From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 4 00:08:44 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 7EBC114DA4; Fri, 4 Nov 2005 00:08:44 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #501 Message-Id: <20051104050844.7EBC114DA4@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 00:08:44 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.0 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, NO_COST autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 3 Nov 2005 23:58:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 501 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Botmaster Charged in Unique Computer Crime (Dan Whitcomb) MIT Wireless Network Tracks Info on Users (Brooke Donald) Mesh Networks: New Options For Wireless Users (Mark Long) Mystery Object: Supermassive Black Holes? (Peter N. Spotts, CS Monitor) Re: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far (Jim Haynes) Re: Verizon FIOS, DSL, and Possible Cancellation Fees (jeremyeastburn) Re: Recorded Call From Law Office? (Carl Moore) Re: Do We Go Overboard for Halloween? (John McHarry) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dan Whitcomb Subject: Botmaster Charged in Unique Computer Crime Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 21:03:23 -0600 By Dan Whitcomb A 20-year-old man accused of using thousands of hijacked computers, or "bot nets," to damage systems and send massive amounts of spam across the Internet was arrested on Thursday in what authorities called the first such prosecution of its kind. Jeanson James Ancheta, who prosecutors say was a well-known member of the "Botmaster Underground" -- or the secret network of computer hackers skilled at bot attacks -- was taken into custody after being lured to FBI offices in Los Angeles, said U.S. Attorney's spokesman Thom Mrozek. A bot is a program that surreptitiously installs itself on a computer and allows the hacker to control the computer. A bot net is a network of such robot computers, which can harness their collective power to do considerable damage or send out huge quantities of spam. Mrozek said the prosecution was unique because, unlike in previous cases, Ancheta was accused of profiting from his attacks -- by selling access to his "bot nets" to other hackers and planting adware -- software that causes ads to pop up -- into infected computers. "Normally what we see in these cases, where people set up these bot systems to do, say, denial of service attacks, they are not doing it for profit, they are doing it for bragging rights," he said. "This is the first case in the nation that we're aware of where the guy was using various bot nets in order to make money for himself." Ancheta has been indicted on a 17-count federal indictment that charges him with conspiracy, attempted transmission of code to a protected computer, transmission of code to a government computer, accessing a protected computer to commit fraud and money laundering. Ancheta, who was expected to make an initial court appearance late on Thursday or Friday, faces a maximum term of 50 years in prison if convicted on all counts, though federal sentencing guidelines typically call for lesser penalties. Prosecutors did not name the companies that they said paid Ancheta and said the firms did not know any laws were broken. Mrozek said Ancheta, who lives in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, was thought to have made nearly $60,000 from the planted adware, using the money to pay for servers to carry out additional attacks, computer equipment and a BMW. He said Ancheta was taken into custody after FBI agents called him into their offices to pick up computer equipment that had been seized in an earlier raid. Among the computers he attacked, Mrozek said, were some at the Weapons Division of the U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California and at the U.S. Department of Defense. 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: Brooke Donald Subject: MIT Wireless Network Tracks Info on Users Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 21:04:29 -0600 By BROOKE DONALD, Associated Press Writer In another time and place, college students wondering whether the campus cafe has any free seats, or their favorite corner of the library is occupied, would have to risk hoofing it over there. But for today's student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, that kind of information is all just a click away. MIT's newly upgraded wireless network -- extended this month to cover the entire school -- doesn't merely get you online in study halls, stairwells or any other spot on the 9.4 million square foot campus. It also provides information on exactly how many people are logged on at any given location at any given time. It even reveals a user's identity if the individual has opted to make that data public. MIT researchers did this by developing electronic maps that track across campus, day and night, the devices people use to connect to the network, whether they're laptops, wireless PDAs or even Wi-Fi equipped cell phones. The maps were unveiled this week at the MIT Museum, where they are projected onto large Plexiglas rectangles that hang from the ceiling. They are also available online to network users, the data time-stamped and saved for up to 12 hours. Red splotches on one map show the highest concentration of wireless users on campus. On another map, yellow dots with names written above them identify individual users, who pop up in different places depending where they're logged in. "With these maps, you can see down to the room on campus how many people are logged on," said Carlo Ratti, director of the school's SENSEable City Laboratory, which created the maps. "You can even watch someone go from room to room if they have a handheld device that's connected." Researchers use log files from the university's Internet service provider to construct the maps. The files indicate the number of users connected to each of MIT's more than 2,800 access points. The map that can pinpoint locations in rooms is 3-D, so researchers can even distinguish connectivity in multistoried buildings. "Laptops and Wi-Fi are creating a revolutionary change in the way people work," Ratti said. The maps aim to "visualize these changes by monitoring the traffic on the wireless network and showing how people move around campus." Some of the results so far aren't terribly surprising for students at the vanguard of tech innovation. The maps show, for example, that the bulk of wireless users late at night and very early in the morning are logged on from their dorms. During the day, the higher concentration of users shifts to classrooms. But researchers also found that study labs that once bustled with students are now nearly empty as people, no longer tethered to a phone line or network cable, move to cafes and nearby lounges, where food and comfy chairs are more inviting. Researchers say this data can be used to better understand how wireless technology is changing campus life, and what that means for planning spaces and administering services. The question has become, Ratti said, "If I can work anywhere, where do I want to work?" "Many cities, including Philadelphia, are planning to go wireless. Something like our study will help them understand usage patterns and where best to invest," said researcher Andres Sevtsuk. Sevtsuk likened the mapping project to a real-time census. "Instead of waiting every year or every 10 years for data, you have new information every 15 minutes or so about the population of the campus," he said. While every device connected to the campus network via Wi-Fi is visible on the constantly refreshed electronic maps, the identity of the users is confidential unless they volunteer to make it public. Those students, faculty and staff who opt in are essentially agreeing to let others track them. "This raises some serious privacy issues," Ratti said. "But where better than to work these concerns out but on a research campus?" Rich Pell, a 21-year-old electrical engineering senior from Spartanburg, S.C., was less than enthusiastic about the new system's potential for people monitoring. He predicted not many fellow students would opt into that. "I wouldn't want all my friends and professors tracking me all the time. I like my privacy," he said. "I can't think of anyone who would think that's a good idea. Everyone wants to be out of contact now and then." On the Net: http://ispots.mit.edu/ http://senseable.mit.edu/ 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. For more news from Associated Press please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ From: Mark Long Subject: Mesh Networks: New Options for Wireless Users Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 21:05:39 -0600 by Mark Long, newsfactor.com The race has begun to make wireless networks more viable for cities, large corporate headquarters, university campuses, and other environments where the technology used in today's Wi-Fi hotspots might be insufficient on its own. Several companies -- including tech giant Motorola and smaller shops such as Firetide, Tropos Networks, BelAir Networks, and Strix Systems -- have been pursuing a wireless broadband network strategy, known as 'mesh,' to help extend the reach of wireless networks. The ingenious technology works in such a way that users who are out of range of an Internet-access point do not need a dedicated connection of their own. Instead, they can piggyback their Internet requests on devices scattered around a geographic location. These devices relay the requests back to the central connection. In theory, long chains of such devices can provide Internet connectivity far from the actual access point. Mesh Backbone One company leading the way in the march to mesh, SkyPilot Networks in Santa Clara, California, is applying the technology to serve both residential broadband customers and city workers. "We are the only company thus far to use the same mesh backbone infrastructure to provide both broadband Ethernet access and Wi-Fi," said SkyPilot CEO Bob Machlin. He said that such a network can scale to all kinds of distances and capacities, and that having a single integrated network makes it easier to manage the system as well as to maintain quality of service. "Today it is very easy to do a Google search on the term 'metro Wi-Fi' and come up with list of a thousand projects out there," Machlin said. "They range from connectivity for public employees to ones that add on free public service and public safety connectivity from fire to police." At least one Internet service provider (ISP), however, is sold on the mesh-networks idea. MetroFi in Mountain View, California, now offers residential customers in both Cupertino and Santa Clara Wi-Fi services for which SkyPilot provided the components. "The deployments cover 20 square miles and use 25 SkyPilot mesh infrastructure nodes per square mile," said MetroFi CEO Chuck Haas. "And our service is available today for $19.95, or about half the cost of subscribing to DSL or cable." Community Coverage Another benefit of MetroFi's new service is that subscribers can access the system using a laptop from anywhere within the community's coverage area. Although the company does not offer public-safety communications in Cupertino or Santa Clara, Haas said MetroFi is talking with other California communities about providing cities with such networks under an 'all-in' pricing of $50,000 per square mile, inclusive of site surveys, network design, equipment, and installation. Beyond its potential metropolitan-wide applications, SkyPilot's technology has facilitated the rollout of broadband services in rural environments where DSL and cable providers fear to tread. Larry Bowman, a partner at SkyWest Broadband, has deployed SkyPilot's technology to cover residential customers in Grass Valley, California, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Bowman said that SkyPilot's mesh-routing technology allows the packets of data that compose all Internet uploads and downloads to take several paths in order to get from Point A to Point B. As a result, his network's data travels automatically around hills, buildings, or dense foliage. Wireless Heroes 'The way the system works is that you have one main antenna, which SkyPilot calls the Sky-Gateway,' Bowman said. 'Reaching out from there are the extenders that gather the information and forward it on to the main antenna. In fact, I am standing on the top of a hill as we speak, installing an extender in order to get into a valley that cannot reach the main gateway directly.' The third essential piece of the system is the hardware installed at each subscriber's residence, which SkyPilot calls the Sky-Connector. 'It has an antenna and mounts somewhere on or near the home, and is connected to a wireless router within the home or to an Ethernet card installed in a computer,' Bowman said. Bowman estimated that with the single Sky-Gateway that he and his partners have in place, and with enough strategically placed Sky-Extenders, SkyWest eventually could serve as many as 500 rural subscribers in Grass Valley. With Internet access service priced at $45 per month, SkyWest expects to begin turning a profit within six months. "There's a local housing community where we have almost 100 percent penetration already," Bowman said. "We're their heroes." Mesh Implications "Because it features the ability to allow traffic to be routed around problem points, mesh gives certain advantages," said Yankee Group senior analyst Lindsay Schroth. "Due to its self-sealing capabilities, you don't have to have [a dedicated connection between access points]." The value is in instances in which mesh 'will definitely make sense from the viewpoint of broader availability,' said Schroth. "For example, when the city of San Francisco talks about providing public access, the set-up will not be purely Wi-Fi," she said. Rather, it will incorporate what SkyPilot has been talking about doing. But the application of mesh technology might not be the best design in every case, Schroth added. Even so, laptop manufacturers and software developers are beginning to eye mesh technology as a way to create mobile Wi-Fi networks even without having to place dedicated devices around a geographic area. One company, PacketHop, recently released software, called TrueMesh, that gives Windows XP laptops the ability to route wireless data is if they were dedicated access points. If the technology were distributed by a major laptop vendor, such as Dell or Hewlett-Packard, mobile users might never be out of range of a wireless connection. 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, News Factor Network, Inc. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Peter N. Spotts Subject: Mystery Object: Supermassive Black Hole? Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 21:16:07 -0600 from the November 04, 2005 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1104/p02s01-stss.html A step closer to identifying that monster in the Milky Way Mystery object is smaller than once thought - and incredibly dense. Might it be an actual supermassive black hole? By Peter N. Spotts | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor Astronomers have taken the measure of a monster lurking at the center of the Milky Way. It's not as big as astronomers once thought. But its incredible density throws more weight behind the idea that it's a supermassive black hole, not some oddball collection of other exotic objects. The research brings astronomers a step closer to capturing images of the edge, or "event horizon," of a black hole -- which scientists say would be the "smoking gun" that proves such entities exist. Once that horizon is crossed, anything falling in -- including light -- will never come out. Supermassive black holes are enormous concentrations of matter confined to relatively tiny spaces in the centers of most galaxies. They are the oversized cousins of stellar black holes, which can form after stars at least 10 times as massive as the sun burn out and collapse. These smaller black holes tend to be 18 or 19 miles across. To produce the new results, astronomers aimed a continentwide network of radio telescopes at a source of radio emissions at the center of the galaxy, in the constellation Sagittarius. The source is an object 4 million times more massive than the sun. But the object apparently does not take up much space as previous measurements had indicated, the new results show. Instead of filling a patch of space as wide as the solar system, or even as wide as Earth's full orbit around the sun, the object is smaller than the distance between the Earth and sun, or 1 astronomical unit. Given estimates of its mass and its incredible shrinking volume, calculations of its density are going through the roof. By closing in on the object's true size, "we're getting tantalizingly close to being able to see an unmistakable signature ... of a supermassive black hole," notes Zhi-Qiang Shen of the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who led a team from China, the US, and Taiwan. Its results appear in the current issue of the journal Nature. What would that signature look like? Most likely, it would appear as a black circle, surrounded by a thin, bright line, astronomers say. This thin line of radiation actually would come from objects behind the black hole. But a process called gravitational lensing would focus the radiation around the black hole. Moreover, the black hole would likely appear off-center inside its thin halo -- an effect traced to its rotation. Solving the mystery at the heart of the Milky Way is important, astronomers say, because supermassive black holes are thought to lie at the center of most galaxies. Knowing more about the one in the Milky Way -- if that's really what it is -- will help astronomers understand the role these objects play in other galactic cores. Until the smoking gun is spotted, notes University of Maryland astrophysicist Christopher Reynolds, the object could be something more bizarre and still fall within the confines of standard physics. One possibility, although remote, is what he calls a "boson star," made up of particles associated with the fundamental forces of nature. Such a star could have the size and mass characteristics of the object at the heart of the Milky Way. "There are other families of particles out there that can form massive compact objects," says Dr. Reynolds. New instruments expected to be developed over the next decade should help astronomers sift the right answers from the wrong ones, he says. Copyright 2005 The Christian Science Monitor. 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, The Christian Science Publishing Society. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Read the Christian Science Monitor and the New York Times on line at no charge each day at: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/nytimes.html ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Thu, 03 Nov 2005 22:21:00 GMT It's ironic that it is Sony, since Sony was on the other side in the famous VCR case. "Sony" is a lawyerly nickname for the case in which the movie and TV industries sued to have VCRs outlawed because they could be used to violate copyright law. The Supreme Court found in favor of the VCR industry because there are substantial non-infringing uses of the machines. jhhaynes at earthlink dot net ------------------------------ From: jeremyeastburn@gmail.com Subject: Re: Verizon FIOS, DSL, and Possible Cancellation Fees Date: 3 Nov 2005 14:29:28 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Correct, both Verizon. And I just ordered FIOS yesterday (5down/2up) and they waived the cancellation fee AND they gave me $10/month off for 12 months! I can't wait, thanks. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2005 14:43:06 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: Recorded Call From Law Office? I did hear a complete number but did not write it down. (Just in case the record needs to be straightened out.) ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Do We Go Overboard for Halloween? Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 03:25:40 GMT On Wed, 26 Oct 2005 12:02:33 -0700, hancock4 wrote: > A society communications question: > I've noticed that Halloween seems to have grown substantially in > importance as a holiday. Years ago it was one night -- -kids went > around and collected candy, maybe a few adults had a costume party. > But in more recent years it seems to rival Christmas as a major > holiday. When I was a child in central IL in the 50s, early 60s, it seems it was a childrens' affair, but it did last for several days. The town claimed a population 4400, which has declined since, and a lot or kids canvassed the entire town. I recall that a friend and I tipped over the last two remaining outhouses in town. One collapsed, and the other was demolished and removed by the owners. There was also a fair amount of soaping and paraffining of windows, though not much other vandalism. The general idea was to commit a prank, not wanton destruction. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The worst thing I ever think I did as a child on Halloween was go with some friends to the State-Lake Theatre in downtown Chicago. We set off a couple of 'stink bombs' in the middle the movie. My friends had some sort of acid (sulphuric perhaps) which created very much a 'rotten egg' odor, then we got out of the theatre before the stench had permeaeted the entire place. I recall they had to evacuate the theatre and it was closed for a couple days while the carpet was replaced where we had done it. Other than that, our other favorite prank (good at Halloween or any time of the year) was called 'stall the trolley bus.' Lawrence Avenue (and many other east/west streets on the north side of Chicago had trolley bus service provided by CTA. Unlike a streetcar, which uses an overhead catenary pole and wire, but runs on actual rails (CTA had lots of those also), a trolley bus used the catenary and overhead wire but ran on rubber tires. We would gather at a relatively busy inter- section, Lawrence and Western Avenues. The trolley would invariably stop there to pick up or drop off riders. The object was to wait behind the vehicle until just one or two seconds after the driver started to pull away. Then one of my friends would run up behind the trolley and yank down the catenary pole. Obviously, the trolley came to a dead stop. But if we were 'lucky' the driver had just accelerated enough to coast into the center of the street as he was stalling. This had the effect of causing the north/south traffic on Western Avenue to get stalled also. Timed just right, we could cause it to happen just as Western got a green light to cause an even longer backup of cars. Getting the trolley stuck in the middle of Western Avenue was our goal. One day the Western Avenue streetcar was coming north, so _he_ got stalled as well. The trolley driver would get off the tolley with an angry look around and muttering about 'the little bastards who did this'. Around behind the trolley, trying to raise the catenary pole back into place, all the while the stop/go light had changed twice so now cars on Lawrence were trying to make it through the intersection as well as the ones on Western Avenue, everyone laying on their horns and getting nowhere fast. The trolley guy (apparently sort of new) was having a very hard time getting the catenary to stay up, and the Western Avenue streetcar guy came over to help him and show him how to do it. Those guys -- CTA trolley and street car drivers -- could have cared less about the other traffic on both directions all around them; they stood out there in the street talking about it all the while the 'little bastards' had run off to hide, and watch in secret, as they convulsed with laughter. They finally got the trolley catenary re-established, all the while motorists in all directions were creeping past them, honking and cussing them. After four or five minutes, and as many cycles of the stop/go lights, and the passengers on both the trolley and streetcar sitting inside nonchalantly reading their newspapers, oblivious one would think to the commotions around them on the street, trolley was reconnected, the driver got back inside and pulled away, then the streetcar driver got back on his vehicle and drove away. Another minute or two after that and the intersection was back to 'normal'. That was our idea of Halloween 'fun'. Plus of course, soaping things and tossing rolls of toilet paper around everywhere. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. 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End of TELECOM Digest V24 #501 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 4 14:35:19 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id AA89E14F90; Fri, 4 Nov 2005 14:35:18 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #502 Message-Id: <20051104193518.AA89E14F90@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 14:35:18 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.9 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR,NA_DOLLARS autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: R TELECOM Digest Fri, 4 Nov 2005 14:35:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 502 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Hollywood Offers to Cut a Deal With Grandpa Getting Sued (jsonline) Re: Grandpa Gets Sued Over Grandson's Downloads From Net (David Clayton) Cable Companies, Sprint Join Forces (John C. Roper) Amazon to Sell Digital Books in Google Challenge (Alexandria Sage) Libya Puts Blogger in Prison (Jasper Mortimer) Internet Community Organizations at World Summit (Peter Godwin) Replacement for Siemens Gigaset (rlittle@thetasoft.com) Cellular-News for Friday 4th November 2005 (Cellular-News) Bell System/Western Electric Apparatus Help? (Michael Muderick) With O2 Deal, Telefonica Expands Into Uncharted Areas (USTA DailyLead) Telecom Update #504 (Canada) (jriddel) Re: Recorded Call From Law Office? (Clark W. Griswold, Jr.) 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: Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal Subject: Hollywood Offers to Cut a Deal With Grandpa Getting Sued Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 11:07:51 -0600 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You may recall our main story in yesterday's issue of the Digest was about a man being sued on account of some movies downloaded onto computer by his 12-year old grandson. The stink got pretty awful, so MPAA contacted grandpa on the phone late Wednesday and offered what they termed a 'generous offer'. PAT] A man sued by the film industry after his teen grandson downloaded four movies on the family's computer has been offered a chance to settle the case by paying $4,000 in installments. The Motion Picture Association of America filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against Fred Lawrence of Racine, seeking as much as $600,000 in damages for downloading four movies over the Internet file-sharing service iMesh. An attorney for the Motion Picture Association of America called Lawrence late Wednesday, telling him the lawsuit would be dropped if he paid $4,000, Lawrence said. The MPAA said it would let Lawrence pay the amount in monthly payments over a year to 18 months, he said. The deal is about the same one offered Lawrence in March, which he ignored, except it allows him to pay in installments. "I don't want to sound like a smart aleck, but $4,000 might as well be a $1 million," Lawrence said. "We are budgeted. We have a fixed income. I don't have even an extra $250 a month." Lawrence, a former employee of Snap-on Inc. and seasonal worker for the City of Racine, said he is still trying to find an attorney to defend him in the suit. Lawrence said he didn't even know what file sharing was. Lawrence was one of several people the MPAA contacted this year who were offered an out-of-court settlement. Those who declined or didn't respond including Lawrence, now face individual lawsuits. A message left at the association Friday by The Associated Press was not immediately returned. Information from: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, http://www.jsonline.com Copyright 2005 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. ------------------------------ From: David Clayton Subject: Re: Grandpa Gets Sued Over Grandson's Downloads From Net Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 14:06:47 +1100 On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 20:02:21 -0600, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal wrote: ...... > Illegal downloading costs the movie industry an estimated $5.4 billion a > year, she said. ...... Yep, you can guarantee that every illegally downloaded movie/song etc. directly results in lost revenue, because those naughty people would have paid for it anyway ... not! Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@XYZ.myrealbox.com Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. (Remove the "XYZ." to reply) Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have. ------------------------------ From: John C. Roper Subject: Cable Companies, Sprint Join Forces Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 10:39:55 -0600 TV, telephone services are ready for strategic fight to sign customers By JOHN C. ROPER Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle The nation's leading cable TV companies have banded with Sprint-Nextel to offer cell phone service and in doing so upped the ante in their heated competition with the traditional phone companies. The cable companies -- Time Warner Cable, which serves the Houston area, Comcast, Cox Communications and Advance/Newhouse Communications -- say the deal will allow them to package television, Internet and wireless services to consumers by early 2006. Doing so will allow them to keep pace with telephone companies like SBC and Verizon, which have Internet, telephone and cellular offerings and plan to sell advanced television services in the near future. SBC, along with BellSouth, owns Cingular Wireless. "Both the telephone companies and the cable industry are gearing up to go to battle with each other," said Jeff Kagan, an independent telecom analyst based in Atlanta. Kagan said the move signals the beginning of a major transformation of the industry where the phone and cable companies will be truly competitive in selling multiple services packaged together at discount prices. The cable companies are already well entrenched into a technology that provides telephone service through the Internet called Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP. The long-expected deal requires the cable companies to invest a combined $100 million in the joint venture, with Sprint pitching in $100 million as well. The investments will be used to converge telecommunications services. The companies say they will be able to reach 75 million homes. "Cable is fundamentally a local business and our competitors are much larger in geographic scope," said Glenn Britt, chairman and CEO of Time Warner Cable. "Many of them are national, and our ability to work together with Sprint is really important to enable us to compete." Services converge The move goes well beyond simply tying traditional cell phone service to the other offerings of the cable companies. The plan is to converge the cell phone with the services offered by the cable companies. For example, consumers could use a cell phone to easily program digital video recorders while away from home or even use it to watch television programing. Gary Forsee, president and CEO of Sprint-Nextel, said doing so will make its cell phones "an indispensable third screen in customer's lives." Market still a question Analysts said it was unclear whether most consumers would be ready or even interested in using their cell phones for things other than carrying on conversations. "At the end of the day, most people still just want to talk on their cell phone," said Julie Ask, who follows the wireless industry for Jupiter Research. "There are very few people who want to download music or do these types of broadband-type activities." Ask said consumers choose their cell phone provider in standard ways. "The way people make decisions about cell phones is still about cheap minutes, good coverage at home and a free handset," Ask said. Still, the partnership gives Sprint-Nextel more opportunities to sell its services. Starting early next year, consumers will be able to go to Sprint retail stores, RadioShack and to outlets operated by the cable companies to sign up for any of the services. The cable companies, including Time Warner, plan to have all of the services on a single bill if they are purchased along with some of their own services. Bills would remain the same for customers who only subscribe to Sprint-Nextel services. Too early to talk prices The companies said it was too early to discuss pricing, other than to say discounts would be offered for bundling services. Both the phone and cable companies believe consumers will be reluctant to switch companies -- called "churn" -- if they are tied down to multiple services. "The more products and services you add to the bundle, the lower the churn rate is," said Jim Robbins, president and CEO of Cox Communications, adding that the Sprint-Nextel deal will mean that "more of them are going to stay with us." john.roper@chron.com This article is: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3434695 ------------------------------ From: Alexandria Sage Subject: Amazon to Sell Digital Books in Google Challenge Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 11:04:02 -0600 By Alexandria Sage Amazon.com on Thursday said it would let readers buy digital pages, chapters and entire books through two plans that present a broad challenge to a controversial strategy of Google Inc. Amazon pioneered the ability to search inside books on the Web, but Internet search engine Google has attracted more attention recently with its plan to copy contents of several libraries, drawing fire from publishers who see it as a violation of copyright. The Amazon Pages program, in coordination with publishers, lets users buy Internet access to either a page, chapter or the entirety of a book, while a second program, Amazon Upgrade, gives online access to a work that the consumer buys in physical form for an extra fee. "We believe that over time this could turn into a significant business for Amazon, significant revenue stream for publishers and authors and a helpful customer service for readers," said Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, who said the programs would launch sometime next year. Bezos declined to comment on Google's program. Amazon immediately drew praise from the book industry. The president of the Association of American Publishers, Patricia Schroeder, said Amazon appeared to be complying with copyright laws while Google's actions amounted to "rogue eminent domain." "If the search engines don't respect the creators, there won't be anything to search in the future because creators have to make a living too," Schroeder said. Prices for Amazon Pages would vary by publisher and potentially by book, but most would cost a few cents per page, Bezos said. He used an example in the Amazon Upgrade program of a book costing $20 and the online access another $1.99. "Ultimately for each individual book, pricing will be up to the copyright holders," Bezos said. "The copyright holders are the ones who get to make these decisions." Since readers must pay to view and download books, Amazon's programs steer clear of the controversy around Google, whose plan to scan copyrighted material in libraries has raised the ire of publishers and writers. They claim the Google Print Library program, which promises to digitize the book collections of major libraries and allow online users to see just a few lines, will set a precedent opening the door to anyone wanting to digitally duplicate books and deprive authors and publishers of revenues. Google -- whose program excludes material only from publishers who contact it to opt out -- claims it is organizing and making accessible the world's information and says the program will result in increased awareness and greater sales of the scanned books. The company unveiled on Thursday its first collection of public domain works, mostly historical and 19th century literary titles. Google also has a program, in cooperation with some publishers, that is similar to Amazon's feature allowing search inside books. Yahoo Inc. is also involved in the race over digitized content through a consortium of companies and archives, but its program only accepts copyrighted content from publishers who allow their books to be included. Amazon's Search Inside the Book program, which launched two years ago, allows readers a glimpse at select pages of text. Fifty percent of Amazon's titles available in hard copy have already been scanned in the program, Bezos said. Bezos said that besides launching the two search programs, Amazon next year would continue to roll out product categories in its international sites that are currently only found in the United States. Amazon shares closed up 2 percent on Nasdaq at $41.65. 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: Jasper Mortimer Subject: Libya Puts Blogger in Prison Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 11:05:43 -0600 By JASPER MORTIMER, Associated Press Writer Libya has sent to prison for 18 months a blogger who criticized the government on the Internet, Human Rights Watch says in a report that inspired a series of Web tributes to the dissident Friday. A Tripoli court convicted Abdel Raziq al-Mansuri of illegal possession of a handgun and sentenced him to 18 months' imprisonment on Oct. 19, the New York-based rights group said in an e-mail to The Associated Press in Cairo. "The gun charges are a ruse," said the Middle Eastern director of HRW, Sarah Leah Whitson. "The authorities went after al-Mansuri because they did not like what he wrote. Having him in prison will shut him up." Al-Mansuri, 52, was detained in Tobruk, his hometown, in January after publishing about 50 articles critical of Libyan society and government on a dissident Web site based in Britain, http://www.akhbar-libya.com, the rights group said Thursday. Libyan government officials were not available for comment Friday as the country was celebrating the Eid al-Fitr holiday that follows the holy month of Ramadan. The rights group, who visited al-Mansuri in Tripoli's Abu Selim prison on May 5, said his family published the outcome of his trial in an Oct. 27 letter to the government, media and rights organizations that condemned al-Mansuri's detention and sentence. "Such outspoken criticism is rare in Libya," said Human Rights Watch. Politics has been tightly controlled in the country since Col. Moammar Gadhafi seized power in 1969. The letter said the authorities had asked family members to denounce al-Mansuri as mentally deranged. "If defending the right to free speech, and asking for basic human rights is insane in our country, then welcome to a family that is, from its oldest to its youngest, insane," the letter said, according to Human Rights Watch. The letter added that in sentencing al-Mansuri, the court had refused to give him credit for the months in detention he had already served. The rights group said that after detaining al-Mansuri, Libyan security officials searched his home and "found an old pistol that belonged to his father." The group reported the head of the Internal Security Agency, Col. Tuhami Khaled, as denying that al-Mansuri was arrested for his Internet writings. "He was arrested because he had a gun without a license," the group quoted Khaled as telling its representatives in May. Asked why the Internal Security Agency was detaining al-Mansuri instead of the police, Khaled replied that the pistol was "a job for internal security," the group said. On Friday, the Web site http://www.akhbar-libya.com carried numerous statements of support for al-Mansuri from Libyans in exile and human rights groups. "With his courage and truthful words, Abdel Raziq managed to break the barrier of fear. He has moved from the big prison (Libya) to a smaller one," said Ahmed Masoud Al-Ghabali, a Libyan who recalled meeting al-Mansuri in Britain. The site itself said he had been arrested for writing articles that "demanded freedom of expression and denounced human rights abuses in Libya." 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. For more news headlines from Associated Press please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ From: Peter Godwin Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 15:47:12 +0100 Subject: Internet Community Organization at World Sunmit Outline Geneva, Switzerland - 4th November 2005 - Many of the Internet community organisations that enable the processes for the development and administration of the Internet will host the 'Internet Pavilion' (stand 1323) at the 'ICT 4 all' exhibition at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis, 15-19 November 2005. Organisations at the 'Internet Pavilion' will include the Internet Society (ISOC), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Number Resource Organization (NRO), the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the London Internet Exchange (LINX), the Council of European National Top level Domain Registries (CENTR) and the African ISP Association (AfrISPA). The pavilion theme is 'The Internet -- How does it work, Who makes it work'. It will offer WSIS attendees a clear understanding of the issues involved in the successful coordination of the Internet's technical infrastructure, including the importance of building on the proven success of the inclusive and established processes that have fostered its incredible growth. "Coordination and collaboration between the many organisations that play a role in Internet administration and development is vital," commented Axel Pawlik, NRO Chairman. "The industry partners hosting the 'Internet Pavilion' at WSIS will show how cooperation is fundamental to the stability of the Internet." The 'Internet Pavilion' will demonstrate how participating organizations represent the evolving needs of the global Internet community through an open, neutral, bottom-up, collaborative and inclusive multi-stakeholder framework. The specific roles of each organisation in Internet administration and coordination will be highlighted. "This is a crucial time for all those with an interest in the future of the Internet," explained Lynn St. Amour, President and CEO of the Internet Society (ISOC). "We encourage direct participation of any interested party in reinforcing the success of the existing mechanisms that have been built and driven by the Internet community." With regard to the results of the WSIS process, Ms. St. Amour asks that governments and other stakeholders remind themselves that decisions should be taken with the interests of Internet users in mind. "At the end of the day, the WSIS should protect the openness of the Internet and promote ways of facilitating access for those who wish to benefit from this incredibly valuable medium," said Ms. St. Amour. The 'Internet Pavilion' brochure can be found at: http://www.isoc.org/internetpavilion.pdf Participating groups are: The Internet Society (ISOC) is a not-for-profit membership organisation providing leadership in Internet related standards, education, and policy. For over 13 years ISOC has run international network training programs for developing countries and these have played a vital role in setting up the Internet connections and networks in virtually every country connecting to the Internet during this time. Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) http://www.ietf.org The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has provided leadership in the development of Internet standards for nearly 20 years. The IETF is a large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet. It is open to any interested individual. Number Resource Organization (NRO) http://www.nro.net Formed by the Regional Internet Registries to formalise their cooperative efforts, the Number Resource Organization exists to protect the unallocated Number Resource pool. It also promotes and protects the bottom-up policy development process, and acts as a focal point for Internet community input into the RIR system. Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) http://www.icann.org The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is an internationally organized, non-profit corporation that has responsibility for Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domain name system management, and root server system management functions. London Internet Exchange (LINX) http://www.linx.org LINX is a mutual, not-for-profit organisation, which connects the networks of Content Delivery and Internet Service Providers so that traffic may flow more efficiently between them. Council of European National Top level domain Registries (CENTR) http://www.centr.org The Council of European National Top-Level-Domain Registries, CENTR, is an association of Internet Country Code Top Level Domain Name (TLD) registries (such as .uk for United Kingdom, .it for Italy, .es for Spain). CENTR has a European focus, but no geographical restrictions to membership which includes a number of non-European registries, including some emerging countries. CENTR membership is responsible for 95% of all domain names currently registered worldwide. African ISP Association (AfrISPA) http://www.afrispa.org AfrISPA is a continental Association of African Internet Service Provider Associations whose primary objective is to provide industry perspective on policy formulation and regulation as it relates to the Internet industry and to act as an interface with Governmental bodies and the public at large. # General information about the 'ICT 4 all' exhibition is available here: http://www.expo.ict4all-tunis.org # Peter Godwin Communications Manager Internet Society Email: godwin@isoc.org Tel: +41 22 807 1447 'Internet Pavilion' contact: Paul Rendek Head of Member Services and Communications RIPE NCC Email: rendek@ripe.net Mobile: +31 655782348 ------------------------------ From: rlittle@thetasoft.com Subject: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset Date: Thu, 03 Nov 2005 22:20:18 -0800 The Siemens Gigaset is great as far as features go, operating like a little PBX (the extensions dial each other, the base unit does the actual telecom work of dialing while the handsets just act like recievers). Unfortunately, the Siemens quality sucks. It works for about a year before it starts flaking out -- we've already gone through 2 base units, and Siemens customer support is worse than their reliability. So, I'm in the market for a new system. I got the Panasonic 2 line 6502, but feature-wise its horrible. (I'm so tired of seeing "24 missed calls" on the handset that was lost under the couch). Is there a good system out there? Cost is really no issue -- I'm desperate for feature parity with the Siemens -- cordless handsets (6 or more), base unit does all the dialing, multiple lines (2), answering machine, transfer & conference between handsets... Surely there must be something out there! Help! --rob ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Friday 4th November 2005 Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 07:32:55 -0600 From: Cellular-Bnews Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com Mobile Base Station Contract from US Utility Firm http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14692.php Wireless Matrix has announced an agreement with one of the leading utilities on the East Coast of the USA serving more than 2 million homes and businesses, for an initial order of 400 Mobile Base Station 2 (MBS2) units. This first purchase order unde... 3G Wait-&-See Fails to Stall Taiwanese Mobile Phone Market http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14691.php The aggressive promotion of 3G services by mobile phone carriers was expected to stimulate the growth of the Taiwanese mobile phone market in the third quarter of 2005. However, according to the Market Intelligence Center (MIC), a Taipei-based indust... Siemens Wins Thai GSM Contract http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14690.php Thailand's largest mobile provider, Advanced Info Service (AIS), has contracted with Siemens to expand its GSM radio and core network. In the future, up to one million additional subscribers will be able to make phone calls and utilize mobile communi... Study Finds Mobile Phone Users Embracing Mobile Data Services http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14689.php Mobile phone users are increasingly comfortable with mobile data services but continue to worry about content and price, according to the latest Mobinet study of how 4,000 mobile phone users in 21 countries use their phones. The study has been conduc... African Network Operator to Seek UK Stock Market Listing http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14688.php Econet Wireless Group has announced plans to seek a listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) through an initial public offering that the company estimates will raise between US$400 million and US$500 million.... PTT Will Become the New 3G Hotspot - report http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14687.php Analysys International predicts that PTT (push-to-talk) will become the new hotspot of 3G applications with user numbers to reach 8 million by year 2009 in its newly released focus report. It also says that the barrier of interconnection will be remo... Customers Rarely Complain About Mobile Data Problems http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14686.php A new NOP survey commissioned by Olista, the service experience assurance company, reveals that users who encounter problems in using new mobile data services will simply give up rather than seek assistance. According to the survey of 1000 adults car... FOCUS: Russia's alternative operators may strike gold in regions http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14685.php [Premium] On the eve of the privatization of Russia's national telecom holding Svyazinvest, regional fixed-line operators are cutting their investment plans, while alternative operators, who operate mostly in Moscow and St. Petersburg, prepare for an aggressiv... Telefonica Moviles Back To 6 Million Mobile Users In Mexico http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14684.php Spanish wireless phone operator Telefonica Moviles SA said Thursday that it added 129,000 subscribers in Mexico in the third quarter, bringing its roster back to 6 million, up 33% from a year ago. ... Nokia: N70 Phone Is Shipping In High Volumes http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14683.php Nokia Corp.'s second mobile phone in its multimedia Nseries to hit stores has had a very good response from consumers and is shipping in large volumes, a company spokesman said Thursday. ... TDC Mobil To Open 3G Network To Private Clients Nov 7 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14682.php Danish telecommunications operator TDC A/S Thursday said its unit TDC Mobil will open its third-generation networks to private customers on Nov. 7. ... Reiman says Russian mobile operators may enter Chinese market http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14681.php Russian mobile operators may enter the Chinese market, Russian IT and Telecommunications Minister Leonid Reiman said Thursday, ITAR-TASS reported. Reiman was speaking before the meeting of Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov with Chinese Prime Min... Mexico Billionaire Pledges $400 Million Argentina Invest In '06 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14680.php Mexican billionaire businessman Carlos Slim has pledged to invest $400 million next year in two telecommunications companies operating in Argentina: Telefonos de Mexico SA, or Telmex, and America Movil's CTI. ... Nortel Discloses Additional Subpoena For Accounting Records http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14679.php Nortel Networks Inc. on Thursday disclosed that it received an additional federal subpoena in connection with an ongoing criminal investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas. ... UPDATE: Qualcomm to Vigorously Defend Against Claims At EC http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14675.php Qualcomm Inc. vowed to vigorously fight the claims of five competitors who complained last week to European antitrust regulators about its licensing practices. ... Vodafone To Buy Up To 15% More In Vodacom Group http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14674.php Vodafone announced Thursday that it has entered into exclusive negotiations with the Rembrandt Trust, which are expected to result in Vodafone acquiring up to an additional 15% economic interest in Vodacom Group for a net cash consideration of up to ... Qualcomm 4Q Net Up 37%; Co Gives 1Q, FY06 Views http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14673.php Qualcomm Inc.'s fourth-quarter earnings rose 37%, fueled by demand for next-generation cell phones. ... ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 04:38:55 -0500 From: Michael Muderick Subject: Bell System/Western Electric Apparatus Help? I am looking for some help in identifying some equipment. I have a couple of Western Electric/Bell System/ATT apparatus units. 30AM. One has an RN1J82 number. I think they are part of paging adapters; one is labeled EMERGENCY AUDIO. I'd be happy to email a picture if someone can help me identify what they are, and perhaps send me a BSP. I have a bunch of BSP manuals, but don't have a number and haven't been able to find it. Can anyone assist? Michael@muderick.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 12:32:33 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: With O2 Deal, Telefonica Expands Into Uncharted Territories USTelecom dailyLead November 4, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xwvMatagCwkaqFYIJf TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * With O2 deal, Telefonica expands into uncharted territories BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * DirecTV looks beyond the tube * Gear makers on rise as triple play gets hotter * SBC moves a step closer to IPTV reality USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * NEW! 2005 USTelecom Industry Directory TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * MIT's wireless network helps users ID high-traffic areas * 3G, mobile TV, wireless VoIP seen as hot technologies in 2006 VOIP DOWNLOAD * NetZero launches VoIP for dial-up * Companies team up to promote VoIP * Why testing is crucial in IP rollouts REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * FCC to examine local barriers to new cable services Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xwvMatagCwkaqFYIJf ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 10:52:20 -0800 Subject: Telecom Update #504, November 4, 2005 From: Angus TeleManagement Group Reply-To: Angus TeleManagement Group ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 504: November 4, 2005 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: ** 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/ ** NEC UNIFIED SOLUTIONS: www.necunifiedsolutions.com ** ROGERS TELECOM: www.rogers.com/solutions ** VONAGE CANADA: www.vonage.ca ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** CRTC Reports on State of Competition ** TWU Members Reject Telus Settlement ** Quebecor Wants VoIP Ruling Reviewed ** Bell Launches 2-Meg Wireless Data ** Business Sales Lead BCE Revenue Increase ** MTS Results Reflect Allstream Woes ** Videotron Revenue Up 13% ** Nortel Sales Up 22% ** Nortel Pays $11.5 Million for Zafirovski ** Virgin Mobile Comes to Saskatchewan ** Bell Sued Over Installation Delays ** New CEO at Expertech ** Colbanet Promises Cellular LD Savings ** Telus to Use Nokia DSL Gear ** Inukshuk Seeks Broadband Wireless Proposals ** Mike Larkin Joins Route1 ** Seminar Examines Changes in Contact Centres ============================================================ CRTC REPORTS ON STATE OF COMPETITION: The CRTC issued its 2005 Telecom Monitoring Report this week, providing statistics and analysis on the status of competition and the deployment of broadband to the end of 2004. Some highlights: ** Total telecom revenue rose 4.7% to $33.3 billion. Long distance revenue fell 6% even though minutes increased by 6%. Wireless revenues were up 17.6%. ** Private line revenues fell 10%, while data revenues grew 6.9%. ** 59% of Canadian households have Internet access; 46% have broadband access. ** In 15 cities, the incumbent telcos have lost between 10% and 25% of local business telephone lines. (Due to an error in the CRTC's initial announcement, this was widely and inaccurately reported as 10% to 25% of all telephone lines.) http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/publications/reports/PolicyMonitoring/2005/gic2005.pdf TWU MEMBERS REJECT TELUS SETTLEMENT: Members of the Telecommunications Workers Union rejected a proposed contract with Telus that had been recommended by the union's executive. 9,027 members voted: 4,487 (49.7%) voted yes and 4,540 (50.3%) voted no. ** On Thursday, Telus rejected a TWU proposal to return to the bargaining table. The TWU says it will ask the federal government to appoint a special mediator to facilitate a settlement. QUEBECOR WANTS VoIP RULING REVIEWED: Quebecor has filed a Part VII application asking the CRTC to review and vary Telecom Decision 2005-62, which allowed Bell to charge different rates for its Digital Voice service in Ontario and Quebec. Quebecor says the CRTC based the decision on the assumption that Digital Voice is a VoIP service, but it is actually normal local phone service with bundled calling features. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2005/8662/q15_200512443.htm BELL LAUNCHES 2-MEG WIRELESS DATA: Bell Mobility now offers wireless data communications based on EVDO (Evolution Data Optimized) technology in the Toronto and Montreal areas. The technology promises average download speeds of 400 to 700 Kbps, and a maximum of 2.4 Mbps. Bell is selling new EVDO-equipped phones made by Kyocera, RIM, and Samsung. ** Aliant Mobility says it will begin testing EVDO in the Halifax area later this month. BUSINESS SALES LEAD BCE REVENUE INCREASE: BCE had third-quarter revenue of $4.95 billion, up 3.6% from the same period last year. A 5.3% increase in sales to businesses was almost double the increase for Bell Canada as a whole. BCE net income after one-time items was $462 million, down 3.8%. ** Bell added a net 123,000 wireless and 106,000 high-speed Internet subscribers. ** DBRS lowered BCE's credit rating, commenting that Bell's "local market share is in decline." MTS RESULTS REFLECT ALLSTREAM WOES: Manitoba Telecom third quarter revenue rose 4.1% to $516 million, despite difficulties in its Allstream division, where sales remained stalled at $280 million. Allstream's EBITDA of $44 million was down 26% from the same period last year. MTS net income declined 12% to $45 million. VIDEOTRON REVENUE UP 13%: Quebecor's Videotron division had third quarter revenues of $250.8 million, 13.3% more than in the same period a year ago. Revenue per user rose 11.7% Much of the gain came from Videotron's phone service, which added 54,200 new customers. NORTEL SALES UP 22%: Nortel Networks' third-quarter revenue of US$2,665 million was 22% higher than in the same period last year. Enterprise sales increased 16%. Gross margin of 38% was two points higher than a year ago. The net loss was $105 million, compared with $259 million last year. Nortel's cash balance of $3.0 billion was down 12%. ** For the first time in several years, Nortel filed its financial results on time. NORTEL PAYS $11.5 MILLION FOR ZAFIROVSKI: Nortel has agreed to pay US$11.5 million to Motorola to settle a lawsuit aimed at preventing former Motorola executive Mike Zafirovski from becoming Nortel's CEO. VIRGIN MOBILE COMES TO SASKATCHEWAN: Virgin Mobile has begun offering its prepaid wireless service in Saskatchewan: it is now available in all ten provinces. BELL SUED OVER INSTALLATION DELAYS: A Toronto lawyer has launched a class-action lawsuit against Bell Canada over delays in installing wireline phone service during and after the Entourage strike this year, saying Bell should have warned its customers of the holdup. NEW CEO AT EXPERTECH: Jacques Robichon, former VP of Wireless Network Operations at Bell Canada, has been named President and CEO of Expertech Network Installation Inc. Expertech, which is owned by Bell and SNC-Lavalin, provides installation and maintenance services to carriers. COLBANET PROMISES CELLULAR LD SAVINGS: A new service from Montreal- based ColbaNet allows customers to place cellular LD calls on ColbaNet's network. The company says that usage rates for its SpectraVoice Mobility offering are up to 80% less than the carriers' wireless LD rates. TELUS TO USE NOKIA DSL GEAR: Telus has contracted to use Nokia's D500 IP DSLAM, equipped with ADSL2+ technology, to expand its broadband access network. INUKSHUK SEEKS BROADBAND WIRELESS PROPOSALS: Inukshuk has issued a Call for Proposals for projects related to the provision of wireless broadband Internet access in remote communities, and for projects to develop rich learning content, applications, or learning environments. The deadlines for responses vary by region. http://www.inukshuk.ca/anglais/fonds.html MIKE LARKIN JOINS ROUTE1: Mike Larkin, who previously held VP Sales positions at BCE Emergis and Bell Canada, has been named Sales VP at Route1, a Toronto-based company that develops mobile computing applications. He replaces Stephen Skinner, who "has left the Company to pursue new endeavours." SEMINAR EXAMINES CHANGES IN CONTACT CENTRES: During November, Henry Dortmans, president of Angus Dortmans Associates, will discuss impending changes in contact centre technology and management as the keynote speaker at seminars organized by Telus in Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, and Edmonton this month. For information: http://promo.telus.com/tm/05/q3/cca/expert_series.html ============================================================ 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 http://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. ------------------------------ From: Clark W. Griswold, Jr. Subject: Re: Recorded Call From Law Office? Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 07:51:09 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Carl Moore wrote: > I did hear a complete number but did not write it down. (Just in case > the record needs to be straightened out.) Sounds like a troll for a class action lawsuit. What you have to understand is that even the bottom feeders have bottom feeders. Consider the following purely hypothetical situation: A law firm (lets call them MBF, for Master Bottom Feeders), specializes in class action lawsuits. You know -- the kind where they collect millions of dollars for themselves and the claimants get a coupon for a free hamburger. MBF scours the medical journals and comes across a paper that suggests that people who ingest too much dihydrogen monoxide die at a higher rate that regular people. MBF puts out the word to the thousands of LBFs (Local Bottom Feeders): "Find us people who have ingested dihydrogen monoxide!" and offers a referal bounty for every candidate that meets the criteria for the class. Hence you get all the LBFs putting up billboards, running radio and TV ads, and making mass telephone calls such as the one above. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A very good point you raise is how little the actual 'victims' get in class action lawsuits. Here is an example involving a well known restaurant chain, McDonalds, in the Chicago area. First, some background: In Chicago, at least, maybe elsewhere, there are McDonalds restaurants _everywhere_, every few blocks it seems. In a couple instances, there are two on the same block (State/Dearborn and Randolph Streets in Chicago). A McDonalds on one corner with a Burger King right across the street, then a half block further west, in the old Greyhound Station another McDonalds. Ditto on the north side, State Street and Chicago Avenue. Burger King and McDonalds right next door to each other, then a block east at Rush Street a McDonalds and a Jack-in-the-Box. Second, all the McDonalds are independently owned and operated, but a 'support group' run by the owner/operators services them all for technical needs. The 'Chicagoland McDonalds Operator's Association' runs a central warehouse for their supplies, their foodstuffs, their cash register repairs, etc. Next point: What is termed 'Chicago' has, in addition to Chicago itself, a hundred plus smaller suburbs, and when you get out in the western area, the suburbs are a few blocks apart, almost as frequent as the McDonalds restaurants. Each of the suburbs has its own idea on what 'sales tax' should be for ready to eat food, groceries, other stuff. Since there are many McDonalds employees with only a simple education, not including much arithmetic skills, McDonalds' cash registers all have pictures and words on the keys. Customer wants the double cheesebuger special, clerk presses the key with that on it; the cash register calculates the total due, _includng the tax_ and prints out the amount of money expected. Trouble is, the _sales tax_. One Extra Value Meal in Chicago may cost two dollars, in Skokie it may cost $1.98 or in Morton Grove $2.05. When a cash register goes out of order, the manager calls to the 'central services' and orders a new, refurbished cash register. Later that day a new register arrives, central services workers bring it in and install it. Theoretically, cash registers from one taxing jurisdiction are to stay in that jurisdiction. In actual practice, they go anywhere. So you pay $2.00 for your Extra Value Meal today, come in tomorrow for another of the same and $2.06 or whatever is demanded instead. You can inquire all you like about the difference in price between yesterday and today, or one register out of three or four in the same restaurant, the clerk just looks at you with a blank look on their face. Anyway, about ten or twelve years ago, the McDonalds in Skokie, IL (which is known not only as the second or third McDonalds in existence, having been started orginally as a 'company location' when it started in 1958) is one of the most ill-managed in the chain, wound up being the defendant in a class action suit based on their poorly programmed cash registers. (Walmart has the same situation; a cash register used today in Illinois may be used next week [following its repair, etc in Kansas or Oklahoma]; proper sales tax rate is of no concern to those folks.) Plaintiff's class action lawyers said they were frequently overcharged on taxes, and it is true that if you as a shopkeeper make a claim that 'X amount of money is for taxes' when in fact the tax is either (1) incorrectly stated or (2) does not exist at all, a crime has been committed. The class action lawsuit went on a couple years, the attornies raked in piles of money; it was finally settled by McDonalds putting a newspaper ad in several Chicago-area publications with a coupon to clip out, offering a free small size drink to the holder of the coupon, to cure the problem of being charged a couple pennies too much on tax. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V24 #502 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Nov 5 02:40:44 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id E5CED14E75; Sat, 5 Nov 2005 02:40:43 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #503 Message-Id: <20051105074043.E5CED14E75@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 02:40:43 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.3 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR,SOMETHING_FOR_ADULTS autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: R TELECOM Digest Sat, 5 Nov 2005 02:40:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 503 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Porncasts Appear on Video Playing iPod (Ron Harris) Consumers Sing Copy Protection Blues (Todd Martens) Microsoft Patches Break Some Sites (Jeremy Kirk) Verizon POTS (Joe) EFFector 18.35: A Trio of Victories at WIPO (Monty Solomon) EFFector 18.37: Court Issues Surveillance Smack-Down to Justice (M Solomon) AT&T Answering System 1309 - Need Help With Instructions (browny) Looking for 1A2 Phone System Parts [Amphenol to Amphenol Splitters] (mdhes) Re: Recorded Call From Law Office? (DevilsPGD) Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset (Michael D. Sullivan) 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: Ron Harris Subject: Porncasts Appear on Video Playing iPod Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 00:27:14 -0600 Porncasts Appear on Video-Playing iPod By RON HARRIS, Associated Press Writer Purveyors of porn and entrepreneurs who spied a niche when Apple Computer Inc. unveiled its video-playing iPod are proving that sex even sells in tiny packages -- especially when it is portable. One online social network of amateur pinup girls said it logged 500,000 downloads of the sexy "featurettes" -- three- to five-minute video clips -- in the first 24 hours targeting the new iPod-toting crowd. Most of these had been downloaded at one time or another from Usenet. It's a no-brainer: pornography to go. The naughtiness is already finding its way into video handhelds through business models tried-and-true -- along with some new ones -- as the adult entertainment industry works to untether video content. Soon enough, skin flicks whose viewing has been largely restricted to the privacy of homes and theaters could be on view in the open public of parks and mass transit, for all ages to see. Porn is no doubt a very big business on the Internet. Two in five Internet users visited an adult site in August, according to tracking by comScore Media Metrix. The company said 3 percent of all Web traffic and 2 percent of all surfing time involved an adult site. The Internet accounted for $2.5 billion of the adult industry's $14 billion in U.S. revenues last year, about the same as revenues from cable and satellite pay-per-view showings, according to Adult Video News, a trade magazine. Vivid Entertainment Group, a major adult video producer that already offers high-resolution still images, video clips and footage from "voyeur cams" through its Web site, now plans to shoot shorter films specifically for the iPod and other portables. "It could be a huge percentage of our business," says the company's chief executive, Steven Hirsch. "People love watching adult movies and to be able to carry an adult movie in your pocket is a powerful tool." Sin City, based in Chatsworth, Calif., already offers trailers of full-length adult films for the Sony PlayStation Portable, a handheld video game player. It now plans full-length adult films for the video iPod. Apple wasn't first on the scene with a small digital device capable of playing good-quality video. Creative Technology and iRiver are among companies with pocket-sized devices already on the market; they use Windows Mobile software to display video, audio and still images. In addition, one early entrant, Archos, has a Jukebox that can store and play a whopping 400 hours of video in the MPEG-4 standard. Yet the very marketing and deal-making finesse that helped Apple rise to dominate the portable music market make its new video-playing iPod a likely vessel for adult movies' expansion to portable porn. The Apple's iTunes online story already features several hot and heavy podcasts, audio downloads geared to portability. The company isn't offering much in the way of sex on videos, though some of the music videos it sells for $1.99 each can tend toward titillation. Apple officials refused requests for interviews on whether they might offer adult content on iTunes for iPod owners. For many high-profile companies, sex remains a tough sell. Although wireless phone companies support devices that play video, they are reluctant to expose themselves to complaints from a large and valuable customer base. One company that knows firsthand is Digital Orchid, which manages the delivery of streaming video to cell phones for top brands, including MLB.com, NASCAR.com, ESPN and the National Hockey League. It also handles Hawaiian Tropic, the suntan oil company perhaps better known for its comely bikini models. That sort of content is about as racy as wireless carriers want to get, says Robert Betros, Digital Orchid's co-founder and chief technology officer. "We won't cross that line because the carriers won't distribute it, and that's a majority of the revenue opportunity for us," Betros said. "Now they may change their tune, and in some places in Europe carriers are distributing this kind of content." In the wireless industry, carrier-approved content exists within something referred to as a walled garden. In the United States, at least, that garden is generally safe for children. Once users stroll outside garden walls and inside a Web browser, however, all bets are off. A company called Xobile sells pornographic video clips for cell phones. No special operating system or other software is necessary: Just a Web browser, which is commonplace now for phones with access to digital data networks. That it's now easier than ever for minors to view X-rated content on portable devices concerns media watch groups that seek to protect children. The problem is that children are often quicker to grasp the technology than their parents, says Jack Samad, a senior vice president with the National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families. "The arena is wide open, unfiltered, unrestricted, for adult content," Samad said. "Children are very aware of where it is and how to download it." Associated Press Writer Gary Gentile in Los Angeles contributed to this report. 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. For more Associated Press news stories and headlines, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ From: Todd Martens Subject: Consumers Sing Copy Proection Blues Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 00:25:21 -0600 By Todd Martens and Brian Garrity Complaints continue to mount regarding a controversial CD copy-protection initiative by Sony BMG Music Entertainment. Artists and consumers' initial concern was that the digital rights management technology does not work with iPods. Now a growing number of music fans charge that the security software behaves like spyware and may create security vulnerabilities in users' computers. The matter drew increased attention in technology circles October 31, when software developer/computer security expert Mark Russinovich began blogging the details of problems he experienced after using his computer to play the copy-protected CD of "Get Right With the Man" by Van Zant, a Southern rock act signed to Columbia Records. Russinovich posted that Sony BMG's DRM drained resources from his computer processor, even when the CD was not being played, and was extraordinarily difficult to locate and uninstall. When he finally deleted the software, his computer's CD player stopped working. "This is a clear case of Sony taking DRM too far," he wrote. Within 24 hours, online tech-news sites including SlashDot and CNet had posted news about Russinovich's account. And by November 2, Sony BMG had posted instructions on its own site (cp.sonybmg/xcp) for removing the DRM. IN SEARCH OF TRANSPARENCY Copy-protection software is not actually spyware, of course. And industry executives have long pointed to piracy rates in defense of DRM measures. Consumers on average acquire almost 30 percent of their music annually by burning and ripping CDs, according to the NPD Group. But Russinovich and others complain that Sony BMG's latest DRM lacks transparency -- and a simple uninstall option. "The disclosure is totally inadequate," says Fred Von Lohmann, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "I read the (end-user license agreement), and it does not say they will install software that hides itself and is difficult to uninstall. When I read that someone is going to install software, I don't think it's going to behave like spyware and try to evade me." Sony BMG representatives declined to comment, but sources in the company and the label's technology partners -- which include First 4 Internet and SunnComm -- say hiding software on computers is standard. "Cloaking technology is reasonably commonplace," says Mathew Gilliat Smith, CEO of First 4 Internet, a developer of copy-protection technology. "This is a protection software, and the object is to make it more difficult to circumvent." But Russinovich says Sony's software may create a weakness for others to exploit. "All it takes is one malware (malicious software) author to get one of these CDs and see how it works and recognize it's on millions of people's machines," Russinovich says. "The whole malware industry is financially driven, and there are tons of smart people paid to find those opportunities." PATCHING THINGS UP As part of their November 2 online update, Sony BMG and First 4 Internet released a patch to make the files visible and ensure that malware writers cannot hide their own files behind the DRM technology. The patch is also being distributed to manufacturers of anti-virus software. Gilliat Smith says First 4 Internet is looking for new installation methods for its software, but did not provide specifics. SunnComm executives say they have not had any problems with their technology. In the meantime, a growing number of consumers and consumer advocates are expressing frustration with the technology. "I know this is the last copy-protected CD I will buy," Russinovich says. "It strikes me as particularly pernicious," Von Lohmann adds, "to single out paying customers for this kind of treatment." Reuters/Billboard 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: Jeremy Kirk Subject: Microsoft Patches Break Some Sites Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 00:28:38 -0600 Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service Two patches released by Microsoft earlier this year for its Internet Explorer browser may cause some Web sites not to load properly. The bulletins, MS05-038 and MS05-052, removed "unsafe functionality" and change how the browser handles ActiveX controls for security reasons, Stephen Toulouse, a program manager in Microsoft's security unit, wrote on Thursday on the Microsoft Security Center Response Blog. After installing MS05-038, which was published August 9 on the Microsoft Download Center, Web pages containing Component Object Model (COM) objects called monikers may not work as expected. Patch Particulars MS05-052, which was published October 11, added an additional check for a specific interface for ActiveX controls before allowing a COM object to run in Internet Explorer. But it also blocks some Web pages containing ActiveX controls, Microsoft said. Users who are missing certain registry subkeys may also experience problems with this patch, Microsoft said. Microsoft has published instructions on how to resolve the MS05-038 issues. Also available is additional information on the two possible problems with MS05-052. 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: Joe Subject: Verizon POTS Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 21:39:39 GMT How long does it take for Verizon to install POTS? I have moved my mother to an apartment. The complex is not new, been there for 10+years. The previous tenent had Verizon POTS. I called Verizon for new service on 10/27. Got a tracking number. But it has been 5 business days and no telephone service. Checked online using tracking number but it shows "in progress", no date. Called customer support, on hold for 45min. then gave up. Any idea how long it takes? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 17:11:04 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 18.35: A Trio of Victories at WIPO A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 351st Issue of EFFector: * A Trio of Victories at WIPO * Adult Website Lawsuit Threatens Google Image Search * New Government Excuses for Cell Phone Surveillance * First Annual P2P Litigation Summit, November 3 * miniLinks (9): Your Right to Bare Arms * Staff Calendar: 10.15.05 - Kurt Opsahl, Fred von Lohmann and Kevin Bankston speak at California First Amendment Coalition Assembly, Fullerton, CA. * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/18/35.php ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 17:07:47 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: EFFector 18.37: Court Issues Surveillance Smack-Down to Justice A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 353rd Issue of EFFector: * Court Issues Surveillance Smack-Down to Justice Department * Plan for Internet "Backdoors" Draws Coordinated Attack * Want to Take a Bite Out of the DMCA? Now's the Time * First Annual P2P Litigation Summit, November 3 * The Patent System of the Future? * Spring Legal Internships at EFF * Stanford Center for Internet and Society Mailing List * miniLinks (10): Open Letter to Yahoo's Jerry Yang * Staff Calendar: 10.30.05 - Fred von Lohmann at Eastern * Administrivia http://www.eff.org/effector/18/37.php ------------------------------ From: browny Subject: AT&T Answering System 1309 - Need Help With Instructions Date: 4 Nov 2005 14:43:16 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I have misplaced my instructions for this unit (telephone answering machine). Would like to use the REMOTE ACCESS feature and don't recall how. Can anyone help me? ------------------------------ From: m3deshmukh@verizon.net Subject: Looking for 1A2 Phone System Parts [Amphenol to Amphenol Splitters] Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 19:27:55 GMT Hello, Item: Splitting device that takes in Amphenol and puts out 6 or more Amphenols My company is looking to find a [or several] bridging adapters, bunching blocks, splitters for a 1A2 telephone system that would take in one Amphenol jack and Output 6 or more Amphenol Sockets. My boss likes having the 1A2 phone system in place, but we're trying to find an alternative to daisy-chaining the feed with 2 and 3 way splitters right in-front of each phone/fax. We'd like to find a piece of equipment that would allow us to localize all the splitting, right after the KSU. I found some real helpful phone wizards on another site who told me about the Suttle company and gave me some parts numbers: Suttle #SE-825L6-1P49 (gray) or 1P50 (beige) has one input and six outputs on through Suttle #SE-825l12-1P49 or 1P50 with one input and 12 outputs I will be continuing to search for these parts with warehouses I find online [right now eBay doesn't have what I'm looking for], but I wanted to put word out in this group, so if anyone is holding something like this [the more amphenol outs the merrier!] and looking to get rid of it, they might let me know. Thanks. Easy on. Mayur Deshmukh Interpage Network Services, Inc. mayurXYZZTOP@interpage.net [to email me, remove the CAPS] http://www.interpage.net ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Recorded Call From Law Office? Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 16:15:58 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message Clark W. Griswold, Jr. wrote: > Anyway, about ten or twelve years ago, the McDonalds in Skokie, IL > (which is known not only as the second or third McDonalds in > existence, having been started orginally as a 'company location' when > it started in 1958) is one of the most ill-managed in the chain, wound > up being the defendant in a class action suit based on their poorly > programmed cash registers. (Walmart has the same situation; a cash > register used today in Illinois may be used next week [following its > repair, etc in Kansas or Oklahoma]; proper sales tax rate is of no > concern to those folks.) Plaintiff's class action lawyers said they > were frequently overcharged on taxes, and it is true that if you as a > shopkeeper make a claim that 'X amount of money is for taxes' when in > fact the tax is either (1) incorrectly stated or (2) does not exist > at all, a crime has been committed. The class action lawsuit went on > a couple years, the attornies raked in piles of money; it was finally > settled by McDonalds putting a newspaper ad in several Chicago-area > publications with a coupon to clip out, offering a free small size > drink to the holder of the coupon, to cure the problem of being > charged a couple pennies too much on tax. PAT] They're still billing incorrectly though, or they were as of last July when I visited their location. I didn't look at the tax, just the rest of the meal. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you are referring to the McDonalds at 5000 or 5100 West Dempster (Niles Center Road and Dempster, about a block east of the Skokie Swift station) that does not surprise me at all. They got the notion once to lock down the inside eating area at 9 PM but keep the drive up window open until 11 PM, so at 9:10 PM I came walking along on foot past the drive in window to get an order. The woman refused to sell to me since I was 'not in a car'. We exchanged a few words; I wound up getting an empty bag out of the trash can nearby and calling the McDonalds customer service number. The woman just about flipped out when she got a call from customer service a couple minutes later asking her what was going on. Her excuse was a 'man on a bike a couple weeks earlier had robbed her and she was not going to take any more chances with pedestrians when the main dining area had been closed for the night. Another time I was told they considered it 'more effecient' to be 'blackmailed' out of drinks rather than change their way of doing business. By comparison, the McDonalds here in Independence is so pleasant, even for a Mcdonalds place. I am watching to see if walmart gets sued the same way, for using incorrectly (tax) programmed cash registers here. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 05:05:18 GMT rlittle@thetasoft.com wrote: > The Siemens Gigaset is great as far as features go, operating like a > little PBX (the extensions dial each other, the base unit does the > actual telecom work of dialing while the handsets just act like > recievers). > Unfortunately, the Siemens quality sucks. It works for about a year > before it starts flaking out -- we've already gone through 2 base > units, and Siemens customer support is worse than their reliability. > So, I'm in the market for a new system. I got the Panasonic 2 line > 6502, but feature-wise its horrible. (I'm so tired of seeing "24 > missed calls" on the handset that was lost under the couch). > Is there a good system out there? Cost is really no issue -- I'm > desperate for feature parity with the Siemens -- cordless handsets (6 > or more), base unit does all the dialing, multiple lines (2), > answering machine, transfer & conference between handsets... Surely > there must be something out there! Rob, I went through the same problems with the Siemens Gigaset. I replaced it with an AT&T-branded multi-set system (actually made by Vtech, I think). It's a great improvement, but not perfect. I looked at the Panasonic multi-set systems, but the handsets were too gadgety. The AT&T 2-line system handles up to 8 or 9 handsets and has a corded base station; both the base station and the cordless handsets can be used as speakerphones. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD (USA) (Replace "example.invalid" with "com" in my address.) ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 #503 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Nov 5 15:55:02 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id CE20814F42; Sat, 5 Nov 2005 15:55:01 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #504 Message-Id: <20051105205501.CE20814F42@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 15:55:01 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.3 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, INFO_TLD autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sat, 5 Nov 2005 15:55:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 504 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson NN0 Central Office Codes (Neal McLain) Just Googling It Is Striking Fear Into Companies (Monty Solomon) Meeting Will End Fight Over Cell Tower (Monty Solomon) Re: Verizon POTS (Steve Sobol) Re: Verizon POTS (NOTvalid@XmasNYC.Info) Re: Verizon POTS (Tony P.) Re: Recorded Call From Law Office? (DevilsPGD) Re: Bank of America Delays Security Update (lenagainster@gmail.com) Re: AT&T Answering System 1309 - Need Help With Instruction (Garner Miller) Re: Old Chicago Numbering (Tony P.) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 13:42:00 -0600 From: Neal McLain Reply-To: nmclain@annsgarden.com Subject: NN0 Central Office Codes A few issues back, there was a thread about NN0 codes as central office codes. AT&T's publication "Notes on Distance Dialing" (1975) [1] includes a list of 63 NN0 codes that could be assigned either as area codes or as central office codes. This list, identified as "Chart 5," includes all NN0 codes in the range 220-990 (except for 950 which "is reserved for a future network-wide service") in an arbitrary (non-numerical) order. Each code is identified by a "sequence" number (#1 - #63). A copy of the list is posted at http://tinyurl.com/8csz7 . The accompanying text states: 2.03 Sometime after 1995, it is estimated that the 21 NPA codes still unassigned (end of 1974) will have been used and that it will be necessary to start using NNX type codes as NPA codes. In the interest of minimizing ambiguity, it is planned to assign the NN0 codes first in accordance with the sequence shown in Chart 5. (The NN0 codes have been designated as the last to be assigned as CO codes and a sequence that is the reverse of the of that for NPA code assignment is recommended.) Ultimately, it will become necessary to assign the remaining NNX codes for NPA code purposes. [2] Notes [3] on Chart 5 clarify the order of assignment: Central office codes should be drawn from the list in sequence-number order. After all N0/1X area codes are exhausted, further area codes should be drawn from the list in reverse-sequence-number order. If I understand this correctly, the idea was to assign NN0 codes as central office codes *and* as area codes *before* the introduction of interchangeable area codes, but to draw from opposite ends of the NN0 list in order to prevent ambiguity. Presumably, this would have forestalled the need for interchangeable area codes until the list was exhausted, theoretically somewhere in the middle of the list. It didn't work out that way ... Many NN0 codes were assigned as central office codes whenever and wherever they were needed, without regard to their positions on Chart 5. Examples that come to mind: 702-870 (#3 on the list) ca. 1989 Las Vegas 312-990 (#32 on the list) ca. 1988 Hinsdale 201-460 (#36 on the list) ca. 1982 Lyndhurst 414-730 (#52 on the list) ca. 1986 Appleton 214-680 (#54 on the list) ca. 1983 Dallas I assume that one reason for selecting these combinations was an attempt to maintain the look and feel of existing central office codes. That was certainly the case in Appleton, where Wisconsin Telephone was already using several other 73X combinations as central office codes. Curiously (as Mark Roberts noted in TD 24:482), 530 (#1 on the list) was in service -- at least briefly -- in California in 1965, a decade before Chart 5 was published. I wonder if this was just a coincidence? Or had some early version of Chart 5 already been published in 1965? No NN0 area codes were assigned before 1/1/1995 (when interchangeable area codes were introduced), but once the floodgates were open, many NN0 codes appeared quickly. But they too were assigned as needed, without regard to their positions on Chart 5. Seven of them were assigned [4] during 1995: 360 (#6) Washington 630 (#15) Illinois 770 (#25) Georgia 540 (#29) Virginia 970 (#31) Colorado 860 (#34) Connecticut 520 (#61) Arizona Note that Washington's 360 (#6 on the list) was actually #58 in the reverse sequence, while Arizona's 520 (#61) was actually #3 in reverse sequence. And, of course, all N90 combinations were reserved for future use, even though all eight of them appear on Chart 5. Apparently, Chart 5 had been abandoned before 1995. I assume that a major factor in the selection of new area codes after 1/1/1995 was conflict-avoidance: avoiding conflict between an area code and any central office code within the area code. This would have been a further reason for abandoning Chart 5. Even NPA 847 obeyed this constraint when it was first assigned; 847-847 appeared some time later. -------- References ------------- [1] American Telephone and Telegraph Company, Engineering and Network Services Department, Systems Planning Section. "Notes on Distance Dialing," Section 2 ("Numbering Plan and Dialing Procedures"), 1975. [2] Ibid, Section 2, p.2. [3] Ibid, Section 2, p.17. [4] Carl Moore: history.of.area.splits. November 2, 1995. http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/archives/areacodes/history.area.splits.11-95 Neal McLain ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 13:07:49 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Just Googling It Is Striking Fear Into Companies By STEVE LOHR The New York Times November 6, 2005 Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, strikes fear into the hearts of its competitors and suppliers. Makers of goods from diapers to DVD's must cater to its whims. But there is one company that even Wal-Mart eyes warily these days: Google, a seven-year-old business in a seemingly distant industry. "We watch Google very closely at Wal-Mart," said Jim Breyer, a member of Wal-Mart's board. In Google, Wal-Mart sees both a technology pioneer and the seed of a threat, said Mr. Breyer, who is also a partner in a venture capital firm. The worry is that by making information available everywhere, Google might soon be able to tell Wal-Mart shoppers if better bargains are available nearby. Wal-Mart is scarcely alone in its concern. As Google increasingly becomes the starting point for finding information and buying products and services, companies that even a year ago did not see themselves as competing with Google are beginning to view the company with some angst - mixed with admiration. Google's recent moves have stirred concern in industries from book publishing to telecommunications. Businesses already feeling the Google effect include advertising, software and the news media. Apart from retailing, Google's disruptive presence may soon be felt in real estate and auto sales. Google, the reigning giant of Web search, could extend its economic reach in the next few years as more people get high-speed Internet service and cellphones become full-fledged search tools, according to analysts. And ever-smarter software, they say, will cull and organize larger and larger digital storehouses of news, images, real estate listings and traffic reports, delivering results that are more like the advice of a trusted human expert. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/technology/06google.html?ex=1288933200&en=382239f45e5a64bd&ei=5088 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 02:30:16 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Meeting Will End Fight Over Cell Tower By Kristen Green, Globe Correspondent | October 30, 2005 After years of battling cellular phone companies over where they can locate their antennas, Wayland selectmen will ask residents Tuesday to rezone town-owned land in the Reeves Hill area as a wireless district, which would pave the way for the first town-approved cell tower. Officials are asking voters to approve a location specified in a legal settlement the town reached this summer with Cingular Wireless, a cellphone company, and Horizon Towers, a tower-building company. The companies had taken the town to court to push their proposal to build a tower on Boston Post Road (Route 20) near Pine Brook Road. The zoning change requires two-thirds approval at Tuesday's Special Town Meeting. Voters will also be asked to allow the town to lease the property to Horizon Towers, which would construct a 180-foot cellphone tower, replacing an existing 120-foot tower on Reeves Hill the town uses for police and fire communications. If voters reject the articles, the town will be required under its settlement agreement to issue a building permit at the Route 20 site, said Michael L. Tichnor, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, a siting the town has fought. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/10/30/meeting_will_end_fight_over_cell_tower/ ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Verizon POTS Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 08:46:05 -0800 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Joe wrote: > How long does it take for Verizon to install POTS? They installed it a week or so after I ordered it. I told them when I was moving in. Apple Valley, California. Former Continental Telephone/GTE territory. YMM definitely V. Did they give you an install date or a turnaround time when you placed the order? Steve Sobol, Professional Geek 888-480-4638 PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Company website: http://JustThe.net/ Personal blog, resume, portfolio: http://SteveSobol.com/ E: sjsobol@JustThe.net Snail: 22674 Motnocab Road, Apple Valley, CA 92307 ------------------------------ From: NOTvalid@XmasNYC.Info Subject: Re: Verizon POTS Date: 5 Nov 2005 10:29:19 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com What happens if you plug in a phone? ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Verizon POTS Organization: Ace Tomato and Cement Co. Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 08:52:34 -0500 In article , Joe@NOSPAM.SPAM says... > How long does it take for Verizon to install POTS? > I have moved my mother to an apartment. The complex is not new, been > there for 10+years. The previous tenent had Verizon POTS. I called > Verizon for new service on 10/27. Got a tracking number. But it has > been 5 business days and no telephone service. Checked online using > tracking number but it shows "in progress", no date. Called customer > support, on hold for 45min. then gave up. > Any idea how long it takes? Verizon is famous for having crappy outside plant records. For example, when I moved here in October, 2004 they swore up and down that service was hooked up. Plug in the phone and no dial-tone. No NID either. So I open the terminal block, take out the butt set and start dialing the ANAC number on every pair. Not only did I find my pair, I found the NID for my apartment and the two weren't anywhere near each other, nor was the NID connected. Called Verizon and told em' it was pair 14 and I wanted it hooked to my NID. The tech that came out had a good laugh, he said I'd stirred up a hornets nest inside Verizon's install/repair depot. Customers are NOT supposed to open terminal boxes. But when said boxes are secured with 7/16" nuts, it isn't hard to get in. ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Recorded Call From Law Office? Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 01:16:18 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message DevilsPGD wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you are referring to the McDonalds > at 5000 or 5100 West Dempster (Niles Center Road and Dempster, about a > block east of the Skokie Swift station) that does not surprise me at > all. They got the notion once to lock down the inside eating area at > 9 PM but keep the drive up window open until 11 PM, so at 9:10 PM I > came walking along on foot past the drive in window to get an order. > The woman refused to sell to me since I was 'not in a car'. We > exchanged a few words; I wound up getting an empty bag out of the > trash can nearby and calling the McDonalds customer service number. > The woman just about flipped out when she got a call from customer > service a couple minutes later asking her what was going on. Her > excuse was a 'man on a bike a couple weeks earlier had robbed her and > she was not going to take any more chances with pedestrians when the > main dining area had been closed for the night. Another time I was > told they considered it 'more effecient' to be 'blackmailed' out of > drinks rather than change their way of doing business. By comparison, > the McDonalds here in Independence is so pleasant, even for a > Mcdonalds place. I am watching to see if walmart gets sued the same > way, for using incorrectly (tax) programmed cash registers here. PAT] Definitely on Niles ... I think that's the right location, although I'm not 100% sure, it's been a couple months. It's actually not that uncommon these days for a place to have later drive through hours then restaurant hours, especially when they have a homeless and/or drunk problem. Also, the refusal to service walk through in the drive through is more of a safety issue, so that some asshole in a car doesn't mow you down. *shrugs* [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, it is Dempster Street and Skokie Blvd (Cicero Avenue a few blocks south when in Chicago). Niles Center Road runs at an angle a few blocks west of the Skokie Swift station. Cicero Avenue is 4800 west (as is Skokie Blvd) and the restaurant is 4800 West Dempster on its address. 5001 Dempster is the Skokie Swift station. The old name of the village of Skokie used to be 'Niles Center' which is how the street by that name got its name, and it cuts through at about 5100 west at that point. The parking area and the drive up window were completely abandoned at that point in time; I had originally gone by the restaurant entrance and saw a crew working inside there, but they waved me away saying they were closed, 'but drive through is open until midnight'. Going around to that side, then the rude lady waved me away saying she was not going to serve any pedestrians walking through. PAT] ------------------------------ From: lenagainster@gmail.com Subject: Re: Bank of America Delays Security Update Date: 5 Nov 2005 07:56:26 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Robert McMillan wrote: > The Bank of America's rollout of a stronger user authentication > technology has hit a snag Sure did AFAIC. Constantly asking me my secret question and telling me it doesn't recognize my computer. Same computer, no changes, same cookies. Don't particularly care for the fact that it uses my SSN for an ID. It's broke, and I'm stuck with it until BOA fixes it or until I can get all my direct deposits transferred to my other bank, where I have easy access and don't get constantly slammed with Yahoo-like ads. Bye -bye BOA. Lena ------------------------------ Subject: Re: AT&T Answering System 1309 - Need Help With Instructions From: Garner Miller Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 16:23:34 GMT Organization: Road Runner In article , browny wrote: > I have misplaced my instructions for this unit (telephone answering > machine). Would like to use the REMOTE ACCESS feature and don't > recall how. Can anyone help me? I dug around the AT&T web site, and found manuals for most of their models. They didn't have the 1309 specifically, but they did have the 1306 and several others, which *might* be close enough to get you started. Take a look: http://telephones.att.com/telephones_ui/support/dsp_manuals_list.cfm#257 Garner R. Miller Clifton Park, NY =USA= http://www.garnermiller.com/ ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Old Chicago Numbering Organization: Ace Tomato and Cement Co. Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 08:46:02 -0500 In article , JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com says: > On Mon, 31 Oct 2005 18:43:17 -0500, Tony P. > wrote: >> I do recall that they really stretched out the cutovers. My >> grandparents house in Providence still had the old style call progress >> tones indicating they were still on the Panel until 1975 or so. The CO >> for most of Providence is a huge building -- at least 14 floors that >> were once filled with switching gear. Now it's just the 4th floor. The >> rest of the building is offices. > I was in Providence in 1978 and my recollection is that they had mixed > ESS, panel and #1XB all working right next to each other. Another > interesting thing about Providence is evidently Providence was a 2L 4N > city originally since many of the exchanges in Providence have a one > after them like PLantations 1, ELmhurst 1 and so on. Yes I believe it did but in my time we had 7 digit. The only phone I'd ever seen with 2L1-4N was my grandparents 554 set. JAckson-1-4937. But I've seen old advertising materials for the Providence area that has 2L-4N numbers on it. Very interesting -- I knew that Panel an ESS were in existence at the same time but wasn't aware of the #1XB. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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 #504 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Nov 6 23:54:07 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 4E43B14DCD; Sun, 6 Nov 2005 23:54:07 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #505 Message-Id: <20051107045407.4E43B14DCD@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Sun, 6 Nov 2005 23:54:07 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.2 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sun, 6 Nov 2005 23:55:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 505 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Market Growing for Refurbished, Used iPods (Antony Bruno) New Law Fuels Technology / Legal Clash (Brian Bergstein) Massachusetts Fights Microsoft on Data Format (Mark Jewell) FCC Sets April, 2009 Deadline on Digital TV (Jennifer C. Kerr) Newest Google Service (Marcus Didius Falco) Re: Phone Shown in 'Capote' / RJ Connector History (Paul Coxwell) Re: Old Chicago Numbering (Paul Coxwell) Re: Wabash Cannonball (was Re: Old Chicago Numbering) (Paul Coxwell) Re: Recorded Call From Law Office? (Justa Lurker) Re: Verizon POTS (Justa Lurker) Can't See dot.tk (Tom) Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset (Dan Lanciani) Sunday Sermon For This Week (Nicole Winfield) 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: Antony Bruno Subject: Market Growing for Refurbished, Used iPods Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 15:07:47 -0600 By Antony Bruno The popular iPod Nano and the just-released video iPod are expected to lead a surge of holiday sales for Apple Computer. Research firm Fulcrum Global Partners predicts Apple will sell 10 million iPods in the fourth quarter, a strong follow-up to the 7 million sold in the previous quarter. But not all of these sales will be to new iPod owners. Piper Jaffray analysts say about 30 percent of the iPod purchasers are now repeat buyers who are either replacing an existing, earlier-generation iPod or adding to their range of styles (such as an iPod Shuffle and a video iPod). If the average lifespan of an iPod is about 1.5 years, what happens to the older models? Analysts say most users hand down their iPods to friends or family once they purchase a new one. Some simply throw them away. Increasingly, however, consumers are capitalizing on the growing iPod phenomenon by selling their used iPods for cash or as a trade-in toward a new device. And it is not just for bargain hunters, either. With the popular iPod Mini being discontinued, many fans have turned to the refurbished market to track down a favorite color in what is becoming a cult-nostalgia item. "There is an emerging market for older iPods," Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster says. "Apple discontinues successful products that people feel some sort of connection to. They're the retro-cool thing." COTTAGE INDUSTRY Internet auction site eBay has literally thousands of iPod and iPod-related products for sale. The site is considered a leading resource for those seeking an inexpensive way to join the iPod revolution. So is Web site Craigslist. With 28 million iPods sold worldwide, the potential for iPod refurbishment and sales has created a cottage industry of sorts. Small Dog Electronics, for instance, is an established Apple reseller that has for years sold refurbished Macintosh computers and other accessories. The company now sells around 500 used and refurbished iPods per month from its Web-based store at significant discounts. A refurbished third-generation, 30GB iPod that cost $400 in 2003 now runs for about $210, for example. The company offers up to $100 off the price of a new iPod to anyone trading in a used one. According to CEO Don Mayer, the pace of such replacements is expected to increase as iPod sales continue to grow. "You have a curve that's getting larger every quarter for the installed base of iPods," he says, "so the used and refurbished ones are getting more and more prevalent. All that increases with volume." Another company, PodSwap, takes it a step further by not only offering cash for used iPods but also shipping players loaded with music that has been authorized for such distribution by artists who own the necessary rights. Both companies collect the used devices, determine and classify their condition, make whatever repairs are necessary and then clear the memory of any music files before shipping. COLLECTIONS FOR SALE It is a bit more loose on Craigslist and eBay. Several iPods up for auction include the sellers' music collection and instructions on how to transfer the music from the iPod to the buyer's computer. Some even take requests for additional songs to be added prior to shipping. One video iPod for sale contains an entire season of TV show "King of Queens" included. Even Apple competitors have tried to use the swap as a promotional tool. Dell offered a $100 mail-in rebate to any customer turning in an old iPod when buying one of its MP3 players. Interestingly, all the deals are better than what Apple itself offers. The company began offering iPod owners a 10 percent discount on new iPods when they trade in an older device. That translates to anywhere from $45 off a 60GB video iPod to $10 off the iPod Shuffle. Reuters/Billboard 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: Brian Bergstein Subject: New Law Fuels Tecnology / Legal Clash Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 15:09:21 -0600 By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, AP Technology Writer A new method of communicating is creating intriguing services that beat old ways of sending information. But law enforcement makes a somber claim: These new networks will become a boon to criminals and terrorists unless the government can easily listen in. This was the story line in the mid-1990s when the Clinton administration sought to have electronic communications encrypted only by a National Security Agency-developed "Clipper Chip," for which the feds would have a key. The Clipper Chip eventually went the way of clipper ships after industry balked and researchers showed its cryptographic approach was flawed anyway. But while the Clipper Chip died, the dilemma it illuminated remains. With each new advance in communications, the government wants the same level of snooping power that authorities have exercised over phone conversations for a century. Technologists recoil, accusing the government of micromanaging -- and potentially limiting -- innovation. Today, this tug of war is playing out over the Federal Communications Commission's demands that a phone-wiretapping law be extended to voice-over-Internet services and broadband networks. Opponents are trying to block the ruling on various grounds: that it goes beyond the original scope of the law, that it will force network owners to make complicated changes at their own expense, or that it will have questionable value in improving security. No matter who wins the battle over this law -- the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, known as CALEA -- this probably won't be the last time authorities raise hackles by seeking a bird's eye view over the freewheeling information flow created by new technology. Authorities are justified in trying to reduce the ways that technology helps dangerous people operate in the shadows, said Daniel Solove, author of "The Digital Person." But a parallel concern is that technology can end up increasing the government's surveillance power rather than just maintaining it. "We have to ask ourselves anew the larger question: What surveillance power should the government have?" said Solove, an assistant professor at George Washington University Law School. "And to what extent should the government be allowed to manage the development of technology to embody its surveillance capability?" Wiretapping -- so named because eavesdropping police placed metal clips on the analog wires that carried conversations -- has a complex legal history. A 1928 case, Olmstead v. United States, legitimized the practice, when the Supreme Court ruled it was acceptable for police to monitor the private calls of a suspected bootlegger. Behind that 5-4 ruling, however, a seminal debate was raging. The dissenting opinion by Justice Louis Brandeis argued, among other things, that the government had no right to open someone's mail, so why should a phone -- or other technologies that might emerge -- carry different expectations about privacy? In 1967, as the dawn of the digital age was fulfilling Brandeis' fears that other forms of technological eavesdropping would become possible, the Supreme Court reversed Olmstead. After that, authorities had to get a search warrant before setting wiretaps, even on public payphones. That apparently hasn't been much of a hindrance. State and federal authorities have had 30,975 wiretap requests authorized since 1968, with only 30 rejections, according to the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Some 1,710 wiretaps were authorized last year, the most ever, with zero denied. Since 1980, authorities also have been able to set secret wiretaps with the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which privacy watchdogs say requires a lower standard of evidence than the general warrant process. For the first two decades FISA orders numbered less than 1,000 annually; 2003 and 2004 each saw more than 1,700. Only four FISA applications have been rejected, all in 2003. But technology began to pose obstacles in the 1980s, as old-fashioned telephone networks were giving way to digital switching systems that could also transmit information. Suddenly some wiretaps had to become virtual, using "packet sniffing" programs that spy on the splintered packets of data that make up network traffic. Congress passed CALEA in 1994, requiring telecom carriers to ensure that their networks left it relatively easy for law enforcement to set wiretaps. The law applied to landline and cell phone networks but essentially exempted the Internet. Of course, at the time, federal officials were advocating use of the Clipper Chip to ensure that bad guys couldn't hide by encrypting their online traffic. The FBI also was developing Carnivore, a program that agents could tailor to grab specific e-mails and other Internet communications defined in a court order. (The FBI eventually dropped Carnivore in favor of commercial software; frequent cooperation from Internet service providers often made the technology unnecessary anyway.) And all the while the NSA was harvesting the fruits of a system called Echelon, intercepting millions of international telephone calls and feeding them into the agency's humungous maw for analysis. Justifiably or not, each of these steps unsettled privacy activists. And it is that unease that colors the current fight over expanding CALEA's reach to new services such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) by 2007. The FCC says the move is critical because converting voice calls into data packets essentially replaces the old phone system. VoIP services are expected to attain some 4 million U.S. subscribers by the end of this year. "CALEA in a sense is the culmination of where we've been," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty program at the American Civil Liberties Union. "Now the communications network is built to be wiretap-ready, so you don't need Carnivore anymore. It's just intrinsic to the system." Clipper Chip objectors a decade ago contended that in addition to being an onerous demand, the technology could be foiled, rendering it pointless. Similarly, critics of expanding CALEA to broadband networks say the cost of rewiring -- estimated as high as $7 billion for universities alone -- is excessive. Those against expanding it to VoIP say it leaves too many holes to be effective. For example, Internet phone services such as Vonage that can route calls to regular phones will be expected to support CALEA. But "peer-to-peer" VoIP services and instant-messaging programs that carry voice conversations from one computer to another are exempt -- at least for now. "If you take the argument to its extreme, every kind of Internet application, including (file-transfer programs) and Web browsing, is capable of transmitting communications. So where does it end?" said Glenn Manishin, an attorney with Kelley Drye & Warren LLP who has handled telecom regulation cases for companies and consumer groups. "Do they now have to have a back door into every Web browser?" Plus, overseas services aren't covered by the U.S. law. Nor can it touch any home-grown Internet voice programs that serious criminals could develop. "For the past two years, law enforcement has been saying, `If we just had CALEA we'd catch all the terrorists,'" said John Morris, director of Internet standards, technology and policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "Well, if they're sophisticated enough to evade all of our intelligence capabilities, they'll be sophisticated enough not to use a CALEA-compliant phone service." CALEA critics also say authorities haven't shown that existing monitoring methods are so weak as to justify costly new back doors for government. Indeed, while they are not nearly as common as phone surveillance, computer wiretaps have been successful even without the extra assistance CALEA might provide. For example, a 2003 report by the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts explained how surveillance on a DSL high-speed Internet line in Minnesota intercepted 141,420 "computer messages" in three weeks, aiding a racketeering investigation. If there's one thing widely agreed upon in this debate, it's that Congress could do well to step in. Not only could lawmakers clarify how much of CALEA ought to apply to the Internet, but they might also reconsider the overarching Electronic Communications Privacy Act. That was passed in 1986, well before the Internet became the vast commercial and personal medium that redefined our categories of information. "That pervades CALEA and everything we talk about," Solove said. "This is something that Congress has been very derelict in addressing." On the Net: FBI page on CALEA: http://www.askcalea.com Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. For more news and headlines from Associated Press please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ From: Mark Jewell Subject: Massachusetts Fights Microsoft on Document Format Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 15:10:38 -0600 By MARK JEWELL, AP Business Writer The Revolutionary War started in Massachusetts, and now the state is firing some opening rounds in a revolt against Microsoft Corp. that seeks an open, proprietary-free format for storing electronic documents. Gov. Mitt Romney's administration has directed state government's executive offices to begin storing new records by Jan. 1, 2007, in a format that challenges Microsoft's market-dominating Office software, which isn't yet designed to support the new standard. Massachusetts is the first state to take the step, but others are closely watching a fight drawing comparisons to the battles at Lexington and Concord that opened the Revolution. "It may be the technological equivalent to the shot heard 'round the world," said Joe Wilcox, a Jupiter Research analyst. "If Massachusetts follows through with this plan, it will be a radical departure from how Microsoft and other businesses work with state governments." Massachusetts' shift to the so-called OpenDocument format seeks to ensure the state's electronic records can easily be read, exchanged and modified now and in the future, free of licensing restrictions and compatibility problems as software evolves. Microsoft and other critics of the change have warned in public hearings that the state is narrowing its options by banking on an untested format that may not work with many of the state's Office-based computer systems. The Redmond, Wash.-based company also argues the switch will hurt citizens and businesses using Office who may find state records don't translate well when they read them with their software. Among the programs that do fully work with the OpenDocument format are Sun Microsystems Inc.'s StarOffice and free products such as OpenOffice. Microsoft is trying to stem the rebellion's spread to other state governments and the private sector. Businesses sometimes follow the lead of government database managers, and software vendors try to tailor their products to government clients' preferred format. "There is a lot at stake for Microsoft," said David Smith, a Gartner Inc. analyst. "If this were to become a tremendously successful initiative, it could perhaps open the floodgates to other governments and business enterprises doing the same thing." Similar proposals in Oregon and Texas have been shot down. But officials in several other states including Rhode Island and Wisconsin continue to express interest in moving to the new data standard, said Jack Gallt, assistant director of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers. Peter Quinn, Massachusetts' chief information officer, testified at a recent legislative hearing that the switch to OpenDocument aims to transform the state from an information technology "Tower of Babel to an IT United Nations." The move will affect about 50,000 desktop PCs used by state government, many now equipped with Office software. Quinn has said computer systems using Office will be retained and not dismantled unless a cost-effective way is found to replace them. Agencies using Office software can continue doing so, as long as they begin saving documents in OpenDocument format. The switch involves only agencies within the executive branch, and doesn't apply to courts, the Legislature, and constitutional offices. It also doesn't apply to the state's Microsoft-based e-mail system. Massachusetts isn't alone in its campaign. The European Union and U.S. Library of Congress have in principle embraced OpenDocument as their preferred format. Several foreign governments also have endorsed the broader movement toward open-source software and the Linux operating system, which uses publicly available software code that can be customized. Because such software does not carry licensing fees, proponents cite cost savings and say open source is less of a target for hackers. Critics say the savings can disappear in the long run when service costs are factored in, along with compatibility problems pairing Microsoft systems with other products. Microsoft uses proprietary code for most of its products, protecting them with copyright and patent licenses restricting other developers' ability to write programs that support Microsoft software. The OpenDocument format was created by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, a nonprofit, international consortium that sets data standards. Its membership includes Microsoft rivals such as Sun and SAP AG. Microsoft said in June that Office 12, the next-generation version due next year, would use a different format that would make it easier for outside programs to read documents created in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Microsoft is adopting a standard called XML that lets data be shared across different systems with a uniform appearance. But critics say that switch will still leave some code off-limits and fall far short of the OpenDocument format's minimal restrictions on developers who write supporting applications. Microsoft has said it may rely on "filters" to convert documents from one standard to another rather than building that capability within Office 12. Microsoft hopes Massachusetts legislators will slow or halt the Romney administration's directive. Some legislators and other state officials question the cost and legality, and cite objections from visually impaired people who find Office software easier to use than rival products. Sen. Marc Pacheco, a Democratic committee chairman who ordered the legislative hearing, said he wants Quinn's office "to stop and to collaborate with the necessary agencies before moving ahead with this process." Alan Yates, a Microsoft general manager, said the company was "encouraged by the additional review that the Legislature is pursuing to better understand the costs and issues associated with the existing Massachusetts policy." Romney spokesman Felix Browne said it was too early to say whether the plans to switch to OpenDocument might be altered. 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: Jennifer C. Kerr Subject: Senate Sets 2009 Digital TV Deadline Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 15:12:11 -0600 Senate Sets 2009 Digital TV Deadline By JENNIFER C. KERR The Senate moved the digital TV transition one step closer to reality on Thursday, setting a firm date for television broadcasters to switch to all-digital transmissions. Lawmakers gave broadcasters until April 7, 2009, to end their traditional analog transmissions. The so-called "hard date" was included in a sweeping budget bill. The bill also would provide $3 billion to help millions of Americans buy digital-to-analog converter boxes for their older television sets - so those consumers will continue to receive a signal once the switch is made permanent. Legislation approved last month by the House Energy and Commerce Committee calls for a Dec. 31, 2008, deadline and provides nearly $1 billion for the converter boxes. Differences between the measures would need to be worked out in a House-Senate conference. In the Senate, an amendment by Republican John Ensign of Nevada that would have reduced the converter box subsidy to $1 billion was withdrawn. Spokesman Jack Finn said Ensign was concerned that the $2 billion in savings would be spent on other projects instead of deficit reduction. Digital television promises sharper pictures and better sound than analog TV. National Association of Broadcasters president Eddie Fritts said the 2009 deadline "represents a victory for millions of Americans who could have been left stranded by a premature end to analog television service." The move to all-digital will free valuable radio spectrum, some of which will be allocated to improve radio communications among fire and police departments and other first responders. Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., unsuccessfully offered an amendment to move up the hard date by one year, saying "first responders' ability to communicate during times of tragedy can be literally a matter of life and death." Public safety officials had pressed for the earliest possible transition. "We would have preferred an earlier date, but the most important thing is that we have a firm date so that people can start the planning and funding process," said Robert Gurss, director of legal and government affairs at the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials. In addition to the hard date, the Senate measure also set aside an additional $1 billion for public safety to buy new radio communications equipment. The original digital television bill was sponsored by Sens. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii. Separately on Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission moved up by four months the date by which small TV sets sold in the U.S., those 13 inches to 24 inches, must have tuners to receive digital signals. The new deadline will be March 1, 2007. Sets under 13 inches will also have to have digital tuners by that date. The commission had previously ruled that mid-sized sets, screens from 25 inches to 36 inches, be digital-ready by March 1, 2006. On the Net: Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov Federal Communications Commission: http://www.fcc.gov 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. Also see: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 06 Nov 2005 20:57:14 -0500 From: Marcus Didius Falco Subject: Newest Google Service Search the full text of books. Excellent new research service. Even obscure topics will often get excellent hits. * Original: FROM..... Mehitabel Try these....you'll be blown away......m http://print.google.com/ http://print.google.com/advanced_print_search?ie=UTF-8 Direct replies are unlikely to be read. To reply use the address below: falco(underscore)md(atsign)yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk ------------------------------ From: Paul Coxwell Subject: Re: Phone Shown in 'Capote' / RJ Connector History Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 14:22:16 +0000 > As to modular connectors, I don't think they came out until the mid > 1970s. When we got new phone service in 1972, our jacks were the old > style big 4-prong. I believe my office converted to touch tone and > modular sets around 1977, many of us continue to use that system to > this day, though I think most of the WE 2500 sets have been replaced > with more modern 2500 sets or modern fancy sets. All the material I've ever seen also suggests that the modular connectors were introduced mid 1970s. I have a couple of WE-500 sets dating from 1970/71,and they still have hardwired cords. One of them came to me direct from Idaho and had the old-style 4-prong plug which was color-matched to the cord and phone (a kind of pinky-beige color). The cord actually has spade ends for wiring to a wall junction box and the plug is designed to accept the same terminations for easy conversion. > I hate sloppy history in movie props. Some years ago I used to be involved with lighting and sound for amateur dramatics, and I was always on the lookout for things which were out of place in "period" plays. Quite a few of the errors I pointed out to the producers stick in my mind to this day. There was a play set during the Korean war in which one of the leading characters almost went on stage wearing a digital watch which would have been visible to everybody in at least the front two or three rows. In the same play where a scene had rows of books on shelves, one particularly thick volume had large labeling on the spine which could easily be read at a similar distance -- "Almanac 1971." Another play set in -- if I recall correctly -- the 1930s had the set mocked up with modern-style light switches which simply didn't exist back then. On telephones, there was more than one play in which somebody in props had procurred what to them was obviously just "an old phone," and I had to point out that the British GPO 700-series phones didn't appear until the late 1950s. I was pedantic about the use of the props too. There was one play set in a small seaside town on the south coast in the early 1950s in which a character had to make a call to London. One of the older members of the cast had remembered that there was no STD back then and that a long-distance call had to be placed via the operator, but he then started dialing 100 to place the call. I had to point out that prior to STD we just dialed 0 for an operator. There were people saying "It doesn't matter," but after mentioning this the fellow thought for a moment and then recalled "Oh yeah, that's right, we did, didn't we?" So if he remembered, you can be sure somebody in the audience would spot the mistake too (and not just a telephone geek like myself!). Most people wanted to strive for accuracy as far as possible, but we had one producer who was "The what does it matter" type, and I had more than a couple of disagreements with her over technical inaccuracies. You don't even want to know what she thought we could get away with as a doorbell in "Little Women." -Paul. ------------------------------ From: Paul Coxwell Subject: Re: Old Chicago Numbering Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 14:23:10 +0000 Many thanks to all who have documented their recollections. I've edited the replies together and forwarded them to assist with piecing together old memories (Bill worked in the HUmboldt office). I'm not very familiar with Chicago myself, having only ever passed through the city a couple of times, so I'm going to have to dig out some maps to follow all the descriptions! -Paul ------------------------------ From: Paul Coxwell Subject: Re: Wabash Cannonball (Was: Old Chicago Numbering) Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 14:24:08 +0000 > For younger readers and not particularly Telecom related ... The > nickname for the switching machine at the Chicago-Wabash CO > undoubtably comes as a reference to a very popular tune dating from > the Mid-1930s - "The Wabash Cannonball". Written by A.P. Carter, the > chorus line probably brought to mind the sound of the CO machine on a > busy afternoon: > Listen to the Jingle > The rumble and the roar > As she glides along the woodlands > Through the hills and by the shore > Hear the mighty rush of the engine > Hear those lonesome hoboes squawl > While traveling through the jungle > On the Wabash Cannonball! > The song relates a steam locomotive trip on the Ireland, Jerusalem, > Australian and Southern Michigan Railroad. Legend has it that the I, > J, A and SM was built by Cal S. Bunyan, a younger brother of Paul. > So there you have it! I grew up knowing this old song even as an English kid many thousands of miles removed from its origins. I have the Carter Family's recording of it in my record collection somewhere. -Paul ------------------------------ From: Justa Lurker Subject: Re: Recorded Call From Law Office? Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 22:51:16 GMT > The parking area and the drive up window were completely abandoned at > that point in time; I had originally gone by the restaurant entrance > and saw a crew working inside there, but they waved me away saying > they were closed, 'but drive through is open until midnight'. Going > around to that side, then the rude lady waved me away saying she was > not going to serve any pedestrians walking through. PAT] You are better off not eating that stuff. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are generally correct on that. I go to get McDonalds when I a really hungry and no other place close is open. On that particular night, as I recall, the Jewish deli right across the street (where I would normally have gone was closed for the night. McDonalds was closer than the next nearest place, several blocks away. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Justa Lurker Subject: Re: Verizon POTS Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 22:59:34 GMT > Verizon is famous for having crappy outside plant records. For > example, when I moved here in October, 2004 they swore up and down > that service was hooked up. Plug in the phone and no dial-tone. No NID > either. > > the ANAC number on every pair. Not only did I find my pair, I found > the NID for my apartment and the two weren't anywhere near each other, > nor was the NID connected. > Called Verizon and told em' it was pair 14 and I wanted it hooked to > my NID. The tech that came out had a good laugh, he said I'd stirred > up a hornets nest inside Verizon's install/repair depot. Customers are > NOT supposed to open terminal boxes. > But when said boxes are secured with 7/16" nuts, it isn't hard to get > in. Exact same experience getting 2nd line into our house here in Freehold, NJ in 1996 when it was still Hell, errrrr. I mean Bell Atlantic. Took them three tries to get me a working line with the number which they'd told me was assigned ... one time, they even managed to break some local business's service ... I started getting their calls instead of them. Eventually they managed to make it work correctly. Wrote a letter to president/CEO of Bell Atlantic at that time (Ray Smith, I think) along with copies to some other executives as well as the NJ PUC describing exactly what had happened. I ended up getting a phone call from some outside plant supervisor who said to call him directly if I ever had any other problems (I doubt he's even there anymore 10 years later) as well as 2 separate form letters from "Ray Smith" which promised me a service credit [they even screwed that up, instead of one month's free local service, I think I got 3 !] No wonder they call them "Public Futilities". ------------------------------ From: Tom Subject: Can't See dot.tk Date: 5 Nov 2005 21:19:55 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com When I try to view my dot.tk doamin it won't show up, In fact I can't view any dot.tk domains except for the actual www.dot.tk doamin. Please help! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 6 Nov 2005 04:13:31 EST From: Dan Lanciani Subject: Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset I've been mostly satisfied with the first two generations of the 900MHz EnGenius system. It supports handset-to-handset calls but not conference. I've been thinking about my "next generation" cordless phone. It occurs to me that it might be possible to leverage my existing 802.11 access point infrastructure to support 802.11 VoIP handsets with a gateway like the Sipura SPA-3000 to a POTS line. (Obviously it could make other kinds of VoIP calls as well.) Has anybody tried to build a cordless phone this way? In reading the SPA-3000 configuration guide I think I noticed a possible problem. It appeared (and I should say that I spent very little time on this so I may have missed something) that the gateway will not forward a POTS call to VoIP unless it actually answers the call. I noticed that you can control an answer delay in order to accommodate other devices on the POTS line, but that's not quite what I want. Is there some way to send a setup message to the VoIP handset on detecting a ringing POTS line but not answer the POTS call unless the VoIP handset is itself answered? Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com ------------------------------ From: Nicole Winfield Subject: Sunday Sermon For This Week Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 15:13:43 -0600 Vatican: Faithful Should Listen to Science By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Writer A Vatican cardinal said Thursday the faithful should listen to what secular modern science has to offer, warning that religion risks turning into "fundamentalism" if it ignores scientific reason. Cardinal Paul Poupard, who heads the Pontifical Council for Culture, made the comments at a news conference on a Vatican project to help end the "mutual prejudice" between religion and science that has long bedeviled the Roman Catholic Church and is part of the evolution debate in the United States. The Vatican project was inspired by Pope John Paul II's 1992 declaration that the church's 17th-century denunciation of Galileo was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension." Galileo was condemned for supporting Nicolaus Copernicus' discovery that the Earth revolved around the sun; church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe. "The permanent lesson that the Galileo case represents pushes us to keep alive the dialogue between the various disciplines, and in particular between theology and the natural sciences, if we want to prevent similar episodes from repeating themselves in the future," Poupard said. But he said science, too, should listen to religion. "We know where scientific reason can end up by itself: the atomic bomb and the possibility of cloning human beings are fruit of a reason that wants to free itself from every ethical or religious link," he said. --> "But we also know the dangers of a religion that severs its links with reason and becomes prey to fundamentalism," he said. <-- "The faithful have the obligation to listen to that which secular modern science has to offer, just as we ask that knowledge of the faith be taken in consideration as an expert voice in humanity." Poupard and others at the news conference were asked about the religion-science debate raging in the United States over evolution and "intelligent design." Intelligent design's supporters argue that natural selection, an element of evolutionary theory, cannot fully explain the origin of life or the emergence of highly complex life forms. Monsignor Gianfranco Basti, director of the Vatican project STOQ, or Science, Theology and Ontological Quest, reaffirmed John Paul's 1996 statement that evolution was "more than just a hypothesis." "A hypothesis asks whether something is true or false," he said. "(Evolution) is more than a hypothesis because there is proof." He was asked about comments made in July by Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, who dismissed in a New York Times article the 1996 statement by John Paul as "rather vague and unimportant" and seemed to back intelligent design. Basti concurred that John Paul's 1996 letter "is not a very clear expression from a definition point of view," but he said evolution was assuming ever more authority as scientific proof develops. Poupard, for his part, stressed that what was important was that "the universe wasn't made by itself, but has a creator." But he added, "It's important for the faithful to know how science views things to understand better." The Vatican project STOQ has organized academic courses and conferences on the relationship between science and religion and is hosting its first international conference on "the infinity in science, philosophy and theology," next week. On the Net: Vatican project STOQ: http://www.stoqnet.org 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. For more headline news reports, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/TDNewsradio.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There are many instances where science and religion _can_ be reconciled; so often people tend to dismiss all religious thinking as nonsense, which is a pity. Think in terms of a 'bigger picture' when confronted with seeming discrepancies between the two. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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End of TELECOM Digest V24 #505 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Nov 7 12:53:18 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id BA75014D60; Mon, 7 Nov 2005 12:53:17 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #506 Message-Id: <20051107175317.BA75014D60@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 12:53:17 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.2 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Mon, 7 Nov 2005 12:55:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 506 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson An FBI Secret Letter and Order (Barton Gellman) Yahoo, Google to Launch Wireless Service (Reuters News Wire) Gooogle Offers Mapping Software (Associated Press News Wire) Online Movie Pirate Gets 3 Months in Jail (Reuters News Wire) CSL Launches Asia's First Commercial Video Sharing Service (Monty Solomon) Yahoo, TiVo Team Up on TV, Web Service (Monty Solomon) Increase DTMF Tones (frederic.willem@gmail.com) Cellular-News for Monday 7th November 2005 (Cellular-News) Re: Wabash Cannonball (Was: Old Chicago Numbering) (davidesan@gmail.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. 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Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Barton Gellman Subject: An FBI Secret Letter and Order Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 10:12:53 -0600 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Excerpts from a rather lengthy article over the weekend in Washingon Post. See the newspaper's web site for the entire article. http://washingtonpost.com And people think Joe McCarthy was bad news ... PAT] The FBI's Secret Scrutiny In Hunt for Terrorists, Bureau Examines Records of Ordinary Americans By Barton Gellman Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, November 6, 2005; A01 The FBI came calling in Windsor, Conn., this summer with a document marked for delivery by hand. On Matianuk Avenue, across from the tennis courts, two special agents found their man. They gave George Christian the letter, which warned him to tell no one, ever, what it said. Under the shield and stars of the FBI crest, the letter directed Christian to surrender "all subscriber information, billing information and access logs of any person" who used a specific computer at a library branch some distance away. Christian, who manages digital records for three dozen Connecticut libraries, said in an affidavit that he configures his system for privacy. But the vendors of the software he operates said their databases can reveal the Web sites that visitors browse, the e-mail accounts they open and the books they borrow. Christian refused to hand over those records, and his employer, Library Connection Inc., filed suit for the right to protest the FBI demand in public. The Washington Post established their identities -- still under seal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit -- by comparing unsealed portions of the file with public records and information gleaned from people who had no knowledge of the FBI demand. The Connecticut case affords a rare glimpse of an exponentially growing practice of domestic surveillance under the USA Patriot Act, which marked its fourth anniversary on Oct. 26. "National security letters," created in the 1970s for espionage and terrorism investigations, originated as narrow exceptions in consumer privacy law, enabling the FBI to review in secret the customer records of suspected foreign agents. The Patriot Act, and Bush administration guidelines for its use, transformed those letters by permitting clandestine scrutiny of U.S. residents and visitors who are not alleged to be terrorists or spies. The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. The letters -- one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people -- are extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans. Issued by FBI field supervisors, national security letters do not need the imprimatur of a prosecutor, grand jury or judge. They receive no review after the fact by the Justice Department or Congress. The executive branch maintains only statistics, which are incomplete and confined to classified reports. The Bush administration defeated legislation and a lawsuit to require a public accounting, and has offered no example in which the use of a national security letter helped disrupt a terrorist plot. The burgeoning use of national security letters coincides with an unannounced decision to deposit all the information they yield into government data banks -- and to share those private records widely, in the federal government and beyond. In late 2003, the Bush administration reversed a long-standing policy requiring agents to destroy their files on innocent American citizens, companies and residents when investigations closed. Late last month, President Bush signed Executive Order 13388, expanding access to those files for "state, local and tribal" governments and for "appropriate private sector entities," which are not defined. National security letters offer a case study of the impact of the Patriot Act outside the spotlight of political debate. Drafted in haste after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the law's 132 pages wrought scores of changes in the landscape of intelligence and law enforcement. Many received far more attention than the amendments to a seemingly pedestrian power to review "transactional records." But few if any other provisions touch as many ordinary Americans without their knowledge. Senior FBI officials acknowledged in interviews that the proliferation of national security letters results primarily from the bureau's new authority to collect intimate facts about people who are not suspected of any wrongdoing. Criticized for failure to detect the Sept. 11 plot, the bureau now casts a much wider net, using national security letters to generate leads as well as to pursue them. Casual or unwitting contact with a suspect -- a single telephone call, for example -- may attract the attention of investigators and subject a person to scrutiny about which he never learns. A national security letter cannot be used to authorize eavesdropping or to read the contents of e-mail. But it does permit investigators to trace revealing paths through the private affairs of a modern digital citizen. The records it yields describe where a person makes and spends money, with whom he lives and lived before, how much he gambles, what he buys online, what he pawns and borrows, where he travels, how he invests, what he searches for and reads on the Web, and who telephones or e-mails him at home and at work. As it wrote the Patriot Act four years ago, Congress bought time and leverage for oversight by placing an expiration date on 16 provisions. The changes involving national security letters were not among them. In fact, as the Dec. 31 deadline approaches and Congress prepares to renew or make permanent the expiring provisions, House and Senate conferees are poised again to amplify the FBI's power to compel the secret surrender of private records. The House and Senate have voted to make noncompliance with a national security letter a criminal offense. The House would also impose a prison term for breach of secrecy. Like many Patriot Act provisions, the ones involving national security letters have been debated in largely abstract terms. The Justice Department has offered Congress no concrete information, even in classified form, save for a partial count of the number of letters delivered. The statistics do not cover all forms of national security letters or all U.S. agencies making use of them. "The beef with the NSLs is that they don't have even a pretense of judicial or impartial scrutiny," said former representative Robert L. Barr Jr. (Ga.), who finds himself allied with the American Civil Liberties Union after a career as prosecutor, CIA analyst and conservative GOP stalwart. "There's no checks and balances whatever on them. It is simply some bureaucrat's decision that they want information, and they can basically just go and get it." 'A Routine Tool' Career investigators and Bush administration officials emphasized, in congressional testimony and interviews for this story, that national security letters are for hunting terrorists, not fishing through the private lives of the innocent. The distinction is not as clear in practice. Under the old legal test, the FBI had to have "specific and articulable" reasons to believe the records it gathered in secret belonged to a terrorist or a spy. Now the bureau needs only to certify that the records are "sought for" or "relevant to" an investigation "to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities." That standard enables investigators to look for conspirators by sifting the records of nearly anyone who crosses a suspect's path. "If you have a list of, say, 20 telephone numbers that have come up ... on a bad guy's telephone," said Valerie E. Caproni, the FBI's general counsel, "you want to find out who he's in contact with." Investigators will say, " 'Okay, phone company, give us subscriber information and toll records on these 20 telephone numbers,' and that can easily be 100." Bush administration officials compare national security letters to grand jury subpoenas, which are also based on "relevance" to an inquiry. There are differences. Grand juries tend to have a narrower focus because they investigate past conduct, not the speculative threat of unknown future attacks. Recipients of grand jury subpoenas are generally free to discuss the subpoenas publicly. And there are strict limits on sharing grand jury information with government agencies. Since the Patriot Act, the FBI has dispersed the authority to sign national security letters to more than five dozen supervisors -- the special agents in charge of field offices, the deputies in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, and a few senior headquarters officials. FBI rules established after the Patriot Act allow the letters to be issued long before a case is judged substantial enough for a "full field investigation." Agents commonly use the letters now in "preliminary investigations" and in the "threat assessments" that precede a decision whether to launch an investigation. "Congress has given us this tool to obtain basic telephone data, basic banking data, basic credit reports," said Caproni, who is among the officials with signature authority. "The fact that a national security letter is a routine tool used, that doesn't bother me." If agents had to wait for grounds to suspect a person of ill intent, said Joseph Billy Jr., the FBI's deputy assistant director for counterterrorism, they would already know what they want to find out with a national security letter. "It's all chicken and egg," he said. "We're trying to determine if someone warrants scrutiny or doesn't." Billy said he understands that "merely being in a government or FBI database ... gives everybody, you know, neck hair standing up." Innocent Americans, he said, "should take comfort at least knowing that it is done under a great deal of investigative care, oversight, within the parameters of the law." He added: "That's not going to satisfy a majority of people, but ... I've had people say, you know, 'Hey, I don't care, I've done nothing to be concerned about. You can have me in your files and that's that.' Some people take that approach." 'Don't Go Overboard' In Room 7975 of the J. Edgar Hoover Building, around two corners from the director's suite, the chief of the FBI's national security law unit sat down at his keyboard about a month after the Patriot Act became law. Michael J. Woods had helped devise the FBI wish list for surveillance powers. Now he offered a caution. "NSLs are powerful investigative tools, in that they can compel the production of substantial amounts of relevant information," he wrote in a Nov. 28, 2001, "electronic communication" to the FBI's 56 field offices. "However, they must be used judiciously." Standing guidelines, he wrote, "require that the FBI accomplish its investigations through the 'least intrusive' means. The greater availability of NSLs does not mean that they should be used in every case." Woods, who left government service in 2002, added a practical consideration. Legislators granted the new authority and could as easily take it back. When making that decision, he wrote, "Congress certainly will examine the manner in which the FBI exercised it." Looking back last month, Woods was struck by how starkly he misjudged the climate. The FBI disregarded his warning, and no one noticed. "This is not something that should be automatically done because it's easy," he said. "We need to be sure ... we don't go overboard." One thing Woods did not anticipate was then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft's revision of Justice Department guidelines. On May 30, 2002, and Oct. 31, 2003, Ashcroft rewrote the playbooks for investigations of terrorist crimes and national security threats. He gave overriding priority to preventing attacks by any means available. Ashcroft remained bound by Executive Order 12333, which requires the use of the "least intrusive means" in domestic intelligence investigations. But his new interpretation came close to upending the mandate. Three times in the new guidelines, Ashcroft wrote that the FBI "should consider ... less intrusive means" but "should not hesitate to use any lawful techniques ... even if intrusive" when investigators believe them to be more timely. "This point," he added, "is to be particularly observed in investigations relating to terrorist activities." 'Why Do You Want to Know?' As the Justice Department prepared congressional testimony this year, FBI headquarters searched for examples that would show how expanded surveillance powers made a difference. Michael Mason, who runs the Washington field office and has the rank of assistant FBI director, found no ready answer. "I'd love to have a made-for-Hollywood story, but I don't have one," Mason said. "I am not even sure such an example exists." What national security letters give his agents, Mason said, is speed. "I have 675 terrorism cases," he said. "Every one of these is a potential threat. And anything I can do to get to the bottom of any one of them more quickly gets me closer to neutralizing a potential threat." Because recipients are permanently barred from disclosing the letters, outsiders can make no assessment of their relevance to Mason's task. Woods, the former FBI lawyer, said secrecy is essential when an investigation begins because "it would defeat the whole purpose" to tip off a suspected terrorist or spy, but national security seldom requires that the secret be kept forever. Even mobster "John Gotti finds out eventually that he was wiretapped" in a criminal probe, said Peter Swire, the federal government's chief privacy counselor until 2001. "Anyone caught up in an NSL investigation never gets notice." To establish the "relevance" of the information they seek, agents face a test so basic it is hard to come up with a plausible way to fail. A model request for a supervisor's signature, according to internal FBI guidelines, offers this one-sentence suggestion: "This subscriber information is being requested to determine the individuals or entities that the subject has been in contact with during the past six months." Edward L. Williams, the chief division counsel in Mason's office, said that supervisors, in practice, "aren't afraid to ask ... 'Why do you want to know?' " He would not say how many requests, if any, are rejected. 'The Abuse Is in the Power Itself' Those who favor the new rules maintain -- as Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, put it in a prepared statement -- that "there has not been one substantiated allegation of abuse of these lawful intelligence tools." What the Bush administration means by abuse is unauthorized use of surveillance data -- for example, to blackmail an enemy or track an estranged spouse. Critics are focused elsewhere. What troubles them is not unofficial abuse but the official and routine intrusion into private lives. To Jeffrey Breinholt, deputy chief of the Justice Department's counterterrorism section, the civil liberties objections "are eccentric." Data collection on the innocent, he said, does no harm unless "someone [decides] to act on the information, put you on a no-fly list or something." Only a serious error, he said, could lead the government, based on nothing more than someone's bank or phone records, "to freeze your assets or go after you criminally and you suffer consequences that are irreparable." He added: "It's a pretty small chance." "I don't necessarily want somebody knowing what videos I rent or the fact that I like cartoons," said Mason, the Washington field office chief. But if those records "are never used against a person, if they're never used to put him in jail, or deprive him of a vote, et cetera, then what is the argument?" Barr, the former congressman, said that "the abuse is in the power itself." "As a conservative," he said, "I really resent an administration that calls itself conservative taking the position that the burden is on the citizen to show the government has abused power, and otherwise shut up and comply." At the ACLU, staff attorney Jameel Jaffer spoke of "the profound chilling effect" of this kind of surveillance: "If the government monitors the Web sites that people visit and the books that they read, people will stop visiting disfavored Web sites and stop reading disfavored books. The FBI should not have unchecked authority to keep track of who visits [al-Jazeera's Web site] or who visits the Web site of the Federalist Society." Links in a Chain Ready access to national security letters allows investigators to employ them routinely for "contact chaining." "Starting with your bad guy and his telephone number and looking at who he's calling, and [then] who they're calling," the number of people surveilled "goes up exponentially," acknowledged Caproni, the FBI's general counsel. But Caproni said it would not be rational for the bureau to follow the chain too far. "Everybody's connected" if investigators keep tracing calls "far enough away from your targeted bad guy," she said. "What's the point of that?" One point is to fill government data banks for another investigative technique. That one is called "link analysis," a practice Caproni would neither confirm nor deny. Two years ago, Ashcroft rescinded a 1995 guideline directing that information obtained through a national security letter about a U.S. citizen or resident "shall be destroyed by the FBI and not further disseminated" if it proves "not relevant to the purposes for which it was collected." Ashcroft's new order was that "the FBI shall retain" all records it collects and "may disseminate" them freely among federal agencies. The same order directed the FBI to develop "data mining" technology to probe for hidden links among the people in its growing cache of electronic files. According to an FBI status report, the bureau's office of intelligence began operating in January 2004 a new Investigative Data Warehouse, based on the same Oracle technology used by the CIA. The CIA is generally forbidden to keep such files on Americans. Data mining intensifies the impact of national security letters, because anyone's personal files can be scrutinized again and again without a fresh need to establish relevance. "The composite picture of a person which emerges from transactional information is more telling than the direct content of your speech," said Woods, the former FBI lawyer. "That's certainly not been lost on the intelligence community and the FBI." Ashcroft's new guidelines allowed the FBI for the first time to add to government files consumer data from commercial providers such as LexisNexis and ChoicePoint Inc. Previous attorneys general had decided that such a move would violate the Privacy Act. In many field offices, agents said, they now have access to ChoicePoint in their squad rooms. What national security letters add to government data banks is information that no commercial service can lawfully possess. Strict privacy laws, for example, govern financial and communications records. National security letters -- along with the more powerful but much less frequently used secret subpoenas from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court -- override them. 'What Happens in Vegas' The bureau displayed its ambition for data mining in an emergency operation at the end of 2003. The Department of Homeland Security declared an orange alert on Dec. 21 of that year, in part because of intelligence that hinted at a New Year's Eve attack in Las Vegas. The identities of the plotters were unknown. The FBI sent Gurvais Grigg, chief of the bureau's little-known Proactive Data Exploitation Unit, in an audacious effort to assemble a real-time census of every visitor in the nation's most-visited city. An average of about 300,000 tourists a day stayed an average of four days each, presenting Grigg's team with close to a million potential suspects in the ensuing two weeks. A former stockbroker with a degree in biochemistry, Grigg declined to be interviewed. Government and private sector sources who followed the operation described epic efforts to vacuum up information. An interagency task force began pulling together the records of every hotel guest, everyone who rented a car or truck, every lease on a storage space, and every airplane passenger who landed in the city. Grigg's unit filtered that population for leads. Any link to the known terrorist universe -- a shared address or utility account, a check deposited, a telephone call -- could give investigators a start. "It was basically a manhunt, and in circumstances where there is a manhunt, the most effective way of doing that was to scoop up a lot of third party data and compare it to other data we were getting," Breinholt said. Investigators began with emergency requests for help from the city's sprawling hospitality industry. "A lot of it was done voluntary at first," said Billy, the deputy assistant FBI director. According to others directly involved, investigators turned to national security letters and grand jury subpoenas when friendly persuasion did not work. Early in the operation, according to participants, the FBI gathered casino executives and asked for guest lists. The MGM Mirage company, followed by others, balked. "Some casinos were saying no to consent [and said], 'You have to produce a piece of paper,' " said Jeff Jonas, chief scientist at IBM Entity Analytics, who previously built data management systems for casino surveillance. "They don't just market 'What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.' They want it to be true." The operation remained secret for about a week. Then casino sources told Rod Smith, gaming editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, that the FBI had served national security letters on them. In an interview for this article, one former casino executive confirmed the use of a national security letter. Details remain elusive. Some law enforcement officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they had not been authorized to divulge particulars, said they relied primarily on grand jury subpoenas. One said in an interview that national security letters may eventually have been withdrawn. Agents encouraged voluntary disclosures, he said, by raising the prospect that the FBI would use the letters to gather something more sensitive: the gambling profiles of casino guests. Caproni declined to confirm or deny that account. What happened in Vegas stayed in federal data banks. Under Ashcroft's revised policy, none of the information has been purged. For every visitor, Breinholt said, "the record of the Las Vegas hotel room would still exist." Grigg's operation found no suspect, and the orange alert ended on Jan. 10, 2004."The whole thing washed out," one participant said. 'Of Interest to President Bush' At around the time the FBI found George Christian in Connecticut, agents from the bureau's Charlotte field office paid an urgent call on the chemical engineering department at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. They were looking for information about a former student named Magdy Nashar, then suspected in the July 7 London subway bombing but since cleared of suspicion. University officials said in interviews late last month that the FBI tried to use a national security letter to demand much more information than the law allows. David T. Drooz, the university's senior associate counsel, said special authority is required for the surrender of records protected by educational and medical privacy. The FBI's first request, a July 14 grand jury subpoena, did not appear to supply that authority, Drooz said, and the university did not honor it. Referring to notes he took that day, Drooz said Eric Davis, the FBI's top lawyer in Charlotte, "was focused very much on the urgency" and "he even indicated the case was of interest to President Bush." The next day, July 15, FBI agents arrived with a national security letter. Drooz said it demanded all records of Nashar's admission, housing, emergency contacts, use of health services and extracurricular activities. University lawyers "looked up what law we could on the fly," he said. They discovered that the FBI was demanding files that national security letters have no power to obtain. The statute the FBI cited that day covers only telephone and Internet records. "We're very eager to comply with the authorities in this regard, but we needed to have what we felt was a legally valid procedure," said Larry A. Neilsen, the university provost. Soon afterward, the FBI returned with a new subpoena. It was the same as the first one, Drooz said, and the university still had doubts about its legal sufficiency. This time, however, it came from New York and summoned Drooz to appear personally. The tactic was "a bit heavy-handed," Drooz said, "the implication being you're subject to contempt of court." Drooz surrendered the records. The FBI's Charlotte office referred questions to headquarters. A high-ranking FBI official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the field office erred in attempting to use a national security letter. Investigators, he said, "were in a big hurry for obvious reasons" and did not approach the university "in the exact right way." 'Unreasonable' or 'Oppressive' The electronic docket in the Connecticut case, as the New York Times first reported, briefly titled the lawsuit Library Connection Inc. v. Gonzales . Because identifying details were not supposed to be left in the public file, the court soon replaced the plaintiff's name with "John Doe." George Christian, Library Connection's executive director, is identified in his affidavit as "John Doe 2." In that sworn statement, he said people often come to libraries for information that is "highly sensitive, embarrassing or personal." He wanted to fight the FBI but feared calling a lawyer because the letter said he could not disclose its existence to "any person." He consulted Peter Chase, vice president of Library Connection and chairman of a state intellectual freedom committee. Chase -- "John Doe 1" in his affidavit -- advised Christian to call the ACLU. Reached by telephone at their homes, both men declined to be interviewed. U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall ruled in September that the FBI gag order violates Christian's, and Library Connection's, First Amendment rights. A three-judge panel heard oral argument on Wednesday in the government's appeal. The central facts remain opaque, even to the judges, because the FBI is not obliged to describe what it is looking for, or why. During oral argument in open court on Aug. 31, Hall said one government explanation was so vague that "if I were to say it out loud, I would get quite a laugh here." After the government elaborated in a classified brief delivered for her eyes only, she wrote in her decision that it offered "nothing specific." The Justice Department tried to conceal the existence of the first and only other known lawsuit against a national security letter, also brought by the ACLU's Jaffer and Ann Beeson. Government lawyers opposed its entry into the public docket of a New York federal judge. They have since tried to censor nearly all the contents of the exhibits and briefs. They asked the judge, for example, to black out every line of the affidavit that describes the delivery of the national security letter to a New York Internet company, including, "I am a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ('FBI')." U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero, in a ruling that is under appeal, held that the law authorizing national security letters violates the First and Fourth Amendments. Resistance to national security letters is rare. Most of them are served on large companies in highly regulated industries, with business interests that favor cooperation. The in-house lawyers who handle such cases, said Jim Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, "are often former prosecutors -- instinctively pro-government but also instinctively by-the-books." National security letters give them a shield against liability to their customers. Kenneth M. Breen, a partner at the New York law firm Fulbright & Jaworski, held a seminar for corporate lawyers one recent evening to explain the "significant risks for the non-compliant" in government counterterrorism investigations. A former federal prosecutor, Breen said failure to provide the required information could create "the perception that your company didn't live up to its duty to fight terrorism" and could invite class-action lawsuits from the families of terrorism victims. In extreme cases, he said, a business could face criminal prosecution, "a 'death sentence' for certain kinds of companies." The volume of government information demands, even so, has provoked a backlash. Several major business groups, including the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, complained in an Oct. 4 letter to senators that customer records can "too easily be obtained and disseminated" around the government. National security letters, they wrote, have begun to impose an "expensive and time-consuming burden" on business. The House and Senate bills renewing the Patriot Act do not tighten privacy protections, but they offer a concession to business interests. In both bills, a judge may modify a national security letter if it imposes an "unreasonable" or "oppressive" burden on the company that is asked for information. 'A Legitimate Question' As national security letters have grown in number and importance, oversight has not kept up. In each house of Congress, jurisdiction is divided between the judiciary and intelligence committees. None of the four Republican chairmen agreed to be interviewed. Roberts, the Senate intelligence chairman, said in a statement issued through his staff that "the committee is well aware of the intelligence value of the information that is lawfully collected under these national security letter authorities," which he described as "non-intrusive" and "crucial to tracking terrorist networks and detecting clandestine intelligence activities." Senators receive "valuable reporting by the FBI," he said, in "semi-annual reports [that] provide the committee with the information necessary to conduct effective oversight." Roberts was referring to the Justice Department's classified statistics, which in fact have been delivered three times in four years. They include the following information: how many times the FBI issued national security letters; whether the letters sought financial, credit or communications records; and how many of the targets were "U.S. persons." The statistics omit one whole category of FBI national security letters and also do not count letters issued by the Defense Department and other agencies. Committee members have occasionally asked to see a sampling of national security letters, a description of their fruits or examples of their contribution to a particular case. The Justice Department has not obliged. In 2004, the conference report attached to the intelligence authorization bill asked the attorney general to "include in his next semiannual report" a description of "the scope of such letters" and the "process and standards for approving" them. More than a year has passed without a Justice Department reply. "The committee chairman has the power to issue subpoenas" for information from the executive branch, said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), a House Judiciary Committee member. "The minority has no power to compel, and ... Republicans are not going to push for oversight of the Republicans. That's the story of this Congress." In the executive branch, no FBI or Justice Department official audits the use of national security letters to assess whether they are appropriately targeted, lawfully applied or contribute important facts to an investigation. Justice Department officials noted frequently this year that Inspector General Glenn A. Fine reports twice a year on abuses of the Patriot Act and has yet to substantiate any complaint. (One investigation is pending.) Fine advertises his role, but there is a puzzle built into the mandate. Under what scenario could a person protest a search of his personal records if he is never notified? "We do rely upon complaints coming in," Fine said in House testimony in May. He added: "To the extent that people do not know of anything happening to them, there is an issue about whether they can complain. So, I think that's a legitimate question." Asked more recently whether Fine's office has conducted an independent examination of national security letters, Deputy Inspector General Paul K. Martin said in an interview: "We have not initiated a broad-based review that examines the use of specific provisions of the Patriot Act." At the FBI, senior officials said the most important check on their power is that Congress is watching. "People have to depend on their elected representatives to do the job of oversight they were elected to do," Caproni said. "And we think they do a fine job of it." Researcher Julie Tate and research editor Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report. 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. *** 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, The Washington Post Company. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Yahoo, Google to Launch Wireless Services Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 10:24:06 -0600 Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. are set to roll out new wireless services, taking advantage of advanced networks and cellphones to provide features similar to those available on computers, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. Yahoo soon will introduce a cellphone it will sell through a partnership with SBC Communications, according to SBC executives. The phone will take Yahoo a step closer to linking music, photos and email with consumers' existing online accounts, address books and preferences, the paper said. Google is tailoring some Internet services for use on wireless devices. Starting Monday, consumers using some types of cellphones will be able to access satellite maps wirelessly as they can on the Google Maps service, the paper said. The moves will mark a further step in the evolution of cellphones from communications devices to minicomputers that can be used for email, Web browsing, music downloading and even watching TV, in addition to calls. Handset manufacturers have already started to produce single devices that combine cellphones, Web surfing, wireless email and MP3 players. SBC and Yahoo have had a partnership since 2001 and have steadily expanded it beyond traditional telecom and online services to merge video, wireless and phone services. SBC executives said the SBC-Yahoo phone, which will be manufactured by Nokia, is expected to be available as soon as early next year and will cost $200 to $300. Operating on the Cingular Wireless network, which is co-owned by SBC and BellSouth Corp., the phone will also be an MP3 player, a 1.3 megapixel camera and will have a removable memory card. Last year, Google began letting U.S. consumers get search results by sending text messages from their cellphones. Starting Monday, many consumers whose phones support Java software will be able to download the Google Local application. From there, they can conduct searches for businesses or services in a specific geographical location and view the search results plotted on a map. 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: Associated Press News Wire Subject: Google Offers Software for Mapping Service Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 10:25:05 -0600 Google Inc. is introducing software Monday designed to make its local search and mapping service easier to navigate on mobile phones, continuing the Internet search engine leader's effort to extend its reach beyond personal computers. Consumers who download and install the new software will be able to skip some of the steps that had been required since Google began offering a mobile version of its maps nearly seven months ago. For instance, users won't have to type in their location before getting directions to a specific location, as long as their phone has Global Positioning System, or GPS, capabilities, said Deep Nishar, a director of Google's mobile products. Google has been exploring ways to pinpoint the location of its users in order to better target ads from nearby merchants. But Nishar said that goal isn't driving the mobile upgrade: Google doesn't plan to display ads alongside its mobile maps. Ads generate virtually all of Google's revenue, which totaled $4.2 billion through the first nine months of this year. The Mountain View-based company recorded a $1.1 billion profit during that time, continuing an exceptional streak of prosperity that has propelled its market value above $100 billion just seven years after its inception. Emboldened by its success, Google has been busily expanding beyond its once-austere search engine. With the push, Google is becoming increasingly involved in telecommunications, television and publishing. Using Google's new mobile mapping software requires Java-enabled phones. Most subscribers with wireless service from Cingular, T-Mobile and Sprint should be able to use the software, Nishar said. The service won't work with Verizon phones, Blackberry devices or Palm devices. 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. For more news from Associated Press please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html (audio and reading, or) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Online Movie Pirate Gets 3 Months in Jail Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 10:30:05 -0600 A Hong Kong court sentenced a local man to three months in jail on Monday for trying to illegally distribute movies using BitTorrent software. Chan Nai-ming was convicted last month for trying to distribute three Hollywood blockbusters -- Daredevil, Red Planet and Miss Congeniality -- on the Internet without licences. He pleaded not guilty. "He was sentenced to three months for each count but they will run concurrently," a court clerk said. Chan filed an appeal and was freed on HK$5,000 (US$645) bail. It is believed to be the world's first intellectual piracy case involving the file-sharing technology. BitTorrent, created by programer Bram Cohen, distributes large files quickly by breaking them into many pieces, sharing the pieces among a large number of users, and reassembling them upon delivery. It is widely used to trade copyrighted materials like movies and television shows. It also has many non-infringing uses. The Hong Kong government has said the case was the first successful enforcement action against peer-to-peer file sharing. The maximum penalty is four years' jail and a hefty fine. (US$=HK$7.8) 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: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 03:30:35 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CSL Launches Asia's First Commercial Video Sharing Service CSL Launches Asia's First Commercial Video Sharing Service With Nokia IMS - Nov 7, 2005 02:50 AM (PR Newswire) HONG KONG, China, November 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Mobile operator CSL and Nokia today jointly announced the commercial launch of Asia's first video sharing service in Hong Kong enabled by Nokia IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and systems integration services. At a press conference, CSL and Nokia demonstrated video sharing service using the Nokia N70, the 3G Series 60 smartphone with 2 megapixel camera and a full set of Nokia Nseries features. The service launch affirms CSL and Nokia's leading position in bringing innovative mobile services to the end-users. This milestone service also demonstrates Nokia's end-to-end capability in enabling operators to differentiate and offer a variety of services on the fiercely competitive Hong Kong telecommunication market. Video sharing is a multimedia service that allows users to view live or prerecorded video during a normal voice call on their mobile phones. Both the caller and the receiver can watch the same video and discuss it, and then end the video sharing without ending the voice call. Video sharing is based on standardized 3GPP IMS and IETF technologies, and its specifications are available at Forum Nokia. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=52910516 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 09:19:21 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Yahoo, TiVo Team Up on TV, Web Service By MAY WONG Associated Press Writer SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Yahoo Inc. and TiVo Inc. are teaming up to blend some of their services, a move that further fades the lines between offices and living rooms, TVs and PCs. Under a partnership announced Monday, the two will collaborate to offer Yahoo's Internet-based content and services through TiVo's digital video recording devices. Users of Yahoo's TV page will be able to click on a record-to-TiVo button directly from a television program listing to remotely schedule recordings. And in the coming months, possibly before the end of the year, Yahoo's traffic and weather content, as well as its users' photos will be viewable on televisions via TiVo's broadband service and easy-to-use screen menu. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Edward Lichty, TiVo's vice president of corporate strategy, said TiVo hopes the collaboration will set the foundation for a long-term relationship. TiVo subscribers already have the ability to remotely schedule recordings from the TiVo Web site, but this will give the DVR pioneer a way to potentially tap Yahoo's large user base and gain some much-needed new customers. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=52916081 ------------------------------ From: frederic.willem@gmail.com Subject: Increase DTMF Tones Date: 7 Nov 2005 03:06:22 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hi all, I would like to increase the duration of the DTMF tones of my incoming calls on the PABX. I know that there is equipment making it possible to parameterize this kind of things but I do not find anything in the groups nor on Google. If somebody among you knows this kind of apparatus, can it leave me a reference? Thanks in advance, Eric Willem ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Monday 7th November 2005 Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 07:46:57 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com Top 10 Selling Handsets in October http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14710.php The Swedish manufacturer of carrying cases for portable electronics, Krusell, has released their "Top 10"-list for October 2005. The list is based upon the number of pieces of model specific mobile phone cases that has been ordered from Krusell durin... Romanian Mobile Call Volumes Jump 45% http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14709.php The number of mobile telephony users in Romania reached 11.37 million in June 2005, increasing by more than 10% (1.16 million) as compared to end-2004, according to the final report on the electronic communications sector for the period January 1st -... MMS Is A Huge Success In Norway http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14708.php Strand Reports has noted that it would not have been completely misleading, if SMS had been the abbreviation for "Surprising Messaging Success" -- as the success of SMS messages took the mobile operators completely by surprise. Currently mobile operat... Taiwanese Mobile Phone Industry Gains from Low-Cost Handsets http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14707.php Riding the wave of new handset demand running through emerging markets as well as healthy replacement demand in mature markets, global mobile phone shipments continued the strong pace. Registering an estimated 200 million units in the third quarter, ... Orange Launches Three New Windows Mobile 5.0 Products http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14706.php Orange is expanding the SPV range in the business customer sector. Orange says that it is the first mobile telephony supplier in Switzerland to offer three new devices with the new Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system. The new flagship is the SPV M500... 39 hours - The World Record for the Longest Phone Conversation http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14705.php On November 1 at 11:15 a.m., Sandra Kobel (28) from Berne and Stephan Hafner (29) from Wettingen embarked on the first-ever world-record attempt at the longest phone conversation over the Internet. Both participants demonstrated their enormous commun... Cheap Voice Bundles Drive 3G Mobile Services http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14704.php New research suggests that 3G mobile services are now beginning to take off, however instead of supposedly new "killer applications" or high speed data services driving sales as many pundits predicted, it is the promise of cheaper voice and text bund... NEC Makes HSDPA Kit Available http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14703.php NEC Corporation has announced that its High Speed Download Packet Access (HSDPA) solution is ready to be delivered for use in commercial networks worldwide. The successful field network operation trial for NEC's HSDPA was carried out this summer thro... Western European Enterprises Still Slow to Adopt Mobile Solutions http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14702.php Enterprises in Western Europe have been slow to adopt mobile solutions in the past 12 months, according to IDC's 2005 Enterprise Mobility Survey. Although there is now more awareness of and interest in mobile technologies and applications, adoption h... TDC Launches 3G in Denmark http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14701.php Denmark's TDC Mobile has opened its 3G network for residential customers today. Already on October 3, TDC Mobile's business customers got access to the higher speeds via the mobile broadband card.... Mobile television: Swisscom launches DVB-H trial http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14700.php Around 100 people are currently testing a new mobile television technology. Between now and the end of the year, Switzerland's Swisscom Broadcast and Swisscom Mobile will be carrying out a technical trial of the new digital standard DVB-H.... USA Trailing Rest of World in Embracing Music on Cell Phones http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14699.php Almost one in five (19%) of all mobile phone owners worldwide now listen to music on their phones, according to a new study by TNS. Amongst this global group, some 16% of all music they listen to daily is on their phones, compared with 15% on a stere... T-Mobile Netherlands: 3G turbo gets test run http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14698.php After having demonstrated High-Speed Download Packet Access (HSDPA) to corporate customers in August this year, T-Mobile Netherlands last week became the first Dutch provider to have established a HSDPA connection on a live network. Employees from Pl... Telefonica Argentina Head Sees New Phone Contract Soon http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14697.php The head of Telefonica SA's Argentina unit said Friday he expects to shortly finish a long-delayed renegotiation of the company's telephone services contracts with the Argentine government. ... Madrid Court Dismisses Case Against Telefonica Chairman -Source http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14696.php A Madrid court has dismissed a case against Telefonica SA Chairman Cesar Alierta, ruling that the statute of limitations for the insider trading charges brought against him had expired, a judicial source said Friday. ... Ericsson To Test HSDPA With Vodafone K.K.'s Tokyo Network http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14695.php Swedish telecommunications equipment maker Telefon AB LM Ericsson Friday said it has successfully upgraded Vodafone K.K.'s commercial network in central parts of Tokyo with high speed downlink packet access, or HSDPA, to test the technology on the mo... New Zealand Telecom 1Q Net NZ$199 Million Vs NZ$203 Million http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14694.php Telecom Corp. of New Zealand Ltd. Friday reported a first quarter net profit of NZ$199 million, down 2% from the previous year's NZ$203 million, which was adjusted to comply with international accounting standards. ... UTStarcom Incurs Loss On Writedown http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14693.php UTStarcom Inc. on Thursday posted a large third-quarter loss as the company wrote down the value of assets and struggled with declining revenue. ... ------------------------------ From: davidesan@gmail.com Subject: Re: Wabash Cannonball (Was: Old Chicago Numbering) Date: 7 Nov 2005 07:32:05 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Let's not forget that the Wabsh Cannonball was sung often by Dizzy Dean during baseball broadcasts. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. 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End of TELECOM Digest V24 #506 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Nov 7 19:23:42 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 0611614F07; Mon, 7 Nov 2005 19:23:41 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #507 Message-Id: <20051108002341.0611614F07@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 19:23:41 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.8 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,BAYES_00, INFO_TLD autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Mon, 7 Nov 2005 19:23:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 507 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Internet Phone Customers May Get Cut Off (Reuters News Wire) EU Optomistic Over Plan For Wider Governance of Internet (Huw Jones) Grokster to Shut Down Almost Immediatly (Ted Bridis) Murdoch Hints at U.S. Broadband Service (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset (davidesan@gmail.com) Re: Verizon POTS (Joe) Re: An FBI Secret Letter and Order (Tom Betz) 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: Reuters News Wire Subject: Internet Phone Customers May Get Cut Off Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 17:32:42 -0600 Roughly 750,000 of the estimated 2.5 million Internet telephone customers may have service turned off because providers cannot offer enhanced 911 service, according to a survey on Monday by Voice On the Net Coalition. The Federal Communications Commission ordered providers to suspend service by November 28 to customers who will not have enhanced 911 services, which includes providing dispatchers a caller's number and location. The agency's order followed several instances where Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) subscribers had trouble reaching help when they dialed 911 for help. In several cases, calls went to business lines instead of emergency dispatchers. Most of those who would have to be disconnected would have only basic 911 access, and are residential customers who use their service in multiple locations, the VON Coalition said. The group said hurdles facing VOIP providers to offer enhanced 911 service include accessing the necessary databases, the short time frame, and technological limits. The survey included a dozen VOIP providers like Vonage Holdings Corp. Nuvio Corp. and other VOIP providers last week filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit seeking a stay of the FCC order while it challenges the requirements. The providers argued, among other things, that they had only 120 days to comply with the requirements, while other telecommunications services like wireless had much more time. The FCC has until Tuesday to respond. Last week FCC Chairman Kevin Martin defended the deadline. Many Internet phone services can be used anywhere there is a high-speed Internet connection, but such mobility forces callers to identify their current location for enhanced 911 service to work. Less than half of the dozen VOIP providers surveyed, 42 percent, said they would be able to provide enhanced 911 service to 100 percent of their customers with a primary fixed location, according to VON. 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: Huw Jones Subject: EU Optimistic Over Plans for Wider Governance of Internet Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 17:31:35 -0600 By Huw Jones The European Commission hopes a meeting next week will come up with an agreement to allow governments more direct influence over the domain name system that guides traffic around the Internet. A U.N. report has put forward a more multi-national approach to running the Internet which serves a billion users worldwide, saying this would be more democratic and transparent, a view the 25-nation European Union shares. Day-to-day handling of domain names is done by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California-based non-profit organization created by the U.S. Commerce Department. ICANN's _governments_ committee has only an advisory role. A final round of diplomatic talks on the report is due on Saturday ahead of the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis on November 16-18. Internet governance is seen by most users and countries outside the United States as being too heavily skewed in favor of America, though David Gross, the U.S. State Department ambassador who is heading the U.S. delegation in Tunis, told Reuters last month that it was the private sector that leads in running the Internet. The Commission said it has made much progress with its aims. "We are entering into the final phase of negotiations with quite an optimistic point of view," Jean-Francois Soupizet, deputy head of international relations at the Commission said. "We have already the elements for an agreement, notably a workable definition of Internet governance," Soupizet told a forum on convergence in the media. Software and Internet firms fear that wide government involvement will mean more regulation and taxes. Soupizet said the EU was against setting up a new U.N. mechanism to intervene in developing the Internet infrastructure, which the EU says should be left to current operators on a day-to-day basis. "Only when this is not working properly, then we could consider intervention. This point is now widely shared by all parties at WSIS ... and will be reflected in the Tunis agenda for action," Soupizet said. Some 80 to 90 percent of plan of action to be signed off in Tunis has already been agreed, he added. The U.N. report has raised hackles among U.S. politicians. "We cannot allow the U.N. to control the Internet," Republican senator Norm Coleman has said, "It has to be the United States only in control." Other politicians have called for the U.S. role in Internet governance to be maintained, with the Commerce Department still overseeing ICANN. Theresa Swinehart, a general manager at ICANN, made claims at the meeting that ICANN did not "run or control or govern the Internet, but coordinates," but many of the other participants strongly disagreed, claiming that ICANN deliberatly ignores certain safeguards which would help their users. Wider representation of countries and other interested parties is already emerging but was not perfect yet, she said. "The WSIS process needs to make sure it does not put at risk the 35 years to develop the Internet to date." Bernard Benhamou, director of Internet governance in the French Prime Minister's office, said more democratic governance of the Internet was needed as its power to intrude into people's lives increases, and the need to tackle civil liberties issues such as identity theft and spam. "ICANN only represents corporate America business interests", he added. 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: Ted Bridis Subject: Grokster Downloading Service to Shut Down Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 17:34:07 -0600 By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer Grokster Ltd., which lost a Supreme Court fight over file-sharing software used for stealing songs and movies online, agreed Monday to shut down and pay $50 million to settle piracy complaints by Hollywood and the music industry. The surprise settlement permanently bans Grokster from participating, directly or indirectly, in the theft of copyrighted files and requires the company to stop giving away its software, according to court papers. Executives indicated plans to launch a legal, fee-based "Grokster 3G" service before year's end under a new parent company, believed to be Mashboxx of Virginia Beach, Va. Mashboxx, headed in part by former Grokster president Wayne Rosso, already has signed a licensing agreement with Sony BMG Music Entertainment. "It is time for a new beginning," Grokster said in a statement issued from its corporate headquarters in the West Indies. Grokster's Web site was changed Monday to say its existing file- sharing service was illegal and no longer available. "There are legal services for downloading music and movies," the message said. "This service is not one of them." The head of the Recording Industry Association of America, Mitch Bainwol, described the settlement as "a chapter that ends on a high note for the recording industry, the tech community and music fans and consumers everywhere." It was unclear whether Grokster can afford to pay the $50 million in damages required under the agreement. The head of the Motion Picture Association of America, Dan Glickman, said the entertainment industry will demand full payment unless Grokster satisfies all its obligations under the settlement. Grokster's brand will survive. The new fee-based version of its software will be available within 60 days, according to one executive involved in the deal. This executive spoke only on condition of anonymity because the sale of Grokster's assets is pending. Grokster's decision was not expected to affect Internet users who already run the company's file-sharing software to download music and movies online, nor was it expected to affect users of rival downloading services, such as eDonkey, Kazaa, BitTorrent and others. Glickman said Grokster will send anti-piracy messages to existing users, and the company is forbidden from maintaining its software or network. "Without those services, the system will degrade over time," Glickman said. Grokster lost an important Supreme Court ruling in June. Justices ruled that the entertainment industry can file piracy lawsuits against technology companies caught encouraging customers to steal music and movies over the Internet. The decision, which gave a green light for the federal case to advance in Los Angeles, significantly weakened lawsuit protections for companies that had blamed illegal behavior on their own customers rather than the technology that made such behavior possible. The court said Grokster and another firm, Streamcast Networks Inc., can be sued because they deliberately encouraged customers to download copyrighted files illegally so they could build a larger audience and sell more advertising. Writing for the court, Justice David H. Souter said the companies' "unlawful objective is unmistakable." "They're out of business," said Charles Baker, a lawyer for Streamcast. "It's over for them. There was a lack of desire to continue to fight this thing going forward." Baker said the settlement does not affect Streamcast, the co-defendant in the entertainment industry's lawsuit. The Supreme Court noted as evidence of bad conduct that Grokster and Streamcast made no effort to block illegal downloads, which the companies maintained wasn't possible. On the Net: Grokster Ltd.: http://www.grokster.com Recording Industry Association of America: http://www.riaa.org Motion Picture Association of America: http://www.mpaa.org 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. For more Associated Press headlines and stories, please check out: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html (audio report with stories; also http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 12:55:50 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Murdoch Hints at U.S. Broadband Service USTelecom dailyLead November 7, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xCqkatagCwpfyVSuYY TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Murdoch hints at U.S. broadband service BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Google, Yahoo! enter mobile phone space * Terayon takes wraps off IPTV ad-insertion system * XO sells fixed-line business to Carl Icahn * NexTone plans expansion with $35M in new funds * Analysis: Sprint Nextel deal goes beyond quadruple play * Cablevision to sell faster Internet service USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Learn how to implement IP video HOT TOPICS * Report: DSL gaining fast on cable * Four MSOs announce deal with Sprint Nextel * Level 3 buys WilTel * Cable's push toward the quadruple play * BellSouth charts its own course TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Juniper unveils system for dynamic bandwidth allocation for IP services * BusinessWeek report: TV in 2005 REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Qualcomm sues Nokia over GSM patents * Damaged microwave networks hamper communications systems in Gulf Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xCqkatagCwpfyVSuYY Other telecom news reports at: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html ------------------------------ From: davidesan@gmail.com Subject: Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset Date: 7 Nov 2005 14:50:30 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com I too have been looking for a new cordless system. I've been doing a lot of opinion reading and have discovered the following: 1. Lots of people like to complain, and most of the complaints seem fairly petty. Things like too small for my big face is worthless since we don't know if the user is normal sized, or is an offensive lineman for a professional football team. Bad reception can be caused by a bad installation (I put the base unit in the basement), or building construction. 2. When there are lot of similar complaints, you've got to believe there is an issue. 3. For every complaint or group of complaints you get one person telling you that this phone is the best phone that they have ever used. Are they real or are they a shill for the company? Is the good report really an outlier? This said some of the results that are helping narrow the search are: 1. Panasonic seems to have battery problems. The number of complaints on the Amazon site is huge and all are nearly identical. Batteries last only about 2 hours off the charger. Voice quality seems to be a big complaint. 2. Vtech seems to get generally high marks. 3. AT&T also seems to get high marks. 4. Motorola voice quality seems to be poor. 5. GE get high marks for battery and sound quality, but the caller menu is different for each extension, and is not alphabetized or easily searchable. Vtech and ATT seem to treat the menu of stored phone numbers like a good cellphone. Now for my questions: 1. Cellphones are available in 900 mhz, 2.4 Ghz, and 5.8 Ghz. I have read that the 2.4 Ghz phones can interfere with 802.11.x wireless routers. And I have read that there is no problem. Your thoughts or experiences? The 2.4 Ghz phones are about 1/2 the price of the 5.8 and I don't really want to pay for technology I don't need. 2. Any recommendations on brand? Thanks. PS: Uniden phones are uniformally disliked for poor quality sound in every review panel I've seen. There seems to be a correlation between cost and quality (what a surprise!). ------------------------------ From: Joe Subject: Re: Verizon POTS Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Mon, 07 Nov 2005 19:59:58 GMT I get a dial tone. However, when I dial a number, I get a message saying to call Verizon if I want telephone service. wrote in message news:telecom24.504.5@telecom-digest.org: > What happens if you plug in a phone? No install date given. Will call again later when I have time to be on hold and see. Steve Sobol wrote in message news:telecom24.504.4@telecom-digest.org: > Joe wrote: >> How long does it take for Verizon to install POTS? > They installed it a week or so after I ordered it. I told them when I was > moving in. > Apple Valley, California. Former Continental Telephone/GTE territory. YMM > definitely V. > Did they give you an install date or a turnaround time when you placed the > order? > Steve Sobol, Professional Geek 888-480-4638 PGP: 0xE3AE35ED > Company website: http://JustThe.net/ > Personal blog, resume, portfolio: http://SteveSobol.com/ > E: sjsobol@JustThe.net Snail: 22674 Motnocab Road, Apple Valley, CA 92307 ------------------------------ From: Tom Betz Subject: Re: An FBI Secret Letter and Order Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 22:06:31 UTC Organization: Anything Barton Gellman wrote in news:telecom24.506.1@telecom-digest.org: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Excerpts from a rather lengthy article > over the weekend in Washingon Post. See the newspaper's web site for > the entire article. http://washingtonpost.com And people think Joe > McCathy was bad news ... PAT] For a look at the Patriot Act from the point of view of one of its targets, see http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7624.shtml "An Enemy Of The State" by Doug Thompson. An excerpt: According to a printout from a computer controlled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice, I am an enemy of the state. The printout, shown to me recently by a friend who works for Justice, identifies me by a long, multi-digit number, lists my date of birth, place of birth, social security number and contains more than 100 pages documenting what the Bureau and the Bush Administration consider to be my threats to the security of the United States of America. It lists where I sent to school, the name and address of the first wife that I had been told was dead but who is alive and well and living in Montana, background information on my current wife and details on my service to my country that I haven't even revealed to my wife or my family. Although the file finds no criminal activity by me or members of my immediate family, it remains open because I am a "person of interest" who has "written and promoted opinions that are contrary to the government of the United States of America." And it will remain active because the government of the United States, under the far-reaching provisions of the USA Patriot Act, can compile and retain such information on any American citizen. That act gives the FBI the authority to collect intimate details about anyone, even those not suspected of any wrongdoing. We live in a very scary world. George Bush's War of Choice on Iraq is a totally unnecessary war. Every life lost, every limb lost, every disfigurement, every disability caused there is more blood on George W. Bush's hands, and on the hands of everyone who voted for George W. Bush. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That we do (live in a scary world). I expect to be totally gone in five or ten years, and I cannot say I will really miss it any, as things are going now. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Go to http://www.thehungersite.com Copyright 2004 ICB, Inc. and TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE JUST 65 CENTS ONE OR TWO INQUIRIES CHARGED TO YOUR CREDIT CARD! REAL TIME, UP TO DATE! SPONSORED BY TELECOM DIGEST AND EASY411.COM SIGN UP AT http://www.easy411.com/telecomdigest ! ************************ Visit http://www.mstm.okstate.edu and take the next step in your career with a Master of Science in Telecommunications Management (MSTM) degree from Oklahoma State University (OSU). This 35 credit-hour interdisciplinary program is designed to give you the skills necessary to manage telecommunications networks, including data, video, and voice networks. The MSTM degree draws on the expertise of the OSU's College of Business Administration; the College of Arts and Sciences; and the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology. 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Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #507 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Nov 8 14:26:08 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id E8EE614ECB; Tue, 8 Nov 2005 14:26:07 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #508 Message-Id: <20051108192607.E8EE614ECB@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 14:26:07 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.7 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Tue, 8 Nov 2005 14:27:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 508 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson US FCC Says No Cutoff for Internet Phone Customers (Jeremy Pelofsky) FCC Clarifies VOIP Disconnect Order (Associated Press Newswire) Good News, Linux Users! A Worm Just for You (Nancy Weil) Security Firm: Sony CDs Secretly Install Spyware (Monty Solomon) US Mandates More Security in Online Banking (Monty Solomon) AT&T Among 'Winners' For Worst Software Bugs (mkuras) Cellular-News For Tuesday 8th November 2005 (Cellular-News) Grokster Agrees to Close Down (USTA Daily Lead) Re: Looking for 1A2 Phone System Parts [Amphenol Splitters](Scott Dorsey) Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: Verizon POTS (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Grokster Downloading Service to Shut Down (GlowingBlueMist) Re: NN0 Central Office Codes (Mark Roberts) 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: Jeremy Pelofsky Subject: US FCC Says No Cutoff for Internet Phone Customers Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 12:01:53 -0600 By Jeremy Pelofsky Internet telephone providers do not have to cut off U.S. subscribers even if they are not provided enhanced 911 emergency service which gives dispatchers their location and phone number, U.S. communications regulators said on Monday. Internet telephone providers like Nuvio Corp. had worried that the Federal Communications Commission rules adopted in May had required them to suspend by November 28 service for subscribers who cannot receive enhanced 911 (E911) service. Existing customers did not have to be disconnected, but the FCC said Internet telephone providers would have to cease marketing and accepting new customers in areas where they are not connecting 911 calls with the person's location and phone number, according to guidance issued on Monday. Nuvio and other providers of Internet phone service, known as Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP), last week filed challenges with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit seeking to stay the November 28 date pending their challenge. VOIP providers have complained that they face numerous hurdles to offering enhanced 911 service, including accessing the necessary databases operated by other telecommunications providers. "Our concern is that this marketing restriction will slow down our deployment of E911 because it gives clear incentives to some of our competitors, who control access to the 911 systems, to delay every way possible," said Chris Murray, vice president for government affairs at Vonage Holdings Corp., the biggest U.S. VOIP provider. The FCC adopted several E911 rules for VOIP in May, including requiring 911 calls be routed to live dispatchers and the caller's location and number be identified. The move followed instances in which customers had trouble reaching help when they dialed 911. The FCC had eased an earlier requirement that VOIP providers suspend service for those customers who failed to acknowledge the limitations of 911 capability with it. The Voice On the Net Coalition, which represents many VOIP providers, said that roughly 750,000 customers could be affected if they had to suspend service to those who did not have enhanced 911 service available. Less than half of the dozen VOIP providers surveyed by the coalition, 42 percent, said they would be able to provide enhanced 911 service to 100 percent of their customers with a primary fixed location by November 28. 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: Associated Press News Wire Subject: FCC Clarifies VOIP Disconnection Deadline Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 12:03:15 -0600 The Federal Communications Commission won't require Internet phone service providers to cut off customers who don't have reliable 911 emergency call service. The agency in a notice issued late Monday said providers that have not achieved full 911 compliance by Nov. 28, will not be forced to discontinue such service to any existing customers. At the same time, the FCC said it expected providers to discontinue marketing Internet call service and accepting new customers in areas where the companies are not routing 911 calls to emergency response centers. In May, the FCC ordered providers of Internet-based phone calls to certify that their customers will be able to reach an emergency dispatcher when they call 911. Dispatchers also must be able to identify the caller's phone number and location. The companies were given until late November to comply, and many providers worried that they would be forced to disconnect customers who didn't have full 911 service. The FCC issued the order after a series of highly publicized incidents in which Internet phone users were unable to connect with a live emergency dispatch operator when calling 911. On the Net: Federal Communications Commission: http://www.fcc.gov 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. For other news headlines from Associated Press please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/TDNewsradio.html ------------------------------ From: Nancy Weil Subject: Good News, Linux Users! A Worm Just for You Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 12:04:31 -0600 Lupper Worm Targets Linux by Nancy Weil, IDG News Service A worm that affects Linux systems and spreads by exploiting Web server-related vulnerabilities has been reported by antivirus companies, but so far Linux.Plupii, which is also known as Lupper, hasn't spread much and isn't seen as much of a threat. Linux users should update antivirus software and patches to protect against the worm, say representatives of the major antivirus product vendors said. Both McAfee and Symantec have updated their software to identify and stop the worm. Information about the worm can be found at McAfee's Web site and also from Symantec. How Worm Works The worm spreads by exploiting Web servers hosting vulnerable PHP/CGI programming language scripts, according to McAfee. The worm is a derivative of the Linux/Slapper and BSD/Scalper worms from which it has taken its propagation strategy, McAfee said in information provided on its Web site about the worm, which was discovered Sunday. The worm attacks Web servers by sending malicious Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) requests on port 80, McAfee said. If the server being targeted is running a vulnerable script at certain URLs and is configured to permit external shell commands and remote file download in PHP/CGI the worm could be downloaded and executed, McAfee said. It can also harvest e-mail addresses stored in Web server files. The worm opens a back door on a compromised computer and then generates URLs to scan for other computers to infect and that can affect network performance, according to Symantec. Symantec rates the worm as having a medium damage and distribution threat. As of Tuesday morning, it hadn't spread much and Symantec said it is easy both to contain and remove. McAfee assessed it as a low threat for both corporate and home users. 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 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 08:37:32 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Security Firm: Sony CDs Secretly Install Spyware Company denies allegations, saying program aims to foil music piracy By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff Sony is spying on thousands of listeners who buy and play its music CDs on their computers, a leading computer security firm said yesterday. Computer Associates International Inc. said that new anticopying software Sony is using to discourage pirating of its music also secretly collects information from any computer that plays the discs. One of the world's largest software and information technology companies, Computer Associates is the latest to wade into the growing controversy over Sony's efforts to curb theft and illegal pirating of its music. The software works only on computers running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system. It limits listeners' ability to copy the music onto their computers, and locks copied files so they cannot be freely distributed over the Internet. But Computer Associates said the antipirating software also secretly communicates with Sony over the Internet when listeners play the discs on computers that have an Internet connection. The software uses this connection to transmit the name of the CD being played to an office of Sony's music division in Cary, N.C. The software also transmits the IP address of the listener's computer, Computer Associates said, but not the name of the listener. But Sony can still use the data to create a profile of a listener's music collection, according to Computer Associates. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/11/08/security_firm_sony_cds_secretly_install_spyware/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Another article in this issue of the Digest tells about Grokster going out of business (as it is) and planning to reopen in a new format; one user says that will be spying also. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 08:38:38 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: US Mandates More Security in Online Banking Complex ID verification designed to combat fraud By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff Online banking, advertised by banks as nearly effortless, is about to become more cumbersome. Federal regulators, alarmed by the threat of online financial fraud, are requiring banks by the end of 2006 to provide several layers of identify verification before customers can access their accounts and conduct other banking over the Internet. In addition to standard passwords, customers may soon need a unique digital 'fingerprint' that will identify their computer for the bank, or may scan a copy of their real fingerprints to identify themselves to the bank's network. Another, more cumbersome method would have customers carrying keyfob-sized electronic 'tokens' that authenticate their identity. With some 53 million Americans paying bills, checking account balances, and doing other banking online, Internet fraud has become a growing threat to the popularity of Internet business transactions. Research firm Gartner Inc. estimated in a June report that 2.5 million people lost money in so-called 'phishing' attacks last year. Phishing involves thieves who try to dupe customers into providing account numbers and other sensitive information by directing them to phony websites that resemble a legitimate business -- frequently a bank. Federal financial regulators say these threats are scaring away many potential customers. http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2005/11/07/us_mandates_more_security_in_online_banking/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 12:12:01 -0500 From: mkuras Subject: AT&T Among 'Winners' For Worst Software Bugs snipped from _Wired_ magazine: Here, in chronological order, is the Wired News list of the 10 worst software bugs of all time ... so far. January 15, 1990 -- AT&T Network Outage: A bug in a new release of the software that controls AT&T's #4ESS long distance switches causes these mammoth computers to crash when they receive a specific message from one of their neighboring machines -- a message that the neighbors send out when they recover from a crash. One day a switch in New York crashes and reboots, causing its neighboring switches to crash, then their neighbors' neighbors, and so on. Soon, 114 switches are crashing and rebooting every six seconds, leaving an estimated 60 thousand people without long distance service for nine hours. The fix: engineers load the previous software release. http://wired.com/news/technology/bugs/0,2924,69355,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1 ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Tuesday 8th November 2005 Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 07:41:32 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com HSDPA Deployments Face Performance Roadblocks Indoors http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14731.php While the wireless world readies for broad scale deployment of HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access), 3G technology being deployed by GSM Operators ideally capable of up to 1 Mb per second data throughput, Spotwave Wireless asserts that a glaring... Picture Service Added to iDEN Network http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14730.php The USA based, Sprint has announced the availability of Nextel Direct Send Picture, a service that allows Nextel subscribers with capable Nextel phones the ability to send and review a picture quickly and easily, all while on a Nextel Walkie-Talkie c... Nigerian Operator Taps Consultants for Training Needs http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14729.php The most rapidly growing cell phone market in the world is on a continent where just having access to a plain old telephone is a rarity in many villages. Now, millions of people from farmers and fishermen to healthcare and factory workers are buying ... Testing GSM in South Korea http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14728.php Spain's Centro de Tecnologde las Comunicaciones, (CETECOM) says that it has supplied MINT (Mobile Communications Integrated Tester) to TTA (Telecommunications Technology Association), the first GSM laboratory in Korea. This will allow TTA to offer... Pantech Signs Indian CDMA Handset Contract http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14727.php South Korea's Pantech has signed a direct supplier agreement with India's Tata Teleservices (TTSL) to provide 300,000 CDMA handsets in India, starting with the compact, slim PA-711 phone, which will be sold under the Pantech brand. Pantech says that ... Motorola Releases Three Findings from Outdoor HSDPA Trials http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14726.php Motorola has released three latest findings from its HSDPA trial results in Europe. The findings will help operators determine how to best deploy HSDPA and are taken from the first known global study which includes both multiple users and outdoor per... New Boss for Egyptian Operator http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14725.php Egypt's GSM network operator, Mobinil has elected Mr. Iskander Naguib Shalaby as the new Chief Executive Officer of the Company. The Board says that it has reached this decision after the mutual agreement between the two major shareholders of Egyptia... A Single-Chip, Quad-Band EDGE Transceiver http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14724.php Analog Devices has unveiled its single-chip radio transceiver for the EDGE cellular standard. Based on Analog Devices' award-winning direct conversion Othello radio architecture, the new Othello-E transceiver integrates virtually all the necessary co... Ukraine's CDMA Operator subscriber base up to 24,000 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14723.php The subscriber base of Ukraine's CDMA operator Intertelecom, based in the Odessa Region, increased to 24,000 users as of November 1 from about 11,000 in October 2004, the company said Monday. ... Russia's Sky Link, Japan's Kyocera to jointly promote CDMA450 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14722.php Russia's Sky Link mobile operator and Japan's Kyocera Corporation have signed a memorandum of intent aimed at developing and promoting IMT-MC-450 standard for mobile handsets on the Russian market, Sky Link's press office reported Monday. ... PM says Kazakh govt to auction GSM 1800 frequency license 2006 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14721.php The Kazakh government plans to hold a tender for a GSM 1800 frequency license in 2006, Kazakh Prime Minister Daniyal Akhmetov said at a joint meeting of the country's two houses of parliament Monday. ... MVNOs Capture Nearly 10% Of New French Mobile Subscribers http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14720.php [Premium] The French telecom regulator said Monday that nearly 10% of all new mobile phone subscribers in the third quarter signed up with alternative carriers known as MVNOs. ... Google, Yahoo Dial Into Cell Phone Business http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14719.php Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. are rolling out new wireless services to provide features similar to computers on cell phones. ... Ukraine's Kyivstar user base rises 6.8% on month as of Nov 1 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14718.php The subscriber base of Ukraine's mobile operator Kyivstar rose 6.8% on the month to 11.687 million users as of November 1, the company said Monday. ... Polish TPSA Sees Centertel Unit As Market Leader By 2007 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14717.php Centertel, a mobile unit of telephone operator Telekomunikacja Polska SA, will be Poland's number one mobile phone operator by 2007, TPSA representatives said Monday. ... Source says MTS' mobile license in Turkmenistan extended http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14716.php Turkmenistan's President Saparmurat Niyazov has signed a decree allowing the Telecommunications Ministry to extend the mobile license of Barash Communications Technologies Inc., a subsidiary of Russia's largest mobile operator Mobile TeleSystems (M... Qualcomm Files Patent Infringement Suit Vs Nokia http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14715.php Qualcomm has filed a lawsuit against cell phone maker Nokia Corp. alleging the infringement of a dozen patents. ... Disney Buys Mobile Games Developer http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14714.php LONDON (AP)--The Walt Disney Co. signaled its expansion in the European cell phone games market Monday, announcing the acquisition of German game developer and publisher Living Mobile. ... Japans DoCoMo Invests in Mobile Music http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14713.php Japanese mobile phone giant NTT DoCoMo Inc. said Monday it will buy a 42% stake in Tower Records Japan Inc. later this month to offer broader mobile phone services. ... Ericsson, Mobtel Launch Mobile Softswitch In Serbia http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14712.php Telefon AB LM Ericsson said Monday it and operator Mobtel successfully launched Ericsson Mobile Softswich in Serbia. ... Nokia, CSL Launch Video Sharing Service In Hong Kong http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14711.php Finnish mobile phone producer Nokia Oyj and Hong-Kong-based mobile operator Hong Kong CSL Ltd. Monday announced the commercial launch of Asia's first video-sharing service enabled by Nokia IP Multimedia Subsystem, or IMS, and systems integration serv... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 12:49:44 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead USTelecom dailyLead November 8, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xFqkatagCwsLipMRtE TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Grokster agrees to close down BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Covad signs Redback * Juniper hires security expert who exposed Cisco flaw * Cincinnati Bell reports earnings USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * dailyLead and Membership USTelecom prepare you for what's NEXT TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Accton unveils Skype-enabled mobile phone REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * New York county targets unsecured Wi-Fi networks * FCC gives VoIP providers a break on 911 rules * Analysis: Lessons learned from New Orleans' 911 failures Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xFqkatagCwsLipMRtE ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Looking for 1A2 Phone System Parts [Amphenol Splitters] Date: 8 Nov 2005 13:20:04 -0500 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) m3deshmukh@verizon.net wrote: > Hello, > Item: Splitting device that takes in Amphenol and puts out 6 or more > Amphenols > My company is looking to find a [or several] bridging adapters, > bunching blocks, splitters for a 1A2 telephone system that would take > in one Amphenol jack and Output 6 or more Amphenol Sockets. > My boss likes having the 1A2 phone system in place, but we're trying > to find an alternative to daisy-chaining the feed with 2 and 3 way > splitters right in-front of each phone/fax. We'd like to find a piece > of equipment that would allow us to localize all the splitting, right > after the KSU. Why not just take some ribbon cables and swage on some Amphenol jacks and go with it? Anybody that can make SCSI cables can do this for you. Of course, all the things plugged into it are the same, so stuff like intercom functions and selective ringing won't work. But that does not seem like an issue for you. scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 02:36:19 GMT davidesan@gmail.com wrote: > Cellphones are available in 900 mhz, 2.4 Ghz, and 5.8 Ghz. I have > read that the 2.4 Ghz phones can interfere with 802.11.x wireless > routers. And I have read that there is no problem. Your thoughts or > experiences? The 2.4 Ghz phones are about 1/2 the price of the 5.8 > and I don't really want to pay for technology I don't need. They're cordless phones, not cellphones. I haven't used the 5.8 GHz phones, so I can't opine on them. The 2.4 GHz phones seem to me to be less susceptible to interference than the 900 MHz phones, but that may be a matter of how many users there are in a given band. I have been using 2.4 GHz phones in my home for many years, coexisting without incident with wireless networks using the same band (initially HomeRF, now 802.11B/G). Currently I have three Wi-Fi access points running, along with 8 AT&T/Vtech 2-line spread spectrum handsets and three Wi-Fi computers (more when my son's friends come over with their laptops to play games). Also a microwave oven. There is a small amount of occasional interference on the phones, mostly location-based (i.e., in a bad reception area), and no wireless issues to mention with regard to Wi-Fi. > 2. Any recommendations on brand? I had bad luck with Siemens Gigasets (lots of interference and very very poor battery life), better luck with AT&T/Vtech. I had a wonderful Uniden many years ago, but it was discontinued. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD (USA) (Replace "example.invalid" with "com" in my address.) ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: Replacement for Siemens Gigaset Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 06:25:47 UTC Organization: Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , wrote: > 2. Vtech seems to get generally high marks. > 3. AT&T also seems to get high marks. I believe that at least some of the AT&T phones are actually made by Vtech. > 1. Cellphones are available in 900 mhz, 2.4 Ghz, and 5.8 Ghz. I have > read that the 2.4 Ghz phones can interfere with 802.11.x wireless > routers. And I have read that there is no problem. Your thoughts or > experiences? The 2.4 Ghz phones are about 1/2 the price of the 5.8 > and I don't really want to pay for technology I don't need. I would stay away from the 900Mhz phones for a few reasons. First, the only multi-line phones available in 900Mhz are notoriously unreliable. Second, eavesdropping on many 900Mhz phones, even modern ones, is trivial. In the 2.4Ghz band you will in fact see some interference with 802.11b or g networks (and probably with 802.11n when it's available). How much depends on how efficient your phone is and how busy your network is. The Gigasets were actually pretty good this way, but the incredibly poor quality control on the later handsets made them almost worthless as has been mentioned earlier in this thread. Another option is to use an 802.11a network -- which operates in the 5.8Ghz band -- if you want to use 2.4Ghz devices such as phones. However, 5.8Ghz is even more directional than 2.4GHz and if your house has lots of thick walls and complicated angles in its layout you may not get good results with an 11a network. Phones need so much less bandwidth they don't seem to care much. The 5.8Ghz phones are a nice solution if you have an interference problem with a 2.4GHz wireless network, which many people do. The real problem is that as far as I can tell, no vendor sells even a 2-line 5.8Ghz base station -- as compared to 2.4Ghz where 2 and even 4 line sets are common. If, like me, you live in a building with a door intercom that's delivered to you on a phone line, being limited to one line on your fancy expandable cordless phone can be a real pain. Avoid analog phones no matter what band they're operating in. It is just too easy (and too popular) to eavesdrop on them. Unfortunately, though the Gigasets were intentionally designed to be difficult to eavesdrop on most of the newer stuff isn't; if this is a concern for you I'm not quite sure what advice to give -- except to stay away from analog cordless phones (now showing up on the market even in 5.8Ghz!) even if you don't think it's a concern. Sigh. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "The inconsistency is startling, though admittedly, if consistency is to be abandoned or transcended, there is no problem." - Noam Chomsky ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Verizon POTS Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 02:26:07 GMT Joe wrote: > I get a dial tone. However, when I dial a number, I get a message > saying to call Verizon if I want telephone service. That's known as soft dial tone. You can call 911 (and maybe the telco's business office), but nothing else. It's required in many places, for emergency situations. It also lets you know that the phone line is electrically connected to the CO. Michael D. Sullivan Bethesda, MD (USA) (Replace "example.invalid" with "com" in my address.) ------------------------------ From: GlowingBlueMist Subject: Re: Grokster Downloading Service to Shut Down Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 20:39:18 -0600 Organization: Octanews Ted Bridis wrote in message news:telecom24.507.3@telecom-digest.org: > By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer > Grokster Ltd., which lost a Supreme Court fight over file-sharing > software used for stealing songs and movies online, agreed Monday to > shut down and pay $50 million to settle piracy complaints by Hollywood > and the music industry. > The surprise settlement permanently bans Grokster from participating, > directly or indirectly, in the theft of copyrighted files and requires > the company to stop giving away its software, according to court > papers. > Executives indicated plans to launch a legal, fee-based "Grokster 3G" > service before year's end under a new parent company, believed to be > Mashboxx of Virginia Beach, Va. Mashboxx, headed in part by former > Grokster president Wayne Rosso, already has signed a licensing > agreement with Sony BMG Music Entertainment. > "It is time for a new beginning," Grokster said in a statement issued > from its corporate headquarters in the West Indies. > Grokster's Web site was changed Monday to say its existing file- > sharing service was illegal and no longer available. "There are legal > services for downloading music and movies," the message said. "This > service is not one of them." > The head of the Recording Industry Association of America, Mitch > Bainwol, described the settlement as "a chapter that ends on a high > note for the recording industry, the tech community and music fans and > consumers everywhere." > It was unclear whether Grokster can afford to pay the $50 million in > damages required under the agreement. The head of the Motion Picture > Association of America, Dan Glickman, said the entertainment industry > will demand full payment unless Grokster satisfies all its obligations > under the settlement. > Grokster's brand will survive. The new fee-based version of its > software will be available within 60 days, according to one executive > involved in the deal. This executive spoke only on condition of > anonymity because the sale of Grokster's assets is pending. > Grokster's decision was not expected to affect Internet users who > already run the company's file-sharing software to download music and > movies online, nor was it expected to affect users of rival > downloading services, such as eDonkey, Kazaa, BitTorrent and others. > Glickman said Grokster will send anti-piracy messages to existing > users, and the company is forbidden from maintaining its software or > network. "Without those services, the system will degrade over time," > Glickman said. > Grokster lost an important Supreme Court ruling in June. Justices > ruled that the entertainment industry can file piracy lawsuits against > technology companies caught encouraging customers to steal music and > movies over the Internet. > The decision, which gave a green light for the federal case to advance > in Los Angeles, significantly weakened lawsuit protections for > companies that had blamed illegal behavior on their own customers > rather than the technology that made such behavior possible. > The court said Grokster and another firm, Streamcast Networks Inc., > can be sued because they deliberately encouraged customers to download > copyrighted files illegally so they could build a larger audience and > sell more advertising. Writing for the court, Justice David H. Souter > said the companies' "unlawful objective is unmistakable." > "They're out of business," said Charles Baker, a lawyer for > Streamcast. "It's over for them. There was a lack of desire to > continue to fight this thing going forward." Baker said the settlement > does not affect Streamcast, the co-defendant in the entertainment > industry's lawsuit. > The Supreme Court noted as evidence of bad conduct that Grokster and > Streamcast made no effort to block illegal downloads, which the > companies maintained wasn't possible. > On the Net: > Grokster Ltd.: http://www.grokster.com > Recording Industry Association of America: http://www.riaa.org > Motion Picture Association of America: http://www.mpaa.org > Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. Did I read it right? The crooks at Grokster seeking a license to deal Sony BMG products. The mind boggles at what the two organizations working together will try to hide in the code for others to stumble over. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: See another article in this issue about Sony, (by Monty Solomon) and how there are allegations of that company spying on users by making note of their listening habits and using the net to send that information to a Sony office somewhere. Sony denies these allegations and says all they are doing is trying to prevent 'piracy'. PAT] ------------------------------ From: markrobt@myrealbox.com (Mark Roberts) Subject: Re: NN0 Central Office Codes Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 03:14:35 -0000 Organization: 1.94 meters Neal McLain had written: > It didn't work out that way ... > Many NN0 codes were assigned as central office codes whenever and > wherever they were needed, without regard to their positions on Chart 5. > Examples that come to mind: > 702-870 (#3 on the list) ca. 1989 Las Vegas > 312-990 (#32 on the list) ca. 1988 Hinsdale > 201-460 (#36 on the list) ca. 1982 Lyndhurst > 414-730 (#52 on the list) ca. 1986 Appleton > 214-680 (#54 on the list) ca. 1983 Dallas I can add, all circa 1984 from Houston: 713-520 713-630 713-840 713-850 The first two were in the JAckson switch (Montrose, River Oaks, the Museum District) and the 520 prefix is an obvious candidate for "lookalike" status. At the time, Southwestern Bell had been so regular in grouping exchanges by the first two digits that Key Maps, a local company, was able to publish maps identifying exchanges by the first two digits only in most cases. I can personally attest to 713-630 because that was used for the PBX at KTRH radio, where I worked at the time. While most of the "public" numbers for KTRH were standard JAckson numbers -- I'm pretty sure the main call-in number was 526-5874 (KTRH) -- our internal extensions were of the form 630-3xxx. The second two were in the NAtional office (Greenway Plaza and the Galleria area). They, of course, looked nothing like the usual 62x-xxxx numbers in that area. > Curiously (as Mark Roberts noted in TD 24:482), 530 (#1 on the list) > was in service -- at least briefly -- in California in 1965, a decade > before Chart 5 was published. As an interim measure, until I can write up some better-looking pages, I have put the 1964 and 1965 exchange maps online from the Pacific Bell Oakland ("East Bay") directory. I should note that there was a *series* of maps, designed to indicate the message-unit charges from the East Bay "exchange" (Berkeley, Main-Piedmont, Alameda, Fruitvale, Trinidad) to other rate centers in the region. Each East Bay rate center had its own map. I've scanned the ones for Main-Piedmont to provide a comparison, and to more clearly show the "530" prefix in the Fruitvale area in the 1965 map. On the map: A = Berkeley B = Main-Piedmont C = Alameda D = Fruitvale E = Trinidad Sometime in 1965 -- I have not yet nailed down when -- there was a spinoff into a new switch, affecting primarily the Fruitvale rate center, but also the eastern part of Main-Piedmont. Approximately the eastern half of the Fruitvale rate center plus the little corner of Main-Piedmont went into the switch now known as OKLDCA13DS0. This split accounts for the new 339 and 531 prefixes. As I previously mentioned, 530 popped up only for that year. Later, however, 530 "joined" 531 in eastern Fruitvale and is an active prefix today (several of my neighbors have it including one who moved to this area in the 1970s). Another thing I need to nail down is how extensive the cutover was at first. Today, the Fruitvale OKLACA13DS0 area extends all the way to Interstate 580 and over to the junction of 580 and Highway 13. It may be that the original cutover area was smaller, and areas were added later (e.g. along MacArthur Boulevard). This distinction, of course, is NOT shown on the maps that I scanned, and consequently will have to be inferred from listings, newspaper ads, etc. Anyhow, here are the maps. There were several prefixes added between 1964 and 1965, not just in Oakland: http://www.cosmos-monitor.com/etc/phones/eastbay-1964-piedmont.jpeg http://www.cosmos-monitor.com/etc/phones/eastbay-1965-piedmont.jpeg Mark Roberts | "I know you know the situation is past critical." Oakland, Cal.| -- FEMA staff member Marty Bahamonde, in New Orleans NO HTML MAIL | "Anything specific I need to do or tweak?" | -- FEMA director Michael Brown replies to that e-mail ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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. 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End of TELECOM Digest V24 #508 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Nov 8 21:27:16 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id D6E8F14D2E; Tue, 8 Nov 2005 21:27:15 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #509 Message-Id: <20051109022715.D6E8F14D2E@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 21:27:15 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.1 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Tue, 8 Nov 2005 21:28:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 509 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Internet ID Theft Worsens, Scares Away Bank Customers (Jonathan Stempel) Verizon Reduces Prices For Telephone Service (Bruce Myerson) U.S. Wireless Carriers Take Aim at Adult Content (Reuters News Wire) CBS, NBC Offering TV Shows for 99 Cents (Associated Press News Wire) Re: Internet Phone Customers May Get Cut Off (zeez) Re: NN0 Central Office Codes (jsw@ivgate.omahug.org) Re: NN0 Central Office Codes (Garrett Wollman) Re: NN0 Central Office Codes (Joseph) 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 Stempel Subject: Internet ID Theft Worsens, Scares Away Bank Customers Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 18:42:01 -0600 By Jonathan Stempel Even as banks and regulators step up efforts to thwart identity theft over the Internet, the worry that fraudsters remain one step ahead is convincing many Americans that banking online is too risky. At an identity theft forum in New York on Tuesday, security and policy experts said banks are taking appropriate steps to stop online criminals, but that their best efforts -- and consumers' own vigilance -- may not be enough. "Consumers can do everything right -- not give out passwords or financial information -- and still become victims," said Susanna Montezemolo, a policy analyst at Consumers Union, in an interview. An October survey commissioned by Internet security company Entrust Inc. and released at the forum found that 18 percent of Americans who have banked online now do so less, or not at all, because of security concerns. Ninety-four percent say they're willing to accept extra online security protections. The survey was conducted around the time the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council ordered banks to tighten online access by late 2006. The council, composed of U.S. regulators including the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., expects banks to require at least two forms of authentication when the risks of online breaches are too high. The second form can include smart cards, tokens that generate random passwords, or biometrics that identify fingerprints or handwriting. Some 10 million Americans are ID theft victims each year, the Federal Trade Commission estimates. Congress is considering national standards to fight ID theft. Michael Oxley (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said victims of ID theft spend an average 90 hours and $1,700 resolving the problem. ID THEFT METHODS PROLIFERATE Perhaps the best known form of online theft is "phishing." This is where criminals send e-mails asking prospective victims to verify personal information through links to real-looking Web sites. There were 13,776 distinct phishing attacks in August, according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group. "Not only do they ask you to 'confirm' your identity, but they also offer you bogus, fake 'banks' to use if you do fall for their deception." Fraudsters soon graduated to spyware and keylogging, where they monitor prospective victims' Web use and keystrokes. This year, security experts have seen a surge in "pharming." This is where criminals redirect user traffic at legitimate Web sites to fraudulent sites or proxy servers, without any overt indication they are doing so. "Spyware, keyloggers and pharming are really growing," said Michael Jackson, associate director of technology supervision at the FDIC, in an interview. "Banks could step it up a notch in terms of security, which is why we have the guidance." Still, in banking, traditional forms of theft such as check fraud remain more prevalent than online theft. Consumers, moreover, complain about cumbersome security procedures. Tuesday's survey showed 81 percent don't want to pay for extra online banking protection. Consumers Union's Montezemolo said computer users should make sure their online connections are secure, vary the identifying information they use on accounts, and not work with their accounts on shared computers. She also urged banks not to share client information among affiliates, and not assign such obvious data as Social Security numbers as default log-ins. "They'll never have 100 percent control," she said. "But we need to empower consumers to opt out on whether information is used, and give them tools to take more control." InfoSurv Inc. conducted the online survey of 710 people for Addison, Texas-based Entrust during the week of October 17. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. 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: One of the major banks, Bank of America, has considered having a picture (a .jpg perhaps?) of the customer on line to help 'prove his identity', so that if a phisherman comes along asking you to do something allegedly for BOA, _your_ picture will have to be part of whatever _authentic_ request is made by the bank. All well and good, I suppose, but what prevents the phisherman from adding the same .jpg files to his pitch letters? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Bruce Meyerson Subject: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 18:43:19 -0600 By BRUCE MEYERSON, AP Business Writer Verizon Communications Inc. sharply cut its prices for unlimited telephone service across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic on Tuesday, including markets where Cablevision Inc. has just boosted broadband Internet speeds. The latest jockeying augurs an ever fiercer struggle ahead between the phone and cable TV industries, with consumers getting lower prices and advanced services. The new Verizon plans range from $35 to $40 for unlimited local and domestic long-distance plus call waiting, caller ID and voice mail, or from $30 to $35 for unlimited calling with no extra features. Taxes and surcharges typically add $10 to $20 to the monthly bill. Those rates are at least $15 cheaper than any of Verizon's existing packages with unlimited calling, although many of those plans include a larger selection of features and calls to Canada. The aggressive offers mark another tactical maneuver in the developing showdown between phone and cable companies. The two industries are increasingly venturing into one another's traditional markets in a bid to win new customers with a one-stop-shop for calling, Internet, TV and wireless services. Verizon and fellow regional phone provider SBC Communications Inc. are spending billions to replace their copper phone lines with fiber-optic cables that can deliver cable TV, far-speedier Internet connections and new multimedia and interactive services. Using those new lines, Verizon recently introduced TV in its first market, a suburb of Dallas, and now offers broadband download speeds from 5 to 30 megabits per second in 800 communities in 15 states. At the same time, Verizon is also competing aggressively on price with its slower DSL service, introducing a $15 a month plan last month, and now offering unlimited calling at rates almost competitive with the $20 to $30 a month charged by providers of voice over Internet phone services. SBC has made similar moves in cutting its phone and DSL rates in a bid to keep subscribers from leaving and to attract news ones while it prepares for next year's launch of TV and speedier broadband connections. Cable companies, which have already lured away more than 5 million customers for their new phone services, are responding by boosting their broadband speeds and venturing into cellular service. Cablevision, which competes with Verizon in New York City and its suburbs, on Monday announced it was increasing the maximum download speed of its lowest-price broadband service to 15 megabits per second, up from a maximum of 10 -- which was already several times faster than most consumer DSL services. The company also introduced new 30 and 50 Mbps options to compete with Verizon's new FiOS fiber optic offerings. And last week, four of the nation's biggest cable providers announced a deal with Sprint Nextel Corp. to introduce co-branded cell phone service by the middle of 2006. The lower-priced Verizon calling plans, first introduced last month at slightly higher rates in California, Texas and Florida, are being offered in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Virginia and Washington, D.C. There's no timetable for when Verizon might introduce the new plans in its remaining local phone territories in North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: How odd ... so even SBC is in on this new pricing structure. I can recall when our local CLEC 'Prairie Stream Communications' first opened for business in 2002, they were offering flat rate, open-ended packages of _everything_ for $25.00 per month, and SBC complained to the Kansas Commission that 'Prairie Stream is being predatory'; although the Commission left Prairie Stream alone on it, SBC continually complained that 'Prairie Stream will not stay in business very long at that pricing'. So now, Verizon and SBC are gradually lowering their prices as well. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Reuters News Wire Subject: U.S. Wireless Carriers Take Aim at Adult Content Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 18:47:49 -0600 With Internet and video more readily available on wireless phones, and much of the Internet being used for pornographic stuff, major U.S. carriers on Tuesday unveiled guidelines aimed at limiting children's access to adult content and services. Those under the age of 18 would need parental or a guardian's permission to receive content that carriers offer that may be sexually explicit, excessively violent, or involve gambling, according to voluntary guidelines issued by the wireless industry's biggest trade group, CTIA. Carriers also plan to make filters and other tools available to restrict Internet access on wireless devices. "Parents must ultimately decide what materials are most suitable for their children, and wireless carriers participating in this important measure are committed to providing parents with the necessary tools to do so," said Steve Largent, CTIA president and chief executive officer. The top three wireless carriers are among the participants: Cingular Wireless, a joint venture of BellSouth Corp. and SBC Communications Inc., Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc, and Sprint Nextel Corp. About 21 million 5- to 19-year-olds had wireless phones by the end of 2004, according to the technology research firm IDC. The Federal Communications Commission in February urged the industry to act on the issue of adult content. 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: Associated Press News Wire Subject: CBS, NBC Offering TV Shows for 99 Cents Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 19:37:53 -0600 CBS and NBC have announced deals to offer replays of prime-time programs for 99 cents per episode, shifting television toward a sales model that gained popularity with downloaded music. CBS is teaming up with Comcast Corp. and NBC with satellite operator DirecTV to offer the on-demand replays. NBC Universal will offer commercial-free episodes of "Law & Order: SVU" and other shows to subscribers of DirecTV Group Inc. who use the satellite company's new digital video recorder. Comcast's on-demand customers in some markets will be able to view "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," "NCIS," "Survivor" and "The Amazing Race" at their convenience. Terms of the deals, which were announced Monday, were not disclosed. "This is an incredibly exciting evolution for CBS and network television -- video on demand is the next frontier for our industry," CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves said of the deal with Philadelphia-based Comcast, the nation's largest cable systems operator. CBS, which is owned by Viacom Inc., announced last week it would stream episodes of its show "Threshold" over CBS.com. The Walt Disney Co.'s ABC network offers downloads of several programs, including "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost," for $1.99 each via iTunes software from Apple Computer Inc. Less than three years ago, Apple helped spur the explosion of legally downloaded music with its iTunes Music Store and iPod portable players -- the latest versions of which now play video. Comcast's service will be available starting in January to customers in markets with a CBS owned-and-operated television station, which includes the nation's seven largest media markets. The episodes will be available as early as midnight following a broadcast and will include commercials. The DirecTV agreement includes shows that air on NBC, USA, Bravo and the Sci-Fi Channel, including "The Office" and "Monk." Episodes of the shows will remain available for one week after their broadcast. NBC Universal is a unit of General Electric Co. DirecTV, which is based in El Segundo, Calif., and controlled by the media conglomerate News Corp., began shipping its new DVR this week. The device uses interactive software from NDS Group Ltd., another News Corp. unit, and is designed to transition the company from dependence on similar devices made by TiVo Inc. "We are talking to the other networks and hope to reach similar agreements soon," DirecTV spokesman Robert Marsocci said Monday. The new DirecTV DVR comes with a hard drive that holds 160 hours of programming. One hundred hours are available for subscribers to record and store programs. The remaining 60 hours will be used by DirecTV to download programs that can be viewed on demand for an extra fee. 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. For more headline news from Associated Press please to to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html (audio and reading) or http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ From: zeez Subject: Re: Internet Phone Customers May Get Cut Off Date: 8 Nov 2005 12:38:04 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com That's brilliant! Now instead of marginal or no 911 service, customers will have NO service whatsoever! Your tax dollars, and the "brains" they bought at work. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If I read the story correctly, a more recent clarification from FCC says those users will _not_ be cut off. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: NN0 Central Office Codes Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 16:06:00 CST From: jsw@ivgate.omahug.org Reply-To: jsw@ivgate.omahug.org > AT&T's publication "Notes on Distance Dialing" (1975) [1] includes a > list of 63 NN0 codes that could be assigned either as area codes or as > central office codes. This list, identified as "Chart 5," includes all Hmmmmm ... I distinctly remember 212-440 (Manhattan), in the first part of that list and 212-680 (Brooklyn, then in AC 212) which is toward the end of the list as both being in service in the early 1970s. If that list was around in those days they didn't appear to be following the order. ;-) ------------------------------ From: wollman@khavrinen.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: NN0 Central Office Codes Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 22:47:41 UTC Organization: MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory In article , Mark Roberts wrote: > I can personally attest to 713-630 because that was used for the PBX > at KTRH radio, where I worked at the time. While most of the "public" > numbers for KTRH were standard JAckson numbers -- I'm pretty sure the > main call-in number was 526-5874 (KTRH) -- our internal extensions > were of the form 630-3xxx. Not uncommon. At Boston's WBZ, the main call-in number was originally ALgonquin 4-5678 (617-254-5678), which still works but has been superseded by 254-1030 to reinforce the branding. But the contest line is in what was the Boston "choke" exchange, 617-931-1030. The main switchboard number is 617-787-7000, which would have been STadium 7-7000 in 2L+5D days, but I don't know if that number was in use back then. Those three exchanges historically belonged to three separate COs: 617-254 is Allston, 617-787 is Brighton (both now in the same ratecenter IIRC), and 617-931 is a downtown Boston exchange which I think was historically located at the NET&T headquarters. WBZ-TV (channel 4) used to have 617-782-4444, but I doubt that is as old as the number would imply. (WBZ-TV has been at the same location since 1948, when that number would have been STAdium 4444.) -GAWollman 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: Joseph Subject: Re: NN0 Central Office Codes Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 17:06:48 -0800 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com On Tue, 08 Nov 2005 03:14:35 -0000, markrobt@myrealbox.com (Mark Roberts) wrote: > It didn't work out that way ... >> Many NN0 codes were assigned as central office codes whenever and >> wherever they were needed, without regard to their positions on Chart 5. >> Examples that come to mind: >> 702-870 (#3 on the list) ca. 1989 Las Vegas >> 312-990 (#32 on the list) ca. 1988 Hinsdale >> 201-460 (#36 on the list) ca. 1982 Lyndhurst >> 414-730 (#52 on the list) ca. 1986 Appleton >> 214-680 (#54 on the list) ca. 1983 Dallas I was in Falmouth, Massachusetts in 1972 and they had a CO prefix 617-540 (KImball) now of course 508-540. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. 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End of TELECOM Digest V24 #509 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Nov 9 13:09:48 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 1757A14FA1; Wed, 9 Nov 2005 13:09:47 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #510 Message-Id: <20051109180947.1757A14FA1@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 13:09:47 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.3 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Wed, 9 Nov 2005 13:10:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 510 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson French Youth use Internet to Plan Riot (Paul Carrel) Gates Warns of 'Sea Change' in Memo (Allison Linn) High-Tech 'Sniffers' Try to Stop 'Dirty Bombs' (Mark Clayton) Verizon's New Slimmed-Down Unlimited Calling Plans Add Choice (M Solomon) Digital Tracking to Protect On-Demand TV (Monty Solomon) Jumpy Enough to Chew a Chair? Try DogCatRadio (Monty Solomon) Pay Phone Coin Drop Reference on TV; Youth Phone Culture (Lisa Hancock) Cellular-News for Wednesday 9th November 2005 (Cellular-News) Dimension (Michael Muderick) Re: Verizon POTS (Michael Chance) Re: Verizon POTS (Lisa Hancock) Re: NN0 Central Office Codes (Fred Goldstein) Re: NNO Central Office Codes (Mark Roberts) Re: US Mandates More Security in Online Banking (Dan Lanciani) Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service (Dan Lanciani) Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service (Lena) Re: Internet ID Theft Worsens, Scares Away Bank Customers (Wesrock@aol.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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Paul Carrel Subject: French Youth use Internet to Plan Riots Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 10:30:58 -0600 By Paul Carrel France's government is policing cyberspace as well as rundown suburbs in the battle to end two weeks of rioting. Young rioters are using blog messages to incite violence and cellphones to organize attacks in guerrilla-like tactics they have copied from anti-globalisation protesters, security experts say. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has diverted resources to monitoring blogs -- short for Web logs -- in an effort to anticipate the movements of the protesters, who have set fire to thousands of cars since the unrest began on October 27. Two youths were placed under official investigation, one step short of pressing charges under French law, early on Wednesday on suspicion of inciting violence over the Internet after urging people to riot in blogs, a judicial source said. But tracking rioters' blogs is a big task for the security services, already stretched by the violence on the ground. "This is a new dimension to take into consideration," said Internet security expert Solange Ghernaouti-Helie. "To do the tracking on the Internet to identify the people involved is without doubt possible. But it requires considerable surveillance and analysis resources," she said. Blogs are easy-to-publish Web sites where millions of people post commentary. Those allegedly posted by the two youths under investigation were made in online diaries hosted by Skyblog, a Web site belonging to popular youth radio station Skyrock. Skyblog's site says it hosts over three million blogs, with thousands added each day. One of those urging people to riot -- since deactivated by Skyrock -- read: "Unite, burn the cops." Some bloggers have urged people not to incite violence. The host of bouna93.skyblog.com, a memorial blog for the two youths whose deaths sparked the riots, urged contributors to respect the dead boys, adding: "It would be preferable not to make racist, fascist comments or to give rendez-vous spots." CELLPHONES Youths are also using cellphones to coordinate the violence, mainly blamed on frustration over racism and unemployment, and to evade the police once the riots are underway. "Text messages and mobile phones ... help small groups of rioters," said criminologist Alain Bauer. "They can connect easily. It's not only a way to avoid the police, it's a way to organize the fires." The rioters have learned from anti-globalisation protesters, some of whom have used cellphones to coordinate riots at meetings of the Group of Eight industrial nations and the World Trade Organization in recent years, Bauer said. "I think they learned from what they saw on television. I think anti-globalisation movements and rioters have the same way to organize -- or to disorganise the police," he said. "It's old guerrilla tactics with modern technology." The political establishment is also harnessing technology to amass and organize support. The ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) has tapped into intense Web traffic searching for information on the unrest to try to rally support for the tough line taken against rioters by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, the party's president. Since the weekend, searches on Google for words such as "riots" or "burned cars" in French have thrown up a link to a UMP site where readers are invited to put their names to a petition supporting Sarkozy's policy of "firmness." A UMP official said more than 12,000 people had registered their support via the online petition since Sunday. (Additional reporting by Thierry Leveque) 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: Allison Linn Subject: Gates Warns of 'Sea Change' in Memo Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 10:33:06 -0600 By ALLISON LINN, AP Business Writer The technology industry shift's to Internet-based software and services represents a massive and disruptive "sea change," Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates wrote to top-level executives in a memo aimed at rallying his troops against the new competitive threats the company faces. In an e-mail to top executives, dated Oct. 30 and obtained late Tuesday by The Associated Press, Gates urged company leaders to "act quickly and decisively" to move further into the field of offering such services, in order to best formidable competitors. But he also warned that the company must be thoughtful in building the right technology to serve the right audience. "This coming 'services wave' will be very disruptive," Gates wrote. "We have competitors who will seize on these approaches and challenge us - still, the opportunity to lead is very clear." Gates compares the push toward such services -- which range from online business software offerings to free Web-based e-mail -- to the changes he saw nearly a decade ago. Then, he wrote a now-famous memo, called "The Internet Tidal Wave," the prompted a massive shift at Microsoft toward Internet-based technology. "The next sea change is upon us," Gates wrote to executives. Gates included a memo from Ray Ozzie, one of Microsoft's three chief technical officers, which outlined ideas for broad companywide changes that can address the growing competitive threat. In the memo, dated Oct. 28, Ozzie concedes that Microsoft has not led the pack on Internet-based software and services, and now faces intense competition from companies like Google Inc. Ozzie said Microsoft needs to focus on key tenets of the new model, including a shift toward offering free, advertising-supported offerings and more sophisticated, Internet-based methods of delivering products. "I believe at this juncture it's generally very clear to each of us why we need to transform -- the competitors, the challenges, and the opportunities," Ozzie wrote. Last week, Microsoft announced plans for Windows Live and Office Live, two Web-based offerings that aim to help the company compete with Google, Yahoo Inc. Salesforce.com and other companies that are already seeing success with such Web-based offerings. Microsoft Corp. has recently faced criticism that its model, which still relies mostly on delivering software in traditional packaging, could grow antiquated. The concern is that, as more companies offer online services for everything from word processing to storing photos, there will be less of a need for Microsoft's lucrative Windows operating system and Office business software. Microsoft's nascent Windows Live and Office Live efforts aim to complement its valuable software franchises with online products that build on what people find on their desktop computers. 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. For more Associated Press headlines and strories, go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ From: Mark Clayton Subject: High-Tech Sniffers Try to Stop 'Dirty' Bombs Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 10:36:44 -0600 By Mark Clayton, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor If a terrorist tried to sneak a "dirty" bomb into the United States, would anyone notice? Possibly. Radiation detectors rushed into service since 9/11 might sound the alarm at seaports, border checkpoints, and mail-handling facilities. Then again, the sensors have been set off by everything from loads of kitty litter to bananas. And a smart terrorist could hide a basketball-size chunk of highly enriched uranium by using lead shielding less than an inch thick. That's why the US is set to begin deploying a new generation of radiation detectors intended to be America's "last line of defense" against weapons of mass destruction. By early spring, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will pick technologies from among 10 companies, whose newest generation of nuclear detectors was tested in the Nevada desert this summer. Their devices will begin field-testing at a few ports of entry by next June, with a full-production decision expected by 2007. Some experts are breathing a sigh of relief. "We're now on the cusp of seeing the next generation of [nuclear and radiological] detectors," says Benn Tannenbaum, a physicist and expert on sensor technology at the Center for Science, Technology & Security Policy at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington. But others say the US is not moving fast enough to install a multilayered defense against one of its biggest security threats. While billions of dollars have been spent on biological countermeasures, nuclear detection efforts have lagged. "Little steps are being taken that may be in the right direction," says Richard Wagner Jr., a senior staffer at Los Alamos National Laboratory, who served in the Pentagon during the Reagan administration. "It's the rate of progress I'm concerned about." Alarming evidence that the pace may be picking up as disturbing evidence accumulates. About a year ago, the National Intelligence Council warned that "undetected smuggling has occurred, and we are concerned about the total amount of [nuclear and radiological] material that could have been diverted or stolen in the past 13 years" around the world. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has documented 650 cases of trafficking since 1993, echoed that report. About $300 million has been spent by the Department of Homeland Security since 1994 to deploy 470 radiation-detection systems at America's border crossings and ports, according to a Government Accountability Office report in June. But their shortcomings have become obvious. In March, DHS officials told Congress port detectors were working and had registered at least 10,000 radiation hits. But questions about the value of those hits arose in a June congressional hearing, when the security manager for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey reported 150 "false positives" per day. That amounted to a false alarm -- and possibly a time-consuming search -- for about 1 in every 40 shipping containers. The resulting delays, in turn, often caused detection sensitivity to be turned down, crippling a sensor's ability to detect weapons material, the Port Authority security manager and other experts say. Next-generation sensors will generally be far smaller, often mobile, and smarter -- networked with other sensors and able to detect the difference between radiation emitted from a nuclear bomb and a load of bananas. New homeland security officeOverseeing the effort is a brand new office within the Department of Homeland Security devoted to one goal: detecting terrorist nuclear material before it can get into the country. Established by presidential directive in April, its first assignment is to create a network of US nuclear detectors as part of a larger "global architecture" of detectors to be deployed overseas. "We anticipate mobile detection systems and fixed systems ... that enable us to achieve randomness and screening around the country, in transit zones, aircraft in flight, and container ships," says Vayle Oxford, acting director of the new DHS Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO). He envisions detectors that would screen "target areas" like high-risk cities, and some that could alert security forces to investigate. In sum, it's a new concept that will need huge databases to collect and collate data from what could become thousands of WMD sensors on bridges and buildings. "What we're trying to do with global architecture is to knit this together," Dr. Oxford says. DNDO received $318 million in fiscal year 2006 funding -- about $90 million more than President Bush requested from Congress. Today only a few truly advanced detection systems are actually deployed, including one at MassPort in Boston and another at a border crossing with Mexico near San Diego, Dr. Tannenbaum says. By 2007, DHS expects to decide on the best technology to put into 2,500 advanced detectors to be rolled out nationwide. Innovative technologiesOne possible technology, from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is RadNet, a kind of global positioning system married to a radiation detector packed into a cellphone. The idea is that this "cellphone sniffer" could be carried by police officers on their daily routes -- all the while detecting radiation and transmitting coordinates to a computer that maps hot zones for investigation. Another contender: Princeton University's Miniature Integrated Detection System (MINDS), which can distinguish between types of radiation using sophisticated software. So far, MINDS systems are scanning for suspicious material at a major train station on the East Coast and a military base in New Jersey, as well as being evaluated for airports and mail facilities. Scientists at the Livermore lab are working on an even more futuristic nuclear detector that could sense a bomb made of highly enriched uranium, which emits little radiation and is easily shielded. Other countries are coming on board. A year ago, the European Union and the US agreed to cooperate on development of sensor technology. Canada last year noted that its Ottawa International Airport would be getting detectors that would sense material likely to be in a dirty bomb, a non-nuclear device that uses conventional explosives. Even local entities are getting involved. Last year several Las Vegas hotels announced deployment of nuclear and chemical sensors. MetroRail in the nation's capital has been moving to upgrade its chemical and biological sensors. WMD sensors: not sufficient? Few experts, however -- Oxford included -- believe WMD sensors are enough. Most agree the primary defensive layer must be locking down and monitoring with new smart detectors the insecure nuclear materials in places like the research reactors of the former Soviet Union. The next layer would be smart sensors at ports overseas to screen cargo before it is loaded onto a ship bound for the US. Some critics, though, say the bulk of funds should be spent securing loose nuclear material overseas and creating sensor networks to make sure that it doesn't end up in the wrong hands. If it did, the argument goes, all the sensors in the world might not be enough. "This could become a Maginot line for us, creating a false sense of security," says Randall Larsen, CEO of Homeland Security Associates, an Arlington, Va., consulting firm. "Anyone smart enough to get this stuff could sneak it past detectors." Still, other experts say sensor networks abroad combined with a last line of defense in the US are critical. "If you have a better defensive system, the attacker has to work that much harder, recruit more people, put on more shielding," says Mr. Wagner. "The bigger the operation gets, the better chance our people have of detecting and stopping it." Copyright 2005 The Christian Science Monitor NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new articles daily. To read headlines and stories each day from Christian Science Monitor and New York Times with no login nor registration requirements, go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/nytimes.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 00:37:33 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Verizon's New Slimmed-Down Unlimited Calling Plans Add Choice Verizon's New Slimmed-Down Unlimited Calling Plans Add Choice and Value in 9 East Coast Markets Unlimited Calling for as Little as $29.95 a Month Underpins Super Prices on Bundles of Calling, Internet and Entertainment NEW YORK, Nov. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon customers in nine East Coast markets now have two new options for flat-rate, unlimited, any-distance calling. Customers can combine the new phone plans with Verizon high-speed Internet and DIRECTV services to meet or beat the best offers from cable. Verizon Freedom Essentials offers unlimited local, regional and domestic long-distance calling with the three most popular calling features -- Home Voice Mail, Call Waiting and Caller ID -- for as little as $34.95 a month. Verizon Freedom Value, offering any-distance domestic calling but no calling features, starts at $29.95 in some markets and is the company's lowest-priced any-distance calling plan. The new plans are available starting today in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Virginia and Washington, D.C. The Freedom Value and Freedom Essentials plans were introduced last month in Florida, California and Texas and have proven very popular, bringing new long-distance customers to Verizon and promoting sales of service packages that include Verizon Online DSL and DIRECTV all-digital entertainment services. With the new calling plans, customers can have unlimited calling at as little as $29.95 and entry-level DSL at up to768 megabits per second (Mbps) downstream at $14.95 for a combined cost as low as $44.90. DIRECTV service from Verizon can be added for a total of as little as $84.89 per month. - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=52953597 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 00:56:38 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Digital Tracking to Protect On-Demand TV Digital Tracking to Protect On-Demand TV - Nov 8, 2005 11:01 PM (AP Online) - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=52981885 BURBANK, Calif. (AP) -- Invisible marks that can be used to trace illegal copies of television shows and movies will be embedded in programs available on demand across the country using technology from Widevine Technologies. Widevine, based in Seattle, said Tuesday its invisible digital markers would be embedded in programs distributed to cable companies served by TVN Entertainment Corp., a Burbank-based company. Among TVN's cable customers are four of the nation's largest operators: Comcast Corp., Cox Communications Inc., Charter Communications Inc. and Adelphia Communications Corp. Digital watermarks are not visible to the naked eye, but contain information about the origin of the program. They allow Hollywood studios to track shows as they are distributed to cable boxes, TV sets, computers, cell phones or other devices. The watermarks remain even after the program is copied several times, allowing law enforcement to tell where illegal copies were obtained. TVN provides movies, concerts and other programs to cable operators and telecommunication companies, who then offer them to consumers for a pay-per-view fee. Tuesday's announcement marks the first time digital watermarking has been used to track such programs. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 07:55:49 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Jumpy Enough to Chew a Chair? Try DogCatRadio By DINITIA SMITH "Remember, be kind to your mailman," said Jane Harris, a disc jockey. Then she softened her voice until it was a little insinuating: "He only wants to deliver the mail." It is a message that many of her listeners need to hear. Ms. Harris is a D.J. on DogCatRadio.com, a new Internet radio station for pets. Now dogs, cats, hamsters and parrots can keep the anxiety, the loneliness, the restlessness at bay while their owners are out. It is radio just for them, live 17 hours a day, 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. Pacific time, and podcast for the rest of the 24 hours. Those who listen to DogCatRadio will find that there is generally an animal motif to the playlist, like "Hound Dog": "You ain't nothin' but a hound dogcryin' all the time." This Elvis song is a frequent request from listeners (presumably the owners), as are the Baha Men, singing: "Who let the dogs out (woof, woof, woof, woof)." And Dionne Warwick is also popular, especially her soothing song "That's What Friends Are For": "Keep smiling, keep shining,/Knowing you can always count on me." Since many pets are apparently bilingual, DogCatRadio also has a "Spanish Hour," 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Pacific time daily, with Hispanic commentary and music, like Luis Miguel's "No S=E9 T=FA": DogCatRadio.com was started last June by Adrian Martinez, who is also president of Marusa records, an independent record label in Los Angeles. He runs the station out of a customized RV parked in his office lot in the Eagle Rock section of Los Angeles. Mr. Martinez, 34, who owns six dogs and two cats, said he founded the station because "my cat, Snickers, asked me to do it." One day, Snickers was pacing the floor restlessly and meowing. "I said, 'What do you want?' " Mr. Martinez recalled in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. "I turned up the music, and she was fine." He discovered that Snickers likes 80's rock, particularly the Eddie Money version of the song "Take Me Home Tonight:" "I feel a hunger /It's a hunger that tries to keep a man awake at night." Mr. Martinez added, "I wanted to do something for the pet community." The first week that DogCatRadio was broadcast, the local CBS television station showed a feature about it. As a result, so many people tuned in, 130,000 in one day, that the server crashed, Mr. Martinez said. "We had to get a bigger server to accommodate more listeners." Now, he said, "We average close to 8,000 hits a week. We have a meter that tracks it." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/02/arts/02pet.html?ex=1288587600&en=363ad= acb531f2993&ei=5090 ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Pay Phone Coin Drop Reference in TV Show; Youth Phone Culture Date: 9 Nov 2005 06:47:38 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com A TV show just broadcast used the "ding ding" sound effect when coins were desposited in a modern pay phone. The show was "Life with Derek"* shown on the Disney Channel. What is interesting is that this show is meant for younger people who very likely never saw a or used a 3-slot pay phone, so they're not familiar with the coin drop sounds. Further, a lot of teens today probably never even used a pay phone because they have cell phones (in this episode's plot, the user didn't have a cell phone and was working to get one, thus her need to make a pay phone call.) Our local public library got rid of its pay phone because it was not used enough, when kids need a ride home they have a cell to call. (There are occassional requests for a phone, however). I wonder what the market penetration of cell phones among teenagers is today. It seems every time I see a teen they're staring at their cell phone panel. (My cube neighbor yells at his kids for too much cell phone/text msg use and big bills). Also in this episode the "ker-ching" sound effect of a cash register was used. This is a very common sound effect on TV when money is mentioned. But almost every cash register in stores for years is electronic. Indeed, the "ker ching" type of cash register was manual and not as widely used as electric registers. Many smaller stores or secondary counters in big stores did use a manual register (where the lever action of depressing keys worked the mechanism). The pre-record ".wav" sounds included with my PC included that sound. Indeed, sometimes I wonder if some of the jokes on youth shows might go over kids' heads unfamiliar with culture history. For instance, in another show, during career day a 13 y/o tells of how "mama won't work for the man", which I thought was an expression of an older generation. As an aside, about 25 years ago it was common for affluent families to install a second phone line for the kids to use (pre computer days, voice only). (In those days I remember senior citizens looking down at that as being decadent and reminding us that in their day they all shared the phone in the drugstore, if they had a phone at home it was shared with many siblings and a party line.) Anyway I wonder if families still bother with second lines just to meet voice needs or the cell phones now meet that need. Also, with DSL and cable modems, I wonder if people still have second lines for their computer. *"Life with Derek" is about a teen girl who mother remarries and she now has to live with a very annoying step-brother. Import from Canada. ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Wednesday 9th November 2005 Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 07:41:17 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com GSM Network gets World Bank Loan http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14744.php The International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, has announced the signing of a US$20 million loan to Wataniya Telecom Maldives which is building a GSM network in the island nation. In addition, IFC mobilized a U... Nearly 70% of All Ringtones are Purchased by Women http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14743.php Telephia reports that women outpaced men in purchasing ringtones by two to one during Q3 2005. Sixty-nine percent of mobile ringtones were bought by women, while purchases by men comprised 31% of the total revenue share, according to the latest Telep... Starent Networks Connects over 7 Billion Subscriber Data Calls http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14742.php Starent Networks is celebrating its fifth birthday. Since its inception, the company has deployed its ST16 Intelligent Mobile Gateway in numerous CDMA2000 and UMTS networks, connecting more than 7 billion subscriber data calls.... Qualcomm Gets a Foothold in the UK http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14741.php Qualcomm has signed an agreement with O2 UK to use uiOne to develop a consistent user interface (UI), initially for two of its own-branded X range devices. With this agreement, O2 becomes the first operator in Europe to announce plans to deploy uiOne... Top 50 Companies in the UK Mobile Market http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14740.php O2 UK has published a "50 to Watch in Mobile" report, which is an independently compiled list identifying the 50 most important British mobile companies to watch. The list looks beyond handset manufacturers and network operators, to reveal the new vi... SaskTel Mobility and Virgin Mobile Rank Highest in Canadian Customer Satisfaction Study http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14739.php Canada's SaskTel Mobility, a regional operator in Saskatchewan, ranks highest in customer satisfaction with contracted wireless service, while Virgin Mobile, which is new to the Canadian market, ranks highest in pre-paid service, according to the J.D... Niche Markets Ripe for a New Breed of MVNO http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14738.php ABI Research says that Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) are in a second phase of growth, made possible by the advent of 3G mobile phone services. 3G's data-centric capabilities have opened up new markets for MVNOs targeting specific high-end ... British Consumers not Reaping Full Benefits of 3G http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14737.php A recent survey by Harris Interactive shows that although 3G mobile phones have reached a nine percent (9%) share of the mobile phone market in Great Britain, 41% of 3G users are only using their phone for talking and texting. Furthermore, some users... Technology Promises To Link Wireline, Wireless Networks http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14736.php [Premium] Phone carriers are pinning their hopes on a technology that promises to bridge disparate communications networks, potentially saving them money and setting the groundwork for new services. ... Russian court freezes 20% of SMARTS, bans registration http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14735.php Russia's St. Petersburg Arbitration Court has frozen 799 shares, or about 20% of Russian regional mobile operator SMARTS and prohibited the regional tax service from registering the company as an open joint stock company, Pavel Svirsky, general direc... Hong Kong Hutchison Telecom End-Sep Subscribers At 15.1 Million http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14734.php Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd. said Tuesday the number of subscribers to its mobile phone services at the end of September was 15.1 million, up 34% from a year earlier and up 9.6% from the end of June. ... Nokia To Analyze Qualcomm Claims When Complaint Obtained http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14733.php Finnish telecommunications equipment maker Nokia Corp. late Monday said it has learned from a Qualcomm press release that Qualcomm has filed a complaint for alleged patent infringement against Nokia and Nokia Inc. in San Diego apparently involving so... SingTel Says Regional Mobile Subscribers Exceed 74 Million http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14732.php Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. said Tuesday its mobile subscribers totaled 74.05 million at the end of September, a gain of 2.91 million from the end of June. ... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 09:51:14 -0500 From: Michael Muderick Subject: Dimension Does anyone still maintain the old Bell System Dimesion systems? I came across an operator console and programming console along with a set of manuals /schematics. Does anyone need them? INterestingly, there were stickers on the equipment from other companies. Was Dimension post divestiture? mm ------------------------------ From: Michael Chance Subject: Re: Verizon POTS Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 11:20:16 GMT In article , userid@camsul.example.invalid says: > Joe wrote: >> I get a dial tone. However, when I dial a number, I get a message >> saying to call Verizon if I want telephone service. > That's known as soft dial tone. You can call 911 (and maybe the > telco's business office), but nothing else. It's required in many > places, for emergency situations. It also lets you know that the > phone line is electrically connected to the CO. Didn't know that Verizon still had soft dial tone in places, but if that's what it is, then you've got completely wired service already in place. No inside central office wiring to do, no outside or customer location wiring needed, so the only thing is to update all the provisioning and billing databases and set the central office switch to show the new service, all done with software. Should take no more than a couple of hours, max. Michael Chance ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Verizon POTS Date: 9 Nov 2005 06:50:57 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Tony P. wrote: > Verizon is famous for having crappy outside plant records. For > example, when I moved here in October, 2004 they swore up and down > that service was hooked up. Plug in the phone and no dial-tone. No NID > either. Verizon is a big company that is a hodge podge of companies with very different performance history. You can't generalize. When we added service it took only a day (physical line already there), and about week (wires had to be run, cost $110). > So I open the terminal block, take out the butt set and start dialing > the ANAC number on every pair. Not only did I find my pair, I found > the NID for my apartment and the two weren't anywhere near each other, > nor was the NID connected. What is "ANAC" and "NID"? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 23:32:07 -0500 From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: NN0 Central Office Codes On Tue, 8 Nov 2005 22:47:41 UTC, wollman@khavrinen.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) wrote: > Not uncommon. At Boston's WBZ, the main call-in number was originally > ALgonquin 4-5678 (617-254-5678), which still works but has been > superseded by 254-1030 to reinforce the branding. But the contest > line is in what was the Boston "choke" exchange, 617-931-1030. The > main switchboard number is 617-787-7000, which would have been STadium > 7-7000 in 2L+5D days, but I don't know if that number was in use back > then. Those three exchanges historically belonged to three separate > COs: 617-254 is Allston, 617-787 is Brighton (both now in the same > ratecenter IIRC), and 617-931 is a downtown Boston exchange which I > think was historically located at the NET&T headquarters. WBZ-TV > (channel 4) used to have 617-782-4444, but I doubt that is as old as > the number would imply. (WBZ-TV has been at the same location since > 1948, when that number would have been STAdium 4444.) If there was ever an Allston CO, it was gone many years ago. Allston is a part of Brighton. Allston's separate identity dates back to the railroad, which needed a name for a second station in Brighton. George Washington Allston was a popular local painter, so they named it after him, and it stuck; the neighborhood (once a Town before crooked politicians essentially sold it to Boston sometime around 1870) is sometimes called Allston-Brighton, though the two halves are reasonably distinct. The Brighton CO is right in Brighton Center, within a short enough reach of Allston to cover it efficiently. Note, though, that a significant part of Allston-Brighton is served by the Brookline CO and is in that rate center. When I moved from one side of Comm. Ave. to the other some years ago, my phone number (and rate center) changed from ASPinwall-7 to STAdium-3. (Brookline's 3Ls included REGent and LONgwood.) Boundaries are weird there. The phone company follows the middle of Comm. Ave. (a natural boundary for wire, with a trolley line running there). The post office puts all Comm. Ave. addresses, both sides, in Allston or Brighton, but side streets in Brookline. (This impacts insurance rates. I once knew someone whose basement apartment, on a side street, netted a much lower car insurance rate than the upstairs units, because of the different ZIP code.) The real city limits meander a couple of blocks back. Harvard has bought up a LOT of land in North Allston, right across from their Cambridge campus, and is planning to develop that too. I think a couple of blocks in Allston near Harvard are already in the Cambridge rate center, and Harvard is likely to equip most of its new buildings with Cambridge numbers too. WGBH ("God Bless Harvard", though they'll probably claim it stands for "Great Blue Hill") has a Cambridge phone number, for instance, though it too is in Allston (or as it's known to Zoomers, "Boston 02134"), just across the river. The 617-931 choke exchange is listed in the LERG to the Cambridge 02T tandem, a DMS-200. It's one of two tandems in VZ's 210 Bent St. CO (the other is a 5E; a 4E next door, at 250, has been decommissioned). If MIT still gets its dial tone from VZ, it comes out of Bent St. That 3-block-long street is full of telecom carriers, Level 3 (and others having buildings there. AT&T still uses 250, which is a divestiture condo (shared between AT&T and VZ). I think the carrier hotel (was Network Plus, now defunct) at #185 has closed. XO is at 89 Fulkerson, a block or two off Bent. It seems like there's more glass than dirt in the ground around there.... Fred Goldstein k1io fgoldstein "at" ionary.com ionary Consulting http://www.ionary.com/ ------------------------------ From: markrobt@myrealbox.com (Mark Roberts) Subject: Re: NN0 Central Office Codes Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 17:00:48 -0000 Garrett Wollman had written: > In article , Mark Roberts > wrote: >> I can personally attest to 713-630 because that was used for the PBX >> at KTRH radio, where I worked at the time. While most of the "public" >> numbers for KTRH were standard JAckson numbers -- I'm pretty sure the >> main call-in number was 526-5874 (KTRH) -- our internal extensions >> were of the form 630-3xxx. > Not uncommon. And it is a practice not limited to broadcasting stations. A local example in Oakland is a real estate agency in my area whose main office line is 531-xxxx. In its corporate ads for real estate listings, the agents for the individual listings are given a phone number of 531-xxxx, ext. nnn. But in ads for the individual agents (such as their open house of the week), they usually give their phone numbers as 485-7nnn. Interestingly, 485 isn't a Pac Bell/SBC office. This, too, seems increasingly common judging by the prefixes I have seen in our neighborhood weekly whose primary means of support is real-estate ads. Of course, there is nothing these days to prevent routing an ILEC number to a CLEC switch, but it is perhaps notable that the established ILEC number is retained as a central point of contact even as all the internal DID extensions are provided by the CLEC. For the real-estate office example above, it would seem that 485-7000 would be a perfectly serviceable main reception number, yet they've kept the 531-xxxx number. Mark Roberts | "I know you know the situation is past critical." Oakland, Cal.| -- FEMA staff member Marty Bahamonde, in New Orleans NO HTML MAIL | "Anything specific I need to do or tweak?" | -- FEMA director Michael Brown replies to that e-mail Permission to archive this article in any form is hereby explicitly denied. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 01:17:02 EST From: Dan Lanciani Subject: Re: US Mandates More Security in Online Banking > Federal regulators, alarmed by the threat of online financial fraud, > are requiring banks by the end of 2006 to provide several layers of > identify verification before customers can access their accounts and > conduct other banking over the Internet. Yet they continue to allow (or even encourage) banks to refuse to allow customers to require any verification at all for ACH debits against their accounts by third parties. > In addition to standard passwords, customers may soon need a unique > digital 'fingerprint' that will identify their computer for the > bank, or may scan a copy of their real fingerprints to identify > themselves to the bank's network. As usual, their answer is for consumers to disclose more personal information and/or allow snooping on their computers. I'm sure that information will never be abused ... even by the phishers who will collect it as well ... > Another, more cumbersome method would have customers carrying > keyfob-sized electronic 'tokens' that authenticate their identity. Because it would be, like, impossible to set up a cryptographically secure, publicly verifyable (open source) system that works for the customer ... It's getting really hard to attribute all this nonsense to mere incompetence. Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 01:26:51 EST From: Dan Lanciani Subject: Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service > Verizon Communications Inc. sharply cut its prices for unlimited > telephone service across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic on Tuesday, > including markets where Cablevision Inc. has just boosted broadband > Internet speeds. Unless you have residential ISDN in Massachusetts (which is apparently no longer offered to new customers). All the new low-cost plans explicitly exclude ISDN customers. :( And it looks like all the plans that didn't exclude ISDN are themselves no longer offered, so ISDN lines are pretty much frozen. Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com ------------------------------ From: Lena Subject: Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service Date: 8 Nov 2005 20:25:29 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Shame that it doesn't show on the website yet (11/8/05. 11 pm EDT) Lena [TELECM Digest Editor's Note: Well, remember, Lena, you read it _first_ here in TELECOM Digest, both yesterday and again in the current issue in another article in this issue. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 09:38:51 EST Subject: Re: Internet ID Theft Worsens, Scares Away Bank Customers In a message dated 11/8/05 8:27:46 PM Central Standard Time, editor@telecom-digest.org writes, in a note to a posting by Jonathan Stempel < reuters@telecom-digest.org>: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One of the major banks, Bank of > America, has considered having a picture (a .jpg perhaps?) of the > customer on line to help 'prove his identity', so that if a phisherman > comes along asking you to do something allegedly for BOA, _your_ > picture will have to be part of whatever _authentic_ request is made > by the bank. All well and good, I suppose, but what prevents the > phisherman from adding the same .jpg files to his pitch letters? PAT] The bank provides a selection of pictures from which to make your selection. You also give the picture a name. After you enter your username, the picture and the name you gave it is displayed with a warning not to enter your password unless the proper picture appears along with the name you gave it. Then it allows you to enter your password. Presumably it will be more difficult for the operator of a phishing or fraudulent site to find and display the proper picture and the name you gave it. Why someone would respond to an e-mail request supposedly from a bank by clicking on a link in the e-mail is beyond me anyway. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! 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End of TELECOM Digest V24 #510 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Nov 9 19:36:34 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 6C58D14EDA; Wed, 9 Nov 2005 19:36:33 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #511 Message-Id: <20051110003633.6C58D14EDA@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 19:36:33 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.3 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Wed, 9 Nov 2005 19:35:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 511 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Phishers Lure Google Users With Bogus Cash Prizes (Jay Wrolstad) New York Times Signs Up 135,000 New Online Subscribers (AP News Wire) Eircom to Give Swisscom Exclusive Window (USTelecom dailyLead) Re: French Youth Use Internet to Plan Riots (john.brewer) Re: NN0 Central Office Codes (Garrett Wollman) Re: High-Tech Sniffers Try to Stop 'Dirty' Bombs (AES) Re: Verizon POTS (Mark Atwood) Re: Verizon Reduces Prices For Phone Service (lena) 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: Jay Wrolstad Subject: Phishers Lure Google Users With Bogus Google Cash Prizes Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 17:19:24 -0600 Jay Wrolstad, newsfactor.com An online scam offering the lure of free money through a bogus Google Web site has been uncovered by security company Websense, which reported that the site was shut down about 30 hours after it was first discovered on Monday. The phishing attack employed a page that closely resembled the real Google home page, with a banner message claiming "You won $400.00!" Users were instructed to collect their prize money by transferring it to a credit card. To do so, they were asked to provide their account numbers. They also were asked to provide their home addresses and phone numbers. After the sensitive personal information was collected, users were redirected to Google's legitimate Web site. The phishing site was hosted in the U.S., Websense said. Direct Approach "This is a little different than other phishing attacks in that it attempted to entice people into divulging their credentials and using the Google name, as opposed to attacks that target banks or e-commerce sites," said Dan Hubbard, senior director of security research at Websense. This particular phishing site did host other attacks targeting financial institutions, he added, noting that the approach taken by these criminals was fairly rudimentary when compared with attacks that use a Trojan horse or log a user's keystrokes. Attacks on the Rise And the Google mimicry reflects a disturbing trend. A recent Gartner survey showed that phishing attacks grew at double-digit rates last year in the U.S. In the 12 months ending in May 2005, some 73 million U.S. Internet users said they received an average of more than 50 phishing e-mails in the prior year; some users reported a dozen or more daily. And an estimated 2.4 million online consumers report losing money directly because of the phishing attacks. Of these, approximately 1.2 million consumers lost $929 million during the year preceding the survey, Gartner reported. "The standard security rules apply in protecting yourself from a phishing attack," said Hubbard. "Don't click on links in e-mail messages, type in the address of a bank yourself, run the latest antivirus software, and obtain the latest security patches." "And," Hubbard noted, "you can assume that anyone offering you some sum of money on the net is most likely just a crook." 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, News Factor Network. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ------------------------------ From: Associated Press News Wire Subject: New York Times Signs Up 135,000 Online Subscriptions Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 17:17:28 -0600 The New York Times Co. said Wednesday it had signed up about 135,000 paying subscribers to its new online service that offers access to Op-Ed columns and other premium content. The new service, TimesSelect, launched Sept. 19, and is free to home delivery subscribers. Non-subscribers can get access to the service for $49.95 a year or $7.95 every month. The Times said it had signed up more than 270,000 subscribers to the service since it began, and that about half of them are online-only. TimesSelect marks the latest attempt by newspaper companies to bring in new revenue from the Internet, where many people are increasingly going for news. Newspapers are facing long-term declines in their paid circulation, and more and more advertising dollars are moving from traditional print outlets to the Internet. The Times and other newspaper publishers have also been reporting higher revenues from online advertising at their own sites. So far The Wall Street Journal, which is published by Dow Jones & Co., has had the most success in convincing users to pay for access to online editions. The Journal now has 764,000 subscribers. 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. For _totally free_ access to various newspapers around the USA with _no registration, and no login requirement_ check out the Telecom Digest Extra pages here; just a few of the several features we offer are: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/index.html (general index of features) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html (news headlines and AP audio) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra.nytimes.html (about 90 percent of each day's New York Times, Christian Science Monitor and NPR reports.) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/internet-news.html (USA Today, others) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html (telecom, internet news) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/TDNewsradio.html (our own news radio) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/BBC.html (audio from BBC and news) http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/KOSU.html (NPR News and classical music) The index.html page gives a full listing of what is available; the above is only a small sample. And remember, _no login, no registration_ for anything; the way the net should be! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 13:06:04 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Eircom to Give Swisscom Exclusive Window USTelecom dailyLead November 9, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xJqkatagCwyZqFjRrZ TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Eircom to give Swisscom exclusive window BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Report: DSL could catch cable by 2006 * Verizon lowers price for unlimited calling plans * Report: Cisco poised to enter mesh networking market * BellSouth inks marketing pact with home builder * Gates: A fundamental shift for Microsoft * Deutsche Telekom reports earnings USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Bookstore Best-Seller: VoIP Implementation and Planning Guide TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * WiMAX "plugfest" puts gear on display REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Japan opens its mobile phone market Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xJqkatagCwyZqFjRrZ ------------------------------ Subject: Re: French Youth Use Internet to Plan Riots From: john.brewer@us.schneider-electric.com Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 13:41:04 -0500 > Young rioters are using blog messages to incite violence and > cellphones to organize attacks in guerrilla-like tactics they have > copied from anti-globalisation protesters, security experts say. I find it interesting that the news media portrays the rioters as comprised of those marginalized by poverty,(as if that were justification for burning your neighbors car) yet according to this, they're well enough heeled to afford computers and cellphones. There must be a new-age definition of poverty. John twoube@yahoo.com ------------------------------ From: wollman@khavrinen.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: NN0 Central Office Codes Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 19:24:39 UTC Organization: MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory In article , Fred Goldstein wrote: > If there was ever an Allston CO, it was gone many years ago. I don't think so. It's located on the short diagonal street behind the gas station at the corner of Western and Harvard. Now it's probably just a remote wirecenter on the Brighton CO. (When I lived in Brighton, I also had an ASPinwall (617-277) number and Brookline ZIP code. This did not result in lower insurance rates; the insurance companies have maps that show where the town line lies -- as do the city and town parking offices. The other important Brookline exchange you didn't mention was BEAcon (617-232).) > The 617-931 choke exchange is listed in the LERG to the Cambridge 02T > tandem, a DMS-200. It's one of two tandems in VZ's 210 Bent St. CO > (the other is a 5E; a 4E next door, at 250, has been > decommissioned). If MIT still gets its dial tone from VZ, it comes > out of Bent St. MIT has its own 5ESS and has for a long time (it was one of the first 5E's sold to a non-telco customer). There's a project on now to figure out what to do about it before it comes up for renewal next in a few years' time. 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: AES Subject: Re: High-Tech Sniffers Try to Stop 'Dirty' Bombs Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 14:41:44 -0800 Organization: Stanford University In article , Mark Clayton wrote: > By Mark Clayton, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor > If a terrorist tried to sneak a "dirty" bomb into the United States, > would anyone notice? > Possibly. Radiation detectors rushed into service since 9/11 might > sound the alarm at seaports, border checkpoints, and mail-handling > facilities. (snipped) > Innovative technologies: One possible technology, from Lawrence > Livermore National Laboratory, is RadNet, a kind of global positioning > system married to a radiation detector packed into a cellphone. The > idea is that this "cellphone sniffer" could be carried by police > officers on their daily routes -- all the while detecting radiation > and transmitting coordinates to a computer that maps hot zones for > investigation. Or perhaps rudimentary radiation detectors (and possibly sensors of other types, bio or chemical) built into _every_ cell phone: one sensor per phone, randomly allocated, not available to user control. If the sensor detects a signal above a set threshold, the phone just silently dials in to a collection center computer, reports the fact, then shuts down for a selected dead time. The collection center computers collect and collate all these reports, and if a sufficient density of reports start showing up in a given area (or along a given track), alerts a human to take a look at the accumulated data, and maybe send a human responder out to look at the general location, or perhaps just auto-query other phones in the same area. Location to the nearest cell tower ought to be enough for a start; GPS location accuracy not required, at least not initially. The problem of occasional false positives is greatly reduced by having a large ensemble of reporting devices. If you can build a complete camera into a cell phone for, what is it, about $10 or $20, seems like, with a little development, you should be able to put in just a single rudimentary sensor for the same or less. If I were to post this same idea to comp.risks, I suspect a lot of potential downsides and unanticipated problems with it would also emerge. Seems worth thinking about nonetheless. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Verizon POTS From: Mark Atwood Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 22:50:37 GMT > In article , > userid@camsul.example.invalid says: >>> I get a dial tone. However, when I dial a number, I get a message >>> saying to call Verizon if I want telephone service. >> That's known as soft dial tone. You can call 911 (and maybe the >> telco's business office), but nothing else. My (disconnected) telco pair in my house has such a "soft dial tone". When I tried to do a 911 test, it didnt go to 911, it instead went to the telco "try to sell me service". Mark Atwood When you do things right, people won't be sure me@mark.atwood.name you've done anything at all. http://mark.atwood.name/ http://www.livejournal.com/users/fallenpegasus ------------------------------ From: Lena Subject: Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service Date: 9 Nov 2005 15:58:06 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Well, I called customer Service at Verizon and asked about plans that have dropped their rates in the order of $15 per month. The rep was only aware of a Verizon Freedom package that cost $39.95 per month. If it was the Verizon Freedom Extra package at $56.95 per month, it still says $56.95 per month on the website. (Heck, my bank was advertising free online billpaying for the past six months, and the website still indicated it cost $6.95 per month until I emailed them about the discrepancy). Verizon won't entice me back until they drastically drop the cost of their unlimited local calling, included caller id and call waiting, and add a very low rate long distance plan. I just don't use enough LD to pay a fixed amount per month for unlimited LD calls. Lena [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And if you had not issued that challenge to the rep (showing that you had some sort of clue about their new rate structure) and had ordered the service -- either from the web site or the phone call -- you would still be getting charged at the $56.95 rate. Ditto SBC; there are _so many_ different promotional rates in effect at any given time, most of which are tied to various lengths of time and with varying conditions, you can get most anything you want at any price from them these days. Two questions you may wish to ask the rep on a subsequent phone call: (1) is this new rate a promotional thing for new/returning subscribers only and if so (2) how many months is it good for? Is any contract required, and if so, for how long? A couple other questions it might be fun to ask: Like (the old) AT&T long distance plans which could never get installed correctly on the local telco computers, do you need to call them month after month to get the credit issued; is there any conditions now or in the future regarding a 'tie-in' to DSL service where you must take the one to get the other; and three, not at all very politic but interesting none the less: telco is _supposed to be_ a common carrier utility operated at cost. Did the operating costs suddenly make it feasable to offer this 'reduced rate' now; if it was feasable earlier, _why wasn't it offered earlier_? If this new deal is for _all customers_ and not just new customers, should existing customers expect sometime soon to see a notice in their bills about the new rate structure? You may quote TD as the source of these nuisance questions if you wish. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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Please 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 #511 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Nov 10 15:12:10 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 519F614DC2; Thu, 10 Nov 2005 15:12:10 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #512 Message-Id: <20051110201210.519F614DC2@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 15:12:10 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.4 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 10 Nov 2005 15:12:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 512 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson NASA Telescope Gets Image of Young Stars (Associated Press News Wire) European Space Agency Lauches Venus Probe (Melissa Eddy) Telephone History Enquiry: Earliest Pre-Pay Calls (John R. Covert) "Soft Dial Tone" on Unused Lines (Lisa Hancock) Yahoo! Drops Bid For AOL Stake (USTelecom dailyLead) Cellular-News for Thursday 10th November 2005 (Cellular-News) Dutch Trial SMS Disaster Alert System (Joseph) Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service (Bruce K.) Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service (Lisa Hancock) Re: Phishers Lure Google Users With Bogus Google Cash Prizes (S Lichter) Re: Good News, Linux Users! A Worm Just for You (ellis@no.spam) Re: NN0 Central Office Codes (Fred Goldstein) 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: Associated Press News Wire Subject: NASA Telescope Gets Image of Young Stars Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 22:26:00 -0600 A dazzling photo taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows colossal pillars of cool gas and dust, giving scientists an intimate look at the star-forming process. The image released Wednesday shows the columns stretching out like fingers similar to an iconic photo taken of the Eagle Nebula by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995. While the Hubble visible-light image was dubbed "Pillars of Creation," NASA describes the Spitzer infrared image as "cosmic mountains of creation." The image reflects a region in space known as W5, in the constellation Cassiopeia 7,000 light years away, which is dominated by a single massive star. The largest pillars -- formed by radiation and winds from hot, massive stars -- contain hundreds of newborn stars. "We believe that the star clusters lighting up the tips of the pillars are essentially the offspring of the region's single, massive star," Lori Allen of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said in a statement. Spitzer was able to spy the stars being born inside the pillars because of its infrared capability. A visible light telescope would see the same region as dark columns outlined by specks of light. Scientists believe the pillars eventually become dense enough to give rise to a second generation of stars, which may in turn, trigger successive generations. On the Net: Spitzer Space Telescope: http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu 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. For additional news headlines from Associated Press, please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ From: Melissa Eddy Subject: European Space Agency Launches Venus Probe Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 22:29:27 -0600 By MELISSA EDDY, Associated Press Writer A European spacecraft left Earth orbit Wednesday on a five-month, 220 million-mile journey to Venus, an exploratory mission that could help spur a new space race. The European Space Agency said the unmanned Venus Express lifted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and mission control in Darmstadt activated the probe's instruments and immediately picked up a signal to hearty applause in the observation room. The Europeans then received another signal -- a congratulatory note from the Pasadena, Calif.,-based Planetary Society, which had monitored the launch from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. The $260 million spacecraft will take 163 days to get to Earth's nearest planetary neighbor, where it will drop into orbit and explore the hot, dense atmosphere of Venus. "The mission is an outstanding success," Gaele Winters, director of ESA's operations in Darmstadt, told reporters. "We had a perfect launch, the instruments are switched on, the solar panels are deployed, everything is working." The Venus mission is the latest sign that competition in space is heating up even as NASA is reassessing its own exploration plans. NASA is cutting some of its programs to focus resources on developing a replacement for the space shuttle. The space shuttle Columbia tragedy in 2003 caused NASA to ground its fleet for more than two years. Flights resumed in July with the Discovery, but the dangerous loss of a chunk of its insulation during launch has put future missions on hold until at least May, and possibly even next summer. NASA plans 18 more shuttle flights to the international space station and possibly one to the Hubble Space Telescope before the fleet is retired in 2010. "NASA has really dominated in planetary science and missions for the last 40 years," having seen off the challenge from the former Soviet Union, said Spas Baradash of the Swedish Institute of Space Physics. "But now Europe is catching up." Last month, two Chinese astronauts spent five days in orbit last month on that country's second manned mission. Japan and India also are ramping up their programs, and despite close cooperation between scientists and agencies, "maybe we are witnessing the beginning of a new space race," said Baradash, who worked on the instruments aboard Venus Express. David Southwood, ESA's scientific director, said the Venus mission "once again illustrates Europe's determination to explore the different bodies in our solar system." European scientists plan to apply next month for funding for new ESA missions to Mars and the moon. Venus Express follows ESA's successful Mars Express, launched in 2003. It is Europe's first mission to Venus, which is sometimes visible at sunrise or sunset along the horizon. The Venus mission aims to explore the planet's atmosphere, concentrating on its greenhouse effect and the hurricane force winds that constantly encircle it at high altitudes. There have been roughly 20 U.S. and Soviet missions to Venus since the 1960s, the last being NASA's Magellan, which completed more than 15,000 orbits between 1990 and 1994. Using radar, Magellan mapped virtually its entire surface, revealing towering volcanoes, gigantic rifts and crisp-edged craters. The Venus Express' seven instruments, including a special camera as well as a spectrometer to measure temperatures and analyze the atmosphere, will try to determine whether the planet's volcanoes are active. It also will examine how a world so similar to Earth could have evolved so differently. "Venus is still a big mystery," said Gerhard Schwehm, head of planetary missions at ESA. In the next three days, mission controllers will continue testing the probe's instruments. It is expected to reach Venus in April, when it will slow down to enter the planet's orbit. It will begin the initial stages of gathering data in June. "We hope to see the first results in early July," said Schwehm, adding that the probe will remain active for more than a year. Venus and Earth are alike in that they share similar mass and density. Both have inner cores of rock and are believed to have been formed at roughly the same time. However, they have vastly different atmospheres, with Venus' composed almost entirely of carbon dioxide and very little water vapor. It also has the hottest surface of all the planets in the solar system. Associated Press Writer Stephen Graham contributed to this report from Berlin. On the Net: http://www.esa.int 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. More Associated Press reports available at: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 09:38:54 EST From: John R. Covert Subject: Telephone History Enquiry: Earliest Pre-Pay Calls Telephone History Buffs: I'm looking for information on early pre-pay systems that did not require special telephones. To be relevant to my search, the pre-pay system would need to: 1. Have been implemented before 1987. 2. Have documentation that we could find today. 3. Not require special telephone stations. An example of a system which might meet these requirements would be a company which would provide telephone calls for me on the basis of my depositing money into an account with them; I would then call their telephone number and they would then extend calls for me only until that credit was used up; terminating the call when the there was no more money, and requiring me to replenish my account before further calls could be made. Yes, this is common today with the plethora of pre-pay calling cards. I'm looking for the first instance of such a thing, even if fully manual in terms of operation. To be relevant, it must have been in use (and verifiably so) prior to 1987. My search of the archives so far has not returned anything; we weren't talking about such things in the early 1980s. Back then we thought that the introduction by the Bell System of the first dial-it-yourself calling card system in early 1982 was cool (ref my own article in the digest 21 Jan 1982 1035). Prepay doesn't seem to have been needed back then since almost anyone could get the pay-when-the-bill-comes type of calling card. People must have been more obvious, or more of the cost of fraud was built into the cost we all paid for calls. And resellers of telephone service were few and far between. Regards/john TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For those readers who may have missed the issue of the Digest from almost 24 years ago -- January 21, 1982 -- the pertinent message from John Covert, another long time, charter subscriber to this Digest, is excerpted here. Prior to using '@' as the middle character in our email addresses and using a domain suffix such as '.org' or '.com' we simply concluded with the site name. _Do not_ use the address shown below to reach Mr. Covert now. PAT] Date: 21 Jan 1982 1035-EST From: John R. Covert Subject: Dial-it-yourself telephone Calling Card service I was using the new Dial-it-yourself credit card service on our Denver FX last night. It is really well done. In a previous message I described the operation of the service. That demon- stration was before the service was put into actual use. When your call goes into TSPS, you will hear a new tone, which is the DTMF "#" key immediately followed by a very brief and fading dial tone. During the pre-service demonstration, you then got a recorded voice asking you to enter your Calling Card number. It seems that in actual implementation, that message does not occur. You have to simply know that if you hear the new tone to enter your card. If you don't, or if you dial "0", you will go to an operator. If you want to call the number to which the credit card is issued, you need dial only the last four digits of the credit card. This is the reason RAOs beginning with "0" will appear on calling cards beginning with "6" now. If there is no answer, or after the person you call hangs up, you may dial a "#", and you will be told, "You may dial another number now." At this point you may dial either 0+Number or just Number with the same result. 1+Number is illegal. Likewise, you may dial 01+ overseas number, but not 011+ overseas number. In no case do you get an actual operator through this procedure, although I have heard that there may be a change to the procedure to allow you to dial you calling card and still get an operator for person-to-person calls. Surprising, though. They'd like to make person-to-person go away. This may have been a false story. The rates for using this will, like all phone rates, be regulated by state authorities for instate use and by the FCC for interstate use. In a few states, Bell has already filed special credit card rates. For example, in Massachusetts, you get the DDD rate for credit card calls (regardless of whether it is operator keyed or dialed yourself) but you pay a $0.45 credit card billing charge. From messages in this digest, I presume that North Carolina has done the same thing. Other states may have as well. In a previous message to this digest, I explained that I have a copy of an "illustrative" tariff which shows a significant re-vamping of charges for INTERstate calls. In this tariff, there is a service called "Customer Dialed Calling Card, Station" which is the DDD rate plus $0.50. The next line lists "Operator-Station" as the DDD rate plus mileage-based service charges. The final line lists "Operator-Person-to-Person" as the DDD rate plus $3.00. This tariff is not yet approved. It seems unfair for me to have to pay more to use my calling card simply because some pay-phone at some airport in some small town doesn't have Touch-Tone. The instate tariffs I have seen so far seem to take that into account; the "illustrative" tariff for interstate calls doesn't. ------------------------------ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A quarter-century ago, Mr. Covert was an active participant in this Digest. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: "Soft Dial Tone" on Uuused lines Date: 10 Nov 2005 06:56:47 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Some other posters mentioned that an unused land phone line may still offer dial tone to provide for emergency 911 service. Is this a recent offering? The phone boxes within my apt have a forest of wires, it appears about six pairs. It's been a while since I tested them, but other than the ones I use the lines are dead. They may not be physically connected within the master jct box outside. Cell phones purchased at a flea market have that capability, I believe that was mandated by law a few years ago. I keep such a phone in my car glove box (with an power adapter) in case of emergency since I don't carry my real cell with me that often. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 12:39:51 EST From: USTelecom dailyLead Subject: Yahoo! Drops Bid For AOL Stake USTelecom dailyLead November 10, 2005 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xPfgatagCxclqFaevF TODAY'S HEADLINES NEWS OF THE DAY * Yahoo! drops bid for AOL stake BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH * Analysis: RIM settlement looks likely * Calix acquires OSI * Marriage of music, mobile phones off to rocky start in U.S. * Cisco, NTT report earnings USTELECOM SPOTLIGHT * Telecom Crash Course -- The must-have book for telecom professionals TECHNOLOGY TRENDS * Intel bullish on WiMAX * Nortel teams with partners on IPTV solution REGULATORY & LEGISLATIVE * Bush nominates Tate for FCC; backs new term for Copps * House lawmakers move forward on telecom bill EDITOR'S NOTE * The dailyLead will not be published Friday Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/xPfgatagCxclqFaevF ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular-News for Thursday 10th November 2005 Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 07:51:02 -0600 From: Cellular-News Cellular-News - http://www.cellular-news.com US Messaging Market Set for Rapid Growth - report http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14765.php Wireless messaging revenue in the USA increased by 106% in 2004 and is expected to continue to grow strongly over the next five years from its current low base, according to a new report published by Analysys. In 2004, wireless data accounted for jus... Verizon Wireless Stops Information Theft - Again http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14764.php Verizon Wireless has filed suit and obtained an immediate injunction against a Florida-based private investigative agency and its affiliates to stop their attempts to fraudulently obtain confidential information about Verizon Wireless customers. The ... USA Networks Set Adult Content Control Rules http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14763.php The USA's Wireless Association, in partnership with leading carriers, has unveiled a set of voluntary guidelines to proactively provide tools and controls to manage wireless content offered by the carriers or available via Internet-enabled wireless d... Five New Phones from Samsung http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14762.php Samsung is launching five new mobile phones for the European market. The average thickness of the newly unveiled phones are under 15mm and offer the latest multimedia features, such as music playback capability, megapixel camera and Bluetooth connect... Wireless Operators Not Doing Enough to Sell Mobile Data http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14761.php Pyramid Research says that it estimates that 42% of the roughly 1.05bn new mobile subscribers over the next five years will come from the BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China. According to a recent study, 20% to 50% of mobile subscribers ... Econet Granted Leave to Seek Arbitration in Legal Battle http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14760.php Nigeria's Econet Wireless has been granted court permission to launch two additional arbitration applications against two other shareholders in Vee Mobile Networks of Nigeria for their failure to buy and sell shares in the company without following l... Record GSM Subscriber Additions in India http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14759.php India's COAI has again reported a record subscriber growth of more than 2 million subscribers during the month of October'05 ? the highest subscriber additions (2.11 million) since inception of service. The cumulative GSM subscriber base grew to 52.... New Billing Contract in the Cayman Islands http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14758.php Cerillion Technologies has announced a new contract to supply caymanone with a complete CRM and billing solution for their telecom network in the Cayman Islands. Cerillion will deliver a complete turnkey solution, implementing the Revenue Manager, CR... FOCUS: Russian police raids fail to cut illegal handset imports http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14757.php [Premium] The raids against illegal imports of mobile handsets undertaken by the Russian police and the Federal Customs Service in August have failed to make the market transparent and cut illegal handset imports, industry representatives said adding that the ... Ukraine's UMC mobile subscriber base up to 11.49 mln Oct 30 http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14756.php The total subscriber base of Ukraine's Mobile Communications, or UMC, Ukraine'slargest mobile phone operator, rose 5.3% on the month to 11.490 million subscribers as of October 31, UMC said. ... Caudwell Group Invites Offers For Caudwell Holdings http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14755.php Caudwell Group said Wednesday that it decided to invite offers for 100% of Caudwell Holdings Limited and has decided to delay any final decision in respect of the proposed sale of Caudwell Communications, the fixed line telephony business of the Caud... INTERVIEW:Qualcomm President -Royalty Model Aids Competition http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14754.php [Premium] The licensing model at the heart of a European Union investigation into Qualcomm Inc.'s royalty payments stimulates rather than stifles competition in the mobile handset market, according to Steve Altman, the company's president. ... Judge To Review RIM-NTP Settlement http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14753.php he ongoing patent dispute between Research In Motion Ltd. and NTP Inc. took another turn Wednesday, when a federal judge said he would review the disputed $450 million settlement between the companies. ... China's Huawei also gets VimpelCom's offer on URS deal http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14752.php China's telecommunications equipment producer Huawei has received an offer from Russia's second-largest mobile operator VimpelCom, which would help the Russian mobile operator enter the Ukrainian market by purchasing Ukrainian Radiosystems mobile o... Number of Mobile Users Almost Doubles in Uzbekistan This Year http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14751.php The number of mobile telecommunication subscribers almost doubled in Uzbekistan since January 1 to over 1 million users as of now, Uzbektelecom, Uzbekistan's national telecommunications company, said Wednesday. ... Deutsche Telekom Swings To Profit, But Outlook Weighs http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14750.php Deutsche Telecom AG, Europe's largest phone company, said Wednesday it swung to a profit after adding large numbers of wireless customers in the U.S. ... TeliaSonera Continues Integrating Mobile, IP Telephony http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14749.php Swedish telecommunications company TeliaSonera AB Wednesday said it continues with the initiatives in integrating fixed and mobile telephony and will now conduct a technical trial of the Unlicensed Mobile Access technology which permits the use of on... Taiwan Chunghwa Telecom Lowers Call Costs http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14748.php Chunghwa Telecom Co. said Wednesday it will cut the fees it charges for mobile-to-fixed line services by an average of 7% effective Dec. 1, a move it doesn't expect to affect revenue much. ... Ericsson, TeliaSonera In Joint Trial Of UMA http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14747.php Swedish telecommunications equipment maker Telefon AB LM Ericsson Wednesday said that together with Nordic operator TeliaSonera AB it will conduct a joint trial of Mobile@Home, Ericsson's solution for Unlicensed Mobile Access, or UMA, which permits t... SK Telecom To Invest In Vietnam Wireless Joint Venture http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14746.php SK Telecom Co. said Wednesday it plans to invest up to $280 million in a wireless joint venture that offers mobile services in Vietnam. ... Swisscom Confirms Talks With Eircom http://www.cellular-news.com/story/14745.php Swiss telecommunications company Swisscom AG Wednesday confirmed it was in talks with Eircom Group PLC about a potential takeover. ... ------------------------------ From: Joseph Subject: Dutch Trial SMS Disaster Alert System Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 17:13:43 -0800 Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com By Julie Clothier for CNN Using text messaging to warn people they are in danger is quick and easy, says the Dutch government. (CNN) -- The Dutch government is testing a mobile phone danger alert system that sends text messages to people who could be affected by natural disasters or terrorist attacks. The system, called Cell Broadcast, uses GSM technology to identify cell phone users in a particular area. If a disaster occurs, a message is sent to all phones in the area, warning of the danger. http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/11/09/dutch.disaster.warning/index.html ------------------------------ From: Bruce K. Subject: Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 07:18:24 -0500 Organization: Optimum Online Called Verizon Wednesday. Rep told me I was the first customer to make request to her. She then reduced my bill by $15.00. Bruce [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Verizon is not (thank God!) SBC but I do suggest you make certain the credit is permanent and that it 'sticks' in the computer system. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service Date: 10 Nov 2005 09:52:14 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Lena wrote: > (Heck, my bank was advertising free online billpaying for the past six > months, and the website still indicated it cost $6.95 per month until > I emailed them about the discrepancy). Sadly, these ad discrepancies are a big part of the world we live in today. Companies are so big and far flung that often the right-hand doesn't know what the left-hand is doing. Further, many of the ad campaigns are run by extra aggressive marketing and advertising units which are not in touch with the rest of the company, indeed, often are not even part of the company but just a hired consultant. Try calling one of the promotional 800 numbers and tell them you have two-party service or a 'local battery line' and if you can still ger DSL and they'll say "sure you can, that's not a problem". They're just a bunch of boiler room serfs under heavy pressure to sign up as many names as possible. This isn't just the phone companies, but big banks, department stores, even hospitals. > Verizon won't entice me back until they drastically drop the cost of > their unlimited local calling, included caller id and call waiting, and > add a very low rate long distance plan. I just don't use enough LD to > pay a fixed amount per month for unlimited LD calls. Everybody's situation is different. For myself, I found it cost effective to switch to unlimited LD. The reason was that while I make extremely few traditional "long distance" calls, I make a lot of local toll calls. Local toll rates are high as is unlimited regional local service (which is what I had before). Upgrading to unlimited national LD from regional LD is only a few bucks more. In the old days of the Bell System short distance toll calls were very cheap, only a few cents per minute. But after divesture every toll call, whether 10 miles or 1,000 miles away became the same rate. For myself, I was paying EIGHT times as much for my LD calling. So much for divesture saving us ordinary consumers money. I think the new era phone companies new most subscribers area of interest was regional toll calls, not 1,000 long distance. Thus, it was profitable for them to lower the price of 3,000 mile calls while steeply increasing 10 mile calls. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: ... Two questions you may wish to ask > the rep on a subsequent phone call: (1) is this new rate a > promotional thing for new/returning subscribers only and if so (2) > how many months is it good for? Is any contract required, and if so, > for how long? Very good and important questions to ask. A common practice today is to have promotional plans to lock you in, than later discretely steeply jack up the cost of service. Most consumers will be lazy and do nothing and keep the service. Another practice, esp in long distance, was to discontinue a plan and revert to higher a la carte pricing. A third practice was to add a service charge on top of actual usage charges. I avoided many LD plans that add a $5/month service charge since that $5 far outweighed any savings from the plan. I will note that my Verizon LD plan has been fixed and trouble free since I got it. Having unlimited service does make it more pleasant to chat on the phone without worrying about the meter running or wasting calls to someone's machine and playing phone tag. > regarding a 'tie-in' to DSL service where you must take the one to get > the other My LD plan has no tie-in to DSL. However, getting DSL does have tie-ins to other services. One must be careful ordering DSL, although users I've spoken to are very happy with it. I'll probably go that way when I get a new computer than can handle the speed. > not at all very politic but interesting none the less: telco is > _supposed to be_ a common carrier utility operated at cost. Did the > operating costs suddenly make it feasable to offer this 'reduced > rate' now; if it was feasable earlier, _why wasn't it offered > earlier_? It has been fairly recent that the local telcos have been allowed to offer their own long distance service and bundle it with other offerings. Many parts of telephone service are no longer offered as "common carrier" status, that is, they have been deregulated. I think nowadays basically the local dial-tone line is all that's left of common carrier regulated status, everything else is optional and unregulated. The phone co can thus introduce or withdraw services and pricing as it sees fit. I pay a single phone bill to Verizon, but on the fine print (literally) of the bill are a variety of Verizon subsidiary companies offering various services to me, all bundled together. If I fail to pay my phone bill, Verizon can shut off instantly any of the optional services. However, it must follow PUC procedures for protecting local service. The bill includes a complex matrix of charge and payment allocation. That's really only the fair to go nowadays since the competition has the ability to market as it chooses, so the local Baby Bell should be able to do the same. Those who advocated free market competition in telephone service had a false idea that prices would be the lowest possible. That is not how it works in other businesses. Every business has some high profit items and low-profit items for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's more profitable for a business to charge a high markup and sell low volume. The sad fact is that our telephone companies, once proudly quite staid and proper, are now as slippery as the guy in the loud plaid jacket at the used-car lot down the street. In the old days, when Ernestine quoted you $4.65 for local service, that is what it cost you. Today the quotes are meaningless with all the extra "FCC Line Cost", "Deaf Relay Service", "911 Fee", "Porta number fee", "Help the Martian settlers fee", etc. I know others steadfastly maintain long distance rates are lower on account of competition. However I maintain it is technology. Cheap switchgear and fibre channels are a world of difference to what AT&T had to do to offer long distance 30 years ago. Rates were dropping long before divesture came along. Further, many toll call services, such as collect and pay phone, have gone up dramatically. Remember that the same technology that allows you to buy a computer for $500 that once not long ago cost $10,000 applies to telco equipment as well. [public replies please] ------------------------------ From: Steven Lichter Reply-To: Die@spammers.com Organization: I Kill Spammers, Inc. (c) 2005 A Rot in Hell Co. Subject: Re: Phishers Lure Google Users With Bogus Google Cash Prizes Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 00:55:27 GMT Jay Wrolstad wrote: > Jay Wrolstad, newsfactor.com > An online scam offering the lure of free money through a bogus Google > Web site has been uncovered by security company Websense, which > reported that the site was shut down about 30 hours after it was first > discovered on Monday. > The phishing attack employed a page that closely resembled the real > Google home page, with a banner message claiming "You won $400.00!" > Users were instructed to collect their prize money by transferring it > to a credit card. To do so, they were asked to provide their account > numbers. They also were asked to provide their home addresses and > phone numbers. > After the sensitive personal information was collected, users were > redirected to Google's legitimate Web site. The phishing site was > hosted in the U.S., Websense said. > Direct Approach > "This is a little different than other phishing attacks in that it > attempted to entice people into divulging their credentials and using > the Google name, as opposed to attacks that target banks or e-commerce > sites," said Dan Hubbard, senior director of security research at > Websense. > This particular phishing site did host other attacks targeting > financial institutions, he added, noting that the approach taken by > these criminals was fairly rudimentary when compared with attacks that > use a Trojan horse or log a user's keystrokes. > Attacks on the Rise > And the Google mimicry reflects a disturbing trend. A recent Gartner > survey showed that phishing attacks grew at double-digit rates last > year in the U.S. > In the 12 months ending in May 2005, some 73 million U.S. Internet > users said they received an average of more than 50 phishing e-mails > in the prior year; some users reported a dozen or more daily. > And an estimated 2.4 million online consumers report losing money > directly because of the phishing attacks. Of these, approximately 1.2 > million consumers lost $929 million during the year preceding the > survey, Gartner reported. > "The standard security rules apply in protecting yourself from a > phishing attack," said Hubbard. "Don't click on links in e-mail > messages, type in the address of a bank yourself, run the latest > antivirus software, and obtain the latest security patches." > "And," Hubbard noted, "you can assume that anyone offering you some > sum of money on the net is most likely just a crook." > 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. I think when these people are cought, they should just shoot them right on the spot, after a few public shootings then they will all get the idea!!!! The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2005 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot in Hell Co. ------------------------------ From: ellis@no.spam Subject: Re: Good News, Linux Users! A Worm Just for You Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 01:51:47 -0000 Organization: S.P.C.A.A. In article , Nancy Weil wrote: > Linux users should update antivirus software No, Linux users should intall the PHP updates that fix the XML-RPC problem. http://www.spinics.net/linux/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 22:59:10 -0500 From: Fred Goldstein Subject: Re: NN0 Central Office Codes On Wed, 9 Nov 2005 19:24:39 UTC, wollman@khavrinen.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) wrote, >> If there was ever an Allston CO, it was gone many years ago. > I don't think so. It's located on the short diagonal street behind > the gas station at the corner of Western and Harvard. Now it's > probably just a remote wirecenter on the Brighton CO. That would probably be Spurr St., behind the Gulf. City on-line tax records show the entire triangular mini-block to belong to Cumberland Farms (which runs Gulf stations), while Harvard owns the other side of the street. No land nearby appear to belong to Verizon (under any of its names). It is possible, though, that they have a hut there, something that is not classified as a wire center, on rented land. (The LERG shows no switches in Allston.) They might, for instance, have a Digital Loop Carrier. But the nearby Soldiers Field Park apartment complex, while in North Allston, has Harvard extensions (617-498). Nearby buildings on Western also have Cambridge numbers. Perhaps it's a Cambridge DLC, though being so close to the Cambridge-Ware St. CO, I'd be a little surprised they'd use one. Also it would be right on the rate center boundary, a strange place for a DLC. In any case, all of Verizon's Brighton prefix codes are homed on the Brighton (Wirt St.) switch. > (When I lived in Brighton, I also had an ASPinwall (617-277) number > and Brookline ZIP code. This did not result in lower insurance rates; > the insurance companies have maps that show where the town line lies > -- as do the city and town parking offices. The other important > Brookline exchange you didn't mention was BEAcon (617-232).) Funny; when I moved my car registration to Massachusetts in 1978, I gave my "Brookline 02146" postal address for my Brighton apartment, and got the Brookline rate. It was all on ZIP code; different Boston ZIPs got different rates, almost always higher than anyplace else in the state. I wonder if they changed that rule. Thanks for pointing out BEAcon; I knew I was forgetting at least one. >> The 617-931 choke exchange is listed in the LERG to the Cambridge 02T >> tandem, a DMS-200. It's one of two tandems in VZ's 210 Bent St. CO >> (the other is a 5E; a 4E next door, at 250, has been >> decommissioned). If MIT still gets its dial tone from VZ, it comes >> out of Bent St. > MIT has its own 5ESS and has for a long time (it was one of the first > 5E's sold to a non-telco customer). There's a project on now to > figure out what to do about it before it comes up for renewal next in > a few years' time. Yes, the MIT 5E was installed as a PBX, when there were not a lot of alternatives for that range (basically just the DMS-100, which as a PBX was called an SL-100 at the time). It must be about 20 years old. The 5E is still technically a current product, though MIT's may be an obsolete variant. Still, newer stuff is a LOT cheaper to buy AND operate -- smaller, less power consumption, easier, lower software fees. What can touch the 5E's end user friendliness is an interesting question, though. For all of its benefits, though, the 5E can't touch the old Dorm Line Strowgers for the hands-on experience. ;-) Fred Goldstein k1io fgoldstein "at" ionary.com ionary Consulting http://www.ionary.com/ ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. 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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 #512 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Nov 10 23:39:24 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id EBE6814E0B; Thu, 10 Nov 2005 23:39:23 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #513 Message-Id: <20051111043923.EBE6814E0B@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 23:39:23 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.0 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAD_CREDIT, BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Thu, 10 Nov 2005 23:39:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 513 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Three Companies Shut Down by Court on Spyware Charges (Reuters News Wire) Hackers Use Sony BMG to Hide on PCs (Reuters News Wire) Senior Citizen Bloggers Defy Stereotypes (Carla K. Johnson) Gold at the End of Rainbow Cracking? (Monty Solomon) The Best Way to Get From Here to There (Monty Solomon) Infone to Shut Down (J Kelly) Re: Phishers Lure Google Users With Bogus Google Cash Prizes (Tim@backhome) Re: Phishers Lure Google Users With Bogus Google Cash Prizes (H. Henhouse) Re: Telephone History Enquiry: Earliest Pre-Pay Calls (Lisa Hancock) Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service (Tony P.) Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Reuters News Wire Subject: Three Companies Shut Down by U.S. Court on Spyware Charges Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 15:40:40 -0600 A U.S. court on Thursday shut down three Internet companies for secretly bundling malicious "spyware" with ring tones, music programs and other free high-tech goodies, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday. The malicious software tracked victims' Internet activity, hijacked their home pages and deluged them with unwanted "pop up" ads, the FTC said. The assets of Enternet Media Inc. and Conspy & Co. Inc., based in California, and Iwebtunes, based in Ohio, have been frozen pending further court action, the FTC said. The court also ordered all three firms to immediatly halt downloads of the software. Enternet Media and Iwebtunes could not be reached for comment. Conspy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. According to a complaint filed in district court in Los Angeles, Enternet and Conspy bundled their malicious software with music files, song lyrics and cellular telephone ring tones offered free on a range of Web sites. The software was also disguised as a security upgrade for Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer Web browser. Iwebtines bundled the spyware with a program that plays background music on blogs, the FTC said. Once lodged on a victim's computer, the spyware was difficult to remove, the FTC said. Microsoft, Google Inc. and Webroot Software Inc. helped FTC with the investigation, the FTC said. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill in May that would stiffen jail sentences and establish multimillion-dollar fines for spyware purveyors, but the Senate has not yet taken it up. 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: Reuters News Wire Subject: Hackers Use Sony BMG to Hide on PCs Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 15:37:10 -0600 A computer security firm said on Thursday it had discovered the first virus that uses music publisher Sony BMG's controversial CD copy-protection software to hide on PCs and wreak havoc. Under a subject line containing the words "Photo approval," a hacker has mass-mailed the so-called Stinx-E trojan virus to British email addresses, said British anti-virus firm Sophos. When recipients click on an attachment, they install malware, which may tear down a computer's firewall and give hackers access to a PC. The malware hides by using Sony BMG software that is also hidden -- the software would have been installed on a computer when consumers played Sony's copy-protected music CDs. "This leaves Sony in a real tangle. It was already getting bad press about its copy-protection software, and this new hack exploit will make it even worse," said Sophos's Graham Cluley. Later on Thursday, security software firm Symantec Corp. also discovered the first trojans to abuse the security flaw in Sony BMG's copy-protection software. A trojan is a program that appears desirable but actually contains something harmful. Sony BMG's spokesman John McKay in New York was not immediately available to comment. The music publishing venture of Japanese electronics conglomerate Sony Corp. and Germany's Bertelsmann AG is distributing the copy- protection software on a range of recent music compact disks (CDs) from artists such as Celine Dion and Sarah McLachlan. When the CD is played on a Windows personal computer, the software first installs itself and then limits the usage rights of a consumer. It only allows playback with Sony software. The software sparked a class action lawsuit against Sony in California last week, claiming that Sony has not informed consumers that it installs software directly into the "roots" of their computer systems with rootkit software, which cloaks all associated files and is dangerous to remove. Sophos said it would have a tool to disable the copy protection software available later on Thursday. Sony BMG made a patch available on its Web site on Tuesday that rids a PC from the "cloaking" element that is part of the copy-protection software, while claiming that "the component is not malicious and does not compromise security." The patch does not disable the copy protection itself. The Sony copy-protection software does not install itself on Macintosh computers or ordinary CD and DVD players. 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: Carla K. Johnson Subject: Senior Citizen Bloggers Defy Stereotypes Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 15:38:51 -0600 By CARLA K. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer Forget shuffleboard, needlepoint and bingo. Web logs, more often the domain of alienated adolescents and home to screeds by middle-aged pundits, are gaining a foothold as a new leisure-time option for senior citizens. There's Dad's Tomato Garden Journal, Dogwalk Musings, and, of course, the Oldest Living Blogger. "It's too easy to sit in your own cave and let the world go by, eh?" said Ray Sutton, the 73-year-old Oldest Living Blogger and a retired electrician who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. "It keeps the old head working a little bit so you're not just sitting there gawking at TV." Web logs, or blogs, are online journals where people write about anything and everything that interests them. Blogs tend to be topical, and typically offer links to other Web sites, photos and opportunities for readers to comment. Bloggers say their hobby keeps them up on current events, lets them befriend strangers around the globe and gives them a voice in a society often deaf to the wisdom of the elderly. "It brings out the best in me," said Boston-area blogger Millie Garfield, 80, who writes My Mom's Blog with occasional help from her son, Steve Garfield, a digital video producer. "My life would be dull without it." And it's brought her a bit of fame. In June, Garfield was invited to speak at a Boston seminar for marketers on how to use the Web more effectively. A short video of the event, posted on her blog, captures the professionals laughing at her wisecrack about the benefits of a man who can still drive at night. Sutton, the Oldest Living Blogger, has also enjoyed some limelight. He was asked to take part in a talk radio debate on a controversial high-voltage power line after he posted his views about it on his blog. Three percent of online U.S. seniors have created a blog and 17 percent have read someone else's blog, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Compare that to online 18- to 29-year-olds: Thirteen percent have created blogs and 32 percent have read someone else's blog, according to Pew. Joe Jenett, a Detroit-area Web designer who has been tracking the age of bloggers for a personal project called the Ageless Project, said he has noticed more older bloggers in the past two years. "Isn't that phenomenal? And their writing is vibrant," Jenett said. He noted that sites such as Blogger.com give step-by-step instructions and free hosting, making it simpler to self-publish on the Web. "It's easy to start one if you can connect dots," said former Jesuit priest and retired newspaperman Jim Bowman, 73, of Oak Park, Ill. Bowman writes four regular blogs: one on happenings in his city, one a catchall for his opinions, one on religion and one offering feedback on Chicago newspapers. Bowman once had eight separate blogs, but has let some lapse. The blog topics he doesn't keep up with anymore include ideas for sermons, Chicago history and condominium life. "Like any other hobby, you've got to make sure it doesn't take over," he said. Mari Meehan, 64, of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, has been blogging since July. It's given her a voice in her small resort town where, as a relative newcomer, she felt rebuffed in her efforts to get involved. Inspired by other local bloggers she'd found on The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Wash.) newspaper's Web site, Meehan discovered it was easy to get started. "If you can read, you can do it," she said. She titled her blog Dogwalk Musings and based it on the premise that she would write about her thoughts during morning walks with her St. Bernard, Bacchus. Her posts range from nature sightings of a kildeer's nest with four eggs to rants about local and national politics. When readers started mentioning Dogwalk Musings as one of their favorites on a newspaper columnist's blog, Meehan said she felt compelled to post every day. But now she's backing off. "Lots of times, I'll walk away from it for three or four days," Meehan said. "I'm not going to let it take over." Response from blog readers does keep many older bloggers returning to their keyboards day after day. If they skip a day, readers will e-mail the older bloggers, asking if they're sick. In the two years since 92-year-old retired Tennessee poultry and egg farmer Ray White started Dad's Tomato Garden Journal, the blog has been viewed more than 45,000 times. White's daughter, Mary, said the blog keeps her father interested in life. White now has friends he's never met in England, Portugal, Germany, Canada and all 50 states, he said. "You'd be surprised how many questions I get during the tomato season," he said. "There's always somebody having a problem." On the Net: The Ageless Project: http://jenett.org/ageless/ Blogger: http://www.blogger.com Oldest Living Blogger: http://www.urbanvancouver.com/blog/ray Chicago Newspapers: The Blog: http://www.chicagonewspapers.blogspot.com/ My Mom's Blog: http://mymomsblog.blogspot.com/ Dogwalk Musings: http://dogwalkmusings.blogspot.com/ Dad's Tomato Garden Journal: http://journals.aol.com/white6416r/DadsTomatoGardenJournal/ 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. For more Associated Press headlines please go to: http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 14:11:26 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Gold at the End of Rainbow Cracking? Robert Lemos, SecurityFocus 2005-11-09 A trio of entrepreneurial hackers hope to do for the business of password cracking what Google did for search and, in the process, may remove the last vestiges of security from many password systems. Over the past two years, three security enthusiasts from the United States and Europe set a host of computers to the task of creating eleven enormous tables of data that can be used to look up common passwords. The tables -- totaling 500GB -- form the core data of a technique known as rainbow cracking, which uses vast dictionaries of data to let anyone reverse the process of creating hashes -- the statistically unique codes that, among other duties, are used to obfuscate a user's password. Last week, the trio went public with their service. Called RainbowCrack Online and submit password hashes for cracking. http://www.rainbowcrack-online.com http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11355 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 18:53:22 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Best Way to Get From Here to There By WALTER S. MOSSBERG Fewer and fewer drivers use traditional fold-out maps in the car. Instead, they simply print out maps and directions for where they're heading from one of the popular mapping sites on the Web, often moments before they leave. One such Web site, MapQuest, a subsidiary of America Online at www.MapQuest.com, has long been a favorite. Its straightforward, no-frills approach asks you to enter "start" and "end" points for your trip, and selecting "Get Directions" completes your navigational duties. Numbered instructions, a map, and an estimated total time and distance for the trip are retrieved to help you along your journey. Yahoo also built a following with a similar plain mapping site. But, since Google entered the category with a flashy new type of mapping service earlier this year, competition in the online-mapping category has heated up. All of the big portals and search engines are looking to build their local search businesses, which they see as a golden opportunity for ad sales and other revenue. And they have come to see their mapping functions as a gateway to these local search databases, which make it easy to find businesses and services in the areas people want to map. This week, my assistant Katie Boehret and I tested the old reliable, MapQuest, against Google Local, http://maps.google.com, and a new, enhanced version of Yahoo Maps, http://maps.yahoo.com/beta. Yahoo's new site was just released last week, and it's still in its "beta," or test, phase. http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/solution-20051109.html ------------------------------ From: J Kelly Subject: Infone to Shut Down Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 17:48:16 -0600 Organization: http://newsguy.com Reply-To: jkelly@newsguy.com I remember a couple years back some posts about Infone, the Metro One "teleconcierge" service. I got an email today from Infone telling me their service will be closing up shop on 12/31/05. I used it a few times and was quite pleased with the service. I hate to see it go, but I guess they only managed to attract about 83,000 subs after spending $70 million to promote the service. Not a real money maker. ------------------------------ From: Tim@backhome.com Subject: Re: Phishers Lure Google Users With Bogus Google Cash Prizes Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 13:54:44 -0800 Organization: Cox Communications Steven Lichter wrote: > I think when these people are cought, they should just shoot them > right on the spot, after a few public shootings then they will all get > the idea!!!! I would add to that list people who run red lights and stop signs, don't use their turn indicators (especially for left turns in front of on-coming traffic, and who weave in and out of metro freeway traffic at 90 mph. Come to think of it, people who use cell phones in nice restaurants should also be summarily executed. ;-) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 16:52:22 -0800 From: Henry Cabot Henhouse III Subject: Re: Phishers Lure Google Users With Bogus Google Cash Prizes Steven Lichter wrote in message news:telecom24.512.10@telecom-digest.org: > Jay Wrolstad wrote: >> Jay Wrolstad, newsfactor.com >> An online scam offering the lure of free money through a bogus Google >> Web site has been uncovered by security company Websense, which >> reported that the site was shut down about 30 hours after it was first >> discovered on Monday. [snip] >> Copyright 2005 NewsFactor Network, Inc. > I think when these people are cought, they should just shoot them > right on the spot, after a few public shootings then they will all get > the idea!!!! > The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? > (c) 2005 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot in Hell Co. I'm looking forward to the day when a few hackers in Moscow crack in to a system the Russian Mafia uses ... can we say "execution" ? Hum ... here's an idea ... there are many countries that routinely violate human rights ... let's take up a collection and bribe a judge to impose a few death sentences here and there on script kiddies and phishers :) ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com Subject: Re: Telephone History Enquiry: Earliest Pre-Pay Calls Date: 10 Nov 2005 13:43:25 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com John R. Covert wrote: > Telephone History Buffs: > I'm looking for information on early pre-pay systems that did not > require special telephones. To be relevant to my search, the pre-pay > system would need to: > 1. Have been implemented before 1987. > 2. Have documentation that we could find today. > 3. Not require special telephone stations. Are you talking about long distance, local service, or both? I am not aware of any such services offered to the general market. It is possible some sub-contractors might have offered such a service to a limited population, such as boarding house residents or college students in a dorm, where a private PBX operator manually tracked calls and verified deposit balances. It is possible the phone company offered such services on a trial or limited basis in a few locations. Deposit accounts of various sorts were common in institutions. Students would get meal cards which would get punched for each meal eaten until the card was punched down. Such prepaid accounts would be used in other situations such as laundry or for transient populations where the risk of default was high. Transit fare tokens are a form of a deposit account -- you buy the tokens in advance and use them as you go. There were once tokens for laundries, cafeterias, etc. Today mag cards and computers have replaced cardboard and tokens. Toll bridges have deposit accounts and cars use transponders ("EZ PASS"). It was common for the telephone company to require an up front deposit for someone to get telephone service if they never had it before or had bad credit. If you paid your bill on time for a while the deposit would be refunded.* They said long distance charges would be monitored and suspended if I exceeded my deposit balance. I was making many calls but never heard from them. I do wonder how closely Bell monitored toll usage against deposit balances. I've heard they got burned by people running up big bills and not paying them, despite having a deposit. The PUCs tend to favor the poor guy over the big corporation. *(I recall getting a handsome refund check still using the old style Bell logo and Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania spelled out in fancy type even though they had the modern logo and went by Bell of PA). ------------------------------ From: Tony P. Subject: Re: Verizon Reduces Prices for Phone Service Organization: Ace Tomato and Cement Co. Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 18:34:30 -0500 In article , ap@telecom-digest.org say: > By BRUCE MEYERSON, AP Business Writer > Verizon Communications Inc. sharply cut its prices for unlimited > telephone service across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic on Tuesday, > including markets where Cablevision Inc. has just boosted broadband > Internet speeds. > The latest jockeying augurs an ever fiercer struggle ahead between the > phone and cable TV industries, with consumers getting lower prices and > advanced services. > The new Verizon plans range from $35 to $40 for unlimited local and > domestic long-distance plus call waiting, caller ID and voice mail, or > from $30 to $35 for unlimited calling with no extra features. Taxes > and surcharges typically add $10 to $20 to the monthly bill. > Those rates are at least $15 cheaper than any of Verizon's existing > packages with unlimited calling, although many of those plans include > a larger selection of features and calls to Canada. While they might be $15 cheaper they don't beat the $27 a month I pay for VoIP. > The aggressive offers mark another tactical maneuver in the developing > showdown between phone and cable companies. The two industries are > increasingly venturing into one another's traditional markets in a bid > to win new customers with a one-stop-shop for calling, Internet, TV > and wireless services. > Verizon and fellow regional phone provider SBC Communications Inc. are > spending billions to replace their copper phone lines with fiber-optic > cables that can deliver cable TV, far-speedier Internet connections > and new multimedia and interactive services. > Using those new lines, Verizon recently introduced TV in its first > market, a suburb of Dallas, and now offers broadband download speeds > from 5 to 30 megabits per second in 800 communities in 15 states. > At the same time, Verizon is also competing aggressively on price with > its slower DSL service, introducing a $15 a month plan last month, and > now offering unlimited calling at rates almost competitive with the > $20 to $30 a month charged by providers of voice over Internet phone > services. > SBC has made similar moves in cutting its phone and DSL rates in a bid > to keep subscribers from leaving and to attract news ones while it > prepares for next year's launch of TV and speedier broadband > connections. > Cable companies, which have already lured away more than 5 million > customers for their new phone services, are responding by boosting > their broadband speeds and venturing into cellular service. > Cablevision, which competes with Verizon in New York City and its > suburbs, on Monday announced it was increasing the maximum download > speed of its lowest-price broadband service to 15 megabits per second, > up from a maximum of 10 -- which was already several times faster than > most consumer DSL services. The company also introduced new 30 and 50 > Mbps options to compete with Verizon's new FiOS fiber optic offerings. > And last week, four of the nation's biggest cable providers announced > a deal with Sprint Nextel Corp. to introduce co-branded cell phone > service by the middle of 2006. > The lower-priced Verizon calling plans, first introduced last month at > slightly higher rates in California, Texas and Florida, are being > offered in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, > Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Virginia and Washington, D.C. > There's no timetable for when Verizon might introduce the new plans in > its remaining local phone territories in North Carolina, South > Carolina, West Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, > Nevada, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. > Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: How odd ... so even SBC is in on this > new pricing structure. I can recall when our local CLEC 'Prairie > Stream Communications' first opened for business in 2002, they were > offering flat rate, open-ended packages of _everything_ for $25.00 > per month, and SBC complained to the Kansas Commission that 'Prairie > Stream is being predatory'; although the Commission left Prairie > Stream alone on it, SBC continually complained that 'Prairie Stream > will not stay in business very long at that pricing'. So now, Verizon > and SBC are gradually lowering their prices as well. PAT] Too little too late. They ILEC's are getting hit on all sides these days. People are tired of paying too much for phone service. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications 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. 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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 #513 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 11 13:39:19 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id 52E5314EBC; Fri, 11 Nov 2005 13:39:19 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #514 Message-Id: <20051111183919.52E5314EBC@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 13:39:19 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.4 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 11 Nov 2005 13:39:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 514 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Vint Cerf Testimony to Congressional Committee (Circle ID) SBC to Ask Illinois Commerce Commission For More Flexibility (M Wisniewski) Vonage and 911 Saga May be Drawing to a Close (Gordon S. Hlavenka) How do I Detect the Number of a Phone Line? (jason.sandlin@wymtnews.com) Re: Good News, Linux Users! A Worm Just for You (Steve Sobol) Re: Good News, Linux Users! A Worm Just for You (harold@hallikainen.com) Re: Phishers Lure Google Users With Bogus Google Prizes (Steven Lichter) Re: Dutch Trial SMS Disaster Alert System (DevilsPGD) Re: Infone to Shut Down (DevilsPGD) Re: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management; Gone Too Far (M Solomon) 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: Circle ID Subject: Vint Cerf Testimony to Congressional Committee Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 23:19:39 -0600 Vint Cerf Speaking Out on Internet Neutrality By CircleID Reporter In a U.S. congress hearing held yesterday November 9th, significant focus was projected on 'network neutrality' and a new telecommunications bill affecting the Internet. "This bill could fundamentally alter the fabulously successful end-to-end Internet," says Alan Davidson in the post on Google blog. Vint Cerf was not able to testify because of the Presidential Medal of Freedom award ceremony at the White House, but submitted the following letter to the hearing: Dear Chairman Barton and Ranking Member Dingell, I appreciate the inquiries by your staff about my availability to appear before the Committee and to share Google's views about draft telecommunications legislation and the issues related to 'network neutrality'. These are matters of great importance to the Internet and Google welcomes the Committee's hard work and attention. The hearing unfortunately conflicts with another obligation, and I am sorry I will not be able to attend. (Along with my colleague Robert Kahn, I am honored to be receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Wednesday at the White House for our work in creating the Internet protocol TCP/IP.) Despite my inability to participate in the planned hearing in person, I hope that you will accept some brief observations about this legislation. The remarkable social impact and economic success of the Internet is in many ways directly attributable to the architectural characteristics that were part of its design. The Internet was designed with no gatekeepers over new content or services. The Internet is based on a layered, end-to-end model that allows people at each level of the network to innovate free of any central control. By placing intelligence at the edges rather than control in the middle of the network, the Internet has created a platform for innovation. This has led to an explosion of offerings's from VOIP to 802.11x wi-fi to blogging that might never have evolved had central control of the network been required by design. My fear is that, as written, this bill would do great damage to the Internet as we know it. Enshrining a rule that broadly permits network operators to discriminate in favor of certain kinds of services and to potentially interfere with others would place broadband operators in control of online activity. Allowing broadband providers to segment their IP offerings and reserve huge amounts of bandwidth for their own services will not give consumers the broadband Internet our country and economy need. Many people will have little or no choice among broadband operators for the foreseeable future, implying that such operators will have the power to exercise a great deal of control over any applications placed on the network. As we move to a broadband environment and eliminate century-old non-discrimination requirements, a lightweight but enforceable neutrality rule is needed to ensure that the Internet continues to thrive. Telephone companies cannot tell consumers who they can call; network operators should not dictate what people can do online. I am confident that we can build a broadband system that allows users to decide what websites they want to see and what applications they want to use and that also guarantees high quality service and network security. That network model has and can continue to provide economic benefits to innovators and consumers and to the broadband operators who will reap the rewards for providing access to such a valued network. We appreciate the efforts in your current draft to create at least a starting point for net neutrality principles. Google looks forward to working with you and your staff to draft a bill that will maintain the revolutionary potential of the broadband Internet. Thank you for your attention and for your efforts on these important issues. Sincerely, Vinton Cerf Chief Internet Evangelist Google Inc. CircleID is an Online Community Hub for the Internet's Core Infrastructure & Policy Developments. Copyright 2005 Circle ID. http://www.circleid.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: While Vint Cerf raises some very good points, he seems to overlook the fact that Internet already has a de-facto central coordinator in the form of ICANN. And while ICANN would seem to agree with Cerf on one point at least, that 'network operators should not dictate what people can do online' (which is to say they do not object to or stop spammers, scammers, virus writers and similar vermin) ICANN sees no objection to having very onerous contracts for regular users to follow. I'd accept his efforts at sincerity -- even if he is a bit misguided, IMO -- if ICANN would at the very least write their contracts to at least show disapproval of some of the crap which has taken such a chokehold on the net in the past decade. As long as things remain as they are now, where a regular net user -- like myself, or most of you -- can lose his domain name in an instant if ICANN chooses to enforce its contract and revoke us, while turning a blind eye toward the ones who need to be revoked -- virus writers, fraudsters, spammers, etc -- then I am not sure I believe Vint Cerf is doing other than putting on a good show for Congress when he makes speeches or writes letters such as illustated here. Quite obviously, Cerf is more than happy with the de-facto central authority on the net (ICANN). He would have been more honest saying "I do not want central authority _unless it is the central authority of which I approve_. And in his years of employment with MCI, Vint Cerf also sang a different tune: Control of the net by an MCI/ICANN consortium would have suited him fine. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Mary Wisniewski Subject: SBC to Ask Illinois Commerce Commission for 'More Flexibility' Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 10:42:21 -0600 BY MARY WISNIEWSKI Business Reporter Chicago Sun-Times SBC will ask the Illinois Commerce Commission today to declare the Chicago marketplace competitive to ease rules on how SBC can charge for residential local service. "It's like asking the commission to acknowledge the sky is blue," said Carrie Hightman, president of SBC Illinois. "It's to acknowledge that customers have a choice in phone service." Hightman said the requested ICC ruling would permit the Texas-based phone giant to compete freely with unregulated competitors like wireless and cable companies. Hightman said the requested ruling would not totally deregulate SBC in the Chicago area -- since the ICC would still look at its rates -- but would give SBC more flexibility. "It will enable us to price according to the market, whatever the market can bear," Hightman said. SBC had promoted a telecommunications bill to the General Assembly last spring that would further deregulate what SBC can charge rivals and customers. SBC had argued that SBC's real competition comes from cable television companies, cell phones and the growing use of Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP. The bill passed the Senate, but got stuck in the House. The new request is narrower than the bill -- focusing on residential service in the most competitive Illinois market. Having the Chicago area declared competitive would allow SBC to respond in a timely way to promotional offerings from rivals. It can't do this now because of regulation, Hightman said. The telecom bill had been criticized by the Citizens Utility Board, a consumer watchdog group, as liable to push up prices for consumers. SBC's current proposal could face similar opposition. Hightman said she believes real competition would give consumers better value and more choice. She noted that prices in the long-distance market went down by 28 percent because of competition, while prices for wireless service, which was never really regulated, have dropped 50 percent in the past four years. If it decides to investigate, the commission would have 180 days to review SBC's request. Hightman noted that neighboring states have reduced phone regulation. SBC has lost 1.7 million landlines in Illinois since 2001, Hightman said. In that same time period, consumers added 3 million wireless lines, 900,000 non-SBC landlines and 1.3 million broadband connections. In other news, SBC has reached an agreement with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 21 on the building of Project Lightspeed, an initiative to expand SBC's fiberoptics network. The agreement would allow the company more flexible use of contractors as it deploys the initiative. In turn, the company has agreed to rehire about 200 IBEW-represented technicians and has canceled the layoff of about 228 people who handle customer calls for network installation and repair at SBC's Lakewood Center in Hoffman Estates. Copyright 2005, Digital Chicago 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, Digital Chicago/Chicago Sun-Times. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml For more news headlines, check out our features such as http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/internet-news.html and http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 10:01:35 -0600 From: Gordon S. Hlavenka Reply-To: nospam@crashelex.com Organization: Crash Electronics Subject: Vonage and 911 Saga may be Drawing to a Close I posted a month or two ago with a sort of "Vonage 911 digest", following the tone of their emails as the FCC "deadline" approached. The deadline was postponed, then canceled, and I thought that would be the last I heard from Vonage about 911. But I was wrong. Even after the cancellation of the FCC requirement, I continued to get strident emails urging me to view their 911 info page and activate my 911 service. These were the same emails I'd received before, just the earlier (less panicky) versions. Also, I continued to receive recorded transmissions on my Vonage number. Interestingly, these now don't fall through to voicecmail as they once did; they ring a few times and then hang up. But I recognize the 800 number on CID. Now I believe I may actually be hearing the last from Vonage on 911; yesterday I received this email: > Dear Gordon, > We have sent numerous notifications prompting you to provide us with > location information (street address) where you will be using your > Vonage service. This information is required to activate your 911 > Dialing service for phone number 1630-------. As we have advised you, > all VoIP operators are required by the FCC to provide 911 Dialing > service to all of our customers. > Beginning November 18, we will use the following address to route > your 911 calls unless you immediately login to your web account > https://secure.vonage.com/webaccount/public/login.htm, select the > Features link on your dashboard, and insert your correct street > address information in the 911 Dialing feature box: > [ My address appears here ] > No action on your part is necessary if the address above reflects the > accurate location where you use your Vonage service. In addition, > please note that if you have multiple Vonage lines you must activate > 911 Dialing for each line separately. > Again, if the address above is incorrect, simply login to your web > account (https://secure.vonage.com/webaccount/public/login.htm), > select the Features link on your dashboard, and edit your street > address information from the 911 Dialing feature box. > Please note that 911 calls are routed based on the street address you > have registered with us, so if you move your device you must > re-register your new street address. Also, if you add a line to your > account you will need to activate 911 Dialing by providing us with > your street address for that line as well. Remember, you can easily > update your street address at any time through your web account. > We appreciate your immediate attention to this matter, and we look > forward to providing you with reliable broadband phone service. > Sincerely, > Vonage Customer Care So they are going to default their unregistered accounts to the addresses provided at signup. I imagine that this will allow them to report "100%" to the FCC, and blame any errors on the customer. I originally got my Vonage line as an inexpensive way to "park" a couple of phone numbers, however that didn't pan out (although it looks like I may be able to work it in January) so I've been paying them $15/mo for a line that is never used. The only traffic on my Vonage account has been a couple of test calls and their constant efforts to get me to activate the 911 service. In retrospect I s'pose I could have spent my money more wisely :-) Anyway the ironic thing is that I'm moving to a new address, so now instead of a line with no 911 service I'm going to have a line with erroneous 911 service. (I know, I can just login and change the address. But, in the interest of Science, I'm evaluating their process here.) Gordon S. Hlavenka http://www.crashelectronics.com If your teacher tells you to Question Authority Should you do it? ------------------------------ From: jason.sandlin@wymtnews.com Subject: How Do I Detect the Number of a Phone Line? Date: 11 Nov 2005 07:48:11 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hey. I am going to be running a few new phone lines into my building. I have the TS21 Harris test set, but I want to be able to see what the number is on the line that I am testing. I have seen this done before, but i am not sure how. I want to do this so that I am sure that I do not cross any lines. I will be running the lines and testing them. I know how to test for tone, polarity and all of that stuff. I just want to be able to see what the phone number is coming in on that line. Please help. Thanks Jason [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In most communities there is a phone number one can call which will recite back to you the number you are on. The number to dial changes from one community to another, and itself is frequently changed. (It is intended only for telco outside plant technicians to use.) If you check with Mike Sandman mike@sandman.com or http://sandman.com he also has an 800 number set up to do the same thing. You dial into the 800 number; it reads back your number to you. And there are other 800 numbers doing the same thing, but I forget what they are. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Good News, Linux Users! A Worm Just for You Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 22:13:55 -0800 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com ellis@no.spam wrote: > In article , Nancy Weil > wrote: >> Linux users should update antivirus software > No, Linux users should intall the PHP updates that fix the XML-RPC > problem. Yeah. I'm trying to figure out how a PHP vulnerability ends up getting spin-doctored into being a Linux problem. PHP on Windows should have the same problem, no? Steve Sobol, Professional Geek 888-480-4638 PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Company website: http://JustThe.net/ Personal blog, resume, portfolio: http://SteveSobol.com/ E: sjsobol@JustThe.net Snail: 22674 Motnocab Road, Apple Valley, CA 92307 ------------------------------ From: harold@hallikainen.com Subject: Re: Good News, Linux Users! A Worm Just for You Date: 11 Nov 2005 05:46:36 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com ellis@no.spam wrote: > In article , Nancy Weil > wrote: >> Linux users should update antivirus software > No, Linux users should intall the PHP updates that fix the XML-RPC > problem. > http://www.spinics.net/linux/ It DOES look like people are trying to exploit this. Here are a few of the 404 errors from yesterday's log on my server. /MSOffice/cltreq.asp?UL=1&ACT=4&BUILD=6403 ... MVER=4&CAPREQ=0: 1 Time(s) /_vti_bin/owssvr.dll?UL=1&ACT=4&BUILD=6403 ... MVER=4&CAPREQ=0: 1 Time(s) /awstats/awstats.pl?configdir=|echo;echo%2 ... cho%20YYY;echo|: 2 Time(s) /blog/xmlrpc.php: 1 Time(s) /blog/xmlsrv/xmlrpc.php: 1 Time(s) /blogs/xmlsrv/xmlrpc.php: 1 Time(s) /cgi-bin/awstats.pl?configdir=|echo;echo%2 ... cho%20YYY;echo|: 2 Time(s) /cgi-bin/awstats/awstats.pl?configdir=|ech ... cho%20YYY;echo|: 1 Time(s) /drupal/xmlrpc.php: 1 Time(s) /live: 1 Time(s) /phpgroupware/xmlrpc.php: 1 Time(s) /wordpress/xmlrpc.php: 1 Time(s) /xmlrpc.php: 2 Time(s) /xmlrpc/xmlrpc.php: 1 Time(s) /xmlsrv/xmlrpc.php: 1 Time(s) Harold ------------------------------ From: Steven Lichter Reply-To: Die@spammers.com Organization: I Kill Spammers, Inc. (c) 2005 A Rot in Hell Co. Subject: Re: Phishers Lure Google Users With Bogus Google Cash Prizes Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 04:55:06 GMT Tim@backhome.com wrote: > Steven Lichter wrote: >> I think when these people are cought, they should just shoot them >> right on the spot, after a few public shootings then they will all get >> the idea!!!! > I would add to that list people who run red lights and stop signs, > don't use their turn indicators (especially for left turns in front of > on-coming traffic, and who weave in and out of metro freeway traffic > at 90 mph. > Come to think of it, people who use cell phones in nice restaurants > should also be summarily executed. ;-) You must be in Riverside, Calif. The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2005 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot in Hell Co. ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Dutch Trial SMS Disaster Alert System Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 00:17:06 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message Joseph wrote: > Using text messaging to warn people they are in danger is quick and > easy, says the Dutch government. > (CNN) -- The Dutch government is testing a mobile phone danger alert > system that sends text messages to people who could be affected by > natural disasters or terrorist attacks. > The system, called Cell Broadcast, uses GSM technology to identify > cell phone users in a particular area. > If a disaster occurs, a message is sent to all phones in the area, > warning of the danger. Now this is a damn cool idea. ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: Infone to Shut Down Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 00:17:06 -0700 Organization: Disorganized In message J Kelly wrote: > I remember a couple years back some posts about Infone, the Metro One > "teleconcierge" service. I got an email today from Infone telling me > their service will be closing up shop on 12/31/05. I used it a few > times and was quite pleased with the service. I hate to see it go, > but I guess they only managed to attract about 83,000 subs after > spending $70 million to promote the service. Not a real money maker. I signed up, but I never bothered to use it, I've just never made a 411 call either. The rest of their features looked interesting, but not all that useful since it wouldn't save much time. Sure I could call Infone and have them make a reservation for me, but I could just call and do it myself in the same amount of time. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 09:02:38 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Re: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far More on the Sony DRM ... Are You Infected by Sony-BMG's Rootkit? EFF has confirmed the presence of XCP on the following titles http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004144.php Excerpt from XCP.Sony.Rootkit http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/pest/pest.aspx?id=453096362 Furthermore, XCP.Sony.Rootkit installs a device driver, specifically a CD-ROM filter driver, which intercepts calls to the CD-ROM drive. If any process other than the included Music Player (player.exe) attempts to read the audio section of the CD, the filter driver inserts seemingly random noise into the returned data making the music unlistenable. Trojan horse exploits Sony DRM copy protection vulnerability Sophos issues tool to detect and disable "cloaking" flaw exploited by Trojans http://sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2005/11/stinxe.html Now the Legalese Rootkit: Sony-BMG's EULA November 09, 2005 If you thought XCP "rootkit" copy-protection on Sony-BMG CDs was bad, perhaps you'd better read the 3,000 word (!) end-user license agreement (aka "EULA") that comes with all these CDs. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004145.php Calif. Lawsuit Targets Sony http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2005/11/calif_ny_lawsui.html Perspective: Why they say spyware is good for you By Declan McCullagh Published: November 7, 2005, 4:00 AM PST http://news.com.com/2010-1071-5934150.html Sony gets an earful over CD software Program to block music piracy prompts privacy, security worries Carrie Kirby, Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, November 11, 2005 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/11/11/MNGFMFMNV61.DTL ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecomm- unications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 50 Independence, KS 67301 Phone: 620-402-0134 Fax 1: 775-255-9970 Fax 2: 530-309-7234 Fax 3: 208-692-5145 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe: telecom-subscribe@telecom-digest.org Unsubscribe:telecom-unsubscribe@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! 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Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V24 #514 ****************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Nov 11 17:56:38 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11648) id ACEB714D9B; Fri, 11 Nov 2005 17:56:37 -0500 (EST) To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V24 #515 Message-Id: <20051111225637.ACEB714D9B@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 17:56:37 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on massis.lcs.mit.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.3 required=2.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00, BODY_ENHANCEMENT2,MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR autolearn=ham version=3.0.4 Status: RO TELECOM Digest Fri, 11 Nov 2005 17:57:00 EST Volume 24 : Issue 515 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Showdown With USA Over Internet Control (Andy Sullivan) Telecom Update #505, November 11, 2005 (Angus TeleManagement Group) Spyware Maker Sues Detection Firm (Jim Haynes) Internet-History.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) MIT's 5ESS: (was: NN0 Central Office Codes) (Joe Morris) Re: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far (D Reinecke) Last Laugh! Woman Robs Banks While on Her Cell Phone (Associated Press) 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: Andy Sullivan Subject: Showdown with USA Over Internet Control Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 13:02:00 -0600 By Andy Sullivan The United States is headed for a showdown with much of the rest of the world over control of the Internet. President Bush says he doesn't care. Countries like China, Brazil and Iran don't like the fact that the world's only superpower oversees the system that guides traffic across the global computer network, and have pushed for an international body to take over that role. The United States believes such a body would slow the pace of online innovation to a crawl, requiring entrepreneurs to win permission from a cumbersome bureaucracy before introducing services like Internet telephony. "It would be akin to having more than 100 drivers of a single bus. Right now we have a driver, and the driver's been doing a good job," said Assistant Commerce Secretary Michael Gallagher, the U.S. official who oversees the domain-name system. Much of the business and technical community that actually runs the Internet agrees with Gallagher. But those groups will be relegated to the sidelines and the United States will find few allies among other governments at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis, Tunisia next week. "Materially there's nothing wrong with the current structure. But formally it is strange that something with such a global impact is being controlled by one nation, and there is a sharpened position against the United States' unilateral thinking," Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs Laurens Jan Brinkhorst said in an interview. If unresolved, the clash could lead to a split in the domain-name system, and Internet users wouldn't necessarily reach the same Web site when they type an address like "www.reuters.com" into their browsers. Experts say that's unlikely as it would destroy the consensus on which the Internet is built, but few expect the issue will be resolved at the United Nations-sponsored event. The head of the U.S. delegation said the dispute has distracted attention from the summit's original focus on bringing advanced communications to the developing world. "As far as I can tell, these discussions about Internet governance won't put one more computer or one more cell phone or one more anything into the hands of somebody who doesn't have it in Africa, Asia, South America or elsewhere," Ambassador David Gross said in an interview. GOOGLE-POWER Others point out that search engines are gradually making the domain-name system irrelevant. "This is such a sideshow debate," said Oxford University professor Jonathan Zittrain. "If you couldn't find IBM at ibm.com, what would you do? You would Google it, and there you'd be." The dispute revolves around a simple list stored in thousands of domain-name servers around the globe. That list, known as the "root zone file," serves as a master telephone book for the Internet's 259 "top level" domains -- those portions of the domain name that appear behind the final dot, such as ".com," ".org" or the United Kingdom's ."uk." The list only changes when a California nonprofit body called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, adds new top-level domains or redelegates the ones that exist. ICANN can't make any changes without the approval of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Some countries worry that the United States could use this system to effectively "unplug" a nation from the Internet by redirecting its country code. Experts say that would be difficult to pull off because it would require thousands of computer administrators across the globe to cooperate. Gallagher says the United States has kept politics out of the root since it set up ICANN in 1998. But in August he asked ICANN to postpone work on a .xxx domain for sex sites after conservative groups urged the Commerce Department to block it. "Nothing would have happened unless the U.S. government sent that letter," said Syracuse University professor Milton Mueller, who chairs ICANN's noncommercial users group. Business and technical experts say the United States would have been better off expressing its concerns through ICANN's government committee rather than taking a stand on its own. Gallagher said he sent the letter to express concerns in as transparent a manner as possible and avoid charges of backroom manipulation. "(When) other countries have done it, it's not a foul. For some reason when the U.S. does it it's a foul," he said. Though the United States does not plan to give up control of the domain-name system, the summit may lead to other changes. The United States has said it's willing to give other countries more direct control over their own country codes, and ICANN is exploring ways to improve the relationship with its governments committee. Participants may also agree to set up a forum to discuss cross-border issues like spam and cybercrime. "I think the U.S. realizes in some way that they're picking fights they don't need to have," Mueller said. (Additional reporting by Lucas van Grinsven in Amsterdam) 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: It seems to me that the USA is being sort of high and mighty on this matter. Just as the USA pays little or no attention to what other countries want or do with their two-letter TLDs such as .uk, .gr, and others, why would they now start worrying about what a UN-controlled body said regards (for example) China being the controller or Germany or UK? Wouldn't we still continue to do as we pleased anyway? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 10:33:20 -0800 Subject: Telecom Update #505, November 11, 2005 From: Angus TeleManagement Group Reply-To: Angus TeleManagement Group ************************************************************ TELECOM UPDATE ************************************************************ published weekly by Angus TeleManagement Group http://www.angustel.ca Number 505: November 11, 2005 Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by generous financial support from: ** 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/ ** NEC UNIFIED SOLUTIONS: www.necunifiedsolutions.com ** ROGERS TELECOM: www.rogers.com/solutions ** VONAGE CANADA: www.vonage.ca ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: Statscan -- Wireless Revenues Hit New High TWU Votes on Another Telus Contract Telus Begins EVDO Rollout Cellcos Plan Wireless Payments U.S. Government Opposes BlackBerry Sales Ban Cablecos Support VoIP Ruling 2006 Contribution Level Set Bell, Nortel Deploy Broadband in Chapleau More JDS Layoffs in Ottawa International Voice Business Improves Total Telcom Selling Assets Sasktel, Virgin Top Cellco Satisfaction Survey Hamilton Gets Cogeco Phone Service Prevost to Head MTS Marketing Videotron Expands ExpressVu Suit Telus Profit Up 21% ============================================================ STATSCAN -- WIRELESS REVENUES HIT NEW HIGH: Statistics Canada issued its quarterly report on the telecom industry this week, covering the second quarter of 2005. The wireless industry added 438,000 customers; operating revenues for wireless carriers reached an all-time record of $2.7 billion, up 16.1% from a year earlier. ** Wireline service continues to decline: at the end of June there were 19.2 million traditional residential and business lines in service, a 1.4% drop. Wireline revenues fell 2.8%, to $5.5 billion. http://www.statcan.ca/bsolc/english/bsolc?catno=56-002-XIE TWU VOTES ON ANOTHER TELUS CONTRACT: The Telecommunications Workers Union has submitted another five-year contract with to its membership for a vote. A TWU r