TELECOM Digest     Sun, 28 Jan 2007 17:20:00 EST    Volume 26 : Issue 29

Inside This Issue:                            Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Hold Off on Net Neutrality (David Farber & Michael Katz)
    Yahoo Tells Road Rogues to Go (David Garrett)
    Violence Prompts Wisconsin School Cell Phone Ban (Carrie Antlfinger, AP)
    But Cell Phones are Vital in Developing World (Malcolm Foster, AP)
    Beware of the Dot (Monty Solomon)
    Re: DA Wants to Restrict Pre-Paid Cell Phones (T)
    RE: DA Wanrs to Restrict Pre-Paid Cell Phones (Chris Farrar)
    Re: DA Wants to Restrict Pre-Paid Cell Phones (mc)
    Re: Cable, HDTV and Must-Carry (Neal McLain)

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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 23:32:15 -0600
From: David Farber & Michael Katz <washpost@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Hold Off on Net Neutrality


By David Farber and Michael Katz
Friday, January 19, 2007; A19

The Internet needs a makeover. Unfortunately, congressional
initiatives aimed at preserving the best of the old Internet threaten
to stifle the emergence of the new one.

The current Internet supports many popular and valuable services. But
experts agree that an updated Internet could offer a wide range of new
and improved services, including better security against viruses,
worms, denial-of-service attacks and zombie computers; services that
require high levels of reliability, such as medical monitoring; and
those that cannot tolerate network delays, such as voice and streaming
video. To provide these services, both the architecture of the
Internet and the business models through which services are delivered
will probably have to change.

Congress failed to pass legislation amid rancorous debate last summer,
but last week a group of senators reintroduced several initiatives
under the banner of "network neutrality."

Network neutrality is supposed to promote continuing Internet
innovation by restricting the ability of network owners to give
certain traffic priority based on the content or application being
carried or on the sender's willingness to pay. The problem is that
these restrictions would prohibit practices that could increase the
value of the Internet for customers.

Traffic management is a prime example. When traffic surges beyond the
ability of the network to carry it, something is going to be delayed.
When choosing what gets delayed, it makes sense to allow a network to
favor traffic from, say, a patient's heart monitor over traffic
delivering a music download. It also makes sense to allow network
operators to restrict traffic that is downright harmful, such as
viruses, worms and spam.

Pricing raises similar issues. To date, Internet pricing has been
relatively simple. Based on experience in similar markets, we expect
that, if left alone, pricing and service models will probably evolve.
For example, new services with guaranteed delivery quality might
emerge to support applications such as medical monitoring that require
higher levels of reliability than the current Internet can
guarantee. Suppliers could be expected to charge higher prices for
these premium services.

Blocking premium pricing in the name of neutrality might have the
unintended effect of blocking the premium services from which
customers would benefit. No one would propose that the U.S. Postal
Service be prohibited from offering Express Mail because a "fast lane"
mail service is "undemocratic." Yet some current proposals would do
exactly this for Internet services.

We're not saying that all discrimination is good or that the market
always gets it right. Some forms of discrimination can be harmful,
especially when service providers have market power. For example, if a
local telephone company that is a monopoly provider of both broadband
access and plain old telephone service for a community blocks its
broadband subscribers from using an Internet phone service offered by
a rival company, this discrimination can harm both competition and
consumers.

Public policy should intervene where anti-competitive actions can be
identified and the cure will not be worse than the disease. Policy-
makers must tread carefully, however, because it can be difficult, if
not impossible, to determine in advance whether a particular practice
promotes or harms competition. Antitrust law generally takes a
case-by-case approach under which private parties or public agencies
can challenge business practices and the courts require proof of harm
to competition before declaring a practice illegal. This is a sound
approach that has served our economy well.

The legislative proposals debated in the 109th Congress take a very
different approach. They would impose far-reaching prohibitions
affecting all broadband providers, regardless of whether they wielded
monopoly power and without any analysis of whether the challenged
practice actually harmed competition. If enacted, these proposals
would threaten to restrict a wide range of innovative services without
providing any compensating customer benefits.

Does this mean we believe that we should place all our trust in the
market and the current providers? No. But it does mean we should wait
until there is a problem before rushing to enact solutions.

David Farber is distinguished career professor of computer science and
public policy at Carnegie Mellon University. Michael L. Katz is a
professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley.
Gerald Faulhaber, a professor at the Wharton School and the University
of Pennsylvania's law school, and Christopher S. Yoo, a law professor
at Vanderbilt University, also contributed to this article.

Copyright 2007 Washington Post

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------------------------------

Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 23:33:44 -0600
From: David Garrett, Newsfactor <newsfactor@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Yahoo Tells Road Rogues to Go


David Garrett, newsfactor.com

There was a time when mobile phones just made phone calls -- or, to be
more precise, tried to make phone calls, forcing their owners to cope
with dropped signals, bad static, and all kinds of on-the-road
woes. But times do change.

Today's mobile phones can handle two and three calls at a time, not to
mention high-speed downloads of movie clips or a search for the
closest dry cleaner. And let's not forget about photos, e-books, and
the music from Beyonce to Bach.

With this week's announcement of a new version of Yahoo Go for Mobile,
the search-engine giant, already vying for pole position with Google,
hopes to establish itself as the leader in the mobile Web-browsing
market, too.

Beta Release

Yahoo Go for Mobile 2.0 is still in beta form and open to owners of
Motorola's RAZR maxx V6 and V3xx phones only -- two models that
attract Web-savvy, connected users who see no reason not to read
e-mail wherever they are.

But Yahoo plans to expand the download to more than 70 handsets in
2007, along with preinstallations from major phone makers and
distribution deals with cellular networks that span the globe from
Malaysia to Sweden to Ireland, with half a dozen stops in between.

"Yahoo intends to be the number one mobile Internet player globally," 
said Marco Boerries, Yahoo's senior vice president of connected life, in 
a published statement.

Indeed, "connected life" is a good moniker for Yahoo's plans. Yahoo Go
2.0 gives users no small number of mobile features to connect them to
information they need.

Information Anywhere

First up is Yahoo's new oneSearch, which intuits the information that
users want, ferrets it out of database systems and Web sites, then
presents it in synopsis form, as opposed to handing users a set of Web
links for them to delve into themselves.

If it's baseball season and you're a Yankees fan, oneSearch will take
the team's name then return the scores from its most recent game,
along with game schedules, team rosters, photos, local results, and so
on, according to Yahoo.

Yahoo Go's Local & Maps feature works much like Google Maps, searching
phone books for business listings around the country. If you want a
good slice of Chicago pizza in Los Angeles or the nearest California
Pizza Kitchen in Chicago, each mobile service will find it for you --
along with user reviews, ratings, and directions.

Old Standards

Yahoo's service also features many of the old standards that users now
see as par for the course from mobile information vendors, including
e-mail, news, weather, stock quotes, and so forth. But Yahoo makes
each feature -- which it calls a "widget" -- revolve around a "command
center" that gives users the chance to scavenge for more information,
including RSS feeds from Web sites, blogs, and news services.

Last, Yahoo Go 2.0 offers a photo sharing widget that lets users
upload photos from their phones' on-board cameras to Flickr, the photo
sharing site that has become a linchpin of the social networking
movement known as Web 2.0.

Indeed, sites like Flickr, MySpace (the teen and tween fiefdom for
making friends and building personal Web sites), and Digg (where users
stock the site with news stories they like) all can be accessed from
mobile phones, some with special features that make mobile viewing
simpler.

The bottom line? "Out of the office" or "out of the house" no longer
mean "out of touch." As data becomes a common houseguest on cell phone
handsets, life, to use Yahoo's word, is growing more connected by the
day.

Copyright 2007 NewsFactor Network, Inc.

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------------------------------

Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 23:35:04 -0600
From: Carrie Antlfinger, AP  <ap@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Violence Prompts Wisconsin School Cell Phone Ban


By CARRIE ANTLFINGER, Associated  Press Writer

School brawls have gone high tech, with students using cell phones to 
call in reinforcements, in one case requiring police and pepper spray 
to break up a fight that swelled to about 20 family members on school 
grounds.

The fracas earlier this month, in which six students and three adults
were arrested, was the latest in a surge of cell phone-related fights
and prompted Wisconsin's largest school district to ban cell phones in
its 217 schools beginning Monday.

"We consider (cell phones) almost as weapons because when they call, 
we're the ones out in front and we don't know these people are coming," 
said Mike Heese, safety security assistant at Bradley Tech High School, 
where the fight happened.

Prosecutors are also taking a tougher stance. Adults who harm anyone
at a school could face felony charges, said Milwaukee County District
Attorney John Chisholm. Penalties in the past were often fines for
disorderly conduct.

Milwaukee joins a growing number of school districts that prohibit or
limit cell phones. But many bans, including those in New York City,
Los Angeles and Boston, were imposed because the phones cause
distractions or are used to cheat.

Milwaukee Public Schools have had about one cell phone-augmented fight
a month in the last three years, but it seems to have worsened during
the last year, said Peter Pochowski, the schools' director of safety
and security.

Two years ago, a fighting student used his cell phone twice in a
matter of weeks to summon two carloads of family members, Pochowski
said.

Jamilynn Brushel, 18, a senior at Bradley Tech, said she would rather
see stricter security guards and teachers, because students who want
to fight will do so even without cell phones.

"They won't need people coming in," Brushel said. "They'll just get
people who are already here."

Dorcas Lopez is a mother of two, including a 12-year-old middle
schooler who needs to call her when he's done with basketball. But as
a social work assistant at a Milwaukee high school, she has seen kids
misuse phones to get someone to lie for them to get them out of
school.

She said she does not feel any safer with the ban. "Whatever is going
to happen is going to happen," Lopez said.

The district will expel students who use cell phones to summon
outsiders for a fight, Superintendent William Andrekopoulos said.

Others could be suspended, have their phone temporarily confiscated,
or have a conference with the student or parents. There will be
exceptions to the ban for hardship cases, he said.

"I think people have to rise themselves up from a level of convenience
to a level of safety," Andrekopoulos said. "I think that's where we're
at in this country."

Copyright 2007 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
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------------------------------

Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 23:38:17 -0600
From: Malcolm Foster, AP <ap@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: But Cell Phones are Vital in Developing World

By MALCOLM FOSTER, AP Business Writer

Nguyen Huu Truc's trusty cell phone has revolutionized his small 
embroidery business and his life.

When he bought his first mobile phone in 1995, Vietnam had just one
fixed-line phone for every 100 people, and cell phones were a pricey
novelty. Communication was difficult, forcing Truc to make
time-consuming trips to suppliers and buyers.

But these days, Vietnam has 33 telephones per 100 people -- and
two-thirds of the phones are mobile. Now Truc can make calls on his
cell phone from virtually anywhere in the country for about 10 cents a
minute, saving him time and money and providing quicker access to
information.

"I cannot imagine what it would be like if I didn't have my mobile
phone for a day," he says. "It's no longer just something that only
the rich can afford. Now, it's a basic means of communication."

Truc's experience provides a glimpse into how wireless communication
is helping fuel Vietnam's rapid growth; and transforming dozens of
other developing nations from the ground up.

Today, mobile phones are the primary form of telecommunication in most
emerging economies, fulfilling much the same role as fixed-line phone
networks did in facilitating growth in the United States and Europe
after World War II.

Some developing nations have even jumped out in front as mobile 
pioneers. In the Philippines, more than 4 million people use their cell 
phones as virtual wallets to buy things or transfer cash -- services 
still rare in many wealthy countries, with few exceptions like Japan.

As service charges and handset prices have plunged and coverage areas
have expanded, cell phone subscriptions in the developing world have
surged fivefold since 2000, to 1.4 billion at the end of 2005,
according to the U.N. International Telecommunication Union. That's
nearly double the 800 million in advanced economies.

Research shows that greater cell phone use can drive economic growth
in emerging economies. Based on market research in China, India and
the Philippines, consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found that raising
wireless penetration by 10 percentage points can lead to an increase
in gross domestic product of about 0.5 percent, or around $12 billion
for an economy the size of China.

"There's enormous entrepreneurship and creativity worldwide, and
through mobile phones you're providing people with the tools -- rather
than aid -- to earn a living," says Leonard Waverman, a London
Business School professor. In a separate study of 92 countries,
Waverman had findings similar to McKinsey's report.

"It's not a magic bullet, but it's a vital tool," says Waverman, whose
research was partly funded by British mobile carrier Vodafone Group
PLC.

By bouncing signals off base stations, relay towers and satellites
instead of over copper wires strung to villages and homes, cell phones
can hurdle mountains. Mobile phones are not hampered by illiteracy
 -- which is a barrier to computer use -- giving millions new
opportunities to exchange information, make money and conduct
business.

In India, fishermen call ahead to ports to see where they will get the
best deal on their catch. Kenyan farmers check crop prices on a
service offered by local provider Safaricom.

In South Africa, cell phones serve as a virtual office for carpenters,
painters and other laborers who post their numbers on handwritten
signs advertising their skills.

The Philippines has become a global leader in mobile commerce. Since
2000, Smart Communications Inc., the country's largest carrier, has
allowed subscribers in its Smart Money program to hold limited amounts
of cash in electronic wallets linked to their mobile accounts.

Using their cell phones, members can withdraw cash from their bank
accounts, pay for goods and services and transfer money and airtime
credit. The phone records all transactions. Overseas Filipinos are
even using this service to send money home. While the system is
designed with work with financial institutions, subscribers don't need
a bank account.

"If your son or daughter is away at school and needs money, this is an
easy way to send it to them," says Ramon Isberto, a Smart spokesman.

This kind of application holds promise for the millions in developing
countries who have no bank accounts and for whom transferring money
can be difficult or risky.

Wizzit, a South African-based company targeting customers without bank
accounts, has been offering cell phone-based financial services since
2005.

Vodafone, which is investing heavily in Africa, is partnering with
Kenyan affiliate Safaricom and the Commercial Bank of Africa to soon
launch M-Pesa, a mobile financial service that allows users to send
and receive cash and perform other transactions.

"Financial institutions are realizing that the only way to reach new
customers is through mobile networks," says Nick Hughes, head of the
mobile payment team at Vodafone.

Expanding mobile networks also brings other economic benefits, experts
say. It lures more foreign investment, gives families better access to
health and educational information and provides governments with more
revenue from licenses and taxes.

Wireless technology has emerged at a fortuitous time for carriers
expanding in developing countries because it is so much cheaper and
easier to build than fixed-line networks.

Rugged, sprawling Afghanistan, for example, now has 2 million cell
phone subscribers and only 20,000 fixed-line phones.

"They can leapfrog the technology," says David Knapp, general director
of Motorola Vietnam.

In Vietnam, where the economy is growing 8 percent a year, the
communist government has spent heavily to expand coverage to all 64
provinces.

"The more people who have cell phones, the more the economy will grow,
and vice versa," says Bui Quoc Viet, a spokesman for the state-run
Vietnam Post & Telecommunications Corp., the country's largest telecom
company.

The government has also promoted competition: Vietnam now has six
mobile carriers, two with foreign partners. The development has driven
down service charges, a key factor in the tripling of cell phone
subscribers over the past two years to 18 million.

Mobile phones provide a good way for the younger generation to seek
new business opportunities and cash in on Vietnam's move toward a
market economy, says Paul Ruppert, managing director of consultancy
Global Point View LLC, who has extensive experience in Asia.

"It's all micro-activity -- tailors, small repair shops, textile
producers, grocery stores," Ruppert says. "Even though they're small,
they're allowed to get an idea of the market via the cell phone."

Text messaging, or SMS, is another application that's particularly
popular in Asian nations like Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines.
It's considered a cheap, unobtrusive way to stay in touch with
friends, connect to the Internet and conduct business.

"It's a good way to save costs, but more importantly I can use SMS
services as evidence for my business transactions," says Truc, the
embroidery business owner.

Carriers have adapted to the needs of poorer customers by selling
prepaid airtime cards, often for as little as 35 cents per card. This
eliminates the need for a contract, credit history check or even an
address. Once you register for a phone number and buy an airtime card,
you're in business.

Handset makers, meanwhile, are offering ultra-cheap phones. Motorola 
Inc., under the GSM Association's emerging market handset program, has 
produced cell phones with a wholesale price of less than $30. Retail 
prices vary depending on taxes and local market conditions.

But even those phones are still too expensive for many who live on one
or two dollars a day.

That's given rise to communal phone use and a cottage industry made up
of people who resell phone service for a living.

Both are typified in Bangladesh's "Palli Phone," or village phone,
program. A quarter million "phone ladies" buy mobile phones on credit
from Grameen Bank, winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize along with its
founder Muhammad Yunus, providing wireless communication for the
community and themselves with a livelihood.

Hasina Banu, who lives in a remote village in northern Bangladesh,
bought a phone from Grameen for about $110 and each week pays back
about $2.50. She now earns about $25 a month from the phone and plans
to use that money to open a small grocery store.

But even in rural Bangladesh she says competition is heating up among
other "Palli Phone" sellers.

"Now I get less customers," Banu says. "But I am happy that now I have
some money with (which) I can expand my business."

Associated Press Writers Tran Van Minh in Hanoi, Vietnam, and Julhas 
Alam in Dhaka, Bangladesh, contributed to this report.

Copyright 2007 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. And, discuss this and other topics in our forum at
http://telecom-digest.org/forum (or)
http://telecom-digest.org/chat/index.html

For more news and headlines, please go to:
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------------------------------

Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 01:03:31 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Beware of the Dot
 

By Bruce Mohl, Globe Staff  |  January 28, 2007

Consumers with relatively new cell phones -- in one case a phone right
out of the box -- say sensors inside the devices appear to be
incorrectly registering water damage, voiding the warranties.

The consumers all insist they haven't dropped their phones in water or
left them out in the rain, yet the tiny liquid-damage indicators
inside their phones have changed color, indicating damage.

Wireless companies and phone makers say water damage is a common
problem with cellphones and faulty readings from the indicators are
unlikely. The company representatives said the indicators provide a
reliable and quick way to find out if a phone's inner workings have
been exposed to water, which can disable the phone's battery, its
displays, and its circuitry.

Independent phone retailers and repair people say a phone doesn't have
to be dropped in a toilet or a sink to sustain water damage.  They say
liquid-damage indicators may also change color if exposed to sweat,
steam , extreme humidity, or condensation resulting from an abrupt
change in temperature.

http://www.boston.com/business/personaltech/articles/2007/01/28/beware_of_the_dot/

------------------------------

From: T <nospam.kd1s@cox.nospam.net>
Subject: Re: DA Wants to Restrict Pre-Paid Cell Phones
Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company
Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 23:42:26 -0500


In article <telecom26.28.6@telecom-digest.org>, tom.horsley@att.net 
says:

> On 24 Jan 2007 11:56:30 -0800
> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

>> "To get a prepaid phone, all you have to do is plunk down your cash
>> and walk out of the store -- no paperwork necessary.  Castor says
>> that's a problem for his detectives because they can't track down the
>> owner of the phone."

> Yea, that's a bitch. Cars are also a problem, why with a car someone
> can commit a crime and be miles away in very little time. I think they
> should ban everything that can possibly be used in any criminal
> activity!

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One notable difference however is that
> while cars _are_ frequently used to commit crimes, the car has to be
> in close proximity to the crime scene, and theoretically at least, the
> car is easily traceable from its license plate or VIN; or God Forbid
> that the criminal presented a driver's license (for example, when
> passing a bad check). That, plus a photo of the car license plate from
> an overhead camera will frequently nail the criminal, no matter how
> many miles away he gets in a short time. With the prepaid 'untraceable'
> cell phone however, one does not need to be anywhere near the scene
> of the crime.  PAT]

And a set of stolen or forged plates makes that so much more difficult. 


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are correct on that. In the 'semi-
automatic' days of gasoline credit cards (1970's mostly) when the
dealer had to manually fill in the gas ticket and imprint your credit
card by hand, then you had to sign, Amoco made a point of writing
down the license plate number of vehicles. Then, if the owner of the
credit card refused payment and claimed his credit card had been 
stolen, or forged or whatever, clerks at Amoco would look at the
microfilm reels of driver's records for the state in particular and
look up the name and address of the license plate holder. That
particular driver would then get a letter; not exactly threatening,
but not exactly friendly, either:

"Dear Mr. Jones: On (date) at (time) at (location) a (vehicle make and
model) registered to you received a fill up of gas by using a credit
card, the owner of which stated to us under oath was stolen/misused/
abused. We would very much appreciate a response from you telling us
how you think this may have happened.  Sincerely, Amoco Credit
Department".  Mr. Jones (if he was the purchaser) was in effect put on
notice that the collectors did not want to hear any more nonsense
about his alleged 'stolen credit card' (if the same Jones was also the
card holder). Often times however, Jones would write back to say that
his license plates had been stolen.  PAT]

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 23:47:50 -0500
From: Chris Farrar <cfarrar1307@rogers.com>
Subject: Re: DA Wants to Restrict Pre-Paid Cell Phones


Rick Merrill wrote:

> Don't forget to outlaw hydrogen dioxide -- too much can kill ya and
> your little doggie too!

Actually it's dihydrogen monoxide.

Chris

------------------------------

From: mc <look@www.ai.uga.edu.for.address>
Subject: Re: DA Wants to Restrict Pre-Paid Cell Phones
Organization: BellSouth Internet Group
Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 00:34:09 -0500


Tom Horsley <tom.horsley@att.net> wrote in message 
news:telecom26.28.6@telecom-digest.org:

> On 24 Jan 2007 11:56:30 -0800
> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

>> "To get a prepaid phone, all you have to do is plunk down your cash
>> and walk out of the store -- no paperwork necessary.  Castor says
>> that's a problem for his detectives because they can't track down the
>> owner of the phone."

> Yea, that's a bitch. Cars are also a problem, why with a car someone
> can commit a crime and be miles away in very little time. I think they
> should ban everything that can possibly be used in any criminal
> activity!

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One notable difference however is that
> while cars _are_ frequently used to commit crimes, the car has to be
> in close proximity to the crime scene, and theoretically at least, the
> car is easily traceable from its license plate...

It is no coincidence that detectives were invented around the same time as 
railroads.

------------------------------

From: Neal McLain <nmclain@annsgarden.com>
Subject: Cable, HDTV and Must-Carry
Reply-To: nmclain@annsgarden.com
Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 08:40:54 -0500


Rick Merrill <rick0.merrill@NOSPAM.gmail.com> wrote:

> In your opinion, what will the changeover in 2009 mean
> for local access (PEG) stations? Will they have to 
> convert to digital over cable? Will they have to (or be 
> allowed to) convert to HDTV? Or will they be the only 
> analog stations left standing?!

A PEG channel is not a "station"; it's simply an NTSC analog signal.
The cable company modulates it onto some carrier and inserts it into
its analog distribution network.

A PEG channel will become digital at such time as the cable company
wants it to be digital.  But that doesn't mean that the PEG producer
has to convert its production facility to digital; it simply means the
cable company will digitally encode the analog signal at its headend.
Some cable companies are already doing so.  According to Stephen
Schneider, of Sunflower Broadband in Lawrence, KS:

> Where I work we have all of the PEG channels in
> their original analog NTSC format, and have encoded
> them into our all digital lineup at the headend too.

As to HDTV, I rather doubt that many PEG operations will provide HDTV.
I can't imagine that any level of government would *require* HDTV.
And I doubt that any cable company would want to dedicate that much
bandwidth to a PEG.

But I'd never say never.  The cable companies are looking at IPTV just
as the telcos are.  The day will come when cable companies provide
some (possibly all) programming via IPTV.  If/when that happens,
capacity will be virtually unlimited.
 
Looking to the future, this may sound like a pipe dream.  But as I
look back on my experiences in the cable industry, many of the things
that have happened once seemed like pipe dreams.

Indeed, the first time I built a satellite earth station (to receive
HBO in 1978), I couldn't imagine that we'd ever have to receive
more than 12 channels with it. Boy, was I ever wrong!

Neal McLain

------------------------------


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End of TELECOM Digest V26 #29
*****************************