TELECOM Digest     Sat, 10 Mar 2007 18:35:00 EST    Volume 26 : Issue 69

Inside This Issue:                            Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    MIT Begins Offering All Its Courses FREE on the Internet! (Reuters News)
    Yahoo to Lose Contract With AT&T (Michael Liedtke, AP Business)
    Re: Can CAT6 Cable Share Phone/100Mbit Ethernet? (Carl Navarro)
    Re: Can CAT6 Cable Share Phone/100Mbit Ethernet? (Robert Bonomi)
    Re: Can CAT6 Cable Share Phone/100Mbit Ethernet? (Gordon  Hlavenka)
    Re: Reverse 911 (Claude J Ortega)
    Re: 511 Traffic Phone Lines May Raise Crash Risk (David B. Horvath, CCP)
    Re: 511 Traffic Phone Lines May Raise Crash Risk (Dave Close)
    Re: 511 Traffic Phone Lines May Raise Crash Risk (Jim Stewart)
    Re: How to Change the Time on a Mitel SX-2000 Phone Switch (Joseph Singer)

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Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 16:10:11 -0600
From: Reuters News Wire <reuters@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: MIT Begins Offering its Courses FREE on the Internet, All 1800!


MIT to offer its courses free online by year end.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology will become by year's end
the first U.S. university to offer all of its roughly 1,800 courses
free on the Internet, a school official said on Friday.

"We started this project because MIT believes that one of the best ways 
to advance education around the world is through the Internet," said 
Anne Margulies, head of online curriculum.

Online students will not be able to earn an MIT degree or have contact
with faculty at the university, located across the river from Boston
in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

MIT launched its "OpenCourseWare" program in 2003 and already offers
hundreds of courses online. A small number of other U.S. schools are
following suit. Stanford put some classes on line last year and Bryn
Mawr plans to do so soon.

Last month, 1.5 million users went to the MIT course site, sampling 
offerings like Cognitive Robotics, Inventions and Patents, and 
Superconducting Magnets.

Most users -- 60 percent come from outside the United States --
gravitate toward the subjects MIT is best-known for: computer science,
physics and mathematics, Margulies said.

Even MIT students who pay thousands of dollars in tuition fees for
each course use the free online service to study for exams or sample
what courses they may want to take on campus, Margulies said.


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: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 16:18:16 -0600
From: Michael Liedtke, AP Business <ap@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Yahoo to Lose Contract With AT&T


Yahoo stock dives on news of AT&T loss 
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer

Yahoo Inc.'s recently resurgent stock retreated by more than 5 percent
Friday amid fears that a setback in a lucrative partnership with AT&T
Inc. will undercut the anticipated gains from an overhaul of the Web
portal's advertising platform.

The sell-off was triggered by an unconfirmed report in The Wall Street
Journal that AT&T wants to stop giving Yahoo a slice of the subscriber
fees from a 6-year-old co-branding agreement to sell Internet access
in most of the country.

If AT&T gets its way, Yahoo would have to be satisfied with whatever
money it could make by selling its own online products, such as
digital music or matchmaking services, to subscribers of the joint
service.

In a statement issued late Friday, San Antonio-based AT&T and
Sunnyvale-based Yahoo said they are constantly examining ways to adapt
to changing market conditions. Neither company addressed the substance
of the Journal's report, which the statement described as
"speculation."

"As we continue our conversations, we have a common goal to increase
the economic benefits for both parties," Yahoo Chairman Terry Semel
said.

By the time Semel weighed in, investors had already drawn their own
negative conclusions. Yahoo shares dropped $1.59, or 5.2 percent, to
close at $29.12 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Before Friday's downturn, Yahoo's stock had climbed by 20 percent this
year, rebounding from a horrible 2006 performance. That reflected Wall
Street's widespread belief that Yahoo will prosper from a month-old
upgrade to its formula for linking ads to search requests.

But a reshuffling of the AT&T deal would deliver a substantial blow.

Under the current terms of the contract, AT&T is believed to pay Yahoo 
$200 to $250 million annually, accounting for more than 25 percent of 
the $798 million in total fees that the Internet powerhouse collected 
last year. Most of Yahoo's revenue -- which totaled $6.4 billion last 
year -- comes from advertising.

Compounding the pain, Yahoo's profit margins on the AT&T partnership
are much higher than on many of its other services because the
telecommunications carrier handles most of the heavy lifting.

Standard & Poor's analyst Scott Kessler estimated the AT&T deal
generated somewhere between $30 million to $70 million, or 2 to 5
cents per share, of Yahoo's 2006 profit of $751 million.

Analysts expect Yahoo to earn nearly $780 million, or 54 cents per
share, this year.

The damage to Yahoo could be worse if its other major Internet access 
partners -- Verizon Communications Inc., BT Group PLC and Rogers 
Communications Inc. -- follow AT&T's lead when they renegotiate their 
contracts.

Yahoo hasn't publicly disclosed the length of the contracts with its
Internet access partners, but the AT&T alliance reportedly expires in
April 2008.

Friday's news woke up many investors who thought Yahoo had turned the
corner after slowing revenue growth and competitive challenges posed
by increasingly popular Internet hangouts like MySpace.com contributed
to last year's 35 percent decline in Yahoo's stock price.

An improved advertising system known as "Panama" -- unveiled Feb. 5
after a three-month delay -- has become the foundation for Yahoo's
turnaround hopes. The upgrade is supposed to begin boosting Yahoo's
profit in the second half of this year -- a prospect that now looks
shakier, Kessler said.

"A lot of people have gotten scared again and are starting to realize
that they have been pinning their hopes on the promise of something
that is still uncertain," he said.

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:
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I saw this when it started, several
years ago; first there was 'Yahoo whatever' then it switched to
'(telco) Yahoo' and you had to use telco's DSL to get Yahoo to work
correctly. I am reminded of the middle age man and woman who had
a very good thing going with their little home 'cottage industry' 
factory making trinkets of some kind or another. Then _Walmart_ got
interested. Walmart agreed to sell the trinkets but only on the 
condition this man and woman were the sole suppliers.

The couple were thrilled to death to get that Walmart supplier
contract! Where they had been selling a few dozen trinkets each month,
and making a modest, but decent living, now they would be making
*much* more money. Business got to be so good for them, they wound up
having to drop many of their old established customers; no time nor
resources to handle them. But that was okay, the Walmart business
would offset the loss of a 'few' of their older customers. All went
well for a few years, then one day Walmart decided to change the
payment terms. Instead of payment in 30 days, it would now be payment
in 60 days. Then, it eventually got to the point that Walmart decided
this couple would no longer be the sole supplier; i.e. they would have
to compete with other makers of trinkets. Eventually, the couple wound
up going out of business; Walmart would not help them any. 

Lesson to be learned is _never_ allow your business to become sole
supplier of _anything_ to Walmart; (nor, telco for that matter; Yahoo
was the exclusive supplier of network software to the telcos for quite a
long time). I remember quite well, late 1980's, early 1990's how Yahoo
was literally a small mom and pop type outfit. Basically, Southwestern
Bell (the old name of the present AT&T) is going to damn near put them
out of business from demands made upon them at one time or another. PAT] 

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

From: Carl Navarro <cnavarro@wcnet.org>
Subject: Re: Can CAT6 Cable Share Phone/100Mbit Ethernet?
Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2007 21:51:35 -0500
Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online http://www.rr.com


On 9 Mar 2007 16:20:29 -0800, JR <russet32@gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.

I guess the phrase UTP PORT DOUBLER works.

Try this link:
http://www.lindy.com/us/productfolder/03/34/34002/index.php

About $10.00 each.

Carl Navarro

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

From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
Subject: Re: Can CAT6 Cable Share Phone/100Mbit Ethernet?
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 08:09:25 -0000
Organization: Widgets, Inc.


In article <telecom26.68.8@telecom-digest.org>, JR
<russet32@gmail.com> wrote:

> 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 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.

Not much to discuss. The standards were designed with this eventuality
in mind, although it is contrary to contemporary 'best practice'.

Ethernet runs on pins 1,2,3,6.  the center pair -- 4,5 -- is the standard
'pair 1', for telephony use.

Note: considerable care -will- have to be exercised in constructig the
'splitter', to maintain a quality 100mbit connection.  Spec. requires
that you maintain the 'twist' in the pairs to  within 1/2" of the connector.

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

Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2007 22:13:20 -0600
From: Gordon S. Hlavenka <nospam@crashelex.com>
Reply-To: nospam@crashelex.com
Organization: Crash Electronics
Subject: Re: Can CAT6 Cable Share Phone/100Mbit Ethernet? TELECOM


JR wrote:

> 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.

Only two pairs are used for ethernet.  If your cables are wired in a
typical way (T568A or B) then the first pair (blue, in the center) and
the fourth pair (brown, on one side) are not used and you can hook up
two phone lines or a second ethernet run.*

N.B. this is not a recommended use and should not be done if you are 
installing the cable professionally but I have never had any trouble 
stealing the two extra pairs for my own in-house purposes.

I have seen a "splitter" that turns one ethernet cable into two 
connections by using the extra pairs** but I have never seen one that 
breaks out telephone on the spares; you'll have to do that one yourself.


* http://www.duxcw.com/faq/network/diff568ab.htm
** http://tinyurl.com/2o8uae
-- 
Gordon S. Hlavenka           http://www.crashelectronics.com
               It's bad luck to be superstitious

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

From: Claude J Ortega <cj-usenet-01_SPAM@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: Reverse 911
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 10:13:12 -0600
Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com


In article <telecom26.68.6@telecom-digest.org>,
rick0.merrill@NOSPAM.gmail.com says...

> 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?

Yep, my town is trying it out.

I have an answering machine on my line, to filter out the
telemarketers, and the reverse 911 system just hangs up without giving
out the 'important' message.  :-(

Claude

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

Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2007 21:18:20 -0500
From: David B. Horvath, CCP <dhorvath@notchur.biz>
Subject: Re: 511 Traffic Phone Lines May Raise Crash Risk


PAT: PLEASE DELETE EMAIL ADDRESS, NAME IS OK.

> On Thu, 08 Mar 2007 16:57:01 -0500, Rick Merrill 
> <rick0.merrill@NOSPAM.gmail.com> wrote:
> I raised that question of driving while talking on the phone with an
> airplane pilot and he said pilots "multitask" All the time!

I'm learning to fly. One of the things you're taught is to shed load
(drop the less important tasks). One of the sayings is:

"Aviate, Navigate, Communicate" in order of importance -- fly the
plane, figure out where you are, and then talk on the radio.

Now, that phrase is aimed at emergency situations ... But it does 
apply to general pilot activities.


- David

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

From: Dave Close <dave@compata.com>
Subject: Re: 511 Traffic Phone Lines May Raise Crash Risk
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 05:54:46 UTC
Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California


bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) writes:

> It is also true that police officers _do_ have more training on the
> subject than "Joe Sixpack' does.  I don't know of a civiian 'drivers
> ed' course that touches on the matter, nor a state license exam that
> addresses it.

All of that, true or not, does not address the question of actual
safety.  Some civilians are former police officers, for example, and
could have experienced the same training you say makes it ok to talk
while driving.  Yet all civilians are nominally subject to the laws
against using a phone while driving. (Though I'm sure it's true that a
former officer would get a pass from most cops after he showed his
identification.)

The fact remains that, before these new laws, it was already illegal
to fail to pay attention while driving. The purpose of the cell phone
ban is not to create a crime where there wasn't one but to make it
easier to prove the crime. Unfortunately, the laws also /do/ create a
new crime, using a cell phone while still paying attention to
driving. Why should that be a crime? Just so the officer doesn't have
to decide if a driver was paying attention before citing a violation?
Those officers who are so highly trained to be aware of everything
going on shouldn't have to be sufficiently aware to make such a simple
decision? Baloney.

Do you think that someone stuck in traffic which is not moving /at
all/ should not be able to use his cell phone to call 511? Do you
think that someone driving on a rural Interstate and observing a drunk
driver should /not/ call 911 to report that observation? Or should
pull onto the shoulder before making the call? If you say to pull onto
the shoulder, are you ok that making that rule will mean fewer reports
of drunk drivers?  -- Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA "Greed is to
the moralists of the dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 left what sex
is to the moralists dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu of the right." - Cathy
Young


Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA  "Politics is the business of getting
dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359    power and privilege without
dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu           possessing merit." - P. J. O'Rourke

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

Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2007 18:01:49 -0800
From: Jim Stewart <jstewart@jkmicro.com>
Subject: Re: 511 Traffic Phone Lines May Raise Crash Risk


TELECOM Digest Editor wrote:

>> [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!

I'm currently training for a private pilot's license.  It's true that
pilots multitask all the time.  OTOH, for a private pilot, most of the
communications are standardized and of the form of a terse
announcement with a defined and memorized structure rather than a
2-way conversation. Furthermore, aviation english uses only 300 unique
words.

I've also heard that the only bird that can both talk and fly is the
parrot, and it can't do either very well ...

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

Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 20:49:19 PST
From: Mr Joseph Singer <joeofseattle@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: How to Change the Time on a Mitel SX-2000 Phone Switch


billy.eichler@gmail.com 8 Mar 2007 14:54:13 -0800 wrote:

> 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?

Please note that it is daylight *saving* time and not daylight savings
time.

http://www.energy.ca.gov/daylightsaving.html


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In any event, please do not forget that
Saturday night/Sunday morning is the start of Daylight Saving Time and
you need to set your clocks forward one hour if you live in the United
States. Since the USA chose arbitrarily to set clocks up early this
year (instead of waiting until April as in the past) I am not certain
if other countries are going to follow the same schedule or not, nor
for that matter, if all computers will 'know' to move their time up or
not. For those of us with direct internet connections, i.e. DSL or
cable, and particularly with a connection and software via internet to
the master clock, I suppose our computers will do okay. In the past,
every year in April I woke up on Sunday morning to see the computer
set to the correct 'new' time automatically. Those of you who rely on
setting the computer clock manually (lacking Windows or Unix or
whoever to do it) I cannot tell you what to expect. Maybe someone can
tell Billy Eichler what to do, assuming his Mitel SX-2000 does not
automatically handle it for him. Anyway, let's all do it now, before
we go to slep for the night.  PAT]

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


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End of TELECOM Digest V26 #69
*****************************