment on revelations Wednesday that the administration received an overture from North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in November 2002, in which he said he wanted to resolve a budding nuclear crisis between the two countries. Sincerely, Alan Korwin Publisher Contact: Alan Korwin BLOOMFIELD PRESS "We publish the gun laws." 4718 E. Cactus #440 Phoenix, AZ 85032 602-996-4020 Phone 602-494-0679 FAX 1-800-707-4020 Orders http://www.gunlaws.com alan@gunlaws.com Call, write, fax or click for a free catalog. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Alan Korwin believes, as do I, that when Americans begin taking the Second Amendment as seriously as they take the First, there is a good chance the government in the USA can be redeemed for the people. Until the time comes that American citizens are able to _openly and freely bear arms_ if that is their choice, without all sorts of bogus reasoning on why this person or that person should not be allowed to have a gun, then we should expect our freedoms to continue to deteriorate (as they have since 9-11-2001) in the name of Homeland Security, etc. Alan Korwin also believes, as do I, that the mass media in the USA has become more and more a disgrace in the past few years, as it parrots without question the policies and ideas presented by our resident president. And yet, people say that we here on the Internet are irresponsible in _our_ journalism. You might like getting on Alan Korwin's mailing lists, the man speaks the truth about so many things. Anyway, have a happy Independence Day, and wish for a time (hopefully in our lifetimes) when there will be _true independence for all_ in this land; not just the ones who say the right words and have the right thoughts. 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 #306 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Jul 4 17:11:16 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id E73F715008; Mon, 4 Jul 2005 17:11:15 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #307 Message-Id: <20050704211115.E73F715008@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2005 17:11:15 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-0.3 required=2.0 tests=BAD_CREDIT,BAYES_00, MAILTO_TO_REMOVE,MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR,MSGID_FROM_MTA_SHORT autolearn=no version=2.63 X-Spam-Level: Status: RO TELECOM Digest Mon, 4 Jul 2005 17:11:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 307 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson New Wireless Broadband 'Whispers' Below the Radar (Lisa Minter) Al-Jazeera Launching All-English News Channel for United States (Minter) NASA Cheers Probe's Direct Hit on Comet (Lisa Minter) T-Mobile AOL IM Settings? (Bill) Panasonic T7436 and K1234 (JeffW) Calling Packet8 Virtual Office Users (Chasman) Direcway Internet Experience Anyone? (Chasman) Re: Supplemental Grounding Electrodes (Tony P.) Re: Supplemental Grounding Electrodes (Paul Coxwell) Re: Supplemental Grounding Electrodes (John Hines) Re: Calling Packet8 Virtual Office Users (Clark W. Griswold, Jr.) Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. (mc) Re: DO NOT! DO NOT Use Cingular Go Phone (Tim@Backhome.org) Re: Ombudsman on N. Korea Food Story (Justa Lurker) 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: New Wireless Broadband 'Whispers' Below the Radar Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2005 11:02:35 -0500 By Lucas van Grinsven, European Technology Correspondent A new communications tool that "whispers" on busy radio channels could enable broadband Internet services for on-the-go wireless devices or hook-up homes that cannot yet get fast Web access, its inventor said. xMax, the latest innovation in broadband communications, is a very quiet radio system that uses radio channels already filled up with noisy pager or TV signals, said inventor Joe Bobier. "xMax is trespassing radio frequencies, although trespassing is not the right word, because we're allowed to transmit a signal if it doesn't interfere with other, stronger signals," said Bobier. What is unique about the system is that it can emit signals that are too weak to be picked up by normal antennas, but that can be "heard" by special aerials which know where to "listen," thus enabling dual usage of the same scarce radio spectrum. The technology could interest a telecoms or Internet operator with no radio spectrum because it can begin a wireless broadband service with very few base stations and add more stations and increase density as demand rises. It is also appealing for rural areas which operators find too costly to cover with the current third generation mobile phone networks which need base stations every few miles. "We're talking about a 400 to 500 percent improvement in range," Bobier said, adding that this was still much better than Flash-OFDM, also touted as a rural area broadband system. XG Technology, the Florida-based company which owns xMax, is in discussions with several chip makers and equipment makers to build the hardware. Radio chips for devices should be in the $5-$6 range when built in volume while base stations will be around $350,000. Those prices are competitive considering the range covered. LOW FREQUENCY BANDS Stuart Schwartz, an electrical engineering professor at Princeton University, said xMax is not an efficient system to transport data through the airwaves, "but it is doing it in a benign way. You won't even know it's there. It's very clever." The advantage is not only that radio spectrum can be used twice and that xMax needs no special radio band of its own, but especially that it can sit in the valuable low frequency bands which characteristically carry very far and through buildings. Other new broadband Internet technologies, such as WiMAX and Flash-OFDM, need dedicated radio frequency bands. If they are situated in frequency ranges above 1 Gigahertz, the signal has trouble penetrating buildings and other obstacles, or traveling over distances longer than a few miles. "We offer long range as well as high speed," Bobier said. The radio technology can also be used in higher frequencies, and even in wired systems, but the company aims at low frequency wireless networks first. "The sweet spot for xMax happens to be in the lower frequencies," said Rick Mooers, executive chairman of XG Technology. Bobier found a way to put one bit of data on one radio frequency cycle and recover that weak signal with a newly invented filter. If xMax uses a powerful carrier signal -- which does require a dedicated, albeit very narrow radio band -- it can even extend its range and capacity. The first xMax network is currently being built in Miami and Fort Lauderdale where one base station can deliver broadband Internet over a 40 square mile area. The capacity of that wireless network is not bigger than any other wireless technology, which means that more base stations need to be added if a certain number of people are using the network -- typically several hundreds to a 1,000 users. 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: Al-Jazeera Launching All-English Channel for United States Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2005 13:09:42 -0500 By JIM KRANE, Associated Press Writer Al-Jazeera is nothing if not bold. It has fought repeatedly with Washington, which says its exclusive broadcasts of Osama bin Laden speeches show an anti-American, pro-terrorist bias. Its freewheeling broadcasts have decimated state-run TV stations across much of the Arab world, leading some countries to close its bureaus down. So what does such a network do next? Plan a massive expansion. By March, the network will launch Al-Jazeera International, a satellite channel that will beam English-language news to the United States -- and much of the rest of the world -- from its base in tiny Qatar. The ever-contentious Middle East will be its specialty. And the news, including coverage of Israel, will be served up from an Arab perspective, Al-Jazeera executives say. With a touch of the evangelist, perhaps, the station's executives say their mission is nothing less than reversing the dominant flow of global information, which now originates on TV channels in the West. They will be looking especially at Fox News and CNN. "We're the first news channel based in the Mideast to bring news back to the West," said Nigel Parsons, managing director of Al-Jazeera International. "We want to set a different news agenda." The station's research shows some of the world's one billion English speakers, including Americans, thirst for news from a non-Western perspective. Outside America, the station plans to compete with CNN International and BBC World, the two chief English-language satellite news channels, as well as at Fox News. The new station will be headquartered in Doha and operate broadcast newsrooms in London, Washington and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. But breaking into the U.S. market, with its established channels, might be more difficult. The station's anti-American reputation may win some early "curiosity" viewers, Parsons said. Overall, Al-Jazeera executives contend negative American opinions are based on "irrational and erroneous information from CNN, BBC and Fox News." For instance, Parsons said, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld lambasted the station for showing beheadings by Iraqi insurgents. Actually, Al-Jazeera has aired portions of insurgent videos but as of yet, never a beheading in progress, he said. Another irritant is Al-Jazeera's often-gory coverage of Iraq from both perspectives. Before it was banned, the network embedded reporters with both Iraqi insurgents and with U.S. troops. Nevertheless, Americans have shown curiosity. Al-Jazeera's English- language Web site gets most of its traffic from U.S. visitors, Parsons said. In the end, Al-Jazeera might coax viewers from an elite segment of American TV watchers, perhaps those who tune into the BBC, some observers say. But most Americans want to be comforted by the news, not challenged by it, said Jon Alterman, who heads the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. If Al-Jazeera is a tough sell in the United States, it has natural audiences elsewhere. The world counts 1.2 billion Muslims, most of whom don't speak Arabic. That means Al-Jazeera stands to find quick popularity in countries like Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia. Alterman believes Al-Jazeera will help unite the world's far-flung Muslim communities, giving them a common, alleged truthful news source. That's not necessarily what the station is after. "We're not a Muslim channel," said Parsons, a Briton who, like many Al-Jazeera Interna- tional staff, does not speak Arabic. Indeed, the station is even less popular with governments in Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and Tunisia, which currently ban it. Those countries' rulers suggest it incites violence by giving airtime to opposition politicians and radical clerics. At one time or another, Al-Jazeera has had bureaus closed in 18 countries and its signal blocked in 30. Its revenues still suffer under an advertising boycott, believed to originate from Saudi government pressure. The station has had three bureaus destroyed by bombings, two of which were destroyed by the U.S. military. Two staff in Iraq have been killed. Two others were locked in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and released without charge. A third is being tried in Spain on charges of working for the al-Qaida terrorist group. Yet because it is based in Qatar, an energy-rich Persian Gulf country of less than a million, the station has little opportunity to upset its home government. "They're in a unique position," said Mustafa Alani, director of security and terrorism studies at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai. "They can criticize everybody." Arab viewers who previously had only staid state-run broadcasters to watch have apparently liked that, flocking to the station since its 1996 debut. It now reaches more than 40 million viewers, and if it weren't for the advertising boycott, Al-Jazeera's network would bring in some $35 million in yearly ad revenue, enough to wean it from Qatar government money, said managing director Wadah Khanfar. The station is expected to be privatized in a few years. But as long as it remains close to the Qatari royal family, the boycott poses few funding worries. Yet despite its protests to the contrary, Al-Jazeera is already softening its aggressive coverage of Saudi Arabia and other countries, Alani believes. The reason? It must regain access to those countries to boost its English broadcasts, Alani said. "If you're banned from half the Arab world, your ability to break news is limited, but some of that will be made up by USA viewers we win over from Fox and CNN on American cable systems", Alani said. On the Net: http://english.aljazeera.net 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. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: NASA Cheers Probe's Direct Hit on Comet Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2005 13:24:17 -0500 By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer It sounded like science fiction -- NASA scientists used a space probe to chase down a speeding comet 83 million miles away and slammed it into the frozen ball of dirty ice and debris in a mission to learn how the solar system was formed. The unmanned probe of the Deep Impact mission collided with Tempel 1, a pickle-shaped comet half the size of Manhattan, late Sunday as thousands of people across the country fixed their eyes to the southwestern sky for a glimpse. The impact at 10:52 p.m. PDT was cause for celebration not only to scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, but also for the more than 10,000 people camped out at Hawaii's Waikiki Beach to watch it on a giant movie screen. "It's almost like one of those science fiction movies," said Steve Lin, a Honolulu physician. The cosmic smash-up did not significantly alter the comet's orbit around the sun and NASA said the experiment does not pose any danger to Earth -- unlike the scary comet headed for Earth in the 1998 movie, "Deep Impact." Scientists at mission control erupted in applause and exchanged hugs as a voice on a speaker proclaimed, "Team, we got a confirmation." It was a milestone for the U.S. space agency, because no other space mission has flown this close to a comet. In 2004, NASA's Stardust craft flew within 147 miles of Comet Wild 2 en route back to Earth carrying interstellar dust samples. "A lot of people said we couldn't do this or wouldn't be able to pull it off," said Rick Grammier, the mission's project manager. "It happened like clockwork and I think that's something to be proud of on America's birthday." Rough images by the mothership that released the probe on its suicide mission 24 hours earlier showed a bright white flash from the comet upon impact, which hurled a cloud of debris into space. When the dust settles, scientists hope to peek inside the comet's frozen core -- a composite of ice and rock left over from the early solar system. In Darmstadt, Germany, David Southwood of the European Space Agency congratulated NASA and controllers erupted into applause upon impact. "The Deep Impact mission brought the world together in an excellent opportunity to make a new step into the advancement of cometary science," he said. The European agency was observing and photographing the comet collision with its Rosetta spacecraft, which will attempt to rendezvous with a comet in 2014. "I had some doubts, quite frankly, but it was quite spectacular and a deserved success," said Manfred Warhaut, who heads ESA's Rosetta mission. "The whole thing was so flawlessly put in place and executed it deserves some respect." The camera of the Deep Impact probe temporarily blacked out twice, probably from being sandblasted by comet debris, NASA scientists said. Still, the probe -- on battery power and tumbling toward the comet, using thrusters to get a perfect aim -- took pictures right up to the final moments, revealing crater-like features. The last image was taken three seconds before impact. The energy produced from the impact was equivalent to exploding five tons of dynamite and it caused the comet to shine six times brighter than normal. Scientists had compared the barrel-shaped probe's journey to standing in the middle of the road and being hit by a semi-truck roaring at 23,000 mph. They expect the crater left behind to be anywhere from the size of a large house to a football stadium and between two and 14 stories deep. Soon after the crash on the comet's sunlit side, the mothership prepared to approach Tempel 1 to peer into the crater site and send more data back to Earth. The spacecraft was to fly within 310 miles of the comet before activating its dust shields to protect itself from a blizzard of debris. Comets are frozen balls of dirty ice, rock and dust that orbit the sun. A giant cloud of gas and dust collapsed to create the sun and planets about 4.5 billion years ago and comets formed from the leftover building blocks of the solar system. NASA's fleet of space telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope, and dozens of ground observatories recorded the impact. Deep Impact launched Jan. 12 from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on its 268 million-mile voyage. Scientists say the choice of the mission name was a coincidence and not inspired by the movie. On the Net: Deep Impact mission: http://www.nasa.gov/deepimpact 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. ------------------------------ From: Bill Subject: T-Mobile AOL IM settings? Date: 4 Jul 2005 08:24:05 -0700 Hello, I'm trying to re-configure a V220 phone for T-Mobile service. The AIM application which came with the (originally not T-Mobile) phone requires the following manually configured settings, which T-Mobile customer support cannot get me: GPS APN: _________ User Name: (for all tmobile users of wap): ______________ Password: (for all WAP login): _______________ IM Server: _________________ IM Port: ________ Post URL: ________________ Anyone know these, please? Bill ------------------------------ From: JeffW Subject: Panasonic T7436 and K1234 Date: 4 Jul 2005 10:01:32 -0700 I want to use Outlook to place calls for me through the modem and through the above phone system. The call gets made with no problem, however I can not pickup the extension. How can I get around this? ------------------------------ From: Chasman Subject: Calling Packet8 Virtual Office Users Date: 3 Jul 2005 13:24:42 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com I currently use Vonage and I am thinking of switching to Packet8. The functionality I need is quite simple. I need 4 phones. One central line. But this is the most important. I want people who call in to be able to route themselves by either their interest and or the name of the person they want. Can it do this? ie Press 1 for support (it then goes on a hunt through three extensions and then on to VM) Press 2 for Sales (it goes onto one extension and then onto voice mail) Press 3 for a name directory Etc Then route the call appropriately. Please any information is greatly appreciated. Regards, Chasman ------------------------------ From: Chasman Subject: Direcway Internet Experience Anyone? Date: 3 Jul 2005 13:27:05 -0700 Does anyone have experience of the Direcway 2 way satellite internet connection? Can you share your experiences? Please any information is greatly appreciated. Regards, Chasman ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Supplemental Grounding Electrodes Organization: ATCC Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2005 19:33:49 -0400 In article , choreboyREMOVE@localnet.com says: > Ten years ago I happened to discover a potential of 0.25 VAC between > the grounding electrode under my electrical entrance and the one under > my telephone entrance. To protect my computer from lightning, I > bonded them with twenty feet of wire. It paid off in 1998 when > lightning struck a tree thirty feet from my electrical entrance. I > was online and suffered no damage. > A telco man restored service by replacing a fuse on the utility pole. > When I asked the company's policy on bonding, he beat around the bush > twenty minutes before saying the electrical code required it but the > telco didn't like it because they would have to replace more fuses. > Neighbors went online five years ago. Each time they've lost a modem > or surge protector, they have asked me for an explanation and I've > told them ground surges will keep getting them until they clamp a wire > between their phone and power electrodes. They have always ignored my > advice. > I was online Monday during a quiet rain when lightning hit my chimney, > blowing masonry and shingles sixty feet in all directions. My screen > froze with a weird tint, but things were fine when I restarted. That weird tint was the monitor being influenced by the magnetic field generated by the lightning strike. Sort of like moving a large speaker near the monitor, except in this case it was probably several orders of magnitude higher. Your monitor probably degausses when powered on so that's why it cleared. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 04 Jul 2005 12:25:25 +0100 From: Paul Coxwell Subject: Re: Supplemental Grounding Electrodes > Article 250.54 of the NEC says local supplemental grounding > electrodes (such as the one for phone service) must be bonded to > the primary electrode. Where does the NEC apply? According to > what the telco man admitted seven years ago, I assume our county > code says the same thing. As I understand it the NEC applies in any state, county or local jurisdiction which has adopted it -- which is most. There may be local codes which explicitly amend any NEC requirement though. Which edition of the NEC are you looking at? In the 2002 edition article 250.54 relates to supplementary electrodes which MAY be bonded, not MUST. 250.58 does seem to correspond with 250.54 in earlier editions though, so that could be the section you are looking at. Chapter 8 of the NEC also relates specifically to communication systems. Article 800.40(D) in the 2002 edition states: QUOTE Bonding of Electrodes. A bonding jumper not smaller than 6 AWG copper or equivalent shall be connected between the communications grounding electrode and power grounding electrode system at the building or structure served where separate electrodes are used. /QUOTE > Is this a recent addition to the NEC? No. I don't know how far back the requirement goes, but the 1971 NEC says much the same thing in article 800-31(b)(7): QUOTE Bonding of Electrodes. A bond not smaller than No. 6 copper or equivalent shall be placed between the communication and power grounding electrodes where the requirements of (5) above result in the use of separate electrodes. /QUOTE Disclaimer: Being British I'm just an outside observer to the NEC. I could post your query in a Stateside electrical forum where we have some NEC experts though, if you wish. - Paul ------------------------------ From: John Hines Subject: Re: Supplemental Grounding Electrodes Date: Mon, 04 Jul 2005 15:24:13 -0500 Organization: www.jhines.org Choreboy wrote: > Is this a recent addition to the NEC? How is a citizen supposed to find > out local code requirements? How is a citizen supposed to know his > electrodes are not bonded or that it's necessary? If the telco assures > a customer that there is nothing wrong with grounding which in fact is a > code violation, does the telco have any liability? Local codes are based on the NEC, for example town XYZ has adopted (made into law) NEC code YYYY. The NEC does get revised periodically, 2002 the most recent. Grounding and bonding have been revised in the last few years. In summary, the service entrance has to have a ground rod installed, and this is bonded to the electrical system at one and only place at the main box, this is the grounded conductor aka neutral. Additional #6 bonding wires are required from the main panel over to where the water service enters, if you have metal service. Furthermore large metal objects, like a cast iron tub, need to be bonded to everything else, if metal piping doesn't do it already. The idea is to bond all the items together into a single unified circuit, which is grounded by the rod into the ground. The NEC does call for the ability to connect up the phone and other systems to the grounding electrode system, with #10 cu wire. The codes only apply to people when they build, rebuild or remodel, so it is more up to pulling permits and getting inspections, that enforces the codes. ------------------------------ From: Clark W. Griswold, Jr. Subject: Re: Calling Packet8 Virtual Office Users Date: Sun, 03 Jul 2005 16:38:44 -0600 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Chasman wrote: > What I want to know is how sophisticated is the IVR on the virtual > office. I need to basically be able to have some one choose between > support, sales or a name directory and then do a call hunt on support > or sales. > That's can we do it and do it reliably? I came across this site http://www.nuvio.com/centrex.php on www.dslreports.com and thought you might find it interesting. They seem to get pretty good reviews there, but I don't know anything about them. ------------------------------ From: mc Subject: Re: Cellular Jamming? Think Again. Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2005 21:17:56 -0400 Organization: Speed Factory (http://www.speedfactory.net) >> Here I think there is a market for cell phone *detectors*. Cell >> phones transmit every few minutes even when you're not making or >> receiving a call, in order to keep the tower apprised of where they >> are. "Turn off your cell phone" could have more teeth if equipment >> were in use to detect cell phones that were still turned on. > How do you figure? My phone *never* gets turned off. Period. Not in > theatres, not in churches, not in other places of public assembly. You'd better turn it off on airplanes and near sensitive electronic equipment when told to. It transmits every few minutes even when you are not using it and it is not making noise, as long as it's turned on. ------------------------------ From: Tim@Backhome.org Subject: Re: DO NOT! DO NOT Use Cingular Go Phone Date: Mon, 04 Jul 2005 03:07:29 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications shwekhaw wrote: > DO NOT USE CINGULAR GO PHONE!! I had a lot of problems with GO Phone > and know another two people who are getting ripped off. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You could have been telling my story. I > have _two_ Cingular phones; the one works okay with an _Independence, > KS_ 620-330 number. The other phone is a former AT&T (now Cingular > Prepaid phone I think it is called 'Free to Go'.) Both phones are the > older digital Nokia 5165 phones, the difference is only that one is > prepaid via AT&T, the other is a 'regular' cell phone. Starting Friday, > the prepaid phone quit fuctioning. It has a Wichita KS 316-841 number > on it, with, I might add, twenty dollars in credit. Cingular customer > service, which appears to be located in India these days, absolutely > insisted I could not have a prepaid wireless phone since they had no > wireless coverage in my area. They said "as soon as you get back in > the Wichita area, your phone will start working again." I asked them > if that was so, then (if the towers could not reach me) why wasn't > voice mail kicking in to take the messages? They just kept repeating > their stupid answer: because we have no service in your area. I > finally said 'being an ignorant ##*@ based in your native land > somewhere, you probably would not know much about our cell phones > here.' They had just a few minutes earlier taken a twenty five dollar > payment from my credit card. Those Cingular/AT&T/SBC customer service > reps are so incredibly stupid it is beyond my comprehension. I said > well, if you do not have service in my area, then please arrange to > refund the twenty dollars you just now took on my account. And > wouldn't you know it, the sweet dear little Indian lady who referred > to herself as 'employee ID 627' insisted 'we do not give any refunds > on prepaid service'. You will this time, I told her, Small Claims > Court here in Montgomery County is just four block down the street > from my house, and I do not have to sue you in California or Texas > or India or wherever, _I just sue your local resale agent here in > Independence_. Hopefully your superiors will screw up and not make > any response to the suit. She finally came up with a post office > box address (no phone nor fax nor email address available) for some > entity called 'Cingular Free to Go' in Anaheim Hills, CA and I fired > off a letter to them yesterday making demand for the return of my > money _or_ preferably, a working phone with my 316-841 number since > someone else told me the only service they will now initiate in > 620 is GSM. I will tell you, if Ignorance was Bliss, then Cingular > customer service people would be the happiest in the world. PAT] I have been a Cingular customer for about 19 months now. I have the lowest monthly plan that includes rollover minutes. I just upgraded my phone. Although I was not eligible they graciously allowed the upgrade since I also bought a Bluetooth wireless headset. That was done in-person in a company store (I have learned to avoid agency stores like the plague and the Cingular web site makes that distinction in the store selection page. I also have recently had several phone contacts with customer service and each contact has been pleasant and helpful. After the last contact a survey organization contacted me to question me about my satisfaction with the latest phone contact to customer service. I have found Cingular's customer service to be far better than when I signed on a year and a half ago. Perhaps they don't like to deal with pay-as-you-go or prepaid phones. But, my experience has been good, and I go in thinking they will be lousy. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, here an an interesting anomaly. My experience with Cingular Wireless _on the 'regular service' side_ is also very good. A couple minor items of confusion now and then; (my service is billed and paid for in the Chicago area, but permanently used in the Tulsa market. Some of the reps seem to have a hard time understanding _why_ I am paid for out of Chicago, but with a 'Tulsa Market' [of which s.e. Kansas is part] area 620 number.) Once we deal with that, then they otherwise are very effecient. But it is the _prepaid_ side I have hassles with. Now I would think that a prepaid customer was the best possible customer; no credit problems for the company to worry about; they probably have a few million dollars in effect 'loaned' to them on a revolving basis each day that they do not yet have to account for. As with the bank float time on money orders: Amex and others have your money for a few days to use as they wish until the money order gets presented for payment. I don't know about you, but if one or more persons wanted to loan me a few million dollars -- for a couple days, or even several hours -- I'd be quite happy, and would use that interest-free loan to make a lot more money, even in just a day or so. I would not hassle customers like that; I would encourage more of them. But the greedy money order people want a 'handling fee' for their thing, and the cellular phone companies tack on all kinds of stipulations on their prepaid service also. How many of you get paid in advance for a job you are supposed to do, which your employer may not even ask for. How many of you are in a position to refuse to return such money (under those paid for in advance conditions) in the event your employer changes his mind? To add insult to injury, the cell phone people even route their prepaid customers through some idiot service bureau in an international place. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Justa Lurker Subject: Re: Ombudsman on N. Korea Food story Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Mon, 04 Jul 2005 00:24:54 GMT > Anyway, have a happy Independence Day, and wish for a time > (hopefully in our lifetimes) when there will be _true independence > for all_ in this land; not just the ones who say the right words and > have the right thoughts. PAT] No one is stopping you (or anyone else) from leaving. So if you are so unhappy and dissatisfied here in the USA as you seem to be based upon your constant snide comments and whining, then by all means I suggest you move to some other country more to your liking. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You make a very good point there. Canada would be an excellent choice, as would Switzerland. Because I personally feel more 'Americanized' in attitude and culture, I suppose Canada would be a better choice for me. (Well, _most_ provinces, that is, there is a notable exception to that rule). Canada is affording full freedom to _all_ its citizens; there are no second-class residents there, as happens in the USA. And although I _could_ move to Canada and continue to receive my (USA-based) Social Security Disability and Retirement payments, and I have been invited by friends to migrate there, there are some serious obstacles: because my health is so very poor (why in the hell I did not _just die_ in the brain aneurysm I do not understand; that is a common result of those things) I am much too unsteady on my feet to get that far without a _lot_ of help in the moving process. If you went around all the time in a chronic, constant state of 'dizzyness' you'd know of what I am speaking. Had I known in 1995 or even 1998 what I know and believe about the USA _today_ I would probably have hopped on a bus and migrated to northern Ontario or perhaps the eastern provinces; but smart we grow too late and very sickly too soon. November, 1999 (Black Tuesday) was probably the end of the line for me relocating anywhere. My brother, Dan, the relatively well-to-do commercial artist in Chicago has offered to pick me up here at my home, move me, lock-stock-and-barrel back to Chicago to live, but I told him that was an insane idea. Even if I somehow had the money to survive in that town (rents alone three to five times higher than here; he paid a little over 250 thousand for the condo he and his wife and child live in) I am not sure I would have the stomach to deal with the politics of the place. I imagine I could induce him to pick me up, and move me to Canada as well, but I just would not impose in that way. If it were still 1995 or 1998 I would not have to ask him. I was making sort of semi-regular trips to visit friends in New York and San Francisco and Los Angeles every couple weekends back in the 1960's, so I do know how to get around. I was even in this general area (Junction City, Kansas at Fort Riley Army Base) -- had gotten there on my own -- when the brain aneurysm struck me down in 1999. The last movie Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy made was in 1950; it was called 'Utopia' and was about them being ship-wrecked on a desert island with two other guys. It was an ideal place to live, but since I cannot live in Utopia, nor even the village of 'Perfect' as the man on TV-Land talks about,(although _he_ had to settle for having a 24/7 Walgreens nearby), I had to compromise by living here in the little town of Independence, where all things being equal, conditions are rather good; a magical little town which is a hybrid cross between Utopia and the mythical village of 'Perfect', and by golly, we are even getting our very own 24/7 Walgreens at 10th and Main Streets downtown, due to open in November. They are building it, fresh from the ground up now. They tore down and relocated the two businesses which were there to further west on Main Street, out by Walmart. Considering I was born in this general vicinity, and had honestly considered retiring here (although the brain aneurysm made some premature adjust- ments to _my_ timetable), I somehow get by okay. As much as I would love to live in Canada (or even Switzerland) I guess I will endure rural southeast Kansas. But thanks for the suggestion. 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 #307 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Jul 5 14:11:00 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 12F8B15001; Tue, 5 Jul 2005 14:11:00 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #308 Message-Id: <20050705181100.12F8B15001@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 14:11:00 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-0.5 required=2.0 tests=BAD_CREDIT,BAYES_00,FOR_FREE, MSGID_FROM_MTA_SHORT autolearn=no version=2.63 X-Spam-Level: Status: RO TELECOM Digest Tue, 5 Jul 2005 14:10:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 308 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Don't Let Data Theft Happen to You (Lisa Minter) Nasty Virus Writers Get Even Nastier (Lisa Minter) Pirated Live 8 DVDs on E-Bay; Music Industry Complains (Lisa Minter) Microsoft Ready to Discuss RSS Security (Lisa Minter) IBM Lawsuit Against Microsoft (Lisa Minter) Time to Explode the Internet (Lisa Minter) Deutsche Telekom Mulls T-Mobile USA Sale (Telecom dailyLead from USTA) Harvard Project to Scan Millions of Medical Files (Monty Solomon) Saluting Thumbs in Perpetual Motion (Monty Solomon) Re: Supplemental Grounding Electrodes (Bob Vaughan) Re: Supplemental Grounding Electrodes (Don Shoemaker) Re: VoIP Phone Home? (Marc Popek) Re: Ombudsman on N. Korea Food story (jmeissen@aracnet.com) Re: DO NOT! DO NOT Use Cingular Go Phone (Lisa Hancock) 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: Don't Let Data Theft Happen to You Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 11:28:36 -0500 By M.P. DUNLEAVEY ABOUT two weeks ago, I was alarmed by a phone message from my bank alerting me to some "unusual activity" on my debit card. Unusual wasn't the word. Someone had gone on a shopping spree -- $556.46 and $650.81 at one store, $264.99 and $300 in charges that were pending at another -- and none of it was mine. My debit card was still in my wallet. I hadn't used it in days. The bank said thieves might have created a counterfeit card. Someone -- a store clerk, waiter, whoever -- could have used a card reader to harvest the information imbedded in the magnetic strip to create a fake one. The bank assured me the debit account was closed and the thieves no longer had access to my cash -- but who could be sure? How much of my personal information did these thieves get? Between bouts of tears and frantic phone calls to my bank, I became obsessed with what I might have done to prevent this. The recent spate of data breaches was worrisome, but I never expected to become a victim. Maybe I should have. Companies like Citigroup, Bank of America, ChoicePoint and LexisNexis have lost, misplaced or otherwise exposed the personal information of tens of millions of Americans. Even the government concedes it lost records containing the Social Security numbers of more than a million employees. UNFORTUNATELY, although there are steps you can take to protect yourself -- and you should -- there are no guarantees. "You cannot protect yourself completely," said Edmund Mierzwinski, consumer program director at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group in Washington. "The best thing you can do is react swiftly if it does happen." That said, Mr. Mierzwinski endorsed the preventive measures offered by Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (www.privacyrights.org), a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, and by the Identity Theft Resource Center (www.idtheftcenter.org), also a nonprofit. Besides the standard advice to shred personal documents, following are some tips I found useful: -- Avoid letting your cards out of your sight. Do not let store clerks take your card away on the pretext that there's a "problem." -- Restrict the access to your personal data by signing up for the National Do Not Call Registry (www.donotcall.gov); remove your name and address from the phone book and reverse directories -- and, most important, from the marketing lists of the credit bureaus to reduce credit card solicitations. The site www.optoutprescreen.com can help. -- Consider freezing your credit report, an option available in a growing number of states. Freezing prevents anyone from opening up a new credit file in your name (a password lets you gain access to it), and it doesn't otherwise affect your credit rating. -- Protect your home computer with a firewall, especially if you have a high-speed connection. -- Rein in your Social Security number. Remove it from your checks, insurance cards and driver's license. Ask your bank not to use it as your identification number. Refuse to give your Social Security number to merchants, and be careful even with medical providers. The only time you are required by law to give your number, Mr. Mierzwinski said, is when a company needs it for government purposes, like tax matters, Social Security and Medicare. -- Curtail electronic access to your bank accounts. Pay bills through snail mail. Avoid linking your checking to savings. Use a credit card for purchases rather than a debit card. Although I was able to get all $1,772.26 reimbursed, I was lucky. While individual liability for fraudulent credit card purchases is only $50, it can be higher for debit cards: up to $500 or even all the money in your account in some cases. These and other preventive steps may help, but people really can't safeguard their money and their data on their own. Robert Douglas, the chief executive of PrivacyToday.com, a privacy advocate, believes that this is not an issue of consumer responsibility but of corporate negligence. "These companies are trying to tell people it's their fault, but the largest breaches have been within the financial services industry itself," Mr. Douglas said. Mr. Douglas and Mr. Mierzwinski say that shredding documents is fine, but calling your state and local representatives is better. "Companies have refused to give consumers control over their financial DNA and they've refused to take responsibility for their actions," Mr. Mierzwinski said. "What will stop identity theft are stronger notification laws and stronger penalties, which we don't have now." M. P. Dunleavey writes about personal finance for MSN Money. 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. Read New York Times on line each day with no login nor registration requirements at: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/nytimes.html ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Nasty Virus Writers Get Even Nastier Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 11:30:51 -0500 by Jay Wrolstad, cio-today.com Malware practitioners are more prolific than ever these days and have reached a level of sophistication where the viruses they produce can spread across the Internet in minutes, according to a new report by security specialist Sophos. Thus far this year, Sophos has detected nearly 8,000 new viruses, up 59 percent from the first six months of last year. At the same time, the average time from initial release to widespread infection is decreasing rapidly. According to Sophos, there now is a 50 percent chance of being infected by an Internet worm in just 12 minutes of being online with an unprotected Windows PC. Money To Be Made For users, the latest virus report should serve as an incentive to be more diligent with security patches and other software updates, said Gregg Mastoras, senior security analyst at Sophos. Mastoras attributes the potential profits from spyware and other attacks that let hackers obtain information -- such as bank-account data or credit-card numbers -- as a primary reason for the rise in virus activity. In fact, he said, Sophos has seen a threefold increase in the number of keylogging Trojans so far this year. Once planted, these keyloggers run in the background and monitor a user's keystrokes, feeding passwords and other personal information back to the Trojan writer. Zafi, Sober Worms Top the List The long-running Zafi-D worm accounts for more than a quarter of all viruses reported to Sophos thus far this year. Dominating the top of the monthly virus charts for the first four months, this worm circulates under the guise of a Christmas greeting to trick users into opening an infected attachment. "Protection against this worm has been around for a while, but infections are still being reported, which means consumers are not protecting themselves," said Mastoras. The Sober-N worm also is nasty. Primarily, it uses file-sharing networks for distribution, then hides in the background of infected PCs before upgrading itself to a newer version to churn out spam from compromised machines. Sophos noted that traditional PC threats seem to be consolidating, which makes it difficult to identify certain kinds of attacks as being spam, spyware or virus. Some Trojans, for example, infect user machines to engage in several kinds of malicious activities. Moving Beyond Microsoft While the ubiquity of Windows-based PCs makes them the preferred target, Mastoras said virus writers seeking personal information are showing greater interest in Linux, Unix and Mac systems. As a result, businesses and others using alternative operating systems -- on desktops or servers -- should not let down their guard in the belief that they are not vulnerable to attack, he said. "It's important for all users to update their OS with the latest patches and to use antivirus applications," Mastoras said. Copyright 2005 NewsFactor 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. *** 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, NewsFactor Network. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Pirated Live 8 DVDs on eBay, Industry Protests Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 11:33:39 -0500 Internet auction site eBay said on Tuesday it had begun removing illegal DVD copies of the Live 8 poverty awareness pop concerts from its Web site, after the record industry complained. Some of the pirate recordings on the site early on Tuesday were on sale within 24 hours of Saturday's concerts ending, and have been attracting bids of up to 16.99 pounds ($31) each. One of them boasts footage from huge concerts in London's Hyde Park and Philadelphia. Ten concerts took place in all, from Tokyo in the east to near Toronto in the west, and more than a million people turned up to see the greatest line-up of rock stars ever assembled. While the concerts were free, British media said record company EMI (EMI.L) paid millions of pounds for the rights to release the official DVD of the event, which Bob Geldof organized to put pressure on world leaders to do more to beat poverty. "There are too many people out there who believe music is for stealing, regardless of the wishes of artists and the people who invest in them," said David Martin, director of anti-piracy at the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). "Sadly we are not at all surprised by this incident." EBay said it had begun removing the listings. "The unauthorized copies of Live 8 DVDs we have been told about have been taken down, because the sale of fake items is not permitted on eBay.co.uk," the site said in a statement. EBay has already been labeled an "electronic pimp" by Geldof after free Live 8 tickets appeared on the site ahead of Saturday's concerts. It suspended some of the accounts of users who placed hoax bids for the tickets of up to 10 million pounds in order to sabotage the sales. Geldof also organized the Live Aid charity gigs 20 years ago to raise money for Ethiopian famine victims, and brought out a re-recording of the 1984 "Do They Know It's Christmas?" track to try to prevent bootleggers profiting from the original. The BPI urged eBay to toughen its safeguards against piracy, noting a dramatic rise in illegal sales. In 2001, the BPI arranged for the removal of 2,315 illegal online auctions, but in the first six months of this year that number had risen to 13,280. 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 Ready to Discuss RSS Security Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 11:35:31 -0500 Robert McMillan, IDG News Service Microsoft will be taking a closer look at the security of a new Web publishing technology it plans to integrate into the next major version of Windows, code-named Longhorn. Microsoft plans to offer ways for developers to use the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) standard to create Windows applications, but the company first wants to talk about the security implications of such a move. Developers should expect to discuss RSS security at Microsoft's upcoming Professional Developers Conference, to be held in Los Angeles this September, says Robert Scoble, a Microsoft technical evangelist writing in a recent Web log posting. "This is something we all need to do a lot of thinking and work on," he says. RSS is now used primarily as a way of letting Web surfers know when new articles have been posted to Web sites, but they must use special software in order to view and subscribe to RSS feeds. With Longhorn, expected in the second half of 2006, that capability will be built into the operating system. Microsoft will also provide new developer tools so that developers can more easily build Windows applications that use the protocol. Cause for Concern? Microsoft declined to say what, if any security concerns it has about RSS, but observers say that once it is included in Windows, RSS will be a much more appealing target to attackers. Jupiter Research estimates that the protocol is used by about six percent of U.S. consumers, but once it is embedded in Windows that number will jump substantially. As Web browsers and e-mail clients moved into the mainstream, so too did worms and viruses, says Rich Miller, an analyst with Netcraft. Some are concerned that the same pattern may emerge with RSS readers, he says. "Once that becomes a technology that's on everybody's desktop and can be accessed using the Windows operating system, that changes the dynamic quite substantially." Though there haven't yet been any major security risks associated with RSS, which is generally considered more secure than many other Web technologies, security may become more of an issue as RSS begins to be used for a wider variety of tasks. "We have an opportunity to look at ways we could build into RSS some of the security features that we wished had been present in e-mail," says Phillip Hallam-Baker, principal scientist with VeriSign. Phishing, for example, could become a problem as new applications are developed for RSS, he says. "At the moment, I don't see that there is a phishing issue with RSS," he says. "However, if banks start using it to distribute statements, it may become an issue." "The more automation that people have built in [to RSS] the more places that you might have somebody work out some dirty trick," Hallam-Baker says. "Are we going to make sure we've locked down as many rat holes as we could have done, or are we going to find that if we'd put better security in there, we'd be happier with the result?" he asks. Copyright 2005 PC World Communications, 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, PC World Communications, Inc. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: IBM Lawsuit Against Microsoft Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 11:37:19 -0500 IBM Wins $850M Settlement vs. Microsoft By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, AP Technology Writer BOSTON - IBM Corp. will get $775 million in cash and $75 million worth of software from Microsoft Corp. to settle claims still lingering from the federal government's antitrust case against Microsoft in the 1990s, the companies announced Friday. The payout is one of the largest that Microsoft has made to settle an antitrust-related case. And it brings the software giant closer to moving on from claims involving technologies long since eclipsed. IBM was pressing for restitution for the "discriminatory treatment" that U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson cited when he ruled in 2000 that Microsoft had broken antitrust law. IBM and Microsoft once had a trailblazing collaborative relationship, dating to Big Blue's historic decision in 1981 to have Microsoft write software for the original IBM PCs. Later, IBM and Microsoft would jointly create the OS/2 operating system. But the partnership soured, and Microsoft eventually focused on Windows and left OS/2 development to IBM. In the mid-1990s, IBM irked Microsoft by selling PCs that were loaded with OS/2 as an alternative to Windows and with its SmartSuite productivity software, a rival for Microsoft Office programs. IBM also backed Java, a programming language that doesn't need Windows to run. Jackson noted that Microsoft retaliated by charging IBM more than other PC makers for copies of Windows. There were other tactics. Months before Windows 95 came out, Microsoft let other PC companies pre-install the operating system on new computers that could go on sale right after the launch. But IBM got its license only 15 minutes before the event. As a result, many customers eager for the latest software opted for machines made by IBM's rivals. Since Windows 95 arrived in August, IBM missed out on back-to-school sales and lost "substantial revenue," Jackson wrote. IBM didn't sue Microsoft over the findings, but kept the right to do so under a 2003 agreement between the companies. Similar talks led to a $150 million settlement with Gateway Inc. in April. Separately, Microsoft has spent more than $3 billion in recent years settling lawsuits by rivals, including a $1.6 billion deal with Sun Microsystems Inc. in 2004 and a $750 million truce with America Online, part of Time Warner Inc., in 2003. Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft still faces legal challenges, including a lawsuit by RealNetworks Inc. and an appeal of a $600 million antitrust ruling by European regulators. Though software maker Novell Inc. reached a $536 million settlement with Microsoft in November, Novell got a judge's approval last month to proceed with a separate antitrust suit over the WordPerfect word-processing program. Even so, Microsoft's general counsel, Brad Smith, said he believes antitrust issues are close to being resolved. IBM had been the biggest rival with a pending claim. "This takes us another very significant step forward," he said. "We're entering what I think is the final stage of this process." The $775 million payment will pad IBM's second-quarter earnings, which are due to be released in two weeks. The Armonk, N.Y.-based company is coming off a first-quarter report that included a $1.4 billion profit but fell short of Wall Street's expectations. Microsoft set aside $550 million for antitrust claims in April, during the company's fiscal third quarter. At least part of the IBM payment could result in a charge in the company's fourth quarter; results are expected July 21. IBM shares rose 47 cents to close at $74.67 on the New York Stock Exchange. Microsoft shares fell 13 cents to $24.71 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. When Jackson ruled against Microsoft in 2000, he ordered the company broken into two as punishment. But a year later, the Clinton-era Justice Department having given way to the Bush administration, the government decided not to seek the breakup. The case was settled in 2002. Even with Friday's deal, IBM reserved the right to press claims that its server business was harmed by Microsoft's behavior. But such claims appear unlikely to surface soon. IBM agreed not to seek damages for actions that occurred before mid-2002, meaning the findings in Jackson's ruling would no longer apply. But while much of that case is anachronistic now -- OS/2 faded by the late 1990s, and IBM doesn't even make PCs anymore, having sold the business to China's Lenovo Group Ltd. -- there's still conflict between Microsoft and IBM. Perhaps Microsoft's toughest competitive challenge today comes from the open-source Linux operating system, which has made steady gains especially in overseas markets. Some of Linux's biggest backing has come from IBM. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Time to Explode the Internet? Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 11:23:28 -0500 An editorial comment from Chicago Tribune, July 4, 2005: In the beginning, the Internet was an experiment among a small group of government scientists and military folks who all seemed to know each other. They were friendly. Then the doors were thrown open to the public, and millions revved their engines and zoomed onto the Internet superhighway. All these technological pioneers marveled at the clever new ways to share information, find out stuff, buy things and connect with others who have common interests. Unowned and virtually unregulated, the Internet functioned for a few years in the mid-1990s under self-governance, a certain live-free-or-die ethic of community responsibility. Most people were still friendly. The Internet's original design rested on the premise that all these new Netizens would be as law-abiding and conscientious in the privacy of their home offices as they would be strolling through a public park. But even savvy computer users aren't monolithic. Some have a dark side. In came the hackers, the viruses, worms, spyware, phishing, and spam; the purveyors of pharmaceuticals and porn sites; and Nairobi bank presidents and generals promising to wire millions of dollars into your bank if you'd kindly give them your account number. According to a Washington Post report last weekend, Carnegie Mellon University CERT Coordination Center logged 3,780 new computer security vulnerabilities in 2004. In 2000 the center logged 1,090. In 1995, it was just 171. Weeks ago, in one of the largest security breaches of the Internet to date, MasterCard International revealed that more than 40 million credit card numbers had been exposed to hackers and potential fraud. "The Internet is stuck in the flower-power days of the 1960s during which people thought the world would be beautiful if you are just nice," computer scientist Karl Auerbach told the Post. Formerly with Cisco Systems Inc., Auerbach now volunteers with engineering groups to try to improve the Internet. Auerbach is part of a handful of groups now looking into whether the entire Internet needs an overhaul, or, in Web-speak, a Version 2.0. What the existence of those groups tacitly acknowledges is that too many people aren't just nice. With more than a billion Internet users across the globe, and nearly everyone who surfs it vulnerable to hazards, a structural overhaul is not an outlandish idea. Copyright 2005, Chicago Tribune 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: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 12:31:48 EDT From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA Subject: Deutsche Telekom Mulls T-Mobile USA Sale Telecom dailyLead from USTA July 5, 2005 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=22830&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Deutsche Telekom mulls T-Mobile USA sale BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Broadcom sues Qualcomm * Mobile phone companies eye music business * European telecom market heats up USTA SPOTLIGHT * Just Released: The USTelecom IP Video Implementation & Planning Guide EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * AOL's Live 8 coverage a success REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * P2P, music companies seek new business model Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=22830&l=2017006 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2005 21:56:08 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Harvard Project to Scan Millions of Medical Files By Gareth Cook, Globe Staff Harvard scientists are building a powerful computer system that will use artificial intelligence to scan the private medical files of 2.5 million people at local hospitals, as part of a government-funded effort to find the genetic roots of asthma and other diseases. The $20 million project -- which would probe more deeply and more quickly into medical records than human researchers are capable of -- is designed to find links between patients' DNA and illnesses. Although the effort could raise concerns about privacy, researchers say the new program, called 'I2B2' (for 'Informatics for Integrating Biology and the Bedside) would respect the strict guidelines set out in federal and state laws, and could be a powerful tool for many kinds of research. Hospitals gather huge amounts of information from patients each day -- from blood tests to chest X-rays and brain scans. For decades, researchers have pored through these records and gleaned insights that have helped millions of Americans. Now, the Harvard team hopes to put far more information at the fingertips of researchers, and to speed the process with sophisticated automation. Scientists said the Harvard work and similar efforts elsewhere increase the stakes in the nation's move to medical records stored electronically. With mounting examples of personal financial information being compromised, work such as this will have to be done with extreme care. Scientists also said, however, that if the project is successful, it would be widely copied -- and it could mean that studies that now take months or years could be done in weeks or even minutes. "If we could use routine clinical care to generate new findings without having to do multimillion-dollar studies, that would be a true change in the way medical discovery is done," said Dr. Isaac Kohane, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School who is one of the project's directors. "We want to use the healthcare system as a living laboratory." All of the records -- from patients at Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and several Partners HealthCare hospitals -- are protected by multiple layers of security designed to prevent private medical information from being released, the scientists said. None of the information will be sold, said John Glaser, the project's other director, and the chief information officer for Partners HealthCare. Funding for the five-year I2B2 project began in the fall of 2004; researchers are now getting the first hints of success and are forming plans to contact patients. The first study to be carried out under the project is an effort to understand the genetic roots of asthma, which afflicts about 20 million Americans. For reasons that are not well understood, some asthma patients do not respond well to the usual treatments and suffer repeated, frightening attacks that send them to the emergency room, said Dr. Scott Weiss, a scientist at the Channing Laboratory at Brigham and Women's Hospital who is leading the asthma team. http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/07/03/harvard_project_to_scan_millions_of_medical_files/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2005 22:54:27 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Saluting Thumbs in Perpetual Motion @LARGE By Scott Kirsner ESPN doesn't understand the excitement, and Fox Sports doesn't grasp the inherent danger. The New England Sports Network simply can't appreciate the technique and strategy. That's why none of those channels carried live coverage of the first-ever @Large BlackBerry Invitational Tournament, held last week. Their mistake. This would've been a ratings bonanza. Who cares about baseball or golf when you could be watching a middle manager surreptitiously typing 60 words-per-minute under the conference table during a plodding PowerPoint presentation? Nearly 50 entrants vied for the grand prize: a mention in print, and the right to add a line to one's e-mail signature boasting, 'Winner of the 2005 @Large BlackBerry Invitational.' Proceeds from the competition went to the American Association for the Prevention of Thumb Tendinitis, a painful affliction that sadly ends the careers of many talented BlackBerry users. (Perhaps you'll donate, as there were no proceeds this year.) Two observations led me to launch the tourney.The first was that people with hand-held e-mail devices tend to get obsessed with responsiveness. (I use the term BlackBerry to encompass devices like the PalmOne Treo and the T-Mobile Sidekick, which I'm sure infuriates the legal department at Research In Motion, the Canadian company that makes BlackBerrys.) They volley back answers mere milliseconds after the sender has asked the question.The second observation was that as people have been getting more comfortable with their devices, responses have been getting longer. http://www.boston.com/business/personaltech/articles/2005/07/04/saluting_thumbs_in_perpetual_motion/ ------------------------------ From: techie@tantivy.tantivy.net (Bob Vaughan) Subject: Re: Supplemental Grounding Electrodes Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 10:48:09 UTC Organization: Tantivy Associates In article , Paul Coxwell wrote: >> Article 250.54 of the NEC says local supplemental grounding >> electrodes (such as the one for phone service) must be bonded to >> the primary electrode. Where does the NEC apply? According to >> what the telco man admitted seven years ago, I assume our county >> code says the same thing. > Which edition of the NEC are you looking at? In the 2002 edition > article 250.54 relates to supplementary electrodes which MAY be > bonded, not MUST. 250.58 does seem to correspond with 250.54 in > earlier editions though, so that could be the section you are looking > at. > Chapter 8 of the NEC also relates specifically to communication systems. > Article 800.40(D) in the 2002 edition states: > QUOTE > Bonding of Electrodes. A bonding jumper not smaller than 6 AWG copper > or equivalent shall be connected between the communications grounding > electrode and power grounding electrode system at the building or > structure served where separate electrodes are used. > /QUOTE >> Is this a recent addition to the NEC? > No. I don't know how far back the requirement goes, but the 1971 NEC > says much the same thing in article 800-31(b)(7): > QUOTE > Bonding of Electrodes. A bond not smaller than No. 6 copper or > equivalent shall be placed between the communication and power grounding > electrodes where the requirements of (5) above result in the use of > separate electrodes. > /QUOTE It looks like 800-31(b)(7) was added after 1965. The 1965 code says, in section 800-31 (b)(5): [QUOTE] Electrode. The grounding conductor shall preferably be connected to a water pipe electrode. Where a water pipe is not readily available and the grounded conductor of the power service is connected to the water pipe at the building, the protector grounding conductor may be grounded to the power service conduit, service equipment enclosures, or grounding conductor of the power service. In the absence of a water pipe, connection may be made to a continuous and extensive underground gas piping system, to an effectively grounded metallic structure, or to a ground rod or pipe driven into permanently damp earth. Steam or hot water pipes, or lightning rod conductors shall not be employed as electrodes for protectors. A driven rod or pipe used for grounding power circuits shall not be used for grounding communication circuits unless the driven rod or pipe is connected to the grounded conductor of a multigrounded neutral power system. The requirements for separate made electrodes for power and lighting system grounds, those for communication systems, and those for a lightning rod installation shall not prohibit the bonding together of all such made electrodes. See Section 250-86. [ It is recommended that all separate electrodes be bonded together to limit potential differences between them ans between their associated wiring systems. ] [/QUOTE] > Disclaimer: Being British I'm just an outside observer to the NEC. I > could post your query in a Stateside electrical forum where we have > some NEC experts though, if you wish.> > - Paul -- Welcome My Son, Welcome To The Machine -- Bob Vaughan | techie @ tantivy.net | | P.O. Box 19792, Stanford, Ca 94309 | -- I am Me, I am only Me, And no one else is Me, What could be simpler? -- ------------------------------ From: Don_Shoemaker@HotMail.com Subject: Re: Supplemental Grounding Electrodes Date: 5 Jul 2005 09:26:46 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com John Hines wrote: > The NEC does get revised periodically, 2002 the most recent. The 2005 version has been out for several months. > Grounding and bonding have been revised in the last few years. In > summary, the service entrance has to have a ground rod installed, and > this is bonded to the electrical system at one and only place at the > main box, this is the grounded conductor aka neutral. A great resource on grounding and anything related to electrical work & the NEC is www.MikeHolt.com. ------------------------------ From: Marc Popek Subject: Re: VoIP Phone Home? Date: Mon, 04 Jul 2005 22:32:28 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet And some wish to have a VOIP and a PSTN local presence. Why into use a PSTN /VOIP automatic switch so that you can mange both services from a single handset, answering machine etc? Marco http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5786887222&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&rd=1 fiatlux wrote in message news:telecom24.299.2@telecom-digest.org: > Written by: Jason Canon > Peach ePublishing LLC > VoIP Phone Home? > The movie Extra Terrestrial (ET) coined the phrase "phone home" and > each year American's look for more cost effective ways to do just > that. The past 10 years have seen the development and growing > popularity of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technologies to > achieve cost savings over the traditional circuit-switched telephone > networks. The two dominate technologies used for VoIP are: (1) the > Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and (2) Peer-2-Peer (P2P). For > business and educational institutions SIP VoIP solutions have produced > substantial savings. For home voice users, however, SIP VoIP is still > value challenged. > A typical circuit-switched landline phone costs about $19.95 per month > (plus tax). The good old American landline phone should be graphically > depicted beside the word "reliable" in the dictionary. Not only does > it keep working, even when all electrical power fails, but it can even > provide you with a light to dial with. At $15 dollars per month SIP > VoIP is still value challenged due to the lack of full support for > E9-1-1 emergency services and of course the reliability issues > inherent with using a real time application over a "best effort" > network like today's Internet. Although few VoIP articles still > reference Internet Request For Comments (RFC) 3714 "IAB Concerns > Regarding Congestion Control," the technical challenges associated > with VoIP are widely known. Further, even with the recent dubious > edict by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that VoIP service > providers will provision support for E9-1-1 within 90 days, this still > leaves the reliability issues unresolved. The use of adaptive rate > CODEC's to prevent congestion collapse is a swell idea if it applies > to my neighbor's service but not my own. Using adaptive rate CODEC's > to elicit voluntary user preemption has no appeal in the modern world. > Technology is supposed to be getting better and it is clearly not > better that users receive disconnects or degraded service quality in > order to constrain network bandwidth consumption. > Quality of Service (QoS) has been the four letter word of the Internet > for a very long time. Yet, we know that real time applications such as > video and voice are a mismatch for "best effort" service models. Cost > savings are important, but not if they require users to accept > backward technology leaps. After 9/11 the United States should have > begun standardization efforts to insure that VoIP QoS levels would be > equivalent to circuit-switched networks, especially where emergency > E9-1-1 calls are concerned. The recent FCC order only requires that > E9-1-1 call center traffic be properly routed. It does nothing to > insure QoS of the connection once the call is completed. > As for SIP VoIP in the home, there is too little incentive for savvy > consumers to part with more of their hard earned communications > dollars for an industry offering that simply does not meet the needs > of the user. Until something concrete can be done to move SIP VoIP > forward, service based on P2P such as Skype seems to be the only > sensible choice on the kitchen table. Why should home users pay $15 or > more per month for less reliable communications than they already have > with their land line? Skype gives users the ability to experience > "best effort" voice over the Internet for FREE. Could this be the > reason why more than 125 million copies of Skype's P2P software has > been downloaded? And for the occasions where interconnection with the > existing circuit-switched telephone networks is required, Skype offers > a very competitive 2 cents per minute interconnection rate. With Skype > you can talk for 12 =BD hours interconnected to the phone system for > the same cost as a basic rate SIP VoIP service. > Until genuine changes are made to support SIP VoIP QoS there does not > appear to be a convincing or compelling reason today for users to > choose anything other than P2P VoIP services such as Skype to render > Internet "best effort" home phone services. > You can read the complete article and view associated graphics online > at: http://canon.org/VoIP_Phone_Home.html. > Copyright 2005 Peach ePublishing, LLC > Jason Canon has authored numerous technical research papers including: > photonic switching, gigabit networking, VoIP E9-1-1 and others. He is > an expert author for EzineArticles.com. E-mail: Jason Canon at > jmc@canon.org. > 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: jmeissen@aracnet.com Subject: Re: Ombudsman on N. Korea Food story Date: 5 Jul 2005 04:02:02 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com In article , Justa Lurker wrote: > No one is stopping you (or anyone else) from leaving. So if you are > so unhappy and dissatisfied here in the USA as you seem to be based > upon your constant snide comments and whining, then by all means I > suggest you move to some other country more to your liking. Ah, yes. "Love It or Leave IT". If you don't like being shagged by the power elite, well, TS, Eliot! No criticism allowed! I would point out that the right of dissent is at the core of our country. If that's not acceptable to our esteemed anonymous lurker then I invite him to go live in a country more suited to his beliefs. Oh, wait ... that's what the Administration is making this country! ;-) john- (not afraid to sign his real name) John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, Justa signed his name elsewhere, and he has been around here for awhile, so his screen name is no hassle to me. In fact, John, you may come to regret signing _your_ name to most anything sometime soon. It has been well known for quite a long time now that there are rotten, no-good jackals who read this Telecom Digest each day _just to harvest any real names_ they can find. So I do not fault anyone who feels they need to at least camoflouge their email address these days. If I were not the editor here, and had to stand in the open as a place for guys to write to, I probably would hide my email address also -- in fact, in other instances, I do in other forums, etc. So I seriously doubt that Justa is afraid of any repercussions from _me_ or this forum; more that likely he has been eaten alive so often by spamscam he does not give his real name any more often than necessary. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: DO NOT! DO NOT Use Cingular Go Phone Date: 5 Jul 2005 08:56:32 -0700 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Now I would think that a prepaid > customer was the best possible customer; no credit problems for the > company to worry about; they probably have a few million dollars in > effect 'loaned' to them on a revolving basis each day that they do > not yet have to account for. To add insult to injury, the cell > phone people even route their prepaid customers through some idiot > service bureau in an international place. PAT] I have heard problems from people using pre-paid phones, such as "Trac" phone (believe it's offered by Verizon). Yes, the service offices were international and no help at all. I don't understand either why the wireless companies treat these ad-hoc customers so poorly. Maybe because they really want the guaranteed $40/month customers and hope they'll spend money on premium services to generate even more profit. I shudder to think what people are paying for cell phone service these days given how often and long they talk, esp teenagers. I hear my cube neighbors yelling at their kids for overuse of txt messaging or other premium services that drove up the bill. Do cell phone plans still charge per call? I have an old plan that is $19.95 a month. Even on 'free' off peak calls there is a 12c land line fee for each call made or received. Since I don't use the phone that much I don't mind it. Periodically some clueless salesperson calls me to push an upgrade to a fancy new phone (that I must purchase) and pay $40 a month for a "cheaper plan". Considering usage charges are now about $1-3 a month it would be quite foolish for me to switch; but they tell me I'll save money. When I first got cellphone service I went to the wireline carrier. I expected the same sort of treatment regular phone service got. I quickly learned it was a very separate division with very different practices. I thought I'd get best service by being in one of their owned stores, not an agent or mall kiosk. Didn't matter. The salesgirl was bored, pretty much threw the phone at me, didn't bother explaining how it worked until I insisted she do so and still left out a lot. She spent time on the phone making her social plans for the evening. When I pass the kiosks today I don't see anything different. The sales people just push the $40 plans and fancy features. If they realize you want very basic service they lose interest and shoo you away. I guess they work only on commission. I've had a few good people on customer service (one even gave me her direct inward number so I could call her back if not resolved), but most were clueless. It is clear, unlike the old days when someone in the Commercial Dept of Bell was a career worker, today's workers are just passing through. Turnover is very high and nobody thinks that is a problem. Today some kid (ie a 19 y/o) is selling cell phones, tomorrow he or she will be serving pizza down the shore and the day after they'll be working for a bank boiler room. I do get frustrated at this world when the server of pizza at my local joint has more knowledge of food preparation and service then someone at phone store has about phones. The servers at my pizzaria are young but still have been there a few years and if you ask for a special order they will accomodate you. This is great for getting pizza, but why can't the rest of the business world operate this way? What is the pizzaria owner doing for his employees so that they stick around for a few years -- in what is not the most pleasant job in the world -- that big companies can't do for their employees in what should be far more pleasant working surroundings? ------------------------------ 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 #308 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Jul 5 23:59:29 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id C9A9D150EB; Tue, 5 Jul 2005 23:59:28 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #309 Message-Id: <20050706035928.C9A9D150EB@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 23:59:28 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-1.1 required=2.0 tests=BAYES_00,MAILTO_TO_REMOVE, MSGID_FROM_MTA_SHORT autolearn=no version=2.63 X-Spam-Level: Status: RO TELECOM Digest Tue, 5 Jul 2005 23:59:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 309 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Cable TV vs. UHF (was RE: DSL Speed) (nmclain@annsgarden.com) Re: VoIP Phone Home? (Fred Atkinson) Re: IBM Lawsuit Against Microsoft (Lisa Hancock) Re: Supplemental Grounding Electrodes (John Hines) Re: DO NOT! DO NOT Use Cingular Go Phone (Steve Sobol) Re: Don't Let Data Theft Happen to You (Wesrock@aol.com) Re: Supplemental Grounding Electrodes (Neal McLain) Re: Mediacom (J Kelly) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 19:28:34 -0600 From: nmclain@annsgarden.com Subject: Cable TV vs. UHF (was RE: DSL Speed) Choreboy wrote: > In 1956 I moved to Rutland VT, in a valley. We had three floors above > the basement, and the peak of our slate roof may have been forty feet > above the ground. On the peak was a mast with guy wires. There were > three antennae on the mast, one pointed to Burlington 70 miles away, > on to Albany 90 miles away, and one to Boston 160 miles away. Three > cables led from the antennae to a switch on the back of the TV. > The snow was bad all year. Community cable, with an antenna mast on a > nearby mountain, was discussed. A year or so later, Lucky 13 started > in Albany. In spite of the distance and the mountains, it came in > without snow. I heard no more about community cable. > I don't know how much it cost to operate a small UHF station, but in > Rutland I think it could have been started and operated much cheaper > than cable. The audience would probably have needed something > besides a loop on their TV, and I suppose advertising would have had > to support it. Perhaps so, but that would have provided only one channel. So even if a small UHF station had been built in Rutland, somebody would have built a CATV system anyway. Even back in the 50s, CATV systems were offering "full network service": all three commercial networks. They supplemented these channels by adding nearby independent and NCE (non-commercial educational) stations. One UHF station obviously could not have provided anywhere near this level of service. And I can't imagine that three network-affiliate stations would have been able to survive financially. Of course, it might have been possible to build three translator stations to retransmit the signals of three distant network stations, provided that some financial-support mechanism could be established. Such an arrangement existed in Darlington, Wisconsin for several years during the 60s and 70s: three UHF translators retransmitted the signals of the three Madison commercial stations. The translators were supported by "memberships"; although there was no way to prevent non-members from tuning in, enough members apparently paid their dues to keep things running. But after the mid-70s, even membership-supported translators couldn't compete with cable TV. The company I was working for at the time built a cable system in Darlington in 1980, and the translators were shut down. AFAIK, they're are still sitting there up on the hill collecting cobwebs (although I once heard that the old transmitter shack made a good deer-hunting blind). Neal McLain ------------------------------ From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Re: VoIP Phone Home? Reply-To: fatkinson@mishmash.com Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 18:17:01 GMT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net On Mon, 04 Jul 2005 22:32:28 GMT, Marc Popek wrote: > And some wish to have a VOIP and a PSTN local presence. Why into use > a PSTN /VOIP automatic switch so that you can mange both services > from a single handset, answering machine etc? Why not just get a two-line RJ-14 type telephone? Fred ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: IBM Lawsuit Against Microsoft Date: 5 Jul 2005 11:52:49 -0700 Lisa Minter wrote: > BOSTON - IBM Corp. will get $775 million in cash and $75 million worth > of software from Microsoft Corp. to settle claims still lingering from > the federal government's antitrust case against Microsoft in the > 1990s, the companies announced Friday. How times have changed. Years ago it was IBM that got hit with anti-trust lawsuits. Tom Watson Jr admitted in his memoirs "Father Son & Co" that his rage at CDC coming out with a supercomputer before IBM may have encouraged some not so good practices in sales pressure and "paper" machines. IBM settled with CDC at tremendous cost. The govt kept up its case but lost, costing the taxpayer and IBM millions of wasted dollars. Bill Gates and his crew ought to read Watson's book. The Watsons (both father and son) felt extremely passionately that IBM was THEIR company and they could do as THEY WISHED with it. They felt they worked very hard to make the company so successful and done so honestly and fairly by being the best. That passion obscured their vision to some business realities and anti-trust law -- even if you did nothing wrong to get be #1, you are still in violation of the law by merely being #1. Undoubtedly Gates feels the same way toward Microsoft -- it's his company, he worked hard to build it up and should be able run his business without being second guessed by outsiders. Both Watsons were forced to change their business practices in response to government pressure. Watson Sr had to license out his patents and sell as well as rent his machines. Watson Jr had to go further with sales and break out of bundling into a la carte sales. I think Gates should take a lesson from that and consider loosening up what is a near monopoly in his sales offerings and be more flexible in his licensing agreements. FWIW, IBM remains a strong company where Control Data is pretty much gone. I wonder what the Microsoft/Intel "Sloan" sales approach will lose favor. That is, very often they introduce new hardware and software that "obsoletes" what is exists, and people rush out to buy new stuff. Sloan did this at General Motors, coming out with a new model year to encourage people to buy new cars for style. Let's be honest -- the vast majority of users could get along just fine with a 486, Windows 3.1, and comparable versions of Word and Excel, and not need any more horsepower and function. ------------------------------ From: John Hines Subject: Re: Supplemental Grounding Electrodes Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 16:33:03 -0500 Organization: www.jhines.org Reply-To: john@jhines.org Don_Shoemaker@HotMail.com wrote: > John Hines wrote: >> The NEC does get revised periodically, 2002 the most recent. > The 2005 version has been out for several months. They must review it more often than I (and others) are expecting. The electrician I hired over the winter was interested in the 2002 code book I had. The biggest effect on building grounding systems has been the decrease in reliance on metal plumbing, due to the usage of plastic piping. I got my books from http://codecheck.com which are more user friendly than the actual code books, which are more like legalese. ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: DO NOT! DO NOT Use Cingular Go Phone Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 15:29:47 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > I have heard problems from people using pre-paid phones, such as > "Trac" phone (believe it's offered by Verizon). Yes, the service > offices were international and no help at all. Tracfone is NOT Verizon. Tracfone is not owned, and the service is not offered, by any major carrier. In fact, Tracfones sold in different areas use different networks. Net10 Wireless, the 10c/minute prepay service just launched by Tracfone, exclusively uses Cingular GSM. But Tracfone is separate from Cingular and all of the major carriers. > I don't understand either why the wireless companies treat these > ad-hoc customers so poorly. Maybe because they really want the > guaranteed $40/month customers and hope they'll spend money on premium > services to generate even more profit. A friend who owns an ISP here made an interesting point. Cingular, Verizon Wireless, Sprint PCS, Alltel ... all of those wireless services are owned by wireline companies (in Verizon's case, only 55% because the company that owns the other 45% is not a wireline carrier). And you know the kind of service the wireline providers offer. :) > Do cell phone plans still charge per call? Not that I know of. JustThe.net - Steve Sobol / sjsobol@JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Coming to you from Southern California's High Desert, where the temperatures are as high as the gas prices! / 888.480.4NET (4638) "Life's like an hourglass glued to the table" --Anna Nalick, "Breathe" ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 19:47:58 EDT Subject: Re: Don't Let Data Theft Happen to You In a message dated Tue, 5 Jul 2005 11:28:36 -0500, Lisa Minter writes: > By M.P. DUNLEAVEY > -- Avoid letting your cards out of your sight. Do not let store > clerks take your card away on the pretext that there's a "problem." Apparently you would not be able to use your credit or debit card in a restaurant then, since they require you give them the card to swipe at a location out of your sight. (An exception is Sonic fast-food restaurants, where the card swipe device is right on the ordering post.) > -- Restrict the access to your personal data by signing up for the > National Do Not Call Registry (www.donotcall.gov); remove your name > and address from the phone book and reverse directories -- and, most > important, from the marketing lists of the credit bureaus to reduce > credit card solicitations. The site www.optoutprescreen.com can help. While some people have a need or consider it a status symbol to have an unlisted number, others are not willing to give up contact with many desirable contacts in the outside world who would have no other way to reach them by phone or snail mail. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Not only Sonic, but McDonalds here at least also has a card swiper right by each register. If you have your card in hand, while you are placing your order (or when the clerk turns around to fill it) you can swipe your debit/credit card and have it back in your pocket by the time the clerk asks for the money. They don't care either way; when the register says the order is paid for, that is all they care. Ditto Marvin's Supermarket here: you dump all your groceries on the conveyor belt, the kid starts ringing it up and in the meantime you can swipe your card. The card swiper then seems to 'lock up ' until the clerk does something to tally it on the register; then the card swiper clicks into action (and if you had already swiped your card) it gets busy getting the approval and printing the receipt. If you want 'cash back', the clerk over-rings the total by that same amount. If your order comes to twenty dollars and you want twenty cash back, the clerk rings it on the register as 'amount tendered' forty dollars, 'change returned' twenty dollars. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 18:54:45 -0500 From: Neal McLain Reply-To: nmclain@annsgarden.com Subject: Re: Supplemental Grounding Electrodes Choreboy wrote: > Article 250.54 of the NEC says local supplemental grounding > electrodes (such as the one for phone service) must be > bonded to the primary electrode. Where does the NEC apply? > According to what the telco man admitted seven years ago, I > assume our county code says the same thing. As other readers have noted, NEC applies in any jurisdiction that adopts it by reference. The adopting law or ordinance identifies the edition of the code, and sometimes includes modifying clauses to clarify certain requirements, create additional requirements, or omit certain requirements. Some state governments adopt it (e.g. Wisconsin); most counties and municipalities also adopt it. In your case, I'd guess that if you live in the City of Rutland, the Building & Zoning Department enforces it. If you live in one of the surrounding towns, either the town government or the Rutland County government enforces it. > Is this a recent addition to the NEC? It certainly existed in 1987, according to "The National Electrical Code 1987 Handbook" (published by NFPA as a companion to the code itself; includes the complete text of the 1987 code, plus numerous drawings and annotations to clarify the text). The annotation at Article 250-71(b) states: The Code requires that separate systems be bonded together to reduce differences of potential between them, which can result from lightning or power contacts. Interconnection is required for lightning rod systems (Section 250-46), communications systems [Sections 800-31(b)(5)], and CATV systems [Section 820-22(f)]. Lack of interconnection can result in severe shock and fire hazard. "Communications systems" includes telephone. > How is a citizen supposed to find out local code > requirements? Contact the city, town, or county building inspection department. > How is a citizen supposed to know his electrodes are not bonded or > that it's necessary? The average citizen is not expected to know; the contractors who install the stuff are supposed to know. And the city/town/county building inspector is supposed to make sure that it's done correctly. The problem, of course, is that inspectors only inspect when a contractor pulls a permit and then calls for an inspection. If work is done without a permit, there's usually no inspection. Telephone and CATV companies rarely, if ever, pull permits for residential installs; from what I've seen, even electricians don't pull permits for branch-circuit work. Building inspection departments probably don't approve of this arrangement, but in my experience they're usually too overworked and underfunded to do much about it. > If the telco assures a customer that there is nothing wrong with > grounding which in fact is a code violation, does the telco have any > liability? I can't speak for the telco industry, but in the CATV industry (where I used to work), we certainly assumed that we'd be liable for faulty work done by our own employees. Our contracts with subcontractors included insurance and hold-harmless clauses to protect the customer, the CATV company, and franchising authority, and all property owners where CATV facilities were located. Of course, if I were a personal injury lawyer, I'd be keeping a close eye on that telephone company ... Neal McLain ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Re: Mediacom Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 19:51:45 -0500 Organization: http://newsguy.com Reply-To: jkelly@*newsguy.com Maybe. I've heard (from a reliable source in the corporate office) that it various from time to time and place to place which ports/services are blocked. They DO specifically forbid servers on residential packages in their TOS and they DO terminate anyone's account that is caught running a server. My understanding that the termination is final and there is no second chance. That said, I've run services on all those ports at some point and it worked, and most recently on port 22 (SSH). The last time I tried 20 and 21 I couldn't make it work, whether it was a firewall problem or Mediacom blocking the ports, I'm not sure, I didn't spend any time trying to troubleshoot the problem since it was just a quick temporary thing I was trying to run. My advice is to use a real host rather than try to host on a mediacom account. The upload speed is pitifully slow anyway. I moved my servers to real hosts almost 3 years ago, about three months after switching from a municipal broadband system (who also forbids servers but made an exception for me) to Mediacom. My host costs me less than $5 a month and gives 5GB of space. It is pretty reliable and has loads of bandwidth. On Thu, 30 Jun 2005 03:03:13 GMT, Fred Atkinson wrote: > Does anyone know if Mediacom blocks ports 80, 20, 21, 23, 25, > and/or other signficant ports? > Fred Atkinson ------------------------------ 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 #309 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Jul 6 15:09:02 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id EEB4714D2E; Wed, 6 Jul 2005 15:09:01 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #310 Message-Id: <20050706190901.EEB4714D2E@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2005 15:09:01 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-1.4 required=2.0 tests=BAYES_00,MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR, MSGID_FROM_MTA_SHORT autolearn=no version=2.63 X-Spam-Level: Status: RO TELECOM Digest Wed, 6 Jul 2005 15:10:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 310 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Hackers Make Way For Criminals (Lisa Minter) Non-Bell ESS? (Lisa Hancock) SDH Interoperability (doma970@yahoo.com) Cellcos, was Re: DO NOT! DO NOT Use Cingular Go Phone (Danny Burstein) Bell Usage of IBM Computers For Switching (Lisa Hancock) Mouse to Offer Mobile Phone Service (Telecom dailyLead from USTA) Re: Cable TV vs. UHF (was RE: DSL Speed) (Garrett Wollman) Re: VoIP Phone Home? (Marc Popek) Re: Ombudsman on N. Korea Food story (jmeissen@aracnet.com) Re: Supplemental Grounding Electrodes (Joe Morris) Re: Don't Let Data Theft Happen to You (Lisa Hancock) Last Laugh! Western Union and Useless Telephones (Jim Haynes) 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: Hackers Make Way For Criminals Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 23:53:19 -0500 By Lucas van Grinsven, European Technology Correspondent Spotty teenage hackers who set off global email viruses are being replaced by serious online crooks whose stealth attacks don't make headlines but cause more damage, security software makers said on Tuesday. "Two years ago we stayed up all night, concerned about a great mass-mailing worm," said Mario Juarez, a product manager at the security business unit of U.S.-based Microsoft. "Today, we worry not about a virus that will take every machine down, but that may attack one machine or a set of machines," he said in an interview at a Microsoft Tech Ed developers conference. "What you see more of are a variety of attacks that are carried out to make money, such as stealing credit card details or threatening a Web site with a denial of service attack unless it pays them money." He spoke on the same day a 19-year old German man admitted in court he had written the Sasser computer worm. In 2004 the worm knocked out an estimated one million computer systems among home users and companies by spreading on the ubiquitous Microsoft Windows operating system. The U.S. computer giant has since had to close many open back doors in its software and fix other security holes. After issuing a series of patches, it claims its software is a lot safer now. More improvements are planned. "Today in Outlook Express, if you click on a link, the virus program won't execute," said Detlef Eckert, senior director for trustworthy computing at Microsoft's European organization, referring to Microsoft's email software. What helps is that consumers are better informed about viruses and worms and have become reluctant to open email attachments that may unleash a harmful computer program. SOPHISTICATED ATTACKS But the targeted robberies of individuals or small groups of people are more sophisticated than the mass-mailing worms that created only modest damage. Some new viruses now infect Web sites and can then enter personal computers that are well protected, Eckert said. "Very often, these customers don't know they are at risk, or even that they are being attacked," he said. Other software security experts said there were fewer scares over mass-mailing worms this year but instead there was a sharp increase in the number of "Trojans" that can quietly obtain bank account details and passwords. "We've seen many more Trojans. The more organized groups are aiming at targeted victims. And if you're an organized crime group, you don't want the headlines. You may be a lot more successful without them," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for British anti-virus firm Sophos. Cluley said it was too early to cry victory over mass-mailing viruses and the trend of real criminals hitting on select groups of users meant that Microsoft programs were no longer the default target. Until now, teenage hackers aimed at Microsoft programs not only because they had security holes, but also because they run on 95 percent of all computers and were the best chance for a global spread of a virus. However, if the main aim is to steal money, the criminal hackers would focus on the weakest link, which in the future may well be non-Microsoft programs, Cluley said. The computer security experts do not expect there will ever be perfectly safe computers. The attraction of more online financial transactions was too appealing for criminals. "The first lock attracted a lock picker," Juarez said. 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: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Non-Bell ESS? Date: 6 Jul 2005 10:59:05 -0700 The Bell System put its first test call through a laboratory Electronic Switching System in 1958 and had a prototype system in public service in the early 1960s. Would anyone know when other telephone companies, either in the U.S. or abroad, developed and implemented their own ESS? For instance, when did Automatic Electric put one in service? [public replies, please] ------------------------------ From: doma970@yahoo.com Subject: SDH Interoperability Date: 6 Jul 2005 00:21:10 -0700 Hi All, My question is regarding the inter-operability of SDH Systems from different vendors. Here is the scenario: 1) Case 1: Nortel ADM -------Nortel Regenerator -------- Huawei ADM 2) Case 2: Nortel ADM -------Huawei Regenerator -------- Huawei ADM In both cases, the SDH signal is STM-16. Finally, is inter-operability the same thing as shown in the above cases or it points to a different layer of inter-working? Thanks to all. Doma ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: Cellcos, was Re: DO NOT! DO NOT Use Cingular Go Phone Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2005 04:08:17 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In Steve Sobol writes: > A friend who owns an ISP here made an interesting point. Cingular, > Verizon Wireless, Sprint PCS, Alltel ... all of those wireless > services are owned by wireline companies (in Verizon's case, only 55% > because the company that owns the other 45% is not a wireline > carrier). Cough, cough. T-mobile is a horse of a different color. It started off as a bunch of more-or-less self standing cellcos in the US who were eventually bought up/merged into Voicestream (Western Wireless), which had a hefty amount of Asian capital behind it. They were then picked up by the German/European phone and communication giant, Deutsche Telekom. So while they're owned by a telco, it's in a very, very, different situation than the others. Disclaimer: I'm not only a customer, I'm also a shareholder. _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Bell Usage of IBM Computers For Switching Date: 6 Jul 2005 08:17:47 -0700 In reading histories of IBM and the Bell System, my impression is that the companies were pretty distant from each other even though both were developing very similar technologies. Early on, both Bell and IBM were developing ever better ways of using relays to "think" in sophisticated ways, then using electronic components. (IBM obviously did go to Bell Labs to learn about the transistor). While Bell used IBM machines in commercial (billing/ accounting) applications, even there Univac and other makes were used too. In the labs, it seemed mostly PDP computers were preferred. Anyway, the Bell Labs history says Bell did make use of the IBM System/7 as part of the switching network. The S/7 was a process controller machine, kind of a sideline of IBM's normal business line. Anyway, Bell used the S/7 to replace AMA (long distance message accounting) machines. Even here the S/7 was eventually replaced with a PDP machine. Would anyone know if there was some sort of hostility between Bell and IBM in the 1950s and 1960s? Or, am I just missing that there was a lot of collaboration? Perhaps the lab histories of both companies prefers to focus on the company's own developments and ignore those elsewhere. The IBM history does give credit to semi-conductor makers. I sense Bell wanted to build everything it used for itself rather than buy finished products in the market. (I presume both histories referenced below are authoritative sources. If anyone feels the Bell history is inaccurate, please do comment.) I do note that the Bell history said they intended for very long product lifespans, so anything they made had to be able to withstand many years of service. I believe they didn't change this philosophy until the 1970s when rapidly changing electronics kept making components obsolete quickly. On the other hand, it seemed IBM recognized this in the 1950s. IBM's tab line remained unchanged for a great many years but their computers changed about every five years. I also wonder if the commercial computer components of the 1960s (ie System/360 SLT chips and core memory) were adequate for the speed demanded by electronic switching. The Bell history suggests Bell had to develop its own gear because it needed faster speed and memory available in the commercial world on a cost- efficient basis. I believe an ESS of 1965 had quite a bit of memory and would compare to the largest commercial computers of that day. References: History of Engineering & Science in the Bell System, Vol 2, switching, 1925-1975. IBM's System 360 and early S/370. IBM's Early computers. [public replies please] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2005 12:32:19 EDT From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA Subject: Mouse to Offer Mobile Phone Service Telecom dailyLead from USTA July 6, 2005 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=22874&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Mouse to offer mobile phone service BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Adelphia sells long-distance business to Pioneer * Amdocs acquires vendor DST Innovis * Q-and-A with Alcatel's Mike Quigley * Report: Base station market to grow USTA SPOTLIGHT * Register now for tomorrow's USTelecom Webinar: The Post-Brand X World EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * Napster, Dell target colleges with legal music downloads * The next frontier: 100 Mpbs? REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Nextel Partners sues Nextel Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=22874&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: wollman@khavrinen.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: Cable TV vs. UHF (was Re: DSL Speed) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2005 17:27:21 UTC Organization: MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory In article , wrote: > One UHF station obviously could not have provided anywhere near this > level of service. And I can't imagine that three network-affiliate > stations would have been able to survive financially. > Of course, it might have been possible to build three translator > stations to retransmit the signals of three distant network stations, > provided that some financial-support mechanism could be established. By the early 1980s, Rutland had full-power service from Vermont ETV (now called something different) on WVER, channel 28, and translator service from Burlington's WCAX-TV (3, CBS) and WVNY/WEZF-TV (22, ABC). I don't believe WIRI/WPTZ (5 North Pole, N.Y., NBC) ever had translators in Vermont, although WCFE-TV (57 Plattsburgh, PBS) did. The Albany stations were late movers to the VHF dial; the Capital District's only original V was General Electric's WRGB (4 Schenectady), which moved to channel 6 in the Great VHF Shuffle of the early 1950s. The ancestor of today's WTEN (10 Albany) was a network of three "full-power" UHFs: WROW-TV/WCDA (41 Albany), WCDB (29 Hagaman), and WCDC (19 North Adams, Mass.); WCDA moved to channel 10, WCDB was shut off, and WCDC has remained on Mount Greylock to serve areas shadowed from the main channel 10 site in the Helderbergs. Today's WNYT (13 Albany) began as WTRI (35 Troy), sister to WTRY (980 Troy). Garrett A. Wollman | As the Constitution endures, persons in every wollman@csail.mit.edu | generation can invoke its principles in their own Opinions not those | search for greater freedom. of MIT or CSAIL. | - A. Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) ------------------------------ From: Marc Popek Subject: Re: VoIP Phone Home? Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 07:39:44 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Mostly the cost difference and the convenience. Marc Fred Atkinson wrote in message news:telecom24.309.2@telecom-digest.org: > On Mon, 04 Jul 2005 22:32:28 GMT, Marc Popek wrote: >> And some wish to have a VOIP and a PSTN local presence. Why into use >> a PSTN /VOIP automatic switch so that you can mange both services >> from a single handset, answering machine etc? > Why not just get a two-line RJ-14 type telephone? > Fred ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@aracnet.com Subject: Re: Ombudsman on N. Korea Food story Date: 6 Jul 2005 08:57:35 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com In article , wrote: > In article , Justa Lurker > wrote: >> No one is stopping you (or anyone else) from leaving. So if you are >> so unhappy and dissatisfied here in the USA as you seem to be based >> upon your constant snide comments and whining, then by all means I >> suggest you move to some other country more to your liking. > I would point out that the right of dissent is at the core of our > country. Interesting. I just watched this week's edition of NOW (pbs.org). I couldn't have said it any better: "That is, in fact, the manifestation of dissent that defines democracy." The video of the interview with Milton Glaser isn't available yet, but it should be soon, and I highly recommend it. http://www.pbs.org/now/ There are three things I tell my kids over and over: Think Logically Act Intelligently Question Authority John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com ------------------------------ From: Joe Morris Subject: Re: Supplemental Grounding Electrodes Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2005 12:07:07 UTC Organization: The MITRE Organization John Hines writes: > The biggest effect on building grounding systems has been the decrease > in reliance on metal plumbing, due to the usage of plastic piping. ... which was officially recognized in the 1993 revision of the NEC. Article 250-81 permits grounding through interior metal water piping from a point more than five feet beyond the point of entrance into the building. An exception exists [*] "provided there is qualified maintenance and the entire length of the pipe is exposed." [*] from the 1999 edition, which is all I have conveniently at hand. > I got my books from http://codecheck.com which are more user friendly > than the actual code books, which are more like legalese. It ain't cheap, but a good reference is the NFPA's "National Electric Code Handbook". The base code book (also published by NFPA) would put a lawyer to sleep, but the _Handbook_ quotes the entire Code with interspersed commentary and illustrations. Joe Morris ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Don't Let Data Theft Happen to You Date: 6 Jul 2005 11:10:42 -0700 Wesrock@aol.com wrote: >> -- Avoid letting your cards out of your sight. Do not let store >> clerks take your card away on the pretext that there's a "problem." > Apparently you would not be able to use your credit or debit card in a > restaurant then, since they require you give them the card to swipe at > a location out of your sight. These days, my basic feeling is to use plain old cash as much as possible. I agree --avoid any card entry that is not done in immediate presence. I did have to do that recently since I treated a group of people at a restaurant and I didn't have with me the cash necessary to cover the full dinner. But that was an unusual occurence. Normally I try to have a reasonable amount of cash on hand. I notice a lot of people using credit cards to pay for rather modest purchases, such as a pizza dinner or convenience store purchase. I think this is foolish since every transaction increases one's exposure to loss. If I have no transactions at all during the month, then there's no statement mailed out and altogether less chance for a theft. I remain angry at the government for their slow reaction to all of this. It isn't anything new, and much of existing law already covers such thefts. The newspapers reported that police wouldn't bother going after crooks unless the theft amount is over a rather high limit which effectively gives crooks a green light. The bad part about this theft is that the actual theft loss may be minor but the damage is great. It's like someone smashing your car windshield (very expensive to fix) to steal a box of cookies from the front seat. It used to be when one worked at a bank they had a background check and were fingerprinted. I wonder if that's still done, especially for the 'back office boiler room' people who handle all the phone calls for credit card issuers and credit data banks. ------------------------------ Subject: Last Laugh! Western Union's Comment About Useless Phones Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 18:02:09 GMT After playing a few rounds of telephone tag, you come to realize that the Western Union leaders were entirely correct in their 1880 assessment -- telephones are worthless. jhhaynes at earthlink dot net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For a really good time, combine telephone tag with references to numbers not in service. Here is an example: The bank which holds my mother's mortgage called me today about something. Before I could reach the phone, voice mail came on and took the lady's message, to call 800-something and at the prompt enter extension-something. I did that (checked it twice to be certain) and after entering the extension an _intercept_ recording came on, which stated 'the number you dialed, area code 270 something has been changed, the new number is area code 270 something else.' So I tried calling 'something else' on my nickle and got another voice mail saying the person was not at her desk and leave a message or press zero to be transferred to someone who could help. On my first try, I did the 'press zero option' and reached something called the 'general voicemail in-box'. I called back via the 800 number to assure I was hearing it all correctly, got intercepted again to hang up and redial the area 270 number, dialed it, got the voicemail again, and left a message, yet to be returned. But then, I have not yet taken a break to go sit in the bathroom or otherwise get tied up on an important phone call; I am certain when one of those conditions apply, the lady will probably call back for another round of phone tag. Then I got still another call this morning from 866-660-6940 which I answered before they had a chance to hang up this time; but I just got dead air. I dialed it back, got a recorded announcement so weak I could not understand any of it, except the final two lines which were a bit louder, asking me to 'input your telephone number'; so I just input some bogus number (enough to satisfy their system) and waited again. After about a minute, their system responded and said 'someone will be with you shortly ... please wait' but I just hung up. WUTCO was correct: these damn devices are mostly useless. 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 #310 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jul 7 00:09:47 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id EE42C14E16; Thu, 7 Jul 2005 00:09:46 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #311 Message-Id: <20050707040946.EE42C14E16@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 00:09:46 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-1.7 required=2.0 tests=BAYES_00,MSGID_FROM_MTA_SHORT autolearn=no version=2.63 X-Spam-Level: Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 7 Jul 2005 00:10:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 311 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Patton's Low-Cost WAN Router Integrates VPN, QoS and Encryption (Chris) Re: Don't Let Data Theft Happen to You (Dan Lanciani) Re: Don't Let Data Theft Happen to You (Danny Burstein) Re: Don't Let Data Theft Happen to You (Wesrock@aol.com) Re: Non-Bell ESS? (Paul Coxwell) Re: Non-Bell ESS? (Diamond Dave) Re: Non-Bell ESS? (Alan Burkitt-Gray) Re: Non-Bell ESS? (Joseph) Re: Bell Usage of IBM Computers For Switching (Tony P.) Re: Bell Usage of IBM Computers For Switching (Wesrock@aol.com) Re: Cellcos, was Re: DO NOT! DO NOT Use Cingular Go Phone (Steve Sobol) Re: Cable TV vs. UHF (was RE: DSL Speed) (Wesrock@aol.com) Re: Supplemental Grounding Electrodes (Paul Coxwell) Re: Last Laugh! Western Union's Comment About Useless Phones (L Hancock) Re: Last Laugh! Western Union's Comment About Useless Phones (L 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: Chris Subject: Patton's Low-Cost WAN Router Integrates VPN, QoS and Encryption Date: 6 Jul 2005 12:29:15 -0700 Low-Cost WAN Router integrates VPN, QoS and Strong Encryption. The Model 2800 Series combines such high-end features as user-configurable QoS profiles for managed, prioritized traffic with VPN tunneling and IPSec Strong Encryption for secure, private communications. For immediate release: GAITHERSBURG, MD: Patton Electronics, the industry leader in network-access and connectivity solutions, announces today the availability of a very-low-cost, IPLink=99 Series of Managed VPN Routers with integrated QoS. Patton's newest router series lets businesses and service providers "Link-Up For Less" with the industry's most affordable solution for secure communication over insecure IP networks while ensuring high-priority throughput for mission critical data -- even in the presence of bandwidth-thirsty voice and video applications. Patton's Model 2800 Series IPLink Router Series offers a unique combination of features at extremely competitive pricing for a value proposition that is unparalleled in the communications industry. The Model 2800 Series combines such high-end features as user-configurable QoS profiles for managed, prioritized traffic with VPN tunneling and IPSec Strong Encryption for secure, private communications. By addressing both the security and traffic-prioritization needs of enterprises at such a low cost, Patton's IPLink Managed VPN Router series defines an entirely new category of network routers. Typical VPN routers provide security when traversing insecure IP networks such as the Internet, but lack QoS for prioritizing business traffic. At the same time, typical low-cost routers lack the security or QoS features enterprises require for business-class networking. The IPLink Model 2800 Series provides business-class traffic-prioritization and secure, private communications for remote-office, home-office, and mobile users. The Model 2800 series further reduces network cost and complexity by offering models with integrated WAN ports, thereby eliminating the need for external interface converters. "We offer enterprises and carriers (delivering managed services) a very real value proposition." said Burton A. Patton, Executive Vice President, "Network designers no longer have to choose between low-end Adtran routers and expensive, Cisco functionality." "In recent years, businesses and service providers have been rushing to lock down their networks with firewalls and security appliances," said Joseph Gomez, Senior Product Manager at Patton. "Today they're also preparing for the impending converged-media revolution spear-headed by VoIP and IPTV. Patton's Managed VPN Router covers both concerns by integrating VPN with QoS. Now any enterprise can afford secure and reliable transport for prioritized, media-rich content." The IPLink Managed VPN Routers series (models 2802, 2805, 2821 and 2835) implement IPSec Strong Encryption (3DES) for data integrity, authentication, anti-replay, and data confidentiality. Firewall capabilities include Access Control Lists (ACLs), IP-address and port filtering, and Denial of Service (DoS) protection. For additional security measures, PPP/PPPoE support with PAP and CHAP provides authentication services. QoS features include ToS/DiffServ marking and eight configurable service-class tags per IEEE 802.1p/Q. With IP traffic-scheduling and shaping, dedicated bandwidth profiles per flow, configurable burst tolerance, and traffic policing with excess traffic discard, the IPLink VPN Routers ensure such delay-sensitive traffic as voice and video get the priority they require. For media-rich content, configurable IP, PPP, and Frame-Relay fragmentation minimizes jitter. With the IPLink VPN Router series of next-generation security appliances, businesses and service providers now have an affordable, easily-configured one-box solution for secure and prioritized communication services. About Patton Patton Electronics Company is a US manufacturer and marketer of data communications products, including VoIP/ToIP gateways & routers, Remote Access (V.92, V.90, K56Flex, V.34+, and ISDN dial-in), Last Mile/Local Loop Access (T1, E1, and xDSL modems, NTUs and CSU/DSUs), Multi-Service Access (voice, intranet, extranet, and Frame Relay access), and Connectivity (interface converters, short range modems, multiplexers, and surge protectors). For more information or to request a free datacom catalog contact sales@patton.com. Patton Electronics Company 7622 Rickenbacker Drive Gaithersburg, MD 20879 USA Tel: (301) 975-1000 Fax: (301) 869-9293 Email: marketing@patton.com http://www.patton.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2005 15:27:24 EDT From: Dan Lanciani Subject: Re: Don't Let Data Theft Happen to You > By M.P. DUNLEAVEY > That said, Mr. Mierzwinski endorsed the preventive measures offered by > Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (www.privacyrights.org), a nonprofit > consumer advocacy group, and by the Identity Theft Resource Center > (www.idtheftcenter.org), also a nonprofit. Besides the standard advice > to shred personal documents, following are some tips I found useful: > -- Curtail electronic access to your bank accounts. How exactly is one supposed to achieve this? Every bank that I have contacted flat-out refuses to block EFT debits on consumer accounts. They will transfer my money to anyone with my account and routing numbers who has access to the ACH network, even though there is no evidence that I authorized the transaction. (In fact, the banks have strong evidence that I did not approve any such transactions since I told them that I have not authorized any third party to electronically debit my accounts.) Even brokerage houses are doing this, and even on accounts with no check writing feature. No bank that I have found discloses the destination account and routing number of EFT debits, so you don't generally know where your money went. Two of my banks do not even provide a unique transaction id for EFT debits on my monthly statement. When pressed on the issue, reps repeat the lie that Check21 forces them to accept electronic debits. [Check21 deals with electronically imaged checks which have nothing to do with EFT debits. Even there it doesn't force banks to accept anything electronically. All it does is make certain printed images legally equivalent to the original check. Accepting the transaction electronically is optional for the banks.] Once I had a mysterious debit show up on a passbook account -- the one type of account that is supposedly immune to EFT access. Nevertheless, the bank argued that I must have in some way been responsible for the withdrawal. Only when I pointed out that the account in question was being used by the city as a multi-signature escrow, that the city held the passbook, and that they would likely want an explanation of where and how the money went did the bank relent. They decided that there had been a "coding error" and restored the money. > Pay bills through snail mail. If you use a normal check this still provides the recipient with your account and routing numbers which they can then use to electronically debit your account. Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com ------------------------------ From: Danny Burstein Subject: Re: Don't Let Data Theft Happen to You Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2005 19:36:04 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC In hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes: [ snip of mildly paranoid rants ] > If I have no transactions at all during the month, then there's > no statement mailed out and altogether less chance for a theft. That's just stupid. If the bank doesn't mail out statements in the months there's no activity, then you're getting into the habit of not thinking anything's wrong if you don't get one. So ... you'd be much less likely to notice the month when one was mailed to you and you didn't get it. Much better, although at first glance a bit silly and wasteful of $0.40 or so ..., is for a statement to be mailed out each and every month, whether or not there's activity. _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2005 16:20:16 EDT Subject: Re: Don't Let Data Theft Happen to You In a message dated 7/5/05 11:02:56 PM Central Daylight Time, editor@telecom-digest.org writes: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Not only Sonic, but McDonalds here at > least also has a card swiper right by each register. If you have your > card in hand, while you are placing your order (or when the clerk > turns around to fill it) you can swipe your debit/credit card and have > it back in your pocket by the time the clerk asks for the money. Sorry, you're right. But you have to go in to McDonald's to keep your hand on your card. It doesn't work that way in the drive through ... you have to hand it to the clerk. Sonic, of course, is all outside (except for a few they're trying inside dining areas at, including one next to their new headquarters building in Oklahoma City. Don't know how it works inside, since I haven't been to it. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 07 Jul 2005 00:25:40 +0100 From: Paul Coxwell Subject: Re: Non-Bell ESS > The Bell System put its first test call through a laboratory > Electronic Switching System in 1958 and had a prototype system in > public service in the early 1960s. > Would anyone know when other telephone companies, either in the > U.S. or abroad, developed and implemented their own ESS? For > instance, when did Automatic Electric put one in service? In Britain, the GPO trialed an electronic switch at Highgate Wood using PAM/TDM (Pulse Amplitude Modulation/Time Division Multiplex) around 1962. It was not entirely successful. The first fully operational electronic switch went into service in Ambergate, Derbyshire in 1966, and the GPO also claims this to be the first electronic exchange in Europe. This switch was known as the TXE2 (for Telephone eXchange Electronic), using common control with reed relay switching points. TXE2 was designed for smaller offices, generally up to a couple of thousand lines. The later TXE4 switch intended for larger offices didn't roll out until the mid-1970s. -Paul ------------------------------ From: Diamond Dave Subject: Re: Non-Bell ESS? Organization: The BBS Corner / Diamond Mine On-Line Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 21:11:46 -0400 On 6 Jul 2005 10:59:05 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > The Bell System put its first test call through a laboratory > Electronic Switching System in 1958 and had a prototype system in > public service in the early 1960s. > Would anyone know when other telephone companies, either in the > U.S. or abroad, developed and implemented their own ESS? For > instance, when did Automatic Electric put one in service? Automatic Electric made the #1 EAX (invented in 1973 or 1974) and later in the 1970s, the #2 EAX. These were WECo #1ESS/1AESS like in nature -- analog switch with computer control. These were originally just for a Class 5 end offices but later models could handle Class 4 tandem functions. Automatic Electric later made the GTD-3 (or #3 EAX ) and GTD-5 (or #5 EAX) in the 1980s. These are full digital switches. A number of #5 EAX switches are still in service, though as time goes on they're being replaced with other switch types. Stromberg-Carlson had their ESC (Electornic Switch Control?) switch in the 1970s. This switch was analog with computer control. In the 1980s, they made the DCO (Digital Central Office). The DCO is now made by a division of Siemens known as Stromberg/Siemens. Northern Telecom (now Nortel) invented the DMS-10 in the late 1977 and in 1979 the DMS-100 switch (followed by other DMS switches, used as tandems, operator services platforms, or international gateways). Supposedly Northern Telecom had an electronic PBX (the SL-1) around 1972. But Vidar was the first fully digital local end office switch, invented circa 1976. I don't think there are any Vidar (later TRW-Vidar) switches still in service. WECo was behind the curve on this one. Though they invented the fully digital long-haul #4ESS tandem in 1976, they didn't have a full digital end office until they invented the #5ESS in 1982. Dave Perrussel Webmaster - Telephone World http://www.dmine.com/phworld [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I know from my personal experience that Illinois Bell had ESS in the Wabash office in downtown Chicago in 1974, along with the Superior office on the near north side the same year. But I think they were just the first editions or versions of that type of switch. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Alan Burkitt-Gray Subject: Re: Non-Bell ESS? Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2005 21:39:09 +0100 Organization: Alan Burkitt-Gray hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com asked: "Would anyone know when other telephone companies, either in the U.S. or abroad, developed and implemented their own ESS? For instance, when did Automatic Electric put one in service?" See BT's online museum, Connected Earth . http://www.connected-earth.com/Galleries/Frombuttonstobytes/Intothedigitaler a/Anelectronicfuture/ BT's ancestor, the British Post Office, tried and failed in 1962 with a switch at Highgate Wood, north London: "The main problem was digital electronics 'crosstalking' with switch contact points that were still working in analogue mode. This meant, for example, that sometimes the exchange systems would ring numbers, seemingly of their own volition ... " It put a successful TXE2 reed relay exchange at Ambergate, Derbyshire, in 1966, and then inaugurated another switch, at Empress in west London, claimed to be the first in the world to switch PCM signals from one group of lines to another in digital form. Alan Burkitt-Gray Editor, Global Telecoms Business magazine www.globaltelecomsbusiness.com aburkitt@euromoneyplc.com (PAT - please don't use my personal email address, from which I'm sending this.) ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Non-Bell ESS? Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 21:00:54 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On 6 Jul 2005 10:59:05 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > The Bell System put its first test call through a laboratory > Electronic Switching System in 1958 and had a prototype system in > public service in the early 1960s. > Would anyone know when other telephone companies, either in the > U.S. or abroad, developed and implemented their own ESS? For > instance, when did Automatic Electric put one in service? Electronic switching systems were being installed in the late sixties and into the seventies. Bell System used Western Electric #1ESS, GTE used Automatic Electric #1EAX and #2EAX. North Electric (independents) used NXUN2 IIRC. Probably Stromberg-Carlson had something going as well (XY?) I'd guess that Northern Electric (now Nortel) probably manufactured #1ESS as well prior to their making DMS digital switches. More information: http://www.dmine.com/phworld/network/office/.htm#analog ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Bell Usage of IBM Computers For Switching Organization: ATCC Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2005 16:25:29 -0400 In article , hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com says: > In reading histories of IBM and the Bell System, my impression is that > the companies were pretty distant from each other even though both > were developing very similar technologies. Early on, both Bell and > IBM were developing ever better ways of using relays to "think" in > sophisticated ways, then using electronic components. (IBM obviously > did go to Bell Labs to learn about the transistor). > While Bell used IBM machines in commercial (billing/ accounting) > applications, even there Univac and other makes were used too. In the > labs, it seemed mostly PDP computers were preferred. > Anyway, the Bell Labs history says Bell did make use of the IBM > System/7 as part of the switching network. The S/7 was a process > controller machine, kind of a sideline of IBM's normal business line. > Anyway, Bell used the S/7 to replace AMA (long distance message > accounting) machines. Even here the S/7 was eventually replaced with > a PDP machine. From what I'm to gather the phone switches themselves had their own processors. But I have seen references to DEC PDP series computers being used to write the code, etc. for the switches. As to processor requirements, I don't know but in the case of a switch the more critical component is the t/d matrix. All the computer does is keep track of call store which is nothing but a table. Put it this way, I used to have a Definity G3iV2 switch (pbx actually!) with 300 extensions, and 35 trunk loops. It had an Intel 486 CPU on it. ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2005 16:37:53 EDT Subject: Re: Bell Usage of IBM Computers For Switching In a message dated 6 Jul 2005 08:17:47 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes: > I do note that the Bell history said they intended for very long > product lifespans, so anything they made had to be able to withstand > many years of service. I believe they didn't change this philosophy > until the 1970s when rapidly changing electronics kept making > components obsolete quickly. On the other hand, it seemed IBM > recognized this in the 1950s. IBM's tab line remained unchanged for a > great many years but their computers changed about every five years. As far as Bell station apparatus goes, remember that they were provided at a rate which provided full on-site maintenance. After divestiture, the Bell companies were forbidden to offer any type of station equipment. (One of the results of this rule was problems with sponsored Time of Day service, usual in places with flat rate service. The actual time machines [Audiovon?] machines were often located in the C.O. with full telco maintenance, and many of the sponsors had no idea what to do with the machines when they had to be removed and placed on the customer premises.) Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Cellcos, was Re: DO NOT! DO NOT Use Cingular Go Phone Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 12:23:31 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Danny Burstein wrote: > Cough, cough. T-mobile is a horse of a different color. It started off > as a bunch of more-or-less self standing cellcos in the US who were > eventually bought up/merged into Voicestream (Western Wireless), which > had a hefty amount of Asian capital behind it. That is correct. There are, IIRC, also a couple smaller carriers that aren't owned by LECs of any flavor. My statement is true for most US carriers, though. JustThe.net - Steve Sobol / sjsobol@JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Coming to you from Southern California's High Desert, where the temperatures are as high as the gas prices! / 888.480.4NET (4638) "Life's like an hourglass glued to the table" --Anna Nalick, "Breathe" ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2005 16:12:53 EDT Subject: Re: Cable TV vs. UHF (was RE: DSL Speed) On Tue, 5 Jul 2005 19:28:34 -0600 nmclain@annsgarden.com wrote about Cable TV vs. UHF (was RE: DSL Speed) In a message dated Tue, 5 Jul 2005 19:28:34 -0600, nmclain@annsgarden.com writes: > One UHF station obviously could not have provided anywhere near this > level of service. And I can't imagine that three network-affiliate > stations would have been able to survive financially. I lived in Austin, Texas, in the late 1950s and there was one TV station (VHF) which was an affiliate of all three networks and had a patchwork of various network programs. This station was owned by the LBJ company. A few people had tall antennas to pick up the San Antonio stations (difficult) or the Waco and Temple stations (not as difficult). (The Temple station had its transmitter in Eddy, Texas.) Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 07 Jul 2005 00:05:50 +0100 From: Paul Coxwell Subject: Re: Supplemental Grounding Electrodes >>> The NEC does get revised periodically, 2002 the most recent. >> The 2005 version has been out for several months. > They must review it more often than I (and others) are expecting. The > electrician I hired over the winter was interested in the 2002 code > book I had. It's generally every three years. A new edition does not automatically come into force as soon as it is published though. The state/county/city in question specifies which edition of the NEC is to be used, so an old edition is still applicable until they amend their rules to refer to the new one. I understand that there are some places still using the 1999, and maybe even the 1996 code. - Paul. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Western Union's Comment About Useless Phones Date: 6 Jul 2005 12:16:14 -0700 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For a really good time, combine > telephone tag with references to numbers not in service .... > ... After about a minute, their system responded and said > 'someone will be with you shortly ... please wait' but I just hung up. At the time of Bell System Divesture in 1983 a huge wave of automation was hitting the country. Systems described above are very common now (ABC Nightline did a whole feature on it) and fancy automation and greedy companies makes it possible. The old Bell System was dedicated to service. They constantly put out literature to both residence and business subscribers on proper telephone technique and manners. They didn't want 'the telephone' to be seen negatively as described above but rather a positive useful tool. They had consultants go out to businesses just to teach proper usage of business sytems and teachers who went to schools to show kids how to use the phone. If the Bell System still existed as a monopoly provider today, I wonder how they'd deal with the above described customer frustrations. The Bell System did not like it when their product/service was made to look bad and spent money and efforts to counteract it. I presume they would allow automated systems to exist; they do -- when used properly -- help customers and businesses. But would they allow such craziness as routings to dead lines and dead air? [public replies please] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Western Union's Comment About Useless Phones Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 15:52:12 -0700 From: Linc Madison In article , PAT wrote: > Then I got still another call this morning from 866-660-6940 which I > answered before they had a chance to hang up this time; but I just > got dead air. I dialed it back, got a recorded announcement so weak I > could not understand any of it, except the final two lines which were > a bit louder, asking me to 'input your telephone number'; so I just > input some bogus number (enough to satisfy their system) and waited > again. After about a minute, their system responded and said 'someone > will be with you shortly ... please wait' but I just hung up. WUTCO > was correct: these damn devices are mostly useless. Yesterday, I got a call, answered without checking the caller ID, and got a few seconds of dead air, followed by a recorded announcement that said simply, "This is Kaiser Permanente." I assume they were calling to remind me of the appointment I have tomorrow, but that was the entire message. If I had forgotten about the appointment, or if it had been an appointment for someone else mistakenly tagged to my ID number (has happened several times over the years), I would've had no idea what the call was about. ------------------------------ 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 #311 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jul 7 15:05:25 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id EF50B14F30; Thu, 7 Jul 2005 15:05:24 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #312 Message-Id: <20050707190524.EF50B14F30@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 15:05:24 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-1.7 required=2.0 tests=BAYES_00,GET_IT_NOW, MSGID_FROM_MTA_SHORT autolearn=no version=2.63 X-Spam-Level: Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 7 Jul 2005 15:05:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 312 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Sprint Begins High Speed Mobile Services (Lisa Minter) Netters Change Habits to Avoid Spam and Spyware (Lisa Minter) Google and Partners to Back Broadband Venture (Lisa Minter) Rabble Mobile Blogging Network (Monty Solomon) Emerging VOIP Regulation in Europe and the United States (Monty Solomon) Verizon, TBS Sign Carriage Deal (Telecom dailyLead from USTA) Re: Non-Bell ESS? (Diamond Dave) Re: Non-Bell ESS? (Tim@Backhome.org) Re: Bell Usage of IBM Computers For Switching (Scott Dorsey) Re: Bell Usage of IBM Computers For Switching (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com) Re: Last Laugh! Western Union's Comment About Useless Phones (J Morris) 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: Sprint Begins High Speed Mobile Services Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 12:23:25 -0500 Sprint Corp. said on Thursday it has begun selling high-speed wireless services to laptop computer users and would have services in business districts and airports in 34 U.S. markets in July, making it the second U.S. mobile operator to offer such services. Sprint -- the third biggest U.S. mobile provider which plans to buy Nextel Communications Inc. in the current quarter -- said charges for the service would range from $40 a month to $90. Its $80 monthly fee for unlimited use is the same as that of bigger rival Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group Plc. Sprint said it plans to provide the service in 14 broad market areas covering a population of about 92 million in the third quarter and expects to serve markets with 143 million people by the fourth quarter, expanding to coverage of 150 million potential customers in early 2006. Sprint is following in the footsteps of Verizon Wireless, the country's second biggest wireless provider which started its service in 2003. Verizon has services in about 50 markets using the same high-speed technology, known as EV-DO. Both companies, along with most large operators around the world, are working on making their networks faster in the hope of boosting their revenue by encouraging people to use phones for everything from watching video clips to reading e-mail. Verizon plans coverage for 150 million potential customers or half the population by the end of 2005. Cingular Wireless, a venture of SBC Communications and BellSouth Corp. plans to have high-speed services in about 15 to 20 markets by year end. Sprint plans to sell new handsets and applications based on the higher speed network by the end of the fourth quarter. It already has agreements to sell laptop cards from Novatel Wireless Inc. and Sierra Wireless Inc. Sprint said it expects its latest service to provide Web access average speeds of 400 to 700 kilobits per second, about six times faster than its current network. 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: Netters Change Habits to Avoid Spyware and Spam Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 12:25:13 -0500 Nine out of 10 Internet users say they have changed their online habits to avoid spyware and other Internet-based threats, according to a study released on Wednesday. The Pew Internet and American Life Project found that an overwhelming majority of Internet users have stopped opening questionable e-mail attachments, or taken other steps to avoid a plague of stealthy, unwanted programs that can disable computers or secretly monitor online activity. Nearly half said they have stopped visiting particular Web sites that they suspect may deposit unwanted programs on their computers, while 25 percent say they have stopped downloading music or movies from "peer to peer" networks that may harbor spyware. Eighteen percent said they had switched the type of Web browser they use in order to avoid spyware. Spyware has emerged as a major headache for computer users over the last several years. It can sap computing power, crash machines and bury users under a blizzard of unwanted ads. Scam artists use spyware to capture passwords, account numbers and other sensitive data. It can end up on users' computers through a virus or when they download games or other free programs from the Internet. Sixty-eight percent of those surveyed said they had suffered slower performance or other problems that could be attributed to spyware. Other surveys have found the level of infection to be as high as 80 percent. The nonprofit group surveyed 1,336 U.S. Internet users, between May 4 and June 7. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent. 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: Google, Partners to Back Broadband Venture Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 12:26:27 -0500 Google Inc. , Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Hearst Corp. are investing about $100 million in Current Communications Group, a start-up that offers high-speed Internet connections over electricity lines, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Current Communications, of Germantown, Maryland, uses a technology that sends Internet signals over regular power lines, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the situation. Current, a closely held company, offers its high-speed service in the Cincinnati area and is expected to use its new investment to expand, the Wall Street Journal said. 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: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 02:38:09 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Rabble Mobile Blogging Network Rabble Lets Verizon Wireless Get It Now(R) Customers Join The First Enhanced Mobile Blogging Network Rabble Enables Verizon Wireless Customers to Create, Publish and Share Media and Connect with Others Based on Proximity or Areas of Interest BEDMINSTER, N.J. and SAN DIEGO, July 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon Wireless, the nation's leading wireless provider, and Intercasting Corporation, the first Location-Aware Media Networking Operator (LMNO), today announced the availability of Rabble, the first mobile application designed to empower individuals to create, publish and share media and connect with others based on proximity or areas of interest. With Rabble, Verizon Wireless customers with select Get It Now-enabled phones can use their mobile devices to create and distribute their own content, connecting people by customer-provided location specific information. Rabble turns Get It Now customers into producers, inviting them to create and publish media on their phones enabling them to inform, entertain and interact with others. Capitalizing on the massive consumer trend toward Internet blogging, Rabble users can publish personalized media channels through certain channels to allow Rabble users to promote themselves, connect with like-minded individuals or groups, give voice to opinions, discuss events, report news, review locales and more. Rabble users define their own limits or rules that govern who can access their channel of information -- and this feature allows them to maintain control over the distribution of personal content. Rabble users can conduct powerful searches of user-generated content based on interest, time, location or browse the available community around them to connect with one individual or to many. Though it is the first mobile-centric blogging application, Verizon Wireless Get It Now customers who use many of the top blogging sites can use Rabble as a tool to publish to their existing blog on the Web or import their existing blog to Rabble. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=50311772 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 09:04:53 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Emerging VOIP Regulation in Europe and the United States http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_7/bach/ The challenges of classification: Emerging VOIP regulation in Europe and the United States by David Bach and Jonathan Sallet Abstract Internet telephony -- or Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) -- has the potential to transform the world of voice communications more profoundly than anything since the invention of the telephone itself. As telecommunications incumbents and a range of new entrants begin rolling out commercial VOIP services, policymakers around the world are grappling with the regulatory implications. In the United States and the European Union, the two largest near-term VOIP markets, efforts are underway to fit VOIP into existing regulatory frameworks. This process of "regulatory classification" is by no means a purely administrative act. A lot is at stake and different interest groups have therefore mobilized to shape the respective outcomes. Because legacy regulatory systems in Europe and the United States differ, the regulatory treatment of VOIP in the two markets is beginning to differ as well. Yet in both markets there is a substantial danger that fitting VOIP into existing classifications will force VOIP to look more like regular telephony, thereby limiting its innovation potential. Contents Introduction - The rapid rise and inevitable regulation of VOIP - Classifying VOIP in the U.S.: Circuit-switched policies meet IP - Classifying VOIP in Europe: The first test for a new framework - The politics of regulatory classification - Conclusion http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_7/bach/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 12:49:20 EDT From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA Subject: Verizon, TBS Sign Carriage Deal Telecom dailyLead from USTA July 7, 2005 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=22905&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Verizon, TBS sign carriage deal BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Morgan Freeman, Intel to launch movie download service * DOJ OKs Alltel-Western Wireless deal * Google, Hearst, Goldman invest in broadband startup * France Telecom, Microsoft to develop VoIP handsets * Sprint launches EV-DO service USTA SPOTLIGHT * RFID: Radio Frequency Identification -- Get Your Copy Today! EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * Yahoo! launches new mobile search feature * Japan Telecom to start high-speed wireless network trial REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Commentary: FCC chief calls for further deregulation of broadband market * Florida man arrested for accessing Wi-Fi network * Nextel says it didn't violate agreement with Nextel Partners * Qualcomm responds to Broadcom lawsuit Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=22905&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: Diamond Dave Subject: Re: Non-Bell ESS? Organization: The BBS Corner / Diamond Mine On-Line Date: Thu, 07 Jul 2005 05:22:47 -0400 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I know from my personal experience that > Illinois Bell had ESS in the Wabash office in downtown Chicago in > 1974, along with the Superior office on the near north side the same > year. But I think they were just the first editions or versions of > that type of switch. PAT] The Western Electric #1ESS was invented in 1965, with the upgrade #1AESS invented in 1976. These were analog switches with computer control (and in my opinion, glorified crossbar switches with reed relays). Others, as I've mentioned before, came out with their fully digital switches before Western Electric came out with their fully digital end office switch (the #5 ESS) in 1982. Dave Perrussel Webmaster - Telephone World http://www.dmine.com/phworld ------------------------------ From: Tim@Backhome.org Subject: Re: Non-Bell ESS? Date: Thu, 07 Jul 2005 06:39:19 -0700 Organization: Cox Communications > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I know from my personal experience that > Illinois Bell had ESS in the Wabash office in downtown Chicago in > 1974, along with the Superior office on the near north side the same > year. But I think they were just the first editions or versions of > that type of switch. PAT] The No. 1ESS (replaced early on by the 1AESS) was well along in deployment by 1974. The first installation in California was in Beverly Hills in 1967. That wasn't long after the first installation somewhere in the east, perhaps 1965? The difference between the 1 and the 1A was larger volitile memory (call control storage) and giant disk drives for program control storage. Many Bell LECs upgraded their existing 1ESS switches to 1As once deployment of the 1A began. Once the digital 5ESS came along, the regional Bells had already aquired a preference for Nortel's DMS-100, mostly because it was cheaper and would do an adequate job in all but the most intensive urban environments (the 5ESS was definately better, but perhaps a Lexius when a Ford would do. ;-) ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Bell Usage of IBM Computers For Switching Date: 7 Jul 2005 09:13:57 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) wrote: > In reading histories of IBM and the Bell System, my impression is that > the companies were pretty distant from each other even though both > were developing very similar technologies. Early on, both Bell and > IBM were developing ever better ways of using relays to "think" in > sophisticated ways, then using electronic components. (IBM obviously > did go to Bell Labs to learn about the transistor). The Bell System had Bell Labs, a research organization that did pure research which turned into developments which Bell rapidly incorporated into their products. IBM had the T.J. Watson Center, a research organization that did pure research which turned into developments which IBM's competitors rapidly incorporated into their products and IBM ignored for the most part. > Anyway, the Bell Labs history says Bell did make use of the IBM > System/7 as part of the switching network. The S/7 was a process > controller machine, kind of a sideline of IBM's normal business line. > Anyway, Bell used the S/7 to replace AMA (long distance message > accounting) machines. Even here the S/7 was eventually replaced with > a PDP machine. > Would anyone know if there was some sort of hostility between Bell and > IBM in the 1950s and 1960s? Or, am I just missing that there was a > lot of collaboration? No, but I do know that IBM was not very good at the whole "small computer" thing. The minicomputer revolution escaped them completely for the most part, which is why DEC systems wound up being incorporated into switching systems. I am sure that if IBM had made minicomputers that actually worked well a decade before the Series/1, the phone company (and a lot of other companies) would have bought them. > Perhaps the lab histories of both companies prefers to focus on the > company's own developments and ignore those elsewhere. The IBM > history does give credit to semi-conductor makers. I sense Bell > wanted to build everything it used for itself rather than buy finished > products in the market. Yes, which is why those DEC minicomputers later got replaced with AT&T 3b2 and 3b20 systems. Bell had a very strong impulse toward vertical and horizontal integration. > I also wonder if the commercial computer components of the 1960s (ie > System/360 SLT chips and core memory) were adequate for the speed > demanded by electronic switching. The Bell history suggests Bell had > to develop its own gear because it needed faster speed and memory > available in the commercial world on a cost- efficient basis. I > believe an ESS of 1965 had quite a bit of memory and would compare to > the largest commercial computers of that day. Well, the early ESS systems were very far from general purpose computer systems. There was a whole lot of combinational logic inside there. As general purpose computers got cheaper and more powerful, ESS systems evolved toward using them for control. scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Bell Usage of IBM Computers For Switching Date: 7 Jul 2005 07:34:09 -0700 Tony P. wrote: > From what I'm to gather the phone switches themselves had their own > processors. Yes, they did and do now. > As to processor requirements, I don't know but in the case of a switch > the more critical component is the t/d matrix. All the computer does > is keep track of call store which is nothing but a table. A computer must break down every function into tiny little steps handled one by one. For instance, IIRC, on a PC when you depress key you're actually sending two signals to the processor -- one that you depressed a particular key, and a subsequent signal that you released that particular key. The processor must respond appropriately to the key or combination of keys you depressed, then the operating system and/or application program is passed the information. Likewise with a telephone, when you lift the receiver the processor must detect that, connect you to a dial-pulse receiver and send you an audible dial tone and then interpret your dialing -- all this before it even actually 'switches' your call. And there's the optional "flash" signal which calls in special routines. All of this work can either be done by the central processor (which eats up cycles) or by sub-processors to take the load off. There are cost and performance issues with each approach. Generally, cheaper computers (phone or digital) do it all in the processor while more sophisticated ones offload to give more speed. (It was like adding a math co-processor in PC early days to get more heavy math speed. The regular processor could do math, but the co-processor did it faster.) In the early days of ESS Bell Labs came out with a sub-processor to take some load off the main one. Doing this offered more capacity to handle calls at a modest cost. This unit was later discontinued when faster processors didn't need it. Another use of this concept was with outside loop concentrators. Some concentrators in the field had sophisticated logic in them which freed up the central office from doing certain chores (I think a fancy concentrator could even connect calls within itself without help from the central). But such field units were expensive and not worth the cost. There were always tradeoffs to be made. > But I have seen references to DEC PDP series computers being used to > write the code, etc. for the switches. Getting back to the original question: Message Accounting is something that can be done by the processor or a separate machine. In #5 Crossbar it was done separately. (AMA machines were critical to customer DDD). Anyway, Bell used electronic computers instead of its own electro-mechanical AMA machines to time and record phone calls. Originally it used an IBM System/7, but then switched to PDP. My impression is that Bell tended to favor PDP gear over IBM for many applications. Also, then tended to home-build pretty much everything else. [public replies please] ------------------------------ From: Joe Morris Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Western Union's Comment About Useless Phones Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 12:38:58 UTC Organization: The MITRE Organization hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes: > If the Bell System still existed as a monopoly provider today, I > wonder how they'd deal with the above described customer frustrations. > The Bell System did not like it when their product/service was made to > look bad and spent money and efforts to counteract it. The Bell system breakup [*] certainly caused problems, but the pre-breakup system was not what I would call accommodating to users' requirements ... it was instead a follower of Henry Ford's famous line that his customers could have any color automobile they wanted as long as it was black. Case in point -- and one that gave me lots of heartburn at the time -- was the absurd DAA requirement. I'm all for protecting a network, but neither at the time nor in retrospect can I find any justification for the DAA other than protecting AT&T's revenue stream. Joe Morris [*] seen on a button distributed by Computerworld magazine at a meeting: "Judge Green is a Bell buster" [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No one, it seems, had their hands totally clean in the Bell divestiture. Far from being a 'visionary' whose sole motive was for the good of the American people -- which is the _only thing_ Judge Harold Green had any legitimate right thinking about in his deliberations -- it is claimed that early on, during the mid 1970's when the trial was first being thought about, Harold had attempted to use a payphone on a street corner in Washington, DC only to lose his ten cents in an out of order instrument, and as he stood there in that busted up, grafitti-filled, smelling-of-urine- and-whiskey, pay phone booth on a hot, sultry afternoon, trying to get his ten cents back _or_ get an operator's attention and sympathy (he wound up getting neither; apparently the operator sassed him, but what else is new?), Harold decided then and there that the company should be dismantled. We know for a fact that Harold had been approached by some friends in the Justice Department as a judge who would likely be sympathetic to their cause (the breakup of Bell) so apparently that incident with the broken down pay phone only fueled his animosity which was quite apparent during much of the trial. How much animosity? The most obvious was his refusal to allow AT&T to have a jury trial, as they initially requested. I am not at all certain had there been a jury, that divestiture would have been ordered. Maybe, maybe not. Harold's rationale was the matter was 'too complex' for a jury, it would have (and did) lasted far too long to find a willing and competent jury, and anyway, the prosecutors did not want a jury. If AT&T had used the 'IBM Technique' as IBM successfully did in _their_ divestiture trial, chances are likely the matter would still be going on, now 22 years later. For those who do not recall, the 'IBM Technique' was to blitz the court with so much paper in its defense [quite literally, IBM made hundreds of copies of each paper record presented in their successful defense; there were times when semi-trailer-truck vans full of legal documents to be read would pull up at the court's loading dock/receiving room to drop off the material the court and prosecutors had to read and act on] as part of the trial. I mean, imagine a thousand page document full of dry statistics in IBM's defense; here is the six hundred copies of same the prosecutorial team gets; plus copies for each employee of the court clerk's office, the judge, etc. IBM, in its successful defense insisted that in order to 'fully understand' how much divestiture would 'harm the company' one had to see the 'big picture' which IBM was more than pleased to present in its defense. (wink!) Can you imagine if AT&T had insisted on that sort of 'paper blitz' with Harold and if they had gotten their way with a jury trial and each member of the jury (but of course) had to carefully examine all the 'evidence' before reaching their decision? It worked perfectly well in IBM's trial. I suspect Harold would have preferred to take the check for ten cents refund the telephone company would have sent him (telco had long since discontinued the practice of sending out a few coins scotch-taped to a form letter of apology through the mail) as they did for more than a half-century, or allowing the operators to liberally issue verbal 'credit' for calls via the phone itself, also an ancient practice of about half-century. 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 #312 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Jul 7 23:53:10 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 6F9D314F56; Thu, 7 Jul 2005 23:53:10 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #313 Message-Id: <20050708035310.6F9D314F56@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 23:53:10 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-1.7 required=2.0 tests=BAYES_00,MSGID_FROM_MTA_SHORT autolearn=no version=2.63 X-Spam-Level: Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 7 Jul 2005 23:53:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 313 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Web Users Jam UK Sites For News About London Blasts (Lisa Minter) Digital Imaging Tech Widens News Gathering (Lisa Minter) Florida Boy on Cell Calls 9-1-1 Over 40 Times! (Nathan Strom) VoIP Card for Toshiba Strata CT (caveman) Looking for Panasonic KX-T4550 (TSLtrek) Florida Man Charged With Stealing Wi-Fi Signal (Lisa Minter) Broadband Use Jumps 34 Percent in USA According to FCC (Lisa Minter) Re: Non-Bell ESS? (Tony P.) Re: Bell Usage of IBM Computers For Switching (fgoodwin) Re: Last Laugh! Western Union's Comment About Useless Phones (J Haynes) 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: Web Users Jam UK Sites For News About London Blasts Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 22:31:54 -0500 By Jeffrey Goldfarb LONDON (Reuters) - Record numbers of visitors deluged British Web sites on Thursday as people around the world sought news of the blasts that rocked London's public transport. Sites operated by public broadcaster BBC, satellite TV company BSkyB (BSY.L), news provider Reuters (RTR.L) and the Financial Times business newspaper (PSON.L) suffered longer delays on their home pages Thursday morning in London because of the volume, according to a company that monitors Web traffic. "There was a significant amount of turbulence in terms of performance," said Roopak Patel, an analyst at Keynote Systems. The BBC expects by the end of Thursday it will have had the most visitors in a single day in the history of its news Web site, though it won't have official data until Friday. "We have had a huge surge in people using the site today," BBC spokeswoman Naomi Luland said. "We are pretty certain this is going to be our busiest ever day." The bbc.co.uk Web site experienced some delays, she added, but handled the volume well. "We haven't had any major problems. We've had consistency in service. There may have been a little slowdown earlier," Luland said. Among the other popular UK sites were sky.com/skynews, ft.com and reuters.com. By 3:15 p.m. (1415 GMT), Sky said it had registered 1.7 million unique visitors for the day. "That's the equivalent of a month's traffic on the site," Sky spokeswoman Stella Tooth said. "We had 25 million page impressions and the site was very robust and withstood the extra traffic," she added. The Reuters sites at reuters.com, reuters.co.uk and others in Europe experienced a "technical fault" with their servers unrelated to high volume earlier in the day, the company said. The problem was fixed by the afternoon. "In the morning, we saw five times the normal traffic for our global network of sites and from this afternoon it was about twice the normal traffic," spokeswoman Susan Allsopp said. "We saw huge traffic for the tsunami in Asia so I don't think we can say it's a record, but it's high peaks in our coverage." A spokeswoman for the FT said it would not have any information about the number of visitors to ft.com until Friday. Keynote's index of some 40 UK business Web sites showed an increase in delays, with the wait time for pages to load spiking to 17 seconds during peak usage from the normal average of 2 seconds. Reliability decreased as well as one in four attempts to load a Web page failed at peak times, according to Keynote. "Users who were trying to access the information were seeing higher than normal delays, and at the same time some people weren't able to get through to some sites," Patel said. He added that U.S. news sites saw no major delays because Internet infrastructure in the United States is more robust and most users were on the Web hours after the attacks happened. At MSNBC.com, which is co-owned by General Electric Co.'s NBC and Microsoft Corp., a spokeswoman said data indicated that traffic to the site was about twice normal levels on Thursday morning. She also said the site was seeing twice the average number of streaming video viewers. The spokeswoman added that the site did not experience any technical delays. Following the Sept. 11, 2001, airplane attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, many news Web sites were so overwhelmed with visitors that they could not be accessed, forcing on-the-fly redesigns to simplify homepages with fewer photographs and less advertising. (Additional reporting by Nicole Volpe 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 Subject: Digital Imaging Tech Widens Newsgathering Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 22:35:18 -0500 By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer 2 hours, 8 minutes ago Among the more striking photos appearing online after Thursday's coordinated London explosions was one of a double-decker bus, its front intact but its sides and top ripped open. The image, on the BBC's Web site, came not from a staff photographer but from an amateur who happened on the scene with a digital camera. With inexpensive cameras everywhere, including increasingly in cell phones, we're seeing more searing images than ever of human drama. The chances of getting poignant amateur video, meanwhile, are improving radically. Following Thursday's morning rush hour blasts on the bus and at three subway stations, amateurs snapped shots before professional journalists could get to the scene. The BBC posted one reader-contributed image showing subway passengers being led through tunnels and another of smoke filling another photographer's subway car. It also posted camera phone video including an 18-second clip of a passenger evacuating the subway. The image was dark and jerky but gave a sense of crisis. "What you're doing is gathering material you never could have possibly got unless your reporter happened by chance to be caught up in this," said Vicky Taylor, interactivity editor for BBC News' Web sites. Many amateur photos are mundane yet gripping, said Steve Jones, professor of communications at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Visitors Thursday to the photo site Flickr, for instance, saw one sign at one station that simply stated, "Tube network closed." While journalists descend on the stations where the explosions took place, an amateur might snap shots from "a train station that wasn't bombed but that has a lot of security, and you sort of immediately compare that to your own experience," said Jones. Adam Tinworth, a London magazine editor and freelance writer, posted several shots from his digital camera on the Internet. Among them: images of blockaded streets and of professionals "trying to do the same thing I was except with a much different camera." "I was grabbing photos to give people a feel of what it's like to be an ordinary person," Tinworth said. Of course the use of amateur photographs by professional news organizations is not new. The Associated Press and others routinely buy rights to photos produced by eyewitnesses. But digital cameras and phones make more such images possible, and the Internet makes distribution easy. Many Web journal services and Flickr let you post directly from a cell phone, while the BBC had a dedicated e-mail address for such photos. (The BBC and other British news sites did perform more slowly, though, because of heavy traffic in the hours following the explosions, according to monitoring by Keynote Systems Inc.) Taylor said reader-submitted accounts from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were mostly text while the BBC received several hundred photographs Thursday and used about 70 on its Web site and TV. She said amateurs submitted photos to the BBC for free, but then some sold rights to other news organization. Jones said the quality has improved since the Sept. 11 attacks. As well, eyewitnesses in London were more selective in what they posted online. The captions they wrote were more descriptive and professional-sounding this time around. Nonetheless, user-generated digital imagery does create new challenges for news sites, which has to make sure a photo isn't already owned by someone else and that it's wasn't digitally manipulated. The BBC compared the bus image with shots its crews took from the rear, matching landmarks in both pictures to make sure it wasn't digitally doctored, Taylor said. For other pictures, BBC staffers contacted the photographers for verification. There's also the task of sifting through all the images. A half-day after the explosions, Flickr had 150 photos marked "explosions," 111 for "blasts" and 219 under "terrorism." More than 325 fell under "London Bomb Blasts." Many were simply television screen grabs. With "the ability for so many people to take so many photos, the real challenge will be to find the most remarkable, the most interesting, the most moving, the most striking," said Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake, adding that engineers were working on software to help that. It remains to be seen whether the best images were even on the Internet yet. Many of the best photos and video from the Asian tsunami disaster came days or weeks later. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. ------------------------------ From: Nathan Strom Subject: Florida Boy on Cell Calls 9-1-1 Over 40 Times! Date: Thu, 07 Jul 2005 22:33:26 -0400 Organization: Octanews From http://www.tampabays10.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=15846: > Leesburg, Florida - Emergency officials say dispatchers were kept > busy by a 5-year-old Leesburg boy on a cell phone. But Lake County > sheriff's officials say they couldn't trace the call and the boy > wouldn't tell them where he lives or who his parents are. Leesburg > police say they do know the boy lives somewhere in the Leesburg > area. The 5-year-old also told them he liked ice cream and knew he > wasn't supposed to play with a cell phone. Officials say the boy > called 9-1-1 more than 40 times yesterday afternoon. Dispatchers > urge parents to take out the batteries from disconnected cell > phones. The Associated Press Guess they still need to work on that E-911 rollout. Couldn't they check with the cell phone provider and see who the ESN is/was last registered to? ------------------------------ From: caveman Subject: VoIP Card for Toshiba Strata CT Date: 7 Jul 2005 20:01:22 -0700 Does any one know of any VoIP cards that can be used with a Toshiba STrata CT system (the ones that are without the builtin VoIP) ? Thanks. ------------------------------ From: TSLtrek Subject: Looking for Panasonic KX-T4550 Date: 7 Jul 2005 12:12:47 -0700 Does anyone have a good working Panasonic KX-T4500 or 4550 cordless phone with answering sytem that they want to sell or maybe trade for a KX-TG5240? I like the personalized greeting in each mailbox and the pager call ... both features do not exist in any cordless phone today. Thanks, -Terry ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Man Charged With Stealing Wi-Fi Signal Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 15:22:24 -0500 ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Police have arrested a man for using someone else's wireless Internet network in one of the first criminal cases involving this fairly common practice. Benjamin Smith III, 41, faces a pretrial hearing this month following his April arrest on charges of unauthorized access to a computer network, a third-degree felony. Police say Smith admitted using the Wi-Fi signal from the home of Richard Dinon, who had noticed Smith sitting in an SUV outside Dinon's house using a laptop computer. The practice is so new that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement doesn't even keep statistics, according to the St. Petersburg Times, which reported Smith's arrest this week. Innocuous use of other people's unsecured Wi-Fi networks is common, though experts say that plenty of illegal use also goes undetected: such as people sneaking on others' networks to traffic in child pornography, steal credit card information and send death threats. Security experts say people can prevent such access by turning on encryption or requiring passwords, but few bother or are unsure how to do so. Wi-Fi, short for Wireless Fidelity, has enjoyed prolific growth since 2000. Millions of households have set up wireless home networks that give people like Dinon the ability to use the Web from their backyards but also reach the house next door or down the street. It's not clear why Smith was using Dinon's network. Prosecutors declined to comment, and a working phone number could not be located for Smith. 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. ------------------------------ From: Lisa Minter Subject: Broadband Use Jumps 34 Percent in USA According to FCC Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 15:23:45 -0500 The number of U.S. consumers and businesses that subscribe to high-speed Internet service, or broadband, jumped 34 percent in 2004 to almost 38 million lines, according to new statistics released on Thursday. The United States lags 15 other countries in broadband coverage, according to international statistics, but U.S. officials stressed that some countries subsidize deployment and are more densely populated in smaller areas. Approximately 5.4 million subscribers were added during the second half of 2004, according to a new Federal Communications Commission report. The agency had previously reported adding 4.3 million broadband lines in the first half of the year. More consumers picked high-speed Internet from cable companies last year than broadband from local telephone companies, known as digital subscriber line service (DSL), according to the FCC report. Cable companies added about 5 million customers during the year, a 30 percent increase to 21.4 million lines, while the number of DSL subscribers climbed about 45 percent, or 4.3 million lines, to 13.8 million lines. Cable and telephone companies are engaged in a fierce battle to offer customers a suite of communications services. DSL is less expensive than cable Internet service but offers slower download speeds. Broadband is becoming more widely used as consumers want faster access to the Internet for research, shopping, watching movies and downloading music. President Bush pledged during his 2004 re-election bid to ensure there would be universal access to broadband by 2007. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has made eliminating regulatory hurdles to achieve that goal his top priority since taking the reins of the agency earlier this year. "The dramatic growth in broadband services depicted in this report proves that we are well on our way to accomplishing the president's goal of universal, affordable access to broadband by 2007," Martin said in an opinion piece published on Thursday in The Wall Street Journal. He said the FCC should ease some old regulations on telephone companies to put them on the same footing as cable operators, but added that the government would not relinquish its role of protecting consumers and aiding law enforcement. "This means that we must treat all such providers in the same manner -- free of undue regulation that can stifle infrastructure investment," he said. But one consumer advocate criticized FCC policies as harming competition for broadband. "Competitive Internet service providers are now history; the U.S. has a duopoly -- cable and telephone industry -- over broadband," said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. "Both cable and telephone have a long history of anti-competitive behavior." Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Non-Bell ESS? Organization: ATCC Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 16:53:26 -0400 In article , dmine45.NOSPAM@yahoo.com says: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I know from my personal experience that >> Illinois Bell had ESS in the Wabash office in downtown Chicago in >> 1974, along with the Superior office on the near north side the same >> year. But I think they were just the first editions or versions of >> that type of switch. PAT] > The Western Electric #1ESS was invented in 1965, with the upgrade > #1AESS invented in 1976. These were analog switches with computer > control (and in my opinion, glorified crossbar switches with reed > relays). > Others, as I've mentioned before, came out with their fully digital > switches before Western Electric came out with their fully digital end > office switch (the #5 ESS) in 1982. Actually WE came out with #4 ESS in the mid 70's. Of course the 4 was a toll class switch, but it was a truly electronic switch. ------------------------------ From: fgoodwin Subject: Re: Bell Usage of IBM Computers For Switching Date: 7 Jul 2005 12:29:55 -0700 hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: > I do note that the Bell history said they intended for very long > product lifespans, so anything they made had to be able to withstand > many years of service. I believe they didn't change this philosophy > until the 1970s when rapidly changing electronics kept making > components obsolete quickly. I don't know if this is relevant to the statement you read, but regulators controlled the rate at which AT&T and the local Bell Telcos could depreciate their equipment. Longer depreciable lives meant lower expenses and reduced pressure to increase rates. As might be expected, the carriers were always asking the regulators for faster depreciation, and the regulators always pushed back with longer lives. It wasn't until the late 80s when local regulators finally realized that an electronic or digital switch did not realistically have a 30-year life. Fred Goodwin ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Western Union's Comment About Useless Phones Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Thu, 07 Jul 2005 23:07:27 GMT > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No one, it seems, had their hands > totally clean in the Bell divestiture. Far from being a 'visionary' > be dismantled. We know for a fact that Harold had been approached by > some friends in the Justice Department as a judge who would likely > be sympathetic to their cause (the breakup of Bell) so apparently > that ... The government had been on Bell's case for a long time. There is a book published in 1941, "The Bell Telephone System" by Arthur W. Page, in which he, a Bell insider, tells all the virtues of the telephone system being a regulated monopoly rather than a competitive bunch of companies. He complains a lot about the government back then having a grudge against the Bell System. There was a paper published in a legal journal after the breakup titled "Is the Third Time the Charm? A Comparison of the Government's Major Antitrust Settlements with AT&T This Century" (by Geoffrey M. Peters, Seton Hall Law Review, 1985, p. 252.) This discusses the circa 1920 case, the case that ended in the 1956 consent decree, and the case that Judge Greene handled. I believe the first of these dealt with the Bell System trying to drive the independent telcos out of business and acquire them. jhhaynes at earthlink dot net ------------------------------ 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 #313 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Jul 8 16:49:51 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 4BA1A14FCE; Fri, 8 Jul 2005 16:49:51 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #314 Message-Id: <20050708204951.4BA1A14FCE@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2005 16:49:51 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-0.7 required=2.0 tests=BAD_CREDIT,BAYES_00, MSGID_FROM_MTA_SHORT,OFFERS_ETC autolearn=no version=2.63 X-Spam-Level: Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 8 Jul 2005 16:50:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 314 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update #488, July 8, 2005 (Angus TeleManagement Group) High-Speed Internet Use Soars 34% in 2004, FCC Says (Telecom dailyLead) Google Earth Thrills With Photos, Stunts, But How Practical? (M Solomon) SunRocket VOIP Comments? (jmeissen@aracnet.com) Re: Non-Bell ESS? (John Stahl) Re: Florida Boy on Cell Calls 9-1-1 Over 40 Times! (Joseph) Phone Tag: Uselessness of Phones: Hangups of Technology (Pat Townson) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2005 11:40:11 -0700 Subject: Telecom Update #488, July 8, 2005 From: Angus TeleManagement Group Reply-To: Angus TeleManagement Group ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 488: July 8, 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: ** Sprint Canada Becomes Rogers Telecom ** Cable Telephony On A Roll Rogers Videotron Cogeco Shaw ** Saskatchewan Appeals VoIP Decision ** MTS-Allstream Buys Delphi Solutions ** CRTC Wants Comment On Bell Digital Voice ** Navigata Cuts Webphone Pricing ** Shift Claims 1000 Business Customers ** Rogers Drops $5 LD Plan ** Cellcos Intro Inter-Carrier Multimedia ** Telus Loses Appeal on Union Jurisdiction ** Telecom Policy Review Panel Issues Guidelines ** CRTC Corrects VoIP Winback Ruling ** Should Telco Local Fibre Be Deregulated? ** Telcos to Pilot Bad Debt Repayment Plans ** 8-1-1 Approved for Health 'Teletriage' ** Rim Sales Up, Shares Down ** Sears to Install 200 Freefones ************************************************************ SPRINT CANADA BECOMES ROGERS TELECOM: After receiving shareholder and court approvals, Rogers Communications completed its acquisition of Call-Net Enterprises and its operating subsidiary, Sprint Canada, on July 1. Call-Net is now Rogers Telecom Holdings Inc., and Sprint Canada has been renamed Rogers Telecom Inc. ** Call-Net, launched in 1986, was Canada's first successful long distance reseller. It survived intense hostility from the telcos and repeated CRTC orders to desist until the Commission changed the rules to allow resale in 1990. It subsequently became a facilities- based long distance and local service provider with more than 600,000 customers across the country. CABLE TELEPHONY ON A ROLL: Canada's cable TV companies are now firmly committed to the residential phone market. Among the latest developments: ** On July 1, Rogers Cable launched Rogers Home Phone service in the Greater Toronto Area. Rates range from $25.46 to $35.66 a month for customers who also take other Rogers services. ** Videotron says it has signed up 42,000 customers since launching phone service in January, achieving 8% penetration on Montreal's south shore. It will begin offering phone service in Quebec City on July 11. ** Cogeco Cable's telephone service, introduced in June in Burlington and Oakville, Ontario, is now available in Trois-Rivires, Trois- Rivires Ouest and Pointe-du-lac, Quebec. ** Shaw Communications says it had 22,450 Digital Phone lines installed or pending in Calgary and Edmonton by May 31. The company now expects that 20% of its cable TV customers will take its phone service within three years, rather than five years as previously predicted. SASKATCHEWAN APPEALS VoIP DECISION: The Government of Saskatchewan has asked the federal Cabinet to review the CRTC's VoIP decision (Telecom Decision 2005-28).. It says the decision disadvantages SaskTel and will 'result in long term and irrevocable harm' to the province. www.gov.sk.ca/newsrel/releases/2005/07/06-650.html MTS-ALLSTREAM BUYS DELPHI SOLUTIONS: MTS Allstream has acquired Markham-based Delphi Solutions Corp. for approximately $15 million cash. Delphi is best-known as a provider of Mitel, Nortel and Toshiba PBXs to small and mid-sized business across Canada. Delphi's management, including president Ed Lavin, will remain in place. CRTC WANTS COMMENT ON BELL DIGITAL VOICE: CRTC Telecom Public Notice 2005-9 invites comments on Bell's Digital Voice tariff, which received interim approval in June (see Telecom Update #486). To participate, notify the Commission by July 15. www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Notices/2005/pt2005-9.htm NAVIGATA CUTS WEBPHONE PRICING: Navigata, a Sasktel subsidiary operating in B.C. and Alberta, has cut the price of Webphone, its access-independent VoIP service. Basic service is now $15.95/month; Basic service plus 1000 minutes of North American long distance is $29.95/month. (See Telecom Update #430) SHIFT CLAIMS 1000 BUSINESS CUSTOMERS: Shift Networks, which provides hosted multi-line IP telephone systems to small businesses in Calgary and Edmonton, says it added 483 new customers in the second quarter, bringing the total to more than 1,000. Shift customers purchase IP phones telephones, routers, installation and training from Shift, and must sign 36-month service agreements. ROGERS DROPS $5 LD PLAN: Following Bell Canada's example, Rogers has stopped offering 1,000 minutes of long distance for $5 to its bundle customers. Existing customers have been grandfathered. CELLCOS INTRO INTER-CARRIER MULTIMEDIA: On July 1, Canada's cellular carriers launched inter-carrier multimedia message services, allowing customers with MMS-capable phones to exchange text, pictures, and video no matter which carrier each uses. TELUS LOSES APPEAL ON UNION JURISDICTION: The Supreme Court has refused to hear Telus' appeal against a Canada Industrial Relations Board ruling that former Clearnet employees are now represented by the Telecommunications Workers Union bargaining unit. (See Telecom Update #434, #439) TELECOM POLICY REVIEW PANEL ISSUES GUIDELINES: The Telecom Policy Review panel has posted additional guidelines for submissions, which are due August 15 (see Telecom Update #485). www.telecomreview.ca/epic/internet/intprp-gecrt.nsf/en/rx00024e.html CRTC CORRECTS VOIP WINBACK RULING: The CRTC has confirmed that the incumbent telcos are only prohibited for three months (not twelve) from attempting to win back business customers who have chosen a competitor's local service. www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2005/dt2005-28-1.htm SHOULD TELCO LOCAL FIBRE BE DEREGULATED? In Public Notice 2005-8, the CRTC asks whether the incumbent telcos' high-speed intra-exchange digital services face enough competition in some markets to warrant deregulation, as requested by Bell Canada (see Telecom Update #422). To participate, notify the Commission by July 8. www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Notices/2005/pt2005-8.htm TELCOS TO PILOT BAD DEBT REPAYMENT PLANS: The CRTC has ordered Aliant, Bell, MTS and Telus to conduct 18-month trials of a program to allow subscribers who were disconnected for non-payment to re-subscribe and pay their debts off over time. The CRTC points to SaskTel's existing program as a model. www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2005/dt2005-38.htm 8-1-1 APPROVED FOR HEALTH 'TELETRIAGE': Responding to an application by Alberta Health and Wellness on behalf of the provincial and territorial Deputy Ministers of Health, the CRTC has okayed the use of the 8-1-1 code to access non-urgent health care telephone triage services. www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2005/dt2005-39.htm RIM SALES UP, SHARES DOWN: Does anyone understand the stock market? Research In Motion doubled its profit in the three months ended May 28, and it added 592,000 new subscribers in the last quarter, exceeding its announced target of 560,000 to 590,000. Its stock promptly fell 7%, because some analysts had predicted it would add considerably more. SEARS TO INSTALL 200 FREEFONES: Sears Canada has signed a 3-year contract to install some 200 courtesy phones provided by Toronto-based Freefone Inc., in 122 stores across Canada. Freefones include a 15-inch video display which shows advertising while customers make free local calls. ============================================================ 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 jriddell@angustel.ca. 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, 8 Jul 2005 13:08:58 EDT From: Telecom dailyLead from USTA Subject: High-Speed Internet Use Soars 34% in 2004, FCC Says Telecom dailyLead from USTA July 8, 2005 http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=22940&l=2017006 TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * High-speed Internet use soars 34% in 2004, FCC says BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Mobile phone networks overloaded after London blast * Cisco's Giancarlo gets promotion * Zhone buys Paradyne USTA SPOTLIGHT * FTTH Deployment Webinar: The Trends, Drivers, Technologies and Economics EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES * Yahoo! offers SMS search VOIP DOWNLOAD * Study: Retail VoIP growing globally * A peek inside Skype * Survey: Rural businesses want different VoIP applications REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * U.S. ITC ends investigation of Nortel-Ciena patent feud Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://www.dailylead.com/latestIssue.jsp?i=22940&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 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2005 09:26:12 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Google Earth Thrills With Photos, Stunts, But How Practical Is It? By WALTER S. MOSSBERG It's good to have a healthy skepticism about the claims of the hype-driven technology industry. But there are times when even a hardened skeptic has to admit to amazement and delight at the sheer coolness of some of the things you can do on a personal computer today. And one of those "wow" moments happens the first time you run a new program called Google Earth. The program lets you view satellite and aerial photos of pretty much any spot on the planet. In big metropolitan areas in the U.S., Canada and Western Europe, you can locate, and zoom in on, individual buildings and houses, and see cars and trees. You can overlay streets onto these urban images, as well as markers indicating restaurants, hotels and more. In other places, you can make out only towns and large geographical features, like lakes. The program rapidly fetches the images from the Internet and visually "flies" you from place to place around the globe. The process is so fluid it feels like a Hollywood stunt. For instance, if you're staring at a bird's-eye view of St. Mark's Square in Venice and you type in your address in Boston, Google Earth will zoom out till you seem high in the sky, then rapidly "fly" you west across the Atlantic into the U.S., and then stop right over your house. http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20050707.html ------------------------------ From: jmeissen@aracnet.com Subject: SunRocket VOIP Comments? Date: 8 Jul 2005 17:29:00 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Back in November of last year there was an announcement posted here about Sunrocket VOIP http://www.sunrocket.com . I don't recall seeing anything about them since. Does anyone have any opinions, good or bad, about their service? John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Jul 2005 09:55:09 -0400 From: John Stahl Subject: Re: Non-Bell ESS? > In article , > dmine45.NOSPAM@yahoo.com says: There was a non-Bell #5ESS switch being sold to the non-Bell Independent telcos back in the Bell System days (pre-divestiture). I seem to remember that a company originally started by AT&T and GTE back when Ma Bell was in control of "The Phone System" named AGCS was "chartered" to manufacture and supply Bell System (designed) type products to the Independent Telcos throughout the country. The reason for this joint effort was that one of the FCC ruling regarding Western Electric was that they could only supply product to the Bell companies. So there were many ILEC's (as they were called later) who had an AGCS #5ESS (can't remember the exact series name) switch in their CO's which was an exact design feature for feature to the WECo #5ESS switch. In these later years, Lucent took over AGCS from AT&T and finally "absorbed" it into the Lucent family. If you go to the AGCS web site (www.agcs.com) today, you will find the Lucent logo. John Stahl Telecom/Data Consultant Aljon Enterprises ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Re: Florida Boy on Cell Calls 9-1-1 Over 40 Times! Date: Fri, 08 Jul 2005 10:21:55 -0700 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Thu, 07 Jul 2005 22:33:26 -0400, Nathan Strom wrote: > Guess they still need to work on that E-911 rollout. > Couldn't they check with the cell phone provider and see who the ESN > is/was last registered to? And what good does that do for someone who just gave their old AMPS, TDMA , CDMA or GSM cellphone to a resale shop? The person who buys these old phones won't have "registered" it with anyone. The person who originally had it and the associated ESN/IMEI is long gone and out of the picture. ------------------------------ From: Patrick Townson Subject: Technology Has its Own Hangups For Users Date: Fri, 08 Jul 2005 18:54:27 -0500 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: We just finished a series of messages this past week on 'phone tag' and as a 'Last Laugh!' the overall uselessness of the telephone. I thought this article from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette might be interesting reading, if you missed it the first time it ran. PAT] ------------------------- Technology has its own hangups for users. And when the speed with which these answers arrive isn't up to our expectations, we look for someone -- or something -- to blame. Technology, it seems, is an easy target. In a recent survey, 67 percent of the 1,750 people interviewed by Siemens Communications Inc. took target practice at telephone and online communications, saying they spend too much time leaving voice mails and sending e-mails when quick answers are what they need. And when answers finally do arrive, these same people reported the calls often came back too late. Society is plugged in as never before -- with PDAs, cell phones, e-mail, faxes, caller ID and voice mail -- and experts offer varying opinions about the cause and effect. Some say Americans are feeling increasingly unplugged, disconnected and out of control, trapped in a never-ending game of phone tag. Others say that the ability to screen phone calls through caller ID, sift through e-mail and, particularly for businesses, handle customer calls through automated voice systems is worth any inconvenience and potential waiting game. "Isn't it interesting that we blame the technology?" said Richard Thompson, a professor and director of the graduate program in telecommunications at the University of Pittsburgh. Thompson worked for 20 years at AT&T Bell Labs before coming to Pitt in 1989. "Isn't this like being annoyed about traffic congestion, so we blame the inventors of the automobile? It sounds to me like when people need information from someone else, that 67 percent of them put off getting it until the last possible minute. "I think this complaint says a lot about how busy we are and how hectic our jobs are, on both sides of the phone call or e-mail, but especially on the calling party's side." Barry Lawrence of Siemens, the survey folks, says productivity is declining because it's so hard to reach people. And our personal lives have grown more frustrating because it's hard to reach a live person at your health club or day-care center. The communications technology designed to make our lives easier is affecting our work, lifestyles and mental health, Lawrence said. Playing phone tag also is making our skins thinner, said Wu Zhou, a senior analyst for Boston-based IDC, a top telecommunications research firm, because we never know when or if the person we're trying to reach listens to voice mail or reads e-mails. But technology doesn't give people a license to be rude, said Martin Weiss, associate professor of telecommunications at Pitt. "It's like the argument about guns," he said -- do you blame the people who use the technology for not returning calls or e-mails, or the technology that allows them to screen your communication? And is caller ID something the complainer covets himself because he can screen, say, persistent telemarketers? "You can't have it both ways," Weiss said. Zhou argued that those who do listen to voice mails and read e-mails could be using that time more productively. It's a balancing act, these questions of civility versus service, efficiency versus delay, and which side you fall on depends mostly on which side of the phone line you happen to be on. Out of reach "We are so bombarded by information that we are defending ourselves with tools such as caller ID," said Pier Forni, an expert on manners at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and author of "Choosing Civility: The 25 Rules of Considerate Conduct." "If a talkative friend is calling and you are busy, you have the good, traditional option of answering. Just state that you are busy, and that you will call back later." But not responding to voice or e-mails "is a form of non-acknowledgement; hence it's rude," Forni said. Once again, Pitt's Thompson advised not to blame the messenger. In an e-mail -- a prompt answer to a query about this article -- he set up a premise, explaining that he is "usually someone from whom people want information, instead of the one seeking the information. People have a question about my master's program, so they call me or send an e-mail." He notes that most questions could be answered by viewing the University's Web site, "but they're too lazy or too busy to work independently." So a percentage of that group might call him and wind up leaving voice mail, setting up a potential phone-tag situation. "If they had sent me an e-mail, with the question in the e-mail, I could respond directly, at least by the next day," Thompson said. "I think many of us haven't learned how to use the appropriate technology for the given task." Any human will do ... The one universal villain in advanced telecommunications seems to be automated voice mail. All telephone users have visited that special ring of Hades where automated menus reside. Last week, Gene Dwyer of Crafton called the Pennsylvania American Water Co. to report a problem with muddy, rusty water. "I went through three or four button pushes until a lady came on wanting my account number, my Social Security number and telephone number, and then they were willing to listen to my story," says Dwyer. The woman told him they hadn't received any other complaints but that one of their water experts would look into it. Dwyer also called KQV radio, reporting the muddy water as a news tip. They, too, said they'd look into it. "You go through a long series of automated phone menus, then you pick the number closest to your topic," Dwyer says. "Go through four menus, then in the fourth menu, you go through two additional sub menus." When Dwyer has called Duquesne Light during a power outage, he has been given another number to call. "You have to get a flashlight to make the call," he says. "I won't even get into trying to contact a doctor, credit-card company, Blue Cross, airlines, banks, etc.," says writer Patricia Orendorff Smith, 62, of Indiana, Indiana County. "I am put on hold after punching number after number only to hear a computerized voice. It drives me nuts. I want to talk to a real live person, one in the flesh." Joanna L. Krotz, in a report titled "'Voice-mail jail' and other blunders of automation" for www.microsoft.com, acknowledged that "increasingly, customer care is being managed and massaged by automation." She added that more than 70 percent of midmarket companies say they plan to invest in contact center or e-mail management systems within the next two years, according to a survey from AMR Research, a Boston-based market analyst. Although automated systems may come at a cost to customers' time and nerves, they also save the company money, a savings that should filter back to clients. "There's no question that computerized services offer dramatic savings," Krotz wrote. "Typically, it costs an exorbitant $50 or more for a human agent to field a customer's call. By contrast, self-service interactions on the Web run mere pennies. In between, combinations of human agents and technologies ... cost a few bucks per call." Weiss admitted that automated voice mail isn't winning any fans. "I hate them, everybody hates them. But does it mean that, let's say, the bank having them can offer me cheaper services? If it does, then it's a trade-off. Life is full of trade-offs. This is just one of them." Interpreting the survey We began with a poll that says a majority of us are ticked off about the time ticking away as we wait for an answer. The follow-up question we asked experts is: Are the trade-offs -- such as caller ID and cheaper services -- worth the waiting game? "I think the technology has raised our expectation that we can get the information we need easier and sooner," Thompson said. "Like the automobile has raised our expectation that we can commute from Harmar Township to Smithfield Street in 25 minutes. Since we can't do it, because we spend 20 minutes trying to get through the traffic light at Route 28 and the 31st Street Bridge, we vent our frustration on the technology in some survey." If the survey implies that things are worse than they used to be, then it's giving a false impression, Thompson said. "I don't want to appear defensive about telecom technology, but what did we do before we had voice mail and e-mail? That was a different time, when we all weren't so frantic, so it's hard to make an A-B comparison." The survey reminded Pitt's Weiss of a time when caller ID was a case for the Federal Communications Commissions and the courts. "Back around the late '80s, early '90s, one of the big debates was whether caller ID should be allowed at all because of privacy issues," he said. "Some 15 years later, it's become ubiquitous," he said. "And where before we were complaining about privacy invasion ... now we have it and people are taking advantage of it. You can't have it both ways." Liz Raphael Helegesen, 41, who records messages for corporate America's voice mail systems, screens calls with caller ID and says she returns all voice mails. "When I'm on the other line, in a conference, in a recording session, parenting or eating a meal, it would be inappropriate to interrupt an existing conversation, meeting or family time to take a phone call," she said. To Helegesen, caller ID is an important tool. "People rely on caller ID because they don't want to talk to you," said Jeff Kagan, a national telecommunications analyst in Atlanta. Added management consultant April Callis of Lansing, Mich.: People use voice mail "to collect calls they don't want to deal with and don't plan on returning." Weiss quotes an article that he thinks sums it up when he said caller ID and other telecom tools are "a way of defending ourselves from the information onslaught, and I think that's true." The future, he adds, is bound to include more intelligent screening devices as the onslaught of information continues unabated. "I think we'll see a lot of different techniques for helping us cope," Weiss said. But that doesn't mean we'll see an end to complaints. (Bill Hendrick of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Post-Gazette staff writer L.A. Johnson contributed to this story. Copyright 1997-2005 PG Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights Reserved. ------------------------------ 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) RSS Syndication of TELECOM Digest: http://telecom-digest.org/rss.html For syndication examples see http://www.feedrollpro.com/syndicate.php?id=308 and also http://feeds.feedburner.com/TelecomDigest ************************************************************************* * 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 #314 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Jul 9 19:18:31 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id C1A2215086; Sat, 9 Jul 2005 19:18:30 -0400 (EDT) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #315 Message-Id: <20050709231830.C1A2215086@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2005 19:18:30 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-1.7 required=2.0 tests=BAYES_00,MSGID_FROM_MTA_SHORT autolearn=no version=2.63 X-Spam-Level: Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sat, 9 Jul 2005 19:18:00 EDT Volume 24 : Issue 315 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Online Data Gets Personal: Cell Phone Records For Sale (Jon Krim) Google Wins in 'Typosquatting' Dispute (Michael Liedtke) Florida Man Charged For Stealing Wi-Fi (Monty Solomon) Amid Crisis, Phones Jammed, But Text Messages Worked (Monty Solomon) June Commentary on Cellular Providers Features (Kelly Daniels) F-MMS Forum Defines New Directions And Broadens Its Scope (PRN) Verizon VOIP Questions (snow) Re: Google Earth Thrills With Photos, Stunts, But How Practical (Tim) Re: SunRocket VOIP Comments? (burris) 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: Jonathan Krim Subject: Online Data Gets Personal: Cell Phone Records For Sale Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2005 16:25:16 -0500 http://washingtonpost.com By Jonathan Krim Washington Post Staff Writer They're not just after your credit card or Social Security numbers. Fueled by the ease of online commerce, snoops are on the trail of other personal information, too. One of the hottest markets: records of phone calls, especially from cell phones. A tool long used by law enforcement and private investigators to help locate criminals or debt-skippers, phone records are a part of the sea of personal data routinely bought and sold online in an Internet-driven, I-can-find-out-anything-about-you world. Legal experts say many of the methods for acquiring such information are illegal, but they receive scant attention from authorities. Think your mate is cheating? For $110, Locatecell.com will provide you with the outgoing calls from his or her cell phone for the last billing cycle, up to 100 calls. All you need to supply is the name, address and the number for the phone you want to trace. Order online, and get results within hours. Carlos F. Anderson, a licensed private investigator in Florida, offers a similar service for $165, for all major telephone carriers. "This report provides all the calls with dates, times, and duration on the billing statement," according to Anderson's Web site, which adds, "Incoming Calls and Call Location are provided if available." Learning who someone talked to on the phone cannot enable the kind of financial fraud made easier when a Social Security or credit card number is purloined. Instead, privacy advocates say, the intrusion is more personal. "This is a person's associations," said Daniel J. Solove, a George Washington University Law School professor who specializes in privacy issues. "Who their physicians are, are they seeing a psychiatrist, companies they do business with ... it's a real wealth of data to find out the people that a person interacts with." Such records could be used by criminals, such as stalkers or abusive spouses trying to find victims. Unlike Social Security numbers, which are on many public documents that have been scooped up for years by data brokers, the only repository of telephone call records is the phone companies. Wireless carriers say they are aware that unauthorized people seek to get their customers' call records and sell them, but the companies say they take steps to prevent it. "There are probably 100 such sites" known to security officials at Verizon Wireless that offer to sell phone records, said Jeffrey Nelson, a company spokesman, who said Verizon is always trying to respond to abusive practices. He said that the company views all such activity as illegal and that "we have historically, and will continue to, change policies to reflect the changing nature of criminal activity," though he declined to be specific. Mark Siegel, a spokesman for Cingular Wireless, said his company constantly is on guard against people trying to get at customer information. But he called the acquisition of call records "an infinitesimally small problem" at his firm. Some experts in the field aren't so sure. "Information security by carriers to protect customer records is practically nonexistent and is routinely defeated," said Robert Douglas, a former private investigator and now a privacy consultant who has tracked the issue for several years. Experts say data brokers and private investigators who offer cell phone records for sale probably get them using one of three techniques. They might have someone on the inside at the carrier who sells the data. Spokesmen for the telephone companies said strict rules prohibiting such activity make this unlikely. But Joel Winston, associate director of the Federal Trade Commission's Financial Practices Division, said other types of data-theft investigations have shown that "finding someone on the inside to bribe is not that difficult." Another method is "pretexting," in which the data broker or investigator pretends to be the cell phone account holder and persuades the carrier's employees to release the information. The availability of Social Security numbers makes it easier to convince a customer service agent that the caller is the account holder. Finally, someone seeking call data can try to get access to consumer accounts online. Telephone companies, like other service firms, are encouraging their customers to manage their accounts over the Internet. Typically, the online capability is set up in advance, waiting to be activated by the customer. But many customers never do. If the person seeking the records can figure out how to activate online account management in the name of a real customer before that customer does, the call records are there for the taking. Federal law expressly prohibits pretexting for financial data -- which at one time was a primary means of stealing credit card and other account information -- but does not cover telephone records, which are covered by a patchwork of state and federal laws governing access to personal information. Some privacy advocates argue that the federal pretexting law needs to be broadened. At the very least, "there need to be audit trails to detect employee access to this personal information and a data retention schedule that mandates deletion of records" after a certain period of time, said Chris Jay Hoofnagle, West Coast director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. The center filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission yesterday against one data broker, Intelligent e-Commerce Inc. of Encinitas, Calif., saying it misrepresented its right to obtain the information. The firm, which operates the Web site http://www.bestpeoplesearch.com , advertises a variety of personal data for sale, including cell phone records. The company, which says on its Web site that it uses a licensed private investigator to get the information, said through its lawyer that it seeks to comply with all local, state and federal laws. Attorney Larry Slade said he does not know how the company acquires the phone records. Phone companies view all these tactics as illegal, even if they are used to help track down criminal activity. Instead, carriers say, they require court orders before releasing customer records. If someone uses pretexting to gain access to records, "these people are acting criminally, posing as someone they are not," Nelson said. He added that Verizon is preparing legal action against one data provider. The FTC views pretexting as a deceptive practice even without a specific ban on its use for telephone records, Winston said. But he said the agency has never taken such a case to court and does not know how widespread the problem is. He said the FTC must focus its resources on the practices of data thieves that can cause the most damage to large numbers of consumers, such as financial fraud. Many of the vendors of call records are unregulated data brokers, such as Data Find Solutions Inc. of Knoxville, Tenn., which operates Locatecell.com. Company officials did not return calls seeking comment. At the Florida office of private investigator Anderson, a man who answered the phone and identified himself only as Mike said, "I don't really think we're going to reveal our sources" of phone records. "There's a lot of ways of doing it." At Reliatrace Locate Services of Wisconsin, a man who declined to give his name said only that his firm buys the data from another firm. There is active debate within the private investigator community about the propriety of getting phone records. In at least one online discussion group for the industry, some members defended the practice as legitimate while others said it was illegal, according to transcripts provided to The Washington Post. "I do not know of any legal way to obtain a person's telephonic history," Robert Townsend, head of the National Association of Legal Investigators, said in an interview. Townsend added that he thinks only a small minority of licensed investigators engage in the practice of acquiring and selling the data. Copyright 2005 The Washington Post 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: Michael Liedtke Subject: Google Wins Typosquatting Dispute Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2005 16:56:14 -0500 By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer An Internet arbitrator has awarded Google Inc. the rights to several Web site addresses that relied on typographical errors to exploit the online search engine's popularity so computer viruses and other malicious software could be unleashed on unsuspecting visitors. The National Arbitration Forum, a legal alternate to litigating in court, sided with a Google complaint alleging that Sergey Gridasov of St. Petersburg, Russia, had engaged in "typosquatting" by operating Web sites named googkle.com, ghoogle.com and gooigle.com. After former Stanford University graduate students incorporated the search engine in September 1998, Google registered its domain name a year later. Gridasov registered his Web sites in December 2000 and January 2001, according to Google's complaint. In a decision made earlier this week, arbitrator Paul A. Dorf, endorsed Google's contention that the misspelled addresses were part of a sinister plot to infect computers with programs - known as "malware" - that can lead to recurring system crashes, wipe out valuable data or provide a window into highly sensitive information. Gridasov didn't respond to Google's complaint, filed May 11, meaning the arbitrator could accept all reasonable allegations as true. The Associated Press sent an e-mail Friday to the address that Gridasov listed when he registered his Web sites. The response, which wasn't signed by Gridasov, acknowledged the misspelled names were adopted to attract more visitors, but said there hadn't been any complaints until the sites began posting code from another company, which assured it wouldn't cause any trouble. F-Secure, a Finnish company specializing in identifying malware, identified googkle.com as a troublemaker in an advisory posted April 26 -- nearly three weeks before Mountain View-based Google filed its complaint. Trying to piggyback on the popularity of a heavily trafficked Web site isn't new. For instance, the address Whitehouse.com used to display ads for pornography was a surprise for Web surfers looking for Whitehouse.gov, the president's official online channel. Whitehouse.com now operates as a private Web site that sells access to public records. Google's brand ranks among the most trusted on the Internet and its Web site attracts more than 66 million unique monthly visitors, making it an inviting target for scheming opportunists. On The Net: http://www.google.com 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. See all Associated Press headlines and stories at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html No login or registration requirements. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2005 12:43:33 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Florida Man Charged For Stealing Wi-Fi Wi-Fi cloaks a new breed of intruder http://www.sptimes.com/2005/07/04/State/Wi_Fi_cloaks_a_new_br.shtml Florida Man Charged For Stealing Wi-Fi http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/07/1351258 Florida case raises questions about Wi-Fi mooching http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-5778822.html FAQ: Wi-Fi mooching and the law http://news.com.com/2100-7351-5778822.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2005 19:22:08 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Amid Crisis, Phones Jammed, But Text Messages Worked By DIONNE SEARCEY, SARMAD ALI and ALMAR LATOUR Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Like many London residents, when Marianne Dunn heard about the bomb attacks, she immediately tried to call colleagues on their cellphones to see if they were all right. But all the computer trainer got were busy signals. Then Ms. Dunn heard on the radio that authorities advised people to use text messages via cellphones in lieu of calls. "I got the message through using text," she said. A sudden surge of voice traffic following yesterday's attacks overloaded many British cellphone networks for at least three hours. The calling volume was so high that even parts of the landline networks were congested: The network of BT Group PLC, the largest U.K. landline operator, experienced disruption, as did that of Cable & Wireless PLC, another large phone company. Several newer communication tools appeared to hold up better, including text messages sent via cellphone keypads, wireless email and instant messaging sent over computers. And some state-of-the-art, "third-generation" cellphone networks, which are equipped to send and receive video images and music as well as calls, also continued working. Some customers even recorded images of the bomb damage on their cellphone cameras and sent them to media outlets. The communications problems indicate that, at least in Britain, cellphone-system operators may not have learned many lessons from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S. And landline networks, which previously were thought to be more robust, also face challenges. After the World Trade Center attacks, landline phones generally held up in New York, though there were some congestion problems, while cellphone networks were clogged. http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB112077406111780071-h53OpBx5tN92js2XzLVusfCU43w_20060708,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 09 Jul 2005 10:51:27 -0700 From: Kelly Daniels Reply-To: telco@teleport.c