TELECOM Digest     Sat, 24 Mar 2007 18:55:00 EDT    Volume 26 : Issue 82

Inside This Issue:                            Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Judge Hits Vonage With Injuction; Stop Using Verizon Technology (P Kaplan)
    AT&T Bought Infreeda?!?! (Mike Sandman)
    Re: Unlisted Phone Number (Lisa Hancock)
    Re: "Please Enter Your ID Number" So We May Ignore it (William Warren)
    Re: "Please Enter Your ID Number" So We May Ignore it (T)
    Re: "Please Enter Your ID Number" So We May Ignore it (harold@hallikainen)

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Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 17:23:03 -0500
From: Peter Kaplan, Reuters News Wire <reuters@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Judge Hits Vonage With Injuction; Stop Using Verizon Technology


By Peter Kaplan

A federal judge dealt a blow to Vonage Holdings Corp. that sent its
stock reeling on Friday, when he agreed to bar the company from using
Internet phone call technology patented by Verizon Communications Inc.

Vonage said it was confident its customers would not experience
service interruptions, but investors sent its shares down nearly 26
percent.

U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton said he would delay signing the
order for two weeks to give Vonage time to try to convince him to stay
the injunction while it appeals the entire patent infringement
case. "I will sign the injunction at the time I rule on the stay,"
Hilton said at a hearing.

Hilton agreed with Verizon that it would suffer irreparable harm if he 
allowed continued infringement of the Voice-over-Internet Protocol 
(VoIP) technologies that allow consumers to make calls over the Internet.

He rejected arguments by Vonage that the harm to Verizon, the No. 2
U.S.  telephone company, was outweighed by other factors, including
the public interest.

"I don't think it's going to kill Vonage," said Albert Lin, an analyst
at American Technology Research. But he said the legal costs and
management distractions were disruptive.

Vonage has been public for less than a year, and its stock has lost
value consistently since its initial public offering at $17 a share in
May. It reached a new low Friday, closing down $1.05 at $3 per share
on the New York Stock Exchange.

Vonage said the patent battle was far from over and the company would
vigorously defend itself.

"Despite this obvious attempt by Verizon to cripple Vonage, the
litigation will not stop Vonage from continuing to provide quality
VoIP service to our millions of customers," Vonage chief executive
Mike Snyder said in a statement.

OPERATING CHALLENGES

Vonage has previously said it is working on redesigned technologies to 
avoid infringing Verizon's patents.

"It should likely continue as an independent company, but their
operating challenges will have increased," said Stanford Group analyst
Clayton Moran, who also warned that Vonage's subscriber growth could
slow.

A jury on March 8 found Vonage had infringed three patents owned by
Verizon. The jury said Vonage must pay $58 million plus 5.5 percent
royalties on future sales.

"They could not have been commercially successful if they had not
taken these patents we have and put them into their technologies," Dan
Webb, an attorney for Verizon, said at Friday's hearing on the
injunction request.

Webb also cited documents Vonage filed with the court under seal,
saying an injunction would cause "enormous business difficulties" for
Vonage.  Webb said the Vonage filings suggested that Vonage "can't
live with an injunction because of the way their technology is
designed."

Vonage's chief lawyer, Sharon O'Leary, declined to comment on the
sealed documents.

"We will get the stay, either through the district court or the
Federal Circuit Court of Appeals," O'Leary told Reuters outside the
court.

One patent lawyer told Reuters that Vonage has a chance of winning an
appeal, but it was crucial to get a stay of the injunction.

"A one-and-a-half to two-year injunction, even if they win on appeal, 
could be very significant to Vonage," said John Rabena, a partner with 
the firm Sughrue Mion.

(Additional reporting by Ritsuko Ando in New York)

Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 21:29:27 -0500
From: Mike Sandman <mike@sandman.com>
Subject: AT&T Bought Infreeda?!?!


FYI:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/12/26/att-acquires-infreeda-gets-into-free-411-business/

Mike

Mike Sandman  630-980-7710

mike@sandman.com  - http://www.sandman.com

Check out our catalog of Unique Telecom Products & Tools.

We have a fantastic assortment of Cable Installation Tools
and Training Videos to help you use them. New "Basic Installation 2" is a 3 
tape set, 6 hours that shows you how to build a frame.

Also check out our Telephony History Page which contains ads, catalogs and 
information from telephony related magazines from the first part of the 
last century: http://www.sandman.com/telhist.html
 

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: http://infreeda.com, a free directory 
assistance service was indeed purchased by AT&T a couple months
ago. They seem to have done it sort of quietly.   PAT]

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

From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
Subject: Re: Unlisted Phone Number
Date: 23 Mar 2007 19:45:02 -0700
Organization: http://groups.google.com


Mr Joseph Singer wrote:

>> The same article reported that Direct Distance Dialing (1+) was
>> available for all NYC subscribers.

> New York City subscribers never used 1+ they either dialed 7 digits or
> a 3 digit area code and 7 digits ...

In that context, by "1", I meant station-to-station calls, as opposed
to person, collect, T&C, calling card, etc.  Sorry for any
misunderstanding.

For 1960, I think it's pretty remarkable that NYC and many of its
suburbs had DDD service.  But NYC was a pioneer in network management.
It had to be, with the enormous volume of calls within and between the
city and Long Island, Westchester county, and New Jersey.

It's also notable that much of the country, at least 11 states, were
not as yet equipped to receive DDD calls.  We forget that the
implementation of DDD required both new equipment at the sending end
as well as new equipment and often numbering changes at the receiving
end.  It's one thing to assign everyone a unique ten digit number
nationwide, but quite another to convert local switchgear to
accomodate it.  It's also impressive in that the "logic" to handle
billing records, signalling, and routing, was all done by relays.

The NYC area was also a pioneer on direct-dialed operator handled
calls (0+ and coin station called "TSP").  Some parts of the area had
a "pre-TSP" service in the mid-1950s as a trial.  I'm not exactly sure
when NYC got TSP service but I think it was in the very early 1960s.
TSP was a major boon to operator productivity.

On some website I read that Bell developed a service life extender for
cord switchboards.  They replaced the old 10 button dial keyset with a
computer entry keypad which let the operator enter the AMA information
directly instead of writing up a charge ticket and a computer handled
supervision and timing automatically.  If anyone knows more about how
this worked, would you post details?  I think the operator still
manipulated the cords for the connection.  Actually, I think by the
1960s on station calls coding the charge tickets took more time than
establishing the connection, and the operators' job was more clerical.

I think by then for most calls the operator merely plugged into any
outward trunk and dialed the 10 digit number, the switching did the
rest automatically.  DDD was essentially adding billing records (AMA)
to that process.

As an aside, although TSP/TSPS was automatic, full provision was made
for operators to fill out their own charge tickets in the traditional
fashion and maintain close supervision of a call.  I'm not sure what
kind of calls required that extra handling, unless perhaps there was
an AMA failure.  Every operator had a full stock of blank tickets and
the special pencil for them.  There were slots in the console to hold
the card during a call.

(The manual charge tickets were actually blank mark sense punched
cards.  They were fed through an IBM machine which translated the
markings into punches, then regular IBM machines processed the cards.
Bell used this system well into the 1970s even though the card gear
dated from the late 1940s.  Bell also used such cards as a turnaround
document for customer's bills.)

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

Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 21:36:30 -0400
From: William Warren <w_warren_nonoise@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: "Please Enter Your ID Number" So We May Ignore it


hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

> On Mar 22, 10:41 am, davide...@gmail.com wrote:
[snip]

> These same $&*%# people encourage you to use the web, but they screw
> you over on that as well.  It's not a simple enter your name and
> secret code and you immediately get the data you need.  No, they want
> to sell you something first, then make you agree to some microfine-
> print contract, etc.  I tried getting on to a credit card company but
> I rejected the terms of their contract which authorized lots of spam
> from them.  No matter, I still get the spam and they tell me there's
> nothing we can do about it.  No, I can't change credit cards because
> they all credit cards come from very few places these days.

[snip]

Lisa,

It's not for everybody, but I solve the problem by using my Linux
server, which gives me an inexhaustible supply of throwaway email
addresses. I give companies an address that clearly identifies them,
and the first time I get an email I don't like, the address goes away.

Of course, I have other reasons for maintaining a Linux server, 
including keeping track of my son's browsing habits, having a ticketing 
system for my business, and as a demonstration site for web projects. As 
I say, it's not for everybody.

Other users can make use of the "extra" email accounts their ISP 
provides: most major ISPs provide five, six, or even eight email 
addresses for a subscriber to use. If you have an extra address or two, 
just use one for this purpose, and clear it out every week/month/whatever.

As a last resort, you can create some throwaway addresses on hotmail or 
netscape, and just abandon them when you want. There's more than one way 
to skin a cat.

FWIW. YMMV.

William

(Filter noise from my address for direct replies)

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

From: T <nospam.kd1s@cox.nospam.net>
Subject: Re: "Please Enter Your ID Number" So We May Ignore it
Organization: The Ace Tomato and Cement Company
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 02:33:26 -0400


In article <telecom26.81.12@telecom-digest.org>, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com 
says:

> On Mar 22, 10:41 am, davide...@gmail.com wrote:

>> I recently called the local Blue Cross.  I waded through the
>> voicemail, and then they asked for subscriber id.  This is now done
>> with voice recognition since the subscriber ID now has letters. (Why?
>> We moved away from SS numbers, but why add letters?  10 billion ids
>> aren't enough?)  Then I connect and they ask my ID number again!  Why
>> waste my time and their money on the voice system?

> Oh boy, does voice recognition drive me crazy and raise my blood
> pressure!  (Ironically from calling to Blue Cross!  Do they know
> they're making their subscribers sicker?)

> Voice recognition never seems to work for me.  I don't like it at
> all.  I complain to the human who eventually answers and they say "oh
> yes, we have a lot of complaints on that".  Well, get rid of it, damn
> it!

> I don't mind--as much--keying an ID into a Touch Tone phone, at least
> that's hopefully clear to them what I'm doing.

> Back in the 1960s the movies/TV had spoofs of future life, with
> frustrated people trying to order a computer to do something.  I think
> "Get Smart" made fun of instructions that the computer or robot
> (Hymie) took absolutely literally instead of figuratively.  (e.g. "Run
> this through the computer" meant he would physically run through the
> computer gear.)  Other sci-fi movies did so, sometimes with seriously
> unpleasant results.  Generally, they mocked the upcoming technical
> revolution.

> And they were right.  Reciting your 16 digits is harder than tapping
> them in, especially when the machine comes back "Sorry, I do not
> understand" five times and you go crazy trying to get through it.

> And the S.O.B. administrators won't let you enter zero to get a human,
> they freakin' force you to go through their hell.

Cox technical support for HSI recently rolled out a voice response 
troubleshooter that is absolutely useless and only serves to frustrate. 

One of the first things its says is "Hmmm, I can't see your modem. Try
unplugging it, wait twenty seconds and then plug it back in. Say
'continue' when you're ready."

Since I've already tried that little tech support trick, I just start 
screaming "AGENT" about twenty times and that finally gets the system to 
connect me to a human. 

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

From: harold@hallikainen.com <harold@hallikainen.com>
Subject: Re: "Please Enter Your ID Number" So We May Ignore it
Date: 24 Mar 2007 11:09:36 -0700
Organization: http://groups.google.com


I think the voice recognition systems are getting pretty good. I find
it a lot easier to speak the large number of digits in an account
number than keying it in. The VoIP service I use 
http://www.sipphone.com directs 411 calls to "Tell Me" (800 TELL ME). I call
it quite a bit over sipphone to get the weather. It does work very
well for me. I think I read this week that the tell me company was
bought by Microsoft.

Harold

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


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End of TELECOM Digest V26 #82
*****************************