TELECOM Digest     Fri, 9 Mar 2007 20:28:00 EST    Volume 26 : Issue 68

Inside This Issue:                           Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Vonage Loses Suit; Says Will Stay in Business (Reuters News Wire)
    Best Buy Web Fraud was Only Accidental, Company Claims (Evan Schuman)
    CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update (communicationsdirect_daily)
    Verizon Gets Favorable Ruling in Vonage Case (USTelecom dailyLead)
    Telecom Update #570, March 9, 2007 (Angus TeleManagement Group)
    Reverse 911 (Rick Merrill)
    Can CAT-6 Cable Share Phone/100 Mbt Ethernet (JR)       
    How to Change the Time on a Mitel SX-2000 Phone Switch (Billy Eichler)
    Re: Unlisted Phone Number (hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com)
    Re: Unlisted Phone Number (T)
    Re: Old Interurbans (was Skokie Swift) (Wesrock@aol.com)
    Re: Old Interurbans (Neal McLain)
    Re: 511 Traffic Phone Lines May Raise Crash Risk (Rick Merrill)
    Re: Phone Call Routing (William Warren)

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

Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2007 16:09:44 -0600
From: Reuters News Wire <reuters@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Vonage Loses Suit; Says Will Stay in Business


Internet phone company Vonage Holdings Corp. said on Friday it was not
going out of business despite a jury's verdict a day earlier that it
infringed on three patents owned by Verizon Communications Inc.

"In the unlikely event the monetary award ($58 million) and royalties
are ultimately upheld/paid, they will not jeopardize Vonage's
financial position as we focus on achieving profitability," the
company said in a statement.

It also said there would be no change in its phone service and that it
was confident it could stay any injunction. The company's shares were
down around 15 percent in afternoon trade.

Copyright 2007 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. 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:
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html

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

Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2007 17:16:00 -0600
From: Evan Schuman, eWeek <eweek@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Best Buy Web Fraud was Only Accidental, Company Claims


Employees, Customers Say Best Buy's Goal Was to Confuse 
by Evan Schuman - eWEEK

As Connecticut state investigators continue to look into the Best Buy
dual Web site situation, former Best Buy employees and customers are
telling stories that question how accidental some of the confusion
was.

The controversy stems from Best Buy giving employees access to two
different -- but visually identical -- sites for them to show
customers. One of the sites was the public Web site and the other was
a full replica of that site but with in-store (typically higher)
pricing.

The company's intent behind creating the two sites is crucial to the
investigation being conducted by the Connecticut Attorney General's
Office, according to a law enforcement source within that department.
Were the two sites created as legitimate tools for store associates
and the confusion merely a result of insufficient training, or was it
a deliberate attempt to perpetrate a fraud on the public?

The fraud issue comes into play if Best Buy employees showed the
in-store site to customers and told them that it was the public Web
site, in an attempt to get them to back off a price-matching request.
Best Buy's policy is that they have to match the price of any
BestBuy.com sale unless it's labeled a Web-only deal.

Best Buy officially has said that the internal site and the public Web
site were both launched many years ago and that, at the time of
launch, it made sense to have them look identical to save on design
costs. Those executives argue that any confusion of the two
sites -- either in the eyes of customers or employees -- is
unintentional and there was never any intent to deceive.

Several Best Buy employees, former employees and customers who asked
that they not be named said communications inside Best Buy stores were
clearly very different.

The first hint as to intent comes from the site appearing on employee
screens simply labeled "BestBuy.com," according to four sources. If
the site was indeed designed to show in-store -- as opposed to online
 -- pricing, wouldn't it have been labeled in a way to reflect that?

The sources said senior store managers were aware of the two sites and
their purposes but typically did not share this information with
rank-and-file employees. It's not as though they were told that the
intra-store site was identical to the public Web site, but based on
the lack of information -- coupled with the name of the site -- they
said they assumed it was the public site.

Was Best Buy diabolical or doddering? 

What makes this case so challenging, according to sources, is that if 
Best Buy committed fraud and deceptions, it has done so in a way that 
makes it very hard to prove and potentially even harder to civilly or 
criminally prosecute any one individual.

The chain having multiple prices is not the issue and, indeed, is a
common and accepted practice. Certainly having a system inside the
store -- a kiosk -- that shows employees and/or customers the store
(as opposed to the Web) pricing is also not a problem.

What is a problem is if customers are told that they are being shown
the company's Web site when in reality they are being shown an
internal site and that the intent is to trick them into paying a
higher price.

Best Buy concedes that there were two sites and that employees
confused them, so the question at issue is one of intent. If a fraud
was indeed committed, who is responsible?

Was there criminal intent?

The scenario consistently painted by employees, former employees and
customers is one where an employee shows the customer the wrong site.
But in many -- although not all -- of the cases, the employee is not
aware at the time that it's the wrong site, as they haven't been
trained on it.

Without training, isn't an employee likely to think that a link
labeled "BestBuy.com" is going to bring up the public Web site,
especially if it brings up something that looks identical to that Web
site? Indeed, without training, it's hard to imagine the untrained
store associate could have reasonably concluded anything else.

Without that knowledge, that associate would have had no criminal
intent to defraud and is therefore very hard to legally punish. The
supervisor (or manager a few levels up) who didn't train that employee
properly is the next link. Why did that manager not adequately train
that employee?  Was it forgetfulness? Was it inadvertent? Or was it
some sort of a deliberate plan to defraud?

Assuming the worst -- namely that the manager did have the criminal
intent to defraud -- what bad actions did that manager actually
commit? He or she merely failed to properly brief an employee. The
worst that could be said would be that the manager chose to not have
the employee briefed in the hope that the employee would jump to the
conclusion that the internal site was in fact BestBuy.com and would
unknowingly -- but convincingly -- trick the customer into backing off
their price-match request.

If a fraud has been committed, it's been set up to cleverly split mens
rea (criminal intent) from actus reus (the guilty act), sources said,
making prosecution much more difficult.

The stories told by the employees, former employees and customers,
however, are so similar and come from so many diverse locations that
it's either a series of remarkable coincidences or something more
sinister.

One salesperson, who stopped working at Best Buy late last summer and
was interviewed March 8, said the confusion was quite deliberate.
"Managers and other employees would often encourage us to use the
higher price on the internal Web site. It was common knowledge to most
people working there that there were two versions of BestBuy.com. I
was one of the only salespeople to consistently find a computer
connected to the real Internet and price match using that," he said.

"A few employees actually encouraged others to show customers the
intrastore Web site and use that price. All the computers readily
accessible on the sales floor were equipped with the intrastore site
only and external Web access locked," the former employee continued.
"Once there was a computer in the center of the store that had access
to the outside Internet and, one day, it was mysteriously removed. Now
I realize it was probably because it had access to the real
BestBuy.com."

Management needs to be held responsible.

One current Best Buy employee told a very similar tale. "I have been
with Best Buy for about 10 months now and not one person has mentioned
to me that there are two completely different prices on the actual Web
and our kiosks. I have even personally encountered this problem with a
customer who came in wanting to buy a MP3 player but said it was a
different price online. I showed him to the kiosk and the price
came up the same as in the store. The customer said he knew for sure
it was about $20 cheaper online and said he'd go home and order it. I
told him I was sorry for the confusion and he left. About 30 minutes
later, he returned with a printout showing the price and also an
online receipt for a 'store pick-up.' Being curious, I asked to look
at the printout and it had nothing saying it was 'online only.' No one
in my 10 months had ever said to me that the kiosk price reflected the
in-store price."

That employee said he surveyed other employees and said none of them
had been told the sites were different. "So we then talked to the
product processing leader and she said she did know about it, and she
said that it is like that to keep customers from price matching," the
employee said. "I hate to see higher-ups placing blame on sales floor
associates when it's our higher-ups withholding nformation. Management
needs to be held responsible and not the 18- to 30-year-old kids, like
myself, who are just doing what we were told."

In some cases, it's Best Buy's customers who pushed Best Buy employees 
and their managers to speak candidly about the situation. After one 
consumer suspected that the "public Web site" he was shown to refute a 
claimed price match was something else, he asked to speak to a senior 
manager and was introduced to the store's operations manager.

The operations manager "first tried to tell me that the site in-store
was the real Web site, but it had a 24-hour cache so pricing could be
a day stale," the customer said. "I then told her I spoke with [a
customer service representative] who told me straight out that there
is an intranet site within the store, but all employees are trained
not to show it to the public. She chuckled and responded, 'Oh, she's
not supposed to tell you that.' I then pointed to the employee who
misled me the day before -- and who was sitting 20 yards to my
left -- and asked [the operations manager], 'Has this employee even
been trained to the intrastore site and that it is different than the
internet?' She responded, 'No.' Then she said, 'I ain't gonna lie
about that.' She then admitted that no employee below herself has
knowledge of the intranet."

(Note: Some people outside Best Buy corporate have referred to the 
internal site -- which Best Buy corporate calls simply a "kiosk" -- as an 
intranet site. The site was designed for employees to show to consumers 
visiting the stores, so whether it's a true intranet -- intended only for a 
closed group of employees, distributors, suppliers and other business 
partners -- is unclear.)

One former employee who did agree to be identified echoed the theme
that employees were simply not told that the BestBuy.com on the
in-store system was not in fact the public Web site. Micah Hymer spent
three years working at the Best Buy in Fort Worth, Texas, and left the
store last year.

"Employees were never trained to use that site and it was never
mentioned to anyone that there were even multiple sites with different
prices," Hymer said. "Supervisors and sales managers would
occasionally mention using the Web site in a sinister-type way to
boost sales. The employee -- instead of price-matching with the online
price could walk over more gullible customers and log into the
internal BestBuy.com to show the technology-illiterate customer that
prices were indeed $199.99. Most customers after seeing this would
think they had read the price wrong from their home or think it was a
limited-time special they had missed."

Hymer stressed that this was not a formal effort and was certainly a
stealth one. "This tactic was never taught by Best Buy management and
was only ever discussed by desperate sales managers or supervisors
looking to increase revenue on a slow day. That's why most regular
employees probably aren't even aware of its existence, as any manager
aware of this 'trick' probably would not teach it to anyone but the
better salesmen because they don't want to attract negative attention
from district management."

Check out eWEEK.com's Retail Center for the latest news, views and 
analysis on technology's impact on retail.

Copyright 2007 Ziff Davis Inc.
Content originally published in Ziff Davis Media publications is the 
copyrighted property of Ziff Davis Media.

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 each day, please go to:
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/tech-news.html  (or)
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/internet-news.html

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

Subject: CommunicationsDirect News Daily Update 
From: communications <communicationsdirect@communicationsdirectnews.com>
Reply-To: communicationsdirect_daily-owner@communicationsdirectnews.com
Date: Fri,  9 Mar 2007 11:30:37 EST


********************************
PricewaterhouseCoopers Presents
The CommunicationsDirect Daily Update
For March 09, 2007
********************************

Our new poll: Do you plan on buying Apple's new iPhone? Visit our web site
to vote.Verizon Wins Vonage Patent Infringement Case
http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/130/23164?11228

     Vonage has been ordered to pay Verizon US$58 million plus 5.5%
     per line in monthly royalties to Verizon for infringing on three
     patents relating to VoIP services, the Virginia Eastern District
     Court has ruled. The jury found five patents (from an original
     seven) to be valid but found the claim (rather than the patents)
     on two patents ...

Deutsche Telekom Ceases FMC Service, T-One
http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/23161?11228

     Germany's fixed-line operator, Deutsche Telekom, has ceased
     marketing of its fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) product, branded
     T-One, due to poor uptake of the service among its customers, which
     is attributed to poor WLAN coverage and complicated dialling.
     Significance: Deutsche Telekom's fixed-line unit, T-Com,
     introduced T-One ...

Telecom Italia Outlines Expansion Plans
http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/23157?11228

     The Italian telecoms giant, Telecom Italia, has outlined plans to
     boost its international presence, reversing a recent trend that
     has seen it sell off foreign assets to pay down its debt. In the
     group's business plan for 2007-2009 , which was unveiled today,
     Telecom Italia said it hopes to increase the international
     proportion of its...

Weekly Poll Results -- Traveling With Your Mobile
http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/100/23155?11228

     CommunicationsDirect latest poll results are in. The question
     posed was, "Do you use a mobile handset when you travel
     abroad?". The results indicate 71% use their current mobile and
     pay roaming fees, 21% buy prepaid phone cards, and 8% don't use a
     mobile at all when traveling.  Be sure to vote in our next
     poll ...

Web Services: Paving the Way to SOA
http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/23154?11228

     "Web Services" comprise a body of standards and protocols
     that have become vital in the drive toward SOA, as they define how
     services interact in business transactions. Earlier fears were that
     Web Services might be CORBA revisited or client/server reborn. This
     group of interfaces and protocols, however, are opening up
     telecom ...

Shareholders of Hutchison Telecom Approve Hutchison Essar Sale Plan
http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/23151?11228

     HONG KONG -- Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd. said
     today its shareholders have approved plans to sell its 52 percent
     stake in Indian mobile phone operator Hutchison Essar to
     Britain's Vodafone Group PLC. We received overwhelming support
     from shareholders for the transaction, Hutchison ...

Clearwire IPO Has WISP Grabbing The Brass Ring
http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/23147?11228

     Intel-backed wireless Internet service provider (WISP) Clearwire
     yesterday floated a $600 million initial public offering (IPO),
     coming in at the top of its expected price range amid reports
     that a massive number of institutional investors were left
     standing at the gate with cash in hand, the offering being six or
     seven times ...

Alltel CEO Cools Takeover Speculation
http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/23145?11228

     Speaking at a leadership conference yesterday in Fort Smith,
     Ark., Alltel CEO Scott Ford noted that the rumors swirling around
     its potential acquisition by another wireless company were
     nothing new.  Ford was at the Leadership Fort Smith Alumni
     Association luncheon to address the 100 attendees about corporate
     leadership, but fielded ...

Starent Aims for $115M IPO
http://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/120/23143?11228

     Starent Networks Corp. plans to raise $115 million from an IPO on
     the Nasdaq , the company revealed this week.&nbsp; The mobile
     data core equipment vendor, which is now deployed by more than 60
     carriers in 25 countries, did not provide a potential share price
     range or say when it might float its stock. Starent's ST16 ...

Your feedback on our e-letter is always welcome. Send email to:
CommunicationsDirect Editor <telecom_direct_editor@us.pwc.com>

Copyright (C) 2007 PricewaterhouseCoopers.

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

Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 12:08:53 CST
From: USTelecom dailyLead <ustelecom@dailylead.com>
Subject: Verizon Gets Favorable Ruling in Vonage Case


USTelecom dailyLead
March 9, 2007
http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/gquofDtusXnnnkCibuddzayQ

TODAY'S HEADLINES


NEWS OF THE DAY
* Verizon gets favorable ruling in Vonage case
BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH
* AT&T aims to advance global delivery of IP services
* Verizon authorized to offer video service in California
* Hutchison Telecom shareholders greenlight Hutchison Essar sale
* Arris throws in towel on Tandberg purchase
TECHNOLOGY TRENDS
* CPE market gets a boost from broadband demand
* Alcatel-Lucent, Nortel announce WiMAX wins
* Samsung ultra-mobile PC supports Vista
* Alliance inks first WiMAX roaming deal
IP DOWNLOAD
* IPTV customers fond of PVR/DVR equipment
* IPv6 facilitates worldwide VoIP interoperability

Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others.
http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/gquofDtusXnnnkCibuddzayQ

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

From: Angus TeleManagement Group <jriddell@angustel.ca>
Subject: Telecom Update #570, March 9, 2007
Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2007 10:26:54 -0800


Here is a link to this week's Telecom Update from Canada.
www.angustel.ca/update/up.html

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

Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2007 16:46:06 -0500
From: Rick Merrill <rick0.merrill@NOSPAM.gmail.com>
Subject: Reverse 911


Just received a call as follows:

(999) 999-9999  NAME NOT FOUND

and it was an "amber alert" about a missing boy in our town.

Has anyone else heard of this?

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

From: billy.eichler@gmail.com
Subject: How to Change the Time on a Mitel SX-2000 Phone Switch
Date: 8 Mar 2007 14:54:13 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com


Hey, with this daylight savings time coming up early, I'm left to
change the time myself. I can't figure how to do this, does anyone
know?

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

From: JR <russet32@gmail.com>
Subject: Can CAT6 Cable Share Phone/100Mbit Ethernet?
Date: 9 Mar 2007 16:20:29 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com


I currently have a CAT6 cable running from my hub to jack behind my
tv.  Actually, there is an 8-pin jack by the hub and then one by the
tv with the CAT6 cable connecting the two.  This allows me to have an
Ethernet connection behind the tv.

I am only using 100MBit and do not have a need to do Gigabit Ethernet
in this configuration.

What I would like to do is use the existing cable and have a phone
line run out behind the tv.  I do not believe all 8 wires are used in
100 MBit Ethernet.

If this is technically doable, is there a "splitter" of shorts where I
can take the two 8-pin jacks I already have and split it into a phone
jack and then an Ethernet jack?  Does Radio Shack or anyone sell
something like this?

I am willing to rewire it myself if needed.  Any pointers or web sites
that discuss this?  I searched around and found some things that might
help but nothing that directly describes how to do what I want to do.

Thanks in advance.

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

From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: Re: Unlisted Phone Number
Date: 8 Mar 2007 14:38:21 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com


> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Obviously, in the early days of DDD,
> Bell gave directory assistance for free as a drawing card, fully
> expecting to get the 'real call' afterward.

The free long distance information was also to save them time.  In the
pre-DDD days of the 1950s and earlier, it was common for people to
call by city and person, i.e. "Long Distance get me John Jones in
Kansas City".  The long distance operator would have to call KC D/A
first to get his number, then ring up Mr. Jones himself.  Obviously
they wanted to free the operator from that first step and encouraged
people to keep a distant callers name and number, including the new
area code.  If someone didn't know the distant number, they could find
it out for themselves, again, saving an operator's time.

I think today if you were to try to place a call by name they'd do it
for you but charge you a special fee "Information via Operator charge"
and it is not cheap ($2.50-$5.00).  Indeed, if one checks modern
tarrifs operators now charge a few bucks for many services once free
(ie verification of a busy line, breaking in for an emergency call,
etc.)

Bell always used to encourage "In an emergency dial 0" and operators
were trained to take down the details if necessary and pass them on to
the police.  Not anymore, they push 911, they don't want their
operators involved in that anymore.  I wonder if the current phone
books even say to dial an operator for an emergency.  They really
discourage it.

On Mar 8, 1:18 pm, Rick Merrill <rick0.merr...@NOSPAM.gmail.com>
wrote:

> The addresses that Switchboard.com and others have do not come from
> the telephone directory and therefore they often list "unlisted
> numbers."

Those web services are inaccurate.  What troubles me is that lay
people take them for gospel.  (Recently the Inquirer published college
profs saying Wikpedia is NOT an allowable/authorative reference source
for papers; though many people think it is.)

On those sites I am listed with a phone I disconnected in 2001.  I am
not listed with my present phone.  Actually I am, but my name is
spelled wrong so a name look up won't find me.

I got upset when a distant relative called me and complained "I had a
tough time finding you, your phone is not listed."  I replied that my
phone is and always has been listed in the phone book.  She said
"well, it wasn't on the web."

There's a heck of a lot of crap on the web and ordinary consumers
don't know it.

Another example is these automatic routing programs from map services.
I know several people who ended up on dead-end streets in high crime
neighborhoods because the mapgen thought it was an on-ramp and it
wasn't.  There are many streets on official maps that don't exist in
reality -- they were planned but never physically put in or deleted.
The mapgens don't know it.  They also can't tell the difference
between a through street and an alleyway and route people wrong.

But it amazes me that otherwise intelligent people use these functions
and thing because they came from the computer/web they're perfectly
reliable.  (Why they can't look themselves on a road map I don't
know.)

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

From: T <nospam.kd1s@cox.nospam.net>
Subject: Re: Unlisted Phone Number
Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 18:27:50 -0500


In article <telecom26.67.3@telecom-digest.org>, fatkinson@mishmash.com
says:

> On Wed, 7 Mar 2007 08:02:45 -0600, Charles Gray
> <charles.gray@okstate.edu> wrote:

>> Unless something has changed recently, you can have a phone number
>> "unlisted unpublished", which means that it won't be printed in the
>> phone directory and directory assistance will not give it out.  You
>> can have an "unpublished" number, which means that DA will give it
>> out, but it won't be printed in the directory.  I don't know if the
>> charges are/were different or not.  I've always had mine "unlisted
>> unpublished".

> I had a friend years ago who had the solution.  He had his number
> listed as 'Jack Daniels' and only told people he wanted to call him
> about that.  When he'd get telemarketing calls asking for Mr.
> Daniels, he knew to immediately hang up.

> That was a way around paying extra for an unlisted number.  

> Regards, 

> Fred 

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That's not a bad idea; I have had my
> telephone listed in the name of one of my cats (under 'K' as in 
> Katz, yet) for a long time. Occassionally, however, if the name is
> 'too ridiculous sounding' telco sometimes requires you to send them
> some proof of your name, such as a copy of driver's license, etc. I
> also knew someone, years ago, who would always ask for a 'default
> listed number' but do so a day or two after the directory publisher
> had closed the entries for another year. So, he would never manage
> to actually get himself listed in the phone directory, which was his
> intent. PAT]

I kid you not but there was once a listing in New England Telephone's 
white pages for a Bippin P. Dikshit. 

That could not be a real name. But then, I've run across several odd
ones in my day so maybe it was.

And friends had the license plates I-812 and OU-812 (I ate one too,
and Oh you ate one too). That lasted for about a year until the DMV
got wind of what they were talking about.


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And you have probably heard of business
places which want to be listed _first_ in the directory, so they call
their business 'A'  in order to be first. The difficult with being 'A'
is there are so many who wish that designation, so telco's rules seem
to be that when two or more last names amd surnames are identical, all
the way down to the middle initial, then further sorting is done by
the _street_ name, so that 'John J. Smith' of 1234 Any Street is
listed prior to 'John J. Smith' of 1234 Somewhere Street, because A's
come ahead of S's.  Now if there are two or more John J. Smith's both
living on Any Street, then the sort continues by _street number_ on
'Any' street, so that the party at 1234 Any Street is listed ahead of
the party at 2345 Any Street. If a business listing has initials with
mean anything the sort is done by what the intial 'means' in real
life. So for example 'FBI' would be listed mid the 'Federal' (as the
first word) listings, where a radio station (KIND or KOSU for example)
would be listed at the first of the listings since 'K' by itself has
no generally understood meaning. Companies with numerals as part of
their name, i.e. '800 Service Corporation' generally go wherever the
number spelled out would go. i.e.'Eight Hundred Service Corporation' 

There very seldom is any rush to be the _last_ listing in the phone
book. However, to assure that remains the case, in Chicago for many
years, the final entry in the alphabetical phone book belonged to a
'Mr. Ziggy Zzyxxzy' on Zeigfeld Street.  If you do ask to be listed
_first_ in the book, Illinois Bell looks sort of askance at that, and
demands to see your paperwork from the state. For quite a few years,
literally the first listing was always 'A' (with several other A's
following him),but he came first since he was at 1 West Adams Street. I
think the one line description of the business said it was a telephone
answering service, but if you cross-checked via the number (the old
'2080' method), it was listed as Rogers Telephone Answering Service,
which was a few blocks away from '1 West Adams Street', rather than
as 'A'.  PAT]

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

From: Wesrock@aol.com
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 20:29:21 EST
Subject: Re: Old Interurbans


The Electric Interurban Railways in America

George W. Hilton and John F. Due

1960
472 pp.
37 illustrations, 51 maps.
0804740143 paper ($39.95)

In a message dated 3/7/07 11:28:43 PM Central Standard Time, 
editor@telecom-digest.org writes:

> From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
> Subject: Re: Old Interurbans (was Skokie Swift)
> Date: 7 Mar 2007 07:42:32 -0800
> Organization: http://groups.google.com

> On Mar 1, 7:13 pm, Neal McLain <nmcl...@annsgarden.com> wrote:

>> Unfortunately, most of the history of the old interurbans has been
>> lost.

> There are a great many books on the history of interurbans.  Some deal
> with interurbans in general, others are detailed stories on a specific
> line.  Some are out of print, but new ones are being published.

> Do an author search on William Middleton who has been a prolific
> writer on the subject.  Also, www.morningsunbooks.com has new books
> out.

> A brand new interurban is running between Trenton NJ and Camden NJ,
> operated by NJ Transit.

> [dupe of prior lost post]

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Another excellent interurban line for
> many years was the Chicago, South Shore and South Bend Railroad
> (the electric orange train which ran between Randolph Street in 
> downtown Chicago and South Bend, Indiana. In its hey-day, it ran every
> thirty minutes round the clock between those two points, with six or
> eight car trains. It ran on its own tracks all the way from South Bend
> to 115th Street/Kensington Station in Chicago, at which point it leased
> the Illinois Central tracks for the remainder of its trip. (ICRR was
> also an electric train with overhead catenary-style wires. Quite a few
> years back, they cut down service to South Bend to once per hour, then
> eventually just a few trains daily. Now I understand they only run the
> train as far east as Gary, Indiana and possibly one or two trains 
> daily to Michigan City, or possibly further east to South Bend. All of
> their 'own' stations -- that is, east of the split-away from Illinois
> Central at 115th Street are in terrible decay, just like CTA's
> stations.  PAT]

Wes Leatherock
wesrock@aol.com
wleathus@yahoo.com

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

From: Neal McLain <nmclain@annsgarden.com>
Subject: Re: Old Interurbans
Reply-To: nmclain@annsgarden.com
Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2007 21:27:25 -0500


I wrote:

> On Saturday, March 3, RFD-TV will telecast 'Midwest=20
> Trolley Tour Part 2.' Features Indiana, Cleveland,=20
> St. Louis, Illinois Terminal, North Shore Line winter
> scenes" as part of its regular weekly series "Trains and
> Locomotives."  I watched it earlier this week; there are
> a few brief scenes of the Skokie Swift in action.

> Saturday, March 3, 9:00 AM EST
> REF-TV

Lisa Hancock asked:

> Would you know if this will be on any other cable=20
> stations (ie BRV, Travel, etc.)?

Not that I know of.

RFD-TV is a non-profit corporation that gets its revenue from
advertising and viewer contributions ($30/year).  Advertising is
minimal: only at hourly breaks, but never during programs.  The
target audience is rural America, and the programming reflects it:
agriculture, gardening, animal husbandry, farm equipment,
horsemanship, country music, cattle auctions, FAA activities.

DirecTV (Channel 379) and Dish Network (Channel 9409) both carry
RFD-TV.  Judging from the posts I read on SCTE-list, many rural
cable systems also carry it, but the larger urban systems don't.

The companies that provide the "Trains and Locomotives" programs are
(typically) small outfits that cater to railfans; they provide the
programs to RFD-TV at no charge as a form of advertising.  The
programs usually include end-of-program plugs to draw attention to
their producers' other programs.

Commercial outfits like Travel Channel don't seem to be interested in
hour-long programs that have no commercial breaks; that appeal to
such small audiences; and that include built-in ads for the program
producers.

In a subsequent message, I wrote:

> Unfortunately, most of the history of the old interurbans
> has been lost.  Unless some dedicated railfan decided
> that a photographic record was important (and his family
> preserved the records after his death), images just don't
> exist.

PAT responded:

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That is not so in the case
> of ours!  A 30 minute video entitled "The Last Run" is
> devoted to the "Union Traction Company" (1904-1937) and
> its followup company called "Union Electric Company"
> (1937-1947) ...

That's good news.  One of these days, it might appear on RFD-TV.  If
so, I' ll let you know.

And later:

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Another excellent interurban line for
> many years was the Chicago, South Shore and South Bend Railroad (the
> electric orange train which ran between Randolph Street in downtown
> Chicago and South Bend, Indiana ...

The aforementioned 'Midwest Trolley Tour' program (which started this
tread) includes footage of the South Shore line (although it may have
been Part 1 rather than Part 2).  Both were produced by Mark 1 Video
http://www.mark1video.com/

Neal McLain

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

Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2007 16:57:01 -0500
From: Rick Merrill <rick0.merrill@NOSPAM.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: 511 Traffic Phone Lines May Raise Crash Risk


> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have always wondered by it is safe
> for police officers to talk on the radio while their car is moving
> but it is not safe for civilians to do the same thing. The answer, we
> are told, is that 'police officers have better training for same.'
> PAT]

I raised that question of driving while talking on the phone with an 
airplane pilot and he said pilots "multitask" All the time!

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

Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2007 17:39:17 -0500
From: William Warren <w_warren_nonoise\@comcast.net> (William Warren)>
Subject: Re: Phone Call Routing


John Schmerold wrote:

> How are phone calls routed and who is responsible for what?
[snip]
> Who is responsible for this routing and how does one go about protecting 
> the route to your phone number.

> The point of this exercise is performance and security.

> 1. Performance
> When we get VOIP service from a supplier, how can we determine 
> their ability to perform. On a simple level, we can ping their SIP 
> server. Fast, consistent ping may mean good service. However we don't 
> know if we just connecting to a sip server that connects to another sip 
> server that may or may not have a good connection.

Since the reason for designing ARPANET was to make effective use of
unreliable data links, the Internet's design is based on the idea of
time-shifting, i.e., that a packet which fails on one route can be
retransmitted on another without data loss. In other words, the core
protocols rely on the idea of retransmission to make up for errors
that occur while data is in transit from one point to another.

For this reason, _there is no specification for minimum transit time_
in the IPV4 protocol: it was designed to transport _data_ and its use
for phone calls is (at best) a Kludge, because voice has only a few
hundred milliseconds to make the trip from speaker to
listener. Voice-over-IP only sort-of-works in an environment where
there is a surplus of capacity.

Although VoIP works in most circumstances now, it's not possible to
_guarantee_ performance within the IPV4 protocol per se. Users who
demand "Common Carrier" grade reliability must make choices about the
network (capacity, overhead, redundancy, etc.) that are almost always
out of their hands.

> 
> 2. Security

> What if our supplier goes out of business? 

You'll have to switch: be careful to make sure that the end-point
equipment(s) aren't proprietary to a single company before you sign a
contract, or you'll be writing off the devices if the supplier goes
belly-up.

> How do we get our number?

Do you mean "How does VoIP interface with the PSTN?", or "How do we
transfer our phone number to a different supplier?". In the first
case, that's handled by the supplier and you shouldn't need to be
concerned with it unless you're trying to become an CLEC. In the
second, number portability usually allows for transfers of phone
numbers.

> How long does it take? etc etc.

How long does _what_ take? You're asking very general questions, and
unless this is for a homework project, I suggest you hire some
competent specialists to advise you.

HTH. YMMV.

William

(Filter noise from my address for direct replies)

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


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