TELECOM Digest     Sun, 8 Apr 2007 00:41:00 EDT    Volume 26 : Issue 95

Inside This Issue:                           Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Google Tests Directory Assistance for Phones (Eric Auchard, Reuters)
    AFP, Google Settle Lawsuit over Google News (Eric Auchard, Reuters)
    Comcast Bait and Switch, "Unlimited" Has a New Meaning (Chloe Albanesius)
    Injunction Keeps Vonage From Adding New Customers (Associated Press News)
    Verizon -vs- Vonage:  What Patents? (Al Gillis)
    Re: Vonage Sued to Quit Using Verison Patents (Jim Stewart)

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Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2007 22:23:18 -0500
From: Eric Auchard, Reuters <reuters@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Google Tests Directory Assistance for Phones


By Eric Auchard

Computer Web search leader Google Inc. on Friday stepped up an
experiment to use speech recognition on telephones so consumers can
ask for local information, in a challenge to directory assistance
providers.

The company is inviting U.S. callers to dial 1-800-GOOG-411
(1-800-466-4411) from any phone to test a voice-activated service
free-of-charge that it calls Google Voice Local Search, which is
available on its experimental Google Labs site.

"Using this service, you get fast access to the same local information
you'd find on Google Maps," an explanation of the new experiment said
on the Google Labs site. "You don't need a computer, you don't need an
Internet connection, and you don't even need to use your cellphone
keypad," it said.

Details are available at http://labs.google.com/goog411/ .

Google's experiment comes weeks after Microsoft Corp. agreed to
acquire voice search firm Tellme Networks, in a deal sources said is
valued at more than $800 million. The transaction is Microsoft's
largest acquisition in five years.

Improving quality and falling costs of voice search technology are
enticing Internet players Google, Microsoft, and rival Yahoo Inc.  to
expand beyond pay-per-click Web search advertising business into
pay-per-call marketing.

Kelsey Group analysts estimate the U.S. directory assistance market 
generates $9.4 billion a year. Worldwide, the market rings up $13 
billion, according to data published by Opus Research.

Google has staged on-and-off again tests stretching back to 2002 of
ways to allow phone users to use their voices to ask for information,
rather than telephone keypads or other more cumbersome approaches. The
prior test remains up on the Web at: http://labs1.google.com/gvs.html/

Matt Booth, an analyst with Kelsey Group in Pasadena, said Google's
potential entry into the directory assistance market could transform
the economics of the business, where callers to conventional "411"
services can expect to pay $1 or more.

Booth said it costs such services at least 16 cents per call to pay
human operators to answer such calls.

By hooking the automated service into advertising-supported local
business information, Google could be able to slash the costs of
providing directory assistance to around 2 cents per call, while
generating around 10 cents for each business referral, Booth said,
citing estimates by investment bank Thomas Weisel.

"This would allow Google to put its Internet ad business onto mobile
phones," Booth said. "It's voice in and data out," he said,
contrasting the voice search service to how users type keywords into a
browser using classic Google search services.

Start-ups that offer free directory assistance include 1-800-FREE411,
a service Jingle Networks Inc.

In a blog post, Booth said Google is running advertising tests on
Jingle Networks (800-Free411) in two local markets.

Google Voice Local Search can be used from either mobile phones or
land lines. Mobile phone callers can request listing details to be
sent as a text message to their phones.

Callers dial the Google number and can ask for a pizza parlor, dry
cleaner other business by name, Google said. The service runs on
computers and uses no human operators.

"Eventually, I think you will be able to call up and do a voice search
and have general Google results come back," said in a phone interview.

Google said it is seeking to fine-tune the computerized system to
improve how the service recognizes users' requests. Voice Local Search
is available in English, in the United States, and offers only U.S.
local business listings for now.

The Mountain View, California-based company cautioned that Google
Voice Local Search remains an experiment: "It may not be available at
all times and may not work for all users."

Google doesn't charge users for the toll-free call or for connecting
the caller to the business. Regular phone charges may apply, depending
on the user's telephone service provider.

Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited.

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daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
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------------------------------

Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2007 22:19:19 -0500
From: Eric Auchard, Reuters <reuters@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: AFP, Google Settle Lawsuit over Google News


By Eric Auchard

Agence France-Presse and Google Inc. have settled a copyright lawsuit,
clearing the way for Google to post snippets of the French news
agency's news and photos online, the two companies said on Friday.

In a joint statement, the two companies said the accord allows the
Internet giant to post AFP content on Google News and other services.
Terms of the pact were not disclosed.

The AFP lawsuit, closely watched in the media industry, was filed in
the United States and France. It sought damages and interest as well
as to bar the use of AFP text and photos without prior permission. AFP
agreed to withdraw the action.

Agence France-Presse filed the suit two years ago accusing the Web
search company of copyright infringement for posting AFP headlines,
news summaries and photos, without the news agency's permission, on
its automated Google News site.

"The most significant copyright case against Google News, that filed
by Agence France-Presse back in March 2005, has now ended," Danny
Sullivan, a top analyst of the Web search industry, said of the deal
on his Search Engine Land blog.

Google News allows consumers to search by keywords for news summaries
and links to news stories, grouping together related stories based on
a computer analysis of the material's underlying thematic
relationships.  The service is available internationally in 40
languages or regionalized versions.

The new agreement "will enable the use of AFP's newswire content in
innovative, new ways that will dramatically improve the way users
experience newswire content on the Internet," the companies' statement
said.

The settlement comes eight months after Google struck a licensing deal
with AFP-rival Associated Press, or AP, in which Google agreed to pay
AP for use of its news. Reuters also has a variety of deals to supply
news and photos to Google services.

AFP's lawsuit filed two years ago against Google was followed by a
similar challenge to Google News by Copiepresse, which manages
copyrights for a variety of Belgian papers.

In February, a Belgian court ruled that Google must stop reproducing
headlines from Belgian newspapers or face fines. At the time, a
Copiepresse executive said she would consider allowing Google to
display extracts from its papers for a fee.

Under the agreement reached, AFP headlines and photographs will again
be available on Google News, Google Actualites, the French-language
version of Google News, and other Google services, driving traffic to
Web sites displaying AFP news content, the news agency said.

"The agreement will allow uses of AFP's content in ways that go beyond
its typical use of content in Google's services, which features just
headlines and snippets of text to provide just a taste of what an
article offers," AFP Chairman and Chief Executive Pierre Louette said
in the statement.

AFP has existing licensing agreements with Google rivals Yahoo Inc.
Microsoft Corp. MSN, Time Warner Inc.'s AOL and other Internet
services.

Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited.

NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the
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For more news and headlines, please go to:
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------------------------------

Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2007 18:27:09 -0500
From: Chloe Albanesius <pcmag@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Comcast Bait and Switch, "Unlimited" Has a New Meaning


By Chloe Albanesius

Man your PCs. The bandwidth hogs are revolting and Comcast is the
recipient of their virtual torches and pitchforks.

Customers across the country have been contacted by the telecom giant
with a warning to curb excessive bandwidth consumption or risk a
one-year service termination. Comcast, however, is refusing to reveal
how much bandwidth use is allowed, making it impossible for customers
to know if they are in danger of violating Comcast's limit.

The move has driven customers to sign up with other service providers.

"Comcast and I are not on speaking terms," said Frank Carreiro, a West
Jordan, Utah resident who had his Internet service terminated by
Comcast in January.

Carreiro said he received a message from a Comcast Security Assurance
representative in December, who warned him that he was hogging too
much of the company's bandwidth and needed to cut down. When Carreiro
contacted customer service about the call, they had no idea what he
was talking about and suggested it was a prank phone
call. Unconvinced, Carreiro contacted Comcast several more times, but
was again told there was no problem.

A month later, he woke up to a dead Internet connection.  Customer
service directed him to the Security Assurance division, which
Carreiro said informed him he would now be without service for one
year.

Carreiro said he told Security Assurance that customer service had
cleared him of any wrongdoing, but Security Assurance reportedly told
him that customer service is not kept abreast of bandwidth issues for
security purposes. Comcast also refused to tell Carreiro how much
bandwidth he would have been allowed to use to avoid service
termination.

"It was a very frustrating experience," he said.

Carreiro has since switched to DSL service from Qwest, which became
available in his neighborhood in late February. Again connected to the
Web, he has taken his fight to the blogosphere with an online journal
http://comcastissue.blogspot.com detailing his troubles.

Admitted "Internet junkie" and Chattanooga resident Cameron Smith also
had his service cut off in January for one year. "They said there
wasn't a limit [for downloading] but that I was downloading too much,
about 550 gigs. I backed off to about 450 gigs, but they still
suspended us."

Smith has since switched to DSL service from BellSouth AT&T. "I don't
like it," he said, but it is the only other high-speed option
available in Chattanooga and he refuses to ever return to Comcast
again.

Smith also pondered the possibility of a class-action lawsuit against
Comcast, but has been delayed by funding issues. "If I could afford
it, then I would do it in a heartbeat because it's a bait-and-switch
with their customer service," he said.

As of press time, repeated calls to Comcast were not returned, nor
were messages left for Comcast Security Assurance or e-mails sent to
that department's manager, Jay Opperman.

In a February statement regarding Carreiro's case, Comcast said that
"customers who are notified of excessive usage typically consume more
than 100 times the average national Comcast bandwidth usage" and
apologized for "for any miscommunication that this customer may have
received about this process."

What About the Others?

Several other top U.S. service providers admitted to monitoring
network traffic and contacting bandwidth hogs, though none were aware
of any customers who had actually been denied service.

"We do not disconnect customers," said Mark Harrad, senior vice
president of corporate communications at Time Warner Cable. But the
company does "employ various network-management tools to ensure
excessively high users are not allowed to degrade the online
experience of other customers."

Harrad said that "excessive use varies" depending on whether it is a
peak traffic period, how many "top talkers" are online at the same
time and what is occurring with regular network traffic patterns. "It
is not so much an issue of exceeding a speed limit as a pattern of
behavior over time," he maintained.

At Verizon, "it is in our terms and conditions that you cannot
generate excessive amounts of Internet traffic and you cannot host any
kind of server," said Bobbi Henson, director of media relations.

But Verizon does not have any "set measurements" on how much is too
much, Henson said. "We look at it in the aggregate. We will monitor
[the network] and if we see an issue, we'll try to rebalance the
traffic before pulling a customer's service."

Henson is not aware of any incidents when Verizon has had to notify a
customer about excessive use or cancel their service because of
bandwidth issues.

Cox Communications provides data on its Web site
http://www.cox.com/policy/limitations.asp about how much bandwidth a
user is allowed to use under the company's three service plans.

"Cox does not spend a large amount of time enforcing byte caps,
however, we do communicate with customers when their usage is so
egregious as to impact the performance of the network for others,"
said David Grabert, director of media relations.

Having clear guidelines posted online "makes for fair and clear dialogue 
when issues arise," Grabert said. 

Blame Video

Across the country, consumers are spending a significant amount of
their time online viewing video content, according to a March report
from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) that examined what
users are doing with their bandwidth.

Of the more than 2,000 adults CEA surveyed in late 2006 and early
2007, researchers found that 70 percent were accessing content via
online streams. Of that 70 percent, 49 percent connected to the Web
for news content, 33 percent went online for movie downloads and 28
percent were gaming, the report said.

"Some of these people who are bandwidth hogs are [Comcast's] best
broadband customers," said Adam Thierer, director of the Center for
Digital Media Freedom at D.C. think tank Progress & Freedom
Foundation.  By angering this base, "you're just given your
competitors a way to step in" and steal customers.

"What mystifies me is why no one is willing to propose tiered pricing"
for broadband, he said. "Obviously, one potential reason is that it is
wildly unpopular with people. There is something about the
all-you-can-eat, buffet-style pricing that people just love. I think
with broadband, we've just already become accustomed to the idea that
is should be offered at a flat rate."

Comcast sent the following response:

"More than 99.99% of our customers use the residential high-speed
Internet service as intended, which includes downloading and sharing
video, photos and other rich-media. Comcast has a responsibility to
provide these customers with a superior experience, and to address any
excessive or abusive activities usage issues that may adversely impact
that experience."

"The customers who are notified of excessive use typically and
repeatedly consume exponentially more bandwidth than an average
residential user, which would include, for example, the equivalent of
sending 256,000 photos a month, or sending 13 million e-mails every
month (or 18,000 emails every hour, every day, all month). In these
rare instances, Comcast's policy is to proactively contact the
customer via phone to work with them and address the issue or help
them select a more appropriate commercial-grade Comcast product."

Copyright (c) 2007 Ziff Davis Media Inc.

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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[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Comcast is well known for this kind of
screwup. In 1999, Judy Sammels told the net about her experiences with
( http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/judy-sammel.html )Comcast in atttempting
to use their internet service. To make a short story long, Ms. Sammels
told us about being accused of 'cable fraud', of getting no answer at
all from 'customer service', all the while another branch of the
company (security) got her indicted for 'cable fraud' based on an
installer's relatively minor mistake. Read it at
http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/judy-sammel.html . Comcast got out of that
mess by giving Judy a bunch of flowers, a box of candy and an apology.
Apparently some people with short memories still think Comcast is a 
great outfit. I know in Sammels' case, we could not have thought of a
more arrogant, sloppy bunch than Comcast. And now, this Bait & Switch
is a much more serious thing.  PAT]

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

Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2007 18:17:45 -0500
From: Associated Press News Wire <ap@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Injunction Keeps Vonage From Adding New Customers


ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP)-- Internet phone company Vonage Holdings (VG)
will be barred from signing up new customers as punishment for
infringing on patents held by Verizon Communications (VZ), under an
injunction ordered Friday.

The injunction was to take effect Thursday, but the company was granted 
a temporary stay from U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in 
Washington, D.C., which will allow Vonage to sign up new customers until 
the court rules on its appeal.

BACKGROUND: Is Vonage's time running out?

The order issued by U.S. District Court Judge Claude Hilton is less
severe than the punishment he initially proposed -- a blanket
injunction that might have disrupted phone service for all 2.2 million
of Vonage's existing customers.

But Vonage's lawyers said the compromise crafted by the judge -- at 
Verizon's suggestion -- is almost as devastating.

"It's the difference of cutting off oxygen as opposed to the bullet in 
the head," Vonage lawyer Roger Warin said.

The injunction comes a month after a jury in Alexandria, Va., found
that Vonage infringed on three patents held by Verizon.

The jury awarded Verizon $58 million in compensation for Vonage's past
use of the patents, plus future royalties for their continued use.

But the judge later ruled that an injunction of some form was
appropriate to prevent Vonage from using the infringed patents to
continue to steal customers away from Verizon.

Vonage and other providers of phone service over an Internet
connection -- also known as VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol --
typically offer savings of $10 or more per month compared with the
traditional dial-tone service sold by Verizon and other local
carriers. By the end of 2006, about 10 million subscribers had signed
up for VoIP service, the vast majority switching to Vonage and the
nation's big cable TV companies.

Hilton said Friday he did not want to issue a blanket injunction
because of the chance it would irreparably harm Vonage's business. Had
the injunction been applied to existing customers, they only would
have been able to place calls to other Vonage customers, according to
court papers.

Hilton said the compromise of applying the injunction only to new
customers is a good way of maintaining the status quo during a
potentially lengthy appeals process.

But Vonage's lawyer argued that because the company loses more than
50,000 subscribers per month, an injunction preventing new signups
would result in a slow bleed in business. Without new customers, Warin
estimated that Vonage would lose 650,000 subscribers within a year.

"In effect what you're doing is slowly strangling our customer base,"
Warin said.

Rebecca Arbogast, an industry analyst with Stifel Nicolaus, said
Verizon was smart to suggest a compromise that was nearly as stinging,
yet more likely to withstand appeal.

"I think Verizon's legal strategy has been very aggressive and very
effective," said Arbogast, who attended Friday's hearing. "Vonage
doesn't have very many attractive options except to hope for an
emergency stay."

Indeed, Warin also argued to Hilton that it may be more difficult to
obtain relief from the compromise injunction as opposed to a blanket
injunction.

Vonage spokeswoman Brooke Schulz said Vonage will continue to sign up
new customers through Thursday, and might not stop even then.

Schulz said it was possible the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal
Circuit, which hears patent appeals, could provide instantaneous
emergency relief.

She also said Vonage could deploy a workaround technology to keep its
network operating without infringing on the three patents. The company
has continued development of a workaround, Schulz said, but she
declined to discuss the issue in detail.

Vonage, based in Holmdel, N.J., has been optimistic about its chances
of overturning the verdict on appeal. Warin has said the federal
circuit overturns district court judges 40% of the time on claim
construction -- a narrow, technical part of the law that is crucial
in patent cases.

Another potential problem for Vonage is a hearing Thursday to set a
bond amount that the company must post while it pursues its
appeal. Vonage has already been ordered to post a $66 million bond to
cover the jury award and related expenses. Verizon is seeking another
bond of $189 million to cover the monetary damages for continued
infringement of the patents by Vonage's existing customers.

Warin said a requirement to post more than $250 million in cash to
cover bonds could cripple the business.

"Vonage needs to have money to continue to operate," Warin said.

Verizon lawyer Dan Webb countered that Vonage should have plenty of
cash on hand, given the fact that it had planned to spend $400 million
a year on advertising to draw new customers.

"Now they don't have to get any more new business because they can't"
under the court's order, Webb 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
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articles daily. And, discuss this and other topics in our forum at
http://telecom-digest.org/forum (or)
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For more news and headlines, please go to:
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[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Indeed, most days I see a dozen or more
commercials for Vonage on television. I have seen _none_ over the 
weekend. Anyone else?  PAT]

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

From: Al Gillis <alg@aracnet.com>
Subject: Verizon -vs- Vonage:  What Patents?
Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2007 18:02:52 -0700


Maybe I've been asleep for a few weeks, or maybe my CRS condition is
acting up again (CRS is, of course, the medical condition known as
Can't Remember Stuff) but I don't recall the nature of the three
Verizon patents Vonage is accused of violating.

If anyone has the patent numbers or, better yet, a layman's synopsis
of their topics it would be cool if you'd post that info.

(And if has already been hashed out and I missed it, well, sorry!)

Al


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, that's the first time I have ever
heard the substance which one cannot remember referred to as 'stuff'.
I know your feeling however; since my aneurysm in 1999, my memory has
gotten _very bad_ also. Since my latest heart attack in March last
year and my subsequent pneumonia (that was the week or ten day's
hospital stay a year ago) my condition has gotten even worse. I rarely
go anywhere these days away from home. 

It really does make one feel helpless. I suggest for full patent
details and more news on the Verizon/Vonage fiasco you check out
issues 85 through 94 (yesterday) issues of this Digest. Start with the
last week in March; you'll see all you wanted to know, and more. PAT]

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

Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2007 20:20:37 -0700
From: Jim Stewart <jstewart@jkmicro.com>
Subject: Re: Vonage Sued to Quit Using Verizon Patents


Lisa Hancock wrote:

>> Time sharing required a facility known as "Dynamic Address
>> Translation".  I wonder if this was patented.

> The process?  "impossible".

> A specific _circuit_ that did it?   possibly.

Time sharing in its simplest form needs nothing more than a periodic
interrupt to invoke a task switcher.  Hardware to manage user memory
space is certainly nice, but not manditory, particularly if the users
can be constrained (by compiler or application) to run in only the
memory space allocated to them.

"Dynamic Address Translation" is an impressive phase, but early
machines had nothing more than a relocation register and a protection
register.  The user's memory addresses were summed with the relocation
register to get a physical address.  The protection register set an
upper bounds on the user's memory access and caused a trap or fault to
the kernel if exceeded.

Often as not, "dynamic address translation" was added to machines to
overcome hardware memory space limitations rather than to implement
timesharing.

> Writing the claims broadly enough to apply to different physical
> address bus architectures would have been a challenge.

>> include it in its original System/360 line in 1964 and not support
>> timesharing, but General Electric did and their machines were used for
>> early timeshared computers.  IBM later added this to its System/360
>> model 67 and its System/370 line.  Time sharing proved to be a lot
>> harder to implemented than first predicted; it was a heavy CPU and
>> meory drain which was a problem on the technology of the 1960s.

I disagree.  I installed a fully functional 8-user timeshare system
on a PDP 8 with 12k words of memory back in 1972.   The early
Unix and Decsystem 10's were amazingly efficient for the resources
available then.

Anyone interested in hearing about this stuff from the people that
actually did it should review the early years of alt.folklore.computing.
Lots and lots of good posts.

>> Some in the early 1960s predicted time sharing would allow
>> "democratization" of computer services, by allowing acess by anyone
>> through a terminal to an expensive computer.  Some of these published
>> predictions described the Internet as we have it today [in 2007] as
>> being available in 1990, it took another full decade for that to come
>> to fruition.

I've always been amazed that not a single science fiction writer *got*
the internet.  All of the SF saw the future as monolithic central
computers.

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


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offering hands-on learning to enhance the program curriculum.  Classes
are available in Stillwater, Tulsa, or through distance learning.

Please contact Jay Boyington for additional information at
405-744-9000, mstm-osu@okstate.edu, or visit the MSTM web site at
http://www.mstm.okstate.edu

              ************************

   In addition, gifts from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert
   have enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and
   enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order 
   telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has
   been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very
   inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request
   a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com 
   ---------------------------------------------------------------

Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as
yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help
is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars
per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above.
Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing
your name to the mailing list. 

All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the
author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only
and messages should not be considered any official expression by the
organization.

End of TELECOM Digest V26 #95
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