TELECOM Digest     Tue, 13 Mar 2007 02:54:00 EDT    Volume 26 : Issue 71

Inside This Issue:                            Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Troubles with Computers'Daylight Shift (Brian Bergstein, AP)
    Internet Name System in Growing Danger (Robert Evans, Reuters)
    SC Telecommunicatioms Equipment Distribution Program (Fred Atkinson)
    Feds (Taxpayers) to Subsidize Digitial -> Analog TV Box (Dan Burstein)
    Re: Reverse 911 (Rick Merrill)
    Re: Name of Calling Feature (f@u.washington.edu)
    Re: Not So Fast, Broadband Providers Tell Big Users (T)

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Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 01:09:44 -0500
From: Brian Bergstein, AP Technology <ap@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Troubles With Computers' Daylight Shift


Few woes mark computers' daylight shift 
By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, AP Technology Writer
Mon Mar 12, 4:27 PM ET

This weekend's early switch to daylight-saving time was billed as a
little re-enactment of the Y2K computer problem at the turn of the
millennium. And as it happened, the daylight bug appeared to have
equally minor results.

Among the problems that were reported: Some customer-service call
centers struggled to open at the proper hour. Calendar software
inconsistently displayed meeting times.

But for the most part, the software patches and other tweaks applied
by technology administrators worked as planned.

"It was not very serious, but a lot of work had been happening in the
last weeks or two months to prepare for all this," said Julien Courbe,
managing director of the financial services practice at BearingPoint
Inc. a technology consultancy. "I think the work was comprehensive
enough."

Courbe said his team at BearingPoint fixed the daylight-saving rules
on 25,000 servers for its customers before the changeover and ended up
with just a dozen "causing trouble." Usually those were in older
programs, he said.

Like us humans, computers had to adapt to being told that
daylight-saving time no longer begins the first weekend in April. The
switch (along with a one-week extension of daylight time beginning
this fall) stemmed from a 2005 federal law that sought to save energy
by shifting more natural light to the evening hours.

Most home PCs got the time patches sent automatically, but users
without automatic updates who now sport erroneous clocks should visit
their providers' Web sites such as http://www.microsoft.com/dst2007 .
.  

People with Windows 2000 machines or older ones need to make their
fixes manually.

If corporate tech administrators had done nothing, computers programmed 
before the 2005 law would have kept standard time until April 1. Nothing 
dire was likely to happen, unlike the computer crashes feared when the 
Y2K bug made machines think 1999 had given way to 1900. Still, being an 
hour off could disrupt calendaring software and transaction processing.

For example, some financial networks require that multiple machines 
coordinate, and an errant computer could screw it up. That's why the New 
York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market ran tests Sunday before 
pronouncing their systems fit for Monday's trading sessions.

But while the markets ticked on as usual, not everything was running 
correctly.

Anthony Hersey went to the Office of the City Clerk in New York on 
Monday to get a marriage license, and noticed that its 
computer-controlled time stamp said 7:50 a.m., even though the office 
didn't open until 8:30.

At NetTeks Technology Consultants Inc. in Boston, founder Ethan Simmons 
said the phones were "ringing off the hook" with problem reports, 
including some in automated communications systems. In a few instances, 
a company's network was an hour late in releasing calls to 
customer-support staff at the opening of business, leaving the "agents 
sitting around twiddling their thumbs," Simmons said.

Those and other problems may have been caused by companies' failure to 
administer patches properly or to do it at all. Indeed, a few consumer 
devices were an hour ahead Sunday rather than an hour behind, as if 
overcompensating.

A mishmash of patches in place and not in place likely caused some other 
oddities. For example, TiVo Inc. warned subscribers last week that their 
digital video recorders might display the wrong time for three weeks and 
that some scheduled recordings might need to be altered. At least some 
TiVos ended up showing the wrong time Saturday in advance of the switch, 
but became correct Sunday.

Ron O'Brien, an analyst for computer-security provider Sophos PLC, 
noticed Monday that his laptop calendar told him he had a conference 
call at 10:30 a.m., but his BlackBerry listed the same event at 9:30 
a.m. He dialed in one hour too early and found himself alone on the call.

"There's going to be this code or etiquette issue the next few days,"
he said. "It's not going to be life-threatening, but it's going to be
`nuisance' is almost too big a word it's going to be inconvenient."

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

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

Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 01:00:57 -0500
From: Robert Evans <reuters@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Internet Name System in Growing Danger


By Robert Evans

The Internet's key site identity system is in mounting danger from new
techniques that could cause havoc by turning it into a free-for-all
market, the World Intellectual Property Organization WIPO warned on
Monday.

And the United Nations' agency said the latest trends in registering
top-level domain names (TLDs) -- like http://www.reuters.com -- could
undermine dispute procedures under which patent holders can pursue
"cybersquatters."

"Domain names used to be primarily specific identifiers of businesses
and other Internet users, but many names nowadays are mere commodities
for speculative gain," senior WIPO official Francis Gurry told a news
conference.

Gurry, who runs the agency's own site-name dispute system, said the
growth of computer-driven practices, like automatic mass harvesting of
expired TLDs and "domain-name tasting," risks turning the system "into
a mostly speculative market."

It could also leave trademark owners, even rich and powerful
companies, facing virtually unmanageable challenges to their name
patents, and make it increasingly difficult for ordinary Internet
users to locate genuine sites.

In the early years of the Internet, the main challenge to the TLD
system -- which includes the generic .com, .net and .int addresses as
well as country codes like .fr (France) and .jp (Japan) -- came mainly
from individuals, so-called "cybersquatters."

These would register a site using a slight variation of the name of a
well-known firm or celebrity with an already existing Internet address
in the usually well-founded hope of being able to sell it at a high
price.

Since 1999, WIPO has operated a system under which cybersquatters can
be challenged and have the sites they registered closed down or more
usually transferred to the genuine owner of the name, if an arbitrator
so rules.

Over the past eight years, the WIPO system has handled nearly 10,200
cases, in which complainants won 85 percent. But still the number of
complaints has kept growing, reaching 1,823 last year, the most since
2000.

Gurry said the new techniques used by cybersquatters -- who include
many adapting common drug names to sell doubtful or fake medicines
over the Internet -- meant the volume of potential new cases was
growing exponentially.

Among these techniques was the use of computer software to automatically
detect expired site names, re-register them with one of the thousands
of official registrars around the world and park them on portals
bringing advertising revenue.

Another was the introduction by registrars, whose numbers are also
growing rapidly, of a system of free-of-charge five-day "tasting
periods" during which sites can bring in advertising revenue and then
be closed, only to be re-registered elsewhere.

Domain names, said Gurry, are becoming "moving targets for rights
holders."


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: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 16:29:54 -0700
From: Fred Atkinson <fatkinson@mishmash.com>
Reply-To: fatkinson@mishmash.com
Subject: SC Telecommunicatioms Equipment Distribution Program


Folks, 

My father is in a nursing home.  He is very hearing impaired.  When I
visited him over the weekend, he asked me to get a telephone installed
in his room as he's been there for two months and has had very little
contact with anyone (other than the small complement of family and a
couple of local friends that are regularly visiting).  Some of our
very distantly located relatives have expressed that they'd like to be
able to call him and see how he is doing.  When I talked with the head
nurse, she told me that the nursing home had no issue with that and
that I could go right ahead.  They even have duplex RJ-11 wall
faceplates in the room so the installation should be very simple for
Bellsouth to do.

I wanted to see about getting him a phone that would be effective in
view of his hearing impairment.  I did some searching on the Internet
over the weekend and discovered that the South Carolina School for the
Deaf and Blind provides telecommunications equipment for the Deaf,
Blind, and Hearing Impaired (the capitalizations are politically
correct according to Deaf culture rules of spelling and grammar, by
the way) in the state of SC.  They do this through a program called
the South Carolina Telecommunications Equipment Distribution Program
(SC TEDP).

I contacted SC TEDP this morning right after I ordered the phone line
(which they are going to install in his room on Thursday).  I was able
to download most of the paperwork from their Web site.  They have a
wide number of different phones and other assistive devices (visual
ringers for the Deaf and Hearing impaired and even a Weather radio).
You can check their Web site at
http://www.scsdb.k12.sc.us/outreach/TEDP.htm for information about SC
TEDP.  In the event you live in SC and have family members who have
these disabilities, I'd suggest you contact them.  They provide
assistive devices to anyone who is certified to have one (or more) of
these disabilities.

I had to go to my father's audiologist's office and have them fill out
and sign the form certifying that he was tested and found to be
hearing impaired.  I also had to fill out a one page requisition form.
And I had to get proof he had telephone service where he is living
right now.

Whoops.  The service hasn't been installed yet much less do we have a
bill for it.  I called Bellsouth and asked them to FAX me a copy of
the service order.  I explained why.  I was told it would be FAXed in
the next few minutes.  I waited a good bit of time and called back.
This agent emailed the other agent.  He responded and said he'd
already FAXed it but he'd FAX it again.  After some more time went by,
still no FAX.  I called back.  This agent said that after he said he'd
already FAXed it, he probably discovered that he wasn't allowed to FAX
it (I asked her to listen to what she just said).  I spoke to a
supervisor who told me she'd mail it to me.  I told her that wouldn't
do because I had to go back to Georgia tonight and I needed it to get
the special needs phone before the end of the day.  She kept repeating
that she could mail it and I finally told her not to tell me that
again.

Finally (quite some time later), they FAXed me a letter [on Bellsouth
letterhead] saying that the service would be installed at his new
address on Thursday.

Armed with this letter, the audiologist's certification that Dad is
hearing impaired, and the requisition form I had to fill out, I drove
over to SC TEDP and met Miss Jessie (the very nice lady I'd spoken to
on the phone about getting Dad's assistive unit).  She showed me
several different models I could choose from.  I chose a unit that was
really designed for those who are both blind and hearing impaired.  It
gives up to 35 dB of amplification and has *very* large buttons on the
touch tone pad.  It also speaks the digits as you dial them.

After stopping to get my lunch plus batteries and a thirteen foot wall
cord for the unit, I drove over to see Dad and set up his phone for
him.  He was happy about that and I told him that he'd get his
telephone line on Thursday.  I even spoke with the maintenance folks
at the nursing home there so they'd know Bellsouth would be coming and
be expecting them.

I'll give him a call on Thursday from Georgia and see how well it is
working for him.

Our family is very grateful to the folks at the South Carolina School
for the Deaf and Blind.

Regards, 


Fred Atkinson 

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

Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 23:19:41 EDT
From: Danny Burstein <dannyb@panix.com>
Subject: Feds (Taxpayers) to Subsidize Digitial -> Analog TV Boxes 


( no word in the press release as to how much power these will
use. And they'll still badly mangle any attempt at recording.)

" ... WASHINGTON, D.C.

The Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and
Information Administration (NTIA) announced today the final rule for
the Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Coupon Program (coupon program)
designed to help consumers continue receiving free, over-the-air
television when full-power television stations cease analog
broadcasting after February 17, 2009, as authorized in the Digital
Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005 (the Act).  ...  "

Starting Jan. 1, 2008, all U.S. households will be eligible to request
up to two $40 coupons to be used toward the purchase of up to two,
digital-to-analog converter boxes ...  ...  rest, including
clickthroughs to the technical announcement:
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/press/2007/DTVfinalrule_031207.htm

_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
 		     dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

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

Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 16:40:53 -0400
From: Rick Merrill <rick0.merrill@NOSPAM.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Reverse 911


Rick Merrill wrote:

> Claude J Ortega wrote:

>> 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

> They would leave a message except that they want to be sure the message 
> was "heard".

> My wife's reaction was, "what?!  I want to hear it again!"

> There should be a number that one can call back so that other
> members of the household can hear the information from the source.

Apparently some services do provide that facility at an additional
cost, but the basic Reverse 911 is a free service to Police
departments in the USA.

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

Subject: Re: Name of Calling Feature
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 16:36:01 -0700
From: f@u.washington.edu


In comp.dcom.telecom, was written:

> I have been aware of a custom calling feature that allows you to call
> a number and be intercepted with a prompt to enter a PIN number before
> the call is allowed to ring through.

> What is the name of this customer calling service?

I belive that you are referring to AT&T EasyReach 800.  There are many
such lines in use, though a web search will only turn up scans of
1-800 numbers that include EasyReach lines.  It doesn't seem to be
offered any more.


Duncan Smith  --------------------\  Signed/encrypted mail preferred.
http://students.washington.edu/f/  \--------------------------------

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

From: T <nospam.kd1s@cox.nospam.net>
Subject: Re: Not So Fast, Broadband Providers Tell Big Users
Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 22:31:16 -0400


In article <telecom26.70.2@telecom-digest.org>, monty@roscom.com says:

> Firms impose limits even as demand rises
> By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Staff  |  March 12, 2007

> Amanda Lee of Cambridge received a call from Comcast Corp. in December
> ordering her to curtail her Web use or lose her high-speed Internet
> connection for a year.

> Lee, who said she had been using the same broadband connection for
> years without a problem, was taken aback. But when she asked what the
> download limit was, she was told there was no limit, that she was just
> downloading too much.

> Then in mid-February, her Internet service was cut off without further
> warning.

> For Lee and an increasing number of people, a high-speed Internet
> connection is a lifeline to everyday entertainment and communication.
> Television networks are posting shows online; retailers are lining up
> to offer music and movie downloads; thousands of Internet radio
> stations stream music; more people are using WiFi phones; and "over
> the top TV," in which channels stream over the Internet, is predicted
> to grow.

> That means that more customers may become familiar with Comcast's
> little-known acceptable-use policy, which allows the company to cut
> off service to customers who use the Internet too much. Comcast says
> that only .01 percent of its 11.5 million residential high-speed
> Internet customers fall into this category.

> http://www.boston.com/business/personaltech/articles/2007/03/12/not_so_fast_broadband_providers_tell_big_users/

Comcast sucks, and not in a good way. Every person I know that has
Comcast can't wait until Verizon gets FIOS into their area.

When someone is willing to jump into the waiting arms of a company 
that's screwed them over for years, you know that Comcast really stinks. 

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


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End of TELECOM Digest V26 #71
*****************************